Seeking the Main point 147

Document

AP® Ke y

concePts

PAge

Topic III: Regional and National Identities

6.8 James Peale, The Artist and His Family 3.3 III C 158

6.9 Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Philip Mazzei 3.3 III A 159

6.10 Isaac Weld, Travels throughout the States of North America 3.3 III B 160

Applying AP® Historical Thinking Skills

Skill Review: Contextualization and Appropriate Use of Historical

Evidence

Thinking Skill 2.5,

Thinking Skill 3.7

161

A

lthough Americans marked the creation of the United States and the

political upheaval of its first twenty years of independence as a new era

in North American history, continuities with the colonial era remained.

Westward expansion from the Atlantic seaboard and the backcountry

of the original colonies continued steadily throughout the period, often

causing conflicts with Native Americans and settlers in the West and wealthy,

established communities in the East. Likewise, Spanish settlements spread up

the western coast of North America through the mission system, which offered

opportunities for Spanish colonists, often at the expense of the native peoples

there.

The United States also built westward migration into its national policy.

One of the few successful pieces of legislation under the Articles of Confedera-

tion government was the institution of the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and

1787, by which new territories were incorporated as states within the United

States.

Throughout this period, tensions arose between regional, national, social,

and ethnic identities as Americans wrestled with the meaning of their revolution

and the ways that they would apply the ideals of the Declaration of Indepen-

dence and the Bill of Rights to a vast, diverse, and expanding republic.

Seeking the Main Point

As you read the documents that follow, keep these broad questions in mind.

These questions will help you understand the relationship between the doc-

uments in this chapter and the historical changes that they represent. As you

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