Northeast: In the early 19th century, the area which included New England and the Middle
Atlantic states.
Old Northwest: In the early 19th century, the territory which stretched from Ohio to Minnesota.
Sectionalism: Loyalty to a particular region of the country.
Nativists: Native-born Americans who reacted strongly against the immigrants, they feared the
newcomers would take their jobs and weaken the culture of the Protestant and Anglo majority.
American party: In the early 1850s, this party which opposed immigrants, nominated
candidates for office. They were also called the Know-Nothing party.
Supreme Order of the Star-Spangled Banner: A secret anti-foreign society in the 1840s. In
the 1850s the society turned to politics by forming the American party.
Know-Nothing Party: Nativists, also known as the American party.
Free African Americans: By 1860 as many as 250,000 African Americans in the South were
free citizens. Most of them lived in the cities where they could own property. However, they were
not allowed to vote or work in most skilled professions.
Planters: The South's small wealthy elite that owned more than 100 slaves and more than 1000
acres.
Codes of Chivalry: The Southern aristocratic planter class ascribed to a code of chivalrous
conduct, which included a strong sense of personal honor, defense of womanhood, paternalistic
attitudes toward all who were deemed inferior.
poor whites: The term for the three-fourths of the South's white population who owned no
slaves.
Hillbillies: Derisive term for poor white subsistence farmers, they often lived in the hills and
farmed less productive land.
mountain men: In the 1820s, these were the earliest white people in the Rocky Mountains.
They trapped for furs and served as guides for settlers traveling to the West coast.
the West: The term that referred to the new area that was being settled, the location changed
as the white settlements moved westward.
the frontier: The area that was newly settled in the West, it moved further west over time.
