Lynching, or the extrajudicial assasination of an accused criminal, became a widespread practice in the post-Reconstruction era as a way to combat newly freed slaves emerging political power. As Jim Crow laws began to take hold, lynchings actually increased. Thousands of Americans, mostly blacks, were killed by lynching at its height from 1890–1920.  

The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded by William Lloyd Garrison in 1833. The society was established in Philadelphia. Within five years, Garrison’s society had grown to hundreds of thousands of members, all of whom were campaigning for the illegality of slavery under all natural laws, and that the Constitution represents “a covenant with hell.” The Liberator is the name of an anti-slavery newspaper, also founded by William Lloyd Garrison. 

Unitarianism is a religious belief, a branch of Christianity that is known for its understanding of God as one person. As such, it is a direct rejection of the Holy Trinity. Unitarianism first took hold in America in the 1780s in New England. The American Unitarian Association was founded in Boston in 1825. 

The Mormons were formed in Upstate New York in the early 1830s by their Prophet Joseph Smith. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, the Mormons moved first to Ohio and then to Missouri and Illinois, all while fighting various groups. In 1844, the Mormons, now living in Nauvoo, IL, fought the state militia and leaders, including Joseph Smith, were imprisoned. On June 27, Smith was killed by a mob in the jail in Carthage, IL. The regrouped Mormons, under the leadership of Smith's associate Brigham Young, moved to what is not the state of Utah, but was then part of Mexico. There, they built Salt Lake City and created a new community in the desert.

John Brown devised a plan to raid an arsenal and arm slaves. His attempt was ill-conceived, and he was arrested by Robert E. Lee, tried for treason, and sentenced to death.

Dred Scott was the slave in question, and the resulting Supreme Court decision takes his name.

Famed abolitionist John Brown led an armed slave revolt known as the Raid on Harpers Ferry, named after the town in which the raid occurred. Harpers Ferry, then in Virginia, is now located in modern day West Virginia.

Credit Mobilier is one of the more difficult questions covered in American History—the issues are relatively complex. That said, we’ll focus on the big picture rather than getting caught up in the granular details. Essentially, several members of the board of directors of Union Pacific (members of the board of directors of a corporation are, in a grossly oversimplified way, people who “run” a corporation) formed another corporation, called Credit Mobilier. After forming this new corporation, Credit Mobilier, they awarded themselves (really, the company, Credit Mobilier) lucrative construction contracts. In other words, Union Pacific contracted with Credit Mobilier to construct the railroad. Credit Mobilier ran up huge construction expenses and thus made enormous profits. Several Congressmen accepted either cash bribes or shares in Credit Mobilier (shares are ownership interests in a corporation, and often offer attractive returns such as dividends).

This is a relatively straightforward vocabulary question. Sharecropping took root (excuse the pun) after the end of the Civil War, and involved a landowner “renting” out extra space (generally old slave quarters) to “tenants” (generally ex-slaves) in exchange for a percentage of the crops that they produced.

The mutiny onboard the ship Amistad involved a slaver-ship’s attempt at bringing a group of men from Cuba (originally from Sierra Leone—Cuba was a stop along the way) to the US in order to sell them as slaves. The men revolted against their captors and attempted to force one of their captors to return them home to Sierra Leone. Unbeknownst to them, however, the remaining captor pointed the ship north toward the US, until it was eventually seized and brought to shore in NY. After a long, complicated case with international implications, the Supreme Court sided with the lower courts and held that the men were not property, and thus their revolt was a measure of self defence against their captors.