I
Impressment
During the 1800s, a British policy whereby the British boarded American ships in search of British naval deserters, whom they would force (impress) back into service. Often naturalized or native-born Americans were also seized, provoking outrage in America. Impressment was one of a string of British violations against U.S. neutrality rights that helped spark the War of 1812.
Indentured servitude
The system by which adult males—usually English—bound themselves to labor on plantations for a fixed number of years in exchange for transport to the colonies and eventual freedom. Some immigrants came willingly, while others were manipulated and kidnapped; often, the indentured servents were never able to secure their release due to debt. The first Africans brought to the colonies were also indentured servants, but in the seventeenth century, as massive, labor-intensive tobacco plantations spread throughout the South, slavery became the preferred means of labor.
Independent Treasury Bill
Signed into law in 1840. The bill established an independent treasury to hold public funds in reserve and prevent excessive lending by state banks, thus guarding against inflation. The Independent Treasury Bill was a response to the panic of 1837, which many blamed on the risky and excessive lending practices of state banks.
Indian Removal Act
Granted Jackson the funds and authority to move Native Americans to assigned lands in the West. Passed in 1830, the Indian Removal Act primarily targeted the Cherokee tribe in Georgia as part of the federal government’s broad plan to claim Native American lands inside the boundaries of the states.
Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies)
A radical labor organization founded in 1905. The IWW advocated revolution and massive societal reorganization. The organization faded away around 1920.
Inflation
The increase of available paper money and bank credit, leading to higher prices and less-valuable currency.
Interstate Commerce Act
Passed in 1887. The Interstate Commerce Act forbade price discrimination and other monopolistic practices of the railroads.
Intolerable Acts
A combination of the four Coercive Acts—meant to punish the colonists after the 1773 Boston Tea Party—and the unrelated Quebec Act. Passed in 1774, the Intolerable Acts were seen as the blueprints for a British plan to deny the Americans representative government and were the impetus for the convening of the First Continental Congress.
Iran-Contra affair
A series of investigations in 1987 exposed evidence that the U.S. had been selling arms to the anti-American government in Iran and using the profits from these sales to secretly and illegally finance the Contras in Nicaragua. (The Contras were a rebel group fighting against the communist-linked Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.) Oliver North, a member of the National Security Council, had organized the operation from within the White House. There was no proof that Ronald Reagan was aware of North’s actions.
Iron curtain
A term coined by Winston Churchill for the area of Eastern Europe controlled indirectly by the USSR, usually through puppet governments. This area was cut off from noncommunist Europe.