When first visited by Europeans, the country now comprised within the
United States was exclusively inhabited by the race commonly called
American Indians.
=Period of Discovery.=--According to the Scandinavian sagas, Leif, a
Norwegian, sailed about 1001 from Iceland for Greenland, but was driven
southward by storms till he reached a country called Vinland, which is
supposed to have been Rhode Island or some other part of the coast of
New England.
It is possible that some vague rumors of the Norse journeys had come to
Christopher Columbus when he set out on Friday, August 3, 1492, to
discover the western route to India. He sighted one of the Bahama
Islands on October 12, and landed the following day. After cruising
about for some time, he returned to Spain. He made in all four voyages
to the New World for treasure-getting and discovery. His discoveries, it
should be remembered, did not extend to the territory now occupied by
the United States, but were confined to certain of the West India
Islands, and parts of Central, and possibly, South America. (See
further, under Outlines of American History.)
Among the earliest of his followers was Amerigo Vespucci, who in
1497-1498 explored the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, and who has given
his name to the whole continent.
In 1497, about five years after the discovery of America by Columbus,
John Cabot sailed westward from Bristol, England, and on June 24
discovered land (Labrador), along which he coasted to the southwest
nearly one thousand miles. In 1498 his son, Sebastian Cabot, sailed from
the same port in search of a northwest passage to China, but finding the
ice impenetrable, he turned to the south and coasted as far as
Chesapeake Bay.
In 1513 the Spaniard Ponce de Leon discovered Florida. In 1539 took
place the expedition of the Spaniard De Soto, who in the course of two
years penetrated overland from Tampa Bay on the west coast of Florida to
a point two hundred miles beyond the Mississippi.
[Illustration: =FOREFATHERS’ ROCK, PLYMOUTH, MASS.=
Plymouth is of abiding interest as the landing place of the Pilgrim
Fathers (December 21st, 1620) and the site of the first settlement in
New England. Pilgrim Hall contains numerous interesting relics of the
Pilgrims, paintings of their embarkation and landing, old portraits,
etc. North Street leads to the so-called Plymouth Rock, a granite
boulder enclosed by a railing and covered with a canopy. This, however,
is only a fragment (broken off in 1774) of the flat rock where the
Pilgrims landed, which lies nearer the sea and is now covered by a
wharf. Cole’s Hill, opposite the rock, was the burial-place of the early
settlers (1620-1621). Leyden Street was the site of the first house.
From the Town Square a path ascends to the right to the ancient Burial
Hill, with the graves of many of the early settlers, including Governor
Bradford. A fortified church was erected here in 1622. To the south is
Watson’s Hill, where the Pilgrims made a treaty with Massasoit in 1621.
The National Monument to the Pilgrims, consisting of a granite pedestal
forty-five feet high, surmounted by a figure of Faith, thirty-six feet
high, and surrounded by seated figures twenty feet high, representing
Law, Morality, Freedom and Education is about one-fourth mile from the
railway station, on Allerton Street. The three hundredth anniversary of
the landing of the Pilgrims will be elaborately celebrated here in
1920.]
=Period of Settlement.=--In 1565 the Spaniards founded St. Augustine,
the first permanent settlement in the United States. In 1585 an
expedition sent by Sir Walter Raleigh made a settlement on Roanoke
Island, N. C., which failed. In 1607 the English founded Jamestown on
James River, Virginia, their first permanent settlement.[11] The master
spirit of this enterprise was Captain John Smith. Plymouth, Mass., was
founded in 1620 by the “Pilgrim Fathers,” a body of Puritans led by John
Carver and others, who sailed from England in the Mayflower. Salem was
settled by John Endicott in 1628. In 1630 John Winthrop settled Boston.
In 1692 Plymouth colony was united to Massachusetts. Portsmouth and
Dover, in New Hampshire, were settled in 1623. The first permanent
English settlements in Maine were made about the same time. These
settlements ultimately fell under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.
Connecticut was colonized in 1635-1636 by emigrants from Massachusetts,
who settled at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. Rhode Island was
first settled at Providence in 1636 by Roger Williams. In 1623 permanent
settlements were made by the Dutch at Fort Orange (now Albany) and at
New Amsterdam on the present site of New York. The Swedes settled on the
Delaware in 1638, and were expelled in 1655 by the Dutch army. The
English seized New Amsterdam in 1664, and with it the whole of New
Netherland, which they named New York from the Duke of York, to whom it
had been granted by Charles II. New Jersey at this time acquired its
distinctive name. In 1681 the territory west of the Delaware was granted
to William Penn, who colonized it chiefly with Friends or Quakers, and
founded Philadelphia in 1682. Maryland was settled in 1634 by Roman
Catholics sent out by Lord Baltimore. The first permanent settlement in
North Carolina appears to have been made about 1663, on Albemarle Sound,
by emigrants from Virginia. The first permanent settlement in South
Carolina was made in 1670 by colonists from England on the Ashley River,
near the site of Charleston, which began to be settled about the same
time. Georgia was settled by General James Oglethorpe, who in 1733
founded Savannah.
[11] Jamestown is seven miles from Williamsburg, formerly the
ancient capital of Virginia and seat of the colonial governor. The
only remains of the ancient town are the tower of the church (in
which Pocahontas was married in 1614; church itself rebuilt in 1907)
and a few tombstones.
=How Europe First Divided the American Colonies.=--It will thus be seen
that what is now the territory of the United States has been derived
from six European nations. Resting on the discovery by Columbus and the
bulls of the popes, Spain claimed the whole continent, but has been in
actual possession only of the Gulf coast from Florida to Texas, and of
the interior from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The Swedes once had
settlements on the Delaware. The Dutch, following up the voyage of
Hudson to the river bearing his name, claimed and held the country from
the Delaware to the Connecticut. The French discovered the St. Lawrence
and explored and held military possession of the valleys of the
Mississippi and Ohio and the Great Lakes. The English, by virtue of the
voyages of the Cabots, claimed the Atlantic coast, and there founded the
colonies which grew into the thirteen United States.
In the course of the struggle, sometimes peaceful, often bloody, by
which the rule of these nations has been thrown off, the Dutch conquered
the Swedes; the English conquered the Dutch and the French; the United
States expelled the English, and in time, by purchase or conquest, drove
out the Spaniards and the Mexicans.
=Struggle of England and France for America.=--The first serious
struggle for possession occurred in the middle of the eighteenth
century, when the English, moving westward, met the French moving
eastward at the source of the river Ohio. In that struggle, which has
come down to us as the “French and Indian war,” France was worsted, and,
retiring from this continent, divided her possessions between England
and Spain. To England she gave Canada and the islands and shores of the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, and, entering what is now the United States, drew
a line down the middle of the Mississippi River, and gave all to the
east of that line (save the island on which is the city of New Orleans)
to Great Britain, and all to the west of it to Spain; Spain at the same
time gave Florida to England as the price of Cuba.
=Oppression of the Colonies under British Rule.=--Having thus come into
possession of all the country to the east of the Great River, King
George determined to send out an army of ten thousand men to defend the
colonies, and have the latter bear a part of the expense. This part he
attempted to collect by duties on goods imported, and by a Stamp Tax
(1765) on legal documents and printed matter. No tax for revenue had
before been laid on America by act of Parliament. The colonists,
therefore, resisted this first attempt, and raising the cry, “No
taxation without representation,” they forced Parliament to repeal the
Stamp Tax in 1766. The right to tax was at the same time distinctly
asserted, and in 1767 was again used, and duties laid on paints, oils,
lead, glass, and tea. Once more the colonists resisted, and, by refusing
to import any goods, wares, or merchandise of English make, so
distressed the manufacturers of England that Parliament repealed every
tax save that on tea. All the tea needed in America was now smuggled in
from Holland. The East India Company, deprived of the American market,
became embarrassed, and, calling on Parliament for aid, was suffered to
export tea, a privilege never before enjoyed.
Selecting commissioners in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and
Charleston, cargoes of tea were duly consigned to them by the East India
Company; but the people agreed not to buy any of this tea or allow it to
be sold. At Boston men disguised as Indians boarded the tea ships,
overcame the guards, and destroyed the tea by throwing the boxes into
the harbor. This has gone down in history as the “Boston Tea Party.”
=The Continental Congress and the Revolution.=--As a punishment for
this, Parliament shut the port of Boston and deprived the people of
Massachusetts of many functions of local government. The Assembly of
Massachusetts thereupon called for a General Congress to meet at
Philadelphia on September 5, 1774. The colonies gladly responded and
this congress, having issued a Declaration of Rights and Addresses to
the king, to Parliament, and to the people of England, adjourned to
await the result.
The day for the reassembling of Congress was May 10, 1775; but, before
that day came, the attempt of General Gage to seize military stores
brought on a fight at Lexington, April 19, 1775. The fight at Lexington
was followed by the siege of the British in Boston, by the formation of
the “Continental Army,” by the appointment of George Washington to
command it, by the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, and by an
expedition against Quebec, which came to naught, on the last day of the
year.
General William Howe meantime had succeeded Gage in command of the
British at Boston, and, finding himself hard pressed by Washington,
evacuated the city and sailed for Halifax. Believing New York was to be
attacked, Washington now hurried to Long Island, where, August 27, 1776,
Howe defeated him, took possession of New York, and drove him first up
the Hudson and then southward across New Jersey.
=American Independence Declared.=--Congress, which, July 4, 1776, at
Philadelphia, had declared the colonies to be free and independent
states, now fled from that city to Baltimore. But Washington, turning in
his retreat, surprised and captured the British outpost at Trenton.
Cornwallis instantly hurried toward that town, but Washington, passing
around the British rear, attacked and captured at Princeton, January 3,
1777, a detachment on its march to Trenton, and then went into winter
quarters at Morristown.
With the return of spring Howe, finding that he could not reach
Philadelphia by land without passing in front of the Continental army
stretched out on a strongly intrenched line across New Jersey, went by
sea. Washington met him at Chadd’s Ford on the Brandywine, was defeated,
and on September 25, 1777, Howe entered Philadelphia. In the attempt to
dislodge him Washington fought and lost the battle of Germantown,
October 4, 1777; the loss of Philadelphia was more than made good by the
capture of Burgoyne and his army at Saratoga, October 17, 1777, while on
his way from Canada to New York City.
The fruits of this victory were the recognition of the independence of
the United States by France, the treaty of alliance with France,
February 8, 1778, and the evacuation of Philadelphia by General Clinton,
who had succeeded Howe. Washington, who had spent the winter at Valley
Forge, instantly followed, and overtaking Clinton at Monmouth fought and
won the battle at that place, June 29, 1778. Clinton escaped to New
York, and Washington, drawing his army in a circle about the city from
Morristown on the south to West Point on the north, awaited further
movements.
=PRINCIPAL CAMPAIGNS AND BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION=
The leading battles are indicated in =bold-face=; successful commanders
in _italics_
=====================+===================================+==============
=Names, Dates and | =Commanders= | =Engaged=
Places of Campaigns +-----------------------------------+-------+------
and Battles= | =American= | =British= |=Amer.=|=Brit-
| | | | ish=
---------------------+-----------------+-----------------+-------+------
=1775-1776= | | | |
=Campaign in | | | |
New England= | | | |
| | | |
=Lexington, Concord= |Barret and |_Smith_ and | ...| 1,700
(April 19, 1775) |Butterick |_Lord Percy_ | |
| | | |
Ticonderoga (May 10, |_Ethan Allen_ and|Delaplace | 83| 48
1775) |_Eaton_ | | |
| | | |
=Bunker Hill= (June |Warren, Prescott |_Howe_ and | 3,000| 4,500
17, 1775) |and Putnam |_Pigot_ | |
| | | |
Quebec (December 6- |Schuyler, Mont- |_M’Lean_ and | 900| 1,200
31, 1775) |gomery and Arnold|_Carleton_ | |
| | | |
Norfolk, Va. (Dec. 9,|Woodford |Lord Dunsmore | ...| ...
1775) | | | |
| | | |
Boston (March 17, |The British evacuate the city and | |
1776) |harbor. | |
| | | |
Charleston (Ft. |_Moultrie_, _Lee_|Clinton | 400| 4,000
Moultrie) (June 28, |and _Armstrong_ | | |
1776) | | | |
| | | |
=1776-1778= | | | |
=Campaign in Middle | | | |
States= | | | |
| | | |
Brooklyn, L. I. (Aug.|Green and |_Howe_, | 10,000|20,000
26, 1776) |Sullivan |_Clinton_, and | |
| |_Cornwallis_ | |
| | | |
Harlem Plains, N. Y. |Washington |... | ...| ...
(Sept. 16, 1776) | | | |
| | | |
=White Plains, N. Y.=|Washington |_Howe_ | 1,600| 2,000
(Oct. 28, 1776) | | | |
| | | |
Fort Washington, |Magaw |_Howe_ | 3,000| 5,000
N. Y. (Nov. 16, 1776)| | | |
| | | |
=Trenton, N. J.= |_Washington_ |Lord Cornwallis | 2,400| 1,000
(Dec. 26, 1776) | |and Rahl | |
| | | |
=Princeton, N. J.= |_Washington_ |Mawhood | 3,000| 1,800
(Jan. 3, 1777) | | | |
| | | |
=Bennington, Vt.= |_Stark_ and |Baum and Beyman | ...| 1,200
(Aug. 15, 16, 1777) |_Warner_ | | |
| | | |
Brandywine, Pa. |Washington |_Howe_ | 11,000|18,000
(Sept. 11, 1777) | | | |
| | | |
=Bemis Heights, |_Gates_ |Burgoyne | 2,500| 3,000
N. Y.= (Sept. 19, | | | |
1777) | | | |
| | | |
Germantown, Pa. (Oct.|Washington |_Howe_ | 11,000|15,000
4, 1777) | | | |
| | | |
=Stillwater= |_Gates_ |Burgoyne | 8,000| 6,000
(Saratoga) (Oct. 7, | | | |
1777) | | | |
| | | |
=Monmouth, N. J.= |_Washington_ |Sir Henry Clinton| 12,000|11,000
(June 28, 1778) | | | |
| | | |
=1778-1781= | | | |
=Campaign in the | | | |
South= | | | |
| | | |
Savannah, Ga. (Dec. |Robert Howe |_Campbell_ | 900| 2,000
29, 1778) | | | |
| | | |
Brier Creek, Ga. |Ashe |_Prevost_ | 1,200| 1,800
(Mar. 3, 1779) | | | |
| | | |
Stony Point, N. Y. |_Wayne_ |Clinton | 1,200| 600
(July 16, 1779) | | | |
| | | |
Chemung, N. Y. (Aug. |_Sullivan_ |Brant | 4,000| 1,500
29, 1779) | | | |
| | | |
Savannah, Ga. (Oct. |Lincoln |_Prevost_ | 4,500| 2,900
9, 1779) | | | |
| | | |
Charleston, S. C. |Lincoln |_Clinton_ | 3,700| 9,000
(May 12, 1780) | | | |
| | | |
Camden, S. C. |Gates |_Cornwallis_ | 3,000| 2,200
(Sanders Creek) (Aug.| | | |
15, 1780) | | | |
| | | |
=King’s Mountain, |_Campbell_ |Ferguson | 900| 1,100
S. C.= (Oct. 7, 1780)| | | |
| | | |
=Cowpens, S. C.= |_Morgan_ |Cornwallis and | 900| 1,100
(Jan. 17, 1781) | |Tarleton | |
| | | |
Guilford C. H., N. C.|Greene |_Cornwallis_ | 4,400| 2,400
(Mar. 15, 1781) | | | |
| | | |
Hobkirk’s Hill, S. C.|Greene |_Rawdon_ | 1,200| 900
(April 25, 1781) | | | |
| | | |
New London, Conn., |Ledyard |_Benedict Arnold_| 150| 800
Fort Griswold (Sept. | |and _Eyre_ | |
6, 1781) | | | |
| | | |
=Eutaw Springs, S. |_Greene_ |Lord Rawdon | 2,000| 2,800
C.= (Sept. 8, 1781) | | | |
| | | |
=Yorktown, Va.= (Oct.|_Washington_ |Cornwallis | 16,000| 7,500
17-19, 1781) | | | |
---------------------+-----------------+-----------------+-------+------
=Treason of Arnold and Execution of André.=--Turning towards the
Southern states, the British commander now dispatched an expedition
which took Savannah and overran the State of Georgia. The year which
followed (1779) is memorable for the capture of Stony Point by Anthony
Wayne; for the treason of Benedict Arnold; for the execution of Major
John André; for the capture of the “Serapis” by Paul Jones after one of
the most desperate naval battles on record, and by the failure of an
attempt by the Americans to retake Savannah. In 1780 Clinton led an
expedition from New York to Charleston, took the city, swept over South
Carolina, and, leaving Cornwallis in command, hurried back to New York.
Gates, who now attempted to dislodge the British, was beaten. Greene now
succeeded Gates, and Morgan, the commander of his light troops, won the
battle of the Cowpens, January 17, 1781. This victory brought up
Cornwallis, who chased Greene across the State of North Carolina to
Guilford Court House, where Greene was beaten and Cornwallis forced to
retreat to Wilmington. Moving southward, Greene was again beaten in two
pitched battles, but forced the British to withdraw within their lines
at Charleston and Savannah.
Cornwallis meantime moved from Wilmington into Virginia and took
possession of Yorktown. And now Washington, who had long been watching
New York, again took the offensive, hurried across New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, and, while a French fleet closed the Chesapeake Bay, he
besieged Cornwallis by land, till, October 19, 1781, the British general
surrendered. This practically ended the war.
The treaty of peace, at Paris, in 1783, actually ended it, secured the
independence of the United States, and fixed her boundaries, roughly
speaking, as the Atlantic Ocean on the east, the Mississippi on the
west, New Brunswick, the St. Lawrence, and the Great Lakes on the north,
and the parallel of thirty-one degrees on the south.
=Articles of Confederation and their Weakness.=--While the war was still
raging Congress had framed an instrument of government, which the states
ratified and put in force on March 1, 1781. This instrument of
government which bound the thirteen states in perpetual union was known
as the Articles of Confederation, and established a government as bad as
any yet devised by man. There was no executive, no judiciary, and only
the semblance of a legislature. The Congress consisted of not more than
seven nor less than two delegates from each state; sat in secret
session; was presided over by a president elected from its own members;
and could not pass any law unless the delegates of nine states assented.
It could wage war, make treaties, and borrow money; but it could not lay
a tax of any kind whatsoever; nor regulate commerce between the states,
or with foreign powers; and was dependent entirely on the liberality of
the states for revenues. This defect proved fatal. Inability to regulate
foreign commerce by duties stripped the country of its specie. Lack of
specie forced the states to issue paper money. Paper money was followed
by tender acts and force acts, and in some places by a violent stoppage
of justice to the debtor class. A commercial and financial crisis
followed and the people of the states, reduced to desperation, gladly
acceded to a call for a national trade convention, which met in
Philadelphia in May, 1787. The instructions of the delegates bade them
suggest amendments to the Articles of Confederation. But the convention,
considering the Articles too bad to be mended, framed the Constitution,
which the people, acting through conventions in the various states,
ratified during 1787 and 1788.
=Adoption of the Constitution and Organization of Parties.=--On March 4,
1789, the Constitution became the supreme law of the land. In the first
Congress no trace of party lines is visible. But the work of
establishing government had not gone far when differences of opinion
sprang up; when the cry of partial legislation was raised, and the
people all over the country began to divide into two great
parties--those who favored and those who opposed a liberal construction
of the language of the Constitution and the establishment of a strong
national government.
The friends of national government took the name of Federalists, and
under the lead of Alexander Hamilton, who as Secretary of the Treasury
marked out the financial policy of the administration, they funded the
foreign and domestic debt occasioned by the war for independence,
assumed the debts incurred by the states in that struggle, set up a
national bank with branches, and laid a tax on distilled liquors.
Each one of these acts was met with violent opposition, as designed to
benefit a class, as unconstitutional, and as highly detrimental to the
interests of the South. Against the Federalists were now brought charges
of a leaning towards monarchy and aristocracy. Great Britain, it was
said, has a funded debt, a bank, and an excise. These things are,
therefore, monarchial institutions. But the Federalists have introduced
them into the United States. The Federalists, therefore, are
aristocrats, monarchists, and monopolists.
Of all who believed these charges, none believed them more sincerely
than Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State. Seeing in these acts a wide
departure from the true principles of democracy, he set himself to work
to organize a party of opposition, and was soon looked up to as the
recognized leader of the Federal Republicans.
Hardly had the two parties thus been called into existence by difference
of opinion on questions of home affairs, when they were parted yet more
widely, and the dispute between them intensely embittered by questions
of foreign affairs.
=Effect of the French and English Affairs Upon the New Nation.=--In 1793
the French Republic declared war against England, and sent a minister to
the United States. As the United States was bound to France by the
treaty of alliance and by a treaty of amity and commerce, and was not
bound to Great Britain by any commercial treaty whatever, it seemed not
unlikely that she would be dragged unwillingly into the war. But
Washington, with the advice of his secretaries, proclaimed neutrality,
and from that time every Republican was the firm friend of France and
every Federalist the ally of England. Then began a seven years’ struggle
for neutrality. France threw open her colonial ports to neutral
commerce; Great Britain asserting the “Rule of the War of 1756,” a rule
prescribing that no neutral should have in time of war a trade it did
not have in peace, declared this trade was contraband, and seized the
ships of the United States engaged in it. The Republicans denounced
neutrality and attempted to force a war. The Federalists in alarm
dispatched John Jay, the Chief Justice, to London, with offers of a
commercial treaty. England responded and on February 29, 1796, the first
treaty of amity and commerce between her and the United States became
law. At this France took offense, rejected the new minister (C. C.
Pinckney) from the United States, and drove him from her soil, suspended
the treaties, insulted a special commission (sent out in the interest of
peace), with demands for bribes and tribute, and almost brought on war.
Never since the days of Bunker Hill had the country been so stirred as
this act of the French Directory stirred it in the summer of 1798. Then
was written our national song, “Hail Columbia.” Then was established the
department of the navy. Then, under the cry, “Millions for defense; not
a cent for tribute,” went forth that gallant little fleet which humbled
the tri-color in the West Indies and brought France to her senses.
=Causes and Events of the War of 1812.=--With the elevation of Napoleon
to the First Consulship came peace in 1800. In that same year the
Federalists fell from power, never to return. Once in power, the
Republicans began to carry out the principles they had so long preached.
They reduced the national debt; they repealed the internal taxes. They
sold the navy; boldly assaulted the Supreme Court; and in 1811, when the
charter of the National Bank expired, refused to renew it. Their
doctrine of strict construction, however, was ruined, when, in 1803,
they bought the Province of Louisiana from France and added to the
public domain that splendid region which lies between the Mississippi
and the Rocky Mountains.
At that moment it seemed as if the people were about to enter on a
career of unwonted prosperity. But Napoleon suddenly made war on
England, and by 1806 the United States was involved in a desperate
struggle of nine years, both with France and England, for commercial
independence. Great Britain searched our ships, impressed our sailors,
violated the neutrality of our ports, and by the decisions of her
admiralty courts and by orders in council sought to ruin our neutral
commerce with Europe, unless carried on through her ports and under her
license. Napoleon attacked us with his decrees of Berlin and Milan, and
sought to ruin our neutral commerce with England. The United States
retaliated by means of the embargo and non-intercourse, and, in 1812,
declared war.