School History of the United States

Bach McMaster John

Description

It has long been the custom to begin the history of our country with the discovery of the New World by Columbus. To some extent this is both wise and necessary; but in following it in this instance the attempt has been made to treat the colonial period as the childhood of the United States; to have it bear the same relation to our later career that the account of the youth of a great man should bear to that of his maturer years, and to confine it to the narration of such events as are really necessary to a correct understanding of what has happened since 1776.

Sujets

• États-Unis
• History of the Americas
• USA
• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819900528
• Langue: English

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PREFACE
It has long been the custom to begin the history ofour country with the discovery of the New World by Columbus. Tosome extent this is both wise and necessary; but in following it inthis instance the attempt has been made to treat the colonialperiod as the childhood of the United States; to have it bear thesame relation to our later career that the account of the youth ofa great man should bear to that of his maturer years, and toconfine it to the narration of such events as are really necessaryto a correct understanding of what has happened since 1776.
The story, therefore, has been restricted to thediscoveries, explorations, and settlements within the United Statesby the English, French, Spaniards, and Dutch; to the expulsion ofthe French by the English; to the planting of the thirteen colonieson the Atlantic seaboard; to the origin and progress of the quarrelwhich ended with the rise of thirteen sovereign free andindependent states, and to the growth of such politicalinstitutions as began in colonial times. This period once passed,the long struggle for a government followed till our presentConstitution – one of the most remarkable political instrumentsever framed by man – was adopted, and a nation founded.
Scarcely was this accomplished when the FrenchRevolution and the rise of Napoleon involved us in a struggle,first for our neutral rights, and then for our commercialindependence, and finally in a second war with Great Britain.During this period of nearly five and twenty years, commerce andagriculture flourished exceedingly, but our internal resources werelittle developed. With the peace of 1815, however, the era ofindustrial development commences, and this has been treated withgreat – though it is believed not too great – fullness of detail;for, beyond all question, the event of the world's historyduring the nineteenth century is the growth of the United States.Nothing like it has ever before taken place.
To have loaded down the book with extendedbibliographies would have been an easy matter, but quiteunnecessary. The teacher will find in Channing and Hart's Guideto the Study of American History the best digested and arrangedbibliography of the subject yet published, and cannot afford to bewithout it. If the student has time and disposition to read onehalf of the reference books cited in the footnotes of this history,he is most fortunate.
JOHN BACH McMASTER.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
CHAPTER I
EUROPE FINDS AMERICA %1. Nations that have owned ourSoil.% – Before the United States became a nation, six Europeanpowers owned, or claimed to own, various portions of the territorynow contained within its boundary. England claimed the Atlanticcoast from Maine to Florida. Spain once held Florida, Texas,California, and all the territory south and west of Colorado.France in days gone by ruled the Mississippi valley. Holland onceowned New Jersey, Delaware, and the valley of the Hudson in NewYork, and claimed as far eastward as the Connecticut river. TheSwedes had settlements on the Delaware. Alaska was a Russianpossession.
Before attempting to narrate the history of ourcountry, it is necessary, therefore, to tell
1. How European nations came into possession ofparts of it.
2. How these parts passed from them to us.
3. What effect the ownership of parts of our countryby Europeans had on our history and institutions before 1776. %2.European Trade with the East; the Old Routes.% – For two hundredyears before North and South America were known to exist, asplendid trade had been going on between Europe and the EastIndies. Ships loaded with metals, woods, and pitch went fromEuropean seaports to Alexandria and Constantinople, and broughtback silks and cashmeres, muslins, dyewoods, spices, perfumes,ivory, precious stones, and pearls. This trade in course of timehad come to be controlled by the two Italian cities of Venice andGenoa. The merchants of Genoa sent their ships to Constantinopleand the ports of the Black Sea, where they took on board the richfabrics and spices which by boats and by caravans had come up thevalley of the Euphrates and the Tigris from the Persian Gulf. Themen of Venice, on the other hand, sent their vessels to Alexandria,and carried on their trade with the East through the Red Sea. [Illustration: Routes to India] %3. New Routeswanted.% – Splendid as this trade was, however, it was doomed todestruction. Slowly, but surely, the Turks thrust themselves acrossthe caravan routes, cutting off one by one the great feeders of theOriental trade, till, with the capture of Constantinople in 1453,they destroyed the commercial career of Genoa. As their power wasspreading rapidly over Syria and toward Egypt, the prosperity ofVenice, in turn, was threatened. The day seemed near when all tradebetween the Indies and Europe would be ended, and men began to askif it were not possible to find an ocean route to Asia.
Now, it happened that just at this time thePortuguese were hard at work on the discovery of such a route, andwere slowly pushing their way down the western coast of Africa. Butas league after league of that coast was discovered, it was thoughtthat the route to India by way of Africa was too long for thepurposes of commerce. 1 Then came the question, Is there not ashorter route? and this Columbus tried to answer. %4. Columbusseeks the East and finds America.% 2 – Columbus was a native of Genoa, in Italy.He began a seafaring life at fourteen, and in the intervals betweenhis voyages made maps and globes. As Portugal was then the centerof nautical enterprise, he wandered there about 1470, and probablywent on one or two voyages down the coast of Africa. In 1473 hemarried a Portuguese woman. Her father had been one of the King ofPortugal's famous navigators, and had left behind him at his deatha quantity of charts and notes; and it was while Columbus wasstudying them that the idea of seeking the Indies by sailing duewestward seems to have first started in his mind. But many a yearwent by, and many a hardship had to be borne, and many an insultpatiently endured in poverty and distress, before the Fridaymorning in August, 1492, when his three caravels, the SantaMaria (sahn'-tah mah-ree'-ah), the Pinta (peen'-tah),and the Niña (neen'-yah), sailed from the port of Palos(pah'-los), in Spain. [Illustration: SantaMaria]
His course led first to the Canary Islands, where heturned and went directly westward. The earth was not then generallybelieved to be round. Men supposed it to be flat, and the onlyparts of it known to Europeans were Iceland, the British Isles, thecontinent of Europe, a small part of Asia, and a strip along thecoast of the northern part of Africa. The ocean on which Columbuswas now embarked, and which in our time is crossed in less than aweek, was then utterly unknown, and was well named "The Sea ofDarkness." Little wonder, then, that as the shores of the last ofthe Canaries sank out of sight on the 9th of September, many of thesailors wept, wailed, and loudly bemoaned their cruel fate. Aftersailing for what seemed a very long time, they saw signs of land.But when no land appeared, their hopes gave way to fear, and theyrose against Columbus in order to force him to return. [Illustration: Niña]
But he calmed their fears, explained the sights theycould not understand, hid from them the true distance sailed, andkept steadily on westward till October 7, when a flock of landbirds were seen flying to the southwest. Pinzon (peen-thon'), whocommanded one of the vessels, begged Columbus to follow the birds,as they seemed to be going toward land. Had the little fleet kepton its way, it would have brought up on the coast of Florida. ButColumbus yielded to Pinzon. The ships were headed southwestward,and about ten o'clock on the night of October 11, Columbus saw alight moving in the distance. It was made by the inhabitants goingfrom hut to hut on a neighboring coast. At dawn the shore itselfwas seen by a sailor, and Columbus, followed by many of his men,hastened to the beach, where, October 12, 1492, he raised a hugecross, and took possession of the country in the name of Ferdinandand Isabella, King and Queen of Spain, who had supplied him withcaravels and men. 3 He had landed on one of a group of islandswhich we call the Bahamas. 4 [Illustration: Coat of arms ofColumbus]
During ten days he sailed among these islands. Then,turning southward, he coasted along Cuba to the eastern end, and soto Haiti, which he named Hispaniola, or Little Spain. There the Santa Maria was wrecked. The Pinta had by this timedeserted him, and, as the Niña could not carry all the men,forty were left at Hispaniola, to found the first colony ofEuropeans in the New World. Giving the men food enough to last ayear, Columbus set sail for Spain on the 3d of January, 1493, andon March 15 was safe at Palos.
Of the greatness of his discovery, Columbus had notthe faintest idea. That he had found a new world; that a continentwas blocking his way to the East, never entered his mind. Hesupposed he had landed on some islands off the east coast of Asia,and as that coast was called the Indies, and as the islands werereached by sailing westward, they came to be called the WestIndies, and their inhabitants Indians; and the native races of theNew World have ever since been called Indians. Although Columbus inafter years made three more voyages to the New World, he neverfound out his mistake, and died firm in the belief that he haddiscovered a direct route to Asia. 5 %5. The Atlantic Coast explored.% – And nowthat Columbus had shown the way, others were quick to follow. In1497 and 1498 came John and Sebastian Cabot (cab'-ot), sailingunder the flag of England, and exploring our coast from Labrador toCape Cod; and Pinzon and Solis, with Vespucius 6 for pilot, sailingunder the flag of Spain along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico,around the peninsula of Florida, and northward to Chesapeake Bay.Between 1500 and 1502 two Portuguese