A School History of the United States. John Bach McMaster
have been an easy matter, but quite unnecessary. The teacher will find in Channing and Hart's Guide to the Study of American History the best digested and arranged bibliography of the subject yet published, and cannot afford to be without it. If the student has time and disposition to read one half 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 II. THE SPANIARDS IN THE UNITED STATES III. ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND SWEDES ON THE SEABOARD IV. THE PLANTING OF NEW ENGLAND V. THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN COLONIES VI. THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY VII. THE INDIANS VIII. THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND LOUISIANA IX. LIFE IN THE COLONIES IN 1763 X. "LIBERTY, PROPERTY, AND NO STAMPS" XI. THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE XII. UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION XIII. MAKING THE CONSTITUTION XIV. OUR COUNTRY IN 1790 XV. THE RISE OF PARTIES XVI. THE STRUGGLE FOR NEUTRALITY XVII. STRUGGLE FOR "FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS" XVIII. THE WAR FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE XIX. PROGRESS OF OUR COUNTRY BETWEEN 1790 AND 1815 XX. SETTLEMENT OF OUR BOUNDARIES XXI. THE RISING WEST XXII. THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND COMMERCE XXIII. POLITICS FROM 1824 TO 1845 XXIV. EXPANSION OF THE SLAVE AREA XXV. THE TERRITORIES BECOME SLAVE SOIL XXVI. PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 1840 AND 1860 XXVII. WAR FOR THE UNION, 1861–1865 XXVIII. WAR ALONG THE COAST AND ON THE SEA XXIX. THE COST OF THE WAR XXX. RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOUTH XXXI. THE NEW WEST (1860–1870) XXXII. POLITICS FROM 1868 TO 1880 XXXIII. GROWTH OF THE NORTHWEST XXXIV. MECHANICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS XXXV. POLITICS SINCE 1880
APPENDIX
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES STATE CONSTITUTIONS INDEX
LIST OF IMPORTANT MAPS
DISCOVERY ON THE EAST COAST OF AMERICA EUROPEAN CLAIMS AND EXPLORATIONS, 1650 FRENCH CLAIMS, ETC., IN 1700 BRITISH COLONIES, 1733 EUROPEAN POSSESSIONS, 1763 THE BRITISH COLONIES IN 1764 BRITISH COLONIES, 1776 RESULTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE THE UNITED STATES, 1783 THE UNITED STATES, 1789 DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1790 SLAVE AND FREE SOIL IN 1790 THE UNITED STATES, 1801 THE UNITED STATES, 1810 NORTH AMERICA AFTER 1824 DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1820 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN 1820 THE UNITED STATES, 1826 TERRITORY CLAIMED BY TEXAS IN 1845 THE OREGON COUNTRY ROUTES OF THE EARLY EXPLORERS TERRITORY CEDED BY MEXICO, 1848 AND 1853 RESULTS OF THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 THE UNITED STATES IN 1851 EXPANSION OF SLAVE SOIL, 1790–1860 DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1850 THE UNITED STATES, 1861 WAR FOR THE UNION INDUSTRIAL AND RAILROAD MAP OF THE UNITED STATES
A SCHOOL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
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DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS
CHAPTER I
EUROPE FINDS AMERICA
%1. Nations that have owned our Soil.%—Before the United States became a nation, six European powers owned, or claimed to own, various portions of the territory now contained within its boundary. England claimed the Atlantic coast 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 once owned New Jersey, Delaware, and the valley of the Hudson in New York, and claimed as far eastward as the Connecticut river. The Swedes had settlements on the Delaware. Alaska was a Russian possession.
Before attempting to narrate the history of our country, it is necessary, therefore, to tell
1. How European nations came into possession of parts of it.
2. How these parts passed from them to us.
3. What effect the ownership of parts of our country by Europeans had on our history and institutions before 1776.
%2. European Trade with the East; the Old Routes.%—For two hundred years before North and South America were known to exist, a splendid trade had been going on between Europe and the East Indies. Ships loaded with metals, woods, and pitch went from European seaports to Alexandria and Constantinople, and brought back silks and cashmeres, muslins, dyewoods, spices, perfumes, ivory, precious stones, and pearls. This trade in course of time had come to be controlled by the two Italian cities of Venice and Genoa. The merchants of Genoa sent their ships to Constantinople and the ports of the Black Sea, where they took on board the rich fabrics and spices which by boats and by caravans had come up the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris from the Persian Gulf. The men 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 Routes wanted.%—Splendid as this trade was, however, it was doomed to destruction. Slowly, but surely, the Turks thrust themselves across the caravan routes, cutting off one by one the great feeders of the Oriental trade, till, with the capture of Constantinople in 1453, they destroyed the commercial career of Genoa. As their power was spreading rapidly over Syria and toward Egypt, the prosperity of Venice, in turn, was threatened. The day seemed near when all trade between the Indies and Europe would be ended, and men began to ask if it were not possible to find an ocean route to Asia.
Now, it happened that just at this time the Portuguese were hard at work on the discovery of such a route, and were slowly pushing their way down the western coast of Africa. But as league after league of that coast was discovered, it was thought that the route to India by way of Africa was too long for the purposes of commerce.[1] Then came the question, Is there not a shorter route? and this Columbus tried to answer.
[Footnote 1: Read the account of Portuguese exploration in search of a way to India, in Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. I., pp. 274–334.]
%4. Columbus seeks 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 between his voyages made maps and globes. As Portugal was then the center of nautical enterprise, he wandered there about 1470, and probably went on one or two voyages down the coast of Africa. In 1473 he married a Portuguese woman. Her father had been one of the King of Portugal's famous navigators, and had left behind him at his death a quantity of charts and notes; and it was while Columbus was studying them that the idea of seeking the Indies by sailing due westward seems to have first started in his mind. But many a year went by, and many a hardship had to be borne, and many an insult patiently endured in poverty and distress, before the Friday morning in August, 1492, when his three caravels, the Santa Maria (sahn'-tah mah-ree'-ah), the Pinta (peen'-tah), and the Niña (neen'-yah), sailed from the port of Palos (pah'-los), in Spain.
[Footnote 2: There is reason to believe that about the year 1000 A.D. the northeast coast of America was discovered by a Norse voyager named Leif Ericsson. The records are very meager; but the discovery of our country by such a people is possible and not improbable. For an account of the pre-Columbian discoveries see Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. I., pp. 148–255.]
[Illustration: Santa Maria]
His course led first to the Canary Islands, where he turned and went directly westward. The earth was not then generally believed to be round. Men supposed it to be flat, and the only parts of it known to Europeans were Iceland, the British Isles, the continent of Europe, a small part of Asia, and a strip along the coast of the northern part of Africa. The ocean on which Columbus was now embarked, and which in our time is crossed in less than a week, was then utterly unknown, and was well named "The Sea of Darkness." Little wonder, then, that as the shores of the last of the Canaries sank out of sight on the 9th of September, many of the sailors wept, wailed, and loudly bemoaned their cruel fate. After sailing for what seemed a very long time, they saw signs of land. But when no land appeared, their hopes gave way to fear, and they rose against Columbus in order to force him to return.
[Illustration: Niña]
But he calmed their fears, explained the sights