META TAG (title):

Early SettlementColonial PeriodRoad to IndependenceForming a GovernmentWestward ExpansionSectional ConictCivil War Economic Growth Discontent and ReformWar, Prosperity, and Depressione New Deal and World War IIPostwar ProsperityCivil Rights and Social ChangeA New World OrderBridge to the 21st Century2008 Presidential ElectionOUTLINE OF U.S.History

U.S. HISTORYU.S. HISTORYOUTLINE OFOUTLINE OFBureau of International Information ProgramsU.S. Department of State2011

CHAPTER 1 Early America .4CHAPTER 2 The Colonial Period .22CHAPTER 3 The Road to Independence 50CHAPTER 4 The Formation of a National Government .66CHAPTER 5 Westward Expansion and Regional Differences .110CHAPTER 6 Sectional Conflict 128CHAPTER 7 The Civil War and Reconstruction .140CHAPTER 8 Growth and Transformation 154CHAPTER 9 Discontent and Reform .188CHAPTER 10 War, Prosperity, and Depression .202CHAPTER 11 The New Deal and World War II .212CHAPTER 12 Postwar America 256CHAPTER 13 Decades of Change: 1960-1980 274CHAPTER 14 The New Conservatism and a New World Order .304CHAPTER 15 Bridge to the 21st Century 320CHAPTER 16 Politics of Hope 340PICTURE PROFILES Becoming a Nation 38 Transforming a Nation 89 Monuments and Memorials .161 Turmoil and Change .229 21st Century Nation .293Bibliography .346Index .349CONTENTSU.S. HISTORYU.S. HISTORYOUTLINE OFOUTLINE OF
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CHAPTEREARLY AMERICA1Mesa Verde settlement in Colorado, 13th century.
6“Heaven and Earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation.”Jamestown founder John Smith, 1607THE FIRST AMERICANSAt the height of the Ice Age, be-tween 34,000 and 30,000 B.C., much of the world’s water was locked up in vast continental ice sheets. As a result, the Bering Sea was hundreds of meters below its current level, and a land bridge, known as Beringia, emerged between Asia and North America. At its peak, Beringia is thought to have been some 1,500 ki-lometers wide. A moist and treeless tundra, it was covered with grasses and plant life, attracting the large animals that early humans hunted for their survival.The first people to reach North America almost certainly did so without knowing they had crossed into a new continent. They would have been following game, as their ancestors had for thousands of years, along the Siberian coast and then across the land bridge.Once in Alaska, it would take these first North Americans thou-sands of years more to work their way through the openings in great glaciers south to what is now the United States. Evidence of early life in North America continues to be found. Little of it, however, can be reliably dated before 12,000 B.C.; a recent discovery of a hunting look-out in northern Alaska, for exam-ple, may date from almost that time. So too may the finely crafted spear points and items found near Clovis, New Mexico.Similar artifacts have been found at sites throughout North and South America, indicating that life was probably already well established in CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY7much of the Western Hemisphere by some time prior to 10,000 B.C.Around that time the mammoth began to die out and the bison took its place as a principal source of food and hides for these early North Americans. Over time, as more and more species of large game van-ished — whether from overhunting or natural causes — plants, berries, and seeds became an increasingly important part of the early Ameri-can diet. Gradually, foraging and the first attempts at primitive agri-culture appeared. Native Americans in what is now central Mexico led the way, cultivating corn, squash, and beans, perhaps as early as 8,000 B.C. Slowly, this knowledge spread northward.By 3,000 B.C., a primitive type of corn was being grown in the river valleys of New Mexico and Arizo-na. Then the first signs of irrigation began to appear, and, by 300 B.C., signs of early village life.By the first centuries A.D., the Hohokam were living in settlements near what is now Phoenix, Arizo-na, where they built ball courts and pyramid-like mounds reminiscent of those found in Mexico, as well as a canal and irrigation system.MOUND BUILDERS AND PUEBLOSThe first Native-American group to build mounds in what is now the United States often are called the Adenans. They began construct-ing earthen burial sites and forti-fications around 600 B.C. Some mounds from that era are in the shape of birds or serpents; they probably served religious purposes not yet fully understood.The Adenans appear to have been absorbed or displaced by vari-ous groups collectively known as Hopewellians. One of the most im-portant centers of their culture was found in southern Ohio, where the remains of several thousand of these mounds still can be seen. Believed to be great traders, the Hopewel-lians used and exchanged tools and materials across a wide region of hundreds of kilometers.By around 500 A.D., the Hopewellians disappeared, too, gradually giving way to a broad group of tribes generally known as the Mississippians or Temple Mound culture. One city, Ca-hokia, near Collinsville, Illinois, is thought to have had a population of about 20,000 at its peak in the early 12th century. At the center of the city stood a huge earthen mound, flattened at the top, that was 30 meters high and 37 hectares at the base. Eighty other mounds have been found nearby.Cities such as Cahokia depend-ed on a combination of hunting, foraging, trading, and agriculture for their food and supplies. Influ-enced by the thriving societies to the south, they evolved into complex hi-erarchical societies that took slaves and practiced human sacrifice.
8In what is now the southwest United States, the Anasazi, ancestors of the modern Hopi Indians, began building stone and adobe pueblos around the year 900. These unique and amazing apartment-like struc-tures were often built along cliff faces; the most famous, the “cliff palace” of Mesa Verde, Colorado, had more than 200 rooms. Another site, the Pueblo Bonito ruins along New Mexico’s Chaco River, once contained more than 800 rooms.Perhaps the most affluent of the pre-Columbian Native Americans lived in the Pacific Northwest, where the natural abundance of fish and raw materials made food supplies plentiful and permanent villages pos-sible as early as 1,000 B.C. The opu-lence of their “potlatch” gatherings remains a standard for extravagance and festivity probably unmatched in early American history.NATIVE-AMERICAN CULTURESThe America that greeted the first Europeans was, thus, far from an empty wilderness. It is now thought that as many people lived in the Western Hemisphere as in West-ern Europe at that time — about 40 million. Estimates of the number of Native Americans living in what is now the United States at the onset of European colonization range from two to 18 million, with most histori-ans tending toward the lower figure. What is certain is the devastating ef-fect that European disease had on the indigenous population practi-cally from the time of initial con-tact. Smallpox, in particular, ravaged whole communities and is thought to have been a much more direct cause of the precipitous decline in the Indian population in the 1600s than the numerous wars and skir-mishes with European settlers.Indian customs and culture at the time were extraordinarily diverse, as could be expected, given the ex-panse of the land and the many dif-ferent environments to which they had adapted. Some generalizations, however, are possible. Most tribes, particularly in the wooded eastern region and the Midwest, combined aspects of hunting, gathering, and the cultivation of maize and other products for their food supplies. In many cases, the women were responsible for farming and the distribution of food, while the men hunted and participated in war.By all accounts, Native-American society in North America was closely tied to the land. Identification with nature and the elements was integral to religious beliefs. Their life was essentially clan-oriented and com-munal, with children allowed more freedom and tolerance than was the European custom of the day.Although some North Ameri-can tribes developed a type of hi-eroglyphics to preserve certain texts, Native-American culture was primarily oral, with a high value placed on the recounting of tales and dreams. Clearly, there was a good deal of trade among various CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY9groups and strong evidence exists that neighboring tribes maintained extensive and formal relations — both friendly and hostile.THE FIRST EUROPEANSThe first Europeans to arrive in North America — at least the first for whom there is solid evidence — were Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is thought to have explored the north-east coast of what is now Canada and spent at least one winter there.While Norse sagas suggest that Viking sailors explored the Atlan-tic coast of North America down as far as the Bahamas, such claims remain unproven. In 1963, however, the ruins of some Norse houses dat-ing from that era were discovered at L’Anse-aux-Meadows in northern Newfoundland, thus supporting at least some of the saga claims.In 1497, just five years after Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean looking for a west-ern route to Asia, a Venetian sail-or named John Cabot arrived in Newfoundland on a mission for the British king. Although quickly forgotten, Cabot’s journey was later to provide the basis for British claims to North America. It also opened the way to the rich fishing grounds off George’s Banks, to which Eu-ropean fishermen, particularly the Portuguese, were soon making reg-ular visits.Columbus never saw the main-land of the future United States, but the first explorations of it were launched from the Spanish posses-sions that he helped establish. The first of these took place in 1513 when a group of men under Juan Ponce de León landed on the Florida coast near the present city of St. Augustine.With the conquest of Mexico in 1522, the Spanish further solidi-fied their position in the Western Hemisphere. The ensuing discov-eries added to Europe’s knowledge of what was now named America — after the Italian Amerigo Ves-pucci, who wrote a widely popular account of his voyages to a “New World.” By 1529 reliable maps of the Atlantic coastline from Labrador to Tierra del Fuego had been drawn up, although it would take more than another century before hope of dis-covering a “Northwest Passage” to Asia would be completely abandoned.Among the most significant ear-ly Spanish explorations was that of Hernando De Soto, a veteran con-quistador who had accompanied Francisco Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. Leaving Havana in 1539, De Soto’s expedition landed in Florida and ranged through the southeast-ern United States as far as the Missis-sippi River in search of riches.Another Spaniard, Francis-co Vázquez de Coronado, set out from Mexico in 1540 in search of the mythical Seven Cities of Cibo-la. Coronado’s travels took him to the Grand Canyon and Kansas, but
10failed to reveal the gold or treasure his men sought. However, his par-ty did leave the peoples of the re-gion a remarkable, if unintended, gift: Enough of his horses escaped to transform life on the Great Plains. Within a few generations, the Plains Indians had become masters of horsemanship, greatly expanding the range of their activities.While the Spanish were pushing up from the south, the northern por-tion of the present-day United States was slowly being revealed through the journeys of men such as Giovan-ni da Verrazano. A Florentine who sailed for the French, Verrazano made landfall in North Carolina in 1524, then sailed north along the At-lantic Coast past what is now New York harbor.A decade later, the Frenchman Jacques Cartier set sail with the hope — like the other Europeans before him — of finding a sea passage to Asia. Cartier’s expeditions along the St. Lawrence River laid the founda-tion for the French claims to North America, which were to last until 1763.Following the collapse of their first Quebec colony in the 1540s, French Huguenots attempted to set-tle the northern coast of Florida two decades later. The Spanish, viewing the French as a threat to their trade route along the Gulf Stream, de-stroyed the colony in 1565. Ironical-ly, the leader of the Spanish forces, Pedro Menéndez, would soon estab-lish a town not far away — St. Au-gustine. It was the first permanent European settlement in what would become the United States.The great wealth that poured into Spain from the colonies in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Peru provoked great interest on the part of the other European powers. Emerging mari-time nations such as England, drawn in part by Francis Drake’s success-ful raids on Spanish treasure ships, began to take an interest in the New World.In 1578 Humphrey Gilbert, the author of a treatise on the search for the Northwest Passage, received a patent from Queen Elizabeth to colonize the “heathen and barba-rous landes” in the New World that other European nations had not yet claimed. It would be five years before his efforts could begin. When he was lost at sea, his half-brother, Walter Raleigh, took up the mission.In 1585 Raleigh established the first British colony in North Amer-ica, on Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina. It was later aban-doned, and a second effort two years later also proved a failure. It would be 20 years before the British would try again. This time — at Jamestown in 1607 — the colony would succeed, and North America would enter a new era.EARLY SETTLEMENTSThe early 1600s saw the begin- ning of a great tide of emigration from Europe to North America. Spanning more than three centuries, this movement grew from a trickle CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY11of a few hundred English colonists to a flood of millions of newcomers. Impelled by powerful and diverse motivations, they built a new civi-lization on the northern part of the continent.The first English immigrants to what is now the United States crossed the Atlantic long after thriv-ing Spanish colonies had been estab-lished in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America. Like all early travelers to the New World, they came in small, overcrowded ships. During their six- to 12-week voy-ages, they lived on meager rations. Many died of disease, ships were often battered by storms, and some were lost at sea.Most European emigrants left their homelands to escape political oppression, to seek the freedom to practice their religion, or to find op-portunities denied them at home. Between 1620 and 1635, economic difficulties swept England. Many people could not find work. Even skilled artisans could earn little more than a bare living. Poor crop yields added to the distress. In ad-dition, the Commercial Revolution had created a burgeoning textile industry, which demanded an ever-increasing supply of wool to keep the looms running. Landlords en-closed farmlands and evicted the peasants in favor of sheep cultiva-tion. Colonial expansion became an outlet for this displaced peasant population.The colonists’ first glimpse of the new land was a vista of dense woods. The settlers might not have survived had it not been for the help of friendly Indians, who taught them how to grow native plants —pumpkin, squash, beans, and corn. In addition, the vast, virgin forests, extending nearly 2,100 kilometers along the Eastern seaboard, proved a rich source of game and firewood. They also provided abundant raw materials used to build houses, fur-niture, ships, and profitable items for export.Although the new continent was remarkably endowed by nature, trade with Europe was vital for ar-ticles the settlers could not produce. The coast served the immigrants well. The whole length of shore pro-vided many inlets and harbors. Only two areas — North Carolina and southern New Jersey — lacked har-bors for ocean-going vessels.Majestic rivers — the Kennebec, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac, and numerous others —linked lands between the coast and the Appalachian Mountains with the sea. Only one river, however, the St. Lawrence — dominated by the French in Canada — offered a water passage to the Great Lakes and the heart of the continent. Dense forests, the resistance of some Indian tribes, and the formidable barrier of the Appalachian Mountains discour-aged settlement beyond the coastal plain. Only trappers and traders ventured into the wilderness. For the first hundred years the colonists built their settlements compactly along the coast.
12Political considerations influ-enced many people to move to America. In the 1630s, arbitrary rule by England’s Charles I gave impetus to the migration. The subsequent re-volt and triumph of Charles’ oppo-nents under Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s led many cavaliers — “king’s men” — to cast their lot in Virginia. In the German-speaking regions of Europe, the oppressive policies of various petty princes — particularly with regard to religion — and the devastation caused by a long series of wars helped swell the movement to America in the late 17th and 18th centuries.The journey entailed careful planning and management, as well as considerable expense and risk. Settlers had to be transported nearly 5,000 kilometers across the sea. They needed utensils, clothing, seed, tools, building materials, livestock, arms, and ammunition. In contrast to the colonization policies of other coun-tries and other periods, the emigra-tion from England was not directly sponsored by the government but by private groups of individuals whose chief motive was profit.JAMESTOWNThe first of the British colonies to take hold in North America was Jamestown. On the basis of a char-ter which King James I granted to the Virginia (or London) Company, a group of about 100 men set out for the Chesapeake Bay in 1607. Seeking to avoid conflict with the Spanish, they chose a site about 60 kilometers up the James River from the bay.Made up of townsmen and ad-venturers more interested in finding gold than farming, the group was unequipped by temperament or abil-ity to embark upon a completely new life in the wilderness. Among them, Captain John Smith emerged as the dominant figure. Despite quarrels, starvation, and Native-American attacks, his ability to enforce disci-pline held the little colony together through its first year.In 1609 Smith returned to Eng-land, and in his absence, the colony descended into anarchy. During the winter of 1609-1610, the majority of the colonists succumbed to disease. Only 60 of the original 300 settlers were still alive by May 1610. That same year, the town of Henrico (now Richmond) was established farther up the James River.It was not long, however, before a development occurred that revo-lutionized Virginia’s economy. In 1612 John Rolfe began cross-breed-ing imported tobacco seed from the West Indies with native plants and produced a new variety that was pleasing to European taste. The first shipment of this tobacco reached London in 1614. Within a decade it had become Virginia’s chief source of revenue.Prosperity did not come quickly, however, and the death rate from disease and Indian attacks remained extraordinarily high. Between 1607 and 1624 approximately 14,000 peo-ple migrated to the colony, yet only CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY131,132 were living there in 1624. On recommendation of a royal commis-sion, the king dissolved the Virginia Company, and made it a royal colony that year.MASSACHUSETTSDuring the religious upheavals of the 16th century, a body of men and women called Puritans sought to reform the Established Church of England from within. Essentially, they demanded that the rituals and structures associated with Roman Catholicism be replaced by simpler Calvinist Protestant forms of faith and worship. Their reformist ideas, by destroying the unity of the state church, threatened to divide the people and to undermine royal authority.In 1607 a small group of Sepa-ratists — a radical sect of Puritans who did not believe the Established Church could ever be reformed — departed for Leyden, Holland, where the Dutch granted them asylum. However, the Calvinist Dutch re-stricted them mainly to low-paid la-boring jobs. Some members of the congregation grew dissatisfied with this discrimination and resolved to emigrate to the New World.In 1620, a group of Leyden Puri-tans secured a land patent from the Virginia Company. Numbering 101, they set out for Virginia on the May-flower. A storm sent them far north and they landed in New England on Cape Cod. Believing themselves outside the jurisdiction of any orga-nized government, the men drafted a formal agreement to abide by “just and equal laws” drafted by leaders of their own choosing. This was the Mayflower Compact.In December the Mayflower reached Plymouth harbor; the Pil-grims began to build their settle-ment during the winter. Nearly half the colonists died of exposure and disease, but neighboring Wampa-noag Indians provided the informa-tion that would sustain them: how to grow maize. By the next fall, the Pilgrims had a plentiful crop of corn, and a growing trade based on furs and lumber.A new wave of immigrants ar-rived on the shores of Massachusetts Bay in 1630 bearing a grant from King Charles I to establish a colony. Many of them were Puritans whose religious practices were increasingly prohibited in England. Their leader, John Winthrop, urged them to cre-ate a “city upon a hill” in the New World — a place where they would live in strict accordance with their religious beliefs and set an example for all of Christendom.The Massachusetts Bay Colony was to play a significant role in the development of the entire New Eng-land region, in part because Win-throp and his Puritan colleagues were able to bring their charter with them. Thus the authority for the col-ony’s government resided in Massa-chusetts, not in England.Under the charter’s provisions, power rested with the General Court, which was made up of “free-
14men” required to be members of the Puritan, or Congregational, Church. This guaranteed that the Puritans would be the dominant political as well as religious force in the colony. The General Court elected the gov-ernor, who for most of the next gen-eration would be John Winthrop.The rigid orthodoxy of the Pu-ritan rule was not to everyone’s lik-ing. One of the first to challenge the General Court openly was a young clergyman named Roger Williams, who objected to the colony’s seizure of Indian lands and advocated sepa-ration of church and state. Another dissenter, Anne Hutchinson, chal-lenged key doctrines of Puritan the-ology. Both they and their followers were banished.Williams purchased land from the Narragansett Indians in what is now Providence, Rhode Island, in 1636. In 1644, a sympathetic Puri-tan-controlled English Parliament gave him the charter that established Rhode Island as a distinct colony where complete separation of church and state as well as freedom of reli-gion was practiced.So-called heretics like Williams were not the only ones who left Mas-sachusetts. Orthodox Puritans, seek-ing better lands and opportunities, soon began leaving Massachusetts Bay Colony. News of the fertility of the Connecticut River Valley, for in-stance, attracted the interest of farm-ers having a difficult time with poor land. By the early 1630s, many were ready to brave the danger of Indian attack to obtain level ground and deep, rich soil. These new commu-nities often eliminated church mem-bership as a prerequisite for voting, thereby extending the franchise to ever larger numbers of men.At the same time, other settle-ments began cropping up along the New Hampshire and Maine coasts, as more and more immigrants sought the land and liberty the New World seemed to offer.NEW NETHERLAND AND MARYLANDHired by the Dutch East India Company, Henry Hudson in 1609 explored the area around what is now New York City and the river that bears his name, to a point prob-ably north of present-day Albany, New York. Subsequent Dutch voy-ages laid the basis for their claims and early settlements in the area.As with the French to the north, the first interest of the Dutch was the fur trade. To this end, they cultivated close relations with the Five Nations of the Iroquois, who were the key to the heartland from which the furs came. In 1617 Dutch settlers built a fort at the junction of the Hudson and the Mohawk Rivers, where Al-bany now stands.Settlement on the island of Man-hattan began in the early 1620s. In 1624, the island was purchased from local Native Americans for the re-ported price of $24. It was promptly renamed New Amsterdam.In order to attract settlers to the Hudson River region, the Dutch en-CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY15couraged a type of feudal aristocra-cy, known as the “patroon” system. The first of these huge estates were established in 1630 along the Hud-son River. Under the patroon sys-tem, any stockholder, or patroon, who could bring 50 adults to his es-tate over a four-year period was giv-en a 25-kilometer river-front plot, exclusive fishing and hunting privi-leges, and civil and criminal juris-diction over his lands. In turn, he provided livestock, tools, and build-ings. The tenants paid the patroon rent and gave him first option on surplus crops.Further to the south, a Swedish trading company with ties to the Dutch attempted to set up its first settlement along the Delaware Riv-er three years later. Without the re-sources to consolidate its position, New Sweden was gradually absorbed into New Netherland, and later, Pennsylvania and Delaware.In 1632 the Catholic Calvert fam-ily obtained a charter for land north of the Potomac River from King Charles I in what became known as Maryland. As the charter did not ex-pressly prohibit the establishment of non-Protestant churches, the colony became a haven for Catholics. Mary-land’s first town, St. Mary’s, was established in 1634 near where the Potomac River flows into the Chesa-peake Bay.While establishing a refuge for Catholics, who faced increasing per-secution in Anglican England, the Calverts were also interested in cre-ating profitable estates. To this end, and to avoid trouble with the British government, they also encouraged Protestant immigration.Maryland’s royal charter had a mixture of feudal and modern elements. On the one hand the Calvert family had the power to create manorial estates. On the oth-er, they could only make laws with the consent of freemen (property holders). They found that in order to attract settlers — and make a profit from their holdings — they had to offer people farms, not just tenancy on manorial estates. The number of independent farms grew in consequence. Their owners de-manded a voice in the affairs of the colony. Maryland’s first legislature met in 1635.COLONIAL-INDIAN RELATIONSBy 1640 the British had solid colonies established along the New England coast and the Chesapeake Bay. In between were the Dutch and the tiny Swedish community. To the west were the original Americans, then called Indians.Sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, the Eastern tribes were no longer strangers to the Europeans. Although Native Americans ben-efited from access to new technol-ogy and trade, the disease and thirst for land that the early settlers also brought posed a serious challenge to their long-established way of life.At first, trade with the European settlers brought advantages: knives,
16axes, weapons, cooking utensils, fishhooks, and a host of other goods. Those Indians who traded initial-ly had significant advantage over rivals who did not. In response to European demand, tribes such as the Iroquois began to devote more at-tention to fur trapping during the 17th century. Furs and pelts pro-vided tribes the means to purchase colonial goods until late into the 18th century.Early colonial-Native-American relations were an uneasy mix of co-operation and conflict. On the one hand, there were the exemplary rela-tions that prevailed during the first half century of Pennsylvania’s exis-tence. On the other were a long series of setbacks, skirmishes, and wars, which almost invariably resulted in an Indian defeat and further loss of land.The first of the important Native-American uprisings occurred in Vir-ginia in 1622, when some 347 whites were killed, including a number of missionaries who had just recently come to Jamestown.White settlement of the Con-necticut River region touched off the Pequot War in 1637. In 1675 King Philip, the son of the native chief who had made the original peace with the Pilgrims in 1621, attempted to unite the tribes of southern New England against further Europe-an encroachment of their lands. In the struggle, however, Philip lost his life and many Indians were sold into servitude.The steady influx of settlers into the backwoods regions of the Eastern colonies disrupted Native-American life. As more and more game was killed off, tribes were faced with the difficult choice of going hungry, go-ing to war, or moving and coming into conflict with other tribes to the west.The Iroquois, who inhabited the area below lakes Ontario and Erie in northern New York and Pennsyl-vania, were more successful in re-sisting European advances. In 1570 five tribes joined to form the most complex Native-American nation of its time, the “Ho-De-No-Sau-Nee,” or League of the Iroquois. The league was run by a council made up of 50 representatives from each of the five member tribes. The council dealt with matters common to all the tribes, but it had no say in how the free and equal tribes ran their day-to-day affairs. No tribe was allowed to make war by itself. The council passed laws to deal with crimes such as murder.The Iroquois League was a strong power in the 1600s and 1700s. It traded furs with the British and sided with them against the French in the war for the dominance of America between 1754 and 1763. The British might not have won that war otherwise.The Iroquois League stayed strong until the American Revolu-tion. Then, for the first time, the council could not reach a unani-mous decision on whom to support. Member tribes made their own de-CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY17cisions, some fighting with the Brit-ish, some with the colonists, some remaining neutral. As a result, ev-eryone fought against the Iroquois. Their losses were great and the league never recovered.SECOND GENERATION OF BRITISH COLONIESThe religious and civil conflict in England in the mid-17th century limited immigration, as well as the attention the mother country paid the fledgling American colonies.In part to provide for the defense measures England was neglect-ing, the Massachusetts Bay, Plym-outh, Connecticut, and New Haven colonies formed the New England Confederation in 1643. It was the European colonists’ first attempt at regional unity.The early history of the British settlers reveals a good deal of con-tention — religious and political — as groups vied for power and posi-tion among themselves and their neighbors. Maryland, in particular, suffered from the bitter religious ri-valries that afflicted England during the era of Oliver Cromwell. One of the casualties was the state’s Tolera-tion Act, which was revoked in the 1650s. It was soon reinstated, howev-er, along with the religious freedom it guaranteed. With the restoration of King Charles II in 1660, the British once again turned their attention to North America. Within a brief span, the first European settlements were established in the Carolinas and the Dutch driven out of New Nether-land. New proprietary colonies were established in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.The Dutch settlements had been ruled by autocratic governors ap-pointed in Europe. Over the years, the local population had become estranged from them. As a result, when the British colonists began en-croaching on Dutch claims in Long Island and Manhattan, the unpopu-lar governor was unable to rally the population to their defense. New Netherland fell in 1664. The terms of the capitulation, however, were mild: The Dutch settlers were able to retain their property and worship as they pleased.As early as the 1650s, the Albe-marle Sound region off the coast of what is now northern North Caroli-na was inhabited by settlers trickling down from Virginia. The first pro-prietary governor arrived in 1664. The first town in Albemarle, a re-mote area even today, was not estab-lished until the arrival of a group of French Huguenots in 1704.In 1670 the first settlers, drawn from New England and the Carib-bean island of Barbados, arrived in what is now Charleston, South Carolina. An elaborate system of government, to which the British philosopher John Locke contribut-ed, was prepared for the new colony. One of its prominent features was a failed attempt to create a hereditary nobility. One of the colony’s least ap-pealing aspects was the early trade in
18Indian slaves. With time, however, timber, rice, and indigo gave the col-ony a worthier economic base.In 1681 William Penn, a wealthy Quaker and friend of Charles II, re-ceived a large tract of land west of the Delaware River, which became known as Pennsylvania. To help populate it, Penn actively recruited a host of religious dissenters from England and the continent — Quak-ers, Mennonites, Amish, Moravians, and Baptists.When Penn arrived the follow-ing year, there were already Dutch, Swedish, and English settlers liv-ing along the Delaware River. It was there he founded Philadelphia, the “City of Brotherly Love.”In keeping with his faith, Penn was motivated by a sense of equal-ity not often found in other Amer-ican colonies at the time. Thus, women in Pennsylvania had rights long before they did in other parts of America. Penn and his deputies also paid considerable attention to the colony’s relations with the Del-aware Indians, ensuring that they were paid for land on which the Eu-ropeans settled.Georgia was settled in 1732, the last of the 13 colonies to be established. Lying close to, if not actually inside the boundaries of Spanish Florida, the region was viewed as a buffer against Spanish incursion. But it had another unique quality: The man charged with Georgia’s fortifications, General James Oglethorpe, was a reformer who deliberately set out to create a refuge where the poor and former prisoners would be given new opportunities.SETTLERS, SLAVES, AND SERVA NTSMen and women with little active interest in a new life in America were often induced to make the move to the New World by the skillful per-suasion of promoters. William Penn, for example, publicized the oppor-tunities awaiting newcomers to the Pennsylvania colony. Judges and prison authorities offered convicts a chance to migrate to colonies like Georgia instead of serving prison sentences.But few colonists could finance the cost of passage for themselves and their families to make a start in the new land. In some cases, ships’ cap-tains received large rewards from the sale of service contracts for poor mi-grants, called indentured servants, and every method from extravagant promises to actual kidnapping was used to take on as many passengers as their vessels could hold.In other cases, the expenses of transportation and maintenance were paid by colonizing agencies like the Virginia or Massachusetts Bay Companies. In return, indentured servants agreed to work for the agen-cies as contract laborers, usually for four to seven years. Free at the end of this term, they would be given “free-dom dues,” sometimes including a small tract of land.CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY19Perhaps half the settlers living in the colonies south of New England came to America under this system. Although most of them fulfilled their obligations faithfully, some ran away from their employers. Never-theless, many of them were eventu-ally able to secure land and set up homesteads, either in the colonies in which they had originally settled or in neighboring ones. No social stig-ma was attached to a family that had its beginning in America under this semi-bondage. Every colony had its share of leaders who were former in-dentured servants.There was one very important exception to this pattern: African slaves. The first black Africans were brought to Virginia in 1619, just 12 years after the founding of James-town. Initially, many were regarded as indentured servants who could earn their freedom. By the 1660s, however, as the demand for planta-tion labor in the Southern colonies grew, the institution of slavery be-gan to harden around them, and Af-ricans were brought to America in shackles for a lifetime of involuntary servitude. 9
20Time-worn pueblos and dramatic cliff towns, set amid the stark, rugged me-sas and canyons of Colorado and New Mexico, mark the settlements of some of the earliest inhabitants of North America, the Anasazi (a Navajo word meaning “ancient ones”).By 500 A.D. the Anasazi had established some of the first villages in the American Southwest, where they hunted and grew crops of corn, squash, and beans. The Anasazi flourished over the centuries, developing sophisticated dams and irrigation systems; creating a masterful, distinctive pottery tradi-tion; and carving multiroom dwellings into the sheer sides of cliffs that remain among the most striking archaeological sites in the United States today.Yet by the year 1300, they had abandoned their settlements, leaving their pottery, implements, even clothing — as though they intended to return — and seemingly vanished into history. Their homeland remained empty of human beings for more than a century — until the arrival of new tribes, such as the Navajo and the Ute, followed by the Spanish and other European settlers.The story of the Anasazi is tied inextricably to the beautiful but harsh environment in which they chose to live. Early settlements, consisting of simple pithouses scooped out of the ground, evolved into sunken kivas (underground rooms) that served as meeting and religious sites. Later generations developed the masonry techniques for building square, stone pueblos. But the most dra-matic change in Anasazi living was the move to the cliff sides below the flat-topped mesas, where the Anasazi carved their amazing, multilevel dwellings.The Anasazi lived in a communal society. They traded with other peoples in the region, but signs of warfare are few and isolated. And although the Ana-sazi certainly had religious and other leaders, as well as skilled artisans, social or class distinctions were virtually nonexistent.Religious and social motives undoubtedly played a part in the building of the cliff communities and their final abandonment. But the struggle to raise food in an increasingly difficult environment was probably the paramount fac-tor. As populations grew, farmers planted larger areas on the mesas, causing some communities to farm marginal lands, while others left the mesa tops for the cliffs. But the Anasazi couldn’t halt the steady loss of the land’s fertility from constant use, nor withstand the region’s cyclical droughts. Analysis of tree rings, for example, shows that a drought lasting 23 years, from 1276 to 1299, finally forced the last groups of Anasazi to leave permanently.Although the Anasazi dispersed from their ancestral homeland, their legacy remains in the remarkable archaeological record that they left behind, and in the Hopi, Zuni, and other Pueblo peoples who are their descendants. THE ENDURING MYSTERY OF THE ANASAZICHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
Major Native American cultural groupings, A.D. 500-1300. OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY21
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