Part 1 (1/2)

A School History of the United States.

by John Bach McMaster.

PREFACE

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.

The story, therefore, has been restricted to the discoveries, explorations, and settlements within the United States by the English, French, Spaniards, and Dutch; to the expulsion of the French by the English; to the planting of the thirteen colonies on the Atlantic seaboard; to the origin and progress of the quarrel which ended with the rise of thirteen sovereign free and independent states, and to the growth of such political inst.i.tutions as began in colonial times. This period once pa.s.sed, the long struggle for a government followed till our present Const.i.tution--one of the most remarkable political instruments ever framed by man--was adopted, and a nation founded.

Scarcely was this accomplished when the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon involved us in a struggle, first for our neutral rights, and then for our commercial independence, and finally in a second war with Great Britain. During this period of nearly five and twenty years, commerce and agriculture flourished exceedingly, but our internal resources were little developed. With the peace of 1815, however, the era of industrial development commences, and this has been treated with great--though it is believed not too great--fullness of detail; for, beyond all question, _the_ event of the world's history during 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 extended bibliographies would 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

%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 pa.s.sed from them to us.

3. What effect the owners.h.i.+p of parts of our country by Europeans had on our history and inst.i.tutions 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. s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 quant.i.ty 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 hards.h.i.+p 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 _Nina_ (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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 sh.o.r.es 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Nina]