AMERICAN HISTORYPrehistoric till 1900

PREHISTORY:• American History goes back at

least 10.000 years, to when the first settlers wandered to the continent and became what is today known as Native Americans.

• Columbus came in 1492.

• As much as 90% of the North American Indians died as trade transformed, and culture and diseases took its toll.

• Europeans fought both Native Americans and amongst themselves for control of the land.

COLONIAL AMERICA; 1508 – 1763:

• The first explorations of America took place in 1513 when a group of men under a man named Juan de Leòn came to St. Augustine near the Florida coast.

• The first British colony in America was established in 1585 on Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina, but after losing this colony and failing a new attempt a couple of years later, it took the British 20 years before they tried again, and in 1607 they claimed Jamestown in Virginia.

• The early 1600’s saw the beginning of a great tide of emigration from Europe to North America. Spanning more than three centuries, this movement grew from a trickle of a few hundred English colonists to a flood of millions of newcomers.

COLONIAL AMERICA, continued:

• After 1680, England ceased to be the chief source of immigration. Thousands of refugees fled continental Europe to escape the path of war.

• By 1690 the American population had risen to a quarter of a million. From then on, it doubled every 25 years until, in 1775, it numbered more than 2.5 million.

• In 1619, a Dutch ship sold Africans into servitude, which was the start of an international slave trade that the British, Spanish, French and Dutch empires grew rich on. As the trade developed, and the demand for workers grew, plantation owners embraced slavery.

• By the American Revolution in 1776, one of every five Americans was a slave.

THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION AND REVOLUTION; 1763 – 1793:

• While the colonies grew, Britain struggled with France and Spain for supremacy. In the Great War for Empire (between 54-63), Britain gained Canada, Florida, and all French possessions east of the Mississippi River.

• In 1763 Britain leaders began to tighten their reign of the colonies, and the once harmonious relations between Britain and the colonies became increasingly conflict-riven.

• This ultimately led to questions about revolution and independence, and in 1776 Thomas Jefferson started writing the Declaration of Independence.

THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION AND REVOLUTION; continuation:

• This War of Independence lasted until 1783, when America – under the leadership of General George Washington – became the first European colony to separate from its mother country.

• In 1789, when the Constitution was approved, the new government met in the capital of New York City. At this meeting, George Washington was elected the first President of America.

EXPANSION AND REFORM; 1793 – 1860:

• During his reign, Washington had to deal with the French trying to entangle America in its war with England, with armed rebellion in western Pennsylvania, with Indian conflicts, and the threat of war with Britain.

• Washington retired gracefully in 1796 after having suppressed the rebellion, defeated the Indian confederacy in Ohio, and negotiated successfully with Britain.

EXPANSION AND REFORM, continuation:

• The technology of the cotton gin had increased production from 1.5 million pounds in 1790 to 36.5 million pounds by 1800, and thus also increased the demand for slaves.

• The country became split between the free labor system in the North and a slave system in the South.

EXPANSION AND REFORM, continuation:

• During Jefferson’s presidency (1801-1809), the Supreme Court became a vigorous and equal third branch of government, and in 1803 Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon – which doubled the country’s size.

• Whites coveted western lands, and as wagon trains rolled out of eastern cities, the Native Americans were killed or confined to reservations.

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR; 1861 - 1865:

• 1860: The election of Abraham Lincoln, who was against slavery, led to seven states in the lower South to secede from the Union and to establish the Confederate States of America.

• In 1862 – after futile pleas to the south states to free slaves voluntarily – Lincoln decided that liberation was a military and political necessity.

• The Emancipation Proclamation transformed the war from a conflict to save the Union to a war to abolish slavery.

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR; 1861 - 1865:

• During the war, Congress adopted policies that altered American society:

• The Homestead Act offered free public land to western settlers.

• Huge land grants supported construction of a transcontinental railroad.

• The government raised the tariff, imposed new taxes, enacted the first income tax, and established a system of federally-chartered banks.

• In 1865, a 13th Amendment ended slavery in the United States.

THE PROGRESIVE ERA/ THE GILDED AGE; around 1870 – 1900:

• The era from the 1870s to the turn of the 20th century, is often called the Gilded Ages because it looked gilded on the surface, but underneath there existed massive inequality, including a lot of corruption in the politics, like kickbacks and voter frauds.

• The Gilded Age overlapped with what is often called the Progressive Era, when the American people felt that things should be improved and progress made, and people were trying to solve some of the social problems that came with the benefits of industrial capitalism.

THE PROGRESIVE ERA/ THE GILDED AGE; continuation:

• To oversimplify;

• there was a competition between the corporations' desire to keep wages low and workers' desire to have a decent life.

• But the constant arrival of new workers kept the wages low, and as laborers competed, stereotypes of different ethnic groups flourished.

• Newly-arrived immigrants sought out others of their own national origin, and gathered together in groups.

THE PROGRESIVE ERA/ THE GILDED AGE; continuation:

• By the 1900, the US was the , the US was the richest country in the world.

• The immigrants that flocked to the US from all over the world drove the growth of cities and manned the rapid industrialization that took place

• It produced more than one third of the world’s coal, iron and steel, and its navy ranked third behind Britain and Germany.

Sources:

«Contemporary America» by Russell Duncan & Joseph Goddard

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=7&smtid=1

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-2005/westward-expansion-and-regional-differences/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States