The European beginnings of American history : an introduction to the history of the United States

Front matter

Q o4- . Ww. LT i: a aed nis

SIENA We19aq UYyOol 11g Aq Sunutred ay} 191yy

HOMTIVaA 40 GOOHAOd AHL

Contents

DEBT TO ENGLAND

Immigrants

How the United States still secceies ueeind :

SECTION 1. IMMIGRANTS fPUBLIYV] : > af

Less than four hundred years ago the vast country which is now called the United States was a wilderness of forests and prairies, of mountains, deserts, and plains. There were no cities or towns or farms; no highways or even country roads. Where these now are, were stretches of pathless woods and prairies. No white men at all lived in this wilderness. Our great land, that extends nearly three thousand miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and is to-day swarming with millions of English-speaking people, was then inhabited only by Indians. And there were but a few hundred thousands of these, — not so many altogether as the people in one of our larger cities, such as Boston or St. Louis.

In 1607 a party of Englishmen set sail for this vast and lonely wilderness, and, landing on the shores of what is now Virginia, began a little settlement there. They were almost the first immigrants to come to our country, and their colony, to which they gave the name of Jamestown in honor of the English king, James I, I was the first permanent English settlement on American soil. If it had. not been for the courage and endurance of these English colonists it would probably have been the last, for the hardships, privations, and discouragements of the first year in the new country were terrible.

Almost every year, however, saw more Englishmen coming over to America. Little towns grew up, and farms and plantations were tilled and planted where forests had been. But the colonists had to send back to the mother country for their furniture, clocks, watches, dishes, tea, sugar, hats, shoes, and materials for clothes, — for almost all their conveniences and comforts, in fact. They tried to live as far as possible in the way they had lived in England, and they regarded themselves as subjects of the English king just as if they had stayed at home.

For one hundred and fifty years these English settlements grew and prospered on American soil. With the exception of a few Dutch in New York, some Swedes in Delaware, and the Spaniards in Florida, the whole eastern border of the country was English.

As the settlements increased in size and prosperity they began to grow restless under English rule, and to feel that the home government was unjust and severe and finally no longer to be endured. It was this feeling that brought about the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Revolutionary War. At the end of the war the colonies found themselves a free people, subject no longer to England. Then began the history of the republic of the United States, a history that is not yet a hundred and fifty years old.

After the establishing of the republic immigrants still continued to come to America from many countries of Europe, — from Ireland, Germany, Italy, — from every country whose citizens desired greater freedom or better chances of earning a living. But in spite of these newcomers the English language, English

OUR DEBT TO ENGLAND ie law, and English ways of living continued to prevail. And still to-day immigrants come across the ocean in ever-increasing numbers, from Italy and Russia, from. Germany, Austria, Sweden, and many other countries, and land in New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia. But no matter from what country they come, —whether they are German, or Italian, or Russian, — if they

RANI heate iN

AANA aN ~\ f,

SX aN \ An GA SG il wish to live in the United States and become citizens of our republic, they must all learn to speak Zuglish and must obey the laws that the English people helped to establish in America when they first settled here.

Let us stop for a moment to picture the arrival of the earliest immigrants from England and compare it with that of the immigrant of to-day. It was in 1607, as we said, that the little band of

Englishmen sailed up the James River in search of a home. How small the three little ships were that brought them, — none of them larger than a good-sized fishing.smack ! And the men that came in them, how few they were, compared with the swarms of immigrants that are now every day crowding to our shores! On these three little ships there were in all only one hundred and fifty persons. And when they landed on the spot where Jamestown now is, there was nothing to be seen about them but woods and water stretching away on every side. They had to provide their own shelter on these lonely shores, first clearing the thick forest to make a place for their homes, and at the same time defending themselves from the Indian arrows that constantly threatened their lives, and from the wild animals that lived all about them. Often they were reduced to eating the nuts and berries they found to keep from starving.

Let us now turn to the immigrants ‘of to-day and see how differently they are received into our country. The greater number of them come to New York, so we will visit the harbor there to watch their arrival.

The enormous size of the ships and the great crowds that pour out of them are the first things that mark the vast difference between the early days and the present time. The vessels that bring immigrants now are huge steamships, as long as two or three ordinary city blocks. They hold as many people as several great hotels, and instead of coming over once in six months or a year, as the sailing vessels did three hundred years ago, they arrive almost every day. As for the immigrants that one may see swarming down the gangplanks of the ship, loaded with trunks and boxes and bundles, they number sometimes five or six thousand in a day.

This great crowd of newcomers to our shores are not left free to go ashore with the other passengers, but are transported in boats to

NOMUVE, AHL WOU ‘O16I NI ALIQ MYOA MAN

TeuunyY “MA “y Aq ‘6061 4YysAdoy

Ellis Island, in New York harbor, where they have to undergo a careful inspection, in buildings that have been provided for this purpose.

The doctors and inspectors who examine them must determine whether they are free from disease and able to support themselves, so that only those may be admitted who are likely to be a help, not a hindrance, to our country. There seems to be an endless stream of them as they pass up the wide stairs of the buildings on their way to inspection, every man taking off his cap, according to order, to salute the American flag that hangs above his head. After the examination most of them are allowed to leave the island, and are helped to make their way to whatever place they may have chosen for their destination. Those who do not pass the inspection are sent back to their own country.

SECTION 2. How THE UNITED STATES STILL RESEMBLES ENGLAND

Let us suppose that among all these new arrivals there were a Frenchman, an Italian, an Englishman, a Russian, and a German. Which one of all these would feel most at home among us and see fewest things that would seem queer and unusual to him? It would certainly be the Englishman.

In the first place, as soon as he stepped ashore he would understand the language, and could read all the signs, newspapers, and magazines. Then the names of many places would seem familiar to him and would remind him of England, such as New York, New England, New Hampshire, New Jersey, as well as Boston, Worcester, Greenwich, New London, Cambridge, and many other towns which are named after English ones.

The language and the names would not be the only things that would be familiar. He would find that the laws that he had to

OUR DEBT TO ENGLAND 7 obey were in many ways the same as those of England. If he robbed a house he would be tried in the same way that he would have been if he had committed the crime in his own country.

Moreover, when the Englishman came to settle down here, he would find the way we Americans live, and the things we eat and wear, and the sort of amusements and sports we enjoy, very like what he was used to in his home in England. On the other hand, immigrants from other countries would find things different from what they were used to, and would for a while try to live as far as possible in the same way in which they had lived in Italy or Russia or Germany. Little by little, however, as they became American citizens and grew used to the ways of the Americans about them, they would give up the customs they had brought over from their own countries, and change more and more to the English-American manner of living, while their children could scarcely be distinguished from the people about them.

Lastly, wherever the Englishman went, in town or country, he would find that the works of the great English writers, living and dead, were read and treasured here in the United States just as they are in England. And with the best of reasons, for do they not, most of them, belong to us, just as they do to the: English ? Shakespeare is ours, and Chaucer and Milton, for our forefathers were English people when these poets were writing their immortal plays and poems. Those English authors, too, who have lived and written since the time when our country became indepep of England give us as much pleasure as our own Ay writers. When we read “Alice in Wonderland,” or Brown at Rugby,” or the “ Jungle Book,” we do not stop to t whether it was written by an Englishman or an American. The books of each country belong to both, and they give us a pleasure that we cannot get from the writers of any other country.

GTO

It is no wonder, then, since our native land is still English in the many ways that we have seen, and since it was English so long a time before it became the United States, that we sometimes call England the “ mother country,” and rightly feel that, of all the countries across the sea, we have a very special kinship with that one.

Section 3. England

Perhaps the first thing to be realized about this little island from which our country sprang, is how little it really is. If we compare England with one of our own states, we shall find it to be about the size of Illinois; and the whole United States, of which it is the parent, is almost seventy-five times as large as it 1s, —a small country, indeed, to be the mother of so large a republic.

West of England lies the mountainous little country of Wales, which was conquered by the English kings some six hundred years ago. To the north are the picturesque mountains, moors, and lakes of Scotland. England, Wales, and Scotland together form the island called Great Britain. Separated from [England by a strip of sea is Ireland, — “ Erin’s green isle.” These two large islands, with many smaller ones along the coast, are known as the British Isles, or the United Kingdom.

The climate of England is a pleasant one, mild in winter and not too warm in the summer time. They have many more rainy days there than we have, and less sunshine than we are used to, but it is the frequent mists and rains that make the island so fresh and green. It is a very attractive country, and although it is not large, it has a great variety of lovely scenery whose beauty is enhanced by picturesque villages and ivy-covered stone churches, by stately manor houses, fine old battlemented castles, and the spires and towers of splendid cathedrals.

-

.

" ow - ~ 1 ao < 2a oe al - ‘. 1 A ‘ - i, y Foal s » > Ba. a* ~ i“ s@ ag «

{ic poeH pLyouury ,

8¢ s 8g

08 09 OF 03 0 SATIN 40 H1TVOS

SH’'ISI] HSILIYVA AHL

4) SGNvV‘ISI 09 f Q CNY LIV

$seq opng (su0T 0

SGNV'ISI oO

SI ATIIDS

0g LHDIM bis! y, sa ge dO HSI, so Sie! gg Y10}0x4 - $i ; V amen as NOA \ “coy SOP a 3 cath a 09 stom gq a oe * Nar Ye, Ne o9sl1g gz teas

: iawos y unbipLny rngsMoryse LE A it dOUHS ay Lo be Ae a.

¥ / \ * a ‘ Riis ATU AUT HS Ces Wien : Bk / ‘ : “oe see a S \ i UL x %, bon gore? a

*CSFUSI Nvayy

NVHONTID s s x.

STTHOY

OLE ~The sd v4sI ? A Men. | AHSTV HM 77 ary 4 \7 ~? GNVILAHS of) ‘ 0 rd y 9 8 ol

OUR DEBT TO ENGLAND 9

The first sight that meets the traveler’s view as he approaches England from the south is the line of high white chalk cliffs that rise far above the sea and gleam for many miles against the blue waters of the Channel. It is said that it was because of the whiteness of these cliffs that England in ancient times was given the name of Albion, a name supposed to come from the Latin

TORN PUBLIC < word albus, meaning ‘‘ white.” Writers often use it, thinkin more poetic than the word “ England,” as when Shakespeare speaks of “ great Albion’s queen,” and the ‘‘ nook-shotten isle of Albion.” Poets are constantly alluding in one way or another to this white wall that England turns to the ocean south of her.

After the traveler lands on the island and leaves the chalk cliffs behind him, he comes to the soft rolling hills, called downs, that are peculiar to southern England. They are low hills covered with grass,

WELLS CATHEDRAL, ENGLAND

1O BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN HISTORY and are very lovely when cloud shadows pass over their slopes. The region of the downs extends over all the southeastern part of England, — almost two thirds of the whole country. The rest is made up of a central plain, and a mountainous region beyond, that stretches from the plain on up to the northern borders of the country. |

ENGLISH VILLAGE STREET

In this plain the traveler will find much to charm and delight him. There are quaint villages with thatched cottages and little gardens gay with geraniums and roses; ancient castles with gray towers rising above the tops of thick green trees; and beautiful old country houses set in wide parks full of oak and beech trees. On every hand he will see trees and fields and hedges, and gentle rivers flowing between the greenest of meadows and shaded by masses of green leaves. If it were not for the mining districts and

OUR DEBT TO ENGLAND II the smoky manufacturing cities that have grown up in recent times, the central part of England would be the softest and most smiling country in the world. .

But it is a pleasure to pass from this plain, green and luxuriant as it is, with its fields and hedgerows, and find one’s self in the cool, clear, mountain district to the north. There the peaks, mist-covered, the mountain torrents that fall from their heights, and the shining lakes that lie in the hollows between, all give the traveler great delight. And if he has the good fortune to be in this country in the month of August, he will have still further delight in seeing the hills covered with purple heather and yellow gorse in full flower. These are some of the many beauties of England that make it seem not too high praise to call her a “precious stone set in the silver sea.”

Questions. 1. What do you know about the American Indians? 2. What is the difference between an immigrant and an emigrant? 8. What did you know about England before you read this chapter? 4. What more can you find out about England from the map opposite page 8?

CHAT Thea

How the earliest peoples of whom we have any traces seem to have lived. The

Ice Age. The Stone Age. The use of bronze. Iron. How we learn about these

earliest peoples. Pytheas. The manners, customs, and beliefs of the Britons. Invasion of Britain by Julius Czesar

SrecTion 4. THE MEN OF THE STONE AGE

This island of England, so much of whose history is really ours, lies so close to Europe that it seems to bea part of it. Where the water is narrowest one can see across from France to England. Many thousands of years ago, as geologists tell us, England was actually attached to the Continent by a strip of land. Later this land sank gradually until the sea flowed in and covered it, forming the English Channel. We have good reason to believe that before the two countries were divided the same kind of savage men dwelt in both. They were, in all probability, far more ignorant and more like brutes than the very lowest savages to be found anywhere to-day. Most of the scientific men who have carefully studied the matter believe nowadays that, if we could go back hundreds of thousands of years, we should find that human beings were then living very much like animals, although the earliest men of whom any traces remain could use sticks to kill game and to defend themselves, instead of having to rely on teeth and claws, and could make a fire to warm themselves and cook their food. They also used bits of flint to cut sticks and poles, to carve their meat, and to scrape the skins which they used for garments or for covering their huts.

ENGLAND BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST i

At first men were satisfied to use for tools the convenient flint splinters which they picked up, but in due time they learned to take a lump of flint and knock off chips with another stone until they formed a kind of hatchet, usually about as big as a man’s hand. This they could hold conveniently, and use for chopping, cutting, scraping, and even sawing, for it had a rough edge.

These “ fist hatchets”’ are found not only in the south of England, but all over southern Europe, and in Egypt, India, Japan, and North America. So the men who used the fist hatchets must have been scattered over the whole earth. We do not know what other implements they had, for all traces of their huts, clothing, and wooden utensils have disappeared long, long ago, and only their durable stone hatchets remain to tell the tale.

Bones of several kinds of elephants, the rhinoceros, and the hyena are found along with the stone hatchets in England, so it is supposed that the climate of the country was warmer then than it now is, — more like that of Florida to-day. But later it became very cold, — so cold that a great sheet of ice, or glacier, extended down from the mountains of Norway and covered all England except the southern part of the island. Our own country also was covered with ice at this period down as far as New York, and the stones which the glacier carried along with it and piled up on its southern edge made the ridge which stretches along the middle of Long Island. The same ridge can be seen farther inland.

How man managed to live during the Ice Age we do not know. Many of the big animals that needed a warm climate died out, and the reindeer, the bison, and the huge hairy mammoth took their places. It was undoubtedly man’s ability to make tools and provide himself with shelter and clothing, as well as food, that saved him from extinction. He learned gradually to make arrowheads and spearheads of flint, and bone needles with which to sew together skins for his clothing. He also began to paint and carve pictures on the walls of caves. Some of these have been discovered during the past few years in France, and show surprising skill.

After the ice melted, life became easier and man made still further progress. He learned how to weave, how to make pottery, and how to cultivate grain. He tamed horses and kept cattle.

But even yet he knew nothing at all about metals and still made all his tools of stone, bone, or wood.

For this reason the long period which followed the Ice Age is often called the Stone Age. -It was at this stage of progress, it is supposed, that the vast circle of stones, called Stonehenge, near Salisbury, was constructed. These stones are so huge that it would not be easy, even with a modern derrick, to set them up where they are. How the men of the Stone Age managed to do it no one knows, or why they made the circle. They may have had some religious reason for it.

Two or three hundred thousand years may have passed between the time that mankind first learned to make fist hatchets of flint, and their discovery that copper could be used for tools. Copper is

DRAWINGS FOUND ON THE WALLS OF CAVES

- » , n > G "

Nor

EUROPE at the PRESENT TIME

0 100 200 300 400 500

Scale of Miles,

' MarN. ENG,, BUFFALO,

Longitude West from Greenwich 0 Longitude East from Greenwich 10

| 60

| EUROPE

/ at the PRESENT TIME thw Lofo,

Ts} den ands ne tt) 100 200 = 300 400 500 oe Cl EERE | Scale of Miles, 50 a < oO 7 ~~ plank, Yo S me - soe oy € 2 of) Sten Ly a < ENG be fo oust O ss <P DL BIO oO > 2 <f , | / 0 Va i 9) vier, rf i B; dapest iG 40 ; 40 | a re | | - : } ta o> (rs odgita x ml t teal Bay 2 Or Briain Oe ee, | i | . Se ae suttinsl ' A ° = _ 0 Cyprus J ye 41,060 ane Miles, j = i Rewokte (Te Gr. Britain) == = o Longitude West from Greenwich 0 Longitude East from Greenwich 10 “ nz 30 ( Sapers as 50 , sj 4h as —

‘ ‘ ’ . jl a ° \ Ps b j 4 od : a - git nf 3 Dam ¥ a ! aad a ' se 2 Pal 7 = oe oa, SIR 4 , > ' 4 is tae c Te or > = :. on ‘ : A ne eit Vs ' Ce b a 2

Pes ok ey. ee ye 4 an easy metal to melt, and when mixed with a little tin it becomes hard enough to make a very good hatchet or knife. This mixture is called bronze, and it seems to have been first discovered some five or six thousand years ago. Another thousand years or so passed before any one began to use iron. This has proved the best metal for tools and machinery, for steel is, of course, only hardened iron. Man’s discovery that he could use iron is one of the most important that he ever made.

Sorat a SMR,

STONEHENGE ON SALISBURY PLAIN, ENGLAND

PUBLIC < TER +

All that we know about the people who lived in these dim agés of the past has been learned from the pieces of flint, the jugs and vases, the beads and shells, that are found to-day in the earth, where it has been turned up in digging or plowing, or has been washed away by streams, leaving the relics exposed. Such remains are found, too, in caves and in the big mounds in which the dead were sometimes buried. These remains may be seen in the great collections of them which have been brought together in the museums of London, Paris, New York, and many other places. There were no books written by these earliest peoples. Indeed, no one then could read or write, and the alphabet had not even been thought of.

SecTION 5. THE ANCIENT BRITONS

By the time, however, that the men living in England had learned how to make use of iron, there were in Europe two countries, Greece and Rome, which had already advanced so far in civilization that in some ways they knew as much as we do to-day. It is in their books that we find the first mention of the people who inhabited England at this time.

The first traveler we know of to visit the Britons, as the people of England then called themselves, and to write down what he saw in their country, was a Greek scientist named Pytheas, a brave and venturesome man, who sailed about 300 B.c. from his home in southern Europe, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and around Spain. He had to find his way as best he could, for it is likely that no one on his ship had ever been in those waters before.

Pytheas wrote an account of his journey, and, though his book has been lost during the two thousand years and more since he lived, some quotations from it have been preserved in the writings of later Greeks and Romans. From these bits we judge that the Britons in Pytheas’s time must have known something of farming, and that they had the same moist and cloudy climate that England still has, for he says that when the Britons harvested they collected the sheaves into big huts and threshed out the grain there, because they had so little sunshine that an open threshing floor, such as he had been used to, would be of little use in a land of clouds and rain, like theirs.

Another Greek traveler, who lived about two hundred years after Pytheas, wrote an account of the people in the southwestern part of the island, where there were tin mines. According to this writer, the Britons in this region were hospitable and friendly. They were frequently visited by merchants from other countries, for whose cargoes they traded off their tin. They were clever at weaving cloth, and could even weave plaid designs in it, dyeing it mostly, the writer says, ‘a pretty crimson, such color as an ee enced person has no cause to blame nor the word to cry out upon.”

They were greatly given to feasting. At their banquets they sat on rushes or the skins of wild beasts, around a pot on the fireplace, or in a circle on the grass in front of little tables on which were

IETS SN =—S SDSS 3 SSS

EARLY BRITISH POTTERY

Lipman baskets full of bread. Great quantities of meat were s : which they gnawed from the bone like dogs. Fruit and vegetables they do not seem to have known. They had a minstrel to sing to them while they ate, but his music was not always soothing, it seems, for a quarrel was a never-failing accompaniment of the feast, and some guest was pretty sure to stab another to death before the company broke up.

The Britons thought that there were many gods and goddesses to whom they ought to offer sacrifices. They were superstitious, too, and believed in all kinds of signs and omens, and in fairies, sprites, and hobgoblins. One curious belief was that there were fairies in certain wells and springs, who would grant them their wishes in return for gifts dropped into the water or hung on bushes. Every sort of offering was made to these spirits, — sometimes a piece of money, sometimes an egg, or a piece of cloth, or a crooked pin. Even to-day this old, old custom is followed in some remote parts of England and Ireland, where the young people still believe in ‘‘ wishing wells,’’ and still hang rags on the bushes or drop crooked pins in the water to please the spirits of the spring.

The priests who performed the religious ceremonies of the Britons were a powerful body of men called Druids. They made sacrifices to their gods, sometimes of human beings, whom they burned to death in wicker cages. They acted also as teachers of the young men, and settled disputes which arose among the people. The great oak trees, with mistletoe hanging from their branches, which we still see in parts of England, were held sacred to the Druids because it was under them that they performed their ceremonies. The mistletoe itself was accounted a very precious plant, potent in healing wounds and curing diseases. There was great rejoicing when its clusters of white berries and gray-green leaves were discovered growing upon an oak tree. A Druid, clothed in a flowing white robe, ascended the tree and cut off the plant with a golden sickle, while the onlookers stood around and gazed with awe upon the ceremony. :

The Britons were scattered over the island in tribes, each governed by its own chieftain, who acted also as its commander in case of war with other tribes. Wars were very frequent, especially in the more thickly settled southern regions, and different tribes were constantly engaged in fierce conflicts with one another.

SEcTION 6. How THE ROMANS CAME TO BRITAIN

In the summer of 55 B.c. word came to the Britons from Gaul, the country that is now called France, that the great Roman general, Julius Caesar, who had been for many months engaged in conquering the Gauls, was getting ready a fleet of ships to take him and his soldiers over to Britain. He had. heard that the Britons were sending aid to the Gauls in the war he was waging with them, and he wished to put an end to it. He desired also to learn what manner of men they might be, and what their island was like.