History of the American people

Front matter

Abraham Lincoln.

(The statue at Lincoln, Nebraska, unveiled September 2, 1912. Repro¬ duced with the courteous permission of the sculptor, Daniel 0. French.)

. . .that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the peo¬ ple, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.— Gettysburg Address.

Foreword

This book is for high-school use. It is based in a measure upon my American Histoi'y and Government , but it is a new work, not a revision. The story is simpler, and, I hope, more graphic. Much less space is given to political features, and much more to the industrial and social life of the people. And the Great War compels a new perspective for all recent history.

Four features are emphasized more than is common in books of this class : (1) the historical grounds for friendship between America and England, in spite of old sins and misunderstand¬ ings ; (2) the meaning of the West in American history ; (3) the heroic labor movement of 1825-1840, usually ignored ; and (4) the long conflict between intrenched “ privilege ” and the “ progressive ” forces in State and Nation.

I have tried also to correct the common delusion which looks back for a golden age — to Jefferson or John Winthrop — and to show instead that the democracy of to-day, imperfect as. it is, is more complete than that of our earlier periods. Throughout I have not hesitated to portray the weaknesses, blunders, and sins of democracy. My own faith is strong that the cure for those ills is to be found in more democracy. I should care little to write upon American history did I not believe that a fair presentation must strengthen that faith in generous-minded youth.

The volume closes with a war chapter, which necessarily is exceedingly imperfect. Mighty changes impend, and war clouds obscure them. But among those facts that stay our hope for America there towers one shining truth. The call to arms of last April met its most prompt and splendid response

VI

FOREWORD from the students and recent graduates of our high schools. These schools have been much criticized, perhaps with some reason, for failing to lit for business or for industrial life ; but they have now justified themselves gloriously. Even more than any admirer had claimed, they have proved that they have given to American youth a true sense of world values, a fine, robust idealism, and a nobly quiet readiness to live or die for those ideals, — to do their bit for world-righteousness. To the youth so trained in those schools, and now embattled in the mighty conflict “ to save democracy,” I humbly dedicate this book.

Willis Mason West.

Windago Farm,

January, 1918.

The present reprint of this book contains changes and additions bringing it down to date.

w. m. w.

Contents

PAGE

List of Maps and Plans ........ xi

List of Illustrations ......... xiii

Part I. The English IX America, To 1660 Chapter

I. What the English Pound ...... 1

II. England's Rivals ....... 7

HI. Motives of Early English Colonization . . 15

IV. Early Virginia, to 1624 . 23

Y. Virginia Saves Her Assembly . 38

YI. Maryland : A Proprietary Province ... 44

VII. The Beginnings of New England . . . .50

VIII. The Plymouth Pilgrims ...... 53

IX. The Pounding of Massachusetts Bay Colony . 66

X. Massachusetts Bay : Aristocracy vs. Democracy 78

XT. Development of Political Machinery ... 87

XII. Local Government in New England . . .93

XIII. The Massachusetts Ideal : Aristocratic Theocracy 96

XIV. Other New England Colonies ..... 103

XV. The New England Confederation .... Ill

Part II. Colonial Americans, 1660-1763

XVI. The Struggle to Save Self-Government, 1660-1690 114

XVII. “Colonial Americans,” 1690-1763 .... 142

XVHI. Colonial Life ........ 156

Part III. Separation Prom England

XIX. How the Prench Wars Prepared for the Revo¬ lution ......... 178

XX. Underlying Causes of the Revolution . . . 185

vii

Vlll

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XXI. Ten Years of Agitation . 196

XXII. From Colonies to Commonwealths .... 211

XXIII. The New State Constitutions . 223

(The trend toward Democracy)

XXIV. Congress ani> the War ...... 230

PART1 IV. THE MAKING OF THE SECOND WEST

XXV. Birth in the Revolution ...... 244

XXVI. The Southwest : Self-developed .... 246

XXVII. The Northwest : A National Domain . . . 257

Part V. Making The Constitution

XXVIII. The “League of Friendship” ..... 271

XXIX. The Federal Convention ...... 283

XXX. The Constitution ....... 293

XXXI. Ratification . 306

Part VI. Federalist Organization, 1789-1801

XXXII. Growth of the Constitution . 313

XXXIII. Hamilton’s Finance ....... 322

XXXIV. North and South ....... 327

XXXV. Rise of Political Parties ...... 330

XXXVI. Foreign Relations ....... 335

XXXVII. Domestic Troubles. 1797-1800 ..... 343

XXXVIII. Expiring Federalism . 348

XLVII. The America of 1830-1850 442

XLVIII. The Awakening of Labor . 447

XLIX. Intellectual and Social Progress .... 466

L. The “Revolution” of 1828 476

LI. The Jackson Period, 1829-1841 .... 485

Part X. Slavery

LII. Slavery to 1844 . 504

LIII. Slavery and Expansion : War with Mexico . . 515

LIV. Struggle to Control the New Territory . . 520

LV. Breakdown of Compromise ..... 527

LVI. On the Eve of the Final Struggle . . . 541

Part XI. Nationalism Victorious, 1860-1876

LVII. The Call to Arms . 551

LVIII. The Civil War . 558

LIX. Reconstruction . 581

LX. The Close of an Era . 593

Part XII. A Business Age, 1876-1918

LXI. National Growth . 603

LXII. Civil Service and the Tariff . 612

LXIII. Greenbacks and Free Silver . 624

LXIV. America a World Power : War with Spain . . 631

LXV. The People vs. Privilege . 646

LXVI. Forward Movements . . . . . 667

LXVII. The War for Democracy . 703

X

CONTENTS

Appendix

PAGE

I. The Constitution, with Notes . I

II. A Select List of Books for High Schools. ... 19

MAPS AND PLANS

NUMBER

1. Lines of equal temperature for the Northern Hemisphere .

2. Indian portages and French posts in the seventeenth century.

Full page. Colored . facing

3. Sixteenth-century English map of the New World

5. The possible Virginias of 1609 .

6. Settlement in Virginia in 1624 .

7. Virginia and New England in 1620 .

8. New England in 1640 .

9. English America, 1660-1690. Full page. Colored . facing

10. The watercourse “ fall line ” .

11. European possessions in America at different dates. Full page.

Colored . . - facing

12. Colonial governments — charter, proprietary, and royal — at

two periods. Full page. Colored . . . facing

13. Boundaries for the United States proposed by France in 1782.

Full page. Colored . facing

14. The United States in 1783, nominal and actual. Full page.

Colored . facing

15. Western settlement, 1769-1784 .

16. The United States in 1783 : state cessions. Full page. Col¬

ored ......... facing

17. Proposed States in the Ordinance of 1784 .

18. United States Survey — base lines and meridians

19. Township and section subdivided .

20. Frontier lines of 1774, 1790, and 1820. Full page. Colored.

facing

21. Physical outline of the United States .

22. Movement of centers of population and of manufacturing .

23. The United States in 1800. Full page. Colored . facing

24. North America in 1800. Full page. Colored . . facing

25. “ West Florida ” : three maps .......

26. Explorations of Lewis and Clark. Full page. Colored facing xi

PAGES

242 246

359 385 390 390 412 xii MAPS AND PLANS

NUMBER PAGE

28. The National Road . 414

29. Distribution of population in 1820 418

30. House vote on the tariff of 1816 . 432

31. House vote on the tariff of 1828 . ,. 433

32. Presidential election of 1824 : electoral vote .... 438

33. Presidential election of 1825 in the House of Representatives . 439

34. Distribution of industrial plants in 1833 . 451

35. Presidential election of 1828 . 486

36. Territorial growth, 1800-1853. Pull page. Colored . facing 519

37. Vote on the Kansas-Nebraska bill ..... 531

38. Presidential election of 1856 ....... 534

39. Railway extension, 1830-1860. Full page. Colored facing 540

40. Wheat areas in 1860 543

41. Distribution of population in 1860 545

42. Presidential election of 1860. Double page. Colored after 550

43. Union and Confederacy in 1862 . 558

44. Scene of the Civil War . . . . 559

45. Union and Confederacy after Gettysburg ..... 564

46. Emancipation . . . 573

47. Railway land grants, 1850-1871 . 595

48. Presidential election of 1876. Double page. Colored after 596

49. Increase in population from 1910 to 1920 ..... 602

50. The United States of 1918. Double page. Colored . after 604

51. Railway extension, 1870-1880. Full page. Colored facing 607

52. Presidential election of 1916 . 719

ILLUSTRATIONS

NUMBER

1. Lincoln (from the statue by Daniel C. French at Lincoln,

Nebraska) . Frontispiece ft.

26. 27.

l'AGK

An Algonkin village. From Beverly's History of Virginia

Columbus at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella

De Soto discovering the Mississippi ......

La Salle taking possession of the Mississippi valley for France

Champlain’s fight with the Iroquois . .

Sir Walter Raleigh at thirty-four .

Title page of Hakluyt’s Voyages .

Queen Elizabeth knighting Drake .

Jamestown in 1622 .

Captain John Smith .... ....

Proclamation of the “ Virginia Lottery ” of 1615

Sir Edwin Sandys .........

Facsimile of first page of King James’ Counterblaste to

Tobacco .

Charles I .

George Calvert .

Facsimile of Baltimore's “ Instructions ” regarding Protestants

Plymouth Pilgrims going to meeting .

The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor .

The Mayflower Compact : a facsimile from Bradford's Plimouth Plantation .......

Edward Winslow at the age of six .

Edward Winslow at fifty-seven .

John Winthrop . . .

A kettle said to be the first iron casting made in America Facsimile of the grant of part of New England to Robert Gorges

The Cradock House (1636) at Medford .

John Cotton .

Standish House at Duxbury .

Facsimile from the “ Body of Liberties ” .

“ Marks ” of Indian chieftains on a “ covenant ” with Massa¬ chusetts .

xiii

8 9

76 78 80 85

XIV

ILLUSTRATIONS

NUMBER PACE

31. Statue of Roger Williams at Providence . 99

32. Sir Harry Vane . 101

33. An old grist mill (1045) in Connecticut ..... 106

34. Signatures of tlie Commissioners of the New England Confed¬

eration in 1653 112

35. An English schooner of colonial times ..... 117

36. A Pine-tree shilling . 120

37. Boston’s summons to Andros . . . . . . 125

38. Sir William Berkeley . 128

39. Ruins of the Jamestown church . 130

40. The Half Moon of Henry Hudson ...... 135

41. William Penn at twenty-two ....... 136

42. Penn’s treaty with the Indians . 138

43. Colonial fireplace and utensils . 148

44. Facsimile of a petjtion of Simon Bradstreet’s heirs for “back

45. Lexington Green . 155

46. The “ Witch House ” in Salem ...... 161

47. Franklin’s printing press ........ 164

48. Facsimile from the New England Primer . 165

49. Facsimile of “Now I lay me down to sleep” from the New

England Primer . 166

50. Advertisement for a runaway White servant in 1755 . . 169

51. A colonial footstove . . . . . . . . .172

62. Massachusetts paper money of 1690 . 173

53. Mount Vernon . 174

54. The “ Old-Ship ” Meeting House at Hingham .... 175

55. Fort Steuben . 176

56. A colonial cartoon : reception of a bishop in New England . 186

57. Handbill of the New York Sons of Liberty — “We Dare ” . 198

58. Facsimile of the Pennsylvania Journal announcing its discon¬

tinuance on account of the Stamp Act . . . .199

59. Paul Revere’s engraving of the landing of British troops . . 203

60. Carpenters’ Hall, Philadelphia ....... 209

61. The Concord Minute Man . 212

62. The Washington Elm at Cambridge . . . . . 213

63. The Concord Fight . 216

64. Facsimile of the opening of Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration

of Independence ........ 220

65. The “ Bunker Hill ” Flag . 225

66. The first “Flag of the United Colonies” . 226

ILLUSTRATIONS xv

NUMBER PAGE

67. The Old North Church at Boston . 227

68. Continental currency . 233

69. Old schoolhouse at Valley Forge . 234

70. Colonel Tarleton ......... 238

71. Surrender of Cornwallis ........ 239

72. Crossed swords : England and America . 242

73. Boonesboro in winter . . . 248

74. A “Boone Tree ” . 249

75. Daniel Boone . 252

76. A Mississippi flatboat . 255

77. An Ohio mill of 1790 . 256

78. Manasseh Cutler . 262:

79. Benjamin Franklin . . 289*

80. George Mason . . 298-

81. “Eighth Federal Pillar raised” : the ratification of the Con¬

stitution . 309'

82. George Washington . . 314

84. Alexander Hamilton ......... 353

85. An early cotton gin . 360

87. Harvard College about 1770 365

88. A colonial spinning wheel from Daniel Webster’s home . . 367

89. California redwoods ......... 368

90. A Conestoga wagon . 382

92. Fulton’s Clermont . . . . 384

93. Meriwether Lewis . . 393

94. An American merchant ship of 1800 ..... 396

95. Photographic reproduction of part of the Boston Centinel for

November 9, 1814 : secession tendencies .... 407

97. Fulton’s The Union . . . . . 413

99. Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln . . . . . .419

102. Time card of a Providence machine shop in 1848 . . . 463

105. Harvesting to-day . 473

XVI

ILLUSTRATIONS

NUMBER PAGE

106. The “ DeWitt Clinton ” locomotive ...... 474

107. A Jackson cartoon : “ Clar de kitchen ” . 479

108. The original “ Gerrymander ” ....... 434

100. A Jackson print, — “ Presenting the Eagle ” .... 493

110. The United States Treasury ....... 495

111. Statue of Wendell Phillips in Poston . 510

112. An Anti-Fugitive-Slave-Law handbill of 1851 . . . .528

113. President Lincoln and General McClellan at Antietam . . 560

114. The Confederate blockade-runner Teazer . 561

115. Monitor and Merrimac . . 562

116. General Ulysses S. Grant in 1865 . 563

117. Winter quarters of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862 . 578

118. Headquarters of the Army of the Potomac at Brandy Station 579

119. The Capitol at Washington . 600

Ellis Island . ;604

4 ‘ Future Americans ” . 605

Cotton levee at New Orleans . 606

The United States Customs House at New York . . . 612

A modern steel plant at Pittsburgh . . . . . . 623

William Jennings Bryan ........ 629

A “ sixteen-inch ■” gun for the Panama Canal .... 643

Forging a railway-car axle . 648

The biggest electric locomotive ....... 654

Shearing off steel slabs . 659

Woodrow Wilson when Governor of New Jersey . . . 660

Wilson and Gompers at the American Federation of Labor in

132. Woodrow Wilson addressing Congress on the eight-hour law

133. The Minnesota State Capitol ......

134. The Arrow Rock Dam in Idaho .

135. Building the “Pacific Highway ” through Oregou .

136. The Capitol illuminated .

677 683 692 701 721

HISTORY

OF THE

AMERICAN PEOPLE

_ Pk _

5m the paintin

George Washington.

' Gilbert Stuart in the New Ydrk Public library. •

• hi - summers freezing in : the othgr,- settlement • Gap tain Wey-

THE AM ERIC AX PE0P1 $

H

¥ ^asW w?' w

■SpP

■ -SSSSC *.

I fl

THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA

> - v . jJKit %Af rf ENGLISH POUND **

f§f

is to do with the Appalachian coast fHKe -Continent was more like the Euro- Afs|s than is any other large dis-

,niericji.r' /i 3 lives of the English settlers were far f , achian coast, however, d6er differ f om the European

€ ^ytiad colonized the Mississippi valley

ifcJBIl ”**

;v PL- . JHpHHPH

noas^ .of^^ Atjlanlj# in /afr vital mSftter : : — (1) The

re ^h^mntefsij^^r Than. in .^u^ope;:^...^nex|^

mouth' ^Of plofed tn%regi(5n near the mohth of f lie Kennebec, * in t^e spring Af 1005, ^nd: brought back to' England glowing / reports ‘ balmy 'climftte “ like that Of southern France ”f bat the golo^tlKwho tried to settle., there two years later ; (§ 26)' suffered cruelly from .a winter like ‘that of Norway.

% (2) As ^mc^goep^fro^i yigrth to south) the climate .changes more

' - swiftltj n America than fn\.. Europe. In their settlemgpsfcs, be¬ tween Maine and, Florida, English colonists enoounxfered cli¬ mates a } tliffdrent as they would have forfhd in the Old World Mm .'A W - • i

WHAT THE ENGLISH FOUND

[§3 if they had spread out from Norway to the Sahara. This sharp difference between north and south was one reason why Virginian Englishman and New England Englishman grew apart in life and character.

3. The soil, too, and the natural products, varied from north to south. The rich lands of the south were suited to the culti¬ vation of tobacco or rice or cotton, in large tracts, by slaves or bond servants. The middle district could raise foodstuffs on a large scale. The north was less fertile : farming was not

profitable there except in small holdings, with trustworthy

“ help ” ,\ but the pine and oak forests of that region, its

harbors, and the fish in its seas, invited to lumbering, fishing, ship-building, and commerce. Each section had its distinct set of industries, and so living.

1 This map illustrates some of the points of § 2. The line rtarked 20° February is supposed to run through places that have an average tempera¬ ture of 20° Fahrenheit for the month of February. The two dotted lines bound a zone of climate that is sometimes called “ the true temperate zone.”] The heavy February lines bound a zone of climate that includes all the Ap¬ palachian district. Plainly, zones of climate are narrower in America than in Europe.

came to have its peculiar Ji^bi bi£s jjf

NATURAL ADVANTAGES

§ 5]

4. Communication from north to south was difficult. Colony was often divided from colony, or groups of colonies were divided from one another, by arms of the sea. Even when two colonies lay side by side without intervening bays, there were still no roads from -north to south. The chief highways were the rivers, running from the mountains to the sea. As a rule, a colony found it about as convenient to hold communication with England as with its neighbor on either side. This lack of intercourse hindered the different sections from growing .together in feeling and character.

« 9

5. The features of geography noticed so far all tended to “ sectionalism But this evil was more than offset by two advantages that geography- gave the English over their European rivals in America. The territory colonized by England was more accessible and more compact than that' held by France or Spain. It was easier for the English to get into America than

" for the others ; and it was not so easy after they got there for them to weaken themselves at once by scattering widely.

(Accessibility.) The small sailing vessels of that day found easy access to. the Atlantic coast, with its countless little harbors. That re¬ gion invited European settlement much more than did the vast inland valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, where the French cast their fortunes. Sometimes we speak of these great river systems as “ gateways to the continent ” ; and so they are to the interior. But, in the early daya, men did not care to go far into the interior. They liked better the fringe- of' the continent, where they could- keep closer touch with the Old World. Moreover, in the districts near the mouths of the great rivers, either climate nor soil was suitable for European settlers ; and, in the -days before steamships, vessels could hardly ascend the Mississippi, above New Quails, because of the swift current and the countless obstructions. ^(Compactness.)' The Appalachians kept the colonists from spreading , too rapidly as they grew strong. These mountains are not lofty ; but they are ugged and ‘they were then covered with forests tangled with underbrush and vines, so as to be singularly impassable. Four rivers broke the mountain wall- — the Potomac, Delaware, Susquehanna, and Hudson-Mohawk : but, without more engineering skill than belonged to that day, only the Mohawk could be used as a road to the inner country ; and that route was closed by the Iroquois Indians.

WHAT THE ENGLISH FOUND

[§ 6

6. Three groups of Indian peoples held the country between the Mississippi and the Atlantic, — the Gulf tribes, the Algonkins, and the Iroquois.

The Gulf tribes (Choctaws, Seminoles, Creeks) had made the most progress toward civilization ; but they were too far south and west to affect White settlement much until the beginnings of Georgia and Tennessee, almost at the end of the colonial period.

The roaming Algonkuis were the largest of the three groups, but also the weakest and least civilized. Numbering from

An Algonkin Village. From Beverly’s History of Virginia (1701); based on a picture by John White (one of Raleigh’s colonists) in 1585, now in the British Museum. The palisades must have been twelve feet high. Probably a spring of water was found inside. The fields of corn and tobacco in the rear were common property. Ceremonial dances were held within the circle of posts about the “ lodge” in the foreground.

75,000 to 100,000 souls, — thinly scattered in a multitude of petty, mutually hostile tribes, — they “ haunted, rather , than inhabited, a vast hunting preserve ” stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and from the Ohio to the far north. To this group belonged the Powliatans, Delawares, Narragansetts, Pequods, Mohegans, and, indeed, nearly all the tribes with which the early English settlers came in hostile contact.

THE NATIVES

§ 8]

The Iroquois Confederacy was the strongest native power for war. They numbered about 10,000, and lived in compact, fortified villages, in Western New York.

We have little accurate knowledge about the numbers of the natives. Scholars now agree that those east of the Mississippi did not exceed 200,000. Many a single city in our country to-day contains more people than dwelt in all the continent, north of Mexico, when Europeans first touched its shores.

7. The distribution of the native peoples affected vitally the success of European settlement. The Spaniards in South and Central America had to deal only with races gentler than any of these North American Indians. So the Spaniard^ conquered too rapidly. They overran the continent faster than they could occupy it. Their rule, too, was built upon the slavery of the natives. The conquerors mixed their blood with this enslaved population until their own nationality was lost.

The French, in the north, came into conflict with the formi¬ dable Iroquois ; and deadly blows by this fierce confederacy did much to prevent French mastery of America.

The English, in their time of weakness, touched only the Algonkins, who could not seriously endanger European settle¬ ment. At the same time, the Algonkins were untamable ; and so the English did not mix blood with them. And they were dangerous enough to scattered settlements to help keep the English colonies fairly compact, down to the Eevolution. This compact settlement gave opportunity for true civiliza¬ tion, and it made possible the union of the colonies against England, when the time came. Both nature and the natives , seeming unkind to the English colonist, were really kinder to him than to his rivals.

8. In certain ways the Indians aided English colonization directly. They furnished the first settlements with the “ Indian corn ” that warded off starvation ; and soon they taught the colonists to plant both corn (maize) and tobacco — the two native products of supreme value in the early period.

WHAT THE ENGLISH FOUND

[§ 8

Maize was long the main food supply. European grains failed in the new climate season after season, while the colonist was learning the new conditions. Moreover, to clear and prepare the soil for wheat or barley took much time. Maize was a surer crop and needed less toil. The colonist learned from the Indian to raise it, at need, without even clearing the forest, — merely girdling the trees to kill the foliage, and planting among the standing trunks. It was no accident that this Indian grain came to be called “corn,” the general name for European grains.

Tobacco the colonist exchanged for European goods. If Indian corn enabled him to live through the first hard years, it was tobacco that first made him rich.

Colonies too far north to raise tobacco found their first wealth in furs ; and these, too, they obtained mainly from native hunters. Indian ivampum at times made an important part of colonial money. Forest trails , worn into deep paths by the feet of generations of Kedmen, became highways for White travel.1 Water routes , too, discovered by native pilots in birch canoes, were adopted by White traders. And stations for the exchange of furs , where certain trails and waterways joined, became the sites of mighty cities like Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, and Duluth.

1 Cf. map facing page 10. The New York Central Railroad follows the old Iroquois trail from Lake Erie to the Hudson ; and in Minneapolis one of the finest streets (Hennepin Avenue) is an ancient Indian trail from the neighbor¬ ing Lake Harriet to the Mississippi just above the Falls of St. Anthony.

Chapter II

9. Spain was first in the field in American colonization. During the crusades, Europe had learned to depend on Asiatic spices, sugars, cottons, silks, and metalwares, as luxuries and even as daily necessities. For two hundred years a vast caravan trade brought these articles, in a steady stream, from

Columbus at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella. From the imagi¬ native painting by Brozik in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.

central Asia to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean ; but in the fifteenth century the rise of Turkish barbarians in Asia Minor closed this route. Europe, just then awaking from the long torpor of the Middle Ages, eagerly sought new trade routes into Asia. Portugal found one, to. the south, around Africa. Columbus, aided by the Spanish Isabella, tried a still bolder western road — and stumbled on America in his path {Modern World , §§ 255 , 343).

10. This discovery marked the close of the fifteenth century. The next century in the New World was Spain’s. The story of her conquest is a tale of heroic endeavor, marred by revolt¬ ing ferocity. The details, as an old Spanish chronicler said, are “ all horrid transactions, nothing pleasant in any of them.”

Not till twenty years after the discovery, did the Spaniards advance to the mainland for settlement ; but, once begun, her

De Soto Discovering the Mississippi. From the imaginative painting by William H. Powell in the Capitol at Washington.

handfuls of adventurers swooped swiftly north and south. By 1550, she held not only all South America (save Portugal’s Brazil), but also all Central America, Mexico, the California? far up the Pacific coast, and the Ploridas. The gold from Mexico and Peru helped to give Spain her proud place as the most powerful country in Europe through most of the sixteenth century ; and she guarded her American possessions jealously. The Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean were Spanish lakes, and the whole Pacific was a “ closed sea.” Frenchman or Englishman, caught upon those waters, was put to death.

FRANCE IN AMERICA

§ 12]

11. Nor was Spain content with even this huge empire on land and sea. She was planning grandly to occupy the Missis¬ sippi valley and the Appalachian slope in America, and to seize Holland and England in Europe ; but, in 1588, she received a fatal check. The gallant English “ sea-dogs ” destroyed the “ Invincible Armada ” in a wonderful nine-days’ sea fight. That victory did more than merely save England : it marked a turning point in World history. Spain never recovered her old supremacy upon the sea, and so other European peoples were left free to try their fortunes in America.

12. For a time,

France seemed most likely to succeed Spain as mistress of North America. A quarter of a century went to exploration and fail¬ ures. Then, in 1608,

Champlain founded a French colony at Quebec. Soon, canoefleets of traders and missionaries were coasting the shores of the Great Lakes and establishing French stations there — at points still known by French names. Finally, in 1682, after years of splendid effort, LaSalle succeeded in following the Mississippi to the Gulf, setting up a French claim to the entire valley.

In later years New France consisted of the colony on the St. Lawrence in the far north, and the semi-tropical colony of New Orleans, joined to each other, along the interior water¬ ways, by a slight chain of trading posts and military stations — Detroit, Sault Ste. Marie, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, St. Louis, and the like (map facing next page).

La Salle Taking Possession of the Missis¬ sippi Valley for France, at the mouth of the river. From an imaginative painting by Marchand at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.

[§ 13

13. From the beginning of this colonization, it was plain that France and England were the real rivals for the Control of eastern North America. The open struggle between them began in 1689, and lasted some seventy years in a series of wars, until France was thrust out of the continent in 1763.