A history of the United States of America, with an introduction narrating the discovery and settlement of North America

Preface

A dozen years ago I wrote a school history of the United States, and the test of its use has shown me wherein it was defective. My own study of history during the same period has furthermore enabled me to see how I could improve my original presentation of the subject. The present book is the result. The general structure remains the same as before ; there is the same cleavage of periods, and the same interpretation of cause and effect in the development of the Union. But the emphasis is somewhat differently placed, and a much greater attention has been paid to that element of personality which gives vitality to all history. By biographic detail and a liberal use of portraits I have sought to interest the student in the men who have been the architects of the nation.

When I introduced my first book I said : " The secret of success in any history must lie in the power of the author to conceive the development of life, and to discover the critical passages, the transition periods, the great epochs. I hope I have helped young people to understand the movements which I see from the time when America was first disclosed to the eyes of Europe down to the present day. I wish to emphasize my sense of the importance to American children of connecting the history of their country with the changes which have been taking place in Europe during the period of our growth — changes of the utmost consequence in the development of our own national life, an understanding of which is essential to an intelligent reading of American history. Therefore I have never lost sight of the fact that down to the close of the last war with England, America faced the Atlantic; and any one

v vi PREFACE.

who would read her history aright must ofteu take his stand upon the European shore."

But there are two other considerations which have grown to be still weightier in my mind during the past decade. One is the momentous importance of a clear conception in the minds of pupils in our schools to-day of the vital connection between the present and the past. The other is the equally important need of an interchange of acquaintance between the different parts of the nation. As the vigorous Scripture has it : " Now hath God set the members each one of them in the body, even as it pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body ? But now they are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee ; or again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you." Therefore it has been of the greatest interest to me to try to give the students of American history in the East some notion of the great expansion of life in the West ; to give to Western students a clear intelligence of the beginnings of the nation in the East ; to reconcile the minds of the North and the South by a fair disclosure of the underlying conditions which led to the rupture, now happily closed ; above all, to show that institutions of free government are not born in a day to be overthrown in a night, but that they are the slowly developed results of struggle and toil and sacrifice, not to be lightly swept aside as if they were mere fashions of an hour.

I have written in the thought that our country is a land which was reserved until the new birth of Europe ; that it was peopled by men and women who crossed the seas in faith ; that its foundations have been laid deep in a divine order ; that the nation has been trusted with liberty. A trust carries with it grave duties; the enlargement of liberty and justice is in the victory of the people over the forces of evil. So I bid Godspeed to all teachers of those who are to receive the trust of

citizenship.

H. E. S.

Cambridge, Mass., Patriots' Day, 1897.

Table Of Contents

Hints to Teachers

PAGE XI

Entvotnictt'on.

II. Development Of The Union

PAGE

The Union and its Neighbors ..... 261

The War for the Union. II. .... . 374

The Present Nation ....... 417

Supplement.

The Preparation in Europe for the Discovery and

Occupation of North America 435

The Physical Preparation of North America for

Occupation by European People .... 447

B.

C.

^ppcntui.

Four Historical Documents:

I. The Compact of the Pilgrim Fathers .

II. The Declaration of Independence .

III. The Ordinance of 1787 ....

IV. The Constitution of the United States The States and Territories — Census of 1890 . Nationalities of Immigrants by Decades. 1841-1890

457 457 461 468 485 486

MAPS.

COLORED.

PAGE

Routes of Navigators to India and America in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries 11

New Spain and the West Indies ......... 15

English and French Possessions in North America at the Time of the

French and Indian War ; also Colonial Charter Claims 89

New England and New Netherland 89

The New England States during the War for Independence • . . . 145

The Middle States during the War for Independence 165

The Southern States during the War for Independence .... 177

Territorial Acquisitions of the United States 233

Mexico. — To illustrate the War, 1846-1818 297

To illustrate the War for the Union 357

Note. — Red indicates non-seceding Slave States. Pink indicates Free States.

The United States of America ......... 387

Divisions of the Country made hy the United States Signal Service . . 419

Physical Basis of the United States 447

UNCOLORED.

Toscanelli's Map .... 4 The Ocean Side of Behaim's

Globe 8

St. Lawrence River and Gulf . 28 Explorations of Champlain and

Hudson 29

Coast visited hy Raleigh's Vessels 43

First Settlement in Virginia . 45

The New England Coast . . 57 Braddock's Route . . .92

Acadia 94

Capture of Quebec ... 98

Vicinity of Boston . . . 143

Arnold's Route .... 149

Vicinity of New York . . . 168

Vicinity of Philadelphia . . 169

Crown Point and Ticonderoga . 170

The Country between Montreal

and New York . . .172 The Siege of Yorktown . . 182 Western Movement of Center of

Population . . . .210 The Canadian Frontier and Vicinity of Washington . . . 244 The Creek War . . . .217 Niagara River .... 248 Campaign of General Taylor . 304 Charleston Harbor and its Approaches .... 349 Washington and Vicinity . . 355 The Operations of the Army of

the Potomac, etc. . . . 369 Vicinity of Vicksburg . . . 'Ml The Peninsula, etc., between Norfolk and Richmond . . 380

PORTRAITS.

PAGE

Adams, John

. 145

Adams, John Quincy .

. 284

Adams, Samuel

. 139

Arthur, Chester Alan .

. 405

Boone, Dauiel

. 216

Bryant, William Cullen

Buchanan, James .

. 342

Burke, Edmund .

. 150

Calhoun, John Caldwell

. 286

Calvert, Cecil

Clay, Henry .

. 290

Cleveland, Grover

. 409

Columbus, Christopher

. 10

Cornwallis

. 183

Custer, George Armstrong

. 401

Davis, Jefferson .

. 348

Drake, Sir Francis

Edison, Thomas Alva .

. 399

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

. 334

Ericsson, John

. 367

Farragut, David Glascoe

. 366

Fillmore, Millard .

. 325

Franklin, Benjamin

. 119

Fulton, Robert

. 273

Garfield, James Abram

. 403

Grant, Ulysses Simpson

. 364

Greene, Nathanael

. 181

Hamilton, Alexander .

. 193

Hancock, John

. 157

Harrison, Benjamin

. 411

Harrison, William Henry

. 300

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

. 333

Hayes, Rutherford Birchard

. 402

Henry, Patrick

. 131

PAGE

Jackson, Andrew .

. 250

Jackson, Thomas Jonathan

. 370

Jefferson, Thomas .

. 156

Johnson, Andrew .

. 389

Jones, John Paul .

. 179

Lafayette

. 162

Lee, Robert Edward

. 371

Lincoln, Abraham

. 260

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth . 335

McClellan, George Brinton

. 359

McKinley, William

. 415

Madison, James . . .

. 240

Marshall, John

. 204

Meade, George Gordon

. 376

Monroe, James

. 262

Morse, Samuel Finley Breese . 327

Oglethorpe, James

. 85

Penn, William

. 71

Pierce, Franklin .

. 339

Poe, Edgar Allan .

. 332

Polk, James Knox

. 302

Raleigh, Sir Walter

. 42

Sherman, William Tecumseh 379

Smith, John .

Taylor, Zachary .

. 306

Van Buren, Martin . -

. 295

Vespucci, Amerigo

. 13

Washington, George

. 108

Webster, Daniel .

. 293

Whitney, Eli

. 211

Winthrop, John .

. 54

HINTS TO TEACHERS.

The history of the United States may fairly be said to begin with the fall of Quebec, for just as soon as it was determined that the English were to be masters of the continent, the spirit of self-government began to assert itself, and agitation did not cease till the colonies were organized as States, and the States composed a Union. All that precedes the fall of Quebec, therefore, is treated as Introduction to the history. But in studying history one is constantly pushing back farther and farther to the beginnings of beginnings, and in order to give some satisfaction to this craving for getting at the source of things, two supplementary chapters have been added which give in outline the condition of Europe before the discovery of America, and the physical characteristics of the continent as affecting historical development. Where the students of this history are mature enough, it is advised that these two chapters be studied first; and I strongly recommend that in all cases the class read over these chapters at the outset of their study, and that the teacher, reading with them, make running comment on the text.

The plan of the book is designed to help the student to a logical conception of the history of the country ; for one of the great advantages gained by the study of history is the strengthening of the logical faculty, — the practice of answering the whys of events. Thus, following the Introduction which shows the ways leading up to the Union, there are two books, one devoted to the establishment of the Union which took place when the new nation was rendered finally independent of Europe, the other devoted to the development of

Xll HINTS TO TEACHERS.

the Union, a process still going on. Again, each book is divided into chapters, designed to group the great topics of the book, and each chapter is broken up into sections, representing the succession of topics; under these sections there are sometimes given unnumbered sub-sections, indicated like the main ones by heavy-face type, and for convenience in seeing distinct statements, these sections are often broken up into paragraphs.

It will be found of advantage to give to each part, to each subdivision, indeed, a thorough review before proceeding to the next. For this purpose a series of aids to the pupil has been provided. At the end of each chapter will be found questions covering the paragraphs in the chapter. They are questions which cannot be answered by yes or no; they require the pupil to know what he has studied, and very often to have thought carefully about what he has read. They do not exhaust the subject, — any skillful teacher can vary and multiply questions indefinitely, — but they serve the purpose of enabling a pupil to try himself. The best questions are those which grow out of the recitations of a pupil, and the series given in this book should be taken as containing rather suggestions than a hard and fast set of questions. It is advised that these questions on the text be not used by the teacher in hearing the recitation, but for purposes of review. Along with each of these series is another briefer series, to be used, as the title Search Questions implies, to quicken the student's interest in the period just studied. There are numberless byways which a school history cannot explore ; no history will answer all the questions which spring up in the mind of an intelligent reader, but the life of historical study consists first in mastering the material placed before one, and then in pushing on, in exploring the territory laid open. These Search Questions are not idle conundrums, and they do not often refer to what may be called the mere curiosities of history ; but they are designed to start the student upon research, and upon using the books whose titles are jotted down at the foot of the page.

HINTS TO TEACHERS. xiii

At convenient landing places Topical Analyses have been introduced to aid still further in securing a thorough and fresh examination. It will be observed that they are not mere straight-away indexes to what has been passed over. Every good teacher knows how desirahle it is to get rid of a parrotlike repetition of an author's words in a text-book. These Topical Analyses break up the narrative into natural groups of related facts, and enable one to get cross sections of the history ; they furnish good subjects for compositions and debates ; they give starting points for new inquiries ; and, above all, they help to test the student's knowledge of the text, by compelling him to follow a new order, and to use his own language in stating facts and causes.

It is important to bear in mind that a capital opportunity is afforded by the study of history for the cultivation of the faculty of expression. A word for word recitation of the chapter is not to be encouraged. It is a feat of the memory, and may be quite unattended by any real appropriation of the passage recited. But pupils should be encouraged to use, when they recite, finished sentences, and not be allowed in a careless fashion to fall into a broken, halting, ungrammatical way of tumbling out facts ; a scholar who recites in this loose manner will not really know what he is reciting half so well as when he has trained himself to frame neat, clear, and compact statements. For this reason, a teacher should not only make much of perfection of the spoken answer, but should use the history work as the basis of literary work. To aid the pupils, a number of subjects for composition and debate have been provided after each chapter. They are suggestions only, but they may serve to prompt other subjects also. Especially it would be well to call frequently for the writing of biographical sketches. Outlines of leading facts have been given both in the text and footnotes, and by means of these, encyclopedias, and regular biographies, very interesting studies of the lives of men of importance can be drawn w\).

The debates which are suggested afford an excellent oppor-

XIV HINTS TO TEACHERS.

tunity for training in expression, and for bringing out the knowledge of the debaters, and the accuracy of their information. It is a good plan to let two of the class act as leaders and choose sides just as in any game ; then to give the two parties time to divide up the' subject, and to work by themselves over the treatment of it. During the debate, if careful rules are regarded, it should be a part of the game for the opposite side to ply the debater with questions. Debates conducted before the whole school not only train the debaters, but serve as an excellent quickener of the wits of those who listen.

The study of civil government may be promoted by an organization of the school or class into a Debating Club with officers and a constitution.

The maps, large and small, offer good opportunities for special examination and review. In reviews of this kind, it is not necessary to draw the map upon the board. Let the pupil have the map before him. By a little practice he will become very expert in the needed preparation for these special exercises.

It may be a disappointment to some not to find the facts of this history regularly marshaled under the separate administrations. There is no doubt an advantage in such an arrangement. It helps the memory by associating the succession of facts with successive quadrenniums, which in turn are named after the Presidents in their order. On the other hand, there is a degree of artificiality in such a disposition of history. The changes in administration have been of consequence, sometimes of great consequence ; but it is likely to give a mistaken notion of the relation of administrations to the development of the nation, to mislead one as to the true cause for the effects produced, when the incidents of the history are fixed by the law of association with certain persons at the time holding office. I have, therefore, while noting the administrations in turn, treated them as parts of the incident of history rather than as four-mile posts. Hut for the convenience of those who wish to use them as centers about which to group history,

HINTS TO TEACHERS. XV

I have made out full tables, following the topical analyses; and it would be a fresh exercise of a review order to call for a recital of historic facts under each administration. These can be gathered not only from the text itself, but from the Chronological Tables appended to each large group.

Finally, a word should be said of the use to which the copious Index may be put. The familiar use of an index is to find the page readily where a person or an incident is treated ; the history becomes a good book of reference when it is equipped with a good index. But there is a further use which so full an index as the one here given will serve. It brings together many scattered references to some one subject which is not treated once for all in a single passage, and it may be made the means thus of a further review. Suppose, for example, a pupil is writing a biographical sketch of a character in history. By reference to the index he will very likely find incidental references which otherwise might escape him. Or again, if one wished to trace the relations of France with this country, the entry under the general head of France would enable him to follow the thread from the fishermen of Brittany to Maximilian.

Thus I have tried to make every part of the apparatus of the book reenforce the teacher in his effort to use this History as a work to instruct, to train, and to inspire the pupil in the acquisition of that great and important task, a knowledge of the nation in which he is a freeman and in whose destiny he has a part.

PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF PROPER NAMES AND TECHNICAL TERMS IN CHAPTER I.

Christopher (cris'to-fer). The word means "Christ bearer." There is a legend of a strong man who carried the child Christ across a river, and thence was named Christopher.

Azores (a-zorz').

La Rabida (lii ra-be'da).

Pinzon (pen-thon').

Palos (pa'los).

Khan (kiin).

Moham'medans. The followers of Mohammed, or Mahom'et, an Arabian religious leader and soldier (A.i). 570-G32).

Santa Maria (san'ta ma-re'ii) = Holy Mary.

Car'avel.

Sargas'so. The Sargasso Sea lies between latitude 16° and 38° north and longitude 30° and 50° west.

It is a great floating mass of seaweed drifting about the Atlantic.

Bahama (bah-ha'ma).

Hispanio'la = Little Spain.

Don, from the Latin Dominus, "master" or "lord." The title in Spain now means scarcely more than •• Mr." means among us.

Coat-of-arms. The knights in the Middle Ages wore over their armor a coat embroidered with figures which denoted their family or estate. These coats are no longer worn, but the figures continue to be used as signs of noble birth, and are called coats-of -arms.

Veragua (va-ra'gwa).

Amerigo Vespucci (a-ma-ree'go ves-poot'chee). His name in its Latin form, was Americus Vespucius.

Strasburg (stras'bouro).

Vasco da Gama (da ga'ma).

Juan Perez (wan pa'reth).

Diego (de-a'go).

Granada (gra-na'ua).

Cipango (chi-pan'go).

Behaim (ba'hiin).

League (leg)= about three miles.

Ponce de Leon (ponss de lee'on').

Balboa'.

Magellan (in Spanish pronunciation, ma-hel-yan', but commonly pronounced in English, ma-jel'- lan).

Yucatan (yuo-ka-tan').

Vera Cruz (va'ra kroos), meaning " true cross."

Pizarro (pe-zar'ro).

Fernando de Soto (fer-nan'-du da so'to.

Coronado (ko-ro-na'-no).

Canon (kan'yun). A deep defile between steep walls or banks, usually with a stream flowing at the bottom.

Zuni (zoon'ye).

Moqui (mo'ke).

Introduction

DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF NORTH AMERICA.

Chapter I. Spain And America

1. Christopher Columbus. — In Genoa, Italy, somewhere between 1436 and 1446, 1 was born Cristoforo Colombo. His name was written Columbus in Latin, which was then the language used by all who read and wrote, and as Christopher Columbus he has been known ever since to English-speaking people. He left school when he was about fourteen, and was sent to sea to finish his education and to learn to command a vessel. Like those seamen of his time, who were more than common hands, he made a careful study of maps and charts, read the stories of travelers, and busied himself with questions as to the shape of the earth and its size.

Learned men had long held the opinion that the world was a globe instead of being flat, as the common people and the more ignorant supposed. Columbus also believed it to be a globe ; he thought it, however, not perfectly round, but pearshaped. He thought it, too, much smaller than it really is. By his study of charts and his talks with scholars he decided that if he were to sail due west from the Canary Islands, he would cross about four thousand miles of ocean and reach the eastern shore of Asia. In point of fact, that was not far from the distance to the Gulf of Mexico.

1 The exact date is not known, li 1

2. Why should he wish to go by Sea to Asia? — Nowadays our geographies give us abundant information about Asia ; on our maps, every river and mountain range and cape can be traced ; we know the cities and provinces and separate nations ; and we have books which tell us of the people, their mode of life and what they produce. It was not so in the time of Columbus. Asia was a vast, vague land, at the extreme east of which lay the countries which we now know as China, Japan and the East Indies, while the ocean flowed beyond. 1

From these countries caravans came, bringing silk, pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, and spices, and Genoa and other Italian cities grew rich through commerce ; for their merchants sent ships to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean to trade with the Asiatics who had crossed the continent. But when Columbus was a boy, a great blow had been struck at this commerce.

The Turks, who before had lived in western Asia, swarmed into Europe and captured the great city of Constantinople. They controlled now all the eastern part of the Mediterranean, and it became a perilous matter to send ships there. Thus it was of the greatest moment to find, if possible, some new route to the Indies. The Portuguese, under the lead of their prince, Henry the Navigator, had been slowly following the coast of Africa. 2

3. The Struggle of Columbus to get a Hearing. — Columbus himself went to Lisbon about 1470 and for a while carried on his business of map making there and sometimes went to sea with Portuguese captains. He knew therefore of the discoveries

1 The book above all others which gave Columbus and the men of his time their notion of Asia was the famous adventures of Marco Polo, written about 1300. The Old South Leaflet, No. 32, contains Marco Polo's Account of Japan and Java.

2 Prince Henry was filled with zeal for discovery. He built an astronomical observatory in the southernmost province of Portugal and devoted himself to study. From that point he directed a series of voyages from 1418 to 14153, and after his death the work went forward, until in 1497 Vasco da Gania rounded the Cape of Good Hope ami sailed to India.

along the African coast, but he was convinced that there must be a shorter route to Asia, and he was confirmed in this belief by the advice of a great geographer and map maker, Toscanelli, who sent him, in 1474, a map which showed a straight course across the Atlantic. 1

It was one thing to believe in such a route ; it was quite another to follow it. Map makers could bring forward excellent arguments in support of their belief; but the only argument really convincing was to take a vessel and sail across the ocean. Columbus was a poor man, and he must needs persuade some one who had money to join him. For twenty years he carried his great purpose in his mind before he could bring it to pass. He tried in vain to persuade the magistrates of his native city of Genoa to join him.

He laid his plans before the King of Portugal, who took counsel with learned men about him. These men publicly ridiculed Columbus as a crazy adventurer; but privately they told the king there might be some truth in what Columbus said, and the king was base enough to send out a vessel secretly, to get all the advantage there might be for himself. But it needed a Columbus to carry out the ideas of Columbus. The captain of the vessel sent out by the king put out from the Azores, but meeting a storm, he was frightened and turned back. Columbus heard of what was done and indignantly left Portugal. He bent his energies toward persuading Ferdinand and Isabella, 2 King and Queen of Spain, to give him aid, and failing in that, he tried to bring some of the noble families to his side ; through his brother Bartholomew he made an equally vain attempt to interest the English court.

4. The Triumph of an Idea. — For seven long years he pushed his great enterprise. Poor, ridiculed as a madman, almost friendless, Columbus clung to his belief; and at last his faith

1 The letters which Toscanelli wrote to Colurahus at this time will he found in Fiske's Discovery of America, I. 356-362.

- The History of Ferdinand and Isabella lias been written by W. II. Prescott; it is one of the most readable of American histories.

was rewarded. Here one and there one was convinced by his persistence and his undaunted confidence. His best friends were in the monastery of La Kabida, not far from the seaport of Falos. The story goes that when, worn out with his disappointments in Spain, he was about to set out for England, he stopped at the monastery with his son, a boy of eleven or twelve. 1 Here he met the prior of the monastery, Juan Perez, who had been the father confessor of Queen Isabella.

Perez became greatly interested, and sent to Palos for two men of importance : one was a physician who was very curious in geographical matters; the other was a shipowner and captain, Martin Pinzon. So deeply did Columbus impress them,

La Rabida.

that the prior set off to the camp of the Spanish armies, for Spain was then waging war with the Moors, who had long before come over into the Spanish peninsula from Africa. There he saw Isabella, and persuaded her to send money to Columbus and invite him to appear before her.

5. The Queen of Spain is won over. — The queen and her counsellors were so convinced by the arguments of Columbus, that she promised to take up the matter in earnest just as soon as the Moors had been conquered. On the second day of January, 1492, the Moors surrendered Granada, 2 and Columbus was summoned to the court,

He went, but not as a suppliant. So filled was he with the

1 This boy, Diego, afterward became page to Queen Isabella.

2 One of Washington Irving's must captivating books is T/ir Conquest of Granada. Irving was United States minister to Spain, and he wrote with the added charm of one who knew the country well.

magnitude of his enterprise that he demanded great power and honor for himself. The king and queen turned away from this dreamer, and Columbus, once more baffled, mounted his mule and set off this time for France. But the friends of Columbus, who had influence at court, could not bear that Spain should lose the glory so nearly in her grasp. They redoubled their appeals to the queen, and she, moved by their zeal, sent a messenger after Columbus. She would herself bear a large part of the expense, and an agreement was made between this adventurer and the crown of Spain.

This agreement is an interesting one, for it shows what was in the minds of those who made it. Columbus was to have for himself and heirs the office of admiral ; he was to be governor general over all the lands and continent he might discover or acquire ; he was to reserve for himself one tenth ofall pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and all other articles of merchandise obtained within his government; he might share in the expense of the enterprise with his sovereigns to the extent of one eighth and receive one eighth of the profit. Add to this that the king and queen gave Columbus a royal letter to the Great Khan, a vaguely known potentate of Asia, and that Columbus was to devote the wealth gained to fitting out a new crusade for the rescue of the Holy Sepulcher, 1 and it will be seen that this voyage of discovery was in the minds of all a great religious enterprise.