The story of our country; a primary history of the United States

Preface

It is the aim of this Httle book to awaken such an abiding personal interest in the story of our country, that tlie after-study in the more advanced history of tlie United States may be a pleasant task.

The author has attempted, without undue boasting, to show how the many feeble colonies, remote from each other and planted under such different circumstances, united at length through common perils and sufferings to form the foundation of a national structure so broad and so firm that when the strain of revolution, and even of rebellion, came, it survived the shock.

She has endeavored to keep well to the front the great central idea of the nation's development from the time when the first discoverers peered through the mists of an unknown sea, down to to-day, when our nation has taken its place among the first powers of the earth.

The author has sketched many of the thrilling and picturesque biographies which are always such an unfailing source of delight to the child.

4 PREFACE.

The great discoverer, Columbus, has a goodly space allotted him. The courtier, the adventurer, the priest, the puritan, the philanthropist, the acute statesman, the valiant warrior, the sturdy frontiersman, all pass in review before the mind of the reader; but it is hoped that not one of these personages disappears from the scene without having added something to the great national drama of which he was a part.

Some space has been devoted to war, that the child may realize what it has cost to develop these United States.

But military annals have been given a subordinate place in the story. The young student should not lose sight of the fact that each struggle of the American people has been but a transient obstruction which, in the end, enabled the nation to unite its forces yet more closely together for its great onward march of progress.

The object for which The Story of Our Country has been written will have been attained if its readers may be led to adopt the words of Daniel Webster, that eloquent exponent of patriotism, who said: "I am an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American."

Contents

CHAPTER. PAGE.

I. Early Discoverers 9-15

II. Columbus Discovers America 16-27

Chapter I. Early Discoverers

A few hundred years ago the oldest and wisest men of Europe did not know as much about the surface of the earth as a boy in the third grade at school knows now.

The wisest of them thought that there was no land where America is. They thought that the world was flat and that the Atlantic Ocean stretched out to the end of the world. What there was at the end they did not know; but they fancied that horrible monsters might be there, and they were quite sure it was night there all the time, because it seemed so far from the sun.

In the old books of Iceland a story is told of a brave Norseman whose name was Bjarni. This Bjarni once started on a voyage to visit his friend, Eric the Red, who lived in Greenland. Soon after Bjarni and his sailors set sail, a storm arose and drove their ship to the west for many

THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.

NORSE SHIP.

days. Then, after one day of calm, they came to a long, level shore. Bjarni knew this could not be Greenland; for Eric had told him of high mountains covered with ice. So they sailed north, and kept seeing level land for many days. Then they came to a country where there were mountains of snow. This must have been an island; for, in trying to find their friend, they sailed quite around it.

People now think that it was the island of Newfoundland.

At last they found Eric in Greenland, and everybody listened eagerly to the stories which they told about the new lands they had seen farther south.

Little Leif, the son of Eric, as he sat blinking at the great logs blazing in the fireplace, listened to it all. He said that when he grew to be a great big sea king, he would visit the new lands himself, and that perhaps he would find bigger bears there than any that were in Greenland.

Surely enough, Leif Ericson became a bold sea rover, and one day he sailed away with some

LEIF THE LUCKY. II

friends on a voyage of discovery. He sailed past Newfoundland to the southwest and came through a bay, between an island and the mainland, into a river. It is thought that this island was Nantucket.

On the banks of the river there were so many vines and grapes that Leif called the country Vinland. Leif and his friends were delighted with the warm, sunny land; they stayed several months, and when they returned to Greenland their stout ship was almost loaded down with fruit and timber. They wanted the timber for building ships. There were no such fine, straight trees in all Greenland as those from Vinland. When Leif sailed into port with his cargo, he was honored by the people. He was called Leif the Lucky; and when his father died, he became ruler in Greenland.

After that, many of the Norsemen went to Vinland for grapes and timber, but they made no permanent settlement there. Sometimes, in the sea ports of other countries, they would talk about the lands they had seen in the west, but not many believed what they said.

Even to-day, some historians do not believe that the Norsemen really visited America; but the schoolboys of Iceland and Greenland say that America was discovered by Leif the Lucky in the year looi.

A great many years after this, in the beautiful city of Genoa, there Hved an Italian boy who

GENOA.

was very fond of the sea. He often stood on the wharves watching the ships sail in and out of the harbor. When only a little child, he said he wanted to be a sailor, and so when he was ten years old his father sent him to a school in Pavia to study navigation.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

At the age of fourteen this boy, Christopher Columbus, went to sea on his uncle's ship. He was in several battles against the pirates in the Mediterranean, and was always very brave. Once his ship was burned, and he swam six miles to shore clinging to a piece of broken mast.

In the sea ports of Europe and Africa, Columbus heard some of the strange stories which the Norsemen had told about lands to the west, and many things made him believe they were true. His own brother-in-law had seen a piece of carved wood which had been washed ashore from the west. There was also a tradition of two drowned men, dressed in strange-looking clothes, who had been picked up off the coast of the Azores.

Then the great English traveler, Sir John Mandeville, had written a book more than a hundred years before this time, in which he said that he believed the world was round, and that it was possible for a man to sail round the world and reach, at last, the place of starting.

Now the teachers of navigation in Pavia thought this theory of Sir John was but the babbling of an old man. They said no ship could sail upside down, and if the world were round that was what a ship would have to do if it should sail beyond the horizon.

But Columbus, who is thought to have read the book of Sir John Mandeville, began to beHeve that the world was round and that the lands to the west were China and India.

You can almost hear the sailors laughing at this young upstart as they lay sunning themselves on the shore and listening to his talk. They tapped on their foreheads and winked at one another, as if they thought his mind was not quite sound. But Columbus gave no heed to them and laid many plans to find a way to make a voyage to the far west.

In those days the journey from Europe to India and China was made mostly by land on camels across the deserts of Asia. Every trip took a long time and cost a great deal of money. Columbus thought that if the world were round he might reach these countries quicker and safer by sea; for CHRISTOPHER he supposed the world to be much COLUMBUS. smaller than it really is, and did not dream that the great continent of America lay between Europe and Asia.

He tried in vain to get the republic of Genoa to help him fit out vessels for the voyage. Then he went to Venice, whose rich merchants sent

KING JOHN OF PORTUGAL. I5

every year to India for silks and jewels and spices; but the rulers of that little republic would not risk any money upon such a foolish undertaking.

Then Columbus went to the kingdom of Portugal for aid. But, although King John, who was a great traveler himself, thought well of the project, he said that Columbus asked too much for his services. Columbus wanted a tenth of all the gold, silver, and jewels he should find. He also asked to be made governor of the lands he might discover.

King John sent out secretly the best Portuguese pilot to follow the course indicated by Columbus. But this pilot lacked the zeal and faith of the man from Genoa. His ship became entangled in the seaweed beyond the Azores, and the ignorant sailors said there were demons holding the ship back; a hurricane drove the ship hither and thither, and they said that was the work of demons, too. After the pilot had sailed several days without finding land, he returned to Portugal; and he declared that there were no lands to the west.

When Columbus found out that the king had deceived him, he quit Portugal and went to Spain.

Chapter II. Columbus Discovers America

Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, were having trouble at this time with the Moors. The Moors were Arabs, who had conquered a part of Spain hundreds of years before, and now occupied the province of Granada, where they had built a city and many beautiful palaces. Some of these Moors were great scholars and had large libraries; but none of them believed in the Christian religion, and they were not willing to acknowledge Ferdinand and Isabella as their king and queen.

At the time Columbus came to the Spanish court, a bitter war was raging against Boabdil, king of Granada.

When Columbus explained his plans for a voyage to the west, the king did not seem to be interested; but the queen talked much with him and thought there might be some truth in what he said. She told him that Spain could not give him aid until the Moors were conquered. So Columbus, the Italian, joined the Spaniards in the Moorish war and fought bravely.

THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA.

On the second of January, 1492, Columbus saw the triumphal procession of Ferdinand pass

THE ALHAMBRA.

through the streets of Granada in front of the palace called the Alhambra. The Moors had been conquered at last.

Pages in gold-embroidered garments came first, then, on gayly harnessed steeds with nodding plumes and flying banners, came the ministers of state, clad in such gorgeous attire that they themselves seemed like an army of kings. Then came King Ferdinand. His royal mantle of crimson lined with ermine almost concealed his horse. The crown of gold upon his head glittered with jewels, and the precious stones on his embroidered vest shone like the sun. On iS THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.

their prancing steeds the nobles followed, all in

silver armor.

Then fair Queen Isabella and her dames and

pages came. It was a glorious sight. Loud sounded the trumpets. But the music was hushed as the conquered Boabdil rode toward the king.

He was robed in black. His eyes were downcast as he reined

QUEEN ISABEI.I.A. J^J^ J^^j.^^ ^y ^|^g gJJ^ q£ p^j-JJ.

nand. A flush of shame spread over his haughty face as, bowing low, he gave up his signet rings and the keys of his beloved city. He laid aside his shield and lance and scimetar, in token of submission. Then bowing low again, he sadly turned to the road which led clown to the sea.

Trumpets and clarions then mingled with the voices of thousands who knelt on the pavements below the towers of the Alhambra. Columbus knelt among the rest. He now longed more than ever to become great.

And at last, three small vessels, the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina sailed from the little town of Palos. They carried about a hundred men, and food enough to last a year. Columbus was the captain of the Santa

COLUMBUS DISCOVERS AMERICA.

^9

Maria; a Spanish pilot whose name was Pinzon, went with the Pinta, and his brother with the Nina.

In a month they reached the Canary Islands — farther than any of them had ever been before. After they had gone beyond these, the

sailors began to get frightened.

The days went by. On and on sailed the ships, and still no land came in sight.

Columbus himself grew more and more anxious. He slept not; he ate not; he spent hours in prayer. The sailors began to think him a madman.

They plotted to throw him overboard and return home. But one morning the sailors on the Nina sighted a branch with red berries floating on the water; those on the Pinta soon picked up a curiously carved log. Then some pelicans, which are birds with long necks and white plumage, something like swans but heavier, sailed about

THE SANTA MARIA.

THE PINTA.

the masts. Flocks of land-birds began to circle about the ships.

Columbus knew that land must be near. That

night he saw lights •^'f;f>^ moving in the dis-

tance. At early dawn the P i n t a , which was ahead, shot off a gun as a signal that land was seen. Soon, a long coastline came in sight where people were running up and down, in great excitement. The voyage of seventy- five days was at an end. The sailors joyously hauled down the sails and made ready to cast out the anchors.

When land was reached, Columbus stepped on shore carrying the red and gold banner of Spain, and each of his captains bore a green flag inscribed with a cross. The soldiers and sailors came next in their best gala attire, and all knelt down together and kissed the land. Columbus rose with drawn sword and took possession of the country in the name of Spain. He called the land SanSalvador, because the lives of himself and his men had been saved from the dangers of the sea.

THE NATIVES. 21

It was on the twelfth of October, 1492, that Columbus and his companions thus discovered the New World.

At first, the natives kept a long distance from them. But after their fright was over, they were gentle and kind. They brought food and fresh water from the brooks to refresh the strangers. The sun shone so brightly on the shields and helmets and swords that they thought these men with white skins must be gods come down from the sun.

They themselves were copper-colored and almost naked. They were very ignorant. They thought that the brass rings and ornaments of the Spaniards were prettier than their gold ones, and they wanted to trade. You maybe sure that the sailors were glad to do this.

The natives traded great balls of cotton thread which their women had spun and which sometimes weighed twenty-five pounds each, for a little painted tambourine, or a broken china cup costing a few cents. They knew so little about swords that they picked them up by the sharp blades and cut their hands badly.

On most of the natives Columbus saw gold. When he asked them where they got it, they pointed toward the south.

THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.

Columbus took some of them with him to search for this land of gold. He sailed south till he came to a great island called Cuba. Here the ferns and palms and flowers and birds were so beautiful that he was more sure than ever that he had found India. So he called the natives Indians.

Once, when some naked Indian boys swam out to the ship, the sailors caught one of them. They dressed him up in a cap and bells and short bright-colored cape and long stockings, and made him swim back to his astonished friends on shore; and the ship went sailing off with everbocly laughing.

When Columbus reached Hayti, he called that

island Hispaniola.

Here the Santa Maria struck on a reef and had to be abandoned.

A fort was built

out of the wreck,

and thirty-nine of

the men were left

THE NINA. in charge. Then

on the sixteenth of January, 1493, Columbus set

sail in the Niiia for Spain, taking with him some

COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SPAIN. 23

native Indians to be baptized. Pinzon had deserted him. He was hurrying home in the ship Pinta, to win the laurels of the discovery for himself.

Columbus had a stormy voyage on the return home. Once it was thought that the ship would go down. So he wrote an account of his discoveries, and sealing it up in a cask, threw it overboard. But the sea grew calm again and on the fifteenth of March the Nina dropped anchor off Palos.

The King and Queen were at Barcelona at that time. You can fancy how astonished everybody looked when the tall, dark-skinned Indians marched in. They were half-naked. Their bodies were painted and their heads adorned with feathers. Some carried baskets of seedpearls, and curious ornaments of gold, some bore the skins of strange animals, and others unknown plants and beautiful birds of brilliant plumage.

The king and queen rose from their thrones to receive Columbus, which was a great honor.

Columbus really believed he had found India. He told the monarchs that there were rivers with sands of gold in these wonderful West Indies, and that much gold was in the earth, to be had for the digging.

24 THE STOKY OF Ol'K COUNTRY,

So Ferdinand was anxious to fit out vessels for another voyage; and on the twenty-fifth of September, 1493, a fleet of seventeen ships, with fifteen hundred men on board, weighed anchor and steered westward

In about two months Columbus came in sight of Hispaniola. Sailing to the fort which he had built there, he found it burned and the little colony gone. Farther east on the island, he built another fort, where he left a colony under command of his brother Diego. Putting to sea again, he discovered the islands of Jamaica and Porto Rico,

When he returned to Hispaniola, his colony was in a sad plight. The greedy Spaniards had not found gold. They were all discontented. Many were sick, for the climate was unhealthful. The Indians had been cruelly treated by the brutal soldiers and would not furnish food.

The colonists blamed Columbus for all their troubles and sent complaints against him to the king. So the great admiral set sail for Spain to defend himself, and was again well received by the king and queen.

In 149S, Columbus set sail with six ships on a third voyage to the New \\ orld. This time he steered farther to the south, still believing he would come to India.

COLUMBUS'S LAST VOYAGE. 25

Skirting along the coast of South America, he saw the Orinoco river rushing clown with its yellow floods to the sea, and then he knew he had found a continent; but he thought it was Asia.

When he reached Hispaniola, Columbus found the Spaniards quarreling with one another and angry with him. He was put in chains and sent back to Spain a prisoner.

Enemies talked ugly about him on the streets of Granada. In the courtyard of the Alhambra, when they met his two little sons, who were pages to Queen Isabella, they would shout and jeer at them about their father.

Although the king took off his chains, he did not treat Columbus very well. He, too, was angry because the gold had not been found. But the selfish Ferdinand knew that Columbus was the best sailor in Spain, and so he told him he must sail again to the west and try once more to find a passage to the rich provinces of India.

When at last his ships again reached Hispaniola, the colony would not let Columbus land. With a sad heart he sailed to the west to obey the king. He did not find a passage to India. His ships were old and worm-eaten. The food gave out, storms drove the vessels ashore, and Columbus and his men barely escaped alive. He

THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY.

TOMB OK COLUMBUS.

was finally taken back to Spain in a ship that was sent to his aid by the governor of Hispaniola. His kind friend Isabella was dead. The king would not reward him for his faithful services. Seventy years old and neglected, Columbus died among strangers.

After many years, the people of Spain learned what a wonderful land Columbus had discovered. They took up his body, carried it across the ocean, and buried it with pomp in San Domingo, in the Island of Hayti, which he had colonized. When Hayti was ceded to France, his remains were removed to the Cathedral in Havana, Cuba.

Isabella's grandson, Charles v., bestowed upon the grandson of Columbus the title of Duke of Veragua and Marquis of Jamaica.

The United States, in 1892, invited the present Duke of Veragua to help celebrate the mem- columbus statue at

° world's COLUMBIAN

ory of Columbus at the World's exposition. Columbian Exposition. When the statue of

HONORS FOR COLUMBUS.

Columbus was unveiled, the national air "Columbia" was played by hundreds of silver-throated instruments, and, for the hour, the whole world seemed to speak the one word — Columbus. Do you not think the great admiral himself would have felt repaid for all his heroic courage and self-sacrifice?

EARLY VOYAGES

TO

NORTH AMERICA

Chapter III. Americus Vespucius And Balboa

It soon became known all over Europe that there really was land across the sea, and another Italian, Americus Vespucius, who lived in Spain, planned a voyage of discovery.

In 1499, Americus visited the coast of Venezuela and saw many curious things there. The people lived in villages built out in the water on piles, with little bridges which they could draw up so that no one could get into their houses. Americus saw them roasting alligators for food. He said that they sometimes killed and ate captives taken in war; but the people in Spain could not believe that story. It seemed too horrible to be true.

Americus brought back two hundred Indians to Spain and sold them as slaves; he thought that was right because he had captured them in battle.

He wrote letters to a friend about his voyage, but did not once mention the name of Columbus.

AMERICUS VESPUCIUS.

DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 29

The letters were published and soon people began to talk about the country of Americus, although, as we have seen, Americus was not the one who discovered it. And that is the way in which the great western continent came to be called America.

About this time there was a Spaniard named Balboa, who lived in Hispaniola. He was brave but cruel, and had many enemies.

He owed a great deal of money wliich he did not wish to pay back. So one day, to escape his creditors, he hid behind some casks on a ship just as it was leaving port. When the captain found Balboa behind the casks he threatened to throw him overboard. But soon a storm tossed the ship about the sea until it was driven to the coast of Darien, near where there was already a small Spanish settlement. Here the Indians were not very friendly to the Spaniards, and tried to induce them to leave the country.

One day, the son of an Indian chief told them that a few days' journey to the west would bring them to a great sea, and that beyond the sea was a land so rich that the people ate off plates of silver and drank from goblets of gold. Balboa determined to find this land. So, with a part}^ of

Spaniards, he marched toward the west, fighting the hostile Indians and often going without food whole days at a time, until they came across the Isthmus of Darien, to a high mountain beyond which, the guide said, lay the sea.

From the top of the mountain in 1513, they saw a vast blue sea which stretched out so far that only the water and the sky could be seen. Great was the joy over this wonderful discovery. The little band of men hastened down the mountain side; and as they went they cut the name of Ferdinand on the bark of the trees.

When, at last, Balboa reached the shore, he waded out into the water and waved his sword and called the new ocean the South Sea, because all that part of it which was in sight lay to the south of the land; and he took possession of the sea and all the land along its coast in the name of Ferdinand, King of Spain. A few years after that, a brave navigator whose name was Magellan, sailed across the South Sea, westward from South America, and thus at last found the long-sought passage to India; and, because the waters were so calm, he gave to the great sea the name which it still bears, the Pacific Ocean.

Chapter IV. Spanish Settlements

Of all the sailors who went across the sea to the new world, the Spaniards were the most pleased with their discoveries, because they happened to go where the climate was mild, where the flowers were blooming and the birds were singing.

The land itself seemed so wonderful that they could not help believing the wonderful stories the natives told. One of the stories was about a magic fountain that would give eternal youth to any one who bathed in its waters.

Now, among the friends of Columbus was a man whose name was Ponce de Leon. He was a brave knight, who had been made governor of Porto Rico. He was very rich, but, as he was getting old, he was willing to spend all his wealth if he might only find the fabled fountain and grow young again.

So he fitted out some ships and sailed from Porto Rico among the islands that dot the sea to the west and north.

PONCE DE LEON.

On Easter Sunday, in 1513, he landed on a coast so full of flowers that he called the land Florida. Then for ^veeks he searched all through this land of flowers; but although he bathed in many streams, he was just as wrinkled as before. At last, Ponce de Leon sailed awa}-. Although he kept thinking about the fountain of 3-outh, he kept getting older and older every day.

Five years later he returned to Florida. The king had made him governor of the countr}' and wanted him to colonize it. But he searched no more for the magic fountain; for almost as soon as he landed, the Indians fell upon his men and killed several in a fierce battle. He himself was wounded and sailed back home to die.

While the rich Ponce de Leon had been seeking youth in Florida another Spaniard, Cortez, was seeking gold in Mexico, but as that country is not a part of the United States, we shall not - ^>.™ . take time to relate the story of ' (-'r-^W ' its discovery. ' '' In the city of Mexico, Cortez

HERNANDO CORTEZ. found bcautlful palaces and temples, and vast stores of wealth in the treasurehouses of Montezuma, the king.

SEARCH FOR GOLD. 33

Cortez conquered the country and made it a Spanish province. He sent bushels of pearls and millions of dollars in gold and silver to Spain. This caused the new king, Charles V., to be more anxious than ever to possess the whole of the new world and he sent over many colonists to make settlements.

Some of the Spaniards were very wicked and cruel to the Indians. Sometimes they cut off their noses and put out their eyes because the Indians would not show them where to find gold; for they believed that the Indians knew just where all the gold mines were.

In 1526 the king of Spain appointed a man called De Narvaez to be governor of Florida. He was a bold adventurer, and wanted gold more than anything else in the world. He treated the Indians so cruelly that they at last revenged themselves by shooting down his men from the forests and swamps, until only four were left of the three hundred who had started out.

King Charles now planned a new expedition which should be hernando de soto. greater than any other. Hernando de Soto, the flower of the Spanish youth, was appointed governor of Florida and Cuba. He had already done some famous things, fighting the Indians in South America. He had just been married to the daughter of Don Pedro cle Avila, the proudest of all the nobles of Spain.

Many young courtiers (locked about the standard of De Soto and began to prepare for the voyage. It was a gay company, all clad in bright armor, with scarfs flying and swords dangling at their sides.