A school history of the United States

Preface

This Histoky has been prepared with the desire to give the children and youth of the United States, and especially those of the Southern States, a fair and just and interesting- account of the whole country from Maine to Texas and California.

Most of the School Histories now in use tell in detail the story of the northern half of the country, while only a few chapters are devoted to its southern half. In this book, an honest effort is made to speak truthfully of both without sectional passion or prejudice.

Adding the history of the Southern States and of the Civil War, to what is told in other School Histories, has necessarily made this volume larger. After all possible condensation, it has not been found i:)racticable to compress truth into a smaller compass without reducing it to a dry compendium of facts and dates utterly devoid of interest, and impossible to remember.

A list of some of the principal authorities for the statements made is appended to each chapter. Many, many besides these have been carefully consulted. The figures and accounts of the Civil War have been taken with great care from the " Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies," published by the United States War Department in Washington, and can be fully substantiated by reference to them.

The Author acknowledges gratefully the valuable assistance she has received from the Libraries of Washington and Lee University and the Virginia Military Institute. She is also specially indebted to Professor Henry Alexander White and Hon. William A. Anderson of Lexington, and to Mr. Rosewell Page of Richmond, Va., for the helpful and important aid given by them in examining and criticising her manuscript.

A Southern Book, in the writing and publication, it is hoped that it may commend itself especially to the Southern public, while exciting no prejudice, nor eliciting harsh criticism from Northern readers.

Lexington, Viugixia,

Table Of Contents

First Period— Discovery and Settlement, 985-1688.

Chapter. * Pagb.

I. Discovery and Naming of the New World 9

Chapter I. Discovery

Legends of Discovery. — The continent of America was practically unknown to the rest of the world until four hundred years ago, although there were some legends concerning a strange land in the Western sea. One of these said that Hanno, of Carthage, had been driven v/estward by storms, B. C. 300, and had seen a new and terrible shore. Another told of Madoc,a Welsh prince, who had sailed toward the setting sun and established himself in a goodly country.

Eric and Leif, 985 A. D. — The first certain knowledge of the fabled la.nd was when the Iceland "Vikings" or "Sea Rovers," in their long ships moved by oars as well as sails, led by Eric the Red, discovered and settled on the southern coast of Greenland, about 985 A. D. The bold Norsemen sailed southward from Greenland and coasted along the eastern shore of North America. Attracted by their report of the land they had seen, Leif, the son of Eric, followed his father to Greenland. Then he, too, sailed southward. Entering one of the bays of the coast, he found a country fair to his eyes, where grapes were so plentiful that he called the place " Vinland the Good." This was probably in Massachusetts or Rhode Island.

Settlement in Vinland. — For twelve years, ships continued to come from Greenland to Vinland, and the settlement succeeded well. The Pope appointed a Bishop for it, as he had done before for Greenland ; and Gudrid, the wife of one of the bold seamen, came and lived there for three years.

Western Land Forgotten. — How the settlements in America died out and w^ere forgotten, we do not know, but for several hundred years all knowledge of the western land passed away.

Advance of Learning. — Men's minds were, however, becoming more enlightened. The truth that the world was round

History of the United States.

like a ball, and not flat, was gradually coming to be believed. The mariner's compass was being more and more used, so that long voyages were not so dangerous and uncertain. God's providence was preparing the way for the permanent discovery of the New World. Christopher Columbus, of Genoa, in Italy, was the man who brought it to the definite knowledge of the Old World.

Christopher Columbus and His Plan. — Columbus was born in 1435. Of his early life we know little, but are told that he was eager for knowledge, of an adventurous disposition, and that he became a sailor when only thirteen. Studying whatever came in his way about geography as then known, Columbus became convinced that the world was round, and that by sailing westward he must come to the shores of Asia, which had been visited by Marco Polo and other travellers, going always eastcoj^ujuiiu-i. ward. Columbus was too poor to prepare

for such a voyage, and he tried to persuade first the king of Portugal and then the king of Spain to assist him, and also sent his brother to England to ask King Henry VII. to furnish him with the means for it.

Voyage of Columbus and Discovery of America, 1492. — At last Queen

Isabella of Spain became so much interested in Columbus a n d his projects that she is even said t o have pledged her jewels to raise money for him

LANDING OF COLUMBUS.

Her husband. King Ferdinand, joined her, and three small vessels, the Pirda, the Nina, and the Santa Maria, were fitted out and sailed, with ninety men, under command of Columbus, from Palos, in Spain, on August 3, 1492. . It was a bold act. No one had ever crossed the unknown sea before them. The sailors soon became very

Discovery ' 11

uneasy and greatly alarmed, but Columbus was full of courage and he cheered and encouraged them, and after two months there were signs on the waters which made him think they were reaching land. He kept an anxious watch, and in the early morning of October 12th there was a joyful cry from the outlook on the Pinta of "Land! Land!" It proved to be one of the Bahama Islands.

" Indians " — Return of Columbus to Spain. — From this first island Columbus sailed along the coasts of Cuba and Hayti, landing at various places, examining the country and collecting specimens of plants, birds and animals to take back to Spain. He thought he had come to Japan, Cipango as it was then called, or some other part of Asia, probably India; and he called the simple, kindly people of the islands, " Indians." Several of these also were carried back to Spain. When the little fleet returned to Palos, not quite eight months after leaving it, there was great excitement and rejoicing; and Columbus was welcomed by the king and queen with much ceremony, and loaded with honors. His fame and success excited interest in all the maritime countries of Europe.

The Spanish Search for Gold. — There was no more diffi culty in his procuring men and ships in abundance. The one thing the Spaniards were after was gold. They did not want to establish prosperous colonies and become rich, gradually, by honest work. They wanted to gather wealth at once and return to Europe to squander it.

Ill Treatment of Columbus — Discovery of South America. There was little gold to be found in the islands, and soon the disappointment of the Spaniards led to quarrels and strife. The lailure of their hopes made them hostile to Columbus. They accused him of many misdeeds. He lost favor at court, and was treated with indignity instead of honor. In his third voyage he saw the coast of South America, but never visited North America.

Death of Columbus, 1506. — From this voyage he was sent to Bpain in fetters, and died in 1506, at the age of seventy, poor and neglected, but firm in his trust in God.

Naming of the New World. — You may naturally think that the land he discovered should have been named for him. The Spanish greed for gold, no doubt, had a great deal to do with its not being so named. Printing had been invented about the time that Columbus was born, and so knowledge was more rapidly spread than before. But neither Columbus nor any of his immediate followers took time to write and publish an account of the new land they had found. Amerigo Vespucci. — Amerigo Vespucci, a gentleman of Florence, became interested in the western discoveries and took part in them. An expedition with which he sailed coasted along South America for hundreds of miles, and Amerigo and others were convinced that it was not Asia, but a new VESPUCCI, continent, which lay before them. The New World Named America. — When he returned to Europe, Amerigo wrote an account of the new land and its productions, and gave his reasons for believing that it was a new world. This book and others attracted the attention of Europe, and the new country received its name from the first man who had observed it closely and described it faithfully. English Expedition of Discovery. — Other navigators carried on the discoveries of Columbus. His brother, Bartholomew, had been captured by pirates, and so did not get to England in time to obtain aid for him from the English king. But as soon as the tidings of his discovery of land in the west reached England, Henry VU. sent out John Cabot and his son Sebastian to sail westward and take possession for England of all unknown lands they might discover. Discovery of North America by John and Sebastian Cabot, 1497. — With one little ship and eighteen men, Cabot reached the coast of North America on June 24, 1497, and so became the real discoverer of our continent. The New-found-land was either the island of that name or the coast of Labrador. Sebastian Cabot the next year cruised southward along the coast as far as the Carolinas, and took cabot. possession of the whole in the name of the English king, as his father had done before of his more northern discovery. Thus we owe our country neither to Columbus and his Spaniards, nor to Amerigo Vespucci, but to the brave hearts and strong hands of Anglo-Saxon sailors sent out by an English king.

French Expedition under Cartier. — The French king

Discovery. 13

Francis I., also sent expeditions westward. Jacques Cartier, commanding one of these, took posession of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for France, and, sailing through the gulf and up the river he named St. Lawrence, claimed it also for his king.

Right of Discovery. — In those days what was called " the right of discovery " was thought to give a title to the possession of a country. To strengthen this right, the Pope bestowed upon Spain and Portugal all the lands in the New World. We know he had no power to do this, but the Spaniards and Portuguese thought themselves very secure in their new possessions when the Pope confirmed their title.

"Line of Demarcation," and Discovery of Brazil, 1500. — To quiet the jealousy of the two nations, the meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands was called the "Line of Demarcation." All land discovered east of this was to belong to Portugal; all west of it to Spain. In 1500, Cabral, a Portuguese sailor who had set out to follow Vasco de Gama's famous voyage round the Cape of Good Hope in the previous year, going too far to the westward, discovered the coast of Brazil, not far from the mouth of the Amazon. The land lay east of the " Line of Demarcation," and so Brazil became a Portuguese and not a Spanish country.

Discovery of the Pacific by Balboa, 1513. — Led on by thirst for gold, the Spaniards pushed their discoveries always towards the west and south, where the Indians assured them gold was to be found. One expedition was wrecked on the coast of Panama, and Balboa, one of the adventurers, crossed the mountains of the isthmus and obtained the first sight of the Pacific Ocean, in 1518.

Discovery of Florida, 1513. — In this same year Ponce de Leon, searching not for gold like his countrymen, but for a fountain which the Indians declared would restore a man to perpetual youth, came upon another unknown coast. It was on Easter Sunday, in Spanish "El Pascua Florida,'^ and the new land has borne the name " Florida " ever since.

Conquest of Mexico and Peru. — Within the next twenty years, Hernando Cortez conquered Mexico, and Alonzo Pizarro, with ships built on the Pacific Coast, seized on Peru. In these rich countries the Spanish thirst for gold might have been satisfied with what the natives gave them;

but the conquerors practiced the most frightful cruelties upon both Mexicans and Peruvians to extort from them still greater stores of treasure.

First Voyage Round the World. — While Pizarro was busy torturing and robbing in Peru, Fernando Magellan, a Portuguese captain of a Spanish ship, sailed farther south and west than any one else had done, passed through the strait which ])ears his name, and entered the great quiet ocean, which he called " Pacific." Magellan died at sea, but his ship got safely back to Spain, having made the first voyage round the world.

Discovery of the Mississippi River by De Soto, 1541. — In 1539, Ferdinand De Soto, with a large force of men and a good number of horses, landed on the coast of Florida, still on the search for gold. The Spanish cruelties had made all the Indians hostile to them, and De Soto had to fight his way westward to the Mississippi River. He crossed the great river and proceeded some distance up the western bank, always disappointed in not finding gold. The party endured great hardships, and De Soto himself died of fever. His followers buried him in the Mississippi to secure his body from the vengeance of tlie savages, and after many days of suffering made their way back to Mexico.

AUTHORITIES. — Irving's Columbus; Fiske's Discovery of America; Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, and Conquest of Mexico; Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. I.; Century Papers on Columbus; Monette's History of Louisiana and the Mississippi Valley; Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of the United States, Vol. II.

QUESTIONS.— 1. What is the legend about Hanno? 2. Where is Carthage ? 3. The legend of Madoc ? 4. Where is Wales ? 5. Who was Eric ? 6. Where is Iceland ? 7. What did Eric and Leif discover ? 8. Describe Vinland and its settlement ? 9. Where was it ? 10. Were other settlements made then ? 11. When did this occur ? 13. How long has the American continent been known to the world? VS. Tell of the advance of learning 14. Who was Christopher Columbus? 15. What was his plan? 16. Who helped him? 17. When did he sail and where is Palos? 18. When was America thus discovered and where? 19. Why did Columbus call the new people "Indians"? 20. Tell of his return to Spain and further voyages. 21. For what did the Spaniards search? 22. When did Columbus die?

28. Why was not America named for Columbus? 24. After whom was it named? 25. Why?

26. Whom did the English send out to the New World ? 27. What part of the continent did they discover? 28. Tell of the French expedition.

29. The "right of discovery." 80. The "Line of Demarcation." 31. How did Brazil become Portuguese ? 32. Who discovered the Pacific and when ? 33. Tell of the discovery and naming of Florida. 34. Conquest of Mexico and Peru. 35. First voyage around the world. 36. Who discovered the Mississippi? 37. Find all these places on the map.

CHAPTER 11.

THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

S^

INDIAN WEAPONS.

Appearance of the Indians. — The people found by the Europeans in America all received the name of Indians, as those of the islands had already done. They were a race unlike any other, and, while differing greatly in the different parts of the continent, and being called by m™.-^ ri'v «/ -^fcw" different

names, were alike i n so many respects that they are believed to have sprung from the same stock. They were all of a dusky brown or copper color, from which they were afterwards known as ["red men." They had straight, coarse, black Ihair and black eyes and very little beard. Their cheek bones were very high, their hands and feet small, and their bodies generally slender and spare. A¥hile alike in so many respects, there were great differences in the size and appearance, .and in the customs and modes of life of the Indian tribes. Distinguishing them by their habits, we may call them savage, barbarous, and half-civilized.

The Savage Indians. — The savage Indians dwelt in the region extending from the west of Hudson Bay southward to Mexico, between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast. Like their descendants, the Apaches and Athabascans, they had no settled homes, but moved from place to place, lived in rude tents or wigwams covered with skins, subsisted by hunting and fishing, and did very h little in cultivating the soil. The vast herds of buffaloes and deer and the lish in the rivers and lakes along which they wandered supplied them with food. They could weave baskets, but do not appear to have known the art of making even rude pottery. Such scant clothing as they had was simply the skins of the animals killed in hunting.

The Barbarous Indians. — East of the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico, the red men may be characterized as barbarous Indians. They dwelt in settlements or villages and understood some little about agriculture, raising maize, or Indian corn, in considerable quantities, as well as some other vegetables — such as pumpkins, beans, and tobacco. Their implements

INDIAN VILLAGE.

for cultivating their patches were clumsy stone hoes. Their dwellings were either rude wooden structures covered with bark, or were made of sun-baked clay. These houses were occupied by several families, sometimes as many as fifty under one roof. These families were all the descendants of some one grandmother, or more remote ancestress, and constituted what we call a clan. Several clans, speaking the same language and probably being kindred in blood, composed a tribe.

Arts and Habits of the Barbarous Indians. — The barbarous Indians practiced some rude household arts, such as making pottery and weaving a coarse kind of cloth. They made baskets, canoes, and weapons of stone and polished flints; and some tribes had quite beautiful robes of feathers interwoven with grass or their coarse thread. All these

The American Indians.

arts, except the making of tomahawks and spears and arrow heads, were practiced by the women alone, who also performed all other kinds of labor, for the men scorned work of any sort, and occupied themselves only in hunting, fishing, fighting their enemies, and meeting in the councils of their tribes. It was the women who prepared the game killed by the men, cultivated and gathered in their slender crops, carried the skins for the wigwams and their few possessions, when a tribe moved its place, and set up what shelters they had. They carried their children — the " papooses"— on their backs, along with their other burdens.

Neither the savage nor the barbarous Indians had any written language. They were without any history, any systematic government or settled form of religion, and had no domestic animals except a few miserable dogs. Each clan had some symbol of its own, usually the rude picture or figure of some animal, which was called a "totem," and had, also, its peculiar religious ceremonies. The sachem, or chief, was chosen by the warriors of the clan, who also elected their war chiefs. These chiefs composed the council of the tribe.

The Half-civilized Indians. — The half-civilized Indians, within the United States, were not numerous, and were found only in Arizona and New Mexico. They lived in strong, fortified towns, usually built on some steep, inaccessible height, and were called by the Spaniards " Pueblo Indians." They extended from New Mexico down to Chili in South America.

The Aztecs and Peruvians. — The Aztecs in Mexico and the people of Peru were the most advanced in civilization, 2

PUEBLO INDIAN AT PRAYER.

History of the United States.

They built splendid temples and palaces, had fine cities and gardens, an organized system of government, a state religion, good roads, a mode of hieroglyphic writing, and many other civilized habits and customs.

The Esquimaux. — The Esquimaux, whom Eric the Red found in Greenland, were the same short, stout people who live there to-day.

Origin of the Indians. — Where these original inhabitants of the continent came from, cannot be known. It is not to be doubted that they were descended from Adam and Eve. Some things in their language, their superstitions, and their traditions resemble those of Asiatic nations. Perhaps they

MOUNDS NEAE MARIETTA, OHIO.

came from Asia or Europe long, long before Eric or Columbus crossed the sea. But whether they drifted across from Asia or Europe, or passed from Siberia to Alaska, no man can say. The Indians themselves had the scantiest traditions as to their orighi. Some claimed to have come from the north, others from the south, and others again to have sprung from the ground.

Indian Mounds. — Not only are we ignorant of the origin of the people whom Columbus and Cortez found in Americ-a, but there are everywhere to be seen ruins and antiquities of older races than they. All through the region from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico are traces of a race known as the " Mound Builders," from the great mounds or earthworks left by them. Some of these mounds are tombs, some

The American Indians. 19

temples, others fortifications. In the burial mounds, skeletons, burial urns, trinkets of silver and copper, arms, pipes, vases of pottery with designs traced on them, and articles of coarse cloth, have been found.

These mounds are seen in Virginia, Ohio, and the States soutli and west of them. The fortification mounds also exist in manyplaces. Earthworks in the form of animals or reptiles are more ^^dian mounb m west Virginia.

curious still, and are supposed to have had some religious meaning. They are found on both sides of the Mississippi River. The Indians living here when the white men came could not have made these mounds, and seem to have been too stupid to be impressed by them. They never told the white men any tradition concerning them.

Some Bad Traits of Indian Character. — The character of the savage and barbarous Indians was much the same everywhere. They were idle, boastful, treacherous, full of revenge, and merciless in their cruelty. Truth they had no regard for. In his wigwam, the Indian was a tyrant, and often a very cruel one to his wife or "squaw," whom he could beat or drive away or kill without hindrance. The men were fond of their children, especially of their sons, whom they trained to be warriors.

Some Good Traits. — They had some idea of hospitality and were sometimes faithful friends, while always cruel and revengeful enemies. It was their pride to show neither wonder nor curiosity, to manifest no grief nor pleasure, and above all to allow no expression of fear or pain to escape from them even when in the greatest torture. Their faculties of observation were so highly cultivated that they could follow a friend or track a foe through the unknown wilderness by the crumpling of a leaf, the breaking of a twig, or the upturning of a pebble. To take the scalps of their enemies was their greatest pride, and an Indian youth could only be recognized as a "brave," an acknowledged warrior, by taking a certain number of scalps.

The Indian Religion. — The Indian religion was not idolatry, but it had nothing in it to make them better or more civilized. They believed in a Great Spirit, who was worshipped with dances and incantations. When a warrior died they thought he went to tlie "happy hunting grounds," and they burned or buried with him his bow and arrows, his knife and tomahawk, sometimes his dog, and later on his horse.

"Pipe of Peace." — Tobacco seems to have been the only Indian luxury. It entered largely into their amusements or deliberations. " Smoking the pipe of peace " ensured peace and friendly relations among all who were permitted to join in it.

Three Different Races. — The various tribes of barbarous Indians may be collected in three races: The Algonquins, the Iroquois, and the Maskoki or Muskogees. Different tribes of the Maskoki, such as the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Creeks, were scattered through the region south of the Tennessee and west of the Mississippi Rivers. Among them dwelt the Cherokees, who belonged to the Iroquois race, as did the Tuscaroras in North Carolina, the Susquehannocks in Pennsylvania, the Five Nations in New York, together with the Hurons and Eries. To the Algonquin division belonged all the other Indian tribes from Labrador to the Carolinas, extending even west of the Mississippi. The Powhatans of Virginia, the Mohegans and Narragansetts of New England, the Leni-Lenapes of Delaware, the Shawnees of the Ohio Valley, and the Chippewas and Sacs and Foxes near the Great Lakes were the most famous of the Algonquin tribes. The Chippewas were the least civilized and the Iroquois the most civilized of all the barbarous Indians.

AUTHORITIES.— Bancroft, Vol. III., chapter XXIV.; Fiske's History of the United States; living's Columbus, and Prescott's Conquest of Mexico; Scudder's History of the United States, chapter XXI.; Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of the United States, Vol. I. ; Fisher's Colonial Era, chapter II. ; Drake's Indians of North America.

QUESTIONS.— 1. Were the Indians all alike? 2. Describe their general appearance. 3. What three divisions are there according to their habits? 4. Who were the savage tribes ? 5. Describe them. 6. Where did the barbarous Indians live? 7. Describe them. 8. What arts had they? 9. What habits of life and government? 10. Tell of tho half-civilized Indians. 11. The Aztecs and Peruvians. 12. Find the places mentioned. 13. Where did the Esquimaux live? 14. What is the origin of the Indian races ? 15. Were they the first people of this country? 16. Tell of the Mound-Builders.

17. Have you ever seen a Mound or any of the curiosities found in one ?

18. Mention some of the good and some of the bad traits of the Indian character. 19. What was their religion ? 20. What three races were there ? 21. Tell their subdivisions and where each dwelt. (See map of the Indian Tribes.;

Chapter III. Settlements On The Atlantic Coast

Spanish Settlement, 1565. — The Spaniards claimed the whole American coast, but made no attempts to settle on it north of St. Augustine, in Florida, which was founded in 1565.

French Attempted Settlements. — Three years before that, a band of French Protestants, Huguenots as they were called, had built a fort called Carolana near Port Royal, in South Carolina. They soon be- mm:^_- * ,

came discouraged and left S America. A second party, Ig however, came over in '" 1564, seeking a place where they might carry out their religion in safety, and established themselves on the St, John's River in Florida. Against them came the Spanish Governor Melendez from Cuba, who fell on the colony and destroyed it, slaying the whole nine hundred men, women and children.

Some of them were hung with the inscription — "Not as unto Frenchmen, but as unto heretics." Four years later a body of French soldiers, in their turn, attacked the Spanish settlements, killed three hundred of them, and showed that it was done in retaliation by affixing to some of them the words, " Not as Spaniards, but as murderers."

French Settlements in Canada, 1605. — The first successful French settlement was made in Nova Scotia, and three years later Champlain settled Quebec.

English Attempts. — The English had made one or two futile efforts at colonizing America. One of these expedi-

OLD GATEWAY AT ST. AlUi'JSTINE.

tions, commanded by Frobisher in 1576, was to Labrador, where he expected to find gold. A second was by Sir Humphrey Gilbert to settle Newfoundland in 1585. On his last voyage his vessels were scattered by a storm. Sir Humphrey refused to leave his ship, The Squirrel, and the last words heard from him were ; " We are as near heaven by sea as by land."

Sir Francis Drake. — Meantime, the English sailors were becoming the boldest and most accomplished seamen. They took advantage of the war with Spain to attack her colonies and capture her treasure ships. Among the most daring of these was Francis Drake. He had seen the Pacific Ocean, while on an expedition against Darien, in '•^ 1567, and determined to explore its un-

BIB FRANCIS DBAKE. , . ^

known waters.

" Northwest Passage." — The idea in Europe was that America was one large island, or a series of smaller islands, sailing around which one might reach Asia. The Portuguese claimed the route round Africa discovered by their sailor De Gama. The Spaniards made a similar claim to Magellan's route round South America. The rest of Europe believed that another route called the " Northwest Passage " round the northern coast of the New World would bring them more speedily to the Pacific Ocean. Hoping to find this passage, Frobisher, Davis, Henry Hudson, and other brave sailors wasted time, men, and money in the frozen waters north of Labrador. Their efforts are commemorated in the bays and straits which bear their names.