The library of American history, literature and biography ...

Front matter

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Introduction

T is more than four hundred years since Columbus caught his first glimpse of the western world, but it is only about two hundred and seventy-five years since the work of making this continent habitable began. From Jamestown and from Plymouth the streams of exploration and colonization flow steadily westward and southward, gathering volume and momentum until they unite the great oceans and cover the continent. The story of this vast unfolding of life under new conditions is told in this volume by different pens, but with one controlling idea — to show how and by what means a great nation grew out of the few and scattered seeds of a small emigration from beyond the sea. The great English statesman, Burke, has said somewhere that to be a statesman one must not only master the different conditions and occupations of a people, but must so realize them througfh his imaofination that he sees in them one unbroken life. This volume has been prepared in the hope that it will present the life of the American people so clearly, vividly and comprehensively that the unity and magnitude of that life will be more evident than they have ever been before. A great people in a great country has so many occupations, so many kinds of wealth, such differences of condition, that it loses at times the consciousness of its family ties and affections. There are so many kinds of Americans, they are vi THE STORY OF AMERICA.

so widely scattered, and they are busy with such manifold interests, that the homestead is in great danger of being neglected by the children, and the sense of kinship is likely to be lost in the diversity of interests.

We talk a great deal about our power but we do not realize it ; we cannot realize it until we understand what it is which gives us power. We use a great many figures to convey an impression of our acreage and crops ; but it is the farmer, the mechanic and the merchant who are the real capital of the country. Their character, energy, intelligence, thrift and practical sagacity constitute our real wealth ; the wealth which is not subject to the fluctuations of the market or the untimely conditions of the weather. This volume tells the story of material growth as fully and more comprehensively than most books ; but it tells also the story of America as it is written in the life, character and habits of the American man and woman.

To knov/ the American you must know his ancestry and how he came where he now is ; that record is made here with a broad completeness which brings out the immense variety and volume of race force and character behind the people on this continent. To know the American you must know what religious, social and political influences shaped and moulded the lives of his forefathers ; those influences are all marked and traced here. To know the American of to-day you must know what experiences have befallen him on this side the ocean, how he has fared and what he has accomplished ; accordingly his history is fully spread out in these pages, and his explorations, settlements, wars, growth are told, not in detail but so as to cover the ground strongly and effectively. To know the American you must know what he is doing to-day ; where his work is and how he does it ; how he travels ; what inventions he uses ; what mechanical genius he displays ; what books he reads ; what church he attends ; what schools he maintains ; what his pleasures are ; and how he employs his wealth. This volume answers these questions. It is at once a history, a story, an encyclopaedia of national information, and a text-book of national character. It reports travels, describes settlements, gives account of wars, traces political ideas and growth, follows the lines of trade and of national prosperity, pictures what is going on in the shop, the office, the church, the school, the mine, the garden, the grain field, the home. It supplies the historic background of American life, and against this background it spreads out that life in broad, clear lines of growth and activity. It is the story of America, but it is still more the story of the American, Welldone or ill-done, it aims at nothing less than to show the American as he lives and works on the continent which he has conquered by sheer force of energy and intelligence.

There is no romance so marvelous as this record of fact ; none so full of incident, adventure, heroism, and human vicissitude. From the voyages of the earliest Spanish, French, and English explorers to the inventions and discoveries

INTRODUCTION. vii

of Edison the story never fails of thrilling interest. It is a romance of humanity written by the hand of Providence on the clean, broad page of a new continent. It is a Bible for new illustration of the old laws of right and wrong which underlie all history ; but it is a modern version of The Arabian Nights for marvels and miracles of human skill and achievements. The building of Aladdin's palace was a small affair compared with the building of some of our States ; and the rubbing of Aladdin's lamp was but a faint burnishing compared with the glow of prosperity which hard work has brought out on the face of this continent. There is no romance so wonderful as the story of life told, not by novelists of varying degrees of skill, but by great multitudes of eager, energetic men and women. It is doubtful if any country has ever developed greater energy of spirit or greater variety of character than this ; and this is the chief reason why our history has such significance and such fruitage of achievement.

To know this history is a duty and a delight. A man whose brave ancestors have carried the name he bears far, and made it a synonym for courage and honor, is rightly proud of his descent and gets from it a new impulse to bear as brave a part in his own day. Americans can honestly cherish such pride ; it is justified by what lies behind them. No man can be truly patriotic who does not know something of the nation to which he belongs, and of the country in which he lives. Such knowledge is a part of intelligent citizenship. In this country, where the government rests on the intelligence and virtue of the entire population, such a knowledge is a duty and a necessity. Men who reach eminence in their professions invariably have large ideas of those professions ; they know the history of the profession and the names of those who have advanced its influence and secured its honors. A man of business who takes the lead in his particular line of trade is uniformly distinguished by his superior knowledge of business problems and conditions. He studies his business in its large relations to the business of the country ; he looks at it with the eyes of a statesman. The intelligent American cannot be ignorant of the great history in which he has had so vital an interest, or of the life of his country to-day. Not to know these things is to miss a noble and inspiring landscape which we might see simply by the lifting up of the eyes.

It is for the family that this volume was primarily prepared. America is pre-eminently the country of homes ; that is the country which, by its free institutions and its large social and industrial conditions, makes comfortable homes possible to its entire population. These homes are not only the sources of happiness and the nurseries of purity and prosperity ; they are also the schools of citizenship. From these schools are graduated year after year, in unbroken and never-ending classes, the men and women who continue and .enlarge the work and the influence of the nation. The Bible has been and will viii THE STORY OF AMERICA.

remain the great text-book in these schools ; but other books are needed, and this book aims to take its place as an indispensable book of instruction and entertainment. The history of a race is the best possible material for the education of the children of that race. We know this by instinct, and we act by instinct when we hold up constantly the lives and achievements of our great men as illustrations of honor, honesty and capacity. No teaching is so effective as that which flows from persons and characters rather than from abstract principles and statements. Few boys care for patriotism as a quality of character, but every boy knows on the instant what patriotism means when the names of Washington and Lincoln are spoken in his hearing. These great men render through character an even higher service than they render through sacrifice and action. They embody great virtues, they stand for great principles, they illustrate noble qualities. Being dead they still speak with voices whose range and power are denied to teachers who impart truth but do not live it on a great scale. Alfred the Great has been and still is one of the most persuasive and inspiring teachers England has ever had. His name brings instantly to mind the noblest traits of English manhood, the grandest type of English citizenship. To tell his story to a boy is to teach him the deepest lessons of life while he does not suspect anything more enduring than the entertainment of an hour. History is summed up in great men, and every virtue, every vice, every decisive popular movement is identified with or incarnated in some great man. The name of Washington is a most familiar name for truthfulness and integrity, that of Arnold for baseness and treachery, that of Jefferson for the democratic idea, the rule of the people. These names are always in the air because they have their general and enduring meanings ; and no man can estimate their educational value to the country. They are heard on every political platform, but they are heard still more frequently in the school room, and they are of more use there than most text-books.

It was the custom among some nations of antiquity to repeat to each fresh generation the noble deeds of their ancestors, thus making history a great oral tradition, and turning it from a dead record into a living romance. Real education is not knowledge of books but knowledge of life, and books are useful only so far as they lead us to this kind of knowledge. What men have been and have done is the best material for the education which trains one in courage, honesty, and energy as well as in mental quickness and skill. The Athenian boys learned Homer by heart; the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" took the place of the pile of books which the school-boy of to-day carries under his arm when he sets his " morning face " schoolward. In this way boys learned beauty and eloquence of speech, and imbibed the spirit of art while they were yet at their games. But they learned even greater things than these ; they grew up with the heroes of their race and took part in their great deeds. The bravest and mfRODUCTION. ix

most poetic, things which their race had done were familiar and became dear to them while their natures were most receptive and responsive. The past was not dim and obscure to them as it is to too many Americans ; it was a living past, full of splendid figures and heroic deeds. To boys so bred in the very arms and at the very heart of their race it was a glorious privilege to be an Athenian ; to share in a noble history, to be a citizen of a beautiful city, to have the proud consciousness of such place and fame among men. It is not surprising that as the result of such an education the small city of Athens produced more great men in all departments in the brief limits of a century than most other cities have bred in the long course of history. There was a vital, inspiring education behind that splendid flowering of art, literature, philosophy and statesmanship.

The American boy and girl ought to have the same education. Too many grow up with the most indefinite ideas of their own country. They do not know what has been done here ; they do not even know how people live in other parts of the broad land. They know something of their own communities, but they are ignorant of the greater community to which they belong. The story of the country's birth and growth, of its struggles and achievements, of its wonderfully diversified life, of its heroic men and noble women, ought to be familiar to every boy and girl from earliest childhood. This knowledge is the A B C of real education. It is to furnish this knowledge that this volume has been largely prepared. The home is never isolated and solitary ; it is one of a great community of homes stretching across the continent. To get the best and the most out of its beautiful relations and its manifold opportunities, each home must develop the sense of kinship with other homes, and the con-, sciousness of common responsibility. Every child must fill a place in the nation and the world as well as in the home. He must know, therefore, what the nation is and what it demands of him. He must feel the deep and wonderful life, active and powerful over a whole continent, in which he shares and to which he contributes.

This is the age o.' community feeling ; the sense of brotherhood among men of all races has never before been so pervasive and so real. A famine on the banks of the Volga brings quick response from the prosperous fields about the Mississippi. Nothing that happens in the remotest corner of the world is without interest. To know how the other half lives is not only a universal desire, but a universal duty. This volume not only makes the present acquainted with the past and so gives its historic background, but it brings to each occupation and profession the work and condition of every other occupation and profession, and it lays before each section of the country the aspects and habits of every other section. It is a national book ; it describes the West to the East and the North to the South. It tells the merchant how the farmer lives ; it gives the

X THE STORY OF AMERICA.

mechanic a picture of the miner's Hfe ; it furnishes the planter a glimpse of the herdsman. It unfolds a map of the whole country, not in the hard and fast lines of geography, but in the streaming, rushing life of an inmense and energetic people. It supplies a clear and comprehensive view of ^the government in all its functions of administration ; it describes the great cities ; it follows and pictures the countless channels and instrumentahties of travel and commerce ; it delineates the work of the farmer, the mechanic, the miner, the merchant ; it has something to say about churches, colleges, schools, literature, charities. It is, in a word, a national chart, text-book, history and romance for the home.

In the preparation of this volume we have had the assistance of a number of experienced writers specially qualified to present the subjects assigned to them. This co-operation of knowledge and work was not only necessitated by the magnitude and comprehensiveness of a book covering a period of four hundred years and embracing all the aspects, — historical, religious, industrial, social, and intellectual, — of the nation's life, but was deliberately chosen because it ensured greater variety, interest, and thoroughness than any single author could give such a work. Its advantages were recognized as counterbalancing the additional expense involved. We have, however, planned the entire work, and, with the exception of the chapters which are signed by their writers, have outlined and thoroughly revised every part we have not ourselves written, thus securing unity of aim and purpose throughout.

Hamilton W. Mabie.

Marshal H. Bright.

■* Model op

U.S. /^AN OP War

AMERICAN HISTORY

FROM THE TIMES OF THE NORSEMEN TO THE PRESENT DAY, INCLUDING THE ADMINISTRATION OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT

PAOB

Chapter I. Finding The New Country

Discovery and Discoverers — The Norsemen — Did They Discover America ? — The Evidence — Conclusions — Columbus — Early Years — Characters of His Time — Leaves Italy for Portugal — His Plan — Sees the King — The King's Indifference — Visits Spain — A True Friend — Disappointment and Delay — Ferdinand — His Coolness to Columbus' Project — Isabella — Exorbitant Terms — At Last Success — The Expedition from Palos — Mutiny — Columbus' Firmness — Mistaken Signs — Land at Last — A New World Found — Returns to Spain — Voyages and Discoveries — Humiliation —His Death at Valladolid 17

Chapter II. Settling The New Country

Beginnings of Immigration — Condition of Europe — First Attempt at Colonization — The Thirty Years' War — First Roanoke Colony — Women and the Colonists — Raleigh Assigns His Patent — Acadie — The Virginia Charter — Laziness and 111 Feeling — Obtaining a New Charter — The Pocahontas Myth — ^John Smith — His Character — The Plymouth Colony — A Cruel Winter — Miles Standish — Picturesque Charters — Massachusetts Bay Colony — Indian Wars — ^Boundary Disputes — Two Meetings — Hendrick Hudson — New Amsterdam — Penn — The Friends — Rapid Success of the Quakers 43

Chapter III. Making The New People

The Colonists' New Condition — Land and Labor — The Rice Swamps of Carolina — The Plantation — The Farm — Forcing a Staple — A Mulberry Tree Law — Manorial Rights in Virginia — The Feudal System — The Origin of the Virginia Parish — The County

LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS and the Court — Caste— The American Baron — White Trash — Equality in New England — White Slaves — Religious Freedom — Character of the Puritans — Early Histories of Massachusetts — Cotton Mather and the Witches — New York's Auto Da Fe — Symbolism — The Quaker and the Puritan — A Protest Against Persecution — The Blue Laws — The Hudson River Estates — Schools North and South — The Spread of Intelligence 6i

Chapter IV. The War For Independence

Character of the War — The British Plan of Campaign — Bunker Hill — Ticonderoga — The Declaration of Independence — Battle of Long Island — Harlem Heights — Washington Crossing the Delaware — Trenton and Princeton — Burgoyne's Expedition — Surrender of Burgoyne — Howe at Philadelphia — Battle of Germantown — Washington at Valley Forge — The French Alliance — Monmouth Court House — Invasion of Georgia and South Carolina — Gates' Failure — Greene's Strategy — Benedict Arnold's Treachery — Paul Jones and the Serapis — At Yorktown — Washington's Decisive Move — Surrender of Comwallis — Independence Acknowledged . 75

Chapter V. Struggle For Liberty And Government

BY FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR OF SCHOOL OF AMERICAN HISTORY AND INSTITDTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Colonization — Some Results — Popular Rights — New England — The Struggle for Liberty — Limitations — The English Idea — Colonial Legislatures — The Money Question — Governing Outside of Charter Limitations— Taxation — Those Tea Chests — The Struggle for Independence — Confederation — The Franchise — Property Qualification • — That Star of Empire — ^Its Westward Course — ^Then and Now, Etc 95

Chapter VI. The Second War For Independence, Or The War Of I8j2

Meaning of the War — Its Causes — Neutral Rights — Impressing American Sailors — Insults and Outrages — The Chesapeake and the Leopard — Injury to American Commerce — Paper Blockades — The Orders in Council — Embargo as Retaliation — Our Naval Glory in this War — Failure of the Campaign against Canada — Hull's Surrender at Detroit — Splendid Victories at Sea — The Co7istitution and the Guerriire — The Wasp and the Frolic — Other Sea Duels — American Privateers — On the Lakes — Perry's Great Victory — Land Operations — Battle of the Thames — Wilkinson's Fiasco — The Shamion and the Chesapeake — English Reinforcements — Lundy's Lane and Plattsburg — The Burning of Washington — Baltimore Saved — General Jackson at New Orleans — The Treaty of Peace — The Hartford Convention 115

LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS xui

PAOB

Chapter VII. The Story Of The Civil War

Secession — Not Exclusively a Southern Idea — An Irrepressible Conflict — Coming Events — Lincoln — A Nation in Arms — Sumter — Anderson — McClellan — Victory and Defeat — Monitor and Merrimac — Antietam — Shiloh — Buell — -Grant — George H. Thomas — Rosecrans — Porter — Sherman — Sheridan — Lee — Gettysburg — A Great Fight — Sherman's March— The Confederates Weakening — More Victories — Appomattox — Lee's Surrender — From War to Peace — Etc., Etc 131'

Chapter VIII. Our Flag At Sea

The Origin of the American Navy — ^John Paul Jones and his Famous Victory — Sights on Guns and What They Did — Suppressing the Barbary Pirates — Opening Japan — Port Royal — Passing the Forts — The Monitor and the Merrimac — In Mobile Bay — The Kearsarge and the Alabama — Naval Architecture Revolutionized — ^The Samoan Hurricane — Building a New Navy 153

Chapter IX. The Northwest

BY ALBERT SHAW, LL.D.

SDITOR OF REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

A Shifting, Uncertain Designation — A Great, Arable Wedge — Prairies Peopled as if by Magic — Railroads the Pioneers and Colonizers — The Bleak, Scorching Prairies and "Claim Shanties" of 1870 — Transformed into a Garden-like Landscape — The Dairy and Live-Stock Farms of To-day, with their Fragrant Meadows and Ample Groves — The Rapid Destruction of the Vast White-Pine Forests — Its Resultant Development of the Country — The Hardships that Preceded Iron Rails in the Treeless Region — The Schoolhouse of Turf— -The Industrial Life Based Solidly upon Agriculture — Who is the Western Farmer ? — Conflicts between the Transportation Corporations and the Farmers Developing the Principle of Public Regulation of Rates — Other Industries — The "Twin Cities" — The Capital — The Northwestern Educational System — Radicalism and the Temperance Movement — The Spirit of Action Intense — The Race Problems — The Large Scandinavian Element of Population — Progress of the Northwestern Social and Intellectual Life 173

CHAPTER X. DIFnCULTIES WITH FOREIGN POWERS

Perpetual Peace Impossible — The Barbary States— Buying Peace — Uncle Sam Aroused — Thrashes the Algerine Pirates — A Splendid Victory — King Bomba Brought to Terms — Austria and the Koszta Case — Captain Ingraham — His Bravery — " Deliver or I'll Sink You ' ' — Austria Yields — The Paraguayan Trouble — Lopez Comes to Terms — The Chilian Imbroglio — Balmaceda — The Insult to the United States — American Seamen Attacked — Matta's Impudent Letter — Backdown — Peace — All's Well That Ends Well, Etc 185 xiv LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS

FAGB

Chapter XI. How We Govern Ourselves

BY ANNA L. DAWES

The National Government — Congress — How Composed — Duties — Executive — Election of President — Cabinet — Judiciary — Powers of Supreme Court — Federal System — Relation of States to Nation — The Rights and Duties of Citizens 203

Chapter XII. Our Presidents

The Statesmen Who Have Occupied the Presidential Chair — Brief Sketches of Their Lives — The Memorable Events of Their Administrations — The Important Facts of Our Political, Commercial, and Social History Since the Adoption of the Constitution 214

Chapter XIII

Opening Incidents — Bombardment of Matanzas — Dewey's Wonderful Victory at Manila — Disaster to the Winslow at Cardenas Bay — The First American Loss of Life — Bombardment of San Juan, Porto Rico — The Elusive Spanish Fleet — Bottled-up in Santiago Harbor — Lieutenant Hobson's Daring Exploit — Second Bombardment of Santiago and Arrival of the Army — Gallant Work of the Rough Riders and the Regulars — Battles of San Juan and El Caney — Destruction of Cervera's Fleet — General Shafter Reinforced in Front of Santiago — Surrender of the City — General Miles in Porto Rico — Conquest of the Philippines — Peace Negotiations and Signing of the Protocol — Its Terms — The Peace Commission in Paris — Conclusion of Its Work — Terms of the Treaty — Ratified by the Senate 239

Chapter XIV

THE CLOSING EVENTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BY PROFESSOR CHARLES MORRIS

Affairs in Cuba and Porto Rico — Dewey's Promotion and Return — The Philippine Situation — Aguinaldo's Insurrection — The War in Luzon — ^The Philippine Commission — Amnesty Proclaimed — Presidential Nomination in 1900 — Party Platforms — Affairs in China — The Boxer Outbreak — The Census of 1900— Pan-American Exposition — The Death of President McKinley 273

Chapter XV. Twentieth Century Events By Professor Charles Morris

President Roosevelt — Opening of his Administration — The Nicaragua Canal Route — The Pan-American Congess — Exposition at Charleston, South Carolina — The President's First Message — The Settlement of the Alaskan Boundary Dispute — Ratification of Reciprocity Treaty with Cuba — The New Republic in Panama — Preparations for the St. Louis Exposition 288

KING PHILIPS \VAR— DEATH OF THE KING

In 1B7.5 this famous Indian enliiled in his service nearly all the New Knglanil tribes in a war against the settlers.

Drawn t^v A, R. Wani

" Steer straight for the vessel," cried Gallup, and stationing himself at the bow he opened fire on the I iidians.

Every time his gun flashed some one was hit. Thi^ incident was the beginning of the Peqiiot War.

THE MARRIAGE OF POCHAHONTAS.

Chapter I. Kindinq Xhe New Country

HILE Discovery, whether disclosing unknown lands beyond untried seas, or revealing the method of subduing and utilizing to man's service some one of the mighty forces of Nature, has startled the world more than Conquest, scarcely less surprising than some discoveries is the fact that the world has so often and for so long a time seemed to call for a discoverer in vain. Notably this is the case with the two most important discoveries that have ever been made, and both in the fifteenth century — that of the art of printing of a new world. For thousands of years the world had lought into permanent legible characters by means of the stylus, the stalk of the papyrus, or the chisel. Slow and laborious were these methods, yet the splendid civilizations of the great Eastern Empires, the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and the Medo-Persian, had produced their literature without the aid of the printing press, while the later civilizations of Greece* and Rome — countries that gave to all corhing time the noblest literatures — transcribed them by the painful process of the pen.

The wonderful brain of the Greek could construct a Parthenon, the wonder of the age ; and the Roman reared that pile, so noble in its simplicity — the Pantheon ; yet neither could discern the litde type that should make the rapid

3 17 and the finding transcribed its t multiplying of letters easy, nor place in relief upon a block of wood the tracery of a single leaf ; and the wonder is no less, but increases as we consider the fact that two vast continents, the half of an entire planet, had for so many centuries eluded the gaze of men who went down to the sea in ships, who for centuries had navieated an inland sea for two thousand miles, while from Iceland and Jutland intrepid mariners and Buccaneers had plowed the ocean with their keels.

For nearly three centuries before the angels sung at Bethlehem, Aristotle, following the teachings of the Pythagoreans, had asserted the spheroidicity of the earth, and had declared that the great Asiatic Empire could be reached by sailing westwardly, a view that was confirmed by Seneca, the Spaniard, who affirmed that India could be reached in this way ; and all down the centuries the probability of discovery, as we now look back upon those times, seems to be increasing ; but, somehow, Discovery still refused to enter the open gate leading to the New World, and this, notwithstanding the fact that the Canary and Madeira Islands had been discovered some years before, and the Portuguese navigators had followed the coast of Africa for thousands of miles, as far as the Cape of Good Hope, Columbus himself having skirted the coast to the Cape of Storms. The spheroidicity of the earth was generally accepted by enlightened men, though the Copernican system was not known, and it was believed that there must be a large unknown continent to the west. There was such a continent — two of them indeed — and they were nearer the African coast, along which Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian navigators had coursed, than the distance they had covered from the Pillars of Hercules to the Cape of Good Hope. Yet, though the times wanted a discoverer, he was not to be found.

WAS AMERICA DISCOVERED BY THE NORSEMEN ?

This has long been a disputed question. Norse scholarship has always insisted upon the discovery ; scholars looking upon the matter from the outside have disputed the claim. One of the principal chains of evidence offered heretofore has been supplied by the Norse Sagas — stories of mingled fact, romance and myth ; but they have been distrusted, and up to recent time the preponderance of evidence has rather been against the Icelandic claim. But latterly new evidence has been brought to light, which seems to fully establish the fact of the discovery of America by the Norsemen from Iceland, about A. D looo-

To cite the testimony of the Sagas, one must suffice for evidence in that direction. The Eyrbyggia Saga — the oldest extant manuscript, remains of which date back to about the year 1300 — has the following: "After the reconciliation between Steinhor and the people of Alpta-firth, Thorbrand's sons, Snorri and Thorleif, went to Greenland. Snorri went to Wineland the Good with