The student's history of our country for grammar grades

Front matter

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Part I. Early American History Period I. Discovery And Exploration 1492 To 1588 Chapter Page

I The Land and the People i

II Discoveries and Explorations 12

PERIOD 2. COLONIZATION 1588 to 1760

III Chesapeake Bay Colonies 35

IV New England Colonies 50

V Colonial Development — New Grants 65

VI Life in the Colonies 86

PERIOD 3. STRUGGLE FOR POSSESSION

VII French and Indian Wars 105

VIII The American Revolution: Preliminaries 119

IX The American Revolution : The War in the North . . 136

X The American. Revolution : On the Frontier and on the

Sea 161

XI The American Revolution : The War in the South . . 165

XII The Critical Period 171

Part II. The United States Under The Constitution

PERIOD 4. THE- GENERATION OF REVOLUTIONARY FATHERS

XIII Twelve Years of Federalist Supremacy 183

XIV Democracy and Expansion 203

XV The War of 1812: Freedom on the Seas 216

XVI Transition from the First to the Second Generation of

Statesmen 232

ix

X

CONTENTS

PERIOD 5. SECOND GENERATION OF STATESMEN

1829 TO 1850 CHAPTER PAGE

XVII Growth of the American People, 1830-1850 245

XVIII The Jacksonian Epoch 261

XIX Another Period of Expansion . 275

PERIOD 6. ERA OF STRIFE 1850 to 1876

XX The Parting of the Ways 293

XXI Secession and the Confederacy 309

XXII Two Years of War, 1861-1862 328

XXIII The War from 1863 to the End 357

XXIV Reconstruction of the Union 386

PERIOD 7. THE RE-UNITED STATES 1876 to I 91 2

XXV Development of the Nation 406

XXVI The Spanish War and Its Results : Subsequent Events 436

Important Dates in American History 474

United States and Its Possessions 476

Index 479

List of Maps

PAGE

Physical Features of North America (colored) .... facing 2 Locations of families and tribes of North American Indians (colored) facing 10

The Known World in the Fifteenth Century 12

Country discovered by Columbus 20

Routes of voyagers and discoverers 24

Routes of Spanish Explorers 26

Crown Grants to Trading Companies 36

Four Periods of Atlantic Coast Development (colored) . . facing 76

Carolina as granted by Charles II 81

French Posts and Forts at the beginning of the French and Indian

War (colored) facing 107

Eoston and vicinity, showing Pitcairn's route 131

Revolutionary War — Campaigns in the North (color.ed) . facing 136

Washington's Campaign in the winter of 177(>-1777 147

Routes of Burgoyne and St. Leger, 1777 148

Howe's route to Philadelphia, 1777 152

Route of Clark 162

Revolutionary War — Campaigns in the South (colored) . . facing 166 United States at the close of the Revolution (colored) . . facing 170

Free and Slave Territory under the Ordinance of 1787 176

Routes taken by Lewis and Clark and I)y Zebulon Pike in exploring

the new territory : . 208

Territory of active operations in the War of 1812 222

Territory in dispute between the United States and Mexico .... 283 Routes of United States Troops in the War with Mexico .... 287 Territory acquired by the United States between 1789 and 1853 (colored) facing 290

Slave and Free Territory after the Compromise of 1850 298

States controlled by Federals and by Confederates in 1861 (colored)

facing 320

Movement of Armies, 1861 329

The South's First Line of Defenses (colored) facing 328

xi xii . LIST OF MAPS

Campaign around Perryville 343

Hampton Roads, First Engagement between Ironclads 346

Field of operations during the seven days' fighting 352

Positions and Movements of Armies, 1863 361

Grant's Route to Vicksburg ^63

Battles of the Red River Expedition, 1864 365

Route of Sherman's March to the sea ;ijy

Showing the gradual southward movement of Confederate defenses . 381 Transportation Routes, 1885 — 'Standard Time Divisions (colored)

facing 418

Hawaiian Islands 433

Movement of ships around the islands 444

Line of March to Santiago 447

Philippine Islands 452

The Panama Canal and the Canal Zone 459

Successive Acquisitions of territory by the United States (colored)

facing 459

Westward movement of the center of population 469

THE STUDENT'S HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY

PART I

EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY PERIOD I.— DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION

1492-1588

Chapter I

In the fifteenth century the center of the civihzation of the world was Southern and Western Europe, but even there the knowledge of geography was limited. Man had learned to navigate the seas, but as yet he had not pushed far out into the great oceans that encircle the continents. There were vast undiscovered lands and strange peoples of whom he knew nothing.

Shape and Size of North America. North America, the part of these far-away lands with which our history is concerned, is shaped like a triangle, with its apex to the south. Three different oceans bound the three sides. The frozen Arctic lies to the north ; the eastern shore is washed by the waters of the Atlantic, and it is indented by bays and gulfs and by broad river mouths or estuaries that serve as fine harbors and that seemed to welcome the early mariners ; on the west the Pacific washes a coast of such remarkable regularity that only three important harbors are found tliroughout its whole extent. In size North America ranks third among the continents of the earth.

I

The Atlantic Coastal Plain. Looking at the interior of this continent, and going from east to west, we find stretching inland from the Atlantic coast as far south as the Hudson River, a narrow rugged strip of country abounding in waterfalls. South of the Hudson this plain gradually widens and then turns westward along the Gulf of Mexico. Its average width is about two hundred miles, and it is watered by many rivers of great length, running lazily down to the sea. The land is fertile, comparatively little broken, and well adapted to farming. Almost parallel with the Atlantic coast line lie the Appalachian Mountains, extending from southeastern Canada to Alabama, a distance of nearly two thousand miles. The average elevation of these mountains is two thousand feet. Mitchell's Peak in North Carolina, with an elevation of six thousand six hundred and eighty feet, is the highest point. These mountain slopes at the time of the discovery were clothed with immense forests of pine, spruce, and oak.

The Great Central Plains. The Appalachian Plateau merges into the vast low central plain which is drained partly nortlieastward, but chiefly toward the south through the Mississippi and its tributaries into the Gulf of Mexico. Nowhere on the globe is there such a great fertile region. It has almost every variety of soil and climate, and is watered by grand rivers that flow eastward and westward and pay their tribute to the noble " Father of Waters." The northern part of this area and the southern, as far west as the Ozark Mountains, were covered originally by forests of deciduous trees and the evergreens, pine and spruce. The central part stretches westward into rolling prairies, and still farther beyond are the great plains, high and dry, that afforded pasturage for countless herds of buffaloes.

The Western Highland. The western highland consists of five parts. First, there are the lofty Rockies, the tallest mountains of the continent, many of the peaks being over 14.000 feet above the level of the sea. Beyond the Rocky Mountains is the second division of the highland — the plateaus of the

Columbia and Colorado and the great interior basin of the far west. This part of the continent receives very scanty rainfall, and the water collects in pools and salt lakes and slowly evaporates. The largest of these inland lakes is the Great Salt Lake. Next beyond is the snow-capped Sierra Nevada-Cascade Range, and still beyond this, across a beautiful and fertile valley, is the Coast Range of mountains, which seem to rise almost out of the Pacific Ocean, with only a narrow plain between the mountains and the sea. The Pacific slope, unlike the Atlantic, has but few large rivers, and these come precipitously dow n to the sea through gorges and cafions. This whole region is a veritable treasure-house of mineral wealth. Connecting all this expanse of mountain, hill, and plain, there were only a few footpaths, trails of the Indians and wild animals, and the water-ways, the rivers and lakes, on which the Indians traveled from place to place in their birch-bark canoes.^

The Indians. In this wonderful unknown land many surprises awaited the explorer. Strange birds chattered in the trees ; strange plants covered the lurked in the forests soil ; strange animals and roamed o\'er the ])lains, but stranger than all were the people who were the l)rimitive inhabitants. These natives of America were called

'The Indians used also a canoe called a dugout. Many an old Indian trail is now the route for some trunk-line railroad.

INDIAN SIGN OF PEACE BETWEEN THOSE OF THE WIGWAM AND THOSE OF THE CANOE

Indians by the early explorers, who supposed they had reached India when they sailed westward across the Atlantic

from Europe. Where these Indians came from, and how long they had been in America before the coming of the white man, are questions that have never been satisfactorily answered.^ The typical Indian is tall, graceful, and well built. His skin is reddish-brown or copper-colored ; his cheek bones high ; his eyes small and dark ; his hair straight, black, and coarse, and his beard is scanty.

The Indians were scattered thinly over the whole continent.

Some of the tribes enjoyed a comparatively high degree of civilization, while others had scarcely emerged from savagery. ^ The Indians that have afifected most the early history of our country are the Algonquin (al-gon'kwin) family, composed of a number of tribes, living along the northern Atlantic coast; the " Five Nations " of the Iroquois (ir'o-kwoi'), living inland between Lake Erie and the

1 Thousands of mounds have been discovered in many parts of America. Some of them are shaped hke animals, birds, reptiles, etc., while others seem to be sites of villages, and still others have been places of burial. Many relics, such as pottery, kettles, pipes, axes, arrow-heads, etc., have been taken out of some of these mounds, and it has been supposed that the mound builders were people who lived in America before the coming of the Indians, but there is no authentic information to indicate that they were really a different race, though they possessed a superior^ culture.

2 In Mexico, the Aztec (az'tek) Indians had reached a high state of culture. They had their cities and their temples ; they worked in pottery and in metals. In South America the native civilization was at its greatest height.

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A TYPICAL INDIAN

Hudson/ the Cherokees, a tribe of the Iroquois family that had become separated and settled in the country surrounding the present site of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Muskogee (mus-ko'ge) family, which inckides the intelhgent and warhke tribes of the Choctaws, Creeks, and Chickasaws (chik'asaws), who have been properly called the civilized tribes.

Life and Occupations of Indians. Indian buildings varied with the material of the different sections of the country. In one section was found the bark- or skin-co\-ered ivigivam, or

WIGWAM HOGAN KEYE

INDIAN DWELLINGS

sometimes the long wooden house, in which many families lived ; in another section the grass lodge; in another, earthcovered poles, or the hogan (ho'gan) ; in another the brush kcyc (kee) or zuickyiip (wick'y-up) ; in the higher civilization one-, two-, and three-story houses of sun-dried brick or stone were built into pueblos (pweb'los) or villages.-

1 There were several branches of the iroquois, but only five united to form the general Iroquois Confederacy. These were the Mohawks, Senecas (sen'e-kaz), Oneidas (6-ni'daz), Onondagas (on'on-da'gaz), and Cayugas (ka-yu'gaz); later the Tuscaroras ( tiis'ka-ro'raz) from North Carolina joined them, and they were then known as the " Six Nations."

2 In the far southwest are hundreds of buildings clinging to the sides of the cliff's called Cliff Dwellings. These are frequently almost inaccessible, and are supposed to be places of refuge to which the PucIjIo Indians fled for safety when their country was overrun by the hordes of Athapas-

For the most part the Indian was content with small possessions. He sang at his work, was fond of games and sport, and delighted to sit with his family in the evening, smoking his pipe and telling stories of the great deeds of his tribe. He

INDIAN PUEBLO. — ONE OF THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA SOUGHT BY THE

SPANIARDS

loved to hunt and fish, knew how to imitate the sounds of birds and the cries of animals, and could glide through the forest as noiselessly and as swiftly as the deer. Though his work in agriculture was of the most primitive sort and the individual fields were little more than patches, he had developed maize (Indian corn) into four edible varieties and was growing it from Central South America to the fifty-fourth parallel of north latitude. This, the only cereal native to the country, was grown in sufficient quantities to prove of untold value to the early settlers and explorers. Not only did it frequently save the li\'es of the colonists as we shall learn later, but it made possible the sustenance of the exploring Spanish armies for months at a time and for journeys covering many hundred miles. In one war the whites destroyed at one time for one tribe a million bushels of corn (probably in the

can (ath-a-pas'kan) Indians from the north. That they sometimes remained for a generation or more in the refuge is highly probable.

car), and at another one hundred and sixty thousand bushels for another tribe. The Indians had developed a wild tuber into what is known as the Irish potato, a gourd into the squash of our gardens, some wild plant into an edible bean, and another into a melon ; cotton was grown and woven into colored cloths which Coronado (cor-o-naMo) has described as of great beauty. Little cornfields and tobacco patches were usually tilled by women or squaws, who also dressed the skins, dried the meat, and made the clothing and moccasins for the hunter and the warrior.^

The Indians, for all their backwardness in the arts known to the white man, possessed no little inventive skill. They manufactured their hatchets or tomahawks of stone, their arrowheads of flint, and their clubs for war or chase. They wove baskets, made pottery and some cloths of beautiful design and coloring, and carved pipes and utensils with rare handicraft. They had long, tapering snowshoes, which enabled them to skim over the snow sometimes at the rate of forty miles a day. Wampum, made of small shells strung together, served a number of purposes. Sometimes it was made into belts and used as an ornament; often upon these wampum belts the treaties between the tribes and the laws of the tribes were recorded. The color and pattern of the belt

1 In most of the tribes the woman was held to be inferior to the man, but in some of the tribes she had great influence, occupying a high rank, and sometimes she was elevated to the position of chief.

varied according to the purpose for which it was employed. Wampum was also used as money, or as a medium of exchange. The Indian's birch-bark canoe was perhaps his most useful invention; this was made by stripping off the bark in one piece and fitting it over a light wooden frame/

The Indian as a Warrior. The Indian tribes, like the nations of the earth until a recent period of history, were much given to war. At first glance it might appear that the Indian's chief -aim in life was war, but when we reflect that civilized history consists in large part of wars and the conquests of one nation or one people by another, we will realize that after all the Indian was not very different from those who are pleased to boast of their superior civilization. The Indian's weapons were bows and arrows, clubs, tomahawks,- and stone knives. His endurance in war as in the chase was mar\'elous. If he were captured by his enemy, the most cruel treatment could not force a cry from his lips, and with his last breath he would defiantly chant his death song. He excelled in physical courage, but, like most primitive peoples, he was inclined to treachery in dealing with his foes. He preferred to fight his enemy, not in open field, but to surprise him from behind trees, or to steal upon him in the dead of night and fall upon his victim with blood-curdling yells. He tortured his captives in every way that his animal cruelty could devise ; it was not uncommon to bind them to a stake and burn them. In his view, war was best brought to a speedy end, and he undertook to exterminate his enemy. Often he spared not

1 In addition to the arts practiced by the Indians as we have known them during- our history, it should be recorded that the first Spanish explorers discovered in the southwestern parts of North America evidences of a superior civilization practiced by the ancestors of these Indians, or by the people who preceded them on this continent. The ruins of villages, the traces of somewhat extensive irrigation works, relics of stoneware and pottery, and even samples of weaving of cotton were found. Besides, these earlier people left written characters on a rough paper manufactured from some native plant. Whether the tribes who practiced these superior arts belonged to the same family as the Indians whom the explorers eftcountered, or were a superior people who became extinct, is uncertain.

even women and children, and he measured his prowess by the number of scalps or prisoners brought from the contest.^ Religion of the Indians. The Indians were intensely religious. They believed in spirits — manitous (man'i-toos) — who governed the world. They worshiped, also, the sun and the stars, the rivers and the mountains. The rustle of the leaves, the rolling of the thunder, and the whisper of the grasses all revealed to the red man the spirits of another world.

INDIAN CEREMONIAL SAND-PAINTING ( NAVAJO )

Jie believed in evil spirits, too, and to overcome these was the duty of his priests or medicine men, who sometimes danced about the fire for ten or twelve hours at a time, making hideous noises and laboring to exorcise the demons of the air. The Indians believed in the future life where the warrior would go to the " Happy Hunting Grounds," and there with his dog, his bow and arrows, and his tomahawk he would enjoy to the

^ The Indians seldom if ever practiced their cruelties on the whites without provocation, for it must be recorded that many of the early explorers, even many of the colonists, in their dealings with the Indians practiced deception, and always the tendency of the white man was to encroach upon the Indians and possess their lands by fair means or foul.

lO STUDENT'S HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY

full all the pleasures, and endure none of the sorrows of this life.

Indian Government. The Indians were loosely banded toi^ether into tribes, and many such blood-related tribes would make a big family or stock. These tribes held their lands in common, for the Indian had no conception of ownership of property as the white man understands it. The Indian's personal belongings were his own, but all other possessions were regarded as common. It is important to remember this fact in future recitals of land transactions between the whites and the Indians. While some of the settlers in good faith " bought " the lands from the Indians, we now understand, if the settlers did not then understand, that in the Indian's conception of the trade he was granting to the white man only the right to occupy the land with him, and in no sense meant to part with his own rights to reside within the territory of his fathers.

The tribe consisted of clans, which were bound together by ties of kinship. Each clan had its name — usually that of some animal or plant,, which became the emblem or " totem " of the group. The totem was sacred to all members of the clan. Some tribes had their totem poles placed in the front of their chief's wigwam, and recorded on it in crude carving the story of their achievements. Sometimes the totem was painted on the sides and roofs of their rude houses. Every clan had its sachem or civil ruler, who was elected by the members, and at least one war chief who was chosen to lead on the field of battle. The sachems and chiefs of all the clans of a tribe met in tribal council to consider important matters pertaining to the tribe.

On the whole, while the Indians were savages, they possessed many qualities of civilization, and in their undisturbed relations they were peaceful and kindly. Indeed, they welcomed the first white men, and were well disposed toward the settlers until they found themselves mistreated or threatened with dispossession. In many respects they were child-

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE II

like ; in other respects they were noble ; it was when the white man set up customs that they could not comprehend and trespassed upon what they considered their everlasting inheritance that they developed the fury of trapped animals and paid injury with cruelty and unfairness with massacre. W'hile there is much in the record of our dealings with the Indians to be excused on the ground of necessary progress in the interest of human development, there is more that makes us blush. In truth, the Caucasians, until a recent period, were almost as cruel one to another in their zeal of religious and political persecution.

I. What might liave been the effect on discovery and explorations, were the Atlantic and Pacific sea-board reversed? 2. Name some plants and animals native to North America. 3. Describe the different dwellings of the Indians. 4. In what respect may we profit by the Indian idea of honor? 5. What Indian tribes figured in the history of your state? To what family did they belong? 6. What effect do you think the Indian religion had upon his life? What effect had his life upon his religion?

Chapter II

In this day of almost universal geographical knowledge it sounds a little strange to say that four hundred years ago the civilized world knew nothing of the land just descrihed, but thought of the earth as consisting of only Europe, Asia, North

THE KNOWN WORLD IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Africa, and a few islands of the neighboring seas. Beyond these known areas and adjacent waters the oceans stretched away into an unknown " Sea of Darkness," which navigators feared to penetrate and which the imagination of the ignorant peopled with hideous monsters.

Trade Relations. For immemorial ages these parts of the earth's surface had been in communication with each other and had interchanged their products in the ordinarycourse of commerce. The European used the spices of the Indies to make liis food more palatable ; the fine fabrics of Cathay (China) and India were in demand for his garments, and the gold and precious gems of these far-away lands of the East were coveted by monarchs and nobles. The Mediterranean Sea was the great highway of traffic in those days ; it was thronged with sailing vessels that brought to Constantinople, Venice, and Genoa, the commercial centers of Europe, cargoes of valuable wares gathered at the western ports of Asia from a vast region covered by tedious and perilous routes of overland transportation.

But by the close of the fifteenth century Constantinople and all southeastern Europe were under the dominion of the fanatical and barbarous Turks, who, being Mohammedans, despised the Christians; and being warriors, had a contempt for traders. They refused to allow the merchants of the west to pass through their possessions, and thus cut off from Europe the products which for many generations had brought wealth to her cities. As a consequence of this interruption of traffic, commercial minds of that day began to consider whether there might not be found some other route to the " land where the spices grow."

But where was the nation wealthy enough and who were the seamen bold enough to undertake such an enterprise? Italy had been the great commercial country of the middle ages, but she was divided into petty warring states, and now, with the trade routes closed, her wealth was diminishing. Still, as we shall see, though other nations contriljuted the money and the ships for the great enterprise, it was Italy's illustrious sons who furnished the greater part of the courage and knowledge necessary for the momentous undertaking. Germany, too, consisted of a number of little states, almost constantly engaged in civil strife, brance and England had been at war with each other for a century, and each had l)ccn involved in domestic broils. The Scandinavian countries had been wasted by internal disorder/ Holland at this time was under the dominion of Spain, and the latter had been engaged for centuries in expelling the Moors from her borders. Thus the countries of Europe were ill prepared for the work of discovery. The first to take up the great task of finding a new way to India was the little kingdom of Portugal.

Prince Henry. An illustrious prince of that country, known as " Prince Henry the Navigator," " first set himself seriously to the opening of a new trade route to India, and his efforts were directed toward the south and east around Africa. Gradually his hardy mariners, emboldened by the faithful needle," gained more and more courage as they pushed farther down the African coast and found neither fiery zone nor boiling seas filled with devouring monsters. Prince Henry's work resulted not simply in dispelling many mediaeval superstitions and in developing hardy and competent seamen, but his conception of the land formation of Africa was verified in the voyage of Vasco da Gama (vas'ko da ga'ma) around the southern cape in 1498 long after the death of the Portuguese Navigator.

Marco Polo. Years before the efiforts of Portugal revealed somewhat the size and shape of Africa, Europe was obtaining more comprehensive and more nearly accurate knowledge of the Far East from travelers, the best known of whom in that period was Marco Polo (mar'ko poTo), a wealthy merchant of Venice, who went as far east as China. The journey covered many years, and an old chronicle tells us that

^ The Scandinavian countries are Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The old inhabitants of these lands are called Northmen or Norsemen. The people were bold sea rovers, searching ever for new fields of adventure and plunder. They reached Greenland and Iceland in the ninth and tenth centuries, and in the year 1000 A. D. Leif Ericson, with a small crew, reached the coast of North America, sailing from Labrador to the southward. He called the land Vinland (or Vine Land). These primitive visitors to North America left no trace of their discoveries and nothing came of the adventure.

- Prince Henry lived from 1394 to 1460.

3 The mariner's compass had just come into use.

^b when he reached home he took the profits of his trip from the seams of his clothes in the form of rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, emeralds, and d i a - monds. Marco Polo wrote an account of his travels, and as printing" was invented soon afterwards the circulation of the book w a s comparatively easy. The chronicle told of the fabulous wealth of the East, of streams filled with gold, of towered cities, and busy harbors on the far-away ocean of Asia, where hundreds of ships laden with precious wares of the Orient came and went each year.

Revival of Learning. These adventures and discoveries came with the awakening of mankind from the darkness of the Middle Ages, and were a part of that revival of learning known to history and literature as the Renascence (re-nas'srns). There had been a long period of ignorance and superstition, from which at length the people of the Old World were aroused as if by an intellectual resurrection.^ This was the time when printing was invented and gunpowder came into use.

By the fifteenth century scholars generally accepted the theory that the earth is not flat, as the ancients believed, but

1 It is now understood that the Middle Ages had been by no means so barren of intellectual activity and progress as was once supposed; but it is nevertheless true that a wonderful stir of new life was at this time being felt in Europe.

MARIO POLO i6 spherical in shape. Marco Polo had seen a vast ocean east of India; there was a vast ocean west of Europe, and geographers reached the opinion that they were one and the same. If that were so, then the Indies, they concluded, could be reached by sailing westward. Little did these geographers dream that two oceans and great continents lay between Europe and Asia, and many years elapsed even after the voyages of discovery had been made before the world realized the greatness of its inheritance.

Christopher Columbus. Europe was astir with the question of a new trade route to India, and while navigators speculated and pondered there was one man who dared to act.

This man, Christopher Columbus, was the son of a poor wool weaver in Genoa, and there in that beautiful Italian city the great navigator was born about the year 1446. He early took to the sea and showed great aptitude for geography and nau- ^^ tical science, w'hich became his lifelong studies. His first voyage began, when he was fourteen, with the captains of Prince Henry the Navigator, and at twenty-one he was rated as a skilled mariner. About 1470 he took up his residence at Lisbon, Portugal, the land of Prince Henry, and here for a time he worked as a maker of maps and made an occasional voyage.