Our European ancestors; an introduction to United States history

Front matter

THE TAPPAN-KENDALL HISTORIES

AN INTRODUCTION TO UNITED STATES HISTORY

BY EVA MARCH TAPPAN

Preface

Recent years have brought the United States into a wilderness of problems. Our world is a very different place from the world of a century ago. Looking back not so very many decades, history was an outline of wars and a series of statements more or less partisan, for whose modification there was little demand. History to-day is a study of motives and men, of causes and effects. Geography used to be in great degree a matter of unknown quantities. A large area of our own country was contentedly marked on the map "Great American Desert." People made their wills before they ventured to cross the ocean. Any mediocre book of wanderings in Europe was read almost as eagerly as one of travels on a distant planet might have been. To-day oceans have narrowed ; time and distance have been almost annihilated.

In the earlier days science moved slowly. A scientific discovery was the property of a few scholars. Simplified lectures gradually brought it to the knowledge of the people. Inventions appeared one at a time. A single machine overturned the customs of a country. To-day inventions come by handfuls; knowledge is thrust upon us. The boy in the street knows more of electricity than did his learned grandfather. Science has become spectacular; but we are well used to marvels. We are blinded by excess of light. A scientific discovery is described in the Sunday papers. Monday morning it is transmuted into some simple household convenience, perhaps even a toy for children. Its coming calls forth less surprise and enthusiasm than a football vieiv PREFACE

tory or a thrilling movie film. We are too much accustomed to wonders to feel wonder.

Questions that were once of hardly more than academic interest have become of the utmost practical importance. Such a question is that of the emigrant. The key to the problem is to understand the people who come to us by thousands. To understand our next-door neighbor, a person of the same blood, bringing up, and traditions as ourselves, is not always easy. What is it then to understand a neighbor who is the result of thousands of years of customs, beliefs, and teachings different from our own?

The first step is a sympathetic knowledge. Real citizens are not won by conquest, but by comprehension. "How could I hate him?" asked Charles Lamb, the man of many friends. "Don't I know him?"

As with people, so with peoples. Knowledge and comprehension of one another; arbitration; peace; perhaps eventually a United States of Europe — a magnificent programme — this is what the Treaty of Locarno of 1925 promises us. May it be a treaty that shall never be broken.

This little book aims at giving to children in their degree an impetus toward learning more of our history than lies on the surface current of dates and events. In detail as well as in outline, it follows the well-known "Report of the Committee of Eight," which has had so great an effect upon the study of history in our schools.

Eva March Tappan

Contents

INTRODUCTION I. The Early Immigrants and what they started with . I

THF GREEKS AND WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED FROM THEM II. Why we remember the Greeks 10

III. The Greeks at Home and Abroad 25

Chapter I The Early Immigrants And What They Started With

We are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants. Did you ever think how different the world would be if every one stayed just where he was born, never traveled anywhere, never saw any other country, and knew nothing of the customs of other lands? A man living in the mountains would have little idea of the extent and flatness of a prairie, and a man whose home was beside a quiet river could not even guess how the ocean breakers look when they dash against the rocks. Worse than this, the people of one country would know only what they had found out for themselves. The folk of one land would be using a steam or gasoline plough while those of another were digging up their fields with a crooked stick. One nation might discover what the stars are made of, while another was believing them to be burning candles. Moreover, the people in one country might be so badly crowded that they could

THE AQUITANIA LEAVING NEW YORK HARBOR, 1918 not raise enough to eat, while in another country they might be so scattered that they were hardly safe from wild beasts.

It is fortunate for the world that men have not always stayed in their first homes, and that many of them have been willing to go into other lands and make new homes for themselves. A person who does this is called an immigrant. It is possible that the Indians may have lived in this country always, but aside from them, every person whose home is in the United States is either an immigrant himself or the descendant of one. Immigrants came here for all sorts of reasons. Some hoped to find gold or to make money in trade; some wished to be free to worship God as they thought right; some had broken the laws of their own lands and

wished either to make a fresh start or to have more freedom to do as they chose.

How immigrants have come to this country. It was not easy to be an immigrant in early days. When the Pilgrims came from England to Plymouth, they were more than nine weeks on the voyage. Their vessel, the Mayflower, was crowded and uncomfortable. The only ways known to preserve food were to salt it or dry it ; and it is no wonder that when the Pilgrims landed and killed some geese and ducks, they ate "with soldier stomachs," as one of them said. To-day, immigration is quite a different matter. In the first place, the voyage from England can be made in five or six days. Then, although most of our immigrants come as steerage or third-class passengers,

THE MAYFLOWER, 1620 (From the National Museum model)

THE EARLY IMMIGRANTS 3

they have more comforts than even a man of some wealth could procure three hundred years ago.

How immigration is limited. In early times, immigrants came from Europe only, and almost entirely from England, France, and Spain ; now they come from all over the world and in large numbers. In 191 1, for instance, there was an average of twenty-four hundred for every day in the year. Formerly, any one who chose to come was admitted; but we have learned that it is not fair to the people already in the country or to the immigrants who wish to become good citizens if we admit those who are suffering from contagious diseases, or are convicts, or are opposed to a just government, or are plainly so unable to support themselves that they will have to be cared for by the other citizens. Therefore, before they are allowed to come into the country, they are examined by doctors and inspectors to make sure that they are likely to become desirable Americans. Those who cannot pass this examination are sent back to their former homes.

Now, it is true that Americans are immigrants or descendants of immigrants; and we naturally think that our history did not begin until the first immigrants came here. But to understand clearly what happened in this country after they came here we must know what kind of people they were. And to know what kind of people they were we must know something about the Europe from which they came.

The countries that made up the ancient world. In the time of Christ, the Romans, who lived in Italy, were called the rulers of the world ; but the "world," as then understood, was rather a small world, for little of it was known except the countries around the Mediterranean Sea. The names of the peoples who lived in those countries were quite different from those that they now bear; for the French were called

Gauls; the Italians, Romans; and the English, Britons. Around the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea many Greeks lived. They called themselves Hellenes (hel'enz), but other nations called them Greeks. England had been visited by the Romans and earlier nations in search of tin, and they called the land Britannia, which is supposed to mean the land of tin. Somewhere far away in the Northern Ocean, probably north of the British Isles, there was thought to be a mysterious island, which people spoke of as " Ul'ti-ma Thu'le," or the most distant land, and which may have been the coast of Norway. Most folks supposed the earth to be flat. Some learned men believed it to be round ; but even they could not explain how there could be on the other side of the world antip'odes, or, as the word means, people "with feet opposite" their own. It was thought that south of Africa and Asia there was a great mass of land, but scholars were not agreed whether it joined Africa or not. In the fifteen hundred years between the times of Christ and the coming of the ships of Columbus to America, much was learned about the world, and much progress was made, but even then no one dreamed of the great American continent.

Knowledge brought to this country by its settlers. It was in 1492 when Columbus discovered America, and before many years had passed, little groups of people began to make their homes in the New World. Now, if a man who had spent all his life on a little island, living in the fashion of Robinson Crusoe, should go to some strange new country, he would not have a great deal of knowledge to carry with him. He would know how to make a rude shelter for himself, how to collect and preserve berries and other fruits, how to tame some animals, to snare others, and to protect himself from still others; and he would know little besides. The people who first came to live in America had not spent their lives on little desert islands, and they brought with them much valuable knowledge. Indeed, quite a number of them were university graduates. Instead of houses in trees, they had had comfortable homes, and they had seen noble palaces and stately cathedrals. Instead of dressing themselves in the skins of wild animals, they had worn wellmade clothes, and some were accustomed to silks and satins and velvets. They had not been obliged to depend upon the chance growth of wild fruits for their food; they had learned how to cultivate the ground. They had tools and

MATCHLOCK AND REST

firearms and household utensils and a countless number of other things which the man from the island would not have had, and would have known nothing about.

What the early immigrants knew of inventions. Neither these immigrants, nor any one else for that matter, knew anything about the telegraph, the telephone, the steamship, the little friction match, or other recent inventions, which are so common that we can hardly realize what living without them would be; but they did know how to build excellent sailing vessels, and how to steer them by means of the compass, and so they dared to venture out of sight of land. They knew how to use gunpowder, and so they could defend themselves against savages. Moreover, they could print books. The earlier books had been written by hand on parchment or on papy'rus, a species of paper made of the pith of the papyrus plant. Then a few "block books" were made ; that is, coarse lettering for a whole page was cut upon one block and printed from it; but this was very expensive,

THE EARLY IMMIGRANTS

A NEW ENGLAND STOCKADE because the block could not be used for any other book.

When at length it was discovered that type could be made

with one letter on each, so that after they had been used for

one book, they could be separated and used again and

again, books became

much cheaper, and

knowledge of what

was going on in the

world went rapidly

from one country to

another.

Hints from early inventions. Long before these inventions came into use, there were others, many of which have given hints to more recent inventors. The hand loom, for instance, is several thousand years old, and it has developed into the swiftly weaving looms of our factories. The sickle which was once used to reap grain has become the great reaping and threshing machine. The undecked boat has become the luxurious steamship that is almost a traveling city. Rough carts with wheels of solid wood have become comfortable carriages and automobiles.

The development of inventions. These inventions were not developed without much time and much hard thinking. The invention of the alphabet, for instance, was a far less simple matter than it may seem. If an early Egyptian wished to write, "A woman is spinning," he had to cut with a sharp tool a picture of a woman at a wheel. Paper had not been invented; therefore he used stone. After a while, a character was used for each syllable, as it is to-day in Chinese and Japanese. The people of Babylon had a sort of alphabet which they wrote on clay tablets. Instead of a

FLAX WHEEL pen, they used a stylus; that is, a bronze tool, probably three-sided. A stroke made with this left a wedge-shaped impression. That is why the Babylonian writing is called cu-ne'i-form, which means wedge-shaped. The material on which people wrote had much to do with the shape of their characters. It is easier to cut straight lines than curves into wood; therefore the people who wrote on wood seldom used curves. To cut straight lines into palm leaves would split them; therefore those who wrote on palm leaves used curves and avoided straight lines. Little by little, the idea came to people of representing not a syllable, but a single sound by one letter. The Greek alphabet consisted of twenty-four letters, and many of the capitals are shaped like ours. Neither the Greek nor the English is a perfect alphabet, for to be perfect, each character should represent one sound and only one. It is a vast improvement, however, on Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The early immigrants brought to America, then, familiarity not only with scores of inventions of their own times, but also the knowledge which had been handed down to them from the much earlier times. They brought ideas too; and a good idea is the most valuable thing in the world.

WOOL SPINNING WHEEL

Describe any journey that you have taken, even a trolley ride, and

tell what you saw that was new to you.

Why is it better to learn different ways of doing things?

If you know any immigrants, ask them to tell you why they came to

this country and to describe the voyage.

THE EARLY IMMIGRANTS g

4. In how many ways do we preserve food? Why should we preserve it at all?

5. Ought the people of a country to admit all who wish to enter it?

6. If you had been a Roman, should you have gone to Britannia by sea or by land, and why?

7. How do you know that the earth is not flat?

8. Suppose you had lived on a desert island, what should you know how to do?

9. Imagine you are one of the early immigrants to this country and tell what you have learned at home to do.

10. What are some recent inventions?

11. What difference would it make if we had no printing?

12. Why do we need the alphabet?

13. Why is a good idea of value? Can you name any inventors who had good ideas?

Why would it have been better to live in America than on Robinson

Crusoe's island ?

The son of an early immigrant tells what knowledge his father brought to

this country.

Which of our capital letters could be easily cut into wood and which intc

palm leaves?

Chapter II

The geography of Greece. Many of the ideas which the early immigrants brought to this country were centuries upon centuries old and had been learned from distant lands. One of the most important of these lands was the little country of Greece. The sea surrounded it on three sides, and, indeed, an arm of the sea almost cut it in two, leaving only a narrow neck of land to hold the northern and southern parts together. The southern part stretched out in four long fingers into the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Indeed, the water ran up into the land and the land reached out into the water in such a friendly fashion that no part of the country was more than forty miles from the sea; nor was it more than ten miles from the mountains.

The land and its products. These chains of mountains ran through the country in all directions, often coming close to the shore. They were bold and rugged, and there were few places where one could cross from one side of a range to the other. They divided the land into narrow valleys and small plains, either walled in by hills or partially bounded by the sea. Some of these had only a scanty soil, but others were fertile and had pasture for sheep, rich fields for wheat, and excellent ground for olives, figs, and vines. The Greeks made the wool of their sheep into finely woven cloth, they formed pottery of graceful outline, and wrought ornaments of gold and silver. They had mines of iron and silver and copper, and they made famous swords of bronze. They wore garments of either wool or linen, and dyed them with a kind of shellfish that was found just off their eastern shores.

The Greek rivers. There were not many rivers in Greece, and what there were rose high up in the mountains, and tumbled down the rocky slopes and into the sea at headlong speed ; for the country was not large enough to give them a chance to broaden and flow quietly before they reached the coast. Indeed, there was not one really navigable River in the whole country. When summer came, many of them gave up trying to flow and settled into a series of pools, or even dried up entirely. Worse than this, occasionally one had a rather surprising habit of dropping into some cavern and flowing underground for a time, and then reappearing on the surface. Once in a while a stream vanished and never reappeared, finding somewhere a subterranean outlet to the sea.

The islands about Greece. The long narrow bays which indent the coast of Greece open pathways out to the open sea. Most people, when they look upon the ocean, long to sail away and away and see what is beyond the horizon's rim. The sea was not far from any country of Greece, as has been said, and the Greeks felt this longing very keenly. In the early uays they had no compass, and therefore sailing out of sight of land was not easy; for in cloudy weather, when sun and stars could not be seen, mariners could only guess where they might be. The Greeks, however, seldom had to meet this difficulty, for all about their country were islands — "stepping-stones" they have been called — so that they could sail long distances without danger. These islands really seemed to point the way to the rich country of Asia Minor.

The little Greek communities. Now, what kind of people should we expect to find in a country like Greece — cut up by mountains and sea into little valleys and plains, with a group of people living in each division and shut off from other groups? We should expect, of course, each little community to have its own ideas on all subjects. As the mountain passes were few, the people could not come together easily and so discover that other folks had ideas possibly better than their own, and that it might be wise to adopt some of their customs and ways of thinking. If the rivers had been navigable, there would have been an exchange of products, and the people of different parts of the land would have met frequently ; but as it was, each community raised its own food as far as possible, and lived its own life. No member of a Greek state could own houses or land or marry a woman in another state than his own.

The bonds of union among the Greeks. A few times some of the Greek states united for a while against some foreign enemy, but in general each state was independent and gloried in its independence. Still, there were some bonds of union among the Greeks. They all spoke the same language, they worshiped the same gods, and sometimes they formed what they called "groups of neighbors" to care for some special temple. Then, too, every five years they celebrated games in honor of the gods, and only men of pure Greek blood were allowed to contend. It is true that sometimes they behaved like a family of quarrelsome children; but in spite of their disagreements and contests, they did cling together after a fashion, and they were all indignant if any one of the states brought in foreigners to help in a war with any other state.

The Greek gods. The Greeks believed that there were many gods, whose home was on Mount Olym'pus, a mountain in the north of their country, and they had hundreds of stories about their deeds, some so poetical and beautiful that people have enjoyed them for many centuries. Indeed, we can hardly read a poem that does not conVain some allusion to them.

The golden fleece. One of these stories was about the search for the golden fleece. The kingdom rightfully belonging to a young man named Jason had been kept from him by his uncle Pe'li-as. When Jason went to demand it, Pe'li-as did not dare to refuse, but suggested to Jason that it would

Edwards

JASON CLAIMING HIS KINGDOM be a fine thing for him to have an adventure or two before settling down as ruler of a little country and hinted that he should go in search of the golden fleece. This he did. The king in whose realm the fleece was agreed that Jason might have it if he would yoke to a plough two fire-breathing bulls and sow some dragon's teeth. By the aid of a charm given him by the king's daughter, Medea, Jason yoked the bulls and sowed the dragon's teeth, which sprang up as armed men and rushed upon him with drawn swords. He threw a stone among them, and every man supposing the next man had struck him began to fight his neighbor, and soon they were all slain. Jason carried home the fleece of gold, and in spite of his uncle he finally got possession of his kingdom.

The story of Hercules. Another Grecian hero was Her'cules. For some fault Zeus (zus), king of the gods, bade him obey his enemy Eurystheus (u-ris'thus) in whatever he might command. Eurystheus ordered him to undertake twelve adventures, known as the "Twelve Labors of Hercules." He captured several enormous wild animals, he killed one monster with six legs, another with nine heads, and a flock of savage birds that had an unpleasant habit of devouring people. He held up the sky for a time so that the giant Atlas might bring him some golden apples from the Garden of the Hes-per'i-des.

These were a few of the exploits of Hercules, but any one of them would have made him deserving to be called a hero.

The wooden horse of Troy. The most famous of all the tales of Greece is that told by her

great poet Homer about the heroes of her war with Troy. Virgil, a Roman poet, tells of the ten-years' struggle of the Greeks to capture the city, then of their success by the trick

Cleyn

THE WOODEN HORSE OF TROY of making a great wooden horse filled with armed men. The Trojans were persuaded by a Greek, who pretended to be a deserter, that the horse if once within their city would protect them, and they dragged it in so eagerly that they even tore down some of the wall to make way for it. That night, when all were sleeping, the armed men slid down a rope, killed the guards, and opened the gates to the Greeks. So Troy fell. Homer tells in his Odyssey (od'i-si) the adventures of a Greek leader U-lys'ses or O-dys'seus after the fall of the city, of his wanderings about the Mediterranean Sea for many years, and then, finally, of his return to his own home in the garb of a beggar, where his faithful dog, old and feeble, was the only one to recognize him. It is in the Odyssey that Hawthorne found some of the stories which he retells in his Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales.

Legends of the founding of Greek cities. Even with the founding of cities by the Greeks some myth or legend is often connected. Of Marseilles (mar-salz') it was said that a Gallic chief invited a Greek merchant to his daughter's wedding feast. When the moment came for the daughter to point out her husband by giving him a cup of wine, behold she gave the cup to the merchant. Their marriage brought about the settlement of the city by Greeks and Gauls together. Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great. For want of chalk, he marked the outlines of the city with flour on the black soil. A flock of birds ate the flour, and Alexander was greatly disturbed lest this should be a bad sign. "Not so," declared his soothsayer; "it is a sign that your city will be rich enough to supply all who come to it from other nations." Con-stan-ti-no'ple (or By-zan'tium, which was its earlier name) was founded by Greeks. Its harbor is called the Golden Horn because it is shaped like a horn, and because its currents bring in fish in such large numbers. Nearly opposite to it, across the Strait of Bos'- pho-rus, was an earlier town named Chal-ce'don. According to legend, the god Apollo bade the Greeks make a settlement "opposite to the city of the blind," giving it this name because the fine location of Constantinople had been overlooked by the earlier settlers. Of Athens the story is told that the gods promised the city to Poseidon (po-si'don) and A-the'ne, or rather to the one that should bestow upon it the more useful gift. Poseidon gave the horse, and Athene the olive. The gods decided that the olive was the more useful, and so the city was named for her.

Marathon. The Greeks were a courageous people, and some of their battles have been famous for twenty-four

GREEK FOOTMAN AT MARATHON

hundred years. One of these was the battle of Mar'a-thon, between the Persians and the Athenians; another was the battle of Ther-mop'y-lae» between the Persians and the Spartans. Marathon was a plain lying between a line of hills and the sea. Just off the shore lay the Persian ships, and on them were chains with which the Persians expected to fetter the Athenians, for they had no idea that they would not be victorious. In the end, however, the Persians ran for their lives, splashing through the water to their vessels in the effort to escape from their Athenian pursuers. So it was that the forces of the mighty empire of Persia

PERSIAN OFFICER were driven away by those of the little state of Athens. One of the Greeks ran from Marathon to Athens, about twenty miles, to tell of the victory. That is why at the present day long running races are called "Marathons."

Thermopylae. Ten years later, the Persians tried it again, and now the Spartans with a few other troops took their stand at the Pass of Thermopylae to oppose them. The mountains were on one side of the pass and the sea on the other. It was so narrow that Le-on'i-das and his brave three hundred thought they could hold it, even against so vast a number as there were of the Persians, and for two days of fearful fighting they did hold it. Then the Persians heard of a footpath over the mountains, and they came down upon the Spartans from the other side of the pass. The brave little band refused to save their lives by surrender, but fought even more fiercely than before until not a man was left alive.

Salamis. The Greeks were as brave on sea as on land, and in this same war the great naval battle of Sal'a-mis took place. The Greek ships were in the Strait of Salamis. The Persians sailed in at both ends of the strait. King Xerxes (zerk'sez) sat on his gilded throne high up on a rocky hill to watch the destruction of the Greeks. His scribes clustered around him with tablets on which to note the successes of their countrymen — but there were no successes; there was only a sweeping victory for the Greeks. It is of this scene that the English poet Byron wrote, —

"A king sat on the rocky brow That looks on sea-born Salamis", And ships, by thousands, lay below And men in nations; all were his; He counted them at break of day And when the sun set, where were they?"

How Athens was made beautiful. After many years of fighting, the Persians asked for peace. Little Greece had repulsed the great empire. This was not without much loss, however, and Athens had suffered especially. The city had been partially rebuilt, but the Athenians had been too busy to think of much except providing a shelter for them-