A history of the United States

Front matter

i rw cjjjba JwwI i i^^

A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Preface

This volume aims to present the story of American history in a form which will engage the interest of pupils in the upper grades of the elementary schools. It will be found that a considerable amount of material of traditional interest, but of small intrinsic importance, has been omitted in order that a fuller emphasis might be placed on events and movements of greater significance. Following the best teaching opinion, the volume deals constantly with the causal relations of historical events, due regard being had for the capacity of the pupils who will use the book. The wealth of illustrations and the many excellent maps with which the publishers have enriched the volume greatly enhance its value for school use.

In the preparation of this book the author has received assistance from many sources, but special acknowledgment is due to Miss Anastasia Doyle of the Humboldt High School, St. Paul, Minnesota, who has prepared the questions on the text and the other aids to study ; to Professor Frank O'Hara of the Catholic University of America, and Linda Maley O'Hara, who have read the entire manuscript and suggested many valuable improvements ; to the author's former associates in the department of history in the University of Oregon, Professor Joseph Schafer and Professor R. Carlton Clark, each of whom read portions of the manuscript and gave generously of special knowledge, and to Reverend Edwin V. O'Hara, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Oregon City, who at various stages of the work offered valuable suggestions.

V

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS

The Study Questions at the end of each chapter are intended to aid the pupil in the preparation of his lesson ; occasional questions have been formulated so as to stimulate independent thinking on his part. To facilitate a test of the pupil's understanding of what he reads there has been placed at the end of each chapter a vocabulary containing words of the text which are likely to be new to many of the children. The enlargement of the pupil's vocabulary should be a normal result of efficient history teaching. Suggestive map exercises are offered and it is urged that a great deal of map work be done. The study of geography should be correlated with the study of history : opportunity should be taken to point out the influence of climate, soil, river, and mountain on the life of the people. There is no reason why the geography lesson in the history class should not be as well done as in the geography class.

Every teacher will want to have his class do some outside reading. The wide diversity of school equipment makes it difficult to offer a program of collateral reading, but for the teacher whose library is lacking in historical material a few brief suggestions may be made :

The Study of History in the Elementary Schools (Scribners), being a Report to the American Historical Association by the Committee of Eight, outlines a course in American history and suggests suitable readings for the teacher and the children. The book otherwise contains matter of great value and should be in the hands of every teacher of American history.

vil viii SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS

The teacher who has a very Hmited amount of money to spend on collateral reading might make a beginning with these books :

Barstow, C. L. (editor) : Century Readings in United States History (Century Co.), six volumes, 50 cents each. An excellent collection covering the whole course of American history.

Elson, H. W. : Side Lights on American History (Macmillan). A series of readings covering the period from the Declaration of Independence to the Spanish-American War.

Elson, H. W. : History of the United States of America (Macmillan). A large one-volume history of value to the teacher but written in a style which most of the pupils will read with interest.

Scollard, Clinton : Ballads of American Bravery. A collection of patriotic verse which may be supplemented by

The Battle Line of Democracy (Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C).

Johnson, Henry: The Teaching of History (Macmillan). The teacher who wishes to grow in his profession will find this book one of the very best in the field.

The History Teacher s Magazine (The McKinley Publishing Company, Philadelphia). A mine of useful information for the history teacher. Every history teacher should have access to it.

The Catholic Historical Review, published by the Catholic University, Washington, D. C, contains excellent studies in its special field, publishes many documents of interest, and has excellent book reviews.

Contents

CHAPTER

I. The Discovery and Exploration of America

II. The American Indians ....

Chapter I The Discovery And Exploration Of America

I. Discoveries of the Northmen. — - Men from Norway, Northmen, as they are called, were the first Europeans to visit America and to leave us a record of their coming. These daring sailors were at home on the sea, and before the days of the mariner's compass made long voyages in the waters of western Europe and on the great ocean.

As early as 874 a.d. they discovered Iceland and made settlements there.

A little over a hundred years after the settlements in Iceland were made, Eric the Red, a Northman exiled from his home in Iceland, founded a colony in Greenland. His son, Leif Ericson, while on a visit to Norway, became a Christian and, about the year 1000 a.d., set out to carry the Christian

B I

A Northman faith to his father's people. But he sailed far to the south and, before reaching Greenland, touched the shores of America. He found a pleasant land with fields of " wild wheat," and such an abundance of grapes that he called the country Vinland. His stories of the new land attracted others of his countrymen, but no permanent settlements were made, and after a few years the Northmen ceased to visit America. The scene of Leif's discovery was probably in the region now known as Nova Scotia, though some believe it was in the present state of Massachusetts.

It is probable that other Europeans, before the time of Columbus, landed on the shores that came to be known as America ; but, if so, they had no more influence on the history of America than the Northmen themselves. The conditions of sea travel were not yet favorable to the exploration and settlement of our continent. Most of the men of the time who were interested in lands outside of Europe turned their attention to Asia, but the time was to come when the routes of Asiatic travel and commerce would be difficult to use and new ones would be sought. It was in the search for new ways to reach Asia that Europe found America and laid it open to permanent settlement.

2. Trade Between Europe and Asia. — From very early times the people who lived in southern Europe carried on an exchange of products with the people of Asia. Toward the end of the Middle Ages this trade increased very rapidly. Rich cities grew up in Italy, and France, and other lands of western Europe, and there was much wealth that could be spent on the luxuries of life.

From the eleventh to the fourteenth century, hundreds of thousands of Europeans visited Asia in the great military expeditions known as the Crusades, which were undertaken to free the Holy Land of Palestine from the Turks. For

two hundred years there was a constant passing back and

forth of soldiers and pilgrims

and merchants. Europe and

Asia became better acquainted

than ever before. Thousands

of European merchants settled

in the cities of Asia, and the

commerce between the two

continents became of very

great importance.

The chief trade routes at this time between Europe and Asia were :

(a) From India by water to the Red Sea, then by caravan to the Nile and down the Nile to the Mediterranean.

(b) From India by water to the Persian Gulf, then up the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and westward through Syria to the Mediterranean.

(c) A long overland route from China passing north of the Caspian Sea to Southern Russia and then across the Black Sea to Constantinople.

The woolen goods and some minerals of Europe, such as tin, copper, lead, and quicksilver, were much in demand in the East and, in return, the people of Asia had a great variety of products which were highly valued in Europe. India, Ceylon, and the Spice Islands offered pepper, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and other spices greatly prized by Europeans. We read that for many years the merchants of Venice bought 420,000 pounds of pepper annually

A Crusader from the Sultan of Egypt, who had received it from the East.

The bringing of spices from the East was a very old custom, for, as we are told in the story of Joseph, when his brethren had cast him into the pit " they saw some Ishmaelites on their way coming from Galaad, with their

"Wmg.Eng.Co..N.Y.

The Chief Trade Routes Between Europe and Asia camels, carrying spices, and balm, and myrrh to Egypt." From China came beautiful silk fabrics and fine porcelain. Oriental rugs and tapestries came then, as now, from Persia, Arabia, and Afghanistan. Diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones, drugs, perfumes, dyes, and fragrant woods found their way from the East to European markets. It will be seen, then, that the trade between Europe and Asia was extremely valuable and that its interruption would cause heavy losses to many cities like Venice, Genoa, and

Pisa in Italy, Marseilles, and Montpellier in France, and Nuremberg, Constance, and Regensburg in Germany, for the prosperity of these rich trading centers depended in great part on the trade with Asia.

3. Oriental Trade Disturbed. — A time came when the trade with Asia was very greatly disturbed. In the fifteenth century the Ottoman Turks, a barbarous people that had come from Central Asia, captured Constantinople. This city, on account of its position on the narrow waterway which separates the Balkan Peninsula from Asia Minor, controlled the great trade route from Central Asia to the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The Turks robbed the Italian merchants of the city, murdered some, and sold others into slavery. Soon they captured Smyrna and other rich centers of commerce.

Though the great trade routes by way of Syria and of Egypt remained open until after the discovery of America by Columbus, the cruel wars of the Turks had caused great losses to the merchants of the Mediterranean and there was danger that the whole trade would suffer. It was, therefore, not strange that men thought of looking for another way to the East.

4. Missionaries in the East. — The people of Europe were interested in the East for other reasons than those of business. Missionaries of the Church wished to convert the people of the East to Christianity; many Franciscan and Dominican priests visited the far East in the thirteenth

A Franciscan Missionary and fourteenth centuries. One of the earhest of these was John of Piano Carpini, an ItaHan Franciscan, who, about the middle of the thirteenth century, spent two years in the East and left an interesting account of his travels. A few years later William of Rubruck, a Flemish Franciscan, was sent by St. Louis, King of France, on a mission to the Mongol Emperor of China. In his very full account of his adventures are found interesting descriptions of China and the lands of Central Asia. The success of these and other missions was so great that bishops were appointed for Peking and other Chinese cities.

5. Marco Polo. — A well-known traveler of the thirteenth century was Marco Polo, who spent many years in the far

East and became an officer at the court of the Emperor of China. In 1295 he returned to Venice, having spent three years in making the long voyage by sea along the southern coasts of Asia. Some years later Marco Polo told the story of his travels, a story that was printed about twenty years before Columbus discovered America and that became one of the most widely read books in the world. From Polo's book and from the accounts of other travelers, the men of Europe learned a great deal about the lands from which their spices and precious stones came. They found that these lands were washed by the ocean, and they began to hope that they could find a way to them by the sea.

Marco Polo

6. The Need of a New Route to the East. — Improvements in ship-building and the general use of the mariner's compass had made it possible for sailors to make long voyages on the ocean without danger. So we find that Spain and Portugal and other countries that bordered on the Atlantic Ocean built many ships and began to take active part in the seagoing commerce of the world. They wanted a share in the Oriental trade that was maintained on the Mediterranean Sea and did, in fact, secure some part of it. But the Italian merchants, who had entered upon this trade much earlier than the Spanish or Portuguese, and had made special treaties with the rulers in the eastern Mediterranean, were able to keep the most profitable business for themselves. The Portuguese and Spaniards saw that a sea route to India and to the Spice Islands and China would be of great advantage to them ; and, as we shall see, each of these nations took up the work of finding such a route, and each was successful.

7. The Portuguese Lead the Way. — The first people to find an all-water route to the East were the Portuguese. Prince Henry the Navigator, a member of the ruling family of Portugal, spent the greater part of his life in encouraging geographical discovery along the coast of Africa. The Azores and Madeira Islands were rediscovered and colonized, while each year new expeditions were sent to the South, until, by 1455, the Gulf of Guinea was reached.

For a time it was thought that the southernmost point of Africa had been attained and the way to India opened ; but it was not until i486, long after the death of Prince Henry, that the Portuguese captain, Bartholomew Diaz, sailed past the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean. Here his crew mutinied and he was compelled to return to Portugal. Twelve years later Vasco da Gama, another Portuguese, again passed the Cape and reached Calicut in India ; but before this America had been discovered.

The efforts of the Portuguese navigators to reach India had an important influence on the discovery of America. The experiences of Prince Henry's sailors taught people to build better ships and to improve the making of maps and instruments needed in sailing the sea. The Prince and his successors brought together at their navigation school skillful seamen and mapmakers from other countries. Bartholomew Columbus, brother of the discoverer of America, was with Diaz on his great voyage past the Cape of Good Hope, and Christopher Columbus was for a time in the Portuguese service and made a voyage to the Guinea coast.

Prince Henry the Navigator

COLUMBUS FINDS AMERICA

8. Early Years of Columbus. — Little is known about the early life of the discoverer of America. He was born in Genoa about the year 1446 and was the son of Domenico Colombo, a weaver. As a young man he read many books on geography and the art of navigation. He was early attracted to the sea and spent some years in the service of Portugal, sailing south along the coast of Africa on voyages of discovery, and north as far as England and, possibly, to Iceland. The men among whom he worked were desirous of reaching the East Indies by water, and Columbus became interested in their plans.

9. The Plan of Columbus. — Columbus, in common with the learned men of his day, believed that the earth was round. Moreover, the idea that India might be reached by sailing westward from Europe was not new. Aristotle, an ancient Greek writer with whose opinion Columbus was acquainted, had taught that " between the end of Spain and

ToSCANELLl's MaP OF THE WoRLD the beginning of India the sea was small and navigable in a few days." We are told by Bishop Las Casas, who was a friend of Columbus, that the great navigator received letters from the Florentine astronomer, Toscanelli, who said that by sailing to the west a shorter way to the Indies would be found than by going around Africa. Toscanelli, like Aristotle, thought the earth somewhat smaller than it really is, and his views may have encouraged the discoverer in planning for his great enterprise. Having convinced himself that a westward voyage to India was possible, lO

Columbus appealed to the King of Portugal for ships to make a trial of his plan. The King thought him nothing but a boastful talker and refused his request.

10. Columbus Appeals to Spain. — Failing to get help in Portugal, in 1484 Columbus went to Spain, where for

From a painting

Father Juan Perez, a Friend of Queen Isabella, Giving His Blessing

TO Columbus

seven years he urged the value of his plan and asked for financial aid to make it a success. The King and Queen of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, w^ere busy driving out the Moors from their kingdom. It is easy to understand that when, after hundreds of years, the final destruction of the Moorish power in Spain seemed assured, the King and Queen found it hard to interest themselves in a voyage of

THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF AMERICA ii

discovery to the other side of the earth. Besides, a committee appointed to investigate the plans of Columbus reported against them.

At last Columbus gave up hope of getting aid in Spain and started for France. Near the city of Palos he stopped at the Franciscan convent of La Rabida for shelter for his young son and himself. The prior, Father Juan Perez, a friend of Queen Isabella, became interested in his plans and undertook to persuade the Queen to give Columbus another hearing. Isabella was won over and agreed to find ships and men for the voyage to India.

Columbus was made an admiral of Castile. He was to be governor of the lands he should discover and was to receive one tenth of the gold and silver he should find. He was given letters of introduction to the great rulers of the East, whom he hoped to convert to Christianity. Columbus thus had three purposes in mind ; viz. :

1. To find a westward route to India.

2. To discover new lands.

3. To extend the Christian religion among heathen peoples.

II. The Great Voyage of Discovery. — Three ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, were prepared at the Queen's command. The Santa Maria only was fully decked, and the entire crew of the little fleet did not exceed one hundred twenty men. On the morning of August 3, 1492, Columbus set out from the harbor of Palos. Stopping at the Canary Islands to refit one of his vessels, finally, on September 6, he started across the Atlantic. On the evening of October 11, after a voyage of five weeks, a light was seen, and the next morning a landing was made on one of the small islands of the Bahama group. The natives called the island Guanahani, but Columbus renamed it San Salvador (Holy Savior).

Some days after finding land he sailed south to Cuba and then to Haiti. Here, on Christmas day, the Santa Maria was wrecked. The loss of his best ship limited very greatly the accommodations of the fleet and determined Columbus to establish a settlement of those who were willing to stay. Leaving this first Spanish colony of forty-four men in the

The Three Ships of Columbus

New World with provisions for a year and seed for sowing, Columbus returned to Spain, reaching Palos March 15, 1493. News of his return was received with great enthusiasm. " From all the neighboring places the people gathered along the highway to see him and the Indians and the other novel things that he had brought with him," says his son Ferdinand in describing the discoverer's journey to the court of Ferdinand and Isabella.

12. The Line of Demarcation. — There were some who doubted whether the new lands were really .in the region

Columbus Discovers Land

H of India. The King of Portugal said that the discoveries of Columbus were evidently included in his dominions of Guinea. Portugal had secured very extensive rights in lands from the Canaries southward. These rights were guaranteed by a treaty with Spain and confirmed by the Pope, who in those days was constantly appealed to as an

arbitrator between nations. In the

interests of peace, Spain appealed to Pope Alexander VI, who sustained the existing rights of Portugal and protected the new rights of Spain. He drew an imaginary line from north to south, a hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, and decided that east of this line Portugal was to retain the rights already possessed, while west of the line Spain was to have similar rights in lands that she discovered.

Later, by the treaty of 1494, the line was drawn three hundred Line of Demarcation (1494) seventy leagues west of the Cape

Verde Islands. 13. Later Voyages of Columbus. — The King and Queen were so well pleased with the reports of the first voyage that they readily helped Columbus in preparing for a new expedition. Colonies were to be planted in the new lands and missionaries were to go out to convert the natives to Christianity. Columbus sailed on his second voyage in September, 1493. The men he had left in Haiti had perished, and a new place on the island was chosen for the second venture. The cultivation of the soil and a search for gold were to be the occupations of the newcomers. Sheep, cows, horses, and other domestic animals, as well as many cereals and other plants, were introduced into America by the settlers who came with Columbus on his second voyage. An evil result of the settlement in Haiti was the enslavement of Indians, who, in spite of the earnest efforts of the government at home to suppress the practice, were made to work for the Spanish settlers.

Columbus made a third voyage in 1498, on which he reached the mainland of South America. But the colony in Haiti did not prosper, and there were many complaints against the management of Columbus and his brother. A royal official, sent out to investigate the complaints, sent Columbus to Spain as a prisoner. Though he was at once released by Ferdinand and Isabella, he was never again given authority over the Spanish settlements.

The sad home-coming from his third voyage was made more bitter by the news that the Portuguese captain, Vasco da Gama, had returned from a successful voyage to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Columbus once more determined to prove that the Indies could be reached by his plan of sailing westward, and his fourth and last voyage, begun in 1502, was undertaken for this purpose. He intended to devote the profits that came from this voyage to the rescue of the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem from the infidels. He reached the mainland of North America in Honduras and followed the coast line for over a thousand miles until he passed the Isthmus of Panama. He returned to Spain in 1504, having suffered shipwreck and many other hardships on the voyage. Queen Isabella, who had constantly remained his friend, died soon after his return. He was now worn in body, and as he had no powerful i6 friends, his public career was closed. His death occurred on May 20, 1506, in the city of Valladolid.

After the discovery of the great continent to the south by Columbus on his third voyage, many attempts were made to explore it. Cabral, a Portuguese captain, sailing for India, sighted the shores of Brazil in 1500. As this land was east of the demarcation line, it became Portuguese territory. As a result we find both Spaniards and Portuguese engaged in exploration in South America.

DISCOVERERS WHO FOLLOWED COLUMBUS

14. Why America Was So Named. — A Florentine pilot, Amerigo Vespucci (or Americus Vespucius, as his name is

written in Latin), visited South America with both Spanish and Portuguese expeditions. He wrote an account of his travels in the New World to friends in Italy, in which he boasted that he had found a new world " more populous and more full of animals than our Europe, or Asia, or Africa, and even more temperate \ and pleasant than any other region known to us." His letters were printed in Latin and widely circulated throughout Europe before the discoveries of Columbus became generally known. Moreover, he seemed to place his discovery of the new continent in 1497, a year before Columbus reached it.

Martin Waldseemueller, a professor of geography in the College of St. Die in the Vosges Mountains, described the

Amerigo Vespucci new land in a book which he pubUshed in 1507. Thinking that Americus had discovered it, the professor suggested that it be called " the land of Americus or America." A few years later Waldseemueller corrected his mistake and gave Columbus credit for the discovery of South America, but his earlier suggestion had proved very popular and the name of America remamed. Later attempts to honor the discoverer by calling North America " Columbana" failed, and the entire New World discovered by the great Genoese continues to bear the name of the boastful Florentine.

15. The Voyages of John Cabot. — John Cabot, a citizen of Venice, set sail from Bristol, England, in May, 1497, on a voyage of discovery to the west, bearing authority from the English king, Henry VII, to take possession of whatever lands he might discover. Cabot had traveled in the East, and he, like Columbus, hoped that a way to the land of spices might be found by sailing to the west. On this voyage and one he made the next year, Cabot seems to have explored much of the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to South Carolina. He received a pension from the King, but, as he had not found a route to the spice lands, his discoveries were soon forgotten. It was nearly a hundred years later that the English began in earnest the work of exploration in the New World. Then they recalled the discoveries of John Cabot and on them based their rights to colonize North America.

16. The Discovery of the Pacific Ocean by Balboa. — The Spanish explorers were soon to find that it was, in truth, a new world that had been discovered. In 1513 Balboa, a bankrupt planter from the Spanish colony in Haiti, but a capable leader of men, crossed the Isthmus of Panama to find a "great water " of which the Indians had told him.

c

After eighteen days of heroic labor, spent in penetrating the tropical jungle of the isthmus, he beheld the waters of the Pacific Ocean and offered thanks to " God and all the Heavenly Host who had reserved the prize of so great a thing unto him, being a man but of small wit and knowledge, of little experience, and lowly parentage."

17. Magellan Proves That the Earth Is Round. — The newly discovered ocean was crossed a few years later by Magellan. This Portuguese sailor, who had entered the

service of Spam, set sail with five ships in September, 15 19, and late the next year passed through the straits, three hundred twenty-five miles long, which now bear his name. As he entered the ocean \ to the west, the waters were so V calm that he called it " the f,,n ijA' m''^' ^I'l'^^^-^^'M' reacetui b»ea, Mar Pacifico, m " * /' •'■'' // '/" , ' \\J Spanish .

Ferdinand Magellan Sailing boldly to the northwest,

the great captain at length came to the Ladrones and the PhiHppine Islands, where in a fight with the natives he met his death. One of his ships, the Victoria, continued the voyage to Spain, arriving in September, 1522, thus completing the first voyage around the earth.

SPANISH EXPLORATIONS IN NORTH AMERICA

18. Ponce de Leon Discovers Florida. ^ — In 15 13, the same year in which Balboa discovered the Pacific, Ponce de Leon, one of the first governors of the island of Porto Rico, set out to find the island of Bimini, concerning the riches of which vague reports had come from Indian sources. It is said also that he hoped to find there a sprmg which would give back youth to the old. Sailing north and west from Porto Rico, he came on Easter Sunday in sight of the coast of the mainland near the present town of St. Augustine.

The Old Spanish Gates ok St. Augustine

He called the land Florida from the Spanish name for Easter time, Pascua Florida. Before leaving the new land he sailed around the southern end of the peninsula and followed the coast as far as Tampa Bay.

19. The Story of Cabeza de Vaca. — A Spanish expedition under the direction of Pamfilo de Narvaez, who had secured an important grant of land on the Gulf of Mexico, landed near Tampa Bay in the spring of 1528. Directing his ships to follow the coast and meet him farther to the west, Narvaez, with three hundred men, began the exploration of the interior. He was soon forced by the warlike natives to return to the coast, where he and his men built rude boats and made an attempt to reach the place appointed for the meeting with his fleet. Somewhere along the coast of Texas Narvaez was drowned ; the meeting with the ships never took place, and cold and hunger reduced the company to fifteen members, who were taken prisoners by the Indians. Among these survivors was Cabeza de Vaca, treasurer and historian of the expedition, who has left a stirring account of his adventures. After many wanderings, he and three companions reached the Spanish settlement of San Miguel on the western coast of Mexico. His description of the country he had seen made men in Mexico think that a land of great wealth lay to the north.