History of America
Aztec Empire:
The Aztec Empire, or the Triple Alliance began
as an alliance of three city-states: Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan.
These three city-states ruled the area in and around the Valley of Mexico from
1428 until they were defeated by the combined forces of the Spain in 1521.
Inca Empire:
The Inca Empire also known as the Incan Empire
and the Inka Empire was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America and
possibly the largest empire in the world in the early 16th century. The
administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in
Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of
Peru sometime in the early 13th century. Its last stronghold was conquered by
the Spanish in 1572. But mainly its era was from 1438 to 1533.
Discovery of America:
Columbus led his three ships - the Nina, the Pinta
and the Santa Maria - out of 
the Spanish port of Palos on August
3, 1492. His objective was to sail west until he reached Asia (the Indies)
where the riches of gold, pearls and spice awaited. His first stop was the
Canary Islands where the lack of wind left his expedition becalmed until
September 6.
Once underway, Columbus benefited from calm seas and steady
winds that pushed him steadily westward (Columbus had discovered the southern
"Trades" that in the future would fuel the sailing ships carrying
goods to the New World). However, the trip was long, longer than anticipated by
either Columbus or his crew. In order to mollify his crew's apprehensions,
Columbus kept two sets of logs: one showing the true distance traveled each day
and one showing a lesser distance. The first log was kept secret. The latter
log quieted the crew's anxiety by under-reporting the true distance they had
traveled from their homeland.
This deception had only a temporary effect; by October 10 the
crew's apprehension had increased to the point of near mutiny. Columbus headed
off disaster by promising his crew that if land was not sighted in two days,
they would return home. The next day land was discovered.
Shortly after landing, many of the island's inhabitants
assembled on the beach and Columbus gave them gifts of red hats and beads. The
natives reciprocated with gifts of parrots, cotton and other goods. In
describing the natives, Columbus wrote: "They go as naked as when their
mothers bore them, and so do the women, although I did not see more than one
girl. They are very well made, with very handsome bodies, and very good
countenances."
History by Dates:
In 1493 Pope
Alexander 6th gave the Americas to Spain, on condition it converted the natives
to Christianity.
The Spanish arrived in the regions of north east South
America now known as Colombia bridges the Caribbean and the Pacific, the Amazon
and the Andes. Spanish explorers arrived in 1499. Santa Fe de Bogotá (Bogotá), the capital of present day
Colombia, was founded by the Spanish people in 1538.
In 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral,
from Portugal, discovered Brazil on the South American coast.
In 1501 First
sugar, harvest happened in Hispaniola. Sugar mills had been constructed in Cuba
and Jamaica by the 1520s.
In 1510 King
Ferdinand of Spain authorized a shipment of 50 African slaves to be sent to
Santo Domingo. Start of the trans-Atlantic slave trade from Africa - In the
preceding two decades, native Americans had been shipped to Spain as slaves.
In 1511 First Spanish
settlement on Cuba occurred by the
fall of the Aztec Empire and capture of its ruler Cuauhtémoc (1521),
left Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in charge of a vast and largely
unfamiliar land. By 1522 his sovereign, Carlos V, had bestowed upon him
the title Governor and Captain General of Nueva España (New Spain).
In 1540 first of
the Indian wars started. These were the multiple armed conflicts between
European Government and colonies and later American settlers especially of
North America. These conflicts started in 1540
and continued till 1924.
North Atlantic
Colonies:
The thirteen European colonies that combined against the
British to form the United States of America at the end of the 18th century
were mostly founded by the English and Dutch in the 17th century. The southern
colonies, such as Virginia, were mainly founded by orthodox members of the
English church with royalist sympathies. The northern states (New England) were
founded by their puritan critics. In between were New York and New Jersey,
originally settled by the Dutch, and Pennsylvania, a Quaker colony from 1682.
In 1607 the first
permanent English colony on mainland America was founded by the Virginia
Company of London and called "Jamestown, Virginia".
On 30 July 1619 Virginia
established the first legislative assembly in America.
First African slaves in North America
brought to Jamestown, Virginia, by a Dutch ship in the same year.
In 1616, Captain John Smith
had published A Description of New England, describing the land that
later became the north-east
states of the USA. In 1620, the Mayflower sailed from Plymouth,
England, with 102 men and women from a calvinist separatist community seeking a
place in the new world to practice their religion. The "Pilgrims"
landed on 6.9.1620 and founded Plymouth Colony in what became
Massachusetts, the first New England colony. They remained a small group.
Puritans, from the Church of England, founded a colony at Massachusetts Bay in 1629/1630.
They came in large numbers. Maine settlers came under the jurisdiction of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1652. A confederacy formed in 1643, of
Connecticut, New Haven, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay was called the United
Colonies of New England. It was governed by a theocracy till 1693.
Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay combined to form Massachusetts in 1691.
In 1631 the
first "General Court" of the Massachusetts Bay Colony established.
Made up of the governor and freemen, it had full legal authority. The franchise
was limited to regenerate church members, and the church was supported by
public taxes. By 1636 the General Court gave power over the church to
the magistrates and, later, control as to who preached what and where.
In 1634 The
Werowance (chief) of the Yoacomoco Indians having agreed to sell a village to
Leonard Calvert in exchange for gifts, trading guarantees and protection from
their enemies, the Susquehannock and Iroquois Indians, the village became the English settlement
of St Mary's City, the beginning of Maryland.
In 1636 Harvard College, the first institute
for higher education in a north American colony, established at Cambridge in
Massachusetts.
In 1663 Charles 2nd granted a charter to own
and exploit the lands south of Virginia and north of Florida to six men who had
helped in the restoration of the monarchy. The territory was called Carolina in honor of Charles 1st
("Carolus" being the Latin form of "Charles"). The first
permanent European settlements in these lands had been made about 1650 by people from Virginia.
In 1664 Charles 2nd made a grant of land later named New Jersey.
At the height of its power, about 1675, Iroquois
Confederation conquered wide stretches of the surrounding country. Engels
New Jersey divided into two. The
western part was owned by Quakers, including William Penn.
In 1681, the land now called Pennsylvania
(Penn's woodlands) was granted to the English Quaker, William Penn, in payment of a
debt the English monarch owed his father. The first Quaker colonists arrived in
1682. The woodlands were, of course, already occupied by the
"Indians", and also by Dutch colonists who had taken it from the
Swedish (in 1655), before it was taken by the British (in 1664) and granted by
Charles 2nd to the Duke of York. Sweden had colonized in 1643. Many historians
say that Penn made fair exchanges with the Indians for their land. Others that
he deceived them and "effectively" stole it. Whatever the truth, the
land was settled peacefully and a "holy experiment" started.
In 1682 Penn laid out the street plan for Philadelphia:
The City of Brotherly Love. French explorer Sieur de La Salle
investigates the lower Mississippi valley and claims the entire region for
France.
In 1733 English
colony Georgia was founded in
America.
In 1754 a war started called French-Indian war which
continued for 7 years. In the upper Ohio River valley colonial rivalry between
France and England came to a head. This war is also called Seven years War.
The young George Washington was sent to the French
quarter with the order for the French to withdraw. War ensued and the opening
fight of the war took place at Fort Necessity, 11 miles or 18 kilometers
southeast of today's Uniontown, Pennsylvania.
It was the only time Washington ever surrendered in battle.
France fought this war against Great Britain. At the end Spain was dragged into
it as France ally and Later received Louisiana for its French troubles.
The Treaty of Paris, 1763, concluded the French and
Indian War.
It's preliminary articles were signed also at Fontainebleau,
on the same day the Treaty of Fontainebleau that gave Louisiana to Spain was
signed.
Preliminary Articles of Peace
Fontainebleau, November 3, 1762
In 1765 the Quartering Act and the Stamp Act
anger Americans. Nine colonies are represented at the Stamp Act Congress.
The first in the series of
Quartering acts passed by the British parliament. Also known as the American Mutiny Act, The Quartering Act
of 1765 was passed on May 3rd, 1765 and required colonial assemblies to provide
housing, food and drink to British troops stationed in their towns with the
purpose of improving living conditions and decreasing the cost to the crown.
This act was implemented by General Tomas Gage, the commander in chief of North
America. Soldiers were to be housed in barracks or empty public buildings and
not in private residences. It was the duty of local legislatures to fund the
expenses. Most colonial
legislatures agreed to the new law even though the expense to fund the troops
was seen as a tax. In January 1766 the New York assembly refused to raise the
money. New York was the main port of arrival and departure of soldiers and the
burden to finance housing was heavier on them than on any other assembly.
Parliament passed the New York Suspending Act on July 1767 which suspended the
assembly until they complied with the new law. The New York assembly decided to
provide limited funding for housing and food. The Stamp Act Congress met in the Federal Hall building in New York
City between October 7 and 25, 1765. It was the first colonial action against a
British measure and was formed to protest the Stamp Act issued by British
Parliament on March 1765. The Stamp Act Congress was attended by 27
representatives of nine of the thirteen colonies. Virginia, North Carolina and
Georgia were prevented from attending because their loyal governors refused to
convene the assemblies to elect delegates. New Hampshire did not attend but
approved the resolutions once Congress was over.
Congress approved thirteen resolutions in the Declaration of
Rights and Grievances. It is important to note that colonists, at that point in
time, were not intending on a separation from the crown. In the first
resolution they stated their allegiance to the king and its Parliament. They
declared and affirmed that they were entitled to the rights and liberties of
all British subjects. Most importantly they asserted their right to “No
taxation without representation” and that because of their circumstances, America
was three thousand miles away, they could not be represented in the House of
Commons in Britain. The only bodies legally able to impose an internal tax were
their respective legislatures whose members were elected by the public.
The Stamp Act Congress declared the Stamp Act duties as
extremely bothersome as the scarcity of specie made its payment impractical.
Local profits would suffer from the payment of the duty ultimately affecting
transatlantic trade. Congress also supported the boycott of British goods.
The colonists also wanted to reassert their right to trial by
jury as an inherent right to all British subjects in the colonies and limit the
jurisdiction of Admiralty Courts. These courts could try a case anywhere within
the British Empire; cases were decided by judges instead than by juries. In
addition judges and naval officers were paid based on the fines they levied
leading to abuses.
The colonial petition was rejected on the basis of having
been submitted by an unconstitutional assembly. The Stamp Act was eventually
repealed primarily based on economic concerns expressed by British merchants.
However parliament in order to reassert its power and constitutional issues
over its right to tax its colonies passed the Declaratory Act.
In 1770 British troops fire on a crowd, killing five people
in the so-called Boston Massacre. The British troops had been billeted
in Boston in October 1768 after repeated requests from British customs
officials, who had been harassed and intimidated because of their efforts to
enforce the Townshend Acts. Numerous clashes between the soldiers and the
citizenry resulted. The killings of March 5, promptly termed a “massacre” by
Patriot leaders and commemorated in a widely circulated engraving by Paul
Revere, aroused intense public protests and threats of violent retaliation.
This pressure caused Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson to withdraw the
troops to an island in the harbor.
The Boston Tea Party, the first action in a chain
leading to war with Britain, takes place in 1773. The British wanted to make a
point by insisting on the tea tax. The Americans refused to pay the tax.
Wherever they could, the American agents canceled their tea orders or boycotted
it otherwise.
In 1774 the First Continental Congress meets at Philadelphia
and protests the five Intolerable Acts, also called the Coercive Acts.
Meanwhile, Britain closes down Boston harbor and deploys troops in
Massachusetts.
The battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker
Hill occur. George Washington on the roll.
American War of
Independence 1775 - 1783
The American War of Independence, also called the American
Revolution, or the American Revolutionary War, was fought from 1775 until 1783.
The American Revolution in a Nutshell
Thirteen mainland colonies of British North America declared
their independence on July 4, 1776, to form the United States of America.
The War of Independence started as a civil war but soon
became an international war when France, Spain, and the Netherlands joined the
colonies against Britain.
During the French and
Indian Wars, Britain had spent quite some money for the colonies’ defense and
attempted to get repayment.
The colonies argued that Britain would have the right to
impose taxes, so long as the colonies were represented in Parliament;
therefore, taxation without representation was unacceptable. The tone became
sharper on both sides and a boycott of British goods was discussed in the
colonies.
Unrest increased as colonial radicals purposely fueled the
dispute to break with Britain. They argued that the Empire generally handled
political and economical issues detrimental to their interest. The Boston
Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea
Party in 1773 were an indicator of the growing tension.
What Started the
American Revolution?
The Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, were
the beginning of the American Revolution.
To avoid armed rebellion, a British force came to seize
colonists’ weapons at Concord, a town near Boston. The colonists had been
forewarned and intercepted the British at Lexington Green. Shots were
exchanged, and some Americans were killed.
Arriving at Concord, the British were confronted and
outnumbered by the colonial militia and had to withdraw to Boston while being
attacked on all sides.
Number of casualties in the battles of Lexington and Concord:
British: 73 killed, 174 wounded, 26 missing
American: 93 dead, wounded, or missing (some say 95)
The Americans were ready to drive the British out of Boston
and started the Siege of Boston.
What Ended the
American Revolution?
The last major battle took place on October 19, 1781. It
ended with the surrender of British General Corwallis at Yorktown, Virginia.
However, for all parties to negotiate acceptable terms required some time.
The American Revolution officially ended with the Peace of
Paris 1783. Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States,
with the Mississippi River as the western boundary. Navigation on the river
remained open to both nations.
Casualties of the
American Revolution
Estimates differ. Some historians say that the Revolution
claimed a total of 25,000 lives. Others estimate American losses at 4,400,
British losses 6,800, and German losses at 1,200.
What Impact Did the
American Revolution Have?
The American Revolution caused many Europeans to reassess
their own government. The idea that a country actually could decide upon its
government was exciting and appealed especially to those in lower social
classes.
American Revolution
Trivia
To remedy a lack of troops, the British hired the services of
approximately 30,000 German mercenary soldiers. The majority of the Germans
came from the German state Hesse-Cassel; thus they became known as the
Hessians.
In 1776 the Declaration
of Independence is adopted by Congress. Thomas Jefferson is pleased and the
colonies declare independence.
The Continental Congress passed the U.S. Declaration of
Independence on July 4, 1776.
13 British colonies in North America declared their
independence from Great Britain. The 13 colonies, now states, were: Connecticut,
Delaware, Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, New
Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and
Virginia.
In 1781 George Washington accepts the surrender
of Charles Cornwallis at yorktown after defeat of British.
On 20 june 1782
the bald eagle becomes officially national emble of United States.
In 1783 the treaty
of Peace of Paris formally ends the
revolutionary war. Britain accepts the lost of Colonies.
In 1788 the US Constitution is ratified by the
necessary 9 states to ensure adaptation.
In 1789 new US
government goes into effect. George Washington was inaugurated as first
president.
