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A SCHOOL HISTORY

OF THE

UNITED STATES


BY

JOHN BACH McMASTER

PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF PENNSYLVANIA

1897




PREFACE

It has long been the custom to begin the history of our country with the
discovery of the New World by Columbus. To some extent this is both wise
and necessary; but in following it in this instance the attempt has been
made to treat the colonial period as the childhood of the United States;
to have it bear the same relation to our later career that the account
of the youth of a great man should bear to that of his maturer years,
and to confine it to the narration of such events as are really
necessary to a correct understanding of what has happened since 1776.

The story, therefore, has been restricted to the discoveries,
explorations, and settlements within the United States by the English,
French, Spaniards, and Dutch; to the expulsion of the French by the
English; to the planting of the thirteen colonies on the Atlantic
seaboard; to the origin and progress of the quarrel which ended with the
rise of thirteen sovereign free and independent states, and to the
growth of such political institutions as began in colonial times. This
period once passed, the long struggle for a government followed till our
present Constitution--one of the most remarkable political instruments
ever framed by man--was adopted, and a nation founded.

Scarcely was this accomplished when the French Revolution and the rise
of Napoleon involved us in a struggle, first for our neutral rights, and
then for our commercial independence, and finally in a second war with
Great Britain. During this period of nearly five and twenty years,
commerce and agriculture flourished exceedingly, but our internal
resources were little developed. With the peace of 1815, however, the
era of industrial development commences, and this has been treated with
great--though it is believed not too great--fullness of detail; for,
beyond all question, _the_ event of the world's history during the
nineteenth century is the growth of the United States. Nothing like it
has ever before taken place.

To have loaded down the book with extended bibliographies would have
been an easy matter, but quite unnecessary. The teacher will find in
Channing and Hart's _Guide to the Study of American History_ the best
digested and arranged bibliography of the subject yet published, and
cannot afford to be without it. If the student has time and disposition
to read one half of the reference books cited in the footnotes of this
history, he is most fortunate.

JOHN BACH McMASTER.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I.      EUROPE FINDS AMERICA
II.     THE SPANIARDS IN THE UNITED STATES
III.    ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND SWEDES ON THE SEABOARD
IV.     THE PLANTING OF NEW ENGLAND
V.      THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN COLONIES
VI.     THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
VII.    THE INDIANS
VIII.   THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND LOUISIANA
IX.     LIFE IN THE COLONIES IN 1763
X.      "LIBERTY, PROPERTY, AND NO STAMPS"
XI.     THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
XII.    UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION
XIII.   MAKING THE CONSTITUTION
XIV.    OUR COUNTRY IN 1790
XV.     THE RISE OF PARTIES
XVI.    THE STRUGGLE FOR NEUTRALITY
XVII.   STRUGGLE FOR "FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS"
XVIII.  THE WAR FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE
XIX.    PROGRESS OF OUR COUNTRY BETWEEN 1790 AND 1815
XX.     SETTLEMENT OF OUR BOUNDARIES
XXI.    THE RISING WEST
XXII.   THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND COMMERCE
XXIII.  POLITICS FROM 1824 TO 1845
XXIV.   EXPANSION OF THE SLAVE AREA
XXV.    THE TERRITORIES BECOME SLAVE SOIL
XXVI.   PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 1840 AND 1860
XXVII.  WAR FOR THE UNION, 1861-1865
XXVIII. WAR ALONG THE COAST AND ON THE SEA
XXIX.   THE COST OF THE WAR
XXX.    RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOUTH
XXXI.   THE NEW WEST (1860-1870)
XXXII.  POLITICS FROM 1868 TO 1880
XXXIII. GROWTH OF THE NORTHWEST
XXXIV.  MECHANICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS
XXXV.   POLITICS SINCE 1880

APPENDIX

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
STATE CONSTITUTIONS
INDEX

LIST OF IMPORTANT MAPS

DISCOVERY ON THE EAST COAST OF AMERICA
EUROPEAN CLAIMS AND EXPLORATIONS, 1650
FRENCH CLAIMS, ETC., IN 1700
BRITISH COLONIES, 1733
EUROPEAN POSSESSIONS, 1763
THE BRITISH COLONIES IN 1764
BRITISH COLONIES, 1776
RESULTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
THE UNITED STATES, 1783
THE UNITED STATES, 1789
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1790
SLAVE AND FREE SOIL IN 1790
THE UNITED STATES, 1801
THE UNITED STATES, 1810
NORTH AMERICA AFTER 1824
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1820
FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN 1820
THE UNITED STATES, 1826
TERRITORY CLAIMED BY TEXAS IN 1845
THE OREGON COUNTRY
ROUTES OF THE EARLY EXPLORERS
TERRITORY CEDED BY MEXICO, 1848 AND 1853
RESULTS OF THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
THE UNITED STATES IN 1851
EXPANSION OF SLAVE SOIL, 1790-1860
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1850
THE UNITED STATES, 1861
WAR FOR THE UNION
INDUSTRIAL AND RAILROAD MAP OF THE UNITED STATES




A SCHOOL HISTORY OF THE
UNITED STATES

       *       *       *       *       *

_DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS_


CHAPTER I


EUROPE FINDS AMERICA

%1. Nations that have owned our Soil.%--Before the United States
became a nation, six European powers owned, or claimed to own, various
portions of the territory now contained within its boundary. England
claimed the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. Spain once held
Florida, Texas, California, and all the territory south and west of
Colorado. France in days gone by ruled the Mississippi valley. Holland
once owned New Jersey, Delaware, and the valley of the Hudson in New
York, and claimed as far eastward as the Connecticut river. The Swedes
had settlements on the Delaware. Alaska was a Russian possession.

Before attempting to narrate the history of our country, it is
necessary, therefore, to tell

1. How European nations came into possession of parts of it.

2. How these parts passed from them to us.

3. What effect the ownership of parts of our country by Europeans had on
our history and institutions before 1776.

%2. European Trade with the East; the Old Routes.%--For two hundred
years before North and South America were known to exist, a splendid
trade had been going on between Europe and the East Indies. Ships loaded
with metals, woods, and pitch went from European seaports to Alexandria
and Constantinople, and brought back silks and cashmeres, muslins,
dyewoods, spices, perfumes, ivory, precious stones, and pearls. This
trade in course of time had come to be controlled by the two Italian
cities of Venice and Genoa. The merchants of Genoa sent their ships to
Constantinople and the ports of the Black Sea, where they took on board
the rich fabrics and spices which by boats and by caravans had come up
the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris from the Persian Gulf. The
men of Venice, on the other hand, sent their vessels to Alexandria, and
carried on their trade with the East through the Red Sea.

[Illustration: Routes to India]

%3. New Routes wanted.%--Splendid as this trade was, however, it was
doomed to destruction. Slowly, but surely, the Turks thrust themselves
across the caravan routes, cutting off one by one the great feeders of
the Oriental trade, till, with the capture of Constantinople in 1453,
they destroyed the commercial career of Genoa. As their power was
spreading rapidly over Syria and toward Egypt, the prosperity of Venice,
in turn, was threatened. The day seemed near when all trade between the
Indies and Europe would be ended, and men began to ask if it were not
possible to find an ocean route to Asia.

Now, it happened that just at this time the Portuguese were hard at work
on the discovery of such a route, and were slowly pushing their way down
the western coast of Africa. But as league after league of that coast
was discovered, it was thought that the route to India by way of Africa
was too long for the purposes of commerce.[1] Then came the question, Is
there not a shorter route? and this Columbus tried to answer.

[Footnote 1: Read the account of Portuguese exploration in search of a
way to India, in Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I., pp. 274-334.]

%4. Columbus seeks the East and finds America.%[2]--Columbus was a
native of Genoa, in Italy. He began a seafaring life at fourteen, and in
the intervals between his voyages made maps and globes. As Portugal was
then the center of nautical enterprise, he wandered there about 1470,
and probably went on one or two voyages down the coast of Africa. In
1473 he married a Portuguese woman. Her father had been one of the King
of Portugal's famous navigators, and had left behind him at his death a
quantity of charts and notes; and it was while Columbus was studying
them that the idea of seeking the Indies by sailing due westward seems
to have first started in his mind. But many a year went by, and many a
hardship had to be borne, and many an insult patiently endured in
poverty and distress, before the Friday morning in August, 1492, when
his three caravels, the _Santa Maria_ (sahn'-tah mah-ree'-ah), the
_Pinta_ (peen'-tah), and the _Nina_ (neen'-yah), sailed from the port of
Palos (pah'-los), in Spain.

[Footnote 2: There is reason to believe that about the year 1000 A.D.
the northeast coast of America was discovered by a Norse voyager named
Leif Ericsson. The records are very meager; but the discovery of our
country by such a people is possible and not improbable. For an account
of the pre-Columbian discoveries see Fiske's _Discovery of America_,
Vol. I., pp. 148-255.]

[Illustration: Santa Maria]

His course led first to the Canary Islands, where he turned and went
directly westward. The earth was not then generally believed to be
round. Men supposed it to be flat, and the only parts of it known to
Europeans were Iceland, the British Isles, the continent of Europe, a
small part of Asia, and a strip along the coast of the northern part of
Africa. The ocean on which Columbus was now embarked, and which in our
time is crossed in less than a week, was then utterly unknown, and was
well named "The Sea of Darkness." Little wonder, then, that as the
shores of the last of the Canaries sank out of sight on the 9th of
September, many of the sailors wept, wailed, and loudly bemoaned their
cruel fate. After sailing for what seemed a very long time, they saw
signs of land. But when no land appeared, their hopes gave way to fear,
and they rose against Columbus in order to force him to return.

[Illustration: Nina]

But he calmed their fears, explained the sights they could not
understand, hid from them the true distance sailed, and kept steadily on
westward till October 7, when a flock of land birds were seen flying to
the southwest. Pinzon (peen-thon'), who commanded one of the vessels,
begged Columbus to follow the birds, as they seemed to be going toward
land. Had the little fleet kept on its way, it would have brought up on
the coast of Florida. But Columbus yielded to Pinzon. The ships were
headed southwestward, and about ten o'clock on the night of October 11,
Columbus saw a light moving in the distance. It was made by the
inhabitants going from hut to hut on a neighboring coast. At dawn the
shore itself was seen by a sailor, and Columbus, followed by many of his
men, hastened to the beach, where, October 12, 1492, he raised a huge
cross, and took possession of the country in the name of Ferdinand and
Isabella, King and Queen of Spain, who had supplied him with caravels
and men.[1] He had landed on one of a group of islands which we call the
Bahamas.[2]

[Footnote 1: Columbus called the new land San Salvador (sahn
sahl-vah-dor', Holy Savior), because October 12, the day on which it was
discovered, was so named in the Spanish calendar.]

[Footnote 2: Three islands of this group, Cat, Turks, and Watlings, have
rival claims as the landing place of Columbus. At present, Watlings
Island is believed to be the one on which he first set foot. Read an
account of the voyage in Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I., pp.
408-442; Irving's _Life and Voyages of Columbus_, Vol. I., Book III.]

[Illustration: Coat of arms of Columbus]

During ten days he sailed among these islands. Then, turning southward,
he coasted along Cuba to the eastern end, and so to Haiti, which he
named Hispaniola, or Little Spain. There the _Santa Maria_ was wrecked.
The _Pinta_ had by this time deserted him, and, as the _Nina_ could not
carry all the men, forty were left at Hispaniola, to found the first
colony of Europeans in the New World. Giving the men food enough to last
a year, Columbus set sail for Spain on the 3d of January, 1493, and on
March 15 was safe at Palos.

Of the greatness of his discovery, Columbus had not the faintest idea.
That he had found a new world; that a continent was blocking his way to
the East, never entered his mind. He supposed he had landed on some
islands off the east coast of Asia, and as that coast was called the
Indies, and as the islands were reached by sailing westward, they came
to be called the West Indies, and their inhabitants Indians; and the
native races of the New World have ever since been called Indians.
Although Columbus in after years made three more voyages to the New
World, he never found out his mistake, and died firm in the belief that
he had discovered a direct route to Asia.[1]

[Footnote 1: Columbus began his second voyage in September, 1493, and
discovered Jamaica, Porto Rico (por'-to ree'-co), and the islands of the
Caribbean Sea. On his third voyage, in 1498, he discovered the island of
Trinidad, off the coast of Venezuela, and saw South America at the mouth
of the Orinoco River. During his fourth and last voyage, 1502-1504, he
explored the shores of Honduras and the Isthmus of Panama in search of a
strait leading to the Indian Ocean. Of course he did not find it, and,
going back to Spain, he died poor and broken-hearted on May 20, 1506.]

%5. The Atlantic Coast explored.%--And now that Columbus had shown
the way, others were quick to follow. In 1497 and 1498 came John and
Sebastian Cabot (cab'-ot), sailing under the flag of England, and
exploring our coast from Labrador to Cape Cod; and Pinzon and Solis,
with Vespucius[2] for pilot, sailing under the flag of Spain along the
shores of the Gulf of Mexico, around the peninsula of Florida, and
northward to Chesapeake Bay. Between 1500 and 1502 two Portuguese
navigators named Cortereal (cor-ta-ra-ahl') went over much the same
ground as the Cabots. For the time being, however, these voyages were
fruitless. It was not a new world, but China and Japan, the Indian
Ocean, and the spice islands, that Europe was seeking. When, therefore,
in 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon, passed around the end of
Africa, reached India, and came back to Portugal in 1499 with his ship
laden with the silks and spices of the East, all explorers turned
southward, and for eleven years after the visit of the Cortereals no
voyages were made to North America.

[Footnote 2: As this man was an Italian, his name was really Amerigo
Vespucci (ah-ma'-ree-go ves-poot'-chee), but it is usually given in its
Latinized form, Americus Vespucius (a-mer'-i-cus ves-pu'-she-us).]

%6. Why the Continent was called America.%--But some great voyages
meantime were made to South America. In 1500 a Portuguese fleet of
thirteen vessels, commanded by Cabral, started from Portugal for the
East. In place of following the usual route and hugging the west coast
of Africa, Cabral went off so far to the westward that one day in April,
1500, he was amazed to see land. It proved to be what is now Brazil, and
after sailing along a little way he sent one of his vessels home to
Portugal with the news.

[Illustration: %DISCOVERY% ON THE EAST COAST OF %AMERICA%]

He did this because six