A School History of the United States by John Bach McMaster

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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 years before, in June, 1494, Spain and Portugal
made a treaty and agreed that a meridian should be drawn 370 leagues
west of the Cape Verde Islands and be known as "The Line of Demarcation"
All heathen lands discovered, no matter by whom, to the east of this
line, were to belong to Portugal; all to the west of it were to be the
property of Spain. Now, as the strange coast seemed to be east of the
line of demarcation, and therefore the property of Portugal, Cabral sent
word to the King that he might explore it.

Accordingly, in May, 1501, the King sent out three ships in charge of
Americus Vespucius. Vespucius sighted the coast somewhere about Cape St.
Roque, and, finding that it was east of the line of demarcation,
explored it southward as far as the mouth of the river La Plata. As he
was then west of the line, and off a coast which belonged to Spain, he
turned and sailed southeastward till he struck the island of South
Georgia, where the Antarctic cold and the fields of floating ice stopped
him and sent him back to Lisbon.

The results of this great voyage were many. In the first place, it
secured Brazil for Portugal. In the second place, it changed the
geographical ideas of the time. The great length of coast line explored
proved that the land was not a mere island, but that Vespucius had found
a new continent in the southern hemisphere,--off the coast of Asia, as
was then supposed. This for a time was called the "Fourth Part" of the
world,--the other three parts being Europe, Asia, and Africa. But in
1507 a German professor published a little book on geography, in which
he suggested that the new part of the world discovered by Americus, the
part which we call Brazil, should be called America.

As Columbus was not supposed to have discovered a new world, but merely
a new route to Asia, this suggestion seemed very proper, and soon the
word "America" began to appear on maps as the name of Brazil. After a
while it was applied to all South America, and finally to North
America also.

%7. The Pacific discovered; the Mexican Gulf Coast explored.%--A few
years after the publication of the little book which gave the New World
the name of America, a Spaniard named Balboa landed on the Isthmus of
Panama, crossed it (1513), and from the mountains looked down on an
endless expanse of blue water, which he called the South Sea, because
when he first saw it he was looking south.

Meantime another Spaniard, named Ponce de Leon (pon'tha da la-on'),
sailed with three ships from Porto Rico, in March, 1513, and on the 27th
of that month came in sight of the mainland. As the day was Easter
Sunday, which the Spaniards call Pascua (pas'-coo-ah) Florida, he called
the country Florida.

[Illustration: Map of 1515][1]

[Footnote 1: Showing what was then supposed to be the shape and position
of the newly discovered lands.]

Six years later (1519) Pineda (pe-na'-da) skirted the shores of the Gulf
from Florida to Mexico.

%8. Spaniards sail round the World.%--In the same year (1519) that
Pineda explored the Gulf coast, a Portuguese named Magellan (ma-jel'-an)
led a Spanish fleet across the Atlantic. He coasted along South America
to Tierra del Fuego, entered the strait which now bears his name, passed
well up the western coast, and turning westward sailed toward India. He
was then on the ocean which Balboa had discovered and named the South
Sea. But Magellan found it so much smoother than the Atlantic that he
called it the Pacific. Five ships and 254 men left Spain; but only one
ship and fifteen men returned to Spain by way of India and Cape of Good
Hope. Magellan himself was among the dead.[1]

[Footnote 1: Magellan was killed by the natives of one of the Philippine
Islands. The captain of the ship which made the voyage was greatly
honored. The King of Spain ennobled him, and on his coat of arms was a
globe representing the earth, and on it the motto "You first sailed
round me."]

%9. Importance of Magellan's Voyage.%--Of all the voyages ever made
by man this was the greatest.[2] In the first place, it proved beyond
dispute that the earth is round. In the second place, it proved that
South America is a great continent, and that there is no short southwest
passage to India.

[Footnote 2: By all means read the account of this voyage by Fiske, in
his _Discovery of America_, Vol. II., pp. 190-211.]

%10. Search for a Northwest Passage; our North Atlantic Coast
explored.%--All eyes, therefore, turned northward; the quest for a
northwest passage began, and in that quest the Atlantic coast of the
United States was examined most thoroughly.

SUMMARY

1. Towards the close of the fifteenth century the Turks cut off the old
route of trade between Asia and Europe.

2. In attempting to find a new way to Asia, the Portuguese then began to
explore the west coast of Africa.

3. When at last they got well down the African coast it was thought that
such a route was too long.

4. Columbus (1492) then attempted to find a shorter way to Asia by
sailing westward across the Atlantic Ocean, and landed on some islands
which he supposed to be the East Indies.

5. The explorations of men who followed Columbus proved that a new
continent had been discovered and that it blocked the way to India.

6. The attempts to find a southwest passage or a northwest passage
through our continent led to the exploration of the Atlantic and
Pacific coasts.

7. The new world was called America, after the explorer Americus.

8. The voyage of Magellan proved that the earth is round.

CHAPTER II

THE SPANIARDS IN THE UNITED STATES

%11. The Spaniards explore the Southwest.%--Now it must be noticed
that up to 1513 no European had explored the interior of either North or
South America. They had merely touched the shores. In 1513 the work of
exploration began. Balboa then crossed the Isthmus of Panama. In 1519
Cortes (cor'-tez) landed on the coast of Mexico with a body of men, and
marched boldly into the heart of the country to the city where lived the
great Indian chief or king, Montezuma. Cortes took the city and made
himself master of Mexico. This was most important; for the conquest of
Mexico turned the attention of the Spaniards from our country for many
years, and finally led to the exploration of the Southwest. But the
first explorers of what is now the United States came from Cuba in 1528.

[Illustration: Map of 1530, Sloane MS.[1]]

[Footnote 1: Notice that the two continents begin to take shape, and
that as the result of Magellan's voyage is not generally known, North
America is placed very near to Java.]

In that year Narvaez (nar-vah-eth), excited by Pineda's accounts of the
Mississippi Indians and their golden ornaments, set forth with 400 men
to conquer the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico. At Apalachee Bay he
landed, and made a raid inland. On returning to the shore, he missed his
ships, and after traveling westward on foot for a month, built five rude
vessels, and once more put to sea. For six weeks the little fleet hugged
the shore, till it came to the mouth of the Mississippi, where two of
the boats were upset and Narvaez was drowned. The rest reached the coast
of Texas in safety. But famine and the tomahawk soon reduced the number
of the survivors to four. These were captured by bands of wandering
Indians, were carried over eastern Texas and western Louisiana, till,
after many strange adventures and vicissitudes, they met beyond the
Sabine River.[1] Protected by the fame they had won for sorcery, and led
by one Cabeza de Vaca, they now wandered westward to the Rio Grande[2]
(ree'-o grahn'-da) and on by Chihuahua (chee-wah'-wah) and Sonora to the
Gulf of California, and by this to Culiacan, a town near the west coast
of Mexico, which they reached in 1536. They had crossed the continent.

[Footnote 1: Now the western boundary of Louisiana.]

[Footnote 2: Rio Grande del Norte---Great River of the North.]

%12. "The Seven Cities of Cibola."%--The story these men told of the
strange country through which they had passed, aroused a strong desire
in the Spaniards to explore it, for somewhere in that direction they
believed were the Seven Cities. According to an ancient legend, when the
Arabs invaded the Spanish peninsula, a bishop of Lisbon with many
followers fled to a group of islands in the Sea of Darkness, and on them
founded seven cities. As one of the Indian tribes had preserved a story
of Seven Caves in which their ancestors had once lived, the credulous
and romantic Spaniards easily confounded the two legends. Firmly
believing that the seven cities must exist in the north country
traversed by Vaca, Mendoza, the Spanish governor of Mexico, selected
Fray Marcos, a monk of great ability, and sent him forth with a few
followers to search for them. Directed by the Indians through whose
villages he passed, he came at last in sight of the seven Zuni
(zoo'-nyee) pueblos (pweb'-loz) of New Mexico, all of which were
inhabited in his time. But he came no nearer than just within sight of
them. For one of the party, who went on in advance, having been killed
by the Zuni, Fray Marcos hurried back to Culiacan. Understanding the
name of the city he had seen to be Cibola (see'-bo-la), he called the
pueblos the "Seven Cities of Cibola," and against them the next year
(1540) Coronado marched with 1100 men. Finding the pueblos were not the
rich cities for which he sought, Coronado pushed on eastward, and for
two years wandered to and fro over the plains and mountains of the West,
crossing the state of Kansas twice.[1]

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