Part 2. From the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

LECTURE 2

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. By whom was the first recorded voyage to North America made?

2. What sets off Columbus’s first voyage from all early voyages to America?

3. In what did English colonists differ from other European settlers?

4. What were two main reasons why the English migrants came to America?

5. What English colony is called “Lost” and why?

6. How was Virginia (New England, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Carolinas, Georgia, etc.) colonized?

7. What was the difference between Pilgrims and Puritans?

8. What events were remarkable for the unification of the British colonies?

9. Why did Americans dump tea into the Boston Harbor?

10. Where were the first battles of the Revolution fought and what battle ended the fighting in the Revolutionary War?

11. What was the importance of the Declaration of Independence?

12. What did the Americans win as a result of the treaty that ended the war?

13. Why was the ConstitutionalConvention held?

14. How many branches does the national government have? What are those branches?

15. What is the Bill of Rights?

16. How did the political parties begin in the U.S.?

Part 2covers the period after gaining independence from Great Britain in 1783 to WWI at the onset of the 20^th centuries.It describes:

· the U.S. territorial acquisitions and westward expansion

· Native Americans’ relocation to the West

· slavery and Civil War

· reconstruction

· industrialization and immigration in the 19^th century

· the "progressive" era

· the rise of U.S. imperialism and the U.S. in the early 1900’s

Key Words and Proper Names: annihilation, assassi­nate, barren, breadbasket, confine to reservations, defeat, gold rush, foster, grazing land, impose taxes and literacy requirements, influx, legacy, mounted warfare, overseas, progressivism, secede, sharecropping, sod, unprecedented and diverse stream of immigrants; voter rights, the referendum, and the recall; trustbuster, westward expansion;

Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Mackenzie and George Vancouver, Fort McHenry; the Apache, Arapaho, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Comanche, Hopis, Kiowa, Navajo, Nez Perce, Pueblo, Sioux, Geronimo, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse; George Custer, the Little Bighorn River battle, the Louisiana Purchase, Confederacy, the Confederate States of America, the Emancipa­tion Proclamation, Generals Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, William T. Sherman, Gettysburg, Prohibition, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, the Star-Spangled Banner, the Trail of Tears.

U.S. territorial acquisitions and westward expansion: After the revolution the independent American republic was now expanding westwards without any opposition from either France or Britain. The U.S. westward expansion is often called frontier expansion or movement. Lots of pioneers were drawn westward by economic opportunity and a chance to escape or purify an earlier way of life.

Again the U.S. found itself in bloody conflict with rivals, such as Mexico and Native American tribes. The mix of people and exchange of cultures with an even richer mix of influences continued.

In 1803, Jefferson, the third U.S. president, purchased the vast Louisiana Territory from France almost doubling the size of the country. The Louisiana Purchase added more than million square kilometers of territory and extended the country's borders to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado (Fig.4).

Fig. 6. U.S. territorial acquisitions

The war of 1812 was the last obstacle on the way to conquering the West’s riches. In 1803, war broke out again between France and Great Britain, and each of them wanted to stop American ships from trading with its enemy. The U.S. declared war on Great Britain in the spring of 1812. The war dragged on for two years. Neither side was able to win. In January 1815, at New Orleans, came the greatest triumph for American forces.

Interesting to know: This victory in the war is connected in the minds of Americans with one more significant event - the writing of “The Star - Spangled Banner.” This poem conveyed the patriot­ic feeling of its author, an American lawyer named Francis Scott Key, who watched the attack from a ship in the harbor. When he saw the American flag still flying over Fort McHenry in Baltimore after the long night of bombardment, the following lines came to him:

О say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, О 'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming! And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; О say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave О 'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The poem was printed in newspapers all over the country. It became very popular and was soon set to music. Years later, in 1931, Congress passed a law to make the song the American national anthem.

The Star-Spangled Banner (30 feet hoist by 42 feet fly) was sewn by Mary Pickersgill, an experienced Baltimore City flag maker. There were 15 stars and stripes on the flag (to represent the 13 original colonies and Vermont and Kentucky - the next two states to enter the union). This flag, came to be known as the Star Spangled Banner Flag or National glory, it is today on display among the most treasured artifacts in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

The war increased Americans’ feeling of patriotism; now they had pride in their country, their army and navy. No wonder, for many years, the British navy had ruled the seas, and in 1815, the British lost battles to the American ships. The war also strengthened the U.S. nationalism.

A series of U.S. military invasions into Florida led Spain to cede it. In 1819, Spain gave up all of Florida and other Gulf Coast territories to the U.S.

Now, nobody and nothing could stop the U.S. westward expansion. The frontier moved westward by the forces other than the search for farmland. These forces were as follows:

1) the West was a vast storehouse of resources - gold, silver, coal, iron, copper, timber, rich soil, and immense grazing lands;

2) at the same time the rise of industry created an almost limitless market for many of the West’s riches.

Many resources of the West were discovered and developed by brave pioneers from the East like Lewes and Clark, Mackenzie and Vancouver as well as by thousands of unknown trappers, settlers, farmers; many local Indian tribes willingly or unwillingly provided them with important geographic facts and data. This geographic knowledge opened the way for ordinary citizens to move across the country to the Far West.

In January 1848, traces of gold were found in the American River, California. Their discovery sparked the gold rush of 1849. Later on, there were gold rushes in Colorado in 1859, Idaho and Montana in the 1860’s, and Arizona and Nevada in the 1870’s. In 1859, silver was discovered in far western Nevada, then in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Arizona. The West proved to be one of the world’s greatest reservoirs of valuable metals. As gold, silver, copper, and lead mines were established, towns sprung up around them. Many of these towns were later abandoned when the mines around them were closed.

The U.S. grew rapidly. The order in which states were admitted to the Union reflects the uneven frontier’s movement across the American West. By 1820, ten new states had been formed. By the 1840’s, the line of settlement had moved only a few hundred miles past the Mississippi River. By 1850, Arkansas, Michigan, Texas, Iowa, and Wisconsin had been admitted as states. Then the frontier jumped across the middle of the country to Oregon and California on the Pacific Coast. California became the first American state on the Pacific in 1850. The frontier then moved both westward and eastward, as white settlers gradually pushed into the huge interior area of the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin, and the far South-west. Oregon, Minnesota, Kansas, Nevada, Nebraska, and Colorado were admitted to the Union between 1850 and 1876, but parts of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains were settled slowly. Alaska was bought from Russia in 1867. Then in 1889 and 1890, six states were added: North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming. Hawaii was annexed in 1898. Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines were annexed from Spain after the Spanish-American War in 1898 for $20 ml. Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona had joined the Union by 1912.

Between 1841 and the late 1860’s, more than a third of a million persons moved from the Missouri valley to the Pacific Coast. The California Gold Rush of 1848–49 further hastened western migration.

Most followed overland trails, including the Oregon and California trails.

Railroads: As the size of the population on the Pacific Coast exploded, there was a need to connect these distant communities with the eastern states by a railroad, linking the two parts of the continent. With the help of thousands of Irish immigrant laborers, the Union Pacific Railroad was built westward from Omaha, Nebraska. At the same time, the Central Pacific was built eastward from northern California by the efforts of Chinese workers imported for the job.

By the 1890’s, a web of steel rails covered much of the West. The role of the railroad linking the two parts of the continent for the U.S. was enormous. Railroads encouraged westward expansion more than any other single development.

They also helped industry develop in the West. They carried equipment and materials. Western companies used railroads to export the rich resources they found in the West. Railroads made it easier to transport troops and war materials, and thereby ended Native American independence. Railroads provided the means of linking supply with demand - the Texas cattle with the Northern cities. They played a crucial role in the development of the Great Plains states.

Westward Migration: In 1862, the U.S. Congress passed the Homestead Act, which provided land, originally 160 acres, at no cost if a settler agreed to cultivate it for at least five years. Many settlers moved west to establish farms. And agricultural production in the U.S. doubled between 1870 and 1900.

Interesting to know: The first homesteaders often quarreled with cattlemen who used to drive Texan half-wild cattle north through good grazing land of the Plains to the railroads when their crops were eaten and tramped upon by the cattle. In some places people were killed in “range wars”. It took years for the 2 groups to learn to live peacefully side by side.

New methods of farming on the Plains were introduced. To produce crops with less rainfall, farmers on the Great Plains used methods of dry farming. They learned to build sod houses cheaply out of bricks made of soil and held together by grassroots. By the 1870’s, the wheat grown by the pioneer farmers was turning the Great Plains into the nation’s “breadbasket.”

Before the end of the 19^th century, wheat grown on the Great Plains was feeding millions of people not only in the U.S. but thousands of miles away in Europe, and more than 110 mln pounds of American beef were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. The grass and wheat of the Great Plains earned the U.S. more money than the gold mines of California and Dakota.

Native Americans: New railroads made the relocation for settlers easier and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Dozens of Native American tribes lived in the West, supporting themselves with many different economies. Most tribes in the Southwest were hunters and farmers. In the Pacific Northwest, tribes were traders and fishermen. The tribes on the Great Plains were hunters and gatherers who depended on vast herds of bison. Within half a century, up to 40 million American bison, or buffalos, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the railroads' spread. The loss of the bison, a primary resource for the Plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures.

What happened to Native Americans in those years can be called as a massive murder or annihilation. Westward expansion depleted resources and damaged the environment, thus destroying the Native Americans’ ability to support themselves. In addition, the pioneers carried diseases that killed thousands of Native Americans.

In fact, the old conflict between Indians and settlers had started in the east of the U.S.A. with the removal of Cherokee Indians to Oklahoma and repeated farther west. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, according to which almost all eastern tribes were forced to move west and leave their lands to settlers. In 1834, a special Indian territory was established in what is now Oklahoma.

The Trail of Tears is a name given to the forced relocation of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the U.S. The removal included many members of the following tribes, who did not wish to assimilate: Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations. Native Americans suffered from exposure to cold, disease and starvation on the route to their destinations. Many died, including 6,000 of 16,542 relocated Cherokee, one of the strongest and most populous eastern tribes.

But it was not the end of trouble for America’s Indian people. The aim of white settlers, called by Indian “ pale-faced ”, was to destroy the Native American culture of independence and to strip all native peoples of their land.

Some Native Americans resisted the influx of white settlers militarily. Many tribes fought the whites at one time or another. The most bloody militant conflicts took place on the Great Plains, where Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, and others fought the U.S. Army in several campaigns between 1855 and 1877.

The Sioux of the Northern Plains led by such resolute, militant leaders as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse were skilled at high-speed mounted warfare.

Conflicts with the Plains Indians continued through the Civil War. In 1876, the last serious Sioux war erupted, when the Dakota gold rush penetrated the Black Hills.

Native Americans won some dramatic victories, including the defeat of George Custer on Montana’s Little Bighorn River in 1876, but soon they were ultimately defeated and confined to reservations.

Southwestern Apache peoples, with their most famous leader, Geronimo, resisted the occupation of their country till 1886.

However, military conflict was not the force that destroyed the Native American culture of independence; it was the volume of white settlers taking over Native American land and the ways in which these settlers transformed the West.

Under scores of treaties Native Americans were assigned to reservations and given government support that was rarely adequate. Government policy tried to assimilate the tribes into the white society by suppressing native culture and converting Native Americans to white customs.

Slavery and Civil War: The ringing words of the Declaration of Independence, " all men are created equal," were also meaningless for 4 million American black slaves (the 1860 Census).

But attitudes toward slavery were shifting in the first half of the 19^th century. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the “peculiar institution.” The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, favored abolitionism.

On the eve of the Civil War, the U.S. was a nation divided into 4 quite distinct regions: the Northeast, with a growing industrial and commercial economy and an increasing density of population; the Northwest, now known as the Midwest, a rapidly expanding region of free farmers where slavery had been forever prohibited; the Upper South, with a settled plantation system based on slavers’ labor; and the Southwest, a booming new frontier-like region with expanding cotton economy.

So, in the mid-19^th century, the U.S. had two fundamentally different labor systems based on wage labor in the North and on slavery in the South. Tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments over the spread of slavery into new states of the Southwest.

After Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, 11 southern states left the Union between 1860 and 1861 and proclaimed themselves an independent nation establishing a rebel government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. They were South Carolina and North Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee.

In fact, Lincoln was moderate in his opposition to slavery. He opposed the expansion of slavery into the new territories of the Southwest; but he also said the federal government did not have the power to abolish slavery in the states in which it already existed. However, the southern states did not trust him; they knew that many other Republicans were intent on the complete abolition of slavery. Lincoln encouraged abolitionists with his famous 1858 "House divided" speech, though that speech was about an eventual end of slavery achieved gradually and voluntarily with compensation to slave-owners and resettlement of former slaves. Abraham Lincoln hoped the South would rejoin the union without any bloodshed.

But on April 12, 1861, Confederate soldiers fired at Union troops in Fort Sumter in South Carolina. That was the beginning of the Civil War.

The American Civil War was fought in the United States from 1861 until 1865. For both North and South, the Civil War was long and hard. More than half a million soldiers lost their lives. Many died in battle, many died of sickness in the army camps. The North set up a blockade to prevent the South from getting supplies from foreign ships.

On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln signed The Emancipation Proclamation which declared that all slaves in states fighting against the Union were free. As result, about 180,000 blacks joined the Union army.

The Confederate Army did well in the early part of the war, and some of its commanders especially General Robert E. Lee, were brilliant tacticians. But the Union had superior manpower and resources to draw upon.

In the summer of 1863, General Lee marched his troops north into Pennsylvania. He met the Union army at Gettysburg, and the largest battle ever fought on the American soil occurred. After three days of desperate fighting, the Confederate army was forced to retreat, leaving 23,049 Union soldiers and 28,063 Confederate soldiers KIA.

A few months after the battle of Gettysburg, President Lincoln came to the battlefield. The speech he made is known as the Gettysburg Address. In the most famous part of the speech, Lincoln said, “ Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Two years later, on April 9, 1865, after a long campaign involving forces commanded by Lee and Grant, the Confederate army surrendered to General Grant in Virginia after leaving roughly 650,000 dead. The war was over.

Five days later Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by an actor named John Wilkes Booth when he went to see a play at the Ford Theater in Washington. The assassin found his way to the President’s seat, shot Lincoln and escaped. Lincoln was carried to a house across the street. He died the next morning. Booth was killed by soldiers a few days later. The nation had gained реaсе but had lost itsGreat President.

The CivilWar was the most traumatic episode in American history. But it resolved two matters thathadn’t been decided since 1776:

1) it put an end to slavery, and

2) it decided that the country was not a collection of semi-independent states but an indivisible whole.

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