4) The history of North America (1000-1775)

First humans appeared on the continent during the last Ice Age of the Earth about 20000 years ago. Water froze, and underwater regions formed a bridge across which herds of animals from Siberia came to Alaska and the present day USA. Hunters followed animals. Numerous tribes gradually settled all over North America. In the year 1000 a Viking from Leif Ericsson came to the Eastern coast of North America. He’s believed to be the first to reach the continent. Archeologists found traces of settlements of Vikings in New England. But the settlements did not last long. The hostility of aborigines and the dangers of northern seas made Vikings give up the idea of colonizing the continent. Ericsson named the place Vinland the good. When he first stepped on the continent he first saw vines of grapes.

The year 1492 is officially considered to be the year of the discovery of the continent. On October 12 Christopher Columbus landed on the beach of a long sandy Island that he named San Salvador. At the time he was making his voyage looking for a new way to India. India was a place of spices which were in great demand in Europe, but it took long to reach it. The Earth was believed to be a hemisphere at the time so when Columbus stepped on the Island he took it for part of Asia, part of the islands of Indias. That is why he named the kind and hospitable people of the land Indians. This mistake has not been corrected for a long time. Only recently were the people named Native Americans. They spoke over 300 languages. Some of them differed as much as English from Chinese. Columbus made 3 voyages to South America, to the Bahamas. The queen of Spain expected him to find gold and other precious stones which he found only in small quantities. To the end of his life Columbus did not know he had discovered a new continent. He died in poverty, deprived of all his titles. His name gave rise to only few geographical points in NA. They are the Columbia river, the DC, the Columbia University, and Columbia Pictures. But October 12^th is considered to be the date of discovery of NA. During the late 1490s Amerigo Vespucci, also an Italian from Florence, made 2 voyages to South America and gave detailed accounts of his voyages. This man did a lot to correct the mistake made by Columbus. He wrote letters to German Scholars and cartographers to say that the place was a new continent. So in 1507 the German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller added a new continent to the map of the world and named it after Vespucci. He took his 1^st name and made it sound female.

After Columbus’ discovery many European kings and Queens were eager to conquer land and claim it as their own. In 1497 John Cabot who server in the British fleet, took a voyage along the eastern NA coastline. His aim was to penetrate through some harbor into the continent. He succeeded, moreover he found a large island that he named Newfoundland. Thus the British people found their way into the new continent. The settlers belonged to 3 powerful European countries- Spain, England and France. Spaniards were the 1^st to appear. They were attracted by the supposed mineral wealth of the discovered continent. In 1528 after devastating Peru, they made their way to Florida. In the next 4 years they pushed their way to the north and Texas. On their way they founded colonies which they named New Spain. Today it is the territory of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. In the 2^nd half of the 16^th century, England continued to lead a bitter struggle against Spain for predominance in the world trade and in American colonies. The power of Spain was greatly undermined by the victory of the British fleet over the Invincible Armada in 1588. But even after this the British had to oust the Spanish by force from NA.

The French established their colonies in the North, Near St Lawrence Bay. The French were traders by nature and on their way they established trading points where they exchanged cheap goods for skins of animals with Indians. In 1608 a French explorer Champlain put up the 1^st buildings of the town of Quebec. Only the French people of the Catholic religion were allowed to go to North America. This accounts for the spread of Catholicism not only in Canada but in the USA as well.

After the bourgeois revolution the Dutch also sent their ships to NA. They founded a colony and named it New Netherlands. One Dutchman, Henry Hudson, established a settlement on the bank of the River, which he named Hudson after himself. He bought from Indians the Manhattan island for 24 dollars of cheap goods, and built several huts for storing furs. This laid the Foundation of the town of New Amsterdam, which later in 1664 was renamed New York. In that year, British troops occupied New Amsterdam without resistance, took over the Gov’t and called town New York after the Duke of York, brother of Charles II.

English colonies is another point to consider.

The English in NA were roughly speaking of 2 kinds. The 1^st were impoverished noblemen with an adventurous streak in their nature, who came to NA to make fortunes. But they were in no way prepared to meet the hardships there, and most of them perished of hunger and cold. So the 1^st attempts to found colonies ended in a failure. The 1^st English colony that survived was Jamestown in VA founded in 1607.

The other colonists from Britain were Puritans who had broken away from the state church of England and could not remain in their native country any longer. The Puritans were a religious body who wished to purify the Anglican church, its organizations and rituals fro remnants of feudalism and absolutism. These ideas could undermine the Unity of the State Church and Royal authority. So the most active of the Puritans were forced to leave GB. So in September 1620, a small wooden ship, shorter than a basketball court, left Plymouth, and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. Its name was “The Mayflower”. There were 102 passengers and 30 seamen together with their belongings aboard the Mayflower, 18 women among them. The ship landed NA thru the harbor they called Providence Bay only in November. They founded a colony they called New Plymouth, later renamed Massachussets with Boston as the capital. But for the Indians and their help, the 1^st settlers wouldn’t have survived the hunger and cold. 2 or 3 people a day died. Only 5 women remained alive. After the 1^st hard winter of starvation, and after gathering a rich crop, they celebrated Thanksgiving Day, together with Indians. It was the 1^st celebration of the Holiday. Indians taught Europeans to cultivate corn, maize, tobacco, potatoes, pumpkins. Tobacco later became one of the most important plants for trade and industry. Indians taught Europeans how to make rubber from the juice of rubber plants. They taught the healing qualities of quinine, and of lots of healing herbs. In exchange Europeans brought alcohol, infectious disease and almost complete physical extermination. It should be mentioned that for the 1^st 50 years the settlers and the Indians lived in peace and quiet. But their grandchildren became rivals. People from the Mayflower called themselves Pilgrims. And their descendants called them Pilgrim fathers.

English kings would sell land in NA for certain sums of money to people willing to buy it. In exchange for the money they would give them a charter which made people landowners and gave them the right to found colonies. In this way, William Penn founded an English colony of Pennsylvania. The man was a Puritan but later became a Quaker, member of a powerful religious sect, especially in Philadelphia. In 1643 lord Baltimore founded a colony which he named Maryland in honor of the King’s wife.

Around the 1^st colony of Mass. 12 new colonies sprang up, and they were named New England. The charted colonies were mostly inhabited by former convicts, prisoners, together with them were people whose only crime was their extreme poverty. They were ready to go anywhere to make a living for themselves. They would sign a contract for no less than 7 years stay in the Colonies. After that they would get a free passage to the Colonies and start working for no pay. Thus the population of NE colonies was formally free but in reality they were under strong obligations to the people who had brought them there. In the south of NA slave trade began already in the 17^th c. IN the year 1619 the 1^st 20 negros were brought to Virginia. They were not called slaves yet, but indentured servants, and treated the same as white servants at the beginning. But special laws changed those black servants into slaves. In 50 years from 1619, half of the population of Virginia was made up of negroes. Thus the population of the North and South of the Country was formed in different ways in early history.

Results of the colonization.

The colonization had far reaching results which could not be predicted at the outset.

Extermination of Natives

To Europeans, it opened perspectives of becoming reach quickly by exploiting the wealth of the unbroken soil

It gave promises of religious freedom which remained unfulfilled

It stabilized and later legalized slavery for over 2 centuries which had a great influence on the negro movement in the country.

By and by, British colonies grew rich and densely populated. It became clear that they could compete with the English crown and become its rivals. Being aware of this fact, the English king and parliament, tried to do everything in their power to restrict the colonies in any way. Thus they were prohibited to set up new branches and forms of Manufacture, to do trade outside British possessions, and to expend to the west of the country. Beside, colonists suffered greatly from the unlawful taxation, For example, in 1764, British parliament passed the Stamp Act. According to this act, colonists were required to buy stamps to be affixed to newspapers, legal docs, plain cards and what not. The Stamp Act causes indignation in colonies. There began meetings and rebellions in NA. In 1765 clubs were formed in New York Boston and elsewhere. People called themselves Liberty boys. They struggled against British restrictions. Another act of the British Gov’t was the so called Quartering act. It required that colonists provide food housing and supplies for the British soldiers stationed in Colonies. This very act caused the so-called Boston Massacre in 1773. It was a riot between the British soldiers and Bostonians. British soldiers opened fire and several colonists were killed several children among them. One more act under the name Sugar act, placed a tax on molasses coming from Spanish and French West Indies. It meant that colonists had to buy molasses from the British Indies, otherwise to pay a high tax. After this act, the Colonial protest against taxation without representation began. Then there came the came the Tea Act. Taxes on tea led directly to the colonial action known as the Boston Tea Party in 1775. 50 Bostonians disguised as Indians unloaded the British ship into the Boston harbor. This event made the British king and Parliament furious. The Boston Port was closed, and the so-called Intolerable Acts were passed – the city was placed under Blockade and martial law. But people in other colonies went out in support of Boston sending food money and encouragement. The same year, 1775, the 1^st continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia. The colonists tried to reach a reasonable compromise with Great Britain. The Congress pledged loyalty to the crown and asked that abuses against colonies be stopped. The British answer was rejection followed by more harsh laws.

This left colonists with little choice but to fight. The Boston Massacre and Boston Tea party were two irreversible steps on the road to the American revolution.