9. United States history

a) The New World

America was discovered so long ago that no one can remem­ber the details. It appears to have happened about 15,000 years ago, when a tribe of Siberians or Mongolians crossed a land bridge that joined Asia to Alaska at the time. Later the natural bridge was covered with water, the Bering Strait appeared. So the continents were isolated and the migration stopped. Mod­ern Europeans knew nothing about American continent till the 15^th century when Christopher Columbus discovered it.

In 1492 Columbus, an Italian sailor, whose life-time dream was to find a new way to India, sailed westwards with three little ships. It was a very difficult voyage but in three months the ships reached and landed on one of the Bahama Islands. Until the end of his life Columbus thought that the is­lands and the mainland were the part of India. That’s why they were called West Indies and the red-skinned natives — “Indi­ans”.

In 1497 another Italian seaman Amerigo Vespucci explored the coast of South America and proved that the land discovered by Columbus was not India but the new continent. He is said to have discovered the American mainland. The “New World” was decided to name after him — America, the land of Amerigo.

For the next 100 years English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and French explorers sailed from Europe for the New World, looking for gold, riches, honour and glory. But the North Amer­ican wilderness offered early explorers little glory and less gold.

Only at the beginning of the 17^th century Englishmen estab­lished several colonies and called them New England.

b) The First English Settlements

The English had visited America at different times. But they had never stayed very long. John Cabot came to Newfoundland in 1498. In 1577 Sir Francis Drake sailed along the western coast of America on his voyage around the world. In the year 1606, some English people decided they didn’t like the way their king, James I, was treating them. They formed a group, which they called the London Company, and sailed for America. For weeks the little boats were tossed about like corks upon the ocean. Then, in April 1607, the people saw the green shores of the Bay in Virginia. The ships sailed up the river, which the col­onists named the James in honor of their king. About thirty miles up the James, the party landed. A fort and a few log houses were built, and the settlement was named Jamestown. That was the first permanent settlement, in what was to become the Unit­ed States.

Life was very hard in the little colony. Nearly all the men had come from the well-to-do families, and couldn’t work. They believed the stories of the riches, which lay everywhere in the New World, as they had been told. Many people died as they hadn’t enough food. The Indians gave them some corn and taught the colonists to grow tobacco. And soon ships with to­bacco sailed for England and returned with things that the col­onists needed. Twenty Negroes were brought to Jamestown in 1619 and sold to the tobacco planters. This was the beginning of slavery in America.

I n the north-east the Pilgrim Fathers, who came there on board the Mayflower, founded another colony in Plymouth, in 1620. The English crown supported the foundation of colonies in North America and looked upon them as an effective means of extending English influence against French and Spanish com­petition and of increasing their incomes.

To the end of the 17^th century thirteen colonies were estab­lished on the Atlantic coast of North America, — New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Georgia and others were among them.

c) Colonial America

The three main nations — England, Spain and France — were the chief nations to establish colonies in the present Unit­ed States. The first permanent settlement in the North Ameri­ca was Saint Augustine (Florida), founded in 1565 by the Span­iard Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Spanish control came to be exercised over Florida, Texas and a large part of the Southwest, including California. The French established strongholds on the St. Lawrence River (Quebec and Montreal) and spread their influence over the Great Lakes country and along the Mississippi; the colony of Louisiana was a flourishing French settle­ment. The first English settlement was founded in 1607 on the present territory of Virginia. The next settlements were initiat­ed by the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony in 1620. The more im­portant Massachusetts Bay colony was built by the Puritans in 1630.

From the Atlantic coast colonists gradually penetrated into the depths of the continent, driving back the native population, taking away their lands by force and deception and destroying them. The religious and political turmoil of the Puritan revolu­tion in England, as well as the repression of the Huguenots in France stimulated emigration to the English colonies. The main stimulus for emigration to America was the desire to own land. Almost all the colonists took up agricultural work. Small family farms based on natural economy prevailed in the northern col­onies and tobacco and cotton plantations in the south.

By the late 17^th century small farms in the coastal areas of the South were beginning to give way to large plantations which were worked by Negro slaves from Africa. Africans were import­ed in ever-increasing number. The development of trade, indus­try and agriculture in the colonies constantly conflicted with the economic policy of Britain.

d) The Independent Movement

In the 18^th century there were thirteen English colonies in North America, which were under British rule. After the Seven Years’ War (1756—1763) the British Government increased its pressure on the colonies and put all possible obstacles in the way of their independent industrial development and trade. Britain exploited its American colonies and imposed new taxes and duties which affected the interests of the colonists, thus mak­ing them pay for the Seven Years’ War.

In Philadelphia in 1774 merchants, ship-owners, lawyers and others revolted and decided to stop trade with Britain and boy­cott the British goods.

The British Government’s decision to grant the East India Company the right of tax-free export of tea to the colonies caused indignation among the colonists, and especially the merchants involved in the sale of smuggled tea. In December 1773 a group of members of an organization called “Sons of Liberty”, dressed as Indians, boarded the British ships lying at anchor in the port of Boston. They took all the boxes of tea and dropped them into the water of the harbour. This incident was named the Boston Tea Party. In answer to this the British Gov­ernment closed the Boston port and prohibited all kinds of pub­lic gatherings. British soldiers were billeted in the city. All these measures further sharpened the conflict between the metropo­lis and the colonies; it was the last straw in the independence movement.

The machinery of colonial power was shaken, a people's militia was formed, skirmishes with British troops stated. And the war between Britain and its American colonies soon began. It was the war for the independence of American colonies from British rule.

e) The War of Independence

The War for independence of the American colonies began with a victorious battle of colonists against British troops in April 1775 at Concord and at Lensington not far from Boston. But the war lasted for eight years, from 1775 to 1783.

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress declared the united colonies to be independent of Great Britain. The new state was called the United States of America and July 4 became its national holiday. The Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence proclaiming the equality of all people, their right to “life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness”. Thomas Jeffer­son, a representative of the revolutionary-democratic wing of the “patriots”, as supporters of the revolution called themselves, was the author of the Declaration. George Washington was commander-in-chief of the North American army and he did very much for the victory of the colonists.

The battle at Saratoga in 1777, when the Americans forced a large British army to capitulate, was a turning point in the long, hard War of Independence. The Americans were supported by France, Britain’s hereditary enemy. In 1783 Britain finally and formally recognized American independence.

The American Revolution did away with the heritage of feu­dalism, cleared the way for the development of capitalism in trade, industry and agriculture. But it did not solve a number of problems connected with the bourgeois development of the United States, the most important one be­ing the abolition of slavery. However it had a very progressive international meaning in its time.

After the end of the War of Independence in 1783, 13 states were formed and they chose George Washington as their first President.

f) The American Civil War

On the eve of the Civil War the United States was a nation divided into two quite distinct regions: the industrialized North with free labour and the agricultural South with slave labour.

Negro slaves, taken from Africa by force or by some trick and brought to America, worked on tobacco and cotton plantations in many southern states. The life of the slaves was very hard: they worked from morning till night and were beaten and starved. Sometimes their owners sold them, separating husbands and wives, mothers and children. There were many revolts of the slaves and sometimes white people helped them in their struggle but the revolts came to nothing.

I n the political struggle of this period, the forces of the ene­mies of slavery were united in the Republican Party. It was founded in 1854, led by the industrial bourgeoisie of the North and supported by the workers and farmers. Its rival, the Demo­cratic Party, founded in 1828, stood for slavery. In 1860 the re­publican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, who came from the low­er classes, was elected president of the U.S.A. His election signified the end of domination of the government by the Southerners and was interpreted as a signal for a long-plotted rebel­lion. At the beginning of 1861, the southern states left the Union, founded a Confederation and started military action. That was how the four-year war began; the war which became the second American Revolution.

The population of the 23 northern states was 22 million, and that of the 11 southern states was 9 million, but the army of the South was well organized and ready for war. This could not be said of the army of the North. So in the first months of the war the South won several victories. Only when General Grant be­came commander-in-chief of the Northern army, the North began to win the war and in April 1865 it ended.

The Civil War swept away the obstacles to capitalist devel­opment and did away with slavery. It spread the American way of agricultural development all over the country and consolidat­ed the American nation both territorially and ethnically.

g) The Late 19th Century

American industry developed very rapidly after the Civil War. Whole families of immigrants moved into the United States from all the countries of Europe and there was work on land for all who were willing to work hard. The population increased quick­ly. The industrial revolution was coming to an end. The railroad network was growing fast actively promoting the development of the western part of the country. New states gradually came into being on these lands.

Great mineral wealth was discovered and exploited, and im­portant technological innovations sped industrialization, which had already gained great impetus during the Civil War. Thus developed an economy based on steel, oil, railroads and ma­chines, an economy that a few decades after the Civil War ranked first in the world.

The latter part of the 19^th century also saw the rise of the modern American city. Rapid industrialization attracted great numbers of people to cities. Electricity was widely used to power streetcars, elevated railways and subways; it made cities viable at night as well as during the day. With the appearance of sky­scrapers, which used steel construction technology, cities were able to grow vertically as well as horizontally.

By the 1890s a new wave of expansion was affecting the U.S. foreign policy. With the purchase of Alaska in 1867 and the rapid settlement of the last Western territory, Oklahoma, American capital and attention were directed toward the Pacific and the Caribbean. The United States established commercial and then political hegemony in the Hawaiian Islands and annexed them in 1898. In that year expansionist energy found release in the Spanish-American war, which resulted in U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico, the Philippine Islands, and Guam, and in a U.S. quasi-protectorate over Cuba.

h) The Twentieth Century

In 1929 there began the Great Depression. President Her­bert Hoover proposed a moratorium on foreign debts, but this and other measures failed to prevent economic collapse. To meet the critical financial emergencies the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, instituted a “bank holiday”. Congress enacted a social security program, by which the state could promote eco­nomic recovery and social welfare. Roosevelt continued and expanded the policy of friendship toward the Latin American nations. This “good-neighbour” policy favoured Roosevelt to be reelected twice, even though he was breaking the no-third-term tradition.

By the late 1930s Germany, Italy and Japan had already dis­rupted world peace. America tried to keep the country neutral. But after the fall of France in June, 1940, it extended lend-lease aid to the British and the Russians. The threat of war had caused to build the armed strength of the nation. The U.S. government froze all Japanese assets in the United States. On December 7, 1941 Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbour, a U.S. naval base in Hawaii. The United States promptly declared war, and 4 days later Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The war underscored the prestige and power of the U.S. in world affairs. A series of important conferences outlined the policies for the war and the programs for the peace after victory; among them was the Yalta Conference, at which Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin planned for postwar settlement. Before the war end­ed with the defeat of Japan, the United States developed and used a fateful weapon of war, the atomic bomb.

Soon after the World War II, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union worsened, the cold war intensified. In 1948 the United States played the leading role in forming a new alliance of Western nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Or­ganization (NATO). In the Korean War the U.S. played the chief part in combat actions between the North and South Ko­rea. Thus, the United States cast off its traditional peacetime isolationism and accepted its position as a prime mover in world affairs.

In the race for technological superiority the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, but was second to the USSR in launching (Jan. 31, 1958) an artificial satellite and in testing an intercontinental guided missile. However, spurred by Soviet advances, the United States made rapid progress in space exploration and missile research.

In 1959 Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states of the Union. Despite hopes for “peaceful coexistence”, nego­tiations with the USSR for nuclear disarmament failed to achieve accord, and Berlin remained a serious source of con­flict.

After breaking relations with Cuba, which under Fidel Cas­tro had clearly moved within the Communist orbit, the United States supported an ill-fated invasion of Cuba by anti-Castro forces. In 1962, in reaction to the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, the United States blockaded Soviet military shipments to Cuba and demanded the dismantling of Soviet bases there. The two great powers seemed on the brink of war, but within a week the USSR acceded to U.S. demands. In the meantime the Unit­ed States achieved an important gain in space exploration with the orbital flight around the earth in a manned satellite by Colo­nel John H. Glenn. The tension of the cold war eased when, in 1963, the United States and the Soviet Union reached an ac­cord on a limited ban of nuclear testing.

O n Nov. 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson was able to bring many Kennedy measures to legisla­tive fruition. Significant progress toward racial equality was achieved. But Johnson pursued an aggressive policy, dispatch­ing troops to the Dominican Republic during disorders there and escalating American participation in the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam War provoked increasing opposition at home, manifested in marches and demonstrations in which thousands of people were arrested. An impression of general lawlessness and domestic disintegration was heightened by serious race ri­ots and various racial and political assassinations, notably those of Martin Luther King, famous fighter for the Civil Rights, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The new President, Richard M. Nixon, promised an end to the Vietnam War and began a slow withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.