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Facts about the Declaration of Independence

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united states (u.s.) declaration of independence

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signers of the declaration of independence

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Declaration of Independence Facts, Full Text & Dates To Remember | Constitution Facts

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Declaration of Independence Facts and the Full Text of the Declaration of Independence. Important Dates to Remember. Declaration of Independence Activities and Lesson Plans for Educators. Learn About the Signers of the Declaration of Independence and Test Your Knowledge with our Declaration of Independence Quiz.

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Scroll down and read what Benjamin franklin has accomplished

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The thirteen col

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Declaration of Independence (right to institute new government)

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Declaration of Independence: Right to Institute New Government | Exhibitions - Library of Congress

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Drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776 became the defining event in Thomas Jefferson's life. Drawing on documents, such as the Virginia Declaration of Rights, state and local calls for independence, and his own draft of a Virginia constitution, Jefferson wrote a stunning statement of the colonists' right to rebel against the British government and establish their own based on the premise that all men are created equal and have the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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Enlightenment Period

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The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in the year 1621, when settlers and the Native Americans came together and had a big feast. During their celebration the Spaniards wrote and directed the very first American play.

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Great Awakening

Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was a Christian preacher and theologian.

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The three main themes were

* Wilderness : Because at that moment the spaniards weren't used to the forest.

* Community : Because everyone was relying on each other due to the past.

* individualism : they were looking ahead into the future .

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Puritanism was a religious reform movement that arose within the Church of England in the late sixteenth century. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World.It was a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England. Puritanism, however, was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincident with the founding of New England; it was also a way of being in the world.

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Early American Literature reflects mostly on nature. Native Americans told myths and legends about how they lived in harmony with both elements and nature. When the first settlers arrived to the New World they feared nature and most of their work reflected on how the trees and the shadows were evil forces and should always be feared.

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The Enlightenment Period was an 18th century movement in Europe.The main idea of this period was the belief in people's reason.

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Smarthistory: Art History on Khan Academy

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Read and learn for free about the following article: Smarthistory: Art History on Khan Academy

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Great Awakening, is the series of religious revivals that swept over the American colonies about the middle of the 18th century.

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The First Great Awakening, Divining America, TeacherServe®, National Humanities Center

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So the first Great Awakening left colonials sharply polarized along religious lines. Anglicans and Quakers gained new members among those who disapproved of the revival's excesses, while the Baptists (and, in the 1770s, the Methodists) made even more handsome gains from the ranks of radical evangelical converts.

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Slaves wrote the first American literature of pain and sorrow.

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Thomas Jefferson

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In the mid-nineteenth century, Nathaniel Hawthorne published his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter , a novel about adultery. Hawthorne influenced Herman Melville, who is notable for the books and . America's greatest poets of the nineteenth century were Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.

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In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed to America thimkimg it was a faster way to get to India

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The history of our early American literature heritage began with Native American literature. The literature of Native Americans was mostly orally told and spoke mostly of harmony with elements and nature

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A Brief History of Native American Written Literature
Life Among the Piutes: Their wrongs and claims (1883) Old Indian Legends (1901) Co-ge-wea; the Half Blood (1927) Coyote Stories (1933)The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (1986) Yes is Better Than No (c. 1977) The Sacred: Ways of Knowledge, Sources of Life (1977) Full Moon on the Reservation Black Elk Speaks (1932; 1961)
A Gathering of Spirit, A Collection by North American Indian Women (1984)he Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (1971) The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian
Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets (1987) Songs From This Earth on Turtle's Back (poetry) Bowman's Stone: A Journey to Myself (1997) Dream On (1991)
and Michael J. Caduto,
Keepers of the Earth (1988)
Keepers of the Animals

Capps, Walter, ed.

Bruchac, Joseph/ Abenaki
,

Brown, Joseph Epes

Black Elk/ Lakota (1863-1950)

Bell, Betty Louise/ Cherokee (

Allen, Paula Gunn/Laguna Pueblo/Sioux/Lebanese (1939- )
---ed. Voice of the Turtle, American Indian Literature 1900-1970 (1994)
--- ed. Studies in American Indian Literature (1983)
The Woman Who Owned The Shadows (1984)

Much of the middle portion of the 20 th century is characterized by Native narratives as told to Anglo writers. As actual Native presence visibly waned, public and academic interest in native testimony grew. Among the best of these are:

Frank Bird Linderman (Anglo-American, 1869-1938) who spent much of his adult life in Montana among Native people. His collaborative studies include: Plenty-coups, Chief of the Crows (originally published as American: The Life Story of a Great Indian,....)(1930) and Pretty-shield, Medicine Woman of the Crows (originally published as Red Mother) (1931).

John G. Neihardt (Anglo-American, 1881-1973) was a poet and writer who traveled to South Dakota in 1930 to meet Black Elk and other Lakotas in order to check the facts for his epic poem of the American West. Black Elk and Neihardt became close friends and their collaboration became Black Elk Speaks, a text which gradually won worldwide attention. In 1944 Neihardt again interviewed Black Elk about Lakota culture. These interviews became part of Neihardt's 1951 book When the Tree Flowered. Their friendship continued until Black Elk's death in 1950 at age 87.

Some scholars suggest that native American literature did not exist before N. Scott Momaday ((Kiowa and Cherokee, 1934-) published House Made of Dawn in 1968. The text won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize. Although authors of American Indian descent had published novels and short fiction before Momaday was even born, they hardly received a substantial critical response to their works. "Native American literature" was not perceived as an interrelated corpus of texts. House Made of Dawn triggered off a host of publications by Native American authors. The corpus of texts by Native Americans has since been expanding in two directions. Not only are authors constantly adding new texts, but other, earlier texts are also being republished and published for the first time.

Final point: the are problems in identifying the corpus of literary texts called Native American literature. Arnold Krupat suggests that Indian writers "must be culturally Indian, with such cultural 'identity' not wholly a random or arbitrary choice (e.g. the Indian person having some actual heredity link ro persons native to American)." Brian Swann suggests: "Native Americans are Native Americans if they say they are, and"--and this appears to be the crucial point in a societal form that stilll relies more on the community than on the individual--"if other native Americans say they are and accept them."

Sources: Paula Gunn Allen, Voice of the Turtle, American Indian Literature 1900-1970 (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994); Laura Coltelli, Winged Words, American Indian Writers Speak (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990); Arnold Krupat, ed., New Voices in Native American literary Criticism (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993); Andrew Wiget, ed., Critical Essays on Native American Literature (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1985).
Writers (prose and poetry) and Anthologies
Alexie, Sherman/ Spokane-Coeur d'Alene (1966- )

The first novel published by a Native American was The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta (1854) by John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee, 1827-67), son of the highly respected Cherokee leader John Ridge. Ridge chose to deal indirectly with the injustices suffered by Indians by focusing on the Mexican folk hero Murieta--a social outcast who defeats his enemies by using both his keen mind and blazing pistols.

The first Native American novel devoted to the subject of Indian life is O-gi-maw-kwe Mit-I-gwa-ki (Queen of the Woods) (1899) by Simon Pokagon (Potawatomi, 1830-99). Pokagon was determined to educate a white audience about traditional Potawatomi life before the coming of whites and about the tragic changes in this life suffered by the people after whites dispossessed them and debauched them with alcohol.

For many Native Americans the turn of the century marked their dispossession of ancestral lands, the nadir of the populations, and confinement to reservations. Fearful that their oral traditions would disappear forever as the tribal communities became more and more fragmented under the demoralizing conditions of reservation life, some native Americans began to write down the legends and folktales of their tribes, as well as their own personal narratives, in an effort to preserve their history and culture for posterity. Writing became a means to perpetuate tradition in the face of cultural disintegration.

Two of the early 20 th century Indian writers who attempted to make the transition from oral to written form and to bridge the gap between tradition and assimilation were:

Zitkala Sa (Gertrude Bonnin) (Dakota Sioux of Yankton band, 1876-1938)

The first native American literary texts were offered orally, and they link the earth-surface people with the plants and animals, the rivers and rocks, and all things believed significant in the life of America's first people. The texts tie Indian people to the earth and its life through a spiritual kinship with the living and dead relatives of Native Americans. Coyote, raven, fox, hawk, turtle, rabbit and other animal characters in the stories are considered by many Native Americans to be their relatives. In the same way, the Plant People are related to Indian people. Oak, maple, pine, cedar, fir, corn, squash, berries and roots are viewed as relatives. The Animal People and Plant People participated in a history before and after the arrival of humans, and this history was kept through the spoken word. There was a similar relationship with the geographical features of the earth.

Telling a story and writing a story, even if they are the same story, remembered from generation to generation, are not the same way of preserving the story. The teller and the writer use different faculties of mind, and have different habits and disciplines of language, memory, tradition. Each has a different responsibility to the story, and to the listener or the page. The teller's relationship to the story and the listener, both at once, is direct. The writer wrestles with the page, with the story, in solitude.

The history of literature written in English by American Indians parallels the history of white migration across the continent. White exploration and settlement were followed by the arrival of missionaries who converted Indians to Christianity and educated them in religious schools.

The first Native American writer to be published in English was Samson Occom (Mohegan, 1723-92). Although raised as a typical Mohegan boy, at 16 he began to study English, was converted to Christianity, became a schoolmaster to Indians and then served as a missionary among New England Indians. His 1771 A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian went through 19 editions.

The genre in which most Native American authors of the 19 th and 20 th centuries have written is autobiography. This choice represents a break with oral tradition because the personal narrative is not part of American Indian oral literatures. Many Native cultures consider talking about oneself inappropriate. William Apes (Pequot, b. 1797) published the first autobiography written by an Indian, A Son of the Forest, The Experiences of William Apes, A Native of the Forest. Written by Himself (New York, Author, 1829, expanded and revised 1831). His final work was the eloquent Eulogy on King Philip, which traces white abuse of New England Indians in the 17 th and 18 th centuries. After publication of this book, Apes disappeared from public view, leaving no record of his later life and death.

George Copway (Ojibwe, 1818-69)

The Magic World: American Indian Songs and Poems

Clifton, James A. ed. T
Being and Becoming Indians: Biographical Studies of North American Frontiers (1989) he Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies (1990)

Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth/ Crow-Creek Sioux (1930-
Seek the House of Relatives
Why I Can't Read Wallace Stegner: A Tribal Voice (essays) (1996)

Crow Dog, Mary (now called Mary Brave Bird)/ Lakota--with Richard Erdoes,
Lakota Woman (1990)

Curtis, Natalie
The Indian's Book, An Offering on Indian Lore, Music, and Narrative ( 1907; 1987)

Day, Grove A.
The Sky Clears: Poetry of the American Indian

Deloria, Ella Cara/Yankton Sioux (1899-
Speaking of Indians (1944; 1979)

Deloria, Vine, Jr./Standing Rock Sioux ( -- with Clifford Lytle,
Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties (1974) American Indians/American Justice (1983) The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty (1984)

Dorris, Michael ( - 1997)
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987) Cloud Chamber: A Novel (1997)

--with Louise Erdrich, The Crown of Columbus ( 1991)

Eastman, Charles A./Wahpeton Sioux (1858-1938)
From the Deep Woods to Civilization: Chapters in the Autobiography of an Indian
The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation (1911)

Edmunds, R. David/ Cherokee
The Shawnee Prophet (1983)

Erdrich, Louise/Turtle Mountain Chippewa
Tales of Burning Love (1996)

Green, Reyna, ed.
That's What She Said: contemporary Poetry and Fiction y Native American Women (1984)

Harjo, Joy/Muscogee (
She Had Some Horses (poetry)
with Gloria Birdpokane, eds., Reinventing the Enemy's Language, Contemporary Native Women's Writings of North America (1997)

Hale, Janet Campbell/Skitswish
Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native Daughter (1993)

Hogan, Linda/Chickasaw (1947-)
Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World

Howe, LeAnne/Choctaw (1951-)
The Sewage of Foreigners (1996)

Humishima (Morning Dove)/Okanogan (1888-1936)

Cogewea, the Half-Blood (1912, 1988)
Coyote Tales

Jaskoski, Helen, ed.
Early Native American Writing: New Critical Essays (1994)

Johnson, E. Pauline/Mohawk (1861-1913)
The Legends of Vancouver (1911; 1961) Flint and Feather (poetry)

Katz, Jane B. --ed.,
Let Me Be a Free Man: A Documentary History of Indian Resistance
I Am the Fire of Time: The Voices of Native American Women (1977)

King, Thomas/Cherokee/Greek (1943- --et. al.,
The Native in Literature (1987)

Lame Deer, John Fire with Richard Erdoes,
Lame Deer Seeker of Visions (1972)

Linderman, Frank B.
Plenty-Coups, Chief of the Crows (1930)

Lurie, Nancy, ed. -- with Eleanor Burke Leacock,
North American Indians in Historical Perspective (1988)

McNickle, D'Arcy/ Creek; adopted by Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (1904-1977)
The Hawk is Hungry (short stories) 1996)

Momaday, N. Scott/Kiowa-Cherokee (1932-
The Names: A memoir (1976)

Ortiz, Simon J./Acoma Pueblo (1941- --ed.
Earth Power Coming: Short Fiction in Native American Literature (1983) Fight Back: For the Sake of the People, for the Sake of the land (poetry) (1980)

Parker, Arthur C./ Seneca (1881-1955)
Seneca Myths & Folk Tales
The Life of General Ely S. Parker

Radin, Paul, ed.
The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (1956, 1972)
The Man to Send Rain Clouds: Contemporary Stories by American Indians (1974) A Voice in Her Tribe: A Navajo Woman's Own Story (1980)
Swann, Brian and Arnold Krupat, eds.I
Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers (1987) Recovering the World: Essays on Native American Literature
(1987)

Talayesva, Don C./ Hopi (1890-19?)edited by Leo Simmons,
Sun Chief: The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian (1942)

Tedlock, Dennis, trans.
Finding the Center: Narrative Poetry of the Zuni Indians

Veile, Alan R., ed.
The Lightening Within: An Anthology of Contemporary American Indian Fiction (1979; 1991)

Vizenor, Gerald
Darkness in Saint Louis Bearhear Earthdivers: Tribal Narratives on Mixed Descent Dead Voices: Natural Agonies in the New World (1992) (vol. 2 in the American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series)

Zepeda, Ofelia/Tohono O'Odham ( (poetry) (1995)with Larry Evers, eds.,
Ocean Power
Home Places: Contemporary native American Writing (1995)

The American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series, University of Oklahoma Press, will be at vol. 32 with the 1999 publication of Momaday, Vizenor, Armstrong: Conversations on American Indian Writing.

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A Brief History of Native American Written Literature Life Among the Piutes: Their wrongs and claims (1883) Old Indian Legends (1901) Co-ge-wea; the Half Blood (1927) Coyote Stories (1933)The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (1986) Yes is Better Than No (c.