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http://theconversation.com/first-americans-lived-on-land-bridge-for-thousands-of-years-genetics-study-suggests-23747
Chapter one= hunters and gatherers https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CAASUJ_enUS822&biw=1366&bih=697&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=nrfoW6eOHMnbzgKxx5ioCA&q=hunters+and+gatheres&oq=hunters+and+gatheres&gs_l=img.3..0i10i24.16244.23050..23217...2.0..1.82.1473.22......2....1..gws-wiz-img.....0..0j0i67.uLBbtH8ddG4&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=qIybeyMeT1VevM:
Chapter one= Native American Culture Areas https://www.ducksters.com/history/native_american_tribes_regions.php
Chapter one= The European Renaissance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7XWiGflkQ8

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Chapter two=The Vikings https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-vikings-a-memorable-visit-to-america-98090935/
Chapter two= 1492 Christopher Columbus https://www.google.com/search?q=christopher+columbus&rlz=1CAASUJ_enUS823&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiE_tKP28_eAhUI_IMKHV6uATkQ_AUIEygB&biw=1366&bih=697&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=h7Y6q148vHpeWM:
Chapter two= Spanish Colonization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhWMMEKNxdQ
Chapter two= Race for Empires in North America https://romanroadsmedia.com/2015/10/reformation-and-colonization/

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https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-ushistory1os2xmaster/chapter/english-settlements-in-america/
Chapter three= The Great Awaking effecting the Colonists https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-did-great-awakening-affect-colonies-505788
Chapter three= Acts against the colonists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV0I2WvpGRw
Chapter three= The colonists responses to the acts https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CAASUJ_enUS823&biw=1366&bih=697&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=ROnpW9WLJKmVjwTqlIjQCA&q=boston+tea+party&oq=Boston+tea&gs_l=img.1.0.0i67l3j0l7.2529.5913..8278...0.0..1.88.648.10......2....1..gws-wiz-img.....0.D_ORaVeU1lM&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=psrB-31fWEJDLM:

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The Paleo Indians and the first migration

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The Paleo Indians and the first migration

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Who were the first to step out of Beringia and into the foothills of Alaska? tpsdave

The theory that the Americas were populated by humans crossing from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge was first proposed as far back as 1590, and has been generally accepted since the 1930s.

But genetic evidence shows there is no direct ancestral link between the people of ancient East Asia and modern Native Americans. A comparison of DNA from 600 modern Native Americans with ancient DNA recovered from a late Stone Age human skeleton from Mal'ta near Lake Baikal in southern Siberia shows that Native Americans diverged genetically from their Asian ancestors around 25,000 years ago, just as the last ice age was reaching its peak.

Based on archaeological evidence, humans did not survive the last ice age's peak in northeastern Siberia, and yet there is no evidence they had reached Alaska or the rest of the New World either. While there is evidence to suggest northeast Siberia was inhabited during a warm period about 30,000 years ago before the last ice age peaked, after this the archaeological record goes silent, and only returns 15,000 years ago, after the last ice age ended.

So where did the ancestors of the Native Americans go for 15,000 years, after they split from the rest of their Asian relatives?

Surviving in Beringia

As John Hoffecker, Dennis O'Rourke and I argue in an article for Science, the answer seems to be that they lived on the Bering Land Bridge, the region between Siberia and Alaska that was dry land when sea levels were lower, as much of the world's freshwater was locked up in ice, but which now lies underneath the waters of the Bering and Chukchi Seas. This theory has become increasingly supported by genetic evidence.

Disappearing Beringia, from 21,000 years before present (BP) to today. NOAA

The Bering Land Bridge, also known as central part of Beringia, is thought to have been up to 600 miles wide. Based on evidence from sediment cores drilled into the now submerged landscape, it seems that here and in some adjacent regions of Alaska and Siberia the landscape at the height of the last glaciation 21,000 years ago was shrub tundra - as found in Arctic Alaska today.

This is dominated by dwarf shrubs such as willow and birch, only a few centimetres tall. There is evidence that there may have been some stands of spruce trees in these regions too in some protected microhabitats, where temperatures were milder than the regions around. The presence of a particular group of beetle species that live in shrub tundra habitats today in Alaska, and are associated with a specific range of temperatures, also supports the idea that the area was a refuge for both flora and fauna.

This kind of vegetation would not have supported the large, grazing animals - woolly mammoth, woolly rhino, Pleistocene horses, camels, and bison. These animals lived on the vegetation of the steppe-tundra which dominated the interior of Alaska and the Yukon, as well as interior regions of northeast Siberia. This shrub tundra would have supported elk, perhaps some bighorn sheep, and small mammals. But it had the one resource people needed most to keep warm: wood.

The wood and bark of dwarf shrubs would have been used to start fires that burned large mammal bones. The fats inside these bones won't ignite unless they are heated to high temperatures, and for that you need a woody fire. And there is evidence from archaeological sites that people burned bones as fuel - the charred remains of leg bones have been found in many ancient hearths. It is the heat from these fires that kept these intrepid hunter-gatherers alive through the bitter cold of Arctic winter nights.

Escape to America

The last ice age ended and the land bridge began to disappear beneath the sea, some 13,000 years ago. Global sea levels rose as the vast continental ice sheets melted, liberating billions of gallons of fresh water. As the land bridge flooded, the entire Beringian region grew more warm and moist, and the shrub tundra vegetation spread rapidly, out-competing the steppe-tundra plants that had dominated the interior lowlands of Beringia.

While this spelled the end of the woolly mammoths and other large grazing animals, it probably also provided the impetus for human migration. As retreating glaciers opened new routes into the continent, humans travelled first into the Alaskan interior and the Yukon, and ultimately south out of the Arctic region and toward the temperate regions of the Americas. The first definitive archaeological evidence we have for the presence of people beyond Beringia and interior Alaska comes from this time, about 13,000 years ago.

These people are called Paleoindians by archaeologists. The genetic evidence records mutations in mitochondrial DNA passed from mother to offspring that are present in today's Native Americans but not in the Mal'ta remains. This indicates a population isolated from the Siberian mainland for thousands of years, who are the direct ancestors of nearly all of the Native American tribes in both North and South America - the original "first peoples".
For more commentaries written by academic experts, like The Conversation's Facebook page. Or follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day.

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First Americans lived on land bridge for thousands of years, genetics study suggests

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The theory that the Americas were populated by humans crossing from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge was first proposed as far back as 1590, and has been generally accepted since the 1930s. But genetic evidence shows there is no direct ancestral link between the people of ancient East Asia and modern Native Americans.

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Most of the first people were hunter and gatherers.

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Most of the first people were hunter and gatherers.

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hunters and gatherers hunters and gatheres

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Native American History for Kids: Tribes and Regions

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Kids learn about Native American Indian tribes and regions in the United States. Where they lived and their differences.

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A school project about the Italian/European Renaissance in the 14th century. Produced by: Felix G Written by: Matthew Y Felix G Amber N Bowen T Timothy N Editor: Matthew Y Audio Mastered by: Felix G

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The Icelandic house of what is likely the first European-American baby has scholars rethinking the Norse sagas

Smithsonian Magazine |

Roughly 1,000 years ago, the story goes, a Viking trader and adventurer named Thorfinn Karlsefni set off from the west coast of Greenland with three ships and a band of Norse to explore a newly discovered land that promised fabulous riches. Following the route that had been pioneered some seven years before by Leif Eriksson, Thorfinn sailed up Greenland's coast, traversed the Davis Strait and turned south past Baffin Island to Newfoundland-and perhaps beyond. Snorri, the son of Thorfinn and his wife, Gudrid, is thought to be the first European baby born in North America.

Thorfinn and his band found their promised riches-game, fish, timber and pasture-and also encountered Native Americans, whom they denigrated as skraelings, or "wretched people." Little wonder, then, that relations with the Natives steadily deteriorated. About three years after starting out, Thorfinn-along with his family and surviving crew-abandoned the North American settlement, perhaps in a hail of arrows. (Archaeologists have found arrowheads with the remains of buried Norse explorers.) After sailing to Greenland and then Norway, Thorfinn and his family settled in Iceland, Thorfinn's childhood home.

Just where the family ended up in Iceland has been a mystery that historians and archaeologists have long tried to clear up. In September 2002, archaeologist John Steinberg of the University of California at Los Angeles announced that he had uncovered the remains of a turf mansion in Iceland that he believes is the house where Thorfinn, Gudrid and Snorri lived out their days. Other scholars say his claim is plausible, although even Steinberg admits, "We'll never know for sure unless someone finds a name on the door."

The location of Thorfinn's family estate in Iceland has surprisingly broad implications. For one thing, it could shed new light on the early Norse experience in North America, first substantiated by Helge Ingstad, an explorer, and his wife, Anne Stine Ingstad, an archaeologist. In 1960, they discovered the remains of a Viking encampment in Newfoundland dating to the year 1000. But the only accounts of how and why Vikings journeyed to the New World, not to mention what became of them, are in Icelandic sagas, centuries-old tales that have traditionally vexed scholars struggling to separate Viking fantasy from Viking fact. Steinberg's find, if proved, would give credence to one saga over another.

By Steinberg's admission, he found the imposing longhouse- on the grounds of one of northern Iceland's most visited cultural sites, the GlaumbaerFolkMuseum-"by dumb luck." For decades, visitors had gazed upon the field in front of the museum, unaware that evidence of one of the grandest longhouses of the Viking era lay just beneath the grass.

Steinberg did not start out trying to insert himself into a debate about Viking lore, but to survey settlement patterns during Viking times. With his colleague Doug Bolender of NorthwesternUniversity in Chicago, he had developed a method for using an electrical conductivity meter to detect buried artifacts. The tool-a cumbersome, 50-pound apparatus usually used to identify contaminated groundwater and locate pipes-sends alternating current into the ground. The current induces a magnetic field, and the tool then measures how the magnetic field varies according to the makeup of the soil and the objects buried in it. The two men fitted the electronic equipment into a 12-foot-long plastic tube and trekked around fields holding the apparatus by their sides, looking for all the world like slowmotion pole vaulters getting ready to vault.

The two first worked with Icelandic archaeologist Gud- mundur Olafsson, who was excavating the site of Erik the Red's farmstead in western Iceland and had identified it as the place from which some of the explorers of the New World first set out. There, Steinberg and Bolender charted magnetic anomalies-possible signatures of buried walls and floors of turf houses. Then, Steinberg says, "Gudmundur would draw upon his knowledge of ancient Norse houses to imagine possible configurations underground so that we could refine the search." By the end of 2000, Steinberg and Bolender could survey a field as quickly as they could walk.

An 18-person team they put together then settled on Skagafjord, on the north coast of Iceland, as the most promising place to conduct their studies. The area is dotted with rills, rivers and thousand-year-old fields green from the abundant rain and long, soft sunlight of summer days in the Far North. The territory was ideally suited to their technology, layered as it is with known volcanic deposits that coincide with important historical events, enabling the archaeologists to get a good fix on the ages of objects they found. "See, the soil reads like a book," Steinberg says, standing in a trench on a farm near Glaumbaer that was the site of northern Iceland's most powerful estate during Viking times. He points to a green layer that marks a volcanic eruption in 871, a blue layer from one in 1000 and a thick, yellow layer from yet another in 1104.

In the summer of 2001, Steinberg and his colleagues scanned the low fields in Glaumbaer. The work proceeded uneventfully until late August, when the team was about to pack up and leave. ("You always find the most important things in the last week of a field season," says Steinberg.) When two undergraduates probing spots that showed low conductivity in earlier scans pulled up their first plug of earth, they looked in the hole and saw a layer of turf-consistent with a turf house-below a yellow layer that marked the eruption of MountHekla in 1104.

Excited, Steinberg returned in 2002 to dig a series of trenches. By the end of that season, the team had uncovered parts of what appeared to be an extensive longhouse, 100 feet by 25 1/2 feet. By the end of 2004, the team had plotted the direction and length of one of the walls. The house was so large that it evidently belonged to someone with wealth and power. But who?

All the detail about Norse trips to Vinland (as the Norse called North America) comes from two accounts: The Saga of Erik the Red and The Saga of the Greenlanders. These epic Viking tales were probably first written down around 1200 or 1300 by scribes who either recorded the oral stories of elders or worked from some now-lost written source, says Thor Hjaltalin, an Icelandic scholar who oversees archaeological activities in northwest Iceland. The two sagas give similar accounts of Thorfinn's trip to the New World, but they differ on some significant details about his return to Iceland. In Erik the Red's saga, Thorfinn moves back to his family estate in Reynisnes, while in the Greenlanders' saga, Thor-finn settles down in Glaumbaer, after his mother proves less than welcoming to his wife. In a key passage from the Greenlanders' saga, Thor-finn sells some of his Vinland spoils in Norway, then comes to "north Iceland, in Skagafjord, where he had his ship drawn ashore for the winter. In the spring he purchased the land at Glaumbaer and established his farm there." It goes on: "He and his wife, Gudrid, had a great number of descendants, and a fine clan they were. . . . After [Thorfinn's] death, Gudrid took over the running of the household, together with her son Snorri who had been born in Vinland."

Apart from the grand scale of the longhouse, which ties it to someone of Thorfinn's stature, other evidence links it to the North American expedition, Steinberg claims. Its straight-walled design differs from the bowed-wall construction typical of Icelandic longhouses of the era, and it bears a strong resemblance to structures that have been uncovered in L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. And finally, Steinberg says, it's unlikely that any other chief could build one of the grandest longhouses of the Viking era and not be mentioned either in the sagas or other sources.

Before Steinberg's find, conventional wisdom held that Erik the Red's version was more credible and that the reference to Glaumbaer in the Greenlanders' saga was merely a flourish, added years after most of the saga was written, to improve Gudrid's image and perhaps that of a Glaumbaer chief. There are still many points of dispute about which Norse did what and where in North America, but if Steinberg's find is indeed Thorfinn's house, the long-discounted Greenlanders' saga, which names Thorfinn as a primary source, becomes the more accurate version-at least on the matter of where Thorfinn and company ended up. So after he found the longhouse, Steinberg called Olafsson-who had identified Erik the Red's farmstead as a jumping-off place for the New World-and blurted, "I think I've found the other end of your story."

Vikings spread out from Scandinavia and settled in Iceland, which Steinberg describes as "one of the world's last large inhabitable islands to be inhabited," in 874. They were led by local chiefs who did not like taking orders from, or paying taxes to, Harald Finehair, a Norse king then consolidating power in Norway. As the celebrated Norwegian anthropologist Vilhemmer Stefansson wrote in 1930, the Viking expansion was perhaps "the only large scale migration in history where the nobility moved out and the peasantry stayed home."

At first, Iceland offered a paradise to these ruggedly independent Vikings. The lowlands had forests of birch and other trees that had never felt the ax. In just 60 years the population jumped from zero to 70,000. By 930, the Norse had established one of the world's first parliaments, the Althing, where chiefs met to settle disputes.

There was just one sore point to this idyllic life. Settled and organized though they might have been, the Vikings were also some of the toughest warriors who ever lived. A slighted Norse was not the type to turn the other cheek. The resulting bloody duels reverberated far beyond Iceland. As Stefansson put it in 1930, writing during Prohibition, "The eventual discovery of North America hangs upon a fashionable practice of the day, that of man-killing, which, like cocktail shaking in the later America, was against the law but was indulged by the best people." He was referring to a few unreconstructed manslayers like Erik the Red, who overtaxed even the Norse tolerance for conflict and was exiled more than once by his fellow chiefs. Erik was first forced to relocate to Iceland's west coast and was then banished from the island altogether.

According to the sagas, Erik eventually set up a farmstead on the west coast of Greenland. The incongruous name for this barren, frigid island dominated by a vast ice cap comes from the outcast's attempt to lure other settlers, demonstrating "a genius for advertising that made him prophetically American," Stefansson wrote. Erik heard tales of strange lands to the west from a Norse sailor blown off course en route to Greenland, and it was his son Leif who led the first expedition to the New World. Another was led by Erik's son Thorvald (who died in Vinland from an arrow wound). Thorfinn Karlsefni led a third.

Thorfinn's assumed lineage is distinguished: one ancestor was Aud the Deepminded, a queen from the British Isles, and another was Ugarval, a king of Ireland. Thorfinn had grown up in Iceland on a farm not far from Glaumbaer. A wealthy merchant notorious for his cleverness, Thorfinn was also a good leader. On a trading voyage to Greenland, he met and married Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir, the beautiful and charismatic widow of Erik's son Thorvald. (A history of Iceland written around 1120, as well as scattered church records, back up the genealogies and dates in the sagas.) During the winter of 1005 at Brattahlid, Erik's manor in Greenland's eastern colony, Thorfinn played board games and planned his trip to Vinland. Erik the Red's saga makes the planning sound boisterous and somewhat haphazard, noting that various other Norse chiefs decided to join the expedition seemingly on the spur of the moment.

While Leif Eriksson is the Viking name most familiar to Americans, the sagas devote as much space to Thorfinn and his voyage. Steinberg's discovery supports a long-held theory that Thorfinn was the principal teller of the sagas. (That would explain why he plays such a major role in them.) Steinberg notes that knowing the source of a text helps historians weigh the assertions.

Whoever their author was, the stories have challenged scholars to match the place names mentioned in them to real topography. For example, Thorfinn called two crucial places where he and his group camped in the New World Straumfjord (stream fiord) and Hop (lagoon) and described the first as having strong currents. Scholars have variously located Straumfjord, where Snorri was born, in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts; Long Island Sound; the Bay of Fundy; and L'Anse auxMeadows (the Norse site discovered by Helge and Anne Ingstad on the northern tip of Newfoundland). Different advocates have placed Hop near New York City, Boston and points north.

If in fact Thorfinn and company traveled as far south as Gowanus Bay in New York Harbor, as asserted by the British scholar Geoffrey Gathorne-Hardy in 1921, they would have sailed past some of the greatest stands of primeval hardwoods on the planet, not to mention grapes-treasured by Norse chiefs who cemented their status with feasts accompanied by copious amounts of wine-and unlimited fish and game.

Why would the Norse have abandoned them or similar inducements farther north? Perhaps the Vikings' Vinland was like Alexander the Great's India: a land of fabulous wealth so far from home that it was beyond the limits of his ability to impose his will. Both Norse sagas have Thorfinn beating a retreat north after some humbling battles with Native warriors. (See "Why Didn't They Stay?")
Freydis: Heroine or Murderer?
Thorfinn never went back to Vinland, but other Norse subsequently did. Evidence continues to accumulate that Norse traded with both Inuit and more southern tribes for skins, and that they regularly brought back wood and other items from the New World. Over the years, various accounts have placed Norse colonies in Maine, Rhode Island and elsewhere on the AtlanticCoast, but the only unambiguous Norse settlement in North America remains L'Anse aux Meadows.

Icelanders, for their part, need no persuading of the Viking's preeminence among Europeans in the New World. Asked who discovered America, 8-year-old Kristin Bjarnadottir, a third grader in Holar, Iceland, answers with complete confidence: "Leifur," naming the celebrated Viking explorer. She and other Icelandic kids often play a game called Great Adventurer, in which they take on the roles of the saga heroes. Steinberg's ongoing investigation of the turf house in Glaumbaer and other structures could well give Kristin and her friends rich new exploits of their Viking ancestors to act out.

Viking scholars have long debated the veracity of the Icelandic sagas. Are they literature or history, or both? The two conflicting versions of Freydis Eriksdottir, who was Erik the Red's daughter and the half sister of Leif Eriksson and who traveled to North America 1,000 years ago, are a case in point.

In Erik the Red's saga, Freydis and her husband Thorvard accompany Thorfinn Karlsefni and Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir on their journey to the New World. When Natives attack their small colony, the Norse men run off. But a pregnant Freydis stands her ground, shouting: "Why do you flee from such pitiful wretches, brave men like you? . . . If I had weapons, I am sure I could fight better than any of you." She snatches up a sword from a fallen Norseman and exposes a breast (presumably to indicate that she's a woman), frightening off the attackers. When the danger had passed, Thorfinn came over to her and praised her courage.
Why Didn't They Stay?
But in the Greenlanders' saga, Freydis is a murderer. Freydis and her husband do not travel with Thorfinn and Gudrid, but instead undertake an expedition with two Icelanders, known as Finnbogi and Helgi. When they arrive in Straumfjord (thought by some scholars to be the site in Newfoundland known as L'Anse aux Meadows), they quarrel over who will live in the longhouses Leif Eriksson has left behind. Freydis wins, rousing the Icelanders' resentment. After a hard winter in which the two camps become more estranged, Freydis demands that the Icelanders hand over their larger ship for the journey home. She goads her husband and followers into murdering all the male Icelanders. When no one will kill the five women in the Icelanders' camp, she takes up an ax and dispatches them herself. Back in Greenland, word of the incident seeps out. "Afterwards no one thought anything but ill of her and her husband," concludes the story of Freydis' expedition.

Was Freydis a heroine? Or a homicidal maniac? Archaeologist Birgitta Linderoth Wallace, who directed much of the excavation of L'Anse aux Meadows, doesn't know for sure. "We try to sort out what's fact and fiction," she says. "We can't presume the saga writers knew the difference. What we do know is the writers were often anonymous.and male. They were Christian priests. Freydis was a pagan, while Gudrid was Christian. Gudrid's descendants were bishops and had an interest in making her appear as holy as possible and Freydis as bad as possible, for contrast." Wallace says the murder of the Icelanders is hard to believe. "Something bad happened," she says. "But can you imagine killing 35 Icelanders without all their relatives coming over to take revenge?"

The Viking presence in North America had dwindled to nothing long before Columbus began island hopping in the Caribbean. Why did the Norse fail where other Europeans succeeded? After all, Vikings were consummate seamen and peerless raiders who populated marginally inhabitable Greenland and who would push their way into the British Isles and France. And with their iron weapons and tools, they had a technological edge over America's indigenous peoples.

Several explanations have been advanced for the Vikings' abandonment of North America. Perhaps there were too few of them to sustain a settlement. Or they may have been forced out by American Indians. While the European conquest was abetted by infectious diseases that spread from the invaders to the Natives, who succumbed in great numbers because they had no acquired immunity, early Icelanders may not have carried similar infections.

But more and more scholars focus on climate change as the reason the Vikings couldn.t make a go of it in the New World. The scholars suggest that the western Atlantic suddenly turned too cold even for Vikings. The great sailing trips of Leif and Thorfinn took place in the first half of the 11th century, during a climatic period in the North Atlantic called the Medieval Warming, a time of long, warm summers and scarce sea ice. Beginning in the 12th century, however, the weather started to deteriorate with the first frissons of what scholars call the Little Ice Age. Tom McGovern, an archaeologist at Hunter College in New York City, has spent more than 20 years reconstructing the demise of a Norse settlement on Greenland. In the middle of the 14th century, the colony suffered eight harsh winters in a row, culminating, in 1355, in what may have been the worst in a century. McGovern says the Norse ate their livestock and dogs before turning to whatever else they could find in their final winter there. The settlers might have survived if they had mimicked the Inuit, who hunted ringed seal in the winter and prospered during the Little Ice Age.

With sea ice making the routes from Iceland to Greenland and back impassable for Norse ships for much of the year, the Little Ice Age probably curtailed further Norse traffic to North America. Iceland also fared badly during this time. By 1703, weather-related food shortages and epidemics of plague and smallpox had reduced Iceland's population to 53,000, from more than 150,000 in 1250.

It's worth pondering how the history of the West might have differed if the weather had remained balmy. Norse populations in Iceland and Greenland might have flourished, and the Vikings might have remained in North America. If the temperature had been a few degrees higher, some of North America might be speaking Norse today.

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The Vikings: A Memorable Visit to America

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Smithsonian Magazine | Roughly 1,000 years ago, the story goes, a Viking trader and adventurer named Thorfinn Karlsefni set off from the west coast of Greenland with three ships and a band of Norse to explore a newly discovered land that promised fabulous riches.

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Spanish Colonization of the Americas (New Spain / APUSH Period 1 / Colonial America)

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http://www.tomrichey.net In the first part of my lecture series on European colonization of the Americas, I take a look at the Spanish colonists, their goals, and their relationship with the Indians that they encountered. The Spanish were motivated by God, Glory, and Gold, seeking to create an empire in the Americas and to evangelize the Native American population.

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North-America's identity as a predominantly Protestant, English-speaking continent is obvious, yet what is not so well known is the foundational role that the English Reformation had in bringing this about. It was Protestantism that served as one of the leading factors in turning the British Isles into a maritime empire and drove them to seize North America from their Catholic competitors.

In the wake of Columbus' shocking discovery of the Americas, Spain rushed to acquire a papal bull called Inter caetera, granting them exclusive rights to the lands and wealth of the New World. A year later in 1494, with the Treaty of Tordesillas, Portugal also won from the pope rights to their own zone of influence in Asia and the eastern tip of Brazil.

Meanwhile Tudor England languished in the field of exploration. Except for a brief period during the reign of Henry V, medieval England possessed no naval fleet at all and had no oceanic aspirations. Their national interests had been fixated for the last several hundred years on possessions in France and the British Isles, and even if they had wanted to expand across the Atlantic, their relationship with Spain and the papacy meant that after Inter caetera the New World was off limits to them.

In 1527, however, Henry VIII led England on a path away from the continent by divorcing his Spanish wife, Catherine of Aragon, and severing all ties with the Church of Rome. Ironically, while the Reformation grew slowly under Protestant kings Henry VIII and Edward VI, it was Catherine's Catholic daughter, Queen Mary, who truly broke the conservative English away from their old ties. Although the largely Catholic population initially welcomed Mary to the throne, they strongly disapproved of her persecution of Protestants, and her loss of the last English holdings in France meant that upon her death bed she was despised by nearly all of her former political and religious allies.

Mary's persecutions and her attachment to foreign Spain were followed by her sister Elizabeth's tolerant policy. Nominally Protestant, Elizabeth insisted on absolute loyalty to the Church of England, but left church worship largely in the hands of the local parish. The Reformation flourished under this freedom. By the end of Elizabeth's reign the Catholics had become a small minority mostly contained within the English aristocracy.

In 1570 the pope excommunicated Queen Elizabeth for her religious settlement. The excommunication of their Queen combined with the ever menacing threat of a Spanish invasion cemented in the English people's imagination their identity as a Protestant country. And equally integral to their Protestant identity was their fierce opposition to the Bourbon Catholic monarchies of Spain and France.

As the Reformation matured, English Protestants saw dominion of the sea and colonization of the New World as the strongest weapon against papal claims to Catholic universalism. For the next two hundred years following the reign of Elizabeth, staunch Protestants led the call for England to challenge Spain for dominance of the Atlantic and the New World. The role of Protestants in this westward expansion cannot be underestimated. Sir Francis Drake and other Protestant mariners mocked the Pope's Treaty of Tordesillas. They ravaged treasure ships all along the Spanish Main, while championing themselves as Protestant evangelists to the natives. Englishmen who had been oppressed under Bloody Mary saw a kinship of suffering, not only with other persecuted Protestants, but also with natives of the New World who were enslaved under Spanish rule. Protestant ministers called for the liberation of the Americas, and preached the need to colonize those northern lands not yet dominated by Spain. And English colonists in North America saw it as their "manifest destiny" that one day they would wrest the colonies of Canada and Florida away from the idolatrous French and Spanish. While the previous wars with France had merely been over royal possessions, this new conflict with Spain was seen as a bitter struggle between the people of God and the forces of the Anti-Christ.

Protestantism sent England to America, and England brought Protestantism with it. As Europe passed into the eighteenth century, England had transitioned from an island kingdom into the global empire of Great Britain. They emerged from their Atlantic wars as Europe's most progressive maritime and industrial nation, while the Catholic empires of Spain, France, and Austria were slowly slipping away into political and economic stagnation. The role that Protestantism had in accomplishing this transformation of England is unmistakable. English Protestantism championed itself as the antithesis to global, Catholic imperialism. From that drive to counterbalance the papal forces, England metamorphosed into Britain, the most powerful empire of them all, which in turn was overshadowed by the United States, its colonial prodigy and Protestant heir.

George Harrell is a graduate with a master's degree in Theology and Letters from New Saint Andrews College in far off Idaho. He has taught an American history course for adults, and has published in the South African magazine "Die Boodskapper." He currently teaches American History and Economics through Roman Roads Classroom, and continues to live in the foothills of Idaho with his wife and his son Patrick, where he pursues the study of hidden things. He blogs at Shot Glass of History, explaining the movements behind the events we take for granted, and helping to raise the veil from our popular narrative.

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The Race for Empire: The Role of the Reformation in English Colonization

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North-America's identity as a predominantly Protestant, English-speaking continent is obvious, yet what is not so well known is the foundational role that the English Reformation had in bringing this about. It was Protestantism that served as one of the leading factors in turning the British Isles into a maritime empire and drove them to seize North America from their Catholic competitors.

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Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Identify the first English settlements in America

Describe the differences between the Chesapeake Bay colonies and the New England colonies

Compare and contrast the wars between native inhabitants and English colonists in both the Chesapeake Bay and New England colonies

Explain the role of Bacon's Rebellion in the rise of chattel slavery in Virginia

Promoters of English colonization in North America, many of whom never ventured across the Atlantic, wrote about the bounty the English would find there. These boosters of colonization hoped to turn a profit-whether by importing raw resources or providing new markets for English goods-and spread Protestantism. The English migrants who actually made the journey, however, had different goals. In Chesapeake Bay, English migrants established Virginia and Maryland with a decidedly commercial orientation. Though the early Virginians at Jamestown hoped to find gold, they and the settlers in Maryland quickly discovered that growing tobacco was the only sure means of making money. Thousands of unmarried, unemployed, and impatient young Englishmen, along with a few Englishwomen, pinned their hopes for a better life on the tobacco fields of these two colonies.

A very different group of English men and women flocked to the cold climate and rocky soil of New England, spurred by religious motives. Many of the Puritans crossing the Atlantic were people who brought families and children. Often they were following their ministers in a migration "beyond the seas," envisioning a new English Israel where reformed Protestantism would grow and thrive, providing a model for the rest of the Christian world and a counter to what they saw as the Catholic menace. While the English in Virginia and Maryland worked on expanding their profitable tobacco fields, the English in New England built towns focused on the church, where each congregation decided what was best for itself. The Congregational Church is the result of the Puritan enterprise in America. Many historians believe the fault lines separating what later became the North and South in the United States originated in the profound differences between the Chesapeake and New England colonies.

The source of those differences lay in England's domestic problems. Increasingly in the early 1600s, the English state church-the Church of England, established in the 1530s-demanded conformity, or compliance with its practices, but Puritans pushed for greater reforms. By the 1620s, the Church of England began to see leading Puritan ministers and their followers as outlaws, a national security threat because of their opposition to its power. As the noose of conformity tightened around them, many Puritans decided to remove to New England. By 1640, New England had a population of twenty-five thousand. Meanwhile, many loyal members of the Church of England, who ridiculed and mocked Puritans both at home and in New England, flocked to Virginia for economic opportunity.

The troubles in England escalated in the 1640s when civil war broke out, pitting Royalist supporters of King Charles I and the Church of England against Parliamentarians, the Puritan reformers and their supporters in Parliament. In 1649, the Parliamentarians gained the upper hand and, in an unprecedented move, executed Charles I. In the 1650s, therefore, England became a republic, a state without a king. English colonists in America closely followed these events. Indeed, many Puritans left New England and returned home to take part in the struggle against the king and the national church. Other English men and women in the Chesapeake colonies and elsewhere in the English Atlantic World looked on in horror at the mayhem the Parliamentarians, led by the Puritan insurgents, appeared to unleash in England. The turmoil in England made the administration and imperial oversight of the Chesapeake and New England colonies difficult, and the two regions developed divergent cultures.

The Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland served a vital purpose in the developing seventeenth-century English empire by providing tobacco, a cash crop. However, the early history of Jamestown did not suggest the English outpost would survive. From the outset, its settlers struggled both with each other and with the native inhabitants, the powerful Powhatan, who controlled the area. Jealousies and infighting among the English destabilized the colony. One member, John Smith, whose famous map begins this chapter, took control and exercised near-dictatorial powers, which furthered aggravated the squabbling. The settlers' inability to grow their own food compounded this unstable situation. They were essentially employees of the Virginia Company of London, an English joint-stock company, in which investors provided the capital and assumed the risk in order to reap the profit, and they had to make a profit for their shareholders as well as for themselves. Most initially devoted themselves to finding gold and silver instead of finding ways to grow their own food.

Early Struggles and the Development of the Tobacco Economy

Poor health, lack of food, and fighting with native peoples took the lives of many of the original Jamestown settlers. The winter of 1609-1610, which became known as "the starving time," came close to annihilating the colony. By June 1610, the few remaining settlers had decided to abandon the area; only the last-minute arrival of a supply ship from England prevented another failed colonization effort. The supply ship brought new settlers, but only twelve hundred of the seventy-five hundred who came to Virginia between 1607 and 1624 survived.

George Percy on "The Starving Time"

George Percy, the youngest son of an English nobleman, was in the first group of settlers at the Jamestown Colony. He kept a journal describing their experiences; in the excerpt below, he reports on the privations of the colonists' third winter.

Now all of us at James Town, beginning to feel that sharp prick of hunger which no man truly describe but he which has tasted the bitterness thereof, a world of miseries ensued as the sequel will express unto you, in so much that some to satisfy their hunger have robbed the store for the which I caused them to be executed. Then having fed upon horses and other beasts as long as they lasted, we were glad to make shift with vermin as dogs, cats, rats, and mice. All was fish that came to net to satisfy cruel hunger as to eat boots, shoes, or any other leather some could come by, and, those being spent and devoured, some were enforced to search the woods and to feed upon serpents and snakes and to dig the earth for wild and unknown roots, where many of our men were cut off of and slain by the savages. And now famine beginning to look ghastly and pale in every face that nothing was spared to maintain life and to do those things which seem incredible as to dig up dead corpses out of graves and to eat them, and some have licked up the blood which has fallen from their weak fellows.

-George Percy, "A True Relation of the Proceedings and Occurances of Moment which have happened in Virginia from the Time Sir Thomas Gates shipwrecked upon the Bermudes anno 1609 until my departure out of the Country which was in anno Domini 1612," London 1624

What is your reaction to George Percy's story? How do you think Jamestown managed to survive after such an experience? What do you think the Jamestown colonists learned?

By the 1620s, Virginia had weathered the worst and gained a degree of permanence. Political stability came slowly, but by 1619, the fledgling colony was operating under the leadership of a governor, a council, and a House of Burgesses. Economic stability came from the lucrative cultivation of tobacco. Smoking tobacco was a long-standing practice among native peoples, and English and other European consumers soon adopted it. In 1614, the Virginia colony began exporting tobacco back to England, which earned it a sizable profit and saved the colony from ruin. A second tobacco colony, Maryland, was formed in 1634, when King Charles I granted its charter to the Calvert family for their loyal service to England. Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, conceived of Maryland as a refuge for English Catholics.

Growing tobacco proved very labor-intensive, and the Chesapeake colonists needed a steady workforce to do the hard work of clearing the land and caring for the tender young plants. The mature leaf of the plant then had to be cured (dried), which necessitated the construction of drying barns. Once cured, the tobacco had to be packaged in hogsheads (large wooden barrels) and loaded aboard ship, which also required considerable labor.

To meet these labor demands, early Virginians relied on indentured servants. An indenture is a labor contract that young, impoverished, and often illiterate Englishmen and occasionally Englishwomen signed in England, pledging to work for a number of years (usually between five and seven) growing tobacco in the Chesapeake colonies. In return, indentured servants received paid passage to America and food, clothing, and lodging. At the end of their indenture servants received "freedom dues," usually food and other provisions, including, in some cases, land provided by the colony. The promise of a new life in America was a strong attraction for members of England's underclass, who had few if any options at home. In the 1600s, some 100,000 indentured servants traveled to the Chesapeake Bay. Most were poor young men in their early twenties.

Life in the colonies proved harsh, however. Indentured servants could not marry, and they were subject to the will of the tobacco planters who bought their labor contracts. If they committed a crime or disobeyed their masters, they found their terms of service lengthened, often by several years. Female indentured servants faced special dangers in what was essentially a bachelor colony. Many were exploited by unscrupulous tobacco planters who seduced them with promises of marriage. These planters would then sell their pregnant servants to other tobacco planters to avoid the costs of raising a child.

Nonetheless, those indentured servants who completed their term of service often began new lives as tobacco planters. To entice even more migrants to the New World, the Virginia Company also implemented the headright system, in which those who paid their own passage to Virginia received fifty acres plus an additional fifty for each servant or family member they brought with them. The headright system and the promise of a new life for servants acted as powerful incentives for English migrants to hazard the journey to the New World.

Visit Virtual Jamestown to access a database of contracts of indentured servants. Search it by name to find an ancestor or browse by occupation, destination, or county of origin.

The Anglo-Powhatan Wars

By choosing to settle along the rivers on the banks of the Chesapeake, the English unknowingly placed themselves at the center of the Powhatan Empire, a powerful Algonquian confederacy of thirty native groups with perhaps as many as twenty-two thousand people. The territory of the equally impressive Susquehannock people also bordered English settlements at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay.

Tensions ran high between the English and the Powhatan, and near-constant war prevailed. The First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609-1614) resulted not only from the English colonists' intrusion onto Powhatan land, but also from their refusal to follow native protocol by giving gifts. English actions infuriated and insulted the Powhatan. In 1613, the settlers captured Pocahontas (also called Matoaka), the daughter of a Powhatan headman named Wahunsonacook, and gave her in marriage to Englishman John Rolfe. Their union, and her choice to remain with the English, helped quell the war in 1614. Pocahontas converted to Christianity, changing her name to Rebecca, and sailed with her husband and several other Powhatan to England where she was introduced to King James I. Promoters of colonization publicized Pocahontas as an example of the good work of converting the Powhatan to Christianity.

Explore the interactive exhibit Changing Images of Pocahontas on PBS's website to see the many ways artists have portrayed Pocahontas over the centuries.

Peace in Virginia did not last long. The Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1620s) broke out because of the expansion of the English settlement nearly one hundred miles into the interior, and because of the continued insults and friction caused by English activities. The Powhatan attacked in 1622 and succeeded in killing almost 350 English, about a third of the settlers. The English responded by annihilating every Powhatan village around Jamestown and from then on became even more intolerant. The Third Anglo-Powhatan War (1644-1646) began with a surprise attack in which the Powhatan killed around five hundred English colonists. However, their ultimate defeat in this conflict forced the Powhatan to acknowledge King Charles I as their sovereign. The Anglo-Powhatan Wars, spanning nearly forty years, illustrate the degree of native resistance that resulted from English intrusion into the Powhatan confederacy.

The Rise of Slavery in the Chesapeake Bay Colonies

The transition from indentured servitude to slavery as the main labor source for some English colonies happened first in the West Indies. On the small island of Barbados, colonized in the 1620s, English planters first grew tobacco as their main export crop, but in the 1640s, they converted to sugarcane and began increasingly to rely on African slaves. In 1655, England wrestled control of Jamaica from the Spanish and quickly turned it into a lucrative sugar island, run on slave labor, for its expanding empire. While slavery was slower to take hold in the Chesapeake colonies, by the end of the seventeenth century, both Virginia and Maryland had also adopted chattel slavery-which legally defined Africans as property and not people-as the dominant form of labor to grow tobacco. Chesapeake colonists also enslaved native people.

When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, slavery-which did not exist in England-had not yet become an institution in colonial America. Many Africans worked as servants and, like their white counterparts, could acquire land of their own. Some Africans who converted to Christianity became free landowners with white servants. The change in the status of Africans in the Chesapeake to that of slaves occurred in the last decades of the seventeenth century.

Bacon's Rebellion, an uprising of both whites and blacks who believed that the Virginia government was impeding their access to land and wealth and seemed to do little to clear the land of Indians, hastened the transition to African slavery in the Chesapeake colonies. The rebellion takes its name from Nathaniel Bacon, a wealthy young Englishman who arrived in Virginia in 1674. Despite an early friendship with Virginia's royal governor, William Berkeley, Bacon found himself excluded from the governor's circle of influential friends and councilors. He wanted land on the Virginia frontier, but the governor, fearing war with neighboring Indian tribes, forbade further expansion. Bacon marshaled others, especially former indentured servants who believed the governor was limiting their economic opportunities and denying them the right to own tobacco farms. Bacon's followers believed Berkeley's frontier policy didn't protect English settlers enough. Worse still in their eyes, Governor Berkeley tried to keep peace in Virginia by signing treaties with various local native peoples. Bacon and his followers, who saw all Indians as an obstacle to their access to land, pursued a policy of extermination.

Tensions between the English and the native peoples in the Chesapeake colonies led to open conflict. In 1675, war broke out when Susquehannock warriors attacked settlements on Virginia's frontier, killing English planters and destroying English plantations, including one owned by Bacon. In 1676, Bacon and other Virginians attacked the Susquehannock without the governor's approval. When Berkeley ordered Bacon's arrest, Bacon led his followers to Jamestown, forced the governor to flee to the safety of Virginia's eastern shore, and then burned the city. The civil war known as Bacon's Rebellion, a vicious struggle between supporters of the governor and those who supported Bacon, ensued. Reports of the rebellion traveled back to England, leading Charles II to dispatch both royal troops and English commissioners to restore order in the tobacco colonies. By the end of 1676, Virginians loyal to the governor gained the upper hand, executing several leaders of the rebellion. Bacon escaped the hangman's noose, instead dying of dysentery. The rebellion fizzled in 1676, but Virginians remained divided as supporters of Bacon continued to harbor grievances over access to Indian land.

Bacon's Rebellion helped to catalyze the creation of a system of racial slavery in the Chesapeake colonies. At the time of the rebellion, indentured servants made up the majority of laborers in the region. Wealthy whites worried over the presence of this large class of laborers and the relative freedom they enjoyed, as well as the alliance that black and white servants had forged in the course of the rebellion. Replacing indentured servitude with black slavery diminished these risks, alleviating the reliance on white indentured servants, who were often dissatisfied and troublesome, and creating a caste of racially defined laborers whose movements were strictly controlled. It also lessened the possibility of further alliances between black and white workers. Racial slavery even served to heal some of the divisions between wealthy and poor whites, who could now unite as members of a "superior" racial group.

While colonial laws in the tobacco colonies had made slavery a legal institution before Bacon's Rebellion, new laws passed in the wake of the rebellion severely curtailed black freedom and laid the foundation for racial slavery. Virginia passed a law in 1680 prohibiting free blacks and slaves from bearing arms, banning blacks from congregating in large numbers, and establishing harsh punishments for slaves who assaulted Christians or attempted escape. Two years later, another Virginia law stipulated that all Africans brought to the colony would be slaves for life. Thus, the increasing reliance on slaves in the tobacco colonies-and the draconian laws instituted to control them-not only helped planters meet labor demands, but also served to assuage English fears of further uprisings and alleviate class tensions between rich and poor whites.

Robert Beverley on Servants and Slaves

Robert Beverley was a wealthy Jamestown planter and slaveholder. This excerpt from his History and Present State of Virginia, published in 1705, clearly illustrates the contrast between white servants and black slaves.

Their Servants, they distinguish by the Names of Slaves for Life, and Servants for a time. Slaves are the Negroes, and their Posterity, following the condition of the Mother, according to the Maxim, partus sequitur ventrem [status follows the womb]. They are call'd Slaves, in respect of the time of their Servitude, because it is for Life.

Servants, are those which serve only for a few years, according to the time of their Indenture, or the Custom of the Country. The Custom of the Country takes place upon such as have no Indentures. The Law in this case is, that if such Servants be under Nineteen years of Age, they must be brought into Court, to have their Age adjudged; and from the Age they are judg'd to be of, they must serve until they reach four and twenty: But if they be adjudged upwards of Nineteen, they are then only to be Servants for the term of five Years.

The Male-Servants, and Slaves of both Sexes, are employed together in Tilling and Manuring the Ground, in Sowing and Planting Tobacco, Corn, &c. Some Distinction indeed is made between them in their Cloaths, and Food; but the Work of both, is no other than what the Overseers, the Freemen, and the Planters themselves do.

Sufficient Distinction is also made between the Female-Servants, and Slaves; for a White Woman is rarely or never put to work in the Ground, if she be good for any thing else: And to Discourage all Planters from using any Women so, their Law imposes the heaviest Taxes upon Female Servants working in the Ground, while it suffers all other white Women to be absolutely exempted: Whereas on the other hand, it is a common thing to work a Woman Slave out of Doors; nor does the Law make any Distinction in her Taxes, whether her Work be Abroad, or at Home.

According to Robert Beverley, what are the differences between servants and slaves? What protections did servants have that slaves did not?

The second major area to be colonized by the English in the first half of the seventeenth century, New England, differed markedly in its founding principles from the commercially oriented Chesapeake tobacco colonies. Settled largely by waves of Puritan families in the 1630s, New England had a religious orientation from the start. In England, reform-minded men and women had been calling for greater changes to the English national church since the 1580s. These reformers, who followed the teachings of John Calvin and other Protestant reformers, were called Puritans because of their insistence on "purifying" the Church of England of what they believed to be un-scriptural, especially Catholic elements that lingered in its institutions and practices.

Many who provided leadership in early New England were learned ministers who had studied at Cambridge or Oxford but who, because they had questioned the practices of the Church of England, had been deprived of careers by the king and his officials in an effort to silence all dissenting voices. Other Puritan leaders, such as the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, came from the privileged class of English gentry. These well-to-do Puritans and many thousands more left their English homes not to establish a land of religious freedom, but to practice their own religion without persecution. Puritan New England offered them the opportunity to live as they believed the Bible demanded. In their "New" England, they set out to create a model of reformed Protestantism, a new English Israel.

The conflict generated by Puritanism had divided English society, because the Puritans demanded reforms that undermined the traditional festive culture. For example, they denounced popular pastimes like bear-baiting-letting dogs attack a chained bear-which were often conducted on Sundays when people had a few leisure hours. In the culture where William Shakespeare had produced his masterpieces, Puritans called for an end to the theater, censuring playhouses as places of decadence. Indeed, the Bible itself became part of the struggle between Puritans and James I, who headed the Church of England. Soon after ascending the throne, James commissioned a new version of the Bible in an effort to stifle Puritan reliance on the Geneva Bible, which followed the teachings of John Calvin and placed God's authority above the monarch's. The King James Version, published in 1611, instead emphasized the majesty of kings.

During the 1620s and 1630s, the conflict escalated to the point where the state church prohibited Puritan ministers from preaching. In the Church's view, Puritans represented a national security threat, because their demands for cultural, social, and religious reforms undermined the king's authority. Unwilling to conform to the Church of England, many Puritans found refuge in the New World. Yet those who emigrated to the Americas were not united. Some called for a complete break with the Church of England, while others remained committed to reforming the national church.

Plymouth: The First Puritan Colony

The first group of Puritans to make their way across the Atlantic was a small contingent known as the Pilgrims. Unlike other Puritans, they insisted on a complete separation from the Church of England and had first migrated to the Dutch Republic seeking religious freedom. Although they found they could worship without hindrance there, they grew concerned that they were losing their Englishness as they saw their children begin to learn the Dutch language and adopt Dutch ways. In addition, the English Pilgrims (and others in Europe) feared another attack on the Dutch Republic by Catholic Spain. Therefore, in 1620, they moved on to found the Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts. The governor of Plymouth, William Bradford, was a Separatist, a proponent of complete separation from the English state church. Bradford and the other Pilgrim Separatists represented a major challenge to the prevailing vision of a unified English national church and empire. On board the Mayflower, which was bound for Virginia but landed on the tip of Cape Cod, Bradford and forty other adult men signed the Mayflower Compact, which presented a religious (rather than an economic) rationale for colonization. The compact expressed a community ideal of working together. When a larger exodus of Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s, the Pilgrims at Plymouth welcomed them and the two colonies cooperated with each other.

The Mayflower Compact and Its Religious Rationale

The Mayflower Compact, which forty-one Pilgrim men signed on board the Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor, has been called the first American governing document, predating the U.S. Constitution by over 150 years. But was the Mayflower Compact a constitution? How much authority did it convey, and to whom?

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620

Different labor systems also distinguished early Puritan New England from the Chesapeake colonies. Puritans expected young people to work diligently at their calling, and all members of their large families, including children, did the bulk of the work necessary to run homes, farms, and businesses. Very few migrants came to New England as laborers; in fact, New England towns protected their disciplined homegrown workforce by refusing to allow outsiders in, assuring their sons and daughters of steady employment. New England's labor system produced remarkable results, notably a powerful maritime-based economy with scores of oceangoing ships and the crews necessary to sail them. New England mariners sailing New England-made ships transported Virginian tobacco and West Indian sugar throughout the Atlantic World.

"A City upon a Hill"

A much larger group of English Puritans left England in the 1630s, establishing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the New Haven Colony, the Connecticut Colony, and Rhode Island. Unlike the exodus of young males to the Chesapeake colonies, these migrants were families with young children and their university-trained ministers. Their aim, according to John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay, was to create a model of reformed Protestantism-a "city upon a hill," a new English Israel. The idea of a "city upon a hill" made clear the religious orientation of the New England settlement, and the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony stated as a goal that the colony's people "may be soe religiously, peaceablie, and civilly governed, as their good Life and orderlie Conversacon, maie wynn and incite the Natives of Country, to the Knowledg and Obedience of the onlie true God and Saulor of Mankinde, and the Christian Fayth." To illustrate this, the seal of the Massachusetts Bay Company shows a half-naked Indian who entreats more of the English to "come over and help us."

Puritan New England differed in many ways from both England and the rest of Europe. Protestants emphasized literacy so that everyone could read the Bible. This attitude was in stark contrast to that of Catholics, who refused to tolerate private ownership of Bibles in the vernacular. The Puritans, for their part, placed a special emphasis on reading scripture, and their commitment to literacy led to the establishment of the first printing press in English America in 1636. Four years later, in 1640, they published the first book in North America, the Bay Psalm Book. As Calvinists, Puritans adhered to the doctrine of predestination, whereby a few "elect" would be saved and all others damned. No one could be sure whether they were predestined for salvation, but through introspection, guided by scripture, Puritans hoped to find a glimmer of redemptive grace. Church membership was restricted to those Puritans who were willing to provide a conversion narrative telling how they came to understand their spiritual estate by hearing sermons and studying the Bible.

Although many people assume Puritans escaped England to establish religious freedom, they proved to be just as intolerant as the English state church. When dissenters, including Puritan minister Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, challenged Governor Winthrop in Massachusetts Bay in the 1630s, they were banished. Roger Williams questioned the Puritans' taking of Indian land. Williams also argued for a complete separation from the Church of England, a position other Puritans in Massachusetts rejected, as well as the idea that the state could not punish individuals for their beliefs. Although he did accept that nonbelievers were destined for eternal damnation, Williams did not think the state could compel true orthodoxy. Puritan authorities found him guilty of spreading dangerous ideas, but he went on to found Rhode Island as a colony that sheltered dissenting Puritans from their brethren in Massachusetts. In Rhode Island, Williams wrote favorably about native peoples, contrasting their virtues with Puritan New England's intolerance.

Anne Hutchinson also ran afoul of Puritan authorities for her criticism of the evolving religious practices in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In particular, she held that Puritan ministers in New England taught a shallow version of Protestantism emphasizing hierarchy and actions-a "covenant of works" rather than a "covenant of grace." Literate Puritan women like Hutchinson presented a challenge to the male ministers' authority. Indeed, her major offense was her claim of direct religious revelation, a type of spiritual experience that negated the role of ministers. Because of Hutchinson's beliefs and her defiance of authority in the colony, especially that of Governor Winthrop, Puritan authorities tried and convicted her of holding false beliefs. In 1638, she was excommunicated and banished from the colony. She went to Rhode Island and later, in 1642, sought safety among the Dutch in New Netherland. The following year, Algonquian warriors killed Hutchinson and her family. In Massachusetts, Governor Winthrop noted her death as the righteous judgment of God against a heretic.

Like many other Europeans, the Puritans believed in the supernatural. Every event appeared to be a sign of God's mercy or judgment, and people believed that witches allied themselves with the Devil to carry out evil deeds and deliberate harm such as the sickness or death of children, the loss of cattle, and other catastrophes. Hundreds were accused of witchcraft in Puritan New England, including townspeople whose habits or appearance bothered their neighbors or who appeared threatening for any reason. Women, seen as more susceptible to the Devil because of their supposedly weaker constitutions, made up the vast majority of suspects and those who were executed. The most notorious cases occurred in Salem Village in 1692. Many of the accusers who prosecuted the suspected witches had been traumatized by the Indian wars on the frontier and by unprecedented political and cultural changes in New England. Relying on their belief in witchcraft to help make sense of their changing world, Puritan authorities executed nineteen people and caused the deaths of several others.

Explore the Salem Witchcraft Trials to learn more about the prosecution of witchcraft in seventeenth-century New England.

Puritan Relationships with Native Peoples

Like their Spanish and French Catholic rivals, English Puritans in America took steps to convert native peoples to their version of Christianity. John Eliot, the leading Puritan missionary in New England, urged natives in Massachusetts to live in "praying towns" established by English authorities for converted Indians, and to adopt the Puritan emphasis on the centrality of the Bible. In keeping with the Protestant emphasis on reading scripture, he translated the Bible into the local Algonquian language and published his work in 1663. Eliot hoped that as a result of his efforts, some of New England's native inhabitants would become preachers.

Tensions had existed from the beginning between the Puritans and the native people who controlled southern New England. Relationships deteriorated as the Puritans continued to expand their settlements aggressively and as European ways increasingly disrupted native life. These strains led to King Philip's War (1675-1676), a massive regional conflict that was nearly successful in pushing the English out of New England.

When the Puritans began to arrive in the 1620s and 1630s, local Algonquian peoples had viewed them as potential allies in the conflicts already simmering between rival native groups. In 1621, the Wampanoag, led by Massasoit, concluded a peace treaty with the Pilgrims at Plymouth. In the 1630s, the Puritans in Massachusetts and Plymouth allied themselves with the Narragansett and Mohegan people against the Pequot, who had recently expanded their claims into southern New England. In May 1637, the Puritans attacked a large group of several hundred Pequot along the Mystic River in Connecticut. To the horror of their native allies, the Puritans massacred all but a handful of the men, women, and children they found.

By the mid-seventeenth century, the Puritans had pushed their way further into the interior of New England, establishing outposts along the Connecticut River Valley. There seemed no end to their expansion. Wampanoag leader Metacom or Metacomet, also known as King Philip among the English, was determined to stop the encroachment. The Wampanoag, along with the Nipmuck, Pocumtuck, and Narragansett, took up the hatchet to drive the English from the land. In the ensuing conflict, called King Philip's War, native forces succeeded in destroying half of the frontier Puritan towns; however, in the end, the English (aided by Mohegans and Christian Indians) prevailed and sold many captives into slavery in the West Indies. (The severed head of King Philip was publicly displayed in Plymouth.) The war also forever changed the English perception of native peoples; from then on, Puritan writers took great pains to vilify the natives as bloodthirsty savages. A new type of racial hatred became a defining feature of Indian-English relationships in the Northeast.

Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative

Mary Rowlandson was a Puritan woman whom Indian tribes captured and imprisoned for several weeks during King Philip's War. After her release, she wrote The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, which was published in 1682. The book was an immediate sensation that was reissued in multiple editions for over a century.

But now, the next morning, I must turn my back upon the town, and travel with them into the vast and desolate wilderness, I knew not whither. It is not my tongue, or pen, can express the sorrows of my heart, and bitterness of my spirit that I had at this departure: but God was with me in a wonderful manner, carrying me along, and bearing up my spirit, that it did not quite fail. One of the Indians carried my poor wounded babe upon a horse; it went moaning all along, "I shall die, I shall die." I went on foot after it, with sorrow that cannot be expressed. At length I took it off the horse, and carried it in my arms till my strength failed, and I fell down with it. Then they set me upon a horse with my wounded child in my lap, and there being no furniture upon the horse's back, as we were going down a steep hill we both fell over the horse's head, at which they, like inhumane creatures, laughed, and rejoiced to see it, though I thought we should there have ended our days, as overcome with so many difficulties. But the Lord renewed my strength still, and carried me along, that I might see more of His power; yea, so much that I could never have thought of, had I not experienced it.

What sustains Rowlandson her during her ordeal? How does she characterize her captors? What do you think made her narrative so compelling to readers?

The English came late to colonization of the Americas, establishing stable settlements in the 1600s after several unsuccessful attempts in the 1500s. After Roanoke Colony failed in 1587, the English found more success with the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth in 1620. The two colonies were very different in origin. The Virginia Company of London founded Jamestown with the express purpose of making money for its investors, while Puritans founded Plymouth to practice their own brand of Protestantism without interference.

Both colonies battled difficult circumstances, including poor relationships with neighboring Indian tribes. Conflicts flared repeatedly in the Chesapeake Bay tobacco colonies and in New England, where a massive uprising against the English in 1675 to 1676-King Philip's War-nearly succeeded in driving the intruders back to the sea.

Review Question

How did the Chesapeake colonists solve their labor problems?

Answer to Review Question

They encouraged colonization by offering headrights to anyone who could pay his own way to Virginia: fifty acres for each passage. They also used the system of indenture, in which people (usually men) who didn't have enough money to pay their own passage could work for a set number of years and then gain their own land. Increasingly, they also turned to African slaves as a cheap labor source.

Glossary

headright system a system in which parcels of land were granted to settlers who could pay their own way to Virginia

a labor contract that promised young men, and sometimes women, money and land after they worked for a set period of years

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By the end of this section, you will be able to: Identify the first English settlements in America Describe the differences between the Chesapeake Bay colonies and the New England colonies Compare and contrast the wars between native inhabitants and English colonists in both the Chesapeake Bay and New England colonies Explain the role of Bacon's Rebellion in the rise of chattel slavery in Virginia Promoters of English colonization in North America, many of whom never ventured across the Atlantic, wrote about the bounty the English would find there.

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How Did The Great Awakening Affect The Colonies

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Get an answer for 'How did the Great Awakening affect the colonies?' and find homework help for other History questions at eNotes

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Parliament Taxes the Colonies (Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Acts)

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Chapter four= Paul Revers ride/ Lexington and Concord
https://www.biography.com/news/paul-reveres-ride-facts
Chapter four= The Declaration of
Independence https://www.google.com/search?q=the+declaration+of+independence&rlz=1CAASUJ_enUS825&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIzp__gJbfAhUmja0KHbk_ArAQ_AUIDigB&biw=1366&bih=697&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=IEAgwgtIrL6mdM:
Chapter four= Battle of Saratoga
https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battle-of-saratoga
Chapter four= The Battle of Yorktown and The Treaty of Paris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhGGlDP6LOU

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Paul Revere's ride/ Lexington and Concord

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Paul Revere's ride/ Lexington and Concord

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(For the articles in chapter 4, all you have to do to fix it, is to open it in a new window)

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the declaration of independence - Google Search

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Battle of Quebec

After a failed Canadian invasion known as the Battle of Quebec (December 1775 - May 1776) left much of the Continental Army beaten, sick and in retreat, the British hoped to quash rebellion once and for all by isolating the New England colonies from the other American colonies.

They also hoped to discourage potential American allies such as France from joining the fight. To accomplish this, the British Redcoats needed to take upstate New York and control the Hudson River.

In the spring of 1777, the British ordered three of their armies to merge in Albany, New York. Only one army, however, commanded by General John Burgoyne, made the final push to its destination. Waiting for them was the heavily-fortified Northern Department of the Continental Army, commanded by General Horatio Gates.

Did you know? To celebrate the American victory at Saratoga, the Continental Congress issued a proclamation for a national day "for solemn Thanksgiving and praise," the first official holiday observance with that name.

First Battle of Saratoga: Freeman's Farm

The opposing armies came face to face on September 19 on the abandoned farm of Loyalist John Freeman near Saratoga, New York. Known as the Battle of Freeman's Farm or the First Battle of Saratoga, the fierce fighting lasted for several hours.

Momentum changed sides several times, but neither side gained significant ground until Burgoyne ordered his column of German troops to support the faltering British line and forced the Americans to pull back. Still, the British suffered twice the number of casualties than the Americans and couldn't continue their drive to Albany.

Battle of Bemis Heights

Burgoyne decided to stay put and wait for reinforcements from New York City. In the meantime, the number of Gates' American troops increased to over 13,000 and continued to grow.

By October 7, with supplies dwindling fast, Burgoyne realized waiting for backup was in vain. He sent out a reconnaissance force to attack the American's left flank in the wooded area of Bemis Heights, south of Saratoga. The Americans got wind of the movement, however, and forced the British to withdraw.

Burgoyne decided to take his army north to safety, but heavy rain and frigid temperatures slowed their retreat. Within two days, Gates' soldiers surrounded what remained of Burgoyne's army. Supporting the Patriot cause was Colonel Thaddeus Kosciusko, a Polish engineer who built strong field fortifications on Bemis Heights overlooking the Hudson River.

Out of supplies and out of options, Burgoyne surrendered his army to Gates on October 17. The battle became known as the Battle of Bemis Heights or the Second Battle of Saratoga.

Benedict Arnold

Benedict Arnold is infamous for betraying his country to the British, but he also played a heroic patriot's role during the American Revolution, including the Battle of Saratoga. Despite being wounded in the leg in the Battle of Quebec and then helping delay a British invasion of New York in late 1776, Arnold was passed up for promotions.

Frustrated, he resigned his commission in July 1777, but General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, refused his request and ordered him north to serve under General Gates.

At best, Arnold and Gates strongly disliked each other and often argued. After the Battle of Freeman's Farm, Gates relieved Arnold of his command. During the Battle of Bemis Heights, however, Arnold supposedly defied Gates' order and led an assault on horseback which helped the Americans win the battle. He severely wounded his leg again during the attack.

Arnold never felt appreciated by his country and eventually became a traitor, threatening everything he'd fought for during his time with the Continental Army. Yet his heroics at the Battle of Saratoga complicate his legacy.

Saratoga National Historical Park

The Saratoga Monument in Saratoga National Historical Park honors key players of the Battle of Saratoga. Its southern niche is empty in recognition of Arnold's conflicting roles of top general and turncoat.

A memorial statue of a lone boot, also located in Saratoga National Historical Park, represents Arnold's actions and leg wound at Saratoga. Neither the Boot Monument nor the southern niche bears Arnold's name.

Who Won the Battle of Saratoga?

Despite being overcome during the Battle of Freeman's Farm, the Continental Army persevered and won a decisive victory at the Battle of Saratoga. They decimated Burgoyne's troops, cut off supply routes, and Burgoyne never received his promised and desperately needed reinforcements.

The Redcoats had planned a divide-and-conquer attack against the Americans in upstate New York. However, a series of British mishaps and delays, as well as offensive actions taken by the Continental Army, forced Burgoyne's troops to fight Gates' fast-growing army alone, greatly diminishing any possibility of British success.

Significance of the Battle of Saratoga

The Battle of Saratoga was a turning point in the American Revolution. It gave the Patriots a major morale boost and persuaded the French, Spanish and Dutch to join their cause against a mutual rival.

France's naval support eventually helped the Continental Army win the final Battle of Yorktown, leading to the end of the American Revolution.

Sources

Benedict Arnold. Mountvernon.org.
Saratoga: Freeman's Farm/Bemis Heights. American Battlefield Trust.
Saratoga National Historic Park New York: Saratoga Monument. National Park Service.
Saratoga National Historic Park New York: History and Culture. National Park Service.
The Battle of Freeman's Farm. Alabama Sons of the American Revolution.
The Battle of Saratoga. Saratoga.org.
The Battle of Saratoga. The Saratoga County Chamber.

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Battle of Saratoga - Definition, Significance & Date

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The Battle of Saratoga occurred in 1777 during the Revolutionary War. It was a decisive victory for the Continental Army and a crucial turning point in the war.

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The Battle of Yorktown and The Treaty of Paris

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The Battle of Yorktown and The Treaty of Paris

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The Great Compromise Explained in 5 Minutes: US History Review

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federalism, mode of political organization that unites separate states or other polities within an overarching political system in a way that allows each to maintain its own integrity. Federal systems do this by requiring that basic policies be made and implemented through negotiation in some form, so that all the members can share in making and executing decisions. The political principles that animate federal systems emphasize the primacy of bargaining and negotiated coordination among several power centres; they stress the virtues of dispersed power centres as a means for safeguarding individual and local liberties.

The various political systems that call themselves federal differ in many ways. Certain characteristics and principles, however, are common to all truly federal systems.

Written constitution

First, the federal relationship must be established or confirmed through a perpetual covenant of union, usually embodied in a written constitution that outlines the terms by which power is divided or shared; the constitution can be altered only by extraordinary procedures. These constitutions are distinctive in being not simply compacts between rulers and ruled but involving the people, the general government, and the states constituting the federal union. The constituent states, moreover, often retain constitution-making rights of their own.

Elements maintaining union

Modern federal systems generally provide direct lines of communication between the citizenry and all the governments that serve them. The people may and usually do elect representatives to all the governments, and all of them may and usually do administer programs that directly serve the individual citizen.

The existence of those direct lines of communication is one of the features distinguishing federations from leagues or confederations. It is usually based on a sense of common nationality binding the constituent polities and people together. In some countries this sense of nationality has been inherited, as in Germany, while in the United States, Argentina, and Australia it had to be at least partly invented. Canada and Switzerland have had to evolve this sense in order to hold together strongly divergent nationality groups.

Geographic necessity has played a part in promoting the maintenance of union within federal systems. The Mississippi Valley in the United States, the Alps in Switzerland, the island character of the Australian continent, and the mountains and jungles surrounding Brazil have all been influences promoting unity; so have the pressures for Canadian union arising from that country's situation on the border of the United States and the pressures upon the German states generated by their neighbours to the east and west. In this connection, the necessity for a common defense against common enemies has stimulated federal union in the first place and acted to maintain it.

Elements maintaining noncentralization

The constituent polities in a federal system must be fairly equal in population and wealth or else balanced geographically or numerically in their inequalities. In the United States, each geographic section has included both great and small states. In Canada, the ethnic differences between the two largest and richest provinces have prevented them from combining against the others. Swiss federalism has been supported by the existence of groups of cantons of different sizes and religio-linguistic backgrounds. Similar distributions exist in every other successful federal system.

A major reason for the failure of federal systems has often been a lack of balance among the constituent polities. In the German federal empire of the late 19th century, Prussia was so dominant that the other states had little opportunity to provide national leadership or even a reasonably strong alternative to the policy of the king and government. During the Soviet era (1917-90/91), the existence of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic-occupying three-fourths of the area and containing three-fifths of the population-severely limited the possibility of authentic federal relationships in that country even if the communist system had not.

Successful federal systems have also been characterized by the permanence of their internal boundaries. Boundary changes may occur, but such changes are made only with the consent of the polities involved and are avoided except in extreme situations.

In a few very important cases, noncentralization is given support through the constitutionally guaranteed existence of different systems of law in the constituent polities. In the United States, each state's legal system stems directly and to a certain extent uniquely from English (and, in one case, French) law, while federal law occupies only an interstitial position binding the systems of the 50 states together. The resulting mixture of laws keeps the administration of justice substantially noncentralized, even in federal courts. In Canada, the existence of common-law and civil-law systems side by side has contributed to French-Canadian cultural survival. Federal systems more often provide for modification of national legal codes by the subnational governments to meet special local needs, as in Switzerland.

The point has often been made that in a truly federal system the constituent polities must have substantial influence over the formal or informal constitutional-amending process. Since constitutional changes are often made without formal constitutional amendment, the position of the constituent polities must be such that serious changes in the political order can be made only by the decision of dispersed majorities that reflect the areal division of powers. Federal theorists have argued that this is important for popular government as well as for federalism.

Noncentralization is also strengthened by giving the constituent polities guaranteed representation in the national legislature and often by giving them a guaranteed role in the national political process. The latter is guaranteed in the written constitutions of the United States and Switzerland. In other systems, such as those of Canada and Latin America, the constituent polities have acquired certain powers of participation, and these have become part of the unwritten constitution.

Perhaps the most important single element in the maintenance of federal noncentralization is the existence of a noncentralized party system. Noncentralized parties initially develop out of the constitutional arrangements of the federal compact, but once they have come into existence they tend to be self-perpetuating and to function as decentralizing forces in their own right. The United States and Canada provide examples of the forms that a noncentralized party system may take. In the two-party system of the United States, the parties are actually coalitions of the state parties (which may in turn be dominated by specific local party organizations) and generally function as national units only for the quadrennial presidential elections or for purposes of organizing the national Congress.

In Canada, on the other hand, the parliamentary form of government, with its requirements of party responsibility, means that on the national plane considerably more party cohesiveness must be maintained simply in order to gain and hold power. There has been a fragmentation of the parties along regional or provincial lines. The party victorious in national elections is likely to be the one able to expand its provincial electoral bases temporarily to national proportions.

Federal nations with less-developed party systems frequently gain some of the same decentralizing effects through what has been called caudillismo-in which power is diffused among strong local leaders operating in the constituent polities. Caudillistic noncentralization has apparently existed also in Nigeria and Malaysia.

Elements maintaining the federal principle

Several devices found in federal systems serve to maintain the federal principle itself. Two of these are of particular importance.

The maintenance of federalism requires that the central government and the constituent polities each have substantially complete governing institutions of their own, with the right to modify those institutions unilaterally within limits set by the compact. Both separate legislative and separate administrative institutions are necessary.

The contractual sharing of public responsibilities by all governments in the system appears to be a fundamental characteristic of federalism. Sharing, broadly conceived, includes common involvement in policy making, financing, and administration. Sharing may be formal or informal; in federal systems, it is usually contractual. The contract is used as a legal device to enable governments to engage in joint action while remaining independent entities. Even where there is no formal arrangement, the spirit of federalism tends to infuse a sense of contractual obligation.

Federal systems or systems strongly influenced by federal principles have been among the most stable and long-lasting of polities. But the successful operation of federal systems requires a particular kind of political environment, one that is conducive to popular government and has the requisite traditions of political cooperation and self-restraint. Beyond this, federal systems operate best in societies with sufficient homogeneity of fundamental interests to allow a great deal of latitude to local government and to permit reliance upon voluntary collaboration. The use of force to maintain domestic order is even more inimical to the successful maintenance of federal patterns of government than to other forms of popular government. Federal systems are most successful in societies that have the human resources to fill many public offices competently and the material resources to afford a measure of economic waste as part of the price of liberty.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Federalism | Definition, History, Characteristics, & Facts

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Federalism, mode of political organization that unites separate states or other polities within an overarching political system in a way that allows each to maintain its own integrity. Learn more about the history and characteristics of federalism in this article.

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Learn about the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. government.

The Constitution of the United States divides the federal government into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. This ensures that no individual or group will have too much power.

How each branch of government provides checks and balances

The ability of each branch to respond to the actions of the other branches is the system of checks and balances.

Each branch of government can change acts of the other branches:

The president can veto legislation created by Congress. He or she also nominates heads of federal agencies and high court appointees.

Congress confirms or rejects the president's nominees. It can also remove the president from office in exceptional circumstances.

The Justices of the Supreme Court, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, can overturn unconstitutional laws.

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Branches of the U.S. government | USAGov

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Learn about the 3 branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. Understand how each branch of U.S. government provides checks and balances.

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National Center for Constitutional Studies

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*Congress of the United States

begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution. RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz. ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg Speaker of the House of Representatives John Adams, Vice-President of the United States and President of the Senate.

Attest, John Beckley, Clerk of the House of Representatives. Sam. A. Otis Secretary of the Senate. *On September 25, 1789, Congress transmitted to the state legislatures twelve proposed amendments, two of which, having to do with Congressional representation and Congressional pay, were not adopted. The remaining ten amendments became the Bill of Rights.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

A well-regulated M ilitia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear A rms shall not be infringed.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Amendment 6
- Rights of Accused Persons in Criminal Cases

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law.

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Preamble to the Bill of Rights *Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

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Chapter five= The Articles of Confederation
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+articles+of+confederation&rlz=1CAXWWL_enUS835&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwje1pDnvaXgAhVJKawKHeGACwEQ_AUIDigB&biw=1366&bih=697&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=Z1ZYeYUzSK_zsM:
Chapter five= The Great Compromise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTtV9-8jj8k
Chapter five= Federalism
https://www.britannica.com/topic/federalism

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Chapter six= The Separation of Power
https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government
Chapter six= The Constitution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mP-nkFg5_E
Chapter six= The Bill of Rights
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/bill-of-rights-amendments-1-10

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(click read full report at the bottom)

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The Rise and Fall of Political Parties in America

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If there is one thing about politics that unites Americans these days, it is their contempt for political parties and partisanship. More Americans today identify as independents than with either of the two major political parties. Citizens boast that they "vote for the person, not for the party," and denounce fellow citizens or representatives who blindly toe the party line.

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Chapter 7/9= The rise of political powers
https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/the-rise-and-fall-political-parties-america
Chapter 7/9= Louisiana Purchase
https://www.google.com/search?q=louisiana+purchase&rlz=1CAXWWL_enUS846&complete=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4guzxzuThAhVNhOAKHRIxBdwQ_AUIDigB&biw=1366&bih=697&surl=1&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=KYn-c0hDriwwlM:
Chapter 7/9= The Corps of Discovery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrdo7i9LOXM
Chapter 7/9= The War of 1812
https://www.history.com/topics/war-of-1812/war-of-1812
Chapter 7/9= The Monroe Doctorine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apKiEixzyDs
Chapter 7/9= Nationalism vs Sectionalism
V

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Table of Contents

1. Causes of the War of 1812

2. The War of 1812 Breaks Out

3. War of 1812: Mixed Results for American Forces

4. Inspiration for 'The Star Spangled Banner'

5. End of the War of 1812 and Its Impact

6. Impact of the War of 1812

In the War of 1812, the United States took on the greatest naval power in the world, Great Britain, in a conflict that would have an immense impact on the young country's future. Causes of the war included British attempts to restrict U.S. trade, the Royal Navy's impressment of American seamen and America's desire to expand its territory.

The United States suffered many costly defeats at the hands of British, Canadian and Native American troops over the course of the War of 1812, including the capture and burning of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., in August 1814. Nonetheless, American troops were able to repulse British invasions in New York, Baltimore and New Orleans, boosting national confidence and fostering a new spirit of patriotism. The ratification of the Treaty of Ghent on February 17, 1815, ended the war but left many of the most contentious questions unresolved. Nonetheless, many in the United States celebrated the War of 1812 as a "second war of independence," beginning an era of partisan agreement and national pride.

Causes of the War of 1812

At the outset of the 19th century, Great Britain was locked in a long and bitter conflict with Napoleon Bonaparte's France. In an attempt to cut off supplies from reaching the enemy, both sides attempted to block the United States from trading with the other. In 1807, Britain passed the Orders in Council, which required neutral countries to obtain a license from its authorities before trading with France or French colonies. The Royal Navy also outraged Americans by its practice of impressment, or removing seamen from U.S. merchant vessels and forcing them to serve on behalf of the British.

In 1809, the U.S. Congress repealed Thomas Jefferson 's unpopular Embargo Act, which by restricting trade had hurt Americans more than either Britain or France. Its replacement, the Non-Intercourse Act, specifically prohibited trade with Britain and France. It also proved ineffective, and in turn was replaced with a May 1810 bill stating that if either power dropped trade restrictions against the United States, Congress would in turn resume non-intercourse with the opposing power.

After Napoleon hinted he would stop restrictions, President James Madison blocked all trade with Britain that November. Meanwhile, new members of Congress elected that year-led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun-had begun to agitate for war, based on their indignation over British violations of maritime rights as well as Britain's encouragement of Native American hostility against American westward expansion.

Did you know? The War of 1812 produced a new generation of great American generals, including Andrew Jackson, Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott, and helped propel no fewer than four men to the presidency: Jackson, John Quincy Adams, James Monroe and William Henry Harrison.

The War of 1812 Breaks Out

In the fall of 1811, Indiana's territorial governor William Henry Harrison led U.S. troops to victory in the Battle of Tippecanoe. The defeat convinced many Indians in the Northwest Territory (including the celebrated Shawnee chief Tecumseh) that they needed British support to prevent American settlers from pushing them further out of their lands.

Meanwhile, by late 1811 the so-called "War Hawks" in Congress were putting more and more pressure on Madison, and on June 18, 1812, the president signed a declaration of war against Britain. Though Congress ultimately voted for war, both House and Senate were bitterly divided on the issue. Most Western and Southern congressmen supported war, while Federalists (especially New Englanders who relied heavily on trade with Britain) accused war advocates of using the excuse of maritime rights to promote their expansionist agenda.

In order to strike at Great Britain, U.S. forces almost immediately attacked Canada, which was then a British colony. American officials were overly optimistic about the invasion's success, especially given how underprepared U.S. troops were at the time. On the other side, they faced a well-managed defense coordinated by Sir Isaac Brock, the British soldier and administrator in charge in Upper Canada (modern Ontario).

On August 16, 1812, the United States suffered a humiliating defeat after Brock and Tecumseh's forces chased those led by Michigan William Hull across the Canadian border, scaring Hull into surrendering Detroit without any shots fired.

War of 1812: Mixed Results for American Forces

Things looked better for the United States in the West, as Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's brilliant success in the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813 placed the Northwest Territory firmly under American control. Harrison was subsequently able to retake Detroit with a victory in the Battle of Thames (in which Tecumseh was killed). Meanwhile, the U.S. navy had been able to score several victories over the Royal Navy in the early months of the war. With the defeat of Napoleon's armies in April 1814, however, Britain was able to turn its full attention to the war effort in North America.

As large numbers of troops arrived, British forces raided the Chesapeake Bay and moved in on the U.S. capital, capturing Washington, D.C., on August 24, 1814, and burning government buildings including the Capitol and the White House.

Inspiration for 'The Star Spangled Banner'

On September 11, 1814, at the Battle of Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain in New York, the American navy soundly defeated the British fleet. And on September 13, 1814, Baltimore's Fort McHenry withstood 25 hours of bombardment by the British Navy.

The following morning, the fort's soldiers hoisted an enormous American flag, a sight that inspired Francis Scott Key to write a poem that would later be set to music and become known as " The Star-Spangled Banner." (Set to the tune of an old English drinking song, it would later be adopted as the U.S. national anthem.) British forces subsequently left the Chesapeake Bay and began gathering their efforts for a campaign against New Orleans.

End of the War of 1812 and Its Impact

By that time, peace talks had already begun at Ghent (modern Belgium), and Britain moved for an armistice after the failure of the assault on Baltimore. In the negotiations that followed, the United States gave up its demands to end impressment, while Britain promised to leave Canada's borders unchanged and abandon efforts to create an Indian state in the Northwest. On December 24, 1814, commissioners signed the Treaty of Ghent, which would be ratified the following February.

On January 8, 1815, unaware that peace had been concluded, British forces mounted a major attack in the Battle of New Orleans, only to meet with defeat at the hands of future U.S. president Andrew Jackson 's army. News of the battle boosted sagging U.S. morale and left Americans with the taste of victory, despite the fact that the country had achieved none of its pre-war objectives.

Impact of the War of 1812

Though the War of 1812 is remembered as a relatively minor conflict in the United States and Britain, it looms large for Canadians and for Native Americans, who see it as a decisive turning point in their losing struggle to govern themselves. In fact, the war had a far-reaching impact in the United States, as the Treaty of Ghent ended decades of bitter partisan infighting in government and ushered in the so-called "Era of Good Feelings."

The war also marked the demise of the Federalist Party, which had been accused of being unpatriotic for its antiwar stance, and reinforced a tradition of Anglophobia that had begun during the Revolutionary War. Perhaps most importantly, the war's outcome boosted national self-confidence and encouraged the growing spirit of American expansionism that would shape the better part of the 19th century.

HISTORY Vault

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In the War of 1812, the United States took on the greatest naval power in the world, Great Britain, in a conflict that would have an immense impact on the young country's future.

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To print the story please do so via the link in the story toolbar.

Read through the timeline and answer the questions in your notebook.

Henry Clay, a representative from Kentucky, was a strong nationalist. He presented a plan to President Madison to strengthen the country and unify its different regions. The plan was to help the country prosper and grow by itself, without foreign products.

The plan, known as the American System, included 3 main actions:

1. Establish a protective tariff - a tax on imported goods. It made European goods more expensive than American goods. It encouraged Americans to buy cheaper American-made products.

2. Establish a national bank - This would promote a single currency, making trade easier. In 1816, Congress set up the Second Bank of the United States.

3. Improve the country's transportation systems - Poor roads made transportation slow and costly.

Water transportation improved as well. The period of 1825-1850 is often called the Age of Canals. Completed in 1825 was the massive Erie Canal. This canal created a water route between New York City and Buffalo, New York. The canal opened the upper Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes region to settlement and trade. It also helped nationalism by bringing these two sections of the country together.

Trade stimulated by the canal helped New York City become the nation's largest city.

The nationalist spirit also made U.S. leaders want to expand the country's borders. To get this done, they would have to reach agreements with Britain and Spain.

One agreement with Britain, set the 49th parallel as the U.S.-Canadian border as far west as the Rocky Mountains.

U.S. relations with Spain were tense. The two nations disagreed on the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase and who owned West Florida. In 1817, President Monroe ordered General Andrew Jackson to stop Seminole raids on white settlements in Georgia, but do not confront the Spanish. Jackson followed the Seminoles into Spanish territory and claimed Florida for the U.S.

Monroe then ordered Jackson to withdraw but gave Spain a choice. They could police Florida or turn it over to the U.S. Spain decided to hand Florida over to the U.S. and also gave up claims to the Oregon Country.

Sectionalism became a major issue when Missouri applied for statehood in 1817. People living in Missouri wanted to allow slavery in their state. At the time, the U.S. had 11 slave states and 11 free states. Adding Missouri would upset the balance of power in Congress.

For months the country argued over admitting Missouri as a slave state or free state. At the same time, Maine, which had been part of Massachusetts, also wanted statehood.

Henry Clay suggested that Missouri be admitted as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Congress passed Clay's plan, known as the Missouri Compromise. It kept the balance of power in Senate between slave and free states. It also called for slavery to be banned from the Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36/30, Missouri's southern border.

The nation felt threatened not only by sectionalism, but be events elsewhere in the Americas. Latin America had won their independence from Spain and Portugal. Some European monarchies planned to help Spain and Portugal regain their colonies. U.S. leaders feared that if this happened, their own government would be in danger.

In December 1823, President Monroe issued a statement that became known as the Monroe Doctrine. Monroe said that the Americas were closed to further colonization. He also warned that European efforts to reestablish colonies would be considered "dangerous to our peace and safety." Finally, he promised that the U.S. would stay out of European affairs.

The Monroe Doctrine showed that the U.S. saw itself as a world power and a protector of Latin America.

Henry Clay, a representative from Kentucky, was a strong nationalist. He presented a plan to President Madison to strengthen the country and unify its different regions. The plan was to help the country prosper and grow by itself, without foreign products.

The plan, known as the American System, included 3 main actions:

1. Establish a protective tariff - a tax on imported goods. It made European goods more expensive than American goods. It encouraged Americans to buy cheaper American-made products.

2. Establish a national bank - This would promote a single currency, making trade easier. In 1816, Congress set up the Second Bank of the United States.

3. Improve the country's transportation systems - Poor roads made transportation slow and costly.

Water transportation improved as well. The period of 1825-1850 is often called the Age of Canals. Completed in 1825 was the massive Erie Canal. This canal created a water route between New York City and Buffalo, New York. The canal opened the upper Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes region to settlement and trade. It also helped nationalism by bringing these two sections of the country together.

Trade stimulated by the canal helped New York City become the nation's largest city.

The nationalist spirit also made U.S. leaders want to expand the country's borders. To get this done, they would have to reach agreements with Britain and Spain.

One agreement with Britain, set the 49th parallel as the U.S.-Canadian border as far west as the Rocky Mountains.

U.S. relations with Spain were tense. The two nations disagreed on the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase and who owned West Florida. In 1817, President Monroe ordered General Andrew Jackson to stop Seminole raids on white settlements in Georgia, but do not confront the Spanish. Jackson followed the Seminoles into Spanish territory and claimed Florida for the U.S.

Monroe then ordered Jackson to withdraw but gave Spain a choice. They could police Florida or turn it over to the U.S. Spain decided to hand Florida over to the U.S. and also gave up claims to the Oregon Country.

Sectionalism became a major issue when Missouri applied for statehood in 1817. People living in Missouri wanted to allow slavery in their state. At the time, the U.S. had 11 slave states and 11 free states. Adding Missouri would upset the balance of power in Congress.

For months the country argued over admitting Missouri as a slave state or free state. At the same time, Maine, which had been part of Massachusetts, also wanted statehood.

Henry Clay suggested that Missouri be admitted as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Congress passed Clay's plan, known as the Missouri Compromise. It kept the balance of power in Senate between slave and free states. It also called for slavery to be banned from the Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36/30, Missouri's southern border.

The nation felt threatened not only by sectionalism, but be events elsewhere in the Americas. Latin America had won their independence from Spain and Portugal. Some European monarchies planned to help Spain and Portugal regain their colonies. U.S. leaders feared that if this happened, their own government would be in danger.

In December 1823, President Monroe issued a statement that became known as the Monroe Doctrine. Monroe said that the Americas were closed to further colonization. He also warned that European efforts to reestablish colonies would be considered "dangerous to our peace and safety." Finally, he promised that the U.S. would stay out of European affairs.

The Monroe Doctrine showed that the U.S. saw itself as a world power and a protector of Latin America.

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Read through the timeline and answer the questions in your notebook. Question #4: what was the main message of the Monroe Doctrine and who was it directed towards? Question #3: Why was it so important to Southerners to admit Missouri as a slave state? Sectionalism became a major issue when Missouri applied for statehood in 1817.

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An ambiguous, controversial concept, Jacksonian Democracy in the strictest sense refers simply to the ascendancy of Andrew Jackson and the Democratic party after 1828. More loosely, it alludes to the entire range of democratic reforms that proceeded alongside the Jacksonians' triumph-from expanding the suffrage to restructuring federal institutions. From another angle, however, Jacksonianism appears as a political impulse tied to slavery, the subjugation of Native Americans, and the celebration of white supremacy-so much so that some scholars have dismissed the phrase "Jacksonian Democracy" as a contradiction in terms.

Such tendentious revisionism may provide a useful corrective to older enthusiastic assessments, but it fails to capture a larger historical tragedy: Jacksonian Democracy was an authentic democratic movement, dedicated to powerful, at times radical, egalitarian ideals-but mainly for white men.

Socially and intellectually, the Jacksonian movement represented not the insurgency of a specific class or region but a diverse, sometimes testy national coalition. Its origins stretch back to the democratic stirrings of the American Revolution, the Antifederalists of the 1780s and 1790s, and the Jeffersonian Democratic Republicans. More directly, it arose out of the profound social and economic changes of the early nineteenth century.

Recent historians have analyzed these changes in terms of a market revolution. In the Northeast and Old Northwest, rapid transportation improvements and immigration hastened the collapse of an older yeoman and artisan economy and its replacement by cash-crop agriculture and capitalist manufacturing. In the South, the cotton boom revived a flagging plantation slave economy, which spread to occupy the best lands of the region. In the West, the seizure of lands from Native Americans and mixed-blood Hispanics opened up fresh areas for white settlement and cultivation-and for speculation.

Not everyone benefited equally from the market revolution, least of all those nonwhites for whom it was an unmitigated disaster. Jacksonianism, however, would grow directly from the tensions it generated within white society. Mortgaged farmers and an emerging proletariat in the Northeast, nonslaveholders in the South, tenants and would-be yeomen in the West-all had reasons to think that the spread of commerce and capitalism would bring not boundless opportunities but new forms of dependence. And in all sections of the country, some of the rising entrepreneurs of the market revolution suspected that older elites would block their way and shape economic development to suit themselves.

By the 1820s, these tensions fed into a many-sided crisis of political faith. To the frustration of both self-made men and plebeians, certain eighteenth-century elitist republican assumptions remained strong, especially in the seaboard states, mandating that government be left to a natural aristocracy of virtuous, propertied gentlemen. Simultaneously, some of the looming shapes of nineteenth-century capitalism-chartered corporations, commercial banks, and other private institutions-presaged the consolidation of a new kind of moneyed aristocracy. And increasingly after the War of 1812, government policy seemed to combine the worst of both old and new, favoring the kinds of centralized, broad constructionist, top-down forms of economic development that many thought would aid men of established means while deepening inequalities among whites. Numerous events during and after the misnamed Era of Good Feelings-among them the neo-Federalist rulings of John Marshall's Supreme Court, the devastating effects of the panic of 1819, the launching of John Quincy Adams's and Henry Clay's American System-confirmed a growing impression that power was steadily flowing into the hands of a small, self-confident minority.

Proposed cures for this sickness included more democracy and a redirection of economic policy. In the older states, reformers fought to lower or abolish property requirements for voting and officeholding, and to equalize representation. A new generation of politicians broke with the old republican animus against mass political parties. Urban workers formed labor movements and demanded political reforms. Southerners sought low tariffs, greater respect for states' rights, and a return to strict constructionism. Westerners clamored for more and cheaper land and for relief from creditors, speculators, and bankers (above all, the hated Second Bank of the United States).

It has confounded some scholars that so much of this ferment eventually coalesced behind Andrew Jackson-a one-time land speculator, opponent of debtor relief, and fervent wartime nationalist. By the 1820s, however, Jackson's personal business experiences had long since altered his opinions about speculation and paper money, leaving him eternally suspicious of the credit system in general and banks in particular. His career as an Indian fighter and conqueror of the British made him a popular hero, especially among land-hungry settlers. His enthusiasm for nationalist programs had diminished after 1815, as foreign threats receded and economic difficulties multiplied. Above all, Jackson, with his own hardscrabble origins, epitomized contempt for the old republican elitism, with its hierarchical deference and its wariness of popular democracy.

After losing the "corrupt bargain" presidential election of 1824, Jackson expanded upon his political base in the lower and mid-South, pulling together many strands of disaffection from around the country. But in successfully challenging President John Quincy Adams in 1828, Jackson's supporters played mainly on his image as a manly warrior, framing the contest as one between Adams who could write and Jackson who could fight. Only after taking power did the Jacksonian Democracy refine its politics and ideology. Out of that self-definition came a fundamental shift in the terms of national political debate.

The Jacksonians' basic policy thrust, both in Washington and in the states, was to rid government of class biases and dismantle the top-down, credit-driven engines of the market revolution. The war on the Second Bank of the United States and subsequent hard-money initiatives set the tone-an unyielding effort to remove the hands of a few wealthy, unelected private bankers from the levers of the nation's economy. Under the Jacksonians, government-sponsored internal improvements generally fell into disfavor, on the grounds that they were unnecessary expansions of centralized power, beneficial mainly to men with connections. The Jacksonians defended rotation in office as a solvent to entrenched elitism. To aid hard-pressed farmers and planters, they pursued an unrelenting (some say unconstitutional) program of Indian removal, while backing cheap land prices and settlers' preemption rights.

Around these policies, Jacksonian leaders built a democratic ideology aimed primarily at voters who felt injured by or cut off from the market revolution. Updating the more democratic pieces of the republican legacy, they posited that no republic could long survive without a citizenry of economically independent men. Unfortunately, they claimed, that state of republican independence was exceedingly fragile. According to the Jacksonians, all of human history had involved a struggle between the few and the many, instigated by a greedy minority of wealth and privilege that hoped to exploit the vast majority. And this struggle, they declared, lay behind the major problems of the day, as the "associated wealth" of America sought to augment its domination.

The people's best weapons were equal rights and limited government-ensuring that the already wealthy and favored classes would not enrich themselves further by commandeering, enlarging, and then plundering public institutions. More broadly, the Jacksonians proclaimed a political culture predicated on white male equality, contrasting themselves with other self-styled reform movements. Nativism, for example, struck them as a hateful manifestation of elitist puritanism. Sabbatarians, temperance advocates, and other would-be moral uplifters, they insisted, should not impose righteousness on others. Beyond position-taking, the Jacksonians propounded a social vision in which any white man would have the chance to secure his economic independence, would be free to live as he saw fit, under a system of laws and representative government utterly cleansed of privilege.

As Jacksonian leaders developed these arguments, they roused a noisy opposition-some of it coming from elements of the coalition that originally elected Jackson president. Reactionary southern planters, centered in South Carolina, worried that the Jacksonians' egalitarianism might endanger their own prerogatives-and perhaps the institution of slavery-if southern nonslaveholders carried them too far. They also feared that Jackson, their supposed champion, lacked sufficient vigilance in protecting their interests-fears that provoked the nullification crisis in 1832-1833 and Jackson's crushing of extremist threats to federal authority. A broader southern opposition emerged in the late 1830s, mainly among wealthy planters alienated by the disastrous panic of 1837 and suspicious of Jackson's successor, the Yankee Martin Van Buren. In the rest of the country, meanwhile, the Jacksonian leadership's continuing hard-money, antibank campaigns offended more conservative men-the so-called Bank Democrats-who, whatever their displeasure with the Second Bank of the United States, did not want to see the entire paper money credit system dramatically curtailed.

The oppositionist core, however, came from a cross-class coalition, strongest in rapidly commercializing areas, that viewed the market revolution as the embodiment of civilized progress. Far from pitting the few against the many, oppositionists argued, carefully guided economic growth would provide more for everyone. Government encouragement-in the form of tariffs, internal improvements, a strong national bank, and aid to a wide range of benevolent institutions-was essential to that growth. Powerfully influenced by the evangelical Second Great Awakening, core oppositionists saw in moral reform not a threat to individual independence but an idealistic cooperative effort to relieve human degradation and further expand the store of national wealth. Eager to build up the country as it already existed, they were cool to territorial expansion. Angered by Jackson's large claims for presidential power and rotation in office, they charged that the Jacksonians had brought corruption and executive tyranny, not democracy. Above all, they believed that personal rectitude and industriousness, not alleged political inequalities, dictated men's failures or successes. The Jacksonians, with their spurious class rhetoric, menaced that natural harmony of interests between rich and poor which, if only left alone, would eventually bring widespread prosperity.

By 1840, both the Jacksonian Democracy and its opposite (now organized as the Whig party) had built formidable national followings and had turned politics into a debate over the market revolution itself. Yet less than a decade later, sectional contests linked to slavery promised to drown out that debate and fracture both major parties. In large measure, that turnabout derived from the racial exclusiveness of the Jacksonians' democratic vision.

The Jacksonian mainstream, so insistent on the equality of white men, took racism for granted. To be sure, there were key radical exceptions-people like Frances Wright and Robert Dale Owen-who were drawn to the Democracy's cause. North and South, the democratic reforms achieved by plebeian whites-especially those respecting voting and representation-came at the direct expense of free blacks. Although informed by constitutional principles and genuine paternalist concern, the Jacksonian rationale for territorial expansion assumed that Indians (and, in some areas, Hispanics) were lesser peoples. As for slavery, the Jacksonians were determined, on both practical and ideological grounds, to keep the issue out of national affairs. Few mainstream Jacksonians had moral qualms about black enslavement or any desire to meddle with it where it existed. More important, they believed that the mounting antislavery agitation would distract attention from the artificial inequalities among white men and upset the party's delicate intersectional alliances. Deep down, many suspected that the slavery issue was but a smokescreen thrown up by disgruntled elitists looking to regain the initiative from the real people's cause.

Through the 1830s and 1840s, the mainstream Jacksonian leadership, correctly confident that their views matched those of the white majority, fought to keep the United States a democracy free from the slavery question-condemning abolitionists as fomenters of rebellion, curtailing abolitionist mail campaigns, enforcing the congressional gag rule that squelched debate on abolitionist petitions, while fending off the more extremist proslavery southerners. In all of this fighting, however, the Jacksonians also began to run afoul of their professions about white egalitarianism. Opposing antislavery was one thing; silencing the heretics with gag rules amounted to tampering with white people's equal rights. More important, Jacksonian proexpansionism-what one friendly periodical, the Democratic Review boosted as "manifest destiny"-only intensified sectional rifts. Slaveholders, quite naturally, thought they were entitled to see as much new territory as legally possible opened up to slavery. But that prospect appalled northern whites who had hoped to settle in lily white areas, untroubled by that peculiar institution whose presence (they believed) would degrade the status of white free labor.

It would take until the 1850s before these contradictions fully unraveled the Jacksonian coalition. But as early as the mid-1840s, during the debates over Texas annexation, the Mexican War, and the Wilmot Proviso, sectional cleavages had grown ominous. The presidential candidacy of Martin Van Buren on the Free-Soil ticket in 1848-a protest against growing southern power within the Democracy-amply symbolized northern Democratic alienation. Southern slaveholder Democrats, for their part, began to wonder if anything short of positive federal protection for slavery would spell doom for their class-and the white man's republic. In the middle remained a battered Jacksonian mainstream, ever hopeful that by raising the old issues, avoiding slavery, and resorting to the language of popular sovereignty, the party and the nation might be held together. Led by men like Stephen A. Douglas, these mainstream compromisers held sway into the mid-1850s, but at the cost of constant appeasement of southern concerns, further exacerbating sectional turmoil. Jacksonian Democracy was buried at Fort Sumter, but it had died many years earlier.

There was a grim, ironic justice to the Jacksonians' fate. Having tapped into the disaffection of the 1820s and 1830s and molded it into an effective national party, they advanced the democratization of American politics. By denouncing the moneyed aristocracy and proclaiming the common man, they also helped politicize American life, broadening electoral participation to include an overwhelming majority of the electorate. Yet this very politicization would ultimately prove the Jacksonian Democracy's undoing. Once the slavery issue entered the concerns of even a small portion of the electorate, it proved impossible to remove without trampling on some of the very egalitarian principles the Jacksonians were pledged to uphold.

None of this, however, should be a source of self-satisfaction to modern Americans. Although the Jacksonian Democracy died in the 1850s, it left a powerful legacy, entwining egalitarian aspirations and class justice with the presumptions of white supremacy. Over the decades after the Civil War, that legacy remained a bulwark of a new Democratic party, allying debt-ridden farmers and immigrant workers with the Solid South. The Second Reconstruction of the 1950s and 1960s forced Democrats to reckon with the party's past-only to see party schismatics and Republicans pick up the theme. And at the close of the twentieth century, the tragic mix of egalitarianism and racial prejudice so central to the Jacksonian Democracy still infected American politics, poisoning some of its best impulses with some of its worst.

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Jacksonian Democracy - Definition, Summary & Significance

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Jacksonian Democracy refers to the ascendancy of President Andrew Jackson (in office 1829 -1837)and the Democratic party after the election of 1828. More loosely, it alludes to the entire range of democratic reforms that proceeded during Jacksons' tenure-from expanding suffrage to restructuring federal institutions, but also slavery, the subjugation of Native Americans, and the celebration of white supremacy.

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Chapter 10/11= Jacksonian Democracy
https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/jacksonian-democracy
Chapter 10/11= Native American Removal
https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears
Chapter 10/11= Trails West
https://www.google.com/search?q=trails+west&rlz=1CAXWWL_enUS846&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjem5D8-ObhAhVEQKwKHVayA-oQ_AUIDigB&biw=1366&bih=697&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=Gu8mr4XwK-STVM:
Chapter 10/11=Texas Becomes a Nation
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-early-republic/age-of-jackson/a/annexing-texas
Chapter 10/11= Manifest Destiny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=japRb6U_FuQ
Chapter 10/11= Mexican American War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=japRb6U_FuQ

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The 'Indian Problem'

White Americans, particularly those who lived on the western frontier, often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered: To them, American Indians seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted (and believed they deserved).

Some officials in the early years of the American republic, such as President George Washington, believed that the best way to solve this "Indian problem" was to simply "civilize" the Native Americans. The goal of this civilization campaign was to make Native Americans as much like white Americans as possible by encouraging them convert to Christianity, learn to speak and read English and adopt European-style economic practices such as the individual ownership of land and other property (including, in some instances in the South, enslaved persons).

In the southeastern United States, many Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee people embraced these customs and became known as the "Five Civilized Tribes."

Did you know? Indian removal took place in the Northern states as well. In Illinois and Wisconsin, for example, the bloody Black Hawk War in 1832 opened to white settlement millions of acres of land that had belonged to the Sauk, Fox and other native nations.

But the Native Americans' land, located in parts of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee, was valuable, and it grew to be more coveted as white settlers flooded the region. Many of these whites yearned to make their fortunes by growing cotton, and often resorted to violent means to take land from their Indigenous neighbors. They stole livestock; burned and looted houses and towns; committed mass murder; and squatted on land that did not belong to them.

Worcester v. Georgia

State governments joined in this effort to drive Native Americans out of the South. Several states passed laws limiting Native American sovereignty and rights and encroaching on their territory.

In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the U.S. Supreme Court objected to these practices and affirmed that native nations were sovereign nations "in which the laws of Georgia [and other states] can have no force."

Even so, the maltreatment continued. As President Andrew Jackson noted in 1832, if no one intended to enforce the Supreme Court's rulings (which he certainly did not), then the decisions would "[fall]...still born." Southern states were determined to take ownership of Indian lands and would go to great lengths to secure this territory.

Indian Removal Act

Andrew Jackson had long been an advocate of what he called "Indian removal." As an Army general, he had spent years leading brutal campaigns against the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama and the Seminoles in Florida-campaigns that resulted in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of acres of land from Indian nations to white farmers.

As president, he continued this crusade. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act, which gave the federal government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the "Indian colonization zone" that the United States had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. This "Indian territory" was located in present-day Oklahoma.

The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly, voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to coerce Native nations into giving up their ancestral lands. However, President Jackson and his government frequently ignored the letter of the law and forced Native Americans to vacate lands they had lived on for generations.

Trail of Tears

In the winter of 1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian Territory on foot (some "bound in chains and marched double file," one historian writes), and without any food, supplies or other help from the government.

Thousands of people died along the way. It was, one Choctaw leader told an Alabama newspaper, a "trail of tears and death."

The Indian-removal process continued. In 1836, the federal government drove the Creeks from their land for the last time: 3,500 of the 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma did not survive the trip.

Treaty of New Echota

The Cherokee people were divided: What was the best way to handle the government's determination to get its hands on their territory? Some wanted to stay and fight. Others thought it was more pragmatic to agree to leave in exchange for money and other concessions.

In 1835, a few self-appointed representatives of the Cherokee nation negotiated the Treaty of New Echota, which traded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi - roughly 7 million acres - for $5 million, relocation assistance and compensation for lost property.

To the federal government, the treaty (signed in New Echota, Georgia) was a done deal, but a majority of the Cherokee felt betrayed. Importantly, the negotiators did not represent the tribal government or anyone else. Most Cherokee people considered the Treaty of New Echota fraudulent, and the Cherokee National Council voted in 1836 to reject it.

John Ross

"The instrument in question is not the act of our nation," wrote the nation's principal chief, John Ross, in a letter to the U.S. Senate protesting the Treaty of New Echota. "We are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people." Nearly 16,000 Cherokees signed Ross's petition, but Congress approved the treaty anyway.

By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for Indian Territory. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to expedite the removal process. Scott and his troops forced the Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while his men looted their homes and belongings.

Then, they marched the Indians more than 1,200 miles to Indian Territory. Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera and starvation were epidemic along the way. Historians estimate that more than 5,000 Cherokee died as a result of the journey.

Legacy of the Trail of Tears

By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off of their land in the southeastern states and forced to move across the Mississippi to Indian Territory. The federal government promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, "Indian Country" shrank and shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became a state and Indian Territory was considered lost.

A 2020 decision by the Supreme Court, however, highlighted ongoing interest in Native American territorial rights. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that a huge area of Oklahoma is still considered an American Indian reservation.

This decision left the state of Oklahoma unable to prosecute Native Americans accused of crimes on those tribal lands - only federal and tribal law enforcement can prosecute such crimes. (A later 2022 Supreme Court decision rolled back some provisions of the 2020 court finding.)

The Trail of Tears - actually a network of different routes - is over 5,000 miles long and covers nine states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Today, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail is run by the National Park Service and portions of it are accessible on foot, by horse, by bicycle or by car.

Sources

Trail of Tears. NPS.gov.
Trail of Tears. Museum of the Cherokee Indian.
The Treaty of New Echota and the Trail of Tears. North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
The Treaty That Forced the Cherokee People from Their Homelands Goes on View. Smithsonian Magazine.
Justices rule swath of Oklahoma remains tribal reservation. Associated Press.
Justices limit 2020 ruling on tribal lands in Oklahoma. Associated Press.

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Trail of Tears: Definition, Date & Cherokee Nation - HISTORY

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The Trail of Tears was the deadly route Native Americans were forced to follow when they were pushed off their ancestral lands and into Oklahoma by the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

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Quickly following Texan independence, the United States admitted Texas into the republic as a slave state.

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Manifest Destiny Explained in 5 Minutes: US History Review

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chapter 12/13- The Industrial revolution
https://www.google.com/search?q=industrial+revolution&rlz=1CAXWWL_enUS868&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2sMzxpPHkAhUJi6wKHfE1AYYQ_AUIEigB&biw=1366&bih=697&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=sMbrRDUA2Bu3mM:
chapter 12/13- Interchangeable parts
https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/interchangeable-parts
chapter 12/13- The rise of organized labor
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/history/us-history-ii/industrial-america/the-rise-of-organized-labor
chapter 12/13 The transportation revolution
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-transportation-revolution-turnpikes-to-steamboats-to-railroads.html
chapter 12/13 Eli Whitneys Cotton Gin https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/cotton-gin-patent
chapter 12/13 The Life of a Slave
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcm1mPWk_pM

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Table of Contents

1. Preindustrial Gunmaking

2. Eli Whitney's Impressive Display

3. The Impact of Interchangeable Parts

During the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, machines took over most of the manufacturing work from men, and factories replaced craftsmen's workshops. The event that laid the groundwork for this monumental change was the introduction of interchangeable parts, or pre-manufactured parts that were for all practical purposes identical, into the firearms industry. Interchangeable parts, popularized in America when Eli Whitney used them to assemble muskets in the first years of the 19th century, allowed relatively unskilled workers to produce large numbers of weapons quickly and at lower cost, and made repair and replacement of parts infinitely easier.

Preindustrial Gunmaking

Gunmaking was considered an extremely skilled craft in the 18th century, and firearms, including pistols and muskets, were all constructed by hand. In this way, every gun was a one-of-a-kind possession, and a gun broken could not be easily repaired. At the very least, the process was time consuming and expensive, as the gun had to be brought to a craftsman and repaired to order.

Did you know? Eli Whitney first made his name at the tender age of 27 with his invention of the cotton gin, patented in 1794. This revolutionary device was easily copied, however, and several patent infringement lawsuits gained little to no financial reward for Whitney and his partners.

In the mid-18th century, the French gunsmith Honoré LeBlanc suggested the gun parts be made from standardized patterns, so that all gun parts would follow the same design and could be easily replaced if broken. LeBlanc was not alone in imagining the potential value of this concept; an English naval engineer Samuel Bentham had earlier pioneered the use of uniform parts in the production of wooden pulleys for sailing ships. LeBlanc's idea didn't catch on in the French gun market, however, as competing gunsmiths saw clearly the effect that it would have on their craft. In 1789, Thomas Jefferson, then serving as American minister to France, visited LeBlanc's workshop and was impressed by his methods. Despite LeBlanc's efforts, however, it would be left to another man to fully introduce interchangeable parts into the American-and later the international-weapons industry.

Eli Whitney's Impressive Display

In 1797, when Congress voted to prepare the nation for war with France, including the appropriation of a large amount of funds for new weapons, the young inventor Eli Whitney-already known for his invention of the cotton gin in 1794-seized an opportunity to try to make his fortune. In mid-1798, he obtained a government contract to manufacture 10,000 muskets within an extraordinarily short time frame of less than two years.

By January 1801, Whitney had failed to produce a single one of the promised weapons, and was called to Washington to justify his use of Treasury funds before a group that included outgoing president John Adams and Jefferson, now the president-elect. As the story goes, Whitney put on a display for the group, assembling muskets before their eyes by choosing (seemingly at random) from a supply of parts he brought with him. The performance earned Whitney widespread renown and renewed federal support. It was later proven, however, that Whitney's demonstration was a fake, and that he had marked the parts beforehand and they were not exactly interchangeable. Still, Whitney received credit for what Jefferson claimed was the dawn of the machine age.

The Impact of Interchangeable Parts

Whitney proved to be an effective businessman and manager, dividing labor efficiently among his largely unskilled work force and building precision equipment that enabled the production of large numbers of identical parts quickly and at a relatively low cost. The last of the 10,000 muskets that Whitney had promised in his original contract came in eight years late, but were judged to be of superior quality, and he produced 15,000 more within the next four years.

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Preindustrial Gunmaking Eli Whitney's Impressive Display The Impact of Interchangeable Parts During the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, machines took over most of the manufacturing work from men, and factories replaced craftsmen's workshops. The event that laid the groundwork for this monumental change was the introduction of interchangeable parts, or pre-manufactured parts that were for all practical purposes identical, into the firearms industry.

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The typical factory worker in the late nineteenth century worked ten hours a day, six days a week. Unskilled workers were paid between $1.00 and $1.50 a day; skilled workers might make twice as much, while women (who became a significant percentage of the labor force after the Civil War), children, and African‐Americans were paid considerably less. Workplace accidents were common, and the idea of compensating workers injured on the job was unheard of at the time. To help each other through illness, injury, and deaths, workers formed mutual benefit societies (often organized along ethnic lines), but the assistance these groups provided was minimal. The most serious problem for factory workers was unemployment. It was common for a worker, particularly an unskilled one, to be out of a job at least part of the year.

Early labor unions. Skilled workers, such as cigarmakers, iron molders, and hat finishers formed the first labor unions before the Civil War. Several of these craft unions (so named because they organized workers within specific craft industries) joined together to form the National Labor Union (NLU) in 1866. Although the organization advocated an eight‐hour workday, it did not support strikes to achieve that goal. The NLU was also concerned with social reform, including equal rights for women, establishing worker cooperatives, and temperance. The union, along with organized labor in general, declined sharply in the wake of the depression of 1873 but not before influencing Congress to enact the eight‐hour day for federal employees (1868).

The Knights of Labor, organized in 1869, is considered to be the first industrial union, open to skilled and unskilled workers, women, and African‐Americans. This inclusive policy contributed to its growth, and the union boasted more than 700,000 members by the mid‐1880s. The program of the Knights of Labor was a combination of reform ideas and specific worker demands. Along with setting up cooperative workshops and calling for the regulation of the railroads, the union wanted an eight‐hour workday, legislation protecting the health and safety of workers, and an end to child labor (for children under the age of 14). To achieve these goals, political action and arbitration between employers and labor representatives were preferred over strikes. The decline of the Knights of Labor after 1886 was due to several factors: the failure of several unauthorized strikes, the growing dissatisfaction of craftsmen who felt the union favored the interests of unskilled workers, and the public perception in the wake of the Haymarket Square Riot (1886) that the Knights supported violence.

On May 4, 1886, a mass meeting of workers was called in Chicago's Haymarket Square to protest the death of a striker at the McCormick Harvester plant. When the police tried to disperse the crowd, someone threw a bomb that killed seven policemen and injured several more. The riot that followed resulted in additional deaths on both sides. Although it was one of the three unions on strike at McCormick, the Knights of Labor had nothing to do with the events in Haymarket Square. This fact did not prevent the union from becoming a victim of the antilabor sentiment that swept the country, and its membership declined rapidly over the next four years.

The American Federation of Labor. Founded in 1886 by Samuel Gompers, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was a federation of skilled workers in national craft unions that maintained their autonomy while working together to promote labor legislation and support strikes. In contrast to its predecessors, the new union focused exclusively on basic labor issues - the eight‐hour workday, higher wages, better working conditions (particularly plant safety), and the right of workers to organize. To Gompers, who began his career in the cigarmakers union, only craftsmen that could not be easily replaced had the leverage necessary to either bargain effectively with employers or go on strike. The AFL had little more than disdain for unskilled workers or blacks, skilled or not, and did not seriously try to organize women. Although he was an immigrant himself, as were many local union men, Gompers nevertheless strongly supported restrictions on immigration to prevent new arrivals from competing with American workers for jobs. Even though it excluded most of the working class, the AFL became the largest single labor organization in the country by 1900 with over one million members.

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The typical factory worker in the late nineteenth century worked ten hours a day, six days a week. Unskilled workers were paid between $1.00 and $1.50 a day; skilled workers might make twice as much, while women (who became a significant percentage of the labor force after the Civil War), children, and African‐Americans were paid considerably less.

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As Eli Whitney left New England and headed South in 1792, he had no idea that he would patent a machine that would profoundly alter the course of American history. While in the South, Whitney quickly learned that Southern plantation owners were eager for a way to make cotton growing profitable. Whitney knew that if he could invent such a machine, he could apply to the federal government for a patent. Read more... Primary Sources Links go to DocsTeach, the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives.

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America's Journey Through Slavery: The Life Of An Enslaved Person (#GH4974) Trailer

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chapter 14/15 -immigration to the Us in 1800
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/riseind/immgnts/
chapter 14/15- Abolitionist Movement prior to the civil war
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/abolitionist-movement
chapter 14/15- Women Rights Movement In the 1800s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04KR8cPl5XI
chapter 14/15- Compromise of 1850
https://sites.google.com/a/student.ucps.k12.nc.us/the-antebellum-period/compromises/compromise-of-1850
chapter 14/15- Kansas Nebraska Act
http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/kansas.htm
chapter 14/15- Lincoln Douglas debates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LljCzkPasuk
chapter 14/15- Election of 1850
https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1860

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Immigration to the United States in the Late 1800

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Immigration to the United States in the Late 1800

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International Stock Food Factory, between 1900 and 1910
Detroit Publishing Company

In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Old industries expanded and many new ones, including petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and electrical power, emerged. Railroads expanded significantly, bringing even remote parts of the country into a national market economy.

Industrial growth transformed American society. It produced a new class of wealthy industrialists and a prosperous middle class. It also produced a vastly expanded blue collar working class. The labor force that made industrialization possible was made up of millions of newly arrived immigrants and even larger numbers of migrants from rural areas. American society became more diverse than ever before.

Not everyone shared in the economic prosperity of this period. Many workers were typically unemployed at least part of the year, and their wages were relatively low when they did work. This situation led many workers to support and join labor unions. Meanwhile, farmers also faced hard times as technology and increasing production led to more competition and falling prices for farm products. Hard times on farms led many young people to move to the city in search of better job opportunities.

Americans who were born in the 1840s and 1850s would experience enormous changes in their lifetimes. Some of these changes resulted from a sweeping technological revolution. Their major source of light, for example, would change from candles, to kerosene lamps, and then to electric light bulbs. They would see their transportation evolve from walking and horse power to steam-powered locomotives, to electric trolley cars, to gasoline-powered automobiles. Born into a society in which the vast majority of people were involved in agriculture, they experienced an industrial revolution that radically changed the ways millions of people worked and where they lived. They would experience the migration of millions of people from rural America to the nation's rapidly growing cities.

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Overview | Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

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In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Old industries expanded and many new ones, including petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and electrical power, emerged. Railroads expanded significantly, bringing even remote parts of the country into a national market economy. Industrial growth transformed American society.

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Abolitionoist Movement prior to The Civil War

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Abolitionoist Movement prior to The Civil War

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What Is an Abolitionist?

An abolitionist, as the name implies, is a person who sought to abolish slavery during the 19th century. More specifically, these individuals sought the immediate and full emancipation of all enslaved people.

Most early abolitionists were white, religious Americans, but some of the most prominent leaders of the movement were also Black men and women who had escaped from bondage.

The abolitionists saw slavery as an abomination and an affliction on the United States, making it their goal to eradicate slave ownership. They sent petitions to Congress, ran for political office and inundated people of the South with anti-slavery literature.

These staunch activists wanted to abolish slavery completely, which differed from the ideas of other groups like the Free Soil Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery into U.S. territories and newly formed states such as Kansas.

Did you know? Female abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott went on to become prominent figures in the women's rights movement.

How Did Abolitionism Start?

Opposition to slavery wasn't a new concept when abolitionism started. Since the inception of the Atlantic slave trade, which began in the 16th century, critics voiced their disapproval of the system.

In an early effort to stop slavery, the American Colonization Society, founded in 1816, proposed the idea of freeing slaves and sending them back to Africa. This solution was thought to be a compromise between antislavery activists and slavery supporters.

By 1860, nearly 12,000 African Americans had returned to Africa.

Missouri Compromise

The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which allowed Missouri to become a slave state, further provoked anti-slave sentiment in the North.

The abolitionist movement began as a more organized, radical and immediate effort to end slavery than earlier campaigns. It officially emerged around 1830.

Historians believe ideas set forth during the religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening inspired abolitionists to rise up against slavery. This Protestant revival encouraged the concept of adopting renewed morals, which centered around the idea that all men are created equal in the eyes of God.

Abolitionism started in states like New York and Massachusetts and quickly spread to other Northern states.

Laws Inflame Tensions

In 1850, Congress passed the controversial Fugitive Slave Act, which required all escaped enslaved people to be returned to their owners and American citizens to cooperate with the captures.

Seven years later, the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that Black people-free or enslaved-didn't have legal citizenship rights. Owners of enslaved people were also granted the right to take their enslaved workers to Western territories. These legal actions and court decisions sparked outrage among abolitionists.

Famous Abolitionists

Many Americans, including free and formerly enslaved people, worked tirelessly to support the abolitionist movement. Some of the most famous abolitionists included:

William Lloyd Garrison: A very influential early abolitionist, Garrison started a publication called The Liberator, which supported the immediate freeing of all enslaved men and women.

Frederick Douglass: Douglass escaped slavery himself and published a memoir titled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. An instrumental figure in the abolitionist movement, he also supported women's suffrage.

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Stowe was an author and abolitionist who was best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Susan B. Anthony: Anthony was an author, speaker and women's rights activist who also supported the abolitionist movement. She is revered for her diligent efforts in fighting for women's rights to vote.

: Brown was a radical abolitionist who organized various raids and uprisings, including an infamous raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

Harriet Tubman: Tubman was a fugitive enslaved person and abolitionist who was known for helping escaped enslaved people reach the North via the Underground Railroad network.

Sojourner Truth: Best known for her speech, "Ain't I a Woman?," Truth was both an abolitionist and a women's rights advocate.

Rift Widens Between North and South

As it gained momentum, the abolitionist movement caused increasing friction between states in the North and the slave-owning South. Critics of abolition argued that it contradicted the U.S. Constitution, which left the option of slavery up to individual states.

Abolitionism was illegal in the South, and President Andrew Jackson banned the U.S. Postal Service from delivering any publications that supported the movement.

In 1833, a white student at Lane Theological Seminary named Amos Dresser was publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee, for possessing abolitionist literature while traveling through the city.

Elijah Lovejoy

In 1837, a pro-slavery mob attacked a warehouse in Alton, Illinois, in an attempt to destroy abolitionist press materials. During the raid, they shot and killed newspaper editor and abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy.

After the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was passed, both pro- and anti-slavery groups inhabited the Kansas Territory. In 1856, a pro-slavery group attacked the town of Lawrence, which was founded by abolitionists from Massachusetts. In retaliation, abolitionist John Brown organized a raid that killed five pro-slavery settlers.

Then, in 1859, Brown led 21 men to capture the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He and his followers were seized by a group of Marines and convicted of treason. Brown was hanged for the crime.

The Civil War and Its Aftermath

President Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery but was cautious about fully supporting the more radical ideas of the abolitionists. As the power struggle between the North and the South reached its peak, the Civil War broke out in 1861.

As the bloody war waged on, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, calling for the freeing of enslaved people in areas of the rebellion. And in 1865, the Constitution was ratified to include the Thirteenth Amendment, which officially abolished all forms of slavery in the United States.

Abolitionist Movement Ends

Though the abolitionist movement seemed to dissolve after the addition of the Thirteenth Amendment, many historians argue that the effort didn't completely cease until the 1870 passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which extended voting rights to Black men. Meanwhile, the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including former enslaved people.

When slavery officially ended, many prominent abolitionists turned their focus to women's rights issues. Historians believe that the experiences and lessons learned during the abolitionist movement paved the way for leaders who were eventually successful in the women's suffrage movements.

Abolitionist ideals and traditions also served as a model for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP), which was formed in 1909.

HISTORY Vault: Black History

Sources

Abolition and the Abolitionists. National Geographic.
Early abolition. Khan Academy.
Abolitionist Sentiment Grows. UShistory.org.

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Abolitionist Movement - Definition & Famous Abolitionists | HISTORY

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The abolitionist movement was the effort to end slavery, led by famous abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and John Brown.

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Sound Smart: The 19th Amendment | History

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Compromise of 1850 - The Antebellum Period

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The compromise of 1850 was developed in order to resolve the divisions of slavery in territory gained in the Mexican American War. It constituted of laws admitting California as a free state.

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The History Place - Abraham Lincoln: Kansas-Nebraska Act

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Sound Smart: The Lincoln-Douglass Debates | History

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Who were the candidates in the United States presidential election of 1860?

Why was the U.S. presidential election of 1860 important?

What was the outcome of the U.S. presidential election of 1860?

What was the "Team of Rivals"?

United States presidential election of 1860, American presidential election held on November 6, 1860, in which Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. The electoral split between Northern and Southern Democrats was emblematic of the severe sectional split, particularly over slavery, and in the months following Lincoln's election (and before his inauguration in March 1861) seven Southern states, led by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, seceded, setting the stage for the American Civil War (1861-65).

The conventions

Following on the heels of the Dred Scott decision of 1857, in which the U.S. Supreme Court voided the Missouri Compromise (1820), thus making slavery legal in all U.S. territories, the election of 1860 was sure to further expose sectional differences between those, especially (but not solely) in the North, who wanted to abolish slavery and those who sought to protect the institution. The Democratic Party held its convention in April-May 1860 in Charleston, S.C., where a disagreement over the official party policy on slavery prompted dozens of delegates from Southern states to withdraw. Unable to nominate a candidate (Sen. Stephen A. Douglas received a majority of the delegates' support but could not amass the required two-thirds majority needed for nomination), Democrats held a second convention in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18-23, though many of the Southern delegates failed to attend. At Baltimore the Democrats nominated Douglas, who easily defeated Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge, the sitting vice president of the United States. Trying to unite Northern and Southern Democrats, the convention then turned for vice president first to Sen. Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabama, who declined nomination, and eventually to Herschel V. Johnson, a former U.S. senator and former governor of Georgia, who was chosen as Douglas's running mate. Disaffected Democrats, largely Southerners, then nominated Breckinridge, with Sen. Joseph Lane of Oregon as his running mate. Both Douglas and Breckinridge claimed to be the official Democratic candidates.

The Republican convention was held in Chicago on May 16-18. The party, which had formed only in the 1850s, was largely opposed to the extension of slavery in the U.S. territories. Though many party members favoured the total abolition of slavery, the party pragmatically did not call for abolition in those states that already had slavery. Entering the convention, Sen. William H. Seward of New York was considered the favourite for the nomination, and on the first ballot he led Abraham Lincoln, who had been defeated in Illinois in 1858 for the U.S. Senate by Douglas, as well as a host of other candidates. On a second ballot the gap between Seward and Lincoln narrowed, and Lincoln was subsequently nominated on the third ballot. Sen. Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated as Lincoln's running mate.

Trying to transcend the sectional divide was the Constitutional Union Party, which was formed in 1859 by former Whigs and members of the Know-Nothing Party. The Constitutional Unionists named former senators John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts as their presidential and vice presidential nominees, respectively. The party's platform particularly appealed to border states in its attempt to ignore the slavery issue and focus instead on fealty to the U.S. Constitution:

U.S. Presidential History Quiz

Resolved, that it is both the part of patriotism and of duty to recognize no political principles other than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws; and that, as representatives of the Constitutional Union men of the country in national convention assembled, we hereby pledge ourselves to maintain, protect, and defend, separately and unitedly, these great principles of public liberty and national safety against all enemies, at home and abroad, believing that thereby peace may once more be restored to the country, the rights of the people and of the states reestablished, and the government again placed in that condition of justice, fraternity, and equality which, under the example and Constitution of our fathers, has solemnly bound every citizen of the United States to maintain a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

The campaign

After his nomination, Lincoln put aside his law practice and ran a stay-at-home campaign, in which he made no stump speeches, though he did give full time to the direction of his campaign. His "main object," he had written, was to "hedge against divisions in the Republican ranks," and he counseled party workers to "say nothing on points where it is probable we shall disagree." With Republicans united, and with division within the Democratic Party and surrounding Bell's candidacy, the primary fear that Republicans had was that some disunity might appear and hamper their chances. Breckinridge also did little campaigning, giving only one speech. Douglas, however, was an active campaigner, in both the North and the South, where he gave a passionate defense of the Union and strenuously opposed secession. Still, much of the campaigning that did follow consisted of parades and rallies that boosted interest in the election (on election day some four-fifths of eligible voters turned out).

Despite four main candidates (and Douglas's forays into the South), the contests in the states were sectionally fought, with Douglas and Lincoln dominant in the North and Breckinridge and Bell dueling for support in the South. On election day Lincoln captured slightly less than 40 percent of the vote, but he won a majority in the electoral college, with 180 electoral votes, by sweeping the North (with the exception of New Jersey, which he split with Douglas) and also winning the Pacific Coast states of California and Oregon. Douglas won nearly 30 percent of the vote but won only Missouri's 12 electoral votes. Breckinridge, with 18 percent of the national vote, garnered 72 electoral votes, winning most of the states in the South as well as Delaware and Maryland. Bell, who won 12.6 percent of the vote, secured 39 electoral votes by winning Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. The results in the South are instructive in understanding the deep sectional divide. Lincoln did not win any votes in any state that would form the Confederacy, with the exception of Virginia, where he garnered only 1 percent of the total vote (Douglas won slightly less than 10 percent). By the time of Lincoln's inauguration in March, seven Southern states had seceded, and barely a month after Lincoln became president, the country became engaged in civil war.

The 1860 election is regarded by most political observers as the first of three "critical" elections in the United States-contests that produced sharp and enduring changes in party loyalties across the country (although some analysts consider the election of 1824 to have been the first critical election). After 1860 the Democratic and Republican parties became the major parties in a largely two-party system. In federal elections from the 1870s to the 1890s, the parties were in rough balance-except in the South, which became solidly Democratic. The two parties controlled Congress for almost equal periods, though the Democrats held the presidency only during the two terms of Grover Cleveland (1885-89 and 1893-97).

For the results of the previous election, see United States presidential election of 1856. For the results of the subsequent election, see United States presidential election of 1864.
Michael Levy

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united states presidential election of 1860

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U.S. Presidential Election of 1860 | Candidates & Results

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U.S. presidential election of 1860, American election in which Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. After Lincoln's election seven Southern states seceded, setting the stage for the American Civil War.

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The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

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SECTION. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

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chapter 16-The fall of ft sumter
https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/fort-sumter
chapter 16- The Emancipation Proclamation
https://www.google.com/search?q=emancipation+proclamation&rlz=1CAXWWL_enUS868&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSi4-AtIDlAhXCnuAKHanKC3QQ_AUIEigB&biw=1366&bih=697&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=RP1xrLzGq9YjQM
chapter 16-Clara Barton and The American Red Cross
https://www.biography.com/activist/clara-barton
Chapter 16- The battle of Gettysburg
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/videos/battle-gettysburg
chapter 16- The battle of Vicksburg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE1bYVwH1jM
chapter 16- Southern Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/appomattox-court-house

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chapter 17-The 13th amendment
https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xiii
chapter 17- the 14th amendment
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+14th+amendment&rlz=1CAXWWL_enUS868&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiszqPLsoDlAhUFOKwKHS2SBIwQ_AUIEigB&biw=1366&bih=697&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=1Wc8lLJLdFwu5M
chapter 17- The 15th amendment
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/civil-war-era/reconstruction/v/reconstruction-amendments-15th-amendment
chapter 17- The election of 1876
https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1876
chapter 17-Plessy vs Ferguson
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson

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The 15th Amendment (video) | Reconstruction | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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United States presidential election of 1876 , disputed American presidential election held on November 7, 1876, in which Republican Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Democrat Samuel J. Tilden . Tilden led Hayes by more than 260,000 popular votes, and preliminary returns showed Tilden with 184 electoral votes (one shy of the majority needed to win the election) to Hayes's 165, with the 19 electoral votes of three states (Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina) and one elector from Oregon (originally awarded to Tilden) still in doubt. The U.S. Congress subsequently created an Electoral Commission , which by early March 1877 had resolved all the disputed electoral votes in favour of Hayes, giving him a 185-184 electoral college victory.

The candidates

After the Civil War ended in 1865, the Republicans held a stranglehold on the presidency , with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant winning easily in both 1868 and 1872 . But Grant's administration and the Republicans generally had been beset by scandals and allegations of corruption, such as the Crédit Mobilier Scandal and the Whiskey Ring . The Democrats entered 1876 on an upswing, having won control of the House of Representatives in 1874, and from the outset the election was expected to be competitive.

The Republicans held their convention in Cincinnati, Ohio , in mid-June, and the front-runner for their nomination was James G. Blaine of Maine , the speaker of the House of Representatives. Republican reformers, however, hoped to thwart his nomination. Blaine led after the first ballot but without enough votes to secure the nomination. Among the challengers to Blaine were Roscoe Conkling , a senator from New York and a prominent Republican leader in the post-Civil War period; Oliver H.P.T. Morton , a senator from Indiana and that state's former governor; Benjamin Helm Bristow , the U.S. secretary of the Treasury (1874-76) and successful prosecutor of the Whiskey Ring; and Rutherford B. Hayes, the governor of Ohio. Eventually, with the withdrawal of Bristow, Conkling, and Morton in favour of Hayes, Hayes secured the nomination on the seventh ballot, and William A. Wheeler , a senator from New York, was selected as his running mate. Hayes's unblemished public record and high moral tone (as well as his deep sympathy toward the South) offered a striking contrast to widely publicized accusations of corruption in the Grant administration.

The Democrats held their convention two weeks later in St. Louis , Missouri-the first time a national convention was held west of the Mississippi. Samuel J. Tilden, the governor of New York, strongly appealed to delegates from Southern states, and on the first ballot he led Thomas A. Hendricks , the governor of Indiana. After a second ballot Tilden secured the nomination, and Hendricks was chosen as his running mate.

The platforms

The 1876 election occurred in the midst of an economic depression in the United States and continuing sectional animosity, particularly in the South, where opposition to federal occupation and Reconstruction had grown. Many Republicans had grown weary of Reconstruction and had come to believe that the time for compromise with Southern whites was at hand. Still, the Republicans continued their strong commitment to the civil rights of emancipated slaves, their party platform stating that "the permanent pacification of the Southern section of the Union and the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all their rights, are duties to which the Republican party is sacredly pledged." It further criticized the Democratic Party for its lack of commitment to civil rights, arguing that the "party counts, as its chief hope of success, upon the electoral vote of a united South, secured through the efforts of those who were recently arrayed against the nation and we invoke the earnest attention of the country to the grave truth, that a success thus achieved would reopen sectional strife and imperil national honor and human rights."

Meanwhile, the Democratic platform called for "immediate reform" of the federal government and, to forestall Republican charges of sectionalism, committed itself to the "permanence of the Federal Union." It also called for civil service reform and restrictions on Chinese immigration to the United States.

The disputed election

On election day Tilden led Hayes by more than 260,000 votes and appeared on the verge of winning an electoral college majority, having swept much of the South; he also won the border states and several states in the northeast, including his home state of New York, Connecticut , Delaware , Maryland, and New Jersey . However, three states were in doubt: Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina , with 19 electoral votes among them. The status of one of Oregon's three electors-which had already been given to Tilden-was also in question. Hayes and most of his associates were ready to concede when a New Hampshire Republican leader, William E. Chandler, observed that if Hayes were awarded every one of the doubtful votes, he would defeat Tilden 185-184. Both parties claimed victory in all three Southern states and sent teams of observers and lawyers into all three in hopes of influencing the official canvass.

The impasse continued into December, when the electors were to meet and cast their votes. When Congress convened on December 7, there were rival electoral reports, and, over the next six weeks, maneuvering and acrimony prevailed in Congress, and there were fears that another civil war might break out. On January 29, 1877, Congress created an Electoral Commission to break the deadlock. The commission was to have five members from the House of Representatives, five from the Senate , and five from the Supreme Court. As originally conceived, the commission was to comprise seven Democrats, seven Republicans, and one independent, the Supreme Court justice David Davis . Davis refused to serve, however, after the Republican-controlled legislature of Illinois engineered to have him elected to the state's vacant Senate seat, and Justice Joseph P. Bradley , a Republican, was named in his place by the other four justices.

While the commission was deliberating, Republican allies of Hayes engaged with moderate Southern Democrats in secret negotiations aimed at securing acquiescence to Hayes's election. Although Bradley leaned toward Tilden's claim in Florida, he was swayed to back Hayes, and thereafter every action by the Electoral Commission followed a strict 8-7 split in favour of the Republican claims. When the last issue was resolved after 4 am on March 2, Hayes was declared the winner, with a narrow 185-184 majority, and he was sworn in privately the following day (because March 4 was a Sunday, the public swearing in took place on March 5). Although the result was greeted with outrage and bitterness by some Northern Democrats, who dubbed Hayes "His Fraudulency," Hayes was sworn in without incident. Southern Democrats, however, found relative contentment with the outcome, when, as president, Hayes promptly made good on the secret pledges made during the electoral dispute to withdraw federal troops from states still under military occupation and thus end the era of Reconstruction. Thereafter the Democrats came to dominate what became known as the " Solid South ."

For the results of the previous election, see United States presidential election of 1872 . For the results of the subsequent election, see United States presidential election of 1880 .

Results of the 1876 election

The results of the 1876 U.S. presidential election are provided in the table.

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united states presidential election of 1876

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United States presidential election of 1876 | United States government

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United States presidential election of 1876 , disputed American presidential election held on November 7, 1876, in which Republican Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Democrat Samuel J. Tilden .

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Plessy v. Ferguson: Background and Context

After the Compromise of 1877 led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, Democrats consolidated control of state legislatures throughout the region, effectively marking the end of Reconstruction.

Southern Black people saw the promise of equality under the law embodied by the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment to the Constitution receding quickly, and a return to disenfranchisement and other disadvantages as white supremacy reasserted itself across the South.

As historian C. Vann Woodward pointed out in a 1964 article about Plessy v. Ferguson, white and Black Southerners mixed relatively freely until the 1880s, when state legislatures passed the first laws requiring railroads to provide separate cars for "Negro" or "colored" passengers.

Florida became the first state to mandate segregated railroad cars in 1887, followed in quick succession by Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and other states by the end of the century.

Black Resistance to Segregation

As Southern Black people witnessed with horror the dawn of the Jim Crow era, members of the Black community in New Orleans decided to mount a resistance.

At the heart of the case that became Plessy v. Ferguson was a law passed in Louisiana in 1890 "providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races." It stipulated that all passenger railways had to provide these separate cars, which should be equal in facilities.

Homer Adolph Plessy, who agreed to be the plaintiff in the case aimed at testing the law's constitutionality, was of mixed race; he described himself as "seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood."

On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a ticket on a train from New Orleans bound for Covington, Louisiana, and took a vacant seat in a whites-only car. After refusing to leave the car at the conductor's insistence, he was arrested and jailed.

Convicted by a New Orleans court of violating the 1890 law, Plessy filed a petition against the presiding judge, Hon. John H. Ferguson, claiming that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Supreme Court Ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson

Over the next few years, segregation and Black disenfranchisement picked up pace in the South, and was more than tolerated by the North. Congress defeated a bill that would have given federal protection to elections in 1892, and nullified a number of Reconstruction laws on the books.

Then, on May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Plessy v. Ferguson. In declaring separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads, the Court ruled that the protections of 14th Amendment applied only to political and civil rights (like voting and jury service), not "social rights" (sitting in the railroad car of your choice).

In its ruling, the Court denied that segregated railroad cars for Black people were necessarily inferior. "We consider the underlying fallacy of [Plessy's] argument," Justice Henry Brown wrote, "to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."

John Marshall Harlan's Dissent

Alone in the minority was Justice John Marshall Harlan, a former slaveholder from Kentucky. Harlan had opposed emancipation and civil rights for freed slaves during the Reconstruction era-but changed his position due to his outrage over the actions of white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

Harlan argued in his dissent that segregation ran counter to the constitutional principle of equality under the law: "The arbitrary separation of citizens on the basis of race while they are on a public highway is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution," he wrote. "It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds."

Plessy v. Ferguson Significance

The Plessy v. Ferguson verdict enshrined the doctrine of "separate but equal" as a constitutional justification for segregation, ensuring the survival of the Jim Crow South for the next half-century.

Intrastate railroads were among many segregated public facilities the verdict sanctioned; others included buses, hotels, theaters, swimming pools and schools. By the time of the 1899 case Cummings v. Board of Education, even Harlan appeared to agree that segregated public schools did not violate the Constitution.

It would not be until the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, at the dawn of the civil rights movement, that the majority of the Supreme Court would essentially concur with Harlan's opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson..

Writing the majority opinion in that 1954 case, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that "the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place" in public education, calling segregated schools "inherently unequal," and declaring that the plaintiffs in the Brown case were being "deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment."

Sources

C. Vann Woodward, " Plessy v. Ferguson: The Birth of Jim Crow," American Heritage (Volume 15, Issue 3: April 1964).
Landmark Cases: Plessy v. Ferguson, PBS: The Supreme Court - The First Hundred Years.
Louis Menand, "Brown v. Board of Education and the Limits of Law," The New Yorker (February 12, 2001).
Today in History - May 18: Plessy v. Ferguson, Library of Congress.

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Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate But Equal Doctrine | HISTORY

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Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine.

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Construction and Design

Fort Sumter was first built in the wake of the War of 1812, which had highlighted the United States' lack of strong coastal defenses. Named for Revolutionary War general and South Carolina native Thomas Sumter, the fortification was one of nearly 50 forts built as part of the so-called Third System, a coastal defense program implemented by Congress in 1817.

The three-tiered, five-sided fort's coastal placement was designed to allow it to control access to the vital Charleston Harbor. While the island itself was only 2.4 acres in size, the fort was built to accommodate a garrison of 650 soldiers and 135 artillery pieces.

Did you know? There were no casualties during the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter at the start of the Civil War. The only Union deaths came during the evacuation: One soldier was killed and another mortally wounded in an accidental explosion during a planned 100-gun salute.

Construction of Fort Sumter first began in 1829 in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, on a manmade island built from thousands of tons of granite. Building ground to a halt in the 1830s amid a dispute over ownership of the stretch of the harbor, and did not resume until 1841. Like many Third System fortifications, Fort Sumter proved a costly endeavor, and construction slowed again in 1859 due to lack of funding. By 1860 the island and the outer fortifications were complete, but the fort's interior and armaments remained unfinished.

Fort Moultrie

Construction of Fort Sumter was still underway when South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860. Despite Charleston's position as a major port, at the time only two companies of federal troops guarded the harbor. Commanded by Major Robert Anderson, these companies were stationed at Fort Moultrie, a dilapidated fortification facing the coastline.

Recognizing that Fort Moultrie was vulnerable to a land assault, Anderson elected to abandon it for the more easily defensible Fort Sumter on December 26, 1860. South Carolina militia forces would seize the city's other forts shortly thereafter, leaving Fort Sumter as the lone federal outpost in Charleston.

Battle of Fort Sumter

A standoff ensued until January 9, 1861, when a ship called Star of the West arrived in Charleston with over 200 U.S. troops and supplies intended for Fort Sumter. South Carolina militia batteries fired upon the vessel as it neared Charleston Harbor, forcing it to turn back to sea.

Major Anderson refused repeated calls to abandon Fort Sumter, and by March 1861 there were over 3,000 militia troops besieging his garrison. A number of other U.S. military facilities in the South had already been seized, and Fort Sumter was viewed by many as one of the South's few remaining hurdles to overcome before achieving sovereignty.

With the inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln in March 1861, the situation soon escalated. Knowing that Anderson and his men were running out of supplies, Lincoln announced his intention to send three unarmed ships to relieve Fort Sumter. Having already declared that any attempt to resupply the fort would be seen as an act of aggression, South Carolina militia forces soon scrambled to respond.

Civil War Begins

On April 11, militia commander P.G.T. Beauregard demanded that Anderson surrender the fort, but Anderson again refused. In response Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter shortly after 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861. U.S. Captain Abner Doubleday-later famous for the myth that he invented baseball-ordered the first shots in defense of the fort a few hours later. The first shots of the Civil War had been fired.

Beauregard's 19 coastal batteries unleashed a punishing barrage on Fort Sumter, eventually firing an estimated 3,000 shots at the citadel in 34 hours. By Saturday, April 13, cannon fire had broken through the fortress's five-foot-thick brick walls, causing fires inside the post. With his stores of ammunition depleted, Anderson and his Union forces had to surrender the fort shortly after 2 p.m. in the afternoon.

No Union troops had been killed during the bombardment, but two men died the following day in an explosion that occurred during an artillery salute held before the U.S. evacuation. The bombardment of Fort Sumter would play a major part in triggering the Civil War. In the days following the assault, Lincoln issued a call for Union volunteers to quash the rebellion, while more Southern states including Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee cast their lot with the Confederacy.

Beauregard and Du Pont

Following Beauregard's bombardment in 1861, Confederate forces occupied Fort Sumter and used it to marshal a defense of Charleston Harbor. Once it was completed and better armed, Fort Sumter allowed the Confederates to create a valuable hole in the Union blockade of the Atlantic seaboard.

The first Union assault on occupied Fort Sumter came in April 1863, when Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont attempted a naval attack on Charleston. Commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Du Pont arrived in Charleston with a fleet of nine ironclad warships, seven of which were updated versions of the famed U.S.S. Monitor.

While Du Pont had hoped to recapture Fort Sumter-by then a symbol of the Confederate rebellion-his attack was poorly coordinated and met with unfavorable weather conditions. In collaboration with Fort Sumter, Confederate batteries commanded by P.G.T. Beauregard hammered the ironclad fleet with artillery fire, and underwater mines posed a constant threat to the ships' hulls.

Outgunned and unable to properly maneuver in heavy currents, Du Pont's fleet eventually withdrew from the harbor after taking over 500 hits by Confederate guns. Only one Union soldier was killed during the battle, but one of the ironclads, Keokuk, sank the next day.

Five Confederates were killed during the attack, but the damage to Fort Sumter was soon repaired and its defenses improved. Confederate soldiers even managed to salvage one of Keokuk 's 11-inch Dahlgren guns and mount it on the fortress.
READ MORE: 7 Important Civil War Battles
Fort Wagner

In July 1863, Union troops laid siege to Fort Wagner, a valuable post on Morris Island near the mouth of Charleston Harbor. After being met with heavy fire from Fort Sumter, Union General Quincy Adams Gillmore turned his guns on the fort and unleashed a devastating seven-day bombardment.

On September 8, a force of nearly 400 Union troops attempted to land at Fort Sumter and capture the post by force. Union Rear Admiral John Dahlgren mistakenly believed the fort was manned by a skeleton crew, but the landing party was met by over 300 Confederate infantry, who easily repulsed the assault.

Following the failed infantry attack, Union forces on Morris Island recommenced their bombing campaign on Fort Sumter. Over the next 15 months, Union artillery effectively leveled Fort Sumter, eventually firing nearly 50,000 projectiles at the fort between September 1863 and February 1865. Despite suffering over 300 casualties from the Union bombardments, the beleaguered Confederate garrison managed to retain control of the fort until February 1865.

Only when Union General William T. Sherman was poised to capture Charleston did the Confederates finally evacuate. Union forces would reclaim Fort Sumter on February 22, 1865. Robert A. Anderson and Abner Doubleday, the two commanding officers from the original siege of Fort Sumter, would both return to the fortress on April 14, 1865, for a flag-raising ceremony.

Fort Sumter National Monument

After the Civil War, the derelict Fort Sumter was rebuilt and partially redesigned. It would see little use during the 1870s and 1880s and was eventually reduced to serving as a lighthouse station for Charleston Harbor. With the start of the Spanish-American War (1898), the fortress was rearmed and once again used as a coastal defense installation. It would later see service during both World War I and World War II.

In 1948, Fort Sumter was decommissioned as a military post and turned over to the National Park Service as a National Historic Site and part of Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park. Tours are now available, attracting more than 750,000 visitors every year.

Sources

Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie: History & Culture. National Park Service.
Fort Sumter. American Battlefield Trust.
Fort Sumter: The Civil War Begins. Smithsonian Magazine.

Fact Check

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Fort Sumter: Civil War, Battle & Location | HISTORY

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Fort Sumter is an island fortification located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, and is most famous for being the site of the first battle of the Civil War.

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emancipation proclamation - Google Search

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Clara Barton was an educator, nurse and founder of the American Red Cross.

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VIDEO | Historian Garry Adelman describes the events that took place during the Battle of Gettysburg from July 1-July 3, 1863.

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Here's Why the Battle of Vicksburg Was So Important

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The Southern Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse

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The Southern Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse

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Table of Contents

1. Battle of Appomattox Court House

2. Lee Surrenders to Grant

3. The Final Battle of the Civil War?

The Battle of Appomattox Court House was fought on April 9, 1865, near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and led to Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender of his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Days earlier, Lee had abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond and the city of Petersburg; his goal was to rally the remnants of his beleaguered troops, meet Confederate reinforcements in North Carolina and resume fighting. But the resulting Battle of Appomattox Court House, which lasted only a few hours, effectively brought the four-year Civil War to an end.

Battle of Appomattox Court House
WATCH: Appomattox Court House
In retreat from the Union army's Appomattox campaign, which began in March 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia stumbled westward through the Virginia countryside stripped of food and supplies. At one point, Union cavalry forces under General Philip Sheridan had outrun General Lee's troops, blocking their retreat and taking approximately 6,000 prisoners at Sayler's Creek.

Confederate desertions were mounting daily, and by April 8 the Rebels were almost completely surrounded. Nonetheless, early on the morning of April 9, Confederate troops led by Major General John B. Gordon mounted a last-ditch offensive that was initially successful. Soon, however, the Confederates saw that they were hopelessly outnumbered by two corps of Union soldiers who had marched all night to cut off the Confederate advance.

Later that morning, Lee-cut off from all provisions and all support-famously declared that "there is nothing left me to do but to go and see Gen. Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths." But Lee also knew his remaining troops, numbering about 28,000, would quickly turn to pillaging the countryside in order to survive.

With no remaining options, Lee sent a message to General Ulysses Grant announcing his willingness to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia. The two war-weary generals met in the front parlor of the Wilmer McLean home at one o'clock that afternoon.

Lee Surrenders to Grant

Lee and Grant, both of whom held the highest rank in their respective armies, had known each other slightly during the Mexican-American War (1846-48) and began their dialogue by exchanging awkward personal inquiries. Characteristically, Grant had arrived in his mud-splattered field uniform while Lee had turned out in full dress attire, complete with sash and sword.

Did you know? In 1869, the house where Lee surrendered to Grant was sold at public auction after owner Wilmer McLean defaulted on his loan repayments. In the ensuing years, the house had a series of owners before it was reconstructed and opened to the public by the National Park Service in 1949.

Lee asked for the terms of surrender, and Grant hurriedly wrote them out. Generously, all officers and men were to be pardoned, and they would be sent home with their private property-most important to the men were the horses, which could be used for a late spring planting. Officers would keep their side arms, and Lee's starving men would be given Union rations.

Quieting a band that had begun to play in celebration, Grant told his officers, "The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again." Although scattered resistance continued for several weeks-the final skirmish of the Civil War occurred on May 12 and 13 at the Battle of Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas-for all practical purposes the Civil War had come to an end.

The Final Battle of the Civil War?

News of the surrender traveled slowly. Although scattered resistance continued for several weeks-there were six battles that took place after Appomattox, with the final skirmish of the Civil War occurring on May 12 and 13 at the Battle of Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas-for all practical purposes, the Civil War had come to an end.

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Appomattox Court House - Definition, Date & Location

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The Appomattox Court House, located in Virginia, is where Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865, bringing an end to the Civil War.

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Transcontinental Railroad ‑ Construction, Competition & Impact

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In 1862, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies began building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. Over the next seven years, the two companies raced toward each other from Sacramento, California on the one side to Omaha, Nebraska on the other, struggling against great risks before they met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869.

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chapter 18- The transcontinental railroad
https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/transcontinental-railroad
chapter 18- the Massacre at wounded knee
https://www.google.com/search?q=massacre+at+wounded+knee&rlz=1CAXWWL_enUS878&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvtY-d8pnmAhUmiOAKHQKlANkQ_AUoAXoECBAQAw&biw=1517&bih=782&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=Zz2Qy6ltaU821M
chapter 18- Dawes General Alootment Act
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-dawes-act-of-1877-definition-summary.html
chater 18 - Homstead and Morill act
https://into-the-westah1.weebly.com/homestead-act-and-morrill-land.html

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massacre at wounded knee - Google Search

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What Was the Dawes Act?

The General Allotment Act of 1887, known commonly as the Dawes Act, was introduced by Henry Dawes, a Senator from Massachusetts. Simply put, the Act broke up previous land settlements given to Native Americans in the form of reservations and separated them into smaller, separate parcels of land to live on. More importantly, the Act required Natives to live apart from their nations and assimilate into European culture.

Dawes felt that the law, once fully realized, would actually save Native Americans from the alternative, which was their total extermination. However, the Dawes Act may, in fact, be the gold medal winner of all time when it comes to how often the best intentions result in the worst harm, since, ironically, it just about accomplished what Dawes claimed he was trying to avoid.

Background

Since Europeans arrived in the 15th century, Native Americans had been inexorably pushed west, as the frontier moved in front of colonization. By the mid-19th century, the expansion of the United States was in full swing. The passage of the Homestead Act in 1862, which effectively gave away land in the West to settlers in an effort to populate those territories, was a clear marker of what was coming.

Given all this expansion, it was clear that some sort of governmental policy should be adopted to accommodate both the Native Americans who chose not to resist and those who actively fought back. The initial approach, relocation, as typified by the Indian Removal Act of 1830, proved less than successful, especially given the variety, diversity, and entrenched nature of Native American societies across the eastern U.S. In 1851, the U.S. government passed the Indian Appropriations Act, which was supposed to create a long-term solution to the Native American issue: reservations.

The reservations, originally to be based in Oklahoma, but later across the West, were land grants upon which tribes could live more or less as they pleased, so long as they remained within the reservation's borders. However, many tribes ignored orders from the U.S. government to relocate, and the Army was brought in to enforce the policy (this became substantially more common after the Civil War ended in 1865).

Of course, bringing troops into the issue resulted in conflict, most famously in 1876, when Sioux, under the command of 'hostiles,' like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, wiped out George A. Custer and most of his command at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The death of over 200 American soldiers right around the time of the nation's centennial celebration ignited cries for revenge against the Sioux and all recalcitrant Native Americans. This was the atmosphere in which Henry Dawes was operating when he unveiled his plan.

The Dawes Act

Dawes's plan was to 'save' Native Americans by changing their way of life. To understand this, it's helpful to take a quick look at how most Native American societies operated. This is, of course, by no means true of all Native Americans. With over 500 separate indigenous societies, there was a tremendous amount of diversity, but there were some values that were largely shared across the spectrum, and these were the values that Dawes saw as a genuine threat to Native American survival.

Native Americans tended to view land ownership as a fairly foreign concept, instead focusing on land stewardship (caring for and using the land, but not considering themselves owners of it in a legal sense). Similarly, most Native Americans, in the face of U.S. expansion in the Plains territories of the West and Midwest, led nomadic, quasi-hunter/gatherer lifestyles that were incompatible with the 19th-century American emphasis on agriculture.

Dawes saw these philosophies as a direct threat to Native American existence, since, without adhering to the American ethos of land ownership and capitalistic enterprise, he felt it was unlikely that a peaceful resolution could be reached between Native Americans and the U.S. government. His plan was to survey Native-held reservations, which varied in size based on the particular tribe's area and size, and separate them into smaller units, or allotments, of around 160 acres apiece. These allotments would then be given to Native Americans. Those who accepted and lived separately from their tribes would be granted U.S. citizenship. The sizes of the parcels were equal regardless of how much land the tribe had previously been allotted for the reservations.

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the dawes act of 1887: definition & summary - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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The Dawes Act of 1887: Definition & Summary - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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The General Allotment Act of 1887, known commonly as the Dawes Act, was introduced by Henry Dawes, a Senator from Massachusetts. Simply put, the Act broke up previous land settlements given to Native Americans in the form of reservations and separated them into smaller, separate parcels of land to live on.

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The homestead act was passed May 20, 1862. This act allowed for US citizens to get 160 acres of land out in the west for free. They had to be adults of course, and they also had to have been loyal to...

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International Stock Food Factory, between 1900 and 1910
Detroit Publishing Company

In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Old industries expanded and many new ones, including petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and electrical power, emerged. Railroads expanded significantly, bringing even remote parts of the country into a national market economy.

Industrial growth transformed American society. It produced a new class of wealthy industrialists and a prosperous middle class. It also produced a vastly expanded blue collar working class. The labor force that made industrialization possible was made up of millions of newly arrived immigrants and even larger numbers of migrants from rural areas. American society became more diverse than ever before.

Not everyone shared in the economic prosperity of this period. Many workers were typically unemployed at least part of the year, and their wages were relatively low when they did work. This situation led many workers to support and join labor unions. Meanwhile, farmers also faced hard times as technology and increasing production led to more competition and falling prices for farm products. Hard times on farms led many young people to move to the city in search of better job opportunities.

Americans who were born in the 1840s and 1850s would experience enormous changes in their lifetimes. Some of these changes resulted from a sweeping technological revolution. Their major source of light, for example, would change from candles, to kerosene lamps, and then to electric light bulbs. They would see their transportation evolve from walking and horse power to steam-powered locomotives, to electric trolley cars, to gasoline-powered automobiles. Born into a society in which the vast majority of people were involved in agriculture, they experienced an industrial revolution that radically changed the ways millions of people worked and where they lived. They would experience the migration of millions of people from rural America to the nation's rapidly growing cities.

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Overview | Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

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In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Old industries expanded and many new ones, including petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and electrical power, emerged. Railroads expanded significantly, bringing even remote parts of the country into a national market economy. Industrial growth transformed American society.

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chapter 19- The Bessemer process
https://www.britannica.com/technology/Bessemer-process
chapter 19- Growth of Invention
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-rise-and-progress-of-inventions-1860-12-22/
chapter 19- the rise of big buisness
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+rise+of+big+business&rlz=1CAXWWL_enUS878&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwioxtS_rZzmAhVsUd8KHSqOBqYQ_AUoAXoECAwQAw&biw=1517&bih=782&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=cqkvNYQSki5KoM
chapter 19- The Antitrust Movement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DSN0uUNLOw
chapter 19- The Labor Movement
https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/labor

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chapter 20- The rise of immigration
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/riseind/immgnts/
Chapter 20- the growth of cities
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3514
Chapter 20- Tenement Life
https://www.google.com/search?q=tenement+life&rlz=1CAXWWL_enUS878&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiL8Ja89JnmAhVjU98KHU6tCusQ_AUoAXoECA4QAw&biw=1517&bih=782&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=NRnnRrDddDwXvM&imgdii=KR9gvJUBNCvpiM
Chapter 20- The growth of mass communication
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-introductiontocommunication/chapter/evolution-of-mass-communication/

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Printable Version At the beginning of the 19th century, the United States was a nation of farms and rural villages. The nation's four largest cities together contained only 180,000 persons and were the country's only cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants. Boston, which in 1800 contained just 25,000 inhabitants, looked much as it had prior to the Revolution. Its streets, still paved with cobblestones, were unlighted at night. Older gentlemen could still be seen dressed in three-cornered hats, knee-breeches, white-topped boots, ruffled shirts, and powdered wigs. New York was so small that Wall Street was considered to be uptown and Broadway was a country drive. New York's entire police force, which only patrolled the city at night, consisted of 2 captains, 2 deputies, and 72 assistants.

During the 1820s and 1830s, the nation's cities grew at an extraordinary rate. The urban population increased 60 percent a decade, five times as fast as that of the country as a whole. In 1810, New York City's population was less than 100,000. Two decades later it was more than 200,000. Western cities grew particularly fast. Between 1810 and 1830, Louisville's population climbed from 1,357 to 10,341.

The chief cause of the increase was the migration of sons and daughters away from farms and villages. The growth of commerce drew thousands of farm children to the cities to work as bookkeepers, clerks, and salespeople. The expansion of factories demanded thousands of laborers, mechanics, teamsters, and operatives. The need of rural areas for services available only in urban centers also promoted the growth of cities. Farmers needed their grain milled and their livestock butchered. In response, a grain processing and meat-packing industry sprouted up in "Porkopolis," Cincinnati. Manufacturers in Lexington produced hemp sacks and ropes for Kentucky farmers, and Louisville businesses cured and marketed tobacco.

Pittsburgh's growth illustrates these processes at work. Frontier farmers needed products made of iron, such as nails, horseshoes, and farm implements. Pittsburgh lay near western Pennsylvania's coal fields. Because it was cheaper to bring the iron ore to the coal supply for smelting than to transport the coal to the side of the iron mine, Pittsburgh became a major iron producer. Iron foundries and blacksmith shops proliferated. So did glass factories, which required large amounts of fuel to provide heat for glassblowing. As early as the 1820s, Pittsburgh had three newspapers, nine churches, three theaters, a piano maker, five glass factories, three textile mills, and a steam engine factory. Pittsburgh's population tripled between 1810 and 1830.

As urban areas grew many problems were exacerbated, including the absence of clean drinking water, the pressing need for cheap public transportation, and most importantly, poor sanitation. Sanitation problems led to heavy urban mortality rates and frequent typhoid, dysentery, typhus, cholera, and yellow fever epidemics.

Most city dwellers used outdoor privies, which emptied into vaults and cesspools that sometimes leaked into the soil and contaminated the water supply. Kitchen wastes were thrown into ditches; refuse was thrown into trash piles by the side of the streets. Every horse in a city deposited as much as 20 pounds of manure and urine on the streets each day. To help remove the garbage and refuse, many cities allowed packs of dogs, goats, and pigs to scavenge freely. The editor of one New York newspaper described the filth that plagued that city's streets in vivid terms: "The offal and filth, of which there are loads thrown from the houses in defiance of an ordinance which is never enforced, is scraped up with the usual deposits of mud and manure into big heaps and left for weeks together on the sides of the streets."

Following the War of 1812, elite urbanites began to enjoy such amenities as indoor toilets and coal-burning iron ranges. To provide light after darkness fell, Boston in 1822 introduced the first gas-fueled street lights, and individual households relied on new kinds of lamps burning whale oil or turpentine. The first urban stagecoach service (the forerunner of the public bus system) appeared in New York City in 1828. Then in the 1830s, the first full-time professional police forces in the United States were formed.

The cities' poorest inhabitants lived in slums. Slums appeared on New York's lower east side as early as 1815. By the 1840s, more than 18,000 men, women, and children were crowded into damp, unlighted, ill-ventilated cellars with 6 to 20 persons living in a single room. In 1849, Boston's Committee on Internal Health reported that men, women, and children lived "huddled together like brutes without regard to sex, age or a sense of decency, grown men and women sleeping together in the same apartment, and sometimes wife, brothers and sisters in the same bed." Despite growing public awareness of the problems of slums and urban poverty, conditions remained unchanged for several generations.

Copyright 2019 Digital History

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Printable Version At the beginning of the 19th century, the United States was a nation of farms and rural villages. The nation's four largest cities together contained only 180,000 persons and were the country's only cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants. Boston, which in 1800 contained just 25,000 inhabitants, looked much as it had prior to the Revolution.

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Societies have long had a desire to find effective ways to report environmental dangers and opportunities; circulate opinions, facts, and ideas; pass along knowledge, heritage, and lore; communicate expectations to new members; entertain in an expansive manner; and broaden commerce and trade (Schramm). The primary challenge has been to find ways to communicate messages to as many people as possible. Our need-to-know prompted innovative ways to get messages to the masses.

Before writing, humans relied on oral traditions to pass on information. "It was only in the 1920s-according to the Oxford English Dictionary-that people began to speak of 'the media' and a generation later, in the 1950s, of a 'communication revolution', but a concern with the means of communication is very much older than that" (Briggs & Burke 1). Oral and written communication played a major role in ancient cultures. These oral cultures used stories to document the past and impart cultural standards, traditions, and knowledge. With the development of alphabets around the world over 5000 years ago, written language with ideogrammatic (picture-based) alphabets like hieroglyphics started to change how cultures communicated.

Still, written communication remained ambiguous and did not reach the masses until the Greeks and Romans resolved this by establishing a syllable alphabet representing sounds. But, without something to write on, written language was inefficient. Eventually, paper making processes were perfected in China, which spread throughout Europe via trade routes (Baran). Mass communication was not quick, but it was far-reaching (Briggs & Burke). This forever altered how cultures saved and transmitted cultural knowledge and values. Any political or social movement throughout the ages can be traced to the development and impact of the printing press and movable metal type (Steinberg). With his technique, Guttenberg could print more than a single page of specific text. By making written communication more available to larger numbers of people, mass printing became responsible for giving voice to the masses and making information available to common folks (McLuhan & Fiore). McLuhan argued that Gutenberg's evolution of the printing press as a form of mass communication had profound and lasting effects on culture, perhaps the most significant invention in human history.

Mass Communication Study Then

In 1949, Carl I. Hovland, Arthur A. Lumsdaine, and Fred D. Sheffield wrote the book Experiments on Mass Communication. They looked at two kinds of films the Army used to train soldiers. First, they examined orientation and training films such as the "Why We Fight" that were intended to teach facts to the soldiers, as well as generate a positive response from them for going to war. The studies determined that significant learning did take place by the soldiers from the films, but primarily with factual items. The Army was disappointed with the results that showed that the orientation films did not do an effective job in generating the kind of positive responses they desired from the soldiers. Imagine, people were not excited about going to war.

With the transition to the industrial age in the 18th century, large populations headed to urban areas, creating mass audiences of all economic classes seeking information and entertainment. Printing technology was at the heart of modernization WHICH led to magazines, newspapers, the telegraph, and the telephone. At the turn of the century (1900), pioneers like Thomas Edison, Theodore Puskas, and Nikola Tesla literally electrified the world and mass communication. With the addition of motion pictures and radio in the early 1900s, and television in the 40s and 50s, the world increasingly embraced the foundations of today's mass communication. In the 1970s cable started challenging over-the-air broadcasting and traditional program distribution making the United States a wired nation. In 2014, there was an estimated 116.3 million homes in America that own a TV (Nielson, 2014 Advance National TV Household Universe Estimate). While traditionally these televisions would display only the programs that are chosen to be broadcast by cable providers, more and more households have chosen to become more conscious media consumers and actively choose what they watch through alternative viewing options like streaming video.

Today, smart T.V.'s and streaming devices have taken over the market and they are expected to be in 43% of households by 2016. These new forms of broadcasting have created a digital revolution. Thanks to Netflix and other streaming services we are no longer subjected to advertisements during our shows. Similarly, streaming services like Hulu provide the most recent episodes as they appear on cable that viewers can watch any time. These services provide instant access to entire seasons of shows (which can result in binge watching).

The Information Age eventually began to replace the ideals of the industrial age. In 1983 Time Magazine named the PC the first "Machine of the Year." Just over a decade later, PCs outsold televisions. Then, in 2006, Time Magazine named "you" as the person of the year for your use of technology to broaden communication. "You" took advantage of changes in global media. Chances are that you, your friends, and family spend hours engaged in data-mediated communication such as emailing, texting, or participating in various form of social media. Romero points out that, "The Net has transformed the way we work, the way we get in contact with others, our access to information, our levels of privacy and indeed notions as basic and deeply rooted in our culture as those of time and space" (88). Social media has also had a large impact in social movements across the globe in recent years by providing the average person with the tools to reach wide audiences around the world for the first time history.

If you're reading this for a college class, you may belong to the millennial generation. Free wifi, apps, alternative news sources, Facebook, and Twitter have become a way of life. Can you imagine a world without communication technology? How would you find out the name of that song stuck in your head? If you wanted to spontaneously meet up with a friend for lunch, how would you let them know? Mass communication has become such an integral part of our daily lives, most people probably could not function through the day without it. What started as email quickly progressed to chat rooms and basic blogs, such as LiveJournal. From there, we saw the rise and fall of the first widely used social media platform, Myspace. Though now just a shadow of the social media powerhouse it once was, Myspace paved the way for social media to enter the mainstream in forms of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat, and Instagram. Facebook has evolved into a global social media site. It's available in 37 languages and has over 500 million users. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in 2005 while studying at Harvard University, and it has universally changed the way we communicate, interact, and share our lives with friends, family, and acquaintances. Many people argue about the good and bad qualities of having a Facebook profile, it can be looked at as your "digital footprint" in social media. Profiles log status updates, timelines photos and videos, and archives messages between members. Here's a short YouTube video from rapper/poet Prince Ea about Facebook and the effects of social media on society.

Another example of mainstream social media is Twitter. Twitter allows for quick 140 character or less status updates (called tweets) for registered users. Tweets can be sent from any device with access to internet in a fast simple way and connects with a number of people, whether they be family, friends or followers. Twitter's microblogging format allows for people to share their daily thoughts and experiences on a broad and sometimes public stage. The simplicity of Twitter allows it to be used as a tool for entertainment and blogging, but also as a way of organizing social movements and sharing breaking news.

Snapchat is a newer social media platform used by more and more people every day. The function of Snapchat allows the user to send a photo (with the option of text) that expires after a few seconds. It can be looked at like a digital self-destructing note you would see in an old spy movie. Unlike its competitors, Snapchat is used in a less professional manner, emphasizing humor and spontaneity over information efficiency. Contrary to Facebook, there is no pressure to pose, or display your life. Rather, it is more spontaneous. It's like the stranger you wink at in the street or a hilarious conversation with a best friend.

Mass Communication Study Now

With new forms of communication emerging rapidly, it is important to note the corresponding changes to formal language and slang terms. UrbanDictionary.com is a famous site that can introduce any newbie to the slang world by presenting them various definitions for a term they don't recognize, describe its background, and provide examples for how it's used in context. For example, one of the most popular definitions claims that the word 'hella' is said to originate from the streets of San Francisco in the Hunters Point neighborhood. "It is commonly used in place of 'really' or 'very' when describing something."

In this age of information overload, multiple news sources, high-speed connections, and social networking, life seems unimaginable without mass communication. Can you relate to your parents' stories about writing letters to friends, family, or their significant others? Today, when trying to connect with someone we have a variety ways of contacting them; we can call, text, email, Facebook message, tweet, and/or Snapchat; the options are almost endless and ever-changing. Society today is in the midst of a technological revolution. Only a few years ago families were arguing over landline internet cable use and the constant disruptions from incoming phone calls. Now, we have the ability to browse the web anytime on smart phones. Since the printing press, mass communication has literally changed the ways we think and interact as humans. We take so much for granted as "new technologies are assimilated so rapidly in U.S. culture that historic perspectives are often lost in the process" (Fidler 1). With all of this talk and research about mass communication, what functions does it serve for us?

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Societies have long had a desire to find effective ways to report environmental dangers and opportunities; circulate opinions, facts, and ideas; pass along knowledge, heritage, and lore; communicate expectations to new members; entertain in an expansive manner; and broaden commerce and trade (Schramm).

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Bessemer process, the first method discovered for mass-producing steel. Though named after Sir Henry Bessemer of England, the process evolved from the contributions of many investigators before it could be used on a broad commercial basis. It was apparently conceived independently and almost concurrently by Bessemer and by William Kelly of the United States. As early as 1847, Kelly, a businessman-scientist of Pittsburgh, began experiments aimed at developing a revolutionary means of removing impurities from pig iron by an air blast. Kelly theorized that not only would the air, injected into the molten iron, supply oxygen to react with the impurities, converting them into oxides separable as slag, but that the heat evolved in these reactions would increase the temperature of the mass, keeping it from solidifying during the operation. After several failures, he succeeded in proving his theory and rapidly producing steel ingots.

In 1856 Bessemer, working independently in Sheffield, developed and patented the same process. Whereas Kelly had been unable to perfect the process owing to a lack of financial resources, Bessemer was able to develop it into a commercial success. Another Englishman, Robert Forester Mushet, found that adding an alloy of carbon, manganese, and iron after the air-blowing was complete restored the carbon content of the steel while neutralizing the effect of remaining impurities, notably sulfur. A Swedish ironmaster, Goran Goransson, redesigned the Bessemer furnace, or converter, making it reliable in performance. The end result was a means of mass-producing steel. The resultant volume of low-cost steel in Britain and the United States soon revolutionized building construction and provided steel to replace iron in railroad rails and many other uses.

The Bessemer converter is a cylindrical steel pot approximately 6 metres (20 feet) high, originally lined with a siliceous refractory. Air is blown in through openings (tuyeres) near the bottom, creating oxides of silicon and manganese, which become part of the slag, and of carbon, which are carried out in the stream of air. Within a few minutes an ingot of steel can be produced, ready for the forge or rolling mill.

The original Bessemer converter was not effective in removing the phosphorus present in sizable amounts in most British and European iron ore. The invention in England, by Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, of what is now called the Thomas-Gilchrist converter, which was lined with a basic material such as burned limestone rather than an (acid) siliceous material, overcame this problem. Another drawback to Bessemer steel, its retention of a small percentage of nitrogen from the air blow, was not corrected until the 1950s. The open-hearth process, which was developed in the 1860s, did not suffer from this difficulty, and it eventually outstripped the Bessemer process to become the dominant steelmaking process until the mid-20th century. The open-hearth process was in turn replaced by the basic oxygen process, which is actually an extension and refinement of the Bessemer process.

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Bessemer process | Dates, Definition, & Facts

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Bessemer process, the first method discovered for mass-producing steel. Though named after Sir Henry Bessemer of England, the process evolved from the contributions of many investigators before it could be used on a broad commercial basis. It was apparently conceived independently and almost concurrently by Bessemer and by William Kelly of the United States.

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During the period of Fourteen Years which has elapased since the business of procuring patents for inventors was commenced by MUNN & Co., in connection with the publication of this paper, the number of applications for patents in this country and abroad has yearly increased until the number of patents issued at the United States Patent Office last year (1859) amounted to 4,538; while the number granted in the year 1845-fourteen years ago-numbered 502-only about one-third as many as were granted to our own clients last year; there being patented, through the Seien-tlfic American Patent Agency, 1,440 during the year 1859. The increasing activity among inventors has largely augmented the number of agencies for transacting such business. In this profession, the publishers of this paper have become identified with the universal brotherhood of Inventors and Patentees at borne and abroad, at the North and the South; and with the increased activity of these men of genius we have kept apace up to this time, when we find ourselves transacting a larger business in this profession than any other firm in the world. We may safely assert that no concern has the combined talent and facilities that we possess for preparing carefully and correctly applications for patents, and attending to all business pertaining thereto. FREU EXAMINATION OF INVENTIONS. Persons having conceived an idea which they think maybe patent-able are advised te make a sketch er model of their invention, and submit to us, with a full description, for advice. The points of novelty are carefully examined, and a reply written corresponding with the f acta, free of charge. Address MUNN & CO., No. 37 Park. row. New York. PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS AT THE PATENT OFFICE. The advice we render gratuitously upon examining an invention does not extend to a search at the Patent Office, to see if a like invention has been presented there, but is an opinion based upon what knowledge we may acquire of a similar invention from our long experience, and the records in our Home Office. But for a fee of &dollar;5, accompanied with a model or drawing and description, we have & special search made at the United States Patent Office, and a report setting forth the prospects of obtaining a patent, ire, made mp and mailed to the inventor, with a pamphlet, giving initructions for further proceedings. These preliminary examinations are made through our Branch Office, corner of F and Seventh streets, Washington, by experienced and competent persons. Over 1,500 of these xaminations were made lastyear through this office, and aa a measure of prudence and economy, we usually advise inventors to have a preliminary examination made. Address MUNN Ac CO., No. 37 Paik-row, New York. CAVEATS. Persons desiring to file a caveat can have the papers prepared on reasonable terms, by sending a sketch and description of the invention. The government fee for a caveat is &dollar;20. A pamphlet of advice regarding applications for patents and caveats furnished gratis on applicatien by mail. Address MUNN & CO., No. 37 Park-row, New York. HOW TO MAKE AN APPLICATION FOR A PATENT. Every applicant for a patent must furnish a model of his invention, if susceptible of one; or if the invention is a chemical production, he most furnish samples of the ingredients of which his composition is composed for the Patent Office. These should be securely packed, the inventor's name marked on them, and sent, with the government fee, by express. The express charges should be prepaid. Small models, from a distance, can often be sent cheaper by mail. The safest way to remit money is by draft on New York, payable to Munn & Co. Persons who live in remote parts of the country can usually purchase drafts f rora their merchants on their New York correspondents; but if not convenient to doeo, there is but little risk in sending bank bills by mail, having the letter registered by the postmaster. Address MUNN & CO., No. 37 Park-row-New York. Circulars of information concerning the proper course to be pursued in obtaining patents in foreign countiies through onr Agency the requirements of the different Patent Offices, Arc., may be had gratis upon application at our principal office, No. 37 Park-raw, New York, or either of our branch offices. TESTIMONIALS. Ttoe annexed letters, from tiieTast three Commissioners of Patente, we cowmend to the perusal of all persons interested in obtaining (PateBtsi- Mfifiarg.. SfuNN & Co.:-Itakfi pleasure in stating that while I held *he office of (Jommisaioner of Patent?, MORE THAN ONE-FOURTH OF ALL -*HB ??????T??? THR OTV1CE ???? THROUGH YOTJB IIANB8. I hftVe ?? doubt that the public confidence thus indicated has been full ? deserved as! have always observed, in all vour intercourse with the "OflScie, a marked degree of promptness, skill and fidelity totheinter wte of your employers. Yours, very truly, JH AS. MASON. ImnuHHatpir after the appointment of Mr. Holt to the office of 'Postmister-nfirrtl of the United States, he addressed to UB the subjoined vrv trratifyins testimonial:- Mpssra. MOMN fe Co.i-Tt affords me much pleasure to bear testi-tfnonv to the abln nn4 effieipnt manner in which you have discharged rfour duties of SoiiV.tnre of Patsnta while I had the honor of holding *t)H oflficp of Commiasinnpr. Your business wan very Inrsffi. and you ent,-iinM (ami, ? doubt, nof-, Jiwtlv flpperved) the repntntion of en-ersrr,, mirkfd abilitv and nnnnrnpromMns firtelityin performing your ^rofesuonal engagements. Very rpsneetfullr, .A . Your obedient servant, J. HOLT. Mem. MNN Co.:-Oenttemen : Tt ptvee me mncji tfemnre to *wy that, dttrine the time of rov holding the office of Commissioner rif Patent*, a verv lame proportion of the bnrineM' of inventors before the Pfciit Office wan transacted thronen yoar iicencv, and that ? hare er found y*m fmthftit an* devoted te the inten-eta of yoar iiente, as well an runenUy qualified to perform the duties of Paten* ^^'^SifiE&S ""WSLBI BISHOP.

This article was originally published with the title "The Rise and Progress of Inventions" in Scientific American 3, 26new, 409 (December 1860)

doi:10.1038/scientificamerican12221860-409

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During the period of Fourteen Years which has elapased since the business of procuring patents for inventors was commenced by MUNN & Co., in connection with the publication of this paper, the number of applications for patents in this country and abroad has yearly increased until the number of patents

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Origins of The Labor Movement

The origins of the labor movement lay in the formative years of the American nation, when a free wage-labor market emerged in the artisan trades late in the colonial period. The earliest recorded strike occurred in 1768 when New York journeymen tailors protested a wage reduction. The formation of the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers (shoemakers) in Philadelphia in 1794 marks the beginning of sustained trade union organization among American workers.
WATCH: The Labor Movement
From that time on, local craft unions proliferated in the cities, publishing lists of "prices" for their work, defending their trades against diluted and cheap labor and, increasingly, demanding a shorter workday in the face of the Industrial Revolution. Thus a job-conscious orientation was quick to emerge, and in its wake there followed the key structural elements characterizing American trade unionism. First, with the formation in 1827 of the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations in Philadelphia, central labor bodies began uniting craft unions within a single city, and then, with the creation of the International Typographical Union in 1852, national unions began bringing together local unions of the same trade from across the United States and Canada (hence the frequent union designation "international"). Although the factory system was springing up during these years, industrial workers played little part in the early trade union development. In the 19th century, trade unionism was mainly a movement of skilled workers.

Did you know? In 2009, 12 percent of American workers belonged to unions.

Early Labor Unions

The early labor movement was, however, inspired by more than the immediate job interest of its craft members. It harbored a conception of the just society, deriving from the Ricardian labor theory of value and from the republican ideals of the American Revolution, which fostered social equality, celebrated honest labor, and relied on an independent, virtuous citizenship. The transforming economic changes of industrial capitalism ran counter to labor's vision. The result, as early labor leaders saw it, was to raise up "two distinct classes, the rich and the poor." Beginning with the workingmen's parties of the 1830s, the advocates of equal rights mounted a series of reform efforts that spanned the nineteenth century. Most notable were the National Labor Union, launched in 1866, and the Knights of Labor, which reached its zenith in the mid-1880s.

On their face, these reform movements might have seemed at odds with trade unionism, aiming as they did at the cooperative commonwealth rather than a higher wage, appealing broadly to all "producers" rather than strictly to wageworkers, and eschewing the trade union reliance on the strike and boycott. But contemporaries saw no contradiction: trade unionism tended to the workers' immediate needs, labor reform to their higher hopes. The two were held to be strands of a single movement, rooted in a common working-class constituency and to some degree sharing a common leadership. But equally important, they were strands that had to be kept operationally separate and functionally distinct.
PHOTOS: These Appalling Images Exposed Child Labor in America
American Federation of Labor

During the 1880s, that division fatally eroded. Despite its labor reform rhetoric, the Knights of Labor attracted large numbers of workers hoping to improve their immediate conditions. As the Knights carried on strikes and organized along industrial lines, the threatened national trade unions demanded that the group confine itself to its professed labor reform purposes. When it refused, they joined in December 1886 to form the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The new federation marked a break with the past, for it denied to labor reform any further role in the struggles of American workers. In part, the assertion of trade union supremacy stemmed from an undeniable reality. As industrialism matured, labor reform lost its meaning-hence the confusion and ultimate failure of the Knights of Labor. Marxism taught Samuel Gompers and his fellow socialists that trade unionism was the indispensable instrument for preparing the working class for revolution. The founders of theAFL translated this notion into the principle of "pure and simple" unionism: only by self-organization along occupational lines and by a concentration on job-conscious goals would the worker be "furnished with the weapons which shall secure his industrial emancipation."

That class formulation necessarily defined trade unionism as the movement of the entire working class. The AFL asserted as a formal policy that it represented all workers, irrespective of skill, race, religion, nationality or gender. But the national unions that had created the AFL in fact comprised only the skilled trades. Almost at once, therefore, the trade union movement encountered a dilemma: How to square ideological aspirations against contrary institutional realities?

Discrimination in The Labor Movement

As sweeping technological change began to undermine the craft system of production, some national unions did move toward an industrial structure, most notably in coal mining and the garment trades. But most craft unions either refused or, as in iron and steel and in meat-packing, failed to organize the less skilled. And since skill lines tended to conform to racial, ethnic and gender divisions, the trade union movement took on a racist and sexist coloration as well. For a short period, the AFL resisted that tendency. But in 1895, unable to launch an interracial machinists' union of its own, the Federation reversed an earlier principled decision and chartered the whites-only International Association of Machinists. Formally or informally, the color bar thereafter spread throughout the trade union movement. In 1902, blacks made up scarcely 3 percent of total membership, most of them segregated in Jim Crow locals. In the case of women and eastern European immigrants, a similar devolution occurred-welcomed as equals in theory, excluded or segregated in practice. (Only the fate of Asian workers was unproblematic; their rights had never been asserted by the AFLin the first place.)

Samuel Gompers

Gompers justified the subordination of principle to organizational reality on the constitutional grounds of "trade autonomy," by which each national union was assured the right to regulate its own internal affairs. But the organizational dynamism of the labor movement was in fact located in the national unions. Only as they experienced inner change might the labor movement expand beyond the narrow limits-roughly 10 percent of the labor force-at which it stabilized before World War I.

In the political realm, the founding doctrine of pure-and-simple unionism meant an arm's-length relationship to the state and the least possible entanglement in partisan politics. A total separation had, of course, never been seriously contemplated; some objectives, such as immigration restriction, could be achieved only through state action, and the predecessor to the AFL, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (1881), had in fact been created to serve as labor's lobbying arm in Washington. Partly because of the lure of progressive labor legislation, even more in response to increasingly damaging court attacks on the trade unions, political activity quickened after 1900. With the enunciation of Labor's Bill of Grievances (1906), the AFL laid down a challenge to the major parties. Henceforth it would campaign for its friends and seek the defeat of its enemies.

This nonpartisan entry into electoral politics, paradoxically, undercut the left-wing advocates of an independent working-class politics. That question had been repeatedly debated within theAFL, first in 1890 over Socialist Labor party representation, then in 1893-1894 over an alliance with the Populist Party and after 1901 over affiliation with the Socialist party of America. Although Gompers prevailed each time, he never found it easy. Now, as labor's leverage with the major parties began to pay off, Gompers had an effective answer to his critics on the left: the labor movement could not afford to waste its political capital on socialist parties or independent politics. When that nonpartisan strategy failed, as it did in the reaction following World War I, an independent political strategy took hold, first through the robust campaigning of the Conference for Progressive Political Action in 1922, and in 1924 through labor's endorsement of Robert La Follette on the Progressive ticket. By then, however, the Republican administration was moderating its hard line, evident especially in Herbert Hoover's efforts to resolve the simmering crises in mining and on the railroads. In response, the trade unions abandoned the Progressive party, retreated to nonpartisanship, and, as their power waned, lapsed into inactivity.

The Labor Movement and The Great Depression
WATCH: Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal
It took the Great Depression to knock the labor movement off dead center. The discontent of industrial workers, combined with New Deal collective bargaining legislation, at last brought the great mass production industries within striking distance. When the craft unions stymied the ALF's organizing efforts, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers and his followers broke away in 1935 and formed the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), which crucially aided the emerging unions in auto, rubber, steel and other basic industries. In 1938 the CIO was formally established as the Congress of Industrial Organizations. By the end of World War II, more than 12 million workers belonged to unions and collective bargaining had taken hold throughout the industrial economy.

In politics, its enhanced power led the union movement not to a new departure but to a variant on the policy of nonpartisanship. As far back as the Progressive Era, organized labor had been drifting toward the Democratic party, partly because of the latter's greater programmatic appeal, perhaps even more because of its ethno-cultural basis of support within an increasingly "new" immigrant working class. With the coming of Roosevelt's New Deal, this incipient alliance solidified, and from 1936 onward the Democratic Party could count on-and came to rely on-the campaigning resources of the labor movement.

Collective Bargaining

That this alliance partook of the nonpartisan logic of Gompers's authorship-too much was at stake for organized labor to waste its political capital on third parties-became clear in the unsettled period of the early cold war. Not only did theCIO oppose the Progressive party of 1948, but it expelled the left-wing unions that broke ranks and supported Henry Wallace for the presidency that year.

The formation of the AFL-CIOin 1955 visibly testified to the powerful continuities persisting through the age of industrial unionism. Above all, the central purpose remained what it had always been-to advance the economic and job interests of the union membership. Collective bargaining performed impressively after World War II, more than tripling weekly earnings in manufacturing between 1945 and 1970, gaining for union workers an unprecedented measure of security against old age, illness and unemployment, and, through contractual protections, greatly strengthening their right to fair treatment at the workplace. But if the benefits were greater and if they went to more people, the basic job-conscious thrust remained intact. Organized labor was still a sectional movement, covering at most only a third of America's wage earners and inaccessible to those cut off in the low-wage secondary labor market.

Women and Minorities in the Labor Movement

Nothing better captures the uneasy amalgam of old and new in the postwar labor movement than the treatment of minorities and women who flocked in, initially from the mass production industries, but after 1960 from the public and service sectors as well. Labor's historic commitment to racial and gender equality was thereby much strengthened, but not to the point of challenging the status quo within the labor movement itself. Thus the leadership structure remained largely closed to minorities-as did the skilled jobs that were historically the preserve of white male workers-notoriously so in the construction trades but in the industrial unions as well. Yet the AFL-CIOplayed a crucial role in the battle for civil rights legislation in 1964-1965. That this legislation might be directed against discriminatory trade union practices was anticipated (and quietly welcomed) by the more progressive labor leaders. But more significant was the meaning they found in championing this kind of reform: the chance to act on the broad ideals of the labor movement. And, so motivated, they deployed labor's power with great effect in the achievement of John F. Kennedy's and Lyndon B. Johnson 's domestic programs during the 1960s.

Decline in Unions

This was ultimately economic, not political power, however, and as organized labor's grip on the industrial sector began to weaken, so did its political capability. From the early 1970s onward, new competitive forces swept through the heavily unionized industries, set off by deregulation in communications and transportation, by industrial restructuring and by an unprecedented onslaught of foreign goods. As oligopolistic and regulated market structures broke down, nonunion competition spurted, concession bargaining became widespread and plant closings decimated union memberships. The once-celebrated National Labor Relations Act increasingly hamstrung the labor movement; an all-out reform campaign to get the law amended failed in 1978. And with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, there came to power an anti-union administration the likes of which had not been seen since the Harding era.

Between 1975 and 1985, union membership fell by 5 million. In manufacturing, the unionized portion of the labor force dropped below 25 percent, while mining and construction, once labor's flagship industries, were decimated. Only in the public sector did the unions hold their own. By the end of the 1980s, less than 17 percent of American workers were organized, half the proportion of the early 1950s.

The labor movement has never been swift to change. But if the new high-tech and service sectors seemed beyond its reach in 1989, so did the mass production industries in 1929. There is a silver lining: Compared to the old AFL, organized labor is today much more diverse and broadly based: In 2018, of the 14.7 million wage and salary workers who were part of a union (compared to 17.7 million in 1983), 25 percent are women and 28 percent are Black.

Sources

TED: The Economics Daily. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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The origins of the labor movement lay in the formative years of the American nation, when a free wage-labor market emerged in the artisan trades late in the colonial period. The earliest recorded strike occurred in 1768 when New York journeymen tailors protested a wage reduction.

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Chapter 21/22- The rise of Political machines-https://www.fasttrackteaching.com/ffap/Unit_4_Cities/Boss_Tweed_Cartoon_Jail_dbloc_crop.gif
Chapter 21/22 - The Progressive Reforms- https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/history/us-history-ii/the-progressive-era-19001920/political-and-social-reforms
Chapter 21/22- Rise of Labor organizations-https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/labor
Chapter 21/22- Women suffrage and Temperance movement- https://www.pbs.org/video/women-christian-temperance-union-nalw1u/
Chapter 21/22- election of 1912
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWKzNvgRKoQ
Chapter 21/22- Isolation and Imperialism- https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2018/12/28/isolationism-or-imperialism-you-really-cant-imagine-a-third-possibility/

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During the Progressive Era (1900–1920), the country grappled with the problems caused by industrialization and urbanization. Progressivism, an urban, midd

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Origins of The Labor Movement

The origins of the labor movement lay in the formative years of the American nation, when a free wage-labor market emerged in the artisan trades late in the colonial period. The earliest recorded strike occurred in 1768 when New York journeymen tailors protested a wage reduction. The formation of the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers (shoemakers) in Philadelphia in 1794 marks the beginning of sustained trade union organization among American workers.
WATCH: The Labor Movement
From that time on, local craft unions proliferated in the cities, publishing lists of "prices" for their work, defending their trades against diluted and cheap labor and, increasingly, demanding a shorter workday in the face of the Industrial Revolution. Thus a job-conscious orientation was quick to emerge, and in its wake there followed the key structural elements characterizing American trade unionism. First, with the formation in 1827 of the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations in Philadelphia, central labor bodies began uniting craft unions within a single city, and then, with the creation of the International Typographical Union in 1852, national unions began bringing together local unions of the same trade from across the United States and Canada (hence the frequent union designation "international"). Although the factory system was springing up during these years, industrial workers played little part in the early trade union development. In the 19th century, trade unionism was mainly a movement of skilled workers.

Did you know? In 2009, 12 percent of American workers belonged to unions.

Early Labor Unions

The early labor movement was, however, inspired by more than the immediate job interest of its craft members. It harbored a conception of the just society, deriving from the Ricardian labor theory of value and from the republican ideals of the American Revolution, which fostered social equality, celebrated honest labor, and relied on an independent, virtuous citizenship. The transforming economic changes of industrial capitalism ran counter to labor's vision. The result, as early labor leaders saw it, was to raise up "two distinct classes, the rich and the poor." Beginning with the workingmen's parties of the 1830s, the advocates of equal rights mounted a series of reform efforts that spanned the nineteenth century. Most notable were the National Labor Union, launched in 1866, and the Knights of Labor, which reached its zenith in the mid-1880s.

On their face, these reform movements might have seemed at odds with trade unionism, aiming as they did at the cooperative commonwealth rather than a higher wage, appealing broadly to all "producers" rather than strictly to wageworkers, and eschewing the trade union reliance on the strike and boycott. But contemporaries saw no contradiction: trade unionism tended to the workers' immediate needs, labor reform to their higher hopes. The two were held to be strands of a single movement, rooted in a common working-class constituency and to some degree sharing a common leadership. But equally important, they were strands that had to be kept operationally separate and functionally distinct.
PHOTOS: These Appalling Images Exposed Child Labor in America
American Federation of Labor

During the 1880s, that division fatally eroded. Despite its labor reform rhetoric, the Knights of Labor attracted large numbers of workers hoping to improve their immediate conditions. As the Knights carried on strikes and organized along industrial lines, the threatened national trade unions demanded that the group confine itself to its professed labor reform purposes. When it refused, they joined in December 1886 to form the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The new federation marked a break with the past, for it denied to labor reform any further role in the struggles of American workers. In part, the assertion of trade union supremacy stemmed from an undeniable reality. As industrialism matured, labor reform lost its meaning-hence the confusion and ultimate failure of the Knights of Labor. Marxism taught Samuel Gompers and his fellow socialists that trade unionism was the indispensable instrument for preparing the working class for revolution. The founders of theAFL translated this notion into the principle of "pure and simple" unionism: only by self-organization along occupational lines and by a concentration on job-conscious goals would the worker be "furnished with the weapons which shall secure his industrial emancipation."

That class formulation necessarily defined trade unionism as the movement of the entire working class. The AFL asserted as a formal policy that it represented all workers, irrespective of skill, race, religion, nationality or gender. But the national unions that had created the AFL in fact comprised only the skilled trades. Almost at once, therefore, the trade union movement encountered a dilemma: How to square ideological aspirations against contrary institutional realities?

Discrimination in The Labor Movement

As sweeping technological change began to undermine the craft system of production, some national unions did move toward an industrial structure, most notably in coal mining and the garment trades. But most craft unions either refused or, as in iron and steel and in meat-packing, failed to organize the less skilled. And since skill lines tended to conform to racial, ethnic and gender divisions, the trade union movement took on a racist and sexist coloration as well. For a short period, the AFL resisted that tendency. But in 1895, unable to launch an interracial machinists' union of its own, the Federation reversed an earlier principled decision and chartered the whites-only International Association of Machinists. Formally or informally, the color bar thereafter spread throughout the trade union movement. In 1902, blacks made up scarcely 3 percent of total membership, most of them segregated in Jim Crow locals. In the case of women and eastern European immigrants, a similar devolution occurred-welcomed as equals in theory, excluded or segregated in practice. (Only the fate of Asian workers was unproblematic; their rights had never been asserted by the AFLin the first place.)

Samuel Gompers

Gompers justified the subordination of principle to organizational reality on the constitutional grounds of "trade autonomy," by which each national union was assured the right to regulate its own internal affairs. But the organizational dynamism of the labor movement was in fact located in the national unions. Only as they experienced inner change might the labor movement expand beyond the narrow limits-roughly 10 percent of the labor force-at which it stabilized before World War I.

In the political realm, the founding doctrine of pure-and-simple unionism meant an arm's-length relationship to the state and the least possible entanglement in partisan politics. A total separation had, of course, never been seriously contemplated; some objectives, such as immigration restriction, could be achieved only through state action, and the predecessor to the AFL, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (1881), had in fact been created to serve as labor's lobbying arm in Washington. Partly because of the lure of progressive labor legislation, even more in response to increasingly damaging court attacks on the trade unions, political activity quickened after 1900. With the enunciation of Labor's Bill of Grievances (1906), the AFL laid down a challenge to the major parties. Henceforth it would campaign for its friends and seek the defeat of its enemies.

This nonpartisan entry into electoral politics, paradoxically, undercut the left-wing advocates of an independent working-class politics. That question had been repeatedly debated within theAFL, first in 1890 over Socialist Labor party representation, then in 1893-1894 over an alliance with the Populist Party and after 1901 over affiliation with the Socialist party of America. Although Gompers prevailed each time, he never found it easy. Now, as labor's leverage with the major parties began to pay off, Gompers had an effective answer to his critics on the left: the labor movement could not afford to waste its political capital on socialist parties or independent politics. When that nonpartisan strategy failed, as it did in the reaction following World War I, an independent political strategy took hold, first through the robust campaigning of the Conference for Progressive Political Action in 1922, and in 1924 through labor's endorsement of Robert La Follette on the Progressive ticket. By then, however, the Republican administration was moderating its hard line, evident especially in Herbert Hoover's efforts to resolve the simmering crises in mining and on the railroads. In response, the trade unions abandoned the Progressive party, retreated to nonpartisanship, and, as their power waned, lapsed into inactivity.

The Labor Movement and The Great Depression
WATCH: Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal
It took the Great Depression to knock the labor movement off dead center. The discontent of industrial workers, combined with New Deal collective bargaining legislation, at last brought the great mass production industries within striking distance. When the craft unions stymied the ALF's organizing efforts, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers and his followers broke away in 1935 and formed the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), which crucially aided the emerging unions in auto, rubber, steel and other basic industries. In 1938 the CIO was formally established as the Congress of Industrial Organizations. By the end of World War II, more than 12 million workers belonged to unions and collective bargaining had taken hold throughout the industrial economy.

In politics, its enhanced power led the union movement not to a new departure but to a variant on the policy of nonpartisanship. As far back as the Progressive Era, organized labor had been drifting toward the Democratic party, partly because of the latter's greater programmatic appeal, perhaps even more because of its ethno-cultural basis of support within an increasingly "new" immigrant working class. With the coming of Roosevelt's New Deal, this incipient alliance solidified, and from 1936 onward the Democratic Party could count on-and came to rely on-the campaigning resources of the labor movement.

Collective Bargaining

That this alliance partook of the nonpartisan logic of Gompers's authorship-too much was at stake for organized labor to waste its political capital on third parties-became clear in the unsettled period of the early cold war. Not only did theCIO oppose the Progressive party of 1948, but it expelled the left-wing unions that broke ranks and supported Henry Wallace for the presidency that year.

The formation of the AFL-CIOin 1955 visibly testified to the powerful continuities persisting through the age of industrial unionism. Above all, the central purpose remained what it had always been-to advance the economic and job interests of the union membership. Collective bargaining performed impressively after World War II, more than tripling weekly earnings in manufacturing between 1945 and 1970, gaining for union workers an unprecedented measure of security against old age, illness and unemployment, and, through contractual protections, greatly strengthening their right to fair treatment at the workplace. But if the benefits were greater and if they went to more people, the basic job-conscious thrust remained intact. Organized labor was still a sectional movement, covering at most only a third of America's wage earners and inaccessible to those cut off in the low-wage secondary labor market.

Women and Minorities in the Labor Movement

Nothing better captures the uneasy amalgam of old and new in the postwar labor movement than the treatment of minorities and women who flocked in, initially from the mass production industries, but after 1960 from the public and service sectors as well. Labor's historic commitment to racial and gender equality was thereby much strengthened, but not to the point of challenging the status quo within the labor movement itself. Thus the leadership structure remained largely closed to minorities-as did the skilled jobs that were historically the preserve of white male workers-notoriously so in the construction trades but in the industrial unions as well. Yet the AFL-CIOplayed a crucial role in the battle for civil rights legislation in 1964-1965. That this legislation might be directed against discriminatory trade union practices was anticipated (and quietly welcomed) by the more progressive labor leaders. But more significant was the meaning they found in championing this kind of reform: the chance to act on the broad ideals of the labor movement. And, so motivated, they deployed labor's power with great effect in the achievement of John F. Kennedy's and Lyndon B. Johnson 's domestic programs during the 1960s.

Decline in Unions

This was ultimately economic, not political power, however, and as organized labor's grip on the industrial sector began to weaken, so did its political capability. From the early 1970s onward, new competitive forces swept through the heavily unionized industries, set off by deregulation in communications and transportation, by industrial restructuring and by an unprecedented onslaught of foreign goods. As oligopolistic and regulated market structures broke down, nonunion competition spurted, concession bargaining became widespread and plant closings decimated union memberships. The once-celebrated National Labor Relations Act increasingly hamstrung the labor movement; an all-out reform campaign to get the law amended failed in 1978. And with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, there came to power an anti-union administration the likes of which had not been seen since the Harding era.

Between 1975 and 1985, union membership fell by 5 million. In manufacturing, the unionized portion of the labor force dropped below 25 percent, while mining and construction, once labor's flagship industries, were decimated. Only in the public sector did the unions hold their own. By the end of the 1980s, less than 17 percent of American workers were organized, half the proportion of the early 1950s.

The labor movement has never been swift to change. But if the new high-tech and service sectors seemed beyond its reach in 1989, so did the mass production industries in 1929. There is a silver lining: Compared to the old AFL, organized labor is today much more diverse and broadly based: In 2018, of the 14.7 million wage and salary workers who were part of a union (compared to 17.7 million in 1983), 25 percent are women and 28 percent are Black.

Sources

TED: The Economics Daily. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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The origins of the labor movement lay in the formative years of the American nation, when a free wage-labor market emerged in the artisan trades late in the colonial period. The earliest recorded strike occurred in 1768 when New York journeymen tailors protested a wage reduction.

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Women Christian Temperance Union | KSPS Documentaries

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The Women Christian Temperance Union was a widespread reform movement

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Does anything strike you as odd about exclamations that withdrawing U.S. troops from a war is a form of "isolationism"?

Of the United Nations' 18 major human rights treaties, the United States is party to 5, fewer than any other nation on earth, except Bhutan (4), and tied with Malaysia, Myanmar, and South Sudan, a country torn by warfare since its creation in 2011. The United States is the only nation on earth that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is the only country to have pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement. It is by many measures a top destroyer of the natural environment, yet has been a leader in sabotaging climate protection negotiations for decades. Seven countries and the European Union reached an agreement on Iran and nuclear energy, but the United States uniquely withdrew. President Donald Trump is threatening to withdraw, and Congress is threatening to allow it, from critical nuclear disarmament treaties reached by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

The United States not only stands outside the International Criminal Court, but openly threatens sanctions against it and against nations that support it. The United States leads opposition to democratization of the United Nations and easily holds the record for use of the veto in the Security Council during the past 50 years, having vetoed U.N. condemnation of South African apartheid, Israel's wars and occupations, chemical and biological weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation and first use and use against non-nuclear nations, U.S. wars in Nicaragua and Grenada and Panama, the U.S. embargo on Cuba, Rwandan genocide, the deployment of weapons in outerspace, etc.

Contrary to popular opinion, the United States is not a leading provider of aid to the suffering of the world, not as a percentage of gross national income or per capita or even as an absolute number of dollars. Unlike other countries, the United States counts as 40 percent of its so-called aid, weapons for foreign militaries. Its aid as a whole is directed around its military goals, and its immigration policies have long been shaped around skin color, and lately around religion, not around human need - except perhaps inversely, focusing on locking up and building walls to punish the most desperate.

Keeping the above context, discussed at greater length here, in mind, let's add to it one other set of facts. Unarmed civilian protectors and nonviolent peaceworkers from groups like Nonviolent Peaceforce have been proving for many years that people can accomplish more without guns than with them. Thorough studies of violent and nonviolent campaigns over the past century have well established that principally nonviolent efforts are more likely to succeed and those successes virtually guaranteed to be far longer lasting. A consensus has developed even within military establishments that much of what militaries do is counterproductive on its own terms, so much so that "there is no military solution" has practically become a required mantra to be pointlessly but accurately repeated by those attempting military solutions. The tools of diplomacy, cooperation, aid, nonviolent investment, the rule of law, skilled conflict resolution, disarmament, and peaceful conversion have become extremely well-developed and understood, if hardly ever thought of or employed or widely communicated.

Now, keeping all of that in mind, does anything strike you as odd about exclamations that withdrawing U.S. troops from a war is a form of "isolationism"? Is there anything peculiar about the scores of people steadily emailing me to condemn a planned protest of NATO as, you guessed it, "isolationism"? Five years ago, there was a debate over whether to bomb Syria flat, and those opposed to doing so were accused of "isolationism." Now the idea of pulling troops out of Syria or Afghanistan or ceasing to help bomb and starve the people of Yemen is subjected to the same rhetorical assault. That Trump promises to keep the occupation of Iraq going is understood as reassuring "engagement with the world" by people who demanded an end to the occupation of Iraq when George W. Bush was president, and who pretended to celebrate its ending when Barack Obama pretended to end it.

This is simple-minded thinking in the extreme, notwithstanding its claims to be just the opposite. "I'm against war but we can't be simplistic about it and just end one of them willy-nilly, abandoning our allies." This is the type of language used to support imperialism in the great debate between isolationism and imperialism, a debate wholly dependent on the ridiculous pretense that these two choices constitute the full range of possible human behaviors.

A lot of people no longer fall for such sophistry when it comes to domestic politics. "Should we ignore drug users or lock them up?" The obvious answer of "No, we shouldn't do either of those things," actually occurs to a good many people unprompted. "Should we allow shoplifting or imprison shoplifters for the rest of their lives?" This is a question so patently stupid that it will actually elicit from some people asked it the creative response: "Why not end poverty instead? It's not like we don't have plenty of money to do that!" But what about this question: "Should we keep the U.S. military engaged in each of these wars or ignore and abandon and forget about and forsake the people there?" Ah, now we have a patently stupid question that has been repeated so many, many times that it's hard to hear the stupidity of it.

Each year that a war gets worse while continuing somehow fails to constitute outrageous proof that it should not have been continued. The past year of the war on Afghanistan has been one of the deadliest, yet it is the fear that things might go badly after U.S. troops leave that is supposed to concern us. And we are supposed to be powerless to do anything about it other than increase the bombings or avert our eyes to focus on blaming peaceniks. Here's another idea that I think has been proposed so infrequently in part because most people either find it unthinkable or find it too obvious to bother saying: What if we were to try an approach of real anti-isolationism?

What if the United States were to sign and ratify and abide by the major laws of the world, support the world's systems of justice, cooperate in disarmament (including the nuclear weapons ban treaty), collaborate on climate protection, provide humanitarian aid on an unprecedented scale (albeit miniscule in comparison with military spending), jumpstart a reverse arms race, democratize the United Nations, participate in truth and reconciliation hearings, invest in unarmed peacekeeping, cease arming and training brutal dictatorships, and actually back democracy abroad and by its own example?

The son of the last dictator the United States imposed on Iran is waiting hopefully in Bethesda, Maryland, for the next U.S. overthrow of the Iranian government, while Iran has not picked out a future King of America. What if the United States ceased worrying about rogue nations and focused on ceasing to be one?

But, you may object, none of that fantasy is going to happen this week, while meanwhile the Kurds are going to be massacred without their U.S. military friends. Back here in the real world, in which the United States and its allies are going to go on flooding the Middle East with weapons and using war as foreign policy, each war must be continued until . . . well, until a fantasy becomes possible, or Jesus comes back from wherever he's been, or the Democrats take the throne but don't act like, you know, the Democrats have always acted, or something! Of course, we all know what the something is going to be: climate collapse, the Middle East becoming uninhabitable for humans, and extreme weather disasters in much of the rest of the globe. And the response to this shocking if completely predictable and predicted development will be violence or nonviolence, depending on what we have been conditioned to suppose is normal or "natural" or "inevitable."

Given that what is at stake here is human survival, given that the U.S. presidency has been gradually endowed with imperial powers such that the fate of thousands of people can be determined by a tweet, are we really obliged to limit our short-term thinking to (a) "support the troops" by keeping them in a desert exchanging bullets with the locals, or (b) "abandon" people? Why not demand of the U.S. government and/or other nations purporting to care about humanity, immediate announcement of an end to the weapons trade, the opening of diplomatic talks with all relevant parties, the commencement of a major aid program, and support for a major new program of unarmed peacekeeping through a coalition of the decent or if possible through a United Nations in which the United States foreswears the veto?

Such an alternative to the imperialism-or-isolationism trap is no more difficult to think of or to act on than treating drug addiction or crime or poverty as reason to help people rather than to punish them. The opposite of bombing people is not ignoring them. The opposite of bombing people is embracing them. By the standards of the U.S. communications corporations Switzerland must be the most isolationist land because it doesn't join in bombing anyone. The fact that it supports the rule of law and global cooperation, and hosts gatherings of nations seeking to work together is simply not relevant. How about in the new year at least we try a little new thinking?

This article was originally published at DavidSwanson.org on December 27, 2018.

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Isolationism or Imperialism: You Really Can't Imagine a Third Possibility?

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Does anything strike you as odd about exclamations that withdrawing U.S. troops from a war is a form of "isolationism"? Of the United Nations' 18 major human rights treaties, the United States is party to 5, fewer than any other nation on earth, except Bhutan (4), and tied with Malaysia, Myanmar, and South Sudan, a country torn by warfare since its creation in 2011.

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Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August. On June 28, 1919, five years to the day after Franz Ferdinand's death, Germany and the Allied Powers signed the Treaty of Versailles, officially marking the end of World War I.

The archduke traveled to Sarajevo in June 1914 to inspect the imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. The annexation had angered Serbian nationalists, who believed the territories should be part of Serbia. A group of young nationalists hatched a plot to kill the archduke during his visit to Sarajevo, and after some missteps, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip was able to shoot the royal couple at point-blank range, while they traveled in their official procession, killing both almost instantly.

The assassination set off a rapid chain of events, as Austria-Hungary immediately blamed the Serbian government for the attack. As large and powerful Russia supported Serbia, Austria asked for assurances that Germany would step in on its side against Russia and its allies, including France and possibly Great Britain. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the fragile peace between Europe's great powers collapsed, beginning the devastating conflict now known as the First World War.

After more than four years of bloodshed, the Great War ended on November 11, 1918, after Germany, the last of the Central Powers, surrendered to the Allies. At the peace conference in Paris in 1919, Allied leaders would state their desire to build a post-war world that was safe from future wars of such enormous scale. The Versailles Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, tragically failed to achieve this objective. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's grand dreams of an international peace-keeping organization faltered when put into practice as the League of Nations. Even worse, the harsh terms imposed on Germany, the war's biggest loser, led to widespread resentment of the treaty and its authors in that country-a resentment that would culminate in the outbreak of the Second World War two decades later.

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Austria's Archduke Ferdinand assassinated | June 28, 1914 | HISTORY

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Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August.

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chapter 23- Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/archduke-ferdinand-assassinated
chapter 23- The technology of WW1 https://www.ncpedia.org/sites/default/files/browning_machine_gun.jpg
chapter 23- The 14 points https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbdhxLVlrhI
chapter 23- Treaty of Versalies https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Versailles-1919

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Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points | History

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Treaty of Versailles | Definition, Summary, Terms, & Facts | Britannica

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Treaty of Versailles, peace document signed at the end of World War I by the Allied powers and Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, France, on June 28, 1919; it took force on January 10, 1920. Learn more about the Treaty of Versailles here.