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is the exchange of slaves and goods between the West Indies, the American Colonies, and West Africa.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/transatlantic-slave-trade

https://youtu.be/3NXC4Q_4JVg

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was the reorganization and rebuilding of the former Confederate states after the Civil War.
https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/reconstruction

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were a group of harsh laws intended to punish the colonists of Massachusetts for their resistance of British rule, also known as the Coercive Acts.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-intolerable-acts-of-1774-definition-summary-significance.html

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Britain's House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament, helped issue a series of acts in response to the Boston Tea Party and the American colonies' continual rebellion.

Someone was going to pay.

Parliament was utterly fed up with colonial antics. The British could tolerate strongly worded letters or trade boycotts. They could put up with defiant legislatures and harassed customs officials to an extent.

But they saw the destruction of 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company as wanton destruction of property by Boston thugs who did not even have the courage to admit responsibility.

Someone was going to pay.

Calami-tea

The British called their responsive measures to the Boston Tea Party the Coercive Acts. Boston Harbor was closed to trade until the owners of the tea were compensated. Only food and firewood were permitted into the port. Town meetings were banned, and the authority of the royal governor was increased.

To add insult to injury, General Gage, the British commander of North American forces, was appointed governor of Massachusetts. British troops and officials would now be tried outside Massachusetts for crimes of murder. Greater freedom was granted to British officers who wished to house their soldiers in private dwellings.

This Town has received the Copy of an Act of the British Parliament, wherein it appears that we have been tried and condemned, and are to be punished, by the shutting up of the harbor and other marks of revenge, until we shall disgrace ourselves by servilely yielding up, in effect, the just and righteous claims of America....The people receive this cruel edict with abhorrence and indignation. They consider themselves as suffering the stroke ministerial...I hope they will sustain the blow with a becoming fortitude, and that the cursed design of intimidating and subduing the spirits of all America, will, by the joint efforts of all, be frustrated.

- Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren (May 14, 1774)

Colonists sometimes took out their anger over unfair taxes on the tax collector, as depicted in this drawing from 1774.

The Quebec Act

Parliament seemed to have a penchant for bad timing in these years. Right after passing the Coercive Acts, it passed the , a law that recognized the Roman Catholic Church as the established church in Quebec. An appointed council, rather than an elected body, would make the major decisions for the colony. The boundary of Quebec was extended into the Ohio Valley.

In the wake of the passage of the Quebec Act, rage spread through the 13 colonies. With this one act, the British Crown granted land to the French in Quebec that was clearly desired by the American colonists. The extension of tolerance to Catholics was viewed as a hostile act by predominantly Protestant America.

Democracy took another blow with the establishment of direct rule in Quebec. Although the British made no connection between the Coercive Acts and the Quebec Act, they were seen on the American mainland as malicious deed and collectively called the Intolerable Acts.

INTOLERABLE ACTS

Boston Port Act
An act to discontinue, in such manner, and for or such time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town, and within the harbour, of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America.

Massachusetts Government Act
An Act for the better regulating the government of the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England.

Administration of Justice Act
An act for the impartial administration of justice in the case of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.

Quebec Act
An Act for making effectual Provision for the Government of the Province of Quebec in North America.

Throughout the colonies, the message was clear: what could happen in Massachusetts could happen anywhere. The British had gone too far. Supplies were sent to the beleaguered colony from the other twelve. For the first time since the Stamp Act Crisis, an intercolonial conference was called.

It was under these tense circumstances that the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774.

Fairfax Resolves
In response to the closing of the Port of Boston and the passage of the other Intolerable Acts by Parliament, colonists voiced their opposition on a local level. In July 1774, Fairfax County, Virginia, passed the Fairfax County Resolves in protest. This website offers the text of this document, which was drafted by George Mason and George Washington.

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The Intolerable Acts
The series of acts British Parliament passed in 1774 in reaction to the Boston Tea Party came to be known in the American colonies as the Intolerable Acts. This U.S. History website offers a brief description of the Intolerable Acts with a link to each specific act.

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The Declaration of Rights and Grievances
What was the colonies' reaction to the "impolitic, unjust, and cruel" Intolerable Acts? They called a Continental Congress in September of the same year and listed their grievences against the British. This U.S. Constitution website looks at the First Continental Congress.

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Class Conflicts among Americans in the Revolutionary Period
Not every colonist supported the rebellious actions of the Sons of Liberty and the call to action of the Committees of Correspondence. Loyalists, men and women loyal to Britain and the king, could be found throughout the colonies. Tensions between loyalists and patriots were fueled by class conflicts. One loyalist, Gouverneur Morris, penned letters voicing his concern about the American Revolution, excerpts of which are presented and explained at this Montclair State College website.

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About one-third of all American colonists remained loyal to the British during the Revolution. Take this quiz to uncover other fun facts about the road to revolution.
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In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament attempted to crack down on the defiant American colonists with the passage of harsh laws severely restricting the colonists' freedoms. The Americans referred to this oppresive legislation as The Intolerable Acts

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created two houses of Congress. One based on population, the other gave equal representation to each state.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?298275-27/the-great-compromise

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The Great Compromise was forged in a heated dispute during the 1787 Constitutional Convention: States with larger populations wanted congressional representation based on population, while smaller states demanded equal representation. To keep the convention from dissolving into chaos, the founding fathers came up with the Great Compromise. The agreement, which created today's system of congressional representation, now influences everything from "pork barrel" legislation to the way votes are counted in the electoral college during presidential elections.

The debate almost destroyed the U.S. Constitution.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, delegates from larger states believed each state's representation in the newly proposed Senate should be proportionate to population.

Smaller states with lower populations argued that such an arrangement would lead to an unfair dominance of larger states in the new nation's government, and each state should have equal representation, regardless of population.

The disagreement over representation threatened to derail the ratification of the U.S. Constitution since delegates from both sides of the dispute vowed to reject the document if they didn't get their way. The solution came in the form of a compromise proposed by statesmen Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut.

The Great Compromise created two legislative bodies in Congress.

Also known as the Sherman Compromise or the Connecticut Compromise, the deal combined proposals from the Virginia (large state) plan and the New Jersey (small state) plan.

According to the Great Compromise, there would be two national legislatures in a bicameral Congress. Members of the House of Representatives would be allocated according to each state's population and elected by the people.

In the second body-the Senate -each state would have two representatives regardless of the state's size, and state legislatures would choose Senators. (In 1913, the 17th Amendment was passed, tweaking the Senate system so that Senators would be elected directly by the people.)

The plan was at first rejected, but then approved by a slim margin on July 23, 1787.

Smaller states have disproportionately more power in the Senate.

At the time of the convention, states' populations varied, but not by nearly as much as they do today. As a result, one of the main lingering political effects of the Great Compromise is that states with smaller populations have a disproportionately bigger voice in the nation's Congress.

As political scientist George Edwards III of Texas A&M University points out, California hosts about 68 times more people than Wyoming, yet they have the same number of votes in the Senate.

"The founders never imagined ... the great differences in the population of states that exist today," says Edwards. "If you happen to live in a low-population state you get a disproportionately bigger say in American government."

The imbalance of proportionate power favoring smaller states in the Senate means that interests in those states, such as mining in West Virginia or hog farming in Iowa, are more likely to get attention-and money-from federal coffers.

"In the Senate when they're trying to get to 51 votes to pass a bill, every vote counts," says Todd Estes, a historian at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. "That's when the smaller states can demand amendments and additions to bills to look out for their own state's interest."

The Great Compromise also skewed the electoral college.

The principle of protecting small states through equal representation in the Senate carries over into the electoral college, which elects the president since the number of electoral votes designated to each state is based on a state's combined number of representatives in the House and Senate.

That means, for example, even though Wyoming only has three votes in the electoral college, with the smallest population of all the states, each elector represents a far smaller group of people than each of the 55 electoral votes in the most populous state of California.

The system ensures power is distributed geographically.

Some scholars see the small-state bias in the Senate as critical. The arrangement means that power in the Senate is distributed geographically, if not by population, ensuring that interests across the entire country are represented.

Gary L. Gregg II, a political scientist at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, argues in a 2012 article in Politico that major metropolitan areas already hold power by hosting major media, donor, academic and government centers. The structure of the Senate and the corresponding representation in the electoral college, he says, ensures that the interests of rural and small-town America are preserved.

Was that the intention of the Founding Fathers? Edwards is doubtful since, as he points out, the majority of Americans at the time of Constitutional Congress came from rural areas-not urban. "No one was thinking about protecting rural interests," Edwards says. "Rural interests were dominant at the time."

Whatever the viewpoint on the fairness of the Great Compromise's distribution of delegates to the Senate, it is unlikely to ever change. This is because equal-state representation in the Senate is specifically protected in the Constitution.

According to Article V of the Constitution, no state can lose its equal representation in the Senate without the state's permission. And no state is likely to willingly give up their say in the Senate.

HISTORY Vault: America the Story of Us

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We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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How the Great Compromise and the Electoral College Affect Politics Today | HISTORY

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Larger states wanted congressional representation based on population, while smaller states wanted equal representation. They met in the middle.

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allowed the federal government to pay Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi River and resulted in the Trail of Tears.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-trail-of-tears-and-jacksons-indian-removal-act-of-1830.html

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Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act

The great Cherokee Nation that had fought the young Andrew Jackson back in 1788 now faced an even more powerful and determined man who was intent on taking their land. But where in the past they had resorted to guns, tomahawks, and scalping knives, now they chose to challenge him in a court of law. They were not called a "civilized nation" for nothing. Many of their leaders were well educated; many more could read and write; they had their own written language, thanks to Sequoyah, a constitution, schools, and their own newspaper. And they had adopted many skills of the white man to improve their living conditions. Why should they be expelled from their lands when they no longer threatened white settlements and could compete with them on many levels? They intended to fight their ouster, and they figured they had many ways to do it. As a last resort they planned to bring suit before the Supreme Court.

Prior to that action, they sent a delegation to Washington to plead their cause. They petitioned Congress to protect them against the unjust laws of Georgia that had decreed that they were subject to its sovereignty and under its complete jurisdiction. They even approached the president, but he curtly informed them that there was nothing he could do in their quarrel with the state, a statement that shocked and amazed them.

So the Cherokees hired William Wirt to take their case to the Supreme Court. In the celebrated Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Wirt instituted suit for an injunction that would permit the Cherokees to remain in Georgia without interference by the state. He argued that they constituted an independent nation and had been so regarded by the United States in its many treaties with them.

Speaking for the majority of the court, Chief Justice John Marshall handed down his decision on March 18, 1831. Not surprisingly, as a great American nationalist, he rejected Wirt's argument that the Cherokees were a sovereign nation, but he also rejected Jackson's claim that they were subject to state law. The Indians were "domestic dependent nations," he ruled, subject to the United States as a ward to a guardian. Indian territory was part of the United States but not subject to action by individual states.

When the Cherokees read Marshall's decision, they had honestly believed that the Nation had won the case, that Georgia lacked authority to control their lives and property, and that the courts would protect them. The Supreme Court, the principal chief told his people, decided "in our favor." So they stayed right where they were, and missionaries encouraged them to stand fast.

They figured without Andrew Jackson-the man the Cherokees called "Sharp Knife"-and the authorities of Georgia, the government would have to honor their wishes. Then in late December 1830, the state passed another law prohibiting white men from entering Indian country after March 1, 1831, without a license from the state. This move was obviously intended to keep interfering clergymen from inciting the Indians to disobey Georgia law. Eleven such missionaries were arrested for violating the recent statute, nine of whom accepted pardons from the governor in return for a promise that they would cease violating Georgia law. But Samuel A. Worcester and Dr. Elizur Butler refused the pardon, and Judge Augustin S.J. Clayton sentenced them to the state penitentiary, "there to endure hard labor for the term of four years." They appealed the verdict and their case came before the Supreme Court.

On March 3, 1832, Marshall again ruled in Worcester v. Georgia, declaring all the laws of Georgia dealing with the Cherokees unconstitutional, null, void, and of no effect. In addition, he issued a formal mandate two days later ordering the state's superior court to reverse its decision and free the two men.

Jackson was presently involved in a confrontation with South Carolina over the passage of the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832. The state had nullified the acts and threatened to secede from the Union if force were used to make it comply with them. The last thing Jackson needed was a confrontation with another state, so he quietly nudged Georgia into obeying the court order and freeing Butler and Worcester. A number of well-placed officials in both the state and national governments lent a hand and the governor, Wilson Lumpkin, released the two men on January 14, 1833.

With the annoying problem of the two missionaries out of the way, both Georgia and Jackson continued to lean on the Cherokees to get them removed. They claimed that "some of the most vicious and base characters that the adjoining states can produce" squatted on their land and stole "horses and other property," and formed a link with as many "bad citizens" of the Cherokee Nation "as they can associate into their club." Missionaries decried what was happening to the Cherokees. If only "whites would not molest them," wrote Dr. Elizur Butler in The Missionary Herald. They have made remarkable progress in the last dozen years and if left alone they can and will complete the process toward a "civilized life."

But allowing eastern Indians full control of their eastern lands was virtually impossible in the 1830s. There was not army enough or will enough by the American people to bring it about. As Jackson constantly warned, squatters would continue to invade and occupy the land they wanted; then, if they were attacked, they would turn to the state government for protection that usually ended in violence. All this under the guise of bringing "civilization" to the wilderness.

Even so, the Cherokees had a strong leader who had not yet given up the fight. They were led by the wily, tough, and determined John Ross, a blue-eyed, brown-haired mixed-blood who was only one-eighth Cherokee. Nonetheless he was the principal chief, and a most powerful force within the Nation. He was rich, lived in a fine house attended by black slaves, and had influence over the annuities the United States paid to the tribal government for former land cessions. His appearance and lifestyle were distinctly white; in all other respects he was Indian.

From the beginning of Jackson's administration Ross urged his people to stand their ground and remain united. "Friends," he told them, "I have great hopes in your firmness and that you will hold fast to the place where you were raised. If you all unite together and be of one mind there is no danger." And the Cherokees cheered his determination. They approved wholeheartedly of his leadership and they took comfort in what he said. So, with the Nation solidly behind him, Ross resolutely resisted any thought of leading his people from their ancient land into a godforsaken wilderness.

Still the Cherokees held out, even though even they had begun to feel the unrelenting pressure. A so-called Treaty Party emerged within the Nation, made up of chiefs and headmen who understood Jackson's inflexible will and had decided to bow to his wishes and try to get the best treaty possible. They were led by very capable, hard-headed, and pragmatic men, including the Speaker of the Cherokee National Council, Major Ridge; his son, the educated and politically ambitious John Ridge; and the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, Elias Boudinot.

John Ridge took a leading role in the emergence of the Treaty Party, for when the Worcester decision was first handed down, he instantly recognized that Chief Justice Marshall had rendered an opinion that abandoned the Cherokees to their inevitable fate. So he went to Jackson and asked him point-blank whether the power of the United States would be exerted to force Georgia into respecting Indian rights and property. The president assured him that the government would do nothing. He then advised Ridge most earnestly to go home and urge his people to move themselves west. Dejected, the chief left the president with the melancholy conviction that he had been told the truth. From that moment, he was convinced that the only alternative to save his people from moral and physical death, was to make the best terms they could with the government and move out of the limits of the states. This conviction he did not fail to make known to his friends, and hence rose the "Treaty Party."

The members of this Treaty Party certainly risked their lives in pressing for removal, and indeed all of them were subsequently marked for assassination. Not too many years later, Elias Boudinot and John Ridge were slain with knives and tomahawks in the midst of their families, while Major Ridge was ambushed and shot to death.

John Ross, on the other hand, would not yield. As head of the National Party that opposed removal, he was shrewd enough to recognize immediately that the president would attempt to play one party off against the other. "The object of the President is unfolded & made too plain to be misunderstood," he told the Nation. "It is to create divisions among ourselves, break down our government, our press & our treasury, that our cries may not be heard abroad; that we may be deprived of the means of sending delegations to Washington City to make known our grievances before Congress . . . and break down the government which you [Cherokees] have, by your own free will & choice, established for the security of your freedom & common welfare."

Under the circumstance, Ross decided to go to Washington and request a meeting with the president in order to try again to arrange some accommodation that would prevent the mass relocation of his people to what was now the new Indian Territory, which Congress had created in 1834 and which eventually became the state of Oklahoma. He was tormented by the knowledge that his people would be condemned to a prairie "badly watered and only skirted on the margin of water courses and poor ridges with copes of wood." Worse, districts would be laid out for some "fifteen or twenty different tribes, and all speaking different languages, and cherishing a variety of habits and customs, a portion civilized, another half civilized and others uncivilized, and these congregated tribes of Indians to be regulated under the General Government, by no doubt white rulers." The very thought of it sent shivers through Ross's entire body.

Since he had fought with Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend during the Creek War, he reckoned that his service during that battle would provide him with a degree of leverage in speaking with the president. And, as principal chief, he could speak with the duly constituted authority of the Cherokee Nation as established under the Cherokee Constitution of 1827. He had another reason for requesting the interview. He had heard a rumor that Jackson had commissioned the Reverend John F. Schermerhorn, an ambitious cleric who had assisted in the removal of the Seminoles from Florida, to negotiate with Ridge and his associates and see if a deal could be worked out that would result in a treaty. Definitely alarmed, Ross asked to speak with the President at which time he said he would submit his own proposal for a treaty.

Jackson never liked Ross. He called him "a great villain." Unlike Ridge and Boudinot, said Jackson, the principal chief headed a mixed-blood elite, and was intent on centralizing power in his own hands and diverting the annuities to those who would advance his authority and their economic self-interests. Real Indians were full-blooded Indians, not half-breeds, he declared. They were hunters, they were true warriors who, like Ridge and Boudinot, understood the president's concern for his red children and wished to prevent the calamity of certain annihilation that would ensue if they did not heed his pleas to move west. As for Ross's authority under the Cherokee Constitution, Jackson denied that it existed. He said that this so-called Constitution provided for an election in 1832 and it had not been held. Instead the principal chief had simply filled the National Council with his henchmen- another indication, claimed Jackson, of an elitist clique who ruled the Nation and disregarded the interests of the majority of the people.

Despite his feelings about the chief, Jackson decided to grant Ross's request for a meeting. Above all else, he wanted Cherokee removal and if that meant seeing this "great villain" and hearing about his proposal for relocating the tribe, then he would do it. As a consummate politician, Jackson understood the value of playing one party off against another, so when he granted the interview, he directed that Schermerhorn suspend his negotiations with the Treaty Party and wait for the outcome of his interview with the principal chief.

In fact, Jackson and Ross were much alike. Both were wily, tough, determined, obsessed with protecting the interests of their respective peoples, and markedly dignified and polite when they came together in the White House on Wednesday, February 5, 1834. It was exactly noon when the principal chief arrived, and the Great Father greeted him with the respect due Ross's position. The chief returned the compliment. For a few minutes, their conversation touched on pleasantries, then they got down to the matter and began playing a political game that involved the lives of thousands, both Native Americans and white settlers.

Unfortunately, despite his many talents and keen intelligence, Ross was no match for the president. He simply lacked the resources of his adversary.

The principal chief opened with an impassioned plea. "Your Cherokee children are in deep distress," he said, "because they are left at the mercy of the white robber and assassin" and receive no redress from the Georgia courts. That state, he declared, has not only "surveyed and lotteried off" Cherokee land to her citizens but legislated as though Cherokees were intruders in their own country.

Jackson just listened. Then the principal chief acted imprudently and made impossible demands on the president. To start, he insisted that in any treaty the Nation must retain some of their land along the borders of Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia-land that had already been occupied by white settlers. He even included a small tract in North Carolina. He then required assurances that the United States government would protect the Cherokees with federal troops in the new and old settlements for a period of five years.

Jackson could scarcely believe what was being demanded of him. Under other circumstances, he would have acted up a storm in an attempt to frighten and cower the chief. But on this occasion he decided against it. Instead, in a calm and quiet but determined voice, he told Ross that nothing short of an entire removal of the Cherokee Nation from all their land east of the Mississippi would be acceptable.

Having run into a stone wall, Ross headed in another direction. In view of the gold that had recently been discovered in Georgia and North Carolina, he wanted $20 million for all their eastern land plus reimbursement for losses sustained by the Nation for violations of former treaties by the United States. He also asked for indemnities for claims under the 1817 and 1819 Cherokee treaties. The total amount almost equaled the national debt.

On hearing this, Jackson also changed direction. His voice hardened, his intense blue eyes flared, and the muscles in his face tightened and registered his growing displeasure. Obviously the principal chief had not caught the president's meaning when he rejected the first demand. Jackson snapped at Ross, rejected the proposal as "preposterous" and warned Ross that the Great Father was not to be trifled with. If these demands were the best the chief could offer then there was no point in continuing the discussion.

That brought Ross up short. Completely surprised by Jackson's reaction, he reaffirmed his own sincerity, and to prove it he offered to accept any award the Senate of the United States might recommend. Apparently, the chief was attempting to set up a bidding contest between the upper house and the chief executive. Surprisingly, Jackson accepted the offer and assured Ross that he would go as far as the Senate in any award that might be proposed. And on that conciliatory note, the interview ended.

In less than a week, Ross received his answer about what the Senate would offer. John P. King of Georgia chaired the Committee on Indian Affairs that considered the question. That was bad enough. Then the committee came up with an offer of $5 million. The figure shocked the principal chief. Jackson probably knew beforehand what would happen and therefore agreed to Ross's suggestion. Now the Indian was faced with rejecting the money outright or accepting this paltry sum and thereby losing credibility with his people. Naturally, he chose the former course. He claimed he had been misunderstood, that he could not possibly agree to such an amount, and that his reputation among the Cherokees would be shattered if he consented to it. He left Washington an angry and bitter man.

Having disposed of Ross, Jackson turned back to Schermerhorn and instructed him to renew the negotiations with the Treaty Party. With little difficulty, the cleric managed to arrange a draft removal treaty signed on March 14, 1835, by Schermerhorn, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, and a small delegation of Cherokees. After due notice, the treaty was submitted to the Cherokee National Council at New Echota, Georgia, for approval and sent to the president for submission to the Senate. The draft stipulated that the Cherokees surrender to the United States all its land east of the Mississippi River for a sum of $5 million, an amount that one modern historian has called "unprecedented generosity." This cession comprised nearly 8 million acres of land in western North Carolina, northern Georgia, northeastern Alabama, and eastern Tennessee. A schedule of removal provided that the Cherokees would be resettled in the west and receive regular payments for subsistence, claims, and spoliations, and would be issued blankets, kettles, and rifles.

At approximately the same time this draft treaty was drawn up and considered at New Echota, a large delegation of Cherokee chiefs-in the desperate hope that their assembled presence would make a difference and prevent the treaty from going forward to the Senate -went to Washington and asked to speak to the Great Father. In contrast to his grudging granting of Ross's request, Jackson was anxious to meet the delegation and give the chiefs one of his celebrated "talks."

The Indians arrived at the White House at the designated hour, and Jackson treated them with marked respect, as though they really were dignitaries of a foreign nation. Yet he did not remotely say or do anything that would indicate an acceptance of their independence or sovereignty. Once the Indians had assembled, they faced the president as he began his talk.

"Brothers, I have long viewed your condition with great interest. For many years, I have been acquainted with your people, and under all variety of circumstances, in peace and war. Your fathers are well known to me .... Listen to me, therefore, as your fathers have listened ...."

Jackson paused. He turned from side to side to look at and take in all the Cherokees standing around him. After a few moments, he began again.

"You are now placed in the midst of a white population .... You are now subject to the same laws which govern the citizens of Georgia and Alabama. You are liable to prosecutions for offenses, and to civil actions for a breach of any of your contracts. Most of your people are uneducated, and are liable to be brought into collision at all times with your white neighbors. Your young men are acquiring habits of intoxication. With strong passions . . . they are frequently driven to excesses which must eventually terminate in their ruin. The game has disappeared among you, and you must depend upon agriculture and the mechanic arts for support. And yet, a large portion of your people have acquired little or no property in the soil itself .... How, under these circumstances, can you live in the country you now occupy? Your condition must become worse and worse, and you will ultimately disappear, as so many tribes have done before you."

These were his usual arguments, but he judged them essential for success.

"You have not listened to me," he scolded. "You went to the courts for relief. You turned away from your Great Father. And what happened? After years of litigation, you received little satisfaction from the Supreme Court and succeeded in earning the enmity of many whites. "I have no motive, Brothers, to deceive you," he said. '" am sincerely desirous to promote your welfare. Listen to me, therefore, while I tell you that you cannot remain where you are now .... It [is] impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You have but one remedy within your reach. And that is to remove to the West and join your countrymen, who are already established there. The choice is yours. May the great spirit teach you how to choose."

Jackson then concluded by reminding them of the fate of the Creeks, that once great and proud Nation. How broken and reduced in circumstances their lives had now become because they resisted. It was a not-so-subtle threat that also struck home. "Think then of these things," he concluded. 'Shut your ears to bad counsels. Look at your condition as it now is, and then consider what it will be if you follow the advice I give you."

That ended the talk, and the Indians filed from the room more disappointed and depressed than ever. Jackson would not budge, and they knew their kinsmen were dead set against removal. It was a stalemate that could end only in tragedy.

Meanwhile, Schermerhorn called a "council of all the people" to meet him at New Echota in Georgia during the third week of December 1835 to approve the draft treaty, making sure that a large contingent of Treaty Party members attended. Like Jackson, he had the temerity to warn other Cherokees that if they stayed away their absence would be considered a vote of consent for the draft.

Despite the threat and the warning, practically the entire Nation stayed away. As a consequence, the treaty was approved on December 28 by the unbelievably low number of 79 to 7. The numbers represented only the merest fraction of the Nation. A vast majority-perhaps fifteen-sixteenths of the entire population-presumably opposed it and showed their opposition by staying away. The entire process was fraudulent, but that hardly mattered. Jackson had the treaty he wanted, and he did not hesitate to so inform the Senate. The Treaty of New Echota closely, but not completely, resembled the draft treaty in that the Cherokees surrendered all their eastern land and received $4.5 million in return. They would be paid for improvements, removed at government expense, and maintained for two years. Removal was to take place within two years from the date of the treaty's approval by the Senate and president.

A short while later, some 12,000 Cherokees signed a resolution denouncing the Treaty of New Echota and forwarded it to the Senate. Even the North Carolina Cherokees, in a separate action, added 3,250 signatures to a petition urging the Senate to reject it. But Jackson was assured by the Treaty Party that 'a majority of the people' approved the document 'and all are willing peaceable to yield to the treaty and abide by it. Such information convinced the president that the principal chief and his "half breed" cohorts had coerced the Cherokees into staying away from New Echota under threat of physical violence.

At New Echota the Treaty Party selected a Committee of Thirteen to carry the treaty to Washington and they were empowered to act on any alteration required by the president or the U.S. Senate. This Committee invited Ross to join the group and either support the treaty or insist on such alterations as to make it acceptable. 'But to their appeal [Ross] returned no answer,' which further convinced the President that the treaty represented the genuine interests and the will of the majority of Cherokees.

Although Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and other senators spoke fervently against the treaty in the Senate, a two-thirds majority of 31 members voted for it and 15 against. It carried by a single vote on May 18. Jackson added his signature on May 23, 1836, and proclaimed the Treaty of New Echota in force.

And they had two years-that is until May 23, 1838-to cross over the Mississippi and take up their new residence in the Indian Territory. But every day of that two-year period John Ross fought the inevitable. He demanded to see the president and insisted that Jackson recognize the authority of the duly-elected National Council, but Sharp Knife would have none of him and turned him away. Back home the principal chief advised his people to ignore the treaty and stay put. "We will not recognize the forgery palmed off upon the world as a treaty by a knot of unauthorized individuals,' he cried, 'nor stir one step with reference to that false paper."

Not everyone listened to him. They knew Andrew Jackson better. Some 2,000 Cherokees resigned themselves to the inevitable, packed their belongings, and headed west. The rest, the vast majority of the tribe, could not bear to leave their homeland and chose to hope that their principal chief would somehow work the miracle that would preserve their country to them.

But their fate could not have been worse. When the two-year grace period expired and Jackson had left office, his hand-picked successor, President Martin Van Buren, ordered the removal to begin. Militiamen charged into the Cherokee country and drove the Cherokees from their cabins and houses. With rifles and bayonets, they rounded up the Indians and placed them in prison stockades that had been erected "for gathering in and holding the Indians preparatory to removal." These poor, frightened and benighted innocents, while having supper in their homes, "were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles of trail which led to the stockade. Men were seized in the fields, women were taken from their wheels and children from their play." As they turned for one last glimpse of their homes, they frequently saw them in flames, set ablaze by the lawless rabble who followed the soldiers, scavenging what they could. These outlaws stole the cattle and other livestock and even desecrated graves in their search for silver pendants and other valuables. They looted and burned. Said one Georgia volunteer who later served in the Confederate army: "I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest I ever saw."

In a single week, some 17,000 Cherokees were rounded up and herded into what was surely a concentration camp. Many sickened and died while they awaited transport to the west. In June, the first contingent of about a thousand Indians boarded a steamboat and sailed down the Tennessee River on the first lap of their westward journey. Then they were boxed like animals into railroad cars drawn by two locomotives. Again there were many deaths on account of the oppressive heat and cramped conditions in the cars. For the last leg of the journey, the Cherokees walked. Small wonder they came to call this 800-mile nightmare "The Trail of Tears." Of the approximately 18,000 Cherokees who were removed, at least 4,000 died in the stockades along the way, and some say the figure actually reached 8,000. By the middle of June 1838, the general in charge of the Georgia militia proudly reported that not a single Cherokee remained in the state except as prisoners in the stockade.

At every step of their long journey to the Indian Territory, the Cherokees were robbed and cheated by contractors, lawyers, agents, speculators, and anyone wielding local police power. Food supplied by the government disappeared or arrived in short supply. The commanding officer, General Winfield Scott, and a few other generals "were concerned about their reputation for humaneness," says one modern historian, "and probably even for the Cherokee. There just wasn't much they could do about it." As a result many died needlessly. "Oh! The misery and wretchedness that presents itself to our view in going among these people," wrote one man. "Sir, I have witnessed entire families prostrated with sickness-not one able to give help to the other, and these poor people were made the instruments of enriching a few unprincipled and wicked contractors."

And this, too, is part of Andrew Jackson's legacy. Although it has been pointed out many times that he was no longer president of the United States when the Trail of Tears occurred and had never intended such a monstrous result of his policy, that hardly excuses him. It was his insistence on the speedy removal of the Cherokees, even after he had left office, that brought about this horror. From his home outside Nashville, he regularly badgered Van Buren about enforcing the treaty. He had become obsessed about removal. He warned that Ross would exert every effort and means available to him to get the treaty rescinded or delayed and that, he said, must be blocked. But the new president assured him that nothing would interfere with the exodus of the Cherokees and that no extension of the two-year grace period would be tolerated under any circumstance.

Principal Chief John Ross also shares a portion of blame for this unspeakable tragedy. He continued his defiance even after the deadline for removal had passed. He encouraged his people to keep up their resistance, despite every sign that no appreciable help would be forthcoming from the American people or anyone else; and he watched as they suffered the awful consequences of his intransigence.

Despite the obscene treatment accorded the Cherokees by the government, the tribe not only survived but endured. As Jackson predicted, they escaped the fate of many extinct eastern tribes. Cherokees today have their tribal identity, a living language, and at least three governmental bodies to provide for their needs. Would that the Yemassee, Mohegans, Pequots, Delawares, Narragansetts, and other such tribes could say the same.

Excerpted from Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars by Robert V. Remini. Copyright Robert V. Remini, 2001. Reprinted by arrangement with Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc. The excerpt was originally published in August 2001 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!

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The great Cherokee Nation that had fought the young Andrew Jackson back in 1788 now faced an even more powerful and determined man who was intent on taking their land. But where in the past they had resorted to guns, tomahawks, and scalping knives, now they chose to challenge him in a court of law.

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protected the rights of English citizens and became the basis for the American Bill of Rights.

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English Bill of Rights - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com

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Find out more about the history of English Bill of Rights, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

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is a system set up by the Constitution in which each branch of the federal government has the power to check, or control, the actions of the other branches.

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Checks and Balances - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com

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Find out more about the history of Checks and Balances, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

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the turning point in the Civil War for the union. confederate troops were forced to retreat and never invaded the union again.

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Battle of Gettysburg: Summary, Facts & Casualties | HISTORY

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The Battle of Gettysburg, fought over three hot summer days, from July 1 to July 3, 1863, is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. The South lost the battle—and many men—and it marked a turning point in the bloody war that left the South mostly on the defensive.

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was signed in july 4, 1776. it declared America independence from england.

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Table of Contents

1. America Before the Declaration of Independence

2. Thomas Jefferson Writes the Declaration of Independence

3. The Continental Congress Votes for Independence

The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation's people asserting their right to choose their own government.

When armed conflict between bands of American colonists and British soldiers began in April 1775, the Americans were ostensibly fighting only for their rights as subjects of the British crown. By the following summer, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, the movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue. In mid-June 1776, a five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin was tasked with drafting a formal statement of the colonies' intentions. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence-written largely by Jefferson-in Philadelphia on July 4, a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence.

America Before the Declaration of Independence

Even after the initial battles in the Revolutionary War broke out, few colonists desired complete independence from Great Britain, and those who did-like John Adams- were considered radical. Things changed over the course of the next year, however, as Britain attempted to crush the rebels with all the force of its great army. In his message to Parliament in October 1775, King George III railed against the rebellious colonies and ordered the enlargement of the royal army and navy. News of his words reached America in January 1776, strengthening the radicals' cause and leading many conservatives to abandon their hopes of reconciliation. That same month, the recent British immigrant Thomas Paine published "Common Sense," in which he argued that independence was a "natural right" and the only possible course for the colonies; the pamphlet sold more than 150,000 copies in its first few weeks in publication.

Did you know? Most Americans did not know Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence until the 1790s; before that, the document was seen as a collective effort by the entire Continental Congress.

In March 1776, North Carolina's revolutionary convention became the first to vote in favor of independence; seven other colonies had followed suit by mid-May. On June 7, the Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a motion calling for the colonies' independence before the Continental Congress when it met at the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. Amid heated debate, Congress postponed the vote on Lee's resolution and called a recess for several weeks. Before departing, however, the delegates also appointed a five-man committee-including Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York-to draft a formal statement justifying the break with Great Britain. That document would become known as the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson Writes the Declaration of Independence

Jefferson had earned a reputation as an eloquent voice for the patriotic cause after his 1774 publication of "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," and he was given the task of producing a draft of what would become the Declaration of Independence. As he wrote in 1823, the other members of the committee "unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught [sic]. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections....I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress."

As Jefferson drafted it, the Declaration of Independence was divided into five sections, including an introduction, a preamble, a body (divided into two sections) and a conclusion. In general terms, the introduction effectively stated that seeking independence from Britain had become "necessary" for the colonies. While the body of the document outlined a list of grievances against the British crown, the preamble includes its most famous passage: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

The Continental Congress Votes for Independence

The Continental Congress reconvened on July 1, and the following day 12 of the 13 colonies adopted Lee's resolution for independence. The process of consideration and revision of Jefferson's declaration (including Adams' and Franklin's corrections) continued on July 3 and into the late morning of July 4, during which Congress deleted and revised some one-fifth of its text. The delegates made no changes to that key preamble, however, and the basic document remained Jefferson's words. Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence later on the Fourth of July (though most historians now accept that the document was not signed until August 2).

The Declaration of Independence became a significant landmark in the history of democracy. In addition to its importance in the fate of the fledgling American nation, it also exerted a tremendous influence outside the United States, most memorably in France during the French Revolution. Together with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence can be counted as one of the three essential founding documents of the United States government.

HISTORY Vault

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America Before the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson Writes the Declaration of Independence The Continental Congress Votes for Independence The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation's people asserting their right to choose their own government.

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the first permanent English settlement, was founded in 1607. lots of people died here and 10% of people in America can trace their ancestry back to the first settlers in Jamestown.

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On May 14, 1607, a group of roughly 100 members of a joint venture called the Virginia Company founded the first permanent English settlement in North America on the banks of the James River.

Famine, disease and conflict with local Native American tribes in the first two years brought Jamestown to the brink of failure before the arrival of a new group of settlers and supplies in 1610.

Tobacco became Virginia's first profitable export, and a period of peace followed the marriage of colonist John Rolfe to Pocahontas, the daughter of an Algonquian chief. During the 1620s, Jamestown expanded from the area around the original James Fort into a New Town built to the east. It remained the capital of the Virginia colony until 1699.

English Settlement in the New World

After Christopher Columbus' historic voyage in 1492, Spain dominated the race to establish colonies in the Americas, while English efforts, such as the "lost colony" of Roanoke, met with failure. In 1606, King James I granted a charter to a new venture, the Virginia Company, to form a settlement in North America. At the time, Virginia was the English name for the entire eastern coast of North America north of Florida; they had named it for Elizabeth I, the "virgin queen." The Virginia Company planned to search for gold and silver deposits in the New World, as well as a river route to the Pacific Ocean that would allow them to establish trade with the Orient.

Roughly 100 colonists left England in late December 1606 on three ships (the Susan Constant, the Godspeed and the Discovery) and reached Chesapeake Bay late the next April. After forming a governing council-including Christopher Newport, commander of the sea voyage, and Captain John Smith, a former mercenary who had been accused of insubordination aboard ship by several other company members-the group searched for a suitable settlement site. On May 13, 1607, they landed on a narrow peninsula-virtually an island-in the James River, where they would begin their lives in the New World.

Surviving the First Years

Known variously as James Forte, James Towne and James Cittie, the new settlement initially consisted of a wooden fort built in a triangle around a storehouse for weapons and other supplies, a church and a number of houses. By the summer of 1607, Newport went back to England with two ships and 40 crewmembers to give a report to the king and to gather more supplies and colonists. The settlers left behind suffered greatly from hunger and illnesses like typhoid and dysentery, caused from drinking contaminated water from the nearby swamp. Settlers also lived under constant threat of attack by members of local Algonquian tribes, most of which were organized into a kind of empire under Chief Powhatan.
READ MORE: What Was Life Like in Jamestown?
An understanding reached between Powhatan and John Smith led the settlers to establish much-needed trade with Powhatan's tribe by early 1608. Though skirmishes still broke out between the two groups, the Native Americans traded corn for beads, metal tools and other objects (including some weapons) from the English, who would depend on this trade for sustenance in the colony's early years. After Smith returned to England in late 1609, the inhabitants of Jamestown suffered through a long, harsh winter known as "The Starving Time," during which more than 100 of them died. Firsthand accounts describe desperate people eating pets and shoe leather. Some Jamestown colonists even resorted to cannibalism. George Percy, the colony's leader in John Smith's absence, wrote:

"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 corpse out of graves and to eat them, and some have licked up the blood which hath fallen from their weak fellows."

In the spring of 1610, just as the remaining colonists were set to abandon Jamestown, two ships arrived bearing at least 150 new settlers, a cache of supplies and the new English governor of the colony, Lord De La Warr.

Growth of the Colony

Though De La Warr soon took ill and went home, his successor Sir Thomas Gates and Gates' second-in command, Sir Thomas Dale, took firm charge of the colony and issued a system of new laws that, among other things, strictly controlled the interactions between settlers and Algonquians. They took a hard line with Powhatan and launched raids against Algonquian villages, killing residents and burning houses and crops. The English began to build other forts and settlements up and down the James River, and by the fall of 1611 had managed to harvest a decent crop of corn themselves. They had also learned other valuable techniques from the Algonquians, including how to insulate their dwellings against the weather using tree bark, and expanded Jamestown into a New Town to the east of the original fort.

A period of relative peace followed the marriage in April 1614 of the colonist and tobacco planter John Rolfe to Pocahontas, a daughter of Chief Powhatan who had been captured by the settlers and converted to Christianity. (According to John Smith, Pocahontas had rescued him from death in 1607, when she was just a young girl and he was her father's captive.) Thanks largely to Rolfe's introduction of a new type of tobacco grown from seeds from the West Indies, Jamestown's economy began to thrive. In 1619, the colony established a General Assembly with members elected by Virginia's male landowners; it would become a model for representative governments in later colonies. That same year, the first Africans (around 50 men, women and children) arrived in the English settlement; they had been on a Portuguese slave ship captured in the West Indies and brought to the Jamestown region. They worked as indentured servants at first (the race-based slavery system developed in North America in the 1680s) and were most likely put to work picking tobacco.
READ MORE: 5 Myths About Pocahontas
Powhatans After Pocahontas

Pocahontas' death during a trip to England in 1617 and the death of Powhatan in 1618 strained the already fragile peace between the English settlers and the Native Americans. Under Powhatan's successor, Opechankeno, the Algonquians became more and more angry about the colonists' insatiable need for land and the pace of English settlement; meanwhile, diseases brought from the Old World decimated the Native American population. In March 1622, the Powhatan made a major assault on English settlements in Virginia, killing some 350 to 400 residents (a full one-quarter of the population). The attack hit the outposts of Jamestown the hardest, while the town itself received advance warning and was able to mount a defense.

In an effort to take greater control of the situation, King James I dissolved the Virginia Company and made Virginia into an official crown colony, with Jamestown as its capital, in 1624. The New Town area of Jamestown continued to grow, and the original fort seems to have disappeared after the 1620s. Though the Powhatan people continued to mount a resistance (Opechankeno, by then in his 80s, led another great rebellion in 1644), the colony continued to grow stronger, and his successor Necotowance was forced to sign a peace treaty that ceded most of the Powhatans' land and forced them to pay an annual tribute to the colonial governor.

Bacon's Rebellion

Bacon's Rebellion was the first rebellion in the American colonies. In 1676, economic problems and unrest with Native Americans drove Virginians led by Nathaniel Bacon to rise up against Governor William Berkeley. Colonists, enraged at declining tobacco prices and higher taxes, sought a scapegoat in local tribes who still periodically sparred with settlers and lived on land they hoped to obtain for themselves.

A July 1675 raid by the Doeg tribe sparked retaliation, and when Governor Berkeley set up a meeting between the two quarreling parties, several tribal chiefs were murdered. In 1675, the General Assembly declared war on "hostile" tribes and forbid traders from working with them. Conveniently, trade was restricted to friends of Berkeley's.
READ MORE: Why America's First Colonial Rebels Burned Jamestown to the Ground
Bacon, a distant relative of Berkeley's, led a volunteer militia and demanded that the Governor give him a commission to fight Native Americans. Berkeley refused, so Bacon raided and killed them on his own. Governor Berkeley named Bacon a rebel, but that didn't stop Bacon from being elected as a burgess and returning to Jamestown to surround the statehouse with his army.

Bacon's rallying cry was his "Declaration in the Name of the People," which charged that Berkeley was corrupt and "protected, favoured and Imboldened the Indians against his Majesties loyall subjects." Bacon's forces drove Governor Berkeley from the capital and set fire to Jamestown on September 19, 1676. Bacon died of dysentery in October, and armed merchant ships from London, followed by forces sent by King Charles II, soon put down the resistance.

Jamestown Abandoned

In 1698, the central statehouse in Jamestown burned down, and Middle Plantation, now known as Williamsburg, replaced it as the colonial capital the following year. While settlers continued to live and maintain farms there, Jamestown was all but abandoned.

Jamestown Island housed military posts during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. In the 20th century, preservationists undertook a major restoration of the area. The National Park Service now administers it as part of the Colonial National Historical Park called "Historic Jamestowne." The Jamestown Rediscovery archeological project, begun in 1994, examines artifacts uncovered at the settlement to gain a better understanding of daily life in the first permanent English colony in the New World.

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On May 14, 1607, a group of roughly 100 members of a joint venture called the Virginia Company founded the first permanent English settlement in North America on the banks of the James River.