# data[].attributes.body
First Migration:
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Arctic

The Arctic culture area, a cold, flat, treeless region (actually a frozen desert) near the Arctic Circle in present-day Alaska, Canada and Greenland, was home to the Inuit and the Aleut. Both groups spoke, and continue to speak, dialects descended from what scholars call the Eskimo-Aleut language family.

Because it is such an inhospitable landscape, the Arctic's population was comparatively small and scattered. Some of its peoples, especially the Inuit in the northern part of the region, were nomads, following seals, polar bears and other game as they migrated across the tundra. In the southern part of the region, the Aleut were a bit more settled, living in small fishing villages along the shore.

Did you know? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 4.5 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the United States today. That's about 1.5 percent of the population.

The Inuit and Aleut had a great deal in common. Many lived in dome-shaped houses made of sod or timber (or, in the North, ice blocks). They used seal and otter skins to make warm, weatherproof clothing, aerodynamic dogsleds and long, open fishing boats (kayaks in Inuit; baidarkas in Aleut).

By the time the United States purchased Alaska in 1867, decades of oppression and exposure to European diseases had taken their toll: The native population had dropped to just 2,500; the descendants of these survivors still make their homes in the area today.

The Subarctic

The Subarctic culture area, mostly composed of swampy, piney forests (taiga) and waterlogged tundra, stretched across much of inland Alaska and Canada. Scholars have divided the region's people into two language groups: the Athabaskan speakers at its western end, among them the Tsattine (Beaver), Gwich'in (or Kuchin) and the Deg Xinag (formerly-and pejoratively-known as the Ingalik), and the Algonquian speakers at its eastern end, including the Cree, the Ojibwa and the Naskapi.

In the Subarctic, travel was difficult-toboggans, snowshoes and lightweight canoes were the primary means of transportation-and population was sparse. In general, the peoples of the Subarctic did not form large permanent settlements; instead, small family groups stuck together as they traipsed after herds of caribou. They lived in small, easy-to-move tents and lean-tos, and when it grew too cold to hunt they hunkered into underground dugouts.

The growth of the fur trade in the 17th and 18th centuries disrupted the Subarctic way of life-now, instead of hunting and gathering for subsistence, the Indians focused on supplying pelts to the European traders-and eventually led to the displacement and extermination of many of the region's native communities.

The Northeast

The Northeast culture area, one of the first to have sustained contact with Europeans, stretched from present-day Canada's Atlantic coast to North Carolina and inland to the Mississippi River valley. Its inhabitants were members of two main groups: Iroquoian speakers (these included the Cayuga, Oneida, Erie, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora), most of whom lived along inland rivers and lakes in fortified, politically stable villages, and the more numerous Algonquian speakers (these included the Pequot, Fox, Shawnee, Wampanoag, Delaware and Menominee) who lived in small farming and fishing villages along the ocean. There, they grew crops like corn, beans and vegetables.

Life in the Northeast culture area was already fraught with conflict-the Iroquoian groups tended to be rather aggressive and warlike, and bands and villages outside of their allied confederacies were never safe from their raids-and it grew more complicated when European colonizers arrived. Colonial wars repeatedly forced the region's Indigenous people to take sides, pitting the Iroquois groups against their Algonquian neighbors. Meanwhile, as white settlement pressed westward, it eventually displaced both sets of Indigenous people from their lands.

The Southeast

The Southeast culture area, north of the Gulf of Mexico and south of the Northeast, was a humid, fertile agricultural region. Many of its natives were expert farmers-they grew staple crops like maize, beans, squash, tobacco and sunflower-who organized their lives around small ceremonial and market villages known as hamlets. Perhaps the most familiar of the Southeastern Indigenous peoples are the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, sometimes called the Five Civilized Tribes, some of whom spoke a variant of the Muskogean language.

By the time the U.S. had won its independence from Britain, the Southeast culture area had already lost many of its native people to disease and displacement. In 1830, the federal Indian Removal Act compelled the relocation of what remained of the Five Civilized Tribes so that white settlers could have their land. Between 1830 and 1838, federal officials forced nearly 100,000 Indigenous people out of the southern states and into "Indian Territory" (later Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi. The Cherokee called this frequently deadly trek the Trail of Tears.

The Plains

The Plains culture area comprises the vast prairie region between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, from present-day Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Before the arrival of European traders and explorers, its inhabitants-speakers of Siouan, Algonquian, Caddoan, Uto-Aztecan and Athabaskan languages-were relatively settled hunters and farmers. After European contact, and especially after Spanish colonists brought horses to the region in the 18th century, the peoples of the Great Plains became much more nomadic.

Groups like the Crow, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Comanche and Arapaho used horses to pursue great herds of buffalo across the prairie. The most common dwelling for these hunters was the cone-shaped teepee, a bison-skin tent that could be folded up and carried anywhere. Plains Indians are also known for their elaborately feathered war bonnets.

As white traders and settlers moved west across the Plains region, they brought many damaging things with them: commercial goods, like knives and kettles, which Indigenous people came to depend on; guns; and disease. By the end of the 19th century, white sport hunters had nearly exterminated the area's buffalo herds. With settlers encroaching on their lands and no way to make money, the Plains natives were forced onto government reservations.

The Southwest

The peoples of the Southwest culture area, a huge desert region in present-day Arizona and New Mexico (along with parts of Colorado, Utah, Texas and Mexico) developed two distinct ways of life.

Sedentary farmers such as the Hopi, the Zuni, the Yaqui and the Yuma grew crops like corn, beans and squash. Many lived in permanent settlements, known as pueblos, built of stone and adobe. These pueblos featured great multistory dwellings that resembled apartment houses. At their centers, many of these villages also had large ceremonial pit houses, or kivas.

Other Southwestern peoples, such as the Navajo and the Apache, were more nomadic. They survived by hunting, gathering and raiding their more established neighbors for their crops. Because these groups were always on the move, their homes were much less permanent than the pueblos. For instance, the Navajo fashioned their iconic eastward-facing round houses, known as hogans, out of materials like mud and bark.

By the time the southwestern territories became a part of the United States after the Mexican War, many of the region's native people had already been killed. (Spanish colonists and missionaries had enslaved many of the Pueblo Indians, for example, working them to death on vast Spanish ranches known as encomiendas.) During the second half of the 19th century, the federal government resettled most of the region's remaining natives onto reservations.

The Great Basin

The Great Basin culture area, an expansive bowl formed by the Rocky Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevadas to the west, the Columbia Plateau to the north, and the Colorado Plateau to the south, was a barren wasteland of deserts, salt flats and brackish lakes. Its people, most of whom spoke Shoshonean or Uto-Aztecan dialects (the Bannock, Paiute and Ute, for example), foraged for roots, seeds and nuts and hunted snakes, lizards and small mammals. Because they were always on the move, they lived in compact, easy-to-build wikiups made of willow poles or saplings, leaves and brush. Their settlements and social groups were impermanent, and communal leadership (what little there was) was informal.

After European contact, some Great Basin groups got horses and formed equestrian hunting and raiding bands that were similar to the ones we associate with the Great Plains natives. After white prospectors discovered gold and silver in the region in the mid-19th century, most of the Great Basin's people lost their land and, frequently, their lives.

California

Before European contact, the temperate California area had more people than any other North American landscape at the time, with approximately 300,000 people in the mid-16th century. It's estimated that 100 different tribes and groups spoke more than 200 dialects. These languages were derived from the Penutian (the Maidu, Miwok and Yokuts), the Hokan (the Chumash, Pomo, Salinas and Shasta), the Uto-Aztecan (the Tubabulabal, Serrano and Kinatemuk) and the Athapaskan (the Hupa, among others). Many of the "Mission Indians" who were driven out of the Southwest by Spanish colonization also spoke Uto-Aztecan dialects.

Despite this great diversity, many native Californians lived very similar lives. They did not practice much agriculture. Instead, they organized themselves into small, family-based bands of hunter-gatherers known as tribelets. Inter-tribelet relationships, based on well-established systems of trade and common rights, were generally peaceful.

Spanish explorers infiltrated the California region in the middle of the 16th century. In 1769, the cleric Junipero Serra established a mission at San Diego, inaugurating a particularly brutal period in which forced labor, disease and assimilation nearly exterminated the culture area's native population.

The Northwest Coast

The Northwest Coast culture area, along the Pacific coast from British Columbia to the top of Northern California, has a mild climate and an abundance of natural resources. In particular, the ocean and the region's rivers provided almost everything its people needed-salmon, especially, but also whales, sea otters, seals and fish and shellfish of all kinds. As a result, unlike many other hunter-gatherers who struggled to eke out a living and were forced to follow animal herds from place to place, the Indians of the Pacific Northwest were secure enough to build permanent villages that housed hundreds of people apiece.

Those villages operated according to a rigidly stratified social structure, more sophisticated than any outside of Mexico and Central America. A person's status was determined by his closeness to the village's chief and reinforced by the number of possessions-blankets, shells and skins, canoes and even slaves-he had at his disposal. (Goods like these played an important role in the potlatch, an elaborate gift-giving ceremony designed to affirm these class divisions.)

Prominent groups in the region included the Athapaskan Haida and Tlingit; the Penutian Chinook, Tsimshian and Coos; the Wakashan Kwakiutl and Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka); and the Salishan Coast Salish.

The Plateau

The Plateau culture area sat in the Columbia and Fraser River basins at the intersection of the Subarctic, the Plains, the Great Basin, California and the Northwest Coast (present-day Idaho, Montana and eastern Oregon and Washington). Most of its people lived in small, peaceful villages along streams and riverbanks and survived by fishing for salmon and trout, hunting and gathering wild berries, roots and nuts.

In the southern Plateau region, the great majority spoke languages derived from the Penutian (the Klamath, Klikitat, Modoc, Nez Perce, Walla Walla and Yakima or Yakama). North of the Columbia River, most (the Skitswish (Coeur d'Alene), Salish (Flathead), Spokane and Columbia) spoke Salishan dialects.

In the 18th century, other native groups brought horses to the Plateau. The region's inhabitants quickly integrated the animals into their economy, expanding the radius of their hunts and acting as traders and emissaries between the Northwest and the Plains.

In 1805, the explorers Lewis and Clark passed through the area, followed by increasing numbers of white settlers. By the end of the 19th century, most of the remaining members of Plateau tribes had been cleared from their lands and resettled in government reservations.

Photo Galleries

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Native American Cultures - Facts, Regions & Tribes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Native Americans, also known as American Indians and Indigenous Americans, are the indigenous peoples of the United States. By the time European adventurers arrived in the 15th century A.D., scholars estimate that more than 50 million Native Americans were already living in the Americas - 10 million in the area that would become the United States.

# data[].attributes.body
Early Native Americans:
https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/native-american-cultures

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Renaissance: Was it a Thing? - Crash Course World History #22

# data[].attributes.body
Culture groups:
http://www.iupui.edu/~mstd/e320/amerind/cultareas.gif

# data[].attributes.body
European Renaissance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vufba_ZcoR0&feature=youtu.be

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Loading...

When the Vikings burst out of their homelands starting in the 8th century, they raided, fought and settled in many parts of Europe and Russia, but they also took off on voyages of discovery across the Atlantic Ocean. They moved into Scotland and Ireland and most of the Atlantic Islands-Shetland, Orkney and the Hebrides. Vikings soon settled in the Faroe Islands as well and later discovered Iceland through a sailing mishap. Over the next two centuries, Viking explorers settled in Iceland, Greenland and Vinland, in what is now Newfoundland.

Iceland

Norwegian Vikings first discovered Iceland. The first was Naddod, who was blown off course sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands in 861. He called the new island Snowland. Naddod returned to Norway and told people of his discovery. Six years later, Floki Vilgerdarson was the first Viking to set out for Iceland and find it. Floki gave the island its present name of Iceland. However, it wasn't until 870 that people arrived to settle in Iceland.

Loading...

Loading...

When Harald Fairhair strong-armed Norway under his control, many people fled-some settled in Scotland, Ireland, Orkneys and Faroe Islands and Iceland. A Norwegian chieftain, Ingolfur Arnarson brought his family to Iceland in 874, settling on the southwest peninsula in a place he called Reykjavik or Cove of Smoke. Many other families from Norway, Scotland and Ireland followed. The Icelandic sagas and Landnamabok or Book of the Settlements, written 200 years later, describes the early settling of Iceland. For the next 60 years, settlers came and picked out arable land to farm.

Greenland

Icelanders discovered and settled in Greenland starting in the 980s. Erik the Red, an adventuresome and belligerent man, was exiled from Iceland for killing a man. During his three year-exile, Erik explored the southwest coast of Greenland. When he returned to Iceland, he bragged of the good land he had found, calling it Greenland to attract settlers. Icelanders settled in two main areas, the Eastern Settlement and the Western Settlement.

Farming was difficult, but settlers were able raise livestock and enough grain to feed them. Greenland was able to export furs, wool, sheep, whale blubber and walrus ivory. Due to the advance of the Little Ice Age, however, the colony declined during the 14th century. Life had become too hard, shipping too difficult due t o growing ice. By 1408, all the settlers were gone.

Vinland, North America

A trader named Bjarni Herjolfsson was sailing to Greenland. He was blown off course and sighted lands to the west. He successfully completed his journey to Greenland where he described his accidental find to Leif Ericson, son of Erik the Red. Circa A.D. 1000, Leif and a crew sailed across 1,800 miles across open sea, following Bjarni's description of his voyage. The Greenlanders made a small settlement in the land they called Vinland. Due to hostile natives that the Vikings called skraelings, the settlement eventually failed.

In the 1960s, a Norse settlement was found at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland by an archeologist Anne Stine Ingstad and her husband Helge. Whether this is the Viking settlement mentioned in various sagas is still in dispute, but archeology proves the Vikings discovered North America 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

This article is part of our larger selection of posts about The Vikings. To learn more, click here for our comprehensive guide to The Vikings .

Cite This Article

"Viking Explorations and Settlements: Iceland, Greenland and Vinland" History on the Net
© 2000-2023, Salem Media.
September 24, 2023 <https://www.historyonthenet.com/viking-explorations-and-settlements-iceland-greenland-and-vinland>
More Citation Information.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Viking Explorations and Settlements: Iceland, Greenland and Vinland - History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When the Vikings burst out of their homelands starting in the 8th century, they raided, fought and settled in many parts of Europe and Russia, but they

# data[].attributes.body
Vikings:
https://www.historyonthenet.com/viking-explorations-and-settlements-iceland-greenland-and-vinland

# data[].attributes.body
Spanish empires: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/precontact-and-early-colonial-era/spanish-colonization/a/the-spanish-conquistadores-and-colonial-empire

# data[].attributes.body
Columbus:
http://640937158308155248.weebly.com/uploads/1/7/7/5/17755615/629513043.jpg?521

# data[].attributes.body
Race for Empires:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWtzWw4LYmg

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Printable Version During the early and mid-sixteenth century, the English tended to conceive of North America as a base for piracy and harassment of the Spanish. But by the end of the century, the English began to think more seriously about North America as a place to colonize: as a market for English goods and a source of raw materials and commodities such as furs. English promoters claimed that New World colonization offered England many advantages. Not only would it serve as a bulwark against Catholic Spain, it would supply England with raw materials and provide a market for finished products. America would also provide a place to send the English poor and ensure that they would contribute to the nation's wealth.

During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the English poor increased rapidly in number. As a result of the enclosure of traditional common lands (which were increasingly used to raise sheep), many common people were forced to become wage laborers or else to support themselves hand-to-mouth or simply as beggars.

After unsuccessful attempts to establish settlements in Newfoundland and at Roanoke, the famous "Lost Colony," off the coast of present-day North Carolina, England established its first permanent North American settlement, Jamestown, in 1607. Located in swampy marshlands along Virginia's James River, Jamestown's residents suffered horrendous mortality rates during its first years. Immigrants had just a fifty-fifty chance of surviving five years.

The Jamestown expedition was financed by the Virginia Company of London, which believed that precious metals were to be found in the area. From the outset, however, Jamestown suffered from disease and conflict with Indians. Approximately 30,000 Algonquian Indians lived in the region, divided into about 40 tribes. About 30 tribes belonged to a confederacy led by Powhatan.

Food was an initial source of conflict. More interested in finding gold and silver than in farming, Jamestown's residents (many of whom were either aristocrats or their servants) were unable or unwilling to work. When the English began to seize Indian food stocks, Powhatan cut off supplies, forcing the colonists to subsist on frogs, snakes, and even decaying corpses.

Captain John Smith (1580?-1631) was twenty-six years old when the first expedition landed. A farmer's son, Smith had already led an adventurous life before arriving in Virginia. He had fought with the Dutch army against the Spanish and in eastern Europe against the Ottoman Turks, when he was taken captive and enslaved. He later escaped to Russia before returning to England.

Smith, serving as president of the Jamestown colony from 1608 to 1609, required the colonists to work and traded with the Indians for food. In 1609, after being wounded in a gunpowder accident, Smith returned to England. After his departure, conflict between the English and the Powhatan confederacy intensified, especially after the colonists began to clear land in order to plant tobacco.

In a volume recounting the history of the English colony in Virginia, Smith describes a famous incident in which Powhatan's 12-year-old daughter, Pocahontas (1595?-1617), saved him from execution. Although some have questioned whether this incident took place (since Smith failed to mention it in his Historie's first edition), it may well have been a "staged event," an elaborate adoption ceremony by which Powhatan symbolically made Smith his vassal or servant. Through similar ceremonies, the Powhatan people incorporated outsiders into their society. Pocahontas reappears in the colonial records in 1613, when she was lured aboard an English ship and held captive. Negotiations for her release failed, and in 1614, she married John Rolfe, the colonist who introduced tobacco to Virginia. Whether this marriage represented an attempt to forge an alliance between the English and the Powhatan remains uncertain.

Copyright 2019 Digital History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Printable Version During the early and mid-sixteenth century, the English tended to conceive of North America as a base for piracy and harassment of the Spanish. But by the end of the century, the English began to think more seriously about North America as a place to colonize: as a market for English goods and a source of raw materials and commodities such as furs.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment

# data[].attributes.subject
The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Learning Objectives

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

Explain the significance of the Great Awakening

Describe the genesis, central ideas, and effects of the Enlightenment in British North America

Two major cultural movements further strengthened Anglo-American colonists' connection to Great Britain: the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment. Both movements began in Europe, but they advocated very different ideas: the Great Awakening promoted a fervent, emotional religiosity, while the Enlightenment encouraged the pursuit of reason in all things. On both sides of the Atlantic, British subjects grappled with these new ideas.

During the eighteenth century, the British Atlantic experienced an outburst of Protestant revivalism known as the First Great Awakening. (A Second Great Awakening would take place in the 1800s.) During the First Great Awakening, evangelists came from the ranks of several Protestant denominations: Congregationalists, Anglicans (members of the Church of England), and Presbyterians. They rejected what appeared to be sterile, formal modes of worship in favor of a vigorous emotional religiosity. Whereas Martin Luther and John Calvin had preached a doctrine of predestination and close reading of scripture, new evangelical ministers spread a message of personal and experiential faith that rose above mere book learning. Individuals could bring about their own salvation by accepting Christ, an especially welcome message for those who had felt excluded by traditional Protestantism: women, the young, and people at the lower end of the social spectrum.

The Great Awakening caused a split between those who followed the evangelical message (the "New Lights") and those who rejected it (the "Old Lights"). The elite ministers in British America were firmly Old Lights, and they censured the new revivalism as chaos. Indeed, the revivals did sometimes lead to excess. In one notorious incident in 1743, an influential New Light minister named James Davenport urged his listeners to burn books. The next day, he told them to burn their clothes as a sign of their casting off the sinful trappings of the world. He then took off his own pants and threw them into the fire, but a woman saved them and tossed them back to Davenport, telling him he had gone too far.

Another outburst of Protestant revivalism began in New Jersey, led by a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church named Theodorus Frelinghuysen. Frelinghuysen's example inspired other ministers, including Gilbert Tennent, a Presbyterian. Tennant helped to spark a Presbyterian revival in the Middle Colonies (Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey), in part by founding a seminary to train other evangelical clergyman. New Lights also founded colleges in Rhode Island and New Hampshire that would later become Brown University and Dartmouth College.

In Northampton, Massachusetts, Jonathan Edwards led still another explosion of evangelical fervor. Edwards's best-known sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," used powerful word imagery to describe the terrors of hell and the possibilities of avoiding damnation by personal conversion. One passage reads: "The wrath of God burns against them [sinners], their damnation don't slumber, the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them, the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened her mouth under them." Edwards's revival spread along the Connecticut River Valley, and news of the event spread rapidly through the frequent reprinting of his famous sermon.

The foremost evangelical of the Great Awakening was an Anglican minister named George Whitefield. Like many evangelical ministers, Whitefield was itinerant, traveling the countryside instead of having his own church and congregation. Between 1739 and 1740, he electrified colonial listeners with his brilliant oratory.

Two Opposing Views of George Whitefield

Not everyone embraced George Whitefield and other New Lights. Many established Old Lights decried the way the new evangelical religions appealed to people's passions, rather than to traditional religious values. The two illustrations below present two very different visions of George Whitefield.

Compare the two images above. On the left is an illustration for Whitefield's memoirs, while on the right is a cartoon satirizing the circus-like atmosphere that his preaching seemed to attract (Dr. Squintum was a nickname for Whitefield, who was cross-eyed). How do these two artists portray the same man? What emotions are the illustration for his memoirs intended to evoke? What details can you find in the cartoon that indicate the artist's distaste for the preacher?

The Great Awakening saw the rise of several Protestant denominations, including Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists (who emphasized adult baptism of converted Christians rather than infant baptism). These new churches gained converts and competed with older Protestant groups like Anglicans (members of the Church of England), Congregationalists (the heirs of Puritanism in America), and Quakers. The influence of these older Protestant groups, such as the New England Congregationalists, declined because of the Great Awakening. Nonetheless, the Great Awakening touched the lives of thousands on both sides of the Atlantic and provided a shared experience in the eighteenth-century British Empire.

The Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, was an intellectual and cultural movement in the eighteenth century that emphasized reason over superstition and science over blind faith. Using the power of the press, Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Voltaire questioned accepted knowledge and spread new ideas about openness, investigation, and religious tolerance throughout Europe and the Americas. Many consider the Enlightenment a major turning point in Western civilization, an age of light replacing an age of darkness.

Several ideas dominated Enlightenment thought, including rationalism, empiricism, progressivism, and cosmopolitanism. Rationalism is the idea that humans are capable of using their faculty of reason to gain knowledge. This was a sharp turn away from the prevailing idea that people needed to rely on scripture or church authorities for knowledge. Empiricism promotes the idea that knowledge comes from experience and observation of the world. Progressivism is the belief that through their powers of reason and observation, humans could make unlimited, linear progress over time; this belief was especially important as a response to the carnage and upheaval of the English Civil Wars in the seventeenth century. Finally, cosmopolitanism reflected Enlightenment thinkers' view of themselves as citizens of the world and actively engaged in it, as opposed to being provincial and close-minded. In all, Enlightenment thinkers endeavored to be ruled by reason, not prejudice.

The Freemasons were a fraternal society that advocated Enlightenment principles of inquiry and tolerance. Freemasonry originated in London coffeehouses in the early eighteenth century, and Masonic lodges (local units) soon spread throughout Europe and the British colonies. One prominent Freemason, Benjamin Franklin, stands as the embodiment of the Enlightenment in British America. Born in Boston in 1706 to a large Puritan family, Franklin loved to read, although he found little beyond religious publications in his father's house. In 1718 he was apprenticed to his brother to work in a print shop, where he learned how to be a good writer by copying the style he found in the Spectator, which his brother printed. At the age of seventeen, the independent-minded Franklin ran away, eventually ending up in Quaker Philadelphia. There he began publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette in the late 1720s, and in 1732 he started his annual publication Poor Richard: An Almanack, in which he gave readers much practical advice, such as "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

Franklin subscribed to deism, an Enlightenment-era belief in a God who created, but has no continuing involvement in, the world and the events within it. Deists also advanced the belief that personal morality-an individual's moral compass, leading to good works and actions-is more important than strict church doctrines. Franklin's deism guided his many philanthropic projects. In 1731, he established a reading library that became the Library Company of Philadelphia. In 1743, he founded the American Philosophical Society to encourage the spirit of inquiry. In 1749, he provided the foundation for the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1751, he helped found Pennsylvania Hospital.

His career as a printer made Franklin wealthy and well-respected. When he retired in 1748, he devoted himself to politics and scientific experiments. His most famous work, on electricity, exemplified Enlightenment principles. Franklin observed that lightning strikes tended to hit metal objects and reasoned that he could therefore direct lightning through the placement of metal objects during an electrical storm. He used this knowledge to advocate the use of lightning rods: metal poles connected to wires directing lightning's electrical charge into the ground and saving wooden homes in cities like Philadelphia from catastrophic fires. He published his findings in 1751, in Experiments and Observations on Electricity.

Franklin also wrote of his "rags to riches" tale, his Memoir, in the 1770s and 1780s. This story laid the foundation for the American Dream of upward social mobility.

Visit the Worldly Ways section of PBS's Benjamin Franklin site to see an interactive map showing Franklin's overseas travels and his influence around the world. His diplomatic, political, scientific, and business achievements had great effects in many countries.

The reach of Enlightenment thought was both broad and deep. In the 1730s, it even prompted the founding of a new colony. Having witnessed the terrible conditions of debtors' prison, as well as the results of releasing penniless debtors onto the streets of London, James Oglethorpe, a member of Parliament and advocate of social reform, petitioned King George II for a charter to start a new colony. George II, understanding the strategic advantage of a British colony standing as a buffer between South Carolina and Spanish Florida, granted the charter to Oglethorpe and twenty like-minded proprietors in 1732. Oglethorpe led the settlement of the colony, which was called Georgia in honor of the king. In 1733, he and 113 immigrants arrived on the ship Anne. Over the next decade, Parliament funded the migration of twenty-five hundred settlers, making Georgia the only government-funded colonial project.

Oglethorpe's vision for Georgia followed the ideals of the Age of Reason, seeing it as a place for England's "worthy poor" to start anew. To encourage industry, he gave each male immigrant fifty acres of land, tools, and a year's worth of supplies. In Savannah, the Oglethorpe Plan provided for a utopia: "an agrarian model of sustenance while sustaining egalitarian values holding all men as equal."

Oglethorpe's vision called for alcohol and slavery to be banned. However, colonists who relocated from other colonies, especially South Carolina, disregarded these prohibitions. Despite its proprietors' early vision of a colony guided by Enlightenment ideals and free of slavery, by the 1750s, Georgia was producing quantities of rice grown and harvested by slaves.

The eighteenth century saw a host of social, religious, and intellectual changes across the British Empire. While the Great Awakening emphasized vigorously emotional religiosity, the Enlightenment promoted the power of reason and scientific observation. Both movements had lasting impacts on the colonies. The beliefs of the New Lights of the First Great Awakening competed with the religions of the first colonists, and the religious fervor in Great Britain and her North American colonies bound the eighteenth-century British Atlantic together in a shared, common experience. The British colonist Benjamin Franklin gained fame on both sides of the Atlantic as a printer, publisher, and scientist. He embodied Enlightenment ideals in the British Atlantic with his scientific experiments and philanthropic endeavors. Enlightenment principles even guided the founding of the colony of Georgia, although those principles could not stand up to the realities of colonial life, and slavery soon took hold in the colony.

Review Question

Who were the Freemasons, and why were they significant?

Answer to Review Question

The Freemasons were a fraternal society that originated in London coffeehouses in the early eighteenth century. They advocated Enlightenment principles of inquiry and tolerance. Masonic lodges soon spread throughout Europe and the British colonies, creating a shared experience on both sides of the Atlantic and spreading Enlightenment intellectual currents throughout the British Empire. Benjamin Franklin was a prominent Freemason.

Glossary

deism an Enlightenment-era belief in the existence of a supreme being-specifically, a creator who does not intervene in the universe-representing a rejection of the belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind

Enlightenment an eighteenth-century intellectual and cultural movement that emphasized reason and science over superstition, religion, and tradition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By the end of this section, you will be able to: Explain the significance of the Great Awakening Describe the genesis, central ideas, and effects of the Enlightenment in British North America Two major cultural movements further strengthened Anglo-American colonists' connection to Great Britain: the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Taxes & Smuggling - Prelude to Revolution: Crash Course US History #6

# data[].attributes.body
English Settlement:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3574

# data[].attributes.body
Colonial response:
https://sbt.blob.core.windows.net/storyboards/grahamgatewood/g.svg?utc=131062030085770000

# data[].attributes.body
The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-ushistory1os2xmaster/chapter/great-awakening-and-enlightenment/

# data[].attributes.body
Acts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eytc9ZaNWyc

# data[].attributes.headline
The Battle of Yorktown and the reaty of Paris

# data[].attributes.subject
The Battle of Yorktown and the reaty of Paris

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris [ushistory.org]

# data[].attributes.headline
Paul Revere's Ride and the Battles of Lexington and oncord

# data[].attributes.subject
Paul Revere's Ride and the Battles of Lexington and oncord

# data[].attributes.body
ARTICLE

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lead-Up to the Battles of Lexington and Concord

Starting in 1764, Great Britain enacted a series of measures aimed at raising revenue from its 13 American colonies. Many of those measures, including the Sugar Act, Stamp Act and Townshend Acts, generated fierce resentment among the colonists, who protested against "taxation without representation." Boston, the site of the 1770 Boston Massacre and the 1773 Boston Tea Party, was one of the main points of resistance. King George III of Britain ramped up the military presence there, and in June 1774 he shut down the city's harbor until colonists paid for tea dumped overboard the previous year. Soon after, the British Parliament declared that Massachusetts was in open rebellion.
Did you know? Paul Revere never shouted the legendary phrase later attributed to him ("The British are coming!") as he passed from town to town during his midnight ride on April 18, 1775. The operation was meant to be conducted as discreetly as possible since scores of British troops were hiding out in the Massachusetts countryside. Furthermore, colonial Americans at that time still considered themselves British.
On April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren, a physician and member of the Sons of Liberty, learned from a source inside the British high command that Redcoat troops would march that night on Concord. Warren dispatched two couriers, silversmith Paul Revere and tanner William Dawes, to alert residents of the news.

They went by separate routes in case one of them was captured. Revere crossed the Charles River by boat to get to Charlestown, where fellow patriots were waiting for a signal about the movement of British troops. The patriots had been instructed to look at the steeple of Boston's Old North Church, which was visible to them because it was the highest point in the city.

If there was one lantern hanging in the steeple, the British were arriving by land. If there were two, the British were coming by sea. Two lanterns were set out, and the covert signal was memorialized in American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride," in which he wrote:

As Revere carried out his mission in Charlestown, Dawes left Boston and traveled along the Boston Neck peninsula. The two met up in Lexington, a few miles east of Concord, where revolutionary leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock had temporarily holed up. Having persuaded those two to flee, a weary Revere and Dawes then set out again. On the road, they met a third rider, Samuel Prescott, who alone made it all the way to Concord. Revere was captured by a British patrol, while Dawes was thrown from his horse and forced to proceed back to Lexington on foot.

Fighting Breaks Out in Lexington and Concord

At dawn on April 19, some 700 British troops arrived in Lexington and came upon 77 militiamen gathered on the town green. A British major yelled, "Throw down your arms! Ye villains, ye rebels."

The heavily outnumbered militiamen had just been ordered by their commander to disperse when a shot rang out. To this day, no one knows which side fired first. Several British volleys were subsequently unleashed before order could be restored. When the smoke cleared, eight militiamen lay dead and nine were wounded, while only one Redcoat was injured.

The British then continued into Concord to search for arms, not realizing that the vast majority had already been relocated. They decided to burn what little they found, and the fire got slightly out of control. Hundreds of militiamen occupying the high ground outside of Concord incorrectly thought the whole town would be torched. The militiamen hustled to Concord's North Bridge, which was being defended by a contingent of British soldiers. The British fired first but fell back when the colonists returned the volley.

This was the "shot heard 'round the world" later immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Emerson was not the only artist moved to depict the battle; painter Amos Doolittle, known as "The Revere of Connecticut," created four celebrated engravings of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.)

After searching Concord for about four hours, the British prepared to return to Boston, located 18 miles away. By that time, almost 2,000 militiamen-known as minutemen for their ability to be ready on a moment's notice-had descended to the area, and more were constantly arriving.

At first, the militiamen simply followed the British column. Fighting started again soon after, however, with the militiamen firing at the British from behind trees, stone walls, houses and sheds. Before long, British troops were abandoning weapons, clothing and equipment in order to retreat faster.

When the British column reached Lexington, it ran into an entire brigade of fresh Redcoats that had answered a call for reinforcements. But that did not stop the colonists from resuming their attack all the way through Menotomy (now Arlington) and Cambridge.

The British, for their part, tried to keep the colonists at bay with flanking parties and canon fire. In the evening a contingent of newly arrived minutemen from Salem and Marblehead, Massachusetts, purportedly had a chance to cut off the Redcoats and perhaps finish them off. Instead, their commander ordered them not to attack, and the British were able to reach the safety of Charlestown Neck, where they had naval support.

Effects of Lexington and Concord

The colonists did not show great marksmanship that day. As many as 3,500 militiamen firing constantly for 18 miles only killed or wounded roughly 250 Redcoats, compared to about 90 killed and wounded on their side.

The relatively low casualties of the Battles of Lexington and Concord proved they could stand up to one of the most powerful armies in the world. News of the battle quickly spread, reaching London on May 28. A few months later, the British narrowly defeated the Americans in Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, the low number of casualties once again showing the strength of patriot forces. By the following summer, a full-scale war of independence had broken out, paving the way for the creation of the United States of America.

Fact Check

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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Battles of Lexington and Concord - Winner, Date, Summary | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought between colonial militiamen and British Redcoats on April 19, 1775, kicked off the American Revolutionary War.

# data[].attributes.body
The Battle of yorktown:
https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battles-of-lexington-and-concord

# data[].attributes.body
Paul Revere:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZNpbSP6Glo

# data[].attributes.body
PICTURE

# data[].attributes.body
Saratoga:
http://www.ushistory.org/us/11i.asp

# data[].attributes.body
The Declaration of Independence:
http://www.a-w-i-p.com/media/blogs/articles/Articles17/US_declaration_of_independence_29.jpg

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article was most recently revised and updated by

Articles of Confederation, first U.S. constitution (1781-89), which served as a bridge between the initial government by the Continental Congress of the Revolutionary period and the federal government provided under the U.S. Constitution of 1787. Because the experience of overbearing British central authority was vivid in colonial minds, the drafters of the Articles deliberately established a confederation of sovereign states. The Articles were written in 1776-77 and adopted by the Congress on November 15, 1777. However, the document was not fully ratified by the states until March 1, 1781.

On paper, the Congress had power to regulate foreign affairs, war, and the postal service and to appoint military officers, control Indian affairs, borrow money, determine the value of coin, and issue bills of credit. In reality, however, the Articles gave the Congress no power to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops, and by the end of 1786 governmental effectiveness had broken down.

Nevertheless, some solid accomplishments had been achieved: certain state claims to western lands were settled, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established the fundamental pattern of evolving government in the territories north of the Ohio River. Equally important, the Confederation provided the new nation with instructive experience in self-government under a written document. In revealing their own weaknesses, the Articles paved the way for the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the present form of U.S. government.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Adam Augustyn.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Articles of Confederation | Summary, Date, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Articles of Confederation, first U.S. constitution (1781-89), which served as a bridge between the initial government by the Continental Congress of the Revolutionary period and the federal government provided under the U.S. Constitution of 1787. Because the experience of overbearing British central authority was vivid in colonial minds, the drafters of the Articles deliberately established a confederation of sovereign states.

# data[].attributes.body
Separation Of Powers:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Articles-of-Confederation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Great Compromise helped determine how each of the US states was to be represented in the Congress.

What Was The Great Compromise?

The Great Compromise, also known as the Connecticut Compromise, the Great Compromise of 1787, or the Sherman Compromise, was an agreement made between large and small states which partly defined the representation each state would have under the United States Constitution, as well as in legislature. It occurred in 1787. The Connecticut Compromise resulted from a debate among delegates on how each state could have representation in the Congress. The Great Compromise led to the creation of a two-chambered Congress. Also created was the House of Representative which is determined by a state's population. The agreement retained the bicameral legislature, but the upper house had to change to accommodate two senators to represent each state. The deal reshaped the American government structure striking a balance between the highly populated states and their demands while at the same time taking into consideration the less-populous state and their interests.

Overview And Background

The United States underwent painful years in the 1780s. The 1781 ratification of the Articles of Confederation provided an inadequate governmental structure. It failed to regulate trade, levy taxes, and draft soldiers. Also, it failed to solve the slavery issue which polarized the Northwest Territory. The country's economy which had severely plummeted following the Anglo-American Revolution struggled to rebound. Debt, especially the accumulated war debts became an enormous issue in the US. Many citizens found it increasingly difficult to generate enough income to pay for their daily expenses as well as taxes. As much as the people looked up to the state for help, no social welfare relief developed. Furthermore, the contentious politics also divided the citizens. This instability called for a delegation in 1785, proposed by Alexander Hamilton which would address a national reform. James Madison responded with support and asked other states to send their delegates to Annapolis, Maryland for a conference. However, only five states representatives attended, but even so, they approved a plan in whichever state would send delegates to the 1787 Philadelphian convection. In May 1787, 55 delegates representing 12 states, Rhodes Island was absent, met in Philadelphia to discuss the limitations of the Articles of Federation. The Constitutional Convention started later on when Madison proposed the Virginia Plan which Patterson countered with the New Jersey Plan.

What The Great Compromise Involved?

Before the 1787 Constitutional Convention, larger states like Virginia favored congressional representation based on a state's population. On the other hand, smaller states wanted equal representation. Edmund Randolph and James Madison proposed the Virginia Plan on May 29, 1787. This plan outlined that the government should comprise of three branches the legislature, executive, and judiciary. The three branches would serve a two-housed legislature. The population was to elect the members of the lower house and they, in turn, would elect representatives in the Upper House. In other words, both houses included a population proportional representation. Madison also proposed that Congress get a veto for all state laws. The New Jersey Plan, put forward on June 15, 1787, by William Patterson, called for equal representation of each state like it was in the Articles of Confederation system but sought to increase Congress power. It called for a one-house legislature, equal representation of each state, and popular elections. Patterson also proposed a lifetime Supreme Court appointed by executive officers. He focused on the probability that the national government would violate the sovereignty of the states. At this point, the less populous states representatives feared that the agreement would result in larger states drowning the voices and interests rendering them useless in the national scale. Madison, on the other hand, argued that the most important states were very different from each other. Hamilton pointed out that each state was an artificial entity made up of individuals. He thus accused smaller states of being power hungry.

As such, the two sides rejected each other's plans. The disagreements called for reflection leading to a negotiation on how to determine the future of the US government. Roger Sherman, a Connecticut delegate suggested a plan that eventually turned out as the Great Compromise. His plan included a two-legislative form of government in the US, the Senate and the House of Representatives. For every 300,000 citizens, a state received one member to serve in the House of representative and two senators. On July 16, 1787, despite Benjamin Franklin efforts to block equal voting rights of the smaller states, the proposal did pass even though by only one vote. Thus the name compromise was conjured, and it paved the way for the constitutional final passage and became an important stepping stone in the creation and development of the United States.

Upon deciding on the representation issue, the debate focused on the slaves existing in a state's population and which led to the formation of the Three-Fifths Compromise. Under this agreement, each state had to count three-fifths of its slaves into its total population. Before this agreement, slave-holding states called for an increase in their representation in Congress by counting all slaves as part of the community. On the other hand, opponents argued that since slaves were not citizens they thus had no rights. Counting them in the context of the population was not necessary.

The Results Of The Great Compromise

The most significant effect of the Great Compromise was the change in the American Government structure. The agreement focused on working out the interests of large states like Virginia and New York, and the smaller states such as New Hampshire and Rhodes Island, striking a balance between proportional and general representation. The most visible term achieved under the compromise was that each state would split congressional delegates between; representatives who would then be elected by district so as to serve in the lower house and senators to represent individual states in the Upper House. The practical effect was in the creation of a two-tiered system that could address the needs of the people in the lower house, and the upper house could handle the interests of states. The Electoral College and Presidential elections formation splinted from this split between direct and indirect representation.

The Great Compromise of 1787 gave larger states representation in the lower house according to population, and the smaller states attained equal representation in the upper house. Many delegates called for proportional representation in both houses while the smaller state delegates decided not having a constitution was better than having Madison's proposed system. As such the compromise balanced the needs of both the smaller states which wanted a unicameral legislature and the larger states that were rooting for a bicameral legislature, paving the way for constitutional development. Ultimately, the Connecticut Compromise kept the Convention together and led to the system of bicameral Congress in which the lower House is based on proportional representation, and each state has equal representation in the Upper House.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Great Compromise, also known as the Connecticut Compromise, the Great Compromise of 1787, or the Sherman Compromise, was an agreement made between large and small states which partly defined the representation each state would have under the United States Constitution, as well as in legislature. It occurred in 1787.

# data[].attributes.body
Articles Of Confedaration
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-was-the-great-compromise.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Constitution, the Articles, and Federalism: Crash Course US History #8

# data[].attributes.body
The Great Compromise:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/federalism

# data[].attributes.body
Constitution:
http://www.crossroadsforamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/11.png

# data[].attributes.body
Fedaralism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO7FQsCcbD8

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Federalism | Definition, History, Characteristics, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bill of Rights for Kids - Social Studies - Flocabulary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn key facts about the Bill of Rights with Flocabulary’s educational rap song and lesson plan…

# data[].attributes.body
Bill Of Rights:
https://www.flocabulary.com/unit/bill-of-rights/

# data[].attributes.body
Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Essay The Rise of Political Parties - 533 Words | Bartleby

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Free Essay: In 1790, the United States had just recently broke free from the British crown and united under the cause of liberty. But in spite of this,...

# data[].attributes.body
Political Parties:
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/The-Rise-of-Political-Parties-FKJTFUSTC

# data[].attributes.body
Louisiana Purchase:
http://werehistory.org/louisiana-purchase/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On March 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery started on the long journey back the way they had come. They had some conflicts with some of the Indians on the lower Columbia, whom they accused of charging high prices for food, trying to steal from the travelers, and interfering with their progress. But when they reached the friendly Nez Percés, they found their horses alive and cared-for, though scattered on open range.

The group was back across the mountains by June and decided to split up into smaller parties for a while so as to explore some of the territory more thoroughly. Lewis took a more northerly route, and it was during this trip that the explorers had their first and only violent conflict with Indians. A group of Blackfeet apparently tried to captured horses and guns, and Lewis's party killed two of them.

At about that same time, Clark, on a southerly route, discovered an unusual, large stone formation on the Yellowstone River. He named it "Pompy's Tower," after the nickname of Sacagawea's son, now in his second year (certainly one of the most remarkable childhoods in American history). There on that formation, Clark left an inscription, "Wm. Clark July 25th 1806," which can still be seen today.

The separate parties rejoined in August back on the Missouri River, at the mouth of the Yellowstone. They continued on down the river, dropping off Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and little Jean-Baptiste at the Mandan villages. Traveling quickly, they reached St. Louis on September 23, 1806.

The men of the expedition were welcomed as heroes. They had been gone so long that the nation feared they were dead. Remarkably, only one member of the group died. This was Sergeant Charles Floyd, who probably died of a ruptured appendix as the Corps of Discovery traveled up the Missouri River on its way to the Mandan villages.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lewis and Clark : The Expedition of the Corps of Discovery

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On March 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery started on the long journey back the way they had come. They had some conflicts with some of the Indians on the lower Columbia, whom they accused of charging high prices for food, trying to steal from the travelers, and interfering with their progress.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
America's 2nd War of Independence | 5 Minute Video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny (US History EOC Review - USHC 2.2)

# data[].attributes.body
Corps of Discovery:
http://www.edgate.com/lewisandclark/expedition.html

# data[].attributes.body
War of 1812
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnSwKWRL8i4

# data[].attributes.body
Monroe Doctrine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ClU_kS4uiY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.body
Nationalism v. Sectionalism:
https://www.sutori.com/story/nationalism-and-sectionalism--S6cvMqKbbDnb3hJ7d6mumxS5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Age of Jackson: Crash Course US History #14

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article was most recently revised and updated by

Indian Removal Act, (May 28, 1830), first major legislative departure from the U.S. policy of officially respecting the legal and political rights of the American Indians. The act authorized the president to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their desirable territories within state borders (especially in the Southeast), from which the tribes would be removed. The rapid settlement of land east of the Mississippi River made it clear by the mid-1820s that the white man would not tolerate the presence of even peaceful Indians there. Pres. Andrew Jackson (1829-37) vigorously promoted this new policy, which became incorporated in the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Although the bill provided only for the negotiation with tribes east of the Mississippi on the basis of payment for their lands, trouble arose when the United States resorted to force to gain the Indians' compliance with its demand that they accept the land exchange and move west.

A number of northern tribes were peacefully resettled in western lands considered undesirable for the white man. The problem lay in the Southeast, where members of what were known as the Five Civilized Tribes ( Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Cherokee, and Creek) refused to trade their cultivated farms for the promise of strange land in the Indian Territory with a so-called permanent title to that land. Many of these Indians had homes, representative government, children in missionary schools, and trades other than farming. Some 100,000 tribesmen were forced to march westward under U.S. military coercion in the 1830s; up to 25 percent of the Indians, many in manacles, perished en route. The trek of the Cherokee in 1838-39 became known as the infamous " Trail of Tears." Even more reluctant to leave their native lands were the Florida Indians, who fought resettlement for seven years (1835-42) in the second of the Seminole Wars.

The frontier began to be pushed aggressively westward in the years that followed, upsetting the "guaranteed" titles of the displaced tribes and further reducing their relocated holdings.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Adam Augustyn.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Indian Removal Act | Definition, History, Significance, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Indian Removal Act (1830), first major legislative departure from the U.S. policy of officially respecting the legal and political rights of the American Indians. The act authorized the president to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their desirable territories within state borders.

# data[].attributes.body
Jackson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beN4qE-e5O8

# data[].attributes.body
Indian Removal:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indian-Removal-Act

# data[].attributes.body
Trails West:
https://padlet-uploads.storage.googleapis.com/305316098/13ab46f9d99e2aef29e1fd02f75749a1/986163417_orig.jpg

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By 1835, Antonio López de Santa Anna had established himself as a dictator in Mexico. Among Anglo-American colonists and Tejanos alike, the call for Texas independence grew louder. On March 2, 1836, a delegation at Washington-on-the-Brazos adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence, and thus was born the Republic of Texas.

Santa Anna had brought his army to Texas to put down the rebellion, and events followed in quick succession. At the time the Declaration was issued, many Texans were fleeing their homes eastward ahead of Santa Anna's army, in what became known as the Runaway Scrape. The Alamo fell to Santa Anna on March 6, and over 300 unarmed Texan prisoners were massacred at Goliad on March 27. Sam Houston's revolutionary army was also retreating eastward as Santa Anna drove for the coast to capture Texas seaports. On April 21, the Texan army took a stand in the bayou country near present-day Houston at a site called San Jacinto. They attacked Santa Anna's army while it was sleeping, and, in a battle lasting only 18 minutes, routed the Mexican army and captured Santa Anna.

Many Texans favored immediate annexation by the United States. However, the proposals went nowhere, because of the risk of continued war with Mexico and Texas' shaky financial status. Even after San Jacinto, Mexico refused to recognize Texas's independence and continued to raid the Texas border. The new government had neither money nor credit, and no governmental structures were in place. Rebuffed by the United States, Texans went about the business of slowly forming a stable government and nation. Despite many difficulties and continued fighting both with Mexico and with Indian tribes, the Texas frontier continued to attract thousands of settlers each year.

In 1841, Santa Anna again became president of Mexico and renewed hostilities with Texas. By this time, sympathy for the Texan cause had grown in the United States, and in 1845, annexation was at last approved. Hostilities with Mexico and the Indians reached a settlement, and Texas was admitted as a state on December 29, 1845. The Republic of Texas, after nine years, eleven months, and seventeen days, was no more.

Subject categories and links in this Republic of Texas online exhibit:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By 1835, Antonio López de Santa Anna had established himself as a dictator in Mexico. Among Anglo-American colonists and Tejanos alike, the call for Texas independence grew louder. On March 2, 1836, a delegation at Washington-on-the-Brazos adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence, and thus was born the Republic of Texas.

# data[].attributes.body
Texas:
https://www.tsl.texas.gov/treasures/republic/index.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny (US History EOC Review - USHC 2.2)

# data[].attributes.body
Manifest Destiny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ClU_kS4uiY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Spanish:

Guerra de 1847 or Guerra de Estados Unidos a Mexico ("War of the United States Against Mexico")

What was the Mexican-American War?

What did the Mexican-American War have to do with Manifest Destiny?

Was there opposition to the Mexican-American War within the United States?

What did the U.S. gain by winning the Mexican-American War?

How did the Mexican-American War increase sectionalism in the United States?

Summarize This Article

Summarize

BETA

?

Trusted Britannica articles, summarized using artificial intelligence, to provide a quicker and simpler reading experience. This is a beta feature. Please verify important information in our full article.

This summary was created from our Britannica article using AI. Please verify important information in our full article.

Mexican-American War, war between the United States and Mexico (April 1846-February 1848) stemming from the United States' annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (U.S. claim). The war-in which U.S. forces were consistently victorious-resulted in the United States' acquisition of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km) of Mexican territory extending westward from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean.

"American blood on American soil": Polk and the prelude to war

Mexico severed relations with the United States in March 1845, shortly after the U.S. annexation of Texas. In September U.S. Pres. James K. Polk sent John Slidell on a secret mission to Mexico City to negotiate the disputed Texas border, settle U.S. claims against Mexico, and purchase New Mexico and California for up to $30 million. Mexican Pres. José Joaquín Herrera, aware in advance of Slidell's intention of dismembering the country, refused to receive him. When Polk learned of the snub, he ordered troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor to occupy the disputed area between the Nueces and the Rio Grande (January 1846).

On May 9, 1846, Polk began to prepare a war message to Congress, justifying hostilities on the grounds of Mexican refusal to pay U.S. claims and refusal to negotiate with Slidell. That evening he received word that Mexican troops had crossed the Rio Grande on April 25 and attacked Taylor 's troops, killing or injuring 16 of them. In his quickly revised war message-delivered to Congress on May 11-Polk claimed that Mexico had "invaded our territory and shed American blood on American soil."

Spot Resolutions and Civil Disobedience: American opposition to the war

Congress overwhelmingly approved a declaration of war on May 13, but the United States entered the war divided. Democrats, especially those in the Southwest, strongly favoured the conflict. Most Whigs viewed Polk's motives as conscienceless land grabbing. Indeed, from the outset, Whigs in both the Senate and the House challenged the veracity of Polk's assertion that the initial conflict between U.S. and Mexican forces had taken place in U.S. territory. Further, legislators were at odds over whether Polk had the right to unilaterally declare that a state of war existed. Principally at issue was where the encounter had actually taken place and the willingness of Americans to acknowledge the Mexican contention that the Nueces River formed the border between the two countries. Active Whig opposition not only to the legitimacy of Polk's claim but also to the war itself continued well into the conflict. In December 1846 Polk accused his Whig doubters of treason. In January 1847 the by-then Whig-controlled House voted 85 to 81 to censure Polk for having "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally" initiated war with Mexico.

Among the most-aggressive challenges to the legitimacy of Polk's casus belli was that offered by future president Abraham Lincoln, then a first-term member of the House of Representatives from Illinois. In December 1847 Lincoln introduced eight " Spot Resolutions," which placed the analysis of Polk's claim in a carefully delineated historical context that sought to

obtain a full knowledge of all the facts which go to establish whether the particular spot of soil on which the blood of our citizens was so shed was, or was not, our own soil at that time.

Ultimately, the House did not act on Lincoln's resolutions, and Polk remained steadfast in his claim that the conflict was a just war.

Abolitionists saw the war as an attempt by the slave states to extend slavery and enhance their power with the creation of additional slave states out of the soon-to-be-acquired Mexican lands. One abolitionist who agreed with that interpretation was author Henry David Thoreau, who was incarcerated in July 1846 when he refused to pay six years' worth of back poll taxes because he felt the U.S. government's prosecution of the war with Mexico was immoral. Although he spent only a single night in jail (his aunt, against his wishes, paid the taxes, thus securing his release), Thoreau documented his opposition to the government's actions in his famous book-length essay Civil Disobedience (1849), insisting that if an injustice of government is

of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mexican-American War | Significance, Battles, Results, Timeline, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mexican-American War, war between the U.S. and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It was caused by a territorial dispute stemming from the United States' annexation of Texas in 1845 and from contention over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River or the Rio Grande.

# data[].attributes.body
Mexican American War:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Mexican-American-War

# data[].attributes.body
Industrial Revolution:
https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/big-history-project/acceleration/bhp-acceleration/v/bhp-industrial-revolution-crashcourse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
WATCH: Coal, Steam, and the Industrial Revolution (video) | Khan Academy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.body
Interchangeable Parts:
https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/interchangeable-parts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | The Rise of Organized Labor in the United States

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Americans have a long history in fighting for better wages and working conditions

# data[].attributes.body
https://newsela.com/read/lib-ushistory-rise-of-organized-labor/id/29888/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Before the Industrial Revolution, there was a time lag in almost everything that took place in the United States. It took weeks and sometimes months just to send a letter or pass information. It took...

# data[].attributes.body
Organised Labor:
https://firstindustrialrevolution.weebly.com/transportation-revolution.html

# data[].attributes.body
Transportation Revolution:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjB6t-2tvHkAhXtGDQIHbI9BOoQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F546694842251778643%2F&psig=AOvVaw3rxJeC6XFAX0DwG87rB2Sx&ust=1569688215623418

# data[].attributes.body
Cotton Gin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYqllZ3kdrc

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Overview | Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.body
Slave Labor:
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/riseind/immgnts/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Both blacks and women began to participate in evangelical revivals associated with the Second Great Awakening at the end of the 18th century. From these revivals grew the roots of the both the feminist and abolitionist movements.

The American Revolution had largely been a secular affair. The Founding Fathers clearly demonstrated their opposition to the intermingling of politics and religion by establishing the separation of church and state in the first amendment to the Constitution.

In part because religion was separated from the control of political leaders, a series of religious revivals swept the United States from the 1790s and into the 1830s that transformed the religious landscape of the country. Known today as the Second Great Awakening, this spiritual resurgence fundamentally altered the character of American religion. At the start of the Revolution the largest denominations were Congregationalists (the 18th-century descendants of Puritan churches), Anglicans (known after the Revolution as Episcopalians), and Quakers. But by 1800, Evangelical Methodism and Baptists, were becoming the fasting-growing religions in the nation.

The Second Great Awakening is best known for its large camp meetings that led extraordinary numbers of people to convert through an enthusiastic style of preaching and audience participation. A young man who attended the famous 20,000-person revival at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1802, captures the spirit of these camp meetings activity:

The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers, all preaching at one time, some on stumps, others on wagons ... Some of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy. A peculiarly strange sensation came over me. My heart beat tumultuously, my knees trembled, my lips quivered, and I felt as though I must fall to the ground.

This young man was so moved that he went on to become a Methodist minister. As this quotation suggests, evangelical ministers reached their audience at an emotional level that powerfully moved large crowds.

In 1839, J. Maze Burbank presented this image to the Royal Society in London with the caption: "A camp meeting, or religious revival in America, from a sketch taken on the spot."

The evangelical impulse at the heart of the Second Great Awakening shared some of the egalitarian thrust of Revolutionary ideals. Evangelical churches generally had a populist orientation that favored ordinary people over elites. For instance, individual piety was seen as more important for salvation than the formal university training required for ministers in traditional Christian churches.

The immense success of the Second Great Awakening was also furthered by evangelical churches innovative organizational techniques. These were well suited to the frontier conditions of newly settled territories. Most evangelical churches relied on itinerant preachers to reach large areas without an established minister and also included important places for lay people who took on major religious and administrative roles within evangelical congregations.

Religion was a central theme of the 1830s; American Protestants branched off into many different denominations, holding in common the need for meetings and revivals.

The Second Great Awakening marked a fundamental transition in American religious life. Many early American religious groups in the Calvinist tradition had emphasized the deep depravity of human beings and believed they could only be saved through the grace of God. The new evangelical movement, however, placed greater emphasis on humans' ability to change their situation for the better. By stressing that individuals could assert their "free will" in choosing to be saved and by suggesting that salvation was open to all human beings, the Second Great Awakening embraced a more optimistic view of the human condition. The repeated and varied revivals of these several decades helped make the United States a much more deeply Protestant nation than it had been before.

Finally, the Second Great Awakening also included greater public roles for white women and much higher African-American participation in Christianity than ever before.

Evangelicalism as a Social Movement
Why did so many people flock to evangelicalism in the early 19th century? The Second Great Awakening was more than just a religious movement; it provided a new social outlet. There was an excitement to it, and a sense of belonging. People even changed denomination if they felt one preacher was more interesting than the last. This essay puts a social twist on early evangelicalism.

Report broken link

Peter Cartwright on Cane Ridge and the New Lights
No matter whether they were saints or sinners, they would be taken under a warm song or sermon and seized with a convulsive jerking all over, which they could not by any possibility avoid... -from Autobiography of Peter Cartwright. What were revivals really like? Find out from someone who was there! Peter Cartwright was about 16 years old when he went to the Cane Ridge Camp Meeting. He went on to become a Methodist preacher and lead his own revivals.

Report broken link

What makes Methodism different from other Christian denominations? Find out at the homepage of the United Methodist Church.
Learn More...

Report broken link

Jonathan Edwards was a big name in the First Great Awakening, which began in the 1740s. His writings were also instrumental in the Second Great Awakening, more than 30 years after his death.
Learn More...

Report broken link

If you like our content, please share it on social media!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
religious transformation and the second great awakening

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Religious Transformation and the Second Great Awakening [ushistory.org]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Both blacks and women began to participate in evangelical revivals associated with the Second Great Awakening at the end of the 18th century. From these revivals grew the roots of the both the feminist and abolitionist movements. The American Revolution had largely been a secular affair.

# data[].attributes.body
Immigration:
http://www.ushistory.org/us/22c.asp

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Women's Suffrage: Crash Course US History #31

# data[].attributes.body
2nd Great Awakening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGEMscZE5dY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Compromise of 1850 was made up of five bills that attempted to resolve disputes over slavery in new territories added to the United States in the wake of the Mexican-American War (1846-48). It admitted California as a free state, left Utah and New Mexico to decide for themselves whether to be a slave state or a free state, defined a new Texas-New Mexico boundary, and made it easier for slaveowners to recover runways under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Compromise of 1850 was the mastermind of Whig senator Henry Clay and Democratic senator Stephan Douglas. Lingering resentment over its provisions contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War.

The Mexican-American War

The Mexican-American War was a result of U.S. President James K. Polk's belief that it was America's " manifest destiny " to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. Following the U.S. Victory, Mexico lost about one-third of its territory including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. A national dispute arose as to whether or not slavery would be permitted in the new Western territories.

Who Was Responsible for The Compromise of 1850?

Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, a leading statesman and member of the Whig Party known as "The Great Compromiser" for his work on the Missouri Compromise, was the primary creator of the Missouri Compromise. Fearful of the growing divide between North and South over the issue of slavery, he hoped to avoid civil war by enacting a compromise.

Famed orator and Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster, while opposed to the extension of slavery, also saw the compromise of 1850 as a way of averting national discord, and disappointed his abolitionist supporters by siding with Clay.

When Clay, facing health problems, grew too ill to argue his case before the senate, his cause was taken up by Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, an ardent proponent of states' rights when it came to deciding the issue of slavery.

John C. Calhoun, a former vice president-turned senator from South Carolina, sought the expansion of slavery into new territories, but in an 1850 speech to the Senate, wrote: "I have, senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion."

When the full compromise failed to pass, Douglas split the omnibus bill into individual bills, which permitted congressmen to either vote or abstain on each topic. The untimely death of President Zachary Taylor and ascendancy of pro-compromise Vice President Millard Fillmore to the White House helped contribute to the passage of each bill. Calhoun died in 1850 and Clay and Webster two years later, making their roles in the Compromise of 1850 one of their last acts as statesmen.

Main Points of The Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850 was made up of five separate bills that made the following main points:

Permitted slavery in Washington, D.C., but outlawed the slave trade

Added California to the Union as a "free state"

Established Utah and New Mexico as territories that could decide via popular sovereignty if they would permit slavery

Defined new boundaries for the state of Texas following the Mexican-American War, removing its claims to parts of New Mexico but awarding the state $10 million in compensation

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required citizens to assist in apprehending runaway slaves and denied enslaved people a right to trial by jury.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

The first Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress in 1793 and authorized local governments to seize and return people who had escaped slavery to their owners while imposing penalties on anyone who had attempted to help them gain their freedom. The Act encountered fierce resistance from abolitionists, many of whom who felt it was tantamount to kidnapping.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 compelled all citizens to assist in the capture of runaway slaves and denied enslaved people the right to a jury trial. It also placed control of individual cases in the hands of federal commissioners, who were paid more for returning a suspected slave than for freeing them, leading many to argue the law was biased in favor of Southern slaveholders.

Outrage over the new law only increased traffic along the Underground Railroad during the 1850s. Northern states avoided enforcing the law and by 1860, the number of runaways successfully returned to slaveholders hovered around just 330.

Both Acts were repealed by Congress on June 28, 1864, following the outbreak of the Civil War, the event proponents of the Compromise of 1850 had hoped to avoid.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Compromise of 1850 was made up of five bills that attempted to resolve disputes over slavery in new territories added to the United States in the wake of the Mexican-American War (1846-48). It admitted California as a free state, left Utah and New Mexico to decide for themselves, defined a new Texas-New Mexico boundary, and made it easier for slaveowners to recover runway slaves.

# data[].attributes.body
Women's Rights:
https://spmgmedia.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/slide_152.jpg

# data[].attributes.body
Compromise of 1850:
https://www.history.com/topics/abolitionist-movement/compromise-of-1850

# data[].attributes.body
Nebraska Kansas Act:
https://media1.britannica.com/eb-media/50/91350-004-E70FAC0E.jpg

# data[].attributes.body
Election of 1860:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8u94d6STjc

# data[].attributes.body
Lincoln v. Douglas:
https://padlet.pics/proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2F91NZhRoWKCkJHWE7IPN9xyE5MAUDi2BwcQS23fypqg52BN8hw2HKIkx6Q-chd8hMNORk5_b9xHLfsH_8EQpk3gIgbw7AojfTsA%3Dw1366-h609-rw

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The attack on Fort Sumter marked the official beginning of the American Civil War-a war that lasted four years, cost the lives of more than 620,000 Americans, and freed 3.9 million enslaved people from bondage.

How it ended

Confederate victory. With supplies nearly exhausted and his troops outnumbered, Union major Robert Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter to Brig. Gen. P.G.T Beauregard's Confederate forces. Major Anderson and his men were allowed to strike their colors, fire a 100-gun salute, and board a ship bound for New York, where they were greeted as heroes. Both the North and South immediately called for volunteers to mobilize for war.

In context

By 1861, the country had already experienced decades of short-lived but ultimately failed compromises concerning the expansion of slavery in the United States and its territories. The election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States in 1860-a man who declared "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free"-threatened the culture and economy of southern slave states and served as a catalyst for secession. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the United States, and by February 2, 1861, six more states followed suit. Southern delegates met on February 4, 1861, in Montgomery, AL., and established the Confederate States of America, with Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis elected as its provisional president. Confederate militia forces began seizing United States forts and property throughout the south. With a lame-duck president in office, and a controversial president-elect poised to succeed him, the crisis approached a boiling point and exploded at Fort Sumter.

Before the Battle

In Charleston, the birthplace of secession, tempers are on edge. A delegation from the state goes to Washington, D.C., demanding the surrender of the Federal military installations in the new "independent republic of South Carolina." President James Buchanan refuses to comply. Charleston is the Confederacy's most important port on the Southeast coast. The harbor is defended by three federal forts: Sumter; Castle Pinckney, one mile off the city's Battery; and heavily armed Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island. Major Anderson's command is based at Fort Moultrie, but with its guns pointed out to sea, it cannot defend a land attack. On December 26, Charlestonians awake to discover that Anderson and his tiny garrison of 90 men have slipped away from Fort Moultrie to the more defensible Fort Sumter. For secessionists, Anderson's move is, as one Charlestonian wrote to a friend, "like casting a spark into a magazine,"

Adding to the major's concern is his dangerously dwindling store of supplies. On January 5, 1861, the Star of the West departs from New York with some 200 reinforcements and provisions for the Sumter garrison. As the ship approaches Charleston Harbor on January 9, cadets from the Citadel fire, forcing the crew to abandon its mission. On March 1, Jefferson Davis orders Brig. Gen P.G.T. Beauregard to take command of the growing southern forces in Charleston. On April 4, Lincoln informs southern delegates that he intends to attempt to resupply Fort Sumter, as its garrison is now critically in need. To South Carolinians, any attempt to reinforce Sumter means war. "Now the issue of battle is to be forced upon us," declared the Charleston Mercury. "We will meet the invader, and the God of Battles must decide the issue between the hostile hirelings of Abolition hate and Northern tyranny."

On April 9, Davis and the Confederate cabinet decide to "strike a blow!" Davis orders Beauregard to take Fort Sumter. The next day, three of Beauregard's aides sail to the fort and courteously demand the garrison's surrender. Anderson is equally courteous, but refuses: "I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication demanding the evacuation of this fort, and to say, in reply thereto, that it is a demand with which I regret that my sense of honor, and of my obligations to my Government, prevent my compliance." He also informs the delegation that the garrison's supplies will only last until April 15.

During the Battle

April 12. At 4:30 a.m., a flaming mortar shot arcs into the air and explodes over Fort Sumter. On this signal, Confederate guns from fortifications and floating batteries around Charleston Harbor roar to life. Outmanned, outgunned, undersupplied, and nearly surrounded by enemy batteries, Anderson waits until around 7:00 a.m. to respond. Captain Abner Doubleday volunteers to fire the first cannon at the Confederates, a 32-pound shot that bounces off the roof of the Iron Battery on Cummings Point.

For nearly 36 hours the two sides keep up this unequal contest. A shell strikes the flagpole of Fort Sumter, and the American colors fall to the earth, only to be hoisted back up the hastily repaired pole. Confederates fire hotshot from Fort Moultrie into Fort Sumter. Buildings begin to burn within the fort. With no more resources, Anderson surrenders Fort Sumter to Confederate forces.

April 13. At 2:30 p.m., Maj. Anderson and his men strike their colors and prepare to leave the fort. Sadly, the only casualties at Fort Sumter come during the 100-gun salute, when a round explodes prematurely, killing Pvt. Daniel Hough and mortally wounding another soldier. The attack is over, but the war had just begun.

Aftermath

Following the evacuation of Major Robert Anderson and his Federal garrison on the afternoon of April 14, 1861, Fort Sumter is occupied initially by Confederate troops of Company B of the First South Carolina Artillery Battalion and a volunteer company of the Palmetto Guard, a local militia unit. The fort remains in Confederate hands for the next four years until all Confederate forces evacuate Charleston on the evening of February 17, 1865.

Despite having surrendered, Anderson and his men are greeted as heroes when they disembark in New York. Capt. Abner Doubleday notes later that "all the passing steamers saluted us with their steam-whistles and bells, and cheer after cheer went up from the ferry boats and vessels in the harbor." Anderson's valor during the attack and commitment to duty are praised by the Union. Beauregard is also hailed for this first Confederate victory. He is later ordered to direct the troops at Bull Run.

Fort Sumter: Featured Resources

Related Battles

Charleston Harbor, SC | April 12, 1861

Result: Confederate Victory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Early in the morning of April 12, 1861, Confederate guns around Charleston Harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter. The American Civil War was officially upon both the North and the South. A war that lasted four years and cost the lives of more than 620,000 Americans.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

From the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery's final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.

The original of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, is in the National Archives in Washington, DC. With the text covering five pages the document was originally tied with narrow red and blue ribbons, which were attached to the signature page by a wafered impression of the seal of the United States. Most of the ribbon remains; parts of the seal are still decipherable, but other parts have worn off.

The document was bound with other proclamations in a large volume preserved for many years by the Department of State. When it was prepared for binding, it was reinforced with strips along the center folds and then mounted on a still larger sheet of heavy paper. Written in red ink on the upper right-hand corner of this large sheet is the number of the Proclamation, 95, given to it by the Department of State long after it was signed. With other records, the volume containing the Emancipation Proclamation was transferred in 1936 from the Department of State to the National Archives of the United States.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Select Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Enlarge The Emancipation Proclamation (page 1) Record Group 11 General Records of the United States View in National Archives Catalog Español President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross who led the organization for 23 years.

# data[].attributes.body
(Video On Kahn.com)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
- [Voiceover] So we've been talking about the progress of the American Civil War which started in early 1861 after the 11 states of the South, which were slave states, seceded from the Union and tried to establish an independent nation known as the Confederate States of America. And in the first years of the Civil War things went relatively well for the South. They defeated the North at the Battle of Bull Run which was a great surprise to many people because they thought that this was going to be a pretty short war, that the South would be quickly defeated and scared away into returning to the Union. But the South had many advantages including very good leadership in the person of Robert E. Lee and also kind of a home court advantage at large since the vast majority of the war was fought in the South. So in this early stage the Confederacy does quite well until we get to Antietam. And Antietam was this first foray by Robert E. Lee in trying to attack the states of the North in Maryland. And after the Battle of Antietam which was the bloodiest day in U.S. history, more than 4,000 Americans died on that day, the South was defeated. And that was a major turning point in the war as we've talked about in previous videos in that it led to the Emancipation Proclamation and was kind of the moment at which the nations of Europe cease to consider intervening on the side of the South. So in the next few videos I want to talk about the later stages of the Civil War. So we get into 1863 and the South is doing relatively well here in Virginia, wins the Battle of Chancellorsville and now, nearly a year after Antietam in June and July of 1863, Robert E. Lee decides that he is going to try again to invade the North. Now he's several reasons for doing this. One, is that the war has been taking place largely in the South so it's summer, people are trying to harvest their crops and Lee wants to give the South a break so he wants to take the attention away from this area in Virginia where lots of fighting has happened and he wants to take the war up into the North. And if the North is distracted by having to defend its own territory then it can't go on the offensive elsewhere as easily. So Lee's plan is to take the war to the North and Lee has another reason in his sleeve which is that he is really hoping that in the Election of 1864 which is coming up not too long after this period in mid-1863, many people believe that Lincoln is going to be kicked out of office. Now remember, that not a single American President has been elected to a second term or reelected since Andrew Jackson in 1832. So there's been a 30 year drought of two term presidents. So Robert E. Lee has good reason to expect why Lincoln might not be reelected in 1864 and he thinks that maybe one of Lincoln's competitors in the Democratic Party, which will turn out to be one of his own former generals, George B. McClellan will actually want to end the war and make peace with the South. So there's kind of a morale aspect to this. You can see that many of the things done in the Civil War and especially as we get into the later stages are designed at making one side or the other tired of being at war. Now you may wonder why I'm spending so much time talking about battles because most American History courses do not emphasize military history whatsoever. But I think it's important to keep in mind in this war and in some earlier wars like the American Revolution the battles really determine the policy, right, because you can't make a decree like the way that Abraham Lincoln decreed the Emancipation Proclamation if you don't have the force of military power behind you. So winning battles, winning the war, those kind of victories give politicians the popular mandate they need to get things done. So that's why I think that it's important to talk, at least a little bit, about the battles of the Civil War. Now obviously, Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Appomattox were not the only battles of the Civil War, there were hundreds of battles of the Civil War but I've chosen these as particular turning points just to kind of give you a very brief overview of the way that military victories and defeats were trending. Because along with those military victories and defeats went the policy of the United States and the policy of the South. And if you're interested in the Civil War it's one of the most written about topics in American history and there are many wonderful books that will go into great detail about the politics, society, and military history of the Civil War, and lots of great television shows, and miniseries that I definitely suggest that you check out. All right, well, with that said let's talk about Gettysburg. So Lee has brought his forces into the North and, again, he's interested in kind of distracting the North from attacking in the South by bringing the war to them. He's hoping to prolong the war so that perhaps another administration that's more favorable to allowing the South to go peacefully might be in office in the North. And the other thing that he's looking for is supplies so once again the vast majority of the Civil War has been fought in the South and it's been fought here in this sort of Shenandoah Valley, Tidewater region of Virginia which is really the breadbasket of the South. So when men are out fighting battles and when battles are being fought on fields instead of crops being grown on them, there's going to be a serious dearth of food in the South. You know I once heard it said that the most salient political fact of the 20th century was that the Americans speak English which means that the United States repeatedly allied with Britain in 20th century wars. But if I had to choose the most salient fact of the American Civil War it might be that you can't eat cotton. You know the South went to war to protect its system of labor so that it could continue to produce these cash crops like cotton or tobacco. And cash crops they may be which means that you can sell them for money but you can't eat cotton or tobacco. And when it comes down to it being able to feed your troops and feed your populace is something that's going to really help you when it comes to winning a war. So Lee is taking his troops up into the North and he takes them into Southern Pennsylvania which is very lovely farmland. It's a very beautiful place if you've never been there, I absolutely recommend you take a look, go to Gettysburg it's a very well preserved battlefield. And as Lee goes through Southern Pennsylvania his troops are taking horses, and grain supplies, and all sorts of things that the army needs to survive which are in short supply in Virginia. So this is like a run to the store for Lee going through Southern Pennsylvania. On the Northern side, General George Meade has been trying to catch up with Lee and cut him off from his invasion of the North. President Abraham Lincoln asks for many volunteers to try to stave off the invasion of the North by Lee and they end up meeting at Gettysburg. And Gettysburg is just a small farm town in Southern Pennsylvania, it's just where these two troops happen to meet as Lee was on his way to the capital of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg and Lee's forces and Meade's forces meet on July 1st, 1863. Now the Battle of Gettysburg goes on for three days so there's July 1st, July 2nd, and July 3rd. And the first day goes relatively well for the Confederates, they break some of the Union lines around the edges. The second day is kind of a stalemate where Northern forces and Southern forces, they sustain a lot of losses but don't make any real headway toward victory. And then the third day, Lee decides that he is going to try to break the center of the Union forces which means that he is going to try to hit the Union line, and remember this is in the era of military history where people are still kind of fighting in lines, right through the center, and win the day. Unfortunately for him that is not what happens so he tries all day to break the Union lines. There's a very famous sort of last hurrah for the Southern forces in this called Pickett's Charge when General George Pickett's units charge up this hill at Cemetery Ridge trying to break the line and they sustain over 50% casualties so it's kind of a bloodbath for Pickett's unit. And after Pickett's Charge does not succeed the Union forces have officially won the Battle of Gettysburg and Lee realizes that there's no way that he's going to be able to make anything out of his invasion of the North and so he turns around and starts heading back to the South. Now what's important about Gettysburg is that this was what many have called the High Water Mark of the Confederacy. And by that they mean this is as far as the Confederacy ever managed to get into the Northern part of the United States. This is a second attempt at an invasion by Lee and it failed and many people see this as a really important turning point in the Civil War on July 4th. And imagine the good news of receiving word that your troops had triumphed on July 4th, Independence Day. President Lincoln and the United States get another really good piece of news which is that Ulysses S. Grant who will be the future commander of U.S. forces has succeeded in his siege of Vicksburg which is a town on the Mississippi River. And when he takes the town on the Mississippi River Grant has complete control of the Mississippi which is sort of the major highway in the West. So July 3rd and July 4th are really good days for the United States and this is kind of the moment when it becomes clear that victory is going to be outside the reach of the Confederacy. And with an unsuccessful invasion of the North and the loss of the control of the Mississippi, the South's time is kind of coming to an end. The other important thing about the Battle of Gettysburg is that it is a tremendously destructive battle, about 50,000 casualties took place at Gettysburg which makes it the single bloodiest battle in American history which is different from the single bloodiest day which was at Antietam because it took place over three days. And this is not 50,000 people dying, just 50,000 casualties which means either deaths or injuries, those are men who can no longer fight on both sides. So the tremendous loss of life at Gettysburg is going to lead to the foundation of a cemetery at Gettysburg to bury these military dead. And it's going to be in November of 1863, just a couple of months after the Battle of Gettysburg, that Abraham Lincoln will visit the cemetery at Gettysburg and deliver the Gettysburg Address, one of the most famous orations in all of American history and we'll get to that in the next video.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The battle of Gettysburg (video) | Khan Academy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Voiceover] So we've been talking about the progress of the American Civil War which started in early 1861 after the 11 states of the South, which were slave states, seceded from the Union and tried to establish an independent nation known as the Confederate States of America.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Here's Why the Battle of Vicksburg Was So Important