History of the United States 1 History of the United States
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
History of the United States 1 History of the United States Part of a series on the History of the United States Timeline • Prehistory • Pre-Colonial • Colonial period • 1776–1789 • 1789–1849 • 1849–1865 • 1865–1918 • 1918–1945 • 1945–1964 • 1964–1980 • 1980–1991 • 1991–present United States portal The history of the United States as covered in American schools and universities typically begins with either Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage to the Americas or with the prehistory of the Native peoples, with the latter approach having become increasingly common in recent decades.[1] Indigenous populations lived in what is now the United States before European colonists began to arrive, mostly from England, after 1600. By the 1770s, thirteen British colonies contained two and a half million people. They were prosperous and growing rapidly, and had developed their own autonomous political and legal systems. The British Parliament asserted its authority over these colonies by imposing new taxes, which the Americans insisted were unconstitutional because they were not represented in Parliament. Growing conflicts turned into full-fledged war beginning in April 1775. On July 4, 1776, the colonies declared independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain and became the United States of America. With major military and financial support from France and military leadership by General George Washington, the Patriots won the Revolutionary War and peace came in 1783. During and after the war, the 13 states were united under a weak federal government established by the Articles of Confederation. When these proved unworkable, a new Constitution was adopted in 1789; it remains the basis of the United States federal government, and later included a Bill of Rights. With Washington as the nation's first president and Alexander Hamilton his chief advisor, a strong national government was created. When Thomas Jefferson became president he purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, doubling the size of American territorial holdings. A second and last war with Britain was fought in 1812. The main result of that war was the end of European support for Indian attacks on western settlers. Under the sponsorship of the Jeffersonian Democrats, and the Jacksonian Democrats, the nation expanded to the Louisiana purchase and all the way to California and Oregon, and a quest for inexpensive land for Yeoman farmers and slave owners who promoted, democracy and expansion, at the cost of violence and a disdain for European culture. The expansion, under the rubric of Manifest Destiny was a rejection of the advice of Whigs who wanted to deepen and modernize the economy and society rather than merely expand the geography. Slavery of Africans was abolished in all the Northern states by 1804, but it flourished in the Southern states because of heavy European demand for cotton. History of the United States 2 Conflicts over the issue of slavery in the first half of the 19th century culminated in the American Civil War, as eleven slave states seceded to found the Confederacy in 1861. With Republican president Abraham Lincoln as the leader of the Union, the South was eventually defeated and, in the Reconstruction era (1863–77), the United States ended slavery and extended legal and voting rights to the Freedmen (African Americans who had been slaves). Reconstruction ended in 1877 and from the 1890s to the 1960s the system of Jim Crow (segregation) kept blacks in political, social and economic inferiority. The entire South remained poor until the 2nd half of the 20th century, while the North and West grew rapidly and prospered. The United States became the leading industrial power at the turn of the 20th century due to an outburst of entrepreneurship in the North and the arrival of millions of immigrant workers and farmers from Europe. Dissatisfaction with corruption and traditional politics stimulated the Progressive movement from the 1890s to 1920s, which pushed for reforms and allowed for women's suffrage and the prohibition of alcohol (the latter repealed in 1933). Initially neutral in World War I, the U.S. declared war on Germany in 1917, and funded the Allied victory the following year. After a prosperous decade in the 1920s, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the onset of the decade-long world-wide Great Depression. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt became president and implemented his New Deal programs for relief, recovery, and reform, defining modern American liberalism. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States entered World War II alongside the Allies and helped defeat Nazi Germany in Europe and, with the detonation of newly-invented atomic bombs, Japan in the Far East. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as opposing superpowers after World War II and began the Cold War, confronting one another indirectly in the arms race and Space Race. U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War was built around the containment of Communism, and the country participated in the wars in Korea and Vietnam to achieve this goal. Liberalism won numerous victories in the days of the New Deal and again in the mid-1960s, especially in the success of the civil rights movement, but conservatism made its comeback in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, leaving the United States the only superpower. As the 21st century began, international conflict centered around the Middle East and heightened significantly following the September 11 attacks and the War on Terrorism that was subsequently declared. The United States experienced its worst economic recession since World War II in the late 2000s, which has been followed by slower than usual rates of economic growth during the 2010s. Pre-Columbian era It is not definitively known how or when the Native Americans first settled the Americas and the present-day United States. The prevailing theory proposes that people migrated from Eurasia across Beringia, a land bridge that connected Siberia to present-day Alaska, and then spread southward throughout the Americas. This migration may have begun as early as 30,000 years ago[2] and continued through to about 10,000+ years ago, when the land bridge became submerged by the rising sea level caused by the ending of the last glacial period.[3] These early inhabitants, called Paleoamericans, soon diversified into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes. The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during the Early Modern period. While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the history of American indigenous cultures until they were conquered or significantly influenced by Europeans, even if this happened decades or even centuries after Columbus' initial landing. History of the United States 3 Colonial period After a period of exploration sponsored by major European nations, the first settlements were established in 1607.[4] Europeans brought horses, cattle, and hogs to the Americas and, in turn, took back to Europe maize, turkeys, potatoes, tobacco, beans, and squash. The disease environment was deadly for many explorers and early settlers exposed to new diseases. The impact of new disease was even worse on the Native Americans, especially smallpox and measles. They died in very large numbers, usually before large-scale European settlement The Spanish conquistador Coronado explored began.[5][6] parts of the American Southwest from 1540 to 1542. Spanish, Dutch, and French colonization Spanish explorers were the first Europeans with Christopher Columbus' second expedition, which reached Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493; others reached Florida in 1513.[7] Quickly Spanish expeditions reached the Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi River, the Grand Canyon[8] and the Great Plains. In 1540, Hernando de Soto undertook an extensive exploration of Southeast. Also in 1540 Francisco Vázquez de Coronado explored from Arizona to central Kansas.[9] The Spanish sent some settlers, creating the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States at St. Augustine, Florida in 1565, but it attracted few permanent settlers. Spanish settlements that grew to become important cities include Santa Fe, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Francisco.[10] New Netherland was the 17th century Dutch colony centered on present-day New York City and the Hudson River Valley, where they traded furs with the Native Americans to the north and were a barrier to Yankee expansion from New England. The Dutch were Calvinists who built the Reformed Church in America, but they were tolerant of other religions and cultures. The colony was taken over by Britain in 1664. It left an enduring legacy on American cultural and political life, including a secular broadmindedness and mercantile pragmatism in the city, a rural traditionalism in the countryside typified by the story of Rip Van Winkle, and politicians such as Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt.[11] New France was the area colonized by France from 1534 to 1763. European territorial claims in North America, c. There were few permanent settlers outside Quebec and Acadia, but the 1750 France Kingdom of Great Britain Spain Wabanaki Confederacy became military allies of New France through the four French and Indian Wars with the British colonies who were allied with the Iroquois Confederacy. During the French and Indian War, New England fought successfully against Acadia and the British removed Acadians from Acadia (Nova Scotia) and replaced them with New England Planters.[12] Eventually, some Acadians resettled in Louisiana, where they developed a distinctive rural Cajun culture that still exists.