O U T L I N E O F U.S.U.S. HISTORYHISTORY OO U U T T L L I I N N E E OO F F U.S.U.S. HISTORYHISTORY CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 Early America . 4 CHAPTER 2 The Colonial Period . 22 CHAPTER 3 The Road to Independence . 50 CHAPTER 4 The Formation of a National Government . 66 CHAPTER 5 Westward Expansion and Regional Differences . 110 CHAPTER 6 Sectional Conflict . 128 CHAPTER 7 The Civil War and Reconstruction . 140 CHAPTER 8 Growth and Transformation . 154 CHAPTER 9 Discontent and Reform . .188 CHAPTER 10 War, Prosperity, and Depression . 202 CHAPTER 11 The New Deal and World War I . 212 CHAPTER 12 Postwar America . 256 CHAPTER 13 Decades of Change: 1960-1980 . 274 CHAPTER 14 The New Conservatism and a New World Order . 304 CHAPTER 15 Bridge to the 21st Century . .320 PICTURE PROFILES Becoming a Nation . 38 Transforming a Nation . 89 Monuments and Memorials . 161 Turmoil and Change . .229 21st Century Nation . .293 Bibliography . 338 Index . .341 CHAPTER 1 EARLY AMERICA Mesa Verde settlement in Colorado, 13th century. 4 CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY “Heaven and Earth never much of the Western Hemisphere by ing earthen burial sites and for- some time prior to 10,000 B.C. tifications around 600 B.C. Some agreed better to frame a place Around that time the mammoth mounds from that era are in the began to die out and the bison took shape of birds or serpents; they for man’s habitation.” its place as a principal source of probably served religious purposes food and hides for these early North not yet fully understood. Americans. Over time, as more and The Adenans appear to have Jamestown founder John Smith, 1607 more species of large game vanished been absorbed or displaced by vari- — whether from overhunting or ous groups collectively known as natural causes — plants, berries, Hopewellians. One of the most im- and seeds became an increasingly portant centers of their culture was important part of the early Ameri- found in southern Ohio, where the can diet. Gradually, foraging and remains of several thousand of these the first attempts at primitive agri- mounds still can be seen. Believed culture appeared. Native Americans to be great traders, the Hopewel- in what is now central Mexico led lians used and exchanged tools and the way, cultivating corn, squash, materials across a wide region of and beans, perhaps as early as 8,000 hundreds of kilometers. B.C. Slowly, this knowledge spread By around 500 A.D., the THE FIRST AMERICANS ancestors had for thousands of northward. Hopewellians disappeared, too, years, along the Siberian coast and By 3,000 B.C., a primitive type of gradually giving way to a broad At the height of the Ice Age, be- then across the land bridge. corn was being grown in the river group of tribes generally known tween 34,000 and 30,000 B.C., much Once in Alaska, it would take valleys of New Mexico and Arizona. as the Mississippians or Temple of the world’s water was locked up these first North Americans thou- Then the first signs of irrigation Mound culture. One city, Cahokia, in vast continental ice sheets. As a sands of years more to work their began to appear, and, by 300 B.C., near Collinsville, Illinois, is thought result, the Bering Sea was hundreds way through the openings in great signs of early village life. to have had a population of about of meters below its current level, and glaciers south to what is now the By the first centuries A.D., the 20,000 at its peak in the early 12th a land bridge, known as Beringia, United States. Evidence of early life Hohokam were living in settlements century. At the center of the city emerged between Asia and North in North America continues to be near what is now Phoenix, Arizona, stood a huge earthen mound, flat- America. At its peak, Beringia is found. Little of it, however, can be where they built ball courts and tened at the top, that was 30 meters thought to have been some 1,500 ki- reliably dated before 12,000 B.C.; a pyramid-like mounds reminiscent high and 37 hectares at the base. lometers wide. A moist and treeless recent discovery of a hunting look- of those found in Mexico, as well as Eighty other mounds have been tundra, it was covered with grasses out in northern Alaska, for example, a canal and irrigation system. found nearby. and plant life, attracting the large may date from almost that time. Cities such as Cahokia depended animals that early humans hunted So too may the finely crafted spear MOUND BUILDERS AND on a combination of hunting, for- for their survival. points and items found near Clovis, PUEBLOS aging, trading, and agriculture for The first people to reach North New Mexico. their food and supplies. Influenced America almost certainly did so Similar artifacts have been found The first Native-American group by the thriving societies to the without knowing they had crossed at sites throughout North and South to build mounds in what is now the south, they evolved into complex hi- into a new continent. They would America, indicating that life was United States often are called the erarchical societies that took slaves have been following game, as their probably already well established in Adenans. They began construct- and practiced human sacrifice. 6 7 CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY In what is now the southwest had on the indigenous population and strong evidence exists that Columbus never saw the main- United States, the Anasazi, ancestors practically from the time of initial neighboring tribes maintained ex- land of the future United States, of the modern Hopi Indians, began contact. Smallpox, in particular, tensive and formal relations — both but the first explorations of it were building stone and adobe pueblos ravaged whole communities and is friendly and hostile. launched from the Spanish posses- around the year 900. These unique thought to have been a much more sions that he helped establish. The and amazing apartment-like struc- direct cause of the precipitous de- THE FIRST EUROPEANS first of these took place in 1513 tures were often built along cliff cline in the Indian population in the when a group of men under Juan faces; the most famous, the “cliff 1600s than the numerous wars and The first Europeans to arrive in Ponce de León landed on the Florida palace” of Mesa Verde, Colorado, skirmishes with European settlers. North America — at least the first coast near the present city of St. Au- had more than 200 rooms. Another Indian customs and culture at the for whom there is solid evidence gustine. site, the Pueblo Bonito ruins along time were extraordinarily diverse, as — were Norse, traveling west from With the conquest of Mexico in New Mexico’s Chaco River, once could be expected, given the ex- Greenland, where Erik the Red had 1522, the Spanish further solidi- contained more than 800 rooms. panse of the land and the many dif- founded a settlement around the fied their position in the Western Perhaps the most affluent of the ferent environments to which they year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is Hemisphere. The ensuing discover- pre-Columbian Native Americans had dapted. Some generalizations, thought to have explored the north- ies added to Europe’s knowledge of lived in the Pacific Northwest, where however, are possible. Most tribes, east coast of what is now Canada and what was now named America — the natural abundance of fish and particularly in the wooded eastern spent at least one winter there. after the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, raw materials made food supplies region and the Midwest, combined While Norse sagas suggest that who wrote a widely popular account plentiful and permanent villages pos- aspects of hunting, gathering, and Viking sailors explored the Atlan- of his voyages to a “New World.” By sible as early as 1,000 B.C. The opu- the cultivation of maize and other tic coast of North America down 1529 reliable maps of the Atlantic lence of their “potlatch” gatherings products for their food supplies. as far as the Bahamas, such claims coastline from Labrador to Tierra remains a standard for extravagance In many cases, the women were remain unproven. In 1963, however, del Fuego had been drawn up, al- and festivity probably unmatched in responsible for farming and the the ruins of some Norse houses dat- though it would take more than an- early American history. distribution of food, while the men ing from that era were discovered at other century before hope of discov- hunted and participated in war. L’Anse-aux-Meadows in northern ering a “Northwest Passage” to Asia NATIVE-AMERICAN By all accounts, Native-American Newfoundland, thus supporting at would be completely abandoned. CULTURES society in North America was closely least some of the saga claims. Among the most significant early tied to the land. Identification with In 1497, just five years after Spanish explorations was that of The America that greeted the first nature and the elements was integral Christopher Columbus landed in Hernando De Soto, a veteran con- Europeans was, thus, far from an to religious beliefs. Their life was the Caribbean looking for a west- quistador who had accompanied empty wilderness. It is now thought essentially clan-oriented and com- ern route to Asia, a Venetian sailor Francisco Pizarro in the conquest that as many people lived in the munal, with children allowed more named John Cabot arrived in of Peru.