1.From the origins to the ninenteeth century
The origins of America and the birth of a Nation (1492-1861)
| When Christopher Columbus arrived in San Salvador in 1942 he thought he had reached the East Indies and never knew that he had discovered a new continent. But the Spaniards and Portuguese who came after him realised that they had reached an unexplored land which they called The New World. |
| In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers arrived, escaping form religious persecution. They founded a colony in Boston, MAssachussets, in New England. By 1760, more than 1,500,000 people lived in 13 colonies. |
The Boston Tea Party, 1773 |
The colonists were British subjects, but they did not think and actlike their fellow subjects in Great Britain. They were a mixture of peoples - English, Scottish, Welsh, Dutch, German, Swedish, and others - and they had learned many new ways form the Indians. They had become a new race and they resented paying taxes to a far-away country they had little contact with. Their rebellion began with the Boston Tea Party in 1773, when angry Bostonians threw the tea into the harbour to demonstrate against the British right to tax the colonies without their contest, and in 1776 the colonies issued the Declaration of Independence and nominated George Washington as their first Prisident. In spite of this, they still had to fight for |
| their rights. The war ended in 1783 and the British gave up their claims to America. |
| The period following the American Declaration of Independence was one of war and expansion fo the New America. |
The civil war (1861-1865)
| An economic divide quickly emerged between the north and south of the nation. The north became industrialised while the economy of the south was still based on agricolture. In the south slavery was widely used on the large cotton plantations. The people of the northern states disagreed with slavery and a movement for its abolition grew in popularity. When abolitionist Abraham Lincon became president in 1860 eleven southern states left the union and formed the Confederate States of America. From 1861 until 1865 Americans fought a civil war, which ended with victory for the northern states and the abolition of slavery. Just as the war ended Abraham Lincon was assasineted by a Confederate fanatic. |
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