The land that
became the USA later was inhabited for 60,000 years. The people who colonized
it as well as the other parts of the Americas probably came from Asia then.
Their descendants are the American Indians.
Christopher
Columbus the Spanish explorer first discovered the Americas in 1492 and changed
its history. The subsequent European colonization and exploitation had a
terrible effect on the American Indians. Many died of diseases carried by the
Europeans and others were killed in warfare and forced into slavery.
The Spanish
established colonies in the West Indies, Mexico, Central America and South
America. The first Spanish explorer to reach the shores of the US was Juan
Ponce De Leon in the year 1513 when he landed at Florida and claimed it for his
country. Later Spin established control over the territory of what is now the South
Western USA. This comprised of Arizona and New Mexico along with the adjacent
portions to them in California, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. It
was then that France and England too entered the US.
Though the
Englishman John Cabot explored the coast of Eastern Canada in 1497 England laid
claim to the entire North America based on that voyage. In 1524
a French expedition of Giovanni de Verrazano explored the North American coast
from North Carolina onwards to Canada.
The English
first found their settlement in USA at Jamestown Virginia in the year 1607.
The second
American Colony of the British was Plymouth which was founded by the Pilgrims in
the year 1620. The Pilgrims were a branch of Protestants who left England
because they took objections to the practices adopted by the Church of England.
They crossed the Atlantic in their ship The Mayflower and landed at a place
which later became the colony of Massachusetts. Another group of Protestants
named the Puritans who similarly left England founded the colony of
Massachusetts Bay in 1630. Plymouth was later merged with Massachusetts. English
colonies spread along the coast near Massachusetts and Virginia in the 1620’s
and 1630’s. New Hampshire came into being in 1623. Then came Connecticut in
1635 and Rhode Island in 1636. Maryland also became a colony in 1634.
In the year
1624 Dutch settlers founded a colony called New Netherland near the Hudson River.
In 1664 the English seized the Dutch Colony and changed its name to New York. In
the same year the English also seized New Jersey and Delaware from the Dutch. In
1681 the colony of Pennsylvania was founded by the Quaker William Penn. South
of Virginia the land known as Carolina was settled by the English and the
territory was divided into North and South Carolina in 1729. Georgia was the
last of the 13 colonies and was settled in 1733.
Life in the
colonies was influenced by the ways of the Native American Tribes who lived
there before they arrived. The colonists adopted their foods, herbs, method of
raising crops, war techniques and words. Over the years however, the relations
between them soared and led them into a conflict.
Most of the
English colonies established assemblies similar to the English Parliament.
However, only citizens who owned property or paid taxes were allowed to vote.
Most of the
English settlers were farmers and they had to grow their own food. However,
gradually the living patterns changed. New England (Comprising of the 6 states
of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) started
livestock raising, lumbering, shipbuilding and fishing. The Southern colonies
grew tobacco, rice and Indigo. The Southern plantations had slave labour
brought in from Africa.
The colonies then
gradually developed religious freedom, education, travel, communication and
self-government. These led to rapid population growth. In the year 1700 only
250,000 people lived in the 13 colonies. By 1760 that reached 1.7 million. This
was also due to the rapid influx of slave labour. As the population of the
colonies grew they started expanding west and in the process came into conflict
with the American Indians already living there. The Europeans won more and more
battles with the natives pushing them further from their homelands.
The French
have settled in the Saint Lawrence valley, the great lakes region and the
Mississippi valley. The expansion of the
colonies brought the English and the French into conflict. As there was a
bitter rivalry between France and England in Europe, the same hostility was
there between the French and the English colonists and when there were 3 wars
between France and England IN Europe, the respective wars were also fought in
America.
The wars in
America between the English and the French finally ended in 1763 and the
English were victorious and got control over all French lands in Canada and
between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi river.
After the war
ended the English tried to tighten the control over the 13 colonies which were
till then loosely governed. The British Parliament passed several laws to tax
the colonial trade which was roundly opposed by the colonists and many did not
pay the taxes and organized protests and sometimes clashed with the British
forces. In 1770 British soldiers fired into an angry mob which killed 5 people
at Boston. That was known as the Boston massacre.
In 1773 in
protest for tax on tea, some colonists disguised as American Indians boarded
British ships and dumped the stock of tea into Boston harbour. That is known as
the Boston Tea Party. After the event
the British Parliament passed more restrictive laws that angered the colonists
even more.
In 1774 a
meeting of all the 13 colonies took place to decide the British issue known as
the First Continental Congress. A majority of the colonies favoured putting
pressure on England by refusing to trade with England. However, that did not
work out and April 1775 fighting broke out between the British and the
Colonists in Concord and Lexington in the colony of Massachusetts. This battle
began the American Revolution.
The Second
Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in 1775 where the representatives
chose George Washington to command the Colonial troops.
In 1776,
Thomas Jefferson and other representatives drafted a statement calling for
separation from Britain. This document called the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the 2nd
Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.
The war of
Independence did not favour the colonist if the initial stages and the British
troops had the upper hand. Washington barely managed to keep the army intact
with defeats and lack of supplies. Luckily, the battle turned in favour of the
Colonist in 1777 when the British were defeated in the battle of Saratoga in
New York.
After that
victory France joined the colonist in the war against Britain. The fighting
ended in 1781 when the British surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia. By the treaty
of Paris in 1783, Britain recognised the Independence of the American colonies.
The new nation extended from Canada in the North to Florida on the South and
westward to river Mississippi.
After
Independence people started moving towards the West between the Appalachian
Mountains and Mississippi river. Kentucky state was created in 1792 and
Tennessee in 1796.
At that time
New Orleans and the surrounding area were French territories. Thomas Jefferson
was elected the President of the US in the year 1800 and in 1803 he decided
that the Us should buy the land owned by the French from New Orleans and the
land along the lower Mississippi river from France. France in turn agreed to
sell all its land to the US for USD 15 million then. This purchase nearly
doubled the size of the Unites States. In
1819 Spain agreed to a treaty and gave Florida to the United States.
During the
early 1800’s Spanish colonies in South America declared themselves independent.
Spain tried to regain control over those colonies and some European powers appeared
ready to help Spain. Then the US President James Monroe issued the Monroe
Doctrine in 1823. The doctrine stated that North and South America were no
longer open to colonization and that the US would not allow anyone to interfere
in the affairs of the countries of North and South America.
