The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers

Part 154

Chapter 1541,784 wordsPublic domain

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

When first visited by Europeans, the country now comprised within the United States was exclusively inhabited by the race commonly called American Indians.

=Period of Discovery.=--According to the Scandinavian sagas, Leif, a Norwegian, sailed about 1001 from Iceland for Greenland, but was driven southward by storms till he reached a country called Vinland, which is supposed to have been Rhode Island or some other part of the coast of New England.

It is possible that some vague rumors of the Norse journeys had come to Christopher Columbus when he set out on Friday, August 3, 1492, to discover the western route to India. He sighted one of the Bahama Islands on October 12, and landed the following day. After cruising about for some time, he returned to Spain. He made in all four voyages to the New World for treasure-getting and discovery. His discoveries, it should be remembered, did not extend to the territory now occupied by the United States, but were confined to certain of the West India Islands, and parts of Central, and possibly, South America. (See further, under Outlines of American History.)

Among the earliest of his followers was Amerigo Vespucci, who in 1497-1498 explored the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, and who has given his name to the whole continent.

In 1497, about five years after the discovery of America by Columbus, John Cabot sailed westward from Bristol, England, and on June 24 discovered land (Labrador), along which he coasted to the southwest nearly one thousand miles. In 1498 his son, Sebastian Cabot, sailed from the same port in search of a northwest passage to China, but finding the ice impenetrable, he turned to the south and coasted as far as Chesapeake Bay.

In 1513 the Spaniard Ponce de Leon discovered Florida. In 1539 took place the expedition of the Spaniard De Soto, who in the course of two years penetrated overland from Tampa Bay on the west coast of Florida to a point two hundred miles beyond the Mississippi.

=Period of Settlement.=--In 1565 the Spaniards founded St. Augustine, the first permanent settlement in the United States. In 1585 an expedition sent by Sir Walter Raleigh made a settlement on Roanoke Island, N. C., which failed. In 1607 the English founded Jamestown on James River, Virginia, their first permanent settlement.[11] The master spirit of this enterprise was Captain John Smith. Plymouth, Mass., was founded in 1620 by the “Pilgrim Fathers,” a body of Puritans led by John Carver and others, who sailed from England in the Mayflower. Salem was settled by John Endicott in 1628. In 1630 John Winthrop settled Boston. In 1692 Plymouth colony was united to Massachusetts. Portsmouth and Dover, in New Hampshire, were settled in 1623. The first permanent English settlements in Maine were made about the same time. These settlements ultimately fell under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. Connecticut was colonized in 1635-1636 by emigrants from Massachusetts, who settled at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. Rhode Island was first settled at Providence in 1636 by Roger Williams. In 1623 permanent settlements were made by the Dutch at Fort Orange (now Albany) and at New Amsterdam on the present site of New York. The Swedes settled on the Delaware in 1638, and were expelled in 1655 by the Dutch army. The English seized New Amsterdam in 1664, and with it the whole of New Netherland, which they named New York from the Duke of York, to whom it had been granted by Charles II. New Jersey at this time acquired its distinctive name. In 1681 the territory west of the Delaware was granted to William Penn, who colonized it chiefly with Friends or Quakers, and founded Philadelphia in 1682. Maryland was settled in 1634 by Roman Catholics sent out by Lord Baltimore. The first permanent settlement in North Carolina appears to have been made about 1663, on Albemarle Sound, by emigrants from Virginia. The first permanent settlement in South Carolina was made in 1670 by colonists from England on the Ashley River, near the site of Charleston, which began to be settled about the same time. Georgia was settled by General James Oglethorpe, who in 1733 founded Savannah.

[11] Jamestown is seven miles from Williamsburg, formerly the ancient capital of Virginia and seat of the colonial governor. The only remains of the ancient town are the tower of the church (in which Pocahontas was married in 1614; church itself rebuilt in 1907) and a few tombstones.

=How Europe First Divided the American Colonies.=--It will thus be seen that what is now the territory of the United States has been derived from six European nations. Resting on the discovery by Columbus and the bulls of the popes, Spain claimed the whole continent, but has been in actual possession only of the Gulf coast from Florida to Texas, and of the interior from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The Swedes once had settlements on the Delaware. The Dutch, following up the voyage of Hudson to the river bearing his name, claimed and held the country from the Delaware to the Connecticut. The French discovered the St. Lawrence and explored and held military possession of the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio and the Great Lakes. The English, by virtue of the voyages of the Cabots, claimed the Atlantic coast, and there founded the colonies which grew into the thirteen United States.

In the course of the struggle, sometimes peaceful, often bloody, by which the rule of these nations has been thrown off, the Dutch conquered the Swedes; the English conquered the Dutch and the French; the United States expelled the English, and in time, by purchase or conquest, drove out the Spaniards and the Mexicans.