What Happened?: An Encyclopedia of Events That Changed America Forever volume 1-4

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WHAT HAPPENED? AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EVENTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA FOREVER

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WHAT HAPPENED? An Encyclopedia of Events That Changed America Forever VOLUME I: THROUGH THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY JOHN E. FINDLING AND FRANK W. THACKERAY, EDITORS

Copyright  by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data What happened? : an encyclopedia of events that changed America forever / John E. Findling and Frank W. Thackeray, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN ---- (set : alk. paper) — ISBN ---- (set ebook) . United States—History—Encyclopedias. I. Findling, John E. II. Thackeray, Frank W. E.W  .—dc  ISBN: ---- EISBN: ---- 

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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC  Cremona Drive, P.O. Box  Santa Barbara, California – This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Illustrations

ix

Preface and Acknowledgments

xi

1. FIRST ENCOUNTERS, ca. 40,000 BCE–CE 1492 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Andrew Frank Algonquin Anasazi Culture Christopher Columbus (–) Hopewell Culture Mississippian Culture Document: Journal of Christopher Columbus, 

        

2. THE FRENCH IN NORTH AMERICA, 1534–1701 Introduction Interpretive Essay by John M. Hunt Jacques Cartier (–) Samuel de Champlain (ca. –) French Fur Trade, Environmental Consequences of Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac (–) Louis Joliet (ca. –) Jacques Marquette (–)

        

3. THE EXPEDITION OF CORONADO, 1540–1542 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Thomas Clarkin Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (ca. –/) Francisco Vásquez de Coronado (–)

    

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CONTENTS

Esteban (ca. –) Hopi Spanish Colonization of the Americas Zuni 4. THE FOUNDING OF ST. AUGUSTINE, 1565 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Blake Beattie Castillo de San Marcos Hernando de Soto (ca. –) Florida Juan Ponce de León (ca. –)

          

5. EARLY ENGLISH COLONIZATION EFFORTS, ca. 1584–1630 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Rick Kennedy John Cabot (ca. –) Jamestown, Founding of () Pilgrims Sir Walter Raleigh (ca. –) Roanoke Colonies (, ) Document: Excerpt from Arthur Barlowe’s “First Voyage to Roanoke,” 

        

6. EARLY EUROPEAN–NATIVE AMERICAN ENCOUNTERS, 1607–1637 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Kathleen Perdisatt and Rick Kennedy North American Smallpox Epidemic Opechancanough (/-ca. ) Pequot War (–) Pocahontas (ca. –) John Smith (ca. –) Squanto (–)

        

7. THE INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY INTO NORTH AMERICA, 1619 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Julia A. Woods African Slave Trade Runaway Servants Slavery

     

CONTENTS

Slavery in Mid-th-Century Colonial Virginia Document: Excerpt from Samuel Sewall’s The Selling of Joseph,  8. RELIGIOUS TOLERATION IN ENGLISH NORTH AMERICA, 1636–1701 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Timothy L. Wood Cecil Calvert (–) Anne Hutchinson (–) Society of Friends (Quakers) Roger Williams (–) Document: Excerpt from Roger Williams’s Bloudy Tenent of Persecution,  Document: Maryland Act of Toleration,  Document: Excerpt from the Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges,  9. THE SURRENDER OF NEW AMSTERDAM, 1664 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Thomas A. Mackey Anglo-Dutch Wars Dutch East India Company Dutch Reformed Church Dutch West India Company Peter Minuit (–) Peter Stuyvesant (–)

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 

                  

10. KING PHILIP’S WAR, 1675–1676 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Steven E. Siry Benjamin Church (–) Metacom (ca. –) Narragansetts Mary Rowlandson (ca. -ca. ) Wampanoags Document: Massasoit Peace Treaty, 

        

11. THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION IN AMERICA, 1688–1689 Introduction Interpretive Essay by P. D. Swiney Sir Edmund Andros (–) Bacon’s Rebellion ()

    

CONTENTS

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King William’s War (–) Jacob Leisler (–) Document: English Bill of Rights,  12. THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS, 1692 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Frederick M. Stowell Cotton Mather (–) Increase Mather (–) Puritan Family Samuel Sewall (–) Document: Cotton Mather: Wonders of the Invisible World,  Document: Death Warrant of Five Women Convicted of Witchcraft in Salem, 

           

Appendix A: Glossary of Terms and People



Appendix B: Timeline



About the Editors and Contributors



Index

I-

ILLUSTRATIONS

Columbus’s flagship, the Santa Maria

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Jacques Cartier claiming Canada for France



Coronado and his men in the southwestern desert

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An early view of the Saint Augustine area of Florida



The Jamestown Tercentenary Exposition, 

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Pilgrims were idealized in the s

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The first Africans arriving in Virginia, 

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Roger Williams lands at Providence Plantation in 

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The Dutch surrender New Amsterdam, 

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Indian wars in the th century featured fighting at close quarters



Nathaniel Bacon, leader of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia



Judicial proceedings during the Salem witch trials

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This volume, which describes and evaluates the significance of  of the most important events in America prior to the th century, is the first in a multivolume series intended to acquaint readers with the seminal events of American history. Other volumes highlight events in the th, th, and th centuries, and the four volumes constitute a complete series. A companion series of volumes will address the global experience, “Events That Formed the Modern World.” Our collective classroom experience provided the inspiration for this project. Having encountered literally thousands of students whose knowledge of the history of their country was sadly deficient, we determined to prepare a series of books that would concentrate on the most important events affecting those students (and others as well) in the hope that they would better understand their country and how it came to be. Furthermore, we hope these books will stimulate the reader to delve further into the events covered in each volume and to take a greater interest in history in general. The current volume is designed to serve two purposes. First, the editors have provided for each chapter an introduction that presents factual material about a particular topic in a clear, concise, chronological order. Second, each introduction is followed by a longer interpretive essay by a specialist exploring the background and/or the consequences of each event in a broader historical context. Each essay includes an annotated bibliography of the most important works about the event. Following the bibliography are a number of shorter essays featuring people or events closely related to the chapter topic. In some cases, there are primary source documents related to the topic as well. The  chapters are followed by two appendixes that provide additional information useful to the reader. Appendix A is a glossary of additional names, events, organizations, and terms mentioned but not fully explained in the introductions and interpretive essays that comprise each chapter. Appendix B is a timeline of key events corresponding to the time period this book covers. One editorial note: the spellings of the names of Indian tribes and individual Indians often varies among authorities. For example, one can spell the name of a New England tribe in various ways: Nipmucs, Nipmucks, Nipmets, and Neepmucks. We have attempted to employ the spelling used by the most recent and authoritative sources (which do not always agree among themselves!), including Frederick Hoxie, ed., Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Boston: Houghton Mifflin,

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

; Carl Waldman, Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, New York: Facts On File, ; and Judith Nies, Native American History, New York: Ballantine Books, . The events covered in this volume were selected on the basis of our combined teaching and research activities. Of course, another pair of editors might have arrived at a somewhat different list than we did, but we believe that we have assembled a group of events that truly changed America before the th century.

As with all published works, numerous people behind the scenes deserve much of the credit for the final product. Barbara Rader, our editor at Greenwood Publishing Group, encouraged us as we prepared the first edition of this book in the late s. Others who gave assistance to that edition included the staff of the Photographic Division of the Library of Congress, and our student research assistant, Bob Marshall. Brigette Adams, Carol Findling and Jo Ann Waterbury all helped with word processing in the final stage of the project. For this edition, we are grateful to James Stewart, John Wagner, Jennifer Boelter, and several others at ABC-CLIO who have answered our questions and addressed our concerns in a positive and timely manner. Special thanks go to Glenn Crothers and John Hunt, who helped us find excellent authors for several of the interpretive essays. We are also grateful to the authors of the shorter essays at the end of each chapter. These historians, provided by ABC-CLIO, wrote fine essays that significantly increased the value of each chapter. Among others who helped us in one way or another to make both the first edition and this one better books are John Newman, Sam Sloss, Sheila Anderson, Kim Pelle, Brook Taylor, Andrew Trout, and Deborah Bulleit. And, most important, we thank our authors, whose essays were well conceived and thoughtful and whose patience when the project seemed to lag was much appreciated. Finally, we wish to express our appreciation to our spouses, Carol Findling and Kathy Thackeray, and to our children, Jamey and Jenny Findling and Alex, Max and Melanie Thackeray, whose patience with us and interest in our work made it all worthwhile. John E. Findling Frank W. Thackeray

1 First Encounters, ca. 40,000 BCE–CE 1492

INTRODUCTION Scholars generally agree that human beings first came to what is now the United States from northeastern Asia, crossing overland at the point of the present-day Bering Sea. During this time, which archaeologists believe was between , and , years ago, the Ice Age had lowered ocean levels to the point where a wide stretch of land connected Asia with North America, creating a land geographers refer to as Beringia. Groups of nomadic people, searching for game or vegetation for sustenance, moved through Beringia into Alaska. Later, as the glaciers retreated, Beringia fell below sea level and Asia and North America were separated. Those left in Alaska became North America’s first indigenous people. Scholars do not agree on just when significant migrations into the more southern parts of North America took place, but all agree that people moved into the southern parts of North America at least , years ago and into South America at least , years ago. The earliest indigenous peoples of North America were hunters and gatherers, killing bison, bear, deer, elk, and other game with increasingly sophisticated spear points and supplementing their diets with fish and berries. Archaeological evidence suggests that, after  bce, many Native people, while still hunters and gatherers, began living in larger houses and communities, making pottery, and adapting more creatively to their environment. Sometime after  bce, plant cultivation began in Mexico and spread northward unevenly, depending on the terrain and weather conditions. Corn, beans, gourds, and squash were among the first crops to be planted, although in some places this did not occur until  bce. At that point, the fundamental features of Native American culture were in place, and the years toward  saw these cultures growing in social complexity and population. Scholars disagree on the pre- population of the Americas. Until the s, the figures of  million for the entire Western Hemisphere and  million for North America were generally accepted, but more recent analyses of the available evidence suggest a much larger population. Many scholars now estimate that between  and  million people inhabited the Western Hemisphere in , of whom between  and  million lived in North America. There may well have been more people living in the Americas at this time than lived in Europe and Russia combined.

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WHAT HAPPENED?

For thousands of years, there was no contact whatsoever between Europe and the Americas. While Christopher Columbus is acknowledged to have been the first European to establish permanent settlements in the hemisphere, he was by no means the first visitor there. Legends and accounts from various northern European cultures, combined with archaeological evidence found in North America, inform us that Europeans knew of North America hundreds of years before Columbus set sail. In the mid-sixth century, according to legend, an Irish monk known as St. Brendan (b. ) took a long voyage and ended up in a magical place called the Land of Promise, where all the plants were in constant bloom, all the trees had delicious fruit, and all the stones were gems. Some other passages in the account suggest that St. Brendan sailed across the northern Atlantic, but no one seriously believes that St. Brendan or other Irish explorers after him ever got past Iceland. The pagan Norse people began depredations in England in  and probably had established colonies in Iceland by . By , the Norse had settled Greenland’s southeastern coast, just  miles from Labrador in northeastern Canada. Around the year , Leif Eriksson made landfall on Baffin Island, north of Labrador, on Labrador itself, and at another land that he called Vinland, probably the northern peninsula of present-day Newfoundland. Eriksson’s exploits led to four more voyages to Vinland shortly after this and to sporadic voyages and short-lived settlements for perhaps another  years after that. Norse accounts of these voyages are supported by scattered archaeological findings, but scholars still know very little about the extent and duration of these settlements. The Norse were never plentiful enough or well armed enough to forge a permanent colony in the midst of what was, even then, a significant Native American population. Another legendary pre-Columbian settler was Madoc, a Welsh prince who, some believe, came to America in the th century and founded a number of colonies in locations as diverse as Newfoundland and Mexico. The Yarmouth Stone, a rock with mysterious inscriptions discovered in Nova Scotia, and the Newport Tower, a stone structure found in Rhode Island, have been advanced as evidence of Madoc’s visits to America, but most scholars remain unconvinced. Others identify Madoc with Quetzalcoatl, a white man who in Aztec legend visited Mexico at about the same time Madoc is supposed to have come to America. There is, however, credible evidence that ships were traveling from Norway to Iceland and Greenland fairly regularly by the th century, but if these vessels sailed any closer to the eastern shore of the Canadian arctic, they were just passing by and their crews made no effort to establish settlements. These contacts with Canada increased during the th century, and, at the end of that century, an Italian, Giovanni Caboto, better known as John Cabot, was probably the first European to sail along the coast of eastern North America and recognize it for what it was. Although most of the pre-Columbian contacts with America had been with Canada, the first permanent European settlements were well to the south, in the islands of the Caribbean. This is where Christopher Columbus and the many Europeans who followed him first encountered the indigenous peoples of America with such devastating effects. Born in  in Genoa, an Italian port city, Columbus had only a rudimentary education and, as a boy and a young man, worked at several trades, including weaving. From an early age, however, he was fascinated by the sea and began working on Mediterranean merchant ships while still in his teens. In the mid-s, he went to Lisbon,

FIRST ENCOUNTERS, ca. 40,000

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Portugal, where he took advantage of the maritime economy to become a much better sailor. In Lisbon, he learned much about earlier voyages and the search for a western route to Asia, and he married into a well-connected Portuguese family. In , when the Portuguese king would not sanction and support Columbus’s plan for a voyage to find Asia by going west, Columbus went to Spain. By this time, Spain had been united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, and Columbus began seeking support for a voyage as early as . At this time, however, Spain was fighting the Moorish stronghold of Granada, and Columbus’s supplications were not approved until early , and then only to keep him from going elsewhere. In all, Columbus made four voyages to what came to be known as the New World. His first voyage, –, took him to the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola (the island where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are located). On his second voyage, – , he visited Guadeloupe, the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. His third voyage, –, took him along the northeast coast of South America, to Trinidad and then to the established colony on Hispaniola. There he got into political trouble and was sent back to Spain a prisoner in chains. He regained royal favor and made a fourth and final visit, –, sailing along the coast of Central America from Honduras to Panama and stopping at other Caribbean islands. In recent years and especially during , the observance of the quincentenary of Columbus’s first voyage, scholars have fiercely attacked the reputations of Columbus and other early European explorers and colonizers in America. As the interpretive essay points out, the Europeans treated the indigenous peoples they encountered with great brutality as they attempted to enslave them, plunder their valuables, or simply exterminate them. Perhaps the epidemic diseases the Europeans brought with them to America killed even more Indians than did the guns and swords of the colonizers.

This photograph shows a 20th-century replica of Columbus’s flagship, the Santa Maria. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.)

4

WHAT HAPPENED?

Epidemic diseases, mostly smallpox, measles, and influenza, first began killing Amerindians (the name given to Indians living in the Caribbean at the time of the first encounters with Europeans) in  with the arrival of the ships of Columbus’s second voyage. Smallpox was especially deadly among the Indians on the various Caribbean islands, because they had no natural immunity to this strange new disease, and an epidemic in  attracted much commentary among Spanish colonial writers. Measles was first reported in force during the s, when an African slave could have spread it. Known in Europe, measles did not kill many whites, as smallpox sometimes did, but  or  percent of the Indians who caught it died, a figure that remained constant throughout the colonial period. The th century is marked with a series of deadly epidemics, notably in the s and the late s and between  and . By the end of the century, typhus, mumps, and possibly bubonic plague had been added to the list of fatal diseases. Some scholars estimate that more than  percent of the Indians in the Americas died from European-introduced diseases.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY andrew frank “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Across the nation, countless schoolteachers annually recite these lines to commemorate the transAtlantic travels of Christopher Columbus and his “discovery” of the “New World” in October . Indeed, American history often begins with a discussion of the Italianborn sailor, his financing from Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and his three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Columbus Day is currently celebrated as a national holiday in the United States, and most Americans believe that this journey to the New World initiated American history. Despite the poem that is often recited and the holiday celebrated in his name, Americans often miss the grand importance of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. Rather than a beginning, the year  marked a revolutionary turning point in world and American history. The New World that Columbus and subsequent European explorers encountered was neither unsettled nor in need of discovery. For that matter, it was not even “new.” Instead, the first human settlers migrated to North America , to , years before Columbus made his more famous journey. Rather than sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in three caravels, these small bands of early migrants crossed a land bridge that covered what is now the Bering Strait, a narrow stretch of water and ice that separates eastern Siberia from the western coast of Alaska. During the Ice Age, falling temperatures caused glaciers to grow and ocean levels to drop. This process exposed a stretch of land as wide as , miles. Scientists call this region, which now lies some  feet under water, Beringia. Bands of nomadic Asian hunters, consisting of approximately  people each, gradually crossed Beringia as they searched for and followed large game animals—especially the mammoth. These migrations brought an unknown number of nomadic hunters, or Paleo-Indians, deeper and deeper into the Americas. There, on lands previously uninhabited by humans, they found new hunting territories, rich natural resources, and hospitable climates. When the ice melted and the

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ocean waters separated the continents once again, the migration ended. This trapped an unknown number of bands in the Americas. By , bce, descendants of these migrants had settled almost all of North and South America. Over the course of thousands of years, the Paleo-Indians adapted to their diverse surroundings and formed countless communities across the Americas. Almost all of these communities used kinship or family groups, often called clans, to determine social, economic, political, and religious obligations. Despite their common ancestry, each of these tribes eventually developed its own thriving and distinct culture. The Indians spoke hundreds of languages, used various tools, and often traced themselves back to different ancestors. Some lived in agrarian societies, while others hunted and gathered; some lived in permanent cities and villages, while others lived more nomadic lives. PreColumbian Indians fought wars with each other, traded goods with one another, and created specialized crafts and elaborate pieces of art. Columbus and his men stumbled upon a world thousands of years old, one whose peoples had established cultures rich in heritage and history. In every region of the Americas, Indians had distinct cultures and lifestyles. In New England, for example, the region was filled with small Algonquian villages that normally contained fewer than  residents. These hunter-gatherers were divided into hundreds of tribes, among them the Abenakis, Mohegans, Wampanoags, Narragansetts, Nipmucs, Pocumtucks, Mohawks, and Mashpees. Kin groups in each of these small tribes followed a seasonal pattern of hunting, fishing, shellfish collecting, plant gathering, and small-scale agriculture. Coastal bands harvested salmon, shad, eel, sturgeon, and whale. Indians farther inland hunted moose, deer, black bear, and beaver. Rather than following hereditary chiefs, these Algonquians made political decisions by consensus and gave authority to those who could lead and persuade others to agree. Quite a different Indian culture emerged in what is now California. There, pre-Columbian Indians grew tobacco and harvested dozens of other foods that grew naturally in the area. The men hunted and fished, and the women prepared these foodstuffs for consumption and storage. These Indians typically lived in villages that numbered around , persons. Native peoples lived in even larger groups in what is today Florida. There, Indians lived in chiefdoms that numbered in the thousands. In these hierarchical societies, most villages paid tribute to the larger and more powerful chiefdoms. Most Indian men hunted, while women spent much of their time cultivating crops. Some of Florida’s Indians used slash-and-burn techniques to ensure plentiful crops, and nearly all of the Indian communities in the Southeast grew the “holy trinity” of corn, beans, and squash. The emphasis on agriculture allowed many Indians in Florida to work as specialized artisans, full-time soldiers, or bureaucrats. In sum, pre-Columbian Indians did not share a single lifestyle. Diversity also characterized the religions practiced by Indians in pre-Columbian America. Some Native Americans believed that spirits of gods inhabited the trees around them; others believed that they lived in a cosmic drama in which the gods competed for power. Some, like the northeastern Iroquois, believed that their ancestors had fallen from the sky, while others, like the southwestern Navajo, believed that their ancestors had emerged from the earth. The religious ceremonies and rituals of these diverse peoples involved altars and sacrifices, dances and songs, chants and potions. Many of these events took place on a seasonal calendar, especially those that celebrated the harvest,

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like the Cherokees’ Green Corn Ceremony. Other ceremonies, like the Plains Indians’ Sun Dance, were less tied to the calendar. Estimates of the Native American population in  vary widely for good reasons: no census was taken by Native peoples before the arrival of Europeans; archeological findings conflict with each other, are incomplete, or are difficult to assess; and European observers wrote only about the handful of peoples that they encountered in the decades after contact. Limited sources, as well as ethnocentric attitudes about Indians’ culture that guided early scholarship, led most early th-century scholars to underestimate the Indian population on the eve of European contact. Until rather recently, most scholars believed that no more than  million Native Americans lived north of Mexico in . In essence, they believed that the land that later became the United States was a “virgin land” untouched by human hands before the arrival of Europeans. In recent years, this description has been radically reassessed. The Smithsonian Institution, perhaps the most conservative participant in the debate, has doubled its estimate, claiming that there “may have been as many as two million” inhabitants in the region. Most recent scholars have offered more revolutionary reassessments of pre-Columbian America. These demographers have convincingly shown that before the arrival of Europeans, at least  to  million Indians made their homes in what is now the United States; North America was neither an empty nor an underpopulated continent,. In North and South America, the Native American population probably ranged between  and  million. Other scholars have asserted that the population for the Americas may have even approached  million or as much as one-fifth of the Earth’s human population. Scholars have not reached consensus in demographic assessments of pre-Columbian America. This debate over numbers promises to continue, but the idea of the Americas as empty land has been universally dismissed. Scholars, even as they disagree over actual numbers, now agree that much of America was well populated by . Rather than virgin soil, the Americas became what historian Francis Jennings describes as “widowed land.” America seemed empty to th-, th-, and th-century Europeans because most of its inhabitants had died. In the decades following contact, nearly all Native communities lost at least half of their population, and most communities suffered from even higher mortality rates. In the century after European contact, America’s total Indian population dropped between  and  percent. This widespread depopulation began as a result of the arrival of Columbus and other European explorers and settlers. These European newcomers introduced a wide range of pathogens, flora, and fauna to American ecosystems in which they had never before existed. This Columbian exchange—the most important ramification of Columbus’s journey—transferred countless pathogens, grains, grasses, large mammals, small rodents, insects, trees, shrubs, and birds. The introduction of European diseases to the Americas resulted in the rapid depopulation of Native populations. The arrival of American grains across the Atlantic fed a surging European population. New technology transformed Native society, and the introduction of sugar cane to the Americas was soon followed by the arrival of African slaves. In short, the disruption caused by this biological exchange between the continents irrevocably altered the lives of Native Americans and humanity at large. Before most Native Americans actually met a European explorer or colonist or heard of their existence, they felt the impact of the Columbian exchange’s deadly pathogens. Germs, viruses, and bacteria entered a world that they had not been in before. The lack

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of exposure to these European diseases left Native peoples without biological immunity, genetic resistance, or effective medical responses to the new pathogens. Indians suffered disproportionately when diseases hit their communities for the first time. As a result, smallpox, measles, influenza, chicken pox, whooping cough, malaria, amoebic dysentery, diphtheria, and the bubonic plague killed all or nearly all of the inhabitants of some Indian villages. After traveling in New Netherland in , for example, Dutchman Adriaen Van der Donck wrote that “the Indians . . . affirm, that before the arrival of the Christians, and before the small pox broke out amongst them, they were ten times as numerous as they now are, and that their population had been melted down by this disease, whereof nine-tenths of them have died.” Even though Columbus and other early explorers did not venture far from the Atlantic Coast, Native nations that lived as far west as California confronted the full force of the European diseases that spread across the Americas. Those who survived the initial onslaught of the European diseases faced the nightmare of dealing with the sick, the infirm, and the deceased. After the loss of young adults to death and sickness, Indian villages could not meet their nutritional needs through hunting and farming. Throughout the Americas, the ensuing starvation and malnutrition simply added to the mounting death tolls. In the early th century, Gov. William Bradford found coastal New England to be nearly barren, the Indians “being dead & abundantly wasted in the last great mortality which fell in these parts about three years before the coming of the English, wherein thousands of them dyed.” Bradford was further struck by the Indians “not being able to burie one another; their sculs and bones were found in many places lying still above ground, where their houses & dwellings had been.” The epidemics haunted Native Americans long after the initial contacts with European pathogens. Although Native Americans slowly built immunities to the new diseases, smallpox, measles, bubonic plague, and influenza continued to cripple the Native communities into the th and th centuries. Some Guale, Timucua, and Apalachee Indians, for example, survived the waves of disease that ravaged the Southeast in the th and th centuries, but newer epidemics had wiped them out by the American Revolution. Similarly, in , Ottawa Indians suffered from smallpox after Lord Jeffrey Amherst gave them blankets that previously had been used to cover infected British soldiers. The disease quickly spread among the Delaware, Mingo, Miami, and several other Indian nations. Some , Indians lost their lives in this epidemic. Fatal disease, along with falling birth rates, increased warfare, and famine prevented Indian populations from returning to their previous numbers. The disruption of the Columbian exchange clearly outlived Columbus. The widespread destruction of Native peoples caused a restructuring of tribal and national affiliations across the Americas. The creation of the Creek Confederacy in what later became Georgia and Florida typified this process. When Hernando de Soto plundered through the Southeast in  looking for gold, he encountered dozens of individual Indian chiefdoms, including the Coosa, Apalachee, and the Alabama. There was no Creek Confederacy. The deadly European diseases that de Soto’s Spanish forces left behind, however, resulted in the collapse in the region’s Native population. Over the next century, the survivors regrouped and formed a new entity that eventually became known as the Creek Confederacy. Ethnic Muskogee Indians, later known as the Creeks,

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were at the core of this new polity. To bolster their size and strength, the Muskogees invited the remnants of other southeastern Indian nations and villages into their confederation. By the th century, thousands of non-Muskogee Indians from dozens of ethnic groups had made a home among the ever-expanding Confederacy. For this reason, the Creeks were the only Indian group to see its population expand in the th and th centuries. Declining populations led to tribal restructuring throughout the Americas during the th and th centuries. For example, in New England, Indians who had earlier lived in small bands became dependent on the fur trade with French and English traders. This encouraged the region’s small bands to create mechanisms of centralized power, or a single chief, to negotiate with the Europeans, who were hesitant to deal with countless leaders. Political restructuring also altered the Iroquois Confederacy. This Native alliance, also known as the Iroquois League or Five Nations, existed before the arrival of Europeans. Even so, the arrival of Europeans and Old World pathogens created new demands. By the s, for the first time, village headmen from across the Iroquois League began consulting one another on a regular basis, and the Iroquois began speaking as a unified voice for the first time. In large part, this break from traditional forms of local authority resulted from the death of many prominent elders. As a group of Mohawk warriors asserted in , “All those . . . who had sense are dead.” The diseases of the Columbian exchange had taken their toll. The Columbian exchange brought more than new diseases to the Americas. It also introduced new plants and animals that reshaped the American environment and Indian economies. After , the flora and fauna of the Americas and of Europe, whose plants and animals had existed isolated from each other, slowly became more alike. Indeed, the ecosystem of th-century America seemed to be radically different from the European scenery to which Columbus had become accustomed. Columbus wrote, “I saw neither sheep nor goats nor any other beast. If there were any I couldn’t have failed to see them.” Columbus did not encounter domesticated animals in his travels, and the animals that he did observe were often unlike anything he had seen before. Generations of European settlers and scientists confirmed these initial observations. The New World alligators and crocodiles startled the Europeans, as the Old World had no reptiles larger than the iguana. Even stranger to European sensibilities were the electric eels and flesh-eating piranhas found in the Americas. The exotic American scenery also included monkeys that could swing from their tails, snakes with rattles on their tails, and huge bison and buffalo. The range of insects, the size of the rodents, and the plethora of freshwater fish similarly surprised the Europeans. The arrival of European animals to the Americas transformed the American countryside. In addition to cattle and swine, Europeans also brought chickens, sheep, horses, and domesticated dogs and cats. Sometimes Europeans transplanted the new animals to fit their uniquely European needs. Members of the -century Virginian gentry, for example, introduced red foxes to the Chesapeake region to participate in English-style hunting. Similarly, some Dutch and English settlers introduced honeybees to the Americas to provide an Old World sweetener for their diet. Other imports came as unintentional stowaways on the trans-Atlantic vessels that brought explorers and colonists. In this way, English sparrows filled the skies of colonial America, and the American cockroach, brought over on slave ships from Africa, infested colonial homes.

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The European plants of the Columbian exchange further changed the American countryside. Soon after his arrival in the New World, Columbus observed that “all the trees were so different from ours as day from night, and so the fruits, the herbage, the rocks, and all things.” Within decades, America contained much of what Columbus believed it lacked. Like the first wave of disease and some of the animals, much of the flora that came to the Americas accidentally took root in America. Colonists unwittingly transported seeds for grasses and clovers in the textiles, blankets, and dirty boots brought from Europe. In this way, Europeans transformed much of the countryside. By , for example, a European bluegrass covered Kentucky. Daisies and dandelions, not indigenous to the Americas, also spread across the countryside. Many other plants made their way into the New World because of the conscious designs of explorers and settlers. Indeed, almost immediately after their arrival in the Americas, Europeans worked to change the New World to fit their image of the Old World. Spanish friars, for example, introduced wheat to grow the grain needed to make communion wafers. Europeans also imported and planted chickpeas, melons, onions, radishes, grapes, olives, and bananas. These crops changed the landscape and helped dictate the path that colonization would take. Perhaps most important to the development of the early colonies, European settlers introduced sugar cane in the Caribbean and South America. The ramifications of this import were felt worldwide as Europeans turned to African slaves to tend to the highly profitable crop. In the centuries that followed, slave traders brought at least  million enslaved Africans to the Americas to cultivate this and other labor-intensive crops. The incorporation of new animals in Native societies was not necessarily a smooth process. On one hand, many Indian people took advantage of the new animals. Plains Indians, such as the Comanche and Cheyenne, used horses to hunt buffalo and other large game. Navajo and Pueblo Indians incorporated sheep and goats into their diets and economies. Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw Indians domesticated cattle. At the same time, however, the arrival of some new animals disrupted many traditional patterns. Newly introduced range animals competed with indigenous game for scarce grazing grounds and water supplies and also trampled over Indian cornfields. At times, disputes over animals resulted in warfare. Southeastern Indians, even as they incorporated domesticated animals into their diet, constantly complained to the colonial governments of Georgia and South Carolina about the damage done by the free-range pigs and cattle that the English had introduced. Similarly, in th-century New England, many Indians incorporated domesticated pigs into their lifestyles. The ensuing disputes over grazing rights resulted in many small skirmishes that contributed to the outbreak of King Philip’s War in –. The Columbian exchange also brought new technology and products to the New World. These products, which included metal tools, guns, and liquor, reshaped the lifestyle of the Native Americans. Most Indians quickly replaced tools made of bone and wood with metallic versions. Europeans traders offered steel axes and knives, iron kettles, woolen clothing, blankets, linen shirts, jackets, scissors, thimbles, needles and thread in return for valuable animal pelts, furs, and skins. The demand for European items created networks of trade between European and Indian communities. In many Native communities, the demand for European goods resulted in the increased “production” of animal furs. With men spending more time hunting and women spending

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more time preparing pelts for trade, Indian peoples became increasingly dependent on Europeans for food and clothing. This dependence often resulted in greater demands by European traders, increased prices for trade goods, new political loyalties, and occasionally the sale of tribal lands to pay off mounting debts. At times, Indians sold their enemies to European slave traders in return for desired trade goods. The Indian trade often resulted in the entrance of European settlers into Indian villages. Thousands of intermarriages between Indian women and European men occurred in colonial America, especially in the Great Lakes region and in the lower Southeast. Native wives proved to be invaluable assets to European traders because they provided companionship and residences, solicited business, and informed them about the community’s general temperature. Furthermore, traders benefited from the labor of their wives, who interpreted for them, collected debts from Indians, prepared animal skins for market, and, as British traveler John Lawson explained, “instruct[ed] [th]em in the Affairs and Customs of the Country.” Intermarriages in the lower south, especially within the Creek, Cherokee, and Choctaw Nations, created generations of “mixed” individuals. Often these so-called half breeds became proponents of acculturation. They helped bring African slaves, cotton cultivation, centralized forms of government, and written laws to Native society. By the early th century, the Cherokees had a tribal government that reflected European systems. The new tribal government contained a bicameral legislature, elected officials, an elected head chief with a limited term of power, and a court system. Among the new ideas that Europeans brought to the New World, perhaps the most intrusive was Christianity. Few Europeans saw anything in Indian society that they recognized as organized religion. At best, they saw Indians as unchurched individuals immersed in superstition; at worst, they believed Indians practiced devil worship. In either case, Europeans viewed Indians as prime candidates for “the work tending to the enlargement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.” European missionaries attempted to convert Indians throughout North and South America. In almost every case, Indian peoples saw these attempts as hostile assaults on their traditional beliefs and customs. Only a handful of th-century Christian missionaries successfully converted many Indian peoples in what later became the United States. Puritan ministers, led by John Eliot, established “praying towns” for the conversion of New England’s Wampanoag Indians in . The most successful of these missions was established at Martha’s Vineyard, where  Indians entered the covenant and an Indian church was established. The Massachusetts Bay Company used the power of the law to coerce neighboring Indians into converting, but even this could not convince most of New England’s Natives to accept Christianity. By the end of the th century, only four of the original “praying towns” remained. Farther south, Spain established more than  missions in Florida. Spanish friars obtained the allegiance of thousands of Guale, Timucua, and Apalachee Indians and extracted the labor of their parishioners. Most of these missions were short lived, however, and by  there were no remaining Guale or Timucua converts. Within a few decades, Spain had to abandon nearly all of its missions among the Apalachee Indians. Apart from these short-lived successes, most Christian missionaries had difficulty converting Indian peoples. This frustrated many religious leaders, who, instead of looking at the intrusive behavior of the Christian missionaries, found fault in the “Indian’s

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character.” Methodist leader John Wesley, for example, believed that the Indians’ “insatiate love of drink, as well as other European vices” made conversion an impossible task. The Indians, he stated, “show no inclination to learn anything, but least of all Christianity.” Indeed, as many Europeans noticed, so-called converted Indians never fully accepted Christianity on the missionaries’ terms. In most cases, Indians blended Christian doctrines with their traditional beliefs and formed new syncretic faiths. British commissioner George Cartwright observed that in New England, “those whom they say are converted cannot be distinguished by their lives, manners, or habits from those who are not.” While Indian peoples suffered massive depopulation and cultural disruption, the Columbian exchange helped Europe’s population to flourish. The Americas provided an endless list of new food, including maize (or corn), several kinds of beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts, tomatoes, pumpkins, papaya, squash, guava, avocados, pineapples, chili peppers, and cocoa beans. These agricultural products eventually turned the Americas into the breadbox of the world and allowed European farmers to increase their ability to feed themselves. These food products helped to put an end to the famine and fear of famine that had kept European populations in relative check in previous centuries. Europe, whose population hovered slightly above  million from  to , saw its population explode to  million in  and  million in . The introduction of American vegetables also affected the traditional foods of European cultures. Ireland adopted the potato as its central caloric source by the th century. Similarly, generations after it arrived in Europe, the tomato transformed Italian cuisine. Some nonedible crops transformed Europe, as well. The Americas provided the world with tobacco, rubber, and most forms of cotton. These exports remained among the most lucrative for American farmers. Just as fortunate to the development of Europe, America did not export a deadly range of pathogens. Although some suggest that syphilis may have been transported to Europe from the Americas, there were no New World counterparts to smallpox, measles, or the bubonic plague. In comparison to the Americas, where Native peoples primarily suffered from the Columbian exchange, Europeans generally prospered from the “new” American foods and raw materials. In , a mere five decades after the arrival of Columbus, a southeastern chief struggled to describe what the collision with the Old World meant to his people: “The things that seldom happen bring astonishment. Think, then, what must be the effect on me and mine, the sight of you and your people, whom we have at no time seen, stride the fierce brutes, your horses, entering with such speed and fury into my country, that we had not tidings of your coming.” Astonishment, he admitted, hardly approached a description of what had happened after  or of the impact the forces that Columbus’s “discovery” unleashed. In the decades that preceded and followed this statement, Native societies witnessed waves of epidemics across the Americas, the alteration of their traditional diet and customs, a change in their trading and hunting patterns across the Americas, and a cultural assault on their religious belief systems by Christian missionaries. The Columbian exchange resulted in the population explosion of Europe and Asia, the massive population movement across the Atlantic, the rise of a trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the expansion of world trade. In short, Columbus may not have found a continent in need of “discovery,” but he did make  a turning point in world history.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Axtell, James. Beyond : Encounters in Colonial North America. New York: Oxford University Press, . A book of essays dealing with the first encounters between Europeans and Native Americans and the historical treatment of that event since . Bray, Warwick, et al. The New World. Oxford, England: Elsevier-Phaidon, . A heavily illustrated survey of the archeological and ethnological history of North America before . Cook, Noble David. Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . A survey of the various epidemics of smallpox, measles, typhus, and other diseases that proved fatal to millions of American Indians. Denevan, William M., ed. The Native Populations of the Americas in . nd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, . First published in  as a pioneer demographic study, this book has been updated and its conclusions altered based on more recent population studies. Fernandez-Armesto, Filipe. Columbus. New York: Oxford University Press, . Short, balanced account of the explorer’s life and career. Jennings, Francis. The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Jennings was one of the first historians to look at European colonization from an Indian viewpoint. Josephy, Alvin, M., Jr., ed. America in : The World of the Indian People Before the Arrival of Columbus. New York: Knopf, . A collection of scholarly articles on the various American Indian groups and their cultures in the th century. ———. The Indian Heritage of America. Rev. ed. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, . Josephy, a titan of American Indian history, devotes fully half of this survey history to the pre-conquest era. Morison, Samuel Eliot. Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. Boston: Little, Brown, . For many years, this book stood as the definitive life of Columbus, but it is now outdated in its interpretation. Oleson, Tryggvi J. Early Voyages and Northern Approaches, –. Toronto: McClellan and Stewart, . A history of the early voyages from Scandinavia and the British Isles to Iceland, Greenland, and North America. Phillips, William D., Jr., and Carla Rahn Phillips. The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . A study of Columbus and his times that treats him neither as a hero nor an unprincipled villain. Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford University Press, . A detailed history of the early encounters between Europeans and American Indians, with emphasis on the destructive effects of the diseases and purposeful violence that the Europeans brought. Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since . Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, . A demographic study of the decline in Indian population from  to  and its rise since then.

ALGONQUIN “Algonquin” or “Algonkin” probably comes from a Micmac word meaning “at the place of spearing fish and eels from the bow of a canoe.” It is the name of a northeastern group of bands that also gave its name to an important language family. The original self-designation was Anishinabeg, or “true men.” Principal Algonquin bands included the Weskarinis (the Algonquins proper), Abitibis, and Temiskamings. In the early th century, Algonquins lived in the Ottawa Valley of Quebec and Ontario, particularly along the northern tributary rivers. Algonquins spoke an Algonquin language.

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The people believed in a great creator spirit and a host of lesser spirits, both good and evil. Both shamans and hunters sought guardian spirits to help them with their work, which included interpreting dreams and healing the sick. Small bands were composed of one or more clans with local chiefs. People smoked tobacco silently before council meetings. Algonquins entertained visitors with the annual Feast of the Dead, a dance with a war theme. When entertaining guests, the host did not eat. Clan descent as well as the inheritance of hunting territories may have been patrilineal. Bands tended to come together in the summer and disperse in the winter. People lived in cone-shaped, teepee-like dwellings. They also built rectangular birchbark hunting shelters. Men fished in both the summer and winter (through holes cut in the ice). They hunted game such as moose, deer, caribou, and beaver. Agricultural crops played a small role in their diet. Important material items included birchbark containers sewn with spruce roots, basswood bags and mats, wooden cradle boards, bows and arrows, and double-headed drums. Algonquins imported fish nets and cornmeal from the Hurons and traded extensively with Iroquoian tribes. They traded animal pelts and porcupine quills to nearby groups in exchange for corn, tobacco, fishing gear, and wampum. Men made birchbark canoes, snowshoes, and toboggans. Dress varied according to location. Most clothing was made of buckskin or moose skin. Clothing included breechclouts, skirts, ponchos, leggings, robes, and moccasins; moccasins were often dyed black. Fur garments were added in cold weather. Algonquins lived on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River from about  to . They began trading with the French in the early th century and later provoked a war with the Mohawks. The Algonquins won that skirmish with the assistance provided by the French in order to maintain an important trade partner. However, the French had made a powerful enemy in the Mohawks, and within a few decades the local military situation had been reversed, with the Iroquois now firmly in control. Meanwhile, the Hurons had replaced the Algonquins as the key French trade partner. The Mohawks, needing to expand their trapping area, soon attacked again. The Algonquins were forced to abandon the upper Saint Lawrence and, after about , the Ottawa Valley. They returned in the s, when peace was reestablished. An epidemic in the s left them further weakened. During the late th century, some Algonquin bands merged with the Ottawa Indians. French trading posts were established, and missionaries became a permanent presence in their territory by the early th century. Some Algonquins traveled to the far west to trap for Canadian companies. After the final French defeat, in , the Algonquins became staunch British allies. Reserves for the group were created in the th century, when their lands were overrun by British settlers. The decline of the fur trade and of their hunting grounds (mainly owing to local logging operations), as well as a growing dependence on non-Natives, led many Algonquins to adopt a sedentary lifestyle.

barry m. pritzker ANASAZI CULTURE The Anasazi culture refers to a North American tradition that emerged around ce  in the area where the borders of present-day Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah

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intersect. The word “Anasazi” comes from the Navajo word for “old ones.” The Anasazi evolved from a semisedentary culture characterized by its basketry (in the period from ce  to ce ) into a village and town-based culture known for its large cliff dwellings and multistory structures (until the late th century). As agriculture developed around , the Anasazi became more sedentary. The Anasazi abandoned their large communities by the th century and merged with other Native American cultures in the Southwest. The origins of the Anasazi remain uncertain, but they were related culturally to the neighboring Mogollon and Hohokam cultures. For the first two stages of their development (Basket Maker and Modified Basket Maker), from  to , the Anasazi were hunter-gatherers who lived in caves or in simple pole-and-mud structures built over pits. They adopted the bow and arrow, and, as could be expected of a people who had only recently given up a nomadic lifestyle, hunting remained important. The Anasazi culture also produced some excellent basketry crafted from plant fibers in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, often with elaborate designs. In the next two stages of development (Developmental and Classic Pueblo), from  to , the Anasazi began building sandstone block dwellings, replacing the older pole-and-mud pit construction. Archaeological evidence suggests that when the Anasazi economy shifted to agriculture, above-ground architectural innovations followed. The Anasazi gradually became more dependent on farming maize and beans. A noticeable increase in food production created a greater need to store those crops, which above-ground masonry provided. Continuous ecological changes, including droughts, created a further need for long-term storage. As they moved above ground, they began using their old underground living chambers, called kivas, as places to hold ceremonies. The physical area of the Anasazi occupation shrank during that time; however, the population increased as more people concentrated in larger towns. In some places, the Anasazi became cliff dwellers and built their villages into cliff faces. In other locations, they built multistory, freestanding apartment-like structures against mesa or canyon walls. Two of the most well-known Anasazi towns were the settlement at Chaco Canyon and the Mesa Verde Cliff Palace. The Anasazi towns were linked by a -mile network of roads. They carried on a vibrant long-distance trade with other groups of Mesoamerican people as far away as the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Agriculture became more sophisticated with the development of terracing and irrigation systems, and pottery gradually replaced baskets for many uses in Anasazi life. During the early th century, frequent droughts occurred, especially at Chaco Canyon. Scholars contend that, after the severe droughts, the Anasazi lost confidence in their priests, who had been responsible for calling on the rain deities. Thus, dispersion may have been attributed to both ecological and sociocultural factors. Later in the th century, the Anasazi began abandoning their large villages and towns after a long drought and raids by aggressive Apache. Most of the Anasazi moved west and south and joined other traditions throughout the American Southwest. They gradually merged with other Native American peoples who are now known collectively as the Pueblo Indians. Modern-day descendants of the Anasazi peoples include

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Acoma, Hopi, Isleta, Jemez, Keres, San Ildefonso, Taos, Tewa, and Zuni. Many of the crafts and skills developed by the Anasazi culture continue in modified forms today.

kevin marsh CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS (1451–1506) Navigator of the first recorded European expedition to cross the Atlantic Ocean in search of the elusive route to Asia, Christopher Columbus landed instead on islands in the Caribbean Sea. His voyage, which was well publicized in Europe, stimulated exploration of what was for th-century Europeans an undiscovered world, the Americas. Although Columbus’s discovery of the Americas presented undreamed of opportunities for Europeans, it also marked the beginning of several centuries of famine, disease, dislocation, and violence for the Native American peoples already living in the Western Hemisphere. Columbus was born Cristoforo Columbo in Genoa, Italy, in , to Domenico Columbo, a master weaver and part-time wine shop owner, and Suzanna Fontanarossa. He received little or no formal education in his youth. He never wrote in Italian but did learn to read and write in Spanish and Portuguese. Columbus spent much of his youth working as an apprentice to his father’s trade, but, by his own account, he took to the sea at a “tender age.” His earliest trading voyages were likely to have been to collect supplies of wool or wine. At the age of , Columbus made his first trading voyage in the Aegean Sea. In his early twenties, he began to make longer voyages to Marseilles and Tunis, as well as to the Greek island of Chios (then a Genoese colony). In , Columbus set out for Flanders and England, but his vessel was sunk by French privateers. He landed penniless in Portugal and was taken in by one of many Genoese living in Lisbon, which was then the principal European center of overseas exploration. At Lisbon, Columbus acquired most of his knowledge of navigation. In , Columbus married Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, the daughter of a widow of a distinguished family who had inherited property in Madeira and an interest in the hereditary captaincy of the island of Porto Santo. By this marriage, he had a son, Diego, who was born in . In Madeira, Columbus learned about island discovery and settlement and caught the optimistic enthusiasm for charting new islands that was characteristic of the time. Columbus’s idea of sailing west to the Indies seems to have been inspired by three sources: Florentine cosmographer Paolo Toscanelli, Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly’s Image of the World, and Marco Polo’s account of the Far East. Columbus theorized that the world was predominately covered in land and that the distance to Asia was much shorter than previously thought. Although he clearly sought adventure, his primary motivations were most likely the pursuit of honor and wealth. When the king of Portugal rejected Columbus’s proposal to finance the voyage, he turned to Spain, where he received high praise and royal patronage for his proposed adventure. In April , King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I of Spain agreed to sponsor the expedition. On the first voyage, Columbus commanded three ships: the Santa Maria,

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the Pinta, and the Niña. The fleet departed on August , , from Palos, Spain. The length of the voyage tested the will of the new explorers, but on October , the expedition sighted Guanahaní, an island in the Bahamas. Columbus renamed the island San Salvador and claimed it for Spain. The expedition also landed on Cuba and Española (later called Hispaniola, which now comprises the Dominican Republic and Haiti), where Columbus left  men before returning to Spain to an enthusiastic welcome in . On his return, Isabella commanded Columbus to sail again immediately. Columbus embarked on a second expedition with  ships and , colonists in September . Upon returning to Española, he discovered that the men he had left behind had been killed by the Natives. On this second voyage, Columbus landed on the islands of Dominica, Guadeloupe, and Antigua and established the first European settlement in the Americas—the colony of Isabella, near what is now Cape Isabella, in the Dominican Republic. He explored the coast of Cuba in the spring of  and, before returning to Spain in June , established a new capital on Española that he called Santo Domingo. It was at the end of this second voyage that many colonists who had sailed with him and then returned to Spain began to express criticism of Columbus and his ventures, but the queen continued to support him. In May , Columbus set out on his third expedition. He landed on the island of Trinidad and sighted what is now Venezuela, discovering South America. When he arrived in Santo Domingo, Columbus found the colony of Española in revolt. Across the Atlantic in Spain, discontented colonists finally managed to persuade the reigning monarchs that Española demanded a new governor. The king and queen removed Columbus in May  and appointed Francisco de Bobadilla to establish order in the colony. Columbus was subsequently arrested and sent back to Spain in chains. On his return, the queen pardoned Columbus but refused to restore his office as governor of Española. In May , Columbus ventured on his fourth and final expedition. Hampered by hurricane damage to the fleet, he managed to reach Honduras and searched in vain for nearly six months along the Central American coast for the passage across the continent to Asia. In January , Columbus landed at Panama and established a colony. In June of that same year, his fleet became marooned near Jamaica. Columbus summoned help from Española, but the stranded expedition waited nearly one year for rescue. After returning to Spain in , Columbus found he had lost not only his title as governor of the Indies but his chief support in the person of Isabella, who had died earlier that year, on November . Suffering from arthritis, humiliated, and frustrated by the elusive fame and wealth that he so fiercely sought through his discoveries, Columbus died in Valladolid on May , . His remains were ultimately laid to rest, alongside those of his son Diego, at the cathedral of Santo Domingo in . Columbus was not the first European to land in the Americas. Navigators from Norway, Iceland, or Greenland had settled briefly in Newfoundland in the late th or early th century. Evidence also exists to suggest that English fishermen may have sighted some part of North America prior to Columbus’s first voyage. Columbus’s discoveries in the Western Hemisphere, however, are distinguished from those of other adventurers by their consequences, mainly that they were followed by rapid, widespread, and permanent European settlement.

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HOPEWELL CULTURE Hopewell culture, which flourished from  bce to ce , was a period of development in the Native American woodland civilization centered in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. The Hopewell were the first Native American peoples fully committed to agriculture. Along with the adoption of agriculture, Hopewell civilization developed long-distance trade networks that contributed to the growth of religion and ritual. The name “Hopewell” is taken from the farm name in Ross County, Ohio, where the first site of the people’s burial mounds were studied. The people were first known as the Mound Builders, but it was later concluded that the Hopewell were only one of many such aboriginal cultures to build extensive mound structures for various uses. Sometime around the turn of the first century ce, Hopewell culture improved agricultural techniques that Native Americans had been experimenting with since  bce. Archaic Native American agriculture was traditionally used to supplemental food obtained by foraging (hunting and gathering). Hopewell culture no longer foraged full time but chose to develop farms that cultivated seed-bearing plants like sunflowers and squash; the introduction of maize and bean agriculture was still limited. Although there were regional variations, Hopewell agriculturalists contributed to the development of social stratification. In a sense, the Hopewell adopted agriculture because of an increase in population and the expansion of exchange networks, those informal trade networks that developed tied Hopewell culture to Native peoples in the regions of Wyoming, the Great Lakes, and the Gulf of Mexico. Archaeologists have shown that the elaborate network of rivers—notably the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee—facilitated the growth of trade. Hopewell sophistication and geographic expansion surpassed those of the preceding Adena culture. The Hopewell were noted for splendid funerary art, discovered in the hundreds of burial and ritual mounds found throughout the region. Such ritual earthworks as the Great Serpent Mound, in Ohio, indicate the growing importance of religion as well as the Hopewell’s capacity to organize relatively large groups of people for cooperative efforts. The use of unsmelted copper in tools and art was also refined, as was the spread of utensils and pottery for feasts and religious ritual. By roughly ce , the Hopewell trading network had collapsed, shattering the cultural continuity and agricultural communities. Over the next  years, the woodland civilization continued, but the people were divided into numerous small regional cultures with limited interaction.

tim barnard MISSISSIPPIAN CULTURE The Mississippian culture, renowned for its distinctive mound dwellings, dominated its region for a period of nearly  years. The nascent Mississippian culture first arose along the fertile banks of the Mississippi River of North America sometime around ce . At its height, the Mississippian culture extended across vast tracts of the American Southeast and Midwest. Mississippian culture also moved northward to the Minnesota

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region and eventually westward into the Great Plains. That expansion was due to several factors, including a frequent cycle of warfare with neighboring tribes and a propensity for forging diplomatic and trade alliances. The most telling indication of the geographical extent of the Mississippian culture is its renowned temple mounds. Those massive earthen structures—the largest of which spans  acres at its base and reaches heights of  feet—formed the center of largescale temple complexes. Located in present-day Illinois, Monks Mound, which is a part of Cahokia Mounds, is widely acknowledged as the most illustrious example of Mississippian architecture. The urban centers that were supported by extensive satellite villages and farming communities were autonomous, well-organized political entities, although alliances and fluid confederacies with like-minded neighboring city-states were not uncommon. An abundantly industrious people, the Mississippians excelled at stone carving, pottery, woodwork, weaponry, and agriculture. Maize cultivation formed the backbone of the Mississippian economy, although Mississippians also produced squash and beans. Overcultivation, shorter growing seasons, and shortages of arable land were among the key factors contributing to the decline of the Mississippian culture ca. . When European explorers encroached on the Americas in the early th century, the waning Mississippian societies were dealt a traumatic blow. Unable to successfully fend off the invaders, the Mississippian peoples were ravaged by diseases contracted from the Spanish conquistadors. The combination of disease, dispersal, and foreign invasion, coupled with the depletion of natural resources, brought about the rapid demise of the once-dominant culture. The Mississippians represent the last Native American culture to dominate the North American continent immediately prior to the European conquest. Despite their decline, many contemporary tribes descend from the Mississippians, including the Natchez.

carter mcbeath DOCUMENT: JOURNAL OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, 1492 The discoverer of the “New World,” the Italian Christopher Columbus, landed in the West Indies in October  and proclaimed the region the property of the king and queen of Spain. Columbus’s well-publicized discovery fueled the mania for exploration that was sweeping over European adventurers, initiating a period in which various European powers attempted to claim vast tracts of territory in both North and South America. Columbus kept the following journal of his historic voyage. (Columbus, Christopher, The Journal of Christopher Columbus: During His First Voyage, –, translated by Sir Clements Robert Markham [London: Hakluyt Society, ].)

IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST Whereas, Most Christian, High, Excellent, and Powerful Princes, King and Queen of Spain and of the Islands of the Sea, our Sovereigns, this present year , after your

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Highnesses had terminated the war with the Moors reigning in Europe, the same having been brought to an end in the great city of Granada, where on the second day of January, this present year, I saw the royal banners of your Highnesses planted by force of arms upon the towers of the Alhambra, which is the fortress of that city, and saw the Moorish king come out at the gate of the city and kiss the hands of your Highnesses, and of the Prince my Sovereign; and in the present month, in consequence of the information which I had given your Highnesses respecting the countries of India and of a Prince, called Great Can, which in our language signifies King of Kings, how, at many times he, and his predecessors had sent to Rome soliciting instructors who might teach him our holy faith, and the holy Father had never granted his request, whereby great numbers of people were lost, believing in idolatry and doctrines of perdition. Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone. So after having expelled the Jews from your dominions, your Highnesses, in the same month of January, ordered me to proceed with a sufficient armament to the said regions of India, and for that purpose granted me great favors, and ennobled me that thenceforth I might call myself Don, and be High Admiral of the Sea, and perpetual Viceroy and Governor in all the islands and continents which I might discover and acquire, or which may hereafter he discovered and acquired in the ocean; and that this dignity should be inherited by my eldest son, and thus descend from degree to degree forever. Hereupon I left the city of Granada, on Saturday, the twelfth day of May, , and proceeded to Palos, a seaport, where I armed three vessels, very fit for such an enterprise, and having provided myself with abundance of stores and seamen, I set sail from the port, on Friday, the third of August, half an hour before sunrise, and steered for the Canary Islands of your Highnesses which are in the said ocean, thence to take my departure and proceed till I arrived at the Indies, and perform the embassy of your Highnesses to the Princes there, and discharge the orders given me. For this purpose I determined to keep an account of the voyage, and to write down punctually every thing we performed or saw from day to day, as will hereafter appear. Moreover, Sovereign Princes, besides describing every night the occurrences of the day, and every day those of the preceding night, I intend to draw up a nautical chart, which shall contain the several parts of the ocean and land in their proper situations; and also to compose a book to represent the whole by picture with latitudes and longitudes, on all which accounts it behooves me to abstain from my sleep, and make many trials in navigation, which things will demand much labor. Friday,  August, . Set sail from the bar of Saltes at  o’clock, and proceeded with a strong breeze till sunset, sixty miles or fifteen leagues south, afterwards southwest and south by west, which is the direction of the Canaries. Monday,  August. The rudder of the caravel Pinta became loose, being broken or unshipped. It was believed that this happened by the contrivance of Gomez Rascon and Christopher Quintero, who were on board the caravel, because they disliked the voyage. The Admiral says he had found them in an unfavorable disposition before setting out.

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He was in much anxiety at not being able to afford any assistance in this case, but says that it somewhat quieted his apprehensions to know that Martin Alonzo Pinzon, Captain of the Pinta, was a man of courage and capacity. Made a progress, day and night, of twenty-nine leagues. Thursday,  August. The Admiral did not succeed in reaching the island of Gomera till Sunday night. Martin Alonzo remained at Grand Canary by command of the Admiral, he being unable to keep the other vessels company. The Admiral afterwards returned to Grand Canary, and there with much labor repaired the Pinta, being assisted by Martin Alonzo and the others; finally they sailed to Gomera. They saw a great eruption of names from the Peak of Teneriffe, a lofty mountain. The Pinta, which before had carried latine sails, they altered and made her square-rigged. Returned to Gomera, Sunday,  September, with the Pinta repaired. The Admiral says that he was assured by many respectable Spaniards, inhabitants of the island of Ferro, who were at Gomera with Dona Inez Peraza, mother of Guillen Peraza, afterwards first Count of Gomera, that every year they saw land to the west of the Canaries; and others of Gomera affirmed the same with the like assurances. The Admiral here says that he remembers, while he was in Portugal, in , there came a person to the King from the island of Madeira, soliciting for a vessel to go in quest of land, which he affirmed he saw every year, and always of the same appearance. He also says that he remembers the same was said by the inhabitants of the Azores and described as in a similar direction, and of the same shape and size. Having taken in food, water, meat and other provisions, which had been provided by the men which he left ashore on departing for Grand Canary to repair the Pinta, the Admiral took his final departure from Gomera with the three vessels on Thursday, September . Sunday,  September. Sailed this day nineteen leagues, and determined to count less than the true number, that the crew might not be dismayed if the voyage should prove long. In the night sailed one hundred and twenty miles, at the rate of ten miles an hour, which make thirty leagues. The sailors steered badly, causing the vessels to fall to leeward toward the northeast, for which the Admiral reprimanded them repeatedly. Monday,  September. This day and night sailed sixty leagues, at the rate of ten miles an hour, which are two leagues and a half. Reckoned only forty-eight leagues, that the men might not be terrified if they should be long upon the voyage. Tuesday,  September. Steered their course west and sailed above twenty leagues; saw a large fragment of the mast of a vessel, apparently of a hundred and twenty tons, but could not pick it up. In the night sailed about twenty leagues, and reckoned only sixteen, for the cause above stated. Friday,  September. Steered this day and night west twenty leagues; reckoned somewhat less. The crew of the Nina stated that they had seen a grajao, and a tropic bird, or water-wagtail, which birds never go farther than twenty-five leagues from the land. Sunday,  September. Sailed day and night, west thirty-nine leagues, and reckoned only thirty-six. Some clouds arose and it drizzled. The Admiral here says that from this time they experienced very pleasant weather, and that the mornings were most delightful, wanting nothing but the melody of the nightingales. He compares the weather to that of Andalusia in April. Here they began to meet with large patches of weeds very green, and which appeared to have been recently washed away from the land; on which account they all judged themselves to be near some island, though not

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a continent, according to the opinion of the Admiral, who says, “the continent we shall find further ahead.” Monday,  September. Steered west and sailed, day and night, above fifty leagues; wrote down only forty-seven; the current favored them. They saw a great deal of weed which proved to be rockweed, it came from the west and they met with it very frequently. They were of opinion that land was near. The pilots took the sun’s amplitude, and found that the needles varied to the northwest a whole point of the compass; the seamen were terrified, and dismayed without saying why. The Admiral discovered the cause, and ordered them to take the amplitude again the next morning, when they found that the needles were true; the cause was that the star moved from its place, while the needles remained stationary. At dawn they saw many more weeds, apparently river weeds, and among them a live crab, which the Admiral kept, and says that these are sure signs of land, being never found eighty leagues out at sea. They found the sea-water less salt since they left the Canaries, and the air more mild. They were all very cheerful, and strove which vessel should outsail the others, and be the first to discover land; they saw many tunnies, and the crew of the Nina killed one. The Admiral here says that these signs were from the west, “where I hope that high God in whose hand is all victory will speedily direct us to land.” This morning he says he saw a white bird called a waterwagtail, or tropic bird, which does not sleep at sea.  September. Continued on, and sailed, day and night, twenty- five leagues, experiencing a calm. Wrote down twenty-two. This day at ten o’clock a pelican came on board, and in the evening another; these birds are not accustomed to go twenty leagues from land. It drizzled without wind, which is a sure sign of land. The Admiral was unwilling to remain here, beating about in search of land, but he held it for certain that there were islands to the north and south, which in fact was the case and he was sailing in the midst of them. His wish was to proceed on to the Indies, having such fair weather, for if it please God, as the Admiral says, we shall examine these parts upon our return. Here the pilots found their places upon the chart: the reckoning of the Nina made her four hundred and forty leagues distant from the Canaries, that of the Pinta four hundred and twenty, that of the Admiral four hundred. Thursday,  September. Steered west by north, varying with alternate changes of the wind and calms; made seven or eight leagues’ progress. Two pelicans came on board, and afterwards another,—a sign of the neighborhood of land. Saw large quantities of weeds today, though none was observed yesterday. Caught a bird similar to a grajao; it was a river and not a marine bird, with feet like those of a gull. Towards night two or three land birds came to the ship, singing; they disappeared before sunrise. Afterwards saw a pelican coming from west-northwest and flying to the southwest; an evidence of land to the westward, as these birds sleep on shore, and go to sea in the morning in search of food, never proceeding twenty leagues from the land. Friday,  September. Most of the day calm, afterwards a little wind. Steered their course day and night, sailing less than thirteen leagues. In the morning found such abundance of weeds that the ocean seemed to be covered with them; they came from the west. Saw a pelican; the sea smooth as a river, and the finest air in the world. Saw a whale, an indication of land, as they always keep near the coast. Saturday,  September. Steered about west-northwest varying their course, and making thirty leagues’ progress. Saw few weeds. Some pardelas were seen, and another

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bird. The Admiral here says “this headwind was very necessary to me, for my crew had grown much alarmed, dreading that they never should meet in these seas with a fair wind to return to Spain.” Part of the day saw no weeds, afterwards great plenty of it. Sunday,  September. Sailed northwest and northwest by north and at times west nearly twenty-two leagues. Saw a turtle dove, a pelican, a river bird, and other white fowl;—weeds in abundance with crabs among them. The sea being smooth and tranquil, the sailors murmured, saying that they had got into smooth water, where it would never blow to carry them back to Spain; but afterwards the sea rose without wind, which astonished them. The Admiral says on this occasion “the rising of the sea was very favorable to me, as it happened formerly to Moses when he led the Jews from Egypt.” Tuesday,  September. Very calm this day; afterwards the wind rose. Continued their course west till night. The Admiral held a conversation with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, respecting a chart which the Admiral had sent him three days before, in which it appears he had marked down certain islands in that sea; Martin Alonzo was of opinion that they were in their neighborhood, and the Admiral replied that he thought the same, but as they had not met with them, it must have been owing to the currents which had carried them to the northeast and that they had not made such progress as the pilots stated. The Admiral directed him to return the chart, when he traced their course upon it in presence of the pilot and sailors. At sunset Martin Alonzo called out with great joy from his vessel that he saw land, and demanded of the Admiral a reward for his intelligence. The Admiral says, when he heard him declare this, he fell on his knees and returned thanks to God, and Martin Alonzo with his crew repeated Gloria in excelsis Deo, as did the crew of the Admiral. Those on board the Nina ascended the rigging, and all declared they saw land. The Admiral also thought it was land, and about twenty-five leagues distant. They remained all night repeating these affirmations, and the Admiral ordered their course to be shifted from west to southwest where the land appeared to lie. They sailed that day four leagues and a half west and in the night seventeen leagues southwest, in all twenty-one and a half: told the crew thirteen leagues, making it a point to keep them from knowing how far they had sailed; in this manner two reckonings were kept, the shorter one falsified, and the other being the true account. The sea was very smooth and many of the sailors went in it to bathe, saw many dories and other fish. Wednesday,  September. Continued their course west till the afternoon, then southwest and discovered that what they had taken for land was nothing but clouds. Sailed, day and night, thirty-one leagues; reckoned to the crew twenty-four. The sea was like a river, the air soft and mild. Sunday,  September. Continued their course west and sailed day and night in calms, fourteen leagues; reckoned eleven.—Four tropic birds came to the ship, which is a very clear sign of land, for so many birds of one sort together show that they are not straying about, having lost themselves. Twice, saw two pelicans; many weeds. The constellation called Las Gallardias, which at evening appeared in a westerly direction, was seen in the northeast the next morning, making no more progress in a night of nine hours, this was the case every night, as says the Admiral. At night the needles varied a point towards the northwest, in the morning they were true, by which it appears that the polar star moves, like the others, and the needles are always right.

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Monday,  October. Continued their course west and sailed twenty-five leagues; reckoned to the crew twenty. Experienced a heavy shower. The pilot of the Admiral began to fear this morning that they were five hundred and seventy-eight leagues west of the island of Ferro. The short reckoning which the Admiral showed his crew gave five hundred and eighty-four, but the true one which he kept to himself was seven hundred and seven leagues. Saturday,  October. Continued their course west and sailed forty leagues day and night; reckoned to the crew thirty-three. This night Martin Alonzo gave it as his opinion that they had better steer from west to southwest. The Admiral thought from this that Martin Alonzo did not wish to proceed onward to Cipango; but he considered it best to keep on his course, as he should probably reach the land sooner in that direction, preferring to visit the continent first, and then the islands. Sunday,  October. Continued their course west and sailed twelve miles an hour, for two hours, then eight miles an hour. Sailed till an hour after sunrise, twenty-three leagues; reckoned to the crew eighteen. At sunrise the caravel Nina, who kept ahead on account of her swiftness in sailing, while all the vessels were striving to outsail one another, and gain the reward promised by the King and Queen by first discovering land— hoisted a flag at her mast head, and fired a lombarda, as a signal that she had discovered land, for the Admiral had given orders to that effect. He had also ordered that the ships should keep in close company at sunrise and sunset, as the air was more favorable at those times for seeing at a distance. Towards evening seeing nothing of the land which the Nina had made signals for, and observing large flocks of birds coming from the North and making for the southwest, whereby it was rendered probable that they were either going to land to pass the night, or abandoning the countries of the north, on account of the approaching winter, he determined to alter his course, knowing also that the Portuguese had discovered most of the islands they possessed by attending to the flight of birds. The Admiral accordingly shifted his course from west to west-southwest, with a resolution to continue two days ill that direction. This was done about an hour after sunset. Sailed in the night nearly five leagues, and twenty-three in the day. In all twenty-eight.  October. Steered west-southwest and sailed day and night eleven or twelve leagues; at times during the night, fifteen miles an hour, if the account can be depended upon. Found the sea like the river at Seville, “thanks to God,” says the Admiral. The air soft as that of Seville in April, and so fragrant that it was delicious to breathe it. The weeds appeared very fresh. Many land birds, one of which they took, flying towards the southwest; also grajaos, ducks, and a pelican were seen. Tuesday,  October. Sailed southwest five leagues, when the wind changed, and they stood west by north four leagues. Sailed in the whole day and night, twenty leagues and a half; reckoned to the crew seventeen. All night heard birds passing. Wednesday,  October. Steered west-southwest and sailed at times ten miles an hour, at others twelve, and at others, seven; day and night made fifty-nine leagues’ progress; reckoned to the crew but forty-four. Here the men lost all patience, and complained of the length of the voyage, but the Admiral encouraged them in the best manner he could, representing the profits they were about to acquire, and adding that it was to no purpose to complain, having come so far, they had nothing to do but continue on to the Indies, till with the help of our Lord, they should arrive there.

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Thursday,  October. Steered west-southwest; and encountered a heavier sea than they had met with before in the whole voyage. Saw pardelas and a green rush near the vessel. The crew of the Pinta saw a cane and a log; they also picked up a stick which appeared to have been carved with an iron tool, a piece of cane, a plant which grows on land, and a board. The crew of the Nina saw other signs of land, and a stalk loaded with rose berries. These signs encouraged them, and they all grew cheerful. Sailed this day till sunset, twenty-seven leagues. After sunset steered their original course west and sailed twelve miles an hour till two hours after midnight, going ninety miles, which are twenty-two leagues and a half; and as the Pinta was the swiftest sailer, and kept ahead of the Admiral, she discovered land and made the signals which had been ordered. The land was first seen by a sailor called Rodrigo de Triana, although the Admiral at ten o’clock that evening standing on the quarter-deck saw a light, but so small a body that he could not affirm it to be land; calling to Pero Gutierrez, groom of the King’s wardrobe, he told him he saw a light, and bid him look that way, which he did and saw it; he did the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the squadron as comptroller, but he was unable to see it from his situation. The Admiral again perceived it once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down, which some thought an indication of land. But the Admiral held it for certain that land was near; for which reason, after they had said the Salve which the seamen are accustomed to repeat and chant after their fashion, the Admiral directed them to keep a strict watch upon the forecastle and look out diligently for land, and to him who should first discover it he promised a silken jacket, besides the reward which the King and Queen had offered, which was an annuity of ten thousand maravedis. At two o’clock in the morning the land was discovered, at two leagues’ distance; they took in sail and remained under the square-sail lying to till day, which was Friday, when they found themselves near a small island, one of the Lucayos, called in the Indian language Guanahani. Presently they descried people, naked, and the Admiral landed in the boat, which was armed, along with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and Vincent Yanez his brother, captain of the Nina. The Admiral bore the royal standard, and the two captains each a banner of the Green Cross, which all the ships had carried; this contained the initials of the names of the King and Queen each side of the cross, and a crown over each letter Arrived on shore, they saw trees very green many streams of water, and diverse sorts of fruits. The Admiral called upon the two Captains, and the rest of the crew who landed, as also to Rodrigo de Escovedo notary of the fleet, and Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, to bear witness that he before all others took possession (as in fact he did) of that island for the King and Queen his sovereigns, making the requisite declarations, which are more at large set down here in writing. Numbers of the people of the island straightway collected together. Here follow the precise words of the Admiral: “As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk’s bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will. But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor

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people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl. All whom I saw were young, not above thirty years of age, well made, with fine shapes and faces; their hair short, and coarse like that of a horse’s tail, combed toward the forehead, except a small portion which they suffer to hang down behind, and never cut. Some paint themselves with black, which makes them appear like those of the Canaries, neither black nor white; others with white, others with red, and others with such colors as they can find. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose. Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed. I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the origins of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent. It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language. I saw no beasts in the island, nor any sort of animals except parrots.” These are the words of the Admiral. Saturday,  October. At daybreak great multitudes of men came to the shore, all young and of fine shapes, very handsome; their hair not curled but straight and coarse like horse-hair, and all with foreheads and heads much broader than any people I had hitherto seen; their eyes were large and very beautiful; they were not black, but the color of the inhabitants of the Canaries, which is a very natural circumstance, they being in the same latitude with the island of Ferro in the Canaries. They were straight-limbed without exception, and not with prominent bellies but handsomely shaped. They came to the ship in canoes, made of a single trunk of a tree, wrought in a wonderful manner considering the country; some of them large enough to contain forty or forty-five men, others of different sizes down to those fitted to hold but a single person. They rowed with an oar like a baker’s peel, and wonderfully swift. If they happen to upset, they all jump into the sea, and swim till they have righted their canoe and emptied it with the calabashes they carry with them. They came loaded with balls of cotton, parrots, javelins, and other things too numerous to mention; these they exchanged for whatever we chose to give them. I was very attentive to them, and strove to learn if they had any gold. Seeing some of them with little bits of this metal hanging at their noses, I gathered from them by signs that by going southward or steering round the island in that direction, there would be found a king who possessed large vessels of gold, and in great quantities. I endeavored to procure them to lead the way thither, but found they were unacquainted with the route. I determined to stay here till the evening of the next day, and then sail for the southwest; for according to what I could learn from them, there was land at the south as well as at the southwest and northwest and those from the northwest came many times and fought with them and proceeded on to the southwest in search of gold and precious stones. This is a large and level island, with trees extremely flourishing, and streams of water; there is a large lake in the middle of the island, but no

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WHAT HAPPENED?

mountains: the whole is completely covered with verdure and delightful to behold. The natives are an inoffensive people, and so desirous to possess any thing they saw with us, that they kept swimming off to the ships with whatever they could find, and readily bartered for any article we saw fit to give them in return, even such as broken platters and fragments of glass. I saw in this manner sixteen balls of cotton thread which weighed above twenty-five pounds, given for three Portuguese ceutis. This traffic I forbade, and suffered no one to take their cotton from them, unless I should order it to be procured for your Highnesses, if proper quantities could be met with. It grows in this island, but from my short stay here I could not satisfy myself fully concerning it; the gold, also, which they wear in their noses, is found here, but not to lose time, I am determined to proceed onward and ascertain whether I can reach Cipango. At night they all went on shore with their canoes. Sunday,  October. In the morning, I ordered the boats to be got ready, and coasted along the island toward the north-northeast to examine that part of it, we having landed first at the eastern part. Presently we discovered two or three villages, and the people all came down to the shore, calling out to us, and giving thanks to God. Some brought us water, and others victuals: others seeing that I was not disposed to land, plunged into the sea and swam out to us, and we perceived that they interrogated us if we had come from heaven. An old man came on board my boat; the others, both men and women cried with loud voices—“Come and see the men who have come from heavens. Bring them victuals and drink.” There came many of both sexes, every one bringing something, giving thanks to God, prostrating themselves on the earth, and lifting up their hands to heaven. They called out to us loudly to come to land, but I was apprehensive on account of a reef of rocks, which surrounds the whole island, although within there is depth of water and room sufficient for all the ships of Christendom, with a very narrow entrance. There are some shoals withinside, but the water is as smooth as a pond. It was to view these parts that I set out in the morning, for I wished to give a complete relation to your Highnesses, as also to find where a fort might be built. I discovered a tongue of land which appeared like an island though it was not, but might be cut through and made so in two days; it contained six houses. I do not, however, see the necessity of fortifying the place, as the people here are simple in war-like matters, as your Highnesses will see by those seven which I have ordered to be taken and carried to Spain in order to learn our language and return, unless your Highnesses should choose to have them all transported to Castile, or held captive in the island. I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased. Near the islet I have mentioned were groves of trees, the most beautiful I have ever seen, with their foliage as verdant as we see in Castile in April and May. There were also many streams. After having taken a survey of these parts, I returned to the ship, and setting sail, discovered such a number of islands that I knew not which first to visit; the natives whom I had taken on board informed me by signs that there were so many of them that they could not be numbered; they repeated the names of more than a hundred. I determined to steer for the largest, which is about five leagues from San Salvador; the others were some at a greater, and some at a less distance from that island. They are all very level, without mountains, exceedingly fertile and populous, the inhabitants living at war with one another, although a simple race, and with delicate bodies.

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 October. Stood off and on during the night, determining not to come to anchor till morning, fearing to meet with shoals; continued our course in the morning; and as the island was found to be six or seven leagues distant, and the tide was against us, it was noon when we arrived there. I found that part of it towards San Salvador extending from north to south five leagues, and the other side which we coasted along, ran from east to west more than ten leagues. From this island espying a still larger one to the west, I set sail in that direction and kept on till night without reaching the western extremity of the island, where I gave it the name of Santa Maria de la Concepcion. About sunset we anchored near the cape which terminates the island towards the west to enquire for gold, for the natives we had taken from San Salvador told me that the people here wore golden bracelets upon their arms and legs. I believed pretty confidently that they had invented this story in order to find means to escape from us, still I determined to pass none of these islands without taking possession, because being once taken, it would answer for all times. We anchored and remained till Tuesday, when at daybreak I went ashore with the boats armed. The people we found naked like those of San Salvador, and of the same disposition. They suffered us to traverse the island, and gave us what we asked of them. As the wind blew southeast upon the shore where the vessels lay, I determined not to remain, and set out for the ship. A large canoe being near the caravel Nina, one of the San Salvador natives leaped overboard and swam to her; (another had made his escape the night before,) the canoe being reached by the fugitive, the natives rowed for the land too swiftly to be overtaken; having landed, some of my men went ashore in pursuit of them, when they abandoned the canoe and fled with precipitation; the canoe which they had left was brought on board the Nina, where from another quarter had arrived a small canoe with a single man, who came to barter some cotton; some of the sailors finding him unwilling to go on board the vessel, jumped into the sea and took him. I was upon the quarter deck of my ship, and seeing the whole, sent for him, and gave him a red cap, put some glass beads upon his arms, and two hawk’s bells upon his ears. I then ordered his canoe to be returned to him, and dispatched him back to land. I now set sail for the other large island to the west and gave orders for the canoe which the Nina had in tow to be set adrift. I had refused to receive the cotton from the native whom I sent on shore, although he pressed it upon me. I looked out after him and saw upon his landing that the others all ran to meet him with much wonder. It appeared to them that we were honest people, and that the man who had escaped from us had done us some injury, for which we kept him in custody. It was in order to favor this notion that I ordered the canoe to be set adrift, and gave the man the presents above mentioned, that when your Highnesses send another expedition to these parts it may meet with a friendly reception. All I gave the man was not worth four maravedis. We set sail about ten o’clock, with the wind southeast and stood southerly for the island I mentioned above, which is a very large one, and where according to the account of the natives on board, there is much gold, the inhabitants wearing it in bracelets upon their arms, legs, and necks, as well as in their ears and at their noses. This island is nine leagues distant from Santa Maria in a westerly direction. This part of it extends from northwest, to southeast and appears to be twenty-eight leagues long, very level, without any mountains, like San Salvador and Santa Maria, having a good shore and not rocky, except a few ledges under water, which renders it necessary to anchor at some distance,

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WHAT HAPPENED?

although the water is very clear, and the bottom may be seen. Two shots of a lombarda from the land, the water is so deep that it cannot be sounded; this is the case in all these islands. They are all extremely verdant and fertile, with the air agreeable, and probably contain many things of which I am ignorant, not inclining to stay here, but visit other islands in search of gold. And considering the indications of it among the natives who wear it upon their arms and legs, and having ascertained that it is the true metal by showing them some pieces of it which I have with me, I cannot fail, with the help of our Lord, to find the place which produces it. Being at sea, about midway between Santa Maria and the large island, which I name Fernandina, we met a man in a canoe going from Santa Maria to Fernandina; he had with him a piece of the bread which the natives make, as big as one’s fist, a calabash of water, a quantity of reddish earth, pulverized and afterwards kneaded up, and some dried leaves which are in high value among them, for a quantity of it was brought to me at San Salvador; he had besides a little basket made after their fashion, containing some glass beads, and two blancas by all which I knew he had come from San Salvador, and had passed from thence to Santa Maria. He came to the ship and I caused him to be taken on board, as he requested it; we took his canoe also on board and took care of his things. I ordered him to be presented with bread and honey, and drink, and shall carry him to Fernandina and give him his property, that he may carry a good report of us, so that if it please our Lord when your Highnesses shall send again to these regions, those who arrive here may receive honor, and procure what the natives may be found to possess. Tuesday,  October. Set sail from Santa Maria about noon, for Fernandina which appeared very large in the west; sailed all the day with calms, and could not arrive soon enough to view the shore and select a good anchorage, for great care must be taken in this particular, lest the anchors be lost. Beat up and down all night, and in the morning arrived at a village and anchored. This was the place to which the man whom we had picked up at sea had gone, when we set him on shore. He had given such a favorable account of us, that all night there were great numbers of canoes coming off to us, who brought us water and other things. I ordered each man to be presented with something, as strings of ten or a dozen glass beads apiece, and thongs of leather, all which they estimated highly; those which came on board I directed should be fed with molasses. At three o’clock, I sent the boat on shore for water; the natives with great good will directed the men where to find it, assisted them in carrying the casks full of it to the boat, and seemed to take great pleasure in serving us. This is a very large island, and I have resolved to coast it about, for as I understand, in, or near the island, there is a mine of gold. It is eight leagues west of Santa Maria, and the cape where we have arrived, and all this coast extends from north-northwest to south-southeast. I have seen twenty leagues of it, but not the end. Now, writing this, I set sail with a southerly wind to circumnavigate the island, and search till we can find Samoet, which is the island or city where the gold is, according to the account of those who come on board the ship, to which the relation of those of San Salvador and Santa Maria corresponds. These people are similar to those of the islands just mentioned, and have the same language and customs; with the exception that they appear somewhat more civilized, showing themselves more subtle in their dealings with us, bartering their cotton and other articles with more profit than the others had experienced. Here we saw cotton cloth, and

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perceived the people more decent, the women wearing a slight covering of cotton over the nudities. The island is verdant, level and fertile to a high degree; and I doubt not that grain is sowed and reaped the whole year round, as well as all other productions of the place. I saw many trees, very dissimilar to those of our country, and many of them had branches of different sorts upon the same trunk; and such a diversity was among them that it was the greatest wonder in the world to behold. Thus, for instance, one branch of a tree bore leaves like those of a cane, another branch of the same tree, leaves similar to those of the lentisk. In this manner a single tree bears five or six different kinds. Nor is this done by grafting, for that is a work of art, whereas these trees grow wild, and the natives take no care about them. They have no religion, and I believe that they would very readily become Christians, as they have a good understanding. Here the fish are so dissimilar to ours that it is wonderful. Some are shaped like dories, of the finest hues in the world, blue, yellow, red, and every other color, some variegated with a thousand different tints, so beautiful that no one on beholding them could fail to express the highest wonder and admiration. Here are also whales. Beasts, we saw none, nor any creatures on land save parrots and lizards, but a boy told me he saw a large snake. No sheep nor goats were seen, and although our stay here has been short, it being now noon, yet were there any, I could hardly have failed of seeing them. The circumnavigation of the island I shall describe afterward. Wednesday,  October. At noon set sail from the village where we had anchored and watered. Kept on our course to sail round the island; the wind southwest and south. My intention was to follow the coast of the island to the southeast as it runs in that direction, being informed by the Indians I have on board, besides another whom I met with here, that in such a course I should meet with the island which they call Samoet, where gold is found. I was further informed by Martin Alonzo Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, on board of which I had sent three of the Indians, that he had been assured by one of them I might sail round the island much sooner by the northwest. Seeing that the wind would not enable me to proceed in the direction I first contemplated, and finding it favorable for the one thus recommended me, I steered to the northwest and arriving at the extremity of the island at two leagues’ distance, I discovered a remarkable haven with two entrances, formed by an island at its mouth, both very narrow, the inside capacious enough for a hundred ships, were there sufficient depth of water. I thought it advisable to examine it, and therefore anchored outside, and went with the boats to sound it, but found the water shallow. As I had first imagined it to be the mouth of a river, I had directed the casks to be carried ashore for water, which being done we discovered eight or ten men who straightway came up to us, and directed us to a village in the neighborhood; I accordingly dispatched the crews thither in quest of water, part of them armed, and the rest with the casks, and the place being at some distance it detained me here a couple of hours. In the meantime I strayed about among the groves, which present the most enchanting sight ever witnessed, a degree of verdure prevailing like that of May in Andalusia, the trees as different from those of our country as day is from night, and the same may be said of the fruit, the weeds, the stones and everything else. A few of the trees, however, seemed to be of a species similar to some that are to be found in Castile, though still with a great dissimilarity, but the others so unlike, that it is impossible to find any resemblance in them to those of our land. The natives we found like those already described, as to personal appearance and manners, and naked

30

WHAT HAPPENED?

like the rest. Whatever they possessed, they bartered for what we chose to give them. I saw a boy of the crew purchasing javelins of them with bits of platters and broken glass. Those who went for water informed me that they had entered their houses and found them very clean and neat, with beds and coverings of cotton nets. Their houses are all built in the shape of tents, with very high chimneys. None of the villages which I saw contained more than twelve or fifteen of them. Here it was remarked that the married women wore cotton breeches, but the younger females were without them, except a few who were as old as eighteen years. Dogs were seen of a large and small size, and one of the men had hanging at his nose a piece of gold half as big as a castellailo, with letters upon it. I endeavored to purchase it of them in order to ascertain what sort of money it was but they refused to part with it. Having taken our water on board, I set sail and proceeded northwest till I had surveyed the coast to the point where it begins to run from east to west. Here the Indians gave me to understand that this island was smaller than that of Samoet, and that I had better return in order to reach it the sooner. The wind died away, and then sprang up from the west-northwest which was contrary to the course we were pursuing, we therefore hove about and steered various courses through the night from east to south standing off from the land, the weather being cloudy and thick. It rained violently from midnight till near day, and the sky still remains clouded; we remain off the southeast part of the island, where I expect to anchor and stay till the weather grows clear, when I shall steer for the other islands I am in quest of. Every day that I have been in these Indies it has rained more or less. I assure your Highnesses that these lands are the most fertile, temperate, level and beautiful countries in the world. Thursday,  October. As soon as the sky grew clear, we set sail and went as far round the island as we could, anchoring when we found it inconvenient to proceed. I did not, however, land. In the morning set sail again. Friday,  October. In the morning we got under weigh, and I ordered the Pinta to steer east and southeast and the Nina south-southeast; proceeding myself to the southeast the other vessels I directed to keep on the courses prescribed till noon, and then to rejoin me. Within three hours we descried an island to the east toward which we directed our course, and arrived all three, before noon, at the northern extremity, where a rocky islet and reef extend toward the North, with another between them and the main island. The Indians on board the ships called this island Saomete. I named it Isabela. It lies westerly from the island of Fernandina, and the coast extends from the islet twelve leagues, west, to a cape which I called Cabo Hermoso, it being a beautiful, round headland with a bold shore free from shoals. Part of the shore is rocky, but the rest of it, like most of the coast here, a sandy beach. Here we anchored till morning. This island is the most beautiful that I have yet seen, the trees in great number, flourishing and lofty; the land is higher than the other islands, and exhibits an eminence, which though it cannot be called a mountain, yet adds a beauty to its appearance, and gives an indication of streams of water in the interior. From this part toward the northeast is an extensive bay with many large and thick groves. I wished to anchor there, and land, that I might examine those delightful regions, but found the coast shoal, without a possibility of casting anchor except at a distance from the shore. The wind being favorable, I came to the Cape, which I named Hermoso, where I anchored today. This is so beautiful a place, as well as the neighboring regions, that I know not in which course to proceed first; my eyes are never tired with viewing such delightful verdure, and of a species so new and dissimilar

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to that of our country, and I have no doubt there are trees and herbs here which would be of great value in Spain, as dyeing materials, medicine, spicery, etc., but I am mortified that I have no acquaintance with them. Upon our arrival here we experienced the most sweet and delightful odor from the flowers or trees of the island. Tomorrow morning before we depart, I intend to land and see what can be found in the neighborhood. Here is no village, but farther within the island is one, where our Indians inform us we shall find the king, and that he has much gold. I shall penetrate so far as to reach the village and see or speak with the king, who, as they tell us, governs all these islands, and goes dressed, with a great deal of gold about him. I do not, however, give much credit to these accounts, as I understand the natives but imperfectly, and perceive them to be so poor that a trifling quantity of gold appears to them a great amount. This island appears to me to be a separate one from that of Saomete, and I even think there may be others between them. I am not solicitous to examine particularly everything here, which indeed could not be done in fifty years, because my desire is to make all possible discoveries, and return to your Highnesses, if it please our Lord, in April. But in truth, should I meet with gold or spices in great quantity, I shall remain till I collect as much as possible, and for this purpose I am proceeding solely in quest of them. Saturday,  October. At sunrise we weighed anchor, and stood to the northeast and east along the south side of this island, which I named Isabela, and the cape where we anchored, Cabo de la Laguna; in this direction I expected from the account of our Indians to find the capital and king of the island. I found the coast very shallow, and offering every obstacle to our navigation, and perceiving that our course this way must be very circuitous, I determined to return to the westward. The wind failed us, and we were unable to get near the shore before night; and as it is very dangerous anchoring here in the dark, when it is impossible to discern among so many shoals and reefs whether the ground be suitable, I stood off and on all night. The other vessels came to anchor, having reached the shore in season. As was customary among us, they made signals to me to stand in and anchor, but I determined to remain at sea. Sunday,  October. At  o’clock, we arrived at a cape of the island, and anchored, the other vessels in company. After having dispatched a meal, I went ashore, and found no habitation save a single house, and that without an occupant; we had no doubt that the people had fled in terror at our approach, as the house was completely furnished. I suffered nothing to be touched, and went with my captains and some of the crew to view the country. This island even exceeds the others in beauty and fertility. Groves of lofty and flourishing trees are abundant, as also large lakes, surrounded and overhung by the foliage, in a most enchanting manner. Everything looked as green as in April in Andalusia. The melody of the birds was so exquisite that one was never willing to part from the spot, and the flocks of parrots obscured the heavens. The diversity in the appearance of the feathered tribe from those of our country is extremely curious. A thousand different sorts of trees, with their fruit were to be met with, and of a wonderfully delicious odor. It was a great affliction to me to be ignorant of their natures, for I am very certain they are all valuable; specimens of them and of the plants I have preserved. Going round one of these lakes, I saw a snake, which we killed, and I have kept the skin for your Highnesses; upon being discovered he took to the water, whither we followed him, as it was not deep, and dispatched him with our lances; he was seven spans in length; I think there are many more such about here. I discovered also the aloe tree, and am determined to

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take on board the ship tomorrow, ten quintals of it, as I am told it is valuable. While we were in search of some good water, we came upon a village of the natives about half a league from the place where the ships lay; the inhabitants on discovering us abandoned their houses, and took to flight, carrying of their goods to the mountain. I ordered that nothing which they had left should be taken, not even the value of a pin. Presently we saw several of the natives advancing towards our party, and one of them came up to us, to whom we gave some hawk’s bells and glass beads, with which he was delighted. We asked him in return, for water, and after I had gone on board the ship, the natives came down to the shore with their calabashes full, and showed great pleasure in presenting us with it. I ordered more glass beads to be given them, and they promised to return the next day. It is my wish to fill all the water casks of the ships at this place, which being executed, I shall depart immediately, if the weather serve, and sail round the island, till I succeed in meeting with the king, in order to see if I can acquire any of the gold, which I hear he possesses. Afterwards I shall set sail for another very large island which I believe to be Cipango, according to the indications I receive from the Indians on board. They call the Island Colba, and say there are many large ships, and sailors there. This other island they name Bosio, and inform me that it is very large; the others which lie in our course, I shall examine on the passage, and according as I find gold or spices in abundance, I shall determine what to do; at all events I am determined to proceed on to the continent, and visit the city of Guisay, where I shall deliver the letters of your Highnesses to the Great Can, and demand an answer, with which I shall return.

2 The French in North America, 1534–1701

INTRODUCTION During the last portion of the th century, mariners sailing under the flags of Portugal and Spain inaugurated what became known as the European Age of Discovery. The Portuguese directed their energies southward along the western coast of Africa and, at the end of the century (), Vasco de Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and through the Indian Ocean to India itself. Spain took a more westward route as shown by Christopher Columbus’s famous  voyage that resulted in the European discovery of the New World. Both Portugal and Spain continued to explore and colonize throughout the th century with spectacularly favorable results. Curiously, perhaps, during the th century, England and France, the other two major states bordering the Atlantic Ocean jumping-off point, failed to emulate the Iberian nations. In the French case, domestic unrest featuring a near collapse of royal authority provoked a civil war. Much of the unrest arose from intense religious conflict. Together, the political confusion and the religious strife paralyzed the state and squelched any serious thought of state-sponsored trans-Atlantic exploration and colonization. France’s descent into chaos began under the reign of Francis I (–). Although intelligent enough and blessed with a winning and forceful personality, Francis spent his entire reign unsuccessfully fighting against a burgeoning Spain for control of the Italian peninsula as well as the provinces of Artois, Burgundy, Navarre, and Flanders. The failed effort served to wreck France’s finances. It also heightened an already well-developed sense of independence among the French nobility despite the many steps Francis took to strengthen the monarchy. This downward spiral accelerated under Henry II (–). Henry was less intelligent and able than his father; however, he continued to challenge Spain without any positive results. Ultimately, he accepted the inevitable with the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, signed shortly before his death, in . Henry II’s death opened a Pandora’s box for France. In succession, the Crown passed to his three sons, none of whom proved up to the task. The oldest son, Francis II, died in ; the next eldest, Charles IX, reigned until ; the youngest, Henry III, ruled until his death, in . Not only was France handicapped by these woefully weak and incompetent rulers, but also a resurgent nobility, often divided into warring factions, undermined what was left of central authority, thereby bringing France to a state of anarchy.

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One major source of this dreadful situation was religious conflict. During the first half of the th century, the Protestant revolt against the Roman Catholic Church had made significant headway in France. Notably, the French lawyer John Calvin’s brand of Protestantism attracted Frenchmen from all walks of life, but especially from the nobility, who saw in Calvinism an opportunity to assert their independence from any authority, secular or religious. Moreover, Calvinism was a particularly unbending form of Protestantism, and that greatly diminished the chances of compromise. The French Protestants, known as Huguenots, remained a minority in a Catholic country. However, they were too numerous to be crushed, although just such an attempt was made with the infamous Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in , when more than , Huguenot leaders were massacred in Paris and an additional , or so were killed throughout the country. The first French attempt to settle in North America arose from the ongoing religious strife. The driving force behind this effort was Gaspard de Coligny, a prominent French admiral and a Huguenot, who sought to establish colonies as refuges for his coreligionists. Allegedly advised by John Calvin himself, de Coligny first planted a colony of Huguenots in what is today Brazil. However, the Portuguese who dominated that area destroyed the colony. Undaunted, de Coligny enlisted Jean Ribault, a fellow naval officer, to help him establish a Huguenot colony in North America. In , Ribault and  Huguenots from Normandy settled near Parris Island, in present-day South Carolina. This colony failed, but two years later de Coligny convinced Ribault to try again. This time the French set up a colony at Fort Caroline, near present-day Jacksonville, Florida. However, Spain objected to a French Protestant presence in what it regarded as its sphere of influence. It also feared that the French would prey on the Spanish treasure ships that passed nearby. Consequently, Spain sent Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles north from the fort at Saint Augustine to destroy the French outpost. Amid much bloodshed, Aviles succeeded, and, with de Coligny’s murder during the  Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, a permanent French presence in North America was delayed for several more decades. During the s, civil war once again shook France. Sometimes known as the War of the Three Henrys, since all three contenders for power had the first name Henry, the conflict ended in  with the triumph of Henry of Navarre. Taking the crown as Henry IV, Henry of Navarre was the first of the Bourbon dynasty that ruled France until the French Revolution of . With the fortunes of the French monarchy at a low point, Henry IV set about restoring the monarchy’s power and prestige. To that end, he turned his attention to the all-important religious question. Although a Protestant, Henry was not a fanatic. Upon taking the Crown, he converted to Catholicism, supposedly remarking that “Paris is worth a Mass.” Then, in , he calmed his Protestant supporters when he issued the Edict of Nantes, which served to protect the Huguenots. With something resembling normalcy returned to France under Henry IV, the French state rather belatedly turned its attention to the Atlantic and the possibilities of exploration and colonization. Not surprisingly, perhaps, it turned its gaze toward the northern reaches of North America. Well before France descended into chaos in the middle of the th century, Frenchmen had been familiarizing themselves with North America. The first to do so were French fishermen who fished the rich waters of the Grand Banks laying off the coasts

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of Newfoundland and Labrador. Often, these fishermen put ashore to repair their nets and to dry their catch. In doing so, they came in contact with the Natives as goods and stories were exchanged. This attracted the attention of the French monarchy, and, in , Francis I sponsored an unsuccessful expedition, led by Giovanni da Verrazano, to find a water route to the Far East. Several years later, in , the king commissioned Jacques Cartier to explore the northern reaches. Spurred on by stories of riches awaiting an intrepid explorer, Cartier made several voyages, claiming what today is maritime Canada for the French Crown. However, he failed to find the legendary kingdom of Saguenay, despite discovering the Saint Lawrence River and sailing upstream as far as today’s Montreal. In , Cartier returned empty-handed to France. Despite the difficult situation that prevailed in France during the later years of the th century, individual Frenchmen made their way to the Saint Lawrence to trade for furs; however, it would not be until the early th century that the French Crown ventured to return to what would be New France, or Canada. Even then, it did so in an uncoordinated and unfocused manner, leaving most of the task to private individuals or companies sponsored by the Crown but controlled by merchants. The most intrepid of this new generation of French explorers was Samuel de Champlain, who first sailed to New France in  and remained the dominant French figure there until his death, in . Champlain was instrumental in founding Port Royal on the Bay of Fundy in  and, three years later, establishing a post at Quebec City that would serve as his headquarters. As the th century unfolded, it became increasingly evident that France’s stake in North America would be that of an empire of trade rather than an empire of settlement as pursued by Spain and, increasingly, France’s greatest rival, England. Several factors account for this. The lands that made up New France were desolate, chilly, and not particularly fertile—hardly an attractive destination for a European settler. Moreover, the French Crown rarely if ever went out of its way to encourage settlement. In fact, as the century wore on, it actively discouraged Huguenots from relocating to New France. This stood in stark contrast to the situation in England, where religious malcontents had London’s blessing to resettle in North America. Finally, among the French settlers who did make their way to New France, there was a tendency to replicate France’s rural socioeconomic structure, which featured peasants, “les habitants,” living and working on lands granted by the Crown to members of the French nobility. In other words, there were neither economic nor social incentives for large numbers of Frenchmen to immigrate to New France. Since theirs was an empire based on the fur trade, the French in Canada cultivated good relations with their Native American trading partners. This was particularly true of the Huron, whom the French backed against their traditional enemy, the Five Nation Iroquois Confederation. It was no coincidence that the Huron dominated the Great Lakes region, which was rich in furs. Typically, a handful of intrepid French traders would trek into the backwoods with Indian guides at their side to return many months later laden down with valuable furs. Because there was continual interaction between the French and the Native Americans, and because there were very few French women in Canada, the French trappers and traders tended to intermarry with the Indians and in many cases assimilated Indian ways as they left behind their native European culture.

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During the th century, these “coureurs de bois,” or “runners of the forest,” slowly moved down the valley of the Saint Lawrence and then made their way along the Great Lakes to the upper reaches of the Mississippi River. As they moved inland, they established tiny posts and forts that reinforced their claims to the land as well as facilitating trade. However, the coureurs de bois and their Indian colleagues were not always alone. With the assassination of Henry IV in , and the subsequent ascendancy of Marie de Medici, the queen mother, and Cardinal Richelieu, the French monarchy reaffirmed its commitment to its version of Roman Catholicism. Although New France was not a priority by any stretch of the imagination, this new orientation was reflected not only in the policy of discouraging Huguenot emigration to Canada but also in the encouragement of Catholic, primarily Jesuit, missionaries. The first Jesuits arrived in Canada in . Although few in number, these brave and determined souls traveled into the wilds of New France where they attempted to convert the Indians. The missionaries were astute enough and flexible enough to tailor their message to fit the needs and the cultural dimensions of the Native Americans. Moreover, they treated the Indians as equals and made a real effort to learn the languages and the customs of those they would convert. Consequently, despite some horrific setbacks, the Jesuits generally succeeded in converting the Native Americans. Undoubtedly, the most famous Jesuit missionary was Father Jacques Marquette, who teamed with the French-Canadian explorer Louis Joliet to navigate the Mississippi River as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas River in . Nine years later, RenéRobert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, reached the mouth of the Mississippi and claimed for France the mighty river’s entire watershed from the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. This opened up a new area of exploration and colonization. The French settled Biloxi and Mobile, and in  Pierre le Moyne established a settlement that would grow into present-day New Orleans. Slowly, a French presence began to wend its way north on the Mississippi as French colonists both settled and traded. Many agrarian communities that hugged the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River as far as Baton Rouge and Natchez developed a plantationstyle economy that in turn gave rise to African slavery to meet the unrelenting demand for labor. Although Montreal had been founded in , Quebec City remained Canada’s most important settlement. In , a bishopric was established there, and the royal governor, who exercised great power as a consequence of the highly centralized administrative system that France employed, maintained his headquarters there. Nevertheless, at the turn of the th century, the French position in North America remained rather tenuous. Although France maintained a string of posts and forts in a huge arc ranging from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence through the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, and although France claimed the bulk of the North American continent’s interior, the actual French presence paled in comparison with that of the English and Spanish. For example, most estimates conclude that in  there were perhaps , Frenchmen in all of North America, as opposed to , English colonists settled on the North American East Coast at that time, a population almost  times that of New France! Obviously, this imbalance pointed toward a potentially uncertain future for France in North America.

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INTERPRETIVE ESSAY john m. hunt In , the Breton sea captain Jacques Cartier sailed down the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where he encountered the Iroquois at what is now Quebec City. Cartier, unimpressed with the Indians, wrote that “[t]his people may be called savage, for they are the sorriest folk there can be in the world, and the whole lot of them had nothing above the value of five sous, their canoes and fishing-nets excepted.” Cartier was more interested in discovering a western passage to China and the East Indies and in finding gold and silver than in establishing a permanent base in the Saint Lawrence Valley. To prove he had sailed to the New World and to pique the interest of the French king, Francis I, Cartier kidnapped several Iroquois warriors to take back to France. Although the Natives died in captivity, Cartier did persuade the French king to finance another expedition to the New World. Thus began the inauspicious story of French colonialism in North America—an enterprise fraught with failure and setbacks for most of the th century. French imperialism, when compared to the spectacular success of the Spanish and Portuguese in South and Central America, proved to be rather disappointing. Cartier’s first encounter with the Iroquois also established the tone of Franco-Indian relations for the next two and half centuries. The French entered North America as equals to the Indians, rather than as conquerors. Indeed, the French virtually made no headway in establishing a permanent colony in North America throughout the th century. In –, Cartier returned with three ships and a crew of more than  men to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. This trip again stirred the interest of Francis I, who in – sent Cartier out on a larger expedition under the command of the Huguenot nobleman and corsair Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval. Cartier and Roberval quickly butted heads: Roberval proved more interested in piracy, while Cartier sailed to the Iroquois settlement of Stadacona and founded the fortified colony of Charlesbourg-Royal. Discovering what he thought to be gold (really iron pyrites), Cartier left in September  on a reconnaissance mission to discover the kingdom of Saguenay, the source of this wealth according to local Indian legend. On his return from the mission, he discovered Charlesbourg-Royal in a dire situation. The cold Laurentian winter had reduced the number of settlers, and the once friendly Iroquois, who had taught the French wilderness survival skills, had now begun to attack colonists who left the protection of the fortress. Cartier decided to return to France with his wealth. On his return trip, he encountered Roberval, who had just decided to rendezvous with the main party of the expedition. Roberval and his men remained in the colony, but the harsh conditions of boreal North America, coupled with repeated Iroquoian raids, made life thoroughly miserable for them. In , when the relief party arrived, Roberval decided to abandon the colony and return to France. Deterred by the harsh winter conditions and the lack of success in the north, the French concentrated their colonization efforts on Brazil and, later, Florida. The Saint Lawrence River Valley was left to hardy French fishermen. But the Brazilian and Floridian expeditions—spearheaded by Huguenots in search of a place to practice their Calvinist faith—ended in failure, as well. Only with the cessation of the French Wars of

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Religion in  and the stability brought about by the ascent of Henri Bourbon of Navarre as Henry IV did the French government again attempt to colonize North America. This time, the mariner Samuel de Champlain undertook numerous expeditions in the Saint Lawrence River Valley and its environs. His encounter with the Huron and the Algonquin tribes of that region set a precedent in Franco-Indian relations. Rather than seeing Champlain and his men as subjugators, the Indians, particularly the Huron, treated them as equals, making use of them and their arquebuses in skirmishes with their enemies, the Iroquois. In return, Champlain made use of Indian guides and their canoes in exploring the region. In , Champlain founded Quebec City, the first permanent French settlement in North America, before continuing with his exploration of what was to become New France. In its first  years, Quebec City hung by a thread. Receiving little support from the French state and attracting only a handful of settlers per year, the town and the colony remained pitifully underpopulated throughout these years. In spite of this unpromising beginning, the population of New France grew slowly. In ,  colonists lived in Quebec City. Twenty years later, the city had , inhabitants. Two other cities were subsequently founded: Trois Rivières, in , and Montreal, in . Nevertheless, despite the presence of a royal governor at Quebec City, the state played only a small role in the day-to-day existence of the settlers in New France, who were for the most part either fur traders or Jesuit missionaries. To encourage immigration, Cardinal Richelieu introduced the seigneurial system to New France in . Essentially a late form of feudalism, the system installed by Richelieu divided land around the Saint Lawrence into long, narrow strips. These strips belonged to the king but were managed by seigneurs, or landlords, who in turn had settlers called habitants work the land. The habitants paid taxes to the seigneurs and also owed them three days of labor a year. Although this succeeded in attracting a few peasants seeking a better life, the majority of settlers nevertheless came to New France to take part in the lucrative fur trade. Due to the lack of state support, the French experiment in colonization differed greatly from those of the Spanish in South and Central America and the Portuguese in Brazil. Lacking supplies, troops, and other resources, the French had to rely on Indian allies to survive the harsh winter, to find food, and to acquire beaver pelts and other furs. The French needed the Indians more than the Indians needed the French. This relationship colored the encounters between the French and the Indians—predominantly Algonquians, a group of Native Americans that included the Algonquin, Ottawa, and Mi’maq Indians who occupied the regions of the Saint Lawrence River Valley. The Algonquians shared a related language and lived as hunter-gatherers. Their way of life differed greatly from that of the Iroquoian Indian groups, who lived primarily in fortified villages and who included the various Iroquois nations and the Huron. Throughout the th century, the French and their allies among the Algonquians developed a relationship based on negotiation and trade. Historian Richard White calls this relationship the “Middle Ground” because neither side truly held an advantage over the other. Instead, both the French and the Indians met as equals and learned from each other. The principal bond of this relationship was the fur trade. By the late th century, the broad-brimmed beaver felt hat had become quite fashionable in Europe. The European beaver, however, had become extinct at this time. Hence, the North American beaver quickly became an important commodity, particularly because its fur was thicker and

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better suited to the production of hats. The French eagerly participated in this trade— centered on the Saint Lawrence—either as official merchants with permits from the provincial government or as illicit traders called coureurs de bois, or woodland runners, so named because they often lived with and adapted to the cultural ways of the Indian allies. The fur trade proved quite profitable and was the mainstay of New France’s economy well until the th century. The Indians provided the French traders with the beaver pelts; in return, the French gave the Indians manufactured implements, mirrors and glass beads (both of which the Indians believed to have magical powers), alcohol, and, after the mid-th century, guns. Trade was not the only connection between the French and the Indians. To solidify relations with each other, they often took part in elaborate rituals, often of Indian origin. One of these was the calumet ceremony, or the smoking of a peace pipe. The joint smoking of the pipe between two rival Indians nations had long been a tradition among both the Algonquians and the Iroquois. The Indians introduced it to the French as a symbolic way to seal diplomatic alliances, marriage proposals, and trade relations. Another method of negotiation between Indians and Frenchmen was the gift exchange, an ancient custom of the Indians that helped keep the peace between rival nations. The Indians saw the gift exchange as imparting status and power on both the giver and the recipient. The actual monetary worth of the objects exchanged mattered less to them. It was a way to form friendships and to gain social capital. Although the French adopted this mode of exchange, they nevertheless brought their notions of trade to their economic dealings with the Indians. The value of the furs mattered to them, and many unscrupulous French traders swindled the Indians by obtaining them in exchange for a few bottles of cheap brandy. Nevertheless, the calumet ceremony and the ritual exchange of gifts indicate that the Indians saw the French as equals, rather than oppressors. This can also be seen in the marriages between the French and the Indians, which constituted another form of negotiated exchange between the two groups. The vast majority of the settlers of New France were men, particularly adventurers without wives. Few French or European women made the perilous journey to New France. Oddly enough, a skewed sex ratio existed among the Algonquians. Women outnumbered men among the Indians, with the result that polygamy was common among them. Frenchmen took advantage of the situation by taking Indian concubines and wives. In turn, this facilitated friendships and trade relationships between the French and the Indians. Indian fathers often married their daughters to prominent fur traders and coureurs de bois as a means of consolidating trade relationships and increasing their status. Frenchmen took Indian brides to gain their knowledge of the fur trade and to act as liaisons between the French and Indian worlds. Through marriage, Frenchmen were treated as kin of the Indians and gained social capital among the nations of their brides. Indeed, many coureurs de bois went Native after marrying Indian brides. Yet, Franco-Indian relationships were not always harmonious. Although the activities of the French were relatively peaceful when compared to the Spanish and English examples of colonization in the New World, warfare and periodic episodes of violence also marked the encounter between the French and the Indians of North America. This was due to the fact that the French permanently entered the Saint Lawrence River Valley exactly when the Iroquois and their confederacy (situated in what is now northern New York and southern Ontario) had begun to go on the offense against the Huron and

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the various Algonquian nations. This inter-Indian hostility was rooted in a contest over limited hunting grounds. Before the arrival of the French in the th century, a tentative equilibrium had existed among the various Indian groups. With the arrival of the French and the subsequent boom in the fur trade, hostilities among the Indians exploded over control of that trade. The French played a careful game of allying with the Algonquians and the Huron in opposition to the more aggressive Iroquois. The French needed their Native American allies to help them procure beaver pelts. They feared that the Huron would submit to the Iroquois, thereby causing them to lose their tentative monopoly of the fur trade. For their part, the Iroquois allied themselves first with the Dutch and, later, with the English. Both the Dutch and the English supported Iroquois raids on the Algonquians and the Huron by selling guns to them. This upset the balance between the Indians of the Saint Lawrence River Valley because the French government refused to sell firearms to their allies. In the midst of this burgeoning storm of war, an epidemic struck the Indians of the Saint Lawrence River Valley. Unused to European diseases—especially smallpox—the Indians were devastated by diseases brought to the New World by the French during the s and s. Smallpox and influenza wreaked havoc among the Huron. The epidemic of – reduced the Huron population by half—from , to about ,. Already weakened by disease, the Huron could not stop the Iroquois from initiating a violent campaign against them in . Within months, the Iroquois had destroyed the entire Huron village system, killing many women and children as well as warriors. The refugees sought assistance from the French Jesuits in the region or moved westward to avoid further Iroquois hostility. This was only the opening salvo in a series of raids and wars that pitted the French and their Algonquian allies against the Iroquois that was to last until . At the start of these wars—known collectively as the Fur Trade Wars or Beaver Wars—the Iroquois had the advantage. Terrorizing their opponents, they destroyed numerous Algonquian villages, killed the Jesuit priests administering to their needs, and massacred their women and children. They tortured Algonquian warriors that they captured and supposedly ate their dead foes. The violence of the Iroquois had a profound impact on the demographic regime of the Saint Lawrence River Valley. The Iroquois aggression pushed the remnants of the shattered Algonquian nations westward into what the French called the pays d’en haut—the western Great Lakes region that encompassed parts of modern-day Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Native Americans from different nations gathered together in refugee villages, creating a new society wherein diverse cultural traditions amalgamated into a new synthesis. The French supported these refugees. The Jesuits, in particular, were able to win many converts among these scattered tribes. Iroquois aggression and the Algonquian Diaspora had the subsequent consequence of pushing the fur trade between the French and the Indians further west into the pays d’en haut. By , Montreal had become the center of the fur trade, but the Diaspora, coupled with the efforts of the coureurs de bois to find new trading partners and sources of beaver pelts, relocated the locus of the fur trade in the west. Despite opposition from the governor of New France, the royal finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, tacitly supported these efforts to further the extent of the French empire in the New World. A famous example of the French push westward can be seen in the noble adventurer and explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. Besides searching for a westward

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passage to China and the East Indies, La Salle also hoped to establish a trading connection with the western Indians, thereby moving the fur trade from the Saint LawrenceMontreal axis to the Great Lakes-Mississippi River watershed. His efforts, as well as those of countless coureurs de bois, underlined the growing importance of the West to the French and thus ensured that North America west of the Appalachian Mountains would remain in French hands until the end of the French and Indian War (–). The Fur Trade Wars continued into the beginning of the th century, ending only with the  Great Treaty of Montreal when the Iroquois, exhausted after nearly a century of constant war, sued for peace. The Iroquois, fearful of the growing English presence in New York and Pennsylvania, sought to maneuver between the two European powers. The French, however, maintained their traditional alliance with the Algonquians. This would serve the French well in the th century, when hostilities between the French and the English would flare up over control of North America between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains. The Iroquois would ultimately side with the English in the French and Indian War. The “Middle Ground” is the most important and lasting legacy of French colonialism in North America. For two centuries, the experiment in cultural fusion developed between the French and the Native peoples of the Saint Lawrence River Valley and the pays d’en haut. This relationship was centered not on dominance but on negotiation. The French state did not adequately support the colonists with troops and money until , when New France was officially made a province of the royal domain. Until then, it was up to fur traders and the coureurs de bois to regulate their own affairs and to negotiate with the Native Americans. And, without the infrastructure of a state or, at least, an army to back them up, they could never negotiate with the Indians as superiors until the Iroquois onslaught reduced the Huron and Algonquians to shattered wanderers. Until then, the French remained heavily indebted to the Indians for pelts, survival techniques, and women. A complaint of Jesuit missionaries in New France was that Frenchmen were all too ready to live among the Indians, marry their women, and drop the accoutrements of civilization. But the avenue of influence was not a one-way street. The French influence over their Native American allies was equal to, if not greater than, the Natives’ influence over the French. They introduced European manufactured goods to the Indians. The gun altered traditional Indian warfare, making it easier for warring nations to kill each other. The Iroquois, in particular, made aggressive use of the guns they bought from the Dutch and English. The gun fundamentally changed the nature of war among the Indians. Rather than occasional skirmishes over hunting grounds, the Indians now used guns to fight a total war for control of the fur trade. Alcohol also had a tremendous impact on the Indian way of life. It quickly became a popular drink among warriors, who, as a result of its intoxicating effects, thought they were invincible and went on berserk killing sprees. The fur trade capitalized an item—the beaver pelt—that the Indians had never valued in monetary terms. Thus, the French brought the Indians of the Saint Lawrence River Valley and the pays d’en haut into the emerging global economy. Another important impact of French colonialism in North America was the eventual conversion of the Algonquian and Iroquoian Indian groups to Roman Catholicism. As with all early modern colonial efforts, the thirst for profit went hand and hand with the thirst for souls. The goal of the French mission in North America was given particular

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impetus due to Europe’s Wars of Religion of the th century, as well as the renewal of the Catholic faith after the Council of Trent. Both events, coupled with a nascent desire to bring more Christian subjects under the Crown’s control, imparted a particular crusading zeal to the French state. In , Louis XIII, advised by Cardinal Richelieu, issued a decree along with the land reorganization act that made New France completely a Catholic bastion—no longer was it to be a haven for Huguenots. The early efforts of the French to convert the Indians of North America failed entirely. This was due to the fact that most of the early colonists of the th and early th centuries were corsairs, coureurs de bois and other young adventurers, rather than priests and friars. The first true attempt to proselytize among the Indians of New France occurred in , when a handful of Recollets—French reformed Franciscans—settled in Quebec City. The Recollets—too few in numbers, inexperienced with the Native Americans, and a bit aloof—never had much success. It took the Jesuits to establish a permanent mission in New France. They arrived in  and quickly set about trying to proselytize among the Indians and meeting the religious needs of the Frenchmen in the wilds of Canada. The Jesuits saw New France as a kind of challenge—an inhospitable region of wild forests, harsh, cold winters, and warring Indian nations. Individual Jesuits saw New France as a testing ground of their faith and hoped to find their martyrdoms at the hands of the marauding Iroquois. This attitude is best preserved in the self-written hagiography of the first Jesuit martyr, Isaac Jogues, who suffered twice at the hands of the Mohawk tribe of the Iroquois nation. In , Jogues and a mixed party of Huron and Frenchmen were captured and tortured by the Mohawks. At first, Jogues concealed himself among some brush once the Mohawk war party had surrounded his companions. But, rather than save himself, he surrendered to his enemies, ready to die a martyr’s death, as his memoir testifies. He asked himself the following: Could I really . . . abandon our French and leave those good neophytes and those poor catechumens, without giving them the succor that the church of my God had entrusted to me. Flight seemed horrible to me. It must be, I said in my heart, that my body suffer the fire of earth in order to deliver these poor souls from the flames of Hell. It must die a transient death, in order to procure for them an eternal life. After surrendering, he was tortured by his captors, who maimed his hands permanently and made him a living martyr of the Church. Undaunted, Jogues continued his mission among the Iroquois and, in , got his wish for martyrdom when a band of Mohawks, blaming him and his fellow Jesuits for the epidemics that had wreaked havoc among the Indians, beheaded him and several companions in present-day upstate New York. The French Jesuits in North America employed tactics similar to those used by Jesuits in China and Japan at the same time. That is, they sought to understand the people they were proselytizing by learning as much as they could of their customs and religious practices and by making accommodations to these traditions. The Jesuits lived in the Algonquian and Huron villages, learned their languages and dialects, and harmonized their beliefs with Christian teachings (while simultaneously criticizing them as superstitious). Despite their practical approach, the first two decades failed to harvest many

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Indian souls for the Catholic Church. The Indians believed that the “black robes” were sorcerers who killed them with their dark magic. This stemmed from the fact that many Jesuits presided over deathbed conversions of Indians laid low by the epidemics of the s and s. The Jesuits had better success among the Huron in the wake of their virtual destruction at the hands of the Iroquois. The Huron, with nowhere else to turn, came to the Jesuits to beg for their aid and protection. The Jesuits used the opportunity to baptize them and to introduce them to the Catholic faith. The Jesuits saw the Iroquois as the hand of God. The Jesuit Superior, Paul Raguereau, wrote that the Iroquois had served a purpose in Providence’s master plan because they had “delivered many souls from the fires of Hell, while burning their bodies in an elemental fire.” The Jesuits also enjoyed success among refugees during the Fur Trade Wars, particularly among the Native Americans who had settled in the pays d’en haut region. This success had much to do with the devastation wrought by the Iroquois but was also due to the role Indian women played in converting family members. According to historian Susan Sleeper-Smith, Christianity presented Indian women of the Great Lakes region with an opportunity to escape some of the harsher aspects of Indian society by allowing them to avoid polygamous arrangements and by giving them the ability to choose their husbands, whether Indian or French. After the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church emphasized the sacramental role of marriage and the sanctity of marriage appealed to many Indian women. Jesuits, at first wary of the challenge Indian women presented to male authority, acquiesced when they saw the benefits that accrued from using these women as mediators between the French and Indian worlds. They helped convert family members and chastised reprobate husbands. The Jesuits recorded their successes and failures in annual reports called Relations, which were printed in Paris from  to . The Relations not only chronicle the hardships of the missions, the raids of the Iroquois, and the outbreak of epidemics among the Algonquians but also provide detailed descriptions of customs and life-ways of the eastern woodland Indians. The reports found an audience among the pious in France. The Relations were intended to drum up financial and political support for the Jesuits missionary enterprise among wealthy patrons, as well as the state. Without this support, the missions would not have been as successful as they were by the end of the century. The French experiment in colonization contrasted greatly with the efforts of the Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Getting a late start, the French state did not enjoy the heady success that the Spanish and Portuguese did in Central and South America. Unlike the Spanish and Portuguese, the French did not rapidly come to dominate the Indians of the Saint Lawrence River Valley. Instead, they encountered the Indians as equals, creating a world based on negotiation and cultural amalgamation. This contrasted sharply with English colonialism. The English, land-hungry farmers rather than fur traders, remained aloof from the Native Americans and fought them for their land. The French instead traded with the Indians, learned from them, and married their women. Rather than trying to conquer the lands of the Indians, the French were content with creating a network of trading posts throughout New France. In turn, the Indians adopted western ways and manufactured goods. The fur trade served as the lynchpin of the Franco-Indian world, which proved nevertheless to be ephemeral. The th century saw Europeans fighting all over the world for political and economic hegemony. North

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America did not escape the clash of empires, as the French and the English increasingly skirmished with each other and with their Indian allies. This culminated in the English victory over the French and their Indian allies in the French and Indian War. The stipulations of the Treaty of Paris () gave the English much of the territory of New France, including the Saint Lawrence River Valley and the pays d’en haut. At the first, the English sought to keep the French policy of giving the Indians their space by forbidding immigration past the Appalachian Mountains, but the English colonists pushed westward, initiating the further decline of this negotiated world. However, the disintegration of this world would be completed only in the years after the American Revolution. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Fred. The War that Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War. New York: Viking, . A succinct introduction to the French and Indian War. Anderson, Karen. Chain Her by One Foot: The Subjugation of Women in Seventeenth-Century New France. London: Routledge, . A feminist critique of the Jesuit mission among the Huron. Briggs, Robin. Early Modern France, –. nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, . The standard introduction to early modern France. Delâge, Denys. Bitter Feast: Amerindians and Europeans in Northeast North America, –. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, . A more traditional approach to French and Indian encounters. Dickason, Olive P. The Myth of the Savage and the Beginnings of French Colonialism in the Americas. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, . Recounts the early encounters between the French and the Indians, both in Canada and Brazil. Eccles, William J. The Canadian Frontier, –. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, . A classic study of the Saint Lawrence River Valley and the Canadian Great Lakes. Grant, John Webster. Moon of Wintertime: Missionaries and the Indians of Canada in Encounter since . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, . A thorough study of the relations between Catholic missionaries and the Indians of North America since the time of Jacques Cartier. Greer, Alan, ed. The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-Century North America. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, . A selection of Jesuit reports describing their missions among the Indians of North America. Jennings, Francis. The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian Tribes with English Colonies from Its Beginnings to the Laurentian Treaty of . New York: W. W. Norton, . A detailed account of the Iroquois encounter with the British, Dutch, and French. Monet, Jacques. “The Jesuits in New France.” In Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits. Edited by Thomas Worcester. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . A concise account of the Jesuit mission in New France. O’Malley, John W. The First Jesuits. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . An excellent history of the missionary ethos of the early Jesuits. Podruchny, Carolyn. Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, . Although mostly concerned with the th and th centuries, this is a good introduction to the world of fur traders and the coureurs de bois. Sleeper-Smith, Susan. Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, . An interesting analysis of the role of Indian women in Franco-Indian relations; compare to Anderson’s argument.

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———. Rethinking the Fur Trade: Cultures of Exchange in an Atlantic World. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, . A collection of essays reassessing the role of the fur trade in the Atlantic World. Trudel, Marcel. Introduction to New France. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, . As the title implies, this is a solid introduction to the history of New France. Warhentin, Germaine, and Carolyn Padruchny, eds. Decentering the Renaissance: Canada and Europe in Multidisciplinary Perspective, –. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, . A collection of essays that assesses the French experience in North America. White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . An important study that examines the negotiated relationship between the French and the Indians.

JACQUES CARTIER (1491–1557) During three voyages in which he—like several adventurers before him—hoped to find a short ocean passage from Europe to China, Jacques Cartier of France explored the Saint Lawrence River. His discoveries eventually led to the French colonization of Canada. Cartier was born in  in the seaport town of Saint Malo, France. Little is known about his youth, but there is evidence that he spent his early adulthood at sea on trading voyages to Brazil. Some historians believe that he accompanied the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano to North America in . By the s, Spain, England, and Portugal had already sponsored sea voyages to find a westward route to Asia, known as the Northwest Passage. Such a route remained elusive, but, in the process, parts of the North American continent and nearby islands had been discovered. In , King Francis I of France, who had already commissioned Verrazano’s voyage, authorized Cartier to make a voyage to the New World. On April , , Cartier sailed from Saint Malo with two small ships. The weather was cooperative, and he crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a short three weeks, approaching the coast of northern Newfoundland. He passed through the Strait of Belle Isle, sailing southward to Prince Edward Island, before heading northwest past the New Brunswick coast. A bout of stormy weather forced him to anchor his ships in a cove off the Gaspe Peninsula. He went ashore and planted a cross, claiming all the land he saw for King Francis. While near shore, Cartier became one of the first Europeans to encounter North American Indians. He established friendly relations with Chief Donnacona, the head of an Iroquois tribe, who permitted two of his sons to return with Cartier to France. Cartier’s little fleet arrived in Saint Malo in September . Cartier, however, was eager to return to the New World. The Native Americans had told him of an area that was rich in gold and silver, and Cartier was convinced that the waterway to this land would prove to be the Northwest Passage to Asia. In May , Cartier went back to the Canadian coast with three ships. In early August, he entered a bay near the Gaspe Peninsula that he named the Bay of Saint Lawrence, because the ships had arrived there on the saint’s feast day. He sailed up the Saint Lawrence River until he reached the foot of a mountain, which he named Mont Real (Mount Royal)—the future site of the city of Montreal. No precious metals were found.

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Jacques Cartier claiming Canada for France at Gaspé in 1534. (Courtesy of the National Archives of Canada.)

The two Native American boys who had acted as his guides were returned to their father. Cartier and his crew spent the winter at a base camp in the area, where conditions were harsh. Before the winter was over,  of the  men had died. During the winter months, relations between the French and the Native Americans deteriorated and became violent. Cartier seized  Native Americans, including Chief Donnacona, as hostages to ward off tribal attacks. He forced the Native Americans to accompany him during his summer return to France, where he brought them before Francis I. Cartier hoped that the Native Americans’ accounts of gold and riches in Canada would persuade the king to sponsor a third expedition. Five years passed, however, before another trip was organized. By then, all of the Native Americans had died, except for one little girl. Francis I commissioned a nobleman, Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval, to set up permanent French colonies in the New World, and he gave Cartier a subordinate role. After Roberval’s departure was delayed, however, Cartier set sail in May  as the commander of five ships. Returning to the Saint Lawrence, he continued down the river, past Mount Royal, to search (vainly) for gold before setting up camp in what is now Quebec City for the winter. The Iroquois, angry that their tribe members had not returned, attacked Cartier’s camp and killed several crew members. Once the winter was over, Cartier set sail for France again. As he passed Newfoundland, he encountered Roberval, who was finally on his way to establish a colony, although the colony ultimately failed. The nobleman ordered Cartier to remain in Canada, but Cartier refused and continued back to Saint Malo, where he lived until his death in .

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SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN (ca. 1567–1635) Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer who founded the Canadian city of Quebec and discovered the lake in upstate New York that bears his name. Because of his efforts to colonize Canada, which was called New France in the th century, he is often called the father of New France. Champlain was born around  in Brouage, France, a seaport town on the Bay of Biscay. As a boy, he learned about sailing, navigating, and mapmaking from his father, who was a sea captain. By the time he was a young man, he was an experienced seaman. From about  to , during the Protestant-Catholic wars in France, Champlain fought on land and sea under the command of Henry of Navarre (who later became King Henry IV of France). In , after the wars were over, Champlain made his way to Spain, where his uncle was organizing a trading expedition to the Spanish colonies in the West Indies and Central America. Champlain went along and spent  months sailing the Caribbean and the south Atlantic. He kept a detailed record—which he illustrated with watercolors—of the land, people, and animals he saw during the long voyage. King Henry IV was greatly impressed by Champlain’s written account of the New World. Soon afterward, the king decided to establish colonies in the area of North America (present-day Canada) that French explorer Jacques Cartier had discovered in the early to mid-th century. In , Champlain, who had been named the royal geographer by the king, went on the first of several expeditions to Canada. He sailed up the Saint Lawrence River as far as the site of modern-day Montreal before returning to France laden with furs that he had traded for with Native Americans. Champlain sailed back to Canada in  and mapped the eastern coast of North America as far south as Cape Cod. In , he helped establish a small colony in present-day Nova Scotia. He stayed on the continent until , making at least two more voyages along the New England coastline, looking for a better place for a settlement. In , all the colonists were ordered back to France by the king, who had grown impatient with their slow progress in establishing outposts. Champlain pleaded with the king for one more chance, which was granted in . With little time to waste, Champlain sailed back to the Saint Lawrence to set up a colony along the river, which he named Quebec. The crew built a fort and a storehouse to live in during the winter, but the weather was extremely harsh, and many of the men died. To prevent Indian attacks on the small settlement, Champlain befriended the local Algonquian and Huron tribes. In return for their friendship, the Native Americans asked the Frenchmen to help them defeat their enemies, the Iroquois. In , Champlain and two settlers went on a raid with the Algonquians and Hurons to Iroquois territory in upstate New York. As the Iroquois raised their bows and arrows, the Frenchmen fired their muskets, killing three chieftains who were standing alongside one another. Terrified by the white men’s “thunder sticks,” which they had never seen before, the Iroquois fled. Thereafter, the Iroquois were the bitter enemies of the French. During this raid, Champlain came upon an area with a lake so lovely that he named it after himself—Lake Champlain. From  to , Champlain explored the waterways along what today is the Canadian-New York border, reaching Lake Ontario. His friendship with the Algonquians and Hurons continued. During a skirmish with the Iroquois in , he was seriously wounded by an arrow but was nursed back to health by the Hurons. After ,

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he served as the governor of Quebec and made several trips back and forth to France, seeking assistance for the growing colony. In , England and France went to war. English ships blockaded Quebec, and Champlain was forced to surrender the settlement to the English a year later, after the settlers had run out of food and gunpowder. He was taken to England as a prisoner but released in , when Quebec was returned to France in a peace treaty. Champlain made his last trip across the Atlantic in  and spent the last two years of his life in Quebec trying to rebuild the colony. He died there on December , .

FRENCH FUR TRADE, ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF In the th and th centuries, the French used the fur trade to bring Hurons and Algonquians into the French trade network and make them dependent on (and thus allies with) the French. Therefore, they would be less likely to trade with and create alliances with other foreign powers. Unfortunately, to remain a trade partner, tribes had to find furs that they could trade. As the years progressed, Indian tribes trapped all of the available beaver pelts in their rivers and drainage basins, requiring that they enlist other tribes farther west or south into trading and then become middlemen in the trade system themselves or move from their traditional homelands and move farther upriver to hunt and trap. However, the lands to which they relocated were not unoccupied, and intertribal conflict arose between tribes competing for resources. With French guns, the westward-moving tribes easily dominated the tribes they encountered, and those tribes joined the trade network, fought and paid dearly for their unwillingness to join, or relocated (thereby causing other displacements or potentially uniting tribes that had been diminished by the diseases that also came with French trade goods). Besides disrupting entire communities and river systems, these changes altered the long-established balance of power throughout the western regions. Often those who came out on top were those with French guns and trade goods. Moreover, the balance of nature was also irreparably damaged. Beaver no longer built their dams, and existing dams eroded, thereby causing water systems to be greatly affected in each watershed. The food chain, or, rather, pyramid, was irrevocably altered, and the lasting impact of that on the region cannot be overstated. The result was a shift in plant and animal life that is still being studied by botanists and zoologists.

sandra k. mathews LOUIS DE BUADE, COMTE DE FRONTENAC (1622–1698) Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac and Comte de Palluau, was a French soldier, nobleman, and courtier who became governor of New France, present-day French-speaking Canada. A flamboyant and charismatic figure, Frontenac is well known for his famous stand in October  against the English during the siege of Quebec City, during which his wit and daring allowed the French forces to defeat a superior English army. Frontenac was born on May , , in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, France. He was the son of Henri de Buade and Anne Phélypeau de Ponchartrain, both aristocrats.

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His father—also Comte de Frontenac, a baron, and later Comte de Palluau—was a colonel in the regiment of Navarre and a member of King Louis XIII’s entourage. Frontenac combined in himself the two branches of nobility then existing in France. From his father’s side, he descended from the old nobility of the sword—the old knights—while on his mother’s side, he came from the increasingly powerful nobility of the robe—the new, self-made nobility that owed its power to money and connections. The young Frontenac received a good education, probably at the hands of the Jesuits, which may explain his hostility to that order later in his life. He entered the French Army in his teens and served in the Thirty Years’ War. In , by age , he had achieved the rank of colonel of the regiment of Normandie; three years later, he was appointed maréchal de camp, a position equivalent to that of brigadier general. When he was not in active duty, Frontenac spent his time at court, where his great personal charm gave him great influence. Unscrupulous and extravagant in his tastes, Frontenac incurred debts of more than , livres, which he never paid. When his father died, Frontenac inherited his titles and lands and became known as the Comte de Frontenac. In , he clandestinely married Anna de la Grange, a hot-headed beauty and daughter of a wealthy judge. The bride’s father, convinced that Frontenac was a fortune hunter, prevented both son-in-law and daughter from ever inheriting any of his wealth. Frontenac, hounded more and more by his creditors, got a commission to fight with the Venetian forces defending Crete against the Turks but was dismissed from his post of lieutenant general for plotting against his superior officers and making a nuisance of himself. Back in France and still hounded by the creditors, Frontenac secured an appointment as governor general of New France and arrived in Quebec in the autumn of  without his wife. When Frontenac arrived in Quebec, the intendant, Jean Tallon, had been recalled to France, which left the colony without an administrator to look after the police, justice, and finances. Frontenac quickly appropriated the position for himself and began a despotic rule by quarreling constantly with the members of the Sovereign Council and imprisoning and deporting those who opposed him. The move proved foolish. Back in France, the deported officials brought a plaint before Jean-Batiste Colbert, the secretary of state responsible for the colonies, who, unlike King Louis XIV, did not have any sympathy for Frontenac. He curtailed Frontenac’s powers, but, in his usual manner, Frontenac took no heed. Frontenac had established a fur-trading post on Lake Ontario within a year of his arrival. The fur trade was the main source of income, and Frontenac wanted to cash in on it as much as possible. Colbert’s policy for the colony, however, was to develop farming, timber, and ship building in order to create a strong, stable, and defendable colony. Frontenac, who associated himself with the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, kept establishing new trade posts until he brought the colony into a head-on confrontation with the powerful Iroquois Confederacy, which then challenged the French over control of the Ohio Valley. Before the conflict broke out, Frontenac was recalled to France in  to answer for his chaotic administration of the colony, which he claimed was in perfect peace. He was stripped of his properties but was later reappointed governor general of New France in . When Frontenac arrived in Quebec, King William’s War, which pitted France against England and the Iroquois, was under way, and the English and Iroquois seemed to have the upper hand. Frontenac’s military command proved as disastrous as his

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administration. In January , he launched an attack on three frontier settlements in New England and a village in New York and destroyed them all. Those attacks had some unexpected results, as the English colonies united the following year, determined to conquer French-held Canada once and for all. When the siege of Quebec began, on October , , Sir William Phips, a magistrate in the provincial government of Massachusetts, sent an envoy to ask Frontenac to surrender. In his usual arrogant and flamboyant style, Frontenac told the envoy, “I have no reply to make to your general other than from the mouths of my cannon and muskets.” The bluff paid off, and the superior British forces were routed and suffered a humiliating defeat. After the failed Quebec siege, the Anglo-Americans left the fighting to their Iroquois allies, who suffered heavy losses. When King William’s War ended, in , the English colonies finally abandoned the Iroquois, who were forced to sue for peace. Frontenac remained at his post until his death, on November , .

jose valente LOUIS JOLIET (ca. 1645–1700) Louis Joliet was a French cartographer, trader, and adventurer who explored the Mississippi River Valley. Although Joliet is a very well-known explorer of North America, many pieces of his life are unknown. Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette came down the Wisconsin River to be the first Europeans to encounter the Mississippi River. Louis was the third child of Jehan Joliet and Marie d’Abancourt dite La Caille and was born outside Québec around September , . Joliet lost his father before the age of six. Joliet studied in the Jesuit College of Québec and spent his early years after college working as a musician within the seminary. In , Joliet left the seminary and sailed for France under the support of Bishop Laval. The following year, he returned to Canada, where he began his career as an explorer. Joliet made his first journey for Intendant Talon, who hired Louis and his brother Adrien to take supplies to Jean Pere, then searching for copper in the area of Lake Superior. While Talon paid Adrien , livres for expenses, he simultaneously sent RenéRobert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, in search for the Great River. La Salle was known as a great woodsman and knew the area well, and he traveled with a large company in the same direction as the Joliet brothers. The La Salle journey turned dreadful—many priests became ill, they journeyed off route, and food became scarce. The Joliets met up with the La Salle party shortly after its return from Lake Superior. Adrien impressed the party with his knowledge of the area, which infuriated La Salle. Many of the La Salle party continued on the journey with the directions Adrien had supplied. La Salle refused to join the party, and he left to travel southwest. Joliet never made contact with Jean Pere and returned to Québec in . Although Joliet’s first mission had been a failure, Talon next sent him to locate the Sea of the South, refusing to pay him in advance because of his lack of success on his first expedition. On the trip, Joliet surpassed his brother by becoming an excellent mapmaker, a successful fur trader, and an expert at the use of a compass astrolabe. He then made a second voyage west sometime in  and another in . Because he had not received

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funds from the foreign minister, Talon instead gave Joliet and his party trading and trapping rights in the area they explored. The expedition included not only many strong and experienced woodsmen but also Marquette, an adventurous priest whose duty on the journey consisted of carrying the faith to Native Americans met along the way. Throughout the winter of , Joliet and Marquette collaborated on plans for a journey down the Wisconsin River. Joliet and his associates combined their money in order to purchase the equipment and necessary supplies needed; the associates would be guaranteed a share of the profits gained from pelts acquired on the trip. The voyagers left on May , , with five men and two canoes. With the aid of Native Americans, the company continued the journey through Wisconsin until June , , when it came upon the Mississippi River. The explorers took the Mississippi River all the way to Arkansas and then turned back toward Illinois. Joliet and Marquette followed the advice of Peoria Indians they met and returned north by following the Illinois River. Enchanted by the Illinois River’s abundance of wildlife, gentle, sloping hills, and quiet water, the voyagers enjoyed this portion of the journey even more than the trip along the banks of the Mississippi. Joliet’s passion for the area made him consider returning to the Illinois region for a possible colonization. He truly intended to return to the Illinois River Valley and maintained that throughout all of his travels in North America, he had found Illinois to be the most splendid. From the Illinois River Valley, the party continued up through Illinois territory, stopping at Kaskaskia, where Marquette christened the mission in Kaskaskia “Mission of Conception.” The explorers continued to Des Plaines and then onward to the Chicago portage. Throughout the entire trip from Kakaskia to Chicago, Joliet continued to keep detailed maps of the area, especially mapping the minerals and stones of the area, which included iron, copper, and coal. In the fall of , the party reached the Saint Xavier mission, where Marquette spent the remainder of his life. Joliet spent the winter exploring the Lake Michigan region. On his return trip to Canada, his canoe overturned in rapids above Montreal. Destroyed by the rapids, his journals and maps were never recovered. Joliet returned to Canada and reproduced some of his maps by memory and presented them to Quebec’s legislators. Joliet tried to obtain permission from Quebec and the King of France to start a settlement in the Illinois territory that he had explored. Denied permission to start the colony, Joliet never again traveled to the Illinois River Valley. He obtained some land in the lower Saint Lawrence, which included the island of Anticosti, married Claire Bissot, and started a homestead. Joliet continued his voyages in the Saint Lawrence area and became the royal hydrographer for Canada in . Joliet died sometime between May  and October , .

michelle hinton

JACQUES MARQUETTE (1637–1675) Father Jacques Marquette was one of the first Europeans to explore the Mississippi River. Yet, his voyage of discovery with Canadian fur trader Louis Joliet did much more than survey a great estuary—it symbolized the role of the Jesuit missionary in North

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America. Marquette’s mission required great courage, faith, and religious zeal, and the resulting toll on his personal constitution merely satisfied the missionary’s penchant for stoic self-sacrifice and endurance, while providing a martyr and example for the next generation. Born to aristocratic parents in Laon, France, on June , , Marquette seemed predisposed to the priesthood from an early age. Contemporaries noted his easygoing, open disposition, his aptitude for learning languages, and his ardent desire to spread the Catholic faith. Such qualities were strong prerequisites for becoming a successful missionary. At age , Marquette entered a seminary in order to join the Society of Jesus, or Jesuit, order. The Jesuits, founded by a former soldier, Ignatius Loyola, organized themselves in a military-style hierarchy, with each priest being ultimately responsible only to the Pope, rather than to any secular authorities. They stressed rhetorical debating skills and philosophy in their training, as well as classical languages—skills that would prove useful in arguing with (and, it was hoped, converting) nonbelievers. Furthermore, the Jesuits placed great value on self-sacrifice and endurance in the face of earthly trials and tribulations. These traits proved indispensable in North America, where the Natives were not eager to relinquish their own religious traditions and might well torture or kill outsiders who obstinately pressed their own views. Since , the Jesuits had sought to convert the Natives of New France (Canada), and this challenge held great appeal for Marquette. After nearly a decade of study and tutoring, he received permission to travel to the New World, satisfying both his love of travel and his religious missionary zeal. He particularly hoped that he might get the opportunity to convert “new” Indians, who had not yet been visited by missionaries. The answer to Marquette’s prayers came when his superior, Father Claud Dablon, ordered him to accompany Canadian-born fur trader Joliet on a journey into the unexplored territory to the southwest of Lake Michigan. Joliet, a former clergyman himself, had traded in his black robe for a fur trader’s life and was hoping to capitalize on new markets. Having heard of a mighty river that divided the continent, he hoped to use this superhighway as a means of extending his trade to the Indians. On May , , Marquette, Joliet, and five other Canadian voyageurs (fur traders) whose names have been lost to history, set out on their historic expedition. Traveling in two fragile yet versatile birch bark canoes, the party set out from Saint Ignace (in present-day Michigan’s upper peninsula) and paddled down the Fox River to the Wisconsin. After seven days traveling through rather marshy water, the expedition reached the Mississippi River. The party paddled down the Mississippi for approximately  miles. The relatively few Indians encountered greeted the men amicably. At the mouth of the Arkansas River, Natives warned them of treacherous waters downstream, so Joliet decided to turn the mission around and head back upstream. Having been told by Illinois Indians that the Illinois River provided a shortcut back to the Great Lakes, he led the expedition up the river; the explorers then carried their canoes across what would become Chicago to reach Lake Michigan. In addition to trade and religious conversion, Marquette and Joliet also took interest in the flora and fauna they encountered. They noted vast prairies and unfamiliar animals and were especially interested in the “wild cattle” they encountered. Marquette’s journal entries concerning the buffalo and how they were processed and utilized by

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Indians remain among the earliest European eyewitness accounts of the animals. Marquette’s journal of the voyage, as well as a surprisingly accurate map he drew of the territory explored, would prove of significant value to later French expeditions. The mission constituted a fine success, yet the upriver canoeing and portaging proved exhausting, particularly for Marquette. Whereas he had previously seemed indefatigable to his peers, apparently he never fully recovered from the rigors of the expedition. He spent an entire year recovering at the Saint Francis Mission in what is now De Pere, Wisconsin. Yet the missionary zeal that had characterized his life again overtook him. In late , he canoed to the Chicago River to establish a mission among the local Indians. Marquette’s linguistic gift allowed him to become sufficiently fluent in the local languages and enabled him to preach to the Natives for several weeks, but severe illness led him to try to return to the Saint Ignace mission. He died en route on the shores of Lake Michigan, taken with fevers and the “bloody flux” (probably amoebic dysentery). The following year, Christianized Ottawa Indians followed Marquette’s trail and collected his remains for a Native funeral rite, and later that year his remains were taken to Saint Ignace to be buried.

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3 The Expedition of Coronado, 1540–1542

INTRODUCTION Coronado’s expedition into the present-day southwest and south central United States was the most elaborate and far-reaching Spanish expedition into North America in the th century. But a number of other Spanish explorers paved the way for Coronado by sailing to the mainland of North America and spending months, sometimes years, trekking across unknown landscapes and sometimes enduring great hardships. Juan Ponce de León arrived in the West Indies in  and became governor of the island of San Juan (now Puerto Rico) in . There he found some gold, and, by , he had amassed a considerable fortune. That year, King Ferdinand granted him permission to explore the islands to the north, in what is now the Bahamas. Natives from the north spoke of a spring that restored youth to those who drank from it. Such a spring was, however, unknown in the Bahamas, and the legend probably referred to limestone springs in Florida, which was then thought of as an island. But Ponce de León was far more interested in capturing slaves and enhancing his wealth than in spending his money seeking a fountain of youth. He left Puerto Rico in March  and sailed northward through the Bahamas, reaching the Saint Augustine area of Florida during Easter week or the Feast of Flowers, from which the place name is derived. Turning south at that point, Ponce sailed back along the coast to the southern tip of Florida, then up the west coast to San Carlos Bay, where a skirmish with hostile Indians drove him back out to sea. The expedition returned to Puerto Rico in August . In , the king gave Ponce a contract to occupy and govern Florida, although he had found nothing of value there. Probably because of the slim prospect of finding wealth, Ponce did not return to Florida until , when news of the great treasures being found in Mexico encouraged him to try again. His expedition made landfall in southwest Florida; there, a fight with Indians resulted in a Spanish defeat and a fatal arrow wound for Ponce himself. His death, along with that of Francisco de Garay, another explorer who had died on a journey to the Gulf Coast, placed Spanish claims to the southeastern part of the United States in abeyance, waiting for the next, more successful expedition. Garay had approached the Gulf Coast on his way to Mexico, where Hernán Cortés was busy extending Spanish dominance on his own terms. After Cortés had reached Veracruz in  on his way to plunder the Aztecs and assume control of Mexico, he broke ranks with Gov. Diego Velásquez in Hispaniola. He had proclaimed himself de facto

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Coronado’s expedition took him and his men through endless miles of barren countryside in the southwestern desert in search of fabulous treasure. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Spanish governor of Mexico, in effect seceding from Spanish colonial authority in the Caribbean and affirming his loyalty directly to the king. Velásquez did not take this affront to his authority lightly and declared Cortés and his followers traitors. He authorized Garay to lead an expedition to displace Cortés or at least limit the territory that the rebel was claiming and offered Garay the governorship of the land north and east of Mexico as a reward. Garay’s expedition took him first to Florida and then along the Gulf Coast to Pánuco, in northern Mexico. This was the first recorded voyage of the Spanish to that area. Garay’s efforts to subdue Cortés failed in , when most of the men in an expedition he led against Cortés chose to join the rebel’s forces. The unlucky Garay was captured and died in captivity. In , still annoyed by Cortés’ independence, Velásquez commissioned Pánfilo de Narváez to take control of a large area along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico west to the Rio de las Palmas, well into Cortés’s domain. Narváez received political authority over a vast territory from which he was expected to threaten Cortés. Narváez left Spain in June  with five ships and  men, although about  stayed in Santo Domingo when the expedition stopped to resupply. After wintering in Cuba, they landed at Tampa Bay in April . Interested in finding gold rather than Cortés, Narváez took the main body of his men ashore and set off toward the north, occasionally encountering Indians but finding no treasure. In June, they reached the Tallahassee area, where food was more plentiful, and then continued moving west. In August, they decided to build some boats and sail across the Gulf of Mexico to the safe port of Pánuco. Setting

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sail in September, they followed the coast, encountering storms and antagonizing resident Indians. Somewhere off the coast of Louisiana, three of the five ships were lost, including the one carrying Narváez; the other two were beached at Galveston Bay in November, stranding about  men there. In one of the great odysseys of history, about a dozen of these men survived and roamed the southwestern countryside for more than seven years. They traveled as far west as southern New Mexico. The last four survivors crossed the Rio Grande River and made their way to Mexico City, arriving in the summer of . One of the survivors, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, wrote expansively about his experience, and his account opened the eyes of Spanish leaders to the possibilities of wealth that might lie north of Mexico. Cabeza de Vaca and his fellow travelers told stories gleaned from indigenous people they had met about other people farther north who lived in large dwellings and had turquoise, emeralds, and tropical birds. Spanish authorities were impressed and decided to send Hernando de Soto to learn more. De Soto had received Narváez’s title to the Gulf Coast territory in  after a profitable career as a conquistador in Peru, and the Spanish were still interested in staking a permanent claim to the area. De Soto’s expedition set out from Spain in April  with more than  men. After a winter in Cuba, the expedition landed at Tampa Bay at the end of May  and moved north by land, much as Narváez had done. It had frequent clashes with the Indians as it moved into northern Florida. After a winter in Tallahassee, the explorers continued north into presentday Georgia, then northeast into South Carolina, and finally west toward Chattanooga, Tennessee. They arrived there in June , turned south, and moved through Alabama all the way to Matula, just north of Mobile, where they fought a major battle with local Indians. That forced de Soto back toward the north, and the expedition spent its third winter on the road in northeastern Mississippi. In the spring of , the party continued westward, crossing the Mississippi River in June and spending most of the rest of that year and the next winter in present-day Arkansas. By the spring of , the weary de Soto had apparently abandoned his search for turquoise, emeralds, and tropical birds, and the expedition moved south toward the Gulf. Fighting Indians was still a common occurrence. De Soto died in May of a fever, and the survivors agreed to try to get to Pánuco. They wintered in northeastern Louisiana, near the Mississippi River, built barges, and floated down the river in the spring, and, after still more conflict with Indians, they reached the Gulf of Mexico in July and Pánuco in September. Meanwhile, back in Mexico, the viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, appointed Francisco Vásquez de Coronado governor of Nuevo Galicia, a recently created province on Mexico’s west coast. In , Mendoza and Coronado dispatched a missionary, Marcos de Niza, who had also been in Peru, to the north to see what he could find in the way of cities or treasures. De Niza, ably assisted by a black slave and translator, Esteban de Dorantes, returned in August with reports about a place called the Seven Cities of Cíbola, comparing it to the fabled Inca cities in Peru. Encouraged, Mendoza and Coronado sent another expedition, this time headed by Melchior Diaz, a military officer, northward. He, too, reported positively about Cíbola when he returned, and his report convinced Coronado to take an army himself in search of Cíbola.

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Coronado’s force numbered about  Spaniards, of whom more than  were mounted. In addition, Coronado had , Indians, an unknown number of additional servants and slaves, and , horses and mules. Herds of cattle and sheep were brought along to ensure a supply of fresh meat. More supplies were sent by ship up the coast of the Gulf of California. The expedition arrived at Culiacan on March , , and at the town of Hawikuh, supposedly a Cíbolan site, on July , taking routes that are still in dispute among historians and archaeologists. Although the supply voyage sailed to the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers in the summer of , the expedition never made contact with it. Another supply expedition the next year was aborted by a Mixton Indian rebellion in Jalisco. Meanwhile, Coronado and his men made contact with a smaller group headed by Hernando de Alvarado that included a Pawnee Indian whom the Spanish named “the Turk.” The Turk told the Spanish about other sources of great wealth. Coronado stationed the main body of his expedition in the Sonora Valley in the fall of  prior to moving to winter quarters in the Rio Grande Valley. But he took  men with him and continued the search in what is now southeastern Socorro, finding nothing of value. By early , the lack of supplies had become a serious problem. The Spanish demanded clothes and food from Indian villages and burned and looted them when the Indians proved uncooperative. In April, Coronado directed the expedition toward another rumored golden city, Quivira, leaving the unhappy Indians behind. His force, now numbering about ,, moved to the Pecos River, where it met hostile Indians. After diplomacy failed, Coronado bridged the river, continued eastward, and found large herds of bison. The expedition spent the summer of  in the Arkansas River valley, not too far from where de Soto’s expedition was exploring, but again it found nothing of consequence. Coronado planned to continue his wanderings in , still certain he would find gold and the lost city of Quivira. Early in the year, however, he was seriously injured in a riding accident, and, after receiving word that another Spanish expedition had been nearly wiped out in an Indian uprising, he decided to return to Mexico, leaving several small parties behind to continue the search. Not until the s did the Spanish mount a large-scale expedition to this area again.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY thomas clarkin On Sunday, February , , the viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza, watched as an expeditionary force assembled for an official review before it set forth to explore la Tierra Nueva, the New Land, the unexplored territory to the north of the Spanish Empire. Commanded by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, the small army of adventurers included some  European soldiers, perhaps , or more Indian allies, and between four and six friars. Fifteen hundred animals, including packhorses and mules to carry supplies and tow the six brass cannons and sheep and cattle for food accompanied the expedition. After celebrating Mass, the force gathered to hear Viceroy Mendoza offer a speech in which he spoke of the expeditions goals: the conquest of new lands

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that would bring the soldiers and Spain great wealth and the opportunity to bring new souls to God. The men then swore an oath of loyalty to Coronado. The following day, they began the journey known as the entrada that would last more than two years and reveal the peoples and places of the American Southwest to European eyes for the first time. More than  years after the entrada, Coronado’s grand failure remains an exciting tale of adventure and exploration that endures as an essential part of the history of the American Southwest. Mendoza spoke of saving souls, and, while converting Indians to Christianity was always important to the Spanish, it was the lure of riches that drew men to scramble for a place in the expedition. The viceroy had promised each soldier a land grant in the territory that they claimed for Spain, and the Indians had been guaranteed their fair share. But Coronado’s force did not set forth into la Tierra Nueva out of a desire for land. It sought the Seven Cities of Cíbola, a civilization of amazing wealth that the explorers believed lay somewhere to the north. By the time of Coronado, the legend of the Seven Cities was several centuries old. During the eighth century, so the story went, seven Christian bishops fled from invading Moors, sailing west over the ocean. When they reached the distant island of Antillia, each bishop constructed a magnificent city of gold. In the minds of many Europeans, the story of the Seven Cities of Antillia was no mere folktale. Mapmakers included Antillia on their maps, and during the th century at least one sea captain planned a voyage to discover the island’s exact location. Upon arriving in the Western Hemisphere, Europeans assumed they were close to Antillia. They did not find the cities of gold, but hope remained, and their dreams gained new life when Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions arrived in Mexico City in July . Members of an ill-fated expedition that had landed in Florida in , Cabeza de Vaca and his friends were shipwrecked on the Texas coast later that year. For the next eight years, they lived among the Indians, wandering through the region until they encountered a party of Spaniards, in March . Their arrival astounded the Spanish, who eagerly listened to Cabeza de Vaca’s tales of enormous cities to the north, where the people traded turquoise and emeralds for the feathers of tropical birds. He did not claim to have seen such cities, only to have heard of them from Indians that he encountered. Despite Cabeza de Vaca’s cautious reports, New Spain was gripped with excitement at the prospect of discovering and conquering what surely must be the Seven Cities. What were the Indians referring to when they told Cabeza de Vaca of the distant cities of wealth? They may have been referring to trading cultures and kingdoms that existed in various locations in North America, including those of the people known as the Anasazi or pre-Puebloans in the Southwest. In addition, historians have pointed out that American Indians had their own myths and legends, one of which concerned a city called the Seven Caves. It is possible that Indians were sharing their own legends with Cabeza de Vaca, who understood them in terms with which he was familiar. Whatever their origin, the Indian tales of distant lands that Cabeza de Vaca shared held a great appeal for the people of New Spain, who had good reason beyond their belief in the legend of Antillia to accept those rumors as fact. The New World had already yielded a fabulous trove of treasure. Cortés had plundered the cities of the Aztecs less than two decades earlier, and only five years had passed since Francisco Pizarro had conquered the Inca Empire to the south, again capturing vast riches. Surely kingdoms

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of great wealth and beauty would be found in the north, ripe for the conquistadors bold enough to venture into unknown lands. Viceroy Mendoza believed so, and, in March , he sent the Franciscan friar Marcos de Niza (Fray Marcos) to investigate. One of Cabeza de Vaca’s companions, Estevánico, an African, accompanied Fray Marcos, as did a small group of Indians. Fray Marcos returned that summer with thrilling news. He had seen but not entered a city larger than Mexico City that the inhabitants called Cíbola. The people lived in houses that were several stories high and had turquoise decorations on the doorways. In his official report, Marcos noted that there were a total of seven such cities. Although he had not seen gold, Indians claimed it was common to the region. Privately, Fray Marcos told people that he had seen idols covered with precious stones. Fray Marcos did not enter the city because Estevánico, who had gone ahead, had been murdered there. His contemporaries and later generations of scholars have expressed doubts about Fray Marcos and his report. Hernán Cortés dismissed Fray Marcos as a liar, and some historians have claimed that he never saw the city, fleeing in panic when he received word of Estevánico’s death and fabricating the details that he later recounted. Others maintain that Fray Marcos probably saw a pueblo, a city constructed by the Indians. The word “Cíbola” is in all likelihood a mispronunciation of the Zuni word for the area that Fray Marcos visited. Whether falsehoods or exaggerations, Fray Marcos’s reports included two crucial pieces of misinformation. First, the friar portrayed Cíbola as a region of considerable wealth, a depiction certain to fire the Spanish desire to conquer the territory immediately. Second, Fray Marcos claimed that Cíbola was near the sea. This observation led Coronado to rely upon a small convoy of ships following Mexico’s western coast to resupply his expedition as he headed northward. Fray Marcos had been to Peru and seen the riches of the Incas, and his word was enough to generate rumors of golden cities among the inhabitants of New Spain. When Mendoza learned that the conquistador Hernando de Soto was organizing an expedition to search for the Seven Cities by way of Florida, he knew he had to act quickly to be the first to lay claim to the riches. He selected Coronado to mount a major expedition into la Tierra Nueva. Born in Spain in , Coronado had accompanied Mendoza to New Spain and had served as a provincial governor, a military commander, and a member of the council in Mexico City. While Coronado organized the land expedition, Hernando de Alarcón prepared the supply fleet. In the meantime, Melchior Diaz led a small party north in an effort to confirm Fray Marcos’s reports. The Coronado expedition departed on February , . Less than a month later, Diaz met the expedition with some troubling news. Poor weather had prevented him from reaching Cíbola, but the Indians he interviewed made it clear that the settlements were small and contained no gold. Fray Marcos, who was present, argued that Diaz had not gone far enough north and assured Coronado that they would see the riches of Cíbola in the coming weeks. Satisfied with Fray Marcos’s explanation, Coronado ordered Diaz to join the expedition, which in late March reached the Spanish settlement at Culiacán, where the group rested for nearly a month. While at Culiacán, Coronado decided to split the expedition into two groups. He would lead a small party of perhaps  men north, while the main body, which moved slowly under the weight of supplies, followed at a slower pace. Coronado’s force made

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good time and entered into the present-day state of Arizona in late May. However, supplies were running low, and doubts regarding Fray Marcos’s reporting skills grew as the party encountered no evidence that the friar had told the truth. Several men and horses died in the uninhabited region, which the Spaniards called the despoblado, the wasteland or uninhabited region. Weary and facing starvation, the advance force encountered Zuni Indians in early July. Finally, on July , Coronado and his men laid eyes on Cíbola, and their disappointment knew no bounds. Schooled in the legends of Antillia, bolstered by the tales of Fray Marcos, and led on by their own greed, Coronado and his soldiers anticipated a city of gold and silver and turquoise. Instead, they saw a small city of stone, the Zuni pueblo of Hawikuh in modern New Mexico. One member of the expedition later recalled that the first reaction of the men was to curse the friar. Despite the crushing realization that he had been misled, Coronado prepared to claim the pueblo for Spain. Informed by scouts of the approach of the strangers, the Zunis had prepared for the worst. Women and children were sent away, and the ground in front of the pueblo was patterned with lines made from sacred golden cornmeal as a warning not to pass this way. The Zuni men lined the walls of the town as a small group of Spaniards moved toward the town to read aloud a document known as the requirimiento. Spanish law required the conquistadors to explain their mission to the Native peoples by reading the requirimiento, which informed the Indians that they must accept Christianity and recognize the Spanish Crown. If they agreed, all would be well. If they refused, their lands would be taken and they would be killed or taken as slaves. The reading of the requirimiento satisfied the Spaniards but meant nothing to people who could not understand Spanish or, in the event that it was translated, make any sense of it. In any case, the Zunis were unwilling to submit to the demands of strangers whom they regarded as dangerous. When Coronado’s men went forth to read the proclamation, the Zunis shot arrows at them. Why did the Zunis respond with hostility to Coronado’s expedition, which at this point was clearly in poor shape after making the arduous journey to the pueblo? Although the Zunis probably had no firsthand acquaintance with these foreigners (other than the unfortunate Estevánico, whom they had killed the year before), they probably knew about the strangers clad in metal. A slave-trading network had developed in New Spain, and Indians throughout the region feared the armored soldiers who kidnapped their people and never returned them. Coronado’s men met with arrows because their reputation had preceded them. Historians have offered an additional reason for the Zunis’ refusal to receive the Spaniards with open arms. The expedition arrived during summer ceremonies related to the harvest. The Zunis may have believed that the interruption of the sacred rituals might result in a poor harvest; thus, Coronado unknowingly posed a threat to the wellbeing of the entire community when he arrived on that summer day in . The clash at Hawikuh was yet another instance of the collision of European and Indian cultures that was repeated again and again along the Spanish frontier. Although the specifics of each encounter differed in some respects, the meetings between these two very different cultures often resulted in misunderstandings, disagreements, and, finally, bloodshed. Indians usually suffered the most as a result of these meetings for a number of reasons. The introduction of European diseases decimated their populations

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and disrupted the social order, and they did not possess weapons such as the crossbow, the harquebus, and the cannon, which the Europeans used. However, Coronado did not gain much advantage from these two factors. There is no record of widespread epidemic in the region that would have weakened the Indians prior to his arrival. Cannons would prove ineffective against the walls of the pueblos, which were designed as defensive strongholds. Organization was the key to Coronado’s successes against the Indians, and it carried the day at Hawikuh. He ordered his forces to surround the pueblo to prevent any Indians from escaping and had his archers clear the pueblo’s terraces of defenders. Although Coronado was knocked unconscious by a stone, his men rallied and, through a determined effort, entered the pueblo. The Zunis surrendered and departed, and the famished Spaniards found a treasure more valuable than gold, food stores, which they immediately plundered. Coronado occupied Hawikuh and negotiated a peace with the Zunis, who for the most part kept their distance by staying at pueblos to the east. Determined to achieve success, Coronado had no intention of abandoning his quest. In the following weeks, he sent out several small parties to continue exploring. He ordered Melchior Diaz to head south and contact the main body of the expedition. Diaz did so and then headed west in hopes of finding Alarcón and the supply fleet. Contrary to Fray Marcos’s report, Cíbola (now renamed Granada in honor of the hometown of Viceroy Mendoza) was nowhere near water, and the expedition had lost contact with the fleet months earlier. Diaz reached the Colorado River, where he met Indians who told him they had sighted boats downriver weeks earlier. Diaz and his men hurried south, where they discovered carvings on a tree indicating that letters were buried in a box there. They learned that Alarcón had sailed up the Gulf of California and had taken small boats several miles up the Colorado River about two months earlier. However, worms were eating the boats, and Alarcón had no choice but to return to New Spain. The expedition would not receive badly needed winter supplies; to make matters worse, Diaz, a trusted and reliable officer, was killed in a freak accident on the return journey. Meanwhile, Coronado sent a second expedition to investigate rumors of another seven cities to the west. In what is today northeastern Arizona, Pedro de Tovar and his soldiers met the Hopi Indians, who, like the Zunis, were not receptive to the strangers. A short battle ensued, after which the defeated Hopis offered assistance to the invaders. Tovar returned to Hawikuh without gold but with news of a great river farther to the west. Coronado then dispatched García López de Cárdenas to find the river and follow it downstream, probably in hopes that he might encounter Alarcón. With the aid of Hopi guides, Cárdenas reached the Colorado River in late September . He saw what he later described as a brook about six feet wide. The Hopis insisted that it was a mighty river, and indeed it was. Cárdenas was viewing the Colorado from the rim of the Grand Canyon, the first European to do so. The Spaniard was unable to fathom the enormous size of the canyon and believed the river to be closer than it was. Today the Grand Canyon is recognized as one of the natural marvels on the Earth, and, as a part of the U.S. National Park system, it draws visitors from all over the world. However, Cárdenas and his men left no record indicating that the natural beauty of the canyon awed them. Instead, they regarded it as a gaping wound in the earth that stopped their advance and prevented them from reaching the river. For three days, they

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traveled along the rim of the canyon searching for a path down, until, ironically, a shortage of water forced them to retreat. Coronado sent a final exploration party to the east. When two Indians arrived from the east offering their friendship, Coronado authorized Hernando de Alvarado to return with them. Today, they are remembered only by the nicknames given them by the Spaniards, Cacique and Bigotes. These two men spoke of villages that lined a great river and of large herds of wild cattle. With the capable assistance of Bigotes, Alvarado and his men met with no opposition from the Indians they encountered on their journey. They visited the pueblo at Acoma and then proceeded to the river now called the Rio Grande. They named that region, which is now the site of the city of Albuquerque, the province of Tiguex, after the Tigua Indians who lived there. The party then headed north but soon returned to Tiguex and again headed east. Alvarado’s men visited the home of Bigotes, the pueblo at Pecos, and, while there, they met an Indian who altered the future and the fate of Coronado’s expedition. The man, who was probably a Pawnee captured by the people at Pecos, was nicknamed the Turk by the Spaniards. The Turk traveled east with the party, perhaps reaching the border of modern Texas, where the Spaniards first saw the amazing herds of buffalo that ruled the grasslands of the high plains. Along the way, the Turk told the strangers of great kingdoms to the east that were filled with gold. Unwilling to learn their lesson, the Spaniards seized on these stories as evidence of the fabled Seven Cities. Historians believe that the Turk was describing Indian communities of the Mississippian culture, which were indeed impressive but did not possess gold. Perhaps the Turk mentioned the imaginary gold to persuade Alvarado to continue eastward, thus giving the Turk the opportunity to return home. However, Alvarado rushed back to inform Coronado, and, as he hurried west, he brought with him the Turk, Cacique, and Bigotes in chains to ensure their cooperation. Coronado had taken a small party south while the main force of the expedition established winter quarters at Tiguex. The Spaniards forced the Indians from one pueblo for their own use. Faced with a serious shortage of supplies because of the failure to meet with Alarcon’s fleet, expedition members seized food and clothing from the Tiguas. Relations between the Spaniards and the Indians rapidly worsened, and Cárdenas, who was in charge during Coronado’s absence, ordered his men to destroy one pueblo and burn any survivors at the stake. Throughout the winter and into the early spring, a brutal war raged along the northern Rio Grande, resulting in the destruction of many villages and the enslavement of an unknown number of Tiguas. The war ended in April, when Coronado set out to Quivira, the golden kingdom of which the Turk had spoken. With the Turk acting as a guide, the expedition, which included more than , men, headed east, soon reaching the grasslands of modern Texas. The monotonous landscape offered no markers to measure the distances traveled each day, and Coronado and his men grew disoriented as they crossed the plains. Their confusion was compounded by the fact that the Turk was intentionally leading them astray, hoping to lose them in the vast wilderness so that they would never return to harm his people. As a result, to this day historians are uncertain as to the route the expedition took through Texas. Frustrated by the apparent lack of progress toward Quivira, Coronado confronted the Turk, who admitted his deception. Coronado ordered the main body of the

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expedition to return to Tiguex and prepare for another winter. He selected a small group of men to continue the search for Quivira, following the directions of an Indian named Ysopete, who insisted that the city lay to the north. After several days of travel, the party arrived in what is now central Kansas. There they discovered Quivira, several small villages belonging to the Wichita Indians, whom Coronado dismissed as barbarians. When he discovered that the Turk, who was brought along in chains, was attempting to convince the Wichitas to kill the Spaniards’ horses, Coronado had him executed. Coronado spent three weeks exploring Quivira. Fearing the approach of winter weather, he led his men south back to Tiguex in August. During the harsh and unpleasant months of inactivity, Coronado debated a return to Quivira. Yet another Indian, a Wichita called Xabe, insisted that the Spaniards had not searched long enough because there was indeed gold to be found there. But another foray was not to be. Cárdenas left the expedition to fulfill family obligations in New Spain, but he soon returned with bad news. Indians in northern Mexico had destroyed the town of Corazones, and the route back to New Spain was in peril. A final stroke of bad luck, a riding accident in which Coronado was almost killed, ensured the end of the expedition, which headed back to New Spain in April . The expedition, which had departed with great ceremony just two years earlier, was received with little enthusiasm in New Spain. Mounting the expedition had been an expensive effort, and investors discovered that their profits were nonexistent. Coronado returned with only discouraging news of the north. There were no great cities, no gold to plunder, no fortunes to be made. An official investigation of the expedition determined that Coronado had acted responsibly, and no charges were brought against him. Although he again held government positions, the expedition ruined his career and his health. His contemporaries regarded him as a failure, and many noted a change in his personality and a loss of the leadership qualities he had once possessed. He was also weakened physically and died in  at the age of . Was the expedition a failure? If measured by the dreams that Coronado and his men set forth with in , it was surely no success. They intended to find and conquer the Seven Cities of legend, known variously as Antillia, Cíbola, and, finally, Quivira. The soldiers suffered two years away from family and friends, facing the hardships of travel in unknown territory, hunger, and the danger posed by Indians. All these sacrifices were made for nothing, and, although he was officially held blameless, many citizens of New Spain held Coronado to be at fault. However, it is difficult to find failure in an expedition with goals that were founded in legend and rumor. Coronado could not find the fabulous cities of gold because they did not exist, and Viceroy Mendoza, despite his disappointment, knew this. The myth of the Seven Cities lingered on for a while—a  map shows Cíbola in all its golden glory, and at times French and English explorers pondered the existence of a land of wealth in the Western Hemisphere. However, for the most part the dream died with the return of the dusty and bedraggled men who marched back to New Spain in . The long-term consequences of the expedition’s discoveries were minimal. Although accounts of the expedition were written, they were not readily available in New Spain, and within three decades the information that Coronado had brought back with him was

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largely forgotten. The people of New Spain focused their energies on activities closer to home, especially exploiting the vast silver mines that were discovered in Mexico. The lands to the north were again places of mystery. The expedition had little impact on the world of the American Indians in the Southwest. Archaeologists have discovered no evidence that they adopted any Spanish technology, either in the form of weapons or in the making of other material objects such as pottery. Moreover, efforts to convert Indians do not appear to have had any long-lasting effect, and Christianity did not take root among the peoples who listened to the friars during the entrada. Modern scholars have explored two facets of the Coronado expedition, one a curiosity of minor importance, the other more significant. The question of Coronado’s route has long been a great historical puzzle, and professional and amateur historians have invested time and effort in retracing his steps. While these studies have revealed the location of pueblos and of certain Indian communities in Texas and Kansas, they tend to satisfy the curiosity more than they offer insight into the Spanish frontier in the th century. Coronado’s interactions with the Indians of the Southwest provide a useful means of understanding the cultural clashes that marked the European arrival in the Americas. Coronado was a conqueror, both in his intent and in his method. He wanted to acquire the legendary gold of the north, and he ventured forth with a military force ready to subdue the Native peoples if necessary. His predecessor, Cabeza de Vaca, had been forced to live with the Indians, and in so doing he learned about their cultures and their ways of interacting with the environment. As a result, he gained a great appreciation for the Indians. When he returned to New Spain, he denounced the trade in Indian slaves as unchristian, and he soon earned a reputation for being too kind to Indians. Coronado and his men depended upon the Indians in a different manner, relying upon their food stocks when their own supplies dwindled. Because they did not respect the Indians, they never learned from them, and the European and American cultures remained distinct and antagonistic. The expedition left in its wake a hatred for the Spanish, which would sour relations between the two peoples for centuries. However, Spanish attitudes toward the Indians were ambivalent. On the one hand, they were a people to conquer and to enslave. On the other hand, they were human beings who possessed souls and needed to be converted to Christianity. These conflicting viewpoints resulted in actions that seem odd or even contradictory today, such as the reading of the requirimiento before attacking Indian communities. Two minor events connected to the Coronado expedition reveal the tensions in the Spanish attitudes toward American Indians. The first was the fate of García López de Cárdenas, who commanded the expedition during Coronado’s absence and started the war with the Tigua during the winter of –. Cárdenas was found guilty of mistreating the Indians, and he spent seven years in prison for his crimes. The second was the decision of Friar Luis de Ubeda to remain at Pecos to minister to the Indians there. (Another friar, Juan de Padilla, returned to Quivira, but historians suspect he was more interested in searching for gold than in saving souls.) About Ubeda there are no such doubts, because Pecos offered no riches.

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Given the fact that the Indians at Pecos were angry with the Spaniards, Ubeda’s decision reflected great courage and dedication to his cause. His fate remains a mystery, but his act reflects a commitment to his faith and to the mission of bringing Christianity to the Indians. Spaniards such as Friar Ubeda make the history of the Spanish frontier a complex tale of which Coronado’s entrada is a fascinating component.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bolton, Herbert E. Coronado on the Turquoise Trail: Knight of Pueblos and Plains. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, . Bolton’s entertaining account of the expedition is considered a classic of historical writing. Chavez, Angelico. Coronado’s Friars. Washington, DC: Academy of American Franciscan History, . The entrada from the perspective of the friars who accompanied the expedition. Clissold, Stephen. The Seven Cities of Cíbola. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, . A well-written account of efforts to find the fabled seven cities. Day, A. Grove. Coronado’s Quest: The Discovery of the Southwestern States. Berkeley: University of California Press, . A biography of Coronado that focuses on the entrada. Flint, Richard, and Shirley Cushing Flint, eds. The Coronado Expedition to Tierra Nueva: The – Route across the Southwest. Niwot: University Press of Colorado, . This collection of essays continues the debate over the route that Coronado took. Hallenbeck, Cleve. The Journey of Friar Marcos de Niza. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, . Contains a translation of Friar Marcos’s account of his  journey and an essay that is highly critical of Marcos. Hodge, Frederick W., and Theodore H. Lewis, eds. Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States, –. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, . This volume contains a translation of Pedro de Castaneda’s chronicle of the entrada. Kessell, John L. Kiva, Cross, and Crown: The Pecos Indians and New Mexico, –. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, . The opening chapter examines the impact of Coronado upon the Pecos Indians. Morris, John Miller. El Llano Estacado: Exploration and Imagination on the High Plains of Texas and New Mexico, –. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, . Places Coronado’s expedition into a much broader historical context. Riley, Carroll L. Rio del Norte: People of the Upper Rio Grande from Earliest Times to the Pueblo Revolt. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, . This history of American Indians includes chapters on the entrada. Sauer, Carl Ortwin. Sixteenth Century North America: The Land and the People as Seen by the Europeans. Berkeley: University of California Press, . A standard source that includes chapters on Spanish exploration and Coronado. Speck, Gordon. Myths and New World Explorations. Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, . Readable discussion of the role of myth that includes black-and-white photographs. Terrell, John Upton. Search for the Seven Cities: The Opening of the American Southwest. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, . This account is most appropriate for younger readers. Udall, Stewart L. Majestic Journey: Coronado’s Inland Empire. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, . Places the expedition into the larger context of Spanish exploration and includes beautiful color photographs of locations that the expedition visited. Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . While the discussion of Coronado is brief, this work provides an excellent overview of the Spanish frontier for interested students.

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ÁLVAR NÚÑEZ CABEZA DE VACA (ca. 1490–1556/64) Starting on Galveston Island in November  and ending on the Pacific coast of Mexico nearly eight years later, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his three surviving companions were the first Europeans to cross the North American continent on foot. Cabeza de Vaca’s account of his journey and life during these years contains the first descriptions of Texas geography, flora, fauna, and Native culture. The explorer also brought back rumors of fabulous riches that encouraged further Spanish expeditions into what is now the United States. Cabeza de Vaca was born around  in the Andalusian region of Spain in the town of Jerez de la Frontera to Francisco de Vera, an alderman of the town, and Teresa Cabeza de Vaca. He took his mother’s surname, which means “cow’s head,” because of her more distinguished ancestry. Her family had been members of the nobility since , when a shepherd named Martín Alhaja revealed to King Sancho of Navarre an unguarded mountain pass that allowed him to surprise and defeat a Moorish army. As a reward for his services, the king ennobled Alhaja and bestowed the new surname on him and his descendants in memory of the cow’s skull with which the shepherd had marked the hidden pass. Following in his medieval forebear’s footsteps, Cabeza de Vaca became a soldier for the king of Spain, serving on campaigns against the French and Italians from  to the s. In June , he departed Spain as treasurer of the expedition to Florida led by Pánfilo de Narváez. After spending the winter in Cuba, the expedition anchored off the Gulf Coast of Florida near present-day Tampa in April . Narváez then led  men, including his treasurer, on a long foray into the interior of the peninsula. Several months later, with food supplies running low and conflicts with the indigenous breaking out, Narváez and his men fled westward along the coast in makeshift barges. Violent storms west of the Mississippi delta sank several of the vessels, including that of Narváez, and deposited Cabeza de Vaca and several dozen others near presentday Galveston, Texas, on November , . The castaways lived on the island for approximately a year, after which most of them headed south toward Spanish settlements on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Only two remained behind: Cabeza de Vaca, whom the other Spaniards believed to be lost, and Lope de Oviedo, who was too afraid of the risks to make the journey. Actually, Cabeza de Vaca was not lost but was living with a group of Indians and was too ill to follow the other Spaniards. After recovering from his illness, Cabeza de Vaca lived an extraordinary life, trading shells, dried beans, hides, and red ochre with the various Indian tribes in the Galveston region, which had come to hold him in high regard because of his ability to perform healing miracles. In , he started south, having finally persuaded Oviedo to leave. Oviedo eventually turned back, however, and Cabeza de Vaca was captured by the Mariame Indians, who reunited him with the three surviving members of the group of castaways who had left Galveston in . With these three, Andrés de Dorantes de Carranza, his African slave Esteban, and Alonso Castillo Maldonado, Cabeza de Vaca planned an escape. They fled southward in ,  months after Cabeza de Vaca had been captured, and crossed the Rio Grande River near Falcon Lake. They then headed west across northern Mexico, desiring both to avoid the hostile coastal tribes and to explore unknown territory. They reached Culiacán,

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a Spanish outpost near the Pacific coast, in . Cabeza de Vaca then returned to Spain, where he published an account of his life and journey in Texas and Mexico in . The narrative is noteworthy for its detailed descriptions of Texas plant life, animal life, and geography and for its sympathetic treatment of Native Americans. In , Spain’s King Charles V appointed Cabeza de Vaca governor of Spanish possessions stretching from Peru to the Strait of Magellan. His progressive rule, however, especially his protection of local Indians, angered wealthy Spanish colonists. Spanish authorities arrested Cabeza de Vaca in  after his policies provoked a revolt among the colonists. In , after a lengthy trial, Cabeza de Vaca was banished to North Africa, which did not stop him from publishing a second edition of his Texas adventure in . By , he had returned from exile; in that year, King Charles appointed him to be chief justice of Seville, Spain. He probably died there some time between  and .

michael connally FRANCISCO VÁSQUEZ DE CORONADO (1510–1554) Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, who sought mythical cities of gold, led a treacherous two-year expedition through Sonoran Mexico and into the territory that eventually became the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. His soldiers were the first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon and navigate the Colorado River. Coronado seemed destined to poverty; he was born in  as the second son of four children and inherited nothing from his father’s entailed estate in Salamanca, Spain. However, he luckily made rich and powerful friends, as he traveled to Mexico in  with the newly appointed viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza. That personal connection helped Coronado advance his position. He married the wealthy Beatriz de Estrada, daughter of the treasurer of New Spain, and, in , Mendoza appointed Coronado governor of Nueva Galicia, in northern Mexico. Soon after he took office, rumors reached Coronado of rich cities of gold to the north. The Spaniards believed those cities were seven mythical cities of gold called the Seven Cities of Cíbola. Hernán Cortés and other conquistadors competed for the chance to discover a new rich empire like Mexico. As the viceroy’s favorite, in , Coronado was granted the title captain general of the Seven Cities of Cíbola and any people he might find there, including the Hopi, Acoma, and Zuni civilizations. With the help of his wife and Mendoza, Coronado personally financed an army of about  men with perhaps four to five times as many support people, along with three Franciscan friars and , slaves taken from the already conquered population of central Mexico; almost all had horses. He set out with that army to conquer the territories to the north and to convert to Christianity the indigenous peoples they encountered. By the time they crossed into present-day Arizona, many men and horses had died of starvation because the journey was far longer than the Spaniards had estimated. Coronado divided the group. Some turned west, eventually encountered the Grand Canyon, and navigated a portion of the Colorado River. Coronado led a second group, which traveled east. They found the first of the seven cities, a Zuni town or pueblo of  families. There, Coronado suffered injuries in a

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battle with the Zuni. The Spaniards admired the well-built city with its secure multistoried houses constructed of adobe. However, they found no wealth there, only muchneeded food, which included corn and turkeys. The Spaniards spent the winter of – with the Zuni near Albuquerque and lived off their resources, which included literally taking the clothes off their backs. Coronado tried to find information about richer cities while he attempted to establish military domination over the Zuni. Finally, the Zuni rebelled, and several pueblos were destroyed. The Spaniards moved east toward a settlement on the site of present-day Taos. As the Spaniards moved further east, they met a man they called the Turk. He told Coronado of a city called Quivira, which straddled a huge river full of enormous fish. The Turk pointed out the Spaniards’ gold ornaments and said they were common in Quivira. He offered those temptations to the Spaniards to encourage them to leave the region and end the destruction of the pueblos. Following the rumors of wealth spread by the Turk, Coronado and his soldiers followed their indigenous guide to the southeast through what is today Texas and Oklahoma, and the group survived off the meat of massive buffalo herds on the way. After much futile searching for wealthy cities, the Spaniards began to distrust the Turk. A nomadic people following the buffaloes finally disabused the Spaniards. The Turk maintained that Quivira supposedly existed further to the north, in Kansas. What the Spaniards did not know was that the duplicitous guide had been entrusted by his people to lead the Spaniards astray since he knew they could not survive on the barren plains. Once the Spaniards became convinced of the Turk’s treachery, they strangled him to death. The discouraged army went north and found more poor mud villages where only the chief possessed even a bronze necklace. Although the Spaniards neglected to make good maps of their wanderings, they traveled more than , miles. By a direct route, they were only half that distance from Mexico, but they had explored much of the Great Plains of North America. After suffering a debilitating fall from his horse, Coronado lost control of his followers. He discovered a mutinous petition that the Spanish soldiers had drawn up demanding their return to Mexico. In , Coronado was carried on a stretcher as he returned to Mexico with fewer than  men. He left the friars behind to work to convert the indigenous populations to the north. Mendoza treated the expedition as a complete failure and investigated Coronado for corruption and mistreatment of the Zuni. Coronado’s injuries and the loss of his fortune on the expensive expedition made him a poverty-stricken invalid. He suffered in disgrace until , when he was finally given an estate and a seat on the governmental council in Mexico City. He died on September , .

nicole von germeten ESTEBAN (ca. 1503–1539) Esteban, also known as Estevánico the Moor, was a North African slave and explorer who participated in several Spanish expeditions to North America in the th century. Esteban was born in the North African port city of Azemmour, Morocco, in around . The city was captured by the Portuguese in  after a fierce battle, but keeping

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it proved equally difficult. During a particularly harsh drought during –, the Portuguese sold many of the prisoners into slavery in Europe in an effort to raise money. Esteban was sold to a Spanish nobleman, Andrés de Dorantes de Carranza, and became his personal servant. In time, master and servant developed a close relationship and became friends. When Dorantes de Carranza joined an expedition to Florida, he took Esteban with him. Among the leaders of the expedition was Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who wrote a detailed account of the ill-fated expedition in the Relación, published in . The expedition,  men strong, landed in Florida on April , , and began inland exploration. The harsh environment and constant Indian attacks quickly brought their numbers down. In desperation to save themselves, the survivors made crude barges and set out to sea in an attempt to reach the coast of Mexico. They were shipwrecked off the Texas coast, near Galveston Island. Esteban was among the eight survivors. They remained captives of the Natives for five years. Four survivors—Esteban, Dorantes de Carranza, Cabeza de Vaca, and Alonso Castillo—were able to escape inland in  and began a long overland trek. The four men arrived in Tenochtitlán, Mexico in July . They had survived the long, perilous journey by passing themselves off as Christian medicine men. They gained a reputation as healers among the different tribes along the way. Many of the local people in the Southwest desert began to follow them, building an ever larger retinue that provided the four explorers with food and other commodities. When they finally made it to Spanish-controlled territory, Cabeza de Vaca and Castillo returned to Spain, while Dorantes de Carranza and Esteban remained in Mexico. The viceroy of Mexico was very interested in the account of the journey and wanted to send an expedition back into Arizona and New Mexico. In February , Esteban accompanied the expedition leader, the Franciscan Fray Marcos de Niza, to carry out a survey of the lands they had previously crossed. Esteban and Fray Marcos did not get along, however, and Esteban decided to go ahead of the expedition’s main body and prepare the local people for the arrival of the Spaniards. As described in the Relación de la Jornada de Cíbola, by Pedro de Castañeda, a member of the Coronado expedition that followed in the steps of Fray Marcos, Esteban was motivated by greed, not piety, in his effort to establish first contact with the Natives. According to Castañeda, Esteban claimed to have the power to protect the Natives and demanded in return women and turquoise as payment. He presented himself to the Natives ornately dressed with clusters of feathers and bells, his chest covered with amulets and necklaces. Charismatic and casting a powerful impression on those who saw him, Esteban built up an entourage of admiring women, who followed him from place to place. Esteban’s way of dealing with the Natives by presenting himself as a healer and precursor of powerful messengers seems to have worked well until he arrived among the Zuni, who saw him as a threat. It is also believed that Esteban’s medicine gourd, decorated with owl feathers and which he had carried for a long time with him, was seen as a bad omen by the Zunis, who believed that owls symbolized death. Esteban was murdered in  by the followers of Hanikuh, a Zuni leader, who failed to be impressed by Esteban’s display of miraculous power. According to some accounts, the Zunis had his body cut into several pieces and sent to several nearby towns to prove that Esteban did not have any superhuman powers, but the incident is probably apocryphal.

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Fray Marcos, who feared for his own safety, returned to New Spain. To avoid criticism for having abandoned the expedition, he passed on to Coronado the stories Esteban had told him about the mythical and gold-covered Seven Cities of Cíbola and thus ensured a continuous presence of Spanish explorers in the area.

jose valente HOPI The word “Hopi” comes from Hopituh Shi-nu-mu, “Peaceful People.” They were formerly called the Moki (or Moqui) Indians, a name probably taken from a Zuni epithet. The Hopis are the westernmost of the Pueblo peoples. First, Second, and Third Mesas are all part of Black Mesa, located on the Colorado Plateau between the Colorado River and the Rio Grande, in northeast Arizona. Of the several Hopi villages, all but Old Oraibi are of relatively recent construction. Hopi, a Shoshonean language, is a member of the Uto-Aztecan language family. According to legend, the Hopis agreed to act as caretakers of this Fourth World in exchange for permission to live here. Over centuries of a stable existence based on farming, they evolved an extremely rich ceremonial life. The Hopi Way, whose purpose is to maintain a balance between nature and people in every aspect of life, is ensured by the celebration of their ceremonies. The Hopis recognize two major ceremonial cycles, masked (January or February until July) and unmasked, which are determined by the position of the sun and by the lunar calendar. The purpose of most ceremonies is to bring rain. As the symbol of life and well-being, corn, a staple crop, is the focus of many ceremonies. All great ceremonies last nine days, including a preliminary day. Each ceremony is controlled by a clan or several clans. Central to Hopi ceremonialism is the kiva, or underground chamber, which is seen as a doorway to the cave world from whence their ancestors originally came. Katsinas are guardian spirits, or intermediaries between the creator and the people. They are said to dwell at the San Francisco peaks and at other holy places. Every year at the winter solstice, they travel to inhabit people’s bodies and remain until after the summer solstice. Re-created in dolls and masks, they deliver the blessings of life and teach people the proper way to live. Katsina societies are associated with clan ancestors and with rain gods. All Hopis are initiated into katsina societies, although only men play an active part in them. Perhaps the most important ceremony of the year is Soyal, or the winter solstice, which celebrates the Hopi worldview and recounts their legends. Another important ceremony is Niman, the harvest festival. The August snake dance has become a wellknown Hopi ceremony. Like other Pueblo peoples, the Hopis recognize a dual division of time and space between the upper world of the living and the lower world of the dead. Prayer may be seen as a mediation between the upper and the lower, or the human and the supernatural, worlds. These worlds coexist at the same time and may be seen in oppositions such as summer and winter, day and night, life and death. In all aspects of Hopi ritual, ideas of

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space, time, color, and number are all interrelated in such a way as to provide order to the Hopi world. Traditionally, the Hopis favored a weak government coupled with a strong matrilineal, matrilocal clan system. They were not a tribe in the usual sense of the word but were characterized by an elaborate social structure, each village having its own organization and each individual his or her own place in the community. The “tribe” was “invented” in , when the non-Native Oliver La Farge wrote their constitution. Although a tribal council exists, many people’s allegiance remains with the village kikmongwi (cacique). A kikmongwi is appointed for life and rules in matters of traditional religion. Major villages include Walpi (First Mesa), Shungopavi (Second Mesa), and Oraibi (Third Mesa). Hopi children learn their traditions through katsina dolls, including scare-katsinas, as well as through social pressure, along with an abundance of love and attention. This approach tends to encourage friendliness and sharing in Hopi children. In general, women owned (and built) the houses and other material resources, whereas men farmed and hunted away from the village. Special societies included katsina and other men’s and women’s organizations concerned with curing, clowning, weather control, and war. Distinctive one- or two-floor pueblo housing featured sandstone and adobe walls and roof beams of pine and juniper, gathered from afar. The dwellings were entered via ladders through openings in the roofs and were arranged around a central plaza. This architectural arrangement reflects and reinforces cosmological ideas concerning emergence from an underworld through successive world levels. Hopis have been expert dry farmers for centuries, growing corn, beans, squash, cotton, and tobacco on floodplains and sand dunes or, with the use of irrigation, near springs. The Spanish brought crops such as wheat, chilies, peaches, melons, and other fruit. Men were the farmers and hunters of game such as deer, antelope, elk, and rabbits. The Hopi also kept domesticated turkeys. Women gathered wild food and herbs, such as pine nuts, prickly pear, yucca, berries, currants, nuts, and seeds. Crops were dried and stored against drought and famine. Farming technology included digging sticks (later the horse and plow), small rock or brush-and-dirt dams and sage windbreaks, and an accurate calendar on which each year’s planting time was based. Grinding tools were made of stone. Men wove clothing and women made pottery, which was used for many purposes. Men also hunted with the bow and arrow and used snares and nets to trap animals. The Hopis are probably descended from the prehistoric Ancestral Puebloan culture. Ancestors of the Hopis have been in roughly the same location for at least , years. During the th century, the Hopis became one of three centers of Pueblo culture, along with the Zuni/Acoma and Rio Grande Pueblos. Between the th and th centuries, three traits in particular distinguished the Hopi culture: a highly specialized agriculture, including selective breeding and various forms of irrigation; a pronounced artistic impulse, as seen in mural and pottery painting; and the mining and use of coal (after which the Hopi returned to using wood for fuel and sheep dung for firing pottery). The Hopis first met non-Native Americans when members of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s party came into their country, in . The first missionary arrived in , at Awatovi. Although the Spanish did not colonize Hopis, they did make the Indians swear allegiance to the Spanish Crown and attempted to undermine their religious beliefs. For this reason, the Hopis joined the Pueblo Revolt of . They destroyed all

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local missions and established new pueblos at the top of Black Mesa that were easier to defend. The Spanish reconquest of  did not reach Hopi land, and the Hopis welcomed refugees from other pueblos who sought to live free of Spanish influence. In , the Hopis destroyed Awatovi, the only village with an active mission, and remained free of Christianity for almost  years thereafter. During the th century, the Hopis endured an increase in Navajo raiding. Later in the century, they again encountered non-Natives, this time permanently. The U.S. government established a Hopi reservation in , and the railroad began bringing in trading posts, tourists, missionaries, and scholars. The new visitors in turn brought disease epidemics that reduced the Hopi population dramatically. Like many tribes, the Hopis struggled to deal with the upheaval brought about by these new circumstances. Following the Dawes Act (), surveyors came in preparation for parceling the land into individual allotments; the Hopis met them with armed resistance. Although there was no fighting, Hopi leaders were imprisoned. They were imprisoned as well for their general refusal to send their children to the new schools, which were known for brutal discipline and policies geared toward cultural genocide. Hopi children were kidnapped and sent to the schools anyway. Factionalism also took a toll on Hopi life. Ceremonial societies split between “friendly” and “hostile” factions. This development led, in , to the division of Oraibi, which had been continuously occupied since at least , into five villages. Contact with the outside world increased significantly after the two world wars. By the s, the Hopi economy and traditional ceremonial life were in shambles (yet perhaps the latter remained more intact than that of any other U.S. tribe). Most people who could find work worked for wages or the tourist trade. For the first time, alcoholism became a problem. In , a U.S. decision to divide the Hopi and Navajo reservations into grazing districts resulted in the loss of most Hopi land. This sparked a major disagreement between the tribes and the government that continues to this day. Following World War II, the “hostile” traditionalists emerged as the caretakers of land, resisting Cold War–related policies such as mineral development and nuclear testing and mining. The official (“friendly”) tribal council, however, instituted policies that favored the exploitation of the land, notably permitting Peabody Coal to strip-mine Black Mesa, beginning in .

barry m. pritzker SPANISH COLONIZATION OF THE AMERICAS The first of the European powers to reach the New World, Spain remained a dominant force there for more than a century after the arrival of Christopher Columbus. The empire Spain amassed in North America included at one time or another Central America, Mexico, and a significant portion of what is now the central and southwestern United States. Spain’s heritage was one of conquest or, more correctly, reconquest (reconquista), as the preceding seven centuries had been spent driving the Moors out of Spain. Following the ousting of the Moors, King Ferdinand V found himself with a large number of Spanish soldiers ill equipped for civilian life. In , Columbus, whose expeditions to find

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new trade routes had been sponsored by Spain, returned with news of vast unexplored land, which brought purpose to Ferdinand’s unemployed soldiers. The first of the Spanish arrivals in the New World were primarily Castilians with a threefold mission: God, Spain, and gold—not always necessarily in that order. Through exploration, missionaries hoped to spread Catholicism, Spain hoped to expand its empire, and merchants hoped to acquire new wealth. The soldiers’ goals, particularly the acquisition of personal wealth and glory, were deemed ample justification for subjugating the indigenous inhabitants of the new land, often in a brutal fashion not at all in keeping with the directives of the Spanish Crown. However, in the far-flung reaches of the New World frontier, it was the hidalgo, or noble representative of Spain, who ruled. With few exceptions, the oppressive treatment of Native peoples established a pattern of mistrust and hatred that would be passed on to subsequent generations. Spanish conflict with indigenous populations in the Americas commenced almost immediately, when the fortified camp of Villa de la Navidad (Town of the Nativity), erected by Columbus on Hispaniola prior to his return to Spain in , was attacked and destroyed by Natives of the area in retaliation for brutal treatment. With minor variations, it was a scenario that would repeat itself in the years to follow. However, the indigenous peoples were just as likely to be defending themselves against the Spaniards as to be initiating the aggression, if not more likely. After his arrival on the Yucatán Peninsula in , for example, Hernán Cortés heard of the Aztec Empire and immediately set out for it. With the help of other local indigenous tribes that were either conquered by Cortés or more afraid of the Aztecs than the Spanish, Cortés and his army took the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán. The Aztecs soon ousted the Spanish, but Cortés returned in  and retook the empire. The Spanish built Mexico City on the ruins of Tenochtitlán and made the Aztecs their laborers. Mexico, with its plentiful silver mines, became one of Spain’s most valuable possessions in the New World; three centuries later, as the United States and Great Britain took over North America, it was Mexico that Spain fought hardest to keep. The success of Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, who discovered and conquered the Inca Empire, led the Spanish to believe that even greater wealth awaited them in the lands to the north. Accordingly, between  and , a dozen expeditions of varying sizes landed along the southeastern and Gulf Coast areas of what is today the United States. Those efforts were mostly directed at Florida by Juan Ponce de León, who discovered the area on Easter Sunday in . Ponce de León was searching the swamps and everglades of Florida for the mythical Fountain of Youth, a spring that rejuvenated and cured those who drank from it. Several other expeditions, however, ranged as far north as present-day Georgia and the Carolinas. Notwithstanding the presence of women, children, slave labor, and a retinue of friars and priests, the expeditions were decidedly military in character. Typically, they consisted of mounted lancers armed with both lances and swords and supported by infantry equipped with pikes, crossbows, and harquebuses (an early matchlock shoulder weapon). The heavily armed professional soldiers, calling themselves conquistadores (conquerors), were proud and reckless, with a lust for power and an aversion to discipline. They were also legendary for their capacity to endure heat, cold, hunger, and pain. Their expeditions were usually financed and led by a Spanish hidalgo. The object of the expedition was to make an armed entrance, or entrada, into the interior of the

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country and create a fortified base camp, called a presidio, from which to carry out the mission. Most of those expeditions clashed with the indigenous people that they encountered; in some instances, resistance from the latter was fierce and, in view of Spanish behavior, completely understandable. Native villages were plundered, women raped, and people forced into slavery. A favorite Spanish tactic was to lure the chief or village head into a council setting and then hold him hostage to ensure that the expedition’s needs were met. In one instance, expedition leader Pánfilo de Narváez ordered the nose of a Timucua chief to be cut off and the chief ’s mother thrown to savage dogs to be torn apart. Major confrontations between the Spanish conquistadores and indigenous peoples included fights around San Carlos Bay, Florida, with the Spanish led by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba in  and Ponce de León in . Hernando de Soto’s  clash with Choctaws in the Battle of Mabila (near present-day Selma, Alabama) was probably the largest single engagement of the period. Hernández de Córdoba, Ponce de León, and de Soto eventually died from wounds sustained during their fights with the indigenous. Another expedition that had its share of fighting was that of the hidalgo Narváez. Landing on the west coast of Florida in , Narváez, after sending his ships in search of a better harbor, headed overland. After first fighting Timucuas, they clashed with Apalachees. Continuing on, the hard-pressed and exhausted contingent was constantly harried by the indigenous people. After discovering that their ships were not waiting at the expected place (the ships had been there and, believing the expedition lost, departed for Mexico), they finally reached Mobile Bay and crossed the Mississippi River. Of the  who began the ordeal, only  survived to reach Mexico. The saga of their incredible ordeal, later recounted in the journal of a survivor, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, became one of the epics of history. Spanish efforts were not limited to the Southeast, however. In April , Francisco Vásquez de Coronado set out in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cíbola. In large part, Coronado’s expedition was inspired by Cabeza de Vaca’s reports. During the two-year expedition, Coronado failed to find the rumored golden cities but did explore much of what is now the southwestern United States, including Arizona and Colorado, and penetrated as far east as Kansas and northern Texas. The expedition also marked the first time Europeans reached the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. In the process of exploring, Coronado managed to capture the Zuni pueblo at Hawikuh as well as other Hopi and Zuni pueblo communities in Arizona and New Mexico. Later, Spanish expeditions in the Southwest resulted in Juan de Oñate’s brutal attack on the Acoma pueblo in , followed by the bloody Pueblo Revolt of . Meanwhile, during the last half of the th century, the Spanish continued to send expeditions into the interior of Florida in an effort to strengthen their position there. As earlier, ill treatment of Native peoples, particularly in the form of forced labor, continued to produce clashes between the two cultures, although an increased emphasis on the establishment of missions met with some success. Perhaps the most notable Spanish achievement in the area was the creation of San Agustín, now Saint Augustine, the oldest city in the United States settled by Europeans. Spanish presence in Florida continued until , when the territory was given over to Britain in exchange for Cuba.

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The conquest of indigenous peoples in the Americas was ultimately accomplished due to disease brought to the New World by Europeans, the superiority of their weapons, and, at times, brutal massacres. Although the Spanish legacy in the New World is one of harsh treatment and exploitation, Spain’s contribution to architecture, the arts, and language in the Americas cannot be overlooked.

jerry keenan ZUNI “Zuni,” from the Spanish, is the name of both a people and a pueblo. The Zuni Pueblo’s original name was Ashiwi, which might have meant “the flesh.” The Zuni consisted of six pueblos along the north bank of the upper Zuni River, in western New Mexico, at least  years ago. They are presently in the same location. Perhaps as many as , people lived there in . Zuni is a language unlike that spoken at other pueblos. Scientists speculate about a possible link to the Penutian language family. Zunis and their ancestors, the Mogollon and the Ancestral Puebloans, and perhaps Mexican Indians as well, have lived in the Southwest for well over , years. By the th century, the “village of the great kiva,” near Zuni, had been built. In the th and th centuries, a large number of villages existed in the Zuni Valley. By , the number of Zuni villages had shrunk to six. Zuni was probably the first Native North American village visited by Spaniards, who had heard tales of great wealth in the Kingdom of Cíbola. In , Estevánico, a black man in the advance guard of Fray Marcos de Niza’s party, visited Zuni. He was killed as a spy, and his group quickly retreated. The following year, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado visited the pueblos, ranging all the way to present-day Kansas, in search of the mythical Cíbola. The Zunis resisted his demands and fled to a nearby mesa top. Other Spanish came in Coronado’s wake. The first mission was established at Hawikuh in . In , the Zunis attacked and killed a number of missionaries, but the Spanish built a new mission, Halona, in . The Zuni participated in the Pueblo Revolt of . Their main grievances were being forced to supply the Spanish with corn, women, and labor and being punished harshly for practicing their religion. At that time, the Zunis lived in three of the original six pueblos. They fled to escape the Spanish, and in  they returned to the village at Halona on the Zuni River. A new church was built there but was soon abandoned, the Zunis preferring their own religion to Christianity. The ancient site of Halona is now modern Zuni. Left on their own by the Spanish, the Zuni Pueblo was open to raids from Apaches, Navajos, and Plains tribes. As of , it was still self-sufficient, although, because it was on important trade routes, it was increasingly raided by both Indians and Anglos. The U.S. government officially recognized a Zuni reservation in , although one far too small to support traditional agriculture. Three outlying summer villages established in the early th century became permanent in the s, and a fourth such village was established in  or . In the late th and early th centuries, the Zuni economy shifted from agriculture to sheep and cattle herding. With the decline of warfare, their

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Bow society turned to warfare against supposed Zuni witches. The Bureau of Indian Affairs soon called in troops to suppress witchcraft trials, destroying the power of the Bow priests and the entire traditional government. The opposition of tribal members as well as the failure of the government’s Black Rock Reservation and Dam combined to block the implementation of the allotment process at Zuni. Erosion of arable land has been a considerable problem, especially since the debacle of counterproductive, government-mandated canal irrigation projects in the early th century. By the s, the government was promoting livestock as an alternative to agriculture. After World War II, the continuing shift in political power from priests to politicians led to the growth of political parties and the increased importance of the tribal council. Religion, including membership in religious and ceremonial organizations, was at the core of Zuni existence. The sun priest was highly revered; in charge of solstice ceremonies as well as the calendar, he was held responsible for the community’s welfare. The Zunis recognized six points of orientation, which corresponded to the cardinal directions as well as to mythological events. Each had its own color, position, kiva group, medicine societies and priesthoods, and ceremonies. Kivas were rectangular and aboveground. Katsinas, or benevolent guardian spirits, played a key part in Zuni religion. Katsinas represented the rain gods as well as Zuni ancestors. All boys between the ages of  and  underwent initiation into the Katsina Society. At death, one was said to join the katsinas, especially if one was closely associated with the cult. Both men and women could join the curing cult of the beast gods. Its focus was on animals of prey who lived in the east. The Zuni new year began at the winter solstice. A -day period during this time was known as Itiwana, or cleansing and preparing the village for the new year. Winter dances took place from February through April. Summer dances began at the solstice and lasted into September, concluding with the fertility ritual called Olowishkia. In late November or early December, the Zunis celebrated Shalako, a reenactment by katsina priests of the creation and migration of the Zuni people. The people built six to eight Shalako houses and attended the Shalako katsinas—giant-sized messengers of the rain gods. This festival was accompanied by spectacular dancing and closed the Zuni year. Molawai, or the ritual dramatization of the loss and recovery of corn maidens, immediately followed Shalako. Ruled by heads of various priesthoods and societies, the Zuni pueblo was a theocracy. Bow priests enforced the rules from at least the th century on. A tribal council played a minor role in the th century but a more powerful one in the th century. The Zunis accepted the Indian Reorganization Act and an elected tribal council in  (they ratified a constitution in ). During the th century, a parallel, secular government developed at Zuni to handle mundane problems. Based on the Spanish model, it was appointed by and responsible to the religious leaders. Offices included a governor, two lieutenant governors, a sheriff, and fiscales (church assistants). These officers acted as liaisons between the pueblo and the outside world and kept order within the pueblo. Metal-topped canes with a Spanish cross served as symbols of authority. Through the years, these were augmented by more Spanish canes, Mexican canes, and then canes given by President Lincoln to reward the pueblo for its neutrality in the Civil War.

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Zunis were divided into two groups: people of the north (also characterized as winter or rain) and people of the south (also characterized as summer or sun). Matrilineal clans affected ceremonial roles and certain behaviors. In general, however, ritual activity went through the father’s family, and economic activity went through the mother’s. There were also a number of secret cults and societies, some highly complex, each responsible for certain ceremonies. Zunis traditionally cremated their dead. In modern times, the dead are buried, with their possessions burned or buried after four days, following a ceremony that includes prayer sticks and cornmeal. With the exception of certain clan and family taboos, marriage was a matter between the two people involved and was traditionally preceded by a trial period of cohabitation. Divorce was simple and easy. Like other Pueblo Indians, Zunis lived in multistoried houses (pueblos). Men built the structures of stone and plaster, not the adobe bricks used in the pueblos to the east. Ladders led to the upper stories. Floors were of packed adobe and roofs of willow boughs, brush, and packed earth. Women kept the outsides whitewashed. Tiny windows and outside beehive ovens were introduced in the th century. Farming was the chief Zuni mode of subsistence. Men grew at least six varieties of corn, as well as beans, squash, and cotton. The Spanish introduced crops such as wheat, chilies, oats, and peaches. Zunis used dams and sage windbreaks for irrigation. Corn was dried, ground into flour or meal, and served as mush or baked into breads. Food was also obtained by hunting (deer, antelope, and rabbits), fishing, and gathering wild plants (women were the gatherers, and they also kept small garden plots).

barry m. pritzker

4 The Founding of St. Augustine, 1565

INTRODUCTION The first Spanish explorer to set foot in Florida was Juan Ponce de León in March . He named what he thought to be an island La Florida, because, in the Spanish religious calendar, March was the time of the Feast of Flowers. At the time of Ponce de León’s arrival, about , Indians, spread among four major tribes, lived in Florida. These were the Calusa, who lived in southwest Florida; the Tekesta, from southeast Florida; the Timucua, from northeast Florida; and the Apalachee, from northwest Florida, the area known today as the Florida panhandle. The Calusa were seagoing Indians who fished and sailed small boats as far away as Cuba and Hispaniola. They did not cultivate crops, although they did gather roots, dry them, and pound them into flour to make into bread. The Calusa developed a fairly sophisticated social structure, with authority vested in a king who resided in a centrally located village protected by extensive fortifications. The tribe also used slaves, who were members of other tribes taken captive in battle. Within their domain, they developed a system of food storage and distribution, so villages that experienced food shortages could be supplied with dried food from other villages. They were not receptive to Spanish encroachment, killing some of Ponce de León’s men in  and Ponce de León himself in , during his second voyage to Florida. The Timucua, whose culture can be traced back to  bce, built villages along rivers or next to lakes. These villages were fortified and included ceremonial sites, granaries, and public buildings. They ate game and fish, planted small gardens, and collected berries and acorns. Like the Calusa, the Timucua developed a social structure based on matriarchal clans, a system of intertribal alliances, and a class system based on a nobility and commoners. Of the other two Florida tribes, we know less. The Tekesta Indians lived in southeast Florida. They also harassed the Spanish, although fewer attempts were made to settle in that part of Florida than in other parts. Missionaries claimed some success in converting the Tekesta, but the Indians were still reputed to have killed Spanish sailors shipwrecked in their territory, and those Spaniards who escaped them reported that they were cruel and untrustworthy. Near Pensacola in northwest Florida were the Apalachee, a powerful and united tribe whose antagonism toward Europeans helped prevent the success of colonization efforts in that area.

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This German book illustration from the late 16th century gives some idea of what the French saw when they first arrived in the Saint Augustine area in 1564. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Attempts to colonize Florida before  had failed, costing Spain many lives and ships and much money. Spanish explorers spent too much time and energy looking for gold and other symbols of immediate wealth, failed to pacify the Indians, and suffered in the hostile climate and environment. The ill-fated but far-ranging expeditions of both Pánfilo de Narváez and Hernando de Soto in the s and s began as Florida colonization efforts. Narváez, who passed through Florida in , found both the land and the Indians inhospitable. De Soto, whose expedition landed near Tampa Bay in May , also encountered difficulty with Indians and found nothing of value. The dismal fates of these two expeditions led Spain to regard Florida as relatively unimportant in their colonial policies, although the strategic location of the territory and the missionary opportunities among Indians remained factors to be considered. In , the second of those two factors was recognized with the mission of Fray Luis Cancer de Barbastro to Florida. He was put ashore near Tampa Bay and killed on the beach in sight of the ship that had taken him there. While Cancer’s death encouraged some to want revenge against the Indians, the increasing incidence of shipwrecks off the Atlantic Coast of Florida was also a concern, since nothing could be recovered from these wrecks without settlements on the shore. The first serious attempt to colonize Pensacola occurred in  when an expedition headed by Tristán de Luna y Arellano arrived. Renaming the place Santa Maria, the de Luna expedition left settlers behind, but, two years later, after most of a fleet was destroyed in a storm, the Spanish abandoned Santa Maria, and King Philip II decided

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to make no further attempts to colonize the inhospitable territory. But when the king learned that an expedition of French Huguenots was on its way to set up a colony in Florida, he changed his mind. René Goulaine de Laudonnière founded the French colony in Florida. The French foreign minister, Gaspard de Coligny, had sponsored the expedition in the hope that the colony could be used as a base from which French ships could raid Spanish fleets carrying treasure back to Europe. Laudonnière and  colonists, many of whom were French Huguenots, arrived at the mouth of the Saint John’s River (which they named the River of May) in April , established good relations with the Indians, and built a fort on the river bank, naming it Fort Caroline in honor of the French king, Charles IX. Despite its auspicious beginnings, the French colony soon encountered serious problems. Laudonnière proved to be an autocratic leader who also angered the Indians by meddling in their affairs. By December, some colonists were ready to go home, while others were refitting two ships to harass the Spanish. Before they could leave, however, another French fleet, led by Jean Ribault, arrived to reinforce Fort Caroline. Ribault, moreover, had come to replace the discredited Laudonnière, who had been recalled to France. Philip II, concerned about the threat to Spanish shipping that the French colony represented, dispatched an expedition under Captain-General Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to Florida to oust the French and establish a Spanish colony in the same area. Menéndez de Avilés left Santo Domingo, the Spanish settlement on Hispaniola, in August  with five ships and  people, mostly soldiers and sailors. Menéndez de Avilés and his party arrived at a place  miles south of the French settlement on September , , and founded a colony called Saint Augustine, named for the saint on whose day they first sighted the place. There they met members of a Timucua Indian tribe, who hated the French for having allied themselves with a rival tribe. The Timucua gave Menéndez de Avilés information about the French settlement, and the Spanish captain sailed up the coast to the mouth of the Saint John’s River. Four French ships, under Ribault’s command, hastily set sail from the French settlement, and a conflict was avoided when the faster French ships escaped. Ribault then decided to attack the Spanish at their landfall, Saint Augustine. He nearly succeeded in destroying the Spanish ships, but at a crucial moment, a sudden storm developed and forced the French ships away. Menéndez de Avilés then took his troops across land with an Indian guide, surprised the French, and captured Fort Caroline, killing everyone except women and children under the age of  in the process. Meanwhile, a hurricane had driven the four French ships onto the beach several miles away, where they were wrecked. The survivors appealed to Menéndez de Avilés for mercy, but the Spaniard ordered most of them killed. Altogether  of the  French sailors, including the unlucky Ribault, were summarily executed on a sand dune that became known as Matanzas, or Place of Killing. With these executions, the French presence in Florida was ended, and Spanish control of the Saint Augustine area was ensured. Fort Caroline was rebuilt and renamed San Mateo. Although the Spanish colony at Saint Augustine survived, other attempts at colonization in Florida did not, and Menéndez de Avilés’s efforts to ally himself with other Indian tribes were also unsuccessful. Menéndez de Avilés, who had financed much of the expense of colonizing Saint Augustine with his own money, had to be sustained in his last years by a royal subsidy and died in poverty in .

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The Jesuits first undertook religious conversion in Florida, but they left in , and Franciscan monks took their place. The Franciscans claimed to have won , souls for Christ, but many clerics lost their lives in the process, and the Indians never were assimilated into Spanish colonial life, as they were in other parts of Spanish America. As happened everywhere else in the Spanish American empire, disease took a heavy toll on the Indian population. Prior to the settlement of Saint Augustine, other efforts to create a permanent settlement in Florida had brought deadly disease to Indians in the Pensacola area. In Saint Augustine, in , the captain of the Primrose, a ship in Sir Francis Drake’s English fleet, reported, “The wilde people at first comminge of our men died verie fast and said amongst themselves, it was the Englisshe God that made them die so fast” (quoted in Cook, p. ). Since many of Drake’s men died at the same time, this epidemic was probably typhus, a disease to which Europeans had no special immunity. Saint Augustine experienced other epidemics in , –, and . Franciscans missionaries reported that the epidemic that broke out in  killed perhaps half the population of some tribes, noting that “these deaths have taken great harvests of souls for heaven” (quoted in Cook, p. ). The  epidemic, an outbreak of yellow fever, killed the governor of Florida, two treasury officials, and a number of military officers and missionaries in addition to countless numbers of Indians. For most of the colonial period, Saint Augustine was little more than a large, stout fort, and the inhabitants were quite dependent on the home government for most of their supplies. Not until the late th century did the Spanish colonists discover the economic feasibility of cattle raising inland from the fortress town.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY blake beattie For most Americans, “colonial America” remains a distant and unvisited country, known chiefly through a few vivid images emblazoned on the American mythic consciousness. The legend of Pocahontas; the first Thanksgiving; the Salem witch trials: these are the remembered emblems of a national formation that played itself out in Virginia plantations and quaint New England villages lying under the white steeples of austere Congregational churches, guided by men with names like John Alden, William Bradford, Roger Williams, and John Smith. Simply put, while few Americans have more than a passing acquaintance with the history of America’s European settlement, most would agree that the process began when the first English settlers arrived in Jamestown in  and the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in , inaugurating an American colonial experience that is essentially English, centered in New England and Virginia, and vigorously Protestant. This perception has been challenged over the past generation by historians who stress the importance of groups like America’s Native peoples and African slaves in shaping American nationhood. Yet, even the revisionists, with their heightened consciousness of the “other” in the national history, often overlook the fact that the critically important process of European exploration and settlement, by which America became possible as

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an historical and a political entity, began not in the north with the English but in the south with the Spaniards. The first permanent European settlement in what would become the United States of America was a fort christened San Augustin or Saint Augustine, by a Founding Father named Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. Two decades would pass before the English settled Roanoke Island. By the time Virginia Dare was born at that ill-fated colony, becoming the first English child born in the Americas, a generation had grown up in Spanish Florida, and it would still be there long after Virginia and the other  Roanoke settlers vanished from history the following year. If it is true that Spain eventually lost the contest for North America to France and especially England, its cultural legacy has endured without interruption in the American Southwest and parts of the Southeast for four centuries. More important, the contest for North America might never have taken place without Menéndez de Avilés’s empresa en la Florida and the establishment of a Spanish foothold in the New World north of the Rio Grande. Ironically, the foundation of Saint Augustine came about almost accidentally, as an act of desperation, three years after the king of Spain had decided to abandon efforts to settle Florida. The Spaniards had attempted to colonize the territory they called La Florida ever since the expedition of Juan Ponce de León in . Contrary to popular belief, the aging veteran of Columbus’s second voyage sought not a legendary fountain of youth but a discovery that would make him as famous as Columbus. What he found instead was financial ruin and a fatal wound from an Indian arrow in . Ponce de León’s experience proved portentous for the next two generations of Florida’s would-be conquistadores. Pánfilo de Narváez (d. ) and Hernando de Soto (d. ) squandered fortunes, reputations, and, ultimately, their own lives in picaresque but fruitless quests for gold-laden cities like the ones that Narváez had seen in Mexico and de Soto had plundered while serving under Pizarro in Peru. In , the Dominican friar Luis Cancer de Barbastro and three confrères were martyred while attempting to missionize the Timucua Indians. A decade later, the viceroy of Mexico, Luis de Velasco, sent Tristán de Luna y Arellano to found a settlement near Pensacola Bay. Luna lost a third of his , men and  of his  ships before he was relieved of his command; his successor, Angel de Villafane, abandoned the colony after a hurricane ravaged his fleet in June . In the aftermath of the debacle, Spain’s King Philip II reluctantly declared, in September , that the Crown would no longer sponsor colonial initiatives in La Florida. Spain’s involvement in Florida might well have ended then had not the exigencies of dynastic politics driven Philip’s French rivals to take advantage of the situation. Since the time of Philip’s father, Charles of Habsburg (–), France and Spain had been divided by a bitter enmity. Charles stood heir to a remarkable inheritance: from his maternal grandparents, the famous Spanish monarchs Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, he inherited the Spanish Crown in ; after the death of his paternal grandfather, Emperor Maximilian I, he ruled the Holy Roman Empire as Emperor Charles V. The sum of Charles’s inheritances—the largest in European history—entailed a collection of satellite states throughout central and eastern Europe and a colonial empire with holdings on four other continents. The vast scope of Charles’s power alarmed his European contemporaries, but none more than the Valois kings of France, who found themselves hemmed in by Habsburg patrimonies to the south and to the east. King Francis I fought—and lost—four wars against Charles over disputed territories in Burgundy and in Italy. Discouraged by the spread of Lutheranism in the empire, the devoutly Catholic

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Charles abdicated his constellation of thrones in , leaving the empire to his brother Ferdinand and Spain to Philip. But the division of Charles’s inheritance brought no relief to France. Spain was emerging as Europe’s greatest military power at a time when France was dangerously destabilized by conflicts between the Catholic majority and the increasingly powerful and assertive Huguenots (French Protestants who followed the teachings of John Calvin). In , Henry II made peace with Philip II at CateauCambrésis, acknowledging Spanish supremacy in Italy in exchange for Burgundy and a much-needed promise of Spanish nonaggression. Any hope of a rapprochement was extinguished when poor Henry was killed in a joust during the celebrations for the treaty. Franco-Spanish relations deteriorated rapidly in the successive reigns of Henry’s three weak sons, particularly during the political ascendancy of Prince Gaspard de Coligny (–), the ambitious and stridently anti-Spanish admiral of France who came to exercise a great influence over young Charles IX between  and . Coligny was a vigorous promoter of overseas colonization who believed that France had done too little to develop its colonial interests in the Americas since Jacques Cartier explored the Saint Lawrence basin of eastern Canada in the s and s. He was also a calculating statesman who hoped to strike a blow at Spain’s imperial might before it became insuperable. As a Huguenot, he hoped to avert a civil war by uniting France’s Catholics and Protestants against their common enemy, Habsburg Spain. For Coligny, the Spanish moratorium on settlement in La Florida was an opportunity too tempting to pass up. Coligny easily secured royal approval and dispatched a fleet to Florida under Jean Ribaut (–), one of France’s ablest seamen. On May , , Ribaut founded the settlement of Mayport on an island in the Saint John’s River; a few days later he sailed to Parris Island, off the coast of South Carolina, and established a tiny settlement named Charlesfort, in honor of France’s -year-old sovereign. When he returned to France to obtain supplies, however, Ribaut found the kingdom rent by sectarian strife and Coligny out of favor at court. The Huguenot Ribaut eventually decided to try his luck in Protestant England. But Queen Elizabeth I had no desire to be drawn into France’s struggle with Spain and had Ribaut cast into prison. Without material relief, Ribaut’s settlements foundered. Charlesfort was abandoned after a fire destroyed its few remaining supplies, and a mutiny broke out at Mayport. The French settlement was on the brink of abandonment when Coligny, restored to royal favor after the Peace of Amboise in March , sent forth a relief expedition under the Huguenot nobleman René Goulaine de Laudonnière, a veteran of Ribaut’s first voyage. Upon his arrival, in April , Laudonnière immediately set about the construction of a stout, triangular fort not far from Mayport, on a low bluff overlooking the south bank of the Saint John’s River. Philip II had long been aware of the French expeditions into Spanish Florida and made no secret of his outrage at Colingy’s audacity. Still, prior to the Laudonnière expedition, Philip had hoped to resolve the matter diplomatically. The construction of Fort Caroline, however, forced him to act more decisively. A fortress on Florida’s strategic northeast coast would provide a base from which swift French corsairs could strike at sluggish Spanish treasure fleets in the Gulf of Mexico. Reversing his decision of September , Philip now concluded that the French fort had to be destroyed and Florida secured for Spain, at all costs.

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The man he selected to lead the venture was Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (–). One of  children born to a noble family from Asturias, Menéndez de Avilés had little to expect from the division of his family’s modest estate and entered Spain’s maritime service as a very young man. With his meager inheritance, he purchased a small patrol vessel and quickly established himself as the scourge of the French and Moorish pirates who bedeviled Spanish ships along Spain’s Atlantic coast. In , he escorted the future King Philip II to England for his wedding to Queen Mary I; five years later, he commanded the royal guard, which conducted the king safely from Flanders to Spain after the negotiations at Cateau-Cambrésis. In , a grateful Philip II named him captain general of Spain’s East Indian fleet. But Menéndez de Avilés had powerful enemies in the merchants’ guilds and in the Casa de Contratación, the regulatory council founded by Queen Isabella in  to oversee all trade conducted between Spain and the Spanish West Indies. At their instigation, Menéndez de Avilés was arrested on a charge of smuggling upon his return to Spain in June . He was languishing in a Seville prison, on the brink of political and financial ruin, when he managed to convince his royal patron to grant him the license to settle La Florida in March . The conquistadores of the previous generation claimed to have acted por dios, oro y gloria—for God, gold, and glory. Like them, Menéndez de Avilés was driven by official, personal, and spiritual motives. As adelantado (the military-governor of a frontier province), he meant to secure La Florida for Spain; as a father, he desperately hoped to find his only son, Juan, who had disappeared while commanding a royal armada near Bermuda in ; as a fervent Catholic and a commander of the ancient crusading order of the Knights of Santiago de Compostela, he intended to expel the French heretics from lands that had belonged to Spain for more than  years. And so, on June , , Menéndez de Avilés boarded his -ton flagship, San Pelayo, and led a magnificent fleet of  ships and , souls out of the harbor at Cádiz. Initially, Menéndez de Avilés seemed no more likely to succeed than any of his predecessors in La Florida. In July, his armada was dispersed by storms in the mid-Atlantic; only five of his ships managed to reach Puerto Rico at the beginning of August. Moreover, the indefatigable Ribaut, released from his English prison, had beaten Menéndez de Avilés in a desperate race across the Atlantic and assumed command of Fort Caroline. When Menéndez de Avilés reached the mouth of the Saint John’s River, at the end of August, he was dismayed to find the French fort defended by five bristling warships. In no position to engage the French ships, Menéndez de Avilés withdrew to a natural harbor some  miles to the south. He had first seen the site on August —the feast day of Saint Augustine—and so he named his camp San Augustin. When the armada’s Franciscan chaplain Francisco López Mendoza de Grajales celebrated Mass there on September , America’s oldest continually inhabited city was born. But the Spaniards had not heard the last of Ribaut. Determined to destroy the Spanish fleet, he sailed into the mouth of San Augustin harbor and might well have defeated the unprepared Spaniards but for a sudden storm, which drove his ships far to the south and wrecked them along Cape Canaveral. Now utterly convinced of God’s favor, Menéndez de Avilés took the offensive with a spectacular exploit. Leaving his brother Bartolomé in charge of the camp, Menéndez de Avilés led  soldiers on a grueling four-day march through torrential rains and waist-deep swamps to Fort Caroline. At dawn on the fifth day, the Spaniards attacked, completely overwhelming the unsuspecting French

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garrison. The women and children were spared, but some  French soldiers were put to the sword. Only a handful of men, including Ribaut’s son and the rather unheroic Laudonnière, managed to escape by sea. Menéndez de Avilés rechristened the fort San Mateo to honor the apostle on whose feast day (September ) it had been captured. The final stages of the conflict were swift, bloody, and predictably one-sided. The survivors of Ribaut’s wrecked fleet, unaware that Fort Caroline had fallen and hoping to rejoin their comrades, managed to come within  miles of San Augustin before the Spaniards fell upon them in early October. A few managed to escape into the wilderness, only to be captured a month later; the rest of the exhausted French party surrendered in two groups to the smaller Spanish force with only minimal resistance. Menéndez de Avilés and his vice admiral, Diego Flores de Valdéz, had the French prisoners marched across the sand dunes in groups of  and executed. Of between  and  men, only  Catholics and  military musicians were spared. The valiant Ribaut was dispatched with a knife to the belly and a pike thrust through the heart. The site still recalls the ferocity of the Spanish victory in the name Matanzas (Spanish for “massacres”) Inlet. La Florida was Spanish once again. In the conquest of Florida, Menéndez de Avilés brought to bear all of the ruthlessness and daring what had established him as the greatest Spanish naval commander of his day. He soon discovered, however, that the development of a colony there would require more than the skills of a conquistador. Each of the Florida settlements founded by Menéndez de Avilés’s predecessors had fallen into dereliction within a very short time of its establishment. The failure of the Florida settlements baffled and frustrated their sponsors in Mexico City and Madrid. How could Spain subdue the great empires of the Aztecs and Incas so quickly, yet fail repeatedly in its attempts to colonize a land as comparatively backward and underdeveloped as La Florida? In fact, the answer lay in that very backwardness, which the Spaniards attributed to Florida. Cortés and Pizarro had overwhelmed advanced, urbanized pre-Columbian states, at least in part with superior military technologies. The subsequent administration of those states was relatively easy, for both Mexico and Peru had sophisticated, centralized governmental systems not unlike the one that existed in th-century Spain. In Mexico, peoples scattered over thousands of square miles had rendered tribute and obedience for centuries to the emperor in Tenochtitlán; the Inca cities created social and political unity all along the Andean spine of Peru. Once the Aztec and Inca rulers had been defeated, the Spaniards could assume their place and impose their own colonial administration on the vanquished states. The peoples of Florida had no such tradition of extended political unity. The Tallahassee hills of the north were home to the agrarian Apalachee. The more warlike Timucua inhabited much of the central peninsula. The Ais, Jeaga, and Tekesta lived along the southeastern coast, while the fierce, seagoing Calusa dominated the Southwest. Each nation was further divided into scores of independent villages. Some caciques (tribal leaders), especially among the Timucua and Calusa, managed to unite groups of villages into regional confederations, but rivalries within confederations were often as bitter as those between them. The divisiveness and localism of Florida’s peoples made it easy for Narváez and de Soto to cut a bloody swath through the peninsula but quite impossible to subdue whole tribes in a single, decisive stroke. And, unlike Mexico or Peru,

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the Native societies of Florida offered no preexisting administrative infrastructures that could be adapted to Spain’s colonial strategy. Menéndez de Avilés proved more than equal to the challenges before him. Certainly, he was the first of the Florida conquistadores to demonstrate an active interest in the survival of his settlement. He expended nearly all of his considerable fortune on the Florida enterprise; by one contemporary account, Menéndez de Avilés spent almost a million ducats on his expeditionary fleet alone. He was also tireless in soliciting material support from the grandes of the Spanish court. Though he held the governorship of Florida for life, Menéndez de Avilés spent most of his time after  in Spain courting wealthy investors; indeed, at the time of his death, he was in Spain on a fundraising campaign. Unlike his predecessors, who quickly sacrificed their perfunctory settlements to the quest for gold, Menéndez de Avilés remained committed to his Florida colony throughout his life. To maintain his colony, Menéndez de Avilés developed an extended organizational scheme centered on the heavily fortified towns of San Augustin and San Mateo, each with a garrison of  men. On the South Carolina coast, the Spaniards constructed a third fort, Santa Elena, with a garrison of , to guard against French attempts to rebuild Charlesfort. Initially, San Augustin appeared the least viable of the three, with its marshy terrain and open, vulnerable harbor. But, in , the French privateer Dominique de Gourgues attacked and destroyed San Mateo; the fort was rebuilt and reoccupied, but only briefly. Twenty years later, Santa Elena was abandoned and destroyed by its own garrison after Spain accepted the inevitability of an English settlement in the Carolinas. By , San Augustin was the only major fortified settlement in the territories of Spanish Florida and the uncontested center of the Spanish colonial network there. The demographics of th-century San Augustin betray the town’s essentially military character and function. The population included a significant number of artisans and specialized craftsmen, and virtually every family maintained a small farm with livestock; indeed, in a report of , Governor Gonzalo Mendéz de Canço complained about the herds of cattle that ran free through San Augustin’s muddy streets. As elsewhere in the Spanish New World, San Augustin’s population was ethnically diverse. It included two distinct groups of Spaniards: immigrants from Spain, who typically held the principal military and civil posts in the community, and criollos, Spaniards whose birth in “the provinces” entailed a somewhat humbler social station. Spanish expeditions to Florida had always included a few fearless women, but they were invariably far outnumbered by Spanish men. From the outset, intermarriage and ethnic intermixing (mestizaje) were essential to San Augustin’s survival, though less so than in other parts of New Spain, and Hispano-Indian mestizos quickly came to comprise a substantial group within the community. At San Augustin, the population also included Native Floridians and Africans, many but by no means all of whom were slaves. But, for all its professional and ethnic diversity, San Augustin remained first and foremost a soldier’s town. As of , more than a third of the  inhabitants were professional soldiers, and virtually the entire male population, with the exception of the clergy, was expected to bear arms in times of crisis. Compared to the English colonies that later grew up in North America, the settlements of Spanish Florida were distinguished by an ethnic

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diversity still discernible in many parts of the American Southeast, yet rarely managed to move much beyond their principally military foundations. Though San Augustin was hardly a major colonial center on par with Mexico City, Lima, or Havana, it nevertheless commanded the chain of smaller, dependent outposts that Menéndez de Avilés founded to secure Spain’s foothold in what would become the southeastern United States. In the immediate vicinity, San Augustin was defended by a blockhouse at Matanzas Inlet, a watchtower on Anastasia Island, and three small forts (Picolata, San Francisco de Pupo, and Diego) along the Saint John’s River. Farther afield, the Spaniards maintained a network of less permanent outposts whose location shifted over time according to military exigency. The first were a series of watchtowers, erected by Menéndez de Avilés and his immediate successors along Cape Canaveral and Biscayne Bay to provide an early warning against the incursions of French pirates. A century later, the Spaniards raised a new line of forts on the Gulf Coast and Pensacola Bay when the French began moving into the Mississippi Delta in the s and s. Regardless of their location, however, the coastal forts remained under the authority of the governor at San Augustin as part of an extended colonial system intended for the maintenance and consolidation of Spanish power on the northern rim of the Caribbean basin. Following the example of Ribaut, Menéndez de Avilés hoped to guarantee the security of his settlements further by cultivating peaceful relations with Florida’s Native population. He enlisted Timucua scouts in the struggle against Fort Caroline and spent much of the next year traveling throughout the peninsula making contact with Native leaders. But Menéndez de Avilés was haunted by the brutal legacy of earlier conquistadores, from whom the Florida Indians had learned to fear Spaniards. In the vicinity of San Augustin, he had to contend with the hostility of the formidable Timucua chief Saturiba, an ally of the French who joined forces with Dominique de Gourgues to destroy San Mateo in . Though Menéndez de Avilés managed to establish cordial relations with the Ais, he failed completely to come to terms with the Calusa. He invested considerable time and energy in negotiating a trade compact with the colorful young Calusa cacique whom the Spaniards called Carlos. In , Menéndez de Avilés went so far as to feign a marriage to Carlos’s sister, “Doña Antonia”—in spite of the fact that he already had a wife in Spain! But Menéndez de Avilés’s efforts came to nothing. In the spring of , the Spaniards learned that Carlos was planning a secret attack and killed the unreliable cacique. The rival they raised up to take his place, “Don Felipe,” quickly proved as hostile as Carlos had been: he was executed at the orders of the adelantado’s nephew, Pedro Menéndez de Marqués, for plotting to destroy the missionary settlement of San Antonio in . Catholic missions, through which the Spaniards hoped to produce both converts and allies, played an important role in New World colonial strategies. Jesuit friars who accompanied the devout Menéndez de Avilés on his voyage established the first successful Spanish missions in La Florida. At the adelantado’s urging, and often with his personal participation, major Jesuit missions were founded at Guale (in southeastern Georgia) and at Orista; in , friar Juan Baptista de Segura led a missionary party as far north as Chesapeake Bay. Menéndez de Avilés provided each missionary with a daily stipend of three reales for subsistence, taken from the adelantado’s own pocket. Within just a few years of their arrival, the Jesuits had established  mission centers in La Florida, before a series of setbacks, including the massacre of Segura and his companions, in February , convinced them to withdraw from their mission contract in .

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The Franciscans who took up their burden the following year proved considerably more tenacious. Though nominally subject to the bishop of Havana, the Florida missions were effectively autonomous; in the century following Menéndez de Avilés’s death, the only bishops to visit the province were Juan de los Cabejos Altimirano, in , and Gabriel Dias Vara Calderón, who undertook a census of the missions in . Freedom from outside interference enabled the Franciscans in Florida to devise missionary techniques that responded to the peculiar circumstances of the region. Preaching a simplified version of the gospel, the friars often adopted Native customs as part of their missionary strategy. In , the Franciscans undertook a more systematic missionary program based on the encomiendas (mission-farms built on royal land-grants), where resident Indians received instruction in Catholic doctrine, often from mestizo friars, and sustained the community through collective agricultural labor. By ,  friars were claiming to minister to more than , Native Christians in La Florida, chiefly among the Apalachee and the Timucua. In fact, the Spanish mission system was never as successful as the Spaniards had hoped. Most Indian converts were at best tenuously Catholic, and missionaries never managed to secure a permanent foothold south of San Augustin. Even apparently secure mission centers were prone to Indian uprisings like the one that destroyed the important Guale mission in . By , the Spanish mission system had collapsed altogether under pressure from British colonial militias in the Carolinas, leaving only traces of a Spanish Catholic influence on Florida’s Native peoples. The mixed fortunes of the Spanish missions in Florida may be seen as symbolic for the Florida colony as a whole. To a considerable extent, history and geography conspired to keep the Florida colony from evolving beyond a collection of semipermanent frontier forts. In , Florida was placed under the supreme authority of the viceroys of Mexico, who never saw the territory as anything but a first line of defense against French and English aggression in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. The sweeping powers Menéndez de Avilés enjoyed as adelantado were not passed on his to successors; as terminally appointed subordinates to the governor-general of Cuba, later governors of Florida were simply unable to operate with the freedom and initiative of their colony’s founder. Moreover, fires, famines, storms, and a general mortality rate that prevented population increase for a century consistently plagued the Florida settlements. In , King Philip III ordered the governor of Cuba to conduct hearings into the feasibility of maintaining the struggling Florida settlements at all; only the perennial threat of French or English attack kept colonial authorities from abandoning Florida altogether. Most critical was the failure of the Florida colony to develop an effectively independent economy. Without gold, silver, and other mineral resources, La Florida failed to excite much interest from wealthy investors in Madrid and Mexico City; the Spaniards seem not to have appreciated the agricultural potential of Florida’s lush, subtropical climate. By , the overwhelming majority of Florida’s sparse colonial population lived within the walls of San Augustin, leaving the land beyond largely uncultivated and Florida’s natural resources untapped. The encomiendas supplied the colony with fruit, grain, and cotton; otherwise, La Florida was entirely dependent on the royal situado (subsidy), disbursed annually after  to provide for the colony’s defenses and for the missions. The situado was wholly inadequate for more significant colonial development; at times, its payment failed altogether, and the Florida colonists were forced to

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borrow from officials in Havana, creating a debt whose full repayment remained forever beyond the colony’s capacity. More than a generation after its founding, San Augustin was still a small and primitive frontier settlement of  thatched houses; even the Franciscan church, the town’s largest and most important building, was built in part of palmetto leaves and straw. Major building projects in the town were invariably military in character and came in response to foreign attacks from the sea, which reinforced the prevailing view in Mexico City and Havana that Florida was a strategically essential but economically marginal frontier on the peripheries of Spain’s New World empire. After Sir Francis Drake attacked and burned the town, in , Governor Hernando de Miranda began the costly fortification of the harbor; the massive stone fortress of San Marcos, which still stands watch over the harbor today, was built at the command of Governor Francisco de la Guerra y de la Vega after the destructive raid of the English pirate Robert Searles in . So long as they remained essentially military posts, neither San Augustin nor its dependent settlements could develop the diversified and professionally specialized population base necessary to colonial self-sufficiency. But even if Spanish Florida never quite lived up to its founder’s expectations, it would nevertheless be a mistake to underestimate the colony’s significance. Animated by the tenacious spirit of its founder, San Augustin endured often astonishing hardships to become—as any inhabitant of Saint Augustine will proudly attest—the oldest continually inhabited city north of the Rio Grande. While more ambitious colonial ventures elsewhere in North America collapsed in the face of lesser adversities, La Florida weathered remarkable hardships to retain its institutional integrity for two centuries. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés was followed by a succession of  royally appointed governors who ruled Spanish Florida from  until the British took control of the territory under the Peace of Paris in . After the American Revolutionary War, Florida was returned to nominal Spanish control by the Treaty of Paris (), until the territory was annexed in the Adams-Onis Treaty of . Until then, San Augustin and its satellites offered incontrovertible evidence that the North American wilderness could sustain a European colony, so long as its colonists were willing to endure the attendant challenges. Soon after San Augustin’s foundation, the wealth of the colonial empire La Florida helped to defend would all but compel Spain’s European neighbors to seek their own colonial fortunes in North America. While none of Spain’s colonial rivals in the Americas would adopt the Florida model outright, all of them would borrow elements of Spanish colonial government (particularly in terms of military administration), and all would profit from the lessons of the Spanish experiment. Most important, as the French, the Dutch, and, above all, the British came to challenge Spain’s domination in the New World, they would create global empires that would not only redefine the bases of power in Europe but, in the process, lay the foundations of American nationhood. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Axtell, James. The Indians’ New South: Cultural Change in the Colonial Southeast. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . A study of the impact of the Europeans on the southeastern Indians between  and .

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Barrientos, Bartolomé. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Founder of Florida. Trans. Anthony Kerrigan. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, . Composed by a prominent Spanish scholar in , this lively and highly informative biography traces Menéndez’s life and career up to December . Cook, Noble David. Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . A careful analysis of the depopulating impact of European disease on Native Americans. Deagan, Kathleen, et al. Spanish St. Augustine: the Archaeology of a Colonial Creole Community. New York: Academic Press, . Seven archaeologists examine different aspects of settlement and society in Saint Augustine from the th through the th centuries. Galloway, Patricia, ed. The Hernando de Soto Expedition: History, Historiography, and “Discovery” in the Southeast. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, . Collection of essays on different aspects of de Soto’s expedition through the American Southeast. Laudonnière, René. Three Voyages. Trans. Charles E. Bennet. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, . Laudonnière’s thorough and fascinating account of the French experience in Florida provides a valuable corrective to Barrientos’s panegyric of Menéndez. Lorant, Stefan. The New World; the first pictures of America, made by John White and Jacques Le Moyne and engraved by Theodore De Bry, with contemporary narratives of the Huguenot settlement in Florida, –, and the Virginia colony, –. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pierce, . This interesting collection of materials includes two eyewitness accounts of the French colony in Florida by the artist Jacques LeMoyne and the carpenter Nicolas LeChalleux, illustrated with  marvelous engravings of Florida’s Indians and fauna by Theodore De Bry, based on LeMoyne’s own paintings. Lowery, Woodbury. The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States. Florida, –. New York: Russell and Russell, . First published in , Lowery’s comprehensive account, based on extensive consultation of the materials in Ruidíaz’s La Florida, remains the definitive narrative of the establishment of the Spanish colony in Florida. Lyon, Eugene. The Enterprise of Florida: Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the Spanish Conquest of –. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, . This extremely well-researched monograph examines both the founding of the Spanish colony in Florida and the political processes that underlay it. McEwan, Bonnie G., ed. The Spanish Missions of La Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, . This collection of  essays by archaeologists examines a wide range of topics concerning life in the Spanish missions. Milanich, Jerald T. Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, . Examines the European settlement of Florida from the Indian perspective on the basis of extensive archaeological research. Reitz, Elizabeth Jean, and C. Margaret Scarry. Reconstructing Historic Subsistence, with an Example from Sixteenth-Century Spanish Florida. Glassboro, NJ: Society for Historical Archaeology, . This relatively short monograph offers a fascinating and thorough, though highly technical, investigation of the relationship between environment and diet in early Spanish Florida. Sauer, Carl O. Sixteenth-Century North America. The Land and the People as Seen by the Europeans. Berkeley: University of California Press, . A general survey that draws heavily from contemporary accounts; Part III is most useful for those interested in the Spanish foundation of Saint Augustine. Tebeau, Charlton W. A History of Florida. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, . Chapters , , and  provide a concise discussion of the Spanish experience in Florida, placed in the larger context of the state’s history.

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Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . This lively, well-researched, and eminently accessible work tells the story of the Spanish presence and significance in North America.

CASTILLO DE SAN MARCOS Erected at Saint Augustine, Florida, the Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest stone block fort in the continental United States. The Castillo de San Marcos was constructed between  and  and protected the Spanish settlement at Saint Augustine for centuries. Located on the Florida peninsula, Saint Augustine became an important link in the protection of the great Spanish commercial route that joined its rich Latin American colonies with Spain itself. The route followed by the Spanish treasure ships sailing in the Bahama Channel on their way to Spain passed close by the tip of Florida. It was thus essential that Spain establish a strong presence at Saint Augustine to prevent Florida from falling under the control of its enemies, who might then establish bases there and mount attacks against the treasure ships. England’s  colonization of nearby Carolina brought the opposing sides closer. The proximity of the two enemies further magnified Florida’s need to construct strong and modern defenses. Construction of the fort began in , just four years after English pirate Robert Searles attacked Saint Augustine. Florida’s governor retained the services of Ignacio Daza, a military engineer responsible for the design and construction of fortifications throughout the Spanish Empire, including the forts at Havana and at San Juan, Puerto Rico. Construction began on October , , at the site of Saint Augustine’s ninth and final wooden fort. Located on the bank of the Matanzas River and overlooking Anastasia Island and the entrance to the harbor, the site had been used as a military outpost for more than a century when construction began. The fort’s design called for a structure approximately  feet tall, with four-sided bastions jutting out of each corner. The top of each bastion was painted red and white, Spain’s traditional colors. Because of the shape of the bastions, the fort appeared triangular. A water-filled moat surrounded the fort, and beyond that stood a secondary wall that created a partial sea wall. A stone-like substance composed of compressed sea shells and sand called coquina provided the material to build the fort. Workers quarried sufficient coquina locally to complete the project. In the th century, engineers added an additional wall, known as the Cubo line. This extension began at the fort’s edge and ended west of the city at the San Sebastian River. By , much of the fort was complete, and the outpost housed approximately  soldiers. When completed, the fort made Saint Augustine the heaviest guarded city in what is now the United States. In , Carolina governor James Moore provided the first test for the fort when his troops sacked and burned Saint Augustine. During the invasion, Florida residents found protection inside the walls of the Castillo. When the attack ended, Saint Augustine remained in Spanish hands only because the English could not breach the walls of the fort. In , the English again attacked Saint Augustine but again failed to capture the fort. In , Britain assumed control of Florida as a result of the French and Indian War. Initially, the British did not make much use of the fort until they faced the possibility of a colonial revolution. In , the British renovated the fort in preparation for the

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coming American Revolution. In , Spain regained possession of Florida. During the second Spanish period, the Spaniards made additional repairs to the Castillo, but the fort proved an unnecessary fortification for the small outpost. On July , , the United States assumed control of Florida and the Castillo de San Marcos.

shane runyon HERNANDO DE SOTO (ca. 1497–1542) Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador in the th century who participated in the conquest of the Inca Empire and conducted extensive explorations of present-day Florida and the southern United States from  to . De Soto was born in about  in Jeréz de los Caballeros. in the province of Estremadura, Spain, an area noted for producing many of the Spanish conquistadors. His parents, Francisco Méndez de Soto and Leonor Arías Tinoco, were hidalgos, or members of the Spanish upper class, and wanted their son to become a lawyer. Because of his social standing, de Soto was literate and educated, although not much is known about his youth. Evidence suggests that. by , de Soto was in the Americas. In , he was part of the force under Pedro Arias de Ávila (usually known as Pedrarias) on the second expedition to Darién, a city founded in  by the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa on the isthmus of Panama. (De Ávila later became governor of Darién by displacing Balboa and ordering him beheaded.) Throughout the s, de Soto participated in numerous military expeditions in Panama and Nicaragua. As a result of his exploits, he amassed a great deal of wealth from slave trading and plunder captured from Native Americans. From  to , de Soto led a group of men who assisted Francisco Pizarro in his conquest of Peru. De Soto and his men helped to found the first Spanish settlement in Peru, named San Miguel, and then to seize and subsequently guard the Inca emperor Atahualpa. In , de Soto returned to Spain with a massive fortune of , ducats from the conquest of the Inca Empire that was divided among the Spanish conquistadors. That newly acquired wealth allowed de Soto to marry Isabela de Bobadilla, the daughter of his old commander de Ávila. In Spain, de Soto attempted to persuade Holy Roman emperor Charles V to grant him lands in either Ecuador, Colombia, or Guatemala, but Charles refused. However, stories of adventure and wealth inspired de Soto to try his hand at the exploration of Florida. On April , , he obtained a royal grant from Charles that named him governor of Cuba and adelantado (the king’s “advance agent”) in the lands of Florida. In order to mount the expedition to Florida, de Soto sold part of his property and gathered a force of  men. In April , the group set sail from Spain. De Soto’s first stop in North America was Havana, Cuba, where he established a base of operations and completed the organization of his expedition to Florida. On May , , he and his men left Cuba, and, seven days later, they arrived on the west coast of Florida near present-day Tampa Bay. There they made contact with a village of Uzita. Among the people who traveled with de Soto were two women, a trumpeter, priests, servants, shoemakers, a notary, cavalry, and infantry. The total size of the de Soto expedition to Florida was between  and  people. Furthermore, he had  horses and a large number of pigs for food.

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De Soto searched for gold and riches for almost four years. During that time, he and his men traveled through present-day Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. They went as far north as the Appalachian Mountains in present-day North Carolina and Tennessee and encountered numerous groups of Native Americans: Tequesta, Calusa, Moscoso, Urriparacoxi, Tocobaga, and Utina. In , de Soto and his entourage sighted the Mississippi River. Despite de Soto’s lengthy stay in the region, no lasting settlement was established. As with other Spanish expeditions, treatment of Native inhabitants was harsh and often brutal. De Soto’s strategy was to capture the chief or head of each village through which they passed. The captive would then be ransomed to ensure that Spanish demands for food, women, and slaves were met. If the demands were satisfied, the captive would be released when the expedition approached the next village, where the process was repeated. In one instance, however, the strategy had unexpected repercussions when the captive, a Choctaw chief named Taskaloosa (Tuscaloosa), orchestrated an offensive in response, which at first sent the Spanish reeling. In the ensuing fight, known as the Battle of Mabila (near present-day Selma, Alabama), de Soto’s troops eventually regained the initiative and inflicted an estimated , casualties. Following the Battle of Mabila, de Soto headed northwest, where, in , his winter encampment was attacked and burned by Chickasaws. In the spring of , the expedition moved west across the Mississippi River, where de Soto died of fever on May . The survivors of the nearly four-year-old expedition were finally driven out of the New World by Native Americans from the kingdom of Quigualtam. De Soto’s men, now under the command of Luís Moscoso de Alvarado, sailed down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. In September , approximately  survivors of the expedition arrived at Panuco on the west coast of Mexico, near Tampico.

FLORIDA The area that makes up the state of Florida was inhabited as early as , years ago. In the last centuries before contact with other cultures, Native Americans in the area developed complex societies, practiced agriculture, developed extensive trade networks, and built large temple mounds. When Europeans arrived, in the th century, the dominant peoples in the region were the Calusa, who lived on the southwestern coast; the Timucua, who lived in the northern half of the Florida peninsula; the Tekesta, who lived in the southeastern part of Florida and included present-day Miami in its territory; and the Apalachee, who lived in the northwestern extreme of the peninsula and adjacent parts of the adjacent parts of what is now the Florida panhandle. Juan Ponce de León, who gave Florida its name after leading an expedition of Spaniards that landed near present-day Saint Augustine in , is often credited with being the first European to visit the region. Ponce de León returned in  and was unsuccessful in his attempts to found a colony near present-day Fort Myers. Over the next several decades, subsequent Spanish expeditions to Florida, including those by Pánfilo de Narváez and Hernando de Soto, were brief. Consequences were severe for Native Americans, nonetheless, as they died in large numbers from diseases that Europeans brought.

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French establishment of a fort at the mouth of the Saint Johns River in  led to more serious Spanish attempts to establish a presence. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded Saint Augustine in  and attacked the French settlement to the north, slaughtering most of the residents. Over the next  years, the Spanish were in regular conflict with another enemy, the English, who established the colonies of Georgia and South Carolina to the north. The Battle of Bloody Marsh, in , in which settlers from Georgia defeated the Spanish, caused the northern border of Florida to be established at the Saint Marys River. By this time, the Native inhabitants of Florida had largely been wiped out and were replaced by Creeks and other southeastern peoples who moved into the area and became known as the Seminoles. The Spanish ceded Florida to Great Britain after the French and Indian War in , but the British ceded it back to Spain in , at the end of the American Revolution. Over the next  years, Spain and the newly founded United States were at odds over the northern boundary of West Florida, which was finally established by treaty in . U.S. influence increased in the area as many Americans were drawn to Florida by the opportunity to own land. During the War of , Andrew Jackson led U.S. soldiers into the area and took Pensacola, where Spain had allowed the British to set up a naval base. Jackson brought U.S. troops to Florida again in , retaliating for Seminole raids during the First Seminole War. That year, Spain ceded Florida to the United States. Florida became a territory in , minus the lands along that Gulf of Mexico that Spain had ceded in  and that became parts of the states of Mississippi and Alabama. The southern plantation system, based on the labor of enslaved Africans, became established during Florida’s territorial period. Tobacco and cotton were the major crops grown in Florida. As white settlement increased, the Seminoles were increasingly and more brutally displaced from their lands. Attempts to remove them from Florida to Indian Territory resulted in the Second Seminole War, during –, which ended with most Seminoles being killed or removed and a few others retreating to the swamps of the Everglades. Florida became a state in  and quickly allied itself with the other slave states in the growing tensions between the slave South and the free North. After the election to the presidency, in , of Abraham Lincoln, a member of the antislavery Republican Party, Florida seceded from the Union. It joined other secessionist slave states in the Confederate States of America several weeks later. During the Civil War, no decisive battles were fought in Florida. The Union occupied many coastal towns in the state, but the Confederacy controlled the interior. After the war, Florida, like most other former Confederate states, was placed under military rule in , and former Confederate leaders were kept out of political office. Blacks, most of whom were recently freed from slavery, gained the right to vote, and the Republican Party gained control of state politics. As in other parts of the South, Florida Democrats eventually regained control of its state legislature in the s and reversed many of the gains made by blacks. In the years after the Civil War, Florida followed a Southern trend in agriculture, as tenant farming, or sharecropping, replaced the plantation system. The tenant farming system caused many farmers to go into debt to large landowners and to live in extreme poverty. This compelled many poor farmers to join such populist organizations as the Farmers’ Alliance and the People’s Party (also known as the Populist Party), which advocated policies friendly to small farmers. The Alliance was particularly successful in influencing the policies of the Democratic Party in the late th century.

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While many events in Florida mirrored events in the South in general, other changes helped the state become unique among former Confederate states. An expanding system of railroads brought new settlers and many tourists from the North, and the first big real estate boom in the South began. Northern capitalists like Henry Flagler profited by building both railroads and such tourist facilities as hotels. New lands were also opened to agriculture in the southern part of the state, and citrus and cattle raising became important industries. Manufacturing also spread during this time, particularly the cigar industry. Florida entered a period of progressive politics in the early part of the century, particularly under governors William Sherman Jennings, elected in , and Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, elected in . Broward made his name as a corporate and railroad watchdog. During his tenure, higher education was boosted and the government commission charged with monitoring the powerful railroads was strengthened. Florida passed legislation prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and use of alcohol before nationwide prohibition under the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. After World War I, Florida experienced its greatest land boom. As the tourist industry expanded, Florida’s population grew four times faster in the early s than that of any other state. After several years, the demand for land declined, and the largely inflated land prices plummeted. Though Florida’s early land boom ended in , tourism has remained a dominant industry in the state. Following the end of the boom times, several other disasters struck the state. Major hurricanes brought devastation in the late s, and in  the Mediterranean fruit fly caused a  percent drop in citrus production. Also in , the Great Depression hit the United States. It would take the better part of the next decade for federal and state programs to help boost the state’s economy and improve the lot of its citizens. Also during this time, wood pulp and paper production developed as important industries. Following the U.S. entry into World War II, in , the establishment of military bases helped bring real prosperity back to Florida. After the war, the state’s economy and population resumed their rapid growth. The seemingly limitless water supply and the mild climate of Florida brought business and people. An important new industry was aerospace. The U.S. Air Force Missile Test Center was established at Cape Canaveral in , and this site later became a center for space exploration, with the Cape serving as the site for satellite launches beginning in  and manned space launches beginning in the s. Florida’s population has changed dramatically since the s. Many new Floridians came from the North or other parts of the United States, and many came from the Caribbean, especially Cuba. The Cuban Revolution in the late s touched off a flood of refugees who began arriving in . Another wave of Cuban refugees hit Florida in , when Cuban leader Fidel Castro allowed a large flotilla of privately owned boats to shuttle emigrants from the Cuban port of Mariel. In , a military coup in the Caribbean nation of Haiti caused many Haitians to flee to Florida. In the late th century, Miami, heavily influenced by the refugee flow from the Caribbean, became a major media and trade center for Latin America. The influx of refugees from the Caribbean has been paralleled by the steady movement of Americans from outside Florida, particularly the northeastern states, into the state. Many of these new residents are retirees, large numbers of which have settled in communities like Saint Petersburg and West Palm Beach.

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Together, foreign refugees and northern migrants transformed state politics. The massive movement of Cuban refugees into southern Florida made Cuban immigrants a major political force in that part of the state. African Americans, already socially and politically disadvantaged, suffered a further loss of power as a result. Frustrated over their impoverished condition and angered by their treatment from police, many African Americans rioted in Miami in , resulting in  deaths and $ million in property damage. Meanwhile, with the growth of the Cuban community transforming southern Florida, the arrival of many new voters from outside the Democratic south changed statewide voting patterns. Republican candidates have won the governor’s office regularly since the s, and Florida voted Republican in nearly every presidential election from  to .

dave compton JUAN PONCE DE LEÓN (ca. 1470–1521) Juan Ponce de León was the first European to navigate the southeastern tip of the United States. In , he discovered the peninsula that is today part of the state of Florida. In , Ponce de León made an unsuccessful trip to return and settle there. Ponce de León was born to noble parents in around  in San Servas, in the province of León, Spain. He served as a soldier all his life, beginning with campaigns in Granada that drove the Moors out of Spain in . The next year, he accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to America. Ponce de León joined the rebellion against Columbus’s rule in the West Indies. In , Nicolas de Ovando, governor of Hispaniola, appointed Ponce de León the lieutenant of the eastern side of the island. Looking east from his territories, Ponce de León could see another island that the Spanish had not yet conquered (present-day Puerto Rico). In , he invaded it and secured it for the Spanish Crown. Ponce de León competed with Columbus’s son Diego Columbus for the governorship of the new territory. Finally, King Ferdinand V granted the position to Ponce de León, and he settled with his wife and children in the new capital of San Juan. In Puerto Rico, Ponce de León heard rumors of a land to the north called Biminy that was thought to be part of Asia. The rumors promised that the new land contained great wealth in gold and slaves. In , he appealed to the king for the authority to conquer that unexplored area. The king granted Ponce de León lifetime rule over any territories he should discover. Ponce de León outfitted three ships at his own expense and sailed northwest from Puerto Rico in . The ships navigated through the Bahamas and landed on the future site of Saint Augustine, on the eastern coast of Florida, on Easter Sunday, . Ponce de León called the country Pascua Florida after the Spanish word for Easter. Ponce de León fought strong currents to navigate around Cape Canaveral, where he set up a stone cross after defeating some hostile Native Americans in the area. Ponce de León and his ships traveled an unknown distance north up the coast of Florida, possibly to Charlotte Harbor, and then returned to Puerto Rico. Soon after his return to Puerto Rico, Ponce de León left for Spain to report on his explorations and strengthen his authority over the conquered areas. The king granted

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Ponce de León the title of adelantado (or military governor) over Florida and also permitted him to wage war against the Native Americans in the territory, which enabled Ponce de León to make slaves of any Indians who resisted conversion to Catholicism. Before Ponce de León could return to Florida in , the king gave him command of a mission to fight the Caribs, a warlike people who were invading the islands around Puerto Rico. Ponce de León further delayed his explorations to Florida by arranging the marriages of his daughters and building up his finances after losing significant funds on his first expedition in the Spanish colony. In , Ponce de León heard of the incredible wealth of the Mexican Aztec Empire, which had been conquered by Hernán Cortés. Ponce de León hoped to discover similar great civilizations in Florida and believed that the territory promised to be plentiful in tropical fruits, gold, and pearls. Thinking the peninsula was an island, Ponce de León appealed to the king to finance settlement of that area and also to support the search for the mainland. He recruited  settlers for that second expedition and also brought tools, livestock, seeds, and missionaries. His two ships made a difficult trip to the area of Tampa Bay, where they began to build a colony. Shortly thereafter, in an attack by the Calusas Indians, Ponce de León suffered an arrow wound. Leaving the settlers there, the injured Ponce de León returned to Cuba and died soon after, in May . In the next several years, many other Spanish expeditions explored Florida. Eventually, Spain built forts and missions on the peninsula, but they always conflicted with local Indian tribes. Because of Spain’s nearly continuous warfare with other European powers, Florida would pass in and out of its control for the next  years.

nicole von germeten

5 Early English Colonization Efforts, ca. 1584–1630

INTRODUCTION The first sanctioned English venture to America came with the voyages of an Italian, Giovanni Caboto, better known as John Cabot, at the end of the th century. Cabot was probably the first European to sail along the coast of eastern North America and to recognize it for what it was, a previously unknown continent. As a young man living in Italy, Cabot plied the Mediterranean as a merchant seaman. He went to England around  (some scholars believe it was as late as ) and settled in Bristol, already an important seafaring community, where he learned about Iceland and Greenland and the possibility of a passage to the rich lands of the Orient. In , King Henry VII of England sanctioned Cabot’s first voyage of exploration. That year, he made a relatively short voyage that probably did not take him farther than Iceland. In  and , he made two longer voyages in search of a route to Asia. During his first voyage, from May to August , Cabot reached Labrador and, possibly, Newfoundland. On his  voyage, sponsored by King Henry and a group of English merchants, he sailed farther to the south and reached the East Coast of what is now the United States. Cabot died on this voyage, but his son Sebastian returned to England and spent the rest of his life aggrandizing his own accomplishments at the expense of his father’s and thoroughly confusing the historical record. Nevertheless, Cabot’s voyages did open the door to the possibility for English exploitation of the New World. England, however, was not yet ready to take that step. By the middle of the th century, England was on the verge of having the capability to colonize overseas. An economic revival in Europe increased demand for cloth, which at that time meant wool. England was ideally suited for raising sheep, and the process of creating enclosed pastureland began. This displaced serfs who had been utilized as farm laborers and contributed to a late-th-century phenomenon of excess labor and insufficient food. Wool exports, meanwhile, were creating a surplus of capital in England that could be used for investing in, say, a colonization venture. This economic situation helped create the conditions that produced colonizing efforts in competition with other states in Europe. By the late th century, English merchants were also involved heavily in the export of finished cloth, a more expansive market than wool. They were also developing coastal and overseas shipping operations and, ultimately, de facto control of England’s foreign trade. This made the merchant

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A world’s fair known as the Jamestown Tercentenary Exposition celebrated the tercentenary of the founding of Jamestown in 1607. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

class a powerful force in English society and the element necessary for successful colonization. Not only did the merchants provide the means for colonization, but they also determined the nature and purpose of the colonies that would be established. When it became apparent that England’s colonies were not going to yield the treasures in gold and silver that the Spanish colonies did, commerce was the only practical rationale for establishing colonies. From the beginning, English merchants assumed that their colonies would provide raw materials for England’s manufacturing economy and markets for England’s finished products. Colonization efforts on the part of the English might have come earlier had it not been for the religious situation in Europe in the mid-th century. Europe was in the midst of the Protestant Reformation, which was producing much political instability because of the intense rivalry between Protestants and Catholics. As a newly Protestant state, thanks to Henry VIII’s insistence on several marriages to try to produce a male heir, England was divided between those like Elizabeth I (queen –), who was loyal to her father’s religion, and Catholics, who continued to place their faith in Rome. Given the domestic situation, as well as the threat posed by Catholic Spain and Catholics in France (itself rent by religious strife), Elizabeth had no time for or interest in colonial ventures early in her reign. Toward the latter years of the century, however, the situation within England stabilized, while the rivalry with Spain intensified and grew hostile, factors that produced more interest in extending the competition with Spain into the colonial area. At the same time, however, Spain was England’s best foreign trade customer, and, until English merchants found other markets, Spain had to be mollified. These new markets could be developed with American colonies, and, as interest in that alternative grew, so did the deterioration of Anglo-Spanish relations, culminating in the defeat of the Spanish Armada in . By , English sea captains were finding their way to North America in increasing numbers. In the s, Francis Drake and Martin Frobisher skirted the Western

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Hemisphere in the elusive search for more treasures beyond. The first serious effort to establish a colony in North America was that of Sir Walter Raleigh, who launched an expedition in April . Sailing north of their intended course, the colonists passed the North Carolina coast and made landfall north of Cape Hatteras near Roanoke Island. The local Indians were hospitable, the food was good and plentiful, and the prospects for a successful colony appeared excellent. The following year, seven ships under the command of Richard Grenville landed at nearby Pimlico Sound. This time, the loss of a silver cup led to the burning of an Indian village and continued trouble with the Natives. A party was left over the winter of –, however, and survived quite well. In , the Indians’ hospitality began to wear thin, and, when Drake arrived in June with a veritable fleet of  ships, the Pimlico settlers chose to return to England. In July , a new band of colonists came to Roanoke Island. Poorly supplied and inexperienced, they were left to their own devices. By the time a relief expedition returned to Roanoke Island in August , there was no trace of the colony or any of its inhabitants. This put a damper on new colonization efforts for a number of years, although much interest had been generated by the efforts that were made. Between the s and the formation of the Virginia Company, in , the geographer Richard Hakluyt kept interest in colonization alive through his writings about the subject and its importance to England’s future national greatness. Only colonies could free England from economic dependence on Spain and provide security by allowing the construction of strategic outposts to protect shipping. The idea of converting Natives to Christianity and thus pleasing God also worked its way into the equation. The goal was finally satisfied with the chartering, in , of the Virginia Company. The company’s purpose was to establish colonies along the Atlantic Coast of America between  and  degrees north latitude. In , the first representatives of this company landed near the mouth of the James River in present-day Virginia and named their settlement Jamestown, after King James I. On their agenda were the multiple objectives of searching for valuable minerals, looking for a northwest passage to the riches of the Orient, persuading the Indians to be good neighbors, customers, and Christians, and laying the groundwork through agriculture and town-building for a permanent community. When neither gold, nor silver, nor a northwest passage was found in the first year or so, the company changed course and concluded that the only way Jamestown could survive was through a much greater infusion of both capital and settlers. In , the Virginia Company became a public joint-stock company to raise both money and potential settlers. By advertising financial incentives and hinting that investors would participate in the decisions of the company, the Virginia Company eventually attracted the people and money it needed to survive, especially after the move toward extensive tobacco production in . The rapidly growing market for tobacco in England created interest in acquiring land in Virginia, and, between  and , the colony grew from  to , people. If commerce was the principal motivation for the Virginia settlers, religion served to inspire the earliest New England settlements, although that was not the original intention. In , the Concord, captained by Bartholomew Gosnold, anchored off the coast of present-day Maine. This expedition, the first since the disappearance of the Roanoke Island colonists, intended to establish a colony through which the economic resources

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of the surrounding area could be exploited. The small band of colonists encountered friendly Indians almost immediately, but the task that lay before them was simply overwhelming, and they sailed home after five weeks ashore. Gosnold made a positive report about the land he had seen, however, and, in , another expedition made its way to the shores of Maine, making landfall near the Kennebec River. The colonists built a small fortified village and entered into trade with local Indians, but they were unable to cope with the severe winter weather and returned to England the following spring. Thus, it was the fate of the Pilgrims to create the first permanent settlement in New England in . The Pilgrims were religious refugees who were known as Separatists in England. They believed that the split from the Roman Catholic Church that King Henry VIII had engineered had not gone far enough in liturgical reform. They wanted to “purify” the Church by eliminating all ceremonies reminiscent of Catholicism. Some Puritans preferred to fight for reform from within the Church, while others felt it necessary to separate themselves from the established Church and form their own Church. This was not acceptable to the English government. One group of Separatists, after a good deal of legal harassment, found its way to the Netherlands, where freedom of worship was accepted. They stayed in the Netherlands for  years but always felt like exiles and consequently determined to go to America. The Pilgrims, as they called themselves, appealed to the Virginia Company of London for a patent, which would give them the right to settle within the territory the company controlled. They also made some financial arrangements with Thomas Weston, a London ironmonger who was seeking investment opportunities. Weston helped the Pilgrims obtain their patent from the Virginia Company and offered to subsidize their expedition, but in return he demanded joint ownership of everything built or produced in the colony for a period of seven years. The details of the arrangement were still unsettled when the Pilgrims left the Netherlands for England, where their ship, the Mayflower, was being prepared. Last-minute negotiations with Weston broke down, and he withdrew further financial support. The determined Pilgrims proceeded on their own. The Mayflower arrived in Provincetown harbor, at the tip of Cape Cod, on November , , but the company moved to Plymouth Bay in early December. During the winter that followed, nearly half the  men and women died, and the settlement barely eked out an existence. With the help of friendly Indians, the Plymouth colony did better the next year and was heartened when a group of  new settlers arrived in November. But the newcomers, who had brought no supplies with them, depleted the available food, and the colony passed another difficult winter. After , however, its fortunes improved, and its survival was ensured. In , another Puritan colony was established under the auspices of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Here the motive for colonization was again less commercial and more religious. Led by John Winthrop, whose vision for the colony is explored in the interpretive essay for this chapter, the Massachusetts Bay colony grew rapidly in the s, finding its success in good planning, substantial capital, and political influence back in England. Even so, the colonists needed aid from Indians occasionally when crop yields were low. Still, the colony attracted thousands of new settlers during its first decade, and new villages sprung up along the Massachusetts coast and the rivers that

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emptied into the bays. Settlers spread into present-day Connecticut and, in , the four Puritan colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven loosely organized themselves into the New England Confederation to cooperate in regional defense matters against the French to the north, the Dutch to the west, and the Indians all around them.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY rick kennedy In the spring of , John Winthrop composed and delivered one of the most famous speeches in American history, “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop was the head of the Massachusetts Bay Company, a corporation that organized a crossing of the Atlantic to establish an English colony. His goal, at its core, was simple. He wanted to create a society out of towns that were economically, politically, and religiously prosperous, thereby serving as a model to the world. Adopting an image used by Jesus, his colony was to be a “City upon a Hill” where “the eyes of all people are upon us.” Although initially delivered as a speech, “A Model of Christian Charity” was subsequently printed as an essay and widely distributed. The idea of a watching world may seem a bit egomaniacal; however, a bigger world than Winthrop ever imagined has continued to watch for  years. Popular histories of Winthrop’s company began to be written within a half-century. Within another century, English Whigs and American revolutionaries were regularly referring to the motives and actions of the Puritan migration as they questioned the relationship between England and her colonies. In the th century, the world really was watching America, and Winthrop’s speech came to be thought of as prophecy. In the early th century, Puritan studies became a major cottage industry at American universities, and interest in Puritan society and culture has continued throughout the century. Ronald Reagan, in his first presidential inaugural address, quoted Winthrop’s famous sentence: “For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, next to our national Founding Fathers, are probably the most highly studied and talked about group of people in American history. If we consider this, Winthrop and his Puritans are more a city on a hill now than they were then. In this light, it behooves us to look at the “Model of Christian Charity” and see what is in it and in the Massachusetts Bay Company’s implementation of it that has such lasting power. John Winthrop was born in , the year the Spanish Armada fell to the English navy. England was proud and confident during the first decades of his life. Queen Elizabeth’s greatness was clear. She had made a weak and fractious country strong and stable. Without recourse to ruinous taxation, military oppression, or draconian politics, Elizabeth had guided the country to greatness by compromise and moderation. When John Winthrop went to Cambridge University, he joined with other pious young men who enjoyed the benefits of Elizabeth’s England but were uncomfortable with Elizabethan complacency and compromise. For the young men of Cambridge, Elizabethan wealth and stability left them yearning for something still better. Winthrop

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and many of his friends became part of an informal network of dynamic people called Puritans, who wanted to reform England. The members of this informal network would eventually be leaders in a migration to America and a revolution in England. After college, John Winthrop owned a village named Groton out in what might be called the Kansas of England. Winthrop was a typical village owner. He rented lands to farmers on long-term leases, owned and operated the church, hired the minister, settled local disputes, and encouraged education, family life, and care for any in the community who became destitute. Winthrop was a member of the conscientious ruling elite of England. Men such as he were the backbone of what made rural England good and virtuous. They considered themselves and the people they looked after to be free. After Elizabeth died, in , the Stuart family came to the throne. To people like Winthrop, there appeared to be an increase in political corruption. Economic decline seemed rampant. The second Stuart king, Charles I, began, in , to implement policies that diminished the independence of villages like Groton. Under the king’s authority, the archbishop of Canterbury began to interfere with the local churches, including those like Winthrop’s that were managed and funded by the local manor lord. In , Winthrop sold his village and joined with a network of Puritan friends, many of them connected through Cambridge University, in purchasing stock in the Massachusetts Bay Company. Winthrop set sail aboard the Arbella and reached Salem in June . As the stockholders of a company to set up a community in America, Winthrop and his friends regained an extensive amount of economic, political, and religious independence. Although villages in England were losing their autonomy under Charles I’s policy of political and religious centralization, company charters to America did not receive the same close oversight. The stockholders elected the -year-old Winthrop their governor. Hundreds of farmers and trades people joined the expedition as workers—many of them people who had previously rented from or worked for the stockholders. At this time, Winthrop composed his “Model of Christian Charity.” Although much would later be said about the motivation for religious freedom that spurred the Puritans to this moment, the essay itself is just as much about politics, economics, and, specifically, the need to reclaim local autonomy and responsibility against the centralizing tendency of the king. The greatness of Winthrop’s essay, and the Puritan migration in general, is that, though Winthrop and the Puritans sought to regain lost freedom, they succeeded in doing so much more with the freedom they gained than they ever would have been able to do in England even if they had never lost their Elizabethan freedom. The call of Winthrop’s words and the actions he led in Massachusetts far exceeded any selfish attempt of a threatened owner of a village to gain control of a new village. The conclusion of “A Model of Christian Charity” is the most important part of Winthrop’s essay. “It rests now to make some application,” he declared. First, those who claim to be Christians should be “knit together” in a “bond of Love.” Second, church and town governments must work together, and the public good must “oversway all private respects.” Third, the goal is “to improve our lives, to do more service to the Lord.” Fourth, and most significant, “Whatsoever we did or ought to have done when we lived in England, the same must we do and more also where we go.” Winthrop declared a contract between the Puritans and God. God has “ratified” the contract and further commissioned the Puritans to get to work. God, Winthrop

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threatened, “will expect strict performance.” Given this threat, there is only one way to success: “to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God.” It is in this context that Winthrop then closes with the “city upon a hill” line. But note that the line is in the context of failure, not success: For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be a by-word through the world. With such a speech about such a contract and such a commission, how could anyone expect Winthrop and the Puritans to succeed? In fact, they did not succeed—in the long run. In his own diary, Winthrop reported the frustrations and failures. “As the people increased,” he wrote  years after arriving in New England, “so sin abounded.” But, early on, Winthrop and his company made an heroic effort to succeed. The story of the initial implementation of Winthrop’s speech makes it amazing that he did succeed. Winthrop turned his directorship into an annually elected position. Voting was extended more widely among the people than ever before in England. Renters became landowners. Rich people took less than they could have demanded. Local government was given autonomy. Ministers restrained their political power. Public education was ensured to all children. Virtuous economics was encouraged and price-gouging punished. Surely anyone watching had to admit that the Puritans used their increased freedom to do more political, economic, and religious good in America than was ever possible in England. Take first the change in Winthrop’s position from company director to governor and the extension of voting rights. The stockholders of the Massachusetts Bay Company were a relatively small number of men who were given extensive powers to run their business. Winthrop was elected director by these stockholders. Normal expectation would have the on-site stockholders set up shop in America as an all-powerful aristocracy. Communities of utopian dreamers tend to centralize power, rather than disperse it. Winthrop and the stockholders, however, began almost immediately to reinterpret their royal charter so as to set up a little Puritan republic rather than the business venture that it legally was. On October , , Winthrop and seven stockholders met in an open meeting, as Edmund Morgan writes, to implement “a revolution that was to affect the history of Massachusetts from that time forward” (Morgan, p. ). Essentially, ownership was extended out to “the people”—that vague term that at that time meant most of the adult males in Massachusetts. What used to be a company was now a self-governing commonwealth, with “the people” having the power to elect a legislature, which, in turn, had the power to appoint yearly a governor and deputy governor. The only way to understand such a move is to see that Winthrop and his colleagues were serious about what was said in “A Model of Christian Charity.” If the Puritans were supposed to be “knit together” with everybody responsible for the success or failure of the enterprise, then Winthrop and the stockholders had to share responsibility and control with those who had not initially put up any money.

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Next, consider the fact that renters became landowners and rich people willingly took less than they might have. When migrating to America, a large number of small farmers and townspeople joined the endeavor. Although many of these people had sold their land in England and were prepared to buy in America, there were also many people who had not owned any land. Many farmers in England held long-term leases from men like Winthrop, who, we must remember, owned the whole village of Groton and the surrounding farms. Winthrop could have easily expected a similar deal for himself in America, expecting the poorer immigrants to rent land from him and the other company owners. Even the Quaker William Penn, famous for being nice to Indians and religiously tolerant, held on to his legal right of landownership when he and the Quakers came to Pennsylvania in the s. Penn and his family required a “quitrent” from colonists for the use of the land. Penn also built for himself a mansion on a large estate outside his “city of brotherly love.” Winthrop and his fellow stockholders never tried to rent land. They encouraged land ownership. Land was given away to immigrants. Former renters and poor tradespeople received a town lot upon which to build a house and a field lot upon which to farm. Winthrop built himself a nice house, but it was certainly no mansion. He lived on a town lot in Boston. None of the original stockholders demanded a huge estate in return for their investment. We must understand that Winthrop and the Puritans were not egalitarian, but they did believe in community responsibility. Winthrop’s “Model of Christian Charity” begins with the simple distinction that there are two ranks of people: the rich and the poor. When giving out land, the Puritans tended to give the people who had been richer in England a little more than the formerly landless. The Puritans did not want to undermine social distinctions. Responsibility was what they were after, not equality. In his speech, Winthrop offered several biblical precedents for “enlargement towards others, and less respect towards our selves and our own right.” Here again, we must see the reality behind the rhetoric of Winthrop’s call to do “whatsoever we did or ought to have done when we lived in England, the same must we do and more also where we go.” Only this way could the Puritans “improve our lives, to do more service to the Lord.” Winthrop wanted everyone in Massachusetts to start “rich” and not “poor.” Being “rich” he defined not by estate and servants but rather as the ability “to live comfortably by their own means.” The Puritan contract with God needed everyone to have such basic comfort so that all people could be “knit together” and spend their days improving Massachusetts instead of worrying about subsistence. Next in the list of applications rooted in Winthrop’s “Model of Christian Charity” is the encouragement of local autonomy and the restraint of ministerial power. The English people had a long history of believing that their freedom was rooted in local autonomy. A well-functioning England depended not on centralized authority but on well-functioning parts making up the whole. In the book of I Corinthians, Paul had advocated a view of the church as different body parts working together as a whole. The Puritans had much to draw from when thinking of autonomous parts making up strong wholes. Winthrop in his speech said it this way: “There is no body but consists of parts, and that which knits these parts together gives the body perfection.”

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For the Puritans, Massachusetts must consist of multilayered covenants. The marriage covenant was the root of a family covenant, which was the root of church, and town covenants, which were the blossoms in the bouquet of Massachusetts Bay Colony’s convenant with God. The whole needed the parts to function well. No king or bishop at the center could make society function well; only the autonomous parts could make the whole work. There was, therefore, much emphasis on independent towns and churches. In fact, people were not allowed to live alone either as individuals or as families. Nobody was given land unless he was part of a family covenant, and the family had to live on a town lot. Unmarried men were thought to be dangerous. People without responsibilities to other people were hard to knit into the fabric of society. Families had to be knit together with other families. A family living out on a farm, far from other families, was useless in building a city on a hill. Families must be gathered together in towns and churches. Only then could everybody watch over everybody else. Wife-beaters could be revealed, sick mothers could be helped with their children, and barns could be raised. Talented children could be identified, and patrons could be organized to send them to college. Only in a town and church could sinners be punished and the saints encouraged. So when immigrants arrived, they were told to organize themselves into towns and to form churches before they were allotted land. Every town had to have a minister, and ministers had to be educated. Many ministers were part of the Cambridge University Puritan network. It would have been easy to have given the ministers special power in the towns, but that was not the Puritan way. The ministers actually encouraged a restriction of their power. Puritans believed in separation of church and state. Roman Catholics and Anglicans mixed their clergy and government bureaucracy so much that the Puritans believed this helped cause impurity in both church and state. The Puritans liked to call themselves a “New English Israel,” which to them indicated a strict differentiation between the roles of magistrate and minister. In Winthrop’s speech, he delineated two types of law: Moral Law and the Law of the Gospel. The two must work together in society, but they were divided into the separate realms of state and church. Where church and state connected in Puritan Massachusetts was in town government and with the voters. Only church members in good standing could vote. This was the crucial link between the highest Christian ideals of the colony and its political structure. The link was not at the top of the pyramid of government but at the base. Church membership was based on a declaration of one’s experience of Christ’s mercy and a recognition of one’s sinfulness. The whole structure and purpose of the Massachusetts Bay Colony rested on the vitality of towns and churches—and especially the education that towns and churches were supposed to supply. Within the first decade in America, the Puritans passed laws requiring towns to supply public education for Bible literacy, and Harvard College was created to grow a crop of highly educated Puritan leaders. The educated ministers in the towns usually took the responsibility of teaching Latin and Greek to college-bound boys. Not all towns were able to keep schools at all times, but the Puritans never lost their passion for the connection of politics, religion, and education. Whenever Puritan vitality seemed to be waning, colonial leaders took up the call for increased education. Cotton Mather reminisced about “the ardour with which I once heard” a minister pray at a regional gathering of the clergy: “Lord, for schools every where among us! That our

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schools may flourish! That every member of this assembly may go home and procure a good school to be encouraged in the town where he lives!” Winthrop’s “Model of Christian Charity” says nothing directly about education, but its rational structure and reliance on biblical and legal assumptions leaves no doubt that he expected education to be the foundation of the social model he was describing. With respect to economics, Winthrop advocated a virtuous business world that condemned pricing anything by what the market will bear. He had no vision of a capitalistic system of individuals working for their own benefit. “The care of the public,” he declared, “must oversway all private respects.” The goal certainly was “to improve our lives,” but only for the purpose of doing “more service to the Lord.” In , Winthrop as governor had to face capitalism in the ideas of a Christian merchant named Robert Keayne, who was fined by the legislature for overcharging. Merchants were supposed to profit according to their level of wit and energy but not at the expense of the community fairness. Winthrop recorded in his diary a sermon on false economic principles given soon after by a Boston minister: Some false principles were these:— That a man might sell as dear as he can, and buy as cheap as he can. If a man lose by casualty of sea, etc. in some of his commodities, he may raise the price of the rest. That he may sell as he bought, though he paid too dear, etc. and though the commodity be fallen, etc. That as a man may take the advantage of his own skill or ability, so he may of another’s ignorance or necessity. The city on a hill as preached in “A Model of Christian Charity” was not a utopia. Utopias usually depend on the belief that human nature is good and that a bad environment is what keeps most societies from attaining purity. The Puritan city on a hill was a republic of Christian voters gathered in towns and churches where individual sinfulness could be inhibited by peer pressure. Puritans believed in the inherent sinfulness of individuals and had no illusions about their colony attaining purity. Using the language of later founding fathers, Winthrop wanted to create a “more perfect” society. As he said in the speech, he wanted to take the politics, religion, and economics of village life in England and make it better. The end product would be a model to the world. An often-stated irony about the Puritans is that they wanted religious toleration for themselves but refused to extend it to others. While this is superficially true, we should recognize that Winthrop’s speech never said anything about religious liberty or toleration. Winthrop’s speech was about knitting together people into a web of politics, religion, and economics with underlying assumptions about education. The Puritan creation of a loose republic rooted in independent towns and churches established the web. Those who refused to fully participate in the web were punished in much the same way English towns punished those unwilling to abide by the social contract. In , more than a half-century after the founding of the colony, England imposed religious toleration on Massachusetts and demanded that voting no longer be restricted to church members. But the loose town and church structure of the commonwealth was

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becoming too loose anyway. Success was killing them. As Winthrop noted early: “As people increased, so sin abounded.” Too many people wanted to come to the city upon a hill, thus turning it into nothing more than a dynamic English colony. When English imperial policy demanded a break between church membership and the right to vote, the key innovation of the city upon a hill was destroyed. What was left was just the shell of Winthop’s model. But even the shell of the plan has long been influential. By the time of Samuel and John Adams, in the s, towns remained the most powerful force in Massachusetts politics. Calling a “town meeting” is still a catch-phrase of participatory democracy. A good case could be made today that it is not Winthrop’s speech that is important in American history; rather, it is simply the line about being a city upon a hill: that our town-based, participatory democracy should be exported to the rest of the world. On the other hand, the deep ideas contained in the “Model of Christian Charity” and their implementation in colonial Massachusetts are inspiring. John Winthrop and his fellow stockholders led one of the greatest events in American history. A small band of rich Protestant men voluntarily diminished their own power to launch a social experiment they hoped would inspire the world. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Axtell, James. The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America. New York: Oxford University Press, . This study of Indian, French, and British contact emphasizes how New France’s better relations with Indians long made up for the problem of a few French colonists. Bailyn, Bernard. The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction. New York: Knopf, . Probably the most important historian of colonial America of the generation after Edmund S. Morgan, Bailyn does not emphasize the role of towns. This book, however, is an overview of the immigration patterns that served to fill the towns of America. Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation, –. Edited by Samuel Eliot Morison. New York: The Modern Library, . Bradford, a governor of Plymouth Colony, wrote this very readable history of his colony’s early years. Breen, T. H. Puritans and Adventurers: Change and Persistence in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, . An excellent collection of essays comparing northern and southern town life, government, and immigration. Bridenbaugh, Carl. Cities in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban Life in America, –. New York: Oxford University Press, . A fundamental study of town life in British America. Dawson, Hugh J. “John Winthrop’s Rite of Passage: The Origins of the ‘Christian Charitie’ Discourse,” Early American Literature  (): –. Dawson argues that Winthrop wrote and delivered his speech before leaving land in England. The oldest testimony to the speech, however, says it was written on board the Arbella. Fischer, David Hackett. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, . Fischer analyzes folkways that manifest the deep social connection between Britain and its colonies. Fries, Sylvia Doughty. The Urban Ideal in Colonial America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, . Fries emphasizes the ideals involved in founding Boston, New Haven, Philadelphia, Williamsburg, and Savannah. Goodwin, Rutherfoord. A Brief & True Report concerning Williamsburg in Virginia. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Inc., . A good study of the founding.

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Horn, James. A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America. New York: Basic Books, . Comprehensive study of the colonization effort at Jamestown in . Lockridge, Kenneth A. A New England Town: The First Hundred Years. New York: W. W. Norton, . Lockridge builds up the utopianism of the Puritan settlement ideal so that he can then emphasize the fall. Powell’s Puritan Village is better because it has less of an axe to grind, but both are key studies of the intricacy of a th-century town. Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana. First published in London in . Anonymously edited with translations in  and reproduced in Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, . Any serious student of colonial New England must read Mather’s history. Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: W. W. Norton, . This classic work emphasizes the British idealism of the Virginia Company and the work of Edwin Sandys. ———. The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop. Boston: Little, Brown, . This classic studies the Puritan governor’s dilemma of how to separate without separating, how to be exclusive without being exclusive, and how to lead while encouraging self-government. Morison, Samuel E. Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France. Boston: Little, Brown, . Champlain, the founder of Quebec, did as much as he could to encourage stable town life in New France. Powell, Sumner Chilton. Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, . In this Pulitzer Prize winning study, Powell thoroughly discusses English town ideals. Price, David A. Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Heart of a New Nation. New York: Knopf, . Popular account focusing on the life of John Smith as well as English colonization ventures along the East Coast of North America prior to . Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Discusses Indian attitudes toward early English attempts at settlement in North America. Smith, John. Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings. Edited by Karen Ordahl Kupperman. Williamsburg, VA: Institute of Early American History and Culture and Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . An excellent short collection of Smith’s writings, divided into categories of autobiography, Jamestown, relations with Indians, and relation to the environment. Winthrop, John. The Journal of John Winthrop, –. Edited by Richard S. Dunn and Laetitia Yeandle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . A recent abridged edition of Winthrop’s own view of the founding years.

JOHN CABOT (ca. 1450–1498) John Cabot’s historic voyage to North America in  became the basis for England’s claim to the New World and led to the establishment of the British colonies. Ironically, Cabot never knew that he was the first European since the Vikings to step on the uncharted American continent—he thought he had landed on the coast of Asia. Cabot was born about  in Genoa, Italy. His real name was Giovanni Caboto, although he later anglicized it to John Cabot. When he was still a boy, his family moved to Venice, Italy, which was one of the great shipping ports of Europe at that time. As a young man, Cabot worked as a sailor, mapmaker, and navigator. Eventually, he became the captain of his own ship and sailed the Mediterranean Sea between Venice and Egypt, trading Italian goods for spices, silks, and jewels from the Far East. Curious

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as to where the Oriental merchandise came from, Cabot traveled on at least one occasion to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where Arabian merchants brought the precious goods after long, overland journeys from Asia and India. Cabot was convinced that it would be easier and cheaper to import Eastern goods to Europe by sea. Other people had the same idea, too, but most thought that the only way to get to Asia from Europe was to sail around the African continent and continue eastward—a very long and perilous journey. Cabot, like Christopher Columbus, believed that it was possible for a ship to reach Asia by sailing west, instead of east. By the mid-s, Cabot had moved with his wife and children to England. He had tried to persuade the kings of Spain and Portugal to commission a voyage to Asia, but they turned him down. Then, in , he convinced King Henry VII of England to grant him a charter to sail west and claim new lands for the English Crown. His plan was to sail farther north on the Atlantic Ocean than Columbus had in , which Cabot believed was a faster way to Asia. In , Cabot set sail from Bristol, England, but was forced to turn back because of poor weather and dissension among the crew. On May , , he set off again, on a single small ship called the Matthew (named after his Italian wife, Mattea), with a crew of . He headed out directly west, around the coast of Ireland, and then stayed on a northwest course. Five weeks into the trip, on June , he sighted land and went ashore. No one knows exactly where on the North American continent Cabot landed, but it was probably somewhere in what is now known as Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. Cabot planted the English and Venetian flags on the “New Founde Lande,” and he claimed it in the name of the English king. He was convinced that he had landed somewhere on the eastern coast of Asia. Cabot and his crew explored inland for a short distance. They did not discover the source of Oriental spices and jewels as they had hoped, but they did find verdant land and fertile fishing grounds. Although he and his crew did not see any people or animals, they saw signs that the land was inhabited, including cut trees and the remnants of campfires. Cabot returned to the ship and sailed eastward, exploring the coastline. He remained convinced that he had found the Asian continent or an island off the coast of Asia and that further exploration westward was necessary. With only one small ship and dwindling supplies, however, he decided to return home. After a quick, -day crossing across the Atlantic, the Matthew sailed back into Bristol in early August. Cabot was greeted in England as a returning hero. He had no trouble convincing Henry VII to commission five ships for another, bigger exploration. Cabot’s plan was to return to his original landfall and continue sailing southwest until he found the source of “all the spices in the world,” as Marco Polo had written about the Orient. In , Cabot’s fleet set sail from Bristol once again. One ship was damaged soon after the fleet left and anchored in Ireland. The fate of the other four ships remains a mystery. Some historians believe that Cabot reached North America and explored the eastern coast of the continent before he died. Most historians, however, think Cabot died at sea, when his fleet was hit by storms. In any event, it appears certain that Cabot perished without knowing his true value to history. Although his dream of a westward route to Asia went unfulfilled, his journey spurred others, including his son Sebastian, to follow him and continue the exploration of the North American continent.

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JAMESTOWN, FOUNDING OF (1607) The colony of Jamestown, Virginia, was the first permanent English settlement in America. In June , the Virginia Company of London was granted a charter to establish a colony in the New World in order to exploit the area’s mineral resources. Three ships, the Susan Constant, the Discovery, and the Godspeed, carried  adventurers and indentured servants across the Atlantic Ocean to the North American continent. The expedition first anchored at Cape Comfort (present-day Old Point Comfort in Hampton, Virginia) on April , . As prescribed by the charter, a president was to be elected by the council, and Edward Maria Wingfield was chosen. It was his determination to land at the site of Jamestown (named for King James I). However, other colonists, like Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold, opposed the selection. Nonetheless, the new colonists established their fort and settlement on May , . From its very beginnings, Jamestown was largely a failure. The swampy, low-lying site had impure drinking water and was host to a variety of diseases, and, within a year, almost two-thirds of the settlers, including Gosnold, had died from illness or malnutrition. The worst part of all, as far as the Virginia Company was concerned, was that there was no gold or other minerals to be found. The colonists, particularly Capt. John Smith, had become increasingly at odds with Wingfield’s leadership. In September , the council was able to displace Wingfield from his position. Smith managed to hold the colony together when he assumed command of Jamestown, in , but Smith returned to London in , and Jamestown reached its lowest point during the winter of –, when it suffered disease, starvation, and Indian attacks. Only the arrival of additional colonists in  saved the colony. Gradually, the settlers learned which crops could be grown, especially tobacco and corn, for export, and the colony eventually achieved a solid economic footing. In , Jamestown was the location of the first meeting of the Virginia House of Burgesses, which was the first representative legislative body in the New World. The town was destroyed in  during Bacon’s Rebellion, and, although it was rebuilt, it was succeeded by Williamsburg as the capital in . Eventually, the course of the James River created an island of the original site, which is today preserved as part of the Colonial National Historic Park System administered by the National Park Service.

steven strom, karen mead, and elizabeth dubrulle PILGRIMS The Pilgrims were Separatists from the Church of England who left England in  to establish a colony in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Separatists were Puritans, but, unlike the main body of Puritans, who chose to remain within the Church of England in order to enact reforms, the Pilgrims did not believe that the church could be purified of its lingering Roman Catholic liturgy and theology, and they separated to form their own church. The Pilgrims were persecuted by the English government as nonconformists, and, in , some of them emigrated to Holland in search of religious freedom. After a few

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years in Holland, however, many Pilgrims grew concerned about the cultural influence of the Dutch and the possibility of a war between Holland and Spain. A movement began to establish a colony in the New World in order to have the freedom to worship as they thought proper. By , the Pilgrims had obtained financial backing for their venture, and, on September  of that year,  Pilgrims left Plymouth, England, in their ship, the Mayflower. After a sea voyage of  days, they sighted North America on November . The night before they embarked in the New World, the groups’ leaders drafted the Mayflower Compact to provide some form of government for the settlement. The Pilgrims originally landed at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on November  but decided that the terrain was not suitable for farming. Following explorations of the surrounding countryside, they chose a site on the western side of Cape Cod Bay on which to establish their settlement, named Plymouth Plantation, on December . The Pilgrim settlement barely survived its first winter in the New World, but, over the course of the next  years, it stabilized and grew. The Pilgrims were adamant about protecting their autonomy once the Puritans founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston, just to the north of Plymouth Plantation. They remained separate from the Puritans and Massachusetts for the rest of the century but eventually assimilated with the other settlers in New England.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH (ca. 1552–1618) A poet, courtier, soldier, and historian, Sir Walter Raleigh did more than any other Elizabethan to promote English exploration and colonization of North America. Born into a Devonshire gentry family, Raleigh (he favored the spelling Ralegh) was educated at Oxford. He spent the early s in France fighting with the Huguenots as part of a contingent of Devonshire volunteers. In the late s, he helped his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert fight rebels in Ireland and outfit privateering expeditions against Spanish shipping. After , he was mostly at court, where he was much favored by the queen, who knighted him in  and appointed him captain of her guards in . Between  and , he invested more than £, in six colonizing expeditions to North America, having received a grant from Elizabeth to plant colonies along the eastern coast of the continent, which area Raleigh named Virginia, for the “Virgin Queen.” Although responsible for introducing potatoes and tobacco to England and Ireland, Raleigh’s ventures were unsuccessful in establishing a permanent English colony in America. Raleigh was briefly imprisoned in  for his unauthorized marriage to Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. He was forbidden the queen’s presence for a time but was back in favor by , when he set off on a fruitless search for the legendary Eldorado, supposedly to be found in Guyana. He was part of the successful English attack on Cadiz in  and the unsuccessful Islands Expedition of . He quarreled with the royal favorite Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, in , and thereafter was a consistent opponent of the earl and much blamed for his downfall. In , James I, persuaded by Raleigh’s many enemies that the Devon gentleman was a dangerous conspirator, had Raleigh arrested and tried for treason. From  to , Raleigh lay in the Tower of London, where he composed poetry and wrote his History of the World. Released to search for gold along the Orinoco in South America, Raleigh found none but burned a Spanish settlement and was rearrested upon his return

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on the insistence of the Spanish king, with whom James was attempting to negotiate a marriage for his son. Raleigh was executed on October , .

ROANOKE COLONIES (1585, 1587) In , Walter Raleigh obtained a six-year grant from Queen Elizabeth to establish an English colony in North America. Raleigh immediately sent out the Amadas-Barlowe expedition to explore the East Coast of the continent and locate a likely settlement site. After exploring Roanoke and Hatarask Islands, and claiming the region for England, the expedition returned with a glowing description of the islands and two Indians named Manteo and Wanchese. Hoping to secure the queen’s financial backing for his colonization efforts, Raleigh named the newly explored region Virginia, after the Virgin Queen. When this ploy failed, Raleigh attracted private backers by claiming the region could supply England with commodities then only available from the Spanishcontrolled Mediterranean. In April , six vessels carrying  men left Plymouth under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, Raleigh’s cousin. By July, the expedition had, with the aid of Manteo and Wanchese, established friendly relations with the Roanoke chief Wingina, who allowed the Englishmen to settle on the northern end of Roanoke Island. Because much of the colony’s food supply had been lost when one of the ships ran aground, Grenville decided in August to leave a settlement of only about  men under Ralph Lane and to return to England with the rest of the colonists. Seeking sources of immediate wealth, Lane began to explore the surrounding region and, in the fall, discovered Chesapeake Bay. In the spring, Lane determined to move the colony to Chesapeake when he heard reports from the Indians that pearls and metals that sounded like gold and copper could be found in the area. The coming of spring brought hostilities with the Indians. Having arrived too late to plant crops, the colonists bartered for food with the Indians, whose willingness to trade declined with their own food supplies. In June, having learned through Manteo of Indian plans to attack the settlement, Lane launched a preemptive raid on the Roanoke village that left Wingina dead. One week later, a relief expedition of  vessels under Sir Francis Drake reached Roanoke after a successful raid on the Spanish West Indies. Given the precarious state of the colony’s food supply and its relations with its Roanoke neighbors, Lane and the surviving colonists left for England with Drake on June , . After the voluntary return of the first Roanoke colonists in , Sir Walter Raleigh sent out a second colonization expedition in . Unlike the all-male first colony, the new venture, under the governorship of John White, a member of the first colony, included whole families. Three vessels carrying  men,  women, and  children departed Plymouth on May , . Although intending to settle on Chesapeake Bay, the settlers were forced on July  to take up the first colony’s site on Roanoke Island (off present-day North Carolina) when the ships’ crews, eager to raid in the Spanish West Indies, refused to sail up the Chesapeake. The ill will the previous colonists had left among the Roanoke Indians led quickly to tragedy. On July , George Howe, who had gone alone to catch crabs, was found murdered, perhaps an act of revenge for the previous colony’s killing of the Roanoke chief Wingina. Attempts to reestablish relations

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with the Indians through Manteo, one of the Indians who had gone to England with the Amadas-Barlowe expedition in , failed. On August , White’s daughter Eleanor, the wife of Ananias Dare, gave birth to a daughter. The first English child born in North America, the child was christened Virginia Dare by her grandfather. The unfriendliness of the Indians meant that the colony was totally dependent on England for supplies, and the colonists decided that White was best suited to ensuring that Raleigh sent regular provisions and that the English public remained aware of and interested in the colony. Accordingly, White set sail on August  and reached England on October . In April , White set out with two relief ships but had to turn back when the crews’ taste for piracy led to an unfortunate encounter with a Spanish vessel. The Armada crisis of  tied up all shipping and prevented White from returning to Virginia until . On August , he landed on Roanoke but found no trace of the colony, only the word “Croatoan” carved on a tree. This seemed to indicate the colony’s removal to nearby Croatoan Island, but storms prevented investigation, and White returned to England without ever knowing what became of his family and the “lost colony” of Roanoke.

DOCUMENT: EXCERPT FROM ARTHUR BARLOWE’S “FIRST VOYAGE TO ROANOKE,” 1584 In April , Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, two gentlemen of Sir Walter Raleigh’s household, set sail from Plymouth in command of two vessels bound for the New World. Having just secured a grant from Queen Elizabeth to establish an English colony in America, Raleigh charged the two men with reconnoitering the American coast to find a good settlement site and learn something of the Natives, climate, and products of the area. The expedition sailed along the coasts of the modern-day states of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina and then landed on Hatteras Island where they made friendly contact with the nearby Roanoke Indians. Below is an excerpt from the report that Barlowe wrote of the trip, which Raleigh used to stimulate investment and encourage settlement in his planned colony. (Barlowe, Arthur, First Voyage to Roanoke, edited by Increase N. Tarbox, Sir Walter Ralegh and His Colony in America [Boston: Printed for the Prince Society by John Wilson and Son, ], pp. –, , .) [We] cast anchor about three harquebus-shots within the haven’s mouth, on the left hand of the same: and after thanks given to God for our safe arrival thither, we manned our boats, and went to view the land next adjoining, and to take possession of the same, in the right of the Queen’s most excellent Majesty, and rightful Queen, and Princess of the same, and after delivered the same over to your use, according to her Majesty’s grant, and letters patents, under her Highness great seal. Which being performed, according to the ceremonies used in such enterprises, we viewed the land about us, being, whereas we first landed, very sandy and low towards the waters side, but so full

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of grapes, as the very beating and surge of the Sea overflowed them, of which we found such plenty, as well there as in all places else, both on the sand and on the green soil on the hills, as in the plains, as well on every little shrub, as also climbing towards the tops of high Cedars, that I think in all the world the like abundance is not to be found: and myself having seen those parts of Europe that most abound, find such difference as were incredible to be written. We passed from the Sea side towards the tops of those hills next adjoining, being but of mean height, and from thence we beheld the Sea on both sides to the North, and to the South, finding no end any of both ways. This land lay stretching itself to the West, which after we found to be but an Island of twenty miles long, and not above six miles broad. Under the bank or hill whereon we stood, we beheld the valleys replenished with goodly Cedar trees, and having discharged our harquebus-shot, such a flock of Cranes (the most part white), arose under us, with such a cry redoubled by many echoes, as if an army of men had shouted all together. This Island had many goodly woods full of Deer, Conies, Hares, and Fowl, even in the middle of Summer in incredible abundance. The woods are not such as you find in Bohemia [or] Muscovy . . . barren and fruitless, but the highest and reddest Cedars of the world, far bettering the Cedars of the Azores, of the Indies, or Lebanon, Pines, Cypress, Sassafras . . . Mastic . . . and many other of excellent smell and quality. . . . [The brother of Wingina, the local chief ] sent us every day a brace or two of fat Bucks, Conies, Hares, Fish the best of the world. He sent us divers kinds of fruits, Melons, Walnuts, Cucumbers, Gourds, Peas, and divers roots, and fruits very excellent good, and of their Country corn, which is very white, fair and well tasted, and grows three times in five months: in May they sow, in July they reap, in June they sow, in August they reap: in July they sow, in September they reap: only they cast the corn into the ground, breaking a little of the soft turf with a wooden mattock, or pickaxe; ourselves proved the soil, and put some of our Peas in the ground, and in ten days they were of fourteen inches high: they have also Beans very fair of divers colors and wonderful plenty: some growing naturally, and some in their gardens, and so have they both wheat and oats. The soil is the most plentiful, sweet, fruitful and wholesome of all the world: there are above fourteen several sweet smelling timber trees, and the most part of their underwoods are Bays and such like: they have those Oaks that we have, but far greater and better. . . . [By the people] [w]e were entertained with all love and kindness, and with as much bounty, after their manner, as they could possibly devise. We found the people most gentle, loving and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as live after the manner of the golden age.

6 Early European–Native American Encounters, 1607–1637

INTRODUCTION The English who first colonized North America received their earliest perceptions about American Indians, or Native Americans, from the Spanish, who, with the exception of Bartolomé de las Casas (infrequently read in England), characterized the Natives in the most unflattering terms. The first book in English on America was seen in , and it described Indians as “lyke beasts without any resonablenes. . . . And they ete also on[e] another, the man ete his wyf his children. . . . They hange also the bodyes or persons fleshe in the smoke as men do with us swynes fleshe” (quoted in Stannard, p. ). To philosophers and intellectuals of the day, such people were barely human; indeed, some believed them to be satanic progeny of a human-animal coupling. Thus, the vast majority of Englishmen came to North America predisposed to treat Indians with undisguised hostility. As Robert Gray, an early Virginia settler, put it in , “[They are] incredibly rude, they worship the divell, offer their young children in sacrifice to him, wander up and down like beasts, and in manners and conditions, differ very little from beasts” (quoted in Stannard, p. ). By the late th century, most Europeans had concluded that Indians probably were human but that they were still godless and lawless. English treatment of Indians worsened as the colonial experiment wore on and settlers saw that the Natives were not going to submit either to their religion or their laws. For them to reject those basic tenets of English culture meant that they must be “less than rational and thus less than human” (Stannard, p. ). The English colonists simply had difficulty accepting Indians for what they were; they were too conscious of the racial differences and, as a consequence, instinctively antagonistic. As the interpretive essay for this chapter points out, there were exceptions. Thomas Mayhew got along well with the Indians on Martha’s Vineyard for many years. John Eliot spent  years learning the Algonquin language and then translating the Bible into Algonquin before going out to do missionary work among the Indians. After  years, he claimed that there were , “praying Indians” and another , converted Natives living in special villages throughout the Plymouth Colony.

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Much of the European concern for Indians involved a desire to convert them to Christianity, as John Eliot spent much of life doing. But, in general, the Church of England and its Puritan offspring did not make much of a concerted effort to win the souls of the Indians. Clergy were reluctant to do missionary work among the tribes when the pay was low and the conditions uncomfortable and occasionally dangerous. Most preferred the traditional life of serving a parish in a colonial town. The French were better able to adapt to the Indians. Although the French Jesuit missionaries thought that the Natives were barbarians, they still wanted to convert them to Catholicism. Perhaps the Catholic faith appealed more to the Indians, or perhaps the Jesuits were better prepared for their task. They often knew the Indian dialect, for example, while Protestant missionaries seldom had any formal preparation. On the other hand, Dutch relations with the Indians were strictly commercial. Early on in the Dutch colonial experience, perhaps around , informal trade with the Mohawk Indians began. The Indians brought furs to the Dutch and in return received muskets at a rate of  beaver pelts for one gun. At first, relatively few muskets fell into Indian hands by means of this trade, but, by the s, when French-English rivalry accelerated the pace of war, the Mohawks, part of the Iroquois federation, had acquired many more muskets. When the English replaced the Dutch as trading partners with the Indians, they, too, supplied guns for furs. In general, Dutch relations with Indians were good from the beginning of their settlement. The colony of New Netherland grew quite slowly and thus was less threatening to the Indians than the rapidly expanding English colonies in New England. Before the s, the Dutch were always careful to treat the Indians with dignity and to pay them for their land. The Dutch West India Company stipulated that “everyone should be strict in dealing with the Indians—no one should give offense to their person, their womenfolk, or their possessions” (quoted in Edmonds, p. ). By the late s, this attitude was changing. The Indians were less in awe of the Dutch, who began to consider the Indians a nuisance. Jonas Michaelius, one of the first pastors to come to New Netherland, thought that the Indians were “stupid as posts, proficient in all wickedness and godlessness . . . thievish and treacherous as they are tall” (quoted in Edmonds, p. ). Perhaps this is why Dutch-Indian relations were strictly commercial. The first phase of English–Native American relations ended with the brutal Pequot War of . The Pequots were a Connecticut tribe that before the s had had little contact with either the English or the Dutch. They had been involved in fighting other nearby tribes, but they did not perceive the English or the Dutch as threats to their security or territory. Indian-white distrust in New England began in , even before the first permanent settlement, when an English sea captain, Thomas Hunt, captured  Indians while loading fish and sold them to the Spanish as slaves. Out of this group came Squanto, educated and converted by the Jesuits and a friend later to the English. Prior to Squanto’s return, in the early s, however, word of the kidnapping spread among different Indian groups, and, when a smallpox epidemic accompanied the rumors, killing many Natives, the Indians could not have viewed the white people in a favorable light. The English, on the other hand, saw the epidemic as a mark of God’s favor.

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The Pilgrims were idealized and romanticized in early American history, as this 19th-century illustration shows. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

The Pequots were not affected by the smallpox epidemic; at that time, they were still too isolated from contact with Europeans. After the English began coming to New England in the s, the Pequots did have occasion to deal with the newcomers, and they were considered peaceful and honorable in those dealings. Described as “stately and warlike,” they were known to engage in wars with their Indians neighbors, such as the Mohawks. Trouble between the English and the Pequots began in  when a renegade band of Pequots killed a trading party led by Captain John Stone, something of a renegade himself and a person whose immoral behavior had caused the Massachusetts Bay Colony authorities to expel him on two separate occasions. Sassacus, the Pequot chief, was concerned enough about this incident to send a delegation to Boston to seek a treaty of friendship with the English. The Indians succeeded in convincing the colonists that there had been no profit to them for the deed; indeed,  of the  Indians involved had soon after died of smallpox. The Pequots agreed to turn over the two surviving attackers, but they never did. Nonetheless, the incident was apparently forgotten, and there was a period of calm until , when another incident, even worse than the John Stone affair, took place, near Block Island, off the Connecticut coast. A ship belonging to John Oldham was seen adrift, with Indians on deck, who fled when a ship commanded by John Gallup approached. Gallup’s ship rammed Oldham’s, and several Indians who had not previously fled jumped (or fell) overboard and drowned. Gallup boarded Oldham’s ship, found two more Indians and took them prisoner, and then found Oldham’s body, his head, hands, and feet cut off. In addition, most of the cargo was missing.

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Massachusetts Bay Colony governor Henry Vane learned that several Indians who had managed to escape from Oldham’s ship had gone to the Pequots, who were apparently protecting them. Vane sent a delegation to the Pequots, who surrendered two boys who had been members of Oldham’s crew and promised to return the stolen cargo. The Indians evidently felt that this was a reasonable compromise, but the colonists were not satisfied. There were a few minor skirmishes over the matter, but the violence was minimal. After a difficult winter in –, marked by Pequot raids on colonial settlements and the kidnapping of two teenage girls, who were later released unhurt, New England leaders decided that the Pequots had to be eliminated, and a force of  colonists and  Mohegan Indians (enemies of the Pequot) set out for Pequot territory. They were later joined by an indeterminate number of Narragansetts, who were also enemies of the Pequots. The combined force managed to approach a sizable Pequot town without detection and attacked late at night, setting the town afire and firing musket volleys at Indians trying to flee. By dawn, the town was in ashes, and all but  of the  Pequots who had lived there were dead. A month later, another English force invaded Pequot country and killed several hundred more Indians. When the Mohawks killed Sassacus, who had fled to them for protection, the war, such as it was, ended, and the Pequot nation was dead. Most English settlers saw the whole affair as another indication of God’s working his will. If English muskets failed to kill Indians, their diseases made up for it. As in the Spanish world, European diseases proved fatal to thousands of Indians in the early years of colonization in New England. A smallpox epidemic in –, apparently brought by fishing vessels trading with Indians, killed enough Natives to eliminate them as a major threat to the Plymouth Colony after . Smallpox continued to be a health problem in the s, killing substantial numbers of settlers but many more Indians. A major epidemic in – in the Saint Lawrence River Valley and nearby areas killed many Huron Indians, reducing that tribe’s population to , from the , to , it had been at the beginning of the century. The Iroquois were similarly decimated in the s. The English could have quarantined smallpox patients and made an effort to reduce the spread of the disease, as the Spanish and Portuguese tried to do (though without great success). But the English were not concerned with the physical well-being of the Indians and, indeed, welcomed what they considered an obvious manifestation of God’s blessings upon them.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY kathleen perdisatt and rick kennedy Seventeenth-century North American history is the story of a contest for domination. In that contest, the Native Americans ultimately lost and British culture won. The greatest failure in th-century America was the inability of Natives and the settlers to construct a mutually beneficial life together in North America. From the grand perspective of the history of our nation, it is appropriate to emphasize the tragic and doomed battles

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of the Indians against dispossession as European disease, population growth, and landgrabbing proved unstoppable. Within the largely tragic story, however, there are many small stories of creative people trying to work against the tide. In the th century, Pocahontas, Squanto, and Hiacoomes, along with settlers in the regions surrounding Jamestown, Virginia, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, tried to create the biracial relationship that might have undercut the beginnings of the contest for domination. Pocahontas was a young woman who aspired to do what Americans throughout history have never been able to do: create productive cross-cultural relations between Native and non-Native Americans. Pocahontas was the daughter of Wahunsonacock, who also went by the name Powhatan. Wahunsonacock was the dynamic emperor of eastern Virginia. He ruled  separate tribes that were together called the Powhatans. Pocahontas was a favored daughter who shared her father’s vivacity and leadership abilities. With the founding of Jamestown by the British, in , misunderstandings and distrust abounded. Wahunsonacock apparently thought that the English, with their guns and technology, could be useful to Powhatan imperial expansion. On the English side, the unruly but talented John Smith was sure he was dealing with savages who could not be trusted. He and his fellow English invaders were much too suspicious of the surrounding Indians to think much about what they were doing and what was happening. Edmund S. Morgan calls the British situation in Jamestown a “fiasco” of organization and direction. Wahunsonacock and the Powhatans willingly supplied Jamestown with food and help, but Smith, distrustful of this arrangement, tells us that he would come armed to get these gifts. Smith reported that in one encounter Wahunsonacock told him that he need not bring weapons “for here they are needlesse we being friends.” Smith refused to believe the chief and, shortly after, even pointed his gun at and demanded supplies from Opechancanough, the king’s brother and eventual successor. Opechancanough was already opposed to his brother’s way of handling the British, and Smith succeeded only in justifying Opechancanough’s own paranoia. The climate of distrust continued when, in , Smith was “captured” by the Powhatans. Smith described his situation as follows: A long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before [Wahunsonacock]: then as many as could lay hands on [me], dragged [me] to them, and thereon laid [my] head, and being ready with their clubs, to beate out [my] braines, Pocahontas the Kings dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got [my] head in her armes, and laid her owne upon [mine] to save [me] from death: whereat the Emperour was contented [I] should live. Two days later, Wahunsonacock, ceremonially dressed in imperial garb, came to Smith and “told him now they were friends” and sent him back to Jamestown. Smith thought that Pocahontas had saved his life and that her tricky father had some plan up his sleeve. In truth, we do not know what really happened; however, it appears that John Smith had been not a prisoner but an honored—if coerced—guest. The Powhatan emperor had ceremoniously inducted Smith and Jamestown into his empire. John Smith, after a ceremony of submission, was now a subchief of the Powhatans and was sent back to his people. Pocahontas, an - or -year-old girl at that time, was either playing a role in the ceremony or trying to calm Smith.

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Pocahontas was also at the center of another confusion: Wahunsonacock’s coronation as a subject-king under the king of England. Smith tells us that after Wahunsonacock was asked to come to Jamestown, some English soldiers were surprised by a “hydeous noise” coming from the woods. Smith and the colonists grabbed their guns, thinking the Natives were attacking, “but presently Pocahontas came, willing him to kill her if any hurt were intended.” Pocahontas then joined with  other young women in a dance. The next day, Wahunsonacock arrived. The colonists attempted to explain what was happening, and the emperor did not readily participate. “Foule trouble there was to make him kneele to receive his Crowne,” Smith wrote. In the midst of two coerced ceremonies of subjection was a young girl who may have understood the big picture better than either her father or Smith. As the Powhatans and the British vied ceremonially to make each the subchief of the other, Pocahontas played the role of mediator. Many children’s stories and cartoons have completely distorted the story of Pocahontas; however, they usually have the main point right. Pocahontas, the loving and fearless child, represents the possibility of a relationship of trust between the invaders and the ruling empire. Between  and , Pocahontas was a welcome visitor in Jamestown, often carrying messages to and from her father. Smith and other leaders of Jamestown had sown much distrust, but young Pocahontas was oblivious to the danger. In , however, war broke out between Powhatans and the colonists, and in  the colonists captured Pocahontas and brought her to Jamestown. She became a diplomatic hostage but does not seem to have thought of herself as a hostage. She freely converted to Christianity and consented to marry John Rolfe in . She may have helped Rolfe and the English learn to grow tobacco during this time. Wahunsonacock consented to the marriage, which brought the war to an end. Pocahontas apparently loved Rolfe. She could have escaped. Eventually, she bore a child who became a symbol for the possibility of mutually beneficial biracial relations. Pocahontas and Rolfe agreed to sail to England to publicize the possibility of peace, but, sadly, Pocahontas died in England in  from a European disease. Many people have written about Pocahontas as a victim sacrificed to a British farce. But this is too cynical. The British had high hopes of bringing peace after the fiasco in Jamestown, and Pocahontas’s marriage and child symbolized the best possibility. She seems to have willingly embraced the people of Jamestown and accepted the role of peacemaker between the English and her people. She died pursuing her aspiration. Her father died two years later, leaving Opechancanough to spread his distrust. The relationship between Opechancanough and Smith, not that between Pocahontas and Rolfe, became the model for th-century Virginia. In March , Opechancanough orchestrated widespread attacks on English settlements. The attacks, however, did not stop immigration and only encouraged distrust. Business relationships between the Indians and the British in Virginia continued throughout the th century; however, hope for sharing the land, intermarriage, and raising mixed-blood children was gone. By the s, the Natives had been pushed across the Blue Ridge Mountains. British settlers on the Virginia frontier for the rest of the century fueled more hatred and distrust in ongoing skirmishes. Assimilation was the term eventually adopted in the th century as the answer to the “the Indian problem.” By then, assimilation clearly meant the destruction of the

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weaker culture in favor of the adoption of the stronger. In the th century, assimilation still could have meant something more benign and mutually beneficial. Pocahontas hoped for this type of assimilation. Squanto (also known as Tisquantum), the Patuxet who taught the Pilgrims to fertilize their corn with fish, also aspired to assimilate Natives and non-Natives into a mutually beneficial relationship. Squanto was a highly intelligent and versatile native of Patuxet, a thriving town of some , people on what is now Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts. At the time of Jamestown’s founding (), Patuxet and other coastal New England towns were developing a trading relationship with European ships fishing for cod. John Smith, after leaving Jamestown in , sailed to Cape Cod in  and gave the region the name New England. A companion ship with Smith was captained by a man who wanted to make some extra money by capturing some Indians to sell as slaves in Spain. Squanto and  other Wampanoags from Patuxet were lured on board and placed in chains. A Spanish priest later freed Squanto, but, finding himself now in Europe, Squanto began learning what he could from the Europeans while working toward getting home. Not much is known about his travels in Europe, but we know that after three years he was living in London, helping prospective colonists and explorers with information about New England. Five years after leaving America, he found a chance to go back by sailing with a colonizing mission. The mission failed, but Squanto returned home in . However, New England had been ravaged by European diseases while Squanto was away. The Bostonian Cotton Mather would later write that God had “wonderfully prepared” the New World for Puritan “entertainment, by a sweeping mortality that had lately been among the natives.” Mather wrote that only one-tenth, even one-twentieth, of the Natives remained “so that the woods were almost cleared of those pernicious creatures, to make room for a better growth.” William Bradford, one of the founding Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, was more respectful of what he called “the late great mortality.” Bradford reported that “skulls and bones were found in many places lying still above the ground where their houses and dwellings had been, a very sad spectacle to behold.” Such was the spectacle Squanto beheld upon his return. But again Squanto did not fall into despair. When Bradford and the Pilgrims arrived at Squanto’s hometown in , they were understandably fearful of Indian attack. Initially, the Natives kept their distance except for stealing some tools. On March , an Indian from the north named Samoset who spoke broken English walked out of the woods to greet the English. Samoset later returned with several local Wampanoags carrying the Pilgrims’ stolen goods. With the Wampanoags was Squanto and their sachem (Indian chief ), Massasoit. After some “friendly entertainments,” the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags then negotiated a longlasting peace agreement: . That neither he nor any of his should injure or do hurt to any of their people. That if any of his did hurt to any of theirs, he should send the offender, that they might punish him. That if anything were taken away from any of theirs, he should cause it to be restored; and they should do the like to his. If any did unjustly war against him, they would aid him; if any did war against them, he should aid them.

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He should send to his neighbours confederates to certify them of this, that they might not wrong them, but might be likewise comprised in the conditions of peace. That when their men came to them, they should leave their bows and arrows behind them. (Bartett, p. ) Governor Bradford described Squanto as “a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation.” He was the intermediary in negotiating the peace treaty and chose to settle with the English. His teaching the Pilgrims to grow corn is one of the great traditions of American education. He was the key figure in making possible the first Thanksgiving celebration, when Massasoit and  Wampanoags joined the Pilgrims for three days of happy feasting. Squanto spent most of his time brokering deals between various tribes and the English. He died of an “Indian fever” in  on a trading mission helping Miles Standish. In his last days, Squanto gave gifts to his English friends and “remembrances of his love.” Squanto, after the loss of his own town, was able to embrace both the Natives and the non-Natives of Plymouth Bay. He was by far the most well-traveled, broadly experienced, linguistically versatile person in New England. Cynics have disparaged him as weak, but they fail to give Squanto the credit he deserves. He was a townless Indian who seems to have been able to see beyond the tribal distrust and animosities of other Natives and non-Natives. At one point, Squanto seems to have made an attempt at centralizing power in himself as an intertribal leader. All we know of this story is William Bradford’s version, which says that Squanto told the Pakanokets to abandon Massasoit’s leadership while, at the same time, encouraging the English to think Massasoit was going to betray them. Squanto, Bradford believed, was trying to undermine Massasoit’s political position. The story shows the complexity of Squanto’s work brokering relations between local power centers. If Bradford’s history is right and Squanto was making a power play for himself at that point, it raises the possibility that the person who had orchestrated the first peace treaty and Thanksgiving feast was attempting to do even greater good. But Squanto did not gain an intertribal leadership position, and,  years after his death, the Pequot War broke out. Governor Winthrop in Boston wrote to Governor Bradford in Plymouth: “we conceive that you look at the Pequots and all other Indians as a common enemy.” Thirty years later, Massasoit’s son, Metacom, believed the leaders of Plymouth Colony poisoned his brother. He and the English no longer upheld the treaty written with Squanto’s help. In the s, Metacom galvanized Indian resistance to the English and died in New England’s most devastating civil war. Pocahontas and Squanto died just at the point they might have done something great for relations between Natives and non-Natives. Maybe it is significant that both were “outsiders” in the sense that one was a girl and young woman—a weak position in foreign affairs—and the other was homeless. Hiacoomes was also an outsider, but he did not die young. His story, along with that of the Mayhew family, represents the best hope in the th century for a mutually beneficial relationship between the British and the Indians. Hiacoomes and the Mayhew family were the most influential people on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. In , Thomas Mayhew Sr. became, in the presumptuous fashion

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of the English, the “owner” and governor of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, which are islands near the southern coast of Cape Cod. The island Indians were Wampanoags related to those under Massasoit’s rule on the mainland. The Native government of Martha’s Vineyard, the larger island, was hierarchical, with four sachems ruling separate districts. Mayhew, breaking from the Puritan tradition and not wanting to fall fully into the presumptuous land-grabbing of the English, insisted on “purchasing” land from the Natives as he began the process of encouraging British colonization. In , Thomas Mayhew Jr., son of the governor, moved onto the island with his family as a farmer and missionary. The younger Mayhew had learned to speak the Algonquian dialect of the Wampanoags and hoped to create Puritan towns where Indians and British Christians could live together. Hiacoomes was Mayhew’s first convert. Hiacoomes was somewhat of an outcast from the Wampanoag community and was open to the Christian gospel. Beginning in , Mayhew trained Hiacoomes as a co-missionary working toward the creation of a church and covenanted Christian town. Given the relative strength of the Native culture on the island and the weakness of the Mayhews, there was no extreme pressure for Indians to convert; however, many Indians eventually converted, founded, or joined churches and moved into “praying towns.” After an epidemic in , a large number of Indians came to Hiacoomes “to be instructed by him; and some Persons of Quality, such as before had despised him, sent for him to come and instruct them.” By , Hiacoomes was the co-minister of his own church of  professed believers. Sharing the leadership was Momonequem, one of Hiacoomes’s converts. In , the Wampanoags asked Thomas Mayhew Jr. to draw up a town covenant similar to other Puritan town covenants. We are told “Mr. Mayhew drew up an excellent Covenant in their native Language, which he often read and made plain to them: and they all with free Consent and Thankfulness united in it, and desired the Grace and Help of GOD to keep it faithfully.” The mutually beneficial relationship of Natives and non-Natives that developed on Martha’s Vineyard is best seen in the churches founded. From  to , there were no British clergy living on the island, only ordained Indian pastors. Natives and nonNatives gathered in bilingual church services under the leadership of these Indian pastors for nearly two decades. Mayhew remembered from boyhood these church services and later reported to one of the ministers that the English “very chearfuly received the Lord’s Supper from him.” The whole line of Mayhews on Martha’s Vineyard from  to  should be remembered for the way they respected the rights of Indians. The Vineyard sachems had no desire to reduce their authority and let the British take over the island. From the beginning, Thomas Mayhew Sr. assured the sachems that the British had no desire to undermine their political jurisdiction and that they would respect the rights of any Natives who chose not to become Christians. He assured them that “Religion and Government were distinct things.” Throughout the th century, the Natives were not dispossessed of their land or authority, while Christian and non-Christian Natives shared political power. By the end of the th century, six “praying towns” were established where Christian Wampanoags were encouraged to covenant together. Native towns, “praying towns,” and Puritan towns existed peacefully together on the small island throughout the

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th century. Puritan political and religious theory was focused on the creation of towns with churches at the center. The Wampanoags of Martha’s Vineyard had a similar focus on towns held together by deep religious commitments. Isolated from the pressures of mainland British immigration, the Puritans and the Wampanoags developed a mode of appreciating each other. When in the s Massasoit’s son Metacom led the mainland Wampanoags into a brutal war against the Puritans, the Wampanoags of Martha’s Vineyard refused to join and actually protected the British colonists on their island. Hiacoomes and the Mayhews also joined in encouraging English education for whites and Indians. From  to , intellectually promising Indian boys were sent to grammar school on the mainland to learn the Latin and Greek required at Harvard College. Hiacoomes and Thomas Mayhew Jr. sent their sons Joel and Matthew together to the Cambridge grammar school. Four other Wampanoags accompanied them. Sadly, two of these Indian boys died from British diseases contracted in the residential situation of the school. Diseases always flourish in the closed atmosphere of schools, and Indian mortality rates at schools were high in early America. In , Joel, Matthew, and Caleb Cheshchaamog, the son of a Vineyard sachem, entered Harvard College, three of probably only five Indians to attend Harvard College in the th century. Tragically, Joel was murdered by some Indians on Nantucket Island just a few months before graduation. Caleb Cheshchaamog was the only Native to graduate from Harvard in the th century. Along with Hiacoomes’s initial openness and long-term support, much credit should be given the Mayhew family who made the forging of an Indian-British community into a multigeneration family business. Thomas Mayhew Jr. was recognized in his own day, along with mainlander John Eliot, as someone who not only “understood” the Natives but also loved them. In , he disappeared at sea, and his father, Thomas Mayhew Sr., took up the responsibility of keeping the good relations and Christian hope going. More politically oriented, the elder Mayhew helped the Wampanoags reform their governing system, including instituting councils for conflict resolution and juries for criminal trials. The Mayhews continued to share leadership on the island with Wampanoag officials for more than  years. By the time of the American Revolution, most of the Natives were Christians, but in the s an epidemic ravaged the Wampanoag population. After the Revolution, the Natives were very weak and barely hung onto their past role on the island. Today, the island is a resort. In the big picture of British-Indian relations, the stories of Pocahontas, Squanto, and Hiacoomes are accounts of only small and marginal successes. In all three stories, there was a minimum requirement of religious toleration and openness. Certainly, British Christians were always trying to convert Indians; however, John Smith, Governor Bradford, and the Mayhews did not limit good relations only to those who converted. Most important, in all three stories, the Natives and the settlers wanted to get along in the hope of some mutually beneficial end. Pocahontas, Squanto, and Hiacoomes wanted to construct something beneficial to all involved and persuaded John Rolfe, Governor Bradford, and the Mayhews to agree with them. All involved wanted peace. Also, Pocahontas, Squanto, and Hiacoomes were outsiders cut off from the main lines of power. Pocahontas was a woman. Squanto had lost all family and community ties. Hiacoomes was not part of the hierarchical order of Martha’s Vineyard. The Vineyard itself was an island cut off from the mainland and not subject to the same

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immigration pressures. Each Indian understood that greater opportunity and maybe even strength would come from developing relations with the British. As for the Englishmen most open to the Indians, John Rolfe needed a wife in a largely womanless community, Governor Bradford understood fully that his people could be easily massacred by Massasoit’s warriors, and the Mayhews were owners of nearly worthless property who could not even keep a Puritan minister employed. Perhaps mutually beneficial relations between peoples depend on weakness rather than strength. The stories of Pocahontas, Squanto, and Hiacoomes are indicators that, in the th century, a mutually beneficial relationship between the British and the Indians was possible. By the s, however, the opportunity had passed.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Axtell, James. The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America. New York: Oxford University Press, . The most authoritative book on French, British, and Indian relations in the th century. Banks, Charles Edward. The History of Martha’s Vineyard Dukes County Massachusetts in Three Volumes. Edgartown, MA: Dukes County Historical Society, . This extensive work on Martha’s Vineyard includes several chapters dedicated to the missionary efforts of the Mayhew family and the history of the Native American population on the island. Barbour, Philip L. Pocahontas and Her World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, . Presently the standard biography on Pocahontas. Primary documents relating to her are weak and leave a broad range of interpretation as to her character and motives. No one biography can be considered authoritative. Bartlett, Robert M. The Faith of the Pilgrims. New York: United Church Press, . Primarily a history of the Pilgrims’ religious beliefs, this book also touches on their relationship with Indians. Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation. Edited by Samuel Eliot Morison. New York: Modern Library, . The classic history. Virtually everything we know about Squanto comes from this book. Bross, Kristina. Dry Bones and Indian Sermons. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Study of the contact between Native Americans and British missionaries in th-century North America. Edmonds, Walter D. The Musket and the Cross. Boston: Little, Brown, . A study of the French and English struggle for North American colonial dominance. Hauptman, Laurence M., and James D. Wherry, eds. The Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an American Indian Nation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, . The Pequot war shows the Puritans at their worst. Gov. John Winthrop in Boston never felt the weakness of Governor Bradford, nor did he have the assistance of such a talented Native as Squanto. Jennings, Francis. The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . As the title indicates, Jennings considers British rhetoric about desiring good relations with Natives to be hypocritical. Although largely true, the book is overly cynical. Johnson, Margery Ruth. The Mayhew Mission to the Indians, –. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, . Johnson’s unpublished dissertation on the Mayhew family is the most exhaustive history of the family found in my research of the clan. Her use of extensive primary sources gives her writing authority.

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Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana: or the Ecclesiastical History of New England. Edited by Raymond J. Cunningham. New York: F. Ungar, . Originally published in , this history written close to the sources offers a biographical chapter on John Eliot, “The Apostle to the Indians.” Eliot, who worked closely with the Mayhews, has always been more famous than the Mayhews because of this book. Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: W.W. Norton, . Very readable detailed account of the establishment of English settlements in Virginia during the th century. Morrison, Dane. A Praying People. New York: Peter Lang, . Morrison’s work is a general text describing the work of Puritan missionaries in New England that focuses on the impact of missionaries on the Native culture. Rountree, Helen C. The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, . This is the standard scholarly study of the Powhatans. The focus is on their own culture rather than relations with the British. Salisbury, Neal. “Squanto: Last of the Patuxets.” In Struggle and Survival in Colonial America. Edited by David G. Sweet and Gary B. Nash. Berkeley: University of California Press, . This is an excellent short biography of the notable Native American. Segal, Charles M., and David C. Stineback. Puritans, Indians, and Manifest Destiny. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, . The distinction of Segal and Stineback’s book is its use of extensive quotations from primary sources. Smith, John. Captain John Smith: A Select Edition of His Writings. Edited by Karen Ordahl Kupperman. Williamsburg, VA, and Chapel Hill, NC: Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, . Smith wrote of his adventures with the Powhatans in two versions. Kupperman brings the two versions together and includes excellent footnotes. Stannard, David. American Holocaust. New York: Oxford University Press, . A detailed history of the early encounters between Europeans and American Indians, with emphasis on the destructive effects of the diseases and purposeful violence that the Europeans brought.

NORTH AMERICAN SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC During the s, American Indians living in North America encountered a new and deadly pathogen—smallpox. Brought unknowingly by European capitalists and conquerors sailing on ships from across the Atlantic Ocean, the disease helped British, French, and Spanish governments gain a foothold and eventually dominate indigenous societies across the continent. Isolated from the Eastern Hemisphere, North American Indians lacked immunity to pathogens common in Europe, Africa, and the Far East and thus experienced smallpox epidemics that devastated their populations. It is estimated that more than  percent of precontact Indian populations in Mexico perished between  and , while Indians living in the more northern portions of North America suffered a similar fate throughout the th century. The number of Indian deaths from smallpox parallels those from the Holocaust during World War II. In the th century,  known outbreaks of smallpox and related pathogens surfaced in North America. Based on the records of explorers and priests, that number represents only a fraction of the number of unreported cases of smallpox within the inland regions of the continent.

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In the early part of that century, Portuguese sailors fishing off the northeastern coast of North America spread smallpox to the coastal Indian population, which touched off a wave of disease that spread to inland Native societies. When Spanish explorers began exploring the coast of North Carolina in the s, they encountered abandoned villages scattered with the bones of the dead. In one particularly devastating case, smallpox attacked Indians living in the Northeast and in the Great Lakes region in . That outbreak was followed by a wave of scarlet fever and another round of smallpox two years later. The resulting massive population loss meant the removal of the Indians as a military threat to English settlers in what is now Massachusetts. Smallpox spread quickly throughout Native American societies because of the dense populations of people, extensive trade routes, and Indian ignorance of the disease. Some scholars argue that the high numbers of deaths from th-century smallpox epidemics stemmed from the lack of people to care for the sick, who often died of malnutrition and dehydration because the entire village was incapacitated and unable to care for its ill members. Adults suffered a higher death rate than children; often a few children were the only survivors in a village attacked by the disease. They had acquired a life-long immunity due to exposure, but they often succumbed to other waves of such contagious diseases as measles, influenza, or the plague. Like other virgin soil epidemics, smallpox returned intermittently to Indian populations for the next several decades. Smallpox was reported again in , , , and . Until vaccination for Indians on reservations became common, in the s, smallpox continued to erupt throughout the th century and the first half of the th century.

jason newman OPECHANCANOUGH (1545/56-ca. 1644) Opechancanough (spelled variously as Opechankino, Apechancanough, Appochankeno, and Apitchan-kihneu and meaning “sharp opposition”) was a leader of the Powhatan Confederacy in Virginia and the younger brother of Powhatan, the powerful sachem who ruled his vast Native American empire around the Chesapeake Bay. An important negotiator with the English settlers in Virginia during the early th century, Opechancanough later led raids against them. Opechancanough was most likely born at Powhatan Village, near present-day Richmond, Virginia, in either  or around  (historians have not been able to agree on the date). His father’s ancestry may have been Mexican; perhaps he was one of the Native Americans brought north by the de Soto expedition in the s. The Spanish were attempting to build a stronghold in Virginia and to establish Jesuit missions in the area. Opechancanough’s high-ranking lineage among the Powhatans most likely came from his mother’s side of the family. Two of Opechancanough’s brothers, Opitchapam and Katataugh, were called “the two kings of Pamaunke” by Capt. John Smith because they presided over a village at the eastern tip of Pamunkey Neck in Virginia. Sometime before , Opechancanough himself became the acknowledged leader of the Pamunkey River region.

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Distrustful of the Jamestown settlers, Opechancanough and  of his men ambushed a party of explorers on the Chickahominy River in . Only Smith, who had been away from his group hunting with his Native American guides, escaped and survived. Opechancanough took Smith back to his village and then to Powhatan’s village on the York River. There, legend has it, Pocahontas interceded to save Smith’s life. Smith’s extensive journals about his experiences with this tribe show a mutual respect between Opechancanough and himself. During –, Opechancanough’s relations with the English settlers were uneasy, but he served as a chief negotiator for his people. He refused to accept Smith’s offer of trade in , which led to hard feelings between the two men, but Opechancanough sided with the English during a dispute with the Chickahominy people in , granting a Chickahominy town to the settlers as ransom for the killing of five Englishmen. When Powhatan, the great leader of the Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Tidewater region, died in , Opechancanough rose as the active leader and diplomat to the English, although his brother Opitchapam was the nominal chief. Over the next years, the colonists’ demands for goods and land increased, especially as they depleted the soil with tobacco farming. Opechancanough became disgusted with their greed, particularly as traditional hunting lands were cleared for tobacco farming. When one of his people was murdered by a white colonist in , Opechancanough led a surprise attack on the Jamestown settlers, killing  people in one day. Battles and raids raged for  years, with the English sending out regular patrols to destroy Native American villages and the Powhatan Indians retaliating. In , a peace treaty brought a -year truce to the region. White settlers continued to intrude on Native American territory, however, and the tribes were forced further inland each year. In frustration, Opechancanough led another raid on the settlers in April , killing  of the , inhabitants of Jamestown. He was an old man by this time, possibly close to  years old, and accounts state that his men had to carry him on a litter into battle. Soon after, he was captured and killed, and his people were pushed further inland and away from the colony.

PEQUOT WAR (1636–1637) The issues surrounding the Pequot War are among the more complex in the history of the confrontations between American Indian peoples and European colonists. Rooted in land ownership, the volatile conflict was exacerbated by a power struggle between rival English settlements and an ongoing struggle for dominance among various Indian tribes. Although the Pequot War began in , its genesis was actually two years earlier, when English trader John Stone was killed by Indians in retaliation for his kidnapping and otherwise brutal treatment of them. The Pequots bore the onus for the act, even though those responsible for Stone’s death were later proved to be the neighboring Niantics. Separately, the Pequots, who were cut off from trade with the Dutch, began trading with the Massachusetts Bay Company. Massachusetts Bay authorities figured Stone’s murder might be used to political advantage and demanded the surrender of Stone’s killers and a large wampum payment, to which the Pequots agreed. Subsequently, only a portion of the tribute was paid, and the

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Pequots explained that only two of the killers were still alive, whereabouts unknown. For whatever reason, the English did not press the matter until , when Mohegan chief Uncas reported the Pequots were preparing for war. Worsening the situation, a second trader was killed, probably by the Narragansetts. The Pequots’ involvement in this second murder was apparently irrelevant; the English wanted to take action. Massachusetts Bay organized a strike force and proceeded to Fort Saybrook, where they met Pequot sachems and demanded a confrontation on the field of battle. When the Pequots, who likely did not understand the demand, failed to show, the strike force vented its wrath on their villages and crops. Thus provoked, the Pequots laid siege to Fort Saybrook. In April , after their attempt to ally with the Narragansetts was quashed by Roger Williams, Pequots raided the settlement at Wethersfield (near present-day Hartford). In response, the English settlements joined together, and a mixed force of colonists and Mohegans moved against the Pequots. After minimal success on the first attempt, the expedition added more colonists and some  Narragansett and Niantic allies and moved a second time. What followed on May , , was a massacre. The strike force surrounded the Pequot village on Mystic River, set it afire, and slaughtered Pequots as they attempted to escape. Warriors from the main Pequot stronghold hastened to help their brethren but arrived too late. In all, an estimated  to  Pequots—whose numbers had already been reduced by as much as  percent due to a smallpox epidemic in —died in the Mystic River Massacre. After months of being hunted by the English and Narragansetts, in July , the remaining Pequots were surrounded near present-day New Haven, their power decidedly broken. The Treaty of Hartford delineated the terms of the English-Narragansett victory, and surviving Pequots sought refuge with other tribes. Ironically, during King Philip’s War, nearly four decades later, the Pequots allied with the English.

jerry keenan POCAHONTAS (ca. 1595–1617) The daughter of a powerful chief of a confederation of tribes in the tidewater region of Virginia, Pocahontas played a crucial role in negotiating a stable relationship between the Jamestown colonists and the Powhatan Confederacy, thus ensuring the survival of the English colony. More interesting is the myth that has evolved around Pocahontas that emerged during the colonial era and has continued into the present day. Historians are unsure about Pocahontas’s exact date or place of birth, but rough estimates suggest the year . She was the daughter of Powhatan, chief of the Powhatan confederation, a powerful alliance that united many of the tribes in Virginia at this time. Pocahontas was first noted by the English colonists in  when she sauntered into Jamestown as a young girl. The storybook version of Pocahontas relates the tale of Capt. John Smith’s capture by Powhatan’s brother, Opechancanough, when Smith raided the Powhatan territory in search of food. Pocahontas rescued Smith,  years her senior, from certain death. As Smith later told the story, just when he was about to meet his death from two warriors with clubs, Pocahontas placed her head on Smith’s. He thus

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always credited Pocahontas with saving his life. Historians have recently posited that Pocahontas was actually participating in an elaborate adoption ritual that Smith simply misinterpreted. Regardless, the story that Pocahontas saved Smith is the story that has endured. After Smith’s rescue, Pocahontas continued to visit the settlement of Jamestown over the next year and a half. She often advised the colonists on which Indian tribes were the friendliest and taught the English how to bargain for food. Pocahontas also rescued several other colonists in . First, she helped an English boy, Richard Wiffin, run away from his father, who sought to kill him. Then, she warned Smith and his men that several Native Americans were plotting to murder them. Forewarned, Smith and his companions escaped. Relations between the Powhatans and the English remained shaky, however. Capt. Samuel Argall kidnapped Pocahontas in  in hopes of exchanging her for the return of English prisoners, food, and weapons that the Powhatans had taken. The plan fell through when Pocahontas’s father refused to meet their demands and sent only a small portion of what the English demanded. Pocahontas remained with the English and soon adjusted to her new circumstances. By , with the help of Rev. Alexander Whitaker and colonist John Rolfe, Pocahontas rejected her tribal religious beliefs and converted to Christianity. She was baptized and renamed “Rebecca.” In the meantime, Rolfe, who would earn fame by developing a new strain of tobacco plant, had fallen in love with Pocahontas while he was instructing her in the Christian faith. Rolfe convinced the deputy governor of Virginia and representatives of the Church of England that his marriage would prove that the Native tribes could be civilized and Christianized for “our Country’s good, the benefit of this Plantation, and for the converting [of ] an irregenerate to regeneration.” With Powhatan’s assent, Pocahontas married Rolfe on April , . Their marriage brought a brief period of peace between the Powhatans and the colonists, as well as the birth of a son, Thomas. The Virginia Company of London, in hopes of capitalizing on the marriage between a Native American and an Englishman, arranged a tour of England for the Rolfe family in June . They made a number of appearances, including at the court of King James I. Pocahontas also sat for a portrait, the only one known of her. The Rolfes left London in March  for Rolfe’s new job as secretary of the Virginia colony. While en route to a port city so that they could return to Virginia, Pocahontas fell gravely ill. She died on March , , in Gravesend, where she was buried. The myth of Pocahontas, the “Indian Princess,” has been propagated since the th century and has captured the imagination of generations of Americans. Artists have devoted countless poems, novels, biographies, and paintings to Pocahontas, each telling and contributing to the myth. One of the most prominent stories—that Pocahontas and Smith were romantically involved or that at least she was “enamoured” of Smith— had emerged by the mid-th century. Amidst fears of miscegenation, the emphasis shifted from the tale of Pocahontas’s marriage to John Rolfe, once seen as an honorable and worthy event, to her rescue of John Smith. In the process, Pocahontas changed from a real historical figure and mother to a heroic protector, thus removing the troubling stigma of her son, Thomas. This presentation of her as the heroic, mythic protector is the way that she is most often portrayed.

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JOHN SMITH (ca. 1580–1631) The English soldier and adventurer Capt. John Smith not only helped to found the Virginia colony but also, through his bold and vigorous leadership, played a crucial role in its survival. Born the son of a farmer in Willoughby, England, in  or , Smith left home at an early age to seek adventure as a soldier in Europe. While serving with the eastern European forces that were fighting the Turks, he was captured and sold into slavery. After a dramatic escape and further adventures abroad, Smith returned to England. There, by his own account, he helped organize the Virginia Company of London for the purpose of starting a colony in Virginia. In December , Smith was one of the  colonists who sailed for America in three ships. Landing in Virginia in May , the colonists founded a settlement at Jamestown,  miles up the James River. From the start, Jamestown was wracked by disease and internal dissension. Unlike Smith, who at the age of  was already a tough and experienced captain, most of the settlers were ill prepared for the serious business of establishing a colony. They had come expecting to make their fortunes through the discovery of gold and silver and were unwilling to work to feed and defend themselves. As a later settler observed, the colonists “would rather starve in idleness . . . than feast in labor.” Smith quickly emerged as a natural leader by virtue of his energy and resourcefulness. He traded with the Powhatan Confederacy for corn to feed the starving settlers and went on several voyages to explore the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. On one expedition, undertaken in December , Smith and seven companions were ambushed by Native Americans, and Smith was taken prisoner and brought before their chief, Powhatan. According to Smith, he was saved from death through the intervention of Powhatan’s -year-old daughter, Pocahontas. In this and subsequent dealings with the Native Americans, Smith showed himself a shrewd strategist. He drove a hard bargain and generally got what he wanted through bluff and a show of force but very little bloodshed. Upon his return to Jamestown in January , Smith found that rival leaders had assumed control. Held responsible for the deaths of two of his men, he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to hang. Only the timely arrival of a supply-laden English ship, with a high official on board (who restored Smith as a leader of the colony), saved Smith from the gallows. The following fall, Smith managed to defeat his rivals and get himself elected president of Jamestown’s governing council. He soon put the colony under what amounted to martial law. Declaring that the settlers “must be more industrious or starve,” Smith made them farm and work at other constructive tasks, including strengthening the settlement’s defenses against Indian attack. Smith’s term as president lasted just a year. In September , he returned to England. That winter, the colony was nearly wiped out by starvation and Indian attacks. In , Smith again sailed for America, this time to explore the area around Cape Cod, which he named “New England.” He returned with a valuable cargo of fish and furs, along with accurate maps of the region. Smith’s second and last voyage to America ended when he was captured by pirates. Escaping and making his way back to England, he devoted himself to writing accounts of his travels. His most important book was The

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Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (). In it, Smith emphasized the importance of products like fish, furs, and timber; criticized the fruitless quest for gold and silver; and urged that future colonists be willing to work hard. His information and maps were most helpful to later settlers. A colorful, near-legendary figure, Smith has inevitably been the subject of much controversy. Although in the past historians discounted Smith’s overblown accounts of his exploits, modern research has largely substantiated his claims to fame. Smith died in England on June , .

william mcguire and leslie wheeler SQUANTO (1580–1622) A member of the Patuxet Indian tribe, Squanto was kidnapped by English explorers in the early th century and sold into slavery. He managed to escape and, despite the cruelty he suffered, became one of the first Native Americans to befriend the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony. He taught them invaluable survival skills. Squanto was born in  in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. In , he and about  other Patuxets were abducted by English seamen who had come to explore the New World. The Native Americans were taken to Malaga, an island off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, where they were sold into slavery. Squanto somehow escaped, and a clergyman helped him get to England, where he spent at least two years. According to one account, he worked for a rich merchant while learning the English language. In , Squanto managed to get passage on a trading ship and returned to North America. When he got home, he discovered that his tribe had been wiped out by disease and that he was the sole survivor. When the Mayflower arrived in New England, in , Squanto surprised the settlers by greeting them in English. He quickly established friendly relations with the new immigrants and lived among them for long periods of time. When the Pilgrims failed in their attempts to grow the seeds of English wheat, barley, and peas, Squanto showed them how to plant corn, using dead herring as fertilizer. He also taught them the fishing and hunting techniques that had been developed by his people. Without Squanto’s help, it is doubtful that the settlers would have survived their first winter in America. Squanto also acted as an interpreter and cultural mediator between the Pilgrims and the local Wampanoag tribe, on whose territory the English had settled. Historians believe that Squanto was instrumental in negotiating the  peace treaty between the new immigrants and Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoags. The treaty included provisions for a trading partnership and a pledge to assist each other in case of attack by a third party. It was also in  that the Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving feast in the New World with about  Native American guests. Massasoit was listed in colonial accounts as one of those who attended, and Squanto may very well have participated, as well. Unlike the Wampanoags, several other tribes grew wary of the increasing English presence in New England. To ease the tension, Squanto stepped in as a peacemaker. In , he began negotiating a trade agreement between the Pilgrims and the Narragansetts. Before a pact was reached, however, he contracted smallpox and died in November  near Chatham, Massachusetts.

7 The Introduction of Slavery into North America, 1619

INTRODUCTION From the beginning of African history, the diverse cultures of that continent practiced slavery, although it frequently was not based on racial differences. Cultures in Egypt, Greece, and Rome forced captives from wars into slavery without regard for race or ethnicity. As Muslims settled North Africa, they took African men and women as slaves and harem subjects and shipped others to Islamic lands in the Middle East. There, these slaves worked mainly as servants and were an indicator of their master’s wealth and social position. As W. E. B. Du Bois and John Hope Franklin have pointed out, the Renaissance gave Europeans the opportunity to break away from old customs and traditions and to search for ways to improve themselves both spiritually and physically. With this new freedom, however, there was no concomitant sense of social responsibility. To be free, one could justifiably take away the freedom of others. Along with this came the development of commerce-based economies founded on the accumulation of capital and the drive to exploit resources for purely economic gain. These resources came to include other human beings. By the end of the s, slaves were being brought from the west coast of Africa and sold in Europe. The Portuguese were the first to see the advantages of the slave trade, a practice that they and others occasionally justified as part of the struggle to win souls for Christ. They believed that a Christian slave, no matter how bad his or her lot, was better off than a heathen free person. Europe, however, did not have much economic use for slaves. Most sectors of the European economies were not labor-intensive, and there was a surplus of white labor because of the enclosure movement, which limited farming opportunities. Africans went to the Americas with the Spanish as early as , fighting and working alongside their white colleagues. They also accompanied the French in some of their early explorations into what is now Canada and the Mississippi River valley. In neither case were the Africans considered to be slaves. It was different with the English. Africans did not come with them on their earliest exploration efforts to America. When a need for a labor supply first became apparent, the Spanish enslaved indigenous Indians, to the great detriment of native societies, especially in the Caribbean.

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The first Africans to come to America as slaves arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

The combination of cruel treatment, disease, and the Indians’ inability to adjust to the discipline demanded by their masters led to the deaths of thousands. After the Indian experiment had failed, Europeans, and especially the English, looked to poor whites as the solution to their labor needs. In England, a common source of labor during the th century was indentured servitude. Typically, a person wishing to come to America would contract with a sponsor (or master) to work for a certain number of years, usually between four and seven, in return for his or her passage to the colonies and upkeep during the time of servitude. Such servants could be sold to another master, and colonies passed laws regulating the master-servant relationship, including the provision of “freedom dues,” clothes, and other goods received at the end of a person’s term of servitude. In many cases, this system proved unsatisfactory, as indentured servants were bound to their masters for only a limited number of years, and many ran away, never to be recovered, before their terms had expired. Africans, however, were easier to deal with. They could be purchased outright, their skin color made them distinctive, and their heathen background made it easier to subject them to harsh treatment. Finally, there appeared to be a never-ending supply that would provide labor for all who needed it. The Spanish began importing African slaves into America in , and, by , some , were arriving in the West Indies every year. But it was the Dutch, French, and ultimately the English who dominated the slave trade in the th century. In , the Dutch States General chartered the Dutch West India Company and gave it a monopoly over the African and West Indian trade. The Dutch challenged the Portuguese

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for control of the West African slave trade in midcentury, but frequent wars with both France and England weakened them after . The French began organizing a slave trade in the s with the founding of the French Company of the West Indies, but it was never economically successful. By the end of the th century, the French were just holding onto a small share of the African slave trade. At the dawn of the colonial era, slavery as such did not exist in England. Medieval serfs were bound in certain ways to their feudal lords, but they still enjoyed some legal rights. In the th century, England began to place stricter controls on vagrants, beggars, and others who seemed to have no constructive role in society. These controls included branding and servitude for a period of years to the person who had turned the misfit in. Strict punishment awaited those who attempted to escape. By the beginning of the th century, the concept of slavery was understood in England. A slave’s freedom was nonexistent, and a slave was a slave in perpetuity rather than for a limited number of years. To some English thinkers, this equated to a loss of humanity, such as one might think of a captive taken in battle. An important factor here is that captives were strangers, people from another place, and they were often infidels. As it developed in the early colonial years, blacks from Africa fit the definition of a slave perfectly. England first began carrying slaves from Africa to Spanish America in , but the trade was not profitable until , when King James I chartered the Company of Adventurers of London to engage in African slave trade. The Adventurers were not successful, however, and the Dutch brought most of the earliest slaves to the English settlements in North America. In , Charles II chartered the Royal African Company and gave it a monopoly over England’s slave trade. The company worked hard to drive the Dutch and French out of Africa and to suppress independent English slave traders. Ultimately, it, too, was unsuccessful, and it lost its charter in . With other companies free to involve themselves in the slave trade, the slave population in the English colonies rose significantly after . The first slaves to come to the English colonies in North America arrived in Jamestown on a Dutch vessel in . Few were concerned about the legal status of these Africans, and, in the earliest censuses in Virginia, they were listed as servants, even to the point of having a limited term of servitude before achieving freedom. There were very few Africans in Virginia at this time, perhaps only  in . Not until  did the Virginia assembly give legal recognition to slavery, although, after , Africans were no longer indentured and thus had no likelihood of achieving their freedom. For Virginia planters, it was an economic question, a way to solve the perpetual labor shortage problem. In the middle colonies, and especially in New Netherland, slavery was instituted in the s. The Dutch, who were active slave traders, used African slaves on their Hudson River valley plantations and continued to do so until , when the English took control of the colony. On the whole, the Dutch treated their slaves humanely and occasionally gave them their freedom as a reward for long or loyal service. After , slavery continued in New York as the English sought commercial advantages from their colonies, although the number of slaves remained small in the th century. In , there were , slaves in New York, out of a total population of more than ,. Under English rule, slaves were more restricted in their freedom than they had been under the Dutch; one consequence of this was a serious slave uprising in , which

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led to even more restrictive laws. The situation was different in Pennsylvania, where the Quaker influence dampened the enthusiasm for slavery. But slavery certainly existed in the colony, and even William Penn said that Negro slaves were preferable to white servants because of the control that could be exerted over them. In New England, the first blacks came as servants rather than slaves. While slaves were present in New England during the entire th century, it was the slave trade and not the slaves themselves that suited the region’s businessmen, with their commercial orientation. Competition with European slave traders was difficult, however, and some New England traders went as far as Madagascar to find their cargoes of slaves. Late in the century, the slave-trading prospects of New England improved with the decline of the Dutch and the removal, in , of the English Royal African Company’s monopoly. New England slave traders enjoyed their most profitable years in the early th century. Although there were fewer slaves in New England than in other parts of colonial North America, Puritans justified the institution on religious grounds; slavery was a vehicle for Christianizing the heathen African, who would surely benefit in the long run from the grace of God. There were short-term benefits, as well—Puritans recognized the sacrament of marriage for slaves and did not make them work on Sundays. By , the question of race became central to understanding the particular evil of slavery in America. That Africans were “black” had a profound influence on the English. From well before their first encounters with Africans, the English had placed negative connotations on the word black. Black meant dirty; it meant having “dark or deadly purposes”; it was the color of evil. White, on the other hand, was linked with purity, light, and cleanliness. Black people confused scientists who could not understand why some American Indians living at the same equatorial latitudes as Africans were not also black or why blacks brought to Europe failed to turn white after a while. To answer these questions, some turned to the Bible and concluded that either the “mark of Cain” or God’s curse on Noah’s son Ham and his descendants was the origin of black people, which made them God’s cursed race. Although many refuted this notion, it persisted into the th century, when slavery proponents used it to justify slavery in the years before the Civil War. Other factors that supposedly made black Africans suitable for slavery to the English in the th century were their heathenism and their perceived uncivilized behavior. Although the English were not much interested in converting Africans, despite the Puritans’ claims to the contrary, they did claim that Africans’ heathen beliefs were defects that distanced them from the English Christians. The perceived uncivilized nature of Africans, seen in the way they lived their lives, was also something that marked them as quite different from the English. Englishmen frequently likened Africans to beasts. This was seen in the way in which the slave trade was managed. Potential slaves were herded together, examined, and bought and sold, just like livestock.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY julia a. woods Slavery was introduced into the English colonies of North America almost by accident in , when a group of Africans arrived in Virginia, which was then a struggling English

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colony. These Africans are mysterious figures. We know of them only because John Rolfe, a leader of the Jamestown colony, wrote to a treasurer of the Virginia Company, and in that letter he noted casually that a Dutch man-of-war had arrived five months before at nearby Point Comfort, in the Chesapeake Bay, and the settlers had traded provisions for “. and odd Negroes” (meaning some number greater than ). It is not known whether the Africans came to Virginia directly from Africa or after a period of residence in the Dutch sugar islands in the Caribbean, nor is it known what happened to them after their arrival in Virginia. Their status as slaves was unclear, since the institution of slavery was not clearly defined by their English masters, who were more familiar with the practice of indentured servitude. (Much of the labor in the colony at that time was performed by English indentured servants, people who exchanged a period of service, usually five or so years, for the price of their passage from England to the New World. The person to whom labor was owed could trade or sell the labor contract like any other valuable commodity, so indentured servants could be “sold” during their period of service.) The  or so Africans in the Jamestown colony were the first arrivals in a huge migration of workers brought to the Virginia colony to work in the enormously profitable tobacco-growing business. The colonists at the time did not seem to be aware of the importance of that first transaction in , which would ultimately have a profound effect on the future of Virginia and the rest of North America. Slavery in Virginia did not start out as an important part of the colony’s society. The institution changed as the need for laborers to work the tobacco fields became more acute and as fewer English people were willing to undertake the risks inherent in settling in Virginia. As the numbers of Africans and people of African descent in Virginia increased, the leadership of the colony began to regard them as a potential source of trouble and took steps to see to it that legal and social institutions existed to keep them subordinate. In time, slaves found that their status had become permanent and absolute, encompassing every aspect of their lives; in the end, slavery would be ended only by a bloody civil war. We can only guess what had happened to them before their arrival in Virginia, but try to imagine these things happening to you: you are kidnapped by strangers who force you to walk many miles from your home to a coastline you have never seen before. You may be sick, since the diseases here on the coast are new to you and you have no resistance to them. You are held here for a while, then put on an enormous ship, the likes of which you have never seen before. On the ship are men who look so strange to you they scarcely seem human. You are taken across an unbelievably vast body of water, tossed about in the tiny space allotted to you below the deck. The smell is horrible, a combination of unwashed bodies, feces, blood, vomit, and urine. You may know some of your fellow captives or at least speak the same language, or they may all be foreign and speak some assortment of languages unrecognizable to you. Some of your fellow captives may have tried to escape by flinging themselves into the water, even though they know they will drown in that enormous sea. The slavers may order a blacksmith to pull out all the teeth of some especially stubborn slaves who fought back by biting. Many of your fellow captives will have died during this voyage. When you at last arrive at land, it is unlike any other place you have ever been: either an island covered with mile after mile of sugarcane, worked by people who look like your fellow captives at the command of people who look like the slavers, or a densely wooded, swampy-looking shore where, you soon learn, you are going to help your English “masters” become rich by working long hours to grow a plant called tobacco.

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The English were trying to establish a colony in Virginia for a very basic reason: they wanted to improve their own situation in this life and in the next one. European powers had been sending ships and men to remote parts of the world to trade, bringing back exotic goods that could be sold at high profit. Ships returning with spices from India made their investors rich. Spanish explorers had made themselves and their country rich, bringing home gold and silver from Mexico and South America. The English sought to benefit similarly from colonies in North America. Both the Spanish and the English were also motivated by the desire to spread their religion, which would bring God’s favor to themselves and their nation. Spanish friars worked hard to convert the native population of Mexico and South America, and the English similarly sought to expand their own Protestant religion in North America. It did not seem at all odd to them that their financial and religious interests were so closely related; instead, they assumed that God was on their side and would reward their efforts on behalf of the one true faith. Most of the slaves brought to the English colonies in North America were from the coast and adjacent interior of western and west central Africa, brought by English traders either directly from Africa or after some time in the West Indies. English traders usually bought slaves in coastal trade centers along the West African coast, between the present-day countries of Senegal and Angola. This region was very diverse and difficult to describe in general: it included both densely forested areas and grasslands and supported several hundred different ethnic groups, some as culturally and linguistically different from each other as they were from Europeans. Some raised cattle, and others were farmers. Some people lived in relative isolation, while others had ties, by friendship, political alliance, or trade, throughout the continent and beyond. The smallest and most basic social unit in African societies was usually the household. This group would include parents, children, grandparents, and other relatives. The household also included any slaves, who may have, by long association with the family, been treated well and been recognized members of the household, though never quite the same as family. A person could be enslaved by violent means, either kidnapped or captured in warfare, and then was usually transported far from home to prevent future escape. One could also be enslaved by a judicial or religious proceeding, as punishment for a crime. More rarely, a person might enslave himself voluntarily because he could no longer afford to take care of himself, thus choosing dependence over starvation. Slave trading in Africa has a long history. Extensive trade networks crisscrossed the continent. Beginning around CE  and continuing into the th century, slaves were traded north, across the Sahara. There were also slave trade routes east toward the Indian Ocean. Long-distance traders traveled from one trading center to another, dealing with agents who had their own local networks. Slaves were only part of a huge trade: ivory, copper, and hides from central Africa; metalware, figs, and dates from North Africa; palm cloth and salt from the coast. Europeans bought these goods and many more, including gold from the Gold Coast, but mostly they were interested in slaves. When European traders appeared on the West African coast in the th century, the scale of the slave trade increased dramatically. They traded cloth, metalware, horses, brandy, and rum for slaves. Though the statistics have been disputed, the most reliable indicate that, between the th and the th centuries, as many as  million people were exported from Africa’s Atlantic coast and more than  million arrived in the New

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World, with some . million dying during the sea passage in between. This involuntary migration of people, known to historians as the Black Diaspora, scattered an astonishingly large number of people throughout the world. Though the number of slaves taken to the English colonies in North America was relatively low, around  percent of the total, this trade represented a substantial proportion of the English slave trade from around  to . (As it happens, the  or so slaves taken to Virginia in  were not the first Africans to set foot in North America, as some had traveled with the Spanish conquistadores in their travels in Mexico and Florida.) While the English entered the slave trade after the Spanish and Portuguese, they were quick to see the potential profits in the trade. Later, American merchants based in New England took up the trade. From the beginning, Englishmen were fascinated by West Africans. They had no firsthand knowledge of West Africa before , when the first Englishmen went to Africa and returned to publish a detailed account of the journey. The descriptions of black-skinned people and their strange ways were of great interest to English readers. The differences between Africans and Europeans are important because they helped make it possible for Europeans to tolerate (and profit from) slavery. Historians have debated whether racism existed first, before slavery, or whether slavery, in all its dehumanizing cruelty, made the enslaver racist as a response. This debate is important to those seeking to understand the origins and meaning of present-day racism. Englishmen had long associated the word “black” with negative ideas, using the term to describe things they regarded with dread. Englishmen did not like the fact that West Africans were not Christian and not interested in converting. Also, English observers found West African culture shocking and strange; they often saw cultural differences as signs of immorality and inferiority rather than as simply differences. Some historians have focused on these cultural differences to explain racism, while other historians looked more closely at English attitudes toward gender. They pointed out that Englishmen began, unconsciously, to regard people and places they encountered during their explorations with the same attitude with which they regarded women: they spoke of “virgin land” and described both the land and the people using words strikingly similar to words that they used to describe women. And, in English culture at that time, women were entirely subordinate to men, legally and socially. Thus, it is argued, it seemed completely natural that these strange lands and people would need to be controlled and dominated, just as women were. Whatever one may conclude about this debate, it serves as a useful example of how historians grapple with difficult issues, including the shadowy origins of modern problems and the elusive nature of human evil. Ironically, Englishmen, before they began to profit from slavery, had regarded the practice with disdain. They saw the institution as the business of Portuguese and Spanish, people the English tended to regard with scorn. They were aware of the role of slavery in the past. For example, slavery had been an important institution in Greece and the Roman Empire, and slavery is also mentioned in the Bible. Unfree labor, in the form of serfdom, had existed in feudal England, but serfs had some traditional rights, while slaves were simply property, with no rights whatsoever. In the European view, slaves were outsiders, non-Christians, and usually captives taken in wars, such as during the Crusades. It would simply not have occurred to an Englishman to enslave a fellow Englishman, and any person to be enslaved would have to appear to be very different from himself. From the perspective of an Englishman, the human world was arranged,

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metaphorically speaking, as a series of outwardly expanding circles: at the center were the English people, who represented the ideal of humanity; the next circle included non-English white Protestants, such as the Dutch, who fell short of perfection only by not being English. The people become more alien and imperfect as the rings moved outward, with successive circles including European Catholics, such as the Spanish and Portuguese, and then perhaps North African and Turkish Muslims (whom the English tended to lump together under the term “Moors”), then finally reaching such people as non-Christian, dark-skinned West Africans, whose cultures and religious practices were utterly alien to an Englishman in the year . Englishmen were familiar with the institution of slavery but were not necessarily morally opposed to the practice. Slavery became more important to Europeans with the discovery that tremendous profits could be made from growing sugarcane, first in the Canary Islands and later in the Caribbean. Sugarcane is a very labor-intensive crop, requiring year-round backbreaking work to plant and harvest. The most practical (and profitable) way to grow sugarcane was to use workers who could be forced to the point of exhaustion and who had no right to quit their jobs. The high profit to be made in the west was of great interest to ambitious Europeans. The Spanish had found great mineral wealth. There was big money in sugar, and the goal of most European monarchs was to claim some of this wealth and keep it out of the hands of their enemies. One of the problems with this plan was the difficulty of finding workers to extract the wealth from the land. The local indigenous population (called Indians, perpetuating Columbus’s confusion about the exact location of the Caribbean islands and nearby North America) tended to fare badly when put to work, dying in large numbers from European diseases in some areas. It was difficult to bring enough European workers to the New World, though the English tried. How, then, could they make the colonies profitable? The Virginia colony was settled with the idea that profits could be made even as Englishmen spread the Protestant faith and kept out their rivals, the Catholic Spanish and French. The English practice was for the monarch to grant the right to explore, settle, and extract profits to a group of wealthy investors, who paid the expenses of colonizing an area. The Virginia Company, for example, hoped to recoup its investments and make a profit from the settlement in Virginia. When Rolfe wrote his letter to the treasurer of the Virginia Company regarding the -some Africans, he was essentially reporting to his employers. While the Virginia Company expected eventually to settle families in the Virginia colonies, the first settlers were mostly young men of middle-class origin. Company officials were not sure exactly how the colony could be made profitable, but every possibility was explored. The local Indians did not wear lots of gemstones or gold or silver ornaments, which indicated that there was not the sort of mineral wealth here that the Spanish had found in Mexico and the Andes. Still, the possibilities seemed endless in this vast land. The first settlers had trouble getting successfully settled at first. The colony at Roanoke, in present-day North Carolina, had failed entirely, and the Jamestown colony had problems of its own. There is some evidence of a terrible drought that made both water and food scarce and also that the first settlers were not always the most hardworking or knowledgeable farmers. Nearby swamps, with the associated mosquitoes, meant that mosquito-borne illnesses were rampant among the colonists. The difficulty of finding good water sources meant that water-borne illnesses were also common. Further, the

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local Indians, organized under the Powhatan Confederacy, sensed correctly that the Englishmen intended to move into their territory. They attacked from time to time, often causing large numbers of casualties. For the first few years, colonists subsisted mostly on foodstuffs brought from England or traded from the Indians. The colony might have failed entirely if the English had not learned how to grow tobacco. Growing tobacco became an enormously profitable undertaking in Virginia. The English market for tobacco brought high prices as more people became addicted to smoking. But growing tobacco required an enormous amount of work. First the seeds had to be planted; then the seedlings were thinned and transplanted into rows, with each plant set into a mound of dirt that had to be first loosened and piled up by someone wielding a hoe. The rows had to be kept weeded so that the young plants were not choked out by weeds. As the plants got larger, the tobacco planter had to worry about the weather, as hail or heavy winds and rain could tear up the leaves, rendering them worthless because tobacco buyers would not buy leaves that were not whole. When harvest time arrived, the leaves had to be handled carefully to prevent tearing. The bottom leaves of each plant were picked first, and the harvest continued for weeks as the slower-maturing upper leaves were picked, the pickers working their way up the plant until only a stem and the topmost leaves remained. As they were picked, the leaves were bundled and dried. The dried leaves were carefully packed into enormous barrels called hogsheads, which were rolled to the nearest river or navigable creek and onto boats for transport. There were very few roads suitable for transporting large loads in the Chesapeake region, so the ownership of land with water access was an important requirement for successful tobacco farming. Growing tobacco required year-round work, as the winter months, after the barrels had been shipped and before the next planting, were usually spent clearing new fields and repairing fences and tools. The backbreaking work of clearing fields, hoeing the rows, and picking the leaves required a substantial labor force. Most of the first settlers in Virginia were young men without families, so they did not have wives and children to help work in the fields. They needed workers who could be forced to put in long hours in the fields. The system of indentured servitude had worked well for settling the colonies, and between  and  percent of the people who left England for the Chesapeake during the th century were indentured servants. Indentured servants were young, in their mid-teens to early twenties, and were drawn from the ranks of unemployed farm and factory workers. There were far more men than women among their ranks. Their motive for going to Virginia was typically simple: in Virginia, after they served their term of servitude, they could hope to buy land. In England, an island where land was limited, land ownership was the basis for membership in the ranks of the land-owning, voting English elite; a landowner in Virginia would have the same rights. Indentured servants presented some problems to those seeking workers for their plantations. The unhealthful climate in Virginia meant that many Englishmen became ill and died, especially the hardworking and underfed servants. After the term of service had expired, few were willing to sign on for another term, so the period of servitude was limited. The low ratio of women to men meant that there were few children being born to the servant class, so there were no native-born English children to employ on plantations. The system required a constant flow of servants from England, but, as economic conditions improved there, fewer people were willing to sign on to such a risky endeavor as servitude

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in Virginia. Another group of people who represented a potential source of labor, the Indians in Virginia, was unwilling to work for the English and could easily resist any attempt to enslave them, either by armed resistance or by disappearing into the vast wilderness. Africans as laborers had some important advantages over English servants. To some extent, they were resistant to the diseases that killed or incapacitated whites. White servants were likely to run away, and some managed to reach other English colonies, where they disappeared into the white population. Africans’ dark skin made it impossible for them to do likewise. Running away into the backcountry was also difficult, since Indians were willing to return a runaway slave or servant for a bounty. Slavery proved to be more economically stable than servitude: a slave can be made to work for the rest of his life, not just for a period of years. Furthermore, a Virginia law passed in  declared that the status of children follows that of their mothers, so female slaves could potentially generate additional property for their owners, since their children would also be their owners’ slaves. One can only imagine the feelings of a slave mother on the birth of a child, knowing as she did that her baby was also her owner’s property, a slave for the rest of his or her life. A slave could hope to raise enough money to buy freedom for herself or her children, but that was extremely difficult. Later laws would make it more difficult for a slave to become free, either by self-purchase or through the kindness of a master, who might have freed a slave for faithful service. As the English presence became more solidly established in the Virginia colony, the social order began to change. As the English population increased, the availability of land decreased. The best land, located along navigable waterways, had long been claimed. Movement into the backcountry was restricted by hostile Indians. One result was the appearance of a class of landless white men, unmarried because of the unfavorable ratio of men to women and landless because there was no land available. These men were angry that the wealthy tobacco growers along the coast made little effort on their behalf to open up the frontier. This anger led to Bacon’s Rebellion, in , a series of skirmishes between poor frontiersmen and wealthier coastal residents. The rebellion persuaded many tobacco planters that African slaves were a better source of labor than white indentured servants, who presented a potential source of trouble after their term of service was up. Slaves, they reasoned, were never freed and so could be controlled. Another conclusion that they reached was that relationships between slaves or free blacks and poor whites were potentially very threatening. What if the two groups allied themselves in armed rebellion against the authorities? The prospect was alarming. Slaves had already demonstrated that they were capable of resisting their masters in a wide array of strategies, including committing violent acts, running away for a few days, breaking tools, feigning illness, sabotaging crops, or other means. Changes in the laws regarding slavery tightened the restrictions on slaves and clarified the differences in status between slaves and servants. The law tended to follow behind social practices: the first law making it clear that some “servants” were bound for life was passed in , even though slaves had existed in the colony for some time. Another law, passed in , made it clear that a slave could not be made free by converting to Christianity; this law meant that, for the first time, the essential difference between slave and master was race, not religion, since one Christian could now legally own another. The harsh treatment of slaves is apparent in another law, passed in ,

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that declared that should a master kill a slave in the course of punishment for failure to obey orders, the master would not be charged with a crime, as the law presumes that no one would willfully destroy his property. Laws passed in the s placed greater restrictions on slaves and free blacks, punishing whites who socialized with blacks and white women who bore children by black men and prohibiting marriage between blacks and whites. The result of these laws is that a master literally had the power of life and death over his slaves. Another result was an increasing sense of white solidarity; poor whites who did not own slaves identified themselves more with the wealthier slaveowning class than with black slaves, with whom they were strongly discouraged from socializing. Historians have considered how it was possible that slavery became so important so quickly in the English colonies. Some argue that slavery was simply an economically rational solution to a labor problem: African slaves filled a need for labor on the sugar plantations and in the tobacco fields that otherwise could not be met. They point out that the uncertain status of the first Africans in the New World indicates that racism was not an important motivation in the initial decision to use unfree African labor. Other historians disagree: while slavery solved an economic problem, it was also based on an awareness of ethnic differences between Europeans and Africans that hardened rapidly into racial hatred; the fact that slavery was a status reserved for people of West African ancestry supports this argument. The events of the th century set the stage for the next  years, though no one at the time could have expected the results. Slavery became increasingly important to the agricultural economy of the South and less so in the North, where industrialization meant that agriculture was not as important and immigration ensured that labor was more readily available. During the Revolution, some of the colonists feared that the British government was determined to reduce them to the equivalent of slaves, and Thomas Jefferson, himself a slaveholder, wrote that “all men are created equal” and that a government that threatened the rights that every man possessed was doomed to failure. How can we reconcile these beliefs to the fact that so many revolutionaries themselves owned slaves? Some historians argue that it was this fact that helped make these men revolutionaries, that the daily presence of slaves and their powerlessness in the face of the utter control of slave owners served as an inescapable negative example. A slave owner did not think that he, personally, could be enslaved, but he would be the one who determined that no man, no government, would ever have that degree of power over him. And he would be prepared to risk a revolution to prevent such a thing from happening. There were, of course, other reasons for the Revolution besides some slaveholders’ anxiety about being reduced to helplessness. The Enlightenment, an intellectual current in European thought that, among other things, asserted that all institutions should be evaluated on the basis of their reasonableness, not merely respected as part of tradition. Every human being, Enlightenment philosophers insisted, had a right to be treated justly by a reasonable and humane government. American revolutionaries, unhappy with their treatment at the hands of the British colonial authorities, found those ideas tremendously appealing. And they were not oblivious to the irony of slave ownership in their midst. They repealed laws making it difficult or expensive for a master to free his slaves. Thomas Jefferson himself agonized about the cruelties of slavery and devised

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schemes to gradually end the institution in Virginia, yet he personally freed only a handful of slaves, too deeply in debt to risk the financial setback of the loss of his slaves. George Washington, himself a rich man, freed his slaves in his will, as did a number of lesser-known revolutionaries. Some, like Washington, were motivated by the obvious contradiction between revolutionary principles and slave ownership, and others were also inspired by a deep Christian faith and the desire to do right by their human property. Slaves themselves took action: many fled to the British lines during the war in response to promises of freedom if they deserted their masters. Many observers soon after the Revolution believed that slavery was a doomed institution, that a long-term decline in tobacco production would make slavery unprofitable. Slave owners had a more practical reason to regard slavery with dismay: the slaves on the island of San Domingue, a French sugar island, rebelled, defeated the French army, and created their own nation, the Republic of Haiti. No sensible slave owner could regard his own slaves the same way after the news of that revolution. The news from San Domingue/Haiti caused some slaveholders to consider freeing their human property and others to seek to tighten control over their potentially rebellious slaves. What they could not anticipate was the invention of the cotton gin. The gin, which removed the seeds from the fuzz in cotton bolls, made it profitable to grow a variety of cotton plants that thrived throughout the South. Cotton is a labor-intensive crop and, in the days before mechanized farming, was most profitable when grown with the use of slave labor. In the end, those who sought to control slaves more closely won. Slaveholders would continue to guard their rights with particular care, with the thought that weakness in the institution of slavery could lead to the situation that had resulted in the Haitian revolution. Throughout the th century, Southern politicians would seek to ensure that the institution would be allowed to expand westward with the growth of the nation and that laws would ensure that runaway slaves would be returned as swiftly as possible. They believed that the right to move into western territories with their slaves was essential to preventing the high ratio of black to white population that existed in Haiti before the revolution by diffusing the slave population westward. Northern politicians became less sympathetic to these Southern demands; slavery in the North had been ended, and they saw the West as a land of opportunity for small farmers, not as a place set aside for plantations worked by slaves. These differing views of the West and, by extension, of the American dream itself were an essential source of regional conflict, a struggle that would eventually be settled by a bloody Civil War. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, . This book focuses on slavery from the perspective of the slaves and what they did every day, in the Chesapeake, South Carolina, and the Mississippi Delta. Boles, John B. Black Southerners, –. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, . As the title suggests, this book looks at African Americans in the cultural context of the Old South. Brown, Kathleen M. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race and Power in Colonial Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Brown uses gender analysis in her approach to slavery and Virginia society. From this perspective, issues of race, gender, and religion take on whole new meanings.

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Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in the Golden Age of Revolution, –. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Davis addresses the conflicts between the rhetoric of the revolution and the ownership of slaves. Degler, Carl N. Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States. New York: Macmillan, . The comparative approach adopted in this book provides an unusually insightful view of the subject of slavery. Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. . Reprint ed. New York: Penguin, . Written by one of the most influential African American leaders in the first half of the th century, this book is part sociological and historical analysis and part manifesto. It is also prophetic: “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” Elkins, Stanley. Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . Elkins created a storm of criticism when he depicted slavery as such a total system of oppression that slaves were reduced to childlike “sambos.” His use of an analogy to World War II concentration camps was especially controversial. Fogel, Robert, and Stanley Engerman. Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery. . New ed. New York: W. W. Norton. . This book is controversial both for the conclusion—that slavery was not as oppressive as others had depicted it—and for its approach, a purely numeric economic analysis based on slaveholders’ records. Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . This book considers relationships between white and black women, concluding that the shared ties of womanhood were not enough to transcend the institution of slavery. Franklin, John Hope. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, . th ed. New York: Knopf, . This book is an authoritative and comprehensive history of African Americans from African civilizations up to the present. Genovese, Eugene. Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York: Pantheon, . This landmark book places greater emphasis on slave autonomy and culture, while not neglecting the essential oppressiveness of the institution itself. Gutman, Herbert G. The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, –. New York: Pantheon, . This well-researched book is a good choice for a reader interested in a longer view of the subject. Hine, Darlene Clark, and Kathleen Thompson. A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America. New York: Broadway Books, . A narrative survey covering four centuries of history, including individual stories of black women’s struggles and accomplishments. It is well written and lively, a fascinating read. Isaac, Rhys. The Transformation of Virginia: –. New York: W. W. Norton, . A fascinating and well-written book, useful for anyone interested in understanding colonial and Revolutionary-era Virginia. Jordan, Winthrop. White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, –. New ed. New York: W. W. Norton, . Originally published in , this book explores the cultural and psychological origins of slavery and racism. Jordan’s conclusions have been debated and criticized, yet his ideas remain compelling. Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery: –. New York: Hill and Wang, . This clear and succinct book covers slavery not only in the United States but also in the Caribbean and in Brazil, providing a description of how slavery developed and evolved. Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New ed. New York: W. W. Norton, . This book presents a good, brief coverage of slavery in the colonial era. It also offers a clear explanation of the connections between slaveholding and revolutionary ideology.

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Parish, Peter J. Slavery: History and Historians. New York: Harper and Row, . Parish presents a useful summary of the debates among historians about slavery. Smith, Patricia. Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery. New York: Harcourt Brace, . This book is the accompanying volume to the PBS television series and covers slavery from Africa, to the Atlantic crossing, and throughout the Caribbean and America up to emancipation. Wood, Betty. The Origins of American Slavery. New York: Hill and Wang, . This book provides a helpful and succinct presentation of its subject, covering not only Virginia but also Africa and the Caribbean. Wood, Peter. Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from  through the Stono Rebellion. New York: Knopf, . This book offers an excellent survey of slavery in South Carolina in the colonial period, including the Stono Rebellion, one of the most fascinating episodes. Wright, Donald R. African Americans in the Colonial Era: From African Origins through the American Revolution. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, . This book contains a useful and brief summary of colonial slavery, with interesting background information about slavery in Africa and the Caribbean.

AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE When Olaudah Equiano was  years old, he was captured in his home in the interior of West Africa and marched west across a large river, probably the Niger River. He lived at the mercy of several different masters and was eventually sold to slave traders, who sold Equiano to Europeans at the West African coast. At the coast, Equiano fainted after boarding a slave ship that was bound for the West Indies. In his autobiography, published in , he remembered: Such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave of my own country. When I looked around the ship and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted my fate. Quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. Equiano intensely feared the Europeans, the ship, and the unfamiliar objects. He thought that the Europeans wanted to eat the Africans and that the ocean and the ship were magic, until several Africans speaking the Igbo language comforted him. During the voyage, Equiano and others were beaten severely, and some Africans jumped overboard to their deaths. An African slave trade existed since the days of ancient Egypt, when Nubian captives were brought from the Nile Valley to work for the pharaohs. Slaves were an important trade item in the trans-Saharan trade that flourished between North Africa and West Africa after the th century, and slaves had been traded into the Indian Ocean world from East Africa for centuries. However, the most significant African slave trade was that initiated by Europeans in West Africa during the th century. Over three centuries, the Atlantic slave trade forcibly removed millions of Africans to plantations throughout the

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New World. In doing so, it left an indelible imprint on the histories of North America, South America, Europe, and Africa. Portuguese mariners began trading with states along the West African coast in the middle of the th century. In , Portuguese merchants began buying slaves from the Kingdom of Benin (in modern Nigeria) to trade with the Akan peoples to the west (in modern Ghana). There, they were exchanged for gold and put to work in mines. In the s, the Portuguese established sugar plantations on the Atlantic islands of São Tomé and Principe, which were located off of the west coast of Africa. Those were modeled after plantations in the Mediterranean and southern Europe, which used North African and Eastern European slaves to undertake the arduous work of harvesting and processing the sugar. The proximity of those new sugar plantations to the mainland encouraged sugar planters to purchase slave labor from African traders. The African slaves worked in large gangs and were supervised by European overseers. When the Iberian powers began establishing sugar plantations in the New World after , they adopted the plantation model used on the African islands. As the plantation economy of the New World expanded, it developed an insatiable appetite for African slave labor. European criminals imported to work on plantations quickly succumbed to tropical diseases, and Native American peoples were all but exterminated by harsh treatment at the hands of Europeans and exposure to new strains of disease. Beginning in , slaves from West Africa were imported directly to the New World in a system that would last more than three centuries and ultimately enslave and transport millions of victims. The conditions of enslavement, transportation, and servitude were horrifying. After being captured in Africa, slaves were chained and kept in port until they were purchased by European traders. The trip across the Atlantic was extremely hazardous, with many slaves perishing from disease or even being thrown overboard to their death when a ship’s provisions ran low. Equiano wrote of the beginnings of his journey on the slave ship: I inquired of these what was to be done with us. They gave me to understand we were to be carried to these white people’s country to work for them. I then was a little revived, and thought if it were no worse than working, my situation was not so desperate. But still I feared that I should be put to death, the white people looked and acted in so savage a manner. I have never seen among my people such instances of brutal cruelty, and this not only shown towards us blacks, but also to some of the whites themselves. This was the Middle Passage, the middle part of the three-part journey taken by slave traders in the th and th centuries. The traders first carried goods to Africa, then traded the goods for slaves and started across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, where they exchanged the slaves for other goods and departed again for Europe. The middle part of the voyage saw the newly enslaved Africans shackled and packed tightly into tiny areas where they were subject to disease. Valuable cargo, slaves who would not eat or attempted suicide were often tortured. Mortality rates were high; it is estimated that between  percent and  percent of Africans transported through the Middle Passage lost their lives. “The closeness of the place and the heat of the climate, added

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to the number of the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us,” Equiano wrote. This produced copious perspiration so that the air became unfit for respiration from a variety of loathsome smells and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died—thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, which now became insupportable, and the filth of the necessary tubs [toilets] into which the children often fell and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable. While historians debate the volume of slaves transported during this era, it is evident that at least  million African slaves arrived in the New World. Given the vast number who died during the notorious Middle Passage (estimates range in the low millions) and the number sent to other regions (like South Africa), the total number of people ensnared in the system would have been much greater. Portuguese domination of the trade ended in the th century as merchants from several European states began supplanting them. By the mid-th century, British, French, and Dutch merchants were transporting upward of , slaves out of West Africa annually. Those slaves worked in mines in South America, on coffee and sugar plantations in Brazil, on sugar plantations in the Caribbean, and on cotton plantations in the American south. Life expectancy on those plantations was short due to overwork and disease, creating a constant demand for more slave labor. Once his ship docked in Barbados, Equiano was sold to a merchant who took him to Virginia, where the introduction of tobacco had been the primary stimulus for the adoption of slavery in the North American colonies. The arrival of the first slaves in the North American colonies, in , began what would become an economic and cultural institution in the United States. Profit drove that entrenchment of slavery. Tobacco, cotton, and westward expansion were all key economic catalysts used to justify such forced labor. After tobacco was introduced in Virginia, tobacco growers soon recognized the profit potential from the use of slave labor and attributed that potential to several reasons: Africans were more acclimated to the brutal, hot weather and could labor longer than their white immigrant counterparts; as they came from different regions and spoke different languages, it was hard for them to organize resistance; and they were too far away from their homeland to run away. The use of slaves in the tobacco industry marked the beginning of more than two centuries of slavery in the United States. By the late th and early th centuries, slavery was firmly established as the principal labor system in the South, although it did exist to a lesser extent in the North. Even when tobacco began to yield fewer returns in the late th century and slavery appeared to be declining, the institution had already become enmeshed in U.S. culture. Racism was part of that culture, as most white Americans believed that Africans were inferior and that slaves were better off being provided for in captivity than they would be if they were free. Because they believed that slavery was an important part of American life, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in  ensured its continuance in the U.S. Constitution. While tobacco was on the decline, another cash crop greatly impacted the institution of slavery in the United States—cotton. Eli Whitney’s introduction of the cotton

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gin in  at the time of the Industrial Revolution, during which large-scale manufacturing greatly increased the demand for cotton, propelled a resurgence in the need for slavery. Settlers, along with slaves purchased from failing tobacco planters, migrated to the South to establish large cotton plantations in such states as Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia. Thus, the institution of slavery in the United States was revived and once again became essential to Southern economic concerns. Different regions of West Africa participated in the slave commerce to varying degrees. The Senegambia region was an important supplier in the early days of the trade, as was Angola. Later, the west coast of modern Nigeria became the focus of the trade, earning the region the nickname the “slave coast.” The coast of modern Ghana was also an area with a high concentration of European slave trading posts. At the slave trade’s peak in the th century, virtually every port along the West African coast was participating in the trade. The role of African rulers and merchants in the trade has been a subject of much controversy. Most people who were sold to Europeans were captives from wars or criminals. Before the advent of the Atlantic trade, captives would have been returned home after ransom was paid or enslaved. Criminals would have been either executed or enslaved. However, slavery in that context meant something quite different from what it would come to mean in the New World. A slave in West African communities was frequently considered a member of a family. In many cases, slaves were eligible to own and inherit property, and their children would often be freed. Thus, while forms of slavery can be said to have existed in West Africa before the advent of the Atlantic slave trade, the chattel slavery of the New World, which viewed slaves as private property and beasts of burden, was rare in Africa. Americans and Europeans did not have the resources or inclination to capture slaves themselves, and they acted for the most part as buyers in slave markets along the African coast. However, merchants proved willing and able to encourage conflict among African states, as they did in Angola and the Kongo Empire in the th century, in order to maximize the pool of available captives. In general, the demand for slaves appears to have encouraged conflict among African states and to have transformed the nature of warfare. Where victory would have once encouraged rulers to exact tribute from the vanquished, the slave trade encouraged the victors to destroy and enslave weaker communities. The slave trade also had significant demographic and social consequences in West Africa. Traders preferred to purchase men rather than women because they were seen as better suited to survive the grueling Atlantic crossing and the arduous labor of the plantations. That preference left many regions of Africa with a disproportionate number of women, many of whom were enslaved by African rulers. It also robbed local economies of their most productive members, who were exchanged for manufactured goods like alcohol, cloth, and guns that had little if any productive value. The plantation system also gradually took hold in West Africa, and, by the th century, large plantations run by slave labor were producing palm oil and other products desired by traders. Thus, the chattel slavery of the New World came to transform slave relations in Africa. During the th century, the Atlantic slave trade reached its zenith. Developments in Europe during the century, however, were laying the foundations for the system’s demise. In the late th century, European intellectuals, influenced by the Enlightenment,

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began calling for an end to the trade. Some of those critics were inspired by the French philosophes’ ideas of the equality and dignity of all people, while others were influenced by the economic arguments of Adam Smith and other physiocrats, who maintained that slavery was an inefficient economic institution. At the same time, Christian evangelicals in Great Britain and the United States began arguing for abolition on the grounds that the traffic in human beings was immoral. Many of the abolitionists were freed slaves or repentant slave traders. Initially, the abolition movement focused its attention on the slave trade itself. The abolitionists reasoned that the Middle Passage was the most dangerous aspect of the system for those enslaved and that, if the supply of slaves dried up, the owners in the New World would be forced to treat their slaves more humanely. Many abolitionists were also hesitant to support the cause of manumission, which was seen as an infringement on the property rights of slave owners. The campaign for abolition coincided with important changes in the political economy of the Atlantic world. A glut in world sugar production in the th century, combined with the rising price of slaves on the West African coast, cut into the profits of plantation owners and slavers. Meanwhile, the rising manufacturing class of Great Britain (many of whom were staunch abolitionists) was beginning to view Africa as a potential source of raw materials and markets, rather than as a reserve of human labor. Abolitionists were further aided by the growing specter of slave revolts. The Haitian slave uprising, or Haitian Revolution, of  was the most prominent and successful such rising. Other resistance movements proliferated throughout the New World. In the New York slave revolt of , slaves in New York City armed themselves with guns and clubs and revolted. The leaders of the revolt were newly arrived from Africa. In , a slave named Gabriel Prosser led slaves in what became known as Gabriel’s Rebellion, followed in  by Nat Turner’s Rebellion, led by a slave named Nat Turner. Slaves in Brazil and Jamaica formed self-governing communities outside European control. Such movements made slave trading an increasingly precarious investment and helped pave the path toward abolition. The abolitionist cause was strongest in France, where the trade was outlawed by the French revolutionaries after , and in Great Britain, where the British Parliament abolished the British slave trade in . The United States abolished the trade in the same year when President Thomas Jefferson signed the Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves () into law. An illegal slave trade continued until the Civil War, however, with the Compromise of  calling for an end to the slave trade in Washington, D.C. At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain was able to get several of the remaining powers of Europe to agree to a ban on the trade. The restored French monarchy refused to agree to the ban on slave trading, although, by , the nation had effectively ended its participation in the trade. Spain was the one European nation that continued to ignore the ban, and many slave ships began using Spanish or Cuban flags. The trade between Africa and the New World plantations of Cuba and Brazil was ended only in . With trade in slaves forbidden, the U.S. and British governments determined to prevent rival powers from benefiting from the use of slave labor. Cooperation between Secretary of State Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton of Great Britain resulted in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (), which settled the boundaries between the United

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States and Canada but also aimed to suppress the slave trade. The treaty called for the two countries to equip and maintain naval vessels on the coast of Africa with the explicit purpose of ending the trade of slaves. “The Parties to this Treaty agree that they will unite in all becoming representations and remonstrances, with any and all Powers within whose dominions such markets are allowed to exist; and that they will urge upon all such Powers the propriety and duty of closing such markets effectually at once and forever,” it stated. Therefore, the U.S. Navy began patrolling the coast of West Africa, intercepting slave ships and liberating slaves. Admirals Andrew H. Foote and Matthew Perry, among others, sailed along the African coast, stopping ships suspected of trading in slaves. The British Royal Navy plied the waters along the eastern African coast, where Swahili and Arab slave traders continued to export slaves to the Middle East and Asia. Ironically, the abolition of the slave trade actually increased the incidence of slavery in West Africa in the short term. African states that had grown wealthy by supplying slaves to coastal traders were slow to abandon their economic livelihood. With the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy closing off the export of slaves from the coast, vast reservoirs of slaves accumulated in ports. Missionaries and merchants attempted to encourage African states to replace slave trading with “legitimate commerce,” the production of tropical foodstuffs for export to the European and North American markets. However, those new products were produced on large plantations that still used slave labor. In the late th century, European powers justified their conquest of Africa in part by promising that colonial rule would end the traffic in human beings once and for all. However, European administrators soon found that, without slave labor, many colonies would not be economically self-sufficient, and they often turned a blind eye toward the practice. Though slavery had been eradicated throughout much of Africa by , it continues to exist in some areas of the continent. With the American south one of the chief cotton producers of the world and with westward expansion offering more land for cotton and tobacco cultivation, slavery was more entrenched than ever in the United States even after the end of the slave trade. It would remain so until the end of the Civil War. Before Equiano had been in Virginia long, he was purchased by a British Royal Navy lieutenant and taken to England. There, he learned to read, changed masters many times, and began working aboard ships. He traveled between the Caribbean islands and North America and then to Italy, Turkey, Portugal, the West Indies, and the Arctic. He was finally allowed to trade in order to earn money, and, in , he presented his master with £ sterling and received the papers for his manumission. All the while, Equiano did not waver from his mission to end the slave trade. During –, he published his autobiography, Equiano’s Travels: His Autobiography or The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African. He concluded the account of his own experiences and his observations of the brutality of slavery with an appeal to the British legislature to end the slave trade. “I hope,” he wrote, “to have the satisfaction of seeing the renovation of liberty and justice resting on the British government to vindicate the honour of our common nature.” It was not to happen. Equiano died in obscurity in either  or .

james burns

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RUNAWAY SERVANTS Rebellion and escape from indentured servitude was common throughout the colonial period. The most common acts of rebellion involved breaking tools, feigning sickness, or shirking work duties, but there are some examples of servants sabotaging their master’s crops, burning his home, poisoning his food, or killing his livestock. In the most egregious cases, they even committed acts of violence against their masters. In one gruesome example, a young Virginia servant murdered his master and his wife in their sleep with an axe. The servant, who was trained as a bookseller and raised in a middleclass English family, was angry that his master had reneged on a promise he had made to make him a tutor to his children. Instead, the servant found himself working in the tobacco fields for long hours of the day, toiling in the heat of the sun without adequate food and water. He was angry at his mistress, too. She “would not only rail, swear, and curse at him,” but she haunted him “like a live ghost” while he was doing the “most irksome” work in the field. Such incidents reveal that servants had limits to the abuse they were willing to take. Running away was also a common method of rebellion. Because masters had invested so much time and money in their servants, they did not look upon runaways favorably. Often they placed detailed ads in the local newspapers describing who had run away, what the person was wearing, and, most important, certain physical features that would make them recognizable. They offered a reward as well. This advertisement in The Pennsylvania Journal, dated May , , is a typical example: Race-street, an English Servant Man named John Watts, a Brass-founder by trade, about  years old,  feet  inches high; he came to this place in December last with Capt. Cook, from London; he has a long face, white grey eyes, black curled hair very thin on his head, a childish but hoarse voice; and says, since he has been here, he ran-away, from his uncle in London, to come to this country. He had on when he went away, a felt hat, a black silk cravat, Check Shirt, an old peachblossom-coloured waistcoat, of cotton velvet, the back parts of different stuff, and a coating upperjacket, the lining of white woolen stuff, blue duffel trousers, blue and white mixed stockings very little worn, new neat’s leather shoes with silver plated buckles.— Whoever takes up said Servant, and secures him so that his Master may have him again, shall have the above Reward of FIVE POUNDS, and reasonable charges, paid by me Frederick Weckerly, Brass-founder. There is no way of knowing how many runaways successfully escaped, but, if Maryland can be used as an example, the number is high. Over a three-year period from  to , the Maryland Gazette published an average of  advertisements for runaways, but county court records recorded that not more than four or five were captured. While escape from abusive masters was the most common reason for fleeing, it was not the only one. The majority of runaways in Pennsylvania were from rural areas where they often worked in isolation, cut off from the social networks that urban servants seemed to enjoy. Most of them ran away with other servants and occasionally slaves. A number of them went to Connecticut, a colony that did not have laws compelling the return of runaways. Some went to other colonies, such as South Carolina, where it was

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believed runaways would be sheltered. Others, during times of war, joined the British army. Wherever they went, though, they were difficult to catch. Runaways who were caught or who returned home paid dearly: they had their indentures extended, usually for twice the time lost to their master. In Pennsylvania and Maryland, the ratios were  to  and  to , respectively, but that did not seem to deter runaways: in Pennsylvania, nearly a quarter of servants ran away in the first half of the th century. In addition to having their contracts extended, runaways were often whipped. When Thomas Wood, a seven-year-old servant from Virginia, ran away from his master’s farm in the summer of , his master, who was known in the community as “a cruell man,” vowed to flog him if he returned. The young boy returned, and the master made good on his word. He hired a man, one Samuel Lucas, to whip the boy, and, when Lucas finished the deed, Wood’s master took a turn at cracking the whip, beating the boy with a rope “about the bignes of a finger.” The boy died shortly after his beating, but it was not clear whether he died from sickness or from the abuse he suffered from his attackers. One of the reasons servants were treated so harshly is that they were not considered to be part of the master’s family, as they were in England, where they were treated with greater care. English masters took great pride in looking after the comfort, health, and well-being of their servants, much as they would their own children. They purchased their servants in small face-to-face gatherings, where they got to know them and their families. Most servants were bound to households, usually in localities close to their own homes, for a period of one year, which made many young men and women view themselves as hired labor rather than indentured servants. Furthermore, these servants received wages and acquired property once their contracts were up. This was not always the case in the colonies. In the colonies, servitude was often impersonal and inhumane. Servants were sold at large auction blocks to the highest bidder, and the bidders looked on their new labor recruits as nothing more than property. In addition, most colonial servants could be bought and sold, rented out at their master’s discretion, or doled away in a will to a destitute family member. Servants also risked losing their freedom dues if their master felt particularly stingy that year or if he didn’t like his servant. There were no remedies to such injustices, other than filing a petition to the court, but, as already noted, such appeals did not usually go in the servants’ favor. For these and other reasons, servants often compared their plight to that of slaves. James Revel, an indentured servant in Virginia, captured this feeling in a poem he wrote: “we and the Negroes both alike did fare / Of work and food we had an equal share.” Not surprisingly, Europeans who visited the colonies were horrified at how servants were treated. One such visitor, William Eddis, who arrived in Maryland in , believed slaves were treated better than servants. “Generally speaking,” he observed, “they groan beneath a worse than Egyptian bondage.” Servants said as much, too. “As is too commonly the case,” one Connecticut servant bitterly noted, “I was rather considered a slave than a member of the family, and, instead of allowing me the privilege of common hospitality, and a claim to that kind of protection due to the helpless and indigent children, I was treated by my master as his property and not as his fellow mortal.” What especially galled servants was the fact that they were bought and sold like slaves. “My Master Atkins,” wrote one disgruntled servant from Virginia in , “hath

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sold me for a £ sterling like a damned slave.” A servant from Pennsylvania complained that his master had sold him for a “yoke of bulls” valued at £, which was nothing more than the price a slave would fetch. But most degrading was how they were sold. In most colonial cities, they were herded off at large auctions, “driven,” as one servant explained, “in tens and twenties like cattle to a . . . market and exposed to sale in public fairs as so many brute beasts.” Like slaves, they were poked and prodded at the auctions, demeaned and humiliated, as one servant put it, “in the vilest of ways.”

john a. grigg

SLAVERY The most brutal institution in American history, slavery existed in the United States from the early th century until , when Congress enacted the Thirteenth Amendment shortly after the Union victory over the Confederacy in the Civil War. By that point, more than  million African American slaves lived in the United States. Although their communities thrived and multiplied, these people were subject to harsh living conditions and enjoyed none of the rights or freedoms so fiercely protected by white Americans. Native Americans were the first enslaved people in North America. Many aboriginal societies had practiced different forms of slavery for thousands of years before they had ever seen Europeans. The practice, however, represented a temporary condition and was used more as a badge of status than a moneymaking enterprise. Most Indian slaves were women and children either purchased or captured as prizes in warfare. Some were adopted into their new tribe over time, their offspring being free persons who could even rise to positions of leadership. Slavery, therefore, was not a hereditary condition, nor was it based on race. Europeans continued the practice of enslaving Indians after their arrival in the New World in the late th century. Spanish, English, and French colonists broadened the scope of Indian slavery by selling Indians, including men, into bondage in other colonies as punishment for warfare or rebellion. The Spanish, in particular, erected a vast system of slave labor in their colonies in Latin America. The English and French enslaved Native Americans much less frequently and seldom held Indian slaves to labor among them. Rather, they sold Indian captives south to the West Indies, as Connecticut colonists did to surviving Native American women and children following the Pequot War of –, which virtually annihilated the Pequots from New England. In general, the British colonists found it difficult to enslave Native Americans, who had great opportunities to escape from bondage and rejoin their tribes. The system of chattel slavery that developed in the New World and focused on African Americans was different from the slavery practiced against Native Americans. The first group of African slaves, numbering four men and women, arrived aboard a Dutch ship at Jamestown, Virginia, in . English planters like John Rolfe quickly realized the enormous profits to be had from importing unfree laborers. Rolfe’s introduction of a viable tobacco plant in Virginia

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served as a major impetus for the adoption of African slavery as the region’s main labor system. Tobacco was an extremely labor-intensive crop, requiring field hands to spend long hours bending over plants under the blazing hot sun. Most whites proved entirely unsuited for this labor, in part because they were unused to such hot and humid weather conditions and in part because they flat out refused to do such work. Some white indentured servants were forced to work in the fields, but, as the th century progressed, it proved more and more difficult to convince Europeans to immigrate under these conditions. African slaves solved many of these problems. Physically, Africans were more used to such brutal weather conditions and capable of laboring in them for longer periods than whites. As African slaves represented a diversity of nations and spoke a wide variety of languages, they also found it difficult to communicate with one another and organize resistance to their forced bondage. And, unlike the Native Americans, Africans were too far from their homeland to run away from their white masters. Finally, some West African leaders proved extremely receptive to the idea of selling other Africans into slavery for profit, so most of the kidnapping of Africans and forcing them into bondage was actually done by other Africans, reducing the effort on the part of whites necessary to perpetuate the system. For all these reasons, African slavery quickly emerged as a desirable and profitable labor system. Throughout the course of the th century, the various British North American colonies erected a series of laws and social conventions that served to entrench African slavery at the heart of colonial society, particularly in the south. Although African slavery spread to all of the colonies, it never took hold in the northern colonies as it did in the southern, primarily because of the nature of the work required. Northern colonies were populated with small family farms, and the rocky terrain proved inhospitable for crops like tobacco. Slaves certainly existed in the northern colonies but not in nearly such large numbers as in their southern counterparts. During the colonial period, nowhere did slavery become more firmly entrenched than in Virginia, and the slave system that Virginia developed during this period served as a model for all other slave societies in the years to come. At first, in the s, the rules governing slavery were ill defined, and some masters treated the Africans more like indentured servants than slaves. Several Africans even labored for specified amounts of time and then secured their freedom. By the s, however, the idea that African slavery should be both perpetual and hereditary had begun to take hold, as the labor required to keep large plantations functioning and profitable grew scarce and the price of slaves rose. The Virginia House of Burgesses passed a series of laws in the second half of the th century that legitimized African slavery. Perhaps most important, the legislature grounded slavery on a strict definition of race, ensuring that anyone with even as little as one-eighth of African blood was likely to be a slave. The laws also clearly classified slaves as property, according them no rights or protections under the law. Masters were free to do with their slaves as they pleased. Although the legislature would pass other laws in the coming decades to refine the slave-labor system, its essentials were in place by . By that point, slavery was firmly entrenched as the primary labor system of the South. White indentured servants from Europe became increasingly scarce, while African

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imports rose dramatically beginning in . New England shipping firms profited immensely from the trade by transporting Africans from their homeland to America. Known as the Middle Passage, the journey across the Atlantic Ocean in slave ships was a brutal one, with the Africans being held below decks, chained together in cramped conditions, and suffering from disease, starvation, and outrageously poor sanitary conditions. Although mortality rates on the Middle Passage were alarmingly high, most Africans reached North America and were quickly sold into perpetual bondage with no hope of ever attaining their freedom or returning home. Once sold to their new masters, slaves were forced to assimilate into American life very quickly. They learned English with amazing speed and proved fast students of American culture, as well. Often they were aided by other slaves working on the same plantation, who informally introduced the Africans to their new way of life. In the slave quarters, a whole new culture emerged that combined elements of African life with American features, giving rise to a unique African American culture. Living conditions for slaves were hard, with long work hours and little material comfort. Few masters recognized the sanctity of the slave family and sold off children from their parents, or vice versa, as they pleased. Slave marriages were not recognized by any white institution, either legal or religious, and masters, rather than slave parents, had the ultimate power to discipline slave children. Nevertheless, historians have recently conjectured that slave families did exist and managed to exert a tremendous influence on African American life while avoiding the watchful eyes of white overlords. Slaves were subject to harsh punishment for even minor offenses, depending on the character and temperament of each individual master. The relatively high purchase price for slaves did not protect them from mistreatment. If a master chose, he could even murder his slaves with impunity, although it would mark a significant financial loss for him if he did so. Whippings and beatings were not uncommon, however, and some masters became adept at inflicting physical punishments on their slaves that did not hinder their ability to work. Slaves performed a wide variety of work in the South. The majority served as field hands or house servants. A privileged few were taught such trades as carpentry or blacksmithing. Some slaves even became preachers, presiding over many of the religious aspects of slave life. Religion, in fact, was a pillar of African American life during this period. Whites had long boasted that slavery allowed them an opportunity to Christianize African “heathens,” and many whites actively encouraged the spread of religion among slaves, pushing in particular biblical injunctions for slaves to obey their masters and accept their condition in life. As with other aspects of slave culture, African Americans accepted Christianity but modified it, combining with it some aspects of traditional African religions. Because slaves were prohibited by law from learning how to read or write, slave preachers played a particularly important role in African American religion and were often the center of slave communities. In recent years, historians have focused more and more attention on the dynamics of slave communities and whether or not the majority of slaves accepted their condition in life or worked to undermine their bondage. A series of slave rebellions and revolts throughout American history, most notably the Stono Rebellion of  and Nat Turner’s Rebellion of , alarmed whites and illustrated that not all slaves complacently

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accepted their status. Currently, though, historians have been hypothesizing that a majority of slaves most likely sought to undermine the system through a series of small, passive-aggressive acts—like working as slowly as possible in the fields or surreptitiously ruining crops. For many, such acts were the only way to show their discontent without suffering tremendous retribution at the hands of their masters. Short of fomenting a rebellion, the most common measure to undermine the institution of slavery was for a slave to run away. Some fled to Native American communities in the West, which sometimes offered a haven for African Americans. Others made the arduous journey to Canada. Still others opted to take their chances in the North, hoping to melt into one of the many communities of free African Americans living in northern cities. The chance of recapture was extremely high, both for those in flight and for those who fled to the North. Slaves caught attempting to run away met with particularly harsh punishments, sometimes even death, at the hands of southern authorities. Some southern communities even maintained slave patrols, complete with tracking dogs, to discourage runaways. Slave catchers—privately employed agents who returned slaves to their masters for a fee—were particularly feared among slaves for their brutality. Despite the often cruel conditions of slavery, American slaves enjoyed a higher standard of living than any other enslaved people, higher even than many of the laboring free classes around the world. Natural increase of the American slave population, through high birth rates and relatively low death rates, was marked throughout slavery’s existence. By the outbreak of the American Revolution, more than a half-million slaves lived in the British colonies, almost all of them in the South. As tobacco proved less and less profitable, however, slavery seemed to be on the decline. The delegates at the Continental Congress even briefly discussed abolishing slavery, although strenuous objections from southern delegates, whose constituents had enormous sums tied up in slave property, brought such talk to a close quickly. The idea that the colonists could be fighting the British for their freedom at the same time they held a half-million people in bondage troubled many Americans, but the issue of race played a tremendous role in assuaging their consciences. For centuries, Africans had been seen as an inferior people, and most white Americans, in both the North and the South, managed to convince themselves that slaves were better off and better cared for in bondage than they would be with their freedom. Adhering to the belief that slavery was an important aspect of American life, the delegates of the Constitutional Convention enshrined the institution of slavery in the U.S. Constitution in , ensuring its continuance in the United States despite any qualms Americans might be feeling about it. However, the convention did incorporate a ban on the international slave trade, to be implemented in . This ban on importation did little to lessen the strength of slavery as an institution, however, as the slave population in America was thriving on its own, and the lack of new imports served to keep the price of slaves high. By this point, slavery had geographically split the country, with the southern states relying on it heavily while many of the northern states abolished it or passed laws to phase it out. Many Americans in both regions thought that slavery would eventually disappear from the entire country, as it was becoming less profitable for southern tobacco planters.

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In , however, Eli Whitney introduced the cotton gin, a labor-saving machine that transformed cotton from a ridiculously high-labor crop into a profitable one. Growing cotton still required a tremendous amount of labor, but its rewards proved greater after the advent of the cotton gin. Almost immediately, settlers pushed into the southwest to establish large cotton plantations in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia. Into these new regions, they took thousands of slaves, purchased from failing tobacco planters in Virginia who were happy to convert their slave property into ready cash. Suddenly, the institution of slavery was reborn, reestablishing itself as the backbone of southern financial interests once again. With the South emerging as one of the chief cotton regions of the world, slavery was more entrenched than ever. The spread of slavery to new states ignited a “fire bell in the night,” according to the elderly Thomas Jefferson in . Jefferson in the s had attempted to put slavery on a course of destruction. However, by the first decades of the th century, Jefferson, like other leading southern statesmen, proclaimed the need to protect the institution to save the southern way of life. Indeed, slavery became the most abiding and powerful symbol of that way of life. Increasingly, northern and southern politicians came to view each other as members of hostile camps, representing two opposing images of American life: one based on free labor and the other based on slave labor. As a result, the issue of admitting new states that either prohibited slavery or allowed it emerged as one of vital political significance. Southerners saw the admission of a free state as a tangible sign of growing northern political power, and vice versa. The advent of a vocal and controversial abolition movement in the North only heightened southern fears of a plot to destroy slavery and the South’s political power. The result was increasing sectional tension between the two regions as more and more territories petitioned for statehood in the federal Union during the first half of the th century. The adoption of a series of compromises, most notably the Missouri Compromise of  and the Compromise of , offered only temporary relief for these tensions, which eventually culminated in the secession of  southern states and the outbreak of the Civil War, in . During the war, President Abraham Lincoln adhered to his position that the conflict was not over slavery but rather over the issue of states’ rights and the sanctity of the federal Union. In , he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in the rebelling states. Although abolitionists praised the move, Lincoln still held that it had been a war measure, prompted by the fact that slaves were directly contributing to the South’s fighting capabilities by manning the home front and freeing up more whites for service on the battlefield. The wording of the proclamation was also important, as it essentially freed only the slaves in areas not under the federal government’s control, while leaving slaves in bondage in other regions. Nevertheless, by the end of the war, the South’s defeat brought slavery to a de facto end, as hundreds of thousands of slaves fled to the victorious Union troops. Congress officially declared slavery dead with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, in . The struggle for equal rights for African Americans was another whole issue, and one that most white Americans chose not to tackle in the aftermath of the war. By the end of Reconstruction, white southerners had reestablished their control over African

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Americans through a series of laws and restrictions that severely curtailed their rights and opportunities. It was not until the civil rights movement of the s and s that African Americans were truly able to throw off this new form of control, which in many ways proved even more confining than the bondage of slavery.

jason newman

SLAVERY IN MID-18TH-CENTURY COLONIAL VIRGINIA On the eve of the American Revolution, the life of a slave in colonial Virginia was dictated by the same crop that had dictated the lives of countless other slaves before him— tobacco. The colony’s primary staple throughout the colonial era, tobacco was best produced on a small scale and on land that required careful cultivation and management. For these reasons, tobacco plantations tended to be far smaller than the rice plantations of the low country. Most tobacco farmers needed the labor of just a few slaves to make a profit. The lives of slaves in the Chesapeake were determined by the seasonal demands of the crop. To bring a tobacco crop successfully to market, small bands of slaves and their overseers toiled ceaselessly between the months of January and September. In the early spring, slaves cleared the land and planted seeds. As the seedlings matured, slaves weeded, hoed, and transplanted the seedlings to fields prepared to nurture them. In late summer, the intricate process of harvesting began. Leaves were first cut, then cured, then rolled, and finally packed for delivery. Because the crop could be ruined by the carelessness of its harvesters, plantation owners or their hired overseers closely supervised the work of their slaves, who typically worked in small groups, or “gangs.” Slaves in such gang units were often ordered to keep pace with the most efficient and practiced hand among them, to prevent the “lazier” or less capable slaves in their midst from slowing down the progress of the harvest. Those who did not keep up with the relentless pace could expect some form of punishment. The system of gang labor that dominated the tobacco plantations of Virginia left slaves little free time of their own. During the peak seasons of planting and harvesting, slaves toiled from early dawn into the late hours of the night. Their few hours of rest were spent in quarters or cabins set some distance away from the master’s home. Slaves spent their limited free time on recreation or on the more practical activities of tending to their own small gardens or livestock. Observing plantation life at the home of one of Virginia’s wealthiest planters, Philip Vickers Fithian wrote in his diary: “Before Breakfast, I saw a Ring of Negroes at the Stable, fighting Cocks, and in several parts of the plantation they are digging up their small Lots of ground allow’d by their Master for Potatoes, peas etc. All such work for themselves they constantly do on Sundays, as they are otherwise employed on every other Day.” Here, Fithian might have been describing any number of slave plantation scenes in Virginia, as the Sabbath was typically the slave’s only day for rest and recreation. The distance between the typical Virginian plantation home and its slave quarters allowed slaves the chance to create a world of their own, a world that was, to a limited extent, shielded from the constant scrutiny of whites. Within this world, slaves found spouses, raised children, looked after the old and infirm, and tended their homes

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and gardens. Few slaves, however, were content to make this world their only sphere of social interaction. Despite the prohibitions against their going abroad without the permission of their masters, slaves in Virginia traveled widely across the countryside, mostly under the cover of night. Slaves renounced sleep and risked severe punishment for a number of different reasons: to visit kinfolk and friends living on other plantations; to pilfer food and provisions from neighboring farms, to hunt and feast with companions in the stillness of the night; and, last but certainly not least, to taste the liberty that was not theirs by daylight. The Virginia landscape, a patchwork of irregularly shaped fields separated by borders of forest and dense undergrowth, lent itself to their nocturnal sojourning; to escape detection, slaves created alternative routes and paths between adjoining plantations that allowed them to avoid the established roads that were frequented by whites. Their determination to expand their social networks often led to marriages that tenuously united different plantations. To minimize the possibility of separation, a husband might appeal to his master to purchase his wife so that they might be united on the same plantation. On some occasions, masters were willing to accommodate such wishes, seeing the benefits of such an arrangement. Often, though, slaveholders had little sympathy for the bonds that none but slaves recognized. In many cases, runaway slaves were not running away from masters but running to wives, husbands, and children who had just been torn from them. Slaves’ living arrangements on Virginia plantations provided for some measure of privacy, but they did little to protect or shield them from the inherent violence of chattel slavery. Despite their spatial separation on the plantation, slaves and Virginia slaveholders were often in close and intimate contact with one another. Slave women were particularly vulnerable to the predations of white men, including their masters. Virginia law strictly prohibited sexual relations and marriages between blacks and whites, but such prohibitions did not prevent sexual violence against slave women. Rape was a common crime on Virginia slave plantations, but slave women had no protections under colonial law. In her study of race, gender, and power in th-century Virginia, Kathleen M. Brown points out that the rape of a slave woman was not recognized as a crime because of the particular status of the victim. Any crime visited on a female slave was considered an economic crime against her master, who owned the rights to her body, her labor, and any children she might bear. Because her master did not suffer any economic hardship as a result of a rape, there was, at least in the eyes of the law, no crime to report. Slave women suffered under their mistresses, as well. Jealous of the attention their husbands paid to female slaves, plantation mistresses were known to punish, maim, torture, and even murder their domestic slaves. Just as eager to assert their authority over their property as their husbands, mistresses publicly humiliated and brutalized their female slaves to establish and maintain their power within the household. Slave men were at the mercy of the white overseers who supervised their labor in the field. Fithian recounted the methods of one overseer who boasted of his success in handling slaves: He said that whipping of any kind does them no good, for they will laugh at your greatest Severity; But he told us he had invented two things, and by several experiments had proved their success.—For Sulleness, Obstinacy, or Idleness, says he, Take a Negro, strip him, tie him fast to a post; take then a sharp Curry-Comb, & curry him severely til he is well scrap’d; & call a Boy with some dry Hay, and make

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the Boy rub him down for several Minutes, then salt him, & unlose him. He will attend to his Business, (said the inhuman Infidel) afterwards!—But savage Cruelty does not exceed His next diabolical Invention—To get a Secret from a Negro, says he, take the following Method—Lay upon your Floor a large thick plank, having a peg about eighteen Inches long, of hard wood, & very Sharp, on the upper end, fixed fast in the plank—then strip the Negro, tie the Cord to a staple in the Ceiling, so as that his foot may just rest on the sharpened Peg, then turn him briskly round, and you would laugh (said our informer) at the Dexterity of the Negro, while he was releiving his Feet on the sharpen’d Peg! That this overseer found satisfaction in discovering such extreme ways to coerce his slaves into submission suggested that whites were at times powerless to control their slaves. Indeed, the overseer’s extraordinary inventiveness might be read as a determined response to the slaves’ derisive laughter that challenged and even overturned his authority.

john a. grigg DOCUMENT: EXCERPT FROM SAMUEL SEWALL’S THE SELLING OF JOSEPH, 1700 One of the earliest antislavery tracts, The Selling of Joseph was written by famed Massachusetts legal scholar and judge Samuel Sewall in . Below is an excerpt of the work. (Sewall, Samuel, The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial [Boston: Printed by Bartholomew Green and John Allen, June , ].) Forasmuch as Liberty is in real value next unto Life: None ought to part with it themselves, or deprive others of it, but upon most mature Consideration. The Numerousness of Slaves at this day in the Province, and the Uneasiness of them under their Slavery, hath put many upon thinking whether the Foundation of it be firmly and well laid; so as to sustain the Vast Weight that is built upon it. It is most certain that all Men, as they are the Sons of Adam, are; and have equal Right unto Liberty, and all other outward Comforts of Life. God hath the Earth with all its Commodities unto the Sons of Adam. (Psalms :) And hath made of One Blood, all Nations of Men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hat determined the Times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation: That they should seek the Lord. Forasmuch then as we are the Offspring of GOD. (Acts :, , ) Now although the Title given by the last ADAM, doth infinitely better Mens Estates, respecting GOD and themselves; and grants them a most beneficial and inviolable Lease under the Broad Seal of Heaven, who were before only Tenants at Will: Yet through the Indulgence of GOD to our First Parents after the Fall, the outward Estate of all and every of the children, remains the same, as to one another. So that Originally, and Naturally, there is no such thing as Slavery. Joseph was rightfully no more a Slave to his Brethren, then they were to him: and they had no more Authority to Sell him, than they had to Slay him. And if they had nothing to do to Sell him; the Ishmaelites bargaining with them, and paying down Twenty pieces of Silver, could not make a Title. Neither could Potiphar have any better Interest in him

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than the Ishmaelites had. (Genesis :, , ) For he that shall in this case plead Alteration of Property, seems to have forfeited a great part of his own claim to Humanity. There is no proportion between Twenty Pieces of Silver, and LIBERTY. The Commodity it self is the Claimer. If Arabian Gold be imported in any quantities, most are afraid to meddle with it, though they might have it at easy rates; lest if it should have been wrongfully taken from the Owners, it should kindle a fire to the Consumption of their whole estate. ’Tis a pity there should be more Caution used in buying a Horse, or a little lifeless dust; than there is in purchasing Men and Women. . . . And seeing GOD hath said, He that stealeth a Man and Selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to Death. (Exodus .) This Law being of Everlasting Equity, wherein Man Stealing is ranked amongst the most atrocious of Capital Crimes: What louder Cry can there be made of the Celebrated Warning, Caveat Emptor! And all thing considered, it would conduce more to the Welfare of the Province, to have White Servants for a Term of Years, than to have Slaves for Life. Few can endure to hear of a Negro’s being made free; and indeed they can seldom use their freedom well; yet their continual aspiring after the forbidden, renders them Unwilling Servants. And there is such a disparity in their Conditions, Color & Hair, that they can never embody with us, and grow up into orderly Families, to the Peopling of the Land: but still remain in our Body Politic as a kind of extravagant Blood. As many Negro men as there are among us, so many empty places there are in our Train Bands, and the places taken up of Men that might make Husbands for our Daughters. And the Sons and Daughters of New England would become more like Jacob, and Rachel, if this Slavery were thrust quite out of doors. Moreover it is too well known what Temptations Masters are under, to connive at the Fornification of their Slaves; lest they should be obliged to find them Wives, or pay their Fines. It seems to be practically pleaded that they might be Lawless; ’tis thought much of, that the Law should have Satisfaction for their Thefts, and other Immoralities; by which means, Holiness to the Lord, is more rarely engraven upon this sort of Servitude. It is likewise most lamentable to think, how in taking Negros out of Africa, and selling of them here, That which GOD has joined together men to boldly rend asunder; Men from their Country, Husbands from their Wives, Parents from their Children. How horrible is the Uncleanness, Mortality, if not Murder, that the Ships are guilty of that bring great Crowds of these miserable Men, and Women. Methinks, when we are bemoaning the barbarous Usage of our Friends and Kinsfolk in Africa: it might not be unseasonable to enquire whether we are not culpable in forcing the Africans to become Slaves amongst our selves. And it may be a question whether all the Benefit received by Negro Slaves, will balance the Accompt of Cash laid out upon them; and for the Redemption of our own enslaved Friends out of Africa. Besides all the Persons and Estates that have perished there. Objection : These Blackamores are of the Posterity of Ham, and therefore are under the Curse of Slavery. (Genesis :, , ) Answer: Of all Offices, one would not beg this one. Uncall’d for, to be an Executioner for the Vindictive Wrath of God; the extent and duration of which is to us uncertain. If this ever was a Commission; How do we know but that it is long since out of date? Many have found it to their Cost, that a Prophetical Denunciation of Judgement against a Person or People, would not warrant them to inflict that evil. If it would, Hazael might justify himself in all he did against his Master, and the Israelites, from  Kings :, .

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But it is possible that by cursory reading, this Text may have been mistaken. For Canaan is the Person Cursed three times over, without the mentioning of Ham. Good Expositors suppose the Curse entailed on him, and that this Prophesie was accomplished in the Extirpation of the Canaanites, and in the Servitude of the Gibeonites. Vide Pareum. Whereas the Blackamores are not descended of Canaan, but of Cush. (Psalms :) Princes shall come our to Egypt [Mizraim] Ethopia [Cush] shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. Under which Names, all Africa may be comprehended; and the Promised Conversion ought to be prayed for. (Jeremiah :) Can the Ethiopian change his skin? This shows that Black Men are the Posterity of Cush: who time out of mind have been distinguished by their Colour. . . . Objection : The Nigers are brought out of a pagan country, into places where the Gospel is Preached. Answer: Evil must not be done, that good may come of it. The extraordinary and comprehensive Benefit accruing to the Church of God, and to Joseph personally, did not rectify his brethrens Sale of him. Objection : The Africans have Wars with one another: our Ships bring lawful Captives taken in those Wars. Answer: For ought is known, their Wars are much such as were between Jacob’s Sons and their brother Joseph. If they be between Town and Town; Provincial, or National: Every War is upon one side Unjust. As Unlawful War can’t make lawful Captives. And by Receiving, we are in danger to promote, and partake in their Barbarous Cruelties. I am sure, if some Gentlemen should go down to the Brewsters to take the Air and Fish: And a stronger party from Hull should Surprise them, and Sell them for Slaves to a Ship outward bound: they would think themselves unjustly dealt with; both by Sellers and Buyers. And yet ’tis to be feared, we have no other kind of Title to our Nigers. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew :) Objection : Abraham had servants bought with his Money, and born in his House. Answer: Until the Circumstances of Abraham’s purchase be recorded, no Argument can be drawn from it. In the mean time, Charity obliges us to conclude, that He knew it was lawful and good. It is Observable that the Israelites were strictly forbidden the buying, or selling of one another for Slaves. (Leviticus :, . Jeremiah .–) And GOD gauges His Blessing in lieu of any loss they might conceive they suffered thereby. (Deuteronomy :) And since the partition Wall is broken down, inordinate Self love should likewise be demolished. GOD expects that Christians should be of a more Ingenuous and benign frame of spirit. Christians should carry it to all the World, as the Israelites were to carry it one towards another. And for men obstinately to persist in holding their Neighbours and Brethren under the Rigor of perpetual Bondage, seems to be no proper way of gaining Assurance that God has given them Spiritual Freedom. Our Blessed Saviour has altered the Measures of the Ancient Love-Song, and set it to a most Excellent New Tune, which all ought to be ambitious of Learning. (Matthew :, . John :) These Ethiopians, as black as they are; seeing they are the Sons and Daughters of the First Adam, the Brethren and Sister of the Last ADAM, and the Offspring of GOD; They ought to be treated with Respect agreeable. . . .

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8 Religious Toleration in English North America, 1636–1701

INTRODUCTION At the start of the th century, the Roman Catholic or Latin Christian Church dominated Europe in much the same manner that it had done so for hundreds of years. This is not to say that the Church’s rule had gone unchallenged. During the earlier centuries, barbarians and non-Christians such as the Muslims had repeatedly threatened its very existence. Later, secular figures, including powerful feudal princes and medieval kings, unsuccessfully sought to bring the Church under their control. One of the best-known examples featured the ambitious but incompetent English king John I (r. –), whose challenge to the papacy brought about his excommunication. Even more damaging to John’s aspirations, the Church placed England under an interdict, an order denying English Christians the sacraments and solemn services including baptism, marriage, and last rites. Fearing for their souls, English people everywhere blamed the king. Ultimately, John relented and swore allegiance to the pope as his liege lord. However, with Martin Luther’s  rebellion, the Church’s primacy came to an abrupt end. Luther, a German monk become a professor of theology, cited massive corruption within the Church’s leadership and demanded a thorough reform. When this was not forthcoming, Luther broke with Rome, an act that initiated the Protestant Reformation that shattered Western Europe’s Christian unity and ended the undisputed sway of the Roman Catholic Church. Beyond Luther’s quest for moral purity, there were many secular factors that explained the Reformation’s initial success. In the case of England, the Reformation had virtually nothing to do with morality or theology and everything to do with dynastic continuity, power, and national stability. The Tudor dynasty had forcibly seized the throne in . While the Tudors were not common folk, clearly they were usurpers, and the question of their legitimacy always loomed large in their minds. The first Tudor, Henry VII, ruled wisely and frugally. He left to his son, Henry VIII, a full treasury and a fairly tranquil and united kingdom. Henry VIII, who ruled from  until his death in , was most certainly not the buffoon that one sometimes encounters on movie screens. He was an intelligent and thoughtful if at times unruly and boisterous monarch. Nevertheless, he could be ruthless and forceful when the occasion demanded. He also possessed a personality that was larger than life. Henry, the father of the Reformation in England, remained committed

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to Roman Catholic theology and ritual throughout his life. In fact, Pope Leo X bestowed upon him the honorific Defender of the Faith for a  religious tract in which the king condemned Luther’s theology. However, Henry was increasingly desperate for a male heir in order to avoid the chaos that would inevitably follow if he died without a son. While he and his wife of many years, Catherine of Aragon, had produced numerous children, only one, a girl named Mary, survived. Thus, Henry petitioned Pope Clement VII for an annulment or divorce. Because Catherine was the aunt of Holy Roman emperor Charles V and because Charles V had come to dominate papal affairs and opposed the annulment, Clement refused Henry’s request. At this juncture, Henry took matters into his own hands. Using a pliant Parliament as his vehicle, over several years he separated England from papal lordship, naming himself “Supreme Head” of the Church in England. However, in terms of ritual and dogma, this Church of England remained indistinguishable from the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout the remainder of the th century, a knotty problem confronted England’s rulers: how to pacify those Englishmen who continued loyal to Rome while simultaneously retaining the support of the growing number of English people who increasingly embraced the more austere versions of Protestantism emanating from continental Europe. During the latter part of the century, Henry’s second surviving daughter, ruling as Queen Elizabeth I, seemed to hit upon a workable resolution of the dilemma. In the Thirty-Nine Articles (), Elizabeth reaffirmed the fundamental rules governing the Church of England. Purposefully, she left them so imprecise and ambiguous that virtually all of England could find a home in the national church. Only the irreconcilables, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, rejected this Elizabethan Compromise. Insignificant at first, the irreconcilables grew into a major force during the th century. Among the most resolute of the irreconcilables were the Puritans, an English version of the stern continental Calvinists who sought to purify the Anglican Church of its Roman Catholic features. During the th century, Puritan dissatisfaction with the Elizabethan Compromise, which they saw as too conciliatory to Roman Catholicism, only increased. Ultimately, this led to civil war and the execution of Charles I in . Subsequently, the religious issue helped to unseat a second monarch, James II, during the Glorious Revolution of –. However, well before the outbreak of civil war in , some Puritans—despairing of their prospects of success in England—looked across the Atlantic Ocean to North America. In , the Crown granted a royal charter to a group of prosperous Puritans who intended to plant a colony in New England where they might practice their version of Christianity unimpeded. Within a decade, this Massachusetts Bay Company transported more than , people from England to New England. Radiating out from Boston, which was founded in , the Puritans quickly came to dominate the landscape as far as the eye could see and beyond. The self-proclaimed “saints” who ruled over the Massachusetts Bay Colony were hardly a tolerant lot. Firmly believing that God had selected them for salvation while damning all others, the Calvinist Puritans imposed their ideas and ideals on all the colonists despite the fact that they constituted only a minority. However, in , the arrival of Roger Williams challenged the Puritan monopoly. By all accounts, Williams was a bright, energetic, and exceptionally likable man. He was also a Separatist, that is,

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a member of a religious movement very similar to Puritanism except in its conviction that the Church of England was beyond reform, or purification. Williams preached his beliefs from the pulpit of his church in Salem. The views articulated by Williams soon brought him into conflict with the colony’s power brokers, including its leader, the respected John Winthrop. Among other things, Williams objected to the Puritan habit of seizing Indian land rather than bargaining in good faith with the Native Americans. Most important, perhaps, he quarreled with the colony’s leadership over the issue of enfranchisement. The complexities of this argument, rooted in the murky mysteries of Calvinistic predestination thought, need not detain us. However, the practical consequences of Williams’s ideas would have been to end absolute Puritan control over the affairs of the colony. More obliquely, based on his interpretation of Calvinist doctrine, Williams was groping his way toward the very radical concepts of separation of church and state and religious toleration. The Puritan leaders rejected Williams’s argument and, their patience at an end, prepared to return him to England. Williams was warned of this likelihood by Winthrop himself, who continued to respect Williams while disagreeing with him on almost every issue. Consequently, Williams and his supporters fled Massachusetts in . After a harsh winter with the Indians, the following year they founded the town of Providence in what would become Rhode Island. Several years later, Williams returned to England, where he secured formal recognition for his settlement from the Puritan dominated Parliament. At that time, he wrote in favor of religious toleration and indicated that this principle would prevail in Rhode Island. Massachusetts’s Puritans despised Williams’s colony, calling it “the sewer of New England.” However, Rhode Island served a practical purpose for the Puritans as a dumping ground for malcontents and religious radicals, such as Anne Hutchinson, who challenged their authority. While Rhode Island survived as a haven for those who marched to the beat of a different drummer, it never really prospered. Only , people lived there at the opening of the th century. Almost  years after Williams founded his colony, another major step toward religious toleration was taken. With royal power restored in England, in  John Clarke, one of Rhode Island’s most important figures, returned to London, where he persuaded King Charles II to confirm the Parliamentary charter issued in . This time, the charter explicitly endorsed freedom of conscience and guaranteed against harassment or punishment attributable to one’s religious beliefs. If the Puritans were Protestants who would not reconcile themselves with the Elizabethan Compromise, the same could be said of unbending English Catholics. Such irreconcilable Catholics were relatively few in number; however, they carried disproportionate weight, since many were wealthy and influential aristocrats. Moreover, with Elizabeth’s death, in , the Scottish Stuarts inherited the throne of England. Both James I (–) and Charles I (–), if not professing Roman Catholics, were sympathetic to the cause. However, the tide was running against Catholicism in England. The civil war (–) dethroned and executed Charles, and the victorious Puritans led by Oliver Cromwell held sway until the restoration of the monarchy in . The new Stuart king, Charles II (–), while a Catholic himself, was wise enough to downplay the religious issue, although his brother and successor, James II (–), flaunted his Catholicism and, as a consequence, lost his throne.

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In part, the quest to find a refuge for England’s Roman Catholics led Charles I to grant a proprietary colony to the Calvert family, the Lords Baltimore, in . George Calvert, a wealthy landowner and high government official under James I, had converted to Catholicism in . His son, Cecilius or Cecil, oversaw the establishment of the colony, named Maryland in honor of Charles’s wife, Henrietta Maria. The land grant covered  million acres on the northern shores of the Chesapeake Bay. The first settlement, St. Mary’s, was established in ; however, the town of Baltimore, further north on the Bay, eventually became the colony’s hub. Calvert specifically invited Catholics to settle there, and he sent Jesuit priests with the first colonists. However, he also allowed Protestants to settle, and almost from the beginning they outnumbered the Catholics. Despite their minority status, Roman Catholic settlers initially dominated the colony. Nevertheless, their primacy was short-lived as the majority Protestants soon gained the upper hand in the colony’s House of Delegates. Fearing for his co-religionists, in  Cecil approved the Act of Toleration that called for religious toleration for almost all Christian faiths. Although Puritanical Protestants gained control of the colony and repealed the Act in , it was reinstated several years later. This formal declaration of religious toleration was not a sweeping one; Jews and freethinkers, or atheists, were excluded. Nevertheless, the Act provided that no Christian could “. . .be any wais troubled, molested, or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof.” In addition to irreconcilables such as Puritans, Separatists, and Roman Catholics, th-century England witnessed the rise of several religiously oriented sects that defied the norm. These included the communistic Diggers and the Fifth Monarchy Men, who believed that the end of the world was nigh. The Society of Friends, or Quakers, also fit this description. They rejected all earthly authority in both political and religious matters, proclaiming instead that the light of God resided in each individual. That being the case, hierarchy—both religious and political—should play no role in a person’s life. Furthermore, the Quakers—called Quakers because they tended to shake when filled with the spirit of God during their religious services—were pacifists, treated women equally, and adopted a generally egalitarian attitude at a time of great social stratification. These exceptionally radical ideas for the time earned the Quakers both a growing number of adherents and the wrath of the established church and state, which did not hesitate to persecute these evident misfits. William Penn was a Quaker, but an unusual one in that he came from the English aristocracy and his family was well connected at court during the reign of Charles II (most Quakers were poor and undistinguished). At least in part to establish a refuge for his coreligionists and to create a Quaker vision of an earthly paradise, in  Penn secured a grant of several million acres from Charles II. Charles, who was no friend of the Quakers, issued this grant in order to pay off a debt of gratitude owed to Penn’s father and, possibly, to rid his kingdom of yet another group of religious malcontents. After receiving the grant, Penn went immediately to work, advertising his colony in both England and continental Europe as an ideal place to migrate, especially for those who were Quakers or held similar beliefs. In fact, he called his vision a “Holy Experiment.” Certainly, Penn did not grossly exaggerate his colony’s earthly potential. With good farmland and access to the Atlantic Ocean, Pennsylvania, or Penn’s Woods,

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showed great promise that it quickly fulfilled. When Penn first arrived in his colony, in , there were already , settlers, and by  Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, boasted a population of ,, well on its way to becoming the largest city in the  colonies. In governing Pennsylvania, Penn encountered numerous difficulties that ultimately proved insurmountable. However, Penn succeeded in creating a haven of religious toleration. His greatest triumph in his quest for religious toleration was his Frame of Government, which he drafted in . Although a disaster from a political perspective because of its contradictory and ambiguous nature, the Frame of Government provided for unimpeded freedom of conscience and the right to worship as one saw fit. Many of Penn’s adversaries were Quakers themselves; however, as much as they opposed Penn politically and economically, they remained true to their Quaker belief in religious toleration. Although these men forced many changes in the Frame of Government and replaced it altogether in  with the Charter of Liberties, they allowed the principle of religious toleration to remain untouched and in the process made Pennsylvania a sanctuary for practitioners of all religions, including Judaism.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY timothy l. wood In , President Thomas Jefferson penned the following famous words to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. However, the concept of religious freedom in America did not originate with Jefferson, or even with the First Amendment. Instead, the first American experiments in religious liberty date back to the colonial period and were products of the religious turmoil that racked England and its colonies during the th century. Founded by religious minorities that faced persecution in both Europe and America, the colonies of Rhode Island, Maryland, and Pennsylvania became three of the most important English outposts in America to embrace the principles of freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state. Since the United States has not had any type of religious establishment since the early th century, many Americans are unfamiliar with the concept. An established church (also known as a state or national church) is one that is financially supported by the government through taxation. During the s, that financial support was frequently coupled with a willingness to use the legal and judicial mechanisms of the state

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to enforce moral and religious law. For instance, the government might require people to observe the Sabbath or criminalize certain types of sexual behavior. Sometimes people were punished by the state for holding “heretical” beliefs contrary to the official teachings of the church. In return, the church lent its moral authority to the state by promoting ethical behavior, public order, good citizenship, obedience to the law, and loyalty to the nation and its rulers. Certainly, the concept of the church and the state working in tandem in religious matters did not originate in the American colonies. Since the time of the Roman emperors Constantine and Theodosius, the Christian church had enjoyed the patronage of secular government. Once the Reformation commenced in , the idea of the church and state sharing jurisdiction in both the spiritual and secular realms was quickly encoded into Protestant doctrine and its understanding of scripture by such major reformers as Martin Luther and John Calvin. That interplay between politics and religion played a huge role in the formation of the Church of England. Unable to produce a male heir with his wife Catherine of Aragon, England’s King Henry VIII petitioned Pope Clement VII for an annulment dissolving the marriage. When Henry’s petition was denied, he proclaimed himself head of the Church of England and officially severed ties with the Roman Catholic Church in . Taking advantage of the opportunity that this religious realignment presented, Henry began liquidating the property of the Catholic Church and seizing its English assets, all the while punishing government officials who refused to recognize his new role as head of the national church. Under Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, the Church of England continued to be a politically savvy institution, seeking the wide middle ground between Catholicism and Protestantism to ensure that most English people were theologically comfortable within its domain (and thus loyal to the monarch that controlled it). Indeed, the alliance between church and state that characterized European politics and religion in the th century became the template for colonial American society. The first three permanent English colonies founded in America featured a religious establishment. Virginia () established the Church of England, while the governments of Plymouth () and Massachusetts Bay () both supported the Congregationalist Church. However, out of the religious establishments of colonial America there emerged an important reaction to the principle of church-state union. In several of the North American colonies founded by England during the th century, the idea of religious liberty and the separation of church and state prevailed. By examining the development of Rhode Island, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, one can begin to appreciate how radical that idea was during the s and how it eventually grew into one of the bedrock principles of the American political system. The figure most responsible for bringing religious freedom to what would become the colony of Rhode Island was Roger Williams. Like many of the architects of religious liberty in colonial America, Williams hailed from a persecuted religious sect. In this case, Williams was a Separatist. Like the Puritans, the Separatists adhered to a Calvinistic theology that viewed salvation as an act of divine predestination. Like the Puritans, Separatists were suspicious of ritual and ceremony within the church and advocated simplicity in worship. Like the Puritans, the Separatists believed that no ecclesiastical

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authority existed beyond the local church; church hierarchies composed of bishops and archbishops were, in their view, unbiblical. However, one difference remained between the two groups. While Puritans regarded the Church of England as a genuine church in need of reform, Separatists believed that the Church of England had become irredeemably corrupt and that true Christians were duty bound to renounce and leave it. Remaining even technically in fellowship with England’s established church threatened the spiritual purity of the various Separatist fellowships. Williams first arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in . Although the colony’s leaders were happy to see him at first, it soon became apparent that Williams’s Separatism did not sit well with the Puritan leadership. Williams soon began to preach that the colony’s churches must formally and publicly condemn the Church of England for its sins and sever all ties with the mother church. This offended many Puritans who still hoped that the Church of England might be redeemed and that their efforts in America might even spearhead the needed reformation. Williams’s concern for purity within the church eventually led him to an even more radical set of opinions regarding religious freedom and the need for a divorce between church and state. In later years, when Americans like Thomas Jefferson argued for the separation of church and state, their main concern was that hidden religious agendas might taint the government. But for Williams, the separation of church and state was about safeguarding the spiritual purity of the church from the worldliness inherent in politics. The only pure church was a completely voluntary one free from coercion. Williams’s political opponents were apt to argue that laws making people attend church were a commonsense measure that improved life in the colony by exposing citizens to Christian morality. The Rhode Island founder begged to differ. Laws that forced people to participate in religious exercises against their will actually increased the amount of evil within that society because it forced men and women into the sin of hypocrisy. By , Williams’s religious views led to his expulsion from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Early in , he made his way south to the Narragansett Bay and founded the settlement of Providence, the first town in what would become the colony of Rhode Island. Once in Providence, Williams had the opportunity to begin building a society from scratch. As Rhode Island grew up around him, Williams was meticulous in insisting that this new colony provide freedom of religion and the complete separation of church and state. In fact, by  the town of Providence had encoded into law the belief that “wee agree, as formerly hath been the liberties of the town, so still, to hold forth liberty of Conscience.” However, this was not always an easy task. Religious persecution would now have to be opposed by force of law. For instance, in , Providence resident Joshua Verin was convicted of “breach-of a covenant for restraining liberty of conscience” and was sentenced to “be withheld from the libertie of voting till he shall declare the contrarie.” However, these pioneering efforts to define the boundaries of religious freedom often led to confusion and controversy. What if one’s religion demanded that its teachings be imposed on others? Concerning the Verin case, Massachusetts governor John Winthrop remarked in his journal as follows: At Providence . . . Williams and the rest did make an order, that no man should be molested for his conscience, now men’s wives, and children, and servants,

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Roger Williams lands at Providence Plantation in 1636 and is greeted by members of the Narragansett tribe. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

claimed liberty hereby to go to all religious meetings . . .; and because one Verin refused to let his wife go to Mr. Williams . . . they required to have him censured. But there stood up one Arnold . . . telling them that, when he consented to that order, he never intended it should extend to the breach of any ordinance of God, such as the subjugation of wives to their husbands . . . , and gave divers solid reasons against it. . . . In conclusion, when they would have censured Verin, Arnold told them, that it was against their own order, for Verin did that he did out of conscience: and their order was that no man should be censured for his conscience. In the end, episodes like the Joshua Verin case clarified that religious freedom would be defined individually, not collectively. Religious freedom would come to be understood as the right of individuals to follow their own religious beliefs, rather than the freedom of religious groups to engage in coercive activities. In the meantime, the towns that sprang up around Providence seemed determined to chart their own destiny. The town of Portsmouth, on Aquidneck Island, founded by fellow Massachusetts exiles Anne and William Hutchinson and the ambitious merchant William Coddington, at first appeared bent on re-creating some version of Massachusetts’s religious establishment. However, the Hutchinsons and Coddington soon had a

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falling out, and in  Coddington left Portsmouth and founded a new settlement at Newport. Two years later, Portsmouth and Newport had reunited under Coddington’s leadership, this time proclaiming a policy of religious freedom. The arrival, in , of Samuel Gorton complicated matters even further. A “heretic” by most standards of the th century, Gorton rejected organized forms of religion, believed in the divinity of humankind, and for years had been the object of unrelenting persecution because of his beliefs. Expelled from Massachusetts Bay, Gorton eventually landed in Portsmouth, although he refused to recognize the legitimacy of that town’s government since it was not officially chartered by the king. He eventually obtained the permission of the Crown to settle in what would become Warwick and created a government there based on the principles of religious toleration. The diversity of early Rhode Island often made the colony difficult to govern. Although most Rhode Islanders had come to embrace the concept of religious liberty, that freedom alone was not enough to create harmony among the colony’s contentious citizens. Some residents convinced themselves that their freedom from religious coercion also meant that they were not bound by any political authority, either. In January , an exasperated Williams responded as follows to those who held this position: That I ever should speak or write a tittle, that tends to such an infinite liberty of conscience, is a mistake, and which I have ever disclaimed and abhorred. To prevent such mistakes, I shall at present only propose this case: There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth. . . . [S]ometimes . . . both papists and protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship; upon which I affirm, that all the liberty of conscience, that I ever pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges—that none of the papists, protestants, Jews, or Turks, be forced to come to the ship’s prayers or worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any. I further add, that I never denied, that notwithstanding this liberty, the commander of this ship ought to command the ship’s course, yea, and also command that justice, peace, and sobriety, be kept and practiced, both among the seamen and the passengers. If any of the seamen refuse to perform their services, or passengers to pay their freight; if any refuse to help, in person or purse, toward the common charge or defence [sic]; if any refuse to obey the common laws and orders of the ship, concerning their common peace and preservation; if any shall mutiny and rise up against their commanders and officers; if any should preach or write that there ought to be no commanders and officers, because all are equal in Christ, therefore no masters nor officers, no laws nor orders, no corrections nor punishments;—I say . . . in such cases . . . the commander may judge, resist, compel, and punish such transgressors, according to their deserts and merits. Such social chaos was exactly what those who favored a strong church-state alliance would have predicted within a society that practiced religious freedom. But Williams insisted that religious liberty did not imply anarchy and worked diligently to prove that a just and effective civil government could function in a society based on religious toleration.

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By the s, Williams had become increasingly concerned that the autonomous nature of the Rhode Island settlements left them vulnerable to outside interference. Indeed, over the years, such neighbors as Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut had frequently demonstrated a willingness to violate Rhode Island’s territorial integrity. In , Williams traveled back to England, and the following year the English government formally recognized what would become the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, with Williams himself serving as president of the colony from  until . However, an official royal charter signed by the king would elude them until , when John Clarke, one of the colony’s leading citizens, convinced King Charles II to affix his name to a new governing document. Tellingly, Rhode Island’s new charter stipulated that “a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained . . . with a full liberty in religious concernments.” The second major experiment in religious freedom in th-century America was the colony of Maryland. Like Rhode Island, Maryland’s commitment to religious liberty sprang from its founder’s own experience with religious dissent—in this case Roman Catholicism. There can be little doubt that Catholics were even less popular than Puritans or Separatists in England during the early s. After the English Reformation and Henry VIII’s official departure from the Catholic fold, refusal to renounce one’s allegiance to the pope and acknowledge the English monarch as head of the church was viewed as treason. Adherence to the old faith dangerously divided the loyalty of English Catholics, since during the s the pope was not only a spiritual leader but also a foreign prince who ruled a vast kingdom in central Italy. In the years after the Reformation, English society was gripped by the fear that the island’s Catholic population owed its ultimate allegiance to the pope and systematically sought to undermine the nation’s legitimate government in London. Historian Ronald Dufour provided the following statistics: There were about fifty thousand Catholics in England, and during the late Elizabethan period, they had suffered persecution, torture, and death. Between  and , sixty-one priests, forty-seven laymen, and two women were executed. Some Jesuits had been hung, drawn, and quartered, having been convicted of high treason simply by virtue of their being Catholic. Catholics who refused to declare their allegiance to the Church of England were fined twenty pounds a month or had most of their property confiscated. Despite the hazards of being a Catholic in England during the th century, some members of the English aristocracy continued to be faithful to the Roman Church. Such was the case with George Calvert, first Baron of Baltimore. Calvert was a former member of the House of Commons who was serving as King James I’s secretary of state in  when he announced that he had converted to the Catholic faith. Although his decision required his departure from government service, Calvert nonetheless retained the king’s goodwill and was given his title of nobility as he left the royal court. Colonization also interested Calvert. During an earlier sojourn in America, Calvert had been impressed by the living conditions in Virginia. Cashing in on any favor he might still have at court, he soon requested a colonial charter in the region immediately north of Virginia. Although George Calvert died in , later that year King Charles I

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finally granted a charter for Maryland to his son Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore. By now, Cecilius had begun to envision Maryland as a place of refuge for England’s persecuted Catholic population. By , Cecilius had named his younger brother, Leonard Calvert, governor of Maryland, and the first group of settlers landed in the Chesapeake. In religious matters, the Calverts walked a fine line in Maryland. The colonial charter stipulated that all churches founded in the colony be in compliance with English law, so the establishment of the Catholic Church was out of the question. Moreover, Catholic migration to the colony tended to be lighter than expected, meaning that Roman Catholics would end up being a minority once again, thus reinforcing the need for some system of religious coexistence in Maryland. As historian John D. Krugler observed: Cecil Calvert rejected the beliefs that his colonists had to profess his religious faith and that he had to control their religious practices. . . . His novel concept that religion was a private matter, free from government assistance or restraint, marked a significant break with the dogmas of the age. When he removed the prop of religious uniformity, which contemporary rulers considered essential for political stability, he was calling on the immigrants to behave in radically different ways. Their culture distrusted religious differences, but he urged them to put their differences aside, to act with Christian charity toward one another, and to prosper. Consequently, in  the colonial legislature passed a law guaranteeing limited religious freedom within Maryland’s borders, stating that no individual “professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth bee any waies troubled, Molested, or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof.” However, the leaders of Maryland still viewed religious toleration strictly in Christian terms. Residents must confess belief in the Trinity or face the death penalty. Blasphemy against the Virgin Mary or the saints, failure to observe the Sabbath, or giving anybody an unflattering nickname (“heretic, schismatic, idolater, Puritan”) because of their religion earned a lesser punishment. In fact, in , when the non-Catholic servants of a Jesuit priest named William Lewis complained that their master refused to allow them to read any form of Protestant literature, Lewis was found guilty of disturbing the peace. He was fined five hundred pounds of tobacco and ordered to refrain from such provocative behavior in the future. As Krugler remarked: Once the [Lewis] dispute became public, the government treated it seriously. Maryland authorities moved quickly to prevent the social fabric from being torn apart by religious dissention, much as Massachusetts officials had done in the [case] of Roger Williams. . . . But the leaders of the Maryland colony added a curious twist. In this instance the dominant element took action against one of its own who had violated the principles enunciated by Baltimore. But even Maryland’s constrained view of religious toleration remained a contentious idea. In , in the aftermath of Parliament’s victory in the English Civil War, delegates from England appeared in the capital announcing that a new Puritan government under

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the leadership of William Fuller was being imposed on the colony by order of London. Under this new regime, practice of the Roman Catholic faith would be illegal. This takeover of the colony would ultimately lead to bloodshed. Upon hearing of the new government that had supplanted his family’s proprietary claims, Leonard Calvert appealed to England’s new Puritan ruler, Oliver Cromwell, who verified the Calvert family’s control over Maryland. In , Calvert sent an army under the command of William Stone back to Maryland to challenge Fuller and the Puritan cabal that controlled the colony. In March , on the banks of the Severn River, Calvert’s forces suffered a humiliating defeat. Only through negotiations would the Calvert family be able to regain any of its lost influence. In , both parties crafted a compromise in which Lord Baltimore’s ownership of the colony and his system of religious toleration was restored in exchange for some land concessions to the Protestant party. However, the Calverts’ system of religious toleration began to collapse once and for all in . Maryland’s disgruntled Protestant population once again rebelled, and this time its plea for vast political and religious change in Maryland found a receptive audience with the newly crowned English monarchs, King William III and Queen Mary II. By , Cecilius’s son, Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore, had lost his claim to his father’s New World dominion, and Maryland officially became a royal colony. Along with these political changes came the formal establishment of the Church of England. By , Maryland authorities had passed a series of laws restricting Catholic worship and education. Although in  the colony would be returned to the fourth Lord Baltimore, Benedict Leonard Calvert, the price was his conversion to the Church of England. Involvement in the Maryland project now carried certain religious expectations. By the beginning of the th century, religious freedom in colonial Maryland was dead. Pennsylvania, founded in  by William Penn, stands as a third American prototype of a society based upon religious freedom. It is impossible to understand Pennsylvania’s adherence to the principles of religious liberty without delving into Penn’s own spiritual background. Penn was a member of a Christian movement known as Quakerism (more formally, the Religious Society of Friends). Quakerism first emerged in England during the th century under the leadership of an itinerant preacher named George Fox (–). From its birth, it was a deeply countercultural movement that stressed presence of the inner light of Christ within the believer. As historian Thomas D. Hamm described it, early Quakers believed that all people had within them a certain measure of the Light of Christ. If they heeded it, that Inward Light would show them their sinful conditions and their need for Christ, and would lead them to salvation. But if they ignored it or failed to heed its admonitions, they would be lost and ultimately damned. From that theological wellspring flowed a number of tenets that did not endear Quakers to the greater part of the population of th-century England. First of all, Quakers practiced pacifism, viewing Jesus as a man of peace and refusing to take up arms in defense of king and country. Nor would they agree to swear any oath, even when called upon to do so by the state. Next, because of the intense persecution that they had endured because of their faith, Quakers were advocates of religious toleration.

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Furthermore, they defied social convention by stressing the spiritual equality of men and women and often recognized the divine calling of women who felt inspired to take positions of leadership within their church. Finally, Quakers exhibited a steadfast refusal to acknowledge the social superiority of the upper classes, insisting on the equality of all people in the eyes of God. As historians T. H. Breen and Timothy Hall quipped, this conviction “generally annoyed people of rank and achievement.” Such beliefs made early Friends the object of much derision and persecution in the Old World. As a young man, William Penn found himself drawn to the teachings of Quakerism (much to the horror of his respectable family). Indeed, he found himself imprisoned multiple times due to his insistence on preaching and writing about the Quaker religion. Like Cecilius Calvert before him, Penn became convinced that America might offer a safe haven for his embattled coreligionists. Although he had become something of a pariah, his father had been a prominent naval officer and had helped restore King Charles II to the throne in . Consequently, in order to repay his debt to Penn’s father, in March  the king granted Penn a vast tract of real estate in the New World amounting to about , square miles—the future Pennsylvania. The following year, Penn and the first settlers arrived in America. In accordance with his religious convictions, Penn made no attempt to grant the Society of Friends any privileged position within the government of this new colony—although wealthy Quakers did eventually come to dominate the colony’s political institutions. Instead, he created yet another society based on the principle of religious freedom for almost all people. (However, like the Calverts, Penn had his limits; atheists and nonbelievers were still considered persona non grata in colonial Pennsylvania). As historian Melvin B. Endy remarked, Penn’s basic contention . . . was his belief that a man’s religious life was authentic only when he willingly and spontaneously granted his allegiance to God on the basis of understanding and conviction and without the base motives introduced by coercion. . . . Although he often argued for toleration by holding that religious beliefs had nothing to do with political and socio-economic matters, Penn was hardly a secularizer. He did not believe that religion should . . . be kept out of public life or that political judgments suffered when religious considerations influenced them. He believed, rather, that religion was the best bond of human society. . . . But such uniformity had to come by consent, not constraint. Unlike Maryland, where religious freedom remained a controversial proposition, Pennsylvania thrived under the system. The principle of religious toleration allowed Penn to recruit settlers from all across Europe, with the new immigrants being secure in the knowledge that they would not face persecution for their faith. Penn’s Quaker humility also served him well in dealing with Native Americans. Whereas most colonies had an adversarial relationship with the Indians that lived within their borders, Penn viewed the natives as fully human, proper objects of Christian love, and worthy of honest and fair treatment. Thus, he went out of his way to pay a fair price for the land that the settlers were soon to occupy. As he put it, “the king of the Country where I live, hath given me a great Province, but I desire to enjoy it with [the Delaware Indians] Love and Consent, that we may always be together as Neighbors and friends.”

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Although Penn was sincere in his adherence to the values of the Society of Friends, the government he established in America retained more than a hint of aristocratic privilege. Penn served as governor by virtue of his role as proprietor, regarded himself as the feudal lord of Pennsylvania and demanded quitrents (annual payments acknowledging a landowner’s obligation to a higher authority) from settlers, and did not permit the lower (and larger) house of the bicameral colonial assembly to introduce legislation. As Endy observed: [Penn’s] society, although largely noncoercive, was to combine . . . consentualism with hierarchical social and even political patterns. . . . [H]e expected that unanimity would be achieved through the leadership of a responsible elite. . . . The colony was to be governed by a combination of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy precisely as England was ruled. However, the Quaker emphasis on equality and democracy eventually contributed to Penn’s loss of day-to-day control over the colony. In , Penn signed the Charter of Privileges, in which he forfeited his right to be involved in the lawmaking process within the colony except through the use of the veto. As proprietor, his only remaining power would be the power to appoint the governor and his advisers. In the end, even Penn could not contain the egalitarian forces that Quakerism unleashed in Pennsylvania. Religious freedom had become an important theme in America long before the drafting of the First Amendment or Thomas Jefferson’s ruminations on the separation of church and state. Rhode Island, Maryland, and Pennsylvania all present different models of how that institution grew in the soil of colonial America. Rhode Island emerged in revolt against the rigid religious establishment of Massachusetts Bay. For Roger Williams, the greatest challenge was to protect freedom of conscience while still maintaining civil order within an extremely unruly society. In Maryland, the Calvert family endeavored to create a refuge for Catholic Christians by severing the link between one’s religious life and one’s civic responsibilities. However, Maryland’s Protestant population never fully bought into Lord Baltimore’s vision, and by the th century the colony returned to the familiar ideas of an established church and legal restrictions on the activities of Roman Catholics. Finally, in Pennsylvania the ideal of religious freedom quickly took root, creating a diverse and prosperous colony that was nevertheless informally shaped by Quaker beliefs and attitudes. Although those colonies began as three vastly different experiments in religious liberty that—in the short run—seemed to yield three quite different outcomes, ultimately those separate histories converged into an unquestionably “American” perspective on the subject. That outlook would eventually find expression in the opening sentence of the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The intellectual thread that proved to be so radical and controversial for Williams, Penn, and the Calverts had now been woven into the tapestry of a new nation. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Breen, T. H., and Timothy Hall. Colonial America in an Atlantic World. New York: Pearson Longman, . Breen and Hall offer a textbook-style overview of the development of colonial America, emphasizing the connections between the Old World and the New.

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Bremer, Francis J. The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, . This book takes a geographic approach to the subject of colonial America, focusing in on the development of the New England colonies, including Rhode Island. Dufour, Ronald. Colonial America. Minneapolis: West Publishing Company, . Probably one of the best and most detailed surveys of colonial American history. Endy, Melvin B., Jr. William Penn and Early Quakerism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . This study offers an in-depth look at the thought of William Penn and the ways in which it was reflected in the founding of Pennsylvania. Gaustad, Edwin S. Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, . This biography of Roger Williams emphasizes the role that the idea of religious freedom played in his life and career. Hamm, Thomas D. The Quakers in America. New York: Columbia University Press, . An excellent overview of American Quakerism penned by one of the most recognized scholars in the field. James, Sydney V. John Clarke and His Legacies: Religion and Law in Colonial Rhode Island, – . University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, . This study presents a detailed look at the development of the Rhode Island colony through the life of John Clarke, the Baptist leader and close associate of Williams. Krugler, John D. English and Catholic: The Lords Baltimore in the Seventeenth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . This monograph examines the development of the Maryland colony through the lens of the Calvert family. Miller, Perry. Roger Williams: His Contributions to the American Tradition. New York: Atheneum, . This book presents an analysis of the thought of Roger Williams by the scholar who became the patriarch of th-century Puritan studies. Morgan, Edmund S. Roger Williams: The Church and the State. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, . Here Morgan analyzes the origins and development of the Rhode Island founder’s view on religious freedom and church-state relations—the major recurring themes of Williams’ career.

CECIL CALVERT (1605–1675) As the second Lord Baltimore and the first lord proprietor of Maryland from  to , Cecil Calvert played an important role in establishing the foundations of government and society in the British colony of Maryland. He is often called its founder, although he himself never traveled to America. The outstanding achievement of his lifetime was the establishment of a form of government in Maryland where all Christian religious sects were equal before the law. Calvert was born in  in England. He was son of George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore. He entered Trinity College, Oxford, in , but there is no record of his graduation. An explanation for this can be found in the fact that Oxford was a university set apart for the Church of England, and Calvert had converted to Catholicism just before he would have graduated. In , he married Lady Anne Arundel, the daughter of Thomas Arundel (Lord of Wardour), a well-known Catholic peer. Calvert’s father had for years campaigned vigorously for a land grant in the Americas from King Charles I. The Maryland charter was granted by the king a few days before George Calvert’s death, on April , , and so was issued instead to Calvert on June , . The charter set the boundaries of Maryland from the Atlantic Ocean along the th parallel “unto the true meridian of the first fountain of the river of

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Pattowmack,” thence along the south bank of the river to a point “when it disembogues” into the Chesapeake Bay, and then eastward along the parallel that runs through Watkin’s Point to the Atlantic Ocean. This grant gave Calvert practically free rein to do as he pleased in the colony. Thus, at the age of , Calvert became the second Lord Baltimore and the sole lord proprietor of the colony of Maryland. Because of the poor treatment of Catholics in England at the time, Calvert had a hard time recruiting non-Catholics to take part in the expedition, partly because they did not want to go to the Americas with Catholics and partly because they did not want to be ruled by a Catholic. It took him nearly  months to organize an expedition. His two ships, the Ark and the Dove, left England in November  and reached the colony in March , although Calvert, beset by personal and political enemies, was unable to leave England and join the expedition. In his place, he delegated direct administration to his younger brother, Leonard, who left with the first group of settlers and became the first governor of Maryland. To guide the colony, Calvert prepared a letter of instructions that Leonard carried with him on the voyage. Among the rules regarding the governing of the colony, he articulated his policy of religious tolerance, instructing each man—when it came to the matter of religion—to “mind his own business.” To illustrate his earnestness regarding religious toleration, Calvert dictated that all governors of the colony take an oath to protect religious freedom and promote toleration. In February , the first legislative assembly of Maryland met in St. Mary’s, the capital of the colony. Calvert, however, insisting that only he had the right to propose laws and that the assembly was to act merely as a rubber stamp for such legislation, nullified their acts once they had been transmitted to him in England. No effective legislation was enacted in Maryland until the second session, held at St. Mary’s in January . Calvert again nullified the legislation passed by the assembly, and the laws he sent to the colony were subsequently rejected by the assembly in turn. Convinced that the freemen of Maryland were determined that he should not exercise his right to rule and because he wanted to avoid a major confrontation, Calvert yielded the right to initiate legislation to the assembly the following year. In this concession, he had laid the foundation for self-government in Maryland. In England, civil strife jeopardized the Maryland settlement in the s. King Charles I (and his Catholic wife) had long displayed a degree of religious toleration for Catholics that made many of his Protestant subjects uncomfortable. When civil war erupted in England between Charles and the Protestant-dominated Parliament, Catholicism was a primary source of contention between the two sides. Parliament ultimately prevailed and executed Charles in , establishing in the place of the monarchy a Puritan-dominated military government (known as the Commonwealth and led by Oliver Cromwell). Throughout this turbulent decade, Calvert faced increasing hostility toward himself and his American colony because of his persistent devotion to Catholicism and religious toleration. In addition, his contact with the colony became disrupted, first by the civil war in England and then by the appearance of Leonard, who traveled to England to consult with Calvert in , leaving the colony in the hands of the lieutenant governor. In Leonard’s absence, the government of Maryland was seized by anti-Catholic rebels, who ran the colonial government for more than three years and ensured that the

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colony was entirely out of Calvert’s hands. After Leonard returned to America, he was able to reclaim control of Maryland by force with the military aid of the governor of Virginia in . In England, despite the ascendancy of Cromwell, Calvert was able to retain his charter to the colony through skillful diplomatic maneuvering. To calm the situation in Maryland, Calvert appointed a Protestant, William Stone, as governor in  (Leonard had died in  but had appointed a Catholic as his successor). In addition, he presented the Maryland Assembly with the “Act of Toleration” that did not positively affirm religious toleration but made intolerance a crime among Christians. The act was the first legislation in the English-speaking world explicitly granting toleration to all Christians. Unfortunately, the measure served to exacerbate tensions, since the Puritan newcomers (invited by Baltimore to flee persecution from Anglicans in Virginia) were interested only in toleration for themselves. With Calvert’s support in England tenuous, the Puritans managed to gain control of Maryland once again, instituting a regime of religious intolerance, particularly against Catholics. Violence erupted in Maryland as Catholics fought for their rights. After almost a decade of civil war in Maryland, Calvert managed to secure a compromise settlement with the Puritan government in Maryland in . By the terms of the compromise, he was reinstated as proprietor, and he agreed to pardon the Puritan rebels in Maryland. The Puritans, in return, agreed to accept the Act of Toleration. Although minor disturbances continued in Maryland for several years regarding religious toleration, Calvert secured the support of England’s King Charles II (restored to the English throne in ), which ensured his control over the colony’s government. With his power once again secure in Maryland, Calvert concentrated on encouraging settlement and peopling the province. He died on November , , without ever visiting Maryland, although, roughly  years after his death, the colony would found a town (Baltimore) in his family’s honor, and the state’s flag bears his family crest even today. At the time of his death, Maryland was a prosperous and populous colony, containing settlers employed in agriculture and trade. He was succeeded by his son, Charles Calvert, as lord proprietor of Maryland and the third Lord Baltimore.

jeffrey m. chweiroth

ANNE HUTCHINSON (1591–1643) Anne Hutchinson may indeed be the first figure in American culture in whom dissent becomes associated with female empowerment and, more specifically, with public speaking by a woman. Her opponents accused her of stepping out of her place, encouraging other women to do the same, and circulating her ideas too freely and too publicly. Hutchinson had come to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to secure religious liberty. However, she found that, when her ideas did not match those of the majority, she had no such liberty and instead was banished from the colony. Wife of William Hutchinson and mother of  children, Anne Hutchinson immigrated with her family to the New World in . They joined the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Boston. Once she arrived in the New World, she began to speak publicly of her religious beliefs. At first, she spoke at meetings organized among Boston women to

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discuss that week’s sermon and the Bible; after a while, many leaders of the community began to come to hear her. She believed that people could be saved by complete faith in God, that their faith was more important than their actions. In contrast, the Puritan church espoused a belief in salvation through good deeds or good works. By placing responsibility for a person’s actions directly on the person himself, rather than tying the actions to the demands of the church, she caused a great political controversy in the colony. While this was partly due to her voicing her religious beliefs, it was also partly due to her challenge to the traditional subordinate role of women. The accepted belief of the day was that intelligence and understanding was given to men, not to women, so a woman’s chief duty as a wife was to her husband and children. Indeed, Puritan minister John Cotton warned her, saying, “Here it be tactful to hold one’s tongue.” The Puritans feared that Hutchinson would instigate an outbreak of individualism that would threaten the very foundation of their social order. She supported a covenant of grace theology that ensured that one’s salvation was located within oneself. They thought she carried the Puritan conception of grace to such an extreme that it translated into an overall abandonment of any structured church. They also thought she advocated anti-intellectualism, which was taken to indicate the irrelevance of scholarship and of study of the Bible. In essence, they feared she was advocating the abandonment of a Puritan society. As a result of this controversy, Hutchinson was brought to trial twice—once in civil court in  and then again by the church in . Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley stated that he was “fully persuaded that Mrs. Hutchinson is deluded by the devil.” He feared that she would encourage her “hearers to take up arms against their prince and to cut the throats one of another.” Cotton at first supported Hutchinson and then turned against her, saying of her, “Your opinions frett like a Grangrene and spread like a Leprosie, and infect farr and near, and will eate out the very Bowells of Religion, and hath soe infected the Churches that God knowes when thay will be cured.” The governor of the colony, John Winthrop, was a particularly strong opponent. He made himself attorney general, foreman of the jury, and chief justice at the trial. Hutchinson was found guilty, excommunicated, and banished from the colony. She and her family moved to Aquidneck, which is now part of Rhode Island. Today, Hutchinson is recognized as a great leader in the cause of religious toleration in America and the advancement of women in society.

SOCIETY OF FRIENDS (QUAKERS) The Quakers, or Society of Friends, were adherents of a Protestant religious movement founded in England in the mid-th century. Standing out from British society, they attracted much persecution and migrated in large numbers to North America, particularly Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. The Quakers were founded by George Fox in England in the s. Although raised an Anglican, Fox began to preach in  after a spiritual vision inspired him to minister. He called for a profound spiritual renewal within England, supported the prohibition of alcohol, and preached against holidays, sports, and all other activities that diverted attention from the spirit. Fox supported peace, and, when he was imprisoned for his beliefs, he converted his jailer.

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The group that arose around Fox professed the belief that Christ provided individuals with an inner light, so that believers could experience personal illumination from God in their daily lives. Followers of Fox became known as Quakers because they reportedly shook when filled with the Holy Spirit. As part of what was considered a radical fringe, the Quakers attracted much persecution in England and the New World. They especially stood apart with their distinctive code of dress and manners and their refusal to observe status distinctions, swear oaths, or pay tithes to the established church. They were helped somewhat by the Toleration Act of , which modified laws against dissenters. The Quakers had no clergy, so church services consisted of long periods of sitting together in silence, waiting for the Holy Spirit to move someone to speak. Initially, men and women met together for religious services, and women were often moved to speak. By the th century, the Friends held segregated meetings, and, from  on, Quakers followed a yearly “Book of Discipline” designed to provide church cohesion and instruct followers in proper behavior. Rhode Island was an early refuge for Quakers in North America and sheltered William Penn during the s. When Penn received the large tract of land that is now Pennsylvania, it provided Quakers with plenty of land in which to practice religious freedom and from which to gain a comfortable living. Although the Quakers were never an established church or officially linked to the colony’s government, the importance of individual Quakers among the early proprietors gave them considerable power in the colonial assembly long after they ceased to be a majority of the population. Quakers used that power to pursue the abolition of African slavery, to minister to Native American groups in the region, and to pursue peaceful relations. Slave importation to Pennsylvania was outlawed in . In England, Quakers were prominent in antislavery and prison reform campaigns. John Woolman, an influential leader during the first half of the th century, preached that war and slavery were inherently evil and that the materialism of non-Quakers showed spiritual degradation. When the French and Indian War began,  Friends opposed the payment of taxes in , since their tax revenue went to finance the war. As the American Revolution approached, Quakers again refused to pay taxes or to support the war effort in any way. During the th century, Quakers abandoned the strict code of dress they had previously followed, which helped them assimilate into contemporary society. Their antiwar stance and pacifist commitment further set them apart in the th century, however, when they were again seen as radicals.

ROGER WILLIAMS (1603–1683) The religious intellectual Roger Williams established the colony of Rhode Island and left a legacy of respect for the principle of religious freedom in America. Williams was born on January , , in London, England. A protege of Sir Edward Coke, he attended Charterhouse. After graduating from Pembroke College, Cambridge, England, in , he became an Anglican chaplain. In , he participated in the Puritan conference at Sempringham called to decide whether the Puritans should immigrate to New England. Williams arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in February . Although offered the chance to preach in Salem, he decided that the Puritans were not “separated”

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enough in their beliefs from the Church of England and settled instead in Plymouth. After only a year in Plymouth, however, he decided that conditions were no better there and accepted a second offer in  to preach in Salem. In Salem, Williams immediately caused a furor by arguing that the Puritans’ Massachusetts Bay royal charter was invalid because the king could not give away land that belonged to the Indians without their consent. He compounded his unpopularity by writing a letter to King Charles I accusing him of being an ally of the Devil. Reprimanded by the Massachusetts General Court, Williams apologized for his actions. He was back before the court in  for his belief that no government had the right to punish people for violating the first four commandments, nor could it administer an oath to a nonbeliever. When he refused to back down from these positions, he was banished from Massachusetts. In April , the unrepentant Williams decided to found a new colony, Providence, Rhode Island, upon land he secured from the Narragansett Indians. He attracted settlers to his colony by generously distributing land to anyone willing to accept his belief that “no man should be molested for his conscience.” Williams’s good relations with the Narragansetts even helped the Puritans who had exiled him when he agreed to negotiate an end to the Pequot War in . During the hostilities, the colonists nearly wiped out the Pequot tribe, which had fought back against the continuing takeover of the lands by Europeans. In , Williams briefly joined the Baptist Church. He quickly left the Baptists, and for the rest of his life he considered himself a “Seeker”—someone who accepted no creed but believed in the fundamental truth of Christianity. To protect his new colony from being crushed by the hostile Puritans or usurped by another colonizer, Williams returned to England in  to secure a royal charter. On the journey, he wrote A Key into the Language of America (), which illustrated his appreciation for American Indian cultures. In England, he also published Mr. Cotton’s Letter Lately Printed, Examined, and Answered (), in which he rebutted the Puritan clergyman John Cotton’s claim that those who encouraged groups of settlers to separate from the New England Puritan colonies threatened the ability of the Puritans to establish a reform church. Williams argued that no government had the right to persecute a man for his religious beliefs. Williams secured his charter and returned to Providence in March , committed to establishing a democratic government. He was forced to return once again to England in  to defend the validity of his charter against another claimant. He succeeded and, upon his return to Providence, was elected to the first of three terms as president of the colony. Although Williams had saved the colony from court intrigue, he was unable to prevent the catastrophic Indian uprising known as King Philip’s War in . For three years, the Wampanoags, under the leadership of a chief known as King Philip, terrorized some New England towns in retaliation for the taking of their lands. Eventually the Wampanoags, and what power they still wielded, were destroyed. The situation was so desperate that even Williams, now more than  years old, shouldered a musket and participated as a militia captain in military maneuvers during the war. The devastation of the conflict wiped out Williams’s personal fortune and ended his vision of peaceful coexistence between the European and the Native American cultures.

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In his last years, Williams defended the right of Quakers to practice their religion unimpeded in Rhode Island. This did not, however, prevent him from publishing George Fox Digg’d Out of His Burrowes in  to illustrate the error of Quaker theology. Williams hoped that the religious fanaticism of the Quakers might reinvigorate interest in Puritan theology. The increasingly secular preoccupations of the inhabitants of New England troubled his deeply religious soul. Williams died on March , .

william mcguire and leslie wheeler DOCUMENT: EXCERPT FROM ROGER WILLIAMS’S BLOUDY TENENT OF PERSECUTION, 1644 Although many Puritans came to America to gain religious liberty for themselves, many of them were not keen on extending such liberty to others. Roger Williams, at various times an Anglican, a Baptist, and a Seeker, was among those eventually expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in part for his view that civil authorities had no right to try to extend their control over the human conscience by adopting legislation over religious matters. Williams subsequently founded Providence Plantation in present-day Rhode Island. Among the most famous of Williams’s writings is his Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, which he authored in  while applying for a charter for Rhode Island in England. With a clear view of the toll that religious persecution had taken in human lives, Williams’s essay is one of the earliest defenses of what is today called separation of church and state. More than a century later, similar arguments would be made by more secularly oriented thinkers like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on behalf of religious liberties. Such concerns eventually found their way into the First Amendment. Below is an excerpt from Williams’s work. (Williams, Roger, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for the Cause of Conscience, Discussed in a Conference Between Truth and Peace [London, ].) First, that the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of Protestants and Papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. Secondly, pregnant scriptures and arguments are throughout the work proposed against the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience. Thirdly, satisfactory answers are given to scriptures, and objections produced by Mr. Calvin, Beza, Mr. Cotton, and the ministers of New English churches and others former and late, tending to prove the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience. Fourthly, the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience is proved guilty of all the blood of the souls crying for vengeance under the altar. Fifthly, all civil states with their officers of justice in their respective constitutions and administrations are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship.

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Sixthly, it is the will and command of God that (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries; and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only (in soul matters) able to conquer, to wit, the sword of God’s spirit, the Word of God. Seventhly, the state of the Land of Israel, the kings and people thereof in peace and war, is proved figurative and ceremonial, and no pattern nor president for any kingdom or civil state in the world to follow. Eighthly, God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls. Ninthly, in holding an enforced uniformity of religion in a civil state, we must necessarily disclaim our desires and hopes of the Jew’s conversion to Christ. Tenthly, an enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. Eleventhly, the permission of other consciences and worships than a state professeth only can (according to God) procure a firm and lasting peace (good assurance being taken according to the wisdom of the civil state for uniformity of civil obedience from all forts). Twelfthly, lastly, true civility and Christianity may both flourish in a state or kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of divers and contrary consciences, either of Jew or Gentile. . . . First, the proper means whereby the civil power may and should attain its end are only political, and principally these five. First, the erecting and establishing what form of civil government may seem in wisdom most meet, according to general rules of the world, and state of the people. Secondly, the making, publishing, and establishing of wholesome civil laws, not only such as concern civil justice, but also the free passage of true religion; for outward civil peace ariseth and is maintained from them both, from the latter as well as from the former. Civil peace cannot stand entire, where religion is corrupted ( Chron. . . . ; and Judges ). And yet such laws, though conversant about religion, may still be counted civil laws, as, on the contrary, an oath doth still remain religious though conversant about civil matters. Thirdly, election and appointment of civil offices to see execution to those laws. Fourthly, civil punishments and rewards of transgressors and observers of these laws. Fifthly, taking up arms against the enemies of civil peace. Secondly, the means whereby the church may and should attain her ends are only ecclesiastical, which are chiefly five. First, setting up that form of church government only of which Christ hath given them a pattern in his Word. Secondly, acknowledging and admitting of no lawgiver in the church but Christ and the publishing of His laws.

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Thirdly, electing and ordaining of such officers only, as Christ hath appointed in his Word. Fourthly, to receive into their fellowship them that are approved and inflicting spiritual censures against them that offend. Fifthly, prayer and patience in suffering any evil from them that be without, who disturb their peace. So that magistrates as magistrates, have no power of setting up the form of church government, electing church officers, punishing with church censures, but to see that the church does her duty herein. And on the other side, the churches as churches, have no power (though as members of the commonwealth they may have power) of erecting or altering forms of civil government, electing of civil officers, inflicting civil punishments (not on persons excommunicate) as by deposing magistrates from their civil authority, or withdrawing the hearts of the people against them, to their laws, no more than to discharge wives, or children, or servants, from due obedience to their husbands, parents, or masters; or by taking up arms against their magistrates, though he persecute them for conscience: for though members of churches who are public officers also of the civil state may suppress by force the violence of usurpers, as Iehoiada did Athaliah, yet this they do not as members of the church but as officers of the civil state.

DOCUMENT: MARYLAND ACT OF TOLERATION, 1649 Drafted by Maryland’s founder Lord Baltimore early in  and passed by the Maryland legislature in April of that year, the Maryland Toleration Act offered religious freedom for all Christians who accepted the Divine Trinity but did not extend this same toleration to non-Christians or to Christians who denied the Trinity. The act was particularly intended to protect Catholics from persecution in a colony with a large Protestant population, as well. Despite the somewhat limited extent of the toleration granted, it was among the most liberal acts of its kind in colonial America. (Maryland Toleration Act of . From Browne, William H., ed., The Archives of Maryland, vol. I [Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, ], pp. –.)

AN ACT CONCERNING RELIGION Forasmuch as in a well governed and Christian Common Wealth matters concerning Religion and the honor of God ought in the first place to bee taken, into serious consideracion and endeavoured to bee settled, Be it therefore ordered and enacted by the Right Honourable Cecilius Lord Baron of Baltemore absolute Lord and Proprietary of this Province with the advise and consent of this Generall Assembly: That whatsoever person or persons within this Province and the Islands thereunto belonging shall from henceforth blaspheme God, that is Curse him, or deny our Saviour Jesus Christ to bee the sonne of God, or shall deny the holy Trinity the father sonne and holy Ghost, or the Godhead of any of the said Three persons of the Trinity or the Unity of the Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachfull Speeches, words or language concerning the said Holy Trinity, or any of the said three persons thereof, shalbe punished

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with death and confiscation or forfeiture of all his or her lands and goods to the Lord Proprietary and his heires. And bee it also Enacted by the Authority and with the advise and assent aforesaid, That whatsoever person or persons shall from henceforth use or utter any reproachfull words or Speeches concerning the blessed Virgin Mary the Mother of our Saviour or the holy Apostles or Evangelists or any of them shall in such case for the first offence forfeit to the said Lord Proprietary and his heirs Lords and Proprietaries of this Province the summe of five pound Sterling or the value thereof to be Levyed on the goods and chattells of every such person soe offending, but in case such Offender or Offenders, shall not then have goods and chattells sufficient for the satisfyeing of such forfeiture, or that the same bee not otherwise speedily satisfyed that then such Offender or Offenders shalbe publiquely whipt and bee imprisoned during the pleasure of the Lord Proprietary or the Lieutenant or cheife Governor of this Province for the time being. And that every such Offender or Offenders for every second offence shall forfeit tenne pound sterling or the value thereof to bee levyed as aforesaid, or in case such offender or Offenders shall not then have goods and chattells within this Province sufficient for that purpose then to bee publiquely and severely whipt and imprisoned as before is expressed. And that every person or persons before mentioned offending herein the third time, shall for such third Offence forfeit all his lands and Goods and bee for ever banished and expelled out of this Province. And be it also further Enacted by the same authority advise and assent that whatsoever person or persons shall from henceforth uppon any occasion of Offence or otherwise in a reproachful manner or Way declare call or denominate any person or persons whatsoever inhabiting, residing, traffiqueing, trading or comerceing within this Province or within any the Ports, Harbors, Creeks or Havens to the same belonging an heritick, Scismatick, Idolator, puritan, Independant, Prespiterian popish prest, Jesuite, Jesuited papist, Lutheran, Calvenist, Anabaptist, Brownist, Antinomian, Barrowist, Roundhead, Separatist, or any other name or terme in a reproachfull manner relating to matter of Religion shall for every such Offence forfeit and loose the somme of tenne shillings sterling or the value thereof to bee levyed on the goods and chattells of every such Offender and Offenders, the one half thereof to be forfeited and paid unto the person and persons of whom such reproachfull words are or shalbe spoken or uttered, and the other half thereof to the Lord Proprietary and his heires Lords and Proprietaries of this Province. But if such person or persons who shall at any time utter or speake any such reproachfull words or Language shall not have Goods or Chattells sufficient and overt within this Province to bee taken to satisfie the penalty aforesaid or that the same bee not otherwise speedily satisfyed, that then the person or persons soe offending shalbe publickly whipt, and shall suffer imprisonment without baile or maineprise untill hee, shee or they respectively shall satisfy the party soe offended or greived by such reproachfull Language by asking him or her respectively forgivenes publiquely for such his Offence before the Magistrate of cheife Officer or Officers of the Towne or place where such Offence shalbe given. And be it further likewise Enacted by the Authority and consent aforesaid That every person and persons within this Province that shall at any time hereafter prophane the Sabbath or Lords day called Sunday by frequent swearing, drunkennes or by any uncivill or disorderly recreacion, or by working on that day when absolute necessity doth

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not require it shall for every such first offence forfeit s d sterling or the value thereof, and for the second offence s sterling or the value thereof, and for the third offence and soe for every time he shall offend in like manner afterwards s sterling or the value thereof. And in case such offender and offenders shall not have sufficient goods or chattells within this Province to satisfy any of the said Penalties respectively hereby imposed for prophaning the Sabbath or Lords day called Sunday as aforesaid, That in Every such case the partie soe offending shall for the first and second offence in that kinde be imprisoned till hee or shee shall publickly in open Court before the cheife Commander Judge or Magistrate, of that County Towne or precinct where such offence shalbe committed acknowledg the Scandall and offence he hath in that respect given against God and the good and civill Governement of this Province, And for the third offence and for every time after shall also bee publickly whipt. And whereas the inforceing of the conscience in matters of Religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous Consequence in those commonwealthes where it hath been practised, And for the more quiett and peaceable governement of this Province, and the better to preserve mutuall Love and amity amongst the Inhabitants thereof, Be it Therefore also by the Lord Proprietary with the advise and consent of this Assembly Ordeyned and enacted (except as in this present Act is before Declared and sett forth) that noe person or persons whatsoever within this Province, or the Islands, Ports, Harbors, Creekes, or havens thereunto belonging professing to beleive in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth bee any waies troubled, Molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof within this Province or the Islands thereunto belonging nor any way compelled to the beleife or exercise of any other Religion against his or her consent, soe as they be not unfaithfull to the Lord Proprietary, or molest or conspire against the civill Governement established or to bee established in this Province under him or his heires. And that all and every person and persons that shall presume Contrary to this Act and the true intent and meaning thereof directly or indirectly either in person or estate willfully to wrong disturbe trouble or molest any person whatsoever within this Province professing to beleive in Jesus Christ for or in respect of his or her religion or the free exercise thereof within this Province other than is provided for in this Act that such person or persons soe offending, shalbe compelled to pay trebble damages to the party soe wronged or molested, and for every such offence shall also forfeit s sterling in money or the value thereof, half thereof for the use of the Lord Proprietary, and his heires Lords and Proprietaries of this Province, and the other half for the use of the party soe wronged or molested as aforesaid, Or if the partie soe offending as aforesaid shall refuse or bee unable to recompense the party soe wronged, or to satisfy such fyne or forfeiture, then such Offender shalbe severely punished by publick whipping and imprisonment during the pleasure of the Lord Proprietary, or his Lieutenant or cheife Governor of this Province for the tyme being without baile or maineprise. And bee it further alsoe Enacted by the authority and consent aforesaid That the Sheriff or other Officer or Officers from time to time to bee appointed and authorized for that purpose, of the County Towne or precinct where every particular offence in this present Act conteyned shall happen at any time to bee committed and whereupon there is hereby a forfeiture fyne or penalty imposed shall from time to time distraine and seise the goods and estate of every such person soe offending as aforesaid against this present

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Act or any part thereof, and sell the same or any part thereof for the full satisfaccion of such forfeiture, fine, or penalty as aforesaid, Restoring unto the partie soe offending the Remainder or overplus of the said goods or estate after such satisfaccion soe made as aforesaid. The freemen have assented.

DOCUMENT: EXCERPT FROM THE PENNSYLVANIA CHARTER OF PRIVILEGES, 1701 Adopted by William Penn in , the Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges guaranteed religious freedom for those who believed in God. This charter states that all believers in God have the right to serve in the government and should not be discriminated against in their “Person or Estate.” (Penn, Wiliam, Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, .) Because no People can be truly happy, though under the greatest Enjoyment of Civil Liberties, if abridged of the Freedom of their Consciences, as to their Religious Profession and Worship: And Almighty God being the only Lord of Conscience, Father of Lights and Spirits; and the Author as well as the Object of all divine Knowledge, Faith and Worship, who only doth enlighten the Minds, and persuade and convince the Understanding of People, I do hereby grant and declare, That no Person or Persons, inhabiting in this province or Territories, who shall confess and acknowledge One almighty God, the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the World; and profess him or themselves obliged to live quietly under the Civil Government, shall be in any Case molested or prejudiced, in his or their Person or Estate, because of his or their conscientious Persuasion or Practice, nor be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious Worship, Place or Ministry, contrary to his or their Mind, or to do or suffer any other Act or Thing, contrary to their religious Persuasion. AND that all Persons who also profess to believe in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World, shall be capable (notwithstanding their other Persuasions and Practices in Point of Conscience and Religion) to serve this Government in any Capacity, both legislatively and executively, he or they solemnly promising, when lawfully required, Allegiance to the King as Sovereign, and Fidelity to the Proprietary and Governor, and taking the Attests as now established by the Law.

9 The Surrender of New Amsterdam, 1664

INTRODUCTION The Dutch explorer Henry Hudson first sailed up what is now known as the Hudson River in , but his third voyage, in , was particularly important because it proved to the Dutch government that the North (Hudson) River was a good place for settlement and trade and that there was no water route extending from the river to the “western sea,” where China and its fabulous treasures were supposed to be. One of the first detailed geographical descriptions of the Dutch area of settlement was Johannes de Loet’s New World, or a Description of West-India, published in . De Loet was involved in Dutch business ventures in America, and his book appeared after the States-General (the Dutch legislature) had chartered the Dutch West India Company, in . The company, which remained in control of New Netherland until , enjoyed a trade monopoly among the Netherlands, the west coast of Africa, and all of America and could ally itself with Native tribes and administer colonial government. In its earliest years, the Dutch West India Company was more interested in maintaining Brazil as a colony. In the early s, the Dutch battled the Portuguese for control of Brazil and lost in . Despite its interest in Brazil, the Dutch West India Company began sending settlers to New Netherland in , and, the following year, it appointed Willem Verhulst director general. Verhulst, however, took advantage of the distance between New Netherland and company headquarters to abuse his powers. A local advisory council he had established objected to his behavior and banished him from the colony. Th e council replaced Verhulst with Peter Minuit, a surveyor who had arrived in New Netherland with Verhulst. The governmental and commercial center of the colony was New Amsterdam, located on the site of present-day New York City. New Amsterdam, like the rest of the colony, remained small during the early years of settlement. By , its population was still fewer than  permanent residents, although there was considerable ethnic and religious diversity. The port facilities were busy, but many who worked there were transients. In the late s, Minuit tried to attract more colonists by initiating brick manufacturing and timber-cutting enterprises and by ordering the building of a ship larger than any then in the Dutch fleet. The ship, which probably weighed  tons,

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was finished in  and christened the New Netherland. The ship became a part of the West India Company’s transoceanic fleet, but the company directors never forgot how expensive the ship was to build, and the experiment contributed to Minuit’s recall, in . Not long afterward, the Swedish government employed Minuit to lead New Sweden, its colonization venture in North America. When the New Netherland colony did not become self-sufficient, as had been expected, the company introduced new initiatives to encourage greater immigration and economic activity. In , company officials implemented the patroonship plan. Under this plan, one could become a patroon (a patron) if, over the course of three years, one brought  new settlers to New Netherland. In return, the company granted the patroon four leagues (about  miles) of land along one side of the Hudson River or two leagues along each side of the river. Settlers could move inland from the river as far as it was practical or safe. Within this domain, the patroon exercised administrative and judicial authority, although a colonist could appeal to the company in matters regarding serious offenses. Patroons were permitted to trade with anyone up and down the coast of North America by paying a  percent tax to the company for the concession. In addition, all trade within the colony or between the Dutch and other colonists was supposed to flow through New Amsterdam so that the director general could keep track of it for tax purposes, but this was virtually impossible to enforce. Several prominent investors applied for patroonships, but only the van Rensselaer family possessed the wealth to establish a functioning community. In , Kiliaen van Rensselaer established the patroonship of Rensselaerswyck. Several others tried but failed to create successful patroonships and sold their land back to the company. Although van Rensselaer remained prominent in New Netherland affairs for many years, the patroonship plan did not result in a significant increase in either the population or the prosperity of New Netherland. Although New Netherland was not founded for religious reasons, the Dutch West India Company was concerned about the spiritual needs of its settlers. The company established a Reformed Church in the colony, basically Presbyterian in nature. Congregations had a good deal of control over their own affairs, although they were nominally under the supervision of a body called the classis, which consisted of all the ministers in a particular district. The classis could install and remove ministers from their churches. Above the classis was the synod, a group of church leaders, which had broad supervisory authority. The first minister sent to the colony was Jonas Jansen Michielase, whose name was Latinized to Jonas Johannes Michaelius. He arrived in April  and organized a church in Manhattan, the settlement near the port. In addition, the patroonship arrangement also required patroons to provide a religious opportunity for the settlers within the domain, and van Rensselaer eventually called a minister to his patroonship. Johannes Megapolensis arrived in  under a sixyear contract. Megapolensis enjoyed the full confidence of van Rensselaer, who often consulted him on important administrative issues. In , Megapolensis was one of the first Christian ministers to go out and preach to the Indians. After leaving Rensselaerswyck in, , Megapolensis was persuaded to preach in New Amsterdam and stayed there until his death, in . After the controversy about the New Netherland, the Dutch West India Company replaced Minuit with Bastiaen Jansen Krol, who served only a year. The next director

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general was Wouter Van Twiller. The fourth director general of New Netherland was not a notable colonial administrator, but his physical presence was remarkable, if the description of fictional chronicler Diedrich Knickerbocker is to be believed: He was exactly five feet six inches in height and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions that Dame Nature, with all her sex’s ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; whereupon she wisely declined the attempt and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just between the shoulders. . . . His legs were short, but strictly in proportion to the weight they had to sustain, so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer barrel on skids. (Quoted in Irving, p. ) Van Twiller’s service in New Netherland lasted five years, all the while plagued by his alcoholism and ineffectiveness. In , he was replaced by Willem Kieft, a harddriving, ambitious director general whose eight years in the colony were marked by worsening relations with the Indians of the region. The economy and society of New Netherland were badly damaged by a series of Indian wars between  and . At the end of these wars, Peter Stuyvesant replaced Kieft as director general of New Netherland. He was the last Dutch director general of the colony, honest and capable but authoritarian to the point of being tyrannical. As director general, Stuyvesant was interested in defending New Netherland against its English and Swedish neighbors, in reining in the independent patroons, like van Rensselaer, and in suppressing illegal trading with the Indians, who were acquiring guns in that way. In , to pay for his policies, Stuyvesant convened representatives of the people, known as the Board of Nine Men, to secure their assent to levy taxes. The Board of Nine Men came to represent a kind of political opposition to the director general, expressing their displeasure over various issues and requesting mediation in the Netherlands States-General. Stuyvesant opposed this challenge to his authority and tried to suppress the Board of Nine Men, but they petitioned the States-General, which, since it was involved with Brazilian matters at the time, did nothing about the dispute. Ultimately, Stuyvesant relented somewhat, gave “village rights,” including the right to establish local courts, to  settlements, and, in , allowed New Amsterdam, the largest settlement, a limited municipal government. Stuyvesant’s most important military action was the capture of Swedish settlements on the Delaware River in . New Sweden was founded in  with some help from Dutch merchants, who could envision a profitable trade relationship with the traditionally friendly Swedes. The Swedish South Company, responsible for the settling of New Sweden, sent Peter Minuit to direct the new colony. Early Dutch-Swedish relations were good; each colony controlled a bank of the Delaware River. Conflict arose, however, over Indian trade, disputed purchases of Indian lands, and the aggressiveness of Stuyvesant’s administration. In , he ordered the construction of a new fort on the South River very near the Swedes’ Fort Christina. Relations worsened, and, in , New Sweden received a large number of reinforcements from Sweden, but further efforts to strengthen the colony’s defenses were too late.

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The Dutch surrender New Amsterdam, September 8, 1664. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

The Dutch West India Company ordered Stuyvesant to drive the Swedes out of their territory, and, in August , Stuyvesant organized the largest military force yet seen in any of the colonies along the Atlantic Coast. The Dutch forces sailed to the Delaware River in early September and forced the surrender of Fort Casimir on September . Ironically, the Dutch had built Fort Casimir in , but the Swedes had captured it a year later. On September , Fort Christina capitulated, effectively ending the conflict and the Swedish presence in North America. Conflict between the Dutch and the English over New Netherland dated back to . The Dutch claimed the territory by virtue of prior discovery and occupation, while the English pointed to the proclamation of King James I in  that granted the Virginia Company the right to colonize anywhere between  and  degrees north latitude, an area that easily encompassed New Netherland. English pressure mounted as the New England colonies grew much more rapidly than did New Netherland, and boundary disputes were frequent. Eventually, New Netherland was outmatched by the English presence, and directors general in the s and s permitted English settlements like New Haven to be established on territory the Dutch had originally claimed. A similar conflict regarding English settlement occurred on Long Island, although Stuyvesant did not object to independent English settlers coming to New Netherland. In , Stuyvesant and the English negotiated a treaty establishing a boundary running through both Long Island and present-day Connecticut. Although not ratified by the Dutch government until  and never ratified by the English, the agreement worked to keep the peace for several years. After the restoration of King Charles II, in

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, however, the English government sought to streamline their North American colonial administration. Removing the Dutch from New Netherland would give the English control of the entire coastline, now that the Dutch themselves had eliminated New Sweden. In , Connecticut was given a new charter that extended its domain well into parts of New Netherland, ignoring the  treaty. In the following year, Charles II, ignoring totally the existence of New Netherland, granted the land from the Connecticut River to the Delaware River to his younger brother James, then Duke of York. James organized a military force under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls to go to New Netherland and secure his land. In late August , Nicolls’s forces landed in the harbor at New Amsterdam and demanded that Stuyvesant surrender the city, a move with which many Dutch people, aware of the futility of a fight, agreed. Stuyvesant held out for several days but finally yielded to the English on September , . New Netherland became the English colony of New York, except for a brief period in , when, during an Anglo-Dutch war, the Dutch navy captured New York. The city (if not the entire colony) remained under Dutch control for about  months until the treaty ending the war returned New York to England.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY thomas a. mackey While walking through the concrete, steel, and glass canyons of lower Manhattan today, it is difficult to believe that one walks in the footsteps of the original Dutch settlers of New Netherland where a wall separated the wilds of Manhattan from the Dutch city of New Amsterdam. Although Dutch heritage is difficult to find in lower Manhattan, a few Dutch place names survive, such as Wall Street and Bowling Green. In other places in greater New York and up the Hudson River, the Dutch presence can be heard in names such as “Breukelyn” (Brooklyn) and “Haerlem” (Harlem). An Indian trail ran the length of Manhattan Island, ending at the Dutch settlement. In the late s, the Dutch widened the path into their settlement. These improvements led the Dutch to refer to the path by the descriptive name “Breede Wegh,” anglicized to “Broad Way.” But these street and place names are the last vestiges of the Dutch presence in New York City. This essay examines the origins and development of the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam and how the Dutch lost their North American colony to the English in September . With the takeover of New Netherland, the English secured their hold on the eastern shores of North America and no longer feared any European threat from within their claims to coastal North America. Only the French in Canada loomed as a threat to the English holdings that stretched from Nova Scotia southward through the Chesapeake Bay. In September , Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, reached the North American mainland north of Virginia. He guided his ship, Da Halve Maen (The Half Moon), into a navigable river that emptied into the Atlantic Ocean. He passed what would be known as Manhattan Island on his right and continued as far north as the river was navigable (to approximately the area of Albany). Along the way, Native Americans met his ship and traded tobacco, corn, and furs for

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trinkets, beads, and knives. That river bears this explorer’s name, the Hudson River, and his company claimed the excellent port at the mouth of the river where the Dutch West India Company founded New Amsterdam in . Yet Henry Hudson was not the first to “discover” the river. One hundred years before the founding of New Amsterdam, the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano anchored at the narrow entrance to the river. Today, the elegant Verrazano Narrows Bridge connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn is named in his honor. Henry Hudson had not set sail to find new peoples or to start new colonies; rather, in his quest for the riches of Asia, he searched for a northwest water passage through the land mass. In this goal he failed, but his later explorations took him farther north, where his name adorns Canada’s Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait. His explorations proved controversial. Upon returning to Europe, Hudson put the Half Moon into Dartmouth, England, for repairs, and his mixed crew of Dutch and English spread the word about their discoveries. England’s government viewed Hudson’s actions as disloyal because he sailed for a potential competitor, the Dutch, and briefly imprisoned him. What bothered the English most was not Hudson’s voyages but rather his claim for the Dutch of the entire Hudson River area. In particular, the Plymouth and Virginia Companies of London claimed the entire coastline in their royal charters even though they possessed no practical means to enforce those claims. As a result, the Dutch, the Swedes, the French to the north, and the Spanish to the south ignored English declarations of ownership and carved out areas of the new world for themselves. Like their British rivals, the Dutch employed a particular form of organization to undertake their exploration and colonization ventures—the joint-stock corporation. In the late th and early th centuries, Dutch economic energies and banking successes resulted in a prosperous Holland. Because of their economic success, many Dutch had money to invest in risky but potentially lucrative overseas voyages. To spread the risk of such voyages, the Dutch (like the British) developed joint-stock companies. By allowing a large number of people to invest in their activities, companies could raise more capital to fund voyages than any one investor might be able to finance, and, if the voyage failed, no one investor lost all of his investment. Because of these economic advantages, Dutch and English authorities regularly chartered joint-stock companies for exploration and colonization purposes. By October , the Dutch East India Company had lost interest in the New World and concentrated its trade efforts in the fur trade with Moscow. As a result, the Dutch States-General chartered a new company, the New Netherland Company, to enter the North American fur trade. This company had a monopoly to make four voyages in the following three years, and the fur trade flourished. When the monopoly ended, in , the proprietors of the New Netherland Company sought to renew its charter, but other investors lobbied the States-General and prevented the awarding of another charter until June , . On that date, a competing group of investors, the Dutch West India Company, received a charter and the exclusive privileges to control Dutch trade with New Netherland. Under this  charter, the Dutch West India Company possessed the authority to maintain military forces, to negotiate trade and peace terms with the local peoples, and to administer its own affairs in the Americas and in West Africa. As part of this charter, the Dutch States-General required the company to “advance the peopling of those fruitful and unsettled parts.”

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In April , the ship Nieu Nederlandt reached the Hudson River. Captained by Cornelius Jacobsen May, the Nieu Nederlandt carried  families whose goal was to establish a Dutch colony in New Netherland. These families came from southern Holland, were Protestants, spoke French, and were known as the Walloons. May sent  of these families up the Hudson River to settle permanently at Fort Orange (near present-day Albany). He also dispatched settlers southward to Burlington Island in the Delaware River and others eastward to the Connecticut River Valley. Only a few families remained on Noten (Governor’s) Island and on Manhattan Island. May scattered these people because of Holland’s disputed claims to the Hudson River area. May and the company directors sought to show that the Dutch had occupied their claimed territory. In , the company sent out six relief ships carrying provisions and hundreds of new Dutch colonists. Willem Verhulst was the commander of this expedition, and, upon its arrival, he became the first director general of New Netherland. Verhulst had orders from the  Directors of the company to establish a permanent agricultural community in New Netherlands. To centralize his control, Verhulst recalled to New Amsterdam the outlying Walloon settlements; after , those trading outposts were staffed only seasonally. Verhulst also ordered that any other directors of the company who might be in the colony serve as an advisory council to him, but, because few of the major investors ever visited the far-flung colony, the director general wielded almost unchecked power throughout the Dutch period. Political power in the hands of one director general could become a problem, and Verhulst was the first to abuse his powers. He lost key support among the settlers by berating the settlers for not spending enough time working on the company’s lands and for his harsh punishments for minor crimes. When it came to light that Verhulst had altered the company’s books to enrich himself, the council banished him from the colony. Succeeding Verhulst was Peter Minuit, who had come to New Netherland to help Verhulst survey the area. One of the persistent questions of this early period is how and when the Dutch “bought” Manhattan Island from the local Indians. The traditional account holds that Peter Minuit purchased the island for  florins’ worth of trade goods from the local Mahican tribe in . Historians challenge this story, arguing that Willem Verhulst actually arranged the exchange of goods for the Dutch settlement on Manhattan Island and that Minuit bought Manhattan. What actually occurred remains unclear. Because Indians did not think in terms of “owning” land as Europeans did but rather understood land as something that supported all people, one wonders whether the Mahicans considered their exchange for Manhattan a final “sale” or saw the exchange as a “gift” for the right of the Dutch to settle. What is clear is that, by the fall of , New Netherland was taking shape, with its political and commercial center at New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. In addition to  houses there, the colonists finished an unimpressive fort or blockhouse surrounded by a log and earthen palisades. But all was not well. The Dutch West India Company, with its major investments in Africa and elsewhere in the Americas, expected the small colony to become selfsufficient quickly. Yet, the colony did not boom as investors hoped. Agricultural production failed to meet expectations, lumber proved expensive to harvest and ship, and the fur trade (the only true “cash crop” of the colony) slowed.

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To address these problems, the Dutch West India Company loosened its hold over the colony and allowed more private initiative and investment. In , the company implemented the patroonship plan, whereby a wealthy individual could acquire a large amount of land in return for recruiting colonists for New Netherland. Unfortunately for the Dutch, the patroonship plan did not prove successful. Few Dutch investors had the capital to establish patroonships, and few Dutch settlers were willing to work the large farms. The most successful of the patroonships, Kiliaen van Rensselaer’s Rensselaerswyck, struggled during the s, and most of the other patroons eventually sold their land back to the company. In the end, the patroonship plan failed to meet the key need of New Netherland—more colonists. To meet this need the company revised its charter again in  to allow less prominent people to receive land titles in New Netherland. Under these new terms, people who settled in the colony could receive title to a certain amount of land. This also failed to generate adequate immigration, so, in , the company expanded its offer by granting as much land as people could cultivate. To sweeten the deal even further, the company granted colonists the right to control their property in perpetuity. In return, the settlers had to pay a tax, a quitrent, of one-tenth of the value of their produce and their cattle herds to the company. In , building on these incentives, the company offered  acres of land to settlers who brought five immigrants to the colony and offered limited self-government to those who established towns or villages. One glitch in these plans was the Indian claims to the land that had to be cleared before the company recognized the settlers’ land titles. This requirement led to widespread fraud and cheating by the Dutch settlers. Not surprisingly, this issue generated so much bad feeling between the Dutch and the Indians that, in , Director General Peter Stuyvesant forbade private land purchases from the Indians without the consent of the company. When experiments with land offerings failed to attract large numbers of Dutch settlers, New Netherland opened its doors to almost anyone willing to settle. Eventually the colony grew, but not necessarily with Dutch immigrants and certainly not quickly. New Netherland numbered about  people in  and  in ; by , when the English conquered New Amsterdam, the colony contained fewer than , settlers. At the same time, the English colony of Virginia had a population of approximately , people, and New England had ,. New Amsterdam attracted a wide diversity of people (Dutch, English, French) and religions (Protestants, Catholics, and even Jews), a tradition that has continued throughout New York City’s rich history. Dutch governance in New Netherland suffered from weak leadership. Director General Peter Minuit lasted until , when the directors of the company recalled him after the controversy over the building of the New Netherland. After Minuit, Bastiaen Jansen Krol arrived but served only a year, and the alcoholic ex-company clerk Wouter Van Twiller followed him, in turn, in . Van Twiller lasted five years, only to be followed in  by the ambitious, heavy-handed, and imprudent Willem Kieft. Because of his rash policies and bad relations with the Native Americans, intermittent fighting with the Indians occurred. These attacks, combined with his harshness as director, led to a general call from within the colony for Kieft’s removal, which occurred in . New Netherland’s last director general was the combative, pious military veteran Peter Stuyvesant, who arrived in New Amsterdam in May . Stuyvesant’s tenure was not

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without controversy, as he feuded with both his fellow Dutch settlers and his English neighbors, but he did bring stability and better leadership to the Dutch colony. A principal area of simmering tension between the British and the Dutch lay to the northeast, in the Connecticut River Valley. Both the English in New England and the Dutch from New Netherland sought to control the lucrative Indian fur trade along that river. Their rivalry demonstrated the weakness of the Dutch and the determination of the English to claim the hinterlands of New England. What made the Connecticut River Valley so important to both groups was its geography—it flowed from deep in the heartland of New England. Indians used this natural highway to move their pelts of beaver and otter out of the countryside and down to the European trading posts. Dutch leaders and traders wanted control of the river so that the Connecticut River did not siphon trade away from the Hudson River; English leaders and traders hoped to cut into the Dutch trade by controlling the river. In , Director General Van Twiller sent Jacob van Curler and a company of soldiers to establish a Dutch presence on the Connecticut River. Van Curler and his men built a small fort and trading post a few miles up the river and named it the House of Good Hope. Soon Indians appeared, and the Dutch started doing a healthy business trading cloth, mirrors, and knives for furs. Dutch advances into Connecticut caused concern in both the Pilgrim settlement of Plymouth and the Puritan settlements centered around Boston. Pilgrim governor Edward Winslow had opened negotiations with the Indians of the area but had not established a presence in the region. Upon hearing of the Dutch trading post, the Pilgrims began to outfit an expedition to establish their own presence on the river. Puritan governor John Winthrop did not openly support Winslow’s more aggressive actions, but he did write a sharp letter to Van Twiller restating the English claim to the area and warning the Dutch not to build fortifications there. Van Twiller responded that the Dutch West India Company’s claim to the Connecticut River Valley predated any English claim and that the House of Good Hope was only a trading post. While Van Twiller and Winthrop exchanged letters, the Pilgrims sent a ship up the Connecticut River and set up their own trading post not far from the House of Good Hope. Van Twiller sent troops there with orders to eliminate the English. The Dutch commander, however, decided not to attack the English and withdrew to the House of Good Hope. More and more of the Indians took their furs to the English settlement for trading. This Dutch failure of nerve encouraged the English to continue their expansion in Connecticut. The House of Good Hope became merely a Dutch outpost amid a growing English colony. Because of Van Twiller’s alcoholism, the company recalled him in  and appointed the strong-willed Willem Kieft the new director general for the colony. By appointing Kieft, the company sought to bring effective leadership to the colony and to place it on a better financial footing. In addition, the company tried to attract more settlers by liberalizing its policies on fur trading. Individual settlers could now enter into the lucrative trade, and private shippers could now handle the transportation of the furs. As director general, Kieft caused more difficulties for the colony than he solved. Although he possessed some understanding of Indian culture and customs, he also believed that the Indians posed a problem for the Dutch fur trade. Kieft feared that the Indians would shift their trading relationship away from the Dutch to the English. In

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, he placed a tax, a contributie, on Indians living within New Netherland, and he required that this tax be paid in pelts. His goal was to regularize the relationship between the Dutch and the Indians; instead, his policy resulted in a bloody war between the two peoples. There were misunderstandings about tax collection procedures and rumors about Indian raids on Dutch farms that prompted Kieft to order troops to destroy an Indian village and issue a proclamation offering a bounty for dead Indians. With this defiant attitude, Kieft virtually guaranteed that the conflict between the Dutch and the Indians would be neither short nor bloodless. In , the level of hostility increased after the brutal murder of a Dutch wheelwright, Claes Smits. Kieft prepared his troops for war, and, in February , the Battle of Pavonia resulted in the deaths of  Indians, including women and children. That bloody event led to reprisals from Indians up and down the Hudson River in  and  in which numerous Dutch and English settlers on outlying farms were killed. Among them were the noted dissenter from the Massachusetts Bay Colony Anne Hutchinson and her children. Indian attacks so crippled the colony that the Dutch had to send food to New Amsterdam because so many Dutch farms had been abandoned. After hearing numerous complaints about Kieft and the Indian war, the  Directors of the West India Company recalled the director general, instructed the remaining Dutch to sign a peace treaty with the Indians (which they did), and started a search for a new leader. Although they did not know it, their choice proved to be the colony’s most colorful and important director general, Peter Stuyvesant. On May , , Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam. The new director general cut quite a picture. A military man and an ardent Dutch nationalist, Stuyvesant had served in the Caribbean and in  had led an assault on a Spanish fort on the island of Saint Martin. During the battle, a cannon shot cost him his right leg. He learned to walk again using a wooden peg leg that he adorned with silver bands. A devout Calvinist, Stuyvesant expected obedience and was both energetic and autocratic. These qualities made him an impressive and influential leader. Although Stuyvesant brought stability to the colony, his personality and actions could not ultimately preserve New Netherland. International developments out of his control and the failure of the Dutch to people their North American claim caused the loss of New Netherland. But, for  years, Stuyvesant presided over the colony and sought to stem the rising tide of English colonies and colonists. Boundary disputes between the Dutch and the Indians continued throughout Stuyvesant’s administration, resulting in the Esopus War. This conflict started in  at the Dutch village of Esopus (now Kingston), about halfway between New Amsterdam and Beverwyck. Tensions had been mounting in the area because some of the Dutch residents traded brandy for furs. Drunk Indians harassed the Dutch, invaded farms, and murdered one Dutch resident. Stuyvesant traveled to the area and spoke with the Indian leaders. He believed he had achieved an agreement for the Indians to move farther inland and to stop harassing the settlers, but, as soon as he left, the annoyances started again. On September , , a local Dutch settler, Thomas Chambers, gave eight Indians brandy in exchange for their help in husking corn. They proceeded to get roaring drunk and spent the evening making a great noise just outside the Dutch settlement. Seizing the opportunity, the Dutch attacked, killing two Indians and capturing one. In retaliation, other Indians swept through the surrounding countryside destroying crops, killing livestock,

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and burning Dutch barns and houses. Heavily outnumbered, the Dutch drew up a petition to Stuyvesant imploring him to return to Esopus immediately and save them. Eighteen of the settlers, eight soldiers, and their sergeant made their way to the river and sent the petition downstream but were surrounded and captured; only seven of the men managed to return safely. Unable to defeat the Dutch in their defensive blockhouse, the Indians took out their frustrations on their prisoners by torturing them and eventually burning them to death. Dutch reprisals continued well into the summer of  before the director general and the Indian leaders signed a new peace agreement. Equally troubling throughout Stuyvesant’s years as governor were his European neighbors. On September , , Stuyvesant appeared in Hartford, Connecticut, to meet with representatives of the United Colonies (a defensive arrangement of the English New England colonies) in an effort to settle the boundary dispute between New Netherland and New England. Their first clash concerned Stuyvesant’s reference in his opening statement to Hartford, Connecticut, as part of “New Netherland.” This description irritated the English representatives, who asked him to stop using that label; he agreed, but only if the English stopped referring to Hartford and the Connecticut River Valley as “New England.” Reluctantly they agreed and the meeting got down to serious negotiations. The Hartford Treaty that emerged from this meeting skirted the issue of which side had permanent claims to the disputed areas, but it did clarify the division of territory, especially on Long Island, where the English had been allowed to settle for some  years. Under this treaty, the representatives drew a line of demarcation from western Oyster Bay on the north shore of Long Island south across to the Atlantic Ocean. Another boundary line was drawn on the mainland north from Greenwich Bay, near present-day Stamford; the Dutch agreed not to settle within six miles of this line. Stuyvesant agreed to the loss of two-thirds of Long Island and the Dutch claims around Hartford and much of the Connecticut River Valley to protect Dutch holdings on the Hudson River. What the Hartford Treaty really accomplished was to describe and protect where the Dutch actually lived: Stuyvesant conceded no territory where the Dutch had permanent settlements. Although neither home government ratified the treaty promptly, New Englanders and New Netherlanders abided by its terms through the rest of the history of the Dutch colony. In , the economic rivalry between the British and the Dutch escalated when the British Parliament, in an effort to control its overseas trade, passed a Navigation Act requiring that all of its foreign trade be carried on in English ships with English crews. Directed at cutting into the Dutch trade, this  Navigation Act led to a naval war between the two rivals. In North America, war panic emerged, with the English convincing themselves that the Dutch were arming the Indians against them, while the Dutch feared a full English assault. In the summer of , New Netherland’s last trading post in New England, the House of Good Hope, surrendered to the English. In June , four English warships carrying troops and marines arrived in Boston with orders to invade New Netherland. But, just before the fleet was due to sail, a merchant ship arrived in Boston carrying news that the Anglo-Dutch War had ended. New Netherland had been saved—for now. In , the English civil war ended with the restoration of the British monarchy. Charles II returned to England and assumed his place as king. In early , to reward his brother, James the Duke of York and Albany, for aiding him in regaining the throne,

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Charles II gave James control of the area in North America claimed by the Dutch. This gift took the form of a proprietary grant that ignored Dutch claims and Dutch settlements and left James to figure out how to take possession of it. James and his friends developed a plan for the military invasion of New Netherland. While the plan was costly, James hoped that control of the fur trade would more than cover their expenses of taking over the Dutch colony. Charles II’s gift and James’s plan dovetailed with international events. Economic rivalry persisted, and an undeclared naval and colonial war already existed between the British and the Dutch. On March , , James received his grant from Charles II, officially giving him control of the Hudson River valley area. This enabled James to put his plan for the capture of New Netherland into operation. In May, he sent Colonel Richard Nicolls with a small fleet and two thousand soldiers to North America. Storms and bad sailing luck scattered the fleet. Nicolls hoped to be assembled near eastern Long Island by late June, but all of his ships did not arrive until late July. Stuyvesant heard reports about the possible takeover of New Netherland and wrote the company for advice. The directors erroneously assured Stuyvesant that the English expedition sought only to bring the Puritans under greater English control. Nicolls moved his flagship, the Guinea, and his fleet along the south shore of Long Island and on August  anchored in Graveshead Bay just south of the narrows between Long Island and Staten Island. At his disposal, Stuyvesant had about  soldiers, some of the local townspeople, and a dilapidated fort that could neither be adequately defended nor hold the town’s , residents. Stuyvesant sent a messenger to Nicolls to inquire about the intentions of the British, and Nicolls demanded, quite simply, that Stuyvesant turn the town over to him. To emphasize his point, Nicolls moved his ships through the narrows and anchored them near Governor’s Island. On September , , Stuyvesant answered Nicolls’s demand by declaring that the area had always been Dutch and would always remain Dutch. Nicolls brushed aside Stuyvesant’s appeal to history and gave him  hours to surrender the city. Between September  and September , Stuyvesant lost the support of burgomasters from the town. These prominent citizens were impressed with the generous terms offered by the English, whose spokesman, John Winthrop Jr., the governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, promised that immigration from the United Provinces of Holland and Dutch trade with the colony could continue. The frustrated Stuyvesant hesitated as the English moved their ships into positions that would allow them to bombard New Amsterdam from the river. At that, the director general hurried to the fort and prepared to fire on the English, but cooler heads intervened. One of the most respected of the burgomasters, Dominie Megapolensis, and his son Samuel went to the fort, spoke briefly to Stuyvesant, and led him away before he ordered the cannons to fire. Cornered and isolated, Stuyvesant now understood that his role had become one of carrying out the wishes of the people of New Amsterdam. He arranged a meeting of representatives of the English and the Dutch for the next day, September , at his own farm just outside the city, where they drew up a treaty surrendering the colony to the English. On September , , Stuyvesant signed the document ending Dutch control of New Netherland, led his soldiers out of the fort, and marched them down to the Dutch ship, the Gideon. Once the Dutch had boarded their ship, Colonel Nicolls landed his forces and raised the Union Jack. New Amsterdam had become New York.

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A few months after the fall of New Amsterdam, Great Britain and the United Provinces of Holland formally went to war in what is known as the Second Anglo-Dutch War of –. England’s victory in this war legitimized James’s takeover of New Netherland. But the struggle for dominance was not quite over, as the Dutch and the English fought yet another conflict, the Third Anglo-Dutch War of –. On August , , eight Dutch warships entered New York City’s harbor and anchored. They found the city with the English governor gone and the fort undermanned. The Dutch demanded the surrender of the fort, and, after a brief display of cannon fire, the English capitulated. The Dutch held New York for  months. Their occupation ended with the signing of the Second Treaty of Westminster on February , ; a section of the treaty promised that each side would return to the other “all lands, islands, towns, ports, castles and fortresses” taken during the war. On November , , the Dutch administrator boarded a ship and left New York; the last gasp of Dutch control had ended. With Dutch claims extinguished, England controlled the coastline of North America from the Chesapeake northward. While the Swedes and the Dutch had established claims to areas within Great Britain’s interest, they had failed to populate their colonies adequately. In the case of the Dutch in New Netherland, inconsistent leadership, halfhearted support from the West India Company, and occasionally severe Indian troubles all combined to prevent the Dutch from succeeding with their North American colony. While Peter Stuyvesant brought order and stability to New Netherland, English encroachment from New England and Long Island could not be held back. In the end, only Stuyvesant stood alone on the battlements of New Amsterdam’s rickety fort ready to defend Holland’s possessions. In the short run, the Dutch West India Company failed and the Dutch lost their toehold to an area of British North America; yet, their efforts in the long run were not in vain. From Henry Hudson to Peter Minuit’s “purchase” of Manhattan Island to Peter Stuyvesant’s last defense of the city, the Dutch formed a key part of the history of America’s most important city. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to . New York: Oxford University Press, . Surveys the history of New York City from the Indian era through the late nineteenth century. Irving, Washington. Knickerbocker’s History of New York. Introduction by Andrew B. Myers. Tarrytown, NY: Sleepy Hollow Press, . Washington Irving’s delightful parody of the history of New York contains more sound history than the casual reader might imagine. Kammen, Michael. Colonial New York: A History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, . Provides important revisions to the story of early New York colonial history and continues to influence historians. Kenney, Alice P. Stubborn for Liberty: The Dutch in New York. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, . Covers the political history of Dutch New York as well as providing a social history of the colony. Rink, Oliver A. Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . The most recent and important of the histories of Dutch New York building on and correcting Kammen’s interpretation.

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Ritchie, Robert C. The Duke’s Province: A Study of New York Politics and Society, –. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Though the book is largely focused on the period after the English takeover, the early chapters provide an interesting and useful synthesis of the historical literature of Dutch New York. Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, . A well-written account emphasizing the significance of the Dutch in American colonial development. Smith, William, Jr. The History of the Province of New-York. Volume One: From the First Discovery to the Year . Edited by Michael Kammen. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Reprint of one of the important early books on New York, reprinting some of the key Dutch and English documents while defending the English conquest of the colony. Van Der Donck, Adriaen. A Description of the New Netherlands. Edited by Thomas F. O’Donnell. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, . Originally published in , this work describes and promotes the New Netherlands colony. Van Der Zee, Henri, and Barbara Van Der Zee. A Sweet and Alien Land: The Story of Dutch New York. New York: Viking Press, . A popular history of the Dutch in New York stressing the cultural and social conditions of the colony while providing some political history.

ANGLO-DUTCH WARS The Anglo-Dutch Wars were a series of three th-century conflicts fought between England and the United Provinces of Holland over the issue of European naval supremacy. The first Anglo-Dutch War broke out in  after the British Parliament passed the first Navigation Act, which limited the import of Dutch goods. In response, the Dutch government ordered its navy to fire on British ships. The Dutch Navy, however, was badly defeated in the English Channel in , and a treaty of peace was signed in . The second Anglo-Dutch War was waged during – over the English seizure of New Amsterdam in  and earlier clashes over trading rights in West Africa. Military encounters ended in a virtual stalemate, and, by , both England and Holland were ready for an end to the conflict. The  Treaty of Breda allowed the English to retain control of New Amsterdam but gave trading concessions to the Dutch that ameliorated provisions of the Navigation Act. In , the third Anglo-Dutch War began after French king Louis XIV invaded Holland, and England, committed to a secret alliance with France, found itself in another naval war with the United Provinces. The Dutch were victorious in the major naval engagements, but, when the treaty of peace was signed, in , the Dutch acknowledged that New York (formerly New Amsterdam) was a British possession, while England ended its treaty of alliance with France. After , and as a direct result of the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the United Provinces of Holland did not have land holdings in North America and did not play a significant role in colonial affairs.

DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY The Dutch East India Company was chartered by the government of the Netherlands in  to promote trade with Asia. By exploring new routes to Asia, establishing overseas

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colonies, and fostering trade, the Dutch East India Company brought substantial wealth to both the merchant community and the Crown during the th and th centuries. The company’s charter granted it a monopoly on Dutch trade in Africa, South America, and Asia. Although the company’s involvement in North American trade was limited, it contributed to the development of the continent in two ways: exploration and slavery. In its search for a passage to Asia, the Dutch East India Company explored large portions of North America. In , the company employed the Englishman Henry Hudson to locate the famed Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, which it was hoped would provide a shorter trade route between Europe and Asia than the treacherous journey around either the Cape of Good Hope or the tip of South America. Hudson failed to find the elusive Northwest Passage but instead explored much of what is today the northern United States and Canada. During his journey, he discovered a large river in present-day New York (and which now bears his name). The river eventually became a vital means of transportation and trade for America. Hudson then sailed up the river to what is today Albany, New York, and traded with the local Mohawk Indians, establishing friendly relations with the Native Americans. Once back in Europe, Hudson’s journey spawned a series of travel narratives that encouraged further exploration in North America. In , the company built trading posts at Manhattan and Albany, although its efforts to promote trade in the region remained halfhearted and it did not fund efforts to establish permanent settlements in the area. Nevertheless, Hudson’s explorations and the establishment of the outposts aided the Dutch in gaining a foothold in America. The Dutch East India Company also conducted a lucrative trade in slaves in North America, establishing a trade route between its colonies in Africa and the New World. A Dutch ship brought the first African slaves to the English colony of Virginia in , and the company encouraged the growth of this trade throughout the th century, supplying colonists with desperately need labor for tobacco crops and fostering the growth of this labor system.

brett schmoll and elizabeth dubrulle DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH The Dutch Reformed Church was the official church of the Netherlands, and it came to America when the Dutch East India and West India companies established settlements in what is today New York. It remained one of the foremost religious orders in the midAtlantic region during the colonial period. The original impetus for the formation of the first Dutch settlements—Dutch East India and West India companies—was commercial, not religious. A decade and a half later, in , however, those first settlers established the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam (present-day New York). The colony’s Provisional Orders, a document written in  as a guide for administering the Dutch colony, stated that the Dutch Reformed Church was the only allowable public form of worship, although dissenters were usually free to practice their beliefs in private. Unlike their English neighbors in New England, the Dutch colonists in America were primarily concerned with financial

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gain and with securing the Netherlands’ hold over the colony, rather than with the formal establishment and practice of religion. Accordingly, the early history of the Dutch Reformed Church in America was less vibrant and not as well developed as that of the established religions in such colonies as New England, where religion was inseparable from the fundamental institutions of everyday life. As the colony developed, however, more churches were established, and a prominent and active congregation was founded at Fort Orange in the s by Johannes Megapolensis. By the end of the th century, more than  congregations of the Dutch Reformed Church were established in the region, although the Netherlands ceased to rule the colony in  following its defeat by the British in the third Anglo-Dutch War. The treaty of surrender between the Dutch and the English guaranteed that the church would be allowed to continue in the colony without discrimination. That guarantee meant that some Dutch leaders in the colony continued to exercise a prominent role in the colony even after the area came under the control of the English Crown. By the end of the th century, the Dutch Reformed Church began to wane due to a diminished interest in Dutch ethnic identity and an increased persistence in colonial identity, as well as the advent of the Great Awakening. The latter development, which was noted for the growth of homegrown American religions, including Presbyterianism, irrevocably altered the Dutch Reformed Church. As a result, the church broke into two splinter groups. A colonial-based religious faction wanted to incorporate English into its daily worship, to aid in church revivalism—a hallmark of Great Awakening itinerancy—as well as to form a college to train its ministers and to have greater autonomy from the established Dutch Reformed Church. Meanwhile, the conservative Dutch party wanted to maintain Dutch influence and leadership, including Dutch-trained pastors who had received an education in the Netherlands. Eventually, the colonial party began to overtake the conservative arm of the church. In , Queen’s College (which later became Rutgers University) in New Brunswick, New Jersey, was established. Prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution, the two groups reunited in , agreeing to allow authority to rest in the Netherlands while maintaining local power. Following the American Revolution, the Dutch Reformed Church formulated a constitution and broke all ties with Holland. A vast influx of Dutch immigrants during the s spurred church enrollment, although most of those immigrants settled in such areas of the Midwest as Michigan. The more recent wave of Dutch immigrants seemingly held to more traditional customs as they were more conservative than the older Dutch settlement of New York and New Jersey. In , the church was renamed the Reformed Church in America. The church remains active today, and it currently has about  congregations in the United States and Canada and a total membership of more than ,.

brett schmoll and elizabeth dubrulle DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY The Dutch West India Company established the only permanent Dutch colony in North America, named New Netherland (present-day New York State). Although the company

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maintained a hold on the colony for only  years, Dutch culture and society had a longlasting impact on the region. In , William Usselinx proposed a plan for a permanent Dutch colony in North America to the States-General of the Netherlands. Despite the success of the Dutch East India Company, the government of the Netherlands had shied away from establishing permanent settlements in the New World because of the expense. Usselinx, however, persuasively argued that such a colony would provide a market for Dutch manufactured goods and would possibly bring riches in gold and silver. The Estates-General agreed but decided against a wholly state-supported venture. Instead, it chartered the Dutch West India Company in  and encouraged merchants to fund, administer, and populate the new colony. The company was granted a -year charter, a monopoly on American trade, and  million florins (the Dutch monetary unit) to establish permanent settlements in the Americas. In the late s, the Dutch West India Company’s colonizing efforts met with limited success in the Caribbean and on the coast of South America. It abandoned its South American holdings in  after conflicts with the Portuguese, who controlled most of the area. Within a year of the granting of its charter, the company had also established a foothold in North America in the region surrounding the Hudson River, which had been discovered by Dutch-sponsored explorer Henry Hudson earlier in the century. Expanding on the Dutch East India Company’s trading posts at Manhattan and Albany, the Dutch West India Company encouraged emigration and settlement to its colony, named New Netherland. In ,  families arrived in New Netherland aboard a ship of the same name. The company drafted a document known as the Provisional Orders to provide a form of government for the colony. In addition to demanding that all colonists comply with the company’s laws and muster in the company’s militia for the colony’s defense, the Provisional Orders allowed for freedom of religious belief, although it permitted public worship only in accordance with the Dutch Reformed Church. Although the Dutch West India Company encouraged farmers to emigrate and consistently promoted agricultural efforts, it received most of its profits from the lucrative fur trade, assisted by the Netherlands’ preeminence in trade over other European powers. Dutch ships used the colony as a base from which to conduct the fur trade and to trade with other European colonies in the New World. In , colonist Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the local Indians and established the settlement of New Amsterdam (present-day New York City) as the capital of the new colony. The company elected Minuit governor. During Minuit’s tenure, he encouraged settlement and worked diligently to bolster the colony’s defenses against Indian attacks or encroachments from other European powers attempting to expand their power in the New World. Although he was successful in his efforts, internal dissension within the company prompted his dismissal from the governorship in . In , the Dutch established a system to encourage emigration known as the patroonship system. Stockholders in the Dutch West India Company could receive large tracts of land in New Netherland by guaranteeing to bring  new emigrants to the colony within four years. These emigrants would become tenant farmers on the patroon’s land and pay rent in a system reminiscent of the medieval European feudal system. In

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addition, patroons held enormous power within their domains. Only three patroonships were established in New Netherland—Pavonia, Swaanendael, and Rensselaerswyck—and only the last met with even limited success. Most emigrants elected to work their own land, which the company eventually encouraged by allowing anyone who improved land to receive ownership of it. The slow pace of emigration to New Netherland remained a disappointment to the company, however. Emigration was only one challenge faced by the Dutch West India Company during the mid-th century. Between  and , the company was involved in a series of wars (known collectively as the Dutch-Indian Wars) with local Indian tribes. These wars hindered the company’s efforts to recruit settlers and severely damaged farming efforts and the fur trade in the colony. In , New Netherland faced its most serious challenge with the outbreak of the first Anglo-Dutch War. The conflict erupted between the English and Dutch because of England’s attempt to impose restrictive trade acts on its colonies and their shipping. The Dutch generally ignored these laws and encouraged English colonists to smuggle their goods in Dutch ships. This war was the first of three wars between England and the Netherlands that eventually resulted in the Treaty of Westminister, in , which granted New Netherland to the English. The Dutch West India Company went bankrupt shortly thereafter, and the Netherlands abandoned all efforts to colonize the New World.

brett schmoll and elizabeth dubrulle PETER MINUIT (1580–1638) Peter Minuit, the third director general of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, led the famous purchase of Manhattan Island from the Indians for $ in . He was instrumental in shaping the new colony and acquired the necessary land so that the Europeans could settle and build their colony under the support of the Dutch West India Company. It is believed that Minuit was born in  in Wesel, a town in Prussia very close to the border with Holland. His father was Jean Minuit, a French-speaking Protestant refugee from what is now Belgium. Both men married natives of Wesel. In , Minuit moved to Utrecht, Holland, where he became a diamond cutter. In search of greater fortune, he joined the Dutch West India Company, which incorporated in . The company owned and managed the colony of New Netherland in the New World. The colony stretched from the Connecticut to the Delaware rivers and was a commercial enterprise for the company. Outposts lined the rivers, including the Hudson River, which cut through the middle of the colony and was a major thoroughfare. The outposts received goods from Europe and the Caribbean and shipped out thousands of beaver furs. Although Europeans started to settle in New Netherland in , Minuit was not among them. When he arrived, in , he organized the colonists, who were spread throughout the Hudson River valley from Beverwyck (present-day Albany) to New Amsterdam (present-day New York City). The risks to survival increased with the colony so spread out, and proper relations between Native Americans and Europeans could not be

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monitored. In , after Minuit and the Native Americans in the area exchanged trade goods for the island of Manhattan, he gathered all the colonists to the tip of Manhattan (New Amsterdam), which provided greater security and allowed the land to develop. Also in , Minuit was appointed to succeed Willem Verhulst as director general of the colony. Minuit was directed to establish, supervise, and maintain healthy trade relations with the British colonies and the Native Americans, as this was the thrust of the colony’s existence. Because of his critical position, Minuit became caught in political maneuvering between those who wanted to limit business to the fur trade and those who wanted to expand business through farming. In , Minuit was brought to Amsterdam for questioning, and, in , a new director general was named. Because of his experience with the traders in New Netherland and along the northeastern seaboard, in , Minuit went to work for the Swedish and led a settlement at the mouth of the Delaware River called New Sweden. He built Fort Christina, which lasted as an outpost until Peter Stuyvesant captured it, in . Minuit perished in a hurricane in the West Indies in June .

grady turner PETER STUYVESANT (1610–1672) Peter Stuyvesant, a Dutch soldier and colonial official, was the last director general of the Dutch colony of New Netherland (present-day New York). Although he was an effective administrator, his religious intolerance and arbitrary methods made him an extremely unpopular governor. Stuyvesant was born in Scherpenzeel, near Wolvega, Netherlands, around . He was the son of Rev. Balthazar Johannes Stuyvesant, a Dutch Reformed Church pastor, and Margaretha Hardenstein Stuyvesant. Little is known about his youth except that he entered military service at an early age and attended Franeker University during –. By , he was serving in the Dutch West India Company, which sent him to Brazil in . In , Stuyvesant was appointed governor of Curaçao and other Dutch possessions in the West Indies. While participating in a campaign against the Portuguese in the West Indies in , he was wounded in his right leg, which was later amputated and replaced by a silver-ornamented wooden one. This elaborately decorated leg became popularly known as his “silver leg.” Soon after returning to Holland from Curaçao, Stuyvesant married Judith Bayard in the Walloon Church of Breda on August , . On July , , the States-General of the Netherlands commissioned Stuyvesant director general of “New Netherland and the places situated thereabout, as well as the islands of Curaçao, Buenaire, Aruba, and the dependencies and appurtenances thereof.” That same year, Stuyvesant sailed to Curaçao then landed at New Amsterdam (presentday New York City) on May , . Although Stuyvesant’s acts as governor were often harsh and dictatorial, he made determined efforts to provide New Netherland with an honest and efficient administration. Under his leadership, a marked change in the appearance of New Amsterdam soon occurred as a result of numerous public works projects. Stuyvesant also made extensive changes in the city government. He created the Board of Nine Men to assist him in

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governing the settlement on September , . Stuyvesant soon proved to be so autocratic, however, that the citizens of New Amsterdam, aided by directors of the West India Company, forced him to grant independent municipal control of city on February , . Stuyvesant was also not very successful in settling a long-standing dispute between Connecticut and New Netherland. By way of the humiliating Treaty of Hartford in , Stuyvesant virtually relinquished Dutch control of the Connecticut Valley. Pressures exerted by English colonists also resulted in Stuyvesant’s granting to several Long Island towns the right to elect their own officials. As a devout member of the Dutch Reformed Church, Stuyvesant was arbitrary in his religious policies. He regarded all nonconformists as likely to foment rebellion and therefore dealt harshly with them, particularly Lutherans and Quakers. With the West India Company on the verge of bankruptcy, Stuyvesant resorted to a policy of taxation to provide for badly needed improvements during his years as director general. Furthermore, he strove to eliminate smuggling to prevent loss of revenue. He also sought to improve relations with Native Americans by attempting to eliminate unscrupulous business practices long used by the merchants of New Amsterdam and Fort Orange (present-day Albany). Nonetheless, Stuyvesant was adamantly opposed to any governmental reforms that might lessen his own authority over New Netherland. Throughout his directorship, he rejected all demands for the creation of a popular legislative assembly. From  to , Stuyvesant’s primary concern was to prevent the decline of Dutch influence on Long Island. Despite his arduous efforts, Stuyvesant’s success in achieving this objective varied greatly. His most notable achievement in the endeavor occurred in  and involved a long-standing dispute over Swedish colonization of the Delaware Valley. To deal with this problem, he invaded New Sweden and forced its surrender. He was also able to keep the Native Americans restrained, as well. Despite his successes with the Swedes and the Indians, Stuyvesant’s dealings with aggressive colonists were far less successful. Increasing difficulties with the English over boundaries and trade eventually climaxed with the appearance of an English fleet in the harbor of New Amsterdam in . The fleet, under the command of Col. Richard Nicolls, demanded that the city capitulate to the Duke of York, who had laid claim to all the land between the Connecticut River and the Delaware Valley. Stuyvesant, whose plans for the defense of the city were opposed by the local burghers, was compelled to surrender New Netherland to the English without resistance on September , . In October , Stuyvesant arrived in the Netherlands to defend himself against charges of misconduct. He retired to New York in  and lived on his farm, or bouwerij, from which New York City’s Bowery takes its name. He died in February  and was buried beneath the chapel on his farm, which is now the site of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

10 King Philip’s War, 1675–1676

INTRODUCTION When New England was first settled, many of the area’s Indians had died in a smallpox epidemic in . Not until after  and the great increase in European migration to New England did tensions begin to rise between white settlers and Indians, and these became particularly acute after  with the settlement of Connecticut, which impinged on Pequot lands. This led to the bloody Pequot War of . In the  years between the Pequot War and King Philip’s War, Europeans and Indians lived in a state of continuing tension. Some Indians abetted colonial economic growth by working for colonists, selling meat and fish, and trading in wampum currency. Some were converted to Christianity, and these “praying Indians” often became military allies in conflicts between colonists and other Indians. Despite some degree of economic cooperation and religious conversion, however, Indian-white conflict continued in New England after the Pequot War. Expansion into Connecticut and the creation of the colony of Providence Plantations (Rhode Island) served only to whet colonists’ thirst for more land, and everyone realized that if more land were placed under colonial jurisdiction, more land would be available for individual settlers. Thus efforts to assume dominion over additional land, whether occupied by Indians or not, played an important role in colonist-Indian relations in the midth century. Intercolonial rivalry also exacerbated some of the moves to acquire more land. In , when the New Englanders denied the Narragansett Indians permission to attack the Mohegans and they did anyway, the colonists raised a force and brought about the capitulation of the Narragansetts. In the s, the whites again put down an Indian force and obtained land from Indians in Connecticut as part of the settlement. New England’s colonies grew rapidly during the period between  and . The population doubled to some ,, and settlements spread into more backwater areas and encroached more and more on Indian lands. The Indians, bitter toward the English and unwilling to leave ancestral territory, became increasingly resentful. In the s, the English forced the Wampanoag leader Metacom, whom they called King Philip, to recognize their sovereignty over all Indians. Many Indians came to the conclusion that armed resistance was the only way they could preserve their independence. By the s, English colonists particularly coveted the land of the large Narragansett tribe. It lay along the shore of what is now Rhode Island and southeastern Connecticut west from Narragansett Bay and included several islands in the bay. The English Crown

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Indian wars in the 17th century featured fighting at close quarters, as seen in this engraving from the 19th century that shows American colonists fighting Wampanoag Indians in 1675. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

had never granted a royal charter for this land to anyone, although some Englishmen, like Roger Williams, had moved there anyway. The Indians had tolerated this incursion, coming as it did fairly soon after the Pequot War. Moreover, Williams was known as an Indian ally in their struggles with the Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut colonies. King Philip lived near the settlement of Bristol, in Rhode Island, at a place overlooking Narragansett Bay. In the early s, militant Narragansett leaders approached him with an offer for the Wampanoags to join the Narragansetts in war against the landhungry colonists, who were constantly trying to acquire more land in exchange for trinkets, liquor, or weapons. Indian attitudes grew more warlike, and Philip finally agreed that war was necessary. In June , war broke out after an incident in which a farmer shot and wounded an Indian who had killed one of the farmer’s oxen. Indians congregated in the area around Swansea, fighting began, and a number of settlers were killed. A force of , under Capt. Thomas Savage, went to Philip’s home, surprised him, and killed  Indians. Although Philip himself managed to escape, Savage’s force took his cattle and destroyed the rest of his property. The Indian force under Philip then overran the colonial settlement of Mendan and almost took Brookfield, which was saved only by the timely arrival of additional colonial militia. At the same time, King Philip broadened his alliance; only the Mohegans, traditional enemies of the Narragansetts, refused to break a treaty made with settlers and join with Philip. It was a bad decision. The governor of Connecticut Colony, Edward Wilson, sent a force of colonial fighters to a fortified village of the Mohegans, and

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a major battle ensued. In what became known as the Great Swamp Fight, the village fell to the colonists, and more than  Indians, including women and children, were killed. The outcome of the Great Swamp Fight made the Indians even more determined to resist colonial encroachment, and, during the next several months, they attacked numerous white settlements throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island, causing many casualties. Philip next tried to lure the powerful Mohawk tribe into his alliance, but this effort failed and demoralized some of Philip’s supporters. Nevertheless, the fighting continued with Philip’s attack on Deerfield, a settlement in Massachusetts. At the same time, however, other Indians, weary of the warfare, were covertly seeking peace. They arranged for the capture of Philip’s wife and child, who were shipped off to Bermuda as slaves, and Philip himself was killed by one of the dissenters. Although the fighting continued for a few more months, King Philip’s War was over by December . Although accounts vary, it appears as though at least  colonists and more than , Indians died. The fighting also destroyed perhaps  English towns or about half of the European settlements in New England. But the colonists emerged from the war more unified, because of the cooperation utilized to subdue the Indians. New England Indian society, on the other hand, was weakened and fragmented, opening new lands for white settlement. In the south, Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries worked to Christianize the Indians and to bring about some degree of allegiance to Spanish rule. Some , Indians had converted at midcentury, many doing so in return for the promise of protection and the advantages of trade. During the second half of the th century, however, conflict between the Spanish and English resulted in the virtual elimination of the Spanish and the arrival of English settlers and their African slaves. During the Spanish era, the Indians had been given sovereignty over their land and freedom from enslavement in return for their souls and their loyalty to Spain. Indians chiefs received horses, swords, fancy clothes, and other symbols of social rank and distinction. This system worked particularly well among the Timucua and Apalachee tribes, where Christian missionaries became an integral part of Indian villages, and Indians were often induced to do the Spaniards’ physical labor. By about , many Indians were becoming restless under this regimen, and many others died of European diseases that the Spanish had brought. In , the Apalachees revolted against their Christian brethren in the hope of halting Spanish encroachment into their lives and liberties. Nine years later, the Timucua revolted after the Spanish forced several chiefs to perform physical tasks long considered beneath their dignity. Neither revolt succeeded, although that of the Timucua resulted in many priests leaving their Indian village posts and an end to Spanish gifts. In , English slave hunters sent their Indian allies out after rival Indians who could be sold as slaves. Most of the remaining Spanish missions closed during this time, while the remaining ones relocated to the relative safety of the area near Saint Augustine. The English continued to capture Indians in the south for the slave trade into the early th century. In Virginia, the late th century was marked by the continued depopulation of the Powhatan confederacy. Remaining Indians lived on small reservations on the fringes of colonial settlement, and chiefs served at the pleasure of the colonial government in

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Jamestown. African slaves in increasing numbers worked in tobacco fields that had once been Indian land. By , only about , Indians still lived in eastern Virginia, down from nearly , when the English first came. The English and Spanish regard for Indians was starkly different. The English regarded colonization as a business venture in which the Indians were an obstacle to be removed. They seldom recognized Indian land rights but simply claimed for themselves (and the king) all the land described in their royal charter. Except for Pocahontas, they were not much interested in converting Indians to Christianity; many thought that task was a useless endeavor. The Indians in Virginia made one major attempt to resist the English, that of Opechancanough’s forces in , and, after that failed, the Powhatans were of no social or economic consequence to the colony. Around , the English began trading with the natives who lived in the Piedmont region, farther to the west. These tribes, which had previously had very little contact with whites, were, like so many others, quickly decimated by disease and warfare. Often battles were fought between rival Indian tribes rather than between English militia and Indians; the English became skilled at pitting tribes against each other. After , much of this activity was conducted from the more recently settled Charles Town (what is now Charleston, South Carolina), where the local economy was based on trade in furs and Indian slaves. Clearly, no place in the area of English settlement in North America was pleasant for Indians in the late th century. Regarding colonization as primarily a business venture, the English treated Indians as economic assets for the slave trade or as obstacles to progress when more land was needed to meet the demands of the ever-increasing number of settlers.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY steven e. siry In , the long-standing alliance between the colony of Plymouth and the Wampanoag Indians came to an end. For years, advancing colonial settlements had gradually reduced the Indians’ land base. Moreover, the increasing English population had driven away game, which greatly diminished the Indians’ fur trade, and the colonists’ livestock strayed into Indians’ fields, destroying their crops. The Wampanoags were also alarmed at the influence of English culture on Indian children. Many of the tribal sachems especially resented the Christian missionaries. Metacom, known to the English as King Philip, supposedly told John Eliot, a leading missionary, that “he cared no more for the white man’s gospel than he did for a button on Eliot’s coat.” Metacom, who succeeded his father, Massasoit, as the sachem of the Wampanoags, had also endured humiliations at the hands of the English. In , colonial authorities had ordered him to surrender a large stock of guns, to pay a heavy fine, and to accept a treaty acknowledging Wampanoag submission to English law. The Indians had limited options by the s. They could sell their land to pay off trade debts and become laborers in the colonial settlements, they could move westward into areas controlled by the Five Nations of the Iroquois, or they could create

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a pan-Indian alliance to launch a war against the colonists. The decision for war was made after Wampanoag braves, allegedly under orders from Metacom, murdered John Sassamon, a Christianized, Harvard-educated Indian informer, though the chief denied responsibility. In January , the informer had told Plymouth officials that the Wampanoags were planning an attack on colonial settlements. When the informer was murdered and stuffed under pond ice, the Plymouth government arrested and executed three Wampanoags. This action further outraged the Wampanoag Indians, who asserted that the English had violated Wampanoag sovereignty. By the end of the summer, they went to war against the English, who saw the conflict as an opportunity to seize more tribal lands and to subjugate the remaining powerful tribes in southern New England. At the beginning of the conflict, the Wampanoags successfully carried out several raids on settlements in Plymouth and Massachusetts, and the colonial governments initially failed to create a unified front against the attacks. This led to numerous Algonquin tribes, including the Nipmucs, Narragansetts, Pocumtucks, and Pocassets, to become allies of the Wampanoags. Indian ambushes occurred in the late summer at Northfield and at Whalely. Survivors reported that the Indians had cut off soldiers’ heads and put them on poles, had burned captives at the stake, and had hooked a chain into the underjaw of one colonial prisoner and hung him from the bough of a tree. By December, Metacom’s forces had attacked along the New England frontier and destroyed settlements in the entire upper Connecticut River valley. But, on December , , colonial forces attacked the Narragansetts’ refuge, which lay hidden in a swamp in Rhode Island. What ensued has been called the “Great Swamp Fight.” Despite suffering heavy losses, the colonial militia set fire to the Narragansett town. Most of the warriors escaped, but many of the noncombatants became casualties as more than  Narragansett men, women, and children perished in the battle. As Cotton Mather later phrased it, many had been “terribly Barbikew’d.” This was one of at least two major battles where the English indiscriminately killed women, children, and old men. In January , Metacom led Indian forces into winter encampment approximately  miles from Albany, New York. Besides about  of Metacom’s men, there were many hundreds of other Algonquin Indians from southern and northern New England, the largest number being Narragansetts who had survived the Great Swamp Fight. Promising weapons, food, clothing, and shelter, Gov. Edmund Andros of New York persuaded the Mohawks, always the most aggressive of the Iroquois, and some of their Iroquoian brethren to attack the Algonquins in early February and thus clear New York of this enemy. It was an extremely successful surprise attack. Only  of Metacom’s  men survived, and many of them were badly wounded. The other Algonquins were dispersed. This was the key battle that prevented Metacom from emerging as the primary leader of the Algonquins and from creating a wider Indian alliance. Nevertheless, the war would continue to bear King Philip’s name. Despite the defeats at the Great Swamp Fight and near Albany, Algonquin forces by March  were less than  miles from Providence and Boston. Refugees flooded into the coastal areas, profiteering in food supplies developed, and resistance to the colonial drafts became widespread. Nevertheless, the defeat at the hands of the Mohawks had eliminated the Algonquins’ ability to attack the major New England towns.

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Furthermore, in the spring of , the Indians suffered from the spread of diseases and a lack of supplies. In the summer, some Indians moved westward, while others surrendered. Indeed, during King Philip’s War, the colonial governments were forced to deal with many Indian prisoners. Authorities in all of the New England colonies executed numerous enemy captives. Viewing the war as a rebellion instead of as a war between nations, the English felt that the “rebels” deserved to be executed. Moreover, in such a bloody conflict, the colonists believed that the execution of Indians was a just punishment and a good means to ensure the security of the colonial population. In the fall of , Captain Samuel Moseley, described as a former buccaneer from the West Indies, reported the interrogation of a captured Indian woman, noting that the “aforesaid Indian was ordered to be torn to peeces by Doggs and she was soe dealt with.” But usually Indian prisoners were not killed until they had been given some form of a legal trial. Military commanders, however, sometimes were allowed to execute prisoners without a trial. Furthermore, occasionally private citizens would take the law into their own hands. For example, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, a group of women decapitated two Indian prisoners. Public pressure could also affect the authorities’ actions. At the end of the war, an Indian leader known as Chuff, who was badly wounded, arrived in a small Rhode Island settlement. Because the townspeople felt he had led attacks against Providence, they demanded his execution. The Town Council and the Council of War sentenced Chuff to death, and he was soon shot. Even when the English had no desire to execute captive Indians, the colonists’ Indian allies sought their deaths. In April , Pequot warriors captured the Narragansett sachem Canonchet. After he was taken to Stonington, the English acceded to the Connecticut Indians’ demand that he be executed. Before his death in front of an English firing squad, Canonchet asserted: “I like it well. I shall die before my heart is soft or I have said anything unworthy of myself.” The colonial authorities also sold numerous captive Indians into bonded servitude or slavery. No record exists of the exact number of Indians involved. But many were sent to slave markets in Spain, along the the Mediterranean coasts, in Virginia, or in the West Indies. Some areas, however, believing that North American Indians made poor slaves, refused to purchase them. The governments in Barbados and Jamaica even passed legislation barring their entrance. Selling prisoners of war into slavery went far beyond the usual treatment. But the practice dated back to the Pequot War of , and a  Massachusetts law allowed the practice if it involved “lawful captives taken in just wars.” Since many colonial officials claimed that the Indians were traitorous rebels, they viewed the punishment as just. However, not all the Indians sold into slavery had been hostile to the colonists. For example, in July , soon after an attack on Dartmouth in Plymouth,  Indians who had not participated in the assault surrendered to colonial authorities when promised amnesty. Nevertheless, all but six of the Indians were sold into foreign slave markets. In short, sizable profits made from the slave trade also fostered the practice. A number of the colonists, however, unsuccessfully opposed the policy. Some had humanitarian concerns, while others wanted to use the captive Indians as a source of cheap labor in New England. Still other New Englanders noted that the Indians would continue the

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war even longer and fight more fiercely if they knew that slavery would result from defeat. Using Indian scouts and tactics, colonial militia in early August  attacked Metacom’s camp. He escaped, but  Indians were killed or captured. The latter included Metacom’s wife and nine-year-old son, who were subsequently sold into slavery in the West Indies. When Metacom learned of their fates, he declared: “My heart breaks. Now I am ready to die.” On August , English forces, guided by one of Metacom’s own men who had turned traitor, ambushed his sleeping camp, and Metacom was shot through the heart. The militia and their Indian allies then cut off his head and hands, quartered his body, and hung the parts in trees. After Metacom’s death, sporadic fighting occurred for several months; a formal treaty, the Peace of Casco, was not signed until April , . A total defeat of the English had been impossible since the start of the war. Their much larger population, as well as their extensive network of logistical support from America to Europe, provided the English with a tremendous advantage over the Indian insurgents. Nevertheless, a stalemate might have been achieved if the tribes of southern New England throughout the war had gained the assistance of the Mohawks or the Abenakis, a powerful Algonquin tribe in northern New England that had ties with the French. But, without such allies, the Indians of southern New England were decisively defeated. The Algonquins succumbed to a two-front war against the English and the Mohawks. New England experienced elation and relief at the end of King Philip’s War. Yet, New Englanders also had to deal with the war’s enormous destruction. Proportional to population, King Philip’s War resulted in more casualties than any other war in American history. New England lost more than  colonists in the fighting, out of a total population of approximately , people. Thomas Hutchinson, nearly a century later, claimed that “Every person, almost, [in Massachusetts] lost a relation or near friend.” Indeed, King Philip’s War was the most destructive war ever fought in New England. All New England colonies had suffered losses, with the frontier outposts experiencing the greatest destruction. The district of Maine, which had contained  towns and plantations at the beginning of the war, suffered such devastation that it did not recover for a half-century. Though New Hampshire suffered very little, Massachusetts experienced extensive losses. Overall, in New England,  towns were destroyed or deserted, and another  towns came under attack. Twenty years after the war, not all of the towns devastated in  had been reestablished. For example, in Connecticut, few towns were started in the s, and not until almost  did a major westward advancement resume. When towns were rebuilt, the new communities often were more compact for defensive purposes. The war had also very negatively affected New England’s economy. The fur trade had nearly ended, , head of cattle had been killed, the import and export trade had often been interrupted, and the fishing industry had suffered a serious decline as sailors were recruited into the war effort. In addition, the United Colonies (Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut) asserted that their wartime expenses totaled more than £,. This led to high taxes. Before , Massachusetts colonists had paid a “country rate” or town levies, which were fairly light. But, in , the Massachusetts government started using multiple rates that were much higher. These could be paid

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in money or corn. Not until  in New England did per capita incomes recover their  levels. The pre- norm was not surpassed until after . In part, this was because in the century between  and  the population increased -fold, primarily in the area settled before . But the new settlers also often started from “scratch,” which had not been the situation before . King Philip’s War had destroyed much of the previous generation’s investments and placed significant restrictions on westward expansion. Ironically, the Puritans’ campaign against the New England Indians led to the Covenant Chain Conferences of  between the English government and the Five Nations of the Iroquois. These conferences created a frontier line on the west and south between the colonists and the Iroquois that proved to be a solid barrier to colonial expansion. Furthermore, the New England colonies were now bordered on the north by Indian tribes backed by the French. As a result, the New England colonies, which had been very expansionistic before , would remain territorially restricted until the American Revolution. In addition, both Algonquin and Iroquois Indians continued to attack New England’s frontier settlements until the end of the French and Indian War, in . For example, in , Indians again destroyed towns in the Connecticut River valley that had been reestablished after King Philip’s War. Moreover, because many soldiers had served for extended periods, King Philip’s War created America’s first enormous problem that involved veterans. Indeed, in the aftermath of the war, veterans’ organizations were created. The colonial governments usually provided relief to wounded veterans in the form of a one-time payment. But this could be supplemented with special privileges, including a tax-exempt status or the right to collect and keep all fines for violating liquor laws. In addition, some colonial legislatures and some towns provided benefits, especially land grants from areas vacated by the Indians, to survivors of deceased soldiers and to wounded or unwounded veterans. But not all veterans were compensated. More than  years after the end of King Philip’s War, some veterans or their descendants were still pressuring colonial legislatures for tracts of land. The war had also cost many people their homes or businesses. In Massachusetts alone, more than , colonists required assistance. To assist those in need of help, churches, charitable colonists, and sympathetic Europeans sent various types of aid. In addition, funds were raised to ransom colonists who had been captured by the Indians. For example, Mary Rowlandson and her son were ransomed when citizens in Boston and Portsmouth raised £. As a result of King Philip’s War, the Algonquin Indians of southern New England had suffered a devastating defeat. Six thousand Indians, including most of the Narragansetts, the largest and most powerful tribe of the region, had died, were enslaved, or were reduced to becoming hired servants or poor farmers. But some Indians fled to New York, Virginia, the Susquehanna and Delaware valleys, or Canada as they sought to preserve their culture and their independence. The New England colonies supervised all remaining Indians by limiting their daily activities. For example, in Rhode Island, the Indians were not allowed to gather in substantial numbers, and Rhode Island and Plymouth placed restrictions on the ownership or carrying of firearms. In addition, New England authorities assigned the Indians to various areas. This included the so-called praying Indians. Indeed, the Christian

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missionary movement in New England suffered a significant decline during the war. Many of the colonists distrusted the Christian Indians, and there was reason for some of this distrust. Most of the western Nipmucs, who had been exposed to Christianity for less than five years, had joined the Indian insurgents’ uprising. But the colonists did not differentiate among the Christian Indians. Massachusetts authorities rounded up all the Bay Colony’s praying Indians and relocated them to wind-swept Deer Island in Boston Harbor. Because of inadequate food, clothing, and shelter, a number of these Indians died during their imprisonment. Yet, numerous Christian Indians, despite all their suffering, remained devoted to their faith. Four Christian Indian towns were rebuilt in postwar Massachusetts, but these were no longer just for the praying Indians. According to a  law, these towns became reservations for the entire Indian population. But the towns were often headed by sachems and the churches headed by other Indians. In this way, the Algonquins, who adopted the European concept of land ownership and many other English ways, also maintained clan boundaries as the principal form of social organization and successfully preserved much of their culture, especially in crafts and trades. In short, these Indians’ culture at the end of the s became a combination of Algonquin and English. In the s, however, the Indians increasingly lived more like the English, including adopting their styles of housing. Furthermore, by , Indian languages had largely ceased to be used in New England, as more Native Americans spoke only English. When King Philip’s War ended, colonists commemorated their victory by distributing and displaying throughout New England many bloody reminders of the conflict. For example, colonists from across the region went to Plymouth to view Metacom’s head. The colonists also published books and almanacs that listed the dates and provided detailed descriptions of significant wartime events. As the years went by, the descriptions became less detailed, but there remained just one interpretation of the cause of the war: the Indians were to blame. Before King Philip’s War, Puritan clergy condemned what they believed was a lack of discipline and numerous manifestations of ungodliness in New England. During the war, New England ministers asserted that Indian victories were indications of God’s displeasure with the settlers and that the defeats inflicted on the Indians indicated a sense of penitence and spiritual regeneration among the colonists. Despite the colonists’ victory in King Philip’s War, the conflict helped to usher in a tension-filled era in New England. In the postwar period, the dislocations of individuals and groups of people brought about by the war adversely affected Puritan congregationalism’s rigid discipline, which normally was under the control of church and state. Efforts by the church leaders to reverse this trend were in vain. The attitudes created by the uprootedness of the war would eventually contribute to the development of the Great Awakening, an extensive religious revival movement in the s. Besides the religious upheaval of the postwar era, New England’s economic troubles prompted many colonists to become more involved in colonial politics and to challenge traditional authority. In some instances they placed new restrictions on the powers of government officials. Popular concern over government affairs would increase in  with the creation of the Dominion of New England, which for four years brought under one government the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Plymouth, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey.

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In both its short- and long-term effects, King Philip’s War had a dramatic impact on the development of New England. The Indians of the southern part of the region risked total defeat to stop the increasing colonial control over their societies. But the desperate gamble failed. In , a visitor to New England asserted that there was nothing to fear from the Indians for the “last Wars they had with the English . . . have reduced them to a small number.” The power of the tribes had been completely shattered, and a legacy of hatred had been created between the Indians and the colonists that would last for generations to come. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Axtell, James. The Indians’ New South: Cultural Change in the Colonial Southeast. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . A study of the impact of the Europeans on the southeastern Indians between  and . Bourne, Russell. The Red King’s Rebellion: Racial Politics in New England, –. New York: Oxford University Press, . Extensively covers the background and course of the war. Calloway, Colin G. New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . Attempts to integrate the Indians as important participants in the making of history and the shaping of societies in early America. Cogley, Richard W. John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians before King Philip’s War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Account of the well-known missionary’s work with Massachusetts Indians in the mid-th century. Drake, James D. King Philip’s War: Civil War in New England, –. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, . Argues that King Philip’s War was, in actuality, a civil war that was not fought strictly along ethnic lines. Ferling, John E. A Wilderness of Miseries: War and Warriors in Early America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, . A topical study of war in colonial and Revolutionary America. Hawke, David Freeman. Everyday Life in Early America. New York: Harper and Row, . One chapter provides a brief overview of colonial warfare in the th century. Jennings, Francis. The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . A revisionist work that portrays the war as an unjustified seizure of native territory by the English colonists. Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. The Patriot Chiefs: A Chronicle of American Indian Leadership. New York: Viking Press, . One chapter covers Metacom’s role in the war. ———.  Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians. New York: Knopf, . Provides an overview of Indian history to the end of the th century. Leach, Douglas E. Flintlock and Tomahawk: New England in King Philip’s War. New York: W. W. Norton, . Detailed study of the causes, course, and costs of the war. Lepore, Jill. The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity. New York: Knopf, . Extensively covers certain aspects of the war, such as the experiences of captivity, confinement, and slavery. It also shows how participants and later generations portrayed the war in various types of literature. Malone, Patrick M. The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics among the New England Indians. Lanham, MD: Madison Books, . Looks at combat in th-century New England and shows how the Indians’ abilities in forest warfare, in combination with their mastery of firearms, made them into fearsome enemies of the English colonists. Mathews, Lois Kimball. The Expansion of New England: The Spread of New England Settlement and Institutions to the Mississippi River, –. New York: Russell and Russell, .

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Originally published in , this book provides information about the war’s effect on frontier settlements in New England. Melvoin, Richard I. New England Outpost: War and Society in Colonial Frontier Deerfield, Massachusetts. New York: W. W. Norton, . Shows the impact of King Philip’s War on a frontier community. Millett, Allan R., and Peter Maslowski. For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America. Rev. ed. New York: Free Press, . Places King Philip’s War within the context of other colonial warfare. Nash, Gary B. Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early North America. rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, . Contains a very concise overview of the war. Puglisi, Michael J. Puritans Besieged: The Legacies of King Philip’s War in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Lanham, NY, and London: University Press of America, . A very detailed study of the various costs of the war for the major colony in New England. Webb, Stephen Saunders. : The End of American Independence. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, . Argues that King Philip’s War forestalled New England’s expansion for almost a century.

BENJAMIN CHURCH (1639–1718) Benjamin Church was the first American-born war hero and an accomplished Indian fighter. His successful melding of Native American tactics and European warfare presaged the innovations of Robert Rogers by nearly a century and terminated New England’s costliest colonial conflict, King Philip’s War. Church was born in  in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where he worked as a carpenter. In , he founded a colony in present-day Little Compton, Rhode Island, which placed him in almost daily contact with neighboring Indian tribes. Unlike many contemporaries, Church was friendly toward Native Americans, and he closely observed their methods of warfare. In his own words, he was held “in great esteem among them.” Since the founding of Plymouth colony, in , the Europeans and Native Americans existed in a state of relative peace and coexistence. Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag tribe, earnestly tried to maintain peaceful relations with his new neighbors, but this attitude was not shared by his descendants. The reason for mounting hostility was continuous white expansion into traditional Indian hunting grounds. This, coupled with a growing arrogance of the colonials toward their Native American neighbors, finally pushed relations to the breaking point. When the Wampanoag sachem Philip rose up against the colonialists in June , Church became a captain in the Massachusetts militia. His first act was to boldly stride into the camp of the Sakonnet Indians and persuade the female sachem Awashonks to remain neutral. Church then attempted to convince his Puritan superiors to pursue the enemy and attack them in the field rather than simply build fortifications, but his advice was ignored. He did, however, conduct several successful forays against the Wampanoags and commanded a Plymouth company at the Great Swamp Fight of December , . Church sustained two wounds, but the Indians suffered a crushing defeat. In , Gov. Josiah Winslow of Plymouth appointed Church commander of all militia forces. Church went about recruiting a special company composed of Europeans trained in Indian tactics, as well as large numbers of Indian volunteers who had joined

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the colonial side. Church then raided and burned Indian villages with great success, capturing Philip’s wife and son on August , . Philip himself was eventually cornered in present-day Bristol, Rhode Island, and shot dead by one of Church’s Indian scouts on August . This act effectively ended the war and made Church a hero throughout New England. Church returned to the field as a major in King William’s War (–) and conducted four large-scale raids against Indian and French forces in Maine and Nova Scotia. His mixed European-Indian troops enjoyed some success but nothing on the scale of previous endeavors. In , when the government of Massachusetts failed to grant what he considered adequate compensation for his efforts, Church retired in disgust. Eight years later, Church tendered his services during Queen Anne’s War (– ) and was made a colonel. In this capacity, he led a large expedition against the French stronghold at Port Royal, Nova Scotia, in  and succeeded in capturing and burning the town of Les Mines. Church warned the French authorities at Port Royal to cease raiding English settlements or he would return “with a thousand Indians and let them loose upon the frontiers of Canada to commit the like barbarities there.” Despite this achievement, Church was criticized for allowing a group of French prisoners to be murdered. In , he left the military under a cloud and returned to his home at Little Compton. Corpulent in his old age, Church died of injuries after falling from his horse on January , .

john c. fredriksen

METACOM (ca. 1638–1676) King Philip’s War, in terms of numbers engaged and casualties sustained, was the single bloodiest Indian war in American history. Despite Metacom’s diplomatic finesse in uniting with other tribes, it was a war that he could not win. His defeat presaged the ultimate removal of Native Americans from the New England region. Metacom was born around  in Massachusetts to the Wampanoag tribe, then a part of the great Algonquian-speaking confederacy. His father, Massasoit, was the tribal sachem during preliminary contacts with European colonists and labored many years to maintain peaceful relations with his new neighbors. Save for a brief outbreak of violence during the Pequot War in southern New England during –, the two civilizations enjoyed relative tranquility. When Massasoit died, Metacom’s older brother Alexander (Wamsutta) succeeded him and also tried to maintain the status quo. However, the relentless expansion of white settlements into Indian land created tensions. At one point, Alexander was hauled before Puritan authorities in Plymouth to refute rumors that he was planning an uprising. This he did but died shortly after his release in . Metacom, who was also known as “King Philip” by the English on account of his haughty demeanor, suspected his brother had been poisoned but took no overt action against the whites. Like his predecessors, Metacom tried to accommodate his European neighbors, but conflict inevitably ensued over differing conceptions of land use. Whereas the Native Americans were willing to allow settlers to use the land, they had no concept of

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“ownership” and assumed that they too were entitled to free access for hunting and fishing. Unfortunately, these were rights the English proved unwilling to concede, a position based on their understanding of land titles. When they suspected Metacom of plotting an uprising in , they made him appear before the General Court of Massachusetts and ordered his tribe to disarm and pay a fine. The chief tamely submitted to this humiliation, being aware of the strength of the Europeans and the relative weakness of the Wampanoags. Over the next five years, however, he sent runners out to neighboring tribes in an attempt to cement a military alliance against the whites. The incident that triggered King Philip’s War occurred in January . John Sassamon, a Christian Indian who served as an informer, told the English of Metacom’s plan for an uprising and was found murdered. The settlers, in turn, accused three Indians of the deed and executed them. This move infuriated Metacom, who began organizing a general insurrection. Initially, his alliance scored several local successes and engulfed the entire region. Commencing in June , warrior bands from the Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Sakonnet, and Pocasset tribes began raiding isolated settlements along the New England frontier, massacring the inhabitants. Numerous white settlements in New England were attacked, while perhaps  towns were completely destroyed. White casualties were estimated to run as high as  men, women, and children. Indian casualties were equally appalling. Once the various colonies began pooling their manpower and coordinating defenses, however, the tide invariably began to turn. A major contributor to battlefield success was Capt. Benjamin Church, who organized his men along Indian lines and waged an effective guerrilla war against them. He also employed Indian dissidents against the warring tribesmen with great effect. In the course of heavy skirmishing, Metacom made several visits to the powerful Mohegan tribe of New York for their support, but they had already allied themselves with the English. They also provided several warrior bands to the army of Josiah Winslow when he crushed the Narragansetts in the Great Swamp Fight of December . More than  Indians were slain in that battle and a like number captured at a cost of  English killed and  wounded. Throughout the winter, the displaced Indians, suffering greatly from hunger and attrition, began deserting Metacom’s cause. As Metacom’s military fortunes began to wane, he returned to the solace of his traditional homelands near Bristol, Rhode Island, to await his fate. In May , Church’s men managed to capture Metacom’s wife and son, an event that profoundly affected Metacom. Church’s band then stalked the chief himself, aided by a former warrior of Metacom’s whose brother had been executed for suggesting that he make peace with the English. On August , , Church’s men surprised Metacom in his camp, and he was shot down by an Indian auxiliary. His body was immediately drawn and quartered, and his head was displayed on a pole at Plymouth for more than two decades, a grisly warning against future uprisings. Sporadic fighting and raiding continued for another two years before peace was finally concluded in April . Metacom’s defeat and death signaled the end of an era. Organized Native American resistance to white settlement of New England vanished. English control of the region was strengthened and consolidated, whereas Indian populations precipitously declined and in many instances disappeared. Many Indian captives, including Metacom’s wife and son, were summarily sold into slavery in the West Indies and elsewhere.

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Thus, a pattern of warfare, displacement, and annihilation was established and continued across North America for the next two centuries.

john c. fredriksen

NARRAGANSETTS “Narragansett” means “People of the Small Point.” It was the name of both a specific tribe and a group of tribes—including the Shawomets, Pawtuxets, Cowesets (Nipmucs), and eastern Niantics—dominated by Narragansett sachems. In the th century, at least , Narragansetts were located in south central Rhode Island, although the greater Narragansett territory extended throughout all but northwest and the extreme southwest of Rhode Island. Narragansetts spoke an eastern Algonquian language. Cautantowwit, the supreme deity, lived to the southwest. There were also numerous other spirits or deities, who could and did communicate with people through dreams and visions. Priests or medicine men (powwows) were in charge of religious matters. They were usually men who realized their profession in a dream or a vision experience. Their main responsibilities included curing, bringing rain, and ensuring success in war. A harvest ritual was held in a longhouse near the sachem’s house. At one important ceremony, possibly held in the winter, participants burned their material possessions. Narragansetts recognized a dual (junior and senior) chief or sagamore. Power was shared with a council of elders, sachems, and other leaders. Sachems were responsible for seeing to the public welfare and defense and for administering punishment. The office of sagamore may have been inheritable and was occasionally held by a woman. Within the larger administrative body, there were smaller groups presided over by lesser sachems. People changed their names at various life cycle ceremonies. They were generally monogamous. The dead were wrapped in skins or woven mats and then buried with tools and weapons to accompany them to an afterworld located to the southwest. Narragansetts lived in dome-shaped, circular wigwams about  to  feet in diameter, covered with birch and chestnut bark in the summer and with mats in the winter. Smoke passed through an opening at the top. Winter hunting lodges were small and built of bark and rushes. People erected temporary field houses where they stayed when guarding the crops. Villages were often stockaded. Women grew corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers; men grew tobacco. The men also hunted moose, bear, deer, wolves, and other game, and they trapped beaver, squirrels, and other small animals and fowl. Deer were stalked and may have been hunted communally. People fished in freshwater and saltwater. They gathered much marine life, including the occasional stranded whale, as well as strawberries and a number of other wild foods. The Narragansetts were notable traders. They dealt in wampum, skins, clay pots, carved bowls, and chestnuts. They imported carved stone and wooden pipes from the Mohawks. People generally wore deerskin breechclouts, skirts, and leggings. They might also wear turkey feather mantles and moccasins. In the winter they donned bear and rabbit skin robes, caps, and mittens.

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This group may have originated well to the southwest of their historical territory. They were the most powerful New England tribe until , dominating neighbors such as the Niantics and Nipmucs. They may have encountered non-Natives in , although there was no significant contact for another century or so afterward. Trade with the British and Dutch was under way by . Although the Narragansetts largely avoided the epidemics of –, smallpox and other diseases dramatically weakened the people in  and thereafter. As British allies, some Narragansetts fought against the Indians in the Pequot War of –. In , the grand sachem Canonicus sold land to Roger Williams, on which he established the future state of Rhode Island. In an effort to protect themselves from non-Native depredations, the tribe voluntarily submitted to Britain in . Despite Williams’s entreaties to treat the Indians fairly, many British remained extremely hostile. Eventually, they forced the Narragansett people to join the Nipmucs and Wampanoags in King Philip’s War (–). A huge defeat in December , in which more than  Narragansetts were killed and hundreds more captured and sold into slavery, signaled the beginning of the end of the war, as well as the virtual destruction of the tribe itself. After the war, survivors dispersed among the Mohegans, Abenakis, and Niantics, the last group thenceforth assuming the name Narragansett. Some of the Mohegan joined the Brotherton Indians in  and later moved with them to Wisconsin. Those who remained in Rhode Island (probably fewer than ) worked as servants or slaves of the non-Native settlers, who moved quickly to occupy the vacated Narragansett lands. The people underwent a general conversion to Christianity in the mid-th century, at which time a Christian reservation community was established in Charlestown. After the last hereditary sachem died during that period, government changed to an elected president and council. The last Native speaker died in the early th century. A constitution was adopted in . All of the Narragansett reservation, except for two acres, was sold in , and the tribe was terminated by the state at that time. The Rhode Island Narragansetts incorporated in  under the terms of the Indian Reorganization Act. In , the state of Rhode Island returned two pieces of land of about  acres each. The tribe’s annual August meeting and powwow have been held for the past  or more years on the old meeting ground in Charlestown. Other ceremonies are both religious (such as the Fall Harvest Festival held in the longhouse) and secular (such as the commemoration of the  battle) in nature. There are tribal programs for the elderly and for children. Tribal representatives are involved in local non-Native cultural and educational programs.

barry m. pritzker MARY ROWLANDSON (ca. 1635-ca. 1678) Mary Rowlandson wrote the first published account of a New Englander captured by Native Americans. Born about  in England, Rowlandson came with her parents to America as a child. She lived in Salem, Massachusetts, until , at which time the family moved to Lancaster. In , she married Rev. Joseph Rowlandson and lived quietly for the next  years. However, in , she found herself in the middle of King

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Philip’s War. Five tribes—the Wampanoags, Mohegans, Narragansetts, Poduncks, and Nipmucks—felt the pressure of New England settlers’ expansion. When Metacomet became chief of the Wampanoags, in , tension mounted between the tribes and the settlers. On September , , the New England Confederation declared war on the tribes. The war continued until . In February of that year, Rowlandson’s house was attacked in retaliation for the massacre of more than  Narragansetts at their winter home in the swamps of central Rhode Island the previous November. “At length,” Rowlandson wrote, “they came and beset our House, and quickly it was the dolefullest day that ever mine eyes say.” She later wrote, “Some in our House were fighting for their Lives, others wallowing in their Blood; the House on fire over our Heads, and the bloddy Heathen ready to knock us on the Head if we stirred out.” Rowlandson, her  children, and  other captives were taken prisoner. In a forced march west, her young daughter died of starvation and a bullet wound. Rowlandson’s sewing skills may have saved her own life; she was given some measure of respect and eventually was ransomed back to her husband. Her captivity narrative became a classic of captivity and colonial literature, contributing a great deal of information about her captors. In the second edition, it was titled The Soveraignty & Goodness of God, Together, with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. Rowlandson died sometime after .

WAMPANOAGS “Wampanoag” means “Eastern People.” The Wampanoags were formerly known as Pokanokets, which originally was the name of Massasoit’s village but which came to be the designation of all the territory and people under that great sachem. The Wampanoags or Pokanokets also included the Nausets of Cape Cod, the Sakonnets of Rhode Island, and various tribes of the offshore islands. Traditionally, Wampanoags lived in southern New England from just north of Cape Cod, but including Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, to Narragansett Bay. There were approximately , Wampanoags in , including tributary island tribes. Wampanoags spoke the Massachusett dialect of an Algonquian language. The people recognized a supreme deity and many lesser deities. Priests, or medicine men, provided religious leadership. Their duties included mediating with the spirit world to cure illnesses, to forecast the weather, and to conduct ceremonies. A chief sachem led the tribe. In theory, his power was absolute, but in practice he was advised by a council of village and clan chiefs (sagamores). The village was the main political unit. Village leadership had a hereditary element, which may be responsible for the existence of women chiefs. Villages may have made their own temporary alliances. Overall political structure consolidated and became more hierarchical after the epidemics of –. Wampanoags were organized into a number of clans. Their annual round of activities took them from winter villages to gathering sites at summer fields. Women had clearly defined and significant political rights. Social stratification was reflected in leadership and marriage arrangements. Leading men might have more than one wife. The

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dead were wrapped in mats and buried with various possessions, mourners blackened their faces, and the souls of the dead were said to travel west. There were at least  villages in the early th century, most of which were located by water. People lived in wigwams, both circular and rectangular. The largest measured up to  feet long; smaller ones were about  feet in diameter. The houses consisted of pole frames covered with birchbark, hickory bark, or woven mats. Wigwams tended to have central fires, but longhouses featured rows of several fires. Some houses may have been palisaded. Their larger structures were probably built in winter villages. Mat beds stood on platforms against the walls or directly on the ground. Skins served as bedding. All towns featured a central open space that was used for ceremonies and meetings. The people also built sweathouses. Men hunted fowl, as well as small and large game, with the white-tailed deer being the most important. They stalked, trapped, and snared deer and may have hunted them in communal drives. They also grew tobacco. The people ate seals and beached whales, and they gathered shellfish, often steaming them over hot rocks. They fished for freshwater and saltwater species in the winter (through the ice) and in the summer. Women gathered roots, wild fruits, berries, and nuts as well as maple sap for sugar. Women began growing corn, beans, and squash in the late prehistoric period. Fish may have been used as fertilizer. Dugout canoes could hold up to  passengers, with the average being  to . There may also have been some number of birchbark canoes. Women wore skirts and poncho-style blouses, as well as soft-soled moccasins. They donned rabbit and beaver robes in cold weather. Men wore skin leggings and breechclouts and soft-soled moccasins. They also wore turkey feather cloaks and bone and shell necklaces. They tended to pull out all their hair except for a scalp lock. Wampanoag/Pokanoket culture developed steadily in their approximate historical location for about , years. The tribe had already been weakened from disease and war with the Penobscots when it encountered non-Natives in the early th century. It had also been forced by the Narragansetts to accept tributary status. The people greeted the Pilgrims in , although there had been contact with the British some years earlier. The Grand Sachem Massasoit made a treaty of friendship with the British. His people helped the Europeans survive by showing them how to grow crops and otherwise survive in a land alien to them. Men named Squanto and Samoset are especially known in this regard. Largely as a result of Massasoit’s influence, the Wampanoags remained neutral in the Pequot War of . Many Indian residents of Cape Cod and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard were Christianized during the mid-th century. Massasoit died in . At that time, his second son, Metacomet, also known as Philip, renewed the peace. However, relations were strained by British abuses such as the illegal occupation of land; trickery, often involving the use of alcohol; and the destruction of resources, including forests and game. Diseases also continued to take a toll on the population. Finally, local tribes reached the breaking point. The Pokanoket, now mainly relocated to the Bristol, Rhode Island, area and led by Metacomet, took the lead in uniting Indians from southern and central New England in King Philip’s War (–). This was an attempt by the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and other tribes to drive the British out of

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their territory. However, the fighting began before all the preparations had been completed. In the end, hundreds of non-Native settlers died, but the two main Indian tribes were nearly exterminated. The tribal name of Pokanoket was also officially banned. Most Wampanoags were either enslaved or killed. Survivors fled into the interior or onto the Cape and the islands, whose tribes had not participated in the war. Some also fled to the Great Lakes region or to Canada. For centuries following this event, local Indians were cheated, discriminated against, used as servants, or, at best, ignored. The Indian population on Nantucket Island declined from possibly , in  to  in  to  in , mainly owing to disease. The last of the indigenous population died in . Indians at Mashpee, on Cape Cod, were assigned  square miles of land in . Self-government continued until , when the state of Massachusetts placed the Indians under its control. Most of their lands were allotted in . Trespass by non-Natives was a large problem during the entire period. Near Mashpee, the ,acre Herring Pond Reservation was allotted in . Indian land in Fall River was divided into lots in , and a -acre reservation was created in . The people’s right of self-government was abrogated in the early th century. The reservation was eliminated entirely in . Of the three reservations on Martha’s Vineyard in the th century—Chappaquiddick, Christiantown, and Gay Head—only the latter remained by . This group was never governed by non-Native overseers, and its isolation allowed the people to retain their identity and cohesion to a far greater extent than other Wampanoag communities. Other groups of Wampanoag descendants maintained a separate existence until the th century, when most became fully assimilated. The Wampanoag Nation was founded in  in response to the pan-Indian movement of the times. Contemporary Wampanoag events, many of which have both sacred and secular/ public components, include a powwow on the Fourth of July (Mashpee), Indian Day and Cranberry Day (Gay Head), and a new year’s ceremony and a strawberry festival (Assonet). Many Gay Head people have left the island, but many also plan to return. The Mashpee people continue to seek a land base and hope that federal recognition will advance their prospects. The community is in the process of working out a fair relationship with the increasingly non-Native population of the town. The Pokanoket tribe, led by descendants of Massasoit, seeks federal recognition, as well as stewardship of  acres of land in Bristol, Rhode Island.

barry m. pritzker

DOCUMENT: MASSASOIT PEACE TREATY, 1621 The Wampanoag chief Massasoit was the first Indian leader to deal with the New England colonists shortly after the Pilgrims’ arrival in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in late . At the Pilgrims’ request, Massasoit agreed to this treaty in March . Both sides worked hard to maintain peace throughout Massasoit’s life, despite bitter conflicts between Indians and colonists in other parts of New England. The chief died in  and was succeeded by his son, Metacomet, who led the Wampanoags in King Philip’s War against the colonists from  to .

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(Massasoit Peace Treaty, reprinted in Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth [London, ].) . That neither he nor any of his should injure or do hurt to any of our people. . And if any of his did hurt to any of ours, he should send the offender, that we might punish him. . That if any of our tools were taken away when our people were at work, he should cause them to be restored; and if ours did any harm to any of his, we would do the like to them. . If any did unjustly war against him, we would aid him; if any did war against us, he should aid us. . He should send to his neighbor confederates, to certify them of this, that they might not wrong us, but might be likewise comprised in the conditions of peace. . That when their men came to us, they should leave their bows and arrows behind them, as we should do our pieces when we came to them. Lastly, that doing thus, King James would esteem of him as his friend and ally.

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11 The Glorious Revolution in America, 1688–1689

INTRODUCTION After  and the restoration of Charles II to the English throne, American colonies grew more and more restive about political and religious questions. Josias Fendall attempted to oust the Catholic rulers of Maryland in , political dissenters caused trouble in New Jersey in , and William Davyes and John Pate rebelled against Lord Baltimore’s absolutism in Maryland in  but failed and were executed. These were fairly minor outbursts of colonial assertiveness; of far more concern was Bacon’s Rebellion, in Virginia, in . The most serious challenge to colonial authority in the th century, Bacon’s Rebellion came about in the midst of an effort by prominent Virginians in London to obtain a royal charter that would guarantee certain rights, including that of land ownership and taxation, only with the consent of those being taxed. Virginians wanted “the same liberties and privileges as Englishmen in England” (Clark, p. ). Bacon’s Rebellion, which complicated the charter effort, was ironic in that the rebels were making almost the same requests of the Virginia elite as the elite were making in London. Bacon and his supporters demanded protection from Indians, lower taxes, and rectification of local grievances. Nathaniel Bacon’s father had withdrawn his son from Cambridge University for having “broken into some extravagancies” (Clark, p. ); after the young Bacon’s arrival in Virginia, he was suspected of atheistic tendencies. He wanted to fight Indians, who were causing trouble on the frontier near his Henrico County plantation, but the governor would not sanction an Indian war. Bacon led an expedition in defiance of the governor and at different times found himself fighting both the Indians and the governor’s troops. But he had a large following, and had he not died unexpectedly of natural causes in October , his movement might have gone much further. After Bacon’s death, the governor’s forces easily subdued the rebellion. Even before Bacon died, his movement prompted the convening of an assembly at Jamestown to discuss a variety of colonial grievances. Out of the assembly, at which Bacon himself had no particular influence, came several reforms, including one that allowed all freeholders to vote for members of the House of Burgesses, the Virginia colonial assembly. Another reform removed the tax-exempt status of council members. Soon afterward, the council (the upper house of the colonial legislature) repealed the

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Portrait of Nathaniel Bacon, leader of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1676. This protest against royal authority was a precursor to the greater legislative power that resulted from the Glorious Revolution. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

laws passed at the Jamestown assembly, and London sent over a team of royal commissioners and later a new royal governor to strengthen imperial authority over Virginia. In New England, after years of contentiousness between England and the colonies, James II united all the New England colonies with New York and New Jersey into the Dominion of New England and appointed Sir Edmund Andros as governor in . Andros, who had served as governor of New York, ruled with considerable more authority than the New Englanders wanted. He enforced the Navigation Acts, regularized colonial administration, and strengthened colonial defenses. James had decreed that no colonial assembly should meet nor denied towns the right to hold town meetings. Andros’s ardent Anglicanism offended Puritan leaders, and, as his enforcement of trade regulations brought economic decline, moderate merchants joined with the Puritans to oppose the governor. In England, James II had succeeded his brother, Charles II, in . As king, James determined to advance the cause of Catholicism, out of favor in England since the reign of Henry VIII (–). In his first years on the throne, James managed to antagonize the Church of England in several ways. He established an ecclesiastical court, the Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Causes, that was designed to restrain the authority of Anglican priests and promote the appointment of Catholics to official posts. He issued two Declarations of Indulgence, seen as a ploy to legitimize Catholicism. One of the early actions of the Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Causes was to suspend the bishop of London, Henry Compton, who also had jurisdiction over Anglicanism in the colonies. Compton had become bishop of London in  and was also a member of the Council of Trade and Plantations, which had assumed control of colonial affairs the year before. As a member of the Lords of Trade, Compton worked to promote the Anglican Church in the colonies. On the basis of reports of the neglectful

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attitude of the colonists toward the church, Compton increased the authority of ministers in their parishes and ordered parishes to provide better financial support for their ministers. In , Compton stipulated that all Anglican ministers bound for the colonies must obtain a certificate of appointment from him, and, by , the bishop and his certified ministers had taken over many other ecclesiastical powers in the colonies. Suspended early in James II’s reign for not disciplining Anglican ministers who had been critical of the king, Compton saw his duties given over to a royal commission that the king could easily influence. Seven other Anglican bishops, including the bishop of Canterbury, who had publicly challenged the constitutionality of the second Declaration of Indulgence, were sent to the Tower of London to await trial on charges of sedition. After a month, the trial was held, and the seven were acquitted. On June , , the same day as the acquittal of the bishops, a group of prominent but aggrieved subjects of the Crown, including Bishop Compton, set the Glorious Revolution in motion. They invited William of Orange to come from the Netherlands and reign in England as William III with his wife, Mary, the oldest daughter of James II, who would become Mary II. Since James II’s consort, whose name was also Mary, had just given birth to a son and heir, time was of the essence, and William was asked to come sooner rather than later. In the early fall of , William announced his intent to go to England to maintain Protestantism and a “free and lawful Parliament.” He and his troops landed in England on November  and reached London within six weeks, forcing James to flee into exile in France. Englishmen in general rejoiced, although some were uneasy about the rapid changes occurring in their hallowed institutions. When a Scottish bishop rebuked a preacher for an enthusiastic pro-William sermon, the preacher replied, “He [who] is afraid of a fart will never stand thunder” (quoted in Lovejoy, p. ). Parliament met in January  and passed measures that implemented the political agenda of the Glorious Revolution. The Mutiny Act, the Toleration Act, the Bill of Rights, and the Corporation Act were among the acts passed. For the American colonies, the Corporation Act was especially important, since it restored city and borough charters that James had suspended, including those in New England. As thankful as Parliament was to have William on the throne, the new monarch was not entirely supportive of what Parliament was trying to do. He and some of his supporters were reluctant to surrender some of their authority and to see the country move in the direction of republicanism. Many English moderates had liked James II’s imposition of the Dominion of New England, because it made for more effective colonial administration and centralized imperial authority. After news of the Glorious Revolution reached Boston, in early , Andros’s opponents armed themselves and overthrew the governor, jailing him and most of his officials. War with the French suspended colonial administration until , when Massachusetts received a new charter from London. This charter provided for an elected assembly as well as an elected council, but the governor, who had veto power, was a Crown appointee. All of this struck a compromise between the virtually independent Massachusetts of pre- days and the severely constricted colony under the Dominion of New England government. The new charter brought Massachusetts into rough conformity with the other colonies. It also brought an end to the waning Plymouth

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colony by merging it with Massachusetts. Plymouth had been in economic distress for many years, and the incorporation into the larger colony was not resisted. Not long before the Glorious Revolution, the Virginia House of Burgesses petitioned James II to recall the colonial governor, Lord Howard of Effingham. James was overthrown before he could act on the petition, but William was sympathetic and placed royal authority in the hands of the lieutenant governor, Francis Nicholson. Lord Howard, who was in England when all of this was happening, did not return to Virginia, and relations between the assembly and Nicholson were peaceful. In Maryland, a dissident named John Coode raised a force in , seized public buildings and Lord Baltimore’s plantation, and set up an interim government that excluded Catholics. Coode had been a Protestant activist well before the Glorious Revolution. In , he and a friend, Josias Fendall, had tried to stir up sentiment against Catholics in Maryland. They were arrested, thrown in jail, and tried, in November , on charges of mutiny and sedition. Coode was found not guilty, but Fendall was convicted, fined , pounds of tobacco, and banished from the colony. Coode’s government, in power after , was not universally popular, although it legitimized itself with a convention in . Many Marylanders thought it oppressive (any opponent of the government was deemed an opponent of William III), and even Coode said he favored a new royal government sent from London. Coode’s past association with troublemakers like Fendall did not help his cause, and neither did assertions that he was using his power to enrich himself. Lord Baltimore, meanwhile, worked hard to regain his authority in Maryland, offering amnesty to Coode and consenting to have a Protestant governor appointed, but London was not sympathetic. William III appointed Lionel Copley as royal governor and sent him to Maryland to establish the Anglican Church there, as well as a fairly typical colonial administration and government. Under Copley, who died in , and Francis Nicholson, who replaced him, Maryland returned to a semblance of normality. Similarly, in New York, the local militia heard about the Glorious Revolution and the revolt in Massachusetts in the spring of  and seized the royal fort from English troops. A rebel-formed group, the Committee of Safety, served as an interim government and appointed one of its members, Jacob Leisler, commander in chief of the colony. The members of the committee proclaimed their loyalty to William III and Mary and to Leisler, a German merchant who had never been part of the colony’s ruling elite. All of this offended a number of Dutch landowners from the Albany area and socially prominent Englishmen from the New York City area, who also praised William III and Mary II but considered Leisler an illegitimate leader. Leisler tried to get William III and Mary II to recognize his government by sending over personal representatives to lobby the court and Parliament, but those he sent did not serve him well. One of his agents, Joost Stoll, a liquor merchant, spent most of his time making business deals for himself, and the other, Matthew Clarkson, worked to get himself appointed to a royal position in the colonial government. Leisler’s government, unlike those in Maryland and Massachusetts, was not recognized in London. Instead, William III appointed a new colonial government headed by Henry Slaughter, an English military officer. Slaughter came to New York in January , expecting to find the colony in chaos. There was no chaos, but there was the strong-willed Leisler, who battled with Slaughter for authority from the time the new governor stepped on shore.

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Leisler was suspicious of nearly everyone around him, and, when two companies of English troops showed up, he was convinced that a conspiracy against his rule had formed. In March, Leisler and his forces dug in at a fortress in New York City; the British troops challenged him, and a showdown was at hand. Firing from both sides resulted in the deaths of several men. Eventually, Leisler surrendered the fort, and Slaughter immediately arrested him, marking the end of the rebellion. Leisler and nine accomplices stood trial at the end of March; in early May, Leisler was convicted of “traitorously levying war” against William III and Mary and “feloniously murdering” one Josias Brown, a man killed in a skirmish during Leisler’s resistance. Seven of Leisler’s nine accomplices were also found guilty, and, two weeks after the verdict was announced, Leisler and his guilty accomplices were hanged. Although rebellions like Leisler’s and improvised governments like Coode’s suggest that the Glorious Revolution brought substantial changes to the politics of the colonies, English authorities did not see it this way. William III tolerated the renewal of colonial autonomy because the North American colonies were not particularly important to him. The king continued to assert that he had ultimate authority over the colonies but that it was exercised through Parliament rather than directly. And members of Parliament believed that they could alter acts of colonial assemblies at their will. Thus the Glorious Revolution did not fundamentally change the relationship between England and its colonies in America. Perhaps the Glorious Revolution more significantly affected colonial commerce. The Council of Trade and Plantations continued to exert some authority over the colonies, and a new Navigation Act in  put stricter controls on commerce, in part by establishing Admiralty Courts, which sat in judgment of trade violations in the colonies. A new agency, the Board of Trade and Plantations, was created to oversee colonial affairs, but it was hampered by other parliamentary agencies, such as the War Office and the secretary of state for the Southern Department, both of which also bore some responsibility for colonial administration. Enforcement of commercial regulations was inefficient, however, and colonists were more inclined to be law-abiding because of the danger posed by England’s rivals, France and Spain.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY p. d. swiney The revolution of  in England is referred to as the “Glorious” Revolution because it created a constitutional settlement. Parliament, the representative assembly, became the sovereign power in English government. The Glorious Revolution in the American colonies was marked by three rebellions—in Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland. Rearrangements of power occurred in all the colonies, but with unforeseen and unexpected consequences. The colonists had been forcibly reminded that they were English, part of a growing empire. The Glorious Revolution in America was their declaration of indifference—that what was good for the British empire was not necessarily of interest or concern to the colonies. The colonists would move to defend the existing arrangements and practices that were of benefit to the individual settlements that dotted North America.

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The restoration of the Stuart monarchy in  was yet another attempt to provide stability and coherence to a government and society rent by religious, civil, and political strife. Contention between centralizing royal power and local government had torn England for decades. Parliament, the representative assembly of wealthy gentry and nobility, had struggled for supremacy with the autocratic Stuart kings. A growing national identification with Protestantism had led to a growing loathing of Catholics, and dissenting sects among the Protestants proposed radical revision of the distribution of land, property, and power. After the death, in , of Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector, negotiations opened to bring back the heir of the beheaded Charles I. Charles II returned to England grateful to those who had shown loyalty to him during more than a decade of exile. Some of this gratitude would manifest itself in generous grants of land in the colonies of North America. Those colonies already in existence had watched developments in England with considerable anxiety. The most successful of the colonies, Massachusetts Bay, had been founded and populated primarily by Puritans. As the Puritans in England had led the opposition to Charles I, rebelled against him, and executed him, it is understandable that Puritan colonies would view the accession of his son with considerable trepidation. The change in government would require all the extant colonies to confirm their colonial charters with the new king. Only Virginia was a royal colony, with a royal governor appointed by the king. Virginia also had the House of Burgesses, a representative assembly, but the Burgesses were property holders, and only property holders could elect them. Maryland was a proprietary colony, founded as a haven for English Catholics by the Catholic Lord Baltimore. As proprietor, Lord Baltimore held title to all the land in his colony and could arrange the government as he saw fit. Massachusetts Bay Colony was a special case: a religious movement masquerading as a stock company. The original settlers/stockholders had migrated to Massachusetts to be a “city on a hill”—a moral example to the Church of England that would inspire it to reform. Massachusetts society and government had been organized around the Puritan version of the Church of England—Calvinist in theology, Congregationalist in organization. Congregations existed independently of one another and called their own ministers. But, very early, Massachusetts had extended participation in its General Court, or representative assembly, to all endorsed Church members. The governor of the colony was elected, yet the clergy were formally excluded from political affairs. This arrangement, peculiar as it may seem, was carried to a number of smaller settlements: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Providence Plantations, New Haven Plantation, and New Hampshire. None of these foundations had legal existence under the new regime. The king’s government in London was aware that political arrangements in the colonies were somewhat irregular, but, after years of uncertainty in the government in England, settlements now claimed the major attention of the king’s ministers. After persistent petitions by agents sent by the colonists, the king made his dispositions over a period of several years. Massachusetts could continue under its original charter— for the present. Rhode Island and Providence Plantation were to combine but preserve their government. Connecticut and New Haven were to do the same. New Hampshire was chartered as a separate colony. Maine would be under the authority of Massachusetts. Virginia’s claim to territory on its southern border was denied; the land would become part of a large grant to a group of the king’s closest advisers, as proprietors.

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They graciously christened their new enterprise Carolina, named after the king. After a successful war against the Dutch, major commercial rivals of England, the king would grant the acquired Dutch territories in the colonies to his brother, the Duke of York, who would then name them for himself—New York. The dual colonies of Jersey were awarded to separate proprietors, creating East and West Jersey. All the new colonies were expected to tolerate other Protestant sects (of which there were a considerable number) and to form some variety of a representative assembly to levy taxes. In , Charles discharged an old debt by granting an enormous tract of land to William Penn, a prominent and wealthy member of the unorthodox and disturbing Quaker sect. As proprietor, Penn could rule as he pleased; he was pleased to found a colony for dissenting religious minorities and constructed an unusually liberal frame of government. Pennsylvania, after some bumpy adjustments, arrived at a consensual procedure in its assembly and became known as the Best Poor Man’s Country. Unfortunately, Charles’s ignorance of colonial geography was as great as his largesse. Not only did his generous grants to friends and supporters collide, but the legal position of the settlers already in possession was jeopardized. The proprietors of New York, East and West Jersey, and the Carolinas proposed to sell these lands as a profit-making venture. Some wished to experiment with forms of government. None would follow any predictable pattern, thereby making administration from London more difficult. London was becoming more interested in the colonies as possible sources of increased revenue. Some of the laws from the Cromwell era were retained as part of a grand imperial design. The Navigation Acts, which were supposed to curtail trade among the colonies at increased profit to the mother country, required all English shipments to be carried on English ships, with an English crew. Contracting with carriers offering the most favorable terms was not permitted. All colonial exports and imports were to pass through England, with the accompanying duties and customs paid. Certain highly desirable products of the colonies, “enumerated goods” named by law, were to go only to England, to provide it with a monopoly on desirable exports. The colonies were not at all fond of the Navigation Acts. They had evaded them and violated them and become proficient smugglers under Cromwell, and they were ready to do so again under Charles II. As the expected revenue fell short of expectations, a special committee of the Privy Council, the Lords of Trade, was created in  to assist in the enforcement of the Navigation Acts. The king’s brother, James, Duke of York, was particularly interested in consolidating and streamlining administration of the colonies, and he sponsored a major realignment of government. In , Massachusetts’s original charter was revoked, and various other New England colonies lost their patents to confer land titles and organize governments. The plan was to combine all the northern colonies with the administration of New York, creating the Dominion of New England. A similar plan was bruited for the southern colonies. Unfortunately, the creation of the Dominion of New England coincided with the death of Charles II and his brother’s accession to the throne. James II’s province of New York automatically became a royal colony when he became king, but the orphaned colonies of New England did not learn of their consolidation with New York for months. James was busy securing his throne in the face of bitter opposition to his conversion to Catholicism and outright rebellion from Charles II’s illegitimate (but Protestant) son. In , Sir Edmund Andros was dispatched to administer a sullen Dominion of New England.

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Sir Edmund was a soldier and courtier who had already served as governor of the king’s province of New York. He was well acquainted with the sectional rivalries between the Albany frontier, which held a monopoly on the fur trade, and the port on Manhattan Island, which was rapidly acquiring a monopoly on regional shipping. The largest population was on Long Island, and it had a strong Puritan orientation. After  years of English occupation, the Dutch inhabitants had made some adjustment, but increasing English settlement had brought new tensions among Quakers, Anglicans, Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, and Puritans, who counted half a dozen nationalities among these congregations, a not uncommon circumstance in any port. The New York assembly had been suspended in  by James II, now king of England, and other regional assemblies were dissolved or relegated to local government business only. Andros was to govern with the aid of an appointed council. The suspiciously modest revenues from these thriving areas would be devoted to defense of the English empire in America, chiefly on the vulnerable New York border with French Canada. Andros proposed to administer the dominion from Boston, and he also intended to institute observance of the English national church in the center of dissent from that church. The imposition of a tax, without the consent of the dissolved General Court, evoked bitter protest from the Puritans. But Andros’s attempt to put the dominion on a self-supporting basis by charging fees to reconfirm land titles granted by the defunct previous charter and by collecting quitrents, a yearly charge for the land already purchased, was more than the Puritans could abide. Increase Mather, a prominent member of an eminent ministerial dynasty, was dispatched in  to London to represent to the king Massachusetts’s grievances. When he arrived there, Mather found a capital seething with anti-Catholic sentiment. The king had replaced royal officials with Catholic adherents (including the Lords of Trade), had issued a Declaration of Indulgence (or tolerance) for dissident sects, which was widely perceived as a means of reintroducing Catholicism to England, and had capped his folly by producing a male Catholic heir. Within six months, England had embarked on its Glorious Revolution. James II’s Protestant firstborn, Mary, was married to a leading Protestant statesman in Europe, William of Orange. Parliament invited them to defend England from James’s encroaching Catholicism. William landed with an army in November , James fled to France in December, and by February William and Mary had accepted Parliament’s offer of the throne of England and were crowned in April . A profound change in England’s political system had occurred in a breathless (and bloodless) six months. Word of these dizzying events came sporadically and late to the colonies. By the time news of William’s invasion arrived, he and Mary had accepted the throne. By the time the colonies heard of the change of monarchs, they had been crowned. Announcement of their coronation arrived six weeks later, but the Dominion of New England no longer existed. On April , leading Puritans of Boston, backed by a mob of excited Bostonians, arrested Gov. Edmund Andros and other royal officials as agents of the discarded King James. A Council of Safety was formed, composed chiefly of members of the former charter government. As word spread of Massachusetts’s action, other portions of the dominion followed suit, and New England fragmented back into the colonies of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay. Andros’s deputy in New York, Francis Nicholson, was in a peculiar position. Word of Massachusetts’s Glorious Revolution had come far more quickly than England’s.

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Indeed, Nicholson had received word of William and Mary’s accession in March, but he had not proclaimed it. Massachusetts had successfully challenged the origin of the authority Nicholson held. While Nicholson waited for some instruction from London and warned Albany to expect an attack from the French, the divisions in New York society manifested themselves. At the end of May , the commander of the militia, Jacob Leisler, seized Fort James, the fortress of New York City. Rather than confront him (and the large portion of militia at his back), Nicholson sailed for England in June. Upon the deputy’s departure, Leisler proclaimed the coronation of William III and Mary II and declared that he had secured the Anglo-Dutch colony of New York for a Dutch king of England. In Maryland, a similar set of circumstances occurred. Lord Baltimore had been in England since . The council appointed to govern in his absence made two fatal errors: it dismissed the assembly for two consecutive sessions, and it made Maryland conspicuous in its lack of support for the new king and queen. The council may have regretted the departure of the Catholic James, but the majority of the population in this Catholic proprietor’s colony was staunchly Protestant. John Coode seized the opportunity and led a rebellion in  on behalf of a Protestant Association against the autocratic Catholic proprietor. Having seized power, Coode called an increasingly uneasy representative assembly to proclaim William and Mary sovereigns of England and Maryland’s loyalty to them. These three rebellions, one reputedly against Catholic tyranny and all supposedly in defense of representative government, were not precisely what they proclaimed themselves. By no stretch of the st-century imagination can these assemblies be considered “representative” in the sense of considering the interests of the entire population. English political institutions had been carried to the colonies without the accompanying social hierarchies to support them. In England, local government was administered and representatives sent to Parliament by the land-owning elite. Political authority was supported by social status, which was based on the holding of land. The longer the land was held by a single family, the higher the family’s social status and political influence. Even the townsmen based status on generations of occupancy, accompanied by wealth. Political power was divided and local government administered by these long-dominant families, their allies, and their kin. But, in America, a similar political structure was transplanted without the centuries of land tenure dominance. Many a “new man” made a fortune in the colonies, and in the colonies it was wealth that conferred social status. The presumption of political power that accompanied social status developed in a different pattern. Land was far easier to come by in the colonies, and men could quickly accumulate wealth without owning large tracts of land. The dominant men of the local governments, who sent certain of their number to the assemblies, might not have been accepted as the elite in England, but they were certainly the elite of the colonies. But, in a social structure that creates a self-defined elite, a certain number of people will predictably be excluded from what they consider their just portion of political power and the accompanying appointments in government where money is made. This was a contributing factor in Jacob Leisler’s seizure of Fort James in New York. Leisler himself was a member of the second rank of the Dutch hierarchy who had submitted to English rule. Leisler and his supporters had failed to achieve the highest positions

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available in the new English administration. Some Dutch had quickly accommodated themselves to English rule and become a part of the ruling coterie in the English administration of New York, with the accompanying monetary rewards. The Dutch community, still in the majority after  years of English rule, was deeply divided among political factions based in kinship networks that were in a continual state of flux. These wealthy families were accustomed to apportioning political power among themselves. Leisler had arrived in New Amsterdam just before it surrendered to the English and had married into a political faction that did not flourish in the Duke of York’s government. Leisler’s seizure of power was precisely that—an attempt to move himself, and the factions backing him, to a more prominent place in local government. A Committee of Safety called delegates from various settlements in New York and proclaimed Leisler commander in chief. Under this title, Leisler set about dismantling the former government. He was blocked somewhat by Albany, which supported King William but also sustained an ongoing enmity with its downstream rival. Albany simply ignored Leisler’s command. A letter sent from the Privy Council addressed to Nicholson stated, “and in his absence such as for the time being take care for preserving the peace and administering the laws,” which was all Leisler needed to proclaim himself deputy governor. He ruled as ultimate authority in New York for two years, with large portions of opposing factions, both in the city and up the Hudson Valley to Albany, jailed, exiled, or silenced. However, Leisler was not capable of ceding the power he had coveted for so long. When the duly appointed royal governor arrived from England in , Leisler initially refused to surrender the fort. When he did so, he found himself in chains, accused of treason. The opposing factions rushed to fill the vacancies in government left by Liesler’s adherents and pressed for a trial for treason. After a long and contentious legal process, Leisler and his son-in-law were condemned to death. The death penalty was not uncommon in Dutch practice, but death sentences were almost always commuted. The opposition’s insistence on his execution sowed permanent bitter divisions in the ruling families of the province of New York. Maryland’s rebellion had similar antecedents. It was a proprietary colony, meaning that all the land was owned by Lord Baltimore and the Calvert family and was sold to settlers for profit. Maryland, like Pennsylvania, had been founded as a haven for a persecuted minority, in this case English Catholics. But Catholicism had been viewed in England as a form of treason for more than a century, and Lord Baltimore’s haven for Catholics was quickly settled by a majority of Protestants. Instead of the complex divisions that characterized New York politics, Maryland featured a proprietary party, composed of the proprietor, his Council, members of his administration, and all their marital and political allies. The proprietary party kept an iron grip on lucrative government positions, and Catholicism and kinship seemed the only entries. An overwhelmingly Protestant majority vastly outnumbered the proprietary party. Unfortunately, Lord Baltimore confirmed every English Protestant prejudice about the equation of Catholicism and tyranny by raising taxes, cutting tobacco prices, awarding monopolies to the proprietor’s party, and abolishing the head right system (an easy way to obtain land grants by bringing settlers into the colony; a number of acres was awarded per head). His greatest error, the one that would cost him his government, was the exclusion of Protestant politicians from any advancement in his government. In , Lord Baltimore sailed for England to defend both his charter and his boundary,

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disputed by the new colony of Pennsylvania. While he was gone, his deputies repeatedly dismissed a defiant and angry General Assembly. In , news that a Protestant prince was ascending the English throne was a gift to the disgruntled Protestants of Maryland. While the council declined to proclaim and swear allegiance to the new monarchs, the antiproprietary party was organizing a Protestant Association to declare William and Mary the rulers of England. However, these “associators” had been ringleaders in repeated insurrections long before any change in the monarchy. Charles II and James II had repeatedly upheld the proprietor’s regime. William would not be so supportive of a Catholic dissident. In July , John Coode’s armed force seized the capital, St. Mary’s, and convened an assembly. In September, it proclaimed King William III and Queen Mary II. In , the rebels sailed for England to confront Lord Baltimore. The new sovereigns found in favor of the rebels, Baltimore lost the government of his colony (but not ownership of the land), and Maryland gained a royally appointed governor. Catholics in Maryland, their former haven and hegemony, were relegated to the status of Catholics in the mother country—fined, disenfranchised, sidelined. Massachusetts was again an exceptional case. Once the hated Andros was incarcerated, the Council of Safety tried to reestablish the original charter government and recalled its last elected governor to office. But Massachusetts was divided against itself—though many hoped for the restoration of the original charter, in which political structures were intertwined with religious position, not all were confident that such a restoration was possible or even desirable. The fervor that had sent , Puritans to a wilderness to create a godly society had waned in the intervening half-century. Some were troubled at the equivocal legal position of the colony. Andros could be accused of little but attempting to enforce imperial policy; the same independent spirit that had resisted him resisted the new government that rested on such tenuous authority. For three long years, there was no clear central authority in Massachusetts. Andros was returned to England, accompanied by more agents for the Massachusetts colony. Increase Mather had been pleading, cajoling, and lobbying in London since , and his advocates and advisers convinced him that the new king would not tolerate the self-government built into the old charter. The General Court—the representative assembly that had governed the colony since its founding—was restored. But its composition would be permanently altered by the decision to extend the franchise to property holders, rather than members of the church. The king appointed the governor. Massachusetts was no longer God’s “city on a hill”; it was another royal colony of North America. But the self-regard that had established the colony as the province of God’s elect would not bend readily to imperial imperatives. By , all the colonies had royally appointed governors. New York gained a representative assembly populated largely by the competing, jealous factions that harbored residual enmity from Leisler’s rebellion. The proprietary families of Maryland and Pennsylvania retained land titles to their colonies until the Revolution, but the governments were no longer in their control. Voting privileges in all the colonies were standardized. The Glorious Revolution in America served, in the long run, to undermine seriously the ties between England and its North American colonies. From the English viewpoint, two laws enacted in  to support and enforce the Navigation Acts would streamline administration, communication, and control of the colonies, thereby increasing English

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trade and English power. However, avoidance and, later, defiance of these two provisions would increase the distance between imperial and colonial objectives. The Board of Trade was created to oversee government and administration in the colonies. It functioned as a clearinghouse for all kinds of colonial affairs, dispatching colonial legislation, customs documents, and military reports to the appropriate offices in the British government for review. It was also an advisory panel for the Privy Council, which made all appointments of colonial officers. Parliament also found it necessary to extend jurisdiction to vice admiralty courts for violations of the Navigation Acts. Woefully few smugglers were actually convicted in the North American colonies after trial by a jury of their peers. The vice admiralty courts established in those colonies could circumvent that problem, as they had no juries. But the law establishing the vice admiralty courts did not eliminate jury trials, and therefore colonial juries continued to acquit their smuggling peers. In , the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was founded to convey Anglican missionaries to North America. Only Virginia had established the state Church of England as the state church of Virginia. Some partial establishment (payment of a tax to support the “established,” or government-endorsed, religion) had taken place in some sectors of New York, Maryland, and North and South Carolina. The other colonies had been founded by or on behalf of religious dissenters, who formed the bulk of the colonial population. As more colonial officials and administrators came to the colonies, they brought their Anglicanism with them, contributing to an increasingly diverse religious observance. Also in , the cultural and economic differences between the northern and southern portions of Carolina were recognized, and their division became formal. The following year, East and West Jersey were united. The unexpected consequence of the Glorious Revolution in the colonies was the echo of parliamentary sovereignty found in the colonial assemblies. As Parliament triumphed at home, so did the colonial assemblies in America. London’s neglect of the colonies and the absorption in European affairs that led to colonial autonomy in the th century would permit the disregard of imperial decrees in the th. Colonial assemblies repeatedly refused to post their militias or spend their money to aid other colonies—Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania all refused royal directives in the first decade of the s. In addition, whenever war broke out between England and France, the colonies were expected to strike at French Canada. Wartime expenses were a burden to each of the colonies; in matters of defense, the colonies were on their own. Paper money issued in the wake of various wars by various colonial governments to pay their local debt was a continual problem for both the local economy and the local government. This circumstance would lead to serious repercussions at the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War (known in America as the French and Indian War) in , when London decided to station an English army permanently in North America. Colonists who had managed their own defense (and taken on the accompanying financial burden) for decades were not at all interested in paying for the maintenance of a standing army. The protests over taxation imposed by Parliament would lead to the Revolution. Colonial assemblies, holding the “power of the purse,” regularly expressed their displeasure with imperial administration by declining to fund royal officials’ salaries. One such dispute is best known as the Zenger case; it involved newspaper editor John Peter

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Zenger of New York, who was charged, in , with sedition for supporting the New York Assembly in its dispute with the royal governor. A jury of sympathetic New Yorkers acquitted him. This case is often held up as an early freedom-of-the-press case, because Zenger argued that he could not be publishing treasonous material if it could be proved true. However, it is more accurately an illustration of the power of the colonial legislatures a half-century after the Glorious Revolution. Despite the intermittent desire of the imperial government to increase and centralize control over the American colonies, the refusal of the local legislatures to obey instruction and even to pay the salaries of royal officials demonstrates that the colonists viewed their assemblies as “mini-Parliaments,” and the Glorious Revolution had made Parliament sovereign. The insistence on the powers of their local governments would lead the colonists to their own revolution in .

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Arch, Stephen Carl. “The Glorious Revolution and the Rhetoric of Puritan History.” Early American Literature  (): –. How the Puritans convinced themselves their rebellion was not treasonous. Archdeacon, Thomas J. New York City, –: Conquest and Change. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . A population analysis and study of popular politics, with emphasis on Dutch-English conflict. Bailyn, Bernard. “Politics and Social Structure in Virginia.” In Seventeenth Century American: Essays in Colonial History, edited by James M. Smith. New York: W. W. Norton, . How fluid social mobility affected the allotment of political power. Bonomi, Patricia U. A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York. New York: Columbia University Press, . A lucid untangling of political rivalries and alliances in colonial New York over an extensive period. Clark, J. C. D. The Language of Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . A work that analyzes the themes of religion and law in the political discourse between England and America between  and . Craven, Wesley Frank. The Colonies in Transition: –. New York: Harper and Row, . A thorough narrative of the crucial period bracketing the Glorious Revolution. Greene, Jack. “Metropolis and Colonies: Changing Patterns of Constitutional Conflict in the Early Modern British Empire, –.” In Negotiated Authorities: Essays in Colonial Political and Constitutional History. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, . The conflict between British imperial policy and colonial interests. ———. The Quest for Power: The Lower Houses of Assembly in the Southern Royal Colonies –. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . How the lower assemblies achieved the upper hand. Hall, Michael G., Lawrence H. Leder, and Michael G. Kammen, eds. The Glorious Revolution in America: Documents on the Colonial Crisis of . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . A documentary chronicle of events in New England, New York, and Maryland. James, Sidney V. Colonial Rhode Island: A History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, . An enjoyable explanation of why Rhode Island is known as “the land of the otherwise-minded.” Kammen, Michael. “The Causes of the Maryland Revolution of .” Maryland Historical Magazine (December ): –. Poor policy of the Calverts led to popular support for a small, ambitious group of opponents to proprietary rule. ———. Colonial New York. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, . Leisler’s rebellion in a comprehensive context.

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Lovejoy, David S. The Glorious Revolution in America. New York: Harper and Row, . A comprehensive study emphasizing the colonies as part of the British empire. Miller, Perry. The New England Mind: From Colony to Province. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . An interesting history by the premier authority on Puritan society. Any study of colonial New England must begin with Perry Miller. Sewall, Samuel. The Diary and Life of Samuel Sewall. Edited by Mel Yazawa. New York: Bedford Books, . The events in Boston as recounted by a prominent participant. Sosin, Jack M. English America and the Revolution of . Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, . The impact of the Glorious Revolution on American political structures. Stout, Harry O. The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England. New York: Oxford University Press, . A study drawn from sermons that demonstrates the strong influence of Puritanism in politics. Ver Steeg, Clarence L. The Formative Years –. New York: Hill and Wang, . The transition from English colonies to American provinces.

SIR EDMUND ANDROS (1637–1714) Sir Edmund Andros was a prominent colonial governor of New York, the Dominion of New England, and New Jersey and governor of Virginia. As he was appointed by the Crown and believed in exercising royal prerogatives, Andros was overthrown by colonists in Massachusetts during the Glorious Revolution of –. Andros was born in London on December , , the second son of Amice Andros and Elizabeth Stone. The family had strong connections to the ruling Stuart family, monarchs of England. When the Stuart king Charles I was overthrown and executed in the English Civil War, the senior Andros took his family into exile in Holland in December . There, Andros studied Dutch and French and joined the Dutch Army when he turned . After Charles’s son was restored to the throne as King Charles II, in , the Andros family returned to England, where the family’s loyalty to the Stuarts made them influential. In , the Duke of York (Charles II’s brother James) appointed Andros to be governor of the province of New York, a post that he held until . For his services in the New World, Andros was knighted in . When James ascended the throne, in , as King James II, the Lords of Trade and Plantations (a committee established by Charles II in  to formulate colonial policy) was already consolidating royal power in the colonies. The committee expanded royal authority even more in  when it formed the Dominion of New England out of the colonies of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts Bay, part of Maine, and Plymouth. In March , the Lords of Trade added New York and New Jersey to the new royal province. The Dominion of New England, as one historian remarked, became a “new authoritarian model of colonial administration.” In May , James II appointed Andros as the vast dominion’s governor. Andros moved quickly to dismantle preexisting colonial institutions that he believed denied the Crown of its ability to rule by granting too many privileges for self-rule in the colonies. He carried out the Crown’s orders to eliminate legislative assemblies and, over the strenuous objections of leading colonial authorities, began to impose measures that would raise revenue (levying heavier taxes), make the Church of England a larger presence (which dismayed the Puritans), and prohibit town meetings (which undercut local autonomy). Moreover, he challenged the validity of all land titles granted under

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the original Massachusetts charter. Thus, most colonists faced the frightening prospect of losing their lands. Andros’s days as the dominion’s governor, however, were numbered. By , the colonists had sent a deputation led by the auspicious Rev. Increase Mather to London to present the colonists’ grievances against Andros. In England, however, a more serious governing crisis had arisen. In , King James II was forced to abdicate in what became known as the Glorious Revolution, a bloodless coup that resulted in critical changes in royal authority and the Crown’s relationship with Parliament. When Protestants Queen Mary II (James II’s daughter) and King William III (Mary’s husband) assumed the throne, they agreed to rule as constitutional monarchs. They accepted a bill of rights that limited the authority of the monarchy and gave subjects and Parliament more freedom and power. When word of England’s Glorious Revolution reached America, the colonists did not waste time ridding themselves of their own hated ruler, Andros. With Massachusetts leading the way, colonists throughout New England vowed to depose Andros. Puritan ministers called on the townspeople to “seize the vile persons who oppressed us,” and the local militia captured Andros and other English officials on April , , holding them prisoner. Shortly thereafter, Andros was forced to return to England. William and Mary were reluctant to dismantle the Dominion of New England but agreed to do so if they could maintain close control of the colonies. The colonists accepted the arrangement on the grounds that it was better than the system that had been in place before. In , the new royal colony of Massachusetts was created from the old charter colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Maine. In July , Andros returned to America to serve as governor of Virginia. During his six-year tenure, he founded the College of William and Mary and promoted agriculture and industry. He clashed with colonial church authorities, however, and was recalled by the Crown in . Andros held his fourth and last governorship, in New Jersey, between  and . He spent his remaining years in London and died on February , .

BACON’S REBELLION (1676) A controversial episode in Virginia history, Bacon’s Rebellion was actually an outgrowth of the Indian War of –, which began as a dispute between some Maryland Nanticoke (Doeg) Indians and a Virginia planter named Thomas Mathew. Convinced that the planter had cheated them, the Indians murdered him, thereby triggering reprisals from both sides, including an accidental attack on a friendly Susquehannock village, which was actually a palisaded settlement located on Piscataway Creek. That attack, known as the siege of Fort Piscataway, was carried out by Virginia militia and caused the death of five Susquehannock chiefs under a flag of truce. A full-scale investigation was immediately launched by Virginia’s governor, William Berkeley, who feared that the situation might escalate into a broader conflict like King Philip’s War, then raging in New England. Berkeley addressed the crisis by adopting a defensive strategy, which included constructing a series of forts into which colonists could retire when threatened. Berkeley also prohibited unauthorized campaigns against

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the Indians, a departure from the more aggressive posture he had adopted during the Powhatan War. Berkeley drew the ire of many colonists with the order forbidding independent campaigns, which some chose to ignore regardless. Those events set the stage for one Nathaniel Bacon, a wealthy young planter from Henrico County and a member of the Virginia Council who was related to the governor by marriage. In the spring of , Bacon presented himself to the governor in Jamestown, requested a commission, and offered to lead an expedition against the Indians. The request was denied, but Bacon nevertheless organized and led a force of  men against some alleged Susquehannock raiders. Unsuccessful in locating his quarry, Bacon then entered an alliance of sorts with some Occaneechees who offered to attack their old enemy, the Susquehannock. They subsequently did so and captured some  in the process. After torturing the Susquehannock, Bacon suddenly turned on the Occaneechee, apparently in a dispute over captured booty, and killed  men while losing  himself. As a result, Berkeley declared Bacon to be in rebellion and removed him from the Virginia Council. Notwithstanding his public censure, Bacon savored the adulation accorded a popular hero. Although he was elected to the new Virginia Council, Bacon was captured by Berkeley and persuaded to admit the error of his ways, whereupon he was pardoned. Berkeley’s victory, however, was only temporary, because Bacon returned to Jamestown in June accompanied by  followers. Confronted by this show of support for Bacon, Berkeley reluctantly issued him a commission. Now backed by the force of a coerced commission, Bacon launched a campaign against area Indians and even attacked a village of friendly Pamunkeys, many of whom were killed. Although Bacon’s ruthless and indiscriminate behavior was supported by some council members who favored enslaving the Indians, Berkeley repudiated the act and repealed Bacon’s commission. Learning of the governor’s action against him, Bacon returned and laid siege to Jamestown. Using hostages, he forced Berkeley out of the stockaded settlement and into exile on Virginia’s Eastern Shore; he then put Jamestown to the torch. In October, Bacon succumbed to the effects of dysentery, and, without his leadership, the movement lost much of its impetus. By January, Berkeley had mustered enough support to end what was left of the rebellion. Bacon’s leaders were executed and their property confiscated. Any servant who was found guilty of aiding the rebellion had his term of indenture extended. The effects of Bacon’s uprising were far-reaching. For all practical purposes, the Occaneechee ceased to be a presence of any importance in the area, and, as a consequence, the Virginia settlements then had direct access to the Cherokee villages to the south. The rebellion also prompted an inquiry that subsequently resulted in Berkeley’s dismissal as governor. In addition, the Virginia Council authorized the sale of Indian lands to underwrite the cost of the war and also sanctioned the sale and enslavement of Indians. Those laws were repealed by the Treaty of Middle Plantation ().

KING WILLIAM’S WAR (1689–1697) The first of the intercolonial wars between France and England in North America, King William’s War is sometimes referred to as the Abnaki War because it pitted the English and their Iroquois allies against the French and their Abnaki allies. The European

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component of the conflict was known as the War of the League of Augsburg. A deteriorating situation in northern New England set the stage for the North American phase of the European war. In the years following the Dutch departure from New York, the Iroquois Confederacy established new economic ties with the English, an alliance that was largely to remain steadfast during the next century. Despite the reassurance of their relationship with the Iroquois, however, the British were concerned over an alliance between France and the Abnakis, a powerful Algonquian tribe from Maine, who in turn were allied with Pennacooks, Penobscots, Micmacs, and others. In large part, the concern was based simply on the increasing rivalry between France and England for control of North America. In addition, there was also a fear that Catholicism (epitomized by Louis XIV of France) was on the rise and threatening Protestantism. In North America, there was a disturbing rumor to the effect that French Catholics were preparing a savage alliance with the Indians to take over the colonies and install Catholicism. In Massachusetts, British colonists upset an uneasy peace by taking Abnaki prisoners in response to the killing of English cattle. Abnaki raids followed, and, in April , Sir Edmund Andros, recently appointed governor of all the northern colonies (called the Dominion of New England), launched a retaliatory strike and captured a French outpost on Penobscot Bay on the pretext that it was British property. Aside from that, Andros concentrated on building forts and employing a largely defensive strategy to deal with the Abnaki raids. His tenure as governor was short-lived, however, and he was deposed as a result of the Glorious Revolution in England in the spring of , which saw James II replaced by William of Orange and Mary II. With the war in Europe officially under way, Louis XIV chose the aging Louis de Baude, Comte de Frontenac, to govern New France. A -year-old curmudgeon, Frontenac decided to move south from Canada and invade British New York, an unwise move since Frontenac lacked the necessary resources to execute his strategy. In July , in the first real strike of the war, a large contingent of Iroquois attacked Lachine, a French settlement near Montreal, virtually destroyed the settlement, and killed many of its inhabitants. As a result of the Lachine Massacre, Frontenac decided to adopt guerrilla tactics. No quarter was asked, and none was given. As the Iroquois terrorized the French, the Abnakis and their allies retaliated in like form against the English. During the winter of –, Frontenac led a force from Montreal down into New England, struck Schenectady, and slaughtered many settlers in retaliation for Iroquois raids. That was followed in March by a similar attack on Salmon Falls, New Hampshire. In an effort to gain the initiative, a British squadron under the command of Maine-born frontiersman Sir William Phips captured the lightly defended Port Royal, Maine, in the spring of . Buoyed by that success, the British decided to launch an invasion of Canada in August , with Phips in command. However, beset by a number of military and logistical problems and with the ranks devastated by smallpox, the offensive came to naught. Although Frontenac’s guerrilla tactics spread terror through the northern colonies, they had accomplished little of real substance for the French cause. In , an aging and barely mobile Capt. Benjamin Church, hero of earlier troubles, was called on to help counter the Abnaki raids. Church’s efforts produced some success, but the raids continued. In , Wells, Maine, and Deerfield, Massachusetts, were victims of raids, and similar attacks continued for the next several years.

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In a March  raid on Haverhill, Massachusetts, Abnakis captured Hannah Dustin, mother of eight and one of the most famous of New England’s Indian captives. After their capture, Dustin and a companion attacked their captors, killed all but two as they slept, and made their escape. In September , the Treaty of Ryswick ended the European war, which in turn brought an end to the conflict in North America, though New England continued to see sporadic fighting for some time. As a postscript to King William’s War, the Iroquois Confederacy and western tribes allied with the French continued their struggle. Near the end of the century, most likely in  or , a major battle took place between those factions on the shores of Lake Erie and resulted in an Iroquois defeat.

jerry keenan JACOB LEISLER (1640–1691) Jacob Leisler led a rebellion against royal authority in the colony of New York from  to . Jacob was born in  in Frankenthal, Palatine, Germany, to the Calvinist family of Rev. Jacob Victorian Leisler and Susanne Adelheid Wissenbach. He grew up in a bilingual household, speaking both French and German, and in later years learned to read and write English and Dutch. He also studied math, logic, and the Bible. When his mother moved to Hanau after his father died, in , Jacob continued his education at a military academy. Leisler moved to Amsterdam in the winter of –. He began to consider the idea of seeking a new life in America, and his chance came in , when the Dutch West India Company sent the young officer to the Dutch colony of New Netherland (presentday New York). Two years later, Leisler was enjoying a prosperous business in the fur and tobacco trades in New Amsterdam. Over the next  years, he expanded his ventures to include wine, beer, salt, grains, fish, horses, cloth, spices, and humans (indentured and slave), as well as owning shares in many ships and investing in land. As one historian noted, Leisler “was among the richest merchants in the duke of York’s province.” On April , , Leisler married Elsie Tymens, the widow of Pieter Cornelisse Van der Veen, a prosperous merchant. His marriage enabled him to make even more important contacts among the leading families in New York and increased his commercial opportunities. He and Elsie eventually had three daughters—Catharina, Susannah, and Mary. Leisler did not serve in any political posts during the Dutch administration of New Netherland, but he became more publicly involved when the colony fell under English rule and became the colony of New York. He often served as a juror or arbitrator in civil and criminal cases. Gov. Francis Nicholson appointed Leisler to a council in the spring of , shortly after the Glorious Revolution had spread its fervor to Boston. Nicholson directed Leisler to prevent the growing rebellion from spilling into New York, but Leisler turned against Nicholson when he became convinced that Nicholson, despite his Protestant background, would continue to support the Catholic King James II instead of the Protestant King William and Queen Mary for the English Crown. In May , one month after an uprising in Massachusetts in which colonists overthrew Gov. Sir Edmund Andros, Leisler led a revolt against royal authority in New York. Assisted by the New York militia, which was made up primarily of Dutch artisans and

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Puritan farmers, Leisler and the rebels ousted Nicholson and other royally appointed officials in the administration. Leisler assumed the title of lieutenant governor, hailed the authority of William and Mary, and solicited support from the other rebel governments of Maryland, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. In New York, Leisler organized a convention with head officials from other towns, at which delegates discussed their concerns and appointed a committee of safety, with Leisler as its head. Leisler was given full legal, administrative, and military responsibility over the colony. In the meantime, William sent a letter to Nicholson giving him royal authorization to run the New York government. Since Nicholson had returned to England, however, the letter was also addressed to an unnamed person who would “Preserv[e] the Peace and administer the Lawes of our said Province in New York In America.” Leisler assumed that William meant for him to see the letter, and, for the remainder of his tenure, Leisler considered himself as the legitimate head of the New York government. Leisler’s regime revealed that he was an active and capable public administrator. As one historian admiringly noted, the Leisler administration “organized a government and raised funds, issued commissions, created courts, suppressed riots, appointed military officers, created a commission that sat as a court of vice-admiralty, and sent agents to England.” Leisler also sought to improve intercolonial affairs. In the spring of , for example, he organized an intercolonial conference to discuss the French and Indian attacks in northern New York. Leisler enjoyed support from people of different socioeconomic backgrounds, but that support dwindled when he freed debtors from prison and advocated the formation of a more democratic form of government. Dutch artisans aligned with Leisler, while the wealthier merchants withdrew their support and openly criticized him. Merchants and town leaders began to complain against his rule, and some sent letters to England. In March , William’s new governor, Col. Henry Sloughter, and English troops led by Maj. Robert Ingoldesby arrived in New York to remove Leisler. At first, Leisler resisted and refused to relinquish his power, but he eventually surrendered to Sloughter. Leisler and nine other men were charged with treason and murder. The trial lasted just over two weeks. Two men were acquitted, but the rest were sentenced to hang. In the end, only Leisler and his son-in-law, Jacob Milburne, were executed, as the other six gained a stay in execution and were eventually pardoned. The original order for the execution of Leisler and Milburne stated that they be hanged “by the Neck and being Alive their bodys be Cutt downe to the Earth and Their Bowells be taken out and they being Alive, burnt before their faces; that their heads shall be struck off and their Body’s Cutt in four parts.” The records indicate, however, that the two men were simply hanged and then decapitated in May . Even after his death, Leisler did not entirely disappear from the New York landscape. The political battles between Leisler and anti-Leisler forces would last through the first decade of the th century.

DOCUMENT: ENGLISH BILL OF RIGHTS, 1689 While early English history consisted of a struggle between the monarch and the Parliament, the English Bill of Rights of  marked the triumph of parliamentary sovereignty. Drafted by the English Parliament in the wake of

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the Glorious Revolution that had replaced on the throne the autocratic King James II with the more liberal King William III and Queen Mary II, the Bill of Rights sought to protect the “ancient rights and liberties” to which the people considered themselves entitled. A large number of the concerns raised in the English Bill of Rights would later be specifically reflected in the U.S. Constitution and in America’s own Bill of Rights. (English Bill of Rights,  [Am. Legal System].) WHEREAS the late King James the Second, by the assistance of divers evil counsellors, judges and ministers employed by him, did endeavor to subvert and extirpate the protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom. . By assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with and suspending of laws, and the execution of laws, without consent of parliament. . By committing and prosecuting divers worthy prelates, for humbly petitioning to be excused from concurring to the said assumed power. . By issuing and causing to be executed a commission under the great seal for erecting a court called the Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes. . By levying money for and to the use of the crown, by pretence of prerogative, for other time, and in other manner, than the same was granted by parliament. . By raising and keeping a standing army within this kingdom in time of peace, without consent of parliament, and quartering soldiers contrary to law. . By causing several good subjects, being protestants, to be disarmed, at the same time when papists were both armed and employed, contrary to law. . By violating the freedom of election of members to serve in parliament. . By prosecutions in the court of King’s bench, for matters and causes cognizable only in parliament; and by divers other arbitrary and illegal courses. . And whereas of late years, partial, corrupt, and unqualified persons have been returned and served on juries in trials, and particularly divers jurors in trials for high treason, which were not freeholders. . And excessive bail hath been required of persons committed in criminal cases, to elude the benefit of the laws made for the liberty of the subjects. . And excessive fines have been imposed; and illegal and cruel punishments have been inflicted. . And several grants and promises made of fines and forfeitures, before any conviction or judgement against the persons, upon whom the same were to be levied. All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known laws and statutes, and freedom of this realm. And whereas the said late king James the Second having abdicated the government, and the throne being thereby vacant . . . the said lords spiritual and temporal, and commons . . . do in the first place (as their ancestors in like case have usually done) for the vindicating and asserting their ancient rights and liberties, declare; . That the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal.

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. That the pretended power of dispensing with laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal. . That the commission for erecting the late court of commissioners for ecclesiastical causes, and all other commissions and courts of like nature are illegal and pernicious. . That levying money for or to the use of the crown, by pretence of prerogative, without grant of parliament, for longer time, or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal. . That it is the right of the subjects to petition the King, and all committments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal. . That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of parliament, is against law. . That the subjects which are protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law. . That election of members of parliament ought to be free. . That the freedom of speech, and debates or proceedings in parliament, ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of parliament. . That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed; nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. . That jurors ought to be duly impanelled and returned, and jurors which pass upon men in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders. . That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction, are illegal and void. . And that for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws, parliaments ought to be held frequently. And they do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular the premisses, as their undoubted rights and liberties; and that no declarations, judgements, doings or proceedings, ought in any wise to be drawn hereafter into consequence or example.

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12 The Salem Witch Trials, 1692

INTRODUCTION The witch trials of Salem Village, Massachusetts (March–September ) were America’s most notorious episode of witchcraft hysteria. The belief in witchcraft was carried to colonial America from Europe, where thousands had been executed as witches in the two centuries before . The Salem incident began when two young girls in the household of Rev. Samuel Parris began to behave oddly. One of the girls was Reverend Parris’s daughter, Betty. She was nine years old. The other girl was -year-old Abigail Williams, Betty Parris’s cousin. Apparently, the girls had been feeling guilty for dropping an egg in a glass and looking at it in the style of crystal-ball gazing, a forbidden behavior, to see what the trade of their sweethearts would be. Looking at an egg in a glass in this fashion was considered a fairly benign and common form of witchcraft, so-called white witchcraft. When they thought they saw a coffin in the glass, their guilt turned to terror. In February , Betty Parris and Abigail Williams began slipping into trances, blurting nonsensical phrases, cowering in corners, and collapsing in epileptic-like fits. Their bodies were supposedly twisted as if their bones were made out of putty. Reverend Parris invited many doctors to examine the children. No doctor knew what to make of the situation until Doctor William Griggs examined the girls and diagnosed witchcraft. Reverend Parris asked his congregation to pray and fast, hoping that this would end the witchcraft. They prayed for weeks, but the girls still babbled nonsense and had fits. As more members of the congregation became aware of the problem, the behavior spread to other girls who might also have been experimenting with the occult. Among them were Ann Putnam Jr., , Mary Warren, , Mercy Lewis, , Mary Walcott, , and Elizabeth Hubbard, . The symptoms exhibited have been called “hysteria,” but there is confusion about what this term means. In its common usage, it is understood to mean a temporary state of excitement in which the victim loses self-control. However, the term in medicine is far more serious and may include the types of fits observed at the time, as well as temporary loss of hearing, sight, speech, and memory. Symptoms may extend to a choking sensation in the throat, hallucinations, and feelings of being pinched or bitten; marks may even appear on the skin. In more modern times, such fits have been reported. During World War II, British military hospitals reported that seizures in connection with hysteria occurred in only

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six cases of hysteria out of , while, during the same time period, the behavior was the most common symptom among hysterics in Delhi, India. Fear of witchcraft, rather than its practice, seems the most likely cause of the behavior that occurred in Salem. As Reverend Parris questioned the girls further, they told him that Tituba was the witch. Tituba was the minister’s slave, who was from Barbados. While Reverend Parris seems to have been hesitant to believe the doctor’s diagnosis, his neighbors were more ready to believe it. On February , Mary Sibley, the aunt of Mary Walcott, went to Tituba and asked her to prepare a witch cake—meal mixed with the children’s urine and baked in fire—that was fed to the Parrises’ dog. The dog was a “familiar”—a messenger assigned to a witch by the devil. This also was considered white magic, but Reverend Parris was appalled when he found out a month later because he felt the community should go to God, not the devil, even in a good cause. However, the magic worked—the girls were able to name those afflicting them as Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. On March , , Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne were arrested for practicing witchcraft. Two Salem magistrates who would conduct most of the preliminary examinations, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, questioned the women. John Hathorne asked most of the questions and acted more like a prosecuting attorney than an impartial investigator, as had been the case in past investigations in New England. Hathorne also asked the girls to confront Sarah Good. When they accused her to her face, they immediately were beset by fits, which they said were caused by Good’s specter.

This 19th-century engraving illustrates one of the often dramatic judicial proceedings in the Salem witch trials of 1692. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

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Tituba eventually confessed, naming four other witches: Good, Osborne, and two others she did not know. She described the devil as a tall man in a black suit who had a yellow bird, and he carried a book he urged Tituba to sign. There were nine marks in the book, two by Good and Osborne. The devil promised to give her nice things if she obeyed him, but he also threatened to hurt her if she disobeyed him. Tituba then confessed to trying to kill children while she was in the form of a specter, a ghostly image, a visible disembodied spirit that haunts the mind. Tituba’s confession affected the outcome of the witch trials, because she supported the girls’ claims that they had seen specters, which made it possible for them to identify witches. The three women were sent to the Boston jail to await trial, but the magistrates in Salem Village continued to question the afflicted until the names of other witches and the grand wizard were revealed. Two weeks later, Ann Putnam Jr. and Abigail Williams named Martha Corey as a witch. Martha Corey was a woman who was respected in the village, and she attended church every Sabbath. She was arrested the day after Abigail Williams pointed out her specter. Martha Corey’s husband, Giles, was called to testify. He said that he found it hard to pray when she was around. He also said he would find her late at night by the hearth, kneeling mysteriously. This testimony was accepted as proof that Mrs. Corey was a witch. Mrs. Corey soon joined Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne in the Boston jail. She was the first “gospel woman” to be marked as a witch. Soon, Mary Warren was arrested. Abigail Williams said she had seen Mary sign the devil’s book. She said she had also seen her in specter form and that Warren had pinched and hurt her. Abigail and the others also accused John Proctor’s, wife, Elizabeth. When Proctor came to his wife’s defense, he also was arrested. Rebecca Nurse and her sisters Sarah Cloyce and Mary Easty also were arrested. All three were educated, devout Christians. In April , Sarah Good gave birth, and, a few weeks later, the baby died. Sarah Osborne also died while in jail. By the end of May , nearly  people had been arrested on charges of witchcraft. Bail was denied, and no one yet had been tried by a jury. Because Massachusetts Colony had just received a new charter from England in May , after eight years without one, no courts were established yet. The new governor, Sir William Phips, realized that the witchcraft trials could not wait until the previously planned date of January . So, on May , Governor Phips established a special Court of Oyer and Terminer with seven experienced and distinguished judges, headed by William Stoughton, Phips’s lieutenant governor. The court met June  and tried one person—Bridget Bishop. She had been charged of using witchcraft in April. She was a woman in her fifties who was twice widowed and who was married to a third husband. Rumor had it that she had been unfaithful to all three of her husbands. She had been accused with spectral evidence (two women testified that they had seen the devil enter her body), but that alone was not enough. Two laborers who had worked for her had found dolls with pins in them stuffed into holes in the cellar walls of her previous house. This was concrete evidence of the practice of witchcraft and made her conviction relatively easy. She was hanged on June , . However, such concrete evidence did not exist against the other accused witches. Apparently, other types of evidence were enough to convince the judges. Evidence accepted by the court included self-confession; accusation by others, including other

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accused witches; being caught in lies; inability to say the Lord’s Prayer without error; spectral evidence provided by the afflicted girls; and marks of the devil on the bodies of the accused. On June , five people were tried, convicted, and condemned to death—Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wildes. On July , they were all executed. The morning after, Rebecca Nurse’s body was missing. Her family had come and taken it for a secret Christian burial, although it was against the law to have a Christian burial for a condemned person. The other four bodies were dumped in a shallow grave near the gallows, at a place known as Gallows Hill. On August , the court sat again to consider the cases of six people—John and Elizabeth Proctor, George Burroughs, John Willard, George Jacobs Sr., and Martha Carrier. All were found guilty and sentenced to death. Elizabeth Proctor’s death was delayed because she was pregnant. By the time her baby was born, in January , the witch trials were over, so her life was spared. John Proctor wrote a letter to five area ministers on July , on behalf of himself and the other prisoners. He said that the community had condemned them before their trials and asked that the ministers intercede to have the venue of the trials or the judges changed. Governor Phips was the only one who could make any changes, but Proctor hoped to gain more influence than had been the case with Rebecca Nurse’s family, which had also sent a petition to the governor. Eight more people were hanged on September , , including Martha Corey. Giles Corey, her husband, had been crushed to death just three days earlier for refusing to enter a plea. They laid him down, placed a board over him, and stacked large flat rocks on top of him. They placed the rocks one on top of the other until his rib cage caved in, an agonizing death that took two days. Although there has been debate on the reasons he chose to die this way, it seems clear that it was done in protest against the court and its proceedings, since none of the accused witches had yet been found not guilty and he was bound to die in any case. The tide began to turn against the witch hunt for a number of reasons, including sympathy among the public for some of those condemned, such as Proctor, Corey, and George Burroughs, who was able to recite the Lord’s Prayer without error. Also, the afflicted girls began to accuse influential people, including the wife of Increase Mather, the president of Harvard College. He responded by writing Cases of Conscience. He warned of the danger of accusing innocent people of witchcraft, especially those in good standing in the church. A third reason was that the court was not accomplishing its purpose, which was to clear the jails. The more the court sat, the more crowded the jails became and the greater the disturbances in the community. The afflicted girls had gotten not better but worse. In the nearby town of Andover, where witchcraft accusations were spreading fast, an accused man of means sent friends around town to inquire who his accusers were so that he could sue them for defamation of character. Shortly thereafter, accusations were halted. The witch trial era lasted less than a year. The first arrests were made in March , and the final hanging day was September , . Jurors and magistrates apologized. Restitution was made to the victims’ families, and a Day of Fasting and Remembrance was instituted. Many of the girls, such as Ann Putnam Jr., later admitted that no evil

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hand had touched them. The girls had been enmeshed in the beliefs of the community and had become convinced that evil forces had bewitched them. To understand the issues of the Salem witch trials, it is important to place them into a broader historical context. As early as the fifth century, Saint Augustine saw sorcery and white magic as being dependent on the help of the devil. In the mid-th century, Saint Thomas Aquinas agreed with Saint Augustine. At this time, the Inquisition, composed mainly of members of the newly formed Dominican order, was formed to deal with heresy. The Dominicans were the first to use torture to gain confessions, and, by the late th century, this policy became the norm in secular courts as well. In , Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger published Malleus Maleficarum, or The Witches’ Hammer. They had been involved for more than five years in witchcraft trials that had resulted in nearly  executions. The Witches’ Hammer was written in the form of a handbook and was convenient for use by judges. It remained an important work for more than  years. Statistics vary, but the pace of prosecutions picked up in the last three-quarters of the th century and then skyrocketed from the last half of the th through the th centuries, reaching a peak in the last half of the th century. Between  and , there were  verified prosecutions, and this number increased to  between  and . In Europe, figures range as high as , executions for witchcraft, with  in the city of Bamburg and , in the province of Alsace,  in Trier,  in Eichstatt, and  in Ellwangen. The English and Swiss were more restrained, as were the American colonies. There were fewer than  executions in the American colonies during the th century, including those in Salem. The parallels between the Salem witch trials and more modern examples such as the McCarthy hearings of the s have also been studied. In , the town of Salem observed the tercentenary of the Salem witch trials. Among the many events in Salem that year, a memorial was dedicated, and Prof. Joseph Flibbert of Salem State College organized a conference that brought scholars to Salem from around the world to discuss the trials and other topics related to witchcraft. On September , , the First Church in Salem readmitted Giles Corey and Rebecca Nurse to church membership.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY frederick m. stowell At the beginning of the st century, American society has become jaded by stories of violence and the persistent images of this violence on television and in the media. Whether the images are generated by war, social unrest, or natural disaster, they have become commonplace as Americans expect more realism and graphic details in the reporting of current events. In this environment of information overload, the Salem witchcraft trials of  still hold the interest of the general public and generate analysis by social scientists, historians, and researchers. The events that occurred more than  years ago and affected a relatively small number of people have made Salem synonymous with witch hunts and mass hysteria. The significance of the trials in Salem,

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Massachusetts, is not earthshaking but subtle. It did not have the effect on society of the Declaration of Independence or the War of , yet it is still used as a benchmark by which to judge other occurrences of group hysteria. This traditional interpretation of a Massachusetts community in turmoil, generated more than a century ago, has become the popular image of the colonial witch hunt craze. The significance of the Salem witchcraft trials, however, is more than just the traditional interpretation of group hysteria. The trials are an opportunity to view the dynamics of a primitive frontier culture, established in a hostile environment, clinging to its European beliefs, and restricted by its dogmatic religious beliefs. While group hysteria played a part in the accusations of witchcraft and the resulting trials, the actual causes of the witch craze were rooted in the frontier society of the colony and its European traditions. Political instability, economic uncertainty and conflict, and the threat of war with the local Native American nations were clear and present concerns to the residents of Salem. Add to this the ingrained fear of a demonic presence and the dominant view among men that women were a threat to the church, the government, and the society, and it becomes apparent how an atmosphere of hysteria could develop and grow. To understand fully the significance of the  Salem witchcraft trials, it is necessary to understand the variety of historical interpretations and the influence of the period during which the interpretations were written. The earliest writings on the trials occurred shortly after the trials ended, in . Rev. Cotton Mather, a member of the Puritan hierarchy in Massachusetts, recorded the events leading up to the trials and the accusations and testimonies of the trials in an attempt to justify the verdicts. His own position was that the trials were justified and carried out within the laws of the colony and Christianity. His view was different from that of his father, Increase Mather, who preached moderation and rationality. A counterpoint to Cotton Mather’s writings was the work of Robert Calef, a Boston merchant who witnessed the trials and executions. In his book More Wonders of the Invisible World (), Calef suggests that the evil could be found not in the witchcraft but in the very trials themselves. In his view, the witch hunts and trials were “bigoted zeal” directed toward “virtuous and religious people.” The traditional view that attempted to fix blame for the trials developed from the writings of Charles Upham in . Salem Witchcraft, Upham’s two-volume interpretation of the original trial transcripts, attempted to focus blame on the “afflicted” girls as the leaders of a larger conspiracy against the accused witches. His contention became the popular cultural view that would influence the teaching of the event in American public schools for the next -odd years. In , Perry Miller delved into the meaning of being a Puritan and how that faith affected the lives of the colonists and laid the basis for the trials. This was an important connection for writers attempting to fully understand the reasons for the witch craze in New England and specifically Salem. Miller focused on the covenant or relationship the Puritans believed they had with God. As the Puritans worked to serve God and establish a community to do his will on earth, they truly believed that seeking out witches and destroying them was part of that covenant. When they realized that something had gone wrong with the trials, the foundation of this relationship with God came into question. Miller’s interpretation of this relationship and the resulting confusion of belief added to an increased understanding of the events.

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By the late s, other researchers began to take different approaches to the cause of the witch craze. Chadwick Hansen, in Witchcraft at Salem (), argued that witchcraft really did exist in Salem, as well as in other parts of New England. Folk magic was widely used by the early colonists, and the activities of the first afflicted girls in Salem were not out of the ordinary. Since the community believed in the power of magic and since some of the accused were admitted witches, then witchcraft must have existed. According to Hanson, the trials were justified in that context. Other views about the cause of the craze include a virus among the afflicted, the dominance of men and the low position of women in the society, the economic struggle between the rural and commercial centers of Salem Village and Salem Town, the demographics of the affected regions, and the power struggle within the community. All of these theories have developed since the s as more researchers have attempted to go beyond the trials and to look at the complex issues of the community. The idea that a virus was the cause was posited in  and has largely been discredited. The feminist approach, which Carol Karlsen first developed in Devil in the Shape of a Woman (), attempted to analyze the trial and accusations in light of late-th-century concepts about the treatment of women. From this point of view, the author expands the descriptions of the accused witches from disagreeable old hags to women who were guilty because they were different. She states that gender issues merged with religious issues and that these were seen to be transgressions against God. Displays of anger, temper, and discontent with the church all were seen as signs of an alliance with the devil. Additionally, women who practiced healing and midwifery, assisting in the birth process, were seen as threats to the developing male medical profession. Although midwifery was not a sign of demonic involvement, it was enough to bring suspicion upon the accused. Three researchers, John Demos, Paul Boyer, and Stephen Nissenbaum, attempted to go outside the actual trial and to look at the social environment of the community. Through their research, they developed a full picture of a community in turmoil. Taken together, their works explain why certain people became accusers and others became victims. The authors paint a picture of old animosities, lawsuits, and rivalries. It is through the view of these authors that a more detailed perspective of the community and the trials emerges. Even the heritage of Tituba, the Indian slave of Samuel Parris, has been traced as far back as her documented origin in the Caribbean. Details of plantation life in the islands that influenced Tituba and, ultimately, Salem have been reconstructed through diligent research. The events of  in Salem, Massachusetts, have provided Americans with an example of a community gripped by group hysteria. This traditional and very general view was originally created in the writing of Charles Upham in  and then incorporated into the massive History of the United States (–), by George Bancroft. From there it found its way into the history texts of American public schools and into American popular culture. The image of young girls writhing in pain, afflicted by unknown demons, and stern-faced Puritan men in austere black clothing sitting in judgment of haggard old women made its way into American culture in art, in literature, and on stage. Instilled into the collective memory of Americans, the Salem trials have become a benchmark for any similar event where unfounded accusations lead to the suffering of innocent victims. It has provided a perfect example of people who are seen as guilty

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until proved innocent. The playwright Arthur Miller used it for the theme of his play The Crucible (), which was also an analogy for the anticommunist movement of the early s. The image of the “witch hunt” has been used to refer to the anticommunist Red Scare of both the post–World War I years and the McCarthyism of the early s. In the former event, Americans were accused of association with the Communist Party and, in some cases, deported. During the latter, those accused of communist ties were hounded out of positions of authority in the government or jobs in the private sector. McCarthyism, named for the U.S. senator who led the anticommunist movement, has come to mean accusations lodged publicly against a person for which there is either no evidence of guilt or only evidence of guilt by association. Additionally, the Salem trials have provided an intimate view of the much greater witch craze that had gripped Europe during the th and th centuries. The accusations of  people and the deaths of  accused witches in Salem was much more personal than the deaths of an estimated , people in Europe. The accused, the accusers, and the magistrates in Salem are known by name, and their words reverberate from the trial transcripts. The examinations by William Stoughton, chief justice of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, the accusations of Ann Putnam Jr., the denials of Mary Easty, and even the silence of Giles Corey all provide a personal view of the participants. The events of Salem also show the influence of the European-based superstitions on the colonists. The actions of the first accusers, Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, and Ann Putnam Jr., were based on European superstition and not the supposed voodoo of Tituba, Samuel Parris’s Caribbean Indian slave. The practice of fortune-telling through the reading of eggs dropped in a glass was part of English folklore and not unusual in the Puritan communities of North America. So the girls were simply following an established magical practice that had migrated with the Puritans from England. If the popular view of Salem has been one of mass hysteria, the reality of the situation was somewhat different. The events of Salem can be viewed as the result of an unstable environment, composed of political uncertainty, threats of war, and the fear of change, that generated an atmosphere of fear within the community. That fear found its focal point in the witch hunts and trials. At the beginning of the Salem witch craze, the Massachusetts colony was without a charter, a governor, or a legally recognized government. The original charter, issued in , had been revoked by King Charles II in  in an attempt to increase English control over the profitable American colonies. With the ascension of James II, brother of King Charles II, to the throne, Massachusetts became part of the Dominion of New England, made up of New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Plymouth, and part of Maine. In , King James II appointed Sir Edmund Andros to govern the new dominion. Andros began to govern with a heavy hand, imposing taxes without legislative approval, challenging all land titles, and allowing religious dissent in the formerly Puritan stronghold of Massachusetts. This threat of change caused a fear within the Puritan leadership as it saw its control slipping away. With the Glorious Revolution in England and Parliament’s overthrow of James II, in , the colonists who hoped for a return to the status quo ousted Andros. The interim government, called the Council of Safety and made up of Boston merchants and magistrates, would lead the colony until the arrival of the new governor and charter in , four months after the start of the witch hunt. In this environment of political instability, the

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accusations and arrests of witches took place in a vacuum lacking a legal framework. Without the guidance and justification of law, the magistrates found the necessary validation for their actions in the word of God. Throughout the colony, fear of impending war with the local Native American Nations was also spreading. King Philip’s War of –, massacres at Lancaster in , and the Native American involvement in King William’s War, in , were all part of recent memory. Rumors were rampant in  that the Native Americans were preparing to mount another assault on the colonists. In addition, early settlers believed that there was a Satanic presence that permeated Native American life. This belief even spilled over into the accusation of Capt. John Alden as a witch. He became suspect of witchcraft through his association with the Native Americans. Prior to the trials, he had worked to create a better relationship between the colonists and the Native Americans. Add to this the belief that the Native Americans were in league with the devil, and there is little wonder that the residents of Salem were on edge. Fear was also part of the Puritan faith. Fear of the devil was instilled through the sermons of the church leaders and parish preachers. In Boston, the sermons of Cotton Mather were filled with warnings of the power of the devil and the existence of evil in the world, an evil that was a direct threat to the Puritan vision of a holy utopia in the new world. The Salem preacher, Rev. Samuel Parris, invoked the threat of the devil in his sermons to explain the turmoil within his own parish prior to the witch hunts. And it was not difficult to maintain this fear of evil: the belief in the devil and witchcraft was real for the European settlers. On the basis of biblical passages, Puritans were certain that the devil walked the earth and, in particular, Massachusetts. Worse yet, they believed that women, weak and easily coerced, could be seduced by the devil. According to Puritan beliefs, women were unable to resist the devil and therefore were subject to the ways of witchcraft. Finding its roots in the Bible, this belief dated from the telling of the story of Eve, the snake, and the Garden of Eden. This belief explains the fact that the majority of the accused and convicted witches in Salem, in the rest of the colonies, and in Europe were women. Finally, the fear of change infected the participants. The arrival of Gov. William Phips and the new charter, in May , signaled that the Puritans had lost local political control. Not only were the Puritan leaders concerned over the loss of political power, but they also worried about the threat posed by women. The male-dominated Puritan society was afraid of any woman who was different, strong-willed, questioning of authority, even argumentative. Anne Hutchinson, who had questioned the authority of the Puritan church in Massachusetts, had been excommunicated and exiled to Rhode Island in . This would be an omen for the deadly events of . The male leadership also feared the change that was apparent in the commercial success that Salem Town was undergoing while the members of the rural Salem Village languished in an economic backwater. Finally, the Puritans were grasped by fear caused by the loss of control as non-Puritans migrated to the colony and began to demand equal authority and rights. This loss of control began with the heavy-handed authority of Gov. Sir Edmund Andros. He attempted to established the presence of the Anglican Church in Boston, the seat of Puritanism, and to legislate religious tolerance in the colony. His actions would be an omen for the change that would come. All of this fear added to the desire to find a reason why God had apparently forsaken his people and allowed the devil to reign in Massachusetts.

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The events of  also provide the validation for the theory of separation of church and state. The Massachusetts colony has been referred to as a theocracy, a governmental form where the state religion provides the leadership for the government. This was not quite true of Massachusetts. Elected officials did not have to be members of the clergy. However, the right to vote was restricted to male members of the Puritan Church, and the laws were filled with scriptural references to justify this arrangement. Scripture was used to validate beliefs not only in male dominance and the divine right of the Puritans, as they saw it, but also in the evil incarnate in women. This merging of law and scripture allowed for the most flagrant violation of individual rights during the Salem witchcraft trials, the use of spectral evidence in the accusation of the afflicted. Spectral evidence, the concept that the afflicted had been visited by an image of the accused, was the basis for all of the guilty judgments save those accused persons who admitted their guilt. Founded in English law, it allowed for the unsubstantiated claim of one individual against another without the opportunity for the victim to prove otherwise. Because witchcraft was considered a capital offense, the accused were denied the right to legal counsel. As one author put it, the accused were required to “defend against the indefensible.” The judges sincerely believed that the trials were held in an enlightened and rational manner, using scientific principles of law and humane behavior. Besides the spectral evidence, the presence of physical marks, called the devil’s mark, on the bodies of the accused was used to prove guilt. Finally, the existence of the witch’s teat, a third nipple allegedly used to suckle the witch’s “familiar,” was certain evidence that the accused was part of the devil’s coven. Familiars were usually cats, dogs, or even toads who helped the witch in her work with the devil. Accused witches were forced to submit to humiliating searches by female matrons as the magistrates sought solid evidence. In late May , physical searches were made of six of the accused. Bridget Bishop, Rebecca Nurse, and Elizabeth Proctor were all found to have marks. The other three, Susannah Martin, Sarah Good, and Alice Parker, were free of blemishes. In a second search later in the day, the marks on Bishop and Proctor had disappeared. This remarkable discovery was seen as further proof that the women were witches. Of these six women, only Elizabeth Proctor would escape execution, and then only because she was pregnant. One major influence on the trials was the Puritan concept of redemption through repentance. Sinners who asked forgiveness and admitted their failings were perceived as able to return to God’s grace. Individuals who stood by their faith and denied any failings were seen as denying the grace of God. During the witchcraft trials, the accused who admitted their guilt were spared execution. Some even became witnesses against other accused witches, including their wives and husbands. Those who denied their guilt, as did Rebecca Nurse, were found guilty and punished. In the case of Giles Corey, who refused to plead innocent or guilty, English law and not Puritan beliefs sealed his fate. Corey was crushed to death from the weight of rocks placed upon his chest. The rocks that were intended to force a plea from him resulted only in his silent death. Finally, and perhaps most important, the events of Salem provided a documented example of community life and relations in colonial America. Initially, this view was limited to the analysis of the trial documents, which illustrated the activities of the legal system and the Puritan views on witchcraft. With the passing of time, Salem became the laboratory for social scientists who investigated other aspects of community life in

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search of causes for the witch craze. The influence of Puritan belief, the effects of sermons, and the influence of the clergy on the lives of people were studied. In particular, the sermons and writings of Cotton Mather and Samuel Parris were analyzed. Mather and Parris have both been held responsible for helping to create the atmosphere of fear that permeated Massachusetts. The responses of Robert Calef and John Hale provided the opposing view of clergy who questioned the trials and the guilt of the accused. The writings of each of the clergy provided an intimate view of the dominance of religion in local life. Local politics, which illustrated the conflict between the agricultural Salem Village and the commercial Salem Town, became the focus of interest in the s as researchers sought further causes for the craze. The people of Salem Village felt that they were losing control and were being overshadowed by the economically successful Salem Town. Researchers found that a pattern of accusations of witches correlated with times of economic troubles. Also apparent were the local power struggles between groups within the village that supported or disliked Rev. Samuel Parris. Documents describing lawsuits, land claims, and debts created a network that also followed the network of accusers, accused, witnesses, and supporters. Researchers have prepared maps defining the residence of each participant in the witch craze and genealogical charts showing the family relationships. Of the  men accused,  were closely related to the accused women. Eight other men were accused through more casual association with the women. The relative position of people in Massachusetts society also became apparent. At first, the list of the accused included only the poor and widowed. As the spring of  turned into summer, the list began to include members of the economic elite whose piety and status were firmly established. Rebecca Nurse, wife of a respected landowner, was accused and executed despite her piety and her reputation within the community. George Burroughs, the former Salem Village minister, also became a victim of the trials. When this pattern started to develop, it became apparent that the accusers could no longer be believed, and something had to be done. When Gov. William Phips’s wife was accused, he called a halt to the proceedings, disbanded the Court of Oyer and Terminer, ceased all executions, and finally pardoned those still in jail. The Salem witch craze and the ensuing trials may have had neither the devastating effect on people that the European witch hunts did nor a direct effect on the overall social, economic, political, legal, or international climate in colonial America. However, the trials did provide a traditional example for group hysteria that found its way into the American self-image. Beyond that, the trials have continued to provide an intimate and detailed view of early colonial America and the difficulties of living on the frontier far from the accepted way of life. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . An excellent source for understanding the social background of the witch craze and trials. ———. The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of . New York: Da Capo, . The currently accepted source for the official trial transcripts.

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Breslaw, Elaine G. Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem—Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies. New York: New York University Press, . A well-researched book on the origins of the slave Tituba and an interpretation of her part in the witch craze and trials. Demos, John P. Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England. New York: Oxford University Press, . A view of witchcraft in th-century New England from the historical, sociological, psychological, and biographical perspectives. Drake, Samuel, G., comp. The Witchcraft Delusion in New England. New York: B. Franklin, . This volume includes Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, an early () account of the Salem witch trials by one who considered them to be evil. Hall, David D., ed. Puritanism in Seventeenth Century Massachusetts. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, . A collection of essays by various authors on Puritan beliefs in Massachusetts. Hansen, Chadwick. Witchcraft at Salem. New York: George Braziller, . Takes the view that witchcraft did exist in Salem and that the hysteria was a real affliction for the accusers. Hill, Frances. A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. New York: Da Capo, . A recent retelling of the story that is very subjective but does not break any new ground or provide a substantially different interpretation. Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman. New York: W. W. Norton, . Provides a feminist view of the trials, emphasizing a male dominant society and its effect on the outcome of the trials. Klaits, Joseph. Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, . A good source for the broader historical context of the Salem witch trials. Mappen, Marc, ed. Witches and Historians: Interpretations of Salem. Huntington, CA: Robert E. Krieger, . A series of essays by various historians comparing the shifting interpretations of the causes of the Salem witch trials. Marshall, Richard. Witchcraft: The History and Mythology. New York: Crescent Books, . An illustrated volume on the history of witchcraft to the present that includes a chapter on the Salem trial. Miller, Arthur. The Crucible, a Play in Four Acts. New York: Viking, . The celebrated stageplay about the Salem witch trials that many saw as a commentary on contemporary McCarthyism and its “witch” hunts. Miller, Perry. The New England Mind: From Colony to Province. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . An explanation of the Puritan intellectual and social world of the th century. Morrison, Dane Anthony, and Nancy Lusignan Schultz, eds. Salem: Place, Myth, and Memory. Boston: Northeastern University Press, . Collection of essays about Salem that goes well beyond the witch trials. Norton, Mary Beth. In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of . New York: Knopf, . A leading feminist historian’s analysis of the Salem witch trials and their possible connection with the Indian wars of the time. Upham, Charles W. Salem Witchcraft. New York: Frederick Ungar, . Originally published in , this is the traditional view of the Salem event from the group hysteria standpoint.

COTTON MATHER (1663–1728) Father and son, Increase Mather and Cotton Mather were prominent Puritan leaders and ministers. Of the two, Cotton was the more famous—indeed, perhaps the most famous of all the Puritans. He played a leading role in the transition from extreme religious orthodoxy to a more secular outlook in New England.

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Mather was born on February , , in Boston. By his own account, he “began to pray, even when [he] began to speak.” Entering Harvard College at the age of  (the youngest student the college had ever admitted), he graduated in . Fearful that his habit of stammering would interfere with his preaching, he studied medicine for a time before earning his master’s degree from Harvard in . By , he had overcome his stammer enough to begin preaching. Five years later, he was ordained and joined his father in the pulpit of the Second Church of Boston, holding this position until his death. As minister of this church, one of the largest in Boston, Mather earned a reputation for his pastoral care. He was the first American minister to organize clubs for young people, and he started the practice of making regular calls on elderly and ill church members and on prisoners. He also helped set up a school for the education of slaves and organized efforts to promote peace, build churches in poor communities, provide relief for needy ministers, and establish missions among the Native Americans. Mather’s role in the Salem witchcraft trials of  has been much debated. An intensely religious and introspective man given to swooning and to moments of sudden illumination, he had a strong sense of evil and of the power of the devil, which he believed could result in diabolical possession. In , he published Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, which, along with two other works on the subject, probably helped foster an awareness of witchcraft that may have contributed to the Salem hysteria. Yet, at the time of the actual trials, Mather wrote a statement to the judges, warning them about the overuse of “spectral evidence” (whereby witnesses claimed to see specters of accused witches, and judges accepted their testimony without question) and advising punishments milder than execution. Nevertheless, he gave his full support to the proceedings. After the trials and executions ended in late , Mather vehemently defended the verdicts, both in speech and in print, particularly in his book Wonders of the Invisible World (). Yet, later still, in his most famous work, Magnalia Christi Americana (), a monumental ecclesiastical history of New England, Mather presented the Salem witchcraft trials as having unjustly condemned to death many innocent people. After , Mather’s influence diminished somewhat because of the trend away from Puritan dominance and also because of his own hot temper and arrogance. Although he had hoped to follow in his father’s footsteps as president of Harvard, Mather was denied this honor. In , when the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature, consisting largely of religious conservatives, appointed Mather president, their action was overruled by the more liberal upper house. Thereafter, Mather looked to a new educational institution to be the stronghold of Congregational orthodoxy, persuading Elihu Yale to contribute generously to it and convincing the governor of Connecticut to name the college after Yale. Although at the outset of his career Mather bitterly attacked those with differing religious beliefs, he grew more tolerant with age. He even boasted that his church had welcomed into the fold not only Anglicans but also Baptists, Presbyterians, and Lutherans. Also, toward the end of his life, Mather began to expound doctrines that placed him at a distance from the strict Calvinism of his youth and closer to the deism of the th century with its emphasis on a rationally ordered universe and a benevolent God.

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An even more prolific author than his father, Mather wrote more than  books, cementing his reputation not only as a religious leader but also as a man of letters and a scientist, made evident in The Christian Philosopher () and other works. He had a wide-ranging curiosity about the natural world and saw no conflict between his religious beliefs and science, because, in his view, an understanding of nature was the best cure for atheism. He conducted many experiments of his own and published the results, including one of the earliest known descriptions of plant hybridization. Mather’s concern with the useful in everyday life produced such observations as “The very wheelbarrow is to be with respect looked upon.” In this, he anticipated Benjamin Franklin, who claimed that Mather’s essays had provided the inspiration for many of his own practical devices. Mather corresponded with some of Europe’s leading scientists and was a great admirer of Sir Isaac Newton. In , he became one of the few American colonists to be elected to the Royal Society of London. In , when smallpox broke out in Boston, Mather advocated inoculation despite the protests of most physicians, the general populace, and some clergy, who regarded it as both a dangerous and a godless practice. Mather’s role in the inoculation campaign, together with his many other activities, reflected the tireless zeal with which he worked for what he considered to be the best interests of others. Mather died in Boston on February , , at the age of .

william mcguire and leslie wheeler INCREASE MATHER (1639–1723) Increase Mather, father of the prominent Puritan leader Cotton Mather, was, like his more famous son, well regarded in his lifetime; he gained tremendous influence and respect for his judgment and intellect. Increase was born on June , , in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the son of Richard Mather, first pastor of the Dorchester Church. Raised a strict Puritan, he graduated from Harvard College in  and received his master’s degree from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, in . After preaching in England and on the island of Guernsey, he returned to Boston in . In , he became minister of the Second Church of Boston, a position he held for the rest of his life. Chosen a fellow of Harvard in , Mather served as president with the title of rector from  to . He encouraged the study of science at Harvard but stood firm against efforts to undermine the college’s strict Congregationalism. From  to , Mather served as an able ambassador for the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the courts of Kings James II and William III while the colony’s original charter was being renegotiated. A prolific writer, Mather produced more than  books and pamphlets, including A Brief History of the War with the Indians () and Remarkable Providences (). Unlike his son, Mather was cautious during the Salem witchcraft trials of  and . In Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (), he argued against the use of “spectral evidence,” maintaining that it was better for  guilty witches to escape than for  innocent person to die. The tract made an impression on Gov. William Phips and helped end the trials.

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In , Mather joined his son Cotton in advocating inoculation for smallpox despite the opposition of laypersons and many doctors. He died in Boston two years later, on August , , at the age of .

william mcguire and leslie wheeler PURITAN FAMILY The Puritans’ concept of covenant helps to explain their understanding of the family and the role and rights of women within the family and society. The Puritans rejected the Catholic idea—also shared by the Church of England and most Protestants—that marriage was a sacrament, but morality had a firm place in their concept of marriage. For the Puritans, marriage was a contract and a set of mutual obligations and responsibilities, and the home—which included extended family, servants, and others who lived with it—was a symbol in miniature of their idea of community. In Connecticut and in Plymouth, Massachusetts, it was illegal for any single person to live alone, and, if anyone was found doing so, he or she would be assigned to a family in the community. Hierarchy also existed within Puritan families and is reflected in the Puritan custom that parents and children would not eat together. Children whose parents could not control them would be removed to other families that could. It is widely believed that men and women married early in life during the early modern period, but Puritans did not tend to do so. In the first century of their settlement in New England, the average age at marriage for Puritan men was  years, and for women it was about  years. The percentage of the New England Puritan population that entered into marriage was also extremely high: less than  percent of women and  percent of men remained single; in contrast, up to  percent of the non-Puritan English population were unable or unwilling to marry during this same era. For the Puritans, marriage was a contract that should be performed in front of a civil, not a religious, authority, and both parties had the right to divorce if the terms of the marriage covenant were violated. Marriage carried serious social obligations, and families were tightly knit through a complex web of relationships. Yet, marriages were not arranged by parents, though parental approval was required. However, the law stipulated that children could sue their parents for unreasonably withholding permission to marry. The prolonged absence of a spouse, physical mistreatment, abuse of children, neglect, and adultery were all grounds for divorce within Puritan law, and women were allowed to hold property independently, even after marriage. Sexuality was regarded as an important and healthy part of marriage, though contraception was condemned, and the civil punishment for fornication, for which men were often punished more severely than women, was harsh. Sexual deviancy of any kind was not tolerated and was often punishable by death. Although women were the majority among those admitted to church congregations in Puritan New England and were regarded as equally capable of holiness and salvation, the ministry was restricted to men only. Men and women were punished equally for the same crimes, as court records from the period reveal, and communities were intolerant of domestic quarrels, often stepping in to intervene. Disciplining children, often through public humiliation, was also an essential part of Puritan culture. Again, these attitudes all reflect the Puritan concern with covenant—that the behavior of individuals in the

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community affects their collective relationship before God. Civil authorities in early New England passed laws forbidding not just sexual crimes but also blasphemy, drunkenness, gambling, and violations of the sanctity of the Sabbath through inappropriate behavior. Rooting out ungodly behavior among the citizenry was an important concern if the community as a whole was going to keep its communal covenant with God. Puritans are often represented in illustrations as wearing only black and gray, but in reality they seldom wore black and instead preferred what they called “sadd” colors. This included green, rust, orange, purple, brown, and other dark colors. In the th century, black was the color of formal garments and was thought to be inappropriate to the simplicity preferred by the Puritans. The Puritans, unlike their Quaker neighbors who arrived to the south in Pennsylvania during the s, used clothing as a marker of social status. Black was appropriate to the leaders of the colony, including ministers, who often added lace and other indicators of privilege to their costumes. Sumptuary laws were even passed by the leaders of the colony, specifically banning the wearing of gold and silver or silk lace and of certain other popular fashions from Europe. Eventually, these sumptuary laws forbade those of the lower social classes to wear clothing inappropriate to their station. In general, Puritans emphasized simplicity and modesty in their clothing, though these standards shifted during the late th and early th centuries. This ideal of simplicity extended beyond clothing to architectural styles and to the decoration—or, rather, lack of it—in Puritan churches, which included no artwork and were built in the most severe, plain form possible. An unusual exception to this prohibition against religious art, which was seen as an excess deriving from Catholicism, was tombstone art, which is one of the most interesting and distinctive Puritan cultural contributions. Primitive-looking angel faces or skulls—sometimes with wings attached—were often carved into tombstones in Puritan cemeteries, many of which can still be seen today. Puritan conceptions of time and work also help illustrate the values that were most important to them. The government of the Massachusetts Bay colony went so far as to make time wasting illegal in  and prosecuted several persons for this crime over the next few years. Time was a commodity to Puritans, who placed much emphasis on material success in this life, which they believed to be a sign of God’s favor. Another important time-related value was “improving the time,” which was quite distinctive among the Puritans. Life was clearly marked by minutes, hours, days, and seasons. The most important among these periods of time was the Sabbath, the violation of which was punishable by law. Offenses against the Sabbath could include intercourse between married couples, fruit picking, tobacco smoking, and even performing excess work, including brewing one’s beer. While Puritans observed the Sabbath and held public thanksgivings, they did not celebrate Christmas, believing it to be too much a remnant of Catholic-style feasts. By , Thanksgiving Day became a regular, annual holiday, the first such feast having been held in . By the late s, however, this celebration was moved to the fall and included fasting, which was followed by a feast. Alcoholic beverages, especially hard cider and other forms of beer, were usually served at these events, but drunkenness, condemned in the Bible, was never acceptable to the Puritans. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter is accurate at least in its depiction of the fictional character Hester Prynne, who is forced to wear a letter “A” as a punishment

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for her crime of adultery. Those convicted of committing such sins were regularly forced to wear such badges: a D for drunkenness, a B for blasphemy, and so on. Punishment often included being locked in the stocks, a device located in a public place that locked the head, hands, and feet while townspeople heaped humiliation on the criminal. Whipping, scarring, and maiming—including the cutting off of ears or other mutilations of the face—were also forms of punishment handed down by Puritan authorities, who used hanging as the most extreme form of punishment. Heresy, blasphemy, and witchcraft were among the crimes that received capital punishment.

john a. grigg

SAMUEL SEWALL (1652–1730) A prominent Puritan merchant and judge, Samuel Sewall presided over the Salem witchcraft trials and was the only judge to later admit the error of his decisions that sent  people to their deaths. The voluminous diary he left behind has made him the focus of many historical studies and provides an invaluable record of early colonial life. Sewall was born in Bishopstoke, Hampshire, England, on March , . He sailed with his family to Boston when he was nine years old. His father, Henry Sewall, and mother, Jane Dummer Sewall, quickly became enmeshed in the upper-class life of the Massachusetts colony. They sent their son to Harvard College, from which he graduated in . Like many other scholars at the school, Sewall devoted most of his time to the study of law and divinity and very nearly became a minister. His deep affection for the Puritan religion would always remain with him. With background and connections, Sewall was able to secure many important positions in Massachusetts, including manager of the colonial printing press (–), member of the Governor’s Council (–), and chief justice of the Superior Court (–). He also served as captain of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company and as an overseer of Harvard College. Sewall’s marriage to Hannah Hull on February , , sealed his place in Boston society. His wife’s father, John Hull, was the colony’s mint master and probably the richest and most powerful man in the city at the time. The couple eventually had  children, although many of them died at an early age. When his father-in-law died, in , Sewall became a very wealthy man, as he took control of his wife’s family estate and the merchandising business. He continued in the business for nearly a decade before his other duties took precedence, and then neglected his merchant business. In , Massachusetts governor William Phips, on being informed about suspected witches in the town of Salem, named seven special commissioners to investigate the charges. William Stoughton was named chief justice of the court, and Sewall was one of the seven named to sit on the bench. Most Puritans and other religious people of the time believed wholeheartedly in the existence of witches who served the devil. Therefore, Sewall felt it his duty to serve on the court. The judges heard case after case of hysterical or “crazed” children in the town who were supposedly being pursued by witches. The minister’s own daughter and niece were among the accusers. Although history has treated harshly those judges and villagers

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who, in a paranoid fashion, condemned to death the  accused witches, it seems that the children may have been convincing actors. Among other strange actions, they would shake and convulse whenever they were shown a book of catechism or other religious works. As time passed, though, and Sewall looked back on his actions, he felt more and more strongly that he and the other judges had been swept up by the hysteria of the trials and had condemned to death innocent people. On January , , he stood before the congregation at the Old South Church in Boston while his confession of guilt was read aloud by the pastor: “Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself and family; and being sensible, that as to the Guilt contracted upon the opening of the late Commission of Oyer and Terminer at Salem . . . he is, upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of, Desires to take the Blame and shame of it, Asking pardon of men.” After the trials, Sewall took his seat on the Massachusetts Superior Court, which meant he had to ride the circuit to hear cases around the Boston area. He was always welcomed throughout the colony and was often invited to address local Puritan congregations. His wife, Hannah, died on October , , after nearly  years of marriage. Sewall remarried the widow Tilly soon after Hannah’s death, but Tilly died unexpectedly after just eight months of marriage. He was next wed to Mary Gibbs, also a widow, on March , . She would outlive him. To the delight of historians, Sewall committed his thoughts to his diary for more than a half-century. Sewall kept the diary from December  through October , although one book, covering about seven years, has never been discovered. The diary is truly one of the most important documents that has survived from its time. Not only is the reader able to follow the events of Sewall’s life, but one can also understand what it was like to be a colonial Puritan. Sewall writes of the everyday events of Boston: the deaths and births, the controversies and celebrations, and the sicknesses that often swept through town. Sewall wrote other books, too, including one of the earliest appeals against slavery, The Selling of Joseph, published in . Sewall also argued for the humane treatment of Native Americans and put many of his thoughts down in A Memorial Relating to the Kennebeck Indians, published in . A man in his seventies at the time of his third marriage, Sewall began to cut back on his duties. He died at the age of  on January , , and was buried in the Hull tomb in the Old Granary Burying Ground in Boston, where his parents and wife were also buried.

john vile DOCUMENT: COTTON MATHER: WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD, 1693 The leading minister in colonial New England, Cotton Mather distinguished himself as a theologian, scholar, author, public speaker, and popular leader. His  book Wonders of the Invisible World was widely considered

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throughout New England as the most important scholarly work on witchcraft ever to appear in print. Mather was an ardent believer in the pervasiveness of witchcraft in colonial society and had vigorously supported the Salem witchcraft trials of the previous year. An excerpt of the book appears below. (Mather, Cotton, The Wonders of the Invisible World [Boston: Harris for Phillips, ].) Martha Carrier was indicted for the bewitching of certain persons, according to the form usual in such cases, pleading not guilty to her indictment. There were first brought in a considerable number of the bewitched persons, who not only made the court sensible of an horrid witchcraft committed upon them, but also deposed that it was Martha Carrier or her shape that grievously tormented them by biting, pricking, pinching, and choking of them. It was further deposed that while this Carrier was on her examination before the magistrates, the poor people were so tortured that everyone expected their death upon the very spot, but that upon the binding of Carrier they were eased. . . . Benjamin Abbot gave in his testimony that last March was a twelve-month this Carrier was very angry with him upon laying out some land near her husband’s. . . . Presently after this he was taken with a swelling in his foot, and then with a pain in his side, and exceedingly tormented. It bred unto a sore, which was lanced by Doctor Prescot, and several gallons of corruption ran out of it. For six weeks it continued very bad; and then another sore bred in his groin, which was also lanced by Doctor Prescot. Another sore then bred in his groin, which was likewise cut, and put him to very great misery. He was brought unto death’s door and so remained until Carrier was taken and carried away by the constable, from which very day he began to mend and so grew better every day and is well ever since. Allin Toothaker testified that Richard, the son of Martha Carrier, having some difference with him, pulled him down by the hair of the head. When he rose again, he was going to strike at Richard Carrier, but fell down flat on his back to the ground and had not power to stir hand or foot until he told Carrier he yielded; and then he saw the shape of Martha Carrier go off his breast. . . . Phebe Chandler testified that about a fortnight before the apprehension of Martha Carrier, on a Lord’s day while the psalm was singing in the church, this Carrier then took her by the shoulder and shaking her asked her where she lived. She made no answer, although as Carrier, who lived next door to her father’s house, could not in reason but know who she was. Quickly after this, as she was at several times crossing the fields, she heard a voice that she took to be Martha Carrier’s; and it seemed as if it was over her head. The voice told her she should within two or three days be poisoned. Accordingly, within such a little time, one half of her right hand became greatly swollen and very painful, as also part of her face—whereof she can give no account how it came. It continued very bad for some days, and several times since she has had a greater pain in her breast and been so seized on her legs that she has hardly been able to go. She added that lately, going well to the house of God, Richard, the son of Martha Carrier, looked very earnestly upon her; and immediately her hand, which had formerly been poisoned, as is said above, began to pain her greatly; and she had a strange burning at her stomach, but was then struck deaf so that she could not hear any of the prayer or singing till the two or three last words of the psalm. . . .

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One Lacy, who likewise confessed her share in this witchcraft, now testified that she and the prisoner were once bodily present at a witch meeting in Salem village, and that she knew the prisoner to be a witch and to have been at a diabolical sacrament, and that the prisoner was the undoing of her and her children by enticing them into the snare of the devil. . . . In the time of this prisoner’s trial, one Susanna Sheldon in open court had her hands unaccountable tied together with a wheel band so fast that without cutting it could not be loosened. It was done by a specter, and the sufferer affirmed that it was the prisoner’s. Memorandum: This rampant hag, Martha Carrier, was the person of whom the confession of the witches and of her own children among them are agreed that the devil had promised she should be queen of hell.

DOCUMENT: DEATH WARRANT OF FIVE WOMEN CONVICTED OF WITCHCRAFT IN SALEM, 1692 This death warrant for Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susanna Martin, Elizabeth How, and Sarah Wild was one of several handed down during the Salem witchcraft trials of  in Salem, Massachusetts. All of these women had been condemned to hang for being witches. Their executions, later in the month of July, caused a storm of controversy, particularly as Nurse was a well-respected member of the church whom many had difficulty in believing was guilty of witchcraft. In all,  people were hanged as witches and  person was pressed to death by heavy stones during questioning before the trials ended in October . (Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum, eds., The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of , vol. II [New York: Da Capo Press, ].) To George Corwine Gent’n High Sheriff of the county of Essex Whereas Sarah Good Wife of William Good of Salem Village Rebecka Nurse wife of Francis Nurse of Salem Village Susanna Martin of Amesbury Widow Elizabeth How wife of James How of Ipswich Sarah Wild wife of John Wild of Topsfield all of the County of Essex in thier Maj’ts Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England Att A Court of Oyer & Terminer held by Adjournment for Our Severaign Lord & Lady Kind Wiliam & Queen Mary for the said County of Essex at Salem in the s’d County onf the th day of June [torn] were Severaly arrigned on Several Indictments for the horrible Crime of Witchcraft by them practised & Committed On Severall persons and pleading not guilty did for thier Tryall put themselves on God & Thier Countrey whereupon they were Each of them found & brought in Guilty by the Jury that passed On them according to their respective Indictments and Sentence of death did then pass upon them as the Law directs Execution whereof yet remains to be done: Those are Therefore in thier Maj’ties name William & Mary now King & Queen over England &ca: to will & Command you that upon Tuesday next being the th day for [torn] Instant July between the houres of Eight & [torn] in [torn] forenoon the same day you Safely conduct the s’d

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Sarah Good Rebecka Nurse Susann Martin Elizabeth Howe & Sarah Wild From thier Maj’ties goal in Salem afores’d to the place of Execution & there Cause them & Every of them to be hanged by the Neck untill they be dead and of the doings herein make return to the Clerke of the said Court & this precept and hereof you are not to fail at your perill and this Shall be your sufficient Warrant given under my hand & seale at Boston th ’t day of July in the fourth year of Reign of our Soveraigne Lord & Layd Wm & Mary King and Queen &ca: [signed] Wm Stoughton Annoq Dom.  [Reverse] Salem July th  I caused the within mentioned persons to be Executed according to the Tenour of the with[in] warrant [signed] George Corwin Sherif

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APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND PEOPLE

Act of Toleration (). During the Glorious Revolution, Parliament approved this measure, which allowed dissenting Protestants freedom from attending Church of England services and the right to attend their own church. The act granted other rights to Protestant dissenters and their ministers, but Roman Catholics were not covered under its provisions. Baltimore, Lord [Charles Calvert] (–). Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore, was the Catholic proprietor of Maryland from  to , although much of his political power was removed after the Glorious Revolution. He was the grandson of George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, to whom King Charles I granted the territory in the s. Charles II (–). King of England (–) after the end of the English Civil War (–). He worked to reunify England after the civil war, fought trade wars with the Dutch, and battled with Parliament over questions of religious toleration. Charles IX (–). Short-lived, weak-minded King of France (–), Charles IX was on the throne when Admiral Gaspard de Coligny sent a Huguenot expedition to establish a colony in Florida. Council of Trade and Plantations. Established by King Charles II in  to handle colonial matters but replaced by the Board of Trade and Plantations, a Parliamentary committee, after the Glorious Revolution. Declaration of Indulgence (). Issued by King James II of England, this granted Catholics freedom from penalties to which they had been liable if they practiced their religion. This and subsequent pro-Catholic actions of the king led to the Glorious Revolution. English Civil War. From  to , the English fought a civil war to settle the question of who was to rule: the king in an absolute manner or a combination of the king and Parliament sharing power. Religious issues also figured prominently. Parliamentary forces triumphed, culminating in the execution of King Charles I in . After a decade or so of Parliamentary rule, royal forces regained the upper hand, only to relinquish it permanently in the Glorious Revolution of –.

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Ferdinand II (–) and Isabella I (–). King and queen of Spain following the union of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, in . They sponsored Columbus’s first three voyages, drove Jews who would not convert to Catholicism from Spain, and finished the reconquista, the process of expelling Muslims, or Moors, from Spain. Fox, George (–). Born into England’s turbulent th century, Fox, the son of a successful weaver, rejected all the common religious variations of his day, including Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Puritanism. Instead, he founded the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, a religious movement that emphasized an individual’s relationship with God and refused to discriminate on the basis of either class or sex. Hakluyt, Richard (–). An English geographer and chronicler, Hakluyt published between  and  a number of important accounts of voyages to America and helped popularize the notion of English imperial expansion. Sometimes he is referred to as Richard Hakluyt the Younger to distinguish him from his cousin, Richard Hakluyt the Elder, who raised him and inspired his love of geography. Henry VII (–). King of England (–) during the earliest voyages of exploration, Henry did much to unify England under his rule and to broaden its commercial outlook and contacts. Huguenots. This is the name applied to French Protestants, who lost their civil and religious freedom (and, in some cases, their lives) in , when Louis XIV issued a decree known as the Edict of Nantes. Many immigrated to the North American colonies, following a practice that had begun in the s. James I (–). King of England (–) and, as James VI, King of Scotland (–). James was the monarch for whom the settlement of Jamestown was named and in whose name other settlements were founded. He achieved popularity at the end of his reign when he requested that Parliament declare war on Spain after the Spanish court rejected a marriage offer between his son Charles and the daughter of the Spanish king. James II (–). King of England (–) and brother of Charles II. James’s adherence to Catholicism led to the Glorious Revolution in  and his subsequent exile in France. Jesuits. The Jesuits, officially known as the Society of Jesus, are a Roman Catholic religious order founded by Ignatius Loyola in . The Jesuits were known for obeying religious authority, emphasizing education, and aggressively spreading Roman Catholicism to non-Christian peoples throughout the globe. King Philip’s War (–). This was a war between Indians living in New England, led by “King” Philip, and colonists of the region. The Indians frightened the colonists with their strategy of swiftly executed raids on Massachusetts towns, and the colonist counterattack failed because the Indians were too mobile. After a year and further losses, the colonists gained the advantage and killed Philip in August . A peace treaty, providing for a prisoner-of-war exchange, was signed in April .

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Mary II (–). Queen of England (–) who reigned with her husband, William III. The daughter of James II, she deferred to William on most state matters and died of smallpox at a young age, leaving no children. McCarthy hearings (–). Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) made a name for himself in the Cold War era through his leadership of an anticommunist crusade that many critics called a “witch hunt.” Some of the more celebrated “witches” were “hunted” by means of congressional hearings. Mutiny Act (). A consequence of the Glorious Revolution, this act of Parliament limited the size of the military and authorized the use of the court-martial to enforce military justice. The act had to be renewed annually, thus helping to guarantee frequent sessions of Parliament. Navigation Act (). Part of English imperial trade policy sometimes referred to as mercantilism. This act of Parliament barred foreign ships from trading with English colonies and prohibited imports that did not arrive in England on either English ships or those of the country of origin. Certain “enumerated” colonial products, like tobacco, could be sent only to English ports. This and other navigation acts were designed to limit the ability of the Dutch and other European rivals to trade with the American colonies. Powhatan (–). Also known as Wahunsunacock, he was chief of the Powhatan federation when the first settlers came to Virginia. A strong leader, Powhatan became more friendly and tolerant of the colonists after the marriage of his daughter Pocahontas to John Rolfe. Richelieu, Cardinal (–). Although a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, Richelieu is best known for being the power behind the French throne during the reign of Louis XIII. As the king’s chief minister, he is credited with strengthening monarchical power at home and making France the dominant country in Europe. Salem Witch Trials. Well into the th century—if not later—most Christians believed in witches, seeing in them the handmaidens of the devil. Persecution of witches was common, and England’s North American colonies were no exception. In , witch hysteria reached its height at Salem, Massachusetts, where more than  were accused of witchcraft and  were executed before the panic abated. Spanish Armada (). The name given to a fleet of  ships sent to participate in an invasion of England in . In a major naval battle in the English Channel in late July and early August, England’s more maneuverable ships and better guns led to the rout of the Spanish fleet. The defeat of the armada was a major boost to England’s imperial ambitions and a severe blow to Spain’s international prestige. William III (–). A native of the Netherlands, he became King of England (–) as a result of his marriage to Mary, the oldest child of James II, and the Glorious Revolution, which drove his father-in-law from power. As king, he was staunchly Protestant and fought a lengthy war against the French that distracted him from concern about the English colonies in North America.

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Winthrop, John (–). Winthrop, a leading English Puritan, played a major role in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in . From that time until his death, he served as governor of the Puritan colony. While a successful leader, he displayed a lack of flexibility that caused friction among the colonists.

APPENDIX B: TIMELINE

ca. , bce: First people arrive in North America from Asia. ca.  bce: Crop cultivation begins in Mexico and spreads throughout North America. ca. : Norse colonies established in Iceland. ca. : Leif Eriksson leads voyage to east coast of Canada. : Founding of Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán. : First voyage of Christopher Columbus. : First permanent Spanish settlement in New World. : John Cabot’s first voyage to eastern coast of Canada. –: Decimation of Native population of West Indies by disease and warfare. : Juan Ponce de León arrives in and names Florida. : Spanish begin bringing African slaves to South and Central America. : Hernán Cortés begins conquest of Aztec society in Mexico. –: Pánfilo de Narváez leads expedition to Gulf Coast region. –: Hernando de Soto leads expedition to Gulf Coast region. –: Coronado leads expedition to present-day southwestern United States. : Tristán de Luna heads an expedition that attempts to settle near Pensacola. : Laudonnière establishes French colony near Atlantic coast of Florida. : Spanish establish colony of Saint Augustine, Florida. : First English attempt to plant a colony in North America. : Defeat of the Spanish Armada. : English establish first permanent colony at Jamestown. : Henry Hudson sails up Hudson River; claims area for Dutch. : Powhatan teaches English in Virginia to cultivate tobacco. : Pocahontas and John Rolfe marry.

282

APPENDIX B

–: Smallpox epidemic kills many New England Indians. : First Africans brought to Virginia as slaves. : Pilgrims establish colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts. : First permanent Dutch colony established at New Netherland. : Puritan colony established in Massachusetts under John Winthrop. : Lord Baltimore establishes Catholic colony of Maryland. : Roger Williams establishes colony of Rhode Island. : Pequot War in New England. : Final significant Indian uprising in Virginia. : Parliament approves first of several Navigation Acts. : Esopus rebellion against Dutch in New Netherland. : English force Dutch surrender of New Netherland. –: King Philip’s War in New England. : Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia. : William Penn given land grant and charter to establish Pennsylvania. –: Glorious Revolution in England. : Leisler’s Rebellion defeated in New York. : Salem witch trials in Massachusetts.

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

EDITORS JOHN E. FINDLING is professor emeritus of history at Indiana University Southeast. He earned his PhD in history from the University of Texas and has pursued research interests in world’s fairs and the modern Olympic movement for nearly  years. Among his recent publications are Fair America (), coauthored with Robert Rydell and Kimberly Pelle, and Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement () and Encyclopedia of World’s Fairs and Expositions (), both coedited with Kimberly Pelle. In retirement, he sells stamps and vintage postcards at Collectors’ Stamps, Ltd., in Louisville, Kentucky. FRANK W. THACKERAY is professor emeritus of history at Indiana University Southeast. A former Fulbright scholar in Poland, he received his PhD from Temple University. Specializing in Russian-Polish relations in the th and th centuries, he is the author of Antecedents of Revolution: Alexander I and the Polish Congress Kingdom (). He also edited Events That Changed Russia since  () and Events That Changed Germany (). Currently, he is term professor of history at the University of Louisville.

CONTRIBUTORS BLAKE BEATTIE is associate professor of history at the University of Louisville. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto in . A specialist in the history of the Medieval Church and the Avignon Papacy, he is the author of Angelus Pacis: The Legation of Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, – (). THOMAS CLARKIN received his doctorate in U.S. history from the University of Texas at Austin in . He has completed a manuscript on federal Indian policy during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and he currently teaches at San Antonio College. ANDREW FRANK is an assistant professor of history at Florida State University. He received his BA degree from Brandeis and his MA and PhD from the University of Florida.

284

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

He is the author of Creeks and Southerners: Biculturalism in the Early American Frontier () and the editor of The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American South (); The Birth of Black America: The Age of Discovery and the Slave Trade (), The American Republic: People and Perspectives (), and The Early Republic: People and Perspectives (). He is currently working on projects involving the Indians of Florida. JOHN M. HUNT is visiting assistant professor of history at the University of Louisville. He received his PhD from The Ohio State University. He is the recipient of a Fulbright award for study in Italy and is currently completing a manuscript on disorder in th- and th-century Rome during periods of papal interregnum. RICK KENNEDY is professor of history at Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, California. He received his PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is the author of A History of Reasonableness: Testimony and Authority in the Art of Thinking () and has contributed to The Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. THOMAS A. MACKEY is professor of history at the University of Louisville and adjunct professor of law at the Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville. He earned his PhD at Rice University. He is the author of Pursuing Johns (), Pornography on Trail (), and Red Lights Out: A Legal History of Prostitution, Disorderly Houses, and Vice Districts, – (). KATHLEEN PERDISATT graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University in  and currently teaches second grade in the Saugus Union School District, Santa Clarita, California. BARRY M. PRITZKER is director of foundation and corporate relations at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY. His published works include ABC-CLIO’s Native America Today: A Guide to Community Politics and Culture and Native Americans: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Peoples. STEVEN E. SIRY is professor of history at Baldwin-Wallace College. He received his PhD from the University of Cincinnati, and he is the author of Greene: Revolutionary General (). FREDERICK M. STOWELL holds an MA in military history and studies. He has taught at Tulsa Community College and Langston University. Currently, he is writing in the area of fire protection and has published Safety Officers () and Fire and Emergency Services Company Officer (th ed., ), under the auspices of the International Fire Service Training Association. P. D. SWINEY is associate professor of history at Tulsa Community College. She teaches the American survey, African American history, and history of film. She earned her MA from Oklahoma State University, where she continues work on the PhD. Her undergraduate degree is from St. Mary’s of Notre Dame. Her interests include legal history and Alexander Hamilton. TIMOTHY L. WOOD is an associate professor of history at Southwest Baptist University. He holds an MA from the University of Louisville and a PhD in American

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

285

history from Marquette University. He is the author of Agents of Wrath, Sowers of Discord: Authority and Dissent in Puritan Massachusetts (). JULIA A. WOODS received her MA and PhD in history from the University of Texas at Austin and a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation dealt with Southern lawyers before the Civil War.

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INDEX

Abenakis tribe, 1:227 Abnaki War. See King William’s War Abolition (abolitionism), 3:65–85 American Anti-Slavery Society, 3:78–79 Birney, James G., 3:67, 73, 79 Child, Lydia Maria, 3:78, 79–82 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 3:69–76 Douglass, Frederick, 3:67, 75, 224 of France, 1:152 Garrison, William Lloyd, 3:66–67, 72–73, 75, 79 of Great Britain, 1:152 Grimké, Angelina and Sarah, 3:73 John Brown’s Final Statement to Virginia Court, 3:84–85 The Liberator First Edition excerpt, 3:83–84 Liberty Party, 3:65, 67, 75, 79, 81–82 Nat Turner’s Rebellion, 1:152, 158–159, 3:72 overview, 3:65–69 participation by African Americans, 3:71 Pennsylvania Society for Abolition, 2:194 during the Progressive era, 4:9 Southern states hatred of, 3:68, 69 Tappan, Arthur, 3:73, 75–76 Tubman, Harriet, 3:82–83 See also Douglass, Frederick; Slaves/slavery Académie des Sciences of Paris, 2:25, 28 Acheson, Dean, 4:182–183 Act of Toleration (1649), 1:170, 183 Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves (1807), 1:152 Acts of Confiscation (1861, 1862), 3:193 Acts of Trade (1660), 2:7 Adams, Abigail (wife of John, mother of John Quincy), 2:189, 197, 200–202, 209 See also “Remember the Ladies” letter Adams, Henry, 3:262 Adams, John, 1:109, 2:95, 124, 3:142 abrogation of 1778 treaties, 2:251 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2:28 American Revolution involvement, 2:143

arrest of, 2:178 biographical data, 2:252–255 commercial interests, 2:263 Continental Congress participation, 2:162, 163, 253 Convention of 1800, 2:243 Declaration of Independence role, 2:253 denunciation of French, 2:245 1800 presidential election, 2:263 Federalist opposition to, 2:244 as Founding Father, 2:25 Hamilton’s opposition to, 2:271 Jefferson’s association with, 2:174 Judiciary Act (1801), 2:265 letter of attack by Hamilton, 2:250 Naturalization Act, 2:241, 246 political experience of, 2:239 role in XYZ Affair, 2:247–248, 252–255 Second Continental Congress participation, 2:173 slavery opposed by, 3:69 split 1800 election, 2:276 Talleyrand’s interactions with, 2:249 Adams, John Quincy (son of John Adams), 2:201, 278, 3:89, 92, 99–101, 109, 146 See also Monroe Doctrine Adams, Samuel (1722–1803), 1:109, 226 Boston Tea Party instigation, 2:126–128, 217 British plans for capturing, 2:131 Committees of Correspondence and, 2:117, 120 Constitutional Convention participation, 2:217 Continental Congress participation, 2:127, 162 Declaration of Independence signatory, 2:185 Franklin’s warnings against, 2:35 Hutchinson’s confrontations with, 2:107 “Innocent Blood Crying to God from the Streets of Boston” pamphlet, 2:116 North Caucus Club formation, 2:130 Sons of Liberty movement formation, 2:108 Stamp Act Riots participation, 2:110

I-2

INDEX

Adams-Onis Treaty, 3:47, 51, 137 Addams, Jane, 3:170, 257, 279 Adler, Dankmar, 3:255 Administration of Justice Act, 2:118 Admittance into the Company of Eleven of the Daughters of Liberty, 2:194–195 Adopting Act (1729), 2:52 Adros, Gov. Edmund, 1:217 Africa, slave-trading history, 1:140–141, 148–153 African Americans black colleges, 4:52 “Colored People’s Day” (Columbian Exposition), 3:261 effects of war on, 2:145 emancipation of, 4:51 freedom movement, 4:263 Great Migration (1920), 2:145, 53, 54 Industrial Revolution era, 3:166 Niagara Movement (1905), 4:13 post-WW I influx of, 4:53 rejection as equals, 2:220–221 suburbanization efforts, 4:134, 138 suffrage rights, 3:214 support for American Revolution, 2:192 votes for Grant for presidency, 3:215 World War I service, 4:54, 58 See also Emancipation Proclamation; Harlem Renaissance; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Slaves/slavery African Methodist Episcopal Church, 3:13 Age of Reason, 2:25 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), 4:78 Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), 4:82–83, 84 Agriculture European benefit from, 1:11 Farmer’s Alliance, 1:95 Hopewell’s contributions, 1:17 Hopi technology, 1:72 influence of Columbian exchange, 1:8–9 slash-and-burn method, 1:5 Aguinaldo, Emilio, 3:274–275, 278 Ahlstrom, Sydney, 3:1 Aircraft inventions (Bell), 3:175 Albany Plan of Union (document, 1754), 2:90–92 Alden, Capt. John, 1:263 Aldrich, Nelson, 3:279 Algonquins, 1:12–13, 40, 42, 47, 117, 217–218, 220–221 Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), 2:174–175, 231, 241, 246–247, 254, 259–261, 265, 280, 3:2 Alien Enemies Act (from Alien and Sedition Acts), 2:242, 259–260 All in the Family (TV show), 4:202

Allen, Ethan, 2:152 Alliance, Treaty of, 2:142, 146 Alvarado, Hernando, 1:63 Amadas, Philip, 1:115 Ambrister, Robert C., 3:23 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2:29 American Anti-Slavery Society, 3:65, 66–67, 72–74, 78–79 American Broadcasting Company (ABC), 4:206 American Colonization Society, 3:65–66, 105 American Dream, 4:5, 85, 132, 136, 141 American Enterprise Institute, 4:278 American Expeditionary Force (AEF), 4:26, 40–43 See also Pershing, Gen. John J. American Federation of Labor (AFL), 3:162, 4:38 American Historical Association meeting (1893), 3:240 American Independence Day, 3:143 American Letter of Marque (1812, document), 3:62–63 American Magazine (American Revolution era), 2:188 The American Nation Series (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:250 American Philosophical Society, 2:29, 33–34, 176 American Protective League (vigilante group), 4:33 American Revolution, 1:44, 92–93, 159, 208, 2:5–6, 30, 139–157 Adams, John, involvement, 2:143 America’s invasion of Canada, 2:152–153 Bunker Hill, Battle of, 2:153–154 causes of, 2:80 Continental Army, 2:154–155 Dulany’s role, 2:106 Franklin’s contributions, 2:34 George III’s Proclamation of Rebellion, 2:155–156 Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, 2:156–157 magazines of the era, 2:188–189 overview, 2:139–143 role of women, 2:196, 198 Siry’s interpretive essay, 2:143–150 Sons of Liberty’s role, 108–109 Yorktown, Battle of, 2:154 American Socialist Party, 4:38 American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States, 3:70 The American Spelling Book (Webster), 2:148–149 American Temperance Union (1836), 3:5 Americas Columbus’s expeditions to, 1:6–8, 15–16 early diseases, 1:4 flourishing of agriculture, 1:11

INDEX

hunters and gatherers, 1:1, 5 Italian expeditions to, 1:99 pre-1492 population, 1:1–2 Spanish colonization of, 1:73–76, 83, 87–90, 2:1–2 Amerindians, 1:4 Amistad legal case (1841), 3:101 Amity and Commerce, Treaty of, 2:146 Amusing Ourselves to Death (Postman), 4:207 Anasazi culture, 1:13–15 Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy (Remini), 3:120 Andros, Sir Edmund, 1:234, 239–240, 246–247, 250–251, 263, 2:3 Anglican Church, 1:234–235, 244, 2:27, 47, 51, 55, 3:8 See also Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1701), 2:63 Anglo-American Convention (1818), 3:26 Anglo-American treaty, 2:147 Anglo-Dutch Wars, 1:205, 206 Anglo-Soviet-U.S. alliance, 4:174–175 Angola slave trading posts, 1:151 Anschluss policy (German), 4:86 Anthony, Susan B., 3:257 Anti-Federalists, 2:224–225 Anti-Imperialist League (Boston, 1898), 3:279 Anti-Masonic Party (1831), 3:116–117 Anticommunist movement (1950s), 1:262 Antiem Creek, Battle of, 3:194 Antislavery Whigs, 3:148 Antiwar movement (1960s), 4:231–232 Anzaldua, Gloria, 4:265 Apalachee tribe, 1:79 Apocalypse Now (war movie), 4:228 An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (Child), 3:79–80 An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty (Backus), 3:16 Appy, Christian G., 4:225 Arbuthnot, Alexander, 3:23–24 Architecture of the World’s Columbian Exposition (Brunt), 3:260 Arkansas territory, 3:26–27 Armstrong, John, 3:55 Armstrong, Louis, 4:55 Army of the Potomac, 3:194 Army of the Potomac (Union Army), 3:194, 201 Army of the Republican of Vietnam (ARVN), 4:222–223 Arnold, Benedict, 2:153 Articles of Confederation (1776), 2:144, 147, 179

I-3

Continental Congress adoption, 2:215 function of, 3:46 Hamilton’s criticism of, 2:227 inadequacy of, 2:215–216 signers, 2:217 Asbury, Francis, 2:150 Ashburton, Lord, 1:152–153 Atomic bomb, 4:107, 116, 150, 154 See also Manhattan Project Atomic Energy Act (1954), 4:152 Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 4:150, 152, 163–164 Atomic energy development (1945–1995), 4:149– 167 atomic bomb, 4:107, 116, 150, 154 Atomic Energy Commission, 4:150, 152, 163–164 Baruch Plan, 4:149 Cuban Missile Crisis, 4:151, 175–176, 186–188 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 4:151 hydrogen bomb, 4:175 Kunetka’s interpretive essay, 4:153–161 Manhattan Project, 4:149 nuclear freeze movement, 4:164 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 4:160, 165–166 overview, 4:149–153 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 4:153, 157, 167 U-2 incident (1960), 4:151 Atoms for Peace proposal (Eisenhower), 4:151 Austrian Succession, War of (1740–1748), 2:9, 12 Automobile vs. streetcar suburbs, 4:131–132 Aztec Empire (Mexico), 1:98 Baby and Child Care (Spock), 4:257 Backus, Isaac, 3:15–16 Bacon, Nathaniel, 1:233–234, 247–248 Bacon’s Rebellion (1676), 1:112, 1:233, 247–248 Bagdikina, Ben H., 4:205 Bailyn, Bernard, 2:11 Baker, Josephine, 4:55 Balboa, Vasco Núñez de, 1:93 Bancroft, George, 3:153 Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 3:256 Bank of the United States, 3:111–112, 122–125 Bank War (Jackson), 3:129 Banking acts, 3:197 Baptist Church, 2:48, 150, 3:6, 7, 12, 15–16 See also Backus, Isaac Baptiste de Rochambeau, Gen. Jean, 2:154 Barbary pirates, 3:21 Barlow, Joel, 2:149 Barlowe, Arthur, 1:115–116 Barnard, Henry, 2:209

I-4

Barney, Joshua, 3:57 Barré, Isaac, 2:108 Bartram, John, 2:33 Baruch, Bernard, 4:25, 149 Beattie, Blake, 1:82–90 Beaver trade, 1:38–39 Beaver Wars, 1:40 Beecher, Henry Ward, 3:258 Beecher, Lyman, 3:2, 4, 9 Bell, Gen. J. Franklin, 3:275 Bell, John, 3:191 Bell Telephone Company, 3:174 Bellamy, Edward, 3:163 Benson, Thomas Hart, 3:117 Bering Strait, 1:4 Beringia, 1:1, 4 Berkeley, Gov. William, 247–248 Berle, Milton (1908–2002), 4:212–214 Berlin Wall, 4:171, 172, 174 Bessemer, Sir Henry, 3:176 Bett, Mum, 2:198 Biddle, Nicholas, 3:112, 124, 128 See also Bank of the United States Big Horn, Battle of, 3:29 “Big Three.” See Churchill, Winston; Roosevelt, Franklin D.; Stalin, Joseph “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom” (Jefferson), 2:57 Bill for More General Diffusion of Knowledge (Jefferson), 2:173 Bill of Rights (document, U.S. Constitution), 1:180, 2:32, 230, 236–238 Billings, William, 2:148 Bingham, Anne Willing, 2:28 Birney, James G., 3:67, 73, 79 See also Liberty Party Bishop, Bridget, 1:264 Bishop, Maurice, 4:281 “Black Codes” (Johnson), 3:213, 218, 220 Black Diaspora, 1:141 Black Hawk War, 3:156, 204 Black Hills Dakota Territory, 3:29 Black Muslims, 4:240 Black Panthers, 4:240 Black Power movement, 4:247, 265 See also Davis, Angela Black Thursday, 4:80 Blaine, James, 3:255 Blair, Frank, Sr., 3:117 Blake, Eubie, 4:55 “Bleeding Kansas” territory, 3:28 Bloody Marsh, Battle of (1742), 1:95 Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (Williams), 1:187–189

INDEX

Blount, William, 3:125 Board of Lady Managers (Columbian Exposition), 3:260 Board of Nine Men (New Netherland Colony), 1:211–212 Board of Trade and Plantations, 2:3, 8, 13–14 Boas, Franz, 3:256 Bolívar, Simón, 3:101–103 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 2:242, 251, 257, 266, 3:21, 36, 43, 87 Bonus Army (post-WW I), 4:77, 81 Book of Mormon (Smith), 3:13 The Book of Negro Poetry (Jams Weldon Johnson), 4:59 The Book of the Fair (Bancroft), 3:256 Boone, Daniel, 3:242 Booth, John Wilkes, 3:207 The Boston Evening Post newspaper, 2:193 Boston Massacre (1770), 2:116, 122, 239, 253 Boston Port Act, 2:118 Boston Port Bill, 123 Boston Tea Party, 2:108, 115–138 Adams, Samuel, organization of, 2:126–128 East India Company, 2:112, 120, 123, 125, 128–129 First Continental Congress, 2:129–130 Hewess’s account of (document), 2:136–138 Mattox’s interpretive essay, 2:119–126 overview, 2:115–119 Revere, Paul, 2:130–132 Tea Act (1773) document, 2:132–135 vessels (ships) involved, 2:121–122 Boy Spies of America (vigilante group), 4:33 Boycotts and protests, by women, 2:187, 191 Braddock’s (Gen. Edward) Campaign (1755), 2:72, 74–75, 83 Bradford, Sarah, 3:82–83 Bradley, Omar (1893–1981), 4:120–121 “Brain Trust” advisory (of FDR), 4:82 Brandeis, Louis, 4:4, 84 Breckinridge, John, 3:26 Brendan (Saint, Irish monk), 1:2 Brezhnev, Leonid, 4:176 A Brief History of the War with the Indians (Increase Mather), 1:268 British West Indies, 2:4 Bronxville, New York, 4:131 Broward, Napoleon Bonaparte, 1:96 Brown, Charles Brockden, 2:149 Brown, James, 4:54 Brown, Joseph, 3:193 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Supreme Court decision), 4:237–239, 244 Bryan, William Jennings, 3:30, 279

INDEX

Buade, Louis de, 1:48–50 Bubble Act, 2:7 Buchanan, James, 3:147 Buckley, William F., 4:278 Buena Vista, Battle of (1847), 3:138, 140–141, 144, 152, 157, 203 Bulge, Battle of the (1944), 4: 119–120, 121 Bull Moose Party. See Progressivism Bunker Hill, Battle of (1775), 2:153–154, 159 Bureau of Refugees, 3:217 Burger, Warren E., 4:275 Burgoyne, Gen. John, 2:140, 141, 148, 3:55 Burke, Edmund, 2:5–6 Burnham, Daniel, 3:254–25, 3:254–255, 259, 264–265 Burr, Aaron, 2:175, 229, 263, 271–273, 275–277, 3:23 Burroughs, George, 1:258 Bus boycott (Montgomery, Alabama), 4:238 Bush, George H. W., 4:174, 228–229, 240, 247, 261, 277, 283, 285–287 Bush, George W., 4:284 Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núnez, 1:57, 65, 67–68, 70, 75 Cable News Network (CNN), 4:208 Cabot, John (Giovanni Caboto), 1:99, 110–111 Calef, Robert, 1:260, 265 Calhoun, John C., 2:278, 45, 51, 92, 126, 130, 146, 190 Calvert, Cecil, 1:177, 181–183 Calvert, George, 1:176–177 Calvert, Leonard, 1:177, 182–183 Calvin, John, 1:34, 84, 172 Calvinism, 1:34, 172, 2:27, 49, 2:66, 3:1, 9 Calvinist Puritans, 1:168–169 Cambodia, 4:219 Cambodian incursion (1970), 4:232–233 Campbell, John (Lord Loudon), 2:76–78 Canada Algonquins, 1:12–13, 40, 42, 47, 117, 220–221 American invasion of, 2:152–153 Buade’s stand for Quebec, 1:48 Cartier’s visits, 1:45–46 Champlain’s visits, 1:47–48 dependence on France, 2:69 exploration aid by slaves, 1:135 Great Treaty of Montreal, 1:41 Joliet in, 1:50–51 Quebec City, founding of, 1:38 siege of Quebec, 1:48, 50 Tecumsah supplied by, 3:44 Cancer de Barbastro, Fray Luis, 1:80 Cane (Toomer), 4:59

I-5

Canning, George, 3:88–89 Cape Cod/ranch-style homes, 4:132, 134, 137 See also Levittowns (NY, NJ, PA) Cárdenas, Garciá López de, 1:62, 65 Cardozo, Benjamin, 4:84 Carleton, Sir Guy, 2:152–153 Carmichael, Stokely, 4:247 Carnegie, Andrew (1835–1919), 3:163, 175–178, 279, 6 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1910), 3:178 Carnegie Steel, 3:163 Carson, Rachel, 4:142 Carter, Jimmy, 4:173, 273–274, 275, 278 Cartier, Jacques, 1:35, 37, 45–46, 84 Cartwright, Peter, 3:5–6, 8, 16–17, 19 Case, Lewis, 3:190 Cases of Conscience (Mather), 1:258 Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (Increase Mather), 1:268 Castillo de San Marcos (in St. Augustine), 1:92–93 Castro, Fidel, 4:172 Cateau-Cambresis Treaty, 1:33 Cato Institute, 4:278 Cattle ranching, 3:30–31 Cavelier, René-Robert, 1:36, 40–41, 49, 50 CCC. See Civilian Conservation Corps Census Bureau (U.S.), pre-1890 report, 3:239 Central America Contras/Sandinistas, 4:275 Court of Justice, 3:178 Central American Court of Justice, 3:178 Ceremonial cycles (Native Americans), 1:71, 73, 77 Cervera, Adm. Pascual, 3:277 Champlain, Samuel de, 1:38, 47, 47–48, 2:69 Channing, William, 3:3 Charles I (King of England), 1:169–170, 176–177, 181–182, 246 Charles II (King of England), 1:137, 169–170, 196–197, 203–204, 233, 246, 262, 2:50, 177 Charles IX (French King), 1:33, 81 Charles of Habsburg (Spain), 1:83–84 Charles V (Spanish Emperor), 1:68, 93, 168 Charlie’s Angels (TV show), 4:202 Charter of Liberties (England, 1701), 1:171 Chauncy, Pastor Charles, 2:54 Cheers (TV show), 4:202 Cherokee Indians, 1:5–6, 3:127, 132 Chesapeake naval affair, 3:42–43, 100 Cheves, Langdon, 3:124 Chiang Kai-shek, 4:171 Chicago, Illinois. See Burnham, Daniel; World’s Columbian Exposition (1893)

I-6

INDEX

Chickahominy Indians, 1:130 Chickasaw tribes, 3:49 Child, Lydia Maria (1802–1880), 3:78, 79–82 Child labor laws, 3:164–165 China war with Japan, 4:106 Choctaw tribes, 3:49 The Christian Philosopher (Cotton Mather), 1:268 Christianity abolition and, 3:68 ascendancy of Church, 2:21 banning of, 2:268 British/U.S. evangelicals, 1:152 Columbus era missionaries, 1:10–11 defense of slavery, 3:3 Dwight’s lectures on, 3:2 English North America, 1:167 Indian women conversions, 1:43 slave conversion attempts, 2:62 Chubb British warship, 3:56 Church, Benjamin, 1:223–224, 249 Church of England, 1:113, 168, 172, 1:172, 234, 2:26, 3:8 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 3:13–14 Churchill, Winston, 3:56–57, 4:105, 178 Atlantic Charter, 4:110 “iron curtain” speech, 4:175 Cities, Industrial Revolution growth, 3:165–167, 171 City Beautiful movement (Burnam), 3:264–265 “Civil Disobedience” essay (Thoreau), 2:167 Civil Rights Act (1866), 3:198, 3:198, 219 Civil Rights Act (1964), 4:226, 239, 245, 259 Civil Rights Act (1968), 4:239, 240 Civil Rights Movement (ca. 1954-Present), 4:237–256 Black Power movement, 4:247 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 4:237–239, 244 Civil Rights Act (1964), 4:226, 239, 245 Civil Rights Act (1968), 4:239, 240 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 4:240–249 Freedom Riders, 4:239 Freedom Summer, 4:247, 252–253 Greensboro Sit-Ins, 4:251–252 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 4:239, 244, 245–246, 253–255 Los Angeles Riots, 4:247, 256 March on Washington (1963), 4:239 Montgomery bus boycott, 4:238, 251 overview, 4:237–240 Plessy v. Ferguson, 4:12, 237, 241 Project C (confrontation), 4:246

SNCC, 4:225, 240, 245, 247 Voting Rights Act, 4:234, 239, 247 See also National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Civil Service Commission (U.S.), 4:1 Civil War (1861–1865), 1:77, 95, 153, 3:185–209 Army of the Potomac, 3:194, 201 commercial cattle ranching, 3:30 Confederate States of America, 3:143, 185, 200–202 Conscription Act, 3:195 Davis, Jefferson, 3:193, 202–204 Dred Scott decision, 3:191 economic impact of, 3:195–196 Emancipation Proclamation, 1:160, 3:194, 195, 196, 206 Gettysburg Address, 1:167, 2:167, 3:198, 207 Harper’s Ferry raid, 3:191 Indian revolts, 3:28 issues resolved by, 3:216 Kramer’s interpretive essay, 3:189–198 Lee’s surrender to Grant, 3:202, 207 Lincoln, Abraham, 3:204–207 Lincoln on cause of, 1:160 National Banking Acts, 3:197 Ordinance of Secession (South Carolina), 3:208–209 overview, 3:185–189 Radical Republican view of, 3:218–219 role in Industrial Revolution, 3:159 Sanitary Commission, 3:198 Sherman’s March to the Sea, 3:207–208 United States Military Railroads, 3:196 See also Abolition Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 4:77, 87 Clark, William, 3:25, 35 See also Lewis and Clark expedition Clark, York (d. 1770-ca. 1832), 3:33–35 Clarke, John, 1:169 Clarkin, Thomas, interpretive essays Abolition, 3:69–76 Expedition of Coronado, 1:58–66 French and Indian War, 2:73–81 Clay, Henry, 2:278, 3:44, 45, 70, 81, 87, 92, 109, 111, 114, 126, 139 See also Whig Party Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914), 4:4 Clayton-Bulwer agreement, 3:144 Clement VII (Pope), 1:168, 172 Cleveland, Grover, 3:96, 239, 259 Clinton, Bill, 4:229, 284 Clinton, Gov. DeWitt, 2:208, 3:130 Clinton, Gov. George, 2:224, 276 Clooney, George, 4:206

INDEX

Closing of the frontier (ca. 1890s), 3:233–251 costs of settlement, 3:238 Devine’s interpretive essay, 3:237–242 Ghost Dance movement, 3:29, 235, 243–245, 248, 250, 251 Immigration Reduction League, 3:239 Little Big Horn, Battle of, 3:234 mining phase, 3:233 myths about the frontier, 3:242 “New Frontier” slogan, 3:242 overview, 3:233–237 Sand Creek Massacre, 3:234 Sioux Indian War, 3:245–246, 247 Sitting Bull, 3:29, 235, 246–248 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 3:248–250 Wounded Knee Massacre, 3:245, 250–251 Cochrane, Sir Alexander, 3:54, 57 Cockburn, Sir George, 3:57 Cody, William F. “Buffalo Bill,” 3:30, 242 Coercive Acts (1774), 2:104, 127, 129 Coetus party (of Frelinghuysen), 2:61 Cohen, Lizabaeth “Consumers’ Republic,” 4:140 “Purchaser Citizens,” 4:136 Coit, Mehetabel Chandler, 2:203 Cold War, 4:115–117, 121, 169–197 atomic energy cause, 4:151 “Consumers’ Republic,” 4:140 Cuban Missile Crisis, 4:151, 175–176, 186–188 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 4:171–172, 188–190 Far East involvement, 4:171 inevitability of, 4:178–179 Korean War, 4:171, 175, 190–193 length of (1946–1991), 4:180 Mayers’ interpretive essay, 4:174–184 name derivation, 4:174–175 North-South Korea engagement, 4:124 nuclear arsenals, 4:155 overview, 4:169–174 Stalin’s inflammatory rhetoric, 4:170 Trotsky’s characterization of, 4:176 Truman, Harry, 4:169–170, 175, 178, 193–196 Colden, Cadwallader, 2:108 Cole, Donald B., 3:117 Coligny, Gaspard de, 1:34, 84 College of William and Mary (Virginia), 2:27 Colonial National Historic Park System, 1:112 Colonial Virginia, slavery (mid-18th century), 1:161–163 “Colored People’s Day” (Columbian Exposition), 3:261 Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 4:200, 206 Columbian Exposition. See World’s Columbian Exposition

I-7

Columbian Magazine (American Revolution era), 2:188–189 Columbine High School shooting, 4:209 Columbus, Christopher, 1:2, 15–16 childhood years, 1:2–3, 15 Document: journal (1492), 1:18–32 inspirational sources for, 1:15 Native Americans and, 1:6–8 plants/animals introduced by, 1:8–9 voyages/explorations, 1:3–4, 6–8, 15–16 See also Ferdinand V; Isabella I; World’s Columbian Exposition Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Causes, 1:234 Committee for Postponed Matters, 2:221 Committee of Correspondence, 2:108, 117 Committee of Safety, 1:242 Committee on Public Information (CPI), 4:25, 32, 37–38 Committee on the Conduct of the War (1861), 3:229 Common Sense pamphlet (Paine), 2:125, 161 Communist doctrine, 4:177 The Communist Manifesto, 4:117 Community antenna television (CATV), 4:201 Compact discs (CDs), 4:201 Compromise of 1850, 3:68, 133, 158 Compton, Henry, 1:234–235 Comte de Frontenac. See Buade, Louis de Confederate States of America (CSA), 3:143, 185, 191, 200–202 post-Civil War turmoil, 3:213 See also Davis, Jefferson Confiance British warship, 3:56 Congregational Churches (New England), 1:82, 2:149–150, 3:7 Congregationalists (“Old Lights”), 2:48 Congress (U.S.) arms appropriation for McKinley, 3:276 Bureau of Refugees, creation of, 3:217 Consumer Product Safety Act, 4:135 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, 4:135 Federal Highway Act, 4:139 Freedman’s Bureau, 3:212, 217 Lend-Lease military aid bill, 4:105 Macon’s Bill No. 2, 3:43 Meat Inspection Act, 4:2 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, 4:135 negative view of Confederacy, 3:211 Payne-Aldrich Tariff, 4:3 Prohibition legislation, 4:34 Pure Food and Drug Act, 4:2 Reconstruction passed by, 3:212, 214

I-8

INDEX

Revenue Act (1942), 4:108 Smoot-Hartley tariff bill, 4:76 support for FDR’s reforms, 4:84 Voting Rights Act, 4:239 War of 1812 actions, 3:44 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 4:39 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 4:243, 245 Congress of Vienna, 2:257 Connecticut Indians, 1:218 “Conscience Whigs,” 3:148 Conscription Act (1863), 3:195 Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes in the British Colonies, for the Purpose of raising a Revenue, by Act of Parliament (Dulany), 2:106 Constitution (U.S.), 2:30 Bill of Rights, 1:180, 2:32, 236–238 Eighteenth Amendment, 4:34 Electoral College, 2:221, 225–226, 263 Fifteenth Amendment, 3:22, 198, 4:51 First Amendment, 1:180, 2:269 Fourteenth Amendment, 3:198, 212 Nineteenth Amendment, 4:4, 34, 263 Seventeenth Amendment, 4:2–3 Sixteenth Amendment, 4:2–3, 11–12 Thirteenth Amendment, 1:156, 160, 3:198, 3:212, 219, 227, 4:51 Three-Fifths Compromise, 2:274 Twelfth Amendment, 2:175, 221, 264, 281–282 Twentieth Amendment, 4:77 Twenty-First Amendment, 4:5 “We the people” preamble, 2:31 Constitutional Convention (1787), 1:150, 159, 34, 106, 211–238 Anti-Federalists, 2:224–225 Bill of Rights (document), 2:236–238 Committee for Postponed Matters, 2:221 Committee of Style review, 2:222 Electoral College, 2:221, 225–226, 263 European observer experiences, 2:215 Franklin’s participation, 2:218, 220 Hamilton, Alexander, role, 2:226–229 Madison, James, role, 2:217, 218, 227, 229–232 New Jersey Plan (document), 2:220, 234–236 overview, 2:211–214 presidency discussions, 2:221 Supreme Court creation discussions, 2:219, 221 trade regulation discussions, 2:216 Virginia Plan (document), 2:218–219, 222, 232–234 Woods’ interpretive essay, 2:215–222 Consumer Product Safety Act (1970), 4:135 Continental Army, 2:125, 139, 154–155, 159–160 Continental Association (1774), 2:124, 130

Continental Congress (1776), 2:30, 36 Articles of Confederation adoption, 2:215 mission to France, 2:140 money plan, 2:144 Convention of 1800, 2:243, 252 Convention of 1818, 3:44 Convention of Pardo (1739), 2:9 Coode, John, 1:236–237, 241, 243 Cooker, Jay, 3:197 Cooper, James Fenimore, 3:242 Copernicus, 2:22–23 Copley, John Singleton, 2:148 Copley, Lionel, 1:236 Copper Sun (Cullen), 59 Corey, Giles, 1:259, 262, 264 Cornwallis, Lord Charles, 2:142, 147, 154 Coronado, Francisco Vásques de, 1:68–69 abandonment by followers, 1:69 appointment as governor, 1:57 interactions with Native Americans, 1:58, 62, 63, 72–73 la Tierra Nueva expedition, 1:58–60 loyalty of army to, 1:59 search for Quivira, 1:58, 63–64, 69 search for Seven Cities of Cíbola, 1:57, 59–61, 68, 75–76 Coronado Expedition (1540–1542), 1:55–78 background information, 1:55–58 Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núnez, 1:67–68 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 1:58–66 Esteban, 1:69–71 Hopi Indians, 1:71–73 Spanish colonization of Americas, 1:73–76 Zuni Indians, 1:61, 68–69, 76–78 Corporation Act, 1:235 “Corps of Discovery” exploration, 3:25 Cortés, Hernán, 1:55–56, 74 The Cosby Show (TV show), 4:202 Cotton Club jazz club, 4:58 Cotton gin, 1:150–151, 160 The Cotton Kingdom (Olmsted), 3:267 “Cotton Whigs,” 3:148 Coughlin, Charles E. “Radio Priest,” 4:79 Council for National Defense (CND, 1916), 4:24–25, 29, 30 Council of Trade and Plantations, 1:234–235, 237 Council of Trent, 1:43 Council of War (Rhode Island colony), 1:218 Court of Honor (Columbian Exposition), 3:254–255, 259, 261 Court of Oyer and Terminer (Massachusetts Bay Colony), 1:257, 262 Cowboy life, 3:30 Cowpens, Battle of, 2:146

INDEX

Crabgrass Frontier (Jackson), 4:131 Crandall, Prudence, 3:73 Crawford, William H., 3:92, 3:130 Crazy Horse (Native American chief ), 3:29 Credit cards, introduction of, 4:134 Credit Mobilier scandal, 4:5 Creek Indians, 3:47, 49, 125, 234 Creel, George, 4:32 Crevecoeur, St. John de, 3:238 The Crisis (Du Bois), 4:54, 60 Crittenden, John J., 3:191 Crockett, Davy, 3:242 Cromwell, Oliver, 1:169, 178, 183 Cronkite, Walter (1916–2009), 4:214–216 Crothers, A. Glenn, 3:5–14 Cruger, Nicholas, 2:226 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 4:151, 175–176, 186–188 Cuban Revolution (late 1950s), 1:96 Cullen, Countee, 4:55, 58, 59–60 Cullom, Shelby, 3:162 Currency Act (1751), 2:4, 99 Custer, George A., 3:234, 246 Custer’s Last Stand, 3:246 Cutler, Timothy, 2:54 D-Day invasion (northern France), 4:106 Danbury Baptist Association, 1:171 Darwin, Charles, 3:168, 273 Davenport, James, 2:53–54 Davie, William R., 2:250–251 Davis, Angela, 4:265 Davis, Jefferson, 3:193, 202–204, 3:217 Davis, Joseph (brother of Jefferson Davis), 3:217 Davyes, William, 1:233 Dawes, Phillip, 2:192 Dawes Act (1887), 1:73 Dawes Severalty Act, 3:234–235 The Day the Earth Stood Still (war movie), 4:224 De Delon, Daniel, 4:38 De Loet, Johannes, 1:193 De Soto, Hernando, 1:57, 75, 93–94 battles with indigenous peoples, 1:75, 86, 94 expedition failures, 1:80, 83 Gulf Coast exploration, 1:57 search for gold, 1:7 search for Seven Cities, 1:60 Deane, Silas, 2:140 Death Warrant of Five Women Convicted of Witchcraft (document), 1:274–275 Debs, Eugene V., 4:34, 38 Decapitation of Native American women prisoners, 1:218

I-9

Declaration of Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (Washington and Jefferson), 2:125, 179 Declaration of Colonial Rights and Grievances conceded to Parliament, 2:124 Declaration of Independence, 1:260, 139, 141, 159–185 Adams, Samuel, as signatory, 2:117 African Americans and, 2:169 Declaration of Independence (document), 2:182–185 diminishing power of, 2:169–170 Franklin’s involvement, 2:30, 34, 161–164, 173, 179, 182 George III, 2:171–172 God’s inclusion in, 2:23 Jefferson, Thomas, 2:172–176 Kennedy’s interpretive essay, 2:163–170 Lee’s proposal resolution, 2:161, 163, 182 Lincoln’s thoughts on, 2:167 Locke, John, 2:176–178 major premise of, 2:166 Olive Branch Petition, 2:125, 179–181 overview, 2:159–163 Second Continental Congress, 2:178–179 structural components, 2:165 Washington’s reading to troops, 2:164 See also Enlightenment in North America “Declaration of Intellectual Independence” speech (Emerson), 2:166–167 Declaration of Liberated Europe (1945), 4:169 Declaration of Sentiments (American Anti-Slavery Society), 3:73 “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” (Stanton), 2:167 “Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonies” (Stamp Act Congress), 2:103, 129–130 Declaratory Act (1776), 2:95, 104 Deism, 3:7 Democracy Triumphant (Carnegie), 3:178 Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 4:219–220 See also Vietnam War Democratic-Republican Party, 2:174, 228, 231, 254, 263, 277–278, 279, 3:7, 26, 36, 104, 126 Descartes, René, 2:176 “Detente” policy, 4:151, 173 Devil in the Shape of a Woman (Karlsen), 1:261 Dewey, George, 3:277, 283 See also Spanish-American War; U.S. Navy Dexter, Samuel, 2:250 Diaz, Melchior, 1:62 Dickens, Charles, 3:239 Diem, Ngo Dinh (South Vietnam prime minister), 4:220–221

I-10

INDEX

Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam village), 4:219 Diggers (communistic group), 1:170 Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Rousseau), 2:41–42 A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts (Rousseau), 2:41 The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit God (Edwards), 2:60 “Distributor of Stamps for Massachusetts.” See Oliver, Andrew Dominion of New England creation of, 1:239 dismantling of, 1:247 Domino Theory, 4:220 Donnelly, Ignatius, 3:239–240 Dorantes, Esteban de, 1:57 Dorantes de Carranza, Andrés de, 1:67–68, 70 Douglas, Aaron, 4:58 Douglas, Stephen A., 3:27, 190 Douglass, Frederick, 3:67, 75, 224, 261 Dow Chemical Company, 4:141 Dr. Strangelove (war movie), 4:224 Drake, Sir Francis, 1:100–101 Dreamer Religion (Native Americans), 3:244 Dred Scott decision, 3:191 Drinker, Elizabeth, 2:203 Du Bois, W.E.B., 1:135, 4:52–54, 56, 58 Dulaney, Daniel, 2:105–107 Dulles, John Foster, 4:172 Dunk, George (Earl of Halifax), 2:14 Dunlap, William, 2:148 Dunmore’s Proclamation (document, 1776), 2:156–157 Dupey de Lôme, Enrique, 3:274, 276 Dutch East India Company, 1:198, 206–207 Dutch Reformed Church, 1:207–208, 212, 2:49, 61 Dutch West India Company, 1:118, 136, 193–194, 196, 198, 200, 208–210 DVD (digital video disc), 4:201 Dwight, Timothy, 2:149, 3:2, 9 Eagle warship, 3:56 Earl of Chatham. See Pitt, William East India Company, 2:112, 117, 120, 123, 125 Eaton, John H. and Peggy, 3:127 Edenton (North Carolina) women, 2:191–192 Edison, Thomas, 3:159–160, 262 Education black colleges, 4:52 Progressive Era importance, 4:8–9 in Puritan communities, 2:205 push for academies for, 2:197 in Quaker communities, 2:189, 205

Willard’s role, 2:208–209 for women, 2:190 World Education Convention, 2:209 Edwards, Jonathan (1703–1758), 2:52, 55, 59–60, 3:2, 6–7 Egypt, 4:172 Eighteenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:34 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 4:120, 150–151, 171–172, 188–190, 209–210, 244 Election of 1876, 3:225 Electoral College, 2:221, 225–226, 263, 271–272 Eliot, John, 1:117, 216 Elizabeth I (Queen of England), 1:84, 100, 168, 172 Elizabethan Compromise (17th Century), 1:168 Elkins Act (1903), 4:2 Ellington, Duke, 4:55, 58 Ellsberg, Daniel, 4:226 Ellsworth, Oliver, 2:250 Ely, Richard, 3:239 Emancipation Proclamation (1862), 1:160, 3:194, 195, 196, 206, 216 Embargo Act (1807), 2:175, 3:43 Emergency Banking Act, 4:82 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 2:166, 3:3 The Empire of Business (Carnegie), 3:178 The End of Victory Culture (Engelhardt), 4:227 Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), 4:150 Engels, Friedrich, 3:169–170 Englehardt, Tom, 4:227 English Bill of Rights (document, 1689), 1:251–253 English Civil War, 1:177–178, 246 English Colonization Efforts (ca. 1584–1630), 1:99–116 Cabot, John, 1:110–111 “First Voyage to Roanoke” excerpt, 1:115–116 Jamestown, founding of, 1:82, 112 Kennedy’s interpretive essay, 1:103–109 overview, 1:99–103 Pilgrims, 1:112–113 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1:113–114 reasons for, 1:140 religious influences, 1:100 Roanoke Colonies, 1:114–115 English Reformation, 1:176 English Royal African Company, 1:138 Enlightenment in North America (1727–1790), 2:21–44 American Philosophical Society, 2:33–34 Franklin, Benjamin, 2:34–36 Junto, 2:36–37 Letter on Science and the Perfectibility of Men (Jefferson), 2:43–44

INDEX

overview, 2:21–24 Priestley, Joseph, 2:37–40 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 2:40–42 Skillin’s interpretive essay, 2:25–32 See also Declaration of Independence Epidemic diseases, 1:4 of Native Americans, 1:6–7, 40 in New England, 1:120 in St. Augustine, Florida, 1:82 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 4:239, 259 Equal Pay Act (1963), 4:259 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 4:257, 262, 264, 271, 275 Equal Rights Party, 3:129 Equiano, Olaudah, 1:148, 150, 153 “Era of Good Feelings” (1817–1825), 2:278, 3:103, 104, 105 Erie Canal construction, 3:130 Eriksson, Leif, 1:2 Espionage Act (1917), 4:33 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke), 2:177 Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life (Priestley), 2:38 Essex legal case, 3:41 Establishing Religious Freedom bill (Jefferson), 2:173 Esteban (Esteváncio the Moor), 1:60, 67–68, 69–71 European Age of Discovery, 1:33 European-Native American encounters (1607–1637), 1:117–134 Kennedy/Perdisatt’s interpretive essay, 1:120–127 Opechancanough, 1:129–130 overview, 1:117–120 Pequot War, 1:130–131 Pocahontas, 1:131–132 smallpox epidemic, 1:4, 40, 120, 128–129 Smith, John, 1:133–134 Squanto (Patuxet Indian), 1:134 European Renaissance, 1:135 Evans, George Henry, 3:129 Evarts, William M., 3:271 “Evil Empire” (Soviet Union), 4:152, 227–228 Excise Bill (1733), 2:10 Exposition and Protest pamphlet (Calhoun), 3:51 Fail Safe (war movie), 4:224 Fair Employment Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 4:243 A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (Edwards), 2:59

I-11

Falwell, Jerry, 4:279 Farmer’s Alliance, 1:95 Fascism, rise of, 4:85 Faust, Jessie, 4:58, 60 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (1965), 4:135 Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 4:199, 201, 206 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), 4:78, 280 Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), 4:77 Federal Highway Act (1956), 4:139 Federal Housing Authority (FHA), 4:132, 133, 139 Federal Reserve Act (1913), 4:4 Federal Reserve Bank, 3:125 Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), 4:4 Federalist Papers (Hamilton, Madison, Jay), 2:228, 230 Federalist Party, 2:174–175, 228, 229, 231, 239, 243 background/description, 2:278–280 commercial interests, 2:263 dissent within, 2:269 end of (1812), 3:44–45 Hamilton’s intellectual guidance, 2:79 Jefferson/Madison opposition to, 2:267–268, 3:50 War of 1812 opposed by, 2:280 Washington’s leadership of, 2:279 XYZ Affair issues, 2:246, 249 See also Adams, John The Female Review (Sampson), 2:207 The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 4:259, 264–265, 267–269 Feminist activism, 4:262–263 See also Women’s Rights Movement Feminist Majority, 4:267 Fendall, Josias, 1:233 Ferdinand V (King of Spain), 1:4, 15–16, 55, 73–74, 83 Ferdinand VII (King of Spain), 3:87, 88–89 Ferraro, Geraldine, 4:262 Ferris, George (1859–1896), 3:255, 265–267 Fessenden, William Pitt, 3:231 Fifteenth Amendment (Constitution), 3:22, 198, 4:51 Fifth Monarchy Men, 1:170 Filene, Edward, 4:134 Fillmore, Millard, 3:158 Finch British warship, 3:56 Fine Arts Building (Columbian Exposition), 3:254–255 Finney, Charles Grandison, 3:2–3, 4, 6, 13, 17–18

I-12

INDEX

First Amendment (Constitution), 1:180, 2:269 First Anglo-Dutch War (1652), 1:206 First Blood (war movie), 4:228 First Church of Boston, 2:54 First Continental Congress (1774), 2:106, 119, 124, 129–130, 152, 159, 178, 200, 209, 253 See also Intolerable Acts First Encounters, ca. 40,000 (BCE-CE 1492), 1:1–32 Algonquin, 1:12–13 Anasazi culture, 1:13–15 background information, 1:1–4 Columbus, Christopher, 1:15–16 Frank’s interpretive essay, 1:4–11 Hopewell culture, 1:17 Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492), 1:18–32 Mississippian culture, 1:17–18 First Great Awakening, 2:66, 3:1, 7–8 See also Second Great Awakening First Hundred Days (FDR Presidency), 4:89–90 First Seminole War, 1:95 “First Voyage to Roanoke” (Barlowe) excerpt, 1:115–116 Fisk College, 4:52 Fithian, Philip Vickers, 1:161–163 Five Nations of the Iroquois, 1:216–217 Flagler, Henry, 1:96, 3:182–183 Florentine Renaissance, 2:143 Florida, 1:94–97 Caribbean refugees in, 1:96–97 ceding of to Great Britain, 1:95 colonization attempts, 1:80, 81 Gulf Coast discovery, 1:74, 79, 83 Jesuit conversions in, 1:82 Luna y Arellano’s settlement attempts, 1:83 naming, by Ponce de Léon, 1:94 Philip II’s involvement in, 1:80–81, 83 post-WW II population changes, 1:96 See also St. Augustine, founding of Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, 4:38 Folk magic, 1:261 Food Administration, 4:25 Ford, Henry, 4:133 Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 3:74 Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 3:213 See also Ku Klux Klan Fort Laramie Treaty (1851), 3:27, 234, 247 Fort Wayne, Treaty of, 3:48 Fort Wilson riot, 2:144–145 Fortune magazine, 4:141–142 Founding Fathers (of the U.S.) Electoral College and distrust of, 2:225 engagement with Age of Reason, 2:32

fears of “factions,” 2:267 hierarchical/controlled systems, 2:166 role in Enlightenment of America, 2:25, 30 Fountain of Youth, 1:74 Fourteen Points (Wilson), 4:26, 47–49 Fourteenth Amendment (Constitution), 3:198, 212, 214 Fox, George, 1:178, 184–185 See also Quakers (Society of Friends) France abolitionists of, 1:152 Académie des Sciences of Paris, 2:25, 28 Canada claimed for, 1:46 Cavalier’s land claims for, 1:36 D-Day invasion, 4:106 five-man committee rulership, 2:240 Franklin’s mission to, 2:25, 140–142, 147 Jay’s mission to, 2:142, 147 Jefferson’s mission to, 2:147 Louis XIV, 1:49, 249 Louis XV, 2:256 Louis XVIII, 2:257–258 Murray’s mission to, 2:249–250 Oswald’s mission to, 2:147 Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:87 reign of Francis I, 1:33, 45 Revolutionary War aid to U.S., 2:239 Roman Catholic Church, 1:34 Spain vs., for North America, 1:83 Treaty of Alliance, 2:142, 146 Treaty of Paris signing, 1:44, 2:12, 72, 79, 87 West Africa’s wars with, 1:137 XYZ Affair (France), 2:201, 239–261 See also Cartier, Jacques; Coligny, Gaspard de; Marquette, Jacques; New France Francis I (French King), 1:33, 37, 46 Franciscan missionaries, 1:215 Franco-American alliance, 2:141 Frank, Andrew, 1:4–11 Franklin, Benjamin (1706–1790), 2:34–36 Adam’s jealousy of, 2:253 American Philosophical Society founded by, 2:29, 33–34 biographical information, 2:24, 34–36, 122 Constitutional Convention participation, 2:218, 220 Declaration of Independence involvement, 2:30, 34, 161–164, 173, 179, 182 electricity experiments, 2:29, 34–35 French and Indian War involvement, 2:75 Junto established by, 2:27–28, 36–37 mission to France, 2:25, 140–142, 147 Second Continental Congress participation, 2:173

INDEX

slavery opposed by, 3:69 stance for Native Americans, 2:35 Franklin, John Hope, 1:135 Franks, Abigail Bilhah Levy, 2:204 Fray Marcos, 1:60–61, 70–71 Frederick the Great (of Prussia), 2:139 Free Soil Party, 3:132, 157 Free Speech Movement (UC Berkeley), 4:225 Freedman’s Bureau, 3:212, 217, 219, 220 Freedom of the Will (Edwards), 2:60 Freedom Riders, 4:239, 245 Freedom Summer (1964), 4:247, 252–253 Freethinkers, 3:7 Frelinghuysen, Theodorus (1691-ca. 1747), 2:47, 52, 60–62 Fremont, Gen. John C., 3:192 French and Indian War (1756–1763), 1:41, 44, 92–93, 2:5, 69–92 Albany Plan of Union (document), 2:90–92 Braddock’s campaign, 2:72, 74–75, 83 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 2:73–81 Great Britain and, 2:69–70 guerilla warfare, 2:71 Kentucky rifle introduction, 2:71 Montcalm-Gozon, Louis-Joseph de, 2:84–85 overview, 2:69–73 Pitt, William, 2:18, 72, 73, 78, 80, 85–87 problems created by, 2:93 Rogers, Robert, 1:223, 2:87–89 segmented state banner symbol, 2:160 Wolfe, James, 2:72, 78, 84–85, 89–90 French Company of the West Indies (company), 1:137 French in North America (1534–1701), 1:33–53 beaver trade, 1:38–39 Buade, Louis de, 1:48–50 Cartier, Jacques, 1:45–46 Champlain, Samuel de, 1:47–48 conversion of Indians to Catholicism, 1:41–42 fur trade, environmental consequences, 1:48 Hunt’s interpretive essay, 1:37–44 interactions with Native Americans, 1:35, 38, 39–40 Joliet, Louis, 1:50–51 King William’s War, 1:49–50 Marquette, Jacques, 1:51–53 “Middle Ground” legacy, 1:41 Mississippi River Valley exploration, 1:51–52 North America resettlement, 1:37 overview, 1:33–36 Thirty Years War, 1:49 French Indochina, 4:219–220 French Wars of Religion (1589), 1:37–38 French West Indies, 2:4

I-13

Friedan, Betty (1921–2006), 4:259, 264–265, 267–269 Friedman, Milton, 4:278 Friends of Equal Rights group, 3:129 Frobisher, Martin, 1:100–101 Frontenac, Comte de. See Buade, Louis de Frontier. See Closing of the frontier (ca. 1890s) The Frugal Housewife (Child), 3:80 Fuel Administration, 4:25 Fuller, Margaret, 3:3 Fuller, William, 1:178 Fulton, Robert, 3:36 Fur trade (17th/18th centuries), 1:48 Fur Trade Wars, 1:40, 43 Gabriel’s Rebellion (1800), 1:152 Gadsden Purchase, 3:203, 233 Gage, Thomas, 2:75–76, 88, 107, 118–119, 123–125, 129, 159 See also Bunker Hill, Battle of (1775) Galileo, 2:22–23 Gallatin, Albert, 2:246–247, 265, 3:52 Galloway, Joseph, 2:129 Gallup, John, 1:119 Garay, Francisco de, 1:55–56 Garfield, James, 3:174 Garland, Hamlin, 3:29 Garrison, William Lloyd, 3:66–67, 72–73, 75 See also American Anti-Slavery Society Garvey, Marcus, 4:55 See also Universal Negro Improvement Association Gates, Gen. Horatio, 2:140 The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (Smith, 1624), 1:133–134 Geneva Accords conference, 4:220–221 Gentleman and Lady’s Town and Country Magazine (Murray), 2:206 George, Henry, 3:162 George Fox Digg’d Out of His Burrowes (Williams), 1:187 George I (King of England), 2:6, 17–18 George II (King of England), 2:7, 9, 18, 93, 171 George III (King of England), 2:73, 87, 93, 109, 123, 125, 130, 140, 160, 171–172 See also Declaration of Independence; Olive Branch Petition George IV (King of England), 2:172 Germany Battle of the Bulge defeat, 4: 119–120 Berlin blockade, 4:171 British attacks on, 4:105 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, 4:86, 179

I-14

INDEX

response to Great Depression, 4:85 rise of Hitler, 4:85–86 submarine attacks by, 4:110 weapons development, 4: 154 World War II surrender, 4:169 Gerry, Elbridge, 2:222, 240–241, 243, 255–256 Gettysburg Address (Lincoln), 2:167, 3:198, 207 Ghana slave trading posts, 1:151 Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 2:232, 3:44, 47, 49, 54, 55, 60, 100 Ghost Dance religion (Native Americans), 3:29, 235, 243–245, 248, 250, 251 GI Bill, 4:136, 137 Gilded Age (1877–1901), 3:159, 161 Glass-Steagall Banking Act (1933), 4:78 The Gleaner (Murray), 2:206 Glee TV show, 4:204 The Glorious Cause (Middlekauff ), 2:165 Glorious Revolution in America (1688–1689), 1:168, 233–253 Andros, Sir Edmund, 1:246–247 Bacon’s Rebellion, 1:247–248 English Bill of Rights (document), 1:251–253 King William’s War, 1:248–250 Leisler, Jacob, 1:236–237, 250–251 Locke’s justification for, 2:162 origins of, 1:235, 247, 2:6–7 overview, 1:233–237 Swiney’s interpretive essay, 1:237–245 Gold and silver mining, 3:27, 233 Good, Sarah, 1:256, 258, 264 Good-Bye Columbus (Roth), 4:138 Good Neighbor Policy, 4:85–86 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 4:152, 174, 176, 277, 281–282 Gordon, William, 2:149 Gorgas, Gen. Josiah, 3:196 Gorton, Samuel, 1:175 Gosnold, Captain Bartholomew, 1:101, 112 “The Gospel of Wealth” (Carnegie), 3:177 Goulaine de Laudonnière, René, 1:81, 84 Gould, Jay, 3:163 Gradualism, 3:71–72 Graeme, Elizabeth, 2:28 Graham, Sylvester, 3:65 Grand Itinerants, 2:54 Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., 3:95, 143, 192, 201–202, 207, 215, 222, 223 Grasse, Admiral François de, 2:154 Great American Desert, 3:25 Great Awakening (ca. 1730s-1760), 1:208, 221, 2:45–67 Congregationalists (“Old Lights”), 2:48 controversy created during, 2:47–48 Edwards, Jonathan, 2:51, 59–60

Frelinghuysen, Theodorus, 2:51, 60–62 Halfway Covenant (1662), 2:45, 51 intellectual side of, 2:48–49 Kramer’s interpretive essay, 2:49–57 “Old Lights”/”New Lights,” 2:54–55 origins of, 2:51 overview, 2:45–49 pietism/revivalism during, 2:46–47, 49 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52 slave religion during, 2:62–63 Stoddard, Solomon, 2:45, 51 Tennent, GIlbert, 2:63–65 Whitefield, George, 2:65–66 women in, 2:66–67 See also Religious traditions Great Britain abolitionists of, 1:152 Atlantic Charter, 4:110 attacks on Germany, 4:105 capture of Washington, D.C., 3:57–58 Coercive Acts (1774), 2:104 Currency Act (1751), 2:4, 99 Declaratory Act, 2:95, 104 Florida ceded by Spain to, 1:95 French and Indian War and, 2:69–70 Intolerable Acts, 2:123 Jay’s Treaty, 2:147, 239, 251 losses at Bunker Hill, 2:153–154 Madison’s sanctions against, 3:25–26 mercantilist policies, 2:3 Molasses Act (1733), 2:4, 5, 8, 94 North American takeover by, 1:74 occupation of Oregon territory, 3:139 Orders-in-Council decrees, 3:41 Proclamation of 1763, 2:93–94, 97 Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:87 Quartering Act (1765), 2:102 salutary neglect policy, 2:70 Seven Years’ War (with France), 2:71 Sugar Act (1764), 2:5, 93–94, 99 Townshend Duties (1776), 2:104 Treaty of Alliance, 2:142, 146 Treaty of Ghent, 3:44 Treaty of Paris signing, 1:44, 2:12, 72, 79, 87 war with Holland, 1:205 Weber-Ashburton Treaty, 1:152–153 World War II involvement, 4:110 Yorktown, Battle of, 2:154 See also Stamp Act (1765) Great Commoner. See Pitt, William Great Depression (1929-ca. 1939), 4:39, 56, 75–103 Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 4:82–83, 84

INDEX

events leading up to, 4:80 First Hundred Days (FDR Presidency), 4:89–90 Greenspan’s interpretive essay, 4:79–87 Hoover, Herbert, 4:76–77, 79–80, 90–92 Long, Huey “Kingfish,” 4:79, 83–84, 92–93 National Recovery Administration, 4:78, 82, 84 overview, 4:75–79 post-WW I origins, 4:75 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 4:76–77, 81 Social Security Act, 4:84 stock market crash, 4:75, 80, 102–103 suburban housing boom, 4:132 Works Progress Administration, 4:78, 79, 84 See also New Deal; Roosevelt, Franklin D. Great Migration (of African-Americans, 1920), 2:145, 53, 54 Great Plains territory, 3:29–30 Great Society (Lyndon Johnson), 4:234 Great Swamp Fight, 23, 1:215, 217–218, 223, 225 Great Treaty of Montreal, 1:41 Great War for Empire, 2:71 See also Seven Years’ War Green, Nancy, 3:261 Green Party USA (political party), 4:146 Greene, Gen. Nathaniel, 2:202 Greenleaf, Stephen, 2:97 Greensboro Four activists, 4:141 Greensboro (North Caroline) Sit-Ins (1960), 4:251–252 Greenspan, Anders, 4:79–87 Greenwich Village (New York City), 4:59 Grenville, George, 2:73, 93, 98 Grenville, Richard, 1:101, 114 Grimké, Angelina and Sarah, 3:73, 78 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 3:141, 143, 149, 154, 190, 233 Guerilla warfare (French and Indian War), 2:71 Guilford Courthouse, Battle of, 2:146–147 Gulf War (1990), 4:229 Hague, Laura, 4:5–13 Hague Peace Palace (Netherlands), 3:178 Haitian Revolution (1791), 1:152 Hakluyt, Richard, 1:101 Hale, John, 1:265 Halfway Covenant (1662), 2:45, 51, 55 Hall of Manufactures (Columbian Exposition), 3:256 Hamilton, Alexander, 2:25, 174, 219, 226–229, 239 Bank of the United States actions, 3:123 commercial interests, 2:263 Federalist Papers, 2:228, 230

I-15

hatred of/duel with Aaron Burr, 2:273 intellectual guidance of Federalists, 2:79 letter attacking John Adams, 2:250 opposition to Murray’s French mission, 2:249–250 “The Stand” newspaper, 2:245 warrior ambitions of, 2:248 See also Federalist Papers; Federalist Party; Yorktown, Battle of (1781) Hampton Institute, 4:52 Hancock, John, 2:35, 102, 164, 178 Handy, Moses P., 3:258 Hanikuh (Zuni leader), 1:70 Hanoverian monarchy, 2:6–7, 8, 15–17, 73, 85–86 Hansen, Chadwick, 1:261 “The Harlem Dancer” (McKay), 4:59 Harlem Renaissance (1917–1935), 4:51–73 Beeby’s interpretive essay, 4:56–63 Hughes, Langston, 4:55, 56–58, 68–69 Hurston, Zora Neale, 4:57, 58, 69–70 Johnson, James Weldon, 4:58, 59, 70–72 McKay, Claude, 4:54, 57, 59, 72–73 NAACP, 4:13, 52, 58–60, 71–72 overview, 4:51–56 Harlem Shadows (McKay), 4:59 Harper’s Ferry raid (1859), 3:191 Harriet, the Moses of Her People (Bradford), 3:83 Harrison, William Henry, 3:43–44, 46, 48 Hartford Convention (1814), 3:44–45, 50, 52, 58–60 Hartford Treaty, 1:203 Harvard College, 2:24, 26, 53, 116, 126, 205, 241 Harvey, William, 2:22–23 Hat Act (1732), 2:3 Hatch Act (1939), 4:78 Hay, John, 3:275–276, 278 Hayden, Tom, 4:140 Hayes, Rutherford, 3:211, 215, 223, 225 Haymarket Riot (1886, Chicago), 4:7 Hays, John, 2:202 Hays, Mary Ludwig, 2:202–203 Haywood, Bill, 4:38 Hazel Bishop cosmetics, TV advertising, 4:205 Head Start program, 4:234 Hearst, William Randolph, 3:274, 276, 283–285 Henderson, Francis, 3:12 Henry, Patrick, 2:102–103, 117, 129, 226, 230, 3:69 Henry II (French King), 1:33 Henry IV (French King), 1:34, 36, 47 Henry VII (French King), 1:167, 172 Henry VII (King of England), 1:99, 111 Henry VIII (King of England), 1:100, 167–168, 172, 176, 234

I-16

INDEX

Hepburn Act (1906), 4:2, 18 Heritage Foundation, 4:278 Hernández de Córdoba, Francisco, 1:75 Hewes, George, account of Boston Tea Party (1773), 2:136–138 Hiacoomes (Native American), 1:121, 124–126 Hidden Persuaders (Packard), 4:140 Higher law, 2:168 Highway Revenue Act, 4:279 Hill, Anita, 4:263, 265–266 Hill Street Blues (TV show), 4:202 “Hippie” movement, 4:141 The History and Present State of Discoveries relating to Vision, Light and Colours (Priestley), 2:39 The History and Present State of Electricity with Original Experiments (Priestley), 2:38 The History of all the Branches of Experimental Philosophy (Priestley), 2:39 A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists (Backus), 3:16 History of the American Revolution (Ramsay), 2:149 The History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay (Thomas Hutchinson), 2:108 History of the Standard Oil Company (Tarbell), 3:184 History of the United States (Bancroft), 1:261 History of the World (Raleigh), 1:113 Hitler, Adolf, 4:85–86, 181, 242 Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam leader), 4:219–220, 224 Hohokam culture, 1:14 Holy Alliance Latin America ambitions, 3:92–93 Monroe’s warnings against, 3:94 Holy Roman Emperor, 1:83 Home to Harlem (McKay), 4:57 Homestead Act (1862), 3:28, 196, 236 Homestead Strike (1892, Pennsylvania), 4:7 Hong, Stephen H., 3:25 Hoover, Herbert, 4:76–77, 79–80, 90–92 presidency of, 4:79–80 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 4:76–77 Roosevelt vs. (presidential election), 4:77 Hopewell culture, 1:17 Hopi Indians (“Peaceful People”), 1:68, 71–73 Hopkins, Lemuel, 2:149 Hopkinson, Francis, 2:148 Horseshoe Bend, Battle of, 3:47 House Committee on Un-American Activities, 4:182 House of Burgesses (Virginia), 1:157, 2:102 House of Commons, 1:176

Boston Tea Party role, 2:118 Grenville’s role, 2:100–101, 103 Newcastle’s role, 2:15, 16–18 Pitt’s role, 2:85–86, 103 repeal of Stamp Act, Declaratory bill, 2:104 Walpole’s role, 2:9–10 Houston, Charles, 4:237 Houston, Sam, 3:138 Howard (Lord of Effingham), 1:236 Howard University, 4:52, 54 Howe, Elizabeth, 1:258 Howe, Gen. Sir William, 2:153–154 Howells, William Dean, 3:272 Hudson, Henry, 1:193, 197–198 Hughes, Langston, 4:55, 56–57, 56–58, 58, 68–69 Huguenots, 1:34, 37, 81, 84 Hull House (Jane Addams), 3:170 Hulu Web site, 4:204 Humphreys, David, 2:149 Hungarian Revolution, 4:175 Hunt, Capt. Thomas, 1:118 Hunt, John M., 1:37–44 Hunt, Richard, 3:255 Hunters and gatherers, 1:1, 5 Huron nation, 1:38, 47 Hurston, Zora Neale, 4:57, 58, 69–70 Hutchinson, Anne, 1:174–175, 183–184, 263, 2:49–50 Hutchinson, Thomas, 2:35, 90, 95, 107–108, 121–12 Hutchinson, William, 1:174–175 “Hydra of corruption” (of Biddle), 3:112 ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), 4:154 “If We Must Die” (McKay), 4:54 Igbo language (Africa), 1:148 Immigration Reduction League (1894), 3:239 Independent Treasury Act (1846), 3:154 Indian War (1675–1676), 1:247 Indians. See Native Americans Indigenous peoples Cabeza de Vaca and, 1:57 early North America, 1:1 Ponce de Léon confrontations with, 1:75 Industrial, northern states, 3:65 Industrial Revolution (ca. 1860s-1890s), 3:159–184 American Federation of Labor, 3:162 Bell, Alexander Graham, 3:173–175 Carnegie, Andrew, 3:175–178 child labor laws, 3:164–165 Edison’s inventions, 3:159–160 growth of cities, 3:165–167, 171 Knights of Labor (labor union), 3:161–162

INDEX

labor practices/unions, 3:161, 168, 170, 178–179 meat packing plants, 3:160 Morgan, J. P., 3:179–181 onset of (1794), 1:151 overview, 3:159–163 railroads, 3:165, 175 Rockefeller, John D., 3:181–184 steel industry, 3:160–161, 163, 171 women’s movements, 3:170–171 Woods’ interpretive essay, 3:163–171 World’s Columbian Exposition and, 3:257, 263 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), 4:34, 38–39 The Influence of Sea Power upon History (Mahan), 3:272 Ingoldesby, Maj. Robert, 1:251 “Innocent Blood Crying to God from the Streets of Boston” pamphlet (Sam Adams), 2:116 Intercolonial congress. See First Continental Congress (1774) Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) treaty (1987), 4:152, 174, 277, 281–282 International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 4:229 Internment camps, of Japanese, in U.S., 4:109, 114 Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 3:162, 163 Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), 3:162, 4:2, 18 Intolerable Acts, 2:123, 159 Iran, 4:169 Iran-Contra Scandal, 4:276, 288 Iron Act (1750), 2:3 Iroquois nations, 1:38 Irvine, Col. William, 2:202 Isabella I (Queen of Spain), 1:4, 15–16, 83 Italian expeditions to America, 1:99 See also Cabot, John (Giovanni Caboto) Izard, George, 3:55 Jackson, Andrew (1767–1845) admission to bar, 3:125 Bank of America favored by, 3:111–112 Battle of New Orleans actions, 3:110 biographical data, 3:125–128 “Kitchen Cabinet” of, 3:126 presidency of, 3:114, 116, 124 Texas annexation, 3:138 Trail of Tears against Cherokees, 3:127 War of 1812 participation, 3:23–24, 45, 47, 54, 92, 3:109 Jacksonian Democracy (1828–1840), 3:109–135 Bank of the United States, 3:111–112, 122–125 Bank War, 3:129 codification of common law, 3:119–120

I-17

Equal Rights Party, 3:129 Free Soil Party, 3:132 Friends of Equal Rights group, 3:129 Jackson, Andrew, 3:125–128 Locofoco Party, 3:128–129 Mackey’s interpretive essay, 3:113–121 Nullification Document (Jackson), 3:134–135 overview, 3:109–113 Van Buren, Martin, 3:129–132 Whig Party, 2:278, 3:67, 81, 132–134 Workingman’s Party, 3:128 Jacobite rebellion (1715), 2:7, 249 Jacobs, George, Sr., 1:258 Jacobsen, Capt. Cornelius, 1:199 James (Duke of York), 1:239 James, Henry, 3:272 James, William, 2:60 James I (King of England), 1:101, 137, 169, 170, 196, 2:112 James II (King of England), 1:234, 239, 249, 250, 2:6–7 Jamestown arrival of slaves, 1:136 founding (1607), 1:82, 112, 121 naming of, 1:101 Opechancanough attack on, 1:130 Tercentenary Exposition, 1:100 Japan atomic bombing of, 4:107, 116, 150, 154, 159 internment order (1942), 4:109, 114, 128–129 Pearl Harbor attack, 4:106, 107, 110–111, 126–127 war with China, 4:106 Jarratt, Devereux, 2:55–56 Jay, John, 2:129, 142, 147, 3:36 See also Federalist Papers Jay’s Treaty (1795), 2:147, 239, 251 Jefferson, Thomas, 1:145–146, 160, 3:142, 190 Adams, John, association with, 2:174 American Philosophical Society activities, 2:176 anti-Federalist stance, 2:263 anti-slavery document signing, 2:221 anti-slavery stance, 3:70 Bible edited by, 2:26 “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” 2:57 Committees of Correspondence and, 2:117 Continental Congress participation, 2:173, 174 Danbury Baptist Association speech, 1:171 Declaration of Independence role, 2:162, 164, 172–176 1800 presidential election, 2:263 election of 1800 viewpoint, 2:266–267 election to vice-presidency, 2:28 embargo on East India Company, 2:129

I-18

INDEX

Essex legal case, 3:41 Establishing Religious Freedom bill, 2:173 Federalists opposed by, 2:267 as Founding Father, 2:25 higher law and, 2:168 Kentucky Resolution, 2:175, 247, 269 Letter on Science and the Perfectibility of Men, 2:43–44 Louisiana Purchase viewpoint, 2:266 mission to France, 2:147 Monroe’s studies with, 3:103 More General Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 2:173 Notes on the State of Virginia, 2:30, 174, 3:169 presidency of, 2:273, 3:21 Quasi-War affair viewpoint, 2:250 Report of Government for the Western Territory, 2:174 resolutions penned by, 2:247 A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 2:164, 172 vice-presidency of, 2:265 Virginia State of Religious Freedom, 2:172 Washington’s association with, 2:174 See also Louisiana Purchase The Jeffersonian Image in the American Mind (Peterson), 3:31 Jenkin’s Ear, War of, 2:9 Jennings, William Sherman, 1:96 Jesuits (Society of Jesus) Beaver Wars and, 1:40 Canadian settlements, 1:38 college in Quebec, 1:50 conversion of Native Americans, 1:36, 40, 42–43, 215 conversions in Florida, 1:82 New France missions, 1:42 Jewish people, 1:170, 175 Jim Crow Laws, 4:54, 241–242 John Brown’s Final Statement to Virginia Court, 3:84–85 John I (King of England), 1:167 Johnson, Andrew, 3:95 biographical background, 3:226–228 Black Codes enactment, 3:213 Reconstruction ideas of, 3:211–212, 217–218 resistance to Fourteenth Amendment, 3:212 Johnson, James Weldon, 4:58, 59, 70–72 Johnson, Lyndon, 4:135, 221–222, 233–234, 239–240 Johnson, Sir William, 2:75, 87–88 Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), 4:150 Joliet, Louis, 1:50–51

Jones, Mary Harris (Mother Jones), 4:38 Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492), 1:18–32 “A Journal of the Times” newspaper series, 2:194 Journals of Lewis and Clark, 3:38–39 A Journey in the Back Country (Olmsted), 3:267 A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (Olmsted), 3:267 A Journey through Texas (Olmsted), 3:267 Judiciary Act (1789), 2:266 Judiciary Act (1801), 2:265 The Jungle (Sinclair), 4:2, 20 Kalman, Laura, 2:168–169 Kansas-Nebraska Act, 3:28 Karlsen, Carol, 1:261 Katsinas (ceremonial spirits), 1:71 Kelly, Abby, 3:74 Kennan, George, 4:170, 182 Kennedy, Anthony M., 4:275, 280 Kennedy, John F., 3:242, 4:172–173, 202, 208, 210, 220, 259 Kennedy, Rick, 1:103–109, 120–127, 2:163–170 Kennedy, Robert F., 4:234 Kentucky Resolution (Jefferson), 2:175, 247, 2:247, 269, 3:190 Kentucky rifle introduction, 2:71 Kerber, Linda, 2:189, 196 Kerner Commission Report, 4:240 Kerry, John, 4:229 A Key into the Language of America (Williams), 1:186 Khrushchev, Nikita, 4:172–173 Kieft, Willem, 1:201–202 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 2:169, 225, 239, 244, 245–246, 253–255, 264 King George’s War (1743–1748), 2:73, 87 King Philip’s War (1675–1676), 1:186, 213–231, 263 Bacon’s Rebellion association with, 1:247 Church, Benjamin, 1:223–224 defeat of Algonquins, 1:220–221 Great Swamp Fight, 1:215, 217–218, 223, 225 Massasoit Peace Treaty (document), 1:230–231 Metacom (ca. 1638–1676), 1:224–226 Mohawk Indians and, 1:215 Narragansett Indians and, 1:213–214 Narragansetts, 1:226–227 overview, 1:213–216 Powhatan confederacy depopulation, 215–216 Rowlandson, Mary, 1:227–228 Savage, Thomas Savage, 1:214 Siry’s interpretive essay, 1:216–222 triggering event, 1:223 Wampanoag Indians, 1:126, 214, 217, 223, 228–230

INDEX

King William’s War (1689–1697), 1:49–50, 248– 250, 2:73 King’s Mountain (NC) battle, 2:146 Kinnersley, Ebenezer, 2:29 Kinsey, Alfred, 4:257 Kipling, Rudyard, 3:273 Kissinger, Henry, 4:173, 222, 282 “Kitchen Cabinet” (of Jackson), 3:126 Kiva ceremony (Hopis), 1:71 Knights of Labor (labor union), 3:161–162 Knox, Hugh, 2:226 Knox, Lucy Flucker, 2:195 Kongo Empire slave trading posts, 1:151 Korean War, 4:171, 175, 190–193, 202, 219 Kramer, Carl E., 2:49–57 Kramer, Heinrich, 1:259 Krol, Bastiaen Jansen, 1:194 Ku Klux Klan (KKK), 3:213, 221 La Farge, Oliver, 1:72 La Follette, Robert “Fighting Bob” (1855–1925), 4:15–16 Labor practices/unions, Industrial Revolution era, 3:161, 168, 170, 178–179 Lachine Massacre, 1:249 Ladies Association of Philadelphia, 2:145 “A Lady’s Adieu to Her Tea-Table” poem, 2:194 Lake George, Battle of, 2:75 Lamb, John, 2:108 Laos, 4:219 Larsen, Nella, 4:58 Latin America, 1:96, 2:2 anti-Napoleonic movements, 3:87 Franco-Spanish military expedition, 3:89 Holy Alliance interest in, 3:92–93 progressive revolutionaries, 2:166 Roosevelt’s involvement with, 3:96 slave labor colonies in, 1:156 Spanish-American War origination, 3:274 U.S. protection for, 3:104 U.S./Great Britain’s interests, 3:88, 91 See also Bolívar, Simón; Monroe Doctrine Latin Christian Church, 1:167 Laurens, Henry, 2:147 Lawrence, William Van Duzer, 4:131 Lay, Benjamin, 3:69 League of Nations, 4:16, 25–26, 26, 39–40, 85 Lecompton Constitution, 3:191 Lectures on History and General Policy (Priestley), 2:38 Lectures on Revivals (Finney), 3:18 Lectures on Systematic Theology (Finney), 3:18 Lee, Arthur, 2:140 Lee, Gen. Charles, 2:202

I-19

Lee, Gen. Robert E., 194, 201–202, 207 Lee, Richard Henry, 2:161, 163, 182, 253 See also Resolution Proposing a Declaration of Independence Lee, Robert E., 3:143 LeFeber, Walter, 3:240 Legal Defense Fund (NAACP), 4:237 Legal Realism at Yale, 1927–1960 (Kalman), 2:168–169 Legal Tender Act (1862), 3:197 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 2:177 Leisler, Jacob, 1:236–237, 241–242, 250–251 Lend-Lease military aid bill, 4:105, 178 Leopard (British ship), 3:42–43 A Letter Concerning Toleration (Locke), 2:177 Letter on Science and the Perfectibility of Men (Jefferson), 2:43–44 Letters and Sketches of Sermons (Murray), 2:206 Letters from an American Farmer (Crevecoeur), 3:238–239 Levitt, Alfred and William, 4:132–134, 136–138 Levittowns (NY, NJ, PA), 4:132–134, 136–137, 144 Lewis, David Levering, 4:59 Lewis, Meriwether, 3:25, 35 See also Lewis and Clark expedition Lewis and Clark expedition (1803–1806), 3:35–36 “Corps of Discovery” exploration, 3:25, 35 journal excerpts, 3:38–39 Sacajawea’s assistance, 3:34, 37–38 York Clark’s assistance, 3:33–35 Lexington and Concord, Battle of,, 2:30, 35, 124–125, 130, 131–132, 153, 159, 171, 172 The Liberator (First Edition) excerpt, 3:66–67, 72, 78, 83–84 Liberia, 3:65–66 Liberty Bonds, 4:32 Liberty Party, 3:65, 67, 75, 79, 81–82 Light Brigade, 3:57 Limerick, Patricia Nelson, 3:241 Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963), 4:156 Lincoln, Abraham, 1:77, 3:204–207 Acts of Confiscation, 3:193 Amnesty and Reconstruction Proclamation, 3:211 appointment of Johnson, 3:226 assassination of, 3:207, 211, 218 on cause of Civil War, 1:160 Democratic Party vs., 3:185, 206 1860 presidential election, 3:191 Emancipation Proclamation, 1:160, 3:194, 195, 196, 206, 216 Gettysburg Address, 2:167, 3:198, 207 inauguration (1861), 3:192

I-20

INDEX

Mexican-American War opposition, 3:205 Republican abolitionist support, 3:194 rivalry with Cartwright, 3:16 Ten Percent Plan, 3:211 thoughts on Declaration of Independence, 2:167 Lindbergh, Charles, 4:134 Linnaeus, Carl, 2:29 Linnet British warship, 3:56 Little Belt (American vessel), 3:44 Little Big Horn, Battle of, 3:234, 245 Livingston, Robert R. (1746–1813), 2:173, 3:22, 36–37, 104 Lloyd, Henry D., 3:163 Locke, Alain, 4:58 Locke, John, 2:59, 143, 162, 176–178 See also Declaration of Independence Lockwood, W. J., 4:139 Locofoco Party, 3:128–129 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 3:271, 279 Logan, James, 2:25 Long, Huey “Kingfish,” 4:79, 83–84 Long Island (NY) suburbanization, 4:132–134 Looking Backward (Bellamy), 3:163 Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation (document, 1776), 2:156–157 Lords of Trade (1675), 1:239 Lords of Trade and Plantations, 1:246 Los Alamos, New Mexico (Manhattan Project), 4:149 Los Angeles Riots (1992), 4:247, 256 Louis XIV (French King), 1:49, 249 Louis XV (French King), 2:256 Louis XVIII (French King), 2:257–258 Louisiana Purchase (1803), 2:266, 3:21–39, 233 Clark, York, 3:33–35 initial steps, 3:24 Journals of Lewis and Clark, 3:38–39 land acquisitions, 3:26 Lewis and Clark expedition, 3:35–36 Livingston, Robert R., 3:36–37 overview, 3:21–24 role of Jefferson, 3:21 Sacajawea, 3:37–38 Siry’s interpretive essay, 3:24–31 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904, St. Louis), 3:267 Louisiana Territory, 2:175, 251 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 2:266, 3:21–22, 261 Loyola, Ignatius, 1:52 Luna y Arellano, Tristán de, 1:80, 83 Lundy’s Lane, Battle of (1814), 3:154 Luther, Martin, 1:83–84, 167, 172, 2:22 Lutheranism, 1:83–84, 2:50 Lyon, Matthew, 2:242, 269

Mabila, Battle of (Florida), 1:94 MacArthur, Douglas, 4:81–82, 122–125 MacArthur, Gen. Arthur, 3:275 MacArthur, Gen. Douglas, 4:81–82 Mackey, Thomas A. Jacksonian Democracy, 3:113–121 Stamp Act, 2:96–105 surrender of New Amsterdam, 1:197–205 Macomb, Alexander, 3:55, 56 Macon’s Bill No. 2, 3:43 Madison, James Federalists opposed by, 2:267, 3:50 resolutions penned by, 2:247 role in War of 1812, 3:45 sanctions against Great Britain, 3:25–26 Treaty of Ghent accepted by, 3:51 view of federal government, 3:123 Virginia Resolution, 2:247, 269 Madison, James (1751–1836), 2:217, 218, 227, 229–232 Magazines, American Revolution era, 2:188–189 Magic Electric Button (Columbian Exposition), 3:259 Magnalia Christi Americana (Cotton Mather), 1:267 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 3:272, 280 Main-Travelled Roads (Garland), 3:29 Malcolm, Pulteney, 3:57 Malcolm X, 4:247 Malenkov, George, 4:175 Manhattan Project (atomic bomb), 4:149, 161 Manifest destiny (1840s), 3:46 Manila Bay, Battle of, 3:283 Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building (Columbian Exposition), 3:261 Manufacturing Acts, 2:3 Mao Zedong, 4:171, 182–183 Marbury v. Madison, (Supreme Court decision), 2:265–266 March to the Sea (Sherman, 1864), 3:207–208 Marcos de Niza, Fray. See Fray Marcos Marcy, William L., 3:117–118 Marital rape, criminalization of, 4:260–261 Markham, Sir Clements Robert, 1:18 See also Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492) Marquette, Jacques, 1:36, 51–53 Marshall, George, 4:170, 182–183 Marshall, John, 2:240, 250, 266, 3:25, 70 Marshall, Thurgood, 4:237, 242 Marshall Plan, 4:115, 170–171, 175, 181 Martha’s Vineyard (Massachusetts), 1:117, 125 Martial law, 3:214 Martin, Joseph Plumb, 2:196

INDEX

Martin, Susannah, 1:258, 264 Marx, Karl (Marxism), 3:169–170, 4:177, 180 Mary II (English monarch), 1:236, 241, 243, 247 Mary III (English monarch), 1:178 The Mary Tyler Moore Show (TV show), 4:202 Maryland Act of Toleration (Lord Baltimore, 1649), 1:189–192 M*A*S*H (TV show), 4:202, 204 Massachusetts Bay Colony Court of Oyer and Terminer, 1:257, 262 founding by Puritans, 1:113 Gorton’s expulsion from, 1:175 growth phase, 1:102 Hutchinson’s expulsion from, 1:183 Phips’ service to, 1:249, 257, 258, 263, 271 Plymouth Colony merge with, 1:235–236 Puritan founding of, 1:113, 238 ruling by self-proclaimed “saints,” 1:168 separation of church and state, 1:264 Stone’s expulsion from, 1:119 structure/purpose of, 1:107 Williams’s expulsion from, 1:173, 187 Massachusetts Bay Company, 1:10, 102–105, 130–131, 168, 2:50 Massachusetts Government Act, 2:118 Massachusetts Justice Act, 2:123 Massasoit Peace Treaty (document), 1:230–231 Matanzas (Place of Killing), in Florida, 1:81 Mateo Sagasta, Praxedes, 3:276 Mather, Cotton (son of Increase), 1:123, 217, 260, 265, 266–268, 2:50 Mather, Increase (father of Cotton), 1:258, 268– 269 Mattox, Henry E., 2:119–126 Maximilian I (Spanish Emperor), 1:83, 95 Mayhew, Thomas, 1:117, 124–126 McCain, John, 4:229 McCall’s women’s magazines, 4:258 McCarthy, Eugene, 4:234 McCarthy, Joseph, 1:259, 262, 4:150, 160, 171, 182, 202 McCarthyism, 4:150, 171, 258 McCauley, Mary Ludwig Hays, 2:196 McClellan, Gen. George B., 3:156, 194, 201, 206, 229 McDougall, Alexander, 2:108 McFarlane, Robert, 4:276 McGinniss, Joe, 4:210 McGovern, George, 4:226 McGready, James, 3:8, 18–19 McHenry, James, 2:229, 244, 250 McKay, Claude, 4:54, 57, 59, 72–73 McKinley, William, 3:96, 274, 276–277, 279, 285–287, 4:1

I-21

McLaurin v. Oklahoma (Supreme Court decision), 4:243 McLuhan, Marshall, 4:207 McNamara, Robert, 4:220 Measles epidemic, 1:4 Meat Inspection Act (1906), 4:2, 18 Meat packing plants, 3:160 The Medium, or A Happy Teaparty play (Murray), 2:206 Megapolensis, Johannes, 1:208 Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions (Cotton Mather), 1:267 A Memorial Relating to the Kennebeck Indians (Sewall), 1:272 Mendoza, Antonio de, 1:57 Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro, 1:81, 85 colony maintained by, 1:87–88 defeat of French in St. Augustine, 1:86 expedition to Florida, 1:81, 85 post-death succession of, 1:90 St. Augustine christened by, 1:83, 85 Mennonites, 2:50 Mercantilism, 2:14 Acts of Trade (1660), 2:7 colonies development of, 2:1–2 described, 2:14 Great Britain’s policies, 2:3 Hat Act (1732), 2:3 Iron Act (1750), 2:3 Molasses Act (1733), 2:4, 5 Sugar Act (1764), 2:5 Woolens Act (1699), 2:3 See also Navigation Acts Meredith, James, 4:245 Metacom (ca. 1638–1676), 1:217, 224–226 attack of camp of, 1:219 English humiliation of, 1:216 murder of, 1:219 poisoning of brother of, 1:124 war with Puritans, 1:126, 217 Methodism, 2:47, 53, 56, 65, 150, 3:1, 2 See also Wesley, John Mexican-American War, 3:132, 137–158 Buena Vista, Battle of, 3:138, 140–141, 144, 152, 157, 203 Confederate involvement, 3:143 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 3:141, 143, 149, 154, 190 overview, 3:137–141 Polk, James, 3:152–154 Rakestraw’s interpretive essay, 3:141–149 Scott, Winfield, 3:154–156 Taylor, Zachary, 3:132, 133, 156–158 Wilmot Proviso (document), 3:158

I-22

INDEX

Mexico Aztec Empire, 1:98 gold and silver resources, 1:140 independence won from Spain, 3:137 “Middle Ground” legacy (French colonialism), 1:41 Middle Passage (of slave trade journey), 1:149– 150, 158 Middle Plantation Treaty (1677), 1:248 Middlekauff, Robert, 2:165 Midway, Battle of, 4:106 Military Affairs Committee, 4:42 Military Reconstruction Act of March 1867, 3:214 Miller, Perry, 1:260 Mining phase of Western settlement, 3:233–234 Minor, Elizabeth Montague, 2:203–204 Minuit, Peter, 1:193, 210–211 New Netherland Colony service, 1:193, 199, 200 purchase of Manhattan Island, 1:209 Swedish South Company service, 1:195 Mississippi Rifles Unit (Civil War), 3:203 Mississippi River Valley exploration, 1:50–52 Mississippian culture, 1:17–18 Missouri Compromise (1820), 1:160, 3:27–28, 148, 191–192 Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 4:242 “Model of Christian Charity” essay (Winthrop), 1:103, 104, 106, 108, 109 Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (Farnham), 4:257 Mogollon culture, 1:14 Mohawk Indians, 1:118, 215 Mohawk tribe (of Iroquois nation), 1:42 Mohegan tribe, 1:227 Moki (Moqui) Indians. See Hopi Indians (“Peaceful People”) Molasses Act document (1733), 2:4, 5, 8, 18–20, 94 Monmouth, Battle of, 2:196, 202 Monroe, James, 2:278, 3:22, 26, 36, 103–105, 126 Monroe Doctrine (1823), 3:87–107 Adams, John Quincy, 3:99–101 basic points, 3:89–90 Bolívar, Simón, 3:101–103 Felten’s interpretive essay, 3:90–97 Monroe, James, 3:103–105 Monroe Doctrine document, 3:105–107 overview, 3:87–90, 171 Roosevelt, Theodore, 3:96–97 Roosevelt Corollary, 3:96 Montcalm-Gozon, Louis-Joseph de, 2:72, 77, 84–85 Montesquieu, Baron de, 2:215 Montgomery, Richard, 2:152–153 Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956), 4:238, 251

Moore, James, 1:92 Moral Majority (Falwell), 4:279 Moravians, 2:50, 189 More Wonders of the Invisible World (Calef ), 1:260 Morgan, Edmund S., 1:121 Morgan, J. P., 3:163–164, 4:2, 6 Mormonism, 3:13–14 Morrill Land-Grant College Act, 3:196–197 Morris, Gouvernor (NY State), 3:36 Morse, Jedediah, 2:149 Môrtefontaine, Treaty of (1800), 2:252 Morton, Levi, 3:259 Moseley, Capt. Samuel, 1:218 Motherhood in the colonial era, 2:203–205 Mott, Lucretia, 3:78 Moyne, Pierre le, 1:36 Mr. Cotton’s Letter Lately Printed, Examined, and Answered (Williams), 1:186 MTV TV show, 4:207 Muckrakers, 4:1 Munford, Robert, 2:148 Murray, Donald Gaines, 4:242 Murray, Judith Sargent, 2:189, 198, 205–206 Murray, William Vans, 2:249 Murray v. Maryland (Supreme Court decision), 4:237, 242 Murrow, Edward R., 4:206 Mutiny Act, 1:235 Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), 4:155–156 My Lai massacre (Vietnam War), 4:227 The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction (Trend), 4:209 Nader, Ralph, 4:142, 144–146 Napoleon III, 3:95 Napoleonic Wars (1803–1805), 1:152, 3:41, 87 Narragansett tribe/group of tribes, 1:213–214, 226–227 Narváez, Pánfilo de, 1:56–57, 75 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 4:172 Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831), 1:152, 158–159, 3:72 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 2:169, 4:13, 52, 58–60, 59, 71–72, 237, 242 National Association Opposed to Women Suffrage (1911), 4:2 National Banking Acts (1863, 1864), 3:197 National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 4:201 National Educational Television (NET), 4:201 National Intelligencer Offices, 3:58 National Labor Relations (or Wagner) Act (1935), 4:78 National Organization for Women (NOW), 4:259–260, 269

INDEX

National Park Service (1916), 4:13 National People’s Party (1892), 3:30 National Recovery Administration (NRA), 4:78, 82, 84, 87 National Right to Life Committee, 4:261 National Security Council (NSC), 4:276 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 4:135, 142 National Urban League (NUL), 4:58, 59 Native Americans Algonquins, 1:12–13, 40, 42, 47, 117, 217–218, 220–221 Anasazi culture, 1:13–15 Battle of Pavonia, 1:202 Cabeza de Vaca’s interactions with, 1:67 Cartier’s interactions with, 1:45–46 CCC programs for, 4:77 Christianity and, 1:10–11 Connecticut Indians, 1:218 conversion to Roman Catholicism, 1:41–42 Coronado’s interactions with, 1:58, 62, 63 decapitation of women prisoners, 1:218 displacement threats, 2:11 Dreamer Religion, 3:244 English thoughts about, 1:216 epidemic diseases of, 1:4, 6–7, 11, 40, 128–129 Five Nations of the Iroquois, 1:216–217 Florida tribes, 1:79 French interaction with, 1:35, 38, 39–40 Ghost Dance religion, 3:29, 235, 243–245, 248, 250, 251 Hopi Indians, 1:68, 71–73 Huron nation, 1:38, 47 impact of gold prospecting on, 3:29 impact of War of 1812, 3:45 Indian War (1675–1676), 1:247 Iroquois nations, 1:38, 42 Jesuit missionaries and, 1:36, 40, 42–43 Louisiana Purchase era, 3:27 Mohawk tribe, 1:42, 118, 215 new animals incorporated by, 1:9–10 Pawnee Indians, 1:58, 63 Peoria Indians, 1:51 Prophet Dances, 3:244 Pueblo Revolt, 1:72–73, 76 religious traditions, 1:5–6 Rowlandson captured by, 1:228 Seminole Indians, 3:47 Seminole Wars, 1:95 slash-and-burn agriculture, 1:5 tribal intermarriages, 1:10 tribal-restructuring, 1:7–8 Wampanoag Indians, 1:126, 214, 217, 223, 228–230

I-23

Wichita Indians, 1:64 Wounded Knee massacre, 3:245 Zuni Indians, 1:68–69, 76–78 See also French and Indian War Native Americans, European encounters with, 1:117–134 Naturalization Act, 2:241, 246 Naval War College (U.S.), 3:272 Navigation Act (1651), 1:203, 234, 2:2 Navigation Act (1660), 2:2, 14 Navigation Act (1696), 1:237, 243–244, 2:2, 7 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (1939), 4:86, 179 “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (Hughes), 4:55 Nelson, Horatio, 3:41 Neutrality Acts, 4:86, 105 Neutrality theories, 3:45–46 New Amsterdam, surrender of (1664), 1:193–212 Anglo-Dutch Wars, 1:206 Dutch East India Company, 1:206–207 Dutch Reformed Church, 1:207–208, 212 Dutch West India Company, 1:118, 136, 208–210 Mackey’s interpretive essay, 1:197–205 Minuit, Peter, 1:210–211 overview, 1:193–197 Stuyvesant, Peter, 1:195–196, 200–205, 211–212 New Deal (1930s, FDR), 4:12, 77, 93–98 Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 4:82–83, 84 Civilian Conservation Corps, 4:77, 87 National Recovery Administration, 4:78, 82, 84, 87 opposition to, 4:79 programs created by, 4:77–78, 82–85 Social Security Act, 4:84 suburban housing boom, 4:132 weakening policies of, 4:83 Works Progress Administration, 4:78, 79, 84, 87 New England centrality of religion in, 1:82, 101 Champlain’s voyages, 1:47 conversions of Native Americans, 1:10–11 Dominion of, creation of, 1:239 Indian-white distrust, 1:118 King Philip’s War and, 1:186, 213–231 Narragansett tribe/group of tribes, 1:213–214, 226–227 Native American tribes, 1:5, 8–9, 118–119 Pequot Indians-white battles, 1:120 Pilgrim settlements, 1:102, 113 Puritan colonies in, 1:103, 113 Quakers, 1:106

I-24

INDEX

Salem witch trials, 1:82 slavery population, 1:138 smallpox epidemic, 1:120 New England Anti-Slavery Society (1832), 3:67 New France, 1:35–36, 38–44, 2:69, 72, 80 See also Buade, Louis de; Champlain, Samuel de New Freedom program (Wilson), 4:3 “New Frontier” slogan (JFK), 3:242 New Harmony community, 3:5 New Jersey Plan (document), 2:220, 234–236 New Jewel Movement (Grenada), 4:281 New Left activism, 4:141 New Light Party, 2:54–55, 57 New Light Presbyterians, 2:38, 55, 56–57, 3:7, 15 The New Negro (Locke), 4:54 New Negro Movement. See Harlem Renaissance New Netherland Colony, 1:7, 118 Dutch vs. English in, 1:196–197, 201, 203–205 Dutch West India Company and, 1:193–194, 200, 208–209 English takeover of, 1:197 establishment of, 1:199 Kieft’s service in, 1:201–202 Minuit’s service in, 1:199, 200, 210–211 patroonships in, 1:210 relations with Native Americans, 1:118, 202 slavery in, 1:137 Stuyvesant’s service in, 1:211–212 Van Twiller’s service in, 1:195, 200–201 Verhurst’s service in, 1:199 New Netherland Company, 1:198 New Orleans, Battle of (1815), 3:51–52, 54–55, 60, 110–111, 125, 145 New Orleans, settlement of, 1:36 New Sweden Colony, 1:194, 195, 197, 211–212 New World Cartier’s voyages to, 1:37, 45–46 Champlain’s voyages to, 1:47 Christianity in, 1:10 Columbian exchange and, 1:8–10 Columbus’s voyages to, 1:3, 4 Cortez’s plundering of, 1:59–60 epidemic diseases in, 1:11, 40 French colonization, 1:33, 37, 39–41 Italian expeditions to, 1:99 Marquette’s voyages to, 1:52 plantation economy, 1:149 Spanish colonization, 1:73–76, 83, 87–90 See also Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492) New York Gazette article (1764), 2:94 New York Stock Exchange, 4:80 Newton, Sir Isaac, 1:268, 2:22–23, 59 Niagara Movement (1905), 4:13

Niantic Indians, 1:131, 1:227 Nicholson, Francis, 1:236, 240–241, 250–251 Nicolls, Colonel Richard, 1:204 Nielsen, A. C. (1897–1980), 4:217–218 Nielsen (TV rating) Company, 4:203–204, 207 Niña (ship of Columbus), 1:4, 16 Nineteenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:4, 34, 263 Nixon, Richard, 4:209–211, 239 Consumer Product Safety Act, 4:135 “detente” policy, 4:173 Moscow mission, 4:140 SALT I treaty, 4:176 Nixon Doctrine, 4:183 No Child Left Behind Act (2001), 4:284 Norse people, 1:2 North, Col. Oliver, 4:276 See also Iran-Contra Scandal North, Lord Frederick, 2:108, 115, 128, 142 See also East India Company North America archaeological evidence, 1:2 Cabeza de Vaca’s crossing of, 1:67 England’s colonization efforts, 1:99–116 English NA, religious toleration, 1:167–192 English resettlement in, 1:35 French resettlement in, 1:37 indigenous peoples of, 1:1 introduction of slavery, 1:135–165 smallpox epidemic, 1:4, 40, 128–129 See also Enlightenment in North America; Religious toleration, English North America North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 4:284 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 4:115, 171, 177, 180 North Caucus Club (political group), 2:130 North Star periodical (Douglass), 3:67 Northern Securities Company railroad trust, 4:2 Northwest Indians, 3:49 Northwest Passage, 1:207 Notes on the State of Virginia (Jefferson), 2:174, 3:169 Noyes, John Humphrey, 3:5 Nuclear freeze movement, 4:164 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968), 4:151, 158 Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), 4:150 Nullification Document (document, 1832), 3:134–135 Nurse, Rebecca, 1:258, 1:259, 264–265 Oberlin College, 3:73 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 4:262, 275, 280, 288–290

INDEX

Office of Price Administration (OPA, WW II), 4:108 Office of War Information (WW II), 4:113 Office of War Mobilization (OWN, WW II), 4:107–108 O’Higgins, Bernardo, 3:87 Okeechobee, Battle of, 3:156 Old Fuss and Feathers. See Scott, Winfield Old Light Party, 2:54–55, 57, 63 Old Northwest Territory, 3:2 Old Rough and Ready. See Taylor, Zachary Oldham, John, 1:119 Olive Branch Petition (1775), 2:125, 160, 171, 179–181 Oliver, Andrew, 2:96–97, 127 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 3:253, 259–260, 267–269 Olney, Richard, 3:96 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1987), 4:279 “On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry” sermon (Tennent), 2:53, 55 “On the Equality of the Sexes” essay (Murray), 2:189, 198 Opechancanough, 1:121, 122, 129–130, 216 Open Door note (1900), 3:278–279 Open Door Policy (Eastern Europe), 4:177 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 4:160, 165–166 Orange County Revolutionary Committee of Safety, 2:230 Orders-in-Council decrees, 3:41 Ordinance of Secession (South Carolina, 1860), 3:208–209 Oregon Territory, 3:44, 94, 148 Oregon Trail, 3:143 Oregon Treaty (1864), 3:233 Origin of Species (Darwin), 3:273 The Origins of American Politics (Bailyn), 2:11 O’Sullivan, John L., 3:137, 142, 237 Oswald, Richard, 2:147 Otis, James, 2:107 Our Country: It’s Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (Strong), 3:273 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 2:266, 3:21–22, 261 Owen, Robert, 2:166, 167 Owens, Robert Dale, 3:128 See also Locofoco Party Pacific Railroad Act, 3:197 Packard, Vance, 4:138, 140 Paine, Thomas, 2:125, 161, 226, 3:99, 103 See also Common Sense pamphlet Pakenham, Sir Edward, 3:54, 55 Palmer, Bertha, 3:256, 260 Pan-Americanism, 3:255

I-25

Panama Canal, 3:279, 280, 4:18 Paris, Treaty of (1763), 1:44, 2:12, 72, 79, 87, 140, 171, 239, 253, 3:36 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 3:274, 278 Paris Peace Agreement, 4:222 Parker, Alice, 1:264 Parks, Rosa, 4:258 Parris, Betty, 1:255, 262 Parris, Reverend Samuel, 1:255–256, 262, 265 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 4:151 Pate, John, 1:233 Paths of Glory (war movie), 4:224 Patterson, Daniel Todd, 3:55 Pavonia, Battle of (1643), 1:202 Pawnee Indians, 1:58, 63 PAYGO system (Bush, G.H.W.), 4:283–284 Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909), 4:3 Peace Democrats, 3:218 Peace of Amboise (1563), 1:84 Pearl Harbor attack, 4:106, 107, 110–111, 126–127 Pelham-Holles, Thomas, 2:6, 14–16 Penn, William adoption of Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, 1:191 founding of Pennsylvania, 1:178 landownership rights and, 1:106, 170–171, 179, 239 slavery views of, 1:138 See also Quakers (Society of Friends) Pennsylvania emancipation statute, 2:145–146 Ladies Association (Philadelphia), 2:145 Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges (1701), 1:191 Pennsylvania Railroad, 3:175 Pennsylvania Society for Abolition, 2:194 Pentecostal Protestants, 2:56 People’s Party (Populist Party), 1:95 Peoria Indians, 1:51 Pequot Indian tribe (Connecticut), 1:118–119, 120 Pequot War (1636–1637), 1:118, 130–131, 156, 213, 218 Perdisatt, Kathleen, 1:120–127 Perry, Oliver Hazard (1785–1819), 3:60–62 Pershing, Gen. John J. (1860–1948), 4:26, 40–43 See also American Expeditionary Force Peterson, Merrill, 3:31 Philadelphia Young Ladies’ Academy, 2:190 Philip II (Spanish King), 1:80–81, 83–85 Philippine-American War (1899–1902), 3:287–288 Philippines. See Spanish-American War (1898–1910)

I-26

INDEX

Philips vs. Martin Marietta (Supreme Court decision), 4:261 Phillips, Wendell, 3:78 Phips, Sir William, 1:249, 257, 258, 263, 265, 271 Pickering, Timothy, 2:229, 244, 249–250, 250 Pierce, Franklin, 3:155, 203 Pietism, 2:46–47, 49, 50 Pike, Zebulon, 3:25 “Pikes Beak or Bust!” slogan, 3:233 Pilgrims, 1:112–113 break with Church of England, 1:112 New England settlements, 1:102 Plymouth Rock landing, 1:82, 113 Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 2:240, 243, 244, 263, 271, 280–281 Pinckney’s Treaty (1795), 3:22 Pinta (ship of Columbus), 1:4, 16 Pitcher, Molly. See McCauley, Mary Ludwig Hays Pitt, William, 2:5, 18, 72, 73, 78, 80, 85–87, 103 Pizarro, Francisco, 1:74 Plains Indians, 1:6 Plan for Improving Female Education (Clinton), 2:208 “Plan of Chicago” (Burnham), 3:265 Planned Parenthood of Southern Pennsylvania v. Casey (Supreme Court decision), 4:261–262 Plantation economy (New World), 1:149 Platt Amendment, 3:96 Plattsburgh, Battle of (1814), 3:55–57 Plessy v. Ferguson (Supreme Court decision), 4:12, 237, 241 Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts), 1:82, 102, 117, 120, 123–124, 134, 223, 235–236 Pochahontas, 1:82, 121–122, 131–132 See also Rolfe, John; Smith, Capt. John Poetry, of Phillis Wheatley, 2:193–194 Poindexter, John, 4:276 See also Iran-Contra Scandal Polk, Gen. Leonidas, 3:192 Polk, James K., 3:117 biographical information, 3:152–154 Buena Vista, Battle of, 3:153 Davis’ support of, 3:203 expansionist ideas, 3:139 Independent Treasury Act, 3:154 Mexican-American War association, 3:143–149 Monroe Doctrine association, 3:90, 96, 144–149 presidency, 3:67, 81, 94–95, 131, 139 protection of Texas, 3:140 See also Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of Ponce de Léon, Juan, 1:97–98 arrival in West Indies, 1:55 financial ruin of, 1:83

Gulf Coast Florida discovery, 1:74, 79, 83 indigenous people confrontations, 1:75 naming of Florida, 1:94 Pontiac (Indian Chief ), 2:93, 97 Poor Richard’s Almanack (Franklin), 2:34 Populist Party (1892), 3:30, 239 Port Bill (Boston), 2:123 Port Huron Statement, 4:140, 141 Portuguese slave trade, 1:70, 149–150 Post, George B., 3:255 Posterior Analytics (Aristotle), 2:168 Postman, Neil, 4:207 Potsdam Conference, 4:178 Powhatan Confederacy, 1:131, 143, 215–216 Powhatan Indians, 1:121–122, 129, 130–133 See also Opechancanough Powhatan War, 1:248 Prasch, Thomas A., 2:5–12 Pratt, Julius W., 3:280 Preble warship, 3:56 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52–53, 53, 3:1 Prescott, Col. William, 2:153 The Presidency of Andrew Jackson (Cole), 3:117 President (American vessel), 3:44 President’s Commission on the Status of Women, 4:269–271 Prevost, Sir George, 3:55 Price-Anderson Act (1957), 4:152 Priestley, Joseph (1733–1804), 2:37–40 Princeton, Battle of, 2:148 Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) issue, 4:228 Privy Council, 1:239, 242 Proclamation of 1763, 2:93–94, 97 Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (Lincoln), 3:211 Proclamation of Neutrality (Washington, 1793), 2:258–259 Proclamation of Rebellion (1775, George III), 2:155–156 Proctor, John and Elizabeth, 1:258, 264 Progress and Poverty (George), 3:162 Progressive Party, 4:3, 16, 44 Progressivism (1901–1914), 3:170, 4:1–21 anti-corruption mayors, 4:1 anti-suffrage movement, 4:2 Credit Mobilier scandal, 4:5 education’s importance, 4:8–9 growth of national wealth, 4:8 Hague’s interpretive essay, 4:5–13 La Follette, Robert “Fighting Bob,” 4:15–16 overview, 4:1–5 Payne-Aldrich Tariff, 4:3 political reforms, 4:4, 10–11, 11–12

INDEX

Progressive Party, 4:3, 16, 44 Roosevelt, Theodore, 4:3, 13, 16–18 Settlement House movement, 4:11, 18–19 Sinclair, Upton, 4:1–2, 19–21 Social Gospel movement, 4:7, 9 Underwood Tariff, 4:3 Prohibition legislation, 4:34 Project C (confrontation), 4:246 Prophet Dances (Native Americans), 3:244 Prosser, Gabriel, 1:152 Protestant-Catholic War (1593–1598), 1:47 Protestant Reformation, 1:100 Protestantism, 1:34, 140, 169, 235, 239, 243, 2:67, 3:5, 7, 17 Protests, by women, 2:187, 191 Prussia, Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:87 Public Broadcasting System (PBS), 4:201 Public Interest Research Group (Nader), 4:145 Pueblo Revolt (1680), 1:72–73, 76 Pulitzer, Joseph, 3:274, 276 Pullman Strike (1894, Chicago suburbs), 4:7 Pure Food and Drug Act, 4:18 Puritan Revolution, 2:50 Puritans Act of Toleration accepted by, 1:183 Andros’ leadership of, 1:240 Calvinist Puritans, 1:168–169 campaign against Indians, 1:220 conflict with Catholicism, 1:102 dissatisfaction with Elizabethan Compromise, 1:168 education valued by, 1:107–108 “experimental” Puritanism, 2:52 King Philip’s War and, 1:221 Massachusetts Bay Colony founded by, 1:113, 238 Massachusetts covenants, 1:107 Metacom’s war with, 1:126 New England colonies, 1:103, 113 non-Puritans vs., 2:45 “praying towns” established by, 1:10 Rogers’ ideas rejected by, 1:169 Salem witch trials and, 1:260, 269–271 slavery justified by, 1:138 See also Cromwell, Oliver; Edwards, Jonathan; Winthrop, John Putnam, Ann, Jr., 1:262 Putnam, Frederick War, 3:256 Quadruple Alliance (in Europe), 3:87 Quakers (Society of Friends), 1:170, 184–185 anti-slavery stance, 1:138, 3:69 beliefs of, 1:138, 178–180 emergence of, 1:178

I-27

Fox’s founding of, 1:184–185 friendship with Indians, 1:106 girls schools, 2:189 opposition to Penn, 1:171 Stuyvesant’s opposition to, 1:212 Williams’ defense of, 1:187 See also Penn, William Quartering Act (1765), 2:102, 118 Quasi-War (1798–1800), 2:241, 248, 250–251, 256, 263, 3:60 Quebec Act, 2:118 Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713), 1:224, 2:9, 73 Quivira (golden city), 1:58, 63–64, 65, 69 Race riots, 4:53 Radical Republicans, 3:213–214, 218, 228–230 The Radicalism of the American Revolution (Wood), 2:166 Radio Corporation of American (RCA), 4:200 Railroad Administration, 4:25 Railroads, 3:165, 175, 196, 197, 221, 237 Rain-in-the-Face (Native American chief ), 3:29 Rainey, Ma, 4:55 Rakestraw, Donald A., 3:141–149 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1:101, 113–114 Ramsay, David, 2:149 Randolph, A. Philip, 4:58 Randolph, Gov. Edmund, 2:218 Rawls, John, 2:169 Reagan, Ronald, 3:242, 4:143, 146, 152, 155, 227, 240, 288–290 Reagan Revolution (1981–1989), 4:273–293 attacks on communism, 4:275 criticism of Carter, 4:275 INF treaty, 4:152, 174, 277 Iran-Contra Scandal, 4:276, 288 legislation, 4:279 meeting with Gorbachev, 4:277 myth vs. fact basis, 4:283 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 4:262, 275, 280, 288–290 overview, 4:273–277 Staten’s interpretive essay, 4:277–284 Strategic Defense Initiative, 4:152, 155, 174, 276, 282 See also Bush, George H. W.; Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) “Reaganomics” (economics), 4:274 The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures (Locke), 2:178 “Reconcentrado” camps (Spanish-American War), 3:275 Reconstruction era (1863–1876), 3:211–231 Black Codes, 3:213, 218, 220

I-28

INDEX

Civil Rights Act (1866), 3:198, 219 Committee on the Conduct of the War, 3:229 election of 1876, 3:225 Freedman’s Bureau, 3:212, 219, 220 Hayes, Rutherford, 3:211, 215, 223, 225 Johnson, Andrew, 3:226–228 Ku Klux Klan, 3:213, 221 overview, 3:216–224 Peace Democrats, 3:218 Radical Republicans, 3:213–214, 218, 228–230 Redemption Democrats, 3:215 “Rehearsal for Reconstruction,” 3:217 Stevens, Thaddeus, 3:230–231 term derivation, 3:216 Tilden, Samuel J., 3:25, 215, 223 Wade-Davis Bill, 3:211, 227 Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), 4:76–77 Red Fox of Kinderhook. See Van Buren, Martin Red Scare (communist scare), 1:262 Reed, Ester DeBert, 2:196 Reform Act (1832), 2:10 Rehnquist, William, 4:275 Relación de la Jornada de Cíbola (Castañeda), 1:70 Religion Calvinism, 1:34, 172, 2:27, 49, 66, 3:1 Deism, 3:7 Jewish people, 1:170, 175 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52–53, 3:1 Protestantism, 1:34, 140, 169, 235, 239, 2:67, 3:5, 7, 17 Unitarianism, 3:3 See also Christianity; Religious revivalism; Roman Catholic Church Religious History of the American People (Ahlstrom), 3:1 Religious revivalism, 2:46–47, 66, 3:3, 4 appeal of, 3:10–13 consequences of, 3:13–14 Finney’s writings on, 3:18 origins/spread of, 3:6–10, 71 women and, 3:12 See also Cartwright, Peter; Edwards, Jonathan; Finney, Charles Grandison Religious Right politics (U.S.), 4:263, 279 Religious toleration, English North America (1636–1701), 1:167–192 Bloudy Tenet of Persecution excerpt, 1:187–189 Calvert, Cecil, 1:181–183 Hutchinson, Anne, 1:183–184 Maryland Act of Toleration (document), 1:189–192 overview, 1:167–171

Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges excerpt, 1:192 Rhode Island colony, 1:169, 171–173, 175–176 Society of Friends (Quakers), 1:184–185 Woods’ interpretive essay, 1:171–180 See also Williams, Roger Religious traditions Anglican Church, 1:234–235, 244, 2:27, 47, 51, 55 Baptist Church, 2:48 Calvinism, 1:34, 172, 2:27, 49 Congregationalists (“Old Lights”), 2:48 Dutch Reformed Church, 1:207–208, 212, 2:49, 61 early Native Americans, 1:5–6 Halfway Covenant, 2:45, 51, 55 Methodism, 2:47, 53, 56, 65 New Light Presbyterians, 2:38, 55, 56–57 Pentecostal Protestants, 2:56 pietism, 2:46–47 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52, 53 Protestantism, 1:34, 140, 169, 235, 239, 2:67 revivalism, 2:46–47 of slaves, Great Awakening era, 2:62–63 Remarkable Providences (Increase Mather), 1:268 “Remember the Ladies” letter (Adams), 2:209 Remini, Robert V., 3:120 Renaissance (Europe), 1:135, 2:22–23 Report of Government for the Western Territory (Jefferson), 2:174 Report on Manufactures (Hamilton, 1791), 2:228 Republican Motherhood (1780–1820), 2:187–209 Adams, Abigail, 2:200–202, 209 Hays, Mary Ludwig, 2:202–203 motherhood in the colonial era, 2:203–205 Murray, Judith Sargent, 2:205–206 name derivation, 2:187 overview, 2:187–191 religious links, 2:190–191 “Remember the Ladies” letter (Adams), 2:209 Ryan’s interpretive essay, 2:191–198 Sampson, Deborah, 2:206–207 Willard, Emma, 2:207–209 Resolution Proposing a Declaration of Independence (Richard Henry Lee), 2:182 Resolutions of Stamp Act Congress (document, 1765), 2:110–112 Revenue Act (1762), 2:5 Revenue Act (1942), 4:108 Revere, Paul, 2:119, 130–132 Revivalism. See Religious revivalism Revolution of 1800, 2:263–282 Burr, Aaron, role, 2:275–277 Democratic-Republican Party, 2:277–278

INDEX

Federalist Party, 2:278–280 Felten’s interpretive essay, 2:266–274 Jefferson’s viewpoint, 2:266–267 name derivation, 2:264 overview, 2:263–266 Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 2:280–281 Twelfth Amendment (document), 2:281–282 Revolving Old Age Pension Plan (Townsend), 4:79 Rhode Island colony, 1:169 Council of War/Town Council, 1:218 founding of, 1:171–173 governing difficulties, 1:175–176 Ribault, Jean, 1:34, 81, 84 Rights of Man (Paine), 3:99 The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (Davis), 3:204 The Rise of the New West (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:250 Rittenhouse, David, 2:25, 29 Roanoke (Virginia) Colonies (1585, 1587), 1:114–115 “Robber barons.” See Carnegie, Andrew; Morgan, J. P.; Rockefeller, John D. Roberval, Jean-François de La Rocque de, 1:46 Robeson, Paul, 4:55 Robespierre, Maximilien, 2:257 Robinson, Bill “Bojangles,” 4:55 Rockefeller, John D., 4:6 Rockingham, Marquis of, 2:103–104 Roe v. Wade (Supreme Court decision), 4:261 Rogers, Robert (1731–1795), 1:223, 2:87–89 Rolfe, John, 1:132, 139, 156 See also Pochahontas Rolling Stone magazine, 4:141 Roman Catholic Church, 1:34, 36 encumbrances of, 2:51 England, 16th century, 1:167–168, 170, 172 James’ conversion to, 1:239 Native American’s conversions, 1:41–42 Protestant Church vs., 1:47 Spanish colonization and, 1:74 Roosevelt, Franklin D. (FDR, 1882–1945), 3:241, 275, 98–102 Atlantic Charter, 4:110 “bank holiday” declared by, 4:77 Executive Order 9066 (1942), 4:109 federal judge appointments, 4:84–85 initial view on WW II, 4:110 Lend-Lease bill, 4:105–106 Manhattan Project authorization, 4:149 Neutrality Acts, 4:86, 105 presidential victory, 4:79, 82 Victory Program (WW II), 4:112 See also New Deal

I-29

Roosevelt, Theodore, 3:96–97, 145, 240, 279, 283, 4:3, 13, 16–18 See also Rough Riders Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, 3:96 Roosevelt Field Shopping Center (LI, NY), 4:134 Root, John Welborn, 3:254 Rosenberg, Ethel and Julius, 4:171 Roth, Philip, 4:138 Rough Riders, 3:288–289, 4:42 See also Roosevelt, Theodore Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778), 2:40–42 Rowlandson, Mary, 1:220, 227–228 Royal Society of London, 2:25, 28, 33 Rudiments of English Grammar (Priestley), 2:38 Runaway servants, 1:154–156 Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 2:187, 190 Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 3:44 Russia defeat by Napoleon, 2:257 Holy Alliance membership, 3:92 Monroe’s warnings to, 3:93–94 Pitt’s aid to, 2:72 Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:88 U.S. tensions with, 3:91 Russian Revolution (1917), 4:39 Russo-Japanese War, 4:18, 42 Ryan, Kelly A., 2:191–198 Ryswick Treaty, 1:250 Sacajawea (d. 1812), 3:34, 37–38 Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572), 1:34 Salem witch trials (1692), 1:82, 255–275 Death Warrant of Five Women Convicted of Witchcraft, 1:274–275 Mather, Cotton, 1:266–268 Mather, Increase, 1:268–269 overview, 1:255–259 Puritan family, 1:269–271 Sewall, Samuel, 1:271–272 Stowell’s interpretive essay, 1:259–265 women tries as witches, 1:257–258, 264 Wonders of the Invisible World (Mather), 1:272–274 Salem Witchcraft (Upham), 1:260 Salons, establishment of, 2:28 SALT (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks), 4:151–152, 156 SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks), 4:151–152, 156 SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks), 4:151–152, 156, 173 Salutary Neglect, Era of (1720s-1750), 2:1–20 Board of Trade and Plantations, 2:13–14 Burke’s speech, 2:5–6

I-30

INDEX

mercantilism, 2:14 Molasses Act document, 2:18–20 overview, 2:1–5 Pelham-Holles, Thomas, 2:14–16 Prasch’s interpretive essay, 2:5–12 Walpole, Robert, 2:16–18 Sampson, Deborah, 2:206–207 Sampson, William T., 3:277 San Jacinto, Battle of, 3:138 San Martín, José de, 3:87, 102 Sand Creek Massacre, 3:234 Sands of Iwo Jima (war movie), 4:224 Sanitary Commission (U.S.), 3:198, 268 Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 3:138 Santa Domingo (Haiti) naval base, 3:21–22 Santa Maria, 1:3, 16 Saratoga, Battle of (1777), 2:36, 146, 147, 148 Saratoga warship, 3:56 Sassacus (Pequot chief ), 1:119 Savage, Capt. Thomas, 1:214 Scalia, Antonin, 4:275, 280 Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (Bradford), 3:82–83 Schechter v. U.S. (Supreme Court decision), 4:78, 84 Schlafly, Phyllis, 4:262, 264 Schley, Winfield Scott, 3:277 Schuyler, Gen. Philip John, 2:152 Schwenkfelders, 2:50 Scientific Revolution, 2:22–23, 28–30 See also Priestley, Joseph; Royal Society of London Scott, Thomas A., 3:175–176 Scott, Winfield, 3:134, 144, 152 See also Whig Party Searles, Robert, 1:92 Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667), 1:205 Second Bank of the United States, 3:124–125 Second Continental Congress (1775), 2:125, 128, 144, 146, 155, 159, 160, 163, 172–173, 178–179, 182, 211, 230, 239, 253, 255, 285 See also Declaration of Independence Second Continental Congress (1776), 2:35, 88, 3:36 Second Great Awakening, 2:54–55, 191, 3:1–19 Backus, Isaac, 3:15–16 Cartwright, Peter, 3:16–17 Crothers’ interpretive essay, 3:5–14 Finney, Charles Grandison, 3:17–18 McGready, James, 3:18–19 Old Northwest Territory, 3:2 origins, 3:1–2 overview, 3:1–5 revivalism during, 3:3, 4 upstate New York, 3:2, 5, 13

Second Seminole War, 1:95 Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), 4:78 Sedgewick, Theodore, 2:198 Sedition Act, 2:242, 246 Sedition Act (from Alien and Sedition Acts), 2:260–261 Sedition Slammers (vigilante group), 4:33 Selective Service Act (1917), 4:25–26 The Selling of Joseph (Sewall), 1:163–165, 272 The Selling of the President (McGinniss), 4:210 Seminole Indians, 3:47, 156 Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention (1848), 4:263 Settlement House movement, 4:11, 18–19 Settlement houses, 4:11 Seven Cities of Antillia, 1:59 Seven Cities of Cíbola, 1:57, 59–61, 68, 75–76 Seven Year’s War. See French and Indian War (1756–1763) Seventeenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:2–3 Sewall, Samuel, 1:163–165, 271–272 Seward, William Henry, 2:167, 3:95, 194 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Kinsey), 4:257 Shafter, Gen. William, 3:272, 277 “Share the Wealth” program (Long), 4:79 Shay’s Rebellion, 2:216, 227 Shelley v. Kraemer (Supreme Court decision), 4:139 Sherman, Gen. William T., 3:201 capture of Atlanta, 3:206 March to the Sea (1864), 3:207–208 Special Field Order No. 15, 3:217 Sherman, Roger, 2:173 Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890), 3:163, 4:2, 4 Shirley, Gov. William, 2:75, 77, 88 Shopping center development, 4:134 The Significance of Sections in American History (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:240 The Significance of the Frontier in American History (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:240, 248–249 Sigur, Hannah, 3:257–263 Silent Spring (Carson), 4:142 Sinclair, Upton, 4:1–2, 2, 19–21 “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” speech (Edwards), 2:46, 59–60 Sioux Indian War (1876–1877), 3:235, 245–246, 247 See also Sitting Bull (Native American chief ) Siry, Steven E. American Revolution essay, 2:143–150 King Philip’s War essay, 1:216–222 Lewis and Clark essay, 3:24–31

INDEX

Sitting Bull (Native American chief ), 3:29, 235, 246–248 See also Sioux Indian War Sixteenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:2–3, 11–12 Sixty Minutest (TV show), 4:203 Slash-and-burn agriculture, 1:5 Slaughter, Henry, 1:236 Slave religion, during the Great Awakening, 2:62–63 Slavery, North American introduction (1619), 1:135–165, 215 accidental introduction, 1:138–139 African slave trade, 1:140–141, 148–153 arrival in Jamestown, 1:136 colonial Virginia, mid-18th century, 1:161–163 end of, in America, 3:217 initial English resistance, 1:141 in Missouri, 3:26 in New Netherlands, 1:137 newspaper advertisements, 1:154 Puritan justification of slavery, 1:138 Quaker influence, 1:138 runaway servants, 1:154–156 The Selling of Joseph excerpt, 1:163–165 slavery, 1:156–161 Woods’ interpretive essay, 1:138–146 Slaves/slavery, 1:156–161 African slave trade, 1:148–153 Cartwright’s opposition to, 3:17 Christian conversion attempts, 2:62 Christian defense of, 3:3 effects of American Revolution on, 2:145 freeing of, 1:95 Ghana slave trading posts, 1:151 Haitian Revolution (1791), 1:152 historical background, 1:141–142, 145 indentured servitude vs., 1:144 Jefferson’s feelings about, 1:145–146, 2:221 of John Smith, 1:133 Middle Passage (of journey), 1:149–150, 158 Portuguese sale of, 1:70, 149 Portuguese slave trade, 1:70, 149–150 Quaker opposition to, 3:69 racism relation to, 1:141 rise of, 1:36 runaways, 1:154–156 Sewall’s opposition to, 1:272 Spanish capture/forcing of, 1:75 of Squanto, 1:134 Thirteenth Amendment and, 1:156, 160, 3:212, 219 See also Abolition; Bett, Mum; Civil War Sloughter, Col. Henry, 1:251

I-31

Smallpox epidemic, 1:4, 40, 128–129 Smith, Adam, 2:7 Smith, Bessie, 4:55 Smith, Capt. John, 1:133–134 Congressional Church guidance, 1:82 interactions with Indians, 1:121, 126, 129 opposition to Wingfield, 1:112 voyage to Cape Cod, 1:123 See also Pochahontas legend Smith, Gen. Jacob H. “Hell-Roarin,” 3:275 Smith, Gerrit, 3:78 Smith, Joseph, 3:13 Smith, William, 2:25 Smith, Willie “The Lion,” 4:55 Smohalla (Wanamum Prophet), 3:244 Smoot-Hartley tariff bill, 4:76 The Social Contract (Rousseau), 2:42 Social Darwinism, 3:168, 273 Social Gospel movement (Progressive era), 4:7, 9 Social Security Act (1935), 4:84 Social Security Reform Act (1983), 4:279 Socialism, 3:169–170 Socialist Labor Party, 4:38 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1:244 Society of Friends. See Quakers (Society of Friends) Solemn League and Covenant, 2:124 Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England (Edwards), 2:60 Sons of Liberty Movement, 2:95, 103, 108–109, 193 “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” (Kennan), 4:170 South Carolina, Ordinance of Secession (1860), 3:208–209 South Sea Bubble crisis (1720), 2:7, 8, 17 Southern States class warfare, 3:195 end of military rule, 3:214 pro-slavery stance, 3:68, 69, 73 Soviet Union Afghanistan invasion, 4:273 aid to Ho Chi Minh, 4:219 atom bomb detonation, 4:154 Baruch Plan rejection, 4:149–150 Chernobyl nuclear accident, 4:157 detente with, 4:173 European occupations, 4:169 as “evil empire,” 4:152, 227–228 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 4:152 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, 4:86, 179 response to Marshall Plan, 4:170–171 SALT I treaty, 4:176 Yalta Conference, 4:107

I-32

INDEX

Spain (Spanish) Charles of Habsburg, 1:83–84 colonization of the Americas, 1:73–76, 83, 87–90, 2:1–2 indigenous Indians enslaved by, 1:135–136 interactions with Native Americans, 1:117 Latin America and, 3:89, 91 Maximilian I, 1:83 Mexico’s independence from, 3:137 Philip II, 1:80–81, 83–85 Spanish-American War (1898–1910), 3:144, 198, 271–289 Cuban blockade, 3:277 Dewey, George, 3:277, 283 Hay, John, 3:275–276, 278 Hearst, William Randolph, 3:274, 276, 283–285 as historical turning point for U.S., 3:279 Manila Bay, Battle of, 3:283 Mattox’s interpretive essay, 3:275–281 McKinley, William, 3:274, 276–277, 279, 285–287 Open Door note (1900), 3:278–279 overview, 3:271–275 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 3:274, 278 Philippine-American War, 3:287–2888 “reconcentrado” camps, 3:275 Roosevelt, Theodore, 3:279, 283 Rough Riders, 3:288–289 USS Maine battleship, 3:274, 276, 280, 287, 289 Spanish Succession, War of, 2:16 Special Field Order No. 15 (Sherman), 3:217 Specie Circular (Jackson), 3:112 Speech on Conciliation with America speech (Burke), 2:5–6 Spencer, Herbert, 3:273 Spock, Dr. Benjamin, 4:257 Sporting events (on TV), 4:203, 204 Sprenger, Jacob, 1:259 Squanto (1580–1622), 1:118, 121, 123–124, 134 St. Augustine, founding of (1565), 1:79–98 attack by Searles, 1:92 attempts by Spain, 1:83 Beattie’s interpretive essay, 1:82–90 Castillo de San Marcos, 1:92–93 De Soto, Hernando, 1:93–94 demographics, 1:87 disease epidemics, 1:82 Florida, 1:94–97 Menéndez de Avilés and, 1:81, 83, 85–88, 90 overview, 1:79–82 Ponce de Léon, Juan, 1:97–98 Stalin, Joseph, 4:106–107, 170, 175, 177, 178 Stamp Act (1765), 2:93–113 description, 2:94–95, 101

Dulaney, Daniel, 2:105–107 Grenville, George, 2:73, 93, 98, 101 Hutchinson, Thomas, 4, 2:35, 97, 107–108 Mackey’s interpretive essay, 2:96–105 modification/repeal appeals, 2:95 Oliver, Andrew, 2:96–97 opposition of John Adams, 2:253 overview, 2:93–95 Resolutions of Stamp Act Congress, 2:110–112 Sons of Liberty Movement, 2:95, 108–109 Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions, 2:112–113 “virtual representation” discussions, 2:116 Stamp Act Congress (1765), 2:103, 109 Stamp Act Crisis (1765–1766), 2:86, 98, 104–105 Stamp Act Riots (1765), 2:96, 102, 109–110 “The Stand” newspaper (Hamilton), 2:245 Standard Oil Company (Rockefeller), 3:164, 181, 184, 4:1 Standish, Miles, 1:124 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 2:167, 3:257 Stanton, Theodore, 3:276 Staple Act (1663), 2:2 START (Strategic Arms Reductions Talks), 4:152 The Status Seekers (Packard), 4:138 Steamship invention, 3:36 Steel industry, 3:160–161, 163, 171, 176, 4:6 See also Carnegie, Andrew Steffens, Lincoln, 4:1 Stephens, Alexander, 3:193, 212 Stevens, Thaddeus (1792–1868), 3:214, 230–231 Stock market crash (1929), 4:75, 80, 102–103 See also Great Depression Stoddard, Solomon, 2:45, 51, 55, 59 Stone, Capt. John, 1:119, 133–134 Stone, Harlan, 4:84 Stone, Lucy, 3:257 Stono Rebellion (1739), 1:158 STOP ERA movement, 4:262 Stoughton, William, 1:262 Stowell, Frederick M., 1:259–265 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (1991), 4:282 Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), 4:152, 155, 174, 276, 282 Strayhorn, Billy, 4:55 Streetcare vs. automobile suburbs, 4:131–132 Strong, Josiah, 3:273 Stuart monarchy restoration (1660), 1:238, 2:50 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 4:225, 240, 245, 247 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 4:140–141, 225–226 Stuyvesant, Peter, 1:211–212 creation of Board of Nine Men, 1:211–212 Dutch West India Company employment, 1:196

INDEX

feuds with Dutch/English, 1:200–201 relations with Indians, 1:200 service in New Netherland Colony, 1:195, 200, 202–205, 211–212 surrender of power to Nicolls, 1:197 Suburbanization and consumerism (1945–1990), 4:131–147 American Dream, 4:5, 85, 132, 136, 141 automobile vs. streetcar suburbs, 4:131–132 credit cards, introduction of, 4:134 Dunak’s interpretive essay, 4:135–143 Federal Housing Authority, 4:132, 133, 139 government-forced segregation, 4:138 “hippie” movement, 4:141 Levittowns (NY, NJ, PA), 4:132–134, 136–137, 144 Nader, Ralph, 4:142, 144–146 overview, 4:131–135 post-WW II embrace of, 4:136 post-WW II onset of, 4:131 “Purchaser Citizens” (Cohen), 4:136 shopping center development, 4:134 Thompson, Joe, Jr., 4:146–147 Suez Canal crisis, 4:172, 175 Suffrage, for African Americans, 3:214 Sugar Act (1764), 2:5, 93–94, 99 Sullivan, Louis, 3:255, 260, 3:261 A Summary View of the Rights of British America (Jefferson), 2:164, 172 Sumner, Charles, 3:214, 231 Supreme Court, 4:42 Cherokee decision, 3:127, 132 creation discussions, 2:219, 221 justice opposition to New Deal, 4:84 Thomas, Clarence, 4:263 See also individual Supreme Court decisions Supreme Court creation discussions, 2:219, 221 Swartout, Samuel, 3:111 Sweatt v. Painter (Supreme Court decision), 4:243 Swedish South Company, 1:195 Swiney, P. D., 1:237–245 Taft, William Howard, 3:265, 4:2–3, 18 “Take the A Train” music (Strayhorn), 4:55 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de Adam’s interactions with, 2:242 burning of, in effigy, 2:246 committee rulership of France, 2:240 role in XYZ Affair, 2:249, 256–258 Tallmadge, James, Jr., 3:26 Talon, Intendant, 1:50 Taney, Roger B., 3:128 Tappan, Arthur, 3:73, 75–76 Tarbell, Ida, 3:181, 4:1

I-33

Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA), 4:279 Taylor, Nathaniel William, 3:2 Taylor, Zachary (1784–1850), 3:132, 133, 144, 148, 153–154, 156–158 Taylor-Rostow mission (to Vietnam), 4:220–221 Tea Act (1773), 2:120–121 Tea Act document (1773), 2:132–1135 Tecumseh (Indian leader), 3:42, 43–44, 48 Teheran Conference, 4:106 Tekesta Indians, 1:79 Telephone, invention of, 3:173, 4:204–205 Television, rise of (1948–2010), 4:199–218 Berle, Milton, 4:212–214 Clair’s interpretive essay, 4:203–211 Cronkite, Walter, 4:214–216 Federal Communications Commission, 4:199 overview, 4:199–203 post-WW II experimentation, 4:199 Teller, Henry M., 3:277 Ten Percent Plan (Lincoln), 3:211 Tennent, Gilbert (1703–1764), 2:63–65 Tennent, William, Sr., 2:52 Tenure of Office Act, 28, 3:214 Tet Offensive (Vietnam War), 4:221–222, 234–236 Texas admission to statehood, 3:138–139 independence from Mexico, 3:138 Textile manufacturing, 3:159 A Theory of Justice (Rawls), 2:169 Theory of Language and Universal Grammar (Priestley), 2:38 There is Confusion (Faust), 4:60 Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1674), 1:205 Third-wave consumerism, 4:135 Thirteenth Amendment (Constitution), 1:156, 160, 3:212, 219, 227, 4:51 Thirty-Nine Articles (England, 1563), 1:168 Thirty Years War, 1:49 Thomas, Clarence, 4:263, 265–266 Thompson, Joe, Jr. (1901–1961), 4:146–147 Thomson, Charles, 2:164 Thoreau, Henry David, 2:167, 168 Thornton, Larry, 4:109–117 Thornton, Matthew, 2:164 Thornton, Sir William, 3:55 Three-Fifths Compromise (Constitution), 2:274 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 4:153, 157, 167 Thurman, Wallace, 4:56–57, 58 Ticonderoga warship, 3:56 Tilden, Samuel J., 25, 3:215, 223

I-34

INDEX

Timber Culture Act (1873), 3:28, 236 Timucua indigenous culture, 1:79 Tingey, Thomas, 3:58 Tippecanoe, Battle of, 3:43–44 Tituba (Rev. Parris’s slave), 1:256–257, 262 Tobacco advertising (on TV), 4:202 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 3:239 Toleration Act, 1:235 Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 4:221, 224 Toomer, Jean, 4:59 Toral, Gen. Jose, 3:272 Town Council (Rhode Island), 1:218 Townsend, Francis E., 4:79 Townshend, Charles, 2:115 Townshend Acts (Duties) (1776), 2:104, 116, 120, 127, 194 Trafalgar, Battle of, 3:41 Trail of Tears, 3:127 The Traveller Returned play (Murray), 2:206 A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (Edwards), 2:60 Trend, David, 4:209 Trenton, Battle of, 2:139, 148 Trotsky, Leon, 4:176 Truman, Harry, 4:107, 121, 158, 169–170, 175, 178, 193–196 Truman Doctrine, 4:115, 181 Trumbull, John, 2:147–148, 149 Trumbull, Lyman, 3:231 Tubman, Harriet (ca. 1820–1913), 3:82–83 Tudor dynasty, 1:167 Turner, Frederick Jackson (1861–1932), 3:248–250, 256 Turner, Jackson, 3:240–241 Turner, Nat, 1:152, 68, 72 Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, 3:220, 4:52 TV Guide study, 4:208 Twain, Mark, 3:272, 279 Twelfth Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 2:175, 221, 264, 281–282 Twentieth Amendment (Constitution), 4:77 Twenty-First Amendment (Constitution), 4:5 Two Treatises of Government (Locke), 2:178 Tyler, John, 3:94, 138 Tyler, Royall, 2:148 U-2 incident (1960), 4:151, 172, 196–197 Ubeda Friar Luis de, 1:65–66 UHF (Ultra High Frequency) stations, 4:201 Underwood Tariff (1913), 4:3 Unitarianism, 3:3, 4, 7, 9 United Auto Workers (UAW), Women’s Bureau, 4:259

United Nations (UN) atomic energy control dispute, 4:169 Lebanon peacekeeping, 4:275–276 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 2:169–170 woman’s conferences, 4:265 United Nations (UN) Charter, 2:169 United Nations Security Council, 4:169 United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 4:55, 57 United States (U.S.) Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, 1:152 as “American Eden,” 3:239 American Independence Day, 3:143 anti-Catholic/anti-Semitic sentiment, 3:169 anti-Communist hysteria, 4:160 Atomic Energy Commission, 4:150 cities, Industrial Revolution era, 3:165–167 Civil Service Commission, 4:1 closing of the frontier (ca. 1890s), 3:233–251 Constitutional Convention, 1:150 early history, 1:1 Emancipation Proclamation, 1:160 France’s Revolutionary War aid, 2:239 Good Neighbor Policy, 4:85–86 Green Party USA, 4:146 introduction of slavery, 1:135–165 Jay’s Treaty, 2:239 Missouri Compromise, 1:160 Naval War College, 3:272 occupation of Oregon territory, 3:139 “Religious Right” politics, 4:263 Sanitary Commission, 3:198 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 4:153, 157 Weber-Ashburton Treaty, 1:152–153 World War I costs, 4:25 XYZ Affair, 2:201, 239–261 Yalta Conference, 4:107 See also Industrial Revolution; MexicanAmerican War The United States 1830–1850 (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:240 United States Magazine (American Revolution era), 2:188 United States Military Railroads (USMRR), 3:196 United States Telegraph Pro-Jackson newspaper, 3:117 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN), 2:169 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 4:55 See also Garvey, Marcus Unsafe at Any Speed (Nader), 4:142, 145 Upham, Charles, 1:260

INDEX

U.S. Navy, 3:272, 277, 283 See also Dewey, George U.S. Shipping Board, 4:25 U.S. v. Butler (Supreme Court decision), 4:78 USS Constellation, 2:247–248 USS Maine battleship, 3:274, 276, 280, 287, 289 USS Nautilus nuclear submarine, 4:152 USS Olympia battleship, 3:277 Utopian communities, 2:166 Utrecht, Treaty of, 2:7, 9 Valley Forge, Battle of, 2:155 Van Buren, Martin, 3:112–113, 127, 129–132, 148, 153 Van Twiller, Wouter, 1:95, 200–201 Vance, Zebulon, 3:193 Vane, Governor Henry, 1:120 The Varieties of Religious Experiences (James), 2:60 Velásquez, Gov. Diego, 1:55–56 Vergennes, Count Charles, 2:140 Verhurst, Willem, 1:199 Verin, Joshua, 1:173–174 Verrazano, Giovanni de, 1:35 Versailles, Treaty of, 4:16, 26, 86 Victory Program (WW II, 1943), 4:112 Video cassette recorders (VCRs), 4:201 Video Home System (VHS) tapes, 4:201 Vietnam Veterans against the War, 4:229 Vietnam War (1960s), 3:280, 141, 176, 183, 219–236 Abbott’s interpretive essay, 4:223–229 antiwar movement, 4:231–232 Cambodian incursion, 4:232–233 Johnson, Lyndon, 4:221–222 Kissinger, Henry, 4:222 My Lai massacre, 4:227 overview, 4:219–223 POW/MIA issue, 4:228 Taylor-Rostow mission, 4:220–221 Tet Offensive, 4:221–222 Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 4:221 U.S. citizen skepticism about, 4:226–227 U.S. death figures, 4:224–225 war movies, 4:224, 227–228 Virginia Company (of London) formation (1606), 1:101 New World colonization plans, 1:112 Pilgrims’ relationship with, 1:102 relation to slavery, 1:139 Virginia Constitutional Convention, 3:105 “Virginia Dynasty” (presidents from Virginia), 2:278 Virginia Plan (document), 2:218–219, 222, 232–234

I-35

Virginia Resolution (Madison), 2:247, 269, 3:190 Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions (document, 1965), 2:112–113 Virginia State of Religious Freedom (Jefferson), 2:172 Voter literacy test (Mississippi), 4:241 Voting Rights Act (1965), 4:234, 239, 247 Wade-Davis Bill (1864), 3:211, 227 Wadsworth, Benjamin, 2:192 Wahunsonacock (Native American), 1:121–122 Walker, Alice, 4:265 Walker, Robert J., 3:147 Walker River Reservation (Native Americans), 3:244 Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England (Olmsted), 3:267 Waller, “Fats,” 4:55 Walpole, Robert, 2:1–2 financial management skills, 2:7 patronage system of, 2:3–4 political ascendancy of, 2:6 war avoidance efforts, 2:8, 9, 12 withdrawal of Excise Bill, 2:10 See also Salutary Neglect, Era of Wampanoag Indians (Martha’s Vineyard), 1:126, 214, 217, 223, 228–230 See also Metacom War Industries Board, 4:25, 31 War Labor Board (WW II), 4:108 War Manpower Board (WW II), 4:108 War movies, 4:224, 227–228 War of 1812, 1:95, 260, 2:264, 3:41–63 American Letter of Marque document, 3:62–63 British capture of Washington D.C., 3:57–58 as end of Federalist Party, 3:44–45 as “forgotten conflict,” 3:45 Hadden’s interpretive essay, 3:45–52 Hartford Convention, 3:44–45, 50, 52, 58–60 Jackson’s commission, 3:125 neutrality theories, 3:45–46 New Orleans, Battle of, 3:51–52, 54–55 overview, 3:41–45 Perry, Oliver Hazard, 3:60–62 Plattsburgh, Battle of, 3:55–57 role in Industrial Revolution, 3:159 U.S. expansionist dreams, 3:47–48 See also Jackson, Andrew War of Jenkin’s Ear, 2:9, 47 War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), 2:9, 12, 47, 84, 85 War of the League of Augsburg, 1:249 War of the Polish Succession (1733–1735), 2:9, 84 War of the Spanish Succession, 2:16

I-36

INDEX

Warren, Dr. Joseph, 2:131 Warren, Earl, 4:238, 244 Warren, Helen Frances, 4:42 Warren, Mary Otis, 2:189 Warren, Mercy Otis, 2:148, 149, 200 Warren Association, 3:16 Warsaw Pact, 4:171 Washington, Booker T., 3:220, 4:52, 53–54 Washington, George, 1:146, 2:72, 74, 76, 83, 125, 129 cabinet divisions, 2:267 comments on American Revolution, 2:166 commercial interests, 2:263 Constitutional Convention participation, 2:217–218 Continental Army leadership, 2:139, 159–160 Copley’s portrait of, 2:148 death of, 2:270 Declaration of Independence reading to troops, 2:164 Farewell Address, 3:93, 280 Federalist Party leadership, 2:279 Hamilton’s association with, 2:227 Jefferson’s association with, 2:174 positive opinions of women, 2:196 power transfer to John Adams, 2:243 Proclamation of Neutrality document, 2:258–259 second presidential term, 2:268 XYZ Affair role, 2:241 Watergate Scandal (Nixon administration), 4:223 Waterloo, Battle of, 2:257 Watson, Thomas, 3:174 Wealth against Commonwealth (Lloyd), 3:163 The Wealth of Nations (Smith), 2:7 The Weary Blues (Hughes), 4:60 Webster, Daniel, 1:152–153, 148–149, 3:112 Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), 1:152–153, 3:155 Weld, Theodore, 3:73, 78 “A Well Ordered Family” essay (Wadsworth), 2:192 Wells, Rachel, 2:196 Wesley, Charles, 2:53, 55–56, 65 Wesley, John, 1:11, 2:47, 53, 55, 65, 3:8 West Africa, slavery and, 1:137, 141, 153 Western Federation of Miners, 4:38 Westminster Confession, 2:52 Weyler, Gen. Valeriano, 3:274, 276 Wheatley, Phillis, 2:193 Whig Party, 2:278, 3:67, 81, 132–134, 144, 145 See also Antislavery Whigs Whiskey Rebellion, 2:228, 3:2 White, Richard, 3:241

White, Walter, 4:58 White City (Columbian Exposition), 3:254, 257, 259–262, 265 “White Man’s Burden” (Kipling), 3:273 White resistance, Reconstruction era, 3:215 See also Ku Klux Klan Whitefield, George (1714–1770), 2:46–47, 54, 55, 65–66, 3:6–7 Whitney, Eli, 1:150–151, 160 Wholesome Meat Act (1967), 4:145 Wichita Indians, 1:64 Wild West shows, 3:30 Wildes, Sarah, 1:258 Willard, Emma, 2:207–209 Willard, Frances, 3:170, 3:257 Willard, John, 1:258 Willard Association for the Mutual Improvement of Female Teachers, 2:208 William III (English monarch), 1:178, 235, 236– 237, 241, 243, 249, 2:13 William of Orange. See William III (English monarch) Williams, Abigail, 1:255, 262 Williams, Roger, 1:86, 185–187, 214 expulsion from Massachusetts colony, 1:173, 187 founding of Rhode Island, 1:172–173, 175, 2:49–50 governing attempts by, 1:176, 180 Pequot War and, 1:131, 227 Puritans challenged by, 1:168–169 writings of, 1:186, 187–189 Wilmot, David, 3:147–148 Wilmot Proviso document (1846), 3:147, 149, 158, 190, 203 Wilson, Governor Edward, 1:214–215 Wilson, James, 2:144–145 Wilson, Woodrow, 3:240, 4:23–27 biographical information, 4:43–46 Clayton Anti-Trust Act, 4:4 Committee on Public Information, 4:25, 32 Federal Reserve Act, 4:4 Federal Trade Commission Act, 4:4 Fourteen Points, 4:26 on German submarine attacks, 4:110 League of Nations, 4:16, 25–26 National Park Service, 4:13 Underwood Tariff, 4:3 winning presidential election, 4:29 World War I actions, 4:23–27, 43–46 See also Fourteen Points Wingfield, Edward Maria, 1:112 Winslow, Josiah, 1:225 Winthrop, John, 1:102–109

INDEX

“city on a hill” quote, 1:105 land giveaways to immigrants, 1:106 law delineations, 1:107 “Model of Christian Charity” essay, 1:103, 104, 106, 108, 109 Puritan friends membership, 1:104 Van Twiller’s correspondence with, 1:201 See also Massachusetts Bay Company; Puritans Witchcraft at Salem (Hansen), 1:261 Witchcraft hysteria. See Salem witch trials (1692) The Witches’ Hammer (Kramer & Sprenger), 1:259 Wolcott, Oliver, 2:229, 244 Wolfe, James (1727–1759), 2:72, 78, 84–85, 89–90 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 3:170–171 “Woman’s lib” movement, 4:263 Women AFL union workers, 4:39 African America, 2:192, 195 boycotts and protests by, 2:187, 191 caretaker roles, 2:195 colonial era motherhood, 2:203–205 education for, 2:190 in the Great Awakening, 2:66–67 poetry of Phillis Wheatley, 2:193–194 religious revivalism and, 3:12 Victorian vs. Progressive eras, 4:8–9 Washington’s positive opinion of, 2:196 “A Well Ordered Family” essay, 2:192 white, middle-/upper-class, 2:197 See also Republican Motherhood Women of the Republic (Kerber), 2:189 Women’s Building (Columbian Exposition), 3:256, 260 Women’s Rights Movement (1961–1991), 4:257–271 Equal Rights Amendment, 4:257, 262, 264, 271 Feminist Majority, 4:267 Fosl’s interpretive essay, 4:263–266 Friedan, Betty, 4:259, 264–265, 267–269 National Organization for Women, 4:259–260, 269 overview, 4:257–263 President’s Commission on the Status of Women, 4:269–271 Wonders of the Invisible World (Cotton Mather, 1693), 267, 1:272–274 Wood, Gordon, 2:166, 168 Wood, Timothy L., 1:171–180 Woods, Julia A., 1:138–146, 2:215–222, 3:163–171 Wool, Gen. John E., 3:152

I-37

Woolens Act (1699), 2:3 Woolman, John, 3:69 Working Class War (Appy), 4:225 The Working Man’s Advocate (Evans), 3:129 Workingman’s Party, 3:128 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 4:78, 79, 84, 87 World Court, 4:27 World Education Convention (London), 2:209 World Trade Organization, 4:284 World War I (1914–1918), 4:23–48 African American soldiers, 4:54, 58 Committee on Public Information, 4:25, 32, 37–38 costs to U.S., 4:25 Council for National Defense, 4:29, 30–31 Espionage Act, 4:33 Fourteen Points (Wilson), 4:26, 47–49 Industrial Workers of the World, 4:34, 38–39 influx of African-Americans (U.S.), 4:53 League of Nations, 4:16, 25–26, 39–40 Liberty Bonds, 4:32 obstacles to presidential policies, 4:28–29 overview, 4:23–27 Pershing, Gen. John J., 4:26, 40–43 post-war “bonus army,” 4:77 Russian Revolution, 4:39 Selective Service Act, 4:25–26 Treaty of Versailles ending, 4:16, 26, 86 U.S. unity building, 4:28 Vander Meulen’s interpretive essay, 4:27–35 vigilante groups, 4:33 War Industries Board, 4:25, 31 Wilson, Woodrow, 4:23–27 women union workers, 4:39 World Court, 4:27 Zimmerman Note, 4:23–24, 46–47 World War II (1939–1945), 4:105–129 atomic bombing of Japan, 4:107, 116, 149 Battle of Midway, 4:106 Bradley, Omar, 4:120–121 Bulge, Battle of the, 4: 119–120 economic impact, in U.S., of, 4:112 German’s surrender, 4:169 industrial component of, 4:111 Japanese internment order, 4:109, 114, 128–129 MacArthur, Douglas, 4:81–82, 122–125 Navajo Code Talkers, 4:125–126 Office of War Information, 4:113 overview, 4:105–109 Pearl Harbor attack, 4:106, 107, 110–111, 126–127 propaganda by entertainers, 4:113

I-38

Teheran Conference, 4:106 Thornton’s interpretive essay, 4:109–117 Truman Doctrine, 4:115 Victory Program (1943), 4:112 Yalta Conference, 4:106–107 Zoot Suit Riots, 4:127–128 World’s Columbian Exposition (1893), 3:253–269 architectural ideas, 3:253–254 Burnham, Daniel, 3:254–25, 259, 264–265 Ferris, George, 3:255, 265–267 global transformation effect, 3:262–263 Industrial Revolution’s inspiration, 3:257, 263 Japan’s contributions, 3:255–256 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 3:253, 259–260, 267–269 overview, 3:253–257 Sigur’s interpretive essay, 3:257–263 time spend building, 3:255 White City, 3:254, 257, 259–262, 265 women’s representation, 3:256–257 World’s Congress Auxiliary, 3:256 World’s Congress of Representative Women (1898), 3:256–257 Worster, Donald, 3:241 Wounded Knee Massacre, 3:245, 250–251 Wright, Francis, 3:128 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 3:255

INDEX

X, Malcolm, 4:247 XYZ Affair (France), 2:201, 239–261 Adams, John, role, 2:47, 252–255 Alien and Sedition Acts document, 2:259–261 Bonaparte, Napoleon, role, 2:242, 251 Elbridge, Gerry, role, 2:255–256 Federalist Party issues, 2:246, 249 name derivation, 2:241, 254 overview, 2:239–243 Proclamation of Neutrality document, 2:258–259 Quasi-War, 2:241, 248, 250–251, 256 Rakestraw’s interpretive essay, 2:243–252 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 2:256–258 Yale College, 2:24, 26, 51, 53, 241 Yalta Conference, 4:106–107 Yarmouth Stone (Nova Scotia), 1:2 Yeltsin, Boris, 4:174 Yorktown, Battle of (1781), 2:141, 154, 206, 226 Young Ladies Academy, 2:190 “Yuppies” movement, 4:143 Zapata, Emiliano, 4:54 Zenger, Peter, 1:244–245 Zimmerman Note (1917), 4:23–24, 46–47 Zoot Suit Riots (1943), 4:127–128 Zuni Indians, 1:68–69, 76–78

WHAT HAPPENED? AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EVENTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA FOREVER

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WHAT HAPPENED? An Encyclopedia of Events That Changed America Forever VOLUME II: THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY JOHN E. FINDLING AND FRANK W. THACKERAY, EDITORS

Copyright  by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data What happened? : an encyclopedia of events that changed America forever / John E. Findling and Frank W. Thackeray, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN ---- (set : alk. paper) — ISBN ---- (set ebook) . United States—History—Encyclopedias. I. Findling, John E. II. Thackeray, Frank W. E.W  .—dc  ISBN: ---- EISBN: ---- 

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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC  Cremona Drive, P.O. Box  Santa Barbara, California – This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Illustrations

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Preface and Acknowledgments

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1. THE ERA OF SALUTARY NEGLECT, ca. 1720s–1750 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Thomas A. Prasch Board of Trade and Plantations Mercantilism Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle (–) Robert Walpole (–) Document: Molasses Act, 

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2. THE ENLIGHTENMENT IN NORTH AMERICA, 1727–1790 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Larry A. Skillin American Philosophical Society Benjamin Franklin (–) Junto Joseph Priestley (–) Jean-Jacques Rousseau (–) Document: Thomas Jefferson’s Letter on Science and the Perfectibility of Men, 

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3. THE GREAT AWAKENING, ca. 1730s–1760 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Carl E. Kramer Jonathan Edwards (–)

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CONTENTS

Theodorus Frelinghuysen (-ca. ) Slave Religion during the Great Awakening Gilbert Tennent (–) George Whitefield (–) Women in the Great Awakening 4. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR, 1754–1763 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Thomas Clarkin Braddock’s Campaign,  Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Montcalm (–) William Pitt (–) Robert Rogers (–) James Wolfe (–) Document: Albany Plan of Union, 

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5. THE STAMP ACT, 1765 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Thomas C. Mackey Daniel Dulany (–) Thomas Hutchinson (–) Sons of Liberty Movement Stamp Act Congress () Stamp Act Riots () Document: Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress,  Document: Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions, 

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6. THE BOSTON TEA PARTY, 1773 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Henry E. Mattox Samuel Adams (–) East India Company First Continental Congress () Paul Revere (–) Document: Tea Act,  Document: George Hewes’s Account of the Boston Tea Party, 

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7. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1775–1783 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Steven E. Siry

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CONTENTS

American Invasion of Canada () Battle of Bunker Hill () Battle of Yorktown () Continental Army Document: George III’s Proclamation of Rebellion () Document: Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, 

vii

     

8. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 1776 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Rick Kennedy George III (–) Thomas Jefferson (–) John Locke (–) Second Continental Congress Document: Olive Branch Petition,  Document: Richard Henry Lee’s Resolution Proposing a Declaration of Independence,  Document: Declaration of Independence, 

       

9. REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD, 1780–1820 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Kelly A. Ryan Abigail Adams (–) Mary Ludwig Hays (–) Motherhood in the Colonial Era Judith Sargent Murray (–) Deborah Sampson (–) Emma Willard (–) Document: Abigail Adams’s “Remember the Ladies” Letter, 

         

10. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1787 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Julia A. Woods Anti-Federalists Electoral College Alexander Hamilton (–) James Madison (–) Document: The Virginia Plan,  Document: The New Jersey Plan,  Document: Bill of Rights, 

 

         

CONTENTS

viii

11.

THE XYZ AFFAIR, 1798–1800 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Donald A. Rakestraw John Adams (–) Elbridge Gerry (–) Quasi-War (–) Charles Maurice de Talleyrand (–) Document: President George Washington’s Proclamation of Neutrality,  Document: Alien and Sedition Acts, 

        

12. THE REVOLUTION OF 1800 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Peter G. Felten Aaron Burr (–) Democratic-Republican Party Federalist Party Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (–) Document: Twelfth Amendment, 

       

Appendix A: Glossary of Terms and People



Appendix B: Timeline



Appendix C: Population of Colonies and Selected Colonial Towns



About the Editors and Contributors



Index

I-

ILLUSTRATIONS

Robert Walpole, prime minister of Great Britain



Benjamin Franklin, the major figure of the North American Enlightenment



George Whitefield in a typical preaching pose



The French and Indian War secured Great Britain’s dominance of North America



Colonists express their resentment over the Stamp Act



The Boston Tea Party was an overt act of civil disobedience



British general John Burgoyne



The segmented snake banner symbolized the need for unity



During the Revolution, women often participated in war-related protests



John Dickinson of Delaware, who drafted the Articles of Confederation



The U.S. Navy performed well during the Quasi-War with France



Thomas Jefferson presided over the Revolution of 



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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This volume, which describes and evaluates the significance of  of the most important events in the United States during the th century, is the second in a multivolume series intended to acquaint readers with the seminal events of American history. Volume I deals with events prior to the th century, and Volumes III and IV will treat the th and th centuries respectively, and the four volumes constitute a complete series. A companion series of volumes will address the global experience, “Events That Formed the Modern World.” Our collective classroom experience provided the inspiration for this project. Having encountered literally thousands of students whose knowledge of the history of their country was sadly deficient, we determined to prepare a series of books that would concentrate on the most important events affecting those students (and others as well) in the hope that they would better understand their country and how it came to be. Furthermore, we hope these books will stimulate the reader to delve further into the events covered in each volume and to take a greater interest in history in general. The current volume is designed to serve two purposes. First, the editors have provided for each chapter an introduction that presents factual material about a particular topic in a clear, concise, chronological order. Second, each introduction is followed by a longer, interpretive essay by a specialist exploring the background and/or the consequences of each event in a broader historical context. Each essay includes an annotated bibliography of the most important works about the event. Following the bibliography are a number of shorter essays featuring people or events closely related to the chapter topic. In some cases, there are primary source documents related to the topic as well. The chapters are followed by three appendixes that provide additional information useful to the reader. Appendix A is a glossary of additional names, events, organizations, and terms mentioned but not fully explained in the introductions and interpretive essays that comprise each chapter. Appendix B is a timeline of key events corresponding to the time period this book covers, and Appendix C traces the population growth of each of the  colonies (and, after , states) and several colonial towns during the th century. The events covered in this volume were selected on the basis of our combined teaching and research activities. Of course, another pair of editors might have arrived at a

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somewhat different list than we did, but we believe that we have assembled a group of events that truly changed America in the th century.

As with all published works, numerous people behind the scenes deserve much of the credit for the final product. Barbara Rader, our editor at Greenwood Publishing Group, encouraged us as we prepared the first edition of this book in the late s. Others who gave assistance to that edition included the staff of the Photographic Division of the Library of Congress, and our student research assistant, Bob Marshall. Brigette Adams, Carol Findling and Jo Ann Waterbury all helped with word processing in the final stage of the project. For this edition, we are grateful to James Stewart, John Wagner, Jennifer Boelter, and several others at ABC-CLIO who have answered our questions and addressed our concerns in a positive and timely manner. Special thanks go to Glenn Crothers and John Hunt, who helped us find excellent authors for several of the interpretive essays. We are also grateful to the authors of the shorter essays at the end of each chapter. These historians, provided by ABC-CLIO, wrote fine essays that significantly increased the value of each chapter. Among others who helped us in one way or another to make both the first edition and this one better books are John Newman, Sam Sloss, Sheila Anderson, Kim Pelle, Brook Taylor, Andrew Trout, and Deborah Bulleit. And, most important, we thank our authors, whose essays were well conceived and thoughtful and whose patience when the project seemed to lag was much appreciated. Finally, we wish to express our appreciation to our spouses, Carol Findling and Kathy Thackeray, and to our children, Jamey and Jenny Findling and Alex, Max and Melanie Thackeray, whose patience with us and interest in our work made it all worthwhile. John E. Findling Frank W. Thackeray

1 The Era of Salutary Neglect, ca. 1720s–1750

INTRODUCTION In the early th century, the British government, under its first great prime minister, Robert Walpole (–), instituted a policy known as “salutary neglect,” which had at its basis a relaxation of colonial regulations. This policy, it was hoped, would allow Britain to concentrate on European matters and at the same time allow the colonists to buy more British goods and be of benefit to Britain and its merchants. The real effect of salutary neglect, as it turned out, was to allow the colonial assemblies to garner more and more independent authority, a circumstance that would come back to haunt the British a generation later. In the th century, England, Spain, and the Netherlands developed an economic system known as mercantilism to further their national interests. In England’s case, this involved the encouragement of investment in domestic manufacturing, so that fewer imported goods were needed and more goods were available for export. This worked to give England a favorable balance of trade, defined as having more gold and silver coming into the country than going out. This gold and silver could then be used to build up the military (and especially the navy) or bring about further economic expansion. As the Spanish colonized Mexico and South America in the th century and supported a huge bureaucracy and military with the abundant gold and silver they extracted from their colonies, English adventurers made their first tentative forays into North America. Significant colonial expansion into North America, however, was not feasible for the English until financing was available to permit an entrepreneurial group to go overseas and establish a profitable outpost. The problem of financing was solved in the late th century by the development of the joint-stock company. Like a modern corporation, company managers would sell shares of stock in the company to a large number of investors. This would provide the capital necessary to undertake the colonial venture. In this way, the colonies fell under the mercantilist system. This was the economic phase of nationalism, part of the broad movement of nation making (and, indeed, empire building), involving a communal rather than an individualistic view of society. The colonies were looked upon as supplements to the colonizing country, necessary to make it independent of foreign rivals. The main question was how the colonies could best serve the interests of Britain.

2

WHAT HAPPENED?

Robert Walpole, prime minister of Great Britain for more than 20 years, presided over the policy known as “benign neglect.” (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

The best way was to have an abundance of gold and silver, like the Spanish colonies of Latin America two centuries earlier, but these precious metals were not readily available in the North American colonies. So the colonies served the mercantile system in other ways. They provided raw materials needed by Britain, which allowed the British to keep more gold and silver at home, and they served as a market for the finished products of British manufacturers, thus providing employment for British workers. In addition, the exchange of raw materials for manufactured goods stimulated the merchant marine and added to Britain’s naval strength. Two types of parliamentary legislation were necessary to fit the colonies into the mercantilist scheme. A group of laws called Navigation Acts provided that all goods engaged in imperial trade had to be shipped on vessels built and operated by subjects of the Crown. The first of these was passed in  and was aimed at the Dutch, Britain’s chief commercial rival. It stipulated that any goods imported into England or its colonies had to be carried in ships of English, Irish, or colonial registry. In addition, another Navigation Act passed in  provided that certain colonial products—sugar, indigo, and tobacco—could be shipped only to British possessions. No direct trade to other nations was allowed. This act was made even more restrictive in  when the Staple Act required that “enumerated goods,” as those colonial products were called, could be shipped only to Great Britain, from where they could be reexported to other countries. Similarly, goods from other countries destined for markets in the North American colonies also had to be shipped first to Britain and then reexported to the colonies. This gave Britain a monopoly on these goods and brought in more revenue through customs duties and the reexport trade. For the colonies, this meant higher transportation costs and pushed prices for these goods to a prohibitive level, thus forcing the colonists to buy British. To administer these acts, in , Parliament created a new body called the Board of Trade, composed of individuals with political or commercial

THE ERA OF SALUTARY NEGLECT, ca. 1720s–1750

3

backgrounds, which oversaw colonial trade and proposed new laws aimed at American manufacturing enterprises that might compete with British companies engaged in the same trade. In the late th century, Great Britain enforced its mercantilist policies with zeal, fighting commercial wars with the Netherlands that eventually drove the Dutch from North America and clamping down on violations of the trade regulations in North America. In the s, for example, repeated violations of the Navigation Acts in Massachusetts resulted in the annulment of the colonial charter of that colony and its incorporation into a new administrative unit called the Dominion of New England, which was ruled by a despotic governor, Sir Edmund Andros. Happily for New England, the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, in which James II was swept off the British throne and replaced by the dual monarchy of William and Mary, led to the dissolution of the Dominion and the creation of a new royal colony of Massachusetts, with a fairly democratic and autonomous assembly. Another set of laws, the Manufacturing Acts, was designed to cut down colonial industry that might compete with British industry of a similar nature. These acts included the Woolens Act of , the Hat Act of , and the Iron Act of . The first two of these acts banned the intercolonial or export sale of woolen goods or hats, while the Iron Act did allow the sale of pig iron to England but prohibited the building of new iron forges and mills in the colonies. Why did the colonists tolerate a system seemingly so little in their interests? The answer is that it was not as disadvantageous as it might seem. First, the principal colonial agricultural commodities enjoyed a monopoly of British markets, which was certainly economically beneficial. British manufactured goods were at this time the best and cheapest in the world, and colonists would probably have bought them whether or not they had foreign competitors. The Royal Navy gave protection to colonial shipping, something the colonists could not have afforded themselves, and the Navigation Acts did not prevent American vessels from engaging in imperial trade, which they did with great zeal, eventually controlling more than  percent of the trade between mainland North America and the West Indies. Finally, most colonists were not affected by the mercantilist system; they were engaged in subsistence agriculture, which had no bearing on foreign trade. It is also important to note that mercantilism was generally accepted as the way things were done, and in North America at this time, the colonies were  separate entities with practically no intercolonial communication and no effective way to voice grievances. Walpole’s policies had a political side to them, as well. A strong believer in the patronage system, he filled many colonial administrative posts with friends and political allies who were, perhaps, loyal but who were at best mediocre bureaucrats. Many of them came to the colonies with the single goal of milking the system to their own financial advantage, and they were willing to act in corrupt ways or ignore obvious problems if it was profitable to do so. In many cases, they made friends with American merchants, involving themselves in their businesses and sharing in their profits, much of which came from the nonenforcement of mercantilist regulations. Similarly, in London, Walpole’s patronage system weakened the Board of Trade and other parliamentary bodies charged with overseeing colonial affairs. This had a negative effect on those British officials who went to the colonies determined to uphold British

4

WHAT HAPPENED?

authority; when they found no support from the bureaucrats back in London, they became disillusioned and resigned themselves to accepting the system the way it was. The policy of salutary neglect often meant that the mercantile acts were not enforced, which allowed colonial traders to smuggle goods in or avoid customs payments by other means. New England traders were able to profit from the so-called triangular trade, in which they sent fish and lumber to the Caribbean colonies, which in turn sent sugar, molasses, and rum to the west coast of Africa, which in turn sent slaves to the sugar planters or tobacco planters in the warm-weather colonies of North America. Profits from this trade allowed New Englanders to buy more goods from Britain. One of the most profitable sectors of American trade might have been seriously compromised in  had it not been for the policy of salutary neglect. By the s, American merchants were enjoying a lucrative trade with the French West Indies, exchanging such items as flour, fish, and wooden barrels for West Indian sugar. The sugar was then used in the distilleries of New England, whose rum helped support the enthusiastic drinking habits of colonial Americans as well as serve as another profitable export product. British sugar interests, however, were upset that Americans were not buying sugar from the plantations of the British West Indies, as good mercantilist theory dictated, and they persuaded Parliament to pass the Molasses Act in . This act placed a tax of six pence per gallon on molasses (the form in which sugar was usually purchased) imported from non-British possessions. American merchants protested the imposition of this tax, pointing out that it would, among other things, impair their ability to purchase British manufactured products, but Parliament was not impressed. As a consequence, most American merchants simply ignored the tax, either by smuggling molasses into New England or by bribing corrupt customs officials. Because sugar prices worldwide rose in the late s and because there was no particular interest in London in enforcing the Molasses Act, colonists could pretend that the Molasses Act did not exist. Another problem exacerbated (as far as the British were concerned) by salutary neglect was the growing tendency in the colonies to establish land banks and to issue paper currency. Much of the gold and silver that came to the colonies was sent to Britain to pay for manufactured goods. This left a currency shortage in the colonies, which the colonies attempted to solve by issuing paper currency. The land bank would print currency and then lend it to farmers who needed it and were willing to put up their land as collateral. Farmers thus had money to invest in land or supplies, and that money made its way into general circulation. Some colonies printed too much money—more than was backed by the value of the land held as collateral. The money then depreciated in value. In Rhode Island, one of the worst offenders, local currency soon became worth only half its face value. Needless to say, creditors, some of whom were British businessmen, objected strenuously to being repaid with money that was worth significantly less than that which they had originally lent. Finally, in , after Massachusetts, one of the larger colonies, had begun to abuse paper currency, Parliament passed the Currency Act, which prohibited the founding of new banks throughout New England and barred the use of local paper currency (called public bills of credit) to pay private debts. One consequence of this issue was that it awakened a number of high-ranking British government officials to the autonomy that colonial governments had assumed during the period of salutary neglect.

THE ERA OF SALUTARY NEGLECT, ca. 1720s–1750

5

The French and Indian War (–) brought an end to the policy of salutary neglect. The war revealed to London how weak British administrative control had become and how independent many of the colonial assemblies now were. This was seen during the war when the Virginia assembly voted not to raise additional tax money to help pay the costs of the war but rather resorted to printing paper currency to meet its obligation. Too much currency was printed, and it fell in value, yet creditors were bound by law to accept the bills in payment of debts. British merchants refused to accept the paper money and lobbied Parliament for assistance, but it was not until  that that body passed the Currency Act, which prohibited the use of paper money in all of the colonies; henceforth, all debts would have to be paid in gold, silver, British currency, or bills of exchange (similar to an interbank transfer). Toward the end of the war, British officials began to enforce more rigorously the Navigation Acts, the heart of mercantilism. Specifically, they went after the almost universal flouting of the  Molasses Act. In , Parliament passed the Revenue Act, which disallowed the practice of customs officials hiring corrupt deputies in their place. In addition, the Royal Navy was directed to stop all trade between North America and the French West Indies (in part, this was a wartime measure, as colonial food and supplies sold in the French West Indies were finding their way to the French armies fighting against the British). The war left Britain deeply in debt, and this fact was the most important factor in inducing London to reassert its authority over its North American colonies. William Pitt had devised a marvelous strategy to bring victory to the British, but he had spent extravagantly to do so. Between  and , the national debt nearly doubled, and the first postwar government had to find ways to make interest payments. Parliament raised import taxes for goods coming into Britain and imposed new excise taxes on popular items, such as tobacco, so that the tax burden fell on the common people. With respect to the North American colonies, there was a widespread feeling in Britain that imperial reform, by means of the more assiduous enforcement of existing rules and regulations, was needed, both to force the colonies to bear some of the cost of the war and to show them where the source of power lay. Thus, in , Parliament passed the Sugar Act. This act, which represented a revised version of the old Molasses Act of , actually lowered the tax on imported sugar from six pence to three pence per gallon but called for the vigorous collection of the tax. Colonial leaders protested, of course, but, interestingly, they seemed to be more concerned about their right, as they saw it, to impose their own taxes than about the sugar tax. This, then, became one of the overarching disputes that propelled the colonies and Great Britain into war just  years later.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY thomas a. prasch Edmund Burke, on the eve of the American Revolution, first framed the notion that “a wise and salutary neglect” had been central to the earlier success of British imperial aims in the American colonies. In his Speech on Conciliation with America (March , ), he declared:

6

WHAT HAPPENED?

When I know that the Colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away within me. . . . I pardon something to the spirit of liberty. (Burke, :) Burke could well look back nostalgically to the relative peace and prosperity produced by British hands-off policies earlier in the th century from his vantage point in . In Burke’s day, an intensely interventionist British state sought to recoup the costs of colonial war with France through taxes and impositions that resulted not only in the disruption of profitable trade but also in massive resistance by American colonials and thus in greater military and monetary costs to Britain. To Burke, it was already clear by  that the dominant policies of force applied to the American colonies would result in costly war and that war in the colonies would yet again mean war with France, as well. Burke’s prescient analysis pinpoints a number of the central themes in the development of the American colonies from  to , including the importance of relatively unfettered free trade to the prosperity of both colonies and empire and the autonomous development of free political institutions within Britain’s American colonies. The circumstances that produced two decades of “salutary neglect,” however, are rather more complex than Burke’s simple formulation suggests. A complex set of conditions in the British political sphere produced a period of relative neglect of colonial policy that was only partly an intentional effect of policy decisions; meanwhile, in North America, rapidly changing conditions were only partly the consequence of British imperial policies. It is no accident that the decades historians identify with this “salutary neglect” correspond with the age of Robert Walpole’s ascendancy in British politics. Walpole is often credited with inventing the prime ministership, although the term was not applied to him at the time; officially, he served as First Lord of the Treasury. On the surface, at least, Walpole’s tenure presents a picture of remarkable stability between eras of destabilizing political infighting and intrigue. Walpole held his post at the Treasury for  years; over the  years before he took office, five people held the post (including Walpole himself for  years), and in the two subsequent decades, eight men would hold the office. Similarly, in the post of Secretary of State (Southern Department), the cabinet officer largely responsible for policy in the American colonies, a single figure, Thomas Pelham-Holles, first Duke of Newcastle, held power through most of the Walpole years; five men held the post in the decade before Walpole selected Newcastle for the position, and nine would serve in the post over the next two decades. The stability of Walpole’s tenure in domestic politics and of Newcastle’s dominance in American colonial policy was further reinforced by a new security in the royal succession, established with the ascension of the Hanoverians to the throne beginning with George I in  and the rapidly diminishing threat of Jacobite challenges to the Crown. The Jacobite threat can be traced back to the Glorious Revolution of , when Parliament invited William of Orange to replace James II, the last Stuart king, as British

THE ERA OF SALUTARY NEGLECT, ca. 1720s–1750

7

monarch. James fled to France, leaving the throne to his daughter Mary and her husband, William. However, with French support, James established a rival monarchy in exile, ever ready to challenge William and Mary and their successors’ claim to the English throne. After the French officially recognized the Hanoverian succession, in , and the Jacobite rebellion of  failed, however, such claims had relatively little impact on English political life (at least until , when a renewed Jacobite rebellion shook Scotland); no serious challenge was mounted, for instance, when George II took power in . It is a further sign of Walpole’s political skill that his ministry, too, survived this transition. In a variety of ways, Walpole’s explicit policy aims worked to reinforce this sense of security. One of the most important of these is Walpole’s skill as a financial manager and his policies to promote expanded trade. It was, not coincidentally, a financial crisis that brought Walpole to power: the crisis of speculative investment known as the South Sea Bubble. The crisis had its origins in the chartering of the South Sea Company as a joint-stock venture, in . The company’s stock prices soared after , when Britain secured, through the Treaty of Utrecht, a monopoly on slave trading with Spanish possessions in the Caribbean (part of the South Sea Company’s territory). The directors of the company, however, were engaged as much in manipulation of public debt as in actual trade. With the assistance of Parliament and the direct involvement of key members of the cabinet, the company sought to exchange shares of stock for holdings of public debt, a workable scheme as long as stock prices continued to rise. When the crash came, in September , it provided the mechanism for Walpole to secure his supremacy through skillful crisis management. The Bubble Act that followed the crisis put joint-stock operations on more secure (and more state-regulated) ground, leading to two decades of slower but steady expansion of overseas trade. Walpole firmly believed in the mercantilist system, by which colonial possessions served primarily to enrich the mother country. The system envisioned colonialism as a closed loop, in which colonies provided raw materials for home manufacturing and a market for the mother country’s goods; trade with the merchants and colonies of other powers was discouraged through prohibitive legislation. In accepting mercantilist principles, Walpole was very much a man of his age. Until Adam Smith’s denunciation of mercantilism and argument for unfettered free trade in The Wealth of Nations (), the mercantilist case dominated state policy. The doctrine was enshrined in a long series of legislative acts, from the Acts of Trade of  and  to the Navigation Acts of . To these, Walpole would make his own additions, most notably the Molasses Act (). But Walpole also sought to reconceive mercantilism, to reinvent a doctrine that presumed stable levels of production into one fitted for an era of expanding trade. He signaled his intentions in his speech from the throne (delivered by George I but written by Walpole) in , declaring the encouragement of trade and manufacturing as his goals. These aims were to be accomplished by measures reducing duties on both imports of raw materials from the colonies and exported manufactured goods, while meanwhile raising duties on foreign imports. Government preferments and subsidies further favored trading and manufacturing interests. The principal results were steady increases in the value of both imports and exports over the next two decades and widening prosperity, at least for interests involved in both trade and manufacture, on both sides of the

8

WHAT HAPPENED?

Atlantic. An additional consequence of the policies was that Walpole gained the firm support of merchant and manufacturing interests and of London-based financiers (already beholden to him for his handling of the South Sea Bubble crisis). Meanwhile, on the colonial side of economic development, the mercantilist system, had it been firmly enforced, would doubtless have both restricted the expansion of trade and exacerbated tensions between colonials and the British state. These eventualities were avoided during Walpole’s tenure by a simple expedient: the restrictive legislation of mercantilist doctrine went largely unenforced. It is unclear to what extent this was a deliberate policy and how far it amounts to mere historical accident. Walpole’s positions generally, above all else his belief in minimizing government action, were certainly closer to laissez-faire economics than those of his predecessors; he nevertheless regularly proved quite willing to implement legislation to secure the favor of important interests, especially the West Indies lobby, even at the expense of North American colonials, as in the case of the Molasses Act. But that act, even more than its predecessors, was more widely ignored than enforced. Historians have pointed to a variety of institutional and personal factors to explain the relatively hands-off policies of the Walpole years. The Board of Trade, the body principally responsible for enforcement of mercantilist legislation, was in an institutionally weak position from the end of the th century, becoming weaker in policy decisions especially after , and it would become an effective enforcer of the law only when after it was reorganized, in . Newcastle, as Secretary of State (Southern Department), came to the post without preparation on the details of the system, resulting in a suspension of much administrative activity while he learned the duties of his office after . Even after that, however, enforcement was very lax, and Newcastle’s preferred approach to problems was to delay firm action. James Henretta, in his account of Newcastle’s political career, attributes the “salutary neglect” of the era to a combination of accidental factors—“administrative inefficiency, financial stringency, and political incompetence”—as well as to some element of deliberate policy (Henretta, p. ). It is also the case, however, that Walpole’s deliberate policies sought to avoid interference with the advancement of trade, and lax enforcement of the trade and navigation acts certainly fit this aim. In any case, for whatever reason, mercantilist legislation was easily evaded in the period, contributing to significant growth in American trade and giving the colonies a far more significant role in Great Britain’s overall trading patterns. Walpole’s quest for stability is nowhere more clear than in his firm antiwar position. For Walpole, avoiding war was connected to a range of policy issues. Most central, doubtless, was Walpole’s overall aim of reducing state expenditure; nothing balloons a national budget as surely as the cost of war. War also interfered with Walpole’s aims of expanding trade, especially across the Atlantic, because it both diverted government expenditure in other directions and directly disrupted trading. Further, keeping out of European wars provided a means to alleviate the threat of Jacobitism to the security of the Hanoverian monarchy. War almost always put France and England at odds, and France could always employ the Jacobite court-in-exile to undermine its enemy across the Channel; staying out of conflicts made such direct challenges less likely. In addition, and more directly linking antiwar and colonial policy, it was clear to Walpole that European conflicts could no longer be restricted to engagements on the Continent. Rather, European war always spilled over into the colonies, involving disruptions

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of the Atlantic trade, challenges to territorial boundaries at the margins of British North American colonies, and clashes in the West Indies. This was the lesson Walpole learned from the War of the Spanish Succession (also called Queen Anne’s War, –), a conflict that began with the powers of Europe disputing who had proper title to the Spanish throne but that was fought not only in European battle theaters (the Danube Valley, the Low Countries, northern Italy, and Spain) and throughout the Mediterranean Sea but also on the wilderness frontiers of North America and among the island colonies of the Caribbean. Indeed, Britain’s gains from the war, concluded with the Treaty of Utrecht (), almost all benefited the colonies: they gained Hudson’s Bay, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland from France, and British merchants received a monopoly from Spain on slave imports to Spain’s American possessions. The Treaty of Utrecht ended nearly a quarter-century of almost continuous warfare involving the European powers and Britain. Through Walpole’s efforts, at least in part, Britain remained at peace almost until the end of his tenure in office. When, for example, the War of the Polish Succession (–) embroiled the major European powers, Walpole kept Britain out of the fray despite George II’s prowar position. It was finally Walpole’s staunch resistance to war, in fact, that ended his long tenure in office, when conflict between British merchants (and smugglers) and Spanish authorities led Britain to the brink of war in . Although both popular and parliamentary opinion favored war, Walpole resisted, negotiating the Convention of Pardo in  to avert military conflict with Spain. But a revolt of key members of his own cabinet and continued pro-war agitation in Parliament led Britain into war later the same year. The War of Jenkins’ Ear (named for the ear Robert Jenkins lost to the Spaniards who had boarded his ship in ), a conflict that soon became subsumed within the broader War of the Austrian Succession (–), doomed Walpole’s antiwar program, leading to precisely the sort of war he feared, one involving British military action on multiple fronts: in Europe, in Great Britain itself (with the Scottish revolt led by “Bonnie Prince Charlie”— Charles Edward Stuart, seeking to reclaim the throne for the Stuart line—in ), and in the colonies (this time not only in America and the Caribbean but in India, as well). Although Walpole remained in office for three years after the commencement of hostilities, the war eventually brought Walpole’s resignation from office in . The ease with which that descent into war occurred despite the desperate resistance of Walpole himself as chief minister suggests how fragile, in fact, the security of his system was. On the domestic front, the solidity of Walpole’s tenure required a cautious balancing act on Walpole’s part between pleasing the king, still far more than a figurehead in the politics of the time, and keeping control of Parliament, especially the House of Commons, whose supremacy in the legislative field had been established through the course of the political upheavals of the th century. In Walpole’s case, his political balancing act was also carried on in the face of vociferous opposition; no chief minister ever endured such an openly and personally hostile opposition and press. Within the context of the unreformed parliamentary system of th-century Britain, it was never elections per se that determined power. The presumption that the upper classes constituted the nation’s “natural” leadership was enshrined in the ideology of “virtual representation”: the idea that members of Parliament represented not just specific constituencies but the whole population. As a consequence of this idea, for instance, it was not necessary for a candidate to live in the place where he (for it was

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always he) stood for election. The greater part of the British population—roughly six out of seven people—had no role in elections whatever. The franchise was restricted to those with landed wealth, with the minimum being a -shilling freehold. Further, because the distribution of parliamentary seats had been apportioned in the Middle Ages and left unchanged since, in some cases—the famous “rotten boroughs” that would finally be eliminated in the Reform Act of —members stood for seats that had almost no population at all. Influence and patronage were the keys for controlling this system at almost all levels. At the level of elections, the ability to buy votes and promise rewards determined to a large extent who served in Parliament. From Walpole’s position, working to please interest groups and dispensing patronage were the means to maintain a parliamentary majority. That majority—those we would now call civil servants—served in Parliament, casting votes for the regime that provided their jobs, which was only the most obvious sign of patronage at work. We have seen already how Walpole used trade policy as an instrument to gain the support of powerful interests in Parliament, manufacturers, and merchants, as well as the increasingly influential West Indian lobby and the financial community that had benefited, too, by his intervention on the South Sea Bubble crisis. He also used his control of Treasury to secure patronage positions for allies and employed his links to the king to distribute honors and preferment to his supporters. And he paraded his own personal background, as a country gentleman, to keep the support of parliamentary independents who shared his class background (the landed gentry also, as major investors, benefited from Walpole’s financial skills). Finally, Walpole knew when to beat a strategic retreat, as when he withdrew his proposed Excise Bill () rather than see it face defeat in the House of Commons. But Walpole’s system, precisely because of its dependence on patronage and interest politics, was inherently unstable. There were limits on the total available patronage positions, much competition among cabinet members for the right to distribute favors, and the need both to constantly redeploy patronage to fit immediate needs and to continue to please interest groups for whom long-past favors were apt to be forgotten. The rapidity with which Walpole’s supporters and even fellow cabinet ministers deserted him when they believed others could provide for them better in the crisis that began in  underlines how tenuous Walpole’s power really was. In the colonies, an oddly similar balance can be seen between a surface security and seething sources of instability. The general picture presented by the colonies during the Walpole years seems relatively placid. The major stages of the settlement process had been largely completed by the th century; only Georgia was added during Walpole’s tenure, in . By the turn of the century, too, the basic dynamic of colonial politics was set: a see-sawing balance of power between bicameral colonial assemblies, with far more popular elections than those of England determining the membership of at least the lower houses, and a royal-appointed executive. Colonials chafed at the limitations imposed by mercantile legislation, but their resistance was minimized both by their knowledge of the limited standards of enforcement and by the security that Walpole’s policies also promoted colonial trading interests. The expansion of the colonial economy benefited similar interests in the colonies to those that backed Walpole in England. More generally, expanded trade ensured the increasing prosperity of the colonies, if also widening the gap between haves and have-nots. Walpole’s antiwar policies further

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limited conflict on the colonial frontiers, the spillover effect that resulted from European wars; the relative peace facilitated colonial expansion westward, necessitated by the rapidly expanding colonial population. The security of the colonial system was, however, more fragile than it appeared. A closer examination of colonial politics makes this clear: if the broad form of colonial politics had become stable by the th century, the practice of politics was far more fractious and contentious. As opposed to Great Britain, where Parliament and the ministerial executive represented the same basic interests and shared a common place in the social order, the interests of colonial assemblies and royal executives were far more sharply divided, with the assemblies promoting the interests of colonials and the executive seeking to ensure the interests of the British state. Further, the tenor of politics in America differed on the level of political theory: the radical inheritance of the th century, reinforced by the wide circulation in the colonies of the oppositional press in Walpole’s era, gave colonial political discourse a more radical, more democratic, and more antistatist edge. Bernard Bailyn, in his classic study The Origins of American Politics (), explores the specific differences between the practice of politics in the colonies and in Britain, emphasizing above all else the differences in the informal structure of politics. Precisely those tools of influence and patronage that were central to Walpole’s hold on power in Britain were not fully in the control of colonial executives. Their powers of patronage were limited, largely because patronage was dispensed at the cabinet level in Britain and, even at that level, shared between several officers. Even Newcastle’s power of patronage was limited by the competing demands of Walpole himself and (through ) Charles Townshend, secretary of state for the Northern Department. Colonial governors also had limited flexibility in setting policy, which was determined back in Britain, or in imposing it, especially with only limited access to military support. They thus could do little independently to cultivate influential interest groups, and the interest groups most vital to the security of officials back in England were not necessarily those that were most important in colonial politics. Colonial legislatures, for the most part, lacked the ideology of “natural” leaders characteristic of British politics, and legislators were thus much more subject to popular opinion and electoral pressures. Such tendencies were reinforced by the more radical traditions of political theory, with their emphasis on the evils of any power that seemed absolute in character. In this, interestingly, Bailyn to a large extent reiterates the arguments Burke had made back in the s concerning the development of autonomous traditions of representation in the colonies quite distinct from those of the mother country, reinforcing Burke’s case with the evidence of modern historical scholarship. The security of colonial boundaries and the dominant tenor of peace between major powers with colonial holdings were also less solid than it seemed through most of the Walpole years. As the colonial population rapidly expanded, westward settlement seemed an obvious solution to American colonials. This brought them increasingly into conflict with French claims to the American interior, as well as with Native American groups threatened by displacement; the establishment of Georgia also produced boundary disputes with Spanish possessions to the south. The lack of full-scale war should not be taken to suggest the existence of full-scale peace. On the contrary, border skirmishes

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and minor conflicts with the representatives of other European powers and their allies among the Native American groups also being pressured by American expansion were almost continuous. Further, the complications of a Caribbean trading system that featured high levels of smuggling, as well as legal trade, produced similar minor conflicts at sea. Throughout the s, indeed, a state of near war existed between British and colonial traders and Spanish authorities, as reflected in episodes such as that of Jenkins’s ear. It is in part because trading interests had something to gain from conflict in both the western frontier and the Caribbean that Walpole’s antiwar position failed to hold through the growing crisis of the late s. What ensued with the end of Walpole’s primacy (and with it the end of the era of “salutary neglect”) in many ways amply justified Walpole’s wariness about war, as well as Burke’s later nostalgia for the bygone days of more minimal British colonial government. The war with Spain gradually extended until, by , it had merged into the wide-ranging conflict of the War of the Austrian Succession (–). That war in turn was but a prelude to the almost continuous warfare on both the European continent and in America that ended with the Peace of Paris (). That treaty ensured British supremacy in North America, but at such cost that the colonies would soon after be lost. The expenses of the war itself and of the expanded need to police a wider colonial realm led the British state to abandon its policies of ‘‘salutary neglect’’ in favor of attempts to enforce strictly and even expand the mercantilist laws so neglected in the past and to impose taxes on the colonies to recoup the costs of the new empire. These new policies ignored the by-then long-standing independent political traditions of the American colonies and, by doing so, broke down the fragile balance between assemblies and governors in colonial politics. It is often to this later period of conflict that historians first look for the development of an independent American character, for the advent of colonists who thought of themselves first as Americans and only secondarily as citizens of the British state. But this basic shift can also be traced back to the era of “salutary neglect,” when colonists, left largely to their own devices, began to forge an independent identity and an autonomous political tradition. It might be said that, in the shadow of this neglect, then, in the opportunities offered by being ignored, the new shape of the New World first took form. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bailyn, Bernard. The Origins of American Politics. New York: Knopf, . Bailyn’s classic treatment of the differences between British and American colonial political orders, although dated, remains a clear and useful discussion of the central issues. Black, Jeremy. British Foreign Policy in the Age of Walpole. Edinburgh: John Donald, . Black’s discussion illuminates the role of European diplomacy and warfare in Walpole’s regime and makes the impact of those policies on Walpole’s tenure and colonial politics clear. ———. Robert Walpole and the Nature of Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain. London: Macmillan, . Black’s brief survey presents a clear portrait of the structure of politics in Britain in the th century and the methods employed by Walpole to maintain his control. Bowen, H. V. Elites, Enterprise and the Making of the British Overseas Empire –. London: Macmillan, . Useful discussion of how the key interest groups of the Walpole era— landed interests, the merchant elite, and financial figures—came into alliance on major policy issues after .

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Burke, Edmund. The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke. Paul Langford, gen. ed. Vol. , Party, Politics, and the American Crisis, –. Edited by Paul Langford. Oxford: Clarendon Press, ; vol. , Party, Parliament, and the American War, –. Edited by William Elofson and J. A. Woods. Oxford: Clarendon Press, . Burke coined the term ‘‘salutary neglect’’ to refer to earlier British colonial policy, and his writings on the subject remain lucid arguments for the autonomous development of the colonies as a consequence of the minimal involvement of the British state. Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation –. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . A valuable discussion of the emergence of British identity in the th century with interesting insights into the development of a distinctive American character, as well. Dickenson, H. T. Politics of the People in Eighteenth-Century Britain. New York: St. Martin’s Press, . A useful survey of the limitations and possibilities of popular politics in the period. ———. Walpole and the Whig Supremacy. London: English University Press, . A solid political study of Walpole’s place in and impact on the Whigs who dominated British politics from  to . Engerman, Stanley L., and Robert E. Gallman, eds. The Cambridge History of the United States. Vol. , The Colonial Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . This collection includes useful essays on economic developments in different regions of the colonies and on British mercantilism. Henretta, James A. ‘Salutary Neglect’: Colonial Administration under the Duke of Newcastle. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . Henretta’s detailed political biography is particularly useful for outlining the informal mechanics of British politics and colonial policy. Plumb, J. H. Sir Robert Walpole. Vol. , The King’s Minister. Rev. ed. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, . The best available political biography of Walpole in the early years of his power. Rabushka, Alvin. Taxation in Colonial America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . A survey of British taxation in colonial America. Reitan, Earl A. Politics, War, and Empire: The Rise of Britain to a World Power –. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, . A brief survey that usefully emphasizes the imperial dimensions of British history in the th century. Rothbard, Murray N. Conceived in Liberty. Vol. , ‘Salutary Neglect’: The American Colonies in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, . Survey of early American history that offers particularly solid coverage of the Walpole years and the tensions beneath the surface of colonial government. Speck, W. A. Stability and Strife: England, –. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . A solid treatment of sources of political conflict in th-century England, particularly useful on the topic of operation of patronage and influence in Parliament.

BOARD OF TRADE AND PLANTATIONS The principal means of controlling colonial affairs for the British Crown was the Board of Trade and Plantations, formed completely by . The experiences of the Board of Trade and Plantations illustrate the difficulties that the British government had in administering its distant colonies. King William III commissioned the Board of Trade and Plantations, which consisted of  members. It was a committee of officials, considered experts on commerce and trade, who suggested policies intended to protect British interests. The board had the power to investigate questionable enterprises, nominate colonial officials, and demand reports from colonial offices. Although Parliament decided on official imperial

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policy, the Board of Trade and Plantations was influential in advising members of Parliament. The board’s power was curbed in  when the secretary of state for the Southern Department claimed the right to appoint colonial governors. From  to , the board was led by George Dunk, Earl of Halifax, who presided during a time of closer control by the Crown over the colonies. In , the board went so far as to propose the creation of a new colony west of the Appalachian Mountains, to be called Vandalia, but the suggestion was quickly abandoned. Subsequently, the sense that the board was outdated and unnecessary led to its demise, and, after , the secretary of state assumed a more active colonial role. The board was disbanded in .

brett schmoll and karen mead MERCANTILISM In the th and th centuries, many European nations believed that the world’s wealth was limited and finite. Whatever one nation gained, another nation lost. To ensure their own share of the pie, those nations pursued an economic policy called mercantilism. Because England followed mercantilism, this policy profoundly affected the American colonies in the years preceding independence. The cornerstone of mercantilism held that a nation’s supply of gold and silver reflected its wealth and economic strength. In addition, gold enabled nations to acquire military arms. Nations worked in many ways to increase their gold and silver stores, but foreign trade became the key avenue. By exporting more goods than they imported, mercantile nations could demand the difference in gold, a principal international currency of the times. Trading nations like England saw their colonies as useful players in the mercantile game. England looked to its colonies for raw materials that could be obtained at low cost. In addition, colonies became markets for England’s exports. Through mercantilism, England forged the early strengths and weaknesses of the young American economy. Beginning with the first of the Navigation Acts in , laws passed during the th and th centuries tightened England’s control of the American economy and trade. For example, by requiring the colonies to trade within the British empire, England limited any trade competition that its colonies might present. Laws against manufacturing also forced the colonies to import manufactured goods from the mother country. Products manufactured elsewhere were routed through England, and shipping was limited to English or colonial carriers. As mercantile regulations put economic pressure on the colonists, they began to protest. In the s and early s, England and its American colonies danced toward their eventual standoff.

THOMAS PELHAM-HOLLES, DUKE OF NEWCASTLE (1693–1768) Thomas Pelham-Holles, the first duke of Newcastle, was a powerful English politician who served as prime minister of Great Britain twice. He also heavily controlled

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government patronage and ensured the Hanoverian succession with his political machinations. Although his reigns as prime minister were short and relatively unsuccessful, he remains a key figure in th-century English history. Born Thomas Pelham, on July , , the future duke of Newcastle was one of  children. His father, Thomas Pelham Sr., was a landed aristocrat, while his mother, Lady Grace Holles, was titled. The Pelhams sent their son to the Westminster School, one of the most prestigious boarding schools in England, and later to Clare Hall, Cambridge University. Although Newcastle matriculated in , in the end, he never received a degree from Cambridge. Instead, in , he inherited the bulk of his uncle John Holles’s fortune; adopted the name Thomas Pelham-Holles in honor of his benefactor, who made it a condition of his inheritance; and took up a seat in the House of Lords. It was from that branch of the British Parliament that Newcastle would launch his political career and in which he would remain for life. Newcastle’s uncle’s estate included several properties throughout Great Britain, and, by the age of , Newcastle not only was a member of the House of Lords but also was working to manipulate elections to the House of Commons in at least  counties. With immense riches, including an annual income from rents of more than £,, Newcastle was able to bribe officials and buy influence with many seats in boroughs throughout the country. In , King George I added to his influence by creating him Duke of Newcastle. The title was seen as a reward for Newcastle’s assistance in ensuring George’s accession to the British throne. All of his life, in fact, Newcastle would work to ensure Hanoverian succession, maintaining very close ties with George I and George II. That sort of influence attracted the eye of the Duke of Marlborough, and, in , Newcastle married the duke’s daughter, Lady Harriet Godolphin. His association with Marlborough brought Newcastle to even greater heights of British society and political influence. Indeed, in , George I chose  lord justices in whose hands he placed power while he made a return visit to his native Hanover. Newcastle was one of those men, and, this, along with the fact that he was the godfather of Prince George William, made Newcastle’s influence apparent to all in the political establishment. That influence was enhanced in  when Prime Minister Robert Walpole made Newcastle his secretary of state, a position he held through Walpole’s term and beyond. After Walpole fell from power, Newcastle’s brother, Henry Pelham, became prime minister, and Newcastle remained his secretary of state until his brother’s unexpected death, in . Throughout their collaboration, the brothers worked closely to maintain their own privilege and to push British Whig Party agendas through the House of Commons by rallying members to vote in their favor by patronage and pressure. When his brother died, Newcastle was appointed prime minister. It was a bad time to be head of government, however, as Great Britain and France would soon enter the Seven Years’ War. With initial failures for English troops and a policy that was indecipherably weak, Newcastle resigned as prime minister in . The government that succeeded him was also unsuccessful, however, so, in , Newcastle returned as prime minister, along with William Pitt, the Elder as his secretary of state. In affairs of the war, Pitt was the leader, while Newcastle worked to secure support in Parliament for his government with his patronage method. Although Britain went on to win the war, in , Newcastle had been in conflict with King George III since the king assumed the throne in . By May , Newcastle was forced to resign, and the prime minister position was handed to George’s choice, the Earl of Bute.

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Within months, Bute secured royal favor, fired many of Newcastle’s allies in government, and alienated Newcastle from many of his patronage connections. Although he maintained his position in the House of Lords, Newcastle grew increasingly ill and feeble. In December , while on holiday in Bath, Newcastle had a stroke, and, on November , , he died at his home in Surrey. He and his wife never had children, so his estate was left to his nephew Henry Finnes Clinton, who became the new duke of Newcastle. Although Newcastle was not remembered with great fondness by many in government, his legacy rests in his ability to use his money and social position to influence the Hanoverian monarchy as well as British political policy for several decades.

nancy stockdale ROBERT WALPOLE (1676–1745) One of Great Britain’s most dynamic political leaders, Sir Robert Walpole created a political system based on patronage and influence that would set the pattern for governance for decades to come. The country’s first prime minister (although the title was an unofficial one), he oversaw a period of economic growth and prosperity that made Britain and its expanding empire a worldwide leader in trade and international finance. His impact on British politics in the th century was so profound that he was widely known simply as “the Great Man” by both his friends and his enemies. Walpole was born at his family’s estate, Houghton, in Norfolk, on August , . He was the fifth child and third son of Sir Robert Walpole and Mary Burwell. Sir Robert was a rising politician and his wife, an heiress. Walpole attended private school in Norfolk and then entered Eton, a prominent preparatory school, in . He entered King’s College at Cambridge University in  but remained at Cambridge only two years before the deaths of his two elder brothers prompted his recall to the family estates. He abandoned his ambition of entering the Church and devoted himself to the estate. On July , , he married Catherine Shorter, who was described by her contemporaries as “a woman of exquisite beauty and accomplished manners.” She brought a sizable dowry to the match, but both husband and wife established a pattern of living beyond their means. In November, Walpole’s father died, leaving Walpole as the head of the family and its fortune. Only three months after his father’s death, Walpole secured election to the House of Commons. Exhibiting his talent for oratory, he became a devoted Whig and allied himself with the powerful Churchills, confidantes of Queen Anne. Walpole also carefully studied how votes were manipulated and influence gained, quickly becoming a prominent member of the party, most notably for his advocacy of toleration for dissenters from the established Church of England. In June , he was appointed to the council of Prince George, Queen Anne’s husband, and, in February , he was named secretary at war and played a major role in England’s conduct of the War of the Spanish Succession, a conflict that had engulfed Europe since . As secretary at war, Walpole showed his talent for administration and finances, thus earning for himself an appointment as treasurer of the navy, a more profitable and prestigious post. The Whigs fell from royal favor the following year, however, and Walpole went into opposition with the rest of the British Whig Party. His political position

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became increasingly tenuous, as the Tories launched an investigation into the finances of the war department that cast deep suspicion on Walpole, leading to his imprisonment for a short time in the Tower of London. To defend himself, he published two pamphlets that undermined the charges against him. The case was eventually dropped, as the Tories themselves fell from power after the death of Queen Anne, in August . Anne was succeeded by her distant cousin, George I of Hanover. George’s cause was championed by the Whigs, as the Tories cast about unsuccessfully for another acceptable claimant to the throne. In return, George ensured that the Tories remained out of power while he promoted the fortunes of the Whigs. No one benefited from this royal interest more than Walpole. Early in George’s reign, from  to , he served as a lord of the treasury, proving himself a master at the game of political patronage and vote manipulation and emerging as the leader of the House of Commons. Walpole was not the king’s chief minister, however. That position was held by Lord Stanhope, an occasional political ally of Walpole’s. Stanhope’s political fortunes fell, however, after the South Sea Bubble crisis of . Although Walpole lost money in the financial crisis, as did many other investors, he advocated a calm, confident approach to the crisis that would restore public trust in the company and halt the economic panic that threatened to engulf Britain. Walpole’s competent handling of the situation earned him the appreciation of both the country and the king. After Stanhope died, in early , Walpole was appointed chancellor of the exchequer and first lord of the treasury in April, making him the head of the government. The unofficial title “prime minister” was increasingly applied to Walpole during his tenure. On the whole, his policies were unremarkable, and he is remembered more for the parliamentary system he established and refined than for any specific agenda his government pursued. That system was one based on patronage and personal influence, as factions within the Whig Party (the Tories remained a fragmented and ineffective political entity throughout this period) battled one another for control. Walpole, with his chief supporter, the Duke of Newcastle, became a master of conducting government business through the careful building of coalitions based entirely on the granting and the calling in of political favors. Both men recognized the House of Commons as the rising source of power in the country, replacing the House of Lords, and the House of Commons functioned on a network of patronage. This system of patronage, along with an increasing centralization of the government, granted Walpole more political power than any of his predecessors had enjoyed, thus establishing the idea that a single person could lead the government as a prime, or first, minister among all other government ministers and officials, save only the monarch. Despite Walpole’s immense power, his tenure was not without challenges. The first was the national debt, which Walpole vowed to eliminate through prudent financial measures. Toward this end, he carefully reformed the British economy, focusing much of his efforts on trade in the burgeoning British Empire. Walpole lowered many tariffs, customs, and excise duties but hired more Crown officials to enforce the regulations that remained, thus collecting more revenue and expanding the number of patronage positions at his disposal. He encouraged the expansion of British trade at every turn and even went so far as to establish minimum requirements for British goods that ensured quality and enhanced the national reputation abroad. These methods helped to bring the national debt to a remarkably low level. Walpole recognized that wars were

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expensive and frequently disrupted trade, as well as other sectors of the economy. To ensure economic growth, he successfully pursued a foreign policy dedicated to keeping Britain out of conflicts. His adherence to peace offered Britain an opportunity for a long period of prosperity and growth. Another challenge to Walpole’s power came from the dynastic quarrels that plagued the British monarchy at this time. For much of his life, George I engaged in a bitter feud with his son and heir, the Prince of Wales. When George I died, in , many believed that Walpole would be subsequently out of favor with the Prince of Wales. Walpole surprised his detractors, however, by forming a close association with the Princess of Wales, now Queen Caroline. Caroline was a domineering influence in her husband’s life, and, under her watchful eye, Walpole thrived in the new government of George II. George himself quickly came to value Walpole’s talents much as his father had before him. Walpole’s political enemies objected not so much to Walpole’s policies as to the man himself, mirroring the personal nature of politics at this time. In , they succeeded in dealing Walpole a major legislative defeat. At issue was an excise tax on wine and tobacco that Walpole proposed to raise revenue. His opponents, led by the young William Pitt, the Elder, attacked the bill in vicious debate in the House of Commons and enlisted the aid of the press in arousing public opinion against it. Excise taxes had always been unpopular, and the people responded quickly to show their resentment of the proposed tax. Sensing that he was losing his parliamentary support, Walpole withdrew the bill before it could be voted down, but his confidence was deeply shaken. Walpole was then faced with the challenge of keeping Britain out of war with Spain, a contest that the public increasingly supported. In most Britons’ views, Spain had long abused British merchants and shippers in the West Indies, a profitable colonial trading base. Tensions reached the boiling point in  after a contingent of Spanish soldiers chopped off the ear of a British sea captain, Robert Jenkins. Even Newcastle and George II joined their voices to the swelling tide in support of war. Walpole proved powerless to stop the country from entering into what became known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear. The conflict quickly escalated and eventually became engulfed in a wider European crisis that erupted in the War of the Austrian Succession a few years later. Walpole held onto his office for the first few years of the war, although increasingly Newcastle became the dominant power in the government. When Walpole resigned, in , George II reportedly burst into tears and subsequently created the title of Earl of Orford in gratitude for his service to the country. Walpole continued to privately advise the king on matters of policy, much to the chagrin of Pitt and his adherents. Shortly after his retirement, Walpole began suffering from bladder stones, which caused him excruciating pain. After a prolonged episode of illness, he died of exhaustion on March , .

DOCUMENT: MOLASSES ACT, 1733 Enacted by the British Parliament in May , the Molasses Act placed a high duty on all molasses, rum, and sugar imported to the North American colonies. Parliament passed the law to protect British West Indian sugar planters from foreign competition. To avoid the various Navigation Acts

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passed by the British government in the th and th centuries, the colonists had already developed a complex network of smuggling operations, and the Molasses Act only encouraged them to continue and expand those operations. It was eventually repealed by the Sugar Act (), which dramatically reduced the duty but called for a strict enforcement of it throughout the colonies. This period of increased British involvement in American affairs eventually led to the outbreak of the American Revolution. (Pickering, Danby, Statutes at Large . . . vol. XVI [Cambridge: J. Bentham, ].) An act for the better securing and encouraging the trade of his Majesty’s sugar colonies in America. WHEREAS the welfare and prosperity of your Majesty’s sugar colonies in America are of the greatest consequence and importance to the trade, navigation and strength of this kingdom: and whereas the planters of the said sugar colonies have of late years fallen under such great discouragements, that they are unable to improve or carry on the sugar trade upon an equal footing with the foreign sugar colonies, without some advantage and relief be given to them from Great Britain: for remedy whereof . . . be it enacted. . . . That from and after . . . [December , ,] . . . there shall be raised, levied, collected and paid, unto and for the use of his Majesty . . . , upon all rum or spirits of the produce or manufacture of any of the colonies or plantations in America, not in the possession or under the dominion of his Majesty . . . , which at any time or times within or during the continuance of this act, shall be imported or brought into any of the colonies or plantations in America, which now are or hereafter may be in the possession or under the dominion of his Majesty . . . , the sum of nine pence, money of Great Britain, . . . for every gallon thereof, and after that rate for any greater or lesser quantity: and upon all molasses or syrups of such foreign produce or manufacture as aforesaid, which shall be imported or brought into any of the said colonies or plantations . . . , the sum of six pence of like money for every gallon thereof . . .; and upon all sugars and paneles of such foreign growth, produce or manufacture as aforesaid, which shall be imported into any of the said colonies or plantations . . . a duty after the rate of five shillings of like money, for every hundred weight Avoirdupoize. . . . IV. And be it further enacted . . . , That from and after . . . [December , ,] . . . no sugary paneled syrups or molasses, of the growth, product and manufacture of any of the colonies or plantations in America, nor any rum or spirits of America, except of the growth or manufacture of his Majesty’s sugar colonies there, shall be imported by any person or persons whatsoever into the kingdom of Ireland, but such only as shall be fairly and bona fide loaden and shipped in Great Britain in ships navigated according to the several laws now in being in that behalf, under the penalty of forfeiting all such sugar, paneles, syrups or molasses, rum or spirits, or the value thereof, together with the ship or vessel in which the same shall be imported, with all her guns, tackle, furniture, ammunition, and apparel. . . . IX. And it is hereby further enacted . . . , That in case any sugar or paneles of the growth, produce or manufacture of any of the colonies or plantations belonging to or in the possession of his Majesty . . . , which shall have been imported into Great Britain after . . . June , ,] . . . shall at any time within one year after the importation thereof,

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be again exported out of Great Britain, . . . all the residue and remainder of the subsidy or duty, by any former act or acts of parliament granted and charged on such sugar or paneles as aforesaid, shall without any delay or reward be repaid to such merchant or merchants, who do export the same, within one month after demand thereof. X. And it is hereby further enacted . . . , That from and after . . . [June , ,] . . . for every hundred weight of sugar refined in Great Britain . . . , which shall be exported out of this kingdom, there shall be, by virtue of this act, repaid at the customhouse to the exporter, within one month after the demand thereof, over and above the several sums of three shillings and one shilling per hundred, payable by two former acts of parliament, one of them made in the ninth and tenth years of the reign of his late Majesty King William the Third, and the other in the second and third years of the reign of her late Majesty Queen Anne, the further sum of two shillings, oath or solemn affirmation as aforesaid, being first made by the refiner, that the said sugar so exported, was produced from brown and muscovado sugar, and that as he verily believes, the same was imported from some of the colonies or plantations in America belonging to and in the possession of the crown of Great Britain, and that as he verily believes the duty of the said brown and muscovado sugar was duly paid at the time of the importation thereof, and that the same was duly exported. . . .

2 The Enlightenment in North America, 1727–1790

INTRODUCTION Beginning with the decline and subsequent collapse of the Roman Empire in the West and the waves of barbarian invasions from the East, organized religion grew to play a dominant role in the life of medieval Europe. In particular, the western version of Christianity, with its headquarters at Rome, set the standard. Latin Christianity, now universally known as Roman Catholicism, provided the glue that held Western civilization together for the better part of a thousand years (roughly  to CE ). During this time, Roman Catholicism, or the Church, as it is sometimes called, assumed many responsibilities beyond its spiritual obligations. These ranged from governing in a secular manner to setting interest rates and adjudicating prices to furnishing education and providing care for the indigent. During the course of its long ascendancy, the Church instilled into the minds of its followers a number of fundamental ideas. One of the most important was a conviction that human beings were flawed as a result of Adam and Eve’s missteps in the Garden of Eden. As a consequence of what is known as Original Sin, life on earth for the human race was to be full of trials and tribulations, with much pain and suffering. Nevertheless, believers were commanded to ignore these earthly difficulties and to keep their eyes on the prize: eternal life in heaven, as opposed to eternal damnation in hell. One practical effect of this was to place earthly matters on a back burner. Certainly, people were still concerned about their daily needs, such as food and shelter, but, beyond that, the supernatural dominated. Although no evidence exists to confirm that the question was actually asked, the query “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?,” which is attributed to Church scholars, is often cited to indicate the medieval preoccupation with the otherworldly. Another basic idea proclaimed the existence of an all-knowing, all-seeing God who was carrying out a master plan whose complexities went well beyond the capacity of any mortal or group of mortals to understand. In turn, this gave rise to the ultimate answer to all questions regardless of their nature: “It’s God’s will.” With the coming of the Renaissance—which appeared first in th-century Italy— Europe began to experience a subtle but fundamental change in orientation. Influenced in no small measure by the Crusades, which reintroduced Europeans to a significant amount of ancient Greek and Roman thought, the European elite once again began to think primarily in terms of the secular and the humanistic. This is not to say that the

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basic tenets of the Church were abandoned; in fact, they remained unchallenged among the vast majority of Europeans and continued to be generally accepted even by the elite in society. What was different, however, was that they now shared center stage with a growing commitment to the secular, or the earthly here and now, and the humanistic, or concern with the nature of human beings and their earthly condition. A more secular and humanistic Europe manifested itself in many ways. The monarchs of the era claimed ever greater earthly authority over their realms, even to the extent of challenging the Church’s stated position as final arbiter of political matters. The merchant class grew significantly in numbers, and its almost obsessive pursuit of greater profits intensified. Painters expanded their repertoire from saints and the Virgin to include figures from mythology and scenes of contemporary life. The construction of palaces became as important as the construction of cathedrals as the rich and powerful flaunted their wealth and influence. The Church itself was not immune from this transition. As it leadership became more secularized, corruption at the highest levels increased dramatically. Alarmed by this development, cries of outrage arose both from the laity and within the Church itself. The growing discontent culminated in  when the monk turned professor Martin Luther openly challenged the Church’s leadership. The result was the Protestant Reformation, which fractured western Christianity. The movement toward secularism and humanism was also evident in the work of what today would be called scientists. These “practical intellectuals” asked fewer and fewer questions about otherworldly figures such as devils and angels. Instead, they turned their inquiries toward the earthly world in which they lived and to the physical nature of mankind and how the two fit together. These early modern scientists did not reject Christianity. Virtually all of them continued to believe in an afterlife, attended church services, and accepted that the definitive answer to all questions was “It’s God’s will.” However, within this context, these scientists raised questions of a secular and humanistic nature and sought answers based on the secular and humanistic. This shift in emphasis among Renaissance thinkers gave rise to the Scientific Revolution, a major benchmark in the history of Western civilization. The Scientific Revolution rested on the application of the scientific method, which today remains the only legitimate method of inquiry recognized by modern science. According to the scientific method, one begins by asking questions of a verifiable nature, such as why the seasons change or why objects fall down instead of up. Next, the scientist gathers concrete data through observation and experimentation. Once enough data have been amassed, the scientist subjects them to human—not Divine—reason and draws logical conclusions. Using this methodology, scientists can discover the “laws” that govern our physical world. While not necessarily absolute, the “laws,” or hypotheses, seem to be constant enough so that humans can confidently base their earthly lives upon them. Famous early modern scientists include Copernicus, who “discovered” the heliocentric universe; Galileo, who worked on both the nature of the heavens and motion on earth; and William Harvey, who explained the human circulatory system. Undoubtedly, the greatest early scientist was Isaac Newton, whose development of calculus served to create a set of overarching laws that seemed to explain the fundamental nature of the

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entire physical universe. His explanation of the universe—the law of gravity—stands essentially unchallenged. No wonder that the poet Alexander Pope exclaimed: Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in the night; God said, “Let Newton be,” and all was light. Following closely upon the Scientific Revolution, scholars and an increasing number of bright, educated lay people concluded that the methodology of science could be applied to discover “laws” that governed human interactions. This was an era of great optimism. Original sin faded into the background as would-be Newtons of statecraft, justice, economics, administration, and a host of other human activities labored to find the prevailing “laws” in the certitude that discovery of these laws would make the world a better, if not ideal, place in which to live. Achieving the “greatest good for the greatest number” seemed not only possible but also likely. The key to success would be the application of the scientific method, which enshrined human reason above all. Not surprisingly, this era, which encompassed most of the th century, brimmed with a sense of mankind’s potential for great accomplishment. Nor should it be surprising that this era is known as the Age of Reason, or the Enlightenment. The superficial aspects of the Enlightenment remain quite in evidence today. For example, universities refer to the study of politics as a science. Americans pride themselves on being rational, reasonable people. And who has not heard of the so-called laws of economics? For Americans, the sentence drawn from the Declaration of Independence that most clearly summarizes the essence of the Enlightenment’s rational thought is the following: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Incidentally, although most Americans give Thomas Jefferson credit for that ringing affirmation of humanity’s rights, the actual source of those words was John Locke, a late-th-century English political philosopher with strong ties to the Enlightenment. Note, however, that, even in the Declaration of Independence, God never disappears. Rather, the Deity remains a potent force but now a decidedly distant one. Furthermore, the reliance upon human reason that lies at the heart of both the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment only slowly and incompletely percolated down to the common man. Angels and devils, miracles and magic, continued to define the outlook of many. The Enlightenment in colonial America and the nascent United States appeared in many different forms. There were lofty political proclamations such as the Declaration of Independence and practical instruments of governance such as the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, the Enlightenment also manifested itself in more mundane ways: bookstores increased in number; scholars undertook careful and systematic studies

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Benjamin Franklin, the major figure of the North American Enlightenment, earned worldwide acclaim as a writer, scientist, statesman, and diplomat. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

of the North American continent’s flora and fauna; leading universities like Harvard and Yale changed their curricula to reflect a growing interest in the secular and the humanistic; newspapers proliferated; serious men established learned societies; and creative thinkers invented any number of practical tools and devices that bolstered productivity. Undoubtedly, the most striking and influential Enlightenment figure in Great Britain’s North American colonies was Benjamin Franklin. Born in Boston, in , Franklin came from modest but not poor circumstances. He had very little in the way of formal education and left Boston for Philadelphia at the age of . Once in Pennsylvania, Franklin quickly established himself in the printing business, where he enjoyed great success. Possessed of an insatiable curiosity, Franklin read voraciously. Thanks to his success in business, he was able to devote himself to all sorts of intellectual inquiries. Relying upon observation, experimentation, and human reason, Franklin delved into many fields. He made his greatest mark experimenting with electricity. This brought him fame as he proved that electricity and lightning are the same thing. One practical consequence of Franklin’s inquiries was his invention of the lightning rod. Several other practical inventions followed the lighting rod, including a stove renowned for its efficiency. Useful knowledge and its effective application characterized the Enlightenment in America. Franklin was also a shameless self-promoter. During extended stays in Europe, he advertised himself as a rustic genius fully conversant with the ideas and the ideals of the leading European philosophes, or Enlightenment activists. In turn, the Europeans showered him—and, by extension, his fellow colonists—with effusive accolades. In their view, the North Americans, as represented by Franklin, were as one with them in their pursuit of truth through reason.

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INTERPRETIVE ESSAY larry a. skillin A team of American diplomats arrived in France on December , . The ambassadors were charged with seeking French recognition of the full independence of the United States of America and securing, if possible, a military alliance against British efforts to destroy the infant republic. The Americans were received with general enthusiasm in Paris, but the adulation showered on one of their members clearly singled him out from the rest. Benjamin Franklin’s presence on this mission turned out to be a public relations bonanza for the American cause. Wearing a coonskin cap as a symbol of American simplicity and liberty, the -year-old Franklin quickly became the talk of the town. His presence was requested at social gatherings in the royal court and at fashionable salons. Intellectuals from throughout Europe sought his advice and conversation, and women of all ages flocked to be seen at his side. His portrait was emblazoned on small medals and trinkets seen throughout the capital. Poems were dedicated to his honor. Benjamin Franklin was the newly independent America’s first international celebrity. What could possibly account for this remarkable reception? Ben Franklin’s wealth and political standing cannot be cited alone, for many other Americans shared these attributes and could have arrived in Paris without ever being recognized. Franklin’s celebrity status and the excitement his presence generated cannot be understood apart from his participation in the trans-Atlantic phenomenon that has come to be known as the Enlightenment. In an Age of Reason, Franklin was seen as America’s leading voice in scientific matters and polite discourse. Descriptions of his experiments with electricity and the practical applications of his many discoveries were eagerly read by the European scientific community. He received honorary doctorates from prestigious universities and was granted membership in exclusive scientific communities such as London’s Royal Society and Paris’s Académie des Sciences. These achievements, alongside his frontline participation in the bold political experiment Americans were undertaking, laid the foundation for his reputation and set the stage for his reception in Paris in . Benjamin Franklin, of course, was not the only American whose achievements and career were linked to the trans-Atlantic Enlightenment. Celebrated Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, as well as lesserknown figures like James Logan, David Rittenhouse, and William Smith—and many more besides—all played roles as participants in and popularizers of the Enlightenment in North America. Some American philosophes, like Franklin, were recognized and lauded internationally for their achievements and were able to influence European intellectual currents, but that is not the focus of this essay. Here the spotlight will remain on the numerous ways in which the Enlightenment shaped North America during the th century. Enlightened principles clearly underlay many reforms and developments during that era in American religion, higher education, associational life, scientific inquiry, and, perhaps most profoundly, American politics. American religious practice was one of the very first cultural phenomena to be clearly affected by the intellectual trends linked to the Enlightenment. In Europe, philosophes

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aggressively attacked revelation-based religion in general, and Christianity in particular, as a remnant of an irrational and superstitious past. At the dawn of the th century, those few Americans who agreed with this stance pointed to the Salem witch trials of  as the logical outgrowth of linking the traditional Puritan belief system to the power of the state and its legal institutions. Advocates of more progressive religious institutions in New England came together in Boston in  to form the Brattle Street Church, which was committed to principles of open membership, voluntarism, and softened edges to traditional Calvinist beliefs. From that modest beginning, an increasing number of individuals in New England and throughout the colonies began quietly embracing positions that challenged traditional Christian doctrines. Some questioned the logic of the Trinity and charted a path toward a Unitarian Christian church that would grow in the th century and find support among the theologians at Harvard University. Others, who came to be known as deists, rejected all forms of specific revelation to embrace a God of Nature that created the universe and its many natural laws and then refused to intervene in it in supernatural ways. As part of this tradition, Thomas Jefferson famously modified a copy of the Bible, cutting out all references to miracles and supernatural events in the New Testament Gospels and thereby leaving behind only the moral teachings of Jesus which he greatly admired. While it is notoriously difficult to determine precisely how many individuals may have shared Unitarian or deist beliefs during the th century, specific policy changes during and immediately after the American Revolution show how effectively that group could shape the political landscape relating to religion. Enlightened thinkers in Europe often complained that state-sanctioned religions were oppressive to peoples’ consciences and sat at the root of religious wars and great bloodshed in world history. Thomas Jefferson, among others, agreed and worked feverishly to ensure that the new state constitution of Virginia would not permit a continuation of government support for the Church of England. It was not surprising that efforts to disestablish a church officially connected to the recently rejected English Crown were successful, but the broader principle would soon thereafter become the bedrock of the liberties structurally built into the new national government. Although it was not incorporated into the original text of the Constitution, religious liberty and the separation of church and state were affirmed in the first amendment to it and are still treasured as a key provision of the iconic Bill of Rights. It must be admitted that passage of the amendment required the combined support of deists such as Jefferson and John Adams and devout Baptists, Presbyterians, and other dissenting Protestants who had been energized by the recent Great Awakening and who sought the ability to practice their faith freely without restraints. Regardless of the strange bedfellows required to pass the measure through the political process, the final policy ensuring the new nation’s explicit separation of church and state was seen by many as a fundamental enactment of Enlightened reform. It is not at all surprising that the Enlightenment, as an intellectual movement whose main participants were formally educated members of the social and political elite, had far-reaching effects on American higher education. Harvard College, already well established at the turn of the th century, led the way in reforming its curriculum to incorporate the core values of the Enlightenment. Once seen as a fortress of orthodoxy in training Puritan divines, by  the college had alienated enough concerned church leaders that they formed Yale College to counterbalance what they saw as Harvard’s

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flagging commitment to strictly interpreted Calvinist theology. Harvard forged further ahead in  when it inaugurated the Hollis Professorship of Natural Philosophy and required all students to study mathematics and science as part of the core curriculum. Similar reforms came to other established institutions such as the College of William and Mary, in Virginia, where the midcentury arrival of new books, tutors, and administrators carried the influence of the European Enlightenment further into American education. It was here, under the instruction of William Small, that Thomas Jefferson became acquainted with the latest intellectual currents in moral and natural philosophy. Another measure of the advance in learning in America can be seen in the many newly founded colleges that were explicitly tied to the trans-Atlantic Enlightenment. Ben Franklin’s cooperative efforts to form an Academy in Philadelphia, which later became the University of Pennsylvania, set an important pattern for other similar institutions. Although loosely tied to the Anglican Church, the college provided opportunities to students of any or no declared faith. The institution was never meant to focus on training in divinity and placed great emphasis on scientific inquiry and the practical application of knowledge. By , a medical school was established in Philadelphia, later to be absorbed by the University of Pennsylvania. It offered programs meant to follow in the footsteps of the cutting-edge instruction in science and medicine offered at the University of Edinburgh, Great Britain’s premier medical training center. Although not fully brought to fruition until the early th century, the new American institution that owes the heaviest debt to the Enlightenment was Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia. Jefferson, although grateful for his education at the College of William and Mary, had become convinced of the need to establish a completely nonsectarian institution that would be wholly dedicated to the academic pursuits associated with the Enlightenment. In a novel development for American higher education, candidates pursuing ordination within a church could find no appropriate programs of study at the University of Virginia, but brand-new fields such as astronomy and engineering were offered. With Jefferson involved in every step of the university’s planning, from the development of the curriculum down to the architecture of its campus buildings, the university had few details that were not intentionally designed to further the goal of pursuing and expanding the Enlightenment in America. Beyond the reform or establishment of colleges designed to keep pace with new intellectual currents, Americans during the th century created a host of new social institutions modeled on the clubs and salons that helped sustain the Enlightenment in Europe. The most informal public settings to discuss new ideas and various topics were specialized shops such as coffeehouses or tobacconist parlors. Individuals from many walks of life could come to such establishments, purchase something as small as a single cup of coffee, and then read and discuss with other patrons the latest editions of local newspapers or essays across a wide variety of subjects ranging from political or religious controversy to scientific discovery. Many intellectually curious Americans craved an even more organized experience of sociability and philosophical exchange and established clubs for that purpose. By far, the best-known among these was the group of Philadelphians who gathered around Ben Franklin and established the Junto, in . At its heart, the Junto served as a book club whose members would collectively read and discuss the latest scientific or philosophical writings from Europe, ensuring their better understanding of the most promising

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discoveries. On certain occasions, members of the Junto would submit their own essays for consideration and discussion, sharpening their ideas for potential publication and wider distribution. In true Enlightenment form, the Junto was not interested exclusively in speculative philosophy. Members considered a wide array of practical ideas for improving the quality of life in Philadelphia, drawing inspiration from other cities in America and Europe and setting an example to others wishing to share in the most effective improvements. Clear links can be drawn between ideas discussed in the Junto and the later formation of institutions such as the Library Company of Philadelphia, the volunteer fire department, a local hospital, and the academic college already discussed. By the mid-th century, the Junto itself had formed auxiliary clubs to include more members, and other groups came together to achieve similar goals in different cities. While nearly all of the clubs and social settings mentioned were exclusively dominated by men, some ambitious and enterprising women created opportunities to become involved in the Enlightenment program in America by establishing salons along the French model. The most famous American salons were found in Philadelphia and kept by Elizabeth Graeme and Anne Willing Bingham, but other cities participated, as well. Like their French counterparts, American hostesses would convene regular meetings in their homes to discuss literature and share philosophical ideas. The hostess would be expected to guide the discussions and to ensure that high standards of polite sociability were maintained among the guests. Like the Junto meetings, salons provided aspiring authors a chance to receive feedback on their ideas before seeking a wider audience. From these informal and semiformal organizational structures sprang a desire to create American institutions more completely dedicated to funding and facilitating the advance of intellectual achievement, particularly in the sciences. In this effort, they took as their model the prestigious Royal Society of London and the Académie des Sciences of Paris. Not surprisingly, Ben Franklin and the Junto were at the center of this planning in Philadelphia, and they successfully conceptualized and convened the American Philosophical Society in . The organization pooled its members’ resources to buy books, publish its own proceedings, fund experiments, provide awards for extraordinary achievement, and invite celebrated lecturers from around the world to share their knowledge and spur further ingenuity. The institution quickly became North America’s preeminent scientific organization, drawing members and contributors from various colonies and, later, independent states. After his election to the vice presidency of the United States, in , Thomas Jefferson took advantage of his trip to the nation’s capital at Philadelphia for his inauguration to offer a lecture on paleontology to the American Philosophical Society, using his private collection of fossils to illustrate his positions. Not to be outdone by Philadelphia’s example, leading intellectuals and political figures in Boston, including the scientifically knowledgeable John Adams, established the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in . Its membership had considerable overlap with its Philadelphia-based counterpart, including the venerable Dr. Franklin, who was always interested in the expansion of resources for such pursuits. With similar central missions, the doubled efforts to promote science in different American cities had the beneficial effect of expanding interest among the general public and making scientific education available to larger populations, while a sense of competition between the organizations no doubt contributed to a drive for innovation and creativity.

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This broad collection of institutional support, sociable networks, and enhanced motivation allowed many Americans to contribute to international projects to expand knowledge about the natural sciences. As mentioned, the most famous of these contributors was Benjamin Franklin. Few American schoolchildren are not familiar with Franklin’s kite experiment, but that was only one aspect of his deeper understanding of electricity’s nature. Using collected static electricity in Leyden jars for a wide range of experiments, he advanced theories about positive and negative charges and what types of materials and shapes most effectively conduct the electrical “fluid.” He also used his knack for practicality to convert his understanding of this powerful force of nature into a useful product: lightning rods that protected buildings from damage during storms. Franklin was not alone, however, in his interest and innovation in electrical understanding. Ebenezer Kinnersley worked closely with Franklin on many of his experiments and was then encouraged by his partner to become a traveling popularizer of their collective work, putting on entertaining displays of electricity’s power throughout British America beginning in the s. Continuing local interest in science and independent experimentation with electricity were common results of a visit by one of Kinnersley’s traveling shows. The American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences pooled their observations of lightning strikes to discuss the direction and nature of the electrical currents. Experiments with Leyden jars and table-top generators dominated many discussions at local coffeehouses, discussion groups, and salons throughout the colonies. American colleges began lecturing on electricity, and further elaboration of understanding of the subject was advanced on both sides of the Atlantic. Electricity was by no means the only form of natural science to attract the attention of American devotees of the Enlightenment. Many Americans trained their sights on the skies as they participated in the modernization of the study of astronomy. David Rittenhouse was America’s leading astronomer during the th century. He was thoroughly versed in Newtonian physics and its implications for planetary motion, allowing him to produce some of the most accurate scale models of the solar system available in the American colonies. Rittenhouse also oversaw the local construction of powerful telescopes that provided opportunities to seek out the mysteries of the universe. He was the first American to view the planet Uranus through a telescope and was given the honor of leading the American wing of the globally coordinated effort to track the transit of Venus across the sun in . Like other scientists of his age, he wore many hats. Not only was he involved in the study of mathematics, but he also modernized methods of surveying land and participated in various levels of government. Rittenhouse was an early member of the American Philosophical Society and became its president upon Franklin’s death, in . While many American scientists were searching the skies, other Enlightenment researchers had their sights more firmly rooted on and under the ground, providing observations about the vast North American continent as naturalists. Each year seemed to bring new discoveries in botany, biology, geology, and other forms of natural philosophy. The timing of these discoveries in the mid-th century coincided with innovations in the naming and categorization of plants and animals being undertaken by Carl Linnaeus in Sweden. American naturalists fed European correspondents with a seemingly endless stream of plant and animal samples and observations about their habitats in the New World, allowing a complex taxonomy to take form.

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Thomas Jefferson excelled in the field of observation and interpretation, as is evident in his wide-ranging Notes on the State of Virginia. Originally compiled in  as a response to queries from French scientists about the natural resources of his region, the work also included several of Jefferson’s own additional observations, showcasing his talents as a skilled and detail-oriented naturalist. He provided extensive and thorough descriptions of local mineral deposits, land formations, geological phenomena, and water sources. He next provided his observations on the wide range of plant and animal species of his home state. This last category ultimately proved controversial because of his inclusion of humans in his description of the animals living in Virginia. Ahead of his time in anticipating the work of anthropologists, his descriptions and assessments of the physical and cultural attributes of and differences among Europeans, Native Americans, and African Americans showed him to be very much a product of his age and place and its peculiar understanding of race and culture. Nevertheless, his book stands out as one of the best among many contributions by American naturalists in that expansive field of inquiry. As we have seen, th-century Americans contributed substantially to the expansion of knowledge in the natural sciences, but that was not the field of inquiry where they would leave their greatest mark. Rather, it was in the realm of political science that Americans boldly seized key Enlightenment theories of social and political organization and rigorously tested them while forming a state during and after the American Revolution. While the Revolution had many different causes and Americans participated in it for a wide variety of reasons, it is clear that Enlightenment idealism played a major role, especially among the traditionally lionized Founding Fathers. The crisis of the s and s offered Americans an unprecedented opportunity to reshape their political destinies and to base a government upon rationally devised universal principals that dominated discussion in the salons and coffee shops of the trans-Atlantic Enlightenment. This impulse is most clearly seen in the iconic public documents of the founding era, including the Declaration of Independence and the federal Constitution of . It is also evident in the infant republic’s cultural and institutional development. A vote in the Continental Congress on July , , provided the fateful decision for American independence. More than one year after the outbreak of violence at Lexington and Concord, leading patriot politicians finally decided to set aside misgivings and declare to Great Britain and the wider world their intention to be an independent nation. Not surprisingly, the document outlining their case, drafted by Thomas Jefferson in a committee that also included Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, resonated with influences from the Enlightenment. Their argument ultimately rested upon the conviction that the British Crown had violated a series of natural and inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That formula for discussing natural rights was taken as a truism in British political theory, brought to a tidy justification by John Locke in the previous century. The inclusion in the Declaration of the rights that Locke enumerated is not at all surprising, but the discussion of the origin and nature of these rights was couched in more modern terms that reflected the Enlightenment ideals debated in the th century. These natural rights, according to the Declaration, were among the self-evident truths that all men were created equal and given these rights at the moment of creation.

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The carefully phrased reference to a supernatural power could, and did, appease the many orthodox Christians in America who were among the critical constituents of the new political nation, but it could also be embraced by those more inclined to deism, to whom later references to “Nature and Nature’s God” were signals that these ideals did not necessarily require a Christian interpretation for their validity. The greater shock and the more important long-term issue for American and Western political history was presented in the other self-evident truth, which declared the fundamental equality of all humans. While recent scholars rightly point out the irony of such a statement coming from the pen of a slaveholder who denied liberty to others on the basis of their skin color, there is nevertheless a need to confront the radical nature of such a pronouncement in terms of broader political theory and its many implications for later American history. In one short phrase, the Declaration rejected religious notions of the divine right of kings. Moreover, it demolished any secular justification for the continuation of hereditary aristocracies such as were taken for granted in most European political theories before the advent of the Age of Reason. It elevated ideas of equality made famous in Enlightenment circles by the likes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and wed them to earlier Lockean principles to call the world to recognize their fundamental truth and to signal a desire to create a new political system that self-consciously placed such Enlightenment conceptions at the heart of its identity. The federal Constitution of  was a more subtle testament to the ongoing importance of the Enlightenment in America. It contained fewer phrases and references to Enlightenment political philosophy than the Declaration of Independence. However, the entire document reflects a strong commitment to a thoroughly modern and rational political system with painstakingly crafted checks and balances designed to allow for an effective and vigorous governing power that would not threaten individual liberties. European theorists had long valued a balanced and mixed government as a check against despotism, but the Constitution’s framers had to find ways to provide these components for a people also dedicated to the principle of personal liberty. Without an aristocracy or monarchy to serve as a counterweight to the forces of democracy, Americans instead created a functionally mixed government featuring a balance among legislative, executive, and judicial roles within the state. They did not create these institutions purely on the basis of wishful thinking and a prayer for good luck. Enlightened circles on both sides of the Atlantic had thoroughly debated these new maxims of political science, and the  different state governments formed since independence had been declared put them into practice in various forms. Another direct connection between the constitution and Enlightenment thinking was the decision to ground the entire system in the sovereignty of the American people, a concept dear to the philosophes, who sought to base government power on a clear, rational foundation rather than simply maintain traditional but often irrational institutions. The immortal phrasing of the Constitution’s brief preamble, announcing that the entire document was a voluntary compact made by “We the people,” makes clear this commitment to popular sovereignty. Furthermore, this commitment was underscored by a ratification process that left the ultimate adoption of the proposed system of government in the hands of the citizens of the various states. Advocates of the new Constitution worked hard to convince fellow citizens of the strength and usefulness of their proposals, carefully detailing the benefits that would accompany its adoption.

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Far and away the most famous example of this persuasive effort was the publication of the Federalist essays in New York’s newspapers. These essays, subsequently reprinted throughout the country, sparked public discussions throughout the new nation over the relative merits of the proposed system. While the ratification process at times relied heavily on human emotions, fears, and prejudices, it came closer than any other existing procedure to meeting the Enlightenment ideal of rationally seeking and obtaining the consent of the citizenry to establish government authority. The system proved to be so responsive to public opinion that, upon adoption of the Constitution, the first legislative priority for the new government was to provide a series of amendments to the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights. These enormously important protections to civil liberties—in many ways themselves linked to priorities of the Enlightenment—were demanded by anti-Federalists who fought against the adoption of the new system. By taking their concerns seriously and addressing them so thoroughly, the government passed its initial test of whether minority rights could or would be preserved in the manner the founders intended. Thus, an Enlightenment experiment in constitutionally limited representative government commenced at the end of the century. The Enlightenment in America is very different from many of the events celebrated in this volume. It does not have a tidy set of dates to delineate when it occurred; it is a recognizable force throughout the entire century. This wide chronological sweep and the diverse nature of the intellectual currents linked to it also make it difficult to present an established cast of participants. Nevertheless, this essay, like so many other treatments of the Enlightenment, focused heavily upon famous Founding Fathers who left clear signs of their engagement with the broader Age of Reason. This is not meant to diminish the importance or the achievements of the many other Americans who directly participated in the trans-Atlantic intellectual project or the millions of American men and women whose lives were deeply affected by its influence. In fact, it is precisely because the Enlightenment affected so many people and events during the th century that it merits inclusion in a volume of this sort. With strong ties that bind the Enlightenment to themes ranging from changes in religious belief and practice to the creation of America’s political foundations during and immediately after the American Revolution, it is safe to say that it is clearly one of the seminal forces that changed America in the th century. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Cohen, I. Bernard. Science and the Founding Fathers: Science in the Political Thought of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and James Madison. New York: W.W. Norton, . A leading historian of science seeks to show concrete connections between the scientific understanding of the Founding Fathers and the political positions they staked out in the American Revolutionary era. Commager, Henry Steele. The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment. New York: Anchor Press, . This exuberant study focuses on how the social and cultural conditions in America allowed for a unique reception and adaptation of Enlightenment ideas, thereby laying the groundwork for American institutional development through their application. Delbourgo, James. A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders: Electricity and Enlightenment in Early America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . This study contextualizes Franklin’s

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famous work on the subject, reminding readers of the Atlantic connections in the scientific community and the deep political implications of such scientific advances. Ferguson, Robert A. The American Enlightenment, –. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . This study places heavy emphasis on the literary output of the early American Republic and examines it for evidence of Enlightenment themes, focusing mainly on religious and political discourse. Manning, Susan, and Francis D. Cogliano, eds. The Atlantic Enlightenment. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, . This collection of essays argues that the Enlightenment cannot be well understood apart from its Atlantic context, but its contributors focus heavily on the Englishspeaking world to the relative exclusion of continental European influences on this Atlantic intellectual system. May, Henry F. The Enlightenment in America. New York: Oxford University Press, . This is the classic study of Americans’ appropriation and adaptation of European Enlightenment ideals. Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . This study is highly interdisciplinary, making an argument about the importance of the diverse range of sounds and their links to the experience of religious practice during the Age of Reason. Staloff, Darren. Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding. New York: Hill and Wang, . Staloff provides a strong overview of the Enlightenment and then connects selected Founding Fathers to it their careers and writings.

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY The American Philosophical Society was a group devoted to the pursuit of scientific and philosophical understanding, as well as to the dissemination of that understanding to a wider public. The American Philosophical Society was important in th-century North America because it showed that a distinctly American science had arisen with an emphasis on practical knowledge, in contrast to the predominantly speculative science of Europe. The American Philosophical Society is traditionally associated with Benjamin Franklin, but it was not wholly Franklin’s creation. In , the Philadelphia botanist John Bartram urged his “ingenious and curious” friends to create a society to study “natural secrets, arts, and sciences.” Three years later, Franklin attended a series of lectures in Boston on “experimental philosophy,” given by the Scottish physician Archibald Spencer. The scientific experiments that Spencer performed inspired Franklin, who returned to Philadelphia and took full credit for forming the society that Bartram had envisioned. The American Philosophical Society, founded by Franklin in , was modeled after the Royal Society of London. Society members agreed to maintain correspondence regarding “all philosophical Experiments that let Light into the Nature of Things, tend to increase the Power of Man over Matter, and multiply the Conveniences or Pleasures of Life.” Members met once a month to discuss the causes for such phenomena as perspiration, the circulation of the blood, and gravity. Although initial enthusiasm for the American Philosophical Society ran high, the group broke apart by the summer of , when, according to Franklin, members were unable to devote ample time to such unpaid scientific pursuits. Franklin’s scientific curiosity never waned, however,

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and his experiments with electricity continued. By , the American Philosophical Society again formed, with Franklin serving as the president from  until his death, in . The American Philosophical Society helped establish a reputation for Philadelphia as a city of learned men and gave some colonists the opportunity to sharpen their organizational skills. Since the society gathered many of the country’s brightest minds, the knowledge and experience shared there no doubt contributed to the American Revolution, in which a majority of society members participated actively. Dr. Benjamin Rush, for example, served as the surgeon general for the Continental Army. American Philosophical Society members also conducted experiments to perfect the creation of saltpeter, a substance necessary to the production of gunpowder.

brett schmoll and karen mead BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706–1790) Benjamin Franklin achieved worldwide renown as a writer, scientist, statesman, and diplomat. Besides writing Poor Richard’s Almanack, developing the unified field theory of electricity, and negotiating crucial French aid during the American Revolution, he invented numerous practical labor-saving devices, served as a colonial representative in England prior to the American Revolution, signed the Declaration of Independence, and attended the U.S. Constitutional Convention. Franklin was born on January , , in Boston into a religiously pious but humble Puritan family. Self-educated, he began to work full time at the age of , but he did not let lack of time or schooling impede his intellectual development. While still a teenager, he had already acquired enough sophistication to comprehend Isaac Newton’s theories of physics and John Locke’s philosophical perspective on the nature of man and his relationship to government. After five years of working as an apprentice for his autocratic brother in order to learn the trade of printer, Franklin left his service and, at age , sailed to England. He earned a living there as a printer and savored the world of young writers. He returned to the colonies in  and settled in Philadelphia, where he became the owner of the Pennsylvania Gazette. Through hard work and frugality, he soon managed to obtain most of the public printing business of Pennsylvania. In , he published the first edition of his perennial bestseller, Poor Richard’s Almanack. The work consisted of popular sayings and homilies given a deft turn of phraseology that have since become an integral part of American culture: “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,” and “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worthy reading or do things worth the writing.” As his personal wealth increased, Franklin developed his civic and scientific interests. He organized a debating club in , which led to the founding of a circulating library in , the first in America; the American Philosophical Society (); and an academy () that evolved into the University of Pennsylvania. He also studied foreign languages and began his scientific experiments (such as the famous kite-flying incident) that led to his hypothesis of a unified theory of electricity. Always interested in practical applications of science from his research, Franklin deduced the benefit of lightning

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rods to protect homes from natural electrical catastrophe. The Franklin stove and bifocal glasses are two of the best known of his more than  inventions. In recognition of his wide-ranging scientific research, but especially for his work in electricity, Franklin was elected to England’s Royal Society in  and to the French Academy of Sciences in . Franklin could have retired to enjoy the life of a wealthy businessman and scientist in the s; instead, he decided to enter politics. In , he was elected to the Pennsylvania colonial legislature and began a phenomenally successful and broad career of  years of public service. From  to , as deputy postmaster general, Franklin developed an efficient and financially self-supporting postal system. In , as a delegate to the Albany Congress, he proposed a plan to unite the colonies in the war against the French and Indians that won the endorsement of the congress but was rejected by the Crown as too democratic. Still a loyal Englishman, Franklin helped fund and direct Pennsylvania’s contribution to winning the French and Indian War (–), even leading a military expedition into the Lehigh Valley. In , Franklin journeyed to England as the agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly. During the five years it took him to accomplish his mission of winning Crown support for ending the proprietary rights of the Penn family, he reveled in the attention lavished upon him for his scientific accomplishments and traveled in Europe. He returned to Philadelphia in  and spent the next two years traveling from southern Virginia to Massachusetts. Largely because of his opposition to the abuse of American Indians, Franklin failed to win reelection to the state legislature in . However, he was again appointed the Pennsylvania Assembly’s agent to London. While in England, he also became the agent for Georgia (), New Jersey (), and Massachusetts (). Although he was at first firmly committed to the colonies’ remaining under British rule, Franklin warned Parliament that such measures as the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts would sour the dispositions of the people and, if enforced, could eventually precipitate civil strife. As his warnings went unheeded, Franklin became increasingly frustrated by British indifference to American grievances and began to contemplate the need to create an independent nation. In , letters written by Gov. Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts to government officials and friends in London were surreptitiously obtained by Franklin and passed on to patriots in Boston. Their publication, which Franklin had warned against, by Samuel Adams and John Hancock was such a serious breach of etiquette that Franklin’s effectiveness as a colonial representative was severely undermined. Forced to leave England under the threat of imprisonment, Franklin arrived in the United States in April , just as armed conflict broke out between the colonists and British troops at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. He was elected to the Second Continental Congress in time to participate in the drafting and signing of the Declaration of Independence, but his stay in America was to be brief. In October , he accepted an appointment as one of the three commissioners to France assigned to obtain French aid and recognition. Franklin shrewdly capitalized on his reputation as a “republican” philosopher and scientist. Much to the chagrin of the other American commissioners, he savored the notoriety of being a celebrity among the French aristocracy. He played upon the cliché

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of “frontiersman” by not wearing a wig and by dressing in a plain brown suit. Adams was infuriated by Franklin’s pursuit of popularity and “indolence.” What he failed to appreciate at the time was how brilliantly Franklin managed to insinuate himself with powerful figures for the good of the American cause. Where others failed (Adams was expelled from the French court), Franklin obtained war loans, military equipment, naval and troop support, recognition of the American republic after the victory of the Battle of Saratoga in , and, finally, a declaration of war by France against England. Fortunately, the Continental Congress realized his value and retained him in France throughout the war for independence. After the massive British defeat at Yorktown in  by American and French forces, Franklin served on the negotiating committee that obtained the recognition of the independence of the United States by England in . Franklin returned to the United States in . Despite being almost  years old, he accepted election as president of the executive council of Pennsylvania. Two years later, although too weak to stand in debates, he participated in the Constitutional Convention, where he was the oldest delegate in attendance. He helped to calm tempers through the judicious use of humor and wise advice about the need to compromise. Even though he admitted that, like most of the delegates, he had reservations about the final document, in a concluding speech he requested that they join him in urging its ratification by acknowledging the need to doubt their own infallibility. Franklin died soon after, on April , .

steven g. o’brien JUNTO In , young Benjamin Franklin gathered his “ingenious acquaintances into a club for mutual improvement.” The Junto, as Franklin called his group, demonstrated the American enthusiasm for and contributions to the European philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment. Although the Junto provided a forum for many theoretical questions, the occupations of the members gave them a special interest in empiricism, a type of reasoning that begins with the observation of facts and practical problems. The Junto was joined by men like surveyor Nicholas Scull, clerk William Coleman, mathematician Thomas Godfrey, shoemaker William Parsons, Oxford student George Webb, and several sons of farmers. Each of these earnest young men endorsed Franklin’s goal “to live in all respects like a rational creature.” Though meetings were well organized, they were also intended to be lighthearted and festive. At first, Junto members met each Friday night in a Philadelphia tavern to discuss new scientific discoveries, morality, and politics. Eventually, Robert Grace, the only original Junto member from the gentry, donated a building for the group to use. During the week, members observed the world around them, writing down possible topics of discussion for that week’s meeting. They focused on questions like “Does the importation of servants increase or advance the wealth of our country? Can a man arrive at perfection in this life? Wherein consists the happiness of a rational creature? Does it not in a general way require great study and intense application for a poor man to become rich and powerful, if he would do it without the forfeiture of his honesty?”

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In its first decade, the Junto began to take on social projects around Philadelphia. Members claimed that they would aid anyone with “honorable designs.” One of their most important contributions to Philadelphia was a library. As a means of spreading the knowledge that they gained, the Junto in  sponsored the creation of this circulating library, which included works on ethics, history, science, and government. Franklin considered the library his “first project of a public nature.” Junto members wanted to improve the community’s intellectual state and also to use the power of knowledge to encourage young businessmen to work diligently. In addition to intellectual pursuits, the Junto espoused physical exertion as a means of self-improvement. Except during the coldest winter months, the group met on Sunday afternoons “in some proper place cross the river for bodily exercise.” Members insisted that it was crucial to push both the body and mind and that true virtue came only to individuals willing to strive in business, in learning, and in their habits of exercise. The club that Franklin established and guided had faded out of existence by the time of his death, in .

brett schmoll and karen mead JOSEPH PRIESTLEY (1733–1804) A brilliant chemist, fiery minister, radical politician, and diligent historian, Joseph Priestley represented the apotheosis of the th-century enlightened man. Earning fame both within Great Britain and abroad, he remained a steadfast champion of reason, rationalism, and civil and religious liberty throughout his life. In his old age, he immigrated to the United States, where he hoped to find those principles enshrined in every aspect of society. Priestley was born on March , , to a prosperous middle-class family in Yorkshire. His family had a long tradition of dissent from the established Church of England and advocated a stricter doctrine of Protestantism than the church endorsed. Priestley was the eldest of six children. His mother died in childbirth in , and, shortly thereafter, he was sent to live with his childless Aunt Sarah and her husband. For the rest of her life, Aunt Sarah looked on Priestley as her own son. She supervised his education and introduced him to the stream of dissenting ministers and philosophers who frequented her house. When he was  years old, he contracted tuberculosis and nearly died. The careful attentions of his aunt helped him survive the illness, but his health remained the source of much concern for several years thereafter. Priestley proved a gifted scholar, even at a young age. He learned several classical languages and received a solid background in the fundamentals of English grammar and history. After mastering Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, and English, Priestley entered the newly founded Daventry Academy, one of the few institutions that offered dissenters the opportunity for advanced study; England’s two major universities, Oxford and Cambridge, were reserved solely for adherents of the Church of England. At Daventry, Priestley excelled in his studies and undertook the subjects of mathematics, logic, physics, and philosophy. He had long been interested in scientific questions and had conducted some elementary experiments when he was still a child, as when he studied how long spiders could live in jars without fresh air. Daventry was also open to

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all kinds of religious dissenters, including Quakers, Catholics, and Jews. Priestley thus came to endorse complete religious toleration, a cause that he would publicly support for the rest of his life. In , Priestley completed his studies at Daventry and accepted a position as an assistant minister for a congregation at Needham in Suffolk. This first ministry proved disastrous. His low salary nearly impoverished him, and his severe speech impediment drove away any who attempted to sit through his sermons. Sympathetic to his problems, his aunt paid a considerable sum to send him to a doctor in London who corrected his stutter. In September , Priestley took a new position at nearby Nantwich, where his ministry was much more successful. His new congregation appreciated his well-written and enlightened sermons. He even began offering basic classes on various scientific topics to the public. His own interest in science blossomed during that period, and he began conducting all sorts of experiments in his small laboratory. In June , Priestley accepted a position at the Warrington Academy as a professor of “languages and belle lettres.” He would have preferred to teach science but embraced his new role nonetheless. Responsible for providing his students with a general education, Priestley taught classes on a broad range of topics, including languages, literature, grammar, history, philosophy, rhetoric, and logic. His classes were so popular that he began to write his own teaching guides. He published several of them during the s, including Rudiments of English Grammar, Theory of Language and Universal Grammar, Lectures on History and General Policy, Chart of Biography, and Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life. Such endeavors earned him widespread fame as one of the leading educators of his day. Priestley’s happiness at his success was aided substantially by his marriage to Mary Wilkinson on June , . They were a devoted couple throughout their lives and eventually had four children. Although he was not a professor of science, Priestley continued to conduct scientific experiments. In , he garnered a letter of introduction to some of Britain’s leading scientists from a well-connected friend and journeyed to London to meet such men as Benjamin Franklin, Richard Price, and William Watson, all of whom were experts on the subject of electricity. Priestley had become fascinated by the topic and determined to write a history of the study of electricity. Franklin in particular encouraged him in that work. In June , Priestley was elected a fellow of Britain’s Royal Society, a prestigious organization devoted to scientific inquiry. The following year, he published The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments to great acclaim. In addition to the fact that the book was well written, he had duplicated most of the experiments mentioned in the work and therefore supplied vivid descriptions of them to his readers. With his fame well established in scientific and educational circles, Priestley embarked on a new venture in September , or, rather, he returned to an old one—the ministry. He and his family moved to Leeds, where Priestley ministered to a large and influential congregation of dissenters. That period was the most productive of Priestley’s life, as he continued to publish works on scientific and educational topics as well as several religious and philosophical tracts. If his work in science and education was groundbreaking, his religious doctrines were downright radical, and he preached them loudly at Leeds to his tolerant congregation. Priestley turned heads for several reasons. First, he embraced the Enlightenment idea that reason and rationality must be applied to all aspects of life, including religion.

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If religious doctrines violated reason, then the doctrines must be wrong and must be modified. Furthermore, when reason was applied to the teachings of the early Christians, it became clear that much of what they taught was fallacious. However, unlike Enlightenment thinkers in France, Priestley maintained his belief in God and felt that religious inquiry was just as valuable for the success of society as scientific inquiry. Nevertheless, his reliance on reason and rationality was a major departure from previous religious dissent. Priestley did not stop there, however. His second, supporting principle was that science and the scientific method could reveal truth in religion, another idea that broke with precedent. Finally, and most radical, Priestley criticized Christianity for deifying Jesus Christ and claimed that he was simply a man and not a god. That idea explicitly rejected the notion of the Holy Trinity (the father, son, and holy ghost) and served as the basis for a religious sect known as Unitarianism, which maintained that all divinity was centered in God and that Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the long list of saints and apostles were simply devout and undivine humans. Priestley’s unorthodox preaching brought him considerable notice at the same time that his reputation as a scientist and author grew. His radical religious principles alienated some of the supporters of his scientific work, however. Most notably, he was asked to sail with Capt. James Cook on his voyage to circumnavigate the world in , but his religious views prompted those in charge of Cook’s voyage to rescind the invitation. That same year, Priestley published the next installment of his histories of various scientific fields, The History and Present State of Discoveries relating to Vision, Light, and Colours. He hoped to complete a whole series of such histories, to be called The History of all the Branches of Experimental Philosophy, but the task proved too much even for his boundless energy. While at Leeds, Priestley made a number of breakthroughs in his own experiments, which were devoted to chemistry and the study of gases, particularly air. Over the course of his life, he would discover nine gases or gaseous compounds: carbon monoxide, oxygen, nitric oxide, nitrogen, hydrogen chloride, ammonia, nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide, and silicon tetrafluoride. Before his work, only three gases had been known to the scientific community. He received several honors for his scientific work both at home and abroad, including election to the French Academy of Sciences and the Saint Petersburg Academy, both prominent scientific organizations. In the early s, Priestley received an offer from the Earl of Shelburne that would allow him even more time for intellectual endeavors. Shelburne proposed to hire Priestley to organize his manuscripts and library, supervise the education of his two sons, and act as a literary companion for Shelburne on his travels. The offer was simply too good to refuse, and, after much deliberation, Priestley and his family moved to a house on the Shelburne estate in the spring of . The new position suited Priestley well. His duties did not occupy much of his time and were not onerous. He and his family lived in companionable friendship with the earl and his brood, socialized with them frequently, and helped them to entertain guests. In the fall of , Priestley and Shelburne embarked on a tour of Europe that allowed Priestley to meet such celebrated scientists as Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier of France. Back in England, Priestley helped to found the Unitarian religious movement and established a Unitarian hall in London. His radicalism rose to a new height when he published a treatise in which he urged the religious community to reject the idea of an eternal soul—he claimed that the soul was indivisible from the mind and that, when the mind ceased to

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exist, so did the soul. Critics labeled him an atheist, but such attacks did little to undermine his influence. He continued to publish prolifically on a broad range of topics and conduct experiments, although others began to claim credit for his scientific work. In , Priestley accepted a position as minister to a congregation in Birmingham. He later claimed that his  years in Birmingham were the happiest of his life. He was surrounded by his growing family and a large circle of friends that included many of the leading men of the day, including Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, and Edmund Burke. His sermons drew substantial audiences, and he became a pillar of Birmingham society as an active philanthropist. Priestley was not without his critics, however, and, in the late s, those critics found another point on which to attack him. After the French Revolution erupted, in , many Britons feared the upheaval would take hold in England, as well. Priestley, however, rejoiced to hear how Maximilien Robespierre had dismantled the traditional French state and planned to erect a new state based on the principles of equality and liberty. He joined one of the many clubs organized in Britain to support the revolutionaries, although many of his friends joined clubs formed for the opposite purpose. On the night of July , , Priestley’s Constitutional Society held a dinner to show their support for the revolution. The outraged townspeople of Birmingham formed a large crowd to protest the dinner and quickly degenerated into a mob. They rioted throughout the town and destroyed several houses, including Priestley’s. Many of his papers and scientific instruments were destroyed. In , Priestley was named an honorary citizen of France and elected to France’s National Convention, although he turned down the latter honor. Believing more and more than liberty was endangered in Britain, he considered moving to the United States. Three of his sons moved there in August , and he and his wife followed in April . Settling briefly in New York City, the Priestleys later moved to Northumberland, Pennsylvania, where they purchased a large tract of land. In the United States, Priestley was hailed as a great intellectual, and he established friendships with many of the leading Americans of the time, including John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. He preached occasionally, conducted a few experiments, and remained an outspoken advocate of civil liberty. His religious doctrines found a welcome audience in America, and the cause of Unitarianism was soon picked up by New England’s most influential clergyman, William Ellery Channing, who established it as one of the leading religious sects of the th century. Priestley’s life in the United States was relatively peaceful, although he suffered from a bilious fever in March  that left him permanently weakened. He died on February , .

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712–1778) Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment. A writer of amazing breadth and depth, he produced works of social and political theory, as well as musical criticism, novels, and even a successful opera, that continue to be relevant. His ideas inspired the architects of the American and French revolutions and encouraged the rise of Romanticism.

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Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland, on June , . His mother died a few days after his birth, leaving him to be raised by his father, a watchmaker. Though Rousseau received little formal education, his father did teach him to read, exposed him to literature and history, and instructed him in the Calvinist faith. When Rousseau was still a child, his father was forced to leave Geneva and sent his son to live with his wife’s family. Rousseau was then apprenticed to an engraver at age . After three years of intolerable treatment, Rousseau left Geneva in  and traveled to the kingdom of Sardinia, in modern Italy. There, he met Madame Louise de Warens, a baroness who took him into her home and gave him employment as a steward. The baroness was a Roman Catholic, and she soon converted her young boarder to her faith. Over the next several years, Rousseau educated himself while living with de Warens. Then, in , he worked briefly as a tutor. The work convinced him that he had no aptitude for teaching, though it did spark a lifelong interest in education. By , he had devised a new system of musical notation, and he left Sardinia for Paris, where he hoped to use his new system to establish himself. In Paris, he found work as a secretary to the French ambassador to Venice. He followed the ambassador to Italy, but soon the two quarreled, and Rousseau was let go. Rousseau returned to Paris, where he fell in with some of the leading intellectuals of the age. He met the French writer Denis Diderot, who was in the midst of editing the Encyclopédie. Diderot invited Rousseau to contribute articles on music to the project. When the French government arrested Diderot for blasphemy, Rousseau visited his friend in the Vincennes prison. It was on his way to see Diderot that Rousseau experienced the inspiration that began his career as a political philosopher. In his autobiography, Rousseau claimed that he suddenly realized that civilization was corrupting the human race. He expounded upon that revelation in an essay that he composed for a contest sponsored by the Academy of Dijon. Rousseau published the work in  as Discours sur les sciences et les arts (A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts). Human beings were naturally good, he argued; it was only the corrupt institutions of civilization that led them to do evil. Rousseau would repeatedly return to that theme in his subsequent writings. Rousseau had his first commercial success with the performance of his opera Le Devin du Village (The Village Sage). Its  premiere in Paris was a great success. A special showing was staged for the king at his palace at Fontainebleau. Just as Rousseau was on the verge of a promising career as a composer, however, he abandoned music. Refusing to be presented at the court, Rousseau gave up any chance of receiving a royal pension. He subsequently devoted himself to writing philosophy. In , Rousseau published a controversial essay entitled Discours sur l’origine de l’inégalité (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality). The work expanded on the themes of his earlier Discourse. In it, Rousseau argued that humans had originally existed in a “state of nature” that was morally superior to that of the contemporary world. Rousseau’s dim view of human progress met sharp criticism from many sources, most notably from the French philosophe Voltaire. In the wake of their public disagreement, the two philosophers became implacable enemies. Rousseau soon fell out with a number of other prominent intellectuals of the day, including his friend Diderot. In , Rousseau returned to Geneva and converted back to Calvinism. However, he soon went back to Paris and renewed his friendship with Diderot and his

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circle. Then, in , Rousseau left Paris again, this time to move to Montmorency, France, where his friend Madame d’Epinay provided him with a small house. There, he composed the romantic epistolary novel Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse (Julie, or the New Eloise), which he published in . He followed that in  with the political treatise Du Contrat social (The Social Contract), which became his most famous and influential work. In The Social Contract, Rousseau argues that civil liberties are “natural” rights of all human beings. The work begins with the famous sentence “Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains.” The philosopher insists that the sovereignty of a community lies not in the divine right of kings but in the interests of the people, as expressed in what he calls the “general will.” In sum, Rousseau believed that civil society should be based on a social contract by which citizens are guaranteed individual liberty. The book goes on to describe an ideal polity where laws are made in the public interest. If his earlier tract Discourse on the Origin of Inequality was Rousseau’s diagnosis of the pathology of thcentury European civilization, The Social Contract was the prescription for its cure. The Social Contract had an enormous influence on the revolutionaries of the late th century, who used his ideas to justify their challenges to royal despotism. In contrast, Rousseau’s ambiguous definition of the “general will” and his admonition that humans must be “forced to be free” have led some recent critics to see him as an intellectual forebear of modern totalitarianism. The same year that Rousseau published The Social Contract, he also published his most influential novel, Emile. Using the story of the education of a young boy by unconventional means, Rousseau demonstrated that individuals learn primarily from their environment. He therefore stressed the importance of encouraging (male) children to harness their own curiosity and to educate themselves about the world around them. He disparaged more traditional approaches to education that focused on the classroom and rote learning. His ideas on education have proved to be extremely influential. Rousseau’s writings quickly brought him into conflict with the authorities. The publication of The Social Contract outraged the Calvinist government of Geneva, while his novel Emile infuriated Catholic educators in France. His books were burned in Paris and Geneva, and he became a fugitive from the authorities. Rousseau finally traveled to England, where the British philosopher David Hume welcomed him. However, Rousseau became convinced that his host was trying to embarrass him, and so he returned to France. Paranoid and believing in a conspiracy against him, Rousseau lived there under an assumed name while he wrote several autobiographical essays, published as Confessions and Rêveries du promeneur solitaire (Reveries of the Solitary Walker). Presaging the Romantic movement of the next century, the unfinished Rêveries reveals Rousseau’s profound connection with nature. Rousseau’s personal life was tempestuous. In addition to feuds with his friends, he engaged in a number of affairs. In , he began a long-term relationship with an illiterate servant named Thérèse Le Vasseur. The couple had several children, all of whom Rousseau placed in a home for foundlings. He ultimately married Thérèse in . Thanks to the patronage of two French aristocrats, he was able to live out his final years in relative quiet and comfort. Rousseau died on July , , on the estate of his patron, the Marquis de Girardin, in Ermenonville.

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DOCUMENT: THOMAS JEFFERSON’S LETTER ON SCIENCE AND THE PERFECTIBILITY OF MEN, 1799 In , Thomas Jefferson wrote this letter expressing his views on science and human perfectibility. Jefferson agrees with Enlightenment philosopher Marquis de Condorcet that the mind is perfectible and states his belief that “the condition of man will proceed in improvement.” (“A Tribute to Philip May Hamer on the Completion of Ten Years as Executive Director, the National Historical Publications Commission,” New York, December , .) I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of May , in which you mention that you have finished the first six books of Euclid, plane trigonometry, surveying, and algebra, and ask whether I think a further pursuit of that branch of science would be useful to you. There are some propositions in the latter books of Euclid, and some of Archimedes, which are useful, and I have no doubt you have been made acquainted with them. Trigonometry, so far as this, is most valuable to every man; there is scarcely a day in which he will not resort to it for some of the purposes of common life. The science of calculation also is indispensable as far as the extraction of the square and cube roots; algebra as far as the quadratic equation and the use of logarithms is often of value in ordinary cases. But all beyond these is but a luxury; a delicious luxury, indeed, but not to be indulged in by one who is to have a profession to follow for his subsistence. In this light I view the conic sections, curves of the higher orders, perhaps even spherical trigonometry, algebraical operations beyond the second dimension and fluxions. There are other branches of science, however, worth the attention of every man: astronomy, botany, chemistry, natural philosophy, natural history, anatomy. Not indeed to be a proficient in them but to possess their general principles and outlines, so as that we may be able to amuse and inform ourselves further in any of them as we proceed through life and have occasion for them. Some knowledge of them is necessary for our character as well as comfort. The general elements of astronomy and of natural philosophy are best acquired at an academy where we can have the benefit of the instruments and apparatus usually provided there. But the others may well be acquired from books alone as far as our purposes require. I have indulged myself in these observations to you because the evidence cannot be unuseful to you of a person who has often had occasion to consider which of his acquisitions in science have been really useful to him in life, and which of them have been merely a matter of luxury. I am among those who think well of the human character generally. I consider man as formed for society and endowed by nature with those dispositions which fit him for society. I believe also, with Condorcet, as mentioned in your letter, that his mind is perfectible to a degree of which we cannot as yet form any conception. It is impossible for a man who takes a survey of what is already known not to see what an immensity in every branch of science yet remains to be discovered, and that too of articles to which our faculties seem adequate. In geometry and calculation we know a great deal. Yet there are some desiderata. In anatomy great progress has been made, but much is still to be acquired. In natural

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history we possess knowledge, but we want a great deal. In chemistry we are not yet sure of the first elements. Our natural philosophy is in a very infantine state; perhaps for great advances in it, a further progress in chemistry is necessary. Surgery is well advanced, but prodigiously short of what may be. The state of medicine is worse than that of total ignorance. Could we divest ourselves of everything we suppose we know in it, we should start from a higher ground and with fairer prospects. From Hippocrates to Brown we have had nothing but a succession of hypothetical systems, each having its day of vogue, like the fashions and fancies of caps and gowns, and yielding in turn to the next caprice. Yet the human frame, which is to be the subject of suffering and torture under these learned modes, does not change. We have a few medicines, as the bark, opium, mercury, which in a few well-defined diseases are of unquestionable virtue; but the residuary list of the materia medica, long as it is, contains but the charlataneries of the art; and of the diseases of doubtful form, physicians have ever had a false knowledge, worse than ignorance. Yet surely the list of unequivocal diseases and remedies is capable of enlargement; and it is still more certain that in the other branches of science, great fields are yet to be explored to which our faculties are equal, and that to an extent of which we cannot fix the limits. I join you, therefore, in branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advances. This is precisely the doctrine which the present despots of the earth are inculcating and their friends here reechoing; and applying especially to religion and politics, “that it is not probable that anything better will be discovered than what was known to our fathers.” We are to look backward, then, and not forward for the improvement of science, and to find it amidst feudal barbarians and the fires of Spitalfields. But thank heaven the American mind is already too much opened to listen to these impostures; and while the art of printing is left to us, science can never be retrograde; what is once acquired of real knowledge can never be lost. To preserve the freedom of the human mind, then, and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement. The generation which is going off the stage has deserved well of mankind for the struggles it has made, and for having arrested that course of despotism which had overwhelmed the world for thousands and thousands of years. If there seems to be danger that the ground they have gained will be lost again, that danger comes from the generation your contemporary. But that the enthusiasm which characterizes youth should lift its parricide hands against freedom and science would be such a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot place among possible things in this age and this country. Your college at least has shown itself incapable of it; and if the youth of any other place have seemed to rally under other banners, it has been from delusions which they will soon dissipate. I shall be happy to hear from you from time to time, and of your progress in study, and to be useful to you in whatever is in my power.

3 The Great Awakening, ca. 1730s–1760

INTRODUCTION The Great Awakening is a term used to describe a significant outburst of enthusiastic religious feeling that swept the colonies in the s and continued to exert influence on colonial culture nearly until the Revolutionary era. Its roots and substance are both rather complex and varied among the different regions of colonial America, but its consequence was far-reaching in the changes it brought to American religion. Religion, of course, was one of the principal motivating forces for those who came to America in the th century. This was especially true in New England, where Pilgrims and then Puritans (who rapidly absorbed the Pilgrims) came in search of the freedom to worship as they pleased. Strict and zealous, the first generation of Puritans set up a theocratic society in which religion affected every aspect of one’s daily life. However, as non-Puritans moved into New England and as the first generation gave way to the second and third generations of Puritans, much of the earliest zealousness wore off. The society became more secular, fewer people were becoming “Saints,” that is, experiencing the mystical act of conversion that marked one as a person in a state of grace, and there was concern that the church was becoming irrelevant. An attempt to stem the drift away from the church was seen in the so-called Halfway Covenant of , in which Puritan ministers agreed to baptize the children of those people who themselves had not had the conversion experience. This kept more people in the church (and subject to its moral code) but did not really do much to increase the rate of conversions to grace. By the late th century, Puritan ministers were worrying less about conversion and more about improving society according to their moralistic beliefs. One way in which this was done was through the implementation of public expressions of faith and conscience, in what we call a religious revival. It was a way in which the religious message could be brought to all people, whether they attended church or not, and it was a way in which the prevailing apathy about religion could be attacked. Among the most effective of the revivalists was Solomon Stoddard, Jonathan Edwards’s grandfather, who organized massive revivals (he called them “harvests”) on several occasions between  and . After Stoddard’s death, in , Edwards continued his work and for some  years was the most heralded preacher in New England. In a sense, Edwards reverted to the old Puritan doctrine of a stern and omnipotent God, combining this with the new evangelistic preaching style of revivalistic religion. He called upon

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George Whitefield, shown here in a typical preaching pose, was one of the leading lights of the Great Awakening. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

his listeners to return to the faith of their fathers and spoke in often terrifying images of the absolute sovereignty of God, the depravity of man, and salvation by God’s grace alone. An excellent writer and a fine (though not dramatic) public speaker, he had the ability to captivate his audience by his vivid descriptions of hell and what those who were not saved would experience when they got there. One of his best sermons, given in Enfield, Connecticut, in , was titled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and phrases such as these were said to have produced “breathing of distress and weeping”: Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf. . . . O Sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in; it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of God. . . . You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder. In the Middle Colonies—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware—the situation was considerably different. Settlers from a range of ethnic origins came to these colonies and brought with them a number of different religious creeds that produced a far more diverse and tolerant society than existed in New England. Rather than a colonial-supported religion, legislative assemblies allowed communities to determine what religion would be subsidized by taxes, and, in Pennsylvania, legislators determined that no religion should receive tax support. Into this environment came German pietism, a form of religious belief that stressed a personal relationship with God, based on a high sense of morality and on emotionally expressive church services. The nature of pietism lent itself to revivalism, and, in the s and s, Theodorus Frelinghuysen and William and Gilbert Tennent, a father-and-son team, led successful

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revivals in New Jersey. Compared with Edwards’s message, that of Frelinghuysen and the Tennents was refreshingly optimistic. The southern colonies, from Virginia to Georgia (not founded until ), were nominally Anglican in religion, and, although colonial taxes supported that church, relatively few people attended services or paid attention to the moral guidelines. Moreover, slaves were barred from participating in church life. Into this atmosphere came George Whitefield in . The greatest orator among the preachers of the Great Awakening, Whitefield came to America from England, where he had been a follower of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, which at that time was a movement within the Anglican Church and not a separate denomination. Whitefield was also familiar with and influenced by German pietism and its emotion-laden message. He was not a forcefullooking individual, but his voice could reach an audience of up to , in a day long before mechanical or electronic amplification. Not only could he project well, but also he had a marvelously dramatic speaking style that had a great emotional impact on his audiences. It was said that he could bring an entire crowd to tears just by the way he said “Mesopotamia.” His message, which theologically was somewhere in between those of Edwards and the German pietists, was popular all over the colonies and brought him countless invitations to speak from the pulpits of local ministers from Georgia to New England. Whitefield’s tours brought about the Great Awakening on a national scale. The Great Awakening reached its fullest bloom during the decade of the s, partly because of Whitefield’s presence during the early part of that decade and partly because of social and economic conditions of the time. In the late s, a serious diphtheria epidemic struck the colonies; perhaps as many as , people, including many children, died of the then mysterious “throat distemper.” In any time period, sudden and unexplained epidemics convince many people of their helplessness in the face of powerful natural forces, and they seek solace in religion. The diphtheria epidemic made people pay more attention to what Whitefield and others were preaching. In addition, the s were years of relatively bad economic times in many parts of the colonies. This was a result of the War of Jenkins’ Ear, which began between England and Spain in  over an incident in which Spaniards had mutilated a British sea captain’s ear. A more generalized European conflict, the War of the Austrian Succession, which lasted from  until , followed this minor affair. The war disrupted the lucrative American trade in molasses and the export of American tobacco and other commodities to Europe; this caused prices to fall in the colonies, reducing farmers’ income. The agricultural depression spread to other sectors of the economy, significantly reducing American imports from England and causing distress throughout the colonies. While the increased level of poverty was bad enough, another social consequence seemed even more serious to many. Many families did not have enough money or work for all their children, who then left home to find work elsewhere. Freed from their parents’ (often strict) supervision, they also found illicit romance wherever they went, and the incidence of premarital sex and the number of children born less than six months after their parents’ marriage rose rapidly, a fact of life that caused great consternation among a traditionally religious people and that became fodder for the evangelists. The Great Awakening did not sweep across the colonies without arousing controversy. Traditional religious leaders soon came to perceive the evangelists as a threat to their established churches and began to take action to suppress their message. In New

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England, the more conservative Congregationalist (the denomination into which Puritanism had evolved) leaders came to be known as “Old Lights” and the revival leaders as “New Lights.” Fearful of losing their flocks to the New Lights, the Old Lights in Connecticut used their influence with the colonial assembly to get legislation passed that barred itinerant preachers from working in the colony. Thus, when Whitefield returned to Connecticut in , he found that he could no longer speak in many churches. Although the effort of the Old Lights caused so much resentment that it probably hurt their cause before the New Lights managed to get the law repealed, in , the incident reflects the tension between the two sides. In many towns in Connecticut, congregations split between followers of the Old Lights and those who cast their lot with the New Lights. In New England, the New Lights split among themselves. While all of them were nominally Congregationalists, there was dispute first over the degree to which each congregation should be autonomous and later over the issue of infant baptism and whether that sacrament should be offered to the offspring of adults who had not experienced conversion. Many people left the Congregationalist Church over this issue and joined the rising Baptist Church, where baptism was the most important sacrament. In the south, and especially in Virginia, the Baptist Church arose during the Great Awakening and made great progress in winning souls from the Anglican Church by the s. The Baptists followed the New Light Presbyterians, who had tried and failed to shake the authority of the established Anglicans in the s. In the case of the Baptists, the differences were class based, rather than theological. The landed gentry in Virginia dominated the Anglican Church just as it dominated all other aspects of society. The church reciprocated, in a sense, by condoning what many small landowners and working-class people considered to be a casually amoral lifestyle. Upper-class Virginians reveled in their wealth, drank excessively, gambled on horse races and other contests, and abused their slaves, sexually and in other ways. By the s, itinerant Baptist preachers were giving emotional sermons to crowds of ordinary people, attacking the lifestyles of the rich and famous, condemning slavery, and encouraging a far more egalitarian society, even to the point of urging church members to call each other “brother” and “sister.” Moreover, the ordinary people found comfort in the ritual of the baptism sacrament, in which large numbers of people, having heard enough emotional sermons to be “born again,” were baptized together in a ceremony in which they were completely immersed in water. The Anglican gentry soon took notice and responded. Some complaints were rather frivolous: “The Baptists in Loudoun County [are] quite destroying pleasure in the Country; for they encourage ardent Prayer, strong & constant faith, & an intire Banishment of Gaming, Dancing, and Sabbath-Day Diversions”(quoted in Henretta and Nobles, p. ). More serious, bands of angry men, often led by the local sheriff, broke up Baptist revivals and beat or whipped the preacher. Nothing really worked; by the s, some  percent of white Virginians, as well as many slaves, had become Baptists. Although the Great Awakening was, to a large extent, based on the emotional appeal of people like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, it did have an intellectual side, seen in the founding by new churches of colleges at which ministers could be trained. Thus, in , the Presbyterians founded the College of New Jersey, later Princeton; in , the Anglicans founded King’s College in New York, later Columbia; in , the

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Baptists established the College of Rhode Island, later Brown; in , the Dutch Reformed Church founded Queen’s College, later Rutgers; and, in , the Congregationalists organized Dartmouth College.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY carl e. kramer During the middle of the th century, from the s through the s, a wave of religious revivalism swept through the British colonies in North America. This era of religious enthusiasm, later called the Great Awakening, not only marked the emergence of revivalism as a characteristic feature of American religious life but also generated a host of conflicts that divided several existing denominational bodies, altered traditional lines of social authority, and added a new layer of religious diversity to the emerging American society. The roots of America’s religious diversity are centuries old. When Spanish and French Roman Catholics began colonizing North America during the th century, they also confronted—and attempted to convert—native populations that had their own religious traditions. During the th century, English colonizers established the Anglican Church in Virginia and the Carolinas. But these were theologically troubled times in England, and English dissenters also made their presence felt in the New World. Particularly notable were the colonizing and settlement efforts of various branches of English Calvinism, whose ministers preached the doctrine of predestination and sought to reform the Church of England. In , radical Separatists established the Plymouth colony. Ten years later, nonseparating Congregationalists, more commonly known as Puritans, created Massachusetts Bay. During the closing years of the century, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians began settling in North and South Carolina. Meanwhile, in the mid-s, Puritan exiles such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson moved into Rhode Island, which became a Baptist stronghold. During the late s, Rhode Island became a haven for Quakers, some two decades before establishment of the first Quaker settlements in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Further enriching this mixture were Dutch Reformed elements who founded New York, German Reformed and Lutherans who settled in Pennsylvania, and a host of German pietists who began arriving, particularly in the Middle Colonies, during the late th and early th centuries. Although religion played a profound role in motivating settlement in North America, by the early th century many observers were beginning to detect a severe deterioration in the quality of spiritual life. This was particularly the case in New England, the bastion of Puritanism. The founders of Massachusetts Bay, under the leadership of John Winthrop, had hoped to fashion a biblical commonwealth—a “City upon a Hill”— whose example would help redeem the world from sin and create a model by which the Church of England could be reformed. Such a mission required strict discipline and adherence to a personal covenant between God and man. But vision and reality soon diverged. Among a people so committed, differences of opinion over theological and political issues were inevitable. Such conflicts resulted not only in the exile of Roger Williams,

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in , and the expulsion of Anne Hutchinson, in , but also prompted Thomas Hooker’s move, in , to the Connecticut River Valley, where he established Hartford, one of a cluster of towns that eventually evolved into the colony of Connecticut. Several crises during the second half of the th century further undermined the Puritan mission. A particularly troublesome ecclesiastical issue was the question of church membership for the children and grandchildren of Puritan saints who were baptized but unregenerate. During the late s and early s, church councils in Connecticut and Massachusetts resolved the problem with the Halfway Covenant, which based church membership on baptism but confined communion and voting powers to the regenerate. A more tragic crisis, in –, was King Philip’s War, which interrupted a promising program of Indian evangelism and gave the Puritans a feeling that the conflict was a manifestation of divine punishment. These crises occurred within a society that was experiencing the growing pains of immigration, mobility, town formation, and commercial expansion. As new opportunities appeared and more and more unregenerate persons arrived, the authority of ministers and the church declined. The collapse of the Puritan Revolution and the Stuart Restoration in England, in , revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Company charter by King Charles II, in , and the Salem witchcraft episode, in the s, further contributed to the erosion of spiritual life in New England. As the th century dawned, a new generation of ministers, such as Cotton Mather, began calling for spiritual renewal. In the Middle Colonies, already the most religiously diverse region in British North America, revival was rooted deeply in immigration. By the early th century, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey were attracting large numbers of settlers from Scotland, northern Ireland, and various German states. The Scottish and Scotch-Irish newcomers were predominantly Presbyterian, but the Germans included a mix of Reformed and Lutheran people along with adherents of numerous pietist sects. For the Presbyterians, Reformed, and Lutherans, like their Dutch Reformed cousins, development of a sound institutional structure was a major preoccupation. The Reformed and Lutheran churches accomplished this goal with a minimum of conflict. But, among the Presbyterians, issues of church structure became a source of controversy. The first American presbytery was organized in Philadelphia in . Its founders included ministers from Scotland, northern Ireland, and New England. Over the next decade, they established three new presbyteries and a synod. During the years that followed, however, a growing number of Scotch-Irish immigrants arrived in America, upsetting the denomination’s ethnic balance and generating intense arguments over issues such as the amount of authority that should be exercised by presbyteries and synods, educational requirements and other standards for approving ministers and ministerial candidates, and the relative degree of adherence that should be given to the Westminster Confession and to the Bible as standards for faith and practice. By the mid-s, distinct parties or factions had emerged around these issues, creating fertile ground for potential revivalists. The challenges faced by the Lutherans and the German and Dutch Reformed leaders were not so much structural as doctrinal. The source of the threat was the radical pietists, such as the Mennonites, Dunkers, Moravians, and Schwenkfelders. Although they disagreed among themselves on many points, these sects shared common beliefs that the simple form of first-century Christianity was the ideal model of church

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organization; that the major Protestant bodies, like the Roman Catholic Church, had become too encumbered by sacraments, ministers, and dogmas; that the true church consisted only of “visible saints,” not the totality of society; that the use of force and state authority to advance religion was un-Christian and illegitimate; and that Christians should not become too deeply involved in the civil and social affairs of the world. Above all, they believed strongly in the importance of personal conversion, observance of strict spiritual and moral discipline, and vigorous biblically based preaching. The situation in the south differed substantially from those in both New England and the Middle Colonies. Although the south was dominated by the Anglican Church, large numbers of newcomers from the coastal areas and Pennsylvania were moving into western parts of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Some were Presbyterians, Baptists, or German pietists, but thousands more had no religious affiliation. These frontier settlers consisted largely of former indentured servants and small farmers, many of whom resented what they perceived as the haughty ways of predominantly Anglican provincial leaders. In addition, the south had a growing slave population that was largely unchurched. Both white frontier settlers and African slaves were prime candidates for a massive missionary effort. The first stirrings of Awakening occurred in Northampton, Massachusetts, where Solomon Stoddard served as pastor of the Congregational church for nearly  years. Like other Congregational pastors, Stoddard had to reckon with the Halfway Covenant. But, unlike Cotton Mather, who condemned it for undermining the spiritual integrity of both church and community, Stoddard took advantage of the compromise. Instead of limiting the Lord’s Supper to visible saints, he invited all baptized Christians into full church membership. Then he employed powerful, emotionally charged sermons to stir his members to conversion. By the time of Stoddard’s death, in , Northampton had experienced five periods of revival. Meanwhile, the Middle Colonies began to experience the sparks of revival. The key figure in initiating the movement was Theodorus Jacob Frelinghuysen, pastor of the Dutch Reformed church at Raritan, New Jersey. A native of the Netherlands who had arrived in America in , Frelinghuysen was strongly influenced by the German pietists. In addition to preaching the importance of personal conversion and of living a holy life, he also observed strict standards for participation in the Lord’s Supper. By the late s, his preaching had not only influenced many lay persons in Dutch Reformed congregations around Raritan but also inspired a handful of Presbyterian ministers who would carry his message to a much broader audience. If Stoddard and Frelinghuysen ignited the sparks of Awakening, then their protégés were responsible for fanning it into full blaze. Taking the torch from Stoddard was his brilliant grandson, Jonathan Edwards. After graduating at age  from Yale College, where he finished first in his class, Edwards remained there to study for the ministry. In , he became head tutor. He moved to Northampton three years later and became his grandfather’s assistant. When Stoddard died, his grandson assumed his pulpit. Despite Northampton’s history of revival activity, it seemed to the young pastor that his community was “very insensible of the things of religion.” Indeed, he observed, “licentiousness . . . greatly prevailed among the youth,” and many were “much addicted to night-walking, and frequenting the taverns, and lewd practices, wherein some by their example exceedingly corrupted others.” Employing a powerful preaching style that

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moved his hearers’ emotions as well as their minds, Edwards gradually began to detect a distinct change in the hearts of his parishioners. In late , while he was preaching a series of sermons on justification by faith, the intensity of the response quickened, especially after the conversion of a young woman whose morals had left something to be desired. During , news of the events in Northampton began to spread to nearby towns such as South Hadley, Suffield, and Sunderland. As word of revival in these and other towns in frontier Massachusetts got back to Northampton, it further stimulated and strengthened the Awakening at its source. The revival was not limited to Massachusetts. Within a relatively short time, the fervor spread to Edwards’s home town of East Windsor, Connecticut, where his father was the Congregational pastor, as well as to Lebanon and New Haven. From there, the revival moved eastward, from town to town, through the Connecticut River Valley, toward the Atlantic Ocean. Although it had considerable impact in western Massachusetts and the Connecticut River Valley, the Awakening had not yet affected the whole of New England. Indeed, Edwards himself considered the religious excitement that he had helped create as little more than a frontier revival, and by  the fervor had begun to wane. But events were already under way in the Middle Colonies and in the south that would spread to New England and create “a great and general Awakening.” The same year that Jonathan Edwards ascended to his grandfather’s pulpit, the Presbyterian Synod passed the Adopting Act of . This measure produced an uneasy peace between the orthodox faction, which favored literal adherence to the Westminster Confession as a standard for ordination and believed that sessions, presbyteries, and synods should exercise strong legislative as well as administrative authority, and the emerging revivalist faction, which embraced a much less rigid stance on both issues. To the extent that the compromise moved away from orthodox positions, it was a victory for the revivalists. Into this uneasy situation stepped William Tennent Sr., an Irish-born Scotsman who had been ordained in the Episcopal Church of Ireland. After emigrating to America, in , he married the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and was ordained by his father-in-law’s denomination two years later. During the years that followed, he served pastorates in Bedford, New York, and Neshaminy, Pennsylvania. Deeply influenced by Theodorus Frelinghuysen, he embraced an “experimental” Puritanism that held that a true Christian was one who had gone through a definable experience of regeneration, followed by assurance of salvation. He further taught these views to his sons, Gilbert, John, and William Jr., who followed him into the ministry. Between  and the late s, the congregations pastored by Tennent and his sons experienced a wave of revival. Helping to spread the fervor were graduates of a “Log College,” or unofficial seminary, established by the elder Tennent at Neshaminy in . As the Presbyterian revival spurred by the Tennents gained momentum, it generated opposition, especially from a new wave of Scotch-Irish immigrants. A heated controversy erupted in  when the synod voted to require ministers who lacked a college degree, including Log College products, to undergo a review by a synodical committee. This and other measures calculated to weaken the revivalists’ position created an ideal environment for the next phase of the Awakening—the coming of the Grand Itinerants. Curiously, the events that helped transform a series of local revivals in New England and the Middle Colonies into a movement that engulfed the English colonies from

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Rhode Island to Georgia began in the south. In , George Whitefield, an English associate of John and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism, arrived in Georgia to preach to the poor and homeless. He returned to the colonies the following year for a whirlwind speaking tour that took him from Savannah, Georgia, to Newport, Rhode Island, as well as to Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. He also spoke in many smaller communities, including Northampton, where he preached from Jonathan Edwards’s pulpit. Whitefield’s ostensible purpose was to raise money for an orphanage he had helped organize in Bethesda, Georgia. But his message was aimed more at his listeners’ hearts than their pocketbooks. In contrast to most American ministers, who read unemotionally from tightly written manuscripts, Whitefield preached highly emotional, extemporaneous sermons that appealed across denominational loyalties, social stations, and other prejudices and connections. The power of his message could move his audiences to heights of joy and tears of despair. There was more to Whitefield, however, than a highly impassioned speaking style. His message shook the authority of the clerical establishment to its very foundation. In one message, widely circulated in colonial newspapers, he charged that many preachers “do not experimentally know Jesus Christ,” attacked the practice of preaching from notes, and challenged the spiritual integrity of university-trained ministers, especially Harvard and Yale graduates. Whitefield’s attacks infuriated many prominent ministers, who not only answered back in public but also barred him from preaching or taking the Lord’s Supper in their churches. But the converts Whitefield gained far outnumbered the enemies he made. Whitefield attracted not only converts and opponents but imitators. Numerous clerical and lay evangelists embarked upon itinerant ministries, seeking converts of their own. The most influential of Whitefield’s followers was Gilbert Tennent, son of William Tennent Sr. and pastor of the Presbyterian church at New Brunswick, New Jersey. Whitefield and Tennent met at Staten Island, New York, in the fall of , and Whitefield persuaded Tennent to continue the Englishman’s evangelizing work with his own tour of New England. Tennent arrived in Boston in December and conducted a threemonth tour that took him to towns in southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and southern Connecticut. Wherever he went, Tennent drew great multitudes, including large numbers of children and African Americans. During the months that followed his departure for New Brunswick, pastors of many of the congregations Tennent had visited reported substantial growth in membership and a significant increase in participation in other congregational activities. In addition to gaining new converts, Tennent also copied Whitefield in attacking the spiritual commitment of many New England ministers. One particularly notorious sermon, “On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry,” was published in Boston in  and brought severe denunciation from critics of the revivalist’s enthusiasm. But the opposition Tennent attracted paled in comparison with that generated by his contemporary, James Davenport. A native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale College, Davenport became pastor of the Presbyterian church at Southold on Long Island in . He met Whitefield at a synod meeting in Philadelphia in early  and heard Tennent preach later that year. In the summer of , after a decision to follow their example, Davenport launched his

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own preaching campaign in Connecticut and Rhode Island. He imitated not only his mentors’ powerful preaching style but much of their message, as well. But where Whitefield and Tennent challenged orthodoxy and pushed convention to the limit, Davenport crossed the line to fanaticism. His sermons were frequently ill prepared harangues, and he often attacked and embarrassed local ministers who were friends of the Awakening with the same invective that he showered on its enemies. Finally, in May , he was arrested at Stratford, Connecticut, for violating a recently passed law against itinerant preaching. After being found mentally disturbed by the General Assembly, he was deported to Long Island. Now a self-styled martyr, he went to Boston the following summer in hopes of resuming his itinerant ministry. When pastors of Boston and Charleston, many of whom were proponents of the Awakening, voted not to invite him to speak in their churches, he roundly condemned them as unconverted and unworthy of their calling. At this point, even Gilbert Tennent found it necessary to disavow his errant follower. In August, a Suffolk County court charged Davenport with slander. After a brief trial, the court found him mentally incompetent and sent him back to Long Island, where he was tried for neglecting his own congregation. By the time of Davenport’s second exile, the Great Awakening had largely run its course. It ebbed primarily because the society in which it occurred was running short on new converts and could no longer sustain a high level of disorder. Nevertheless, the Awakening had profound impacts, both immediate and long term, on American society. The most obvious immediate result of this extended eruption of religious enthusiasm was the creation of thousands of converts. Some were inspired by the powerful sermons of outstanding parish ministers such as Jonathan Edwards and the Grand Itinerants—Whitefield, Tennent, and Davenport. Many others were converted by a host of unsung lay and clerical itinerants who were little known outside their own regions. But perhaps the most successful evangelizers were the many local pastors who used the power of personal evangelism to stir revivals in their own congregations and communities. Another immediate consequence of the Awakening was an extended period of public controversy between revivalists and their opponents. Congregationalist Charles Chauncy, pastor of the First Church of Boston, and his Anglican colleague Timothy Cutler inveighed against such extravagances as lay exhorting, itinerant preaching, doctrinal errors, and the excesses of persons such as Davenport. In , the faculties of Harvard and Yale, still smarting from George Whitefield’s attacks against universitytrained clergy after they had welcomed him warmly during his  tour, closed their doors to him when he returned and condemned not only his message and methods but also his character. Whatever the specific charge, opponents of the Awakening feared that it tended to undermine established clerical authority. More significant than the immediate effects of the Great Awakening were its long-term consequences, both religious and secular. One of the most important consequences was the schisms that split Congregationalists and Presbyterians into two distinct theological schools of thought. The former divided generally between “Old Lights” and “New Lights.” The Old Lights, exemplified by Chauncy, favored a formal style of worship and moved increasingly toward rationalism in theology. The New Lights, while they deplored its excesses, embraced the revival and continued to employ an evangelistic style of ministry. This division in the Congregationalist ranks persisted, with periods

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of readjustment, until the onset of the “Second Great Awakening” and the withdrawal of the Unitarians during the early th century. Meanwhile, the New Lights gradually experienced their own internal division. The conflict reflected differences of opinion regarding membership policies in light of the Halfway Covenant. While the revival impulse had begun with Solomon Stoddard, who embraced the membership compromise, the emphasis of the Awakening was on personal conversion. As a result, a growing number of ministers wished to make evidence of a personal conversion experience a prerequisite for church membership. However, many other ministers and even more congregations opposed tightening membership procedures and continued to receive and retain unconverted members. Perhaps the most dramatic manifestation of this split within the New Lights came in  when the Northampton church dismissed Jonathan Edwards after he rejected the Halfway Covenant and began requiring applicants for church membership to sign a confession of faith and to acknowledge a personal experience of divine grace before they could be allowed to receive the Lord’s Supper. The Presbyterian schism occurred in  when the Synod of Philadelphia, through highly questionable means, formally ejected the revivalistic Presbytery of New Brunswick in reaction to Gilbert Tennent’s sermon “On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry.” Four years later, the body joined with the presbyteries of New York and New Castle to create the Synod of New York. Popularly known as the “New Side” party, the new synod affirmed revivals as God’s work, made the presbytery responsible for ordination, and stressed the importance of strong educational, doctrinal, and experiential qualifications for ministry. It also declared a firm desire for church reunion. The New Side grew quickly over the next dozen years, while the antirevival “Old Side” Presbyterians lost strength, particularly among the laity. The success of the New Side, combined with its moderate course, ultimately produced a favorable response by the Old Siders to conciliatory gestures made by Tennent and others during the late s and early s. In , after extended negotiations, the two synods reunited to create the Synod of New York and Philadelphia. Closely related to these schismatic tendencies was the flowering of denominationalism. Although both the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians eventually healed their major breaches, reunion was accompanied by secondary divisions that produced new institutional expressions of the body of Christ. In parts of New England, especially eastern Connecticut, New Lights unhappy with the refusal of some of their brethren to abandon the Halfway Covenant left the Congregationalist Church and formed their own Separate Congregational churches, which practiced believers’ baptism. Many of these congregations ultimately became Baptist churches. During the second half of the th century, Separate Baptist missionaries from New England moved south and began gathering adherents, with considerable success, in the Piedmont regions of North Carolina and Virginia. The Awakening had little immediate impact upon the Anglicans, whose church was established in the South. However, during his tour of Georgia in , George Whitefield attracted a substantial number of his fellow Anglicans with the rigorous devotional and evangelical methods advocated in England by John and Charles Wesley. Among those most impressed by Whitefield’s message was Devereux Jarratt, who became rector at Bath parish in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, in . Over the next

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several years, with the help of lay preachers sent by John Wesley, Jarratt began organizing converts into “methodist” societies. Between  and , with the leadership of Francis Asbury, the movement spread to New York and Maryland. In the short term, Jarratt, Asbury, and others brought many new adherents into the Anglican fold. But, after the Revolution, much to Jarratt’s dismay, many of the societies broke from Anglicanism in  and created the Methodist Episcopal Church, with Asbury as the first bishop. The Anglicans responded nine years later by organizing the Protestant Episcopal Church. Another long-term consequence of the Great Awakening was the emergence of the revival or evangelical style as an important component of American religious life. Characterized by an emphasis on converting sinners, stress on living a holy life, suspicion of ecclesiastical pretensions, and a preference for an emotional, extemporaneous preaching style, revivalism was a fundamental component of the second Great Awakening and related social reform movements of the early and mid-th century. More than  years after the Great Awakening, the evangelical style continues to find favor, especially among the various fundamentalist, Holiness, and Pentecostal Protestant bodies. Although many exponents of the Awakening doubted the spirituality of many welleducated clerics, especially those who had studied at Harvard and Yale, numerous revivalists were themselves highly educated and saw the need for their own institutions for educating ministers. Thus, William Tennent founded his so-called Log College at Neshaminy. Tennent’s college lasted less than two decades, but similar schools in other communities graduated a substantial number of ministers during the mid-th century. In addition to its clearly religious consequences, the Great Awakening also had substantial secular implications. Despite its tendency to create schisms within existing denominations and to spur the creation of new ones, the Awakening had a profound unifying impact upon American society. As the Grand Itinerants and lay exhorters moved from place to place, people from Rhode Island to Georgia were caught up in the excitement, whether they approved or disapproved of the revivalists’ message. As the movement swept across colonial boundaries, it generated a common interest and bound people together in a common cause. In the process, it reinforced a growing conviction that God had a special destiny for America and fostered a sense of cohesion among the American people. The Great Awakening also had a substantial democratizing effect. Although the fame of individual revivalists such as Edwards and Tennent added a degree of luster to the ministerial office, the Awakening also eroded ministerial authority by pitting clergy against each other while emphasizing the importance of personal religious experience. Revivalists also cooperated across denominational lines to establish charitable institutions for the poor and schools for Native Americans, African Americans, and the children of indentured servants. Such activities helped strengthen the average individual’s sense of self-confidence and standing in the community. In the political realm, the Great Awakening spurred the development of preRevolutionary parties in some colonies. In Connecticut, New Light Congregationalists and Separate Baptists dominated the political scene east of the Connecticut River and led the radical resistance against the stamp tax, the Townshend duties, and other English impositions. On the other hand, Anglicans, Old Light Congregationalists, and some moderate New Lights in western Connecticut took a more conservative approach.

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While they opposed British taxes, they respected the empire’s power and feared that New Light radical tactics would bring retaliation and further erode colonial liberties. When the Revolution moved from a struggle for reconciliation to one for independence, in , the Old Light party collapsed as a political force. Finally, the Great Awakening helped pave the way for religious freedom in America by undermining the position of the established churches. As long as Congregationalism remained the dominant religious force in New England and Anglicanism occupied a similar position in New York and in the south, legal ties between church and state remained strong. But the Great Awakening weakened those ties by causing major divisions within both denominations and generating new dissenting bodies whose members increasingly resisted the requirement that they pay taxes to support the established churches. This tendency was compounded in some colonies, particularly Connecticut, where certain dissenters, such as Baptists, Quakers, and Anglicans, were exempt from church taxes. When strict Separatists and Presbyterians withdrew from the Congregational fold, they asked for the same exemption, but the colony’s General Assembly denied it. When they began changing their names to “Baptist” to take advantage of the exemption, the Assembly abolished it for all dissenters. Adding insult to injury were laws providing for the arrest and punishment of New Light itinerants and restricting ordination to graduates of certain schools. In an increasingly diverse religious environment, state control over spiritual affairs became intolerable. When the Revolution came, several colonies swept away their establishment laws, and only Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire continued to collect church taxes. In all four states, agitation for complete religious freedom continued through the Revolution. Virginia adopted Thomas Jefferson’s “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom” in , but the three New England states did not grant complete religious freedom until the early th century, with Massachusetts holding out until . The Great Awakening transpired within a relatively short period, but it had a powerful impact on American society and culture. Encompassing the genius of Jonathan Edwards, the advent of revivalism, and the proliferation of denominational bodies, the movement added colorful new theological, rhetorical, and ecclesiastical threads to the American religious tapestry. Even if its effects had been limited to the religious realm, the Awakening would have been noteworthy. But its influence carried beyond the strict boundaries of religion into education, politics, and social reform. Simply put, the Great Awakening exemplifies the profound role that religion has played and continues to play in American life. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Ahlstrom, Sydney E. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . This distinguished synthesis of American religious history devotes four informative chapters to the Great Awakening, including one each on events in the New England, Middle, and southern colonies and one on Jonathan Edwards and New England theology. Bushman, Richard L. From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, –. New York: W. W. Norton, . Analyzes the role of the Great Awakening in the political, economic, and social transformation of Puritan society in Connecticut.

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Butler, Jon. “Enthusiasm Described and Decried: The Great Awakening as Interpretive Fiction.” Journal of American History , no.  (September ): –. Asserts that the link between the revivals of the Great Awakening and the American Revolution was virtually nonexistent and suggests that the concept of the “Great Awakening” itself is invalid because the revival failed to produce the dramatic religious and political changes commonly attributed to it. Coalter, Milton J. Gilbert Tennent, Son of Thunder: A Case Study of Continental Pietism’s Impact on the First Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies. Westport, CT: Greenwood, . Explores the influence of Theodorus Frelinghuysen on Tennent’s theological views and compares his role to those of George Whitefield and James Davenport. Cowing, Cedric B. The Great Awakening and the American Revolution: Colonial Thought in the th Century. Chicago: Rand McNally, . Examines the role of evangelical religion in the struggle for civil and religious liberty in th-century New England. Elwood, Douglas J. The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards. New York: Columbia University Press, . A comprehensive analysis of the philosophical depths of the single most influential exponent of the Great Awakening and one of the leading theologians in American history. Gaustad, Edwin Scott. The Great Awakening in New England. New York: Harper and Brothers, . A concise yet definitive account of the Great Awakening in New England. Heimert, Alan. Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Argues that the Great Awakening filled the American people with the hope of a millennial era that would satisfy their desire for a new order characterized by fraternity and democracy. Henretta, James A., and Gregory H. Nobles, eds. Evolution and Revolution: American Society, –. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, . A collection of essays dealing with various aspects of colonial and early national social history. Hudson, Winthrop S. Religion in America: An Historical Account of the Development of American Religious Life. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, . Includes a concise account of the Great Awakening within the context of American religious history. Kidd, Thomas S. The Great Awakening: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . A recent study of evangelicalism and revivalism in the Great Awakening. Lambert, Frank. Inventing the “Great Awakening.” Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . Lambert discusses what contemporaries were writing about the religious revivals in the midth century to analyze the pro- and antirevivalist arguments. Lippy, Charles H. Seasonably Revolutionary: The Mind of Charles Chauncy. Chicago: NelsonHall, . Views the Great Awakening through the eyes of one of its leading opponents. Mahaffey, Jerome Dean. Preaching Politics: The Religious Rhetoric of George Whitefield and the Founding of a New Nation. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, . Analyzes Whitefield’s oratory and its influence on the political thinking leading up to the American Revolution. Marty, Martin E. Pilgrims in Their Own Land:  Years of Religion in America. Boston: Little, Brown, . Examines the Great Awakening as a struggle by colonial Americans to understand what it meant to be religious in an environment where decisions of faith were no longer determined simply by where one lived. McLoughlin, William G. “ ‘Enthusiasm for Liberty’: The Great Awakening as the Key to Revolution.” In Preachers and Politicians: Two Essays on the Origins of the American Revolution. Edited by Jack P. Greene and William G. McLoughlin. Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, , pp. –. Argues that the Great Awakening prepared the way for the American Revolution by promoting intercolonial unity, religious rebirth, and democracy.

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Miller, Perry. Errand into the Wilderness. New York: Harper and Row, . A collection of essays on Puritanism and the Great Awakening by one of the th century’s premier interpreters of the Puritan mind. Ver Steeg, Clarence L. The Formative Years, –. New York: Hill and Wang, . A concise overview of American colonial history that treats the Great Awakening as a clash between faith and reason. Ziff, Larzer. Puritanism in America: New Culture in a New World. New York: Viking, . Examines the Great Awakening in New England within the broader context of Puritanism’s role in shaping American culture.

JONATHAN EDWARDS (1703–1758) Jonathan Edwards was a theologian, philosopher, and evangelical Congregational minister who exerted an enormous influence on the course of religious history in America. He helped to spark the religious revival known as the Great Awakening. Edwards was born on October , , in East Windsor, Connecticut, the only son of a minister and schoolmaster. Educated at home by his father, he entered Yale College before he was . There, he read the works of the English philosopher John Locke and the natural philosopher and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton. Graduating first in his class in , Edwards underwent a religious conversion and decided to become a minister. He spent two years studying theology at Yale, then served briefly as a Presbyterian minister in New York. In , he returned to Yale as a tutor in the college, leaving after two years to assist his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, a prominent New England clergyman, as minister of the church in Northampton, Massachusetts. In , upon his grandfather’s death, Edwards succeeded him as senior minister of the church in Northampton, then the most important pulpit in Massachusetts outside Boston. Two years later, Edwards was invited to preach before the Boston clergy. With this, his first published sermon, entitled “God Glorified in the Work of Redemption, by the Greatness of Man’s Dependence on Him in the Whole of It,” he won fame as a theologian. Edwards contended that the new philosophies of Locke and of Newton did not destroy the Puritan belief in an all-powerful God but rather proved the complete dependence of human beings on God. He further maintained that his fellow Congregational ministers had gone astray by stressing good works as a means of salvation. In Edwards’s view, redemption came only through the gift of God’s grace, independent of any human effort. In , Edwards’s sermons on justification by faith alone produced a revival in Northampton, which resulted in more than  conversions, including that of a fouryear-old girl. Edwards wrote a history of the revival, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (), that was read with great interest in Europe as well as America, particularly for its descriptions of the types and stages of the conversion experience. Beginning in , a huge revival known as the Great Awakening spread throughout the colonies, accompanied by mass conversions and violent emotional reactions. Though Edwards was not the only leader of this revival, he played an important role in its early stages with such hellfire-and-brimstone sermons as his famous “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (). Unlike some of his revivalist colleagues, however,

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Edwards did not engage in pulpit histrionics. He delivered his frightening sermons in a calm, low voice. While Edwards considered the Great Awakening a genuine work of God, he was critical of its excesses and subjected the revival to careful scrutiny in The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (), Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England (), and A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (). In the latter work, Edwards described with great psychological insight the different kinds of religious experience so that his readers would be able to distinguish the true from the false. His treatise anticipated the philosopher and psychologist William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience by more than  years. Edwards parted company with revivalist preachers on the question of church membership as well as preaching style. While they welcomed into the fold all who desired salvation, he stood with the traditionalists in believing that church membership should be limited to those who could provide evidence of saving grace. Edwards’s position aroused great controversy at his Northampton church, and, in , the church voted to remove him as minister. For most of the next eight years, Edwards served as a missionary and pastor to the American Indians and a few white settlers in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Despite the hardships of this frontier post, he managed to write several important books, notably Freedom of the Will (). The book addressed the question that was at the heart of Edwards’s theology: if everything is predetermined by God, how can people exercise free will? Edwards maintained that there is freedom because the mind can freely act out its choice, even though the origin of the choice is determined beforehand by the motive, or that which is perceived as the greatest apparent good. If individuals perceive God to be the greatest apparent good, they can choose to serve him, but only if God reveals himself to them as the greatest good, a revelation that is not given to everyone. Having the power to choose to act, individuals bear moral responsibility for their actions and are therefore deserving of reward or punishment. While in Stockbridge, Edwards also wrote books on original sin, the nature of true virtue, and the purpose of creation. Those, together with his book on free will, established his influence for the next half-century. In , Edwards was appointed to succeed his son-in-law, Aaron Burr, as president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Assuming the office in January , he died shortly afterward, on March , of complications following a smallpox inoculation.

william mcguire and leslie wheeler THEODORUS FRELINGHUYSEN (1691–ca. 1747) In the early s, Protestant clergyman Theodorus Frelinghuysen arrived in New Jersey from Europe as a missionary, organizing Dutch Reformed Church congregations and schools throughout the colonies. He took a leading role in the Middle Colonies during the Great Awakening, an evangelical Christian revival movement that swept the American colonies in the s and s. Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen was born in  at Lingen, Germany, near the Dutch border. His father, Rev. Johannes Frielinghausen, a Dutch Reformed pastor and

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scholar, provided most of his early education. Frelinghuysen graduated from Lingen University, Westphalia, and was ordained as a pastor in  by the classis, or synod, of Emden, Holland. He became fluent in Dutch to study the Dutch Reformed faith in its original and still-dominant language. After serving as chaplain and rector in Holland, Frelinghuysen was called to minister to the frontier settlements in New Jersey’s Raritan Valley. He arrived in New York in January . He eventually married Eva Terhune, a farmer’s daughter from Long Island, and fathered seven children. In the Raritan Valley, Frelinghuysen combined his passionate style as a preacher with his scholarly knowledge of the Dutch Reformed faith to guide established congregations in the towns of Raritan, Six-Mile Run, Three-Mile Run, North Branch, and New Brunswick. He also organized new congregations on New Jersey’s frontier. By the mid-s, the number of Dutch Reformed churches in the colony would be second only to the number of Presbyterian congregations. Frelinghuysen organized a system of schools, which combined education with Dutch Reformed catechism, for the largely illiterate and school-less frontier communities. To head the schools, Frelinghuysen brought Rev. Jacob Shureman—a chorister, church reader, and schoolmaster—from New York. While Frelinghuysen’s system of schools spread throughout colonial New Jersey, Frelinghuysen urged the central church government in America, the classis of New York, to establish institutions of higher education to prepare American pastors for ordination. Frelinghuysen personally ordained John Henry Goetschus, later the organizer of Dutch Reformed congregations in New Jersey’s Hackensack Valley and founder of Queen’s College (Rutgers University), in . Frelinghuysen was a somewhat untraditional minister and was an early advocate of reform within the church. In the very first sermon he preached in America, delivered to the central Dutch synod in New York in January , he offended at least one of his listeners. Dominie Henricus Boel, one of the Amsterdam-educated and authorityoriented clergy who made up the classis of New York, was shocked when Frelinghuysen omitted two traditional prayers. He suspected Frelinghuysen of pietism, which required an individual’s sincere repentance of sin, and of evangelism, which emphasized personal sincerity over formal church membership. Frelinghuysen, perhaps, merited the charges, both of them a challenge to central church authority that would find more expression during the Great Awakening. In addition, he was not afraid to name specific individuals when speaking about sinners and did not adhere to the strict liturgy or order of service when he evangelized. Dominie Boel and  church members signed a petition against Frelinghuysen in . Frelinghuysen, however, won approval for his preaching from the classis in New York with a series of learned and persuasive sermons. In New Jersey, Frelinghuysen continued to inspire religious awakenings with his sermons and also urged that the American Dutch Reformed Church become independent from the ecclesiastical authority in Amsterdam. Frelinghuysen’s American party, or Coetus, dominated all other factions within the Dutch Reformed Church in America by . The Great Awakening religious movement began to spread, with Frelinghuysen leading the movement in the Middle Colonies and preaching to provoke individual “awakenings,” a response in his listeners based on emotional experience and personal conversion of faith. Frelinghuysen’s vision for church reform became part of the mainstream Dutch Reformed Church in America. In  or , not long after Frelinghuysen died, the

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American classis formally became independent of the classis of Amsterdam. Both of Frelinghuysen’s daughters married clergymen, and all five of his sons became pastors in the Dutch Reformed Church.

patricia l. kohnen SLAVE RELIGION DURING THE GREAT AWAKENING Enslaved Africans took their religions with them to the New World, adapting to multiethnic mixing and desultory attempts to Christianize them. Although the episodic importation of new West Africans may have contributed to the survival of certain African styles and specific elements of slave religious belief and practice, it would be a mistake to assume that the slave religions descended directly from specific West African religions. Rather, they must be seen as syncretic reinterpretations of ancient and contemporary African American religions, strongly influenced by European and Native American counterparts. Jon Butler has asserted that “an African spiritual holocaust . . . forever destroyed traditional African religious systems as systems in North America and that left slaves remarkably bereft of traditional collective religious practice before .” The slaves of Anglo-America were surrounded by and commingled with whites, which inhibited the survival of African religious and cultural systems. The lone exceptions are the slaves who lived on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, where the pidgin languages of Gullah and Geechee are still spoken. Albert J. Raboteau notes that, “even as the gods of Africa gave way to the God of Christianity, the African heritage of singing, dancing, spirit possession, and magic continued to influence Afro-American spirituals, ring shouts, and folk beliefs. That this was so is evidence of the slaves’ ability not only to adapt to new contexts but to do so creatively.” However much Christianity shaped these religions before the Awakening, they retained strong undercurrents of West African beliefs and practices. Slave owners generally rejected attempts to Christianize slaves, being either squeamish about biblical injunctions against Christians enslaving other Christians or concerned that the literacy—as well as a heightened sense of self-esteem—that would inevitably attend conversion and scriptural study would make slaves unruly and possibly lead them to demand their freedom. By the mid-s, Quakers and Baptists were becoming increasingly vocal in their antislavery sentiments, and southern provincial governments legislated against slave literacy while slave owners resisted haphazard early-th-century efforts at Christianization. That all began to change in the middle of the th century, as New Light Presbyterians and Baptists began to proselytize heavily among free black and slave communities, which in turn impelled the Anglican Church to missionize more aggressively to a people who had largely been ignored. For their own part, slaves and free blacks felt little inclination to adopt the faith of their oppressors, especially as Christianity appeared to condone their enslavement. When enlightened slaveholders permitted their slaves to attend church services, the slaves were relegated to available balcony seats and, more usually, to positions outside open windows and doors. Missionaries were able to convince slaveholders that it was far more dangerous to allow slaves to develop their own religions grounded in rank paganism than to inculcate

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proper Christian virtues that may emphasize stoic submission to authority and acceptance of God’s unfathomable divine plan. Considering the participatory emotionalism inherent to most West African and African American religious beliefs and practices, it should come as no surprise that the relative vigor of New Light preaching and its cultivation of emotional response appealed to slaves and free blacks far more than the rigid formalism of Anglicanism and the other established denominations that remained under Old Light influence. The elements of “heart religion” that drew people like Nathan Cole to one of George Whitefield’s sermons similarly drew African Americans to evangelical Protestant Christianity. Although the Anglican Church had made token attempts to teach Christianity to slaves since the establishment of the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in , such efforts were met with indifference and some hostility. Indeed, it was Whitefield and his supporters who pushed America’s Anglicans into a sustained effort to bring slaves and free blacks into the fold. Southern slaveholders grudgingly agreed to large-scale slave Christianization by the s, but they reserved the right to dictate that the brand of Christianity propagated be one that did not teach literacy and that did stress humility and submission to masters, as well as white supremacy. Clergymen across the Protestant spectrum generally complied with these demands without argument, while antislavery evangelicals bravely dissented. Slaves, both literate and illiterate, silently rejected the narrowly constricted variety of Christianity and donned masks of quiet resignation and emulation of white religious observance before their masters and clergymen in the churches, while later retreating to “hush harbors” to indulge in an exuberant African American Christianity that stressed perseverance and the hope for liberation. Once the flames of evangelicalism began to lick southward, slaves found in Baptist services especially a refreshing egalitarianism and confirmation that the “enthusiastic” Christianity they had developed in secret could have public legitimacy. Slave preachers emerged to offer their fellow bondspeople messages of hope and comfort, and some of them gained enough esteem from their white counterparts that they preached to white audiences as well as to mixed gatherings. While this was only the beginning of African American Christianization, this is the Awakening’s greatest legacy, for it provided slaves and free blacks with a vocabulary that allowed them to demand recognition of their humanity as well as their eventual liberation.

john a. grigg GILBERT TENNENT (1703–1764) Gilbert Tennent, a Presbyterian preacher and clergyman, kindled so much religious enthusiasm in the Middle Colonies during the Great Awakening of the s and s that he became an essential force in the spread of this evangelical movement. Tennent preached to inspire personal religious conversions based on emotional experience, or “awakenings.” This style of Protestant evangelism swept the colonies, with Tennent, Jonathan Edwards, Theodorus Frelinghuysen, and Samuel Davies as its leading advocates. Tennent’s fiery and persuasive sermons moved great numbers of converts to religious revival but also sparked a schism within the Presbyterian Church.

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Born in County Armagh, Ireland, in , the eldest of four brothers, Tennent emigrated with his family to Pennsylvania in . His father, William, had graduated from Edinburgh University and was accepted as a minister by the Presbyterian Synod of Pennsylvania in . In the mid-s, he established the Log College at Nishaminy, where Tennent and his three brothers attended school. In , Tennent received both an honorary master of arts degree from Yale University and his ministerial license from the Philadelphia Presbytery. After helping to establish Log College and a brief posting at Newcastle, Delaware, Tennent was called, in late , to minister in the town of New Brunswick, New Jersey. Tennent began his career just as the immigration of mostly Presbyterian Scotch and Scotch-Irish to the Middle Colonies was beginning to increase dramatically. In New Brunswick, he formed a close friendship with Frelinghuysen, one of the founders of the Dutch Reformed Church in America. Sometimes they shared the same pulpit in New Brunswick, Frelinghuysen preaching in Dutch and Tennent in English. Tennent also kept close contact with a loose network of evangelists associated with Log College, his father’s school. By the early s, most of the college’s  graduates had acquired prominent government or church positions, and all three of Tennent’s brothers had joined him in the clergy. Preaching in New York and New Jersey, Tennent won a reputation throughout the region as a powerful and moving preacher. George Whitefield, whose arrival in America from England in  brought vital support to the Great Awakening, preached in Philadelphia and immediately contacted William Tennent. After his visit to Log College, the Tennents, father and son, accompanied Whitefield on a preaching tour of New England. While Whitefield remained in New England, Tennent evangelized in southern New Jersey and Maryland in the second half of . Back in New Brunswick in late , Whitefield notified Tennent that several New England ministers had asked that he preach to their congregations. The tour showcased Tennent at the peak of his powers. For three months in , Tennent preached every day, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, visited him for personal counsel. Tennent’s sermons, which drew larger crowds and more enthusiasm than Whitefield’s earlier tour, emphasized a personal and emotional religious experience over formal church membership. Like other evangelists, Tennent provoked fear and then release in the congregation with exhortations centered on damnation, repentance, and redemption. Such evangelism defined individual transformation as the only true Christian conversion and carried a challenge to church authorities. Tennent’s criticism of the “Old Light” clergy became blatant and specific as he labeled the majority of church officials “Scribes and Pharisees” and unsaved hypocrites who hindered true redemption. This schism had been deepening for several years. In , the synod had tried to control itinerant preaching by requiring traveling preachers to have formal permission to use another presbytery’s pulpit. In , it had demanded that all ministers have a degree from a European or New England college, thus specifically disqualifying the Log College run by Tennent’s father. In , Tennent and the New Brunswick Presbytery had withdrawn from the synod. When Whitefield’s followers established a new church in Philadelphia in , they called Tennent as pastor, and he held the post for the rest of his life.

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As the furor of the Great Awakening faded, Tennent concentrated on building the local presbytery and muted his diatribes against church authority. His later sermons featured a variety of subjects such as the righteousness of war and the error of Quaker pacifism. By , he encouraged reconciliation with the larger Presbyterian Church. The former Log College became the foundation of the College of New Jersey, and, as a trustee, Tennent traveled in  with Davies to England to solicit endowments. Tennent died on July , , at age  and was interred in the church he helped establish, the Second Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia. His body was later removed to a cemetery in Abington, Pennsylvania.

patricia l. kohnen GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714–1770) One of colonial America’s most popular preachers, George Whitefield was among the first to perform mass revivals. Sometimes preaching  to  hours a week, he was instrumental in spreading the evangelical Protestant movement known as the Great Awakening. Whitefield was born in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England, on December , . His father, Thomas Whitefield, ran an inn there and died when Whitefield was two years old. Whitefield’s mother, Elizabeth, raised him and his six siblings on her own. She remarried in  but was deserted by her new husband soon thereafter. Whitefield took an early interest in both theater and the ministry while helping attend to the family’s inn. His mother secured Whitefield’s entry into Oxford’s Pembroke College as a servitor, which meant that he would serve a wealthy, older man who was attending the college to study fine arts or the humanities. His time at Oxford changed his life forever, for it was there that he explored his views on religion and was introduced to Methodism by John and Charles Wesley. Coming from a poor family, Whitefield was a social outcast at the exclusive school and turned to religion for comfort. He was miserable and mentally unstable, believing himself to be unworthy of God’s love, so he took a leave of absence from school and returned home. Once home, Whitefield experienced a “new birth” and came to believe that grace was given freely by God, rather than something that could be earned. On the strength of this conversion, Whitefield returned to school, graduated in , and was ordained that same year. Soon after his first sermon, Whitefield began to put more feeling into the words he delivered. His sermons became bold performances, as he shook his fists at the sins being committed by the congregation and cried with unreserved emotion. Whitefield published his sermons and other thoughts, which helped his message reach a wider audience. He eventually came to preach spontaneously, without a written text, and criticized those ministers whose versions of God’s word did not agree with his. This led to many confrontations and hostilities that further spread Whitefield’s fame. As Whitefield gained popularity, he was invited by the Wesleys to join in their missionary work in the Georgia colony, an invitation he accepted. He traveled to Georgia in  and used the voyage to America to preach to the rough soldiers and sailors on the ship. Whitefield stayed on after the Wesleys had left and worked to build a ministry

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in Savannah. Whitefield’s success was due in part to his tolerance of many other beliefs among his audience. He did not, like so many other preachers, demand that listeners follow a rigid set of rules. He was able to preach across denominational lines and thus appealed to many people. Returning to England to raise funds for a Georgia orphanage, Whitefield demonstrated that his tolerance among followers did not extend to other clerics. As they began turning him away from their churches, Whitefield held his meetings outdoors. In , he began a preaching tour, and the people came in droves to his outdoor revivals. His conflicts with Bristol’s Bishop Baxter became the subject of many of his sermons, and his criticism of the clergy won him many adherents. Late in , Whitefield began a tour of the colonies that included Philadelphia, New York, and Savannah. He was a huge success wherever he preached and touched off a religious revival unprecedented in the colonies. Whitefield became increasingly concerned with the plight of slaves and did his best to gather African Americans together in congregations. He shocked many by arguing that slaves had souls and should attend church just like everyone else. Controversy and crowds followed him wherever he went. Offerings reached staggering sums. Whitefield continued to preach throughout the colonies and Great Britain, undertaking frequent trans-Atlantic voyages. On November , , he married a widow, Elizabeth James, while in Wales. Because of his constant travels, the two spent most of their lives apart. His relentless traveling and preaching took a toll on his health. Around , he returned to Philadelphia, where he still enjoyed great popularity, though the controversies that had once surrounded him had subsided years before. He eventually settled in Bethesda, Georgia in . With increasing tensions between the colonies and the mother country, Whitefield supported the patriots in their quest for independence. Indeed, his own preaching had stressed the egalitarian attitudes and attention to individuals that had played an important part in preparing the colonists to think in revolutionary ways. Whitefield died after giving a sermon in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on September , . His funeral was attended by thousands, and he was buried in the Newburyport Presbyterian church.

WOMEN IN THE GREAT AWAKENING A rising tide of antiauthoritarianism implicit in more radical New Light rhetoric encouraged those who chafed at traditional hierarchies to challenge them, to contest established boundaries, resulting in new definitions of authority. Among ordinary people, nowhere was this more in evidence than among women. At a time when female church membership and attendance already outpaced those of men, the First Great Awakening opened new doors to female religious self-assertion and authority. Arising out of the intense emotionalism of Calvinist conversion experiences and the intimacy between the individual soul and God, revivalism emphasized emotional intensity rather than intellectual assent in religion. By , women made up the vast majority of church members because of societal and economic factors that saw male church membership and religiosity decline throughout the colonies. Women came to fill gaps

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in church management and religious instruction when their domestic duties permitted, much as they did in their homes at times when husbands and fathers were preoccupied with work or business. Consequently, women were among the first and most ardent respondents to revivalism, even if most New Light ministers opposed any recognition of female authority beyond the informal. Women had to walk a thin line between patriarchy and their newfound respectability and power. Sarah Osborn of Connecticut did that quite capably as a schoolteacher and lay preacher to a women’s biweekly meeting from the s through the s. Encouraged by Rev. Joseph Fish (who was, oddly enough, an Old Light), she informally preached to women and African Americans but was admonished by her mentor to remember her societal position and not assert what might be construed as ministerial authority. In her self-defense, she swore to being only a lay exhorter, even as she justified her ability to offer some informal religious instruction. Hannah Heaton of North Haven, Connecticut, began to compose a private, spiritual biography in the s as a result of her conversion experience. Stretching into the s, it includes accounts of supernatural visions and ecstatic mysticism characteristic of many of those who underwent a “new birth.” Heaton’s account is replete with combat imagery, as when she lamented, “I have been crying  years to the[e] and hant got the victory yet.” In many places, she recorded her encounters with Satan, who troubled her with impious thoughts and doubts about her devotion. When her father died, as she came to terms with her grief, Satan would try to convince her that “there was no heaven” and asked her, “how do you know that the byble is the word of God.” Similar to Indian captivity narratives, spiritual autobiographies such as Heaton’s relate in intimate detail the minute, often painful operations of a religious awakening on the narrators’ souls. In granting to Sarah Osborn the modest authority to be a religious teacher, American Protestantism had indeed progressed beyond a time when women were expected to keep silent in the churches and remain mute about religious authority in the home. That women were able to gain such energy from evangelicalism stems from the overwhelmingly emotional emphasis of the Great Awakening, which resonated with human sensibilities even as it affirmed th-century assumptions about women’s presumed emotional weakness. Similarly, the Great Awakening’s moderate anti-intellectualism also gave women—who were barred from seeking an advanced education—an opportunity to demonstrate their talents outside the home in a way that was socially acceptable, even if controversial, in a male-dominated realm. The New Lights actively encouraged women and looked to them as exemplars to be emulated for their piety and devotion, while the Old Lights deprecated the revivalists as preying on women’s innate weaknesses. In any case, behavior that in the previous century had sometimes attracted accusations of witchcraft or been viewed as a supernatural “affliction” that needed to be remedied now appeared to be a sign of religious conversion.

john a. grigg

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4 The French and Indian War, 1754–1763

INTRODUCTION France had been consolidating its hold on parts of North America since , one year after the founding of Jamestown, when the explorer and geographer Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec. From that settlement, the French expanded their territory so that by Champlain’s death in  they controlled the Saint Lawrence River and were poised to take possession of the Great Lakes. However, hard times fell on the French colonization efforts, and New France, as the area came to be known, remained chronically weak. The unfriendly climate and barren soil of eastern Canada were no drawing card, and Frenchmen seemed reluctant to leave France for the New World. Religious dissenters were forbidden to emigrate to Canada, and the whole colonial administration was hindered by a home government that interfered in all phases of colonial activity. Despite these difficulties, the French had great success as explorers and traders. They worked well with the Indians, willingly acquiring Indian ways and wives, factors that proved of significant military and economic value. Indians procured furs for them, fought battles against the British for them, and served as guides on expeditions all throughout the central part of North America. With Indian help, France could claim most of interior America and thus constitute a threat to British colonial security. But only , French lived in North America in , and this meant for Canada an increased dependence on France for food and protection and more of that meddlesome French bureaucracy. The historian Francis Parkman, writing in the th century, summed it up: “It was the nature of French colonization to seize upon detached strategic points and hold them by the bayonet, forming no agricultural base, but attracting the Indians by trade and holding them by conversion. A musket, a rosary, and a pack of beaver skins may serve to represent it, and in fact, it consisted of little else.” Before , there had been no serious conflict between the French and the British in North America. Between  and , however, these two countries fought a series of seven wars. Why? The reasons for this long era of conflict lay partly in the general European rivalry over the balance of power (in all of these wars, other nations fought with Britain and France), partly in the basic conflict of interest produced by rival systems of mercantilism, and partly in direct colonial conflicts. Both Britain and France looked upon their colonies as integral and exceedingly valuable sectors of their whole national economies; colonial trade for each nation by the early th century amounted to nearly one-third of its entire foreign

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The French and Indian War secured Great Britain’s dominance of North America. In this engraving, the British general at the Battle of Quebec, James Wolfe, lies mortally wounded. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

commerce, and the wealth of the influential merchant classes in both countries was due largely to profits made from that colonial trade. The most important difference in the two colonial systems lay in the manner of settlement and administration. France, as we have seen, governed its colonies from Paris and, unlike Britain, made little effort to install a system of local government in North America. Commercial profit, and not immigration, was France’s objective. Great Britain, on the other hand, permitted local self-government, and, under the policy of salutary neglect (see Chapter ), left the colonies very much on their own. In addition, Britain’s desire to populate its North American colonies produced by  a population imbalance of  to  in favor of the British. In other ways, the colonial systems were similar. Both used slave labor, both tried to regulate the economic life of the colonies for their own good by utilizing the mercantile system, and both found themselves competitors in several different economic areas. British and French fishermen competed off the coast of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. In the back country, trappers vied for valuable furs and the friendship and support of the resident Indian tribes, the French allying with the Algonquins and the British with their great rivals, the Iroquois. By the s, colonial possessions in North America were becoming increasingly important in the diplomatic maneuverings of Europe, and the colonies were often mentioned in discussions concerning the balance of power. A French minister said in

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: “The King believes, Monsieur, that it is the possessions in America that will in the future form the balance of power in Europe and that if the English invade that part of the world, as it appears they have the intention of doing, it will result therefrom that England will usurp the commerce of the colonies, and that she alone will remain rich in Europe.” The ultimate contest between France and Great Britain was the Great War for Empire (called the Seven Years’ War in Europe, where it was fought from  to , and the French and Indian War in North America, where it lasted from  to ). This war was different in two major aspects from the earlier wars fought between England and France. First, in the earlier wars, the great British victories had been won in Europe; in this war, they were won in North America and India. This is explained by the growing naval power of Great Britain and the growing realization of the importance of colonial empires. Second, in the earlier wars, American colonists had fought without much British aid, reflecting Britain’s lesser concern for colonies at the time. In this war, however, British regulars did most of the fighting, even in the early stages. Britain thus showed its recognition of the increased importance of its colonies and of the fact that the balance of power would be determined by events outside Europe. It is worth noting that at this time wars were quite limited in scope; these were not wars of national survival such as the th century experienced. Each belligerent had limited aims, usually territorial, and fought with small professional armies, which were affordable in relation to the objectives of the war. And, while no one cared much about the humanity of the soldiers involved, a good deal of money and time went into their training and the installation of discipline, and that was something not to be wasted. Consequently, battles were fought formally on fields carefully chosen to allow the disciplined movement of regular troops. To fight the Indians in North America (or, later, the colonists) was altogether different in terms of tactics. And the nature of the war, fought in distant frontier sites, made logistics a potentially serious problem. The French and Indian War also saw the first use of the Kentucky rifle, a better weapon for irregular or guerrilla war than the musket because of its much greater accuracy. One could hit a man’s head at  yards if one was reasonably proficient. Although the advantages of rifling (the practice of scoring the inside of the barrel to give a spin to the bullet, which produced greater accuracy) had been known for many years, the Kentucky rifle was the first to be developed that was light enough to carry comfortably and acceptably fast to load. But Kentucky rifles were never used widely because they were individually made, which meant that bullets had to be custom made for each rifle. Despite a greater ease of loading, the rate of fire was only one-third that of the musket, and the standard bayonet did not fit. Thus, the Kentucky rifle was no good for formal battle lines but fine for firing from behind trees or rocks. The relative position of the two great powers on the North American continent was well defined in . English colonies still huddled along the Atlantic Coast from present-day Maine to Georgia, heavily populated along the coast and extending only a short distance inland. French control stretched in an L-shaped pattern from Quebec down the Saint Lawrence River, through the Great Lakes, and from there down the Mississippi River to its mouth near New Orleans. French expansion seemed to delimit strictly the English colonies and their potential growth. Despite the disparity in population, the French in America were better prepared for war. French military power rested in its army, the greatest on the European continent,

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while Britain relied more on its navy. The French had a larger military establishment in America, and French soldiers were better trained and led than their English counterparts. Finally, France’s Indian allies were more reliable. Great Britain’s best strategy was thus a war of attrition, using its navy to cut off as much as possible the flow of supplies from France to Canada, while building up its own troop strength and stock of supplies. No one, however, in London in the early s seems to have figured this out, and, instead, British troops made futile attempts to break out of the French encirclement in the early years of the war. Thus did General Edward Braddock’s disaster at Fort Duquesne (near present-day Pittsburgh) happen, an event that gave young George Washington some good experience but contributed nothing but apathy and defeatism to British forces as they were pushed back along the whole perimeter. Finally, under the astute leadership of the brilliant prime minister William Pitt, the British military machine began to function. Pitt diverted French attention (and troops) by aiding his European ally, Prussia. He built the colonial governments into important agencies in support of the war effort by reconciling many of the differences between the British army and the colonists. He strengthened both the fleet and the army and found good leaders within the officer ranks instead of looking within the circle of his political allies, as was the general custom. Finally, he worked out a unified plan of overall strategy for the conflict. After their shaky beginning, British troops did relatively well in America, impressing Americans enough that they created their own revolutionary army in the British image. British success also created overconfidence among the troops when they returned to fight Americans in the Revolution. But British discipline allowed them to withstand an Indian attack without breaking ranks and then outlast the Indians, forcing them into an open battle. Moreover, the British were flexible enough to adapt to the frontier setting of much of the war. Troops maneuvered in smaller units (companies rather than battalions), good use was made of reconnaissance, and care was taken to ensure march and camp security. Some troops were designated to learn ranger skills, and other regiments learned to fire from a prone position, an innovation for that day. Likewise, they learned to march single file through a forest and jump behind a tree in response to the command, ‘‘Tree all!’’ The British could, of course, still fight a traditional European battle and did in , when Pitt’s strategy culminated in a great thrust by land and sea at Quebec, the heart of New France, led by James Wolfe. At , Wolfe was already a leader of great reputation and considerable experience. At Quebec, he faced the equally able French general, the Marquis de Montcalm. The climax of the war came after a two-month siege when Wolfe and the British stormed the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec and captured the city. Both generals were killed, but the French were the real losers. Montreal fell a year later, and the Treaty of Paris officially ended the war in . In the treaty, Britain won all of New France (Canada) and all of interior America except for the port of New Orleans. France retained fishing rights off Newfoundland and the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon as fishing bases. Britain returned to France the captured West Indian islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique but acquired East and West Florida from France’s ally, Spain, which, in turn, received from France all its territory west of the Mississippi River, as well as New Orleans (what later became, roughly, the Louisiana Purchase).

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The consequences for the colonies were immense. The war removed the checks on the westward expansion of the colonists, except for the natural barriers of the forests and mountains. British institutions were bound to move westward across the Appalachian range. In addition, the war was something of a unifying force for the colonies. At the least, it made them more aware of one another and of the commonality of their problems. While response to the Albany Convention, called in  to work out a common Indian policy, ranged from indifferent to hostile, response to the Stamp Act in , just two years after the war, was direct and united. For the British, the war created the conditions that led to many of the disputes with the colonies between  and  that, in turn, led to the American Revolution. Britain had problems of how to administer, settle, and protect the land acquired from the French, how to run a much expanded global empire, and how to handle the great new burden of war debts, for Pitt had borrowed heavily to finance his successful war effort. These British problems would run headlong into colonial affairs and meet stout resistance from colonists, who found themselves much less dependent on Britain for protection from the French and therefore much bolder in fighting for their own rights and interests. Moreover, the limited enthusiasm of the colonists for the war had demonstrated serious flaws in the idea of salutary neglect. Significantly, Great Britain had crowned a new king in . He was George III, grandson of George II and the first of his dynasty to have any real English sympathies. George I and II had been far more attached to their native Hanover (a part of present-day Germany) than to England, spoke little English, and cared little for England’s problems. But George III was thoroughly British and proud of it and determined to be a king in deed as well as in name. He asserted his constitutional rights, maneuvered the normally antiroyalist Whig Party out of Parliamentary control, which it had enjoyed since , and, by bribes and royal favors, installed his friends in positions of power in Parliament, thus gaining personal control of government. In , George III made George Grenville his prime minister. Grenville was William Pitt’s brother-in-law, but he did not share Pitt’s conciliatory attitude toward the colonies; rather, he felt that the colonies should be made to pay a part of the cost of defending and running the empire and should also be made to obey the law, especially with respect to the various acts regulating commerce. His ministry, which lasted until , thus initiated the chain of events that led to the Revolutionary War. Because of this, it can be said that the greatest consequence of the French and Indian War is that it set the stage for the American Revolution.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY thomas clarkin Beginning in the late th century, the British and French colonies in North America became embroiled in a series of colonial wars that resulted from competition between Great Britain and France. King William’s War (–), Queen Anne’s War (–), and King George’s War (–) were essentially European conflicts that spilled over into North America. Though these three wars caused hardship and suffering for many colonists, North American concerns played only a small role in the

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wider wars fought to determine which nation would gain political dominance in Europe. However, the final war, which began in , grew out of the struggle to control the resources and the trading opportunities in the region between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. The conflict in North America eventually spread to Europe and other parts of the globe, leading many historians to regard the event as the first true world war. The final colonial war is known by several names. In Europe, it was later called the Seven Years’ War, although the violence lasted for nine years. Americans refer to it as the French and Indian War, which is somewhat misleading because Native Americans fought for both the French and the English. Regardless of its name, the conflict constituted a turning point in the history of North America. The Treaty of Paris, which ended the war, also ended any realistic French hope of remaining an imperial power in North America. Perhaps more important, the conduct of the war strained relations between the British colonies and the mother country. The tensions and resentments that developed helped to spark the American Revolution. Though King George’s War ended in a stalemate, French leaders realized that their power in North America was on the wane. The British population was growing at a rapid rate, and, because British manufactured goods were of a higher quality than those of the French, English traders were successfully capturing a larger and larger share of the lucrative trade with Native Americans. British expansion posed a serious threat to the French empire—if the British gained control of the Ohio Valley, they could sever communications between the French possessions of Canada and Louisiana. In , the French sent Céleron de Blainville through the upper Ohio Valley to impress the Native Americans of the region with French power and to instruct the tribes to expel British traders. Céleron buried lead plates bearing inscriptions that declared French sovereignty over various locations which he visited, but French leaders knew that a more concerted effort would be necessary. The following year, French officials began arresting and jailing British traders who operated in the area, and in  they authorized the construction of several small forts in the Ohio Valley. Authorities in London and in the colonies reacted with alarm to the French activities, and the royal governor of Virginia received instructions to use force to meet the French threat. Because both the British and the French recognized the strategic importance of the Forks of the Ohio, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet, both sides raced to occupy and defend the Forks. Though a small company of Virginians arrived first, a larger French force successfully routed them and began building an outpost, which they called Fort Duquesne. Attempts to dislodge the French from the Forks failed, and, in July , Lt. Col. George Washington, leader of a Virginia militia force sent to attack Fort Duquesne, had to surrender to the French after a brief battle. To make matters worse for the British colonists, the French were gaining influence with Native American leaders who up to that time had remained neutral. Despite these conflicts, Britain and France were not yet formally at war. The British government decided, however, that the French must be driven out of the Ohio Valley. Officials realized that the Virginians could not defeat the French without assistance; they also knew that a cooperative effort between the colonies was unlikely. The government decided to send British troops to resolve the conflict, and, in late , Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock departed for Virginia with two regiments of British regulars. While

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making preparations for a  offensive against the French, Braddock encountered several difficulties that indicated that working with the colonists would prove difficult and frustrating. The British government had determined that civil authorities in the colonies would be subordinate to British military commanders in most matters concerning the conduct of war. However, Braddock soon discovered that the colonists and their representatives had no intention of complying with his demands. He met with resistance from the colonial governments and the people. Jealous of their powers over expenditures and over colonial armies, the colonial assemblies often refused to cooperate with Braddock and his officers. In April , Braddock asked the royal governors to create a common defense fund to pay for supplies and other military costs. The governors informed him that the assemblies would never agree to such a plan, which was then dropped. Braddock also had difficulty procuring supplies for his army. He needed wagons and horses to prepare for the expedition to Fort Duquesne, but the colonists proved unwilling to rent their property to the army. Braddock threatened to take the wagons without payment, but Benjamin Franklin persuaded farmers in the region to rent their wagons to the army. In addition to disputes over money and supplies, differences concerning the status of provincial troops also arose. In , approximately , colonists enlisted in the British army, where they served as regulars. However, most colonists chose to serve in provincial armies, which remained under the authority of colonial leaders. In , the British government had decreed that provincial officers would be subordinate to British army officers of the same rank. For example, colonial captains would have to obey the orders of British captains. The colonial officers regarded this as an insult, and the resulting resentment increased friction between colonial troops and British regulars and made cooperation difficult. Despite the numerous problems he faced, Braddock managed to devise a strategy for defeating the French. Four different forces would strike at French garrisons in hopes of destroying supply and communication lines. William Shirley, the royal governor of Massachusetts, whom Braddock appointed as his second in command, would lead an attack on the French outpost at Niagara, between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. William Johnson, superintendent of Indian affairs, would take Crown Point, on Lake Champlain. A third British force would move against Fort Beauséjour, in Nova Scotia. Finally, Braddock would personally lead his troops in the attack on Fort Duquesne. The British offensive failed. British and colonial troops captured Fort Beauséjour without great difficulty in the only successful campaign of the year, but Shirley never reached Niagara, and, although Johnson engaged French troops in the Battle of Lake George, he never reached Crown Point. Braddock’s expedition met with disaster. In June , his army marched into the dense woodlands on their way to Fort Duquesne. On July , these troops encountered a force of French soldiers and their Indian allies. The Indian warriors fired from the forests on the British troops, who were confined to a narrow trail. The French and Indians sustained minimal casualties, while nearly  percent of the British troops were killed or wounded, with Braddock among the dead. The surviving British soldiers fled in a panic. The failure of the  campaigns in general and of Braddock’s expedition in particular shocked and outraged officials both in London and in the colonies. Thomas Gage,

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a lieutenant colonel under Braddock, blamed the defeat on the colonists, who had refused to outfit and supply the troops. George Washington, a survivor of the expedition, claimed that the British regular soldiers had performed badly under fire. Regardless of the real reasons for the disaster, the squabbles between colonists and the British revealed an intense dislike and distrust that would only grow as the war continued. After Braddock’s defeat, the number of colonists who enlisted in the British army dropped dramatically, and colonial attitudes toward the redcoats became increasingly negative. At the end of , the French held the upper hand in the Ohio Valley while the British and their colonial allies could not agree on a military strategy that would ensure victory. Thus, the first phase of the French and Indian War concluded without any significant shift in the balance of power in North America. Great Britain formally declared war against France in May . John Campbell, Lord Loudon, who was selected to lead the war effort in North America, arrived in New York in July. Loudon was determined to teach the colonial governments that they were subordinate to the Crown, but he quickly discovered that colonists were willing to defy British authorities at every turn. One particularly sore point was the recruitment of colonists into the British army. After Braddock’s defeat, declining enlistments in the regular army led the British to use questionable means to acquire new soldiers. Some recruiters used threats or deception to induce colonists to enlist; others relied upon alcohol, signing up the recruit when he was drunk. Colonists grew so angry at such practices that that they sometimes attacked recruiters—in at least one instance, an irate crowd killed a recruiting sergeant. Especially irritating to the colonial elites was the practice of recruiting indentured servants, who were often eager to leave their employers. Merchants complained that recruiting servants before their contracts expired was tantamount to theft. The British government asked the colonies to create a fund to reimburse masters for their losses, but, in typical fashion, the assemblies refused to comply. Loudon arrived in the colonies with a government decree that required recruiters to compensate masters, but, much to his frustration, colonial complaints about recruiting continued. Loudon did not improve his relations with the colonists when his troops assisted naval press gangs in New York in . Press gangs seized citizens and forced them aboard ships for involuntary service, a practice that understandably infuriated the colonists and worsened relations with the military. The housing of British troops, known as quartering, was another source of contention between Loudon and the colonists. In England, the army had the right to quarter its troops in inns, but in the colonies they also had to make use of privately owned buildings such as barns and, in some cases, houses. Army officials maintained that in a time of war the citizenry had no cause for complaint about such practices, but the colonists thought otherwise. They argued that the forced housing of soldiers on private property was a violation of their rights, and colonial authorities agreed. Loudon and other army officers claimed that the colonists were merely stingy and unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to fight a war. When the people of Albany, New York, protested the quartering of troops in their city, Loudon threatened force to end the complaints. He made similar threats to the citizens of Philadelphia and Boston, and the colonists grudgingly complied with Loudon’s commands. Though Loudon usually won the arguments over quartering, the disagreements only led to more friction and animosity between the British and the colonists.

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Trade restrictions also contributed to the growing tensions during Loudon’s tenure as commander in chief. Fearing that colonial resources would end up in French hands and help the French war effort, several colonies imposed trade embargoes on provisions such as grain and war materials. These embargoes usually hurt local economies because farmers and merchants were unable to ship their merchandise to buyers. When Pennsylvania revised its embargo in , Loudon responded with a total embargo on shipping in Virginia and all colonies to the north. Suffering from the resulting economic crisis, several colonial assemblies voted to lift the embargo. Loudon ignored their protests. The dispute between Loudon and the local governments over trade restrictions served as an example of the intractable problems that marred the British war effort. Concerned only with winning the war and convinced that he wielded total authority in that effort, Loudon ignored the economic impact of the embargo and the complaints of the colonial assemblies. The colonists perceived Loudon’s actions as evidence that British officials did not respect their governments and were unconcerned with their needs and welfare. Loudon’s failure to control the colonies was matched by his inability to wage a successful war. Campaigns planned by William Shirley before Loudon’s appointment brought no victories in early . In addition, Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm, the new French commander, proved to be a capable adversary. In August , he led an expedition against the British garrison at Oswego, located on the shores of Lake Ontario. After three days of battle, the British force surrendered. The loss of Oswego denied the British a base of operations from which to attack French forces at Niagara, thus weakening the British ability to mount an offensive, and Montcalm rightfully claimed a great victory. In , Loudon hoped to deliver a crippling blow to New France with an attack on Louisbourg, a French fort on Cape Breton Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia. The capture of Louisbourg would allow the British to block French supply ships from reaching the Saint Lawrence River, effectively strangling New France. In , Louisbourg had fallen to a colonial force during King George’s War but had been returned to France as part of the  peace treaty. Though Loudon’s plan was sound, preparations for the Louisbourg expedition took months. During that time, the French received information about the planned attack and so deployed a naval squadron to defend the fort. Loudon had no choice but to abandon the expedition. To make matters worse, Montcalm scored another victory, forcing the British to surrender Fort William Henry, which was located north of Albany, New York. Native American support for the French added to the bleak outlook for the British war effort in . Many Native American communities regarded the British colonies, which were constantly expanding, as a greater threat to their interests than the French and so sided with the French. In addition, the French victories in the early years of the war convinced many Indians that the French would prevail. Indian support allowed the French to augment their armed forces. The Indians also waged an effective style of guerrilla warfare that wreaked havoc on outlying British settlements. Though some Native Americans allied with the British, the general trend of native support for the French was viewed with alarm in the British colonies. Thus, as the  campaign season drew to a close, Lord Loudon could claim no major victories, no improvement in his relations with the colonies, and worsening relations with Native Americans. Given the status of the British effort in North America, Loudon had no hope of continuing as commander

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in chief. Management of the war became the responsibility of the brilliant William Pitt, whose strategies would turn the tide and ensure a British victory. Pitt, who became prime minister in , believed that British war resources were squandered in European battles. He maintained that victory in North America was far more important for protecting British interests as a shipping and trading nation. Though James Abercromby replaced Loudon, it was Pitt who planned strategy. Recognizing that squabbles with the colonial assemblies slowed the prosecution of the war, Pitt sought to improve relations with the colonists. He sent more British regulars to fight the war in an effort to end the disagreements over unpopular recruiting practices and British authority over provincial troops. He informed the colonial assemblies that the Crown would reimburse them for military expenses, a promise that resulted in an expansion of the provincial forces. To improve relations with these forces, Pitt ended the practice of subordinating provincial officers to their counterparts in the regular army. These initiatives reinvigorated the colonies and bolstered support for the war. Pitt used the powerful British navy to prevent French supply shipments from reaching North America, preventing New France from receiving foodstuffs, war materials, and new troops. With the French weakened, the British, in , launched an offensive that struck at several major French outposts, including Ticonderoga, Louisbourg, and Fort Duquesne. Ticonderoga proved to be a calamity as the British commander marched his troops in a frontal attack that resulted in enormous casualties, but all the other campaigns brought victory. Louisbourg fell in July after a siege of nearly two months; the British troops that arrived at Fort Duquesne in November discovered that the French had burned and abandoned the fort. The British victories in  marked a turning point in the war. Pitt’s policies had not ended the disputes with the British colonies, but they had reduced their impact on the conduct of the war. The influx of British troops made it possible to attack successfully the French on several fronts, destroying their internal supply and communication lines. The naval blockade of French ports had pushed New France to the edge of starvation, and, unable to provide their Native American allies with trade goods and gifts, the French lost the support of several tribes. The stage was set for the expulsion of the French from North America. To achieve that end, Pitt focused his attention on the city of Quebec, situated on the Saint Lawrence River. If Quebec fell, virtually all of Canada would belong to Britain. The  offensive involved attacks on all fronts, one against the western French outpost of Niagara, a second north through the Champlain Valley toward Montreal, and a third west along the Saint Lawrence River to Quebec. British ships patrolling the Saint Lawrence continued to prevent supplies from reaching the beleaguered French forces. Montcalm and his armies were forced on the defensive without the provisions or troop reinforcements necessary to battle the British. Niagara fell into British hands after a siege of three weeks. Realizing that they could not hope to defend Crown Point or Ticonderoga in the Champlain Valley, the French commanders used delaying tactics as they retreated toward Montreal. However, the most important victory came in September, when Maj. Gen. James Wolfe and his troops captured the city of Quebec. Recognizing the importance of defending Quebec, Montcalm had assembled most of his troops there. Wolfe and his men had no problems reaching the city, but once there they faced serious difficulties. Situated upon a high cliff overlooking the Saint Lawrence,

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Quebec offered a strong defensive position for the French forces. Wolfe pondered the attack on the city for nearly three months, from June to September. A frontal assault in late July proved disastrous, and Wolfe was at a loss as to how to capture the city. However, in early September, he discovered the existence of a tiny, steep trail that climbed the cliffs near the city. In a daring nighttime maneuver, British troops traveled in boats to the beach at the cliff ’s base, silenced the small French outpost they found there, and began to climb the plateau above. By daybreak, Wolfe had assembled nearly , men on the Plains of Abraham, a flat area atop the cliffs adjacent to the city itself. When word of the British troop movement arrived, Montcalm rushed his force of French, Canadian, and Indian troops outside the city to face the enemy. What followed was the stuff of legend. A classic European-style battle ensued, with the French slowly advancing on the British line. The redcoats held their fire until the French were almost upon them and then released a volley that destroyed the French line. Both Montcalm and Wolfe received mortal wounds, with the British commander dying on the field of battle. The French forces fell into a disorganized retreat, abandoning Quebec to regroup closer to Montreal. The garrison commander within Quebec had no choice but to surrender the city, and the British claimed a great victory. Historians have criticized the performance of both Wolfe and Montcalm, but the battle on the Plains of Abraham became the story of two brilliant, young generals dying in one of the most important battles in American history. The French defeat at Quebec marked the end of any real French resistance in North America. Native Americans who had allied with the French now sought to repair their relations with the victorious British. In , the British launched an attack from three directions on the remaining French forces assembled at Montreal. The French commander wisely surrendered before battle began. The Seven Years’ War would continue for three more years, fought on the high seas, in Europe, and in other spots on the globe, but with the capture of Montreal the North American phase of the war came to a close. In , Great Britain and France signed the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war between the two nations. In North America, France ceded Canada and its holdings east of the Mississippi save the city of New Orleans to England, retaining only two islands near Newfoundland and some sugar islands in the Caribbean. Pitt’s strategy had proven effective, and the mood throughout the British Empire, in both England and the colonies, was jubilant. The colonists expressed great pride and pleasure at being members of the mightiest empire in the world. For the Native American communities in the Ohio Valley and in the southern United States, however, the future was not so bright. Most Native Americans did not benefit from the British victory. Because the British colonists were expansionist in their outlook, Indian sovereignty was not guaranteed and Indian land was at risk. For decades, the tribes had retained their sovereignty and acquired valuable gifts by playing the British and the French against one another. When the French had posed a threat or refused to supply the Indians with desired goods, Native American communities cooperated with the British until the French changed their policies. Now that the French were gone, the Indians had no choice but to work with the British, who in many ways had less respect for Native Americans than the French did. British general Jeffrey Amherst held the Indians in contempt. In an attempt to reduce

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expenditures, Amherst curtailed the exchange of gifts with the Indians, a decision that caused much resentment among the tribes. Seeking to end conflicts between colonists and Indians, the British government announced the Proclamation of , which established a boundary line that followed the Appalachian Mountains. Settlers were not to occupy lands west of the line. However, most colonists ignored the boundary, and the British found it impossible to enforce its decree. For Native Americans, the French defeat meant a loss of negotiating power and the continued loss of their lands. The war also had negative consequences for relations between the colonies and Great Britain. The frictions between the Crown and the colonies pointed to divisions within the empire that heralded trouble in the coming years, divisions that ultimately led to the American Revolution. Waging war against New France during the s had required close contact and cooperation between the British and the colonists to a degree never before reached. The earlier colonial wars had necessitated some coordination of regular and provincial troops, which had resulted in disagreements. The scale and scope of the French and Indian War were far greater than those of the earlier wars, however, resulting in more tension between the allies. The disputes that arose revealed that the colonists perceived their role in the empire in a completely different manner than British authorities did. In addition, the interpersonal contact between colonists and British regulars led each side to develop opinions that were often negative, offering little ground for cooperation in the postwar years. Over the years, the colonists’ considerable distance from Great Britain had led them to rely on their assemblies for legislative and financial policies. Though the royal governors represented the interests of the Crown, they found it almost impossible to conduct government affairs without the agreement and support of the assemblies. British commanders such as Braddock and Loudon arrived in North America prepared to fight a war against an enemy of the empire. Anticipating only cooperation from the colonial governments, they were shocked and angered to discover that the assemblies wanted an equal say in the conduct of military affairs. They had no respect for these colonial institutions, which they regarded as subordinate to the Crown. The assemblies took a far different view. Because colonial money was being spent and the lives of colonists in the provincial forces were being risked, the assemblies maintained that they had the right and the responsibility to oversee the war effort. Thus, ongoing disputes about quartering, supplies, and recruiting were not merely the complaints of ungrateful colonists; they represented potentially irreconcilable differences concerning the power and authority of the colonial assemblies. For many of the colonists in British North America, the war was the first time they had come into contact with a large number of people from Great Britain. Unfortunately, the British regulars were a rough lot, typically drawn from the lowest classes of society and sometimes having criminal backgrounds. The behavior of these redcoats, combined with the unpopular recruiting and quartering policies, created an attitude of contempt toward the soldiers and, to some degree, England in general. On occasion, mobs attacked the British soldiers, even after Pitt’s policies had brought popular victories. Relations between the regulars and the provincial troops were usually not much better. The British army relied upon strict discipline and unquestioning obedience to orders. Infractions were met with swift and extreme punishments, which included execution. The provincial troops regarded themselves as volunteers and expected to be treated with

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respect, an attitude that the British could not understand. As a result, the regulars and their officers regarded the provincials as amateurs and bumpkins, while the colonists perceived the regulars as haughty and mean spirited. In addition, the regulars were given to swearing and violating the Sabbath. Such behaviors shocked the colonists, who put far more stock in religion than did the British. While there were many occasions on which the regulars and provincials worked well together and even formed friendships, the general attitudes that each group held toward the other were ones of dislike and contempt. These contacts between colonists and the British created negative perceptions that were to have tremendous consequences in the postwar years. Colonists saw the British authorities as despotic, willing to run rampant over their constitutional rights. Their experiences with the regulars led them to believe that the British were an irreligious and arrogant people. On the other hand, the British perceived the colonists as greedy and unprincipled. Throughout the war, British officers claimed, in many cases correctly, that colonial merchants profited from the war by overcharging the army for supplies. They viewed the actions of the assemblies as unpatriotic obstructions to the conduct of the war. These perceptions lingered on both sides after the war ended and shaped the reactions to the events that eventually culminated in the American Revolution. The French and Indian War contributed to the coming of the Revolution in another fashion. Pitt’s policies of using more regular troops and of spending money from the British treasury to fight the war did not resolve any of the deeper problems between the mother country and the colonies, but they did allow for a British victory. However, the price of success had to be paid at some point. After the war, the British government found itself burdened with a tremendous debt of approximately £ million. During the s, the government turned to taxing the colonies to pay for the war. It was these tax increases that sparked the protests against taxation without representation. The French and Indian War shaped the future of North America in ways that no earlier war had. The expulsion of the French from the continent liberated the colonists from the threat of invasion and the burden of economic competition and opened the way to the expansion in the west. It also reduced the colonial dependence on Great Britain for defense. The defeat of the French was thus a tremendous boon to the colonists and to the British Empire. However, the victory contained the seeds for future conflict between the citizens of the colonies and Britain, conflict that in a dozen years would lead to another war and the eventual creation of a new nation in North America. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alberts, Robert C. The Most Extraordinary Adventures of Major Robert Stobo. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, . A biography of one of the most unusual and interesting figures in the French and Indian War. Anderson, Fred. A People’s Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War. New York: W. W. Norton, . An excellent study of provincial attitudes toward the British and the war. ———. Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in North America, – . New York: Knopf, . Grand survey of the conflict that concludes its outcome had even greater consequences than the American Revolution. Bird, Harrison. Battle for a Continent. New York: Oxford University Press, . Harrison offers a detailed military history of the war.

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Calloway, Colin G. The Scratch of a Pen:  and the Transformation of North America. New York: Oxford University Press, . Calloway argues that the peace treaty ending the French and Indian War contributed more to the coming of the American Revolution than the war itself. Donaldson, Gordon. Battle for a Continent: Quebec, . Toronto: Doubleday Canada Ltd., . A narrative history of the climactic battle of the French and Indian War. Downey, Fairfax. Louisbourg: Key to a Continent. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, . A history of one of the most important forts in North America in the th century. Fregault, Guy. Canada: The War of the Conquest. Toronto: Oxford University Press, . Discusses the war from the perspective of Canadian history. Furneaux, Rupert. The Seven Years War. London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, . A brief and wellillustrated military history of the war. Hamilton, Charles, ed. Braddock’s Defeat. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, . A collection of firsthand accounts of Braddock’s defeat in . Igneri, David S. Sir William Johnson: The Man and His Influence. New York: Rivercross, . Examines Johnson’s relationship with the Iroquois and its impact on the outcome of the war. Jennings, Francis. Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies, and Tribes in the Seven Years’ War. New York: W. W. Norton, . Jennings offers shrewd and sometimes caustic analyses of the interactions between colonists and Indians. Keegan, John. Warpaths: Travels of a Military Historian in North America. London: Hodder and Stoughton, . A leading military historian offers observations on the forts of New France. Kopperman, Paul E. Braddock at the Monongahela. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, . Includes several eyewitness accounts of the disastrous expedition to the Forks of the Ohio. Leach, Douglas Edward. Arms for Empire: A Military History of the British Colonies in North America, –. New York: Macmillan, . A highly readable general history of the colonial wars with detailed descriptions of battles. ———. Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, –. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Focuses on the differences that arose between the British army and the colonists during the colonial wars. Lewis, Meriwether Liston. Montcalm: The Marvelous Marquis. New York: Vantage Press, . A brief biography of the leading French general. Marshall, Peter, and Glyn Williams. The British Atlantic Empire before the American Revolution. London: Frank Cass, . A collection of essays that examines the relationship between the colonies and England through the Seven Years’ War. McConnell, Michael N. A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its Peoples, –. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, . Contains useful information about Native Americans and their involvement in the war. O’Meara, Walter. Guns at the Forks. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, . Discusses events at the Forks of the Ohio from  to . Parkman, Francis. Montcalm and Wolfe. Toronto: Ryerson Press, . Originally published in , Parkman’s account is considered a classic example of th-century historical writing. Peckham, Howard H. The Colonial Wars, –. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . Looks at each of the colonial wars and includes a timeline of important dates. Rogers, Alan. Empire and Liberty: American Resistance to British Authority, –. Berkeley: University of California Press, . Discusses disputes over such issues as recruiting, quartering, and Indian affairs. Sherrard, O. A. Lord Chatham: Pitt and the Seven Years’ War. London: Bodley Head, . The second volume in a multivolume biography examines Pitt’s role in managing the French and Indian War.

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Stacey, C. P. Quebec, . Toronto: Macmillan, . A detailed account of the battle for Quebec. Steele, Ian K. Warpaths: Invasions of North America. New York: Oxford University Press, . Steele’s final chapters are devoted to the French and Indian War. Ward, Matthew C. Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years’ War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, –. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, . An account of the war in the more remote areas of Virginia and Pennsylvania. Warner, Oliver. With Wolfe to Quebec: The Path to Glory. Toronto: Collins, . Examines the  campaign from the perspective of the British general. White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . A difficult but rewarding book that considers the cultural interactions between Native Americans and Europeans, with material on the “playing off ” of the French and English.

BRADDOCK’S CAMPAIGN, 1755 The campaign conducted by British general Edward Braddock in  was one of two major thrusts to expel French forces from North America. One was launched against Fort Niagara (New York); the second, led by Braddock, was intended to capture the key post of Fort Duquesne and gain control of the vital Three Forks region. Braddock’s column assembled during the spring at Fort Cumberland on the upper Potomac River. The th and th Regiments of Foot were considered the heart of the command, which was augmented by some colonial troops and a few Indian scouts. (Rivalries precluded major Indian support for the expedition.) Col. George Washington served as Braddock’s aide de camp. The British column also featured heavy siege guns, which Braddock planned to use to batter down the walls of Fort Duquesne. The disadvantage of hauling heavy artillery was that it required the construction of a road across the mountains. The campaign got under way in mid-June. Braddock’s approach to his objective was careful and cautious, with scouts out on all quarters. By July , , the advance had reached the confluence of Turtle Creek and the Monongahela River. The French, meanwhile, had moved out to confront Braddock; they hoped to defeat the British before the heavy guns, which they had learned of, could be brought to bear against the fort. Battle between the two forces was joined in a heavily wooded area. The French forces were at first driven back but eventually recovered and counterattacked. They moved silently through the wooded terrain along the British flanks and took the surrounding high ground. The tide of battle then shifted quickly. Unprepared to fight in this style, the British army found that its position quickly deteriorated. Defensive organization broke down, and Braddock himself was mortally wounded. He died on July  and was buried by Washington. Guided now by Washington and others, the British fell back while destroying their artillery and anything else of value to the French. Survivors finally reached the safety of Fort Cumberland, from whence they had started so confidently. The expedition had been a disaster, with more than  killed, including the commander. To make matters even worse, the French also captured Braddock’s official papers, which contained information about the British northern campaign.

jerry keenan

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LOUIS-JOSEPH DE MONTCALM-GOZON, MARQUIS DE MONTCALM (1712–1759) As commander of the French forces in Canada, Gen. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Montcalm, was the most important figure on the French side in the French and Indian War in North America. Montcalm was born on February , , into an aristocratic family at Candiac, near Nîmes, France. He received his first military commission in his early teens and saw action in the War of the Polish Succession in . In , he succeeded to his father’s titles and property, and, a year later, he married Angelique-Louise Talon du Boulay, who eventually bore him  children. During the War of the Austrian Succession, Montcalm fought with particular distinction, most notably at the Battle of Piacenza, on June , ; in the course of that battle, his cavalry regiment was battered, and he himself received five saber wounds before being captured. After his release, he spent most of his time with his family in Candiac until , when he was called on to command the French regular troops in Canada against Great Britain and its colonies in the French and Indian War. Montcalm, devoted to his family and a man of charm and integrity who was popular with his troops, also possessed a quick temper and often made enemies with his even quicker tongue. That combination of personality traits rendered his relationship with the Marquis de Vaudreuil—the royal governor of Quebec and a critical, jealous, and suspicious man—problematic from the very beginning. The quarrels of those two men were decisive in undermining the French war effort and helped cause France to lose its North American colonies. After his arrival in Quebec, Montcalm found that his authority did not extend to colonial troops or the local militia, nor did he control the military resources of the area. That lack of authority, combined with his contempt for the corrupt local administration and Vaudreuil’s uncooperativeness, hampered military operations. Nonetheless, Montcalm had considerable success in battle over the first three years of his command. In the summer of , he captured Oswego, which gave France sole control of Lake Ontario. The following summer, Montcalm took Fort William Henry on Lake George and its ,-man garrison. The prisoners were attacked while in his custody by his Native American allies, and, though he was horrified by the slaughter and attempted to stop it, he demonstrated poor judgment by taking insufficient precautions to prevent the atrocity. On July , , Montcalm’s , men held off British general James Abercromby’s force of , men at Fort Ticonderoga. That feat earned Montcalm promotion to lieutenant general, and he gained authority over Vaudreuil in military matters. However, the failure of the French to exploit their success at Ticonderoga was a turning point in French military fortunes during the war. By , Montcalm was back in Quebec, where he defended the city from British forces under Gen. James Wolfe. The French general faced troops of superior quality, but his brilliant defensive measures frustrated the British throughout the summer. On September , Wolfe’s men made an amphibious nighttime landing and scaled the considerable heights to the Plains of Abraham. That approach to the city might have been more heavily guarded but for Vaudreuil’s interference, and the surprise appearance of

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the British impelled Montcalm to counterattack. More obstinacy by Vaudreuil deprived the French forces of artillery support from within the city, and the French were defeated. Montcalm was notable for his courage under fire and was mortally wounded during the fight; he was shot down while trying to rally his broken troops. He died the next day, September , , unaware that Wolfe had also died of wounds sustained during the battle.

WILLIAM PITT (1708–1778) Known variously as William Pitt, the Elder; the Great Commoner; and the Earl of Chatham, William Pitt was one of the most dynamic politicians in th-century Great Britain. A brilliant orator and debater, he dominated British political life in the middle of the century, both as an opposition leader and as a member of several administrations. His eccentricities were as great as his rhetoric, however, and Pitt proved an unstable and erratic political leader. Pitt was born on November , . His family had become rich through the speculation of Pitt’s grandfather, Thomas Pitt, who made a fortune in India. Pitt’s father, Robert, had married a woman whose family history included traits of both genius and madness. Pitt was their second son. He attended the prestigious preparatory school Eton and then Trinity College at Oxford University. He left Oxford in January  and embarked on a tour of Europe, although he was plagued with gout, a hereditary illness that dogged him for most of his life, for much of that period. When he returned to England in , Pitt was faced with the task of choosing a career. His older brother Thomas had inherited almost all of the family fortune after the death of both Pitt’s grandfather and father. Pitt was left with a small annuity that forced him to supplement his income with some kind of work. He selected the army but served as a coronet of cavalry for only a few years. In , Pitt became a member of Parliament, representing a family-controlled seat for the borough of Old Sarum. He immediately joined the opposition to Robert Walpole’s administration. With his gift for inflammatory speeches, Pitt quickly became a popular speaker in the British House of Commons, gathering around him a coterie of admirers. In an era of personal politics, Pitt’s followers were held together more by their respect for him than by any set of policies. Nevertheless, Pitt soon found a very substantial issue on which to oppose Walpole. Walpole had long advocated that Britain’s economic needs could best be served by maintaining peace. Pitt advocated just the opposite, maintaining that war expanded trade and the strength of empire. In , Pitt took the lead in promoting a war against Spain that Walpole was reluctant to support. Pitt’s fiery speeches in the House of Commons soon brought Parliament and much of the public to his side. The war took a turn that Pitt had not expected, however, as Britain became increasingly drawn into a conflict on the European continent that involved most of the major powers, the War of the Austrian Succession. War with Spain and the king’s loyalty to the German electorate of Hanover (of which he was the ruler) compelled Britain to fight France, over Pitt’s vocal objections. France, he maintained, had little to do with Britain’s empire or its interests. Furthermore, he denounced the Hanoverian connection, for which George II never

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forgave him. He barred Pitt from office even after many of his political friends and allies formed a government in  under Henry Pelham. Pelham repeatedly tried to bring Pitt into his government, and, in , the cabinet resigned en masse over Pitt’s exclusion. George was forced to relent, but his hatred of Pitt remained strong. Pitt came into Pelham’s government as vice treasurer of Ireland and paymaster general. The latter post had traditionally been a very lucrative one, but Pitt refrained from taking advantage of all the perks of office, which came at the public expense. His restraint was much publicized, adding to his reputation as the people’s champion. On November , , he married Hester Grenville. The marriage was not only a happy one, but his well-connected wife increased his political position. Pitt, his wife’s brother Lord Temple, and his wife’s cousin George Lyttelton formed a powerful triumvirate in Parliament over the coming years. In , Pitt took a bold stance against the Duke of Newcastle and his new administration, criticizing the duke’s foreign policy. That time, Pitt urged the government to fight France for the good of the empire, particularly to secure France’s possessions in North America, the West Indies, and India. When the Seven Years’ War erupted, in , Newcastle proved a poor war leader. His administration collapsed, and, in desperation, George II turned to Pitt. Although Pitt had generated public enthusiasm, he did not have the solid base of support he needed within the government to form a new administration. A hasty compromise left Newcastle as first lord of the treasury, while Pitt acted as secretary of war and had a free hand to run the war as he saw fit. The Newcastle-Pitt coalition proved remarkably successful, despite the continuing animosity between the two men. Pitt possessed a shrewd understanding for military strategy. He overlooked claims of seniority and promoted officers with talent, encouraging them to undertake bold operations. Pitt’s general policy was to subsidize Britain’s allies in Europe but keep British troops out of the fighting there. He tried to content Prussian king Frederick II with financial and material support, while Britain’s military concentrated on blockading France and then systematically challenging French control of Canada and the West Indies. Beginning in the middle of , the British secured several major victories in Canada that forced France to relinquish its North American possessions. Those triumphs were followed by success in the West Indies and in India, where the exploits of Robert Clive eventually forced the French from the subcontinent. Pitt was not content with those results, however. Britons had been taxed to their limit to support the war, and landowners in particular were beginning to show pointed signs of discontent. In a huff, Pitt resigned his position in  after the cabinet refused to declare war against Spain. The newly crowned King George III and his adviser Lord Bute worked to end the war, and, though Pitt was vocal in his criticism, he received a pension of £, a year and a baronetcy. Yet, his behavior became increasingly erratic, although he occasionally recaptured some of his old glory when he spoke in the House of Commons. One such speech, in defense of the American colonists during the Stamp Act crisis of –, solidified his reputation as the people’s champion and permanently endeared him to the Americans. The problems in America became the primary issue in British politics, raising issues of British trade, taxation, parliamentary representation, and the empire that spilled over into domestic politics as various factions within British society either championed or opposed the American colonists. In July , Pitt became prime minister. Surprising everyone, he

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accepted an earldom and took his seat in the British House of Lords at the same time, thus sacrificing much of the public’s esteem and the basis of his parliamentary support. In addition to the problems in America, Pitt was faced with challenges regarding the British East India Company’s management of the Indian subcontinent and France and Spain’s compliance with the Treaty of Paris (), which had ended the Seven Years’ War. He appointed several outstanding men to his cabinet, but he insisted on treating them as mere secretaries while he ran their departments. Only one month into his administration, Pitt was seized by an attack of gout and depression that quickly deteriorated into near madness. The alarmed king and concerned public continued to hope for his recovery, and George III allowed his administration to limp along as best it could, refusing to replace Pitt. Finally, in October , Pitt emerged from his darkened retreat and begged the king to allow him to resign. George III reluctantly complied. Pitt returned to his solitary life, plagued by depression and illness. He occasionally made appearances in the House of Lords when he felt strongly about some issue. Occasionally, he exhibited the oratorical skills for which he was famous, and he could still exert considerable influence on politics when he chose. The issue that stirred Pitt’s interest more than any other was America. He proved a steadfast friend to the American colonists and continually warned his peers of the danger of rebellion, predicting that France and Spain would seize the opportunity to recoup their losses from the Seven Years’ War. When war did erupt in April , Pitt proposed several compromise measures that would have granted concessions to the Americans while keeping them within the British Empire. On April , , he appeared in the House of Lords to argue against a proposal to recognize American independence. Ill and unbalanced, he gave a speech that was incoherent. After stating, “My Lords, any state is better than despair; if we fall, let us fall like men,” Pitt collapsed in some kind of a fit. He was taken to his favorite home, Hayes, where he lived for a few weeks before dying on May , . After his death, Parliament voted that he be accorded a grand funeral befitting a public figure of his stature. His son, William Pitt, the Younger, followed him into politics and became one of the dominating forces in British political life at the end of the th century.

ROBERT ROGERS (1731–1795) The daring, able Robert Rogers may have been a scurrilous character, but he was one of the best light infantry leaders in American history. Like Benjamin Church in the previous century, he borrowed heavily from Native American woodland tactics and waged an effective war of outposts against the French and their Indian allies. Hopelessly corrupt and dishonest, he nonetheless achieved exploits that form an important part of U.S. military tradition. Rogers was born in Methuen, Massachusetts, on November , , and was raised on the frontier near Concord, New Hampshire. He first experienced military service during King George’s War (–), when he joined the local militia. Rogers matured into a tall, powerfully built young man with natural leadership abilities, but he also displayed a tendency toward dishonesty and graft. Charged with counterfeiting in , he escaped prosecution by joining the Royal New Hampshire Regiment. The French and Indian War had just begun, and Rogers volunteered to accompany Sir William Johnson’s expedition against Crown Point, near Lake George. The campaign

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itself was inconclusive, but Rogers so distinguished himself in numerous scouting forays that in  Gov. William Shirley of Massachusetts appointed him captain of a ranger company. At that time, rangers were provincial irregulars recruited from the colonies for service with British troops. Adept at woodcraft and Indian-style fighting, rangers were a recent innovation in colonial warfare. Rogers led his company throughout Gen. James Abercrombie’s failed attempt to capture Ticonderoga and was rewarded with a promotion to major and command of nine ranger companies. By dint of their leader’s reputation, those outfits became known as “Rogers’ Rangers.” His men fought exceptionally well against the French in a war of outposts and provided useful service in numerous raids, skirmishes, and scouting missions. Several colonial generals from the American Revolution, including Israel Putnam and John Stark, received their early military training under Rogers. However, Indian allies of the French were equally cunning and skilled at such low-intensity warfare. While Rogers was scouting in the vicinity of Lake George on March , , he was ambushed in the so-called Battle on Snowshoes, in which half his command was killed. Rogers skillfully extricated the survivors and returned to the field with Gen. Jeffrey Amherst at Crown Point in . On October , , Rogers completed one of his most difficult assignments by attacking and destroying the Abenaki village of Saint Francis on the St. Lawrence River. More than  Indians were slain and five white hostages released after a murderous fight. However, of the  rangers who began the mission, only  survived the -mile trek home through dense forest. Rogers subsequently fought at the capture of Montreal in , and, afterward, he arrived at Detroit to accept the surrender of distant French posts. Three years later, Rogers fought credibly in Pontiac’s Rebellion, his last foray against Native Americans. His daring exploits, skill in wilderness tactics, and success on the battlefield had made him a military hero on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Without a war to fight, unfortunately, Rogers invariably strayed from the law. He was reckless with money, and, as his debts threatened to overwhelm him, he fled to England in . There, he published his journals, wrote a play, and had an audience with King George III. Capitalizing on his celebrity, Rogers then gained an appointment, in , as commander of the distant post of Mackinac in present-day Michigan. There, he sponsored a series of expeditions looking for the legendary Northwest Passage to Asia, but he also proved himself to be a poor, if not outright corrupt, administrator. Within two years, Gen. Sir Thomas Gage had him arrested on charges of treason. Rogers was eventually cleared, but, while on a second trip to London in  to seek employment, he was thrown into debtors’ prison. Ultimately, his brother paid off a substantial part of his debts, and he was released. Rogers returned to America in  after the American Revolution began and offered his services to the Second Continental Congress, but Gen. George Washington suspected him of treachery. Arrested and transported back to New Hampshire, Rogers escaped and joined the British, who also harbored suspicions about him. Ultimately, Rogers was placed in charge of the Loyalist Queen’s Rangers companies, but he failed to distinguish himself in skirmishes around the White Plains area. Dissipated by alcohol, Rogers lost his command, and, in , he sailed back to England a final time. He lived out the rest of his life in poverty and died in London on May

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, , a broken, forgotten man. Rogers never surmounted his personal problems in peacetime, but his accomplishments as a daring, innovative light infantry leader make him a central figure in the colonial military experience.

john c. fredriksen JAMES WOLFE (1727–1759) British general James Wolfe died on the battlefield but not before learning that the troops under his command had captured the city of Quebec and, with it, British domination of Canada. His death, in , became one of the most memorialized events of the French and Indian War. Wolfe was born at Westerham in Kent, England, on January, , . The son of Edward Wolfe, a lieutenant general of some distinction, Wolfe began his career in the military early, joining the Royal Marines in . He never married. Though constantly plagued by illness, Wolfe advanced swiftly through the ranks. He kept himself occupied in his duties, rejecting the licentious ways of other soldiers. One officer under Wolfe’s command wrote that “our acting commander here is a paragon. He neither drinks, curses, gambles, nor runs after women. So we make him our pattern.” An avid student of warfare, Wolfe was well read in military tracts and accounts of battle dating back to the ancient Greeks. He studied the contemporary armies of Europe, as well, and kept abreast of the military technology of his day. As a commander, he insisted on efficiency and demanded that his troops be well drilled. After serving with British forces in France, Wolfe earned advancement to brigadier general and an assignment in the French and Indian War raging in North America. He joined Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Amherst in his  expedition against the French-held Cape Breton Island in what is now Nova Scotia. After the British and American colonial troops secured the stunning victory of capturing the fortress of Louisburg on the island, Wolfe rightly received most of the credit. Health problems forced him to return for a time to England, but, in , duty called him back to America. He had been chosen to command the Quebec expedition in Canada. The campaign to capture Quebec was an ambitious plan by the British, so Wolfe’s selection to lead the effort represented the government’s confidence in him. His aggressive approach in warfare brought him both admirers and critics, however. Some suggested that his conduct of amphibious warfare showed recklessness. The Duke of Newcastle (one of Britain’s leading political figures in the s) claimed that Wolfe was mad. But he had admirers where it counted—in William Pitt the Elder (another leading political figure in Britain) and King George II. The king replied to the Duke of Newcastle’s claim by saying that if he were mad, “Then I wish he would bite some of my other generals.” Wolfe left England in mid-February  and was ready to carry out his effort against Quebec by June. His attack was only one of a three-pronged offensive launched by the British against Canada that year—from Niagara, Lake Champlain, and the Saint Lawrence River, the last prong being under Wolfe’s command. Wolfe drove his men up the Saint Lawrence toward Quebec, an elevated, heavily fortified city under the command of French general Louis-Joseph de Montcalm. Wolfe

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tried to piece together an assault on the difficult target, first landing at Beauport, east of the city, and failing there. Finally, Wolfe found a path leading up the cliffs behind Quebec. On the night of September –, he led his troops stealthily up the cliff to the Plains of Abraham, a flatland near the upper part of the city. The troops stood fast, awaiting the inevitable attack by Montcalm. When the French came, Wolfe ordered his men to wait for the last possible moment before opening fire. After a few volleys, in a battle that lasted less than an hour, the French were in full retreat. Quebec had fallen. But so had Wolfe and Montcalm. Wolfe was shot twice but remained on his feet, rallying his men to the fight. A third shot would prove fatal. When told the enemy was vanquished, Wolfe offered his last words: “Now, God be praised, I die happy.” Montcalm died a few hours later. In death, Wolfe was elevated to the status of a national hero. The famous  painting by Benjamin West of a dying Wolfe surrounded in glory by his men immortalized the moment of his martyrdom.

DOCUMENT: ALBANY PLAN OF UNION, 1754 At the outbreak of the French and Indian War, the British Board of Trade convened a congress to unify Britain’s North American colonies in defense against the French and to improve relations with Britain’s Iroquois allies. Meeting in Albany, New York, in July , the Albany Congress was attended by representatives from seven colonies (Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania). The congress adopted a Plan of Union believed to have been written by Thomas Hutchinson and Benjamin Franklin. It proposed new defensive works to guard against the French and greater British imperial control over Native Americans in British-held territory. The various colonial assemblies failed to ratify the plan, and thus it was never submitted to the British Parliament. However, both the Albany Congress and the Plan of Union served as important precursors for colonial unity in the decades leading up to the American Revolution. (Albany Plan of Union, . Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States [Government Printing Office, ]. House Document No. . Selected, Arranged, and Indexed by Charles C. Tansill.)

It is proposed that humble application be made for an act of Parliament of Great Britain, by virtue of which one general government may be formed in America, including all the said colonies, within and under which government each colony may retain its present constitution, except in the particulars wherein a change may be directed by the said act, as hereafter follows. That the said general government be administered by a President-General, to be appointed and supported by the crown; and a Grand Council, to be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several Colonies met in their respective assemblies. . That within __ months after the passing such act, the House of Representatives that happen to be sitting within that time, or that shall be especially for that purpose

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convened, may and shall choose members for the Grand Council, in the following proportion, that is to say, . who shall meet for the first time at the city of Philadelphia, being called by the President-General as soon as conveniently may be after his appointment. . That there shall be a new election of the members of the Grand Council every three years; and, on the death or resignation of any member, his place should be supplied by a new choice at the next sitting of the Assembly of the Colony he represented. . That after the first three years, when the proportion of money arising out of each Colony to the general treasury can be known, the number of members to be chosen for each Colony shall, from time to time, in all ensuing elections, be regulated by that proportion, yet so as that the number to be chosen by any one Province be not more than seven, nor less than two. . That the Grand Council shall meet once in every year, and oftener if occasion require, at such time and place as they shall adjourn to at the last preceding meeting, or as they shall be called to meet at by the President-General on any emergency; he having first obtained in writing the consent of seven of the members to such call, and sent duly and timely notice to the whole. . That the Grand Council have power to choose their speaker; and shall neither be dissolved, prorogued, nor continued sitting longer than six weeks at one time, without their own consent or the special command of the crown. . That the members of the Grand Council shall be allowed for their service ten shillings sterling per diem, during their session and journey to and from the place of meeting; twenty miles to be reckoned a day’s journey. . That the assent of the President-General be requisite to all acts of the Grand Council, and that it be his office and duty to cause them to be carried into execution. . That the President-General, with the advice of the Grand Council, hold or direct all Indian treaties, in which the general interest of the Colonies may be concerned; and make peace or declare war with Indian nations. . That they make all purchases from Indians, for the crown, of lands not now within the bounds of particular Colonies, or that shall not be within their bounds when some of them are reduced to more convenient dimensions. . That they make new settlements on such purchases, by granting lands in the King’s name, reserving a quitrent to the crown for the use of the general treasury. . That they make laws for regulating and governing such new settlements, till the crown shall think fit to form them into particular governments. . That they raise and pay soldiers and build forts for the defence of any of the Colonies, and equip vessels of force to guard the coasts and protect the trade on the ocean, lakes, or great rivers; but they shall not impress men in any Colony, without the consent of the Legislature. . That for these purposes they have power to make laws, and lay and levy such general duties, imposts, or taxes, as to them shall appear most equal and just (considering the ability and other circumstances of the inhabitants in the several Colonies), and such as may be collected with the least inconvenience to the people; rather discouraging luxury, than loading industry with unnecessary burdens. . That they may appoint a General Treasurer and Particular Treasurer in each government when necessary; and, from time to time, may order the sums in the treasuries

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of each government into the general treasury; or draw on them for special payments, as they find most convenient. . Yet no money to issue but by joint orders of the President-General and Grand Council; except where sums have been appropriated to particular purposes, and the President-General is previously empowered by an act to draw such sums. . That the general accounts shall be yearly settled and reported to the several Assemblies. . That a quorum of the Grand Council, empowered to act with the PresidentGeneral, do consist of twenty-five members; among whom there shall be one or more from a majority of the Colonies. . That the laws made by them for the purposes aforesaid shall not be repugnant, but, as near as may be, agreeable to the laws of England, and shall be transmitted to the King in Council for approbation, as soon as may be after their passing; and if not disapproved within three years after presentation, to remain in force. . That, in case of the death of the President-General, the Speaker of the Grand Council for the time being shall succeed, and be vested with the same powers and authorities, to continue till the King’s pleasure be known. . That all military commission officers, whether for land or sea service, to act under this general constitution, shall be nominated by the President-General; but the approbation of the Grand Council is to be obtained, before they receive their commissions. And all civil officers are to be nominated by the Grand Council, and to receive the President-General’s approbation before they officiate. . But, in case of vacancy by death or removal of any officer, civil or military, under this constitution, the Governor of the Province in which such vacancy happens may appoint, till the pleasure of the President-General and Grand Council can be known. . That the particular military as well as civil establishments in each Colony remain in their present state, the general constitution notwithstanding; and that on sudden emergencies any Colony may defend itself, and lay the accounts of expense thence arising before the President-General and General Council, who may allow and order payment of the same, as far as they judge such accounts just and reasonable.

5 The Stamp Act, 1765

INTRODUCTION The French and Indian War left the British an undisputed world power, but one with great and complex new problems. There were the tremendous war debts, compounded by the loud objections of British merchants to the imposition of more taxes. The limited enthusiasm of the colonists for the recent war had demonstrated serious flaws in the idea of salutary neglect (see Chapter ). The great acquisitions west of the Appalachians created new problems of administration and defense; many feared that France might arise again in an attempt to recover some of its lost territory and pride. The British approach to handling the postwar problems was not helped by the turbulent state of politics in London during the s. George III, who became king in  at the age of , was the first of his line to put his own stamp on British government. As a youth, he had observed some of the machinations of Whig and Tory politicians, and he felt that George II and his followers had not treated his mother very well after his father’s death, in . He came to the throne, therefore, determined to cleanse British politics of those who had been loyal to his grandfather. His youth and inexperience at conciliation soon taught him that the only way he could deal at all successfully in the political world was by being stubborn in defense of his views. Surrounding himself with politicians who had been in the opposition under George II, he found himself nesting with those who, in general, advocated a tough stand toward the colonies, particularly with respect to measures designed to reduce the horrendous debt problem left over from the war. Among these politicians was George Grenville, never a personal favorite of George but an individual determined to fight Britain’s debt problem by all means possible. Grenville believed that the colonies should bear at least part of the cost of their own administration and that it would be fiscally responsible to make the colonies obey existing mercantilist regulations. The chain of events that led ultimately to the American Revolution began in , during Grenville’s ministry. Among the various British-American disputes in the immediate postwar period, three are of particular significance: the Proclamation of , the Sugar Act of , and, most important, the Stamp Act of . The most urgent problem following the Treaty of Paris concerned the western lands acquired from France, because a federation of Indian tribes under Chief Pontiac had attempted to defend their hunting grounds by striking violently at the earliest English settlers to cross the Appalachians. Although Pontiac’s Indians were put down, largely by British troops, the government in London issued the Proclamation of ,

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which temporarily banned settlement beyond a line drawn roughly along the ridge of the Appalachians. The Proclamation was the first effort to control arbitrarily the westward movement of colonists, and it was soon extended and elaborated. A fi xed Indian boundary was to be drawn in agreement with the tribes, and western lands were to be opened for settlement only in a gradual and closely supervised manner. This offended colonists for several reasons. First, certain colonies, notably Virginia, had had western lands granted to them in their original charters and now were likely to lose control over these lands. Second, the new Proclamation threatened the economic interests of a number of prominent colonists who had speculated in western lands. Third, those who wanted to go west, and those who already had, were greatly inconvenienced. The Sugar Act of  imposed a tax on imports of various products made from West Indian sugar. It replaced the Molasses Act of , which had provided a tax on imported foreign molasses but had never been strictly enforced. The new Sugar Act reduced the tax rate but extended it to all sugar products and, more important, called for rigorous enforcement. As a response to the Sugar Act, colonists boycotted the products subject to the tax. Among these were many imported liquors, including the colonists’ favorite, Madeira wine, which was now to be taxed at £ the double hogshead as opposed to a mere  shillings for a like amount of port wine imported through England. In November , the New York Gazette announced: “The young gentlemen of Yale College have unanimously agreed not to make use of any foreign spirituous liquors. . . . The gentlemen of the College cannot be so much commended for setting so laudable an Example. This will not only greatly diminish the Expenses of Education, but prove, as may be presumed, very favourable to the Health and Improvement of the Students.” Designed to raise revenue, the Stamp Act of  placed a tax (in the form of a required stamp) on virtually all paper products, including newspapers, legal documents, pamphlets, and even decks of cards and dice. American reaction to this act was surprisingly hostile, largely because the most powerful and articulate groups—merchants and businessmen, lawyers, journalists, and clergymen—were most directly affected by it. Business came to a temporary standstill because of widespread refusal to import items affected by the tax; trade with England fell off by £, in the summer of  alone. Violence was carried out by groups called Sons of Liberty, who coerced collectors into resigning, burned the stamped paper, and incited the people to turn against locally unpopular figures. In New York, they did it to the tune of “An Excellent New Song for the Sons of Liberty in America”: In Story we’re told, How our Fathers of Old, Brav’d the Rage of the Winds and the Waves And crossed the Deep o’er, To this desolate Shore All because they were loth to be Slaves; brave Boys, All because they were loth to be Slaves. The Birthright we hold, Shall never be sold, But sacred maintained to our Graves

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Nay, and ere we’ll comply, We will gallantly die, For we must not and will not be Slaves; Brave Boys We must not and will not be Slaves. Though violence was so widespread that law and order seemed to be completely nullified for a while, individual incidents stand out. One of the worst occurred in Boston the night of August – at the home of Thomas Hutchinson, then lieutenant governor and chief justice of Massachusetts. His three-story house was one of the finest examples of domestic architecture in America; it was massive, fronted and supported by Ionic pillars and surmounted with a large cupola. Two separate mobs, having been active earlier in the evening, joined forces and converged on Hutchinson’s house. He had been warned of the impending danger and had fled, claiming that he did not deserve to be made a party to the Stamp Act. His pleas notwithstanding, the mob axed down the heavy front doors and destroyed everything that could not be carried away, including a great collection of manuscripts relating to the early history of Massachusetts. Next, the rioters climbed to the roof, determined to raze the house, but it was so well built that it took them three hours to tear down the cupola and the rest of the night to break a hole in the roof. Finally, sunrise came, and everyone went home. A town meeting the next day brought forth expressions of sympathy for Hutchinson and resentment toward the rioters, but not one of them was ever punished, despite the posting of rewards, nor were the victims ever compensated for their losses. The riots occurred sporadically from midsummer until November and were a serious concern, but the real pressure for repeal of the Stamp Act came from the merchants of England, who saw significant economic losses in the situation. Many colonial importers owed large sums of money to the English merchants, and payments would not resume until normal trade was reestablished. The merchants petitioned Parliament to modify or repeal the Stamp Act, and, after a long debate, Parliament decided that the act was inexpedient, because it necessitated the use of the military against British subjects for enforcement, and, if civil war did come, the commercial situation would, of course, become even worse. At the same time, Parliament unanimously passed the Declaratory Act, confirming its right to levy revenue taxes on the colonies, regardless of the resumed authority of colonial assemblies. In May , news of the repeal reached the colonies, and a time for cheering was at hand. In New York, the king’s birthday and repeal were celebrated on the same day; candles lit every window, two oxen were barbecued, and free beer and grog were distributed. The assembly voted to commission an equestrian statue of George III, as well as a statue of William Pitt, who had engineered the repeal act through Parliament. The Sons of Liberty also celebrated repeal. At a large dinner in Massachusetts, John Adams noted that these affairs “tinge the minds of the people; they impregnate them with the sentiments of liberty; they render the people fond of their leaders in the cause, and averse and bitter against all opponents.” Forty-five toasts were drunk at the dinner, but Adams said he “did not see one person intoxicated, or near it.” While how much Adams could see at all may be open to question, it is clear from the celebrations over repeal of the Stamp Act that the colonists in  retained a fundamental sense of loyalty toward Great Britain and George III.

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INTERPRETIVE ESSAY thomas c. mackey In the long, hot summer of , mobs controlled the streets of Boston, Massachusetts. To intimidate the Crown’s officers, the “People,” acting out of doors, built bonfires, paraded in the streets, tore down fences, broke down windows and doors, and hung effigies of key royal officials from trees. On August , , merchant Andrew Oliver became the target of the mob’s wrath because of the rumor (later confirmed) that he had accepted the post of “Distributor of Stamps for Massachusetts.” As the mobs knew, this minor governmental position was not as harmless as its title might sound to today’s observer. Oliver was not a postman, nor were the stamps he was to distribute postage stamps. Oliver had agreed to administer the distribution of official royal paper and to collect the royal taxes on that paper. Such paper was “stamped” with the royal impression, much like the impression made today by notary publics on official documents. Such “stamps” could not be scraped off, discarded, or ignored, since they were quite literally impressed into the paper. Further and more important for the people of Boston, not only could the “stamps” not be ignored, but neither could the principle behind the stamps be ignored. Bostonians (like all the colonists living in British North America) had to pay for this official stamped paper because Parliament had decided to raise revenue for the British Empire by levying a stamp tax on the colonies. By resisting the stamp tax, one was really resisting the power and right of the British Parliament to make laws for its empire. And the easiest way to resist the stamps and to deny Parliament the precedent of paying this Stamp Act tax was to bully and intimidate any local person who agreed to administer the tax in the colonies—and Andrew Oliver had committed that sin. In colonial and Revolutionary America, mobs were not groups of men (and women) who formed for the mere excitement of destroying property and frightening people. In the th century, mobs did not act arbitrarily but rather formed with directed purpose and to political ends. Middle- and upper-middle-class persons directed and led mobs composed of dock workers, day laborers, and the generally idle of the city, many of whom had been fortified with strong drink. The Boston mob of August  was just such a mob. It was led by a secret group of merchants and “respectable” men, the Loyal Nine, who sought to stop the payment of the Stamp Act tax and to put the royal government on notice not to impose revenue acts on the local population. The mob first moved on a small house owned by Oliver near the docks; by the time the mob left the docks, nothing remained of the house. The protesters then moved on to the street in front of Oliver’s home, where they displayed an effigy of the new stamp distributor and ceremoniously beheaded the symbol, all the while throwing rocks through the house’s windows. From there the mob advanced to a nearby hill, where the crowd symbolically “stamped” on what was left of the effigy before tossing it onto a bonfire. The mob’s work, however, was not yet done. Having disposed of the effigy of Oliver, it moved back to his house. Oliver and his family fled from the building, taking refuge with a neighbor. A few of Oliver’s friends stayed in the house and barricaded the doors, but to no avail. The mob tore down the garden fencing, uprooted the garden, and, using

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the wood from the fencing, broke down the doors and the windows of the house. Frustrated at not finding Oliver (whom the mob claimed it would kill if found), the marauders took revenge on him by further destroying his house. All of Oliver’s furniture was either pilfered or broken, a particularly large mirror was destroyed, all the surviving doors and windows were removed, and even the fine wood paneling, known as wainscot, was torn out and carried off or burned. At about  p.m. that night, the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson (who was also the chief justice of the colony), joined the local sheriff, Stephen Greenleaf, in urging the mob to go home. Unfortunately, when the crowd recognized them, Hutchinson and the sheriff had to beat a hasty retreat as a shower of rocks rained down upon them. Hutchinson’s behavior had irritated the leaders of the mob; his actions made him appear, as historians Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan state, “a friend of the Stamp Act and the enemy of colonial rights.” It was thus probably only a matter of time before the mob struck at him. A few days later, on August , , after attacking customs and admiralty offices, the mob moved on to his home. He and his family barely had time to escape out of the back of their house, leaving their unfinished evening meal on the table, before the mob entered the house and started destroying it. Once again, the mob removed or broke apart the furniture; it removed the windows and doors, £ worth of sterling silver disappeared, and all of Hutchinson’s public and private papers were either destroyed or scattered. The mob’s fury continued throughout the night as it removed the house’s wainscot; dawn found the mob trying to remove the cupola from the roof. Their message of intimidation to all persons who might support either the stamps or their purpose was clearly heard by all but the most loyal to Parliament’s authority. To understand these dramatic outbursts of politically directed violence requires understanding the context of the historical times. To understand those times, it is necessary to go back a few years. In , Great Britain ended a period of warfare with France, the Seven Years’ War (as it was called in Europe) or the French and Indian War (as it was called in British North America). Like all wars, the conflict proved costly, and Britain ended the war in debt. To pay off its debt, the British wanted to cut governmental costs and to tap new sources of revenue. To limit the cost of defending settlers against native attacks in North America (Pontiac’s rebellion of early  convinced everyone of the need for British troops to be stationed in the colonies), the British implemented the Proclamation of  along the crest of the Appalachian Mountains. The British hope was to prevent or at least slow down the movement of people into the western areas and thereby reduce the costs of defending those settlers against the Natives. To provide that protection, the British estimated that , troops were needed at a cost of £, per year, and the money had to be found somewhere. In the colonies, the perception of British motives and actions was different: colonials saw the Proclamation Line and the positioning of troops to enforce it as a device to limit their economic expansion and to impose a standing army on them. While probably a good idea on paper, Britain’s Proclamation of  was bad policy, because it appeared to hem in the colonists while establishing a standing army on their western border. Instead of viewing the Line and the troops as a beneficial measure, the colonials viewed the policy as an affront to their own interests.

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A new First Lord of the Treasury, George Grenville, became prime minister in Great Britain in . He understood well the magnitude of the British war debt and the need to find new taxes and methods to pay it off. It is important to remember that at no time did Grenville or Parliament ever ask the North American colonists to pay all of Britain’s war debt. Nor did Britain ask the colonists to pay even the interest on the debt used to support the troops on the western border. Grenville and his government sought to raise revenues from other sources, not just from their North American colonies; for example, they imposed a tax on hard cider in Great Britain (which Britons strongly and successfully opposed). All that Grenville wanted was for the colonists to pay their fair share of the costs of the empire; that goal meant new taxes and better enforcement and collection of the taxes then in place. But this desire and the decisions that flowed from it changed British policy toward the colonies from a policy of “salutary neglect” to a policy of purposefully directing colonial affairs from London. To meet the reasonable needs of running the empire, Grenville fundamentally changed British policy toward its North American colonies, which, in turn, resulted in one of the key events that changed thcentury America—the Stamp Act crisis of –. Since the colonists carried a smaller tax burden than did their fellow subjects in Great Britain, raising new revenues from the colonists and tightening the collection of their taxes made sense to Grenville. Also, colonial shippers and businessmen had thrived under lax British rule and benefited from the protection that the British navy provided colonial shipping. Through successful smuggling, bribery, and fraud, many colonial traders regularly paid little or no customs duties on their economic activities. To enforce the customs regulations already in place (and start collecting more revenue due the Crown), Grenville acted to tighten compliance with the customs laws. He ordered all customs officers to take up their posts and not hire substitutes. He ordered more customs and naval patrols to cut down on smuggling activities. He urged, and Parliament passed, a bill in  entitled “An Act for the Encouragement of Officers Making Seizures” to aid customs officers in collecting the taxes. In particular, this legislation created a new vice admiralty court in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with jurisdiction over customs issues arising from all of the British North American colonies. This court proved especially threatening to the colonists because, first, the trials of accused smugglers would occur not in their traditional local courts (with local judges and juries sympathetic to the smugglers) but far away in Halifax, and, second, vice admiralty courts did not employ the common-law jury system used throughout the colonies. Instead, in vice admiralty courts, Crown-appointed judges heard the case and reached a decision on its merits. Further, if the accusation by the customs officers failed to be proven in the vice admiralty courts, the act specifically forbade merchants from bringing damage suits against the customs agents to recover the costs of defending themselves. This act went a long way toward Grenville’s goal of limiting colonial interference with the collection of imperial taxes. If tightening the customs regulations, better enforcement of the tax laws, and new courts to hear customs violations were not enough, Grenville also wanted new taxes. This desire meant that an old tax came under new scrutiny. Back in , to prevent trade in molasses with the French West Indies, Parliament had established a six-penceper-gallon duty on molasses. Molasses, liquefied sugar shipped in bulk in barrels, was needed to make rum in the distilleries of New England. Once the sugar was distilled into

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rum, the rum was then sold throughout the greater Atlantic world of Europe, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. The high tax rate in  was intended not to raise revenue but to stop trade in sugar with the French West Indies and thereby to encourage North American colonial sugar production. Unfortunately, the high tax rate only produced more smuggling of West Indies sugar into colonial ports and more opportunities for the bribery of and fraudulent dealing with the royal customs agents. Grenville understood that the six-pence rate was too high and unenforceable, so he proposed and Parliament passed new legislation, the Sugar Act of . This legislation lowered the tax on sugar by half, from six pence to three pence. By lowering the tax, Grenville actually hoped to collect more revenue, since colonial merchants would be more willing to pay a reasonable tax rate. Further, Grenville reasoned, this lower tax rate would remove the incentives to bribe and corrupt the customs officials. In addition to lowering the molasses duties, the Sugar Act of  placed new taxes on a variety of other items, such as wines (especially Madeira from Portugal), foreign (meaning French) textiles, coffee, and indigo (a blue dye). Add to this legislation the increased customs patrols and the new courts to litigate tax disputes, and Grenville believed that he was on the correct path toward meeting the financial needs of the British Empire. He estimated that the lower tax on molasses combined with the other taxes and better enforcement of the customs laws would bring the British Treasury £, per year. That figure, Grenville calculated, would provide a good income to the Crown but would not be so high as to seriously hurt the flourishing colonial trade. While the Stamp Act of , the resulting riots, and consequent developments have received the most attention (from the participants and ever since from scholars), the Sugar Act of  must be recognized as the point when British colonial policy regarding the North American colonies altered. On its face, the Sugar Act looked like just another routine trade act that Parliament had every right to impose on the colonies, but, in substance, the Sugar Act (as well as the Stamp Act) was different. With the Sugar Act, Parliament deliberately taxed the colonies to raise revenue for the empire—an action not previously undertaken by Parliament. In addition, colonials had to pay the tax, a tax dictated by Parliament and not approved by their own local colonial governments. This parliamentary action was new. It marked a turning point in imperial relations both for what it actually achieved (the Sugar Act actually raised far less revenue than Grenville had hoped it would) and for the many questions it raised about the relationship of colonies (potentially any colonies throughout Britain’s worldwide empire) to Parliament and the Crown. Britain’s Sugar Act did not seek merely to regulate commerce between the home country and its overseas colonies; it sought to raise revenue for the empire. Parliament passed another measure in  that further raised suspicions among the colonists and threatened to hurt their thriving economy. Because the colonies exported raw products and imported more expensive finished products, the colonies regularly ran a debt to British merchants. To cover their debts, many of the colonies printed their own money, but British creditors refused to accept it. In , Parliament prohibited the New England colonies from printing their own currency, and, in , at Grenville’s direction, Parliament passed the Currency Act, which prohibited all the colonies from printing their own money. This legislative action meant that hard money continued to flow out of the colonies, further weakening their economy. To the colonists, the

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Currency Act appeared to be just another device to hinder their economy and to favor that of Great Britain. But Grenville’s scheme for solving the debt problem confronting the British Empire was not yet complete. Had the American colonists been paying close attention during the debate concerning the Sugar Act, they might have noticed the th resolution offered by Grenville, which read that “towards further defraying the said Expenses, it may be proper to charge certain Stamp Duties in the said Colonies and Plantations.” Such stamp duties, defined by historians Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan as “an excise tax on various documents and articles made of paper,” had occasionally been used in Great Britain but had never been applied to the colonies. Further, while it could be argued that a molasses tax was a type of trade regulation and not really a tax to raise revenue, a stamp tax lacked that argument. Stamp taxes had one purpose, to raise revenue, and the tax could not be hidden behind the argument that it was a regulation of trade. Grenville and Parliament decided against implementing a stamp tax in , hoping that the Sugar Act might be sufficient, but that hope proved short lived. While evidence exists that Grenville made some overtures to the colonies to provide the needed monies on their own, other evidence suggests that by  Grenville had already made up his mind to implement a stamp act in the colonies. At no time in  and into  did Grenville formally ask the colonies to meet the revenue needs he expected, and at no time did he discuss a specific sum of revenue with the informal agents of the colonies in London. It is easy to understand why Grenville acted in this slippery fashion; he sought more than just revenue. Grenville sought both the tax and the precedent that Parliament could tax the colonies not merely as part of trade regulations but as part of the normal maintenance of the empire. Grenville knew that if he could establish the principle of parliamentary taxation, then future taxes could be levied more easily. By early , the colonies had become aware of the changed British policies. Colonial merchants and social elites expressed their fears of additional taxes from London and challenged Parliament’s “right” to tax for revenue-raising purposes. And the more the colonists challenged Parliament’s right to tax them (expressed to Grenville and the members of Parliament through letters, pamphlets, and the colonial agents residing in London), the more the feeling grew among the members of Parliament that the colonists needed to be reminded of their place within the British Empire. As British subjects they too had to carry their fair share of the debt burden; their days of light taxation were nearing an end. On February , , Grenville appeared before the House of Commons and reminded the House about his  resolution about the need for a stamp tax for the colonies. A short debate ensued, with only three speeches given: two in favor and one opposed. Only Col. Isaac Barré, who had served in the military in the North American colonies, spoke against the Stamp Act. Barré expressed the hope that the monies could be raised by the colonists themselves. When Charles Townshend, who would come to prominence a few years later with his own program of colonial duties, asked Barré a snide question about why it was that the “Americans, Children planted by Care” would not contribute to relieving the debt burden of the state, Barré snapped back that the Americans were hardly children and that Britain had hardly cared for them in the wilderness of America. At one point, Barré referred to the Americans as “those Sons of Liberty,” a phrase that gained him the friendship of the colonists. Grenville brought the

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formal bill to the House of Commons on February , , when, according to procedure, it received its first reading. The stamp bill received its second reading on February . Numerous colonies and colonial agents had presented petitions to the House of Commons asking the House to reconsider or postpone the bill before the second reading, but Grenville and the House refused even to read those petitions, which caused the colonists to feel unrepresented and humiliated; they did not forget the insult and the lack of responsive representation. With little fanfare, the House of Commons passed the bill on February , , voting –. On March , the House of Lords unanimously approved the bill without debate. King George III was ill when the bill reached him, so the Stamp Act received royal approval by special commission on March , . It would take effect on November , . The Stamp Act covered a wide variety of paper items that would have to be purchased from special stamp agents and paid for in sterling rather than with colonial paper money. Taxed under the act would be various documents used in court proceedings, including attorney’s licenses, which, at £ each, were the most heavily taxed item. In addition, the stamp tax applied to documents involved in clearing ships from harbors, appointing people to public office, and certifying land ownership. Even mundane items such as playing cards, dice, pamphlets, newspapers, and almanacs fell under the umbrella of the Stamp Act’s taxes, so nearly everyone in the colonies would be affected by the measure. Although the amounts of the individual taxes were not large (the colonists could have easily paid the fees and taxes), the tax stamps provided a vivid visual reminder of the power of Parliament to tax and to control the colonies. The act taxed not just formal court papers but also paper products used by all social segments, from the documents of lawyers and merchants to the newspapers, playing cards, and dice of working people. This tax would reach all and threaten all. Further, a provision of the final Stamp Act imposed a tax on documents used in courts “exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction.” While this provision was not clearly specified, many colonists worried that the British Crown might in the future establish Anglican Church bishops in the colonies. Was this Stamp Act the wedge to establish one church for all the colonies? No one knew for certain, but the act suggested it might be so. Further and more troubling still, violations of the act were left to the local royal prosecutor to prosecute either in the local common law courts or in the vice admiralty courts, away from local influences and juries. On close inspection by the colonists, the Stamp Act of  established a principle they could not tolerate—parliamentary taxation for revenue purposes—and the act threatened to establish bishops among them while potentially denying them trials by juries of peers. It is not surprising, then, that the Stamp Act set off alarm bells among colonists of all social strata. One final act of Grenville’s administration guaranteed that such was the case. All the money raised by the Stamp Act was to be spent within the colonies to support the troops on the frontier. But those troops needed more than money, so Parliament passed the Quartering Act of . This act required each colony to support British troops with provisions and barracks. Further, the troops could make use of inns and unused buildings for their quarters, at colonial expense. This act fell most heavily on New York, where the troops had their headquarters, but it applied to all the British North American colonies.

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The Quartering Act of  threatened all the colonies in another way, more than just in their pocketbooks; it threatened their right to be free from and not to support a standing army. Although the British claimed that the troops would be stationed on the frontier, the colonists feared that the British might use troops against them to force compliance with the new British taxes. In this way, then, the Quartering Act threatened the colonists’ property and their rights; coming on the heels of the Stamp Act, the Quartering Act appeared to the colonists to be part of a plan to use troops to impose parliamentary taxes on them. What Parliament and George Grenville failed to anticipate adequately was the firestorm the Stamp Act caused in the colonies. While the colonists grumbled at the Proclamation Line and the Sugar Act and while they worried about the vice admiralty courts and the tighter customs restrictions, the Stamp Act united the colonists as never before. Stamps raised legal and constitutional issues about taxation and about which level of government in the empire (colonists’ own governments or Parliament) truly possessed the “right” to tax them. Stamps raised issues about representation and whether the “virtual representation” of Parliament (where members of Parliament acted and thought in terms of the whole empire and not just of the voters who cast ballots for them) or the “actual representation” of the colonies (where representatives to legislative bodies directly represented those who elected them) formed the true basis for taxation. Unintentionally, the opposition to stamps led to the “people acting indoors” and the “people acting out of doors.” Through the spring and early summer of , colonists acted out of doors by attending parades, demonstrations, bonfires, and mass meetings and by participating in mob actions to protest the Stamp Act. Led by the “better sort” of society such as the lawyer and merchant John Hancock of Boston, these mobs adopted the name given them by Colonel Barré, “Sons of Liberty.” Up and down the coast, mobs designated a tree in each city’s center as the “Liberty Tree,” from which they hung effigies of the Stamp Tax or its agents. It was in Boston that the mobs went to the greatest and most dramatic lengths in intimidating stamp agents, customs agents, and other royal officials. As impressive as the mobs were in their intimidations and in enforcing a boycott of British goods, the people acting indoors took impressive steps, as well. In the Virginia House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry took the floor and spoke against the Stamp Act and in favor of the colonial right to self-taxation. On May  and , , Henry proposed four or five resolutions (official records and newspaper reports of the exact number disagree) in which he stated the colonial argument against the Stamp Act. Henry did not oppose taxes; in fact, he supported them and the roads and bridges and military protection that they provided. What he opposed was the fact that Parliament had imposed the Stamp Tax. As British subjects, Henry argued, colonists had the right to tax themselves through their own representatives. Virginians, like Englishmen, could not consent to an unrepresentative scheme of taxation. If Parliament could impose a tax upon them, then Virginians (and, by implication, all other colonists) did not govern themselves. Their property (taxes) could be taken from them without their consent and without their representation, and that Henry opposed. Not surprisingly, the debates in the Virginia House of Burgesses on Henry’s resolutions proved contentious, so much so that at one point the Speaker of the House stopped Henry’s speech and suggested that

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he had committed treason with his line of argument. Henry apologized and maintained his loyalty, but he did not step back from opposing the principles underlying the Stamp Act and what it represented. Newspapers picked up Henry’s resolutions, and they, in turn, pressured the colonial governments to oppose the Stamp Act. Action came on June , , when the Massachusetts legislature sent a circular letter to the other colonial governments urging them to meet in congress in New York “to consider of a general and united, dutiful, loyal and humble Representation of their Condition to His Majesty and the Parliament; and to implore relief.” In all, only nine colonies (several colonial governors refused to allow the colonial legislatures to meet to choose delegates) responded to the call for a Stamp Act Congress to meet in New York City. Twenty-seven delegates met from October  to October , , and conferred on the crisis of the stamps. While the mobs, the people acting out of doors, informally controlled the royal officials, the Stamp Act Congress, the people acting indoors, formally challenged the stamp tax and Parliament’s right to legislate for the colonies. Its members prepared a petition to the king for relief and another to Parliament urging the members to repeal the Stamp Act. Most important, the congress approved a “Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonies.” Consisting of a preamble,  grievances, and a conclusion urging repeal of the Stamp Act, this declaration clarified the colonial position. While the Congress recognized that the colonies owed “due Subordination” to Parliament and that Parliament could indeed regulate colonial trade, it denied that Parliament could levy taxes on them for raising revenue. As the third resolution succinctly put the issue, “That it is inseparately essential to the Freedom of a People, and the undoubted Right of Englishmen, that no Taxes be imposed on them, but with their own Consent, given personally, or by their Representatives.” Taxes must be free gifts to the sovereign, not taken from the colonies by parliamentary edicts. Ironically, by the time the mobs ruled Boston and before the Stamp Act Congress even met, the political situation in Britain had changed significantly. Because of a petty dispute with King George, Grenville fell from the king’s favor in July , and a new prime minister, the Marquis of Rockingham, came into power. Rockingham sympathized with the colonists and their concerns about the Stamp Act and sought to find a solution to the colonial problems, but, by that time, a solution meant finding a way to repeal the Stamp Act. More and more merchants in colonial cities were cooperating with the Sons of Liberty boycotts of British goods. Those boycotts hurt the British merchants, who, in turn, began to pressure their representatives in the House of Commons to repeal the Stamp Act. Rockingham needed to find a way to assert parliamentary authority and to abandon the stamp tax. When William Pitt, one of the most powerful members of the House of Commons, made it clear that he supported a plan to abandon internal taxes on the colonies while maintaining the right to levy external taxes that were designed to regulate trade, Rockingham saw the opportunity to put forward a plan. This distinction made no logical sense, because trade regulations were no less taxes than a Stamp Act and, therefore, if the colonists opposed stamps, then they would also have to oppose further parliamentary trade regulations since they had not directly consented to them. While lacking true substance, the internal/external division made it easier for members of Parliament to vote to repeal the Stamp Act because they could claim to be repealing not

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Parliament’s power to legislate for the colonies but only a flawed policy, the internal taxation feature of the stamps. Under pressure from British merchants, colonial merchants, mob actions, and the British military’s assessment that enforcement of the stamp tax was impossible, Parliament backed away from the stamp tax. Rockingham proposed two pieces of legislation: a repeal bill and a declaratory bill. Fundamentally, Rockingham sought to distinguish between the power to tax (which Parliament could revise to meet the changing needs of the Crown and the empire) and the constitutional duty to legislate (which Parliament could not abandon). To this end, his ministry drafted a bill to repeal the Stamp Act and a Declaratory Act, asserting Parliament’s authority to legislate for the entire empire. In part, the Declaratory Act stated that Parliament had “full power and authority to make laws and statutes” for the realm “in all cases whatsoever.” It was that last phrase, a blanket assertion of parliamentary authority and power, that the members of Parliament wanted and that the colonists came to regret in time. In the early hours of February , , after lengthy debate, the House of Commons passed the repeal bill and the Declaratory bill by a vote of –. It would not be until the middle of March  that the bills received the king’s signature and became law. Church bells rang out on both sides of the Atlantic when news of the repeal arrived. At the time, most colonists ignored the Declaratory Act, considering it simply a gesture by Parliament to maintain its dignity, but the British understood the Declaratory Act to mean that they could tax the colonies any time they wished and “in all cases whatsoever.” British colonists up and down the eastern seaboard celebrated the repeal of the hated Stamp Act. Their in-door and out-door actions had paid off—or had they? In reality, while Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, it did not yield to colonial ideas about taxation and parliamentary authority. The Declaratory Act of  reaffirmed Parliament’s commitment to govern and to tax for the entire empire. British and colonial merchants supported the repeal as it reopened trade, but the harder question of who could tax whom and when was not settled by the Stamp Act crisis of –. Colonists continued to deny Parliament’s power to tax them to raise revenue regardless of whether the tax was an internal or an external tax. Besides raising to consciousness important questions such as the problem of virtual versus actual representation and the nature and reach of the taxing power, the Stamp Act crisis succeeded in one other important area: it unified the previously disparate colonies in ways they had never experienced before. Instead of believing that each colony’s primary tie was to Great Britain, the Stamp Act crisis and the Stamp Act Congress suggested that intercolonial issues were of primary importance. In , in the face of the Townshend Duties, and later still, when opposing the Coercive Acts of , the colonies drew on the precedent of unity forged in the summer of . They looked back on the mobs that had intimidated the stamp agents and on the intercolonial petitions and learned from the experience. America’s revolution was not inevitable, and colonial separation from Great Britain did not have to occur. Britain’s need for the stamp tax and the colonies’ resistance to that taxation demonstrated that the imperial relationship was tense by . Both sides reached an appropriate solution in  wherein a repeal of the Stamp Act satisfied the colonists about the limits of Parliament’s taxation while the Declaratory Act satisfied the members of Parliament about the legitimacy and reach of their power. To prevent even more dangerous problems in the future, to prevent the violence of the mobs, and to prevent the potential separation of the colonies from Great Britain, policymakers in

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Britain and the colonies would need more solutions and answers as they faced these key challenges ahead of them in the stormy years after . The Stamp Act crisis was behind them, but the storm warning flags it raised continued to fly. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bailyn, Bernard. The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Discusses one of the key policymakers and royal officials in Boston and how he and the British responded to the changing political sentiments in that flash-point city. Bullion, John L. A Great and Necessary Measure: George Grenville and the Genesis of the Stamp Act, –. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, . Reassesses George Grenville’s rise to power and his “vision” for the Stamp Act as a way to deal with the British debt problem. Matthews, John C. “Two Men on a Tax: Richard Henry Lee, Archibald Ritchie, and the Stamp Act.” In The Old Dominion: Essays for Thomas Perkins Abernathy. Edited by Darrett B. Rutman. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, . Details how key Virginians, other than Patrick Henry, responded to the Stamp Act crisis of . Morgan, Edmund S., and Helen M. Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Still the best analysis of the origins, progress, and results of the Stamp Act crisis of –. Reid, John Phillip. Constitutional History of the American Revolution. Abr. ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, . This abridgment of Reid’s four-volume Constitutional History of the American Revolution reemphasizes the constitutional and legal issues involved with the Stamp Act. Seymour, William. The Price of Folly: British Blunders in the War of American Independence. London: Brassey’s, . Includes the Stamp Act in a list of British political and military mistakes during the era of the American Revolution. Thomas, P. D. G. British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis. London: Oxford University Press, . Surveys the British political maneuverings that swirled around the Stamp Act and its repeal. Tyler, John W. Smugglers and Patriots: Boston Merchants and the Advent of the American Revolution. Boston: Northeastern University Press, . Examines the influence of the Stamp Act and other British measures on the merchants of Boston. Weslager, C. A. The Stamp Act Congress. Newark: University of Delaware Press, . Collects the key documents of the Stamp Act Congress, such as the journal of the Congress, and provides a historical introduction to the crisis. Wood, Gordon S. The Creation of the American Republic, –. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . One of the best assessments of how the issues raised during the Stamp Act crisis of –, such as representation and taxation, came to be resolved during the American Revolution. ———. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Knopf, . Builds on the arguments of Wood’s earlier book stressing the changed world of the American Revolution, which had its origins in the crises of the s.

DANIEL DULANY (1722–1797) A prominent Maryland Tory lawyer and politician during the th century, Daniel Dulany Jr. wrote the most important of the colonial protests against the Stamp Act () and inadvertently helped to create and mobilize public opinion against the British government.

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Dulany was born on June , , in Annapolis, Maryland. His parents were Daniel Dulany Sr. and Rebecca Smith. His father, a leading member of the Maryland gentry who built a fortune through hard work and shrewd investments, sent Dulany to England to be educated. Dulany attended Eton preparatory school and Cambridge University and later studied law at the Middle Temple in London. Prior to his return to the colonies, Dulany was “called to the bar,” an honor accorded to a mere handful of those who entered the Middle Temple and almost never to a colonial. Dulany returned to Maryland in  and was admitted to the Maryland bar the following year. On September , , he married Rebecca Tasker, the daughter of a wealthy and influential family in Maryland society, a union that lasted for  years. Dulany possessed an outstanding legal mind. He was elected to the Maryland Assembly in , and, in , he was appointed to the Governor’s Council. Dulany made a phenomenal reputation for himself during – as an advocate and was considered an “oracle of the law” by his contemporaries. Yet his health grew progressively worse, and he was forced to abandon his legal practice and go to England in  to recover. Shortly after his return to Maryland on July , , he became enmeshed in one of the most important episodes of the colonial era, the Stamp Act crisis. In May , the British Parliament decided that it had the right to tax the colonies, which led to the passage of the Stamp Act the following year. Colonial protest literature appeared immediately, and none was as influential as Dulany’s Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes in the British Colonies, for the Purpose of raising a Revenue, by Act of Parliament (). Dulany argued that the British did not possess the right to tax the colonies because the Americans were not represented in Parliament. “It is an essential principle of the English constitution,” he wrote, “that the subject shall not be taxed without his consent.” Unlike other writers, Dulany did not advocate American representation in Parliament; rather, he sought to delineate the constitutional boundaries of authority between Parliament and colonial legislatures. Dulany did not assert that Parliament lacked any authority over the colonies. He made the distinction between taxation (raising revenue) and legislation (making laws) and upheld Parliament’s right to legislate for the colonies on the basis of its sovereignty over the whole empire. Dulany’s pamphlet became a bestseller, and his arguments were employed by British politician William Pitt, the Elder to help secure the repeal of the Stamp Act in early . Dulany’s protest inadvertently helped to put the colonies on the road to revolution. Despite his defense of colonial rights during the Stamp Act crisis, Dulany ended up as a neutral with Loyalist tendencies during the American Revolution. In , he wrote a series of letters defending parliamentary and royal prerogatives in the increasingly restless colonies. Dulany considered the First Continental Congress’s decision to raise troops against England in  to be a mistake, and, during the war, he defended the right of Loyalists to “judg[e] freely, and of acting freely according to [their] own Judgment.” His notoriety served him well. Unlike other Tories in Maryland, Dulany was allowed to sit out the Revolution at his country home rather than being banished from the colony. With his substantial legal talents, Dulany might have played a significant role at the Constitutional Convention in  or in the federal judiciary in the early years of the republic. Yet, he eschewed appointed and elected offices in his later life, as he preferred

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private practice to public service in a government of which he did not approve. Dulany spent his last years as a legal consultant, an expert to whom other lawyers went for advice and counsel because of his legal brilliance. He died on March , , in Baltimore. As one of his legal contemporaries noted, “even amongst such men as Fox, Pitt, and Sheridan, he had not found his superior.”

andrew l. johns

THOMAS HUTCHINSON (1711–1780) Thomas Hutchinson was the colonial governor of Massachusetts at the outbreak of the American Revolution. Between  and , he came to symbolize those loyal to Britain in Massachusetts. Hutchinson was born on September , , in Boston, into a prominent family, a descendant of the New England religious leader Anne Hutchinson. After graduating from Harvard College in  and receiving his master’s degree in , he began what became a lifelong study of the history of New England. Hutchinson began his political career in  when he was elected a selectman of Boston and a member of the General Court (House of Representatives) of Massachusetts. (He served as speaker from  to .) Hutchinson failed to win reelection in . Embraced by the upper classes of Massachusetts and rejected by the masses for his advocacy of “hard money,” he aligned himself politically with the conservatives and was immediately chosen to be a member of the Governor’s Council. While remaining a council member until , Hutchinson was appointed a delegate to the Albany Congress in , lieutenant governor in , chief justice in , acting governor in , and royal governor in . Though he considered the Stamp Act unwise, after it was announced, Hutchinson favored strict enforcement. The unpopularity of his position caused a patriot mob to sack his mansion in . The incident led to a further hardening of his distrust of the “common masses” and confirmed his belief in the need to enforce parliamentary law. The result was that he became ever more deeply involved in an escalating series of confrontations with patriot leaders Samuel Adams and James Otis, which they shrewdly used to their advantage in turning the people of Massachusetts against Hutchinson and British colonial rule. Hutchinson’s support for punishing the colony to stifle political opposition to Parliament was unequivocally confirmed when letters he had written to British friends were obtained by Benjamin Franklin in England and published in the Boston press. The incident served to further estrange him from the people of Massachusetts and clouded his political judgment. In , he refused to allow ships laden with taxed tea to clear Boston harbor until they had unloaded their cargo. It was his last executive decree and his greatest mistake. Angry colonists disguised as Indians boarded the ships and threw the tea into Boston harbor to protest what they perceived as an unfairly levied tax. The incident became known as the Boston Tea Party. Efforts by Hutchinson to stymie revolutionary activity had actually encouraged it. In , he was replaced as colonial governor by Gen. Thomas Gage. The situation deteriorated so rapidly in Massachusetts later that year that Hutchinson decided to move

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temporarily to England. He was forced by the American Revolution to spend the rest of his life away from his beloved New England. Before his death on June , , he wrote the third volume of The History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. It was published by his grandson in .

steven g. o’brien SONS OF LIBERTY MOVEMENT With the passage, in , of the Stamp Act and the Navigation Acts, which taxed manufactured goods entering the American colonies, the popularity of Whig ideology (a belief in the sanctity of private property and in government by representatives of the people) in the colonies led to impassioned written attacks on the taxes. Letters began to circulate from Committees of Correspondence urging boycotts of British goods and other forms of resistance, and, from the ranks of the committees, wealthy merchants John Hancock and Samuel Adams formed the Sons of Liberty in Boston in . Adams managed to win the allegiance of two Boston gangs that carried out violent terrorism for the organization. The name came from a speech on the Stamp Act by Isaac Barré, a member of Parliament, in which he referred to the colonists as “sons of liberty.” The Sons of Liberty engaged in direct action against British rule, more or less covertly. Most of the membership consisted of native-born American white men of the gentry and “middling sort,” most of them in the northern colonies. The Sons of Liberty are surrounded to the present day by enormous quantities of folklore and antiquarian fiction. Nevertheless, despite the claims of genealogists and moviemakers, it is clear that the sons were a secret organization meeting at night, likely in the Green Dragon Tavern or some other safe place rather than, as legend has it, beneath the “liberty tree.” They were violent and destructive: the New York chapter, led by Alexander McDougall and John Lamb, destroyed the carriage of acting governor Cadwallader Colden in  and later, on January , , stole and burned  boxes of parchment and stamped paper to protest the Stamp Act. That most of this terrorism went to benefit not the gang members who acted but the merchants and landowners who avoided taxes is an irony lost in most accounts of the sons. The Sons of Liberty formally disbanded in  after the Stamp Act was repealed. They then reorganized in  to battle the hated Townshend Acts, duties on such manufactured goods as paper, glass, and paint. Lord Frederick North, who became prime minister of Great Britain in , agreed to repeal the Townshend Acts but kept a reduced tax on tea. This led to a series of actions against tea drinking in America. In , the Sons of Liberty organized the Boston Tea Party, in which they blackened their faces and seized a British ship, dumping its load of  chests of green tea into the Boston harbor. Samples of the tea, recovered from the beaches, remain to this day in museum collections. Although Americans did not cease drinking tea, this vandalism remains the best-known action of the Sons of Liberty. Throughout the Revolutionary period, the Sons of Liberty continued to fight, eventually disbanding in  with the end of the war. In later years, the original Sons and their descendants became national heroes. During the bicentennial of the American Revolution, in the s, discussion and reenactment of the actions of the Sons brought them back into the public eye. They have

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also figured in endless historical fiction, such as Esther Forbes’s prizewinning Johnny Tremain, and even in such science fiction as Larry Niven’s A Gift from Earth, where they are the “Sons of Earth.” At present, the Sons of Liberty are seen as patriots and liberators, rather than as the terrorists and stooges for the merchant elite of Boston that they may have seemed at the time of the Revolution. A right-wing group calling itself by the same name is today active in the antigovernment, pro-gun, and privacy rights movements.

jim comer STAMP ACT CONGRESS (1765) The Stamp Act Congress met in New York City in  to discuss the Stamp Act, which required that stamps be placed on newspapers, legal and commercial papers, playing cards, almanacs, and other paper items. The Stamp Act’s passage caused a wave of protests and demonstrations throughout the  colonies. Following Great Britain’s victory, in , in the Seven Years’ War (known in North America as the French and Indian War), the British government owed vast sums of money to creditors who had loaned the funds necessary to achieve Britain’s triumph over France. Prime Minister George Grenville hoped to make the American colonists pick up their share of the tax burden, and Parliament responded by passing the Sugar Act in  and the Stamp Act of . The Sugar Act imposed taxes on Madeira wine and molasses, while the Stamp Act required that stamps be placed on newspapers, legal and commercial papers, playing cards, almanacs, and other paper items. In , the Massachusetts House of Representatives issued a call for all of the colonies to send delegates to New York City to attend a Stamp Act Congress. The Congress convened on October , , and lasted until October . It was attended by  delegates from nine colonies; Georgia, Virginia, New Hampshire, and North Carolina did not send delegates. The delegates composed a list of grievances and then petitioned King George III and Parliament to repeal the hated Stamp Act. The Stamp Act Congress maintained that Parliament had no right to tax the American colonists, since taxation was based on parliamentary representation and the  colonies had no representatives in Parliament. “No taxation without representation” became the rallying cry for the anti–Stamp Tax movement. Although the Stamp Act was repealed in , Parliament paid little attention to the demands of the colonists when making its decision. The Stamp Act Congress marked the beginnings of cooperation among the  colonies that ultimately led to a full movement for independence.

steven strom STAMP ACT RIOTS (1765) In response to the passage of the Stamp Act by the British Parliament, in , American colonists organized demonstrations to protest the act’s enactment. Throughout the late summer and fall of , mobs launched a series of riots in major colonial cities.

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Few British acts aroused as much colonial resentment as the Stamp Act of 1765, as revealed in this print showing colonists making a tax collector’s life miserable. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

The first series of Stamp Act riots (and the most shocking) occurred in Boston in August. There, local gangs, who had probably been organized by radical leader Samuel Adams, attacked the home and office of stamp commissioner Andrew Oliver on the night of August . In addition to targeting several other colonial officials whom the mob suspected of supporting the Stamp Act, the colonists burned an effigy of Oliver and forced him to resign his commission. This riot was followed by a more serious one on the night of August , when a mob completely demolished the home of Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson. Although Hutchinson had written his superiors in London against the Stamp Act, he publicly announced that the colonists must comply with the legislation once it had been passed, thus prompting the attack on his house. Similar riots occurred throughout the colonies, particularly in New York City, as mobs forced stamp commissioners to resign their offices.

DOCUMENT: RESOLUTIONS OF THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS, 1765 In , the British enacted the Stamp Act, which required the use of stamped paper for newspapers and a variety of other legal and commercial papers. The act also vested enforcement authority in courts of admiralty, which operated without juries. After a number of states protested, representatives from nine of them (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South Carolina) met in New York at what became known as the Stamp Act Congress. The colonists drew up  resolutions that opposed the British actions and called for their repeal.

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Although the colonial protests eventually brought about the repeal of the Stamp Act, Parliament reaffirmed its authority in the Declaratory Act and subsequently enacted a wide variety of taxes in the colonies with the Townshend Acts (). Ultimately, the colonists’ denial of parliamentary authority and their outrage over the abuses of their rights would lead to the outbreak of the American Revolution. (Journal of the First Congress of the American Colonies, in Opposition to the Tyrannical Acts of the British Parliament. Held at New York, October ,  [New York, ], pp. –.) The Congress upon mature deliberation, agreed to the following declarations of the rights and grievances of the colonists in America: The members of this Congress, sincerely devoted, with the warmest sentiments of affection and duty to His Majesty’s Person and Government, inviolably attached to the present happy establishment of the Protestant succession, and with minds deeply impressed by a sense of the present and impending misfortunes of the British colonies on this continent; having considered as maturely as time will permit the circumstances of the said colonies, esteem it our indispensable duty to make the following declarations of our humble opinion, respecting the most essential rights and liberties Of the colonists, and of the grievances under which they labour, by reason of several late Acts of Parliament. I. That His Majesty’s subjects in these colonies, owe the same allegiance to the Crown of Great-Britain, that is owing from his subjects born within the realm, and all due subordination to that august body the Parliament of Great Britain. II. That His Majesty’s liege subjects in these colonies, are entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great-Britain. III. That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives. IV. That the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons in Great-Britain. V. That the only representatives of the people of these colonies, are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures. VI. That all supplies to the Crown, being free gifts of the people, it is unreasonable and inconsistent with the principles and spirit of the British Constitution, for the people of Great-Britain to grant to His Majesty the property of the colonists. VII. That trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of every British subject in these colonies. VIII. That the late Act of Parliament, entitled, An Act for granting and applying certain Stamp Duties, and other Duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, etc., by imposing taxes on the inhabitants of these colonies, and the said Act, and several other Acts, by extending the jurisdiction of the courts of Admiralty beyond its ancient limits, have a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonists. IX. That the duties imposed by several late Acts of Parliament, from the peculiar circumstances of these colonies, will be extremely burthensome and grievous; and from the scarcity of specie, the payment of them absolutely impracticable.

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X. That as the profits of the trade of these colonies ultimately center in Great-Britain, to pay for the manufactures which they are obliged to take from thence, they eventually contribute very largely to all supplies granted there to the Crown. XI. That the restrictions imposed by several late Acts of Parliament, on the trade of these colonies, will render them unable to purchase the manufactures of GreatBritain. XII. That the increase, prosperity, and happiness of these colonies, depend on the full and free enjoyment of their rights and liberties, and an intercourse with Great-Britain mutually affectionate and advantageous. XIII. That it is the right of the British subjects in these colonies, to petition the King, Or either House of Parliament. Lastly, That it is the indispensable duty of these colonies, to the best of sovereigns, to the mother country, and to themselves, to endeavour by a loyal and dutiful address to his Majesty, and humble applications to both Houses of Parliament, to procure the repeal of the Act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, of all clauses of any other Acts of Parliament, whereby the jurisdiction of the Admiralty is extended as aforesaid, and of the other late Acts for the restriction of American commerce.

DOCUMENT: VIRGINIA STAMP ACT RESOLUTIONS, 1765 Proposed by Patrick Henry in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions were a forceful statement against the Stamp Act and in support of colonists’ rights as Englishmen. Although the House rejected some of Henry’s more radical resolutions, it adopted the ones that appear below on May , , and sent them to the British Parliament. They were also widely published around the American colonies and served as a rallying point for colonial protests. (S. E. Morison, ed., Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution [Oxford, ], pp. –.) Resolved, that the first adventurers and settlers of His Majesty’s colony and dominion of Virginia brought with them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other His Majesty’s subjects since inhabiting in this His Majesty’s said colony, all the liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Britain. Resolved, that by two royal charters, granted by King James I, the colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to all liberties, privileges, and immunities of denizens and natural subjects to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the Realm of England. Resolved, that the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, or the easiest method of raising them, and must themselves be affected by every tax laid on the people, is the only security against a burdensome taxation, and the dis-

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tinguishing characteristic of British freedom, without which the ancient constitution cannot exist. Resolved, that His Majesty’s liege people of this his most ancient and loyal colony have without interruption enjoyed the inestimable right of being governed by such laws, respecting their internal policy and taxation, as are derived from their own consent, with the approbation of their sovereign, or his substitute; and that the same has never been forfeited or yielded up, but has been constantly recognized by the kings and people of Great Britain.

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6 The Boston Tea Party, 1773

INTRODUCTION The Boston Tea Party, held on December , , was an outlandish act of vandalism that had at its base colonists’ objection to taxation imposed for the purpose of raising revenue without the assent of the colonial assemblies. Its roots go back to the Stamp Act of , which provoked enough protest in the colonies to bring about the act’s repeal the following year. In , Parliament passed the Townshend Duties, which were revenue taxes imposed on imports of certain commonly used commodities, such as glass, lead, paint, and tea. These duties were designed to take advantage of an apparent American willingness to pay external taxes (taxes on imports from outside the colonies), as opposed to internal taxes (such as the taxes provided for in the Stamp Act). Moreover, Charles Townshend, the chancellor of the exchequer and the person for whom the duties were named, was aware of the prevalence of colonial smuggling. As a firm believer in Parliamentary authority over the colonies, he oversaw the establishment of a board of customs commissioners in America, whose task it was to put an end to smuggling. This board was headquartered in Boston and was most effective there, to the dismay of the local merchants. Americans in general and Boston merchants in particular did not like the Townshend Duties, but they resorted to less violence than they had with the Stamp Act, employing instead a policy of nonimportation of the affected products. Boston merchants took the lead in organizing the boycott. They were later joined by New York and Philadelphia traders and, still later, those from more southern cities and ports. Fashion and furniture fads suddenly became American, and English luxuries were definitely out of style. Townshend himself died in September  and was replaced by Lord North. Meanwhile, British merchants complained, and, in early , all the duties, except that on tea, were repealed. By this time, Lord North had become prime minister, a post he would hold throughout the s. Americans were upset about taxation for revenue because: . If Parliament were given the right to tax the colonies for revenue, unrepresented American taxpayers would be discriminated against in favor of British taxpayers who were represented. . Americans realized that one objective of revenue taxation was to raise money to pay colonial officials and thereby take these officials out of the control of the colonial assemblies, which had become accustomed to paying them. To

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Bostonians, dressed as Mohawk Indians, throw East India Company tea into the harbor in December 1773. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

the assemblies, this represented the surrendering of a considerable amount of authority—the exclusive right to tax Americans and allocate the receipts. All of this boiled down to the fundamental belief in the ancient British constitutional principle of “no taxation without representation.” The British argument that the colonists were indeed represented in Parliament through the notion of “virtual representation,” widely discussed at the time of the Stamp Act, found little acceptance among Americans. In , the year of the repeal of most of the Townshend Acts, British-colonial relations took another tumble with the Boston Massacre, as the colonial propagandists termed it. In this incident, British authorities in Boston sent armed troops to the customs house to disperse a group of colonists who were harassing customs officials. Shots were fired, and five Bostonians were killed in the melee. John Adams, already a prominent colonial leader, defended the responsible troops, arguing that they had fired only under extreme duress. His defense was effective, and the troops were given light penalties. Meanwhile, John Adams’s cousin, Sam Adams, soon to become the leading propagandist for the colonies, was distributing his pamphlet on the incident under the title “Innocent Blood Crying to God from the Streets of Boston.” Born in , Sam Adams attended Harvard and failed in several private business ventures, but he was widely read in the political theory of the day. He intensely supported the democratic cause, hated any form of aristocratic privilege, and was the first

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to organize the political machinery needed to establish democracy in practice. He felt strongly that the liberties of the colonies could be preserved only through the force of an aroused public opinion and set about achieving that by encouraging open discussion of political issues and British policy, organizing Committees of Correspondence to allow for intracolonial communication, and writing countless letters, pamphlets, and newspaper articles. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and, after the war, he served as lieutenant governor and then governor of Massachusetts. Personally, he was unkempt and unattractive and suffered from a form of palsy that made his hands tremble all the time. Despite the unpleasantness caused by the Boston Massacre, the years between  and  saw a lull in active colonial opposition to British policies. Trade had revived after a postwar slump in the mid-s, and, in the colonies distant from Massachusetts, the massacre had less impact than it did in Boston. Smuggling was still possible for the discreet, New England fishing and shipbuilding prospered, and there was dissension between merchants and radicals, as merchants lost their zeal for reform as their profit margins increased. Still, the radical agitators did enough to remind Britain that not all was forgiven and forgotten. The boycott of English tea continued with considerable effectiveness as a protest against parliamentary authority. In , a group of unidentified colonists set fire to a grounded British ship, the Gaspee, off the Rhode Island coast, and, throughout, the irrepressible Sam Adams continued to organize Committees of Correspondence, while, in Virginia, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson urged their legislators to organize intercolonial Committees of Correspondence. The relative calm was suddenly broken in  by Parliament’s passage of the Tea Act and the response in Boston to that act—the Boston Tea Party. The Tea Act was expressly designed to aid the debt-ridden East India Company, a leading importer of tea, which at that time had lots of unsold tea but no money. The Tea Act promised to reverse that situation by removing the normal English duties on all tea imported by the East India Company. With these duties removed, the company could sell its tea in America at a lower price than other tea companies could and, logically, develop a monopoly on the American tea market. While this did indeed mean cheaper tea for the colonists, they objected for three reasons: . Since the East India Company worked with only a select group of merchants in America, those merchants who had contracts with other companies felt they were victims of discrimination. . Without the need to pay duties, the East India Company could even undersell tea, and there was a lot of it, that had been smuggled into America. . Most important, colonists feared that if Parliament could grant the East India Company a monopoly in tea, what would prevent it from granting other monopolies for other commodities at its will? In many ports, mobs led by agitators merely prevented East India Tea from being unloaded or sold, but, in Boston, on the night of December , , a group of about  men, loosely disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded three British ships in Boston

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Harbor and threw overboard some £, worth of tea. Though this was clearly destruction of private property, the local government condoned the act, and no one tried to apprehend the “Indians.” But, to British public opinion (and to Parliament), this was an outrageous incident that showed the colonists in their true colors, and it brought a loud outcry from the House of Commons along with demands that Massachusetts be punished and that the colonists be shown once and for all where real authority lay. Within a short time, Parliament passed four punitive measures: . The Boston Port Act, which closed Boston’s harbor to all commerce until the East India Company was reimbursed for its lost tea. . The Massachusetts Government Act, which nullified the liberal  Massachusetts charter that had established the form of local government in that colony. Under the new act, town meetings were forbidden without the consent of the governor, and members of the upper house of the Massachusetts assembly were to be appointed by the governor and no longer elected. . The Administration of Justice Act, which provided that British officials accused of capital crimes committed while performing their duties could not be tried in Massachusetts but had to be sent back to Britain or to another colony to stand trial. . The Quartering Act, which applied to all colonies and required them to provide adequate housing in private residences, if necessary, for resident British troops within  hours after their arrival, without compensation to the property owner. To these was added an act that was not intended to be punitive in nature but that was so interpreted by the colonists: the Quebec Act, which administratively attached the whole Great Lakes region to the province of Quebec, thus making the Proclamation of  permanent and nullifying many colonial land claims. The act also recognized certain features of French law for Quebec and granted complete toleration to all Catholics. This series of acts was all the agitators needed. They quickly made the Quebec Act seem like a plot to Romanize the colonists, something that aroused the deep-seated prejudices of American Protestants. Furthermore, the agitators readily created the believable impression that the Quebec Act was meant to hem in the colonies and to cut off their growth. With good reason, colonists quickly labeled the acts the Intolerable Acts. To make sure Massachusetts knuckled under, the British sent Gen. Thomas Gage and four regiments of redcoats to the colony, with Gage as governor and the troops as a kind of palace guard. Gage had long been a strong believer in Britain’s authority over colonial affairs. He had been in the colonies off and on for nearly  years, and from  he had served as commander in chief for North America, with large responsibilities and frequent contact with London authorities. In , he wrote, “The Colonists are taking great steps toward Independence; it concerns Great Britain by a speedy and spirited conduct to show them that these colonies are British colonies dependent on her and that they are not independent states.” In , somewhat more bluntly, Gage wrote, “My private opinion is that America is a mere bully, from one end to the other, and the

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Bostonians by far the greatest bullies, and I think you will find them so upon trial.” And, by , the year of the Intolerable Acts, Gage had become a real hawk: “If you will resist and not yield, that resistance should be effective at the beginning. If you think ten thousand men sufficient, send twenty, if one million pounds is thought enough, give two, [and] you will save both blood and treasure in the end.” Other British officials had similarly low opinions of the colonists. A Boston customs official, Henry Hulton, wrote in : “They [the colonists] are a most rude, depraved, degenerate race, and it is a mortification to us that they speak English and can trace themselves from that stock.” The American response to the Intolerable Acts was to convene the First Continental Congress, at Carpenter’s Hall, in Philadelphia, on September , . A total of  delegates from  colonies attended, with only Georgia unrepresented. The most important practical achievement of the Congress was to form a group called the Continental Association to impose a complete ban on the importation of British products unless Parliament repealed the Intolerable Acts by December . If the impasse continued after the imposition of nonimportation, then nonexportation to Britain would be put in place September , , although everyone hoped that the British would come to terms before that time. The Congress spent a great deal of time discussing the issue of authority over the colonies but passed only two acts of a revolutionary nature. One was to advise the people of Massachusetts, hard hit by the Intolerable Acts, to form their own government and to pay no attention to Governor Gage, and the other advised all colonists to arm themselves and to take steps to organize militias free of royal authority.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY henry e. mattox In Boston, Massachusetts, on the nearly moonless night of December , , some  men crudely disguised as Indians mounted a demonstration against British authority that had far-reaching consequences. The incident, lasting less than three hours, marked the beginning of the end of the American colonies’ dispute with the Crown. Watched by numerous interested onlookers, the group raided three merchant ships docked in Boston Harbor. Seizing  chests of a commodity on which duties levied by the Parliament in London were coming due, they split open the containers and heaved their contents overboard. When the anonymous members of the raiding party had completed their work and had returned to their homes, virtually nothing remained of the  tons of bulk tea contained in the ships’ holds. The despised product now clogged the shallow tidal waters of the harbor, ruined and useless for both consumption and taxation. It was Boston’s famed salt-water Tea Party. Although the raiders avoided harming anyone or damaging the ships, their depredations cost the owners of the tea the substantial sum of nearly £,. Even more important, the action signaled that the collection of the duty on the imported product required by the government in London would not be possible. The exact number of individuals involved and their identities remain uncertain to this day. Estimates of the number of participants range from  to as high as , with Paul Revere the only well-known name cited in lists of participants. Coming after close

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to three years of relative calm in relations between Great Britain and its  North American colonies, the Boston Tea Party initiated a series of actions and counteractions that led soon to an irrevocable breach. Armed clashes between American militiamen and British regulars lay only  months in the future. As complicated as a close study reveals the parliamentary maneuverings and financial details leading to the Boston Tea Party to be, the origins of the episode can be stated simply: the British government wished to rescue from impending bankruptcy the private-sector East India Company, while at the same time confirming Parliament’s taxation authority over the colonies. Given that the American colonists in recent years had developed an avid taste for tea and that the company had  million pounds of unsold tea in its London warehouses, the required course of action seemed evident. Enacted by Parliament on May , , the Tea Act in effect gave the East India Company a monopoly on the sale to the colonies of the commodity. By authorizing the company to name consignees in the colonies, the measure shunted aside the dozens of importers currently involved in the trade. Those favored few chosen to receive consignments stood to receive a  percent commission on sales; the arrangement required each to deposit immediately one-eighth of the value of his shipment and to make a final settlement with the company within two months of taking delivery of the tea. In addition, the act lifted duties on tea landed in Britain destined for North America, retaining only the three-pence-per pound tax on tea left over from the Townshend Duties of . These duties, designed as a revenue measure by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend, were imposed on colonial imports of glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea. The measure encountered immediate, widespread opposition in the colonies, leading in  to their repeal—with the exception of the levy on tea, which was retained as a token of parliamentary authority over the colonies. The proposed cost formula would lower the price of tea in the colonies, thereby undercutting the smugglers who had captured much of the American market with tea brought in illegally from Dutch sources. The popular Bohea variety was to sell for two shillings a pound, less than the current smuggled price, which was seven pence higher. This would constitute an inducement, London expected, for the colonies to pay the duty, despite continuing objections to taxation imposed by the distant London government. Lower prices on tea availed the authorities nothing, however; the colonists reacted negatively and emphatically, if not always for the same reasons. Committees of Correspondence, the first of which had been organized in Boston the previous year at the behest of patriot leader Samuel Adams, spread the word to oppose tea imports. The Sons of Liberty, a radical, sometimes violent organization dating back to Stamp Act protests in , vehemently opposed the act. Not only did large numbers of politically aware colonists object to what they interpreted as another instance of taxation without representation, artfully introduced as cheaper tea, but numerous commercial tea importers, including those who were not above a bit of smuggling, saw their livelihoods threatened. Still further, the monopoly aspect of the Tea Act resulted in the company’s consigning the product to unpopular diehard loyalist Tory merchants, notably, in Boston, the relatives and friends of Governor Thomas Hutchinson. The Boston-born Massachusetts governor, able in many respects but more British than the British, opposed the colony’s patriot element. He, like the government in London, underestimated the extent of the increasing opposition to the terms of the act.

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Widespread protest developed swiftly, and not just in Massachusetts. The East India Company named consignees in New York and Philadelphia, noted as centers of the illicit trade in tea, and in Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina, in addition to Boston. The company dispatched substantial shipments to all four ports. In the first three cities named, patriot factions held public protest meetings, warning, in sometimes violent terms, the designated Tory importers and shippers involved that they would be enemies of their country if they brought in the taxable tea. By the beginning of December, these admonitions had brought the resignation of the consignees in New York and Philadelphia; the ships that transported the tea to those ports eventually returned to London. In Charles Town, after protracted negotiations, the shippers landed the tea, but, in the absence of consignees, who had resigned, they had to store the chests in a warehouse unsold. The scene developed differently in Boston. There one found in direct conflict the stubborn Governor Hutchinson and the equally inflexible Adams, a Harvard-educated lawyer who, after a record of failure in virtually every endeavor, now devoted himself effectively to agitating against continued British rule. In early November, opponents of the Tea Act demanded of the Boston consignees (who included two of Hutchinson’s sons and one son’s father-in-law) that they abandon their roles as agents for the company, but to no avail. Rioters thereupon attacked and damaged the warehouse of one of the consignees, Richard Clarke. Two days later, more than , persons attended a town meeting in Faneuil Hall at which they repeated the call for resignation; the consignees again refused. On November , two committees, one chaired by John Hancock, called once more upon the consignees and asked them to resign. Again, they refused. Protests continued. On November , a street mob smashed windows at the home of the luckless Clarke. At the end of the month, a town meeting overflowed Faneuil Hall and had to move to the more capacious Old South Church (or Meeting House); this mass meeting adopted a resolution that the tea not be landed nor duty paid, calling for it to be returned to England in the same vessels that had brought it. John Singleton Copley, the artist, then attempted to mediate between patriot leaders and his father-inlaw, Clarke; he, too, failed to get anywhere. Three ships loaded with East India Company tea heightened the crisis when they arrived at Boston, the Dartmouth at the end of November, followed by the Eleanor and the Beaver in early December. (A fourth tea vessel, the brig William, ran aground at Cape Cod; one of the Boston consignees had its cargo of  chests transported overland to safety at the Castle William army post, where it played no role in the Tea Party.) By this time, the consignees had found it expedient to flee the city, but they still refused to quit, unlike the designated importers in the other three tea ports. Governor Hutchinson prudently repaired to his country home on Milton Hill, outside Boston. Also unlike the situation elsewhere, the ships in Boston Harbor loaded with tea did not have the option of turning around and going back to England in the face of local opposition; the governor insisted on following the letter of the law, which required payment of the duty before the ships could receive port clearance and set sail. On December , leaders of the largest meeting ever held in Boston, including Adams, called for one of the owners of the Dartmouth, Francis Rotch, to apply for port authority clearance to take his ship and tea cargo back to England. The following day, a reluctant Rotch, accompanied by Adams and other protest leaders, approached port officials, only to

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receive an official refusal. Two days later, a reconvened mass meeting, again held at Old South Church in a charged atmosphere, dispatched Rotch to seek from the governor himself permission for his vessel to leave Boston Harbor for England (according to regulations, the duty on the Dartmouth’s tea had to be paid the following day, the th). Late that afternoon, he returned to report to the assembly that Hutchinson had flatly refused the necessary approval. At that point Adams exclaimed, “This meeting can do nothing more to save the country!” The huge throng broke up, to the unexpected sound of Indian war whoops in the galleries and outside the doors of the meeting house. The “Mohawks” headed in three prearranged and well-organized groups for Griffin’s Wharf and the three tea ships, accompanied by a body of spectators that eventually numbered several thousand. By  p.m., the fateful Boston Tea Party, an action in direct defiance of British rule in the colonies, was under way. Somewhat inexplicably, none of the British troops stationed just outside Boston attempted to intervene, nor did the determined but sensibly cautious Governor Hutchinson. There can be little question as to the importance of the Boston Tea Party in the countdown to the Revolution; virtually all historians of the era have remarked on its paramount significance as the spark that set off the powder train of events that turned the colonies from dissatisfaction and resistance to outright opposition and revolution. The action of the “Mohawks” in Boston Harbor presented the most direct and tumultuous challenge yet to British imperial authority in the increasingly troubled relationship between the mother country and its  colonies, far more than the Stamp Act or Townshend Duties disputes of the s or the violent incident in  known as the Boston Massacre. Colonists of all persuasions, the British government, and the English people alike perceived the Tea Party as the crisis that would precipitate a decision on whether the North American provinces would remain British colonies or would break away to become independent, separate states. Viewed from the colonists’ perspective, Boston’s strong stand had the immediate effect of dramatizing radicals’ claims that the duty on tea represented a conspiracy to compel recognition of Parliament’s powers of taxation. The Boston patriots’ action stiffened the spines of other tea tax resisters, and, as the news of their action spread, by early  opposition to the tax had spread to all corners of the colonies. The example in Massachusetts overcame the lethargy that had beset radicals to this point elsewhere in the colonies, especially on the question of paying Parliament’s impost on imported tea. Before the year ended, virtually every colony had been the site of violent protest against dutiable tea. From London’s standpoint, of course, the crisis presented quite another aspect. Given an extraordinary degree of patience, good will, and foresight, the ministry of Lord Frederick North might have turned the raid, an unusually destructive action among the responses of the several colonies directly affected by the Tea Act, against the patriots in Boston. Many colonial merchants—and not only Tory loyalists—condemned the destruction of private property; Benjamin Franklin, then a colonial agent in London, suggested that Boston might prudently pay for the tea. Such a turn of events did not come about, however; the Crown, while adopting the minimum response it thought appropriate (with no concessions on the tax on tea), took somewhat unexpectedly severe action. When word of the Boston Tea Party reached

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London, a month after the event, the news affronted much of the public and most members of Parliament, as well as King George III. In March , the prime minister announced that Boston and Massachusetts alone would be penalized. Despite the expression of unacceptable doctrines elsewhere in the colonies, North said, only at Boston had violence taken place, and, even though the policy would affect those innocent of transgressions, a principle of British law made communities answer for public crimes committed with such impunity. Parliament’s sanctions began with the Boston Port Bill, which passed both Houses at the end of March after considerable debate on details and nuances but little basic opposition; it received the king’s formal assent on March . This measure closed Boston Harbor, effective June , until the East India Company received compensation for its losses. A ministerial spokesman termed the bill a “coercive” measure adopted to deal with an act of rebellion, hence the appellation “Coercive Acts” for this and the other acts that followed in short order. In mid-April, the North government made known other portions of its policy toward the recalcitrant New England colony. It introduced the Massachusetts Government Bill, designed to negate the long-standing elective nature of Massachusetts’s -member Council by empowering the governor to appoint council members, judges, and sheriffs. That act also required that the governor’s permission be obtained before town meetings could be held. Another measure, the Massachusetts Justice Act, provided for the trial in England, not locally, of Crown officials accused of a crime committed in the line of duty. Finally, the Secretary at War, Lord Barrington, on April  introduced a bill transferring billeting authority from local magistrates to the royal governor. After extended and sometimes heated debate, all three measures passed in Parliament with substantial majorities and received royal assent at the beginning of June. Also in April, Thomas Gage, the commanding general in North America, departed for Massachusetts with four regiments of reinforcements. In mid-May, he took over the additional duties of acting governor of the colony. Hutchinson departed for England on June , never to return to America. Clearly, London designed the “Intolerable Acts,” as the colonists termed the new laws, to punish and isolate one colony. In June, Parliament adopted yet another measure, the Quebec Act, that served further to aggravate relations with the colonies. Although intended to focus on the situation of the French in that far northern area and a reform long under consideration, it placed within the boundaries of Quebec lands on which Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Connecticut had claims, and the act’s implementation soon placed restrictions on the sale of lands not yet formally granted to colonists. The measure also confirmed French law and the position of Roman Catholics in the province. Americans viewed these provisions as further proof of British designs on their freedom. Massachusetts and the other colonies reacted quickly, even before the totality of Parliament’s actions became evident. As soon as the terms of the Port Bill were known, Adams, Hancock, and other leaders convened Committees of Correspondence in Boston and surrounding towns to condemn the measure. They sent a circular letter to the other colonies calling for support and united opposition to British violations of liberty, including a proposed mutual nonimportation agreement. A Boston town meeting formally

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refused to pay for the tea tossed into the harbor. While few colonial leaders elsewhere agreed to the usefulness of a boycott against Britain at this early stage, contributions of funds and food arrived from various regions. Patriot leaders throughout the colonies expressed support for Boston, despite the city’s reputation for contentious ways. The movement needed, however, a means for a unified approach to Boston’s soughtafter Solemn League and Covenant in opposition to Britain. This unity became more feasible when the Virginia House of Burgesses, dissolved by the governor, moved to Williamsburg’s Raleigh Tavern and joined with other colonies (notably New York and Pennsylvania) in a call for concerted action in the form of a congress similar to the one that had met  years previously, at the time of the Stamp Act crisis. Sentiment moved in this direction during the summer, and, in September , the First Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, with delegates from  of the  colonies (all except distant Georgia). This extralegal body considered and rejected a compromise Plan of Union that would have established a governing council in the colonies under ultimate parliamentary authority. The Congress then resolved, after spirited debate, to ban trade with Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies—unless England provided redress for American grievances. In October, the delegates adopted two measures that made explicit the differences between the two parties: the Continental Association established procedures for enforcing the commercial boycott, and what came to be known as the Declaration of Colonial Rights and Grievances conceded to Parliament limited authority to regulate the colonies’ commerce, but (in a clause written by John Adams) asserted the right of the colonies to govern themselves in matters of taxation and internal law; further, a measure demanded the repeal of the Coercive and the Quebec Acts. Finally, the Congress petitioned the king, demanding a return to the previous freedoms that they had enjoyed as loyal English subjects. Upon adjournment, the First Continental Congress called for another meeting, in May . By resolution, the Congress urged all colonies to choose their delegates immediately. Events had moved beyond recall in the colonies’ deteriorating relations with George III’s government, despite efforts at conciliation by such members of Parliament as Edmund Burke and William Pitt. Before year’s end, the king had come to the conclusion that armed conflict would have to decide the issue. In February , Lord North nonetheless offered a concession: his government, he announced, would restrict its taxation measures to the regulation of colonial trade and would provide each colony the revenues collected within its borders—provided the colonies agreed to contribute to a common defense fund. It was too little, too late. Colonists viewed the offer as nothing more than another attempt to divide and rule. The British government thereupon increased its military forces and took measures to restrain the commerce of all of the colonies, not just those in New England. Colonial patriot leaders took further initiatives, establishing provincial congresses; organizing their militias as fighting forces, including the formation of special units called Minutemen; and stockpiling military stores. Royal officials and loyalists everywhere steadily lost control. At the principal trouble spot, Boston, Governor Gage controlled only the city itself. In April, when ordered by London to take action against the “open rebellion” in Massachusetts, he sent a force of  soldiers to confiscate military supplies stored at Concord,  miles away. On the th, British army troops and the Minutemen clashed at Lexington and Concord, with the result that a day’s hard fighting

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cost the redcoats more than  casualties and the Minutemen nearly . Colonial forces laid siege to Boston, held by Governor Gage and his troops. As unthinkable as the idea had seemed even a short time before, Americans, after more than a century and a half as British colonial subjects, had entered into warfare against their mother country, England. A few additional acts in the drama remained to be played out. News of the sanguinary clash near Boston thoroughly shocked British politicians, although Parliament, being in recess, took no immediate action. The king espoused a hard line, the cabinet decided on reinforcements, and further war preparations followed, including the hiring of foreign troops. In America, colonial forces in June inflicted serious losses on the British regulars at Bunker Hill, just outside Boston, the first set-piece battle of the war. The Second Continental Congress met soon afterward, again in Philadelphia. In an “Olive Branch Petition,” it proclaimed loyalty to the king and asked that he repudiate his ministers’ actions. At the same time, however, Congress formed a Continental Army with George Washington at its head and issued a Declaration of Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (drafted in part by Thomas Jefferson), which served all too well to show that the time for conciliation had passed. Later in the summer of , George III ignored the Olive Branch Petition and again declared the colonies in open revolt. Movement and countermovement of troops and warships followed. At year’s end, Parliament passed the American Prohibitory Act, a drastic measure possibly intended as a means to force reconciliation but one that provocatively banned all colonial trade and authorized the seizure of American ships. The news of the act’s passage, combined with London’s dispatch of thousands of foreign troops to North America, tended to unite the colonies in opposition. For Americans, the only possible result seemed more and more to be complete independence, but it took Thomas Paine, in his January  pamphlet, Common Sense, to articulate the colonies’ grievances against Parliament and, importantly, the king, as well. That spring, the Continental Congress prepared a Declaration of Independence (drafted mainly by Jefferson) and formally adopted the ,-word document on the Fourth of July. With its adoption, a period of limited armed conflict ended and open warfare began. The first of the modern world’s great revolutions was under way. As historian Peter D. G. Thomas puts it, “the crisis of  became the war of  and the revolution of ” (p. ). These developments had been set off at the very end of  by an incident destructive of property but bloodless. A relatively small band of colonial insurgents, acting at the behest of a radicalized Boston Town Meeting and directed by Sam Adams, one of America’s early patriot leaders, made a signal protest against British rule from afar, one that could not be overlooked in London, by tossing case after case of dutiable imported tea into Boston’s harbor. That December night marked a great divide in the  colonies’ relations with England, relations that had become increasingly strained after the French and Indian War by the government’s efforts to raise tax revenues in the colonies. The Crown’s handling of the tea tax and the timing of its imposition, following by a few years the Stamp Act and Townshend Act crises, aroused American resentment once again. Patriots effectively pointed out to their fellow citizens their belief that the plan of taxation indicated a conspiracy between the North ministry and the East India Company to force American acceptance of parliamentary taxation. In time, it could have been some other measure originating in London that colonists viewed as onerous

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or some other violent expression of noncompliance by American radicals, but it was the Boston Tea Party that triggered the American Revolution. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Ammerman, David. In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of . Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, . Best treatment of the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party. Bailyn, Bernard. The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . A sympathetic biography of the Massachusetts governor. Griswold, Wesley S. The Night the Revolution Began: The Boston Tea Party, . Brattleboro, VT: The Stephen Greene Press, . A short account but one that provides useful detail and a good bibliography. Hoerder, Dirk. Crowd Action in Revolutionary Massachusetts, –. New York: Academic Press, . A social history overview, with a chapter on the Boston Tea Party. Labaree, Benjamin Woods. The Boston Tea Party. New York: Oxford University Press, . A work of careful scholarship that is still the standard study. Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, –. New York: Knopf, . Stresses the limits and control of American resistance to British policies. Marston, Jerrilyn Greene. King and Congress: The Transfer of Political Legitimacy, –. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . Covers the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party from the American viewpoint, beginning with the Boston Harbor Act. Miller, John C. Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda. Boston: Little, Brown, . Classic biography of the important Massachusetts leader. Thomas, Peter D. G. Tea Party to Independence: The Third Phase of the American Revolution, –. Oxford: Clarendon Press, . Final volume of a trilogy on British policy toward America prior to the Revolution, with extensive use of British sources. Warden, G. B. Boston –. Boston: Little, Brown, . Emphasis on the pre-Revolutionary years and on the importance of town meetings during that time. Winston, Alexander. “Firebrand of the Revolution.” American Heritage , no.  (): –, –. A popular and accessible account of Sam Adams’s role in the Revolution.

SAMUEL ADAMS (1722–1803) Popular patriot and agitator Samuel Adams is famous for organizing colonial resistance to British policies in Massachusetts, particularly the popular protests against the Stamp Act in  and the Boston Tea Party in . He was at the center of every major act of colonial defiance in Boston in the decade leading up to the American Revolution. Never as successful in politics as his cousin John Adams, Samuel nevertheless earned an important place in American history as a fiery Revolutionary leader and propagandist. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on September , , Adams graduated in  from Harvard College, where he also obtained his master’s degree three years later. He tried studying law but gave it up; failed at running his own business; and, after inheriting his father’s brewery business and property, did so poorly in managing it that he soon fell into debt and was reduced to relying on friends in order to provide for his family, a situation that he found himself in frequently throughout his life.

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In , Adams became influential in local politics and began writing newspaper articles on current affairs. He married Elizabeth Checkley in , and the couple subsequently had two children before she died, in . In , Adams became tax collector for Boston, a position that required him to personally make up any shortfalls in the revenue. His continuing propensity to grant citizens extra time to pay their taxes and to forgive citizens’ taxes altogether resulted in an eventual debt to the colonial government of £,. Adams married Elizabeth Wells in  and, that year, embarked on a more active role in the colony’s political sphere, primarily in protest to the British government’s plans to increase taxation of the North American colonists. Sometime in the early s, he had joined a small social group called the Caucus Club, which met to discuss the politics of the day. Gradually, this group became the center of colonial resistance in Boston, and Adams emerged as the leader of radical politics in the colony. In , Adams organized colonial protests against the Stamp Act, writing declarations reaffirming the colonists’ rights within the British Empire and orchestrating public demonstrations against the act. Although his involvement could never be proved, many believed that he was behind the outbreak of violence in Boston in August of that year, which culminated in the intimidation of Stamp Commissioner Andrew Oliver into resigning his post and the sacking of Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s house. These socalled Stamp Act riots sparked similar demonstrations throughout North America and established Adams as one of the primary figures behind colonial resistance. On September , , Adams was elected to the lower house of the Massachusetts colonial legislature. As a member of the legislature, he worked to fill the house with radicals, fought against the Townshend Acts (revenue acts passed by Parliament to replace the repealed Stamp Act), and drafted letters to the assemblies of other colonies. He also organized the nonimportation agreement by which colonists refused to buy goods imported from Great Britain and propagated the distribution of the Circular Letter to all of the colonial assemblies, urging them to work together in defense of their rights. Adams formulated the basic premises for the break with England as early as . When popular support for confronting the Crown periodically died down during the late s and early s, he kept the controversy alive with a steady stream of articles warning people against being lulled into accepting British tyranny. His lurid (and often false) depictions of British outrages committed on the people of Boston kept the controversy in the public eye. Adams’s greatest triumph as an agitator occurred in December , when Bostonians protested against the hated tea tax by refusing to allow ships loaded with British tea to dock in Boston. Following a heated town meeting in which various proposals for dealing with the tea were discussed, Adams announced, “This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.” His words were a prearranged signal to other members of the meeting, who promptly rose and walked out. Later that night, about  town members, disguised as Native Americans, dumped the offending tea in Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party, as the episode quickly became known, outraged the British government and prompted Parliament to pass the Coercive Acts the following spring, legislation that practically abolished self-government in Massachusetts. In response, the colonies agreed that representatives from each must meet to discuss their relationship with Great Britain and decide on measures for the protection of their rights. At Adams’s urging, an intercolonial congress, known as the First

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Continental Congress, was called. He and four other delegates were chosen to represent Massachusetts. Before leaving for Philadelphia (where the congress was being held), Adams was active in organizing the convention that adopted the Suffolk Resolves on September , thereby placing Massachusetts in a state of virtual rebellion. In Philadelphia, he used his influence to commit the Continental Congress to approval of the Suffolk Resolves. Reelected to the Second Continental Congress, Adams returned to Philadelphia in . He proposed a confederation of the colonies in favor of immediate independence and later signed the Declaration of Independence. Once the break with Great Britain was achieved, Adams’s political influence began to wane. He served in the Continental Congress until  and then returned to Boston, where he was a delegate to the convention that drafted the Massachusetts state constitution. Under the new Massachusetts government, he served as a senator and member of the council. He supported the adoption of the federal Constitution, with the provision that the Bill of Rights be added. He failed to win election to the U.S. Congress in  but was elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in  and governor in , the office from which he retired to private life in . Adams died on October , .

steven g. o’brien EAST INDIA COMPANY The British Crown granted a royal charter to the East India Company on December , , to encourage long-distance trade in spices, especially pepper, and to augment the royal coffers with taxes on this trade. The original charter of the East India Company defined it as a “company of merchants of London trading into the East Indies.” The charter was a response to rivalries with the Dutch and Portuguese in Asia, and the East India Company did secure almost all of India for British trade. But the company’s expansion into China and the acquisition of larger amounts of tea led it to the search for bigger markets and brought the company into conflict with the American colonies. The East India Company was caught numerous times in the middle of political struggles. During the Seven Years’ War in Europe, the East India Company seized several important French trading outposts. When the company was floundering in , the new chancellor of the exchequer, Lord North, tried in vain to help them and ease colonial tension. The East India Company now had  million pounds of unsold tea in its warehouses, and the British government agreed to an economic arrangement that would allow the company a refund for duties paid on the unused tea, along with a special privilege in the American market, allowing them to import tea into America without paying any duties except the tea tax. Unfortunately for the company, the tea tax of  had already persuaded Americans to drink less tea. Consumption was down from , pounds in  to , pounds in . Lord North had hoped that the new measure would not only aid the East India Company but would also be welcome in the colonies since it would reduce the price of tea. Colonial merchants interpreted this government involvement in colonial business as unfairly favoring the East India Company and creating a monopoly. In short, it was perceived as a vile attempt to buy the loyalty of colonists with tea. The

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measure produced protests throughout the port cities of the colonies, including the notorious Boston Tea Party. The East India Company continued to be involved in governmental disputes between England and America during and after the American Revolution. The British government sought control of the resources of the East India Company and sought a trade agreement with the new United States following the war. Working with the government, the East India Company made a commercial pact with the United States in . The Americans did not keep the terms of the pact that forbade them from trading between India and Europe. President Thomas Jefferson placed an embargo on the company trade, which led to further difficulties between Britain and the United States.

brett schmoll and karen mead

FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS (1774) The First Continental Congress opened on September , , in Philadelphia and lasted seven weeks. The Continental Congress brought leaders from nearly all of the colonies together to organize unified support in response to recent British actions. Although difficulties between Britain and the colonies had been intensifying for years, the Coercive Acts of  were interpreted by many colonists as an attack on liberty itself and produced the needed impetus to organize a general meeting of colonial leaders. Twelve colonies sent representatives to the First Continental Congress. Only Georgia declined because that colony still depended on British troops for protection from Indian attack. Among the most prominent of the  delegates were George Washington, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Jay. The purpose of the meeting was not to bring about revolution but to discuss means of alleviating the present troubles with Great Britain. From the outset, there appeared a distinct split between delegates who sought reconciliation with Great Britain and those who wanted more radical solutions. The most blatant attempt to tame the Continental Congress was Joseph Galloway’s plan to create a “Grand Council of America,” something like an American House of Commons to deal with intercolonial problems while still answering to the British Parliament. The king was to appoint a general with veto power over the Grand Council. Galloway’s efforts received some support, but two events highlighted the more radical nature of the Continental Congress. Delegates received reports that Gen. Thomas Gage, head of the British colonial forces and governor of Massachusetts, had ordered the town of Boston to be blown up with gun powder. Delegates on all sides coalesced and were ready for a call to arms when they learned that this “powder alarm” was false. Before this tension could subside, the Continental Congress accepted the anti-British Suffolk Resolves, voiding the Coercive Acts and suggesting that military preparation for the defense of Boston was necessary. These two occurrences revealed to Adams and other radicals that delegates sensed a common destiny among the colonies and that they were willing to go to war to support New England. The Continental Congress endorsed a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, which assigned the power to tax and enact internal legislation to the colonial legislatures, while

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limiting the power of Parliament to trade regulation. The Continental Congress also accepted the Continental Association of , a document that encouraged the formation of committees in every colonial town to organize the boycott of British goods. The resolutions of the First Continental Congress incensed King George III, who angrily declared that the colonies were “in a state of rebellion.” Taken together, the changes suggested and brought about by the First Continental Congress brought the colonies closer to war.

PAUL REVERE (1735–1818) Paul Revere was a silversmith who became a folk hero of the American Revolution. A leading patriot in Boston during the s, he became well known as the messenger who alerted the Massachusetts countryside with the words “The British are coming!” when British troops marched to Lexington and Concord in April  to capture a colonial arsenal. In the th century, Revere was immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Revere was born in  in Boston, Massachusetts. He was half English and half French, a second-generation American on one side and a fifth-generation American on the other. His father was a French Huguenot born Apollos Rivoire. At the age of , Rivoire left the isle of Guernsey, off the coast of France, and arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, to serve an apprenticeship with the silversmith John Coney. Once he established his own business, Rivoire anglicized his last name, according to his son, “merely on account that the bumpkins pronounce it easier.” Revere was the third of  children. He was educated at Boston’s North Writing School, which was known for its harsh but effective methods. He learned his trade from his father. When Revere was , his father died, leaving him responsible for the family business. Revere eventually became one of the preeminent American silversmiths. In addition to silver bowls, utensils, pots, and flatware, his shop made a variety of engravings, including pictures, cartoons, calling cards, bookplates, tradesmen’s bills, and music. He also practiced dentistry and a rudimentary form of orthodontia. In , Revere married his first wife, Sarah Orne. Very little is known about this marriage. However, they had eight children together in a very short period of time. She died in , apparently exhausted from her many childbirth experiences. He married Rachel Walker five months later. The couple were devoted to each other and had a happy marriage, eventually having eight more children. Revere was very involved in his community in addition to being a family man. He served on the committee that made arrangements for Boston to import its first street lamps in . He was also appointed clerk of the Boston Market. After the Revolution, he was selected health officer of Boston and coroner of Suffolk County. After a fire in the old wooden town, he helped found the Massachusetts Mutual Fire Insurance Company. Revere also belonged to numerous organizations within Boston. He was a Mason and a member of the North Caucus Club, a political group founded by Samuel Adams’s father to control local politics. He was also invited to join the Long Room Club, which was a secret society devoted to the Whig movement in Boston. Revere was one of a small and select group who was welcomed in all of these Boston locales.

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Revere was an active participant in the Boston Tea Party of December , which was carefully planned and orchestrated to oppose Britain’s tea tax. The day after the Boston Tea Party, Revere was asked to travel to New York and Philadelphia to present a formal justification for the Tea Party. This ride, the first of many Revolutionary rides by Revere, occurred on December , . In the months following the Tea Party, a network of political committees and congresses was formed in towns throughout the colonies, including Boston. Revere again played an important role in these activities, frequently acting as a messenger or courier to transmit information between groups. Revere’s most famous Revolutionary ride took place on the night of April –, . For months beforehand, colonists had been secretly storing arms and ammunition in various locations around the Massachusetts countryside. One of the biggest of these colonial arsenals was at Concord. With a large presence of British troops stationed in Boston under military governor Gen. Thomas Gage, colonists expected the British to attempt to confiscate the arsenal at some point. Revere and other patriot leaders discussed how best to protect the supplies. They all agreed that when the British embarked on their expedition to confiscate the arsenal, they would probably limit the actions of Bostonians so that they could not warn the other colonists of the troop movements. Along with Col. William Conant, a patriot leader in Charlestown (the town just across the harbor from Boston), Revere worked out a plan to notify the countryside of approaching British soldiers even if a messenger could not leave town. Revere agreed to arrange for lanterns to be lit and placed in the steeple of the tallest building in Boston, the Old North Church, so that Conant could clearly see it across the harbor. The lanterns would signal not only that the British troops were on the move but also the route they were taking: if they went by land, only one lantern would be lit; if the British troops went by water, two lanterns would be lit. Conant could then organize riders in Charlestown to alert the countryside. On the night of April , fellow patriot Dr. Joseph Warren learned from a secret informer (whom many historians believe was Gage’s wife, Margaret Kemble Gage) that the British planned to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were staying in Lexington, and then burn military stores at Concord. Warren sent word to Revere to light the two lanterns (the troops were going by water across Boston Harbor). Warren also dispatched Revere as an additional messenger if he could make it out of the town. Revere immediately instructed his compatriots to hang two lanterns in the church steeple. He then stopped briefly at his home to prepare for the ride, leaving there at about : p.m. He headed to the north part of town, where he kept a boat, and two of his friends, who were also experienced watermen, rowed him across the Charles River, with the oars of the boat wrapped in petticoats to muffle the sound. Revere was met on the other side by another group of friends, including Conant. They walked him to town, where he borrowed a horse and headed off to Lexington. On the way, he ran into two British soldiers and had to take an alternate and longer route. He arrived in Lexington around midnight and warned Adams and Hancock. He then headed to Concord but was captured by a British patrol before he finished his journey. His message, however, was passed along by two other messengers that Revere had enlisted, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott. The citizens of Lexington and Concord hurriedly prepared for the arrival of the British troops. Hancock and Adams fled, much of the arsenal was hidden, and the local

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militia assembled on town greens to make a show of force to the British. The news also spread to surrounding towns, traveling  miles from Boston to New Hampshire while the British troops were still completing their complicated crossing of Boston Harbor. Revere was held by the British for much of the day and consequently missed the fighting between colonists and soldiers at Lexington and Concord, which effectively began the American Revolution. In , Revere joined the Continental Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He became commander of Castle William, a defensive fortification, in Boston Harbor for a time. He also participated in failed expeditions to Rhode Island and Penobscot Bay. After the war ended, Revere went back to his successful business career. He continued his involvement in politics and helped organize support to ratify the federal Constitution. He remained America’s most well-known silversmith and was frequently employed to make important pieces for the U.S. government, most notably producing the copper sheathing for the frigate USS Constitution. Revere died on May , . In the mid-th century, the poet Longfellow penned a piece about Revere’s famous ride, beginning with the phrase “Listen my children and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” The poem was extremely successful and rekindled interest in Revere as a hero of the American Revolution.

DOCUMENT: TEA ACT, 1773 Enacted by the British Parliament in , the Tea Act served two purposes: first, it offered a financial bailout to the failing East India Company, which played a dominant role in Britain’s economy, by giving it a monopoly on tea importation in North America; second, it was a symbolic tax on the increasingly recalcitrant American colonists. The tax infuriated the American colonists, who deeply resented its symbolic nature. Citizens from all of the major ports voiced loud objections to the new tax and threatened to prohibit ships carrying the tea from docking. The issue came to a head first in December  in Boston, where  colonists dressed as Indians threw  chests of tea into the harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea Party. (The statutes at large . . . [from  to ] by Danby Pickering [Cambridge: Printed by Benthem, for C. Bathhurst; London, –].) An act to allow a drawback of the duties of customs on the exportation of tea to any of his Majesty’s colonies or plantations in America; to increase the deposit on bohea tea to be sold at the India Company’s sales; and to impower the commissioners of the treasury to grant licences to the East India Company to export tea duty-free. WHEREAS by an act, made in the twelfth year of his present Majesty’s reign, (intituled, An act for granting a drawback of part of the customs upon the exportation of tea to Ireland, and the British dominions in America; for altering the drawback upon foreign sugars exported from Great Britain to Ireland; for continuing the bounty on the exportation of British-made cordage; for allowing the importation of rice from the

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British plantations into the ports of Bristol, Liverpoole, Lancaster, and Whitehaven, for immediate exportation to foreign parts; and to impower the chief magistrate of any corporation to administer the oath, and grant the certificate required by law, upon the removal of certain goods to London, which have been sent into the country for sale;) it is amongst other things, enacted, That for and during the space of five years, to be computed from and after the fifth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and seventytwo, there shall be drawn back and allowed for all teas which shall be sold after the said fifth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-two, at the publick sale of the united company of merchants of England trading to the East Indies, or which after that time shall be imported, by licence, in pursuance of the said therein and hereinafter mentioned act, made in the eighteenth year of the reign of his late majesty King George the Second, and which shall be exported from this kingdom, as merchandise, to Ireland, or any of the British colonies or plantations in America, three-fifth parts of the several duties of customs which were paid upon the importation of such teas; which drawback or allowance, with respect to such teas as shall be exported to Ireland, shall be made to the exporter, in such manner, and under such rules, regulations, securities, penalties, and forfeitures, as any drawback or allowance was then payable, out of the duty of customs upon the exportation of foreign goods to Ireland; and with respect to such teas as shall be exported to the British colonies and plantations in America, the said drawback or allowance shall be made in such manner, and under such rules, regulations, penalties, and forfeitures, as any drawback or allowance payable out of the duty of customs upon foreign goods exported to foreign parts, was could, or might be made, before the passing of the said act of the twelfth year of his present Majesty’s reign, (except in such cases as are otherwise therein provided for:) and whereas it may tend to the benefit and advantage of the trade of the said united company of merchants of England trading to the East Indies, if the allowance of the drawback of the duties of customs upon all teas sold at the publick sales of the said united company, after the tenth day of May, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three, and which shall be exported from this kingdom, as merchandise, to any of the British colonies or plantations in America, were to extend to the whole of the said duties of customs payable upon the importation of such teas; may it therefore please your Majesty that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the King’s most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That there shall be drawn back and allowed for all teas, which, from and after the tenth day of May, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three, shall be sold at the publick sales of the said united company, or which shall be imported by licence, in pursuance of the said act made in the eighteenth year of the reign of his late majesty King George the Second, and which shall, at any time hereafter, be exported from this kingdom, as merchandise, to any of the British colonies or plantations in America, the whole of the duties of customs payable upon the importation of such teas; which drawback or allowance shall be made to the exporter in such manner, and under such rules, regulations, and securities, and subject to the like penalties and forfeitures, as the former drawback or allowance granted by the said recited act of the twelfth year of his present Majesty’s reign, upon tea exported to the said British colonies and plantations in America was, might, or could be made, and was subject to by the said recited act, or any other act of parliament now in force, in as full and ample manner, to all intents and

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purposes, as if the several clauses relative thereto were again repeated and reenacted in this present act. II. And whereas by one other act made in the eighteenth year of the reign of his late majesty King George the Second, (intituled, An act for repealing the present inland duty of four shillings per pound weight upon all tea sold in Great Britain; and for granting to his Majesty certain other inland duties in lieu thereof; and for better securing the duty upon tea, and other duties of excise; and for pursuing offenders out of one county into another,) it is, amongst other things, enacted, That every person who shall, at any publick sale of tea made by the united company of merchants of England trading to the East Indies, be declared to be the best bidder for any lot or lots of tea, shall, within three days after being so declared the best bidder or bidders for the same, deposit with the said united company, or such clerk or officer as the said company shall appoint to receive the same, forty shillings for every tub and for every chest of tea; and in case any such person or persons shall refuse or neglect to make such deposit within the time before limited, he, she, or they, shall forfeit and lose six times the value of such deposit directed to be made as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt, bill, plaint, or information, in any of his Majesty’s courts of record at Westminster, in which no essoin, protection, or wager of law, or more than one imparlance, shall be allowed; one moiety of which forfeiture shall go to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, and the other moiety to such person as shall sue or prosecute for the same; and the sale of all teas, for which such deposit shall be neglected to be made as aforesaid, is thereby declared to be null and void, and such teas shall be again put up by the said united company to publick sale, within fourteen days after the end of the sale of teas at which such teas were sold; and all and every buyer or buyers, who shall have neglected to make such deposit as aforesaid, shall be, and is and are thereby rendered incapable of bidding for or buying any teas at any future publick sale of the said united company: and whereas it is found to be expedient and necessary to increase the deposit to be made by any bidder or bidders for any lot or lots of bohea teas, at the publick sales of teas to be made by the said united company; be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every person who shall, after the tenth day of May, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three, at any publick sale of tea to be made by the said united company of merchants of England trading to the East Indies, be declared to be the best bidder or bidders for any lot or lots of bohea tea, shall, within three days after being so declared the best bidder or bidders for the same, deposit with the said united company, or such clerk or officer as the said united company shall appoint to receive the same, four pounds of lawful money of Great Britain for every tub and for every chest of bohea tea, under the same terms and conditions, and subject to the same forfeitures, penalties, and regulations, as are mentioned and contained in the said recited act of the eighteenth year of the reign of his said late Majesty. III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That it shall and may be lawful for the commissioners of his Majesty’s treasury, or any three or more of them, or for the high treasurer for the time being, upon application made to them by the said united company of merchants of England trading to the East Indies for that purpose, to grant a licence or licences to the said united company, to take out of their warehouses, without the same having been put up to sale, and to export to any of the British plantations in America, or to any parts beyond the seas, such quantity or quantities of tea as the said commissioners of his Majesty’s treasury, or any three or more of them, or the high

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treasurer for the time being, shall think proper and expedient, without incurring any penalty or forfeiture for so doing; any thing in the said in part recited act, or any other law, to the contrary notwithstanding. IV. And whereas by an act made in the ninth and tenth years of the reign of King William the Third, (intituled, An act for raising a sum not exceeding two millions, upon a fund, for payment of annuities, after the rate of eight pounds per centum per annum; and for settling the trade to the East Indies,) and by several other acts of parliament which are now in force, the said united company of merchants of England trading to the East Indies are obliged to give security, under their common seal, for payment of the duties of customs upon all unrated goods imported by them, so soon as the same shall be sold; and for exposing such goods to sale, openly and fairly, by way of auction, or by inch of candle, within the space of three years from the importation thereof: and whereas it is expedient that some provision should be made to permit the said company, in certain cases, to export tea, on their own account, to the British plantations in America, or to foreign parts, without exposing such tea, to sale here, or being charged with the payment of any duty for the same; be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the passing of this act, it shall and may be lawful for the commissioners of his Majesty’s treasury, or any three or more of them, or the high treasurer for the time being, to grant a licence or quantity of licences to the said united company, to take out of their warehouses such quantity or quantities of tea as the said commissioners of the treasury, or any three or more of them, or the high treasurer for the time being, shall think proper, without the same having been exposed to sale in this kingdom; and to export such tea to any of the British colonies or plantations in America, or to foreign parts, discharged from the payment of any customs or duties whatsoever; any thing in the said recited act, or any other act to the contrary notwithstanding. V. Provided always, and it is hereby further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That a due entry shall be made at the custom-house, of all such tea so exported by licence, as aforesaid, expressing the quantities thereof, at what time imported, and by what ship; and such tea shall be shipped for exportation by the proper officer for that purpose, and shall, in all other respects, not altered by this act, be liable to the same rules, regulations, restrictions, securities, penalties, and forfeitures, as tea penalties, &c. exported to the like places was liable to before the passing this act: and upon the proper officer’s duty, certifying the shipping of such tea to the collector and comptroller of his Majesty’s customs for the port of London, upon the back of the licence, and the exportation thereof, verified by the oath of the husband or agent for the said united company, to be wrote at the bottom of such certificate, and sworn before the said collector and comptroller of the customs, (which oath they are hereby impowered to administer,) it shall and may be lawful for such collector and comptroller to write off and discharge the quantity of tea so exported from the warrant of the respective ship in which such tea was imported. VI. Provided nevertheless, That no such licence shall be granted, unless it shall first be made to appear to the satisfaction of the commissioners of his Majesty’s treasury, or any three or more of them, or the high treasurer for the time being, that at the time of taking out such teas, for the exportation of which licence or licences shall be granted, there will be left remaining in the warehouses of the said united company, a quantity of tea not less than ten millions of pounds weight; any thing herein, or in any other act of parliament, contained to the contrary thereof notwithstanding.

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DOCUMENT: GEORGE HEWES’S ACCOUNT OF THE BOSTON TEA PARTY, 1773 Organized by Boston patriots and led by Samuel Adams in response to the British government’s Tea Act of , the Boston Tea Party, on December , , saw the destruction of  chests of tea in Boston Harbor. The tea had recently arrived in Boston aboard three British ships, much to the public’s outrage. After a raucous town meeting of more than , people at which they declared that they would not allow the tea to enter the port, about  men disguised as Indians boarded the ship and dumped the tea into the harbor in protest against the British tax. Below is an eyewitness account by one of the disguised “Indians,” George Hewes. In response to the Tea Party, the British government enacted the Coercive Acts. The Tea Party was widely publicized throughout the North American colonies and served to heighten tensions between Great Britain and America in the months leading up to the American Revolution. (Hewes, George, “Account of the Boston Tea Party,” .) The tea destroyed was contained in three ships, lying near each other at what was called at that time Griffin’s wharf, and were surrounded by armed ships of war, the commanders of which had publicly declared that if the rebels, as they were pleased to style the Bostonians, should not withdraw their opposition to the landing of the tea before a certain day, the th day of December, , they should on that day force it on shore, under the cover of their cannon’s mouth. On the day preceding the seventeenth, there was a meeting of the citizens of the county of Suffolk, convened at one of the churches in Boston, for the purpose of consulting on what measures might be considered expedient to prevent the landing of the tea, or secure the people from the collection of the duty. At that meeting a committee was appointed to wait on Governor Hutchinson, and request him to inform them whether he would take any measures to satisfy the people on the object of the meeting. To the first application of this committee, the Governor told them he would give them a definite answer by five o’clock in the afternoon. At the hour appointed, the committee again repaired to the Governor’s house, and on inquiry found he had gone to his country seat at Milton, a distance of about six miles. When the committee returned and informed the meeting of the absence of the Governor, there was a confused murmur among the members, and the meeting was immediately dissolved, many of them crying out, “Let every man do his duty, and be true to his country”; and there was a general huzza for Griffin’s wharf. It was now evening, and I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin’s wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me and marched in order to the place of our destination.

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When we arrived at the wharf, there were three of our number who assumed an authority to direct our operations, to which we readily submitted. They divided us into three parties, for the purpose of boarding the three ships which contained the tea at the same time. The name of him who commanded the division to which I was assigned was Leonard Pitt. The names of the other commanders I never knew. We were immediately ordered by the respective commanders to board all the ships at the same time, which we promptly obeyed. The commander of the division to which I belonged, as soon as we were on board the ship appointed me boatswain, and ordered me to go to the captain and demand of him the keys to the hatches and a dozen candles. I made the demand accordingly, and the captain promptly replied, and delivered the articles; but requested me at the same time to do no damage to the ship or rigging. We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water. In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us. We then quietly retired to our several places of residence, without having any conversation with each other, or taking any measures to discover who were our associates; nor do I recollect of our having had the knowledge of the name of a single individual concerned in that affair, except that of Leonard Pitt, the commander of my division, whom I have mentioned. There appeared to be an understanding that each individual should volunteer his services, keep his own secret, and risk the consequence for himself. No disorder took place during that transaction, and it was observed at that time that the stillest night ensued that Boston had enjoyed for many months. During the time we were throwing the tea overboard, there were several attempts made by some of the citizens of Boston and its vicinity to carry off small quantities of it for their family use. To effect that object, they would watch their opportunity to snatch up a handful from the deck, where it became plentifully scattered, and put it into their pockets. One Captain O’Connor, whom I well knew, came on board for that purpose, and when he supposed he was not noticed, filled his pockets, and also the lining of his coat. But I had detected him and gave information to the captain of what he was doing. We were ordered to take him into custody, and just as he was stepping from the vessel, I seized him by the skirt of his coat, and in attempting to pull him back, I tore it off ; but, springing forward, by a rapid effort he made his escape. He had, however, to run a gauntlet through the crowd upon the wharf nine each one, as he passed, giving him a kick or a stroke. Another attempt was made to save a little tea from the ruins of the cargo by a tall, aged man who wore a large cocked hat and white wig, which was fashionable at that time. He had sleightly slipped a little into his pocket, but being detected, they seized him and, taking his hat and wig from his head, threw them, together with the tea, of which they had emptied his pockets, into the water. In consideration of his advanced age, he was permitted to escape, with now and then a slight kick.

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The next morning, after we had cleared the ships of the tea, it was discovered that very considerable quantities of it were floating upon the surface of the water; and to prevent the possibility of any of its being saved for use, a number of small boats were manned by sailors and citizens, who rowed them into those parts of the harbor wherever the tea was visible, and by beating it with oars and paddles so thoroughly drenched it as to render its entire destruction inevitable.

7 The American Revolution, 1775–1783

INTRODUCTION One of the myths of the American Revolution is that all American soldiers were sharpshooting riflemen who won the war by shooting British soldiers from behind trees and rocks and using the tactics of irregular warfare, a real innovation for the age. Military historians agree that this account is nothing more than a myth, that the tactics employed by the militiamen were already known in Europe and had been used by Austrians against Frederick the Great of Prussia and by the Turks against all of their enemies. In reality, Americans used less accurate muskets and were no more skilled in marksmanship than the British. Many who were sharpshooters with their own rifles were uncooperative soldiers overly impressed with their own talent. When George Washington assumed command of the yet unformed Continental Army in the summer of , he faced major challenges just in the organization of his forces. There was very little money available to pay soldiers and buy provisions, and the term of enlistments had to be quite short; it would not work to ask soldiers to sign up for the duration. As a result, many soldiers did not reenlist but left the Continental Army and joined their colonial militias, where pay and benefits were often better. Lack of money left most troops ill fed, ill clothed, and ill shod during much of the war, and there was no guarantee of veterans’ benefits, although national leaders spoke of a bonus and possible land grants. Tactically, Washington realized that he could not succeed by meeting the British head on in the classic manner. Instead, he adopted a strategic defense policy, hoping to hold out long enough to break the morale of the British government and army. Washington and his troops moved around a great deal and usually tried to avoid pitched battles, although there were exceptions, such as the Battle of Trenton, late in , undertaken as a surprise attack with a good chance of success to raise morale and enhance recruiting. Once war was formalized after the Declaration of Independence, British military leaders considered three strategic options in formulating their war plans. The first was a plan to divide the colonies in half through coordinated invasions from the north and the south along the Hudson River. The second was a similar plan to divide the colonies by invading up Chesapeake Bay, and the third was a plan to invade the southern states, where loyalist sentiment was highest, and to move north from there. The British chose

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the first option, and, in the early months of the war, they nearly succeeded, capturing New York City and stalling only because of American victories at Trenton and Princeton just before each army retired for the winter, a situation necessitated by the lack of food and other supplies during the winter months. In , the British continued with their attempt to split the states through New York, this time placing emphasis on the drive southward from Canada and some diversionary moves on New York state. But the attempt failed with the disastrous British defeat at Saratoga in October. That battle, which many consider to be the turning point of the war, pitted British forces, led by Gen. John Burgoyne, against an American army commanded by Gen. Horatio Gates. Burgoyne’s army, moving south along the Hudson River, had stalled near Saratoga while waiting for reinforcements from the west and south. Meanwhile, Gates’s army had been gathering strength, and Gates was aware of Burgoyne’s plight. When Burgoyne learned, to his dismay, that the reinforcements he had been expecting were not going to arrive, he was in desperate straits. His food was running out, and he had only , men to oppose Gates’s ,. A tentative battle resulted in heavy losses for the British, who retreated toward Saratoga. American forces managed to get around to the rear of Burgoyne’s position and cut his supply lines, making his position untenable. On October , Burgoyne surrendered, handing over nearly , prisoners and a large amount of military supplies to the Americans and effectively ending the British offensive plan. The British loss at Saratoga undercut support for the war in Britain and probably ensured that France would sign an alliance with the revolutionaries. In , the Continental Congress had sent a diplomatic mission to France to try to negotiate a treaty of alliance. Consisting of Benjamin Franklin, already a European celebrity, Silas Deane, a friend of Franklin’s from the Congress, and Arthur Lee, a troublesome figure representing Virginia and the powerful Lee family, this mission sought to convince the French foreign minister, Count Charles Vergennes, that France (along with Spain) needed an alliance with the United States to improve its position in North America, which had been badly weakened by the  Treaty of Paris. Initially, Franklin’s arguments did not succeed in gaining an alliance, but they did generate new and badly needed loans from France. During , Franklin and Deane worked to deepen Franco-British hostility, mostly by encouraging naval harassment of British shipping. Every time an American privateer captured a British merchant ship and hauled it into a French port, Franklin knew it annoyed the British and especially the king, who often acted rashly in a crisis. By the end of the summer, George III was very annoyed, and France and Britain were on the verge of war, which might have happened had not Spain, an ally of France, balked. Meanwhile, Lee had gone to Spain, where he received some material aid but failed to secure an alliance, and then to Prussia, where an agent of the British minister stole his official papers. Lee returned to France, having convinced himself that Franklin and Deane had to be sent home so that he could conclude the work and take all the credit. In this he failed, although he did cause Deane to be called back to Philadelphia for questioning, which Lee’s friends managed to extend for two years, ruining Deane financially and turning him into a British loyalist. Finally, in December , news of the American victory at Saratoga reached Paris, and the people cheered in the streets as if it had been their own victory. Vergennes

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British general John Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga on October 17, 1777. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

invited Franklin to present his treaty proposals again, which he did, and, on December , the French government accepted the idea of an alliance with the United States, with the proviso that the United States make no peace with Britain that would compromise its independence. This, the first major American diplomatic achievement after the Declaration of Independence, committed France to join in the war until American independence was secured. France was of considerable help during the rest of the war. While only several thousand French troops came to fight in America, French money flowed across the Atlantic, and French naval support was an important factor in that aspect of the war. Following the Franco-American alliance, the British adopted a southern strategy for the balance of the war. Loyalist sacrifices in the south were used as an argument to send British troops there, and, initially, the effort was successful. American forces were beaten in several battles, the important ports of Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, were captured, and there was a surge of optimism among the British that the war might nearly be over since the winter of – was a bad one for American forces. By this time, however, there was a significant body of opposition in Parliament to the war, with its leaders arguing that it was time to cut losses, both human and financial, and befriend America to destroy the Franco-American alliance. Also, in , some , French troops came to fight in America, helping to maintain morale in the American army.

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The Battle of Yorktown changed all that, however, and brought a military end to the war. In this decisive battle, a combined French and American land force numbering about , trapped a British force of , under Lord Charles Cornwallis on a narrow peninsula between the York and James rivers, near the Virginia coast, while a sizable contingent of French naval forces blocked Cornwallis from effecting an escape by sea. On October , , Cornwallis surrendered his army to Washington, ending the active military campaigning in the war. After the British defeat at Yorktown, Lord North resigned as prime minister and was replaced by Lord Rockingham, who was more responsive to the increasing public demand for a negotiated end to the war. In April , Lord Shelburne, the secretary of state for colonial affairs, sent out peace feelers to Benjamin Franklin, still in France. The American was interested and listed some fairly excessive demands as part of the proposed peace, such as the British cession of Canada to the United States. In June, John Jay joined Franklin in Paris, where the negotiations were to be held, but he was very suspicious of everyone, especially the French, who he thought wanted to keep the United States weak and dependent. To forestall this, Jay opened secret negotiations with the British, leaving Franklin in the dark, and the British rushed to exploit this schism between the two American diplomats. Franklin was annoyed, but he was ill and opted instead to preserve diplomatic harmony with Jay and John Adams, who had recently arrived from Holland. Although Jay’s tactic technically violated the Treaty of Alliance with France, it may have been justifiable, since Vergennes was doing the same by carrying on his own negotiations with the British. In November , the United States and Great Britain signed a preliminary peace treaty, which would not take effect until the French and the British had arrived at their own peace terms. The final treaty, therefore, was delayed until September , . In the treaty, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States and granted the new nation all the territory west to the Mississippi River, south to the Spanish frontier at  north latitude, and north to the Great Lakes and Canada. The treaty recognized certain American fishing rights off the Canadian coast, but the language was ambiguous and caused diplomatic problems for the next  years. The American negotiators agreed that the United States would not stand in the way of British creditors seeking to collect debts from Americans, which amounted to £ million, a provision that helped win British commercial support for the treaty. Finally, the treaty only “recommended” that the property of the , Loyalists who had fled America during the war be returned, a recommendation that was generally ignored in practice. In Britain, the treaty was viewed naturally as a national disgrace and a dishonorable surrender; in the United States, there was some grumbling about the Loyalists being treated too generously and about the failure to win any West Indian trade concessions, although the general feeling was very positive. The British military emerged from the war still very strong and would soon enter into a protracted series of European wars. Most military historians think that the British could have won the war, but they underestimated America’s numerical strength, its will to resist, and the amount of Loyalist support they could count on. The British also misunderstood the problems of trying to conquer a decentralized society; since there was no strategic center in America, Britain had to control a vast territory, which was simply too much for the resources Britain was willing to commit to the war. The British also had to depend on an overly long line of communication;

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when supplies from Britain lagged, they had to forage or plunder at the local level, practices that alienated Americans and increased support for independence. Finally, the British lacked unity at home concerning the war, which led to difficulties in raising troops and in putting together a coherent strategy to deal with the American problem.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY steven e. siry Late in his life, John Adams asserted that the American Revolution was more than a military conflict. The Revolution, according to Adams, had taken place “in the minds and hearts of the people. . . . This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.” He meant that changes in American social values and political ideas had been as important as battlefield victories in creating the American nation. Adams and most of the other leaders of the Revolutionary generation perceived history as a continual struggle to preserve republican liberty against the encroachments of power. They based their republican ideology on ideas from the Roman republic, the Florentine Renaissance, and certain th-century English writers, such as John Locke. American leaders primarily worried that self-interest would subvert civic virtue and consequently cause the republic to degenerate until a tyrant, probably after a period of anarchy or oligarchy, gained control. To achieve their goal of protecting civic virtue and limiting governmental power, the Revolutionary generation decided to create constitutions for the states. After deleting all references to Great Britain, Rhode Island and Connecticut continued to use their colonial charters, which were republican in their structure. But the other states created new documents. As a result of this process, the Revolutionary generation established many of the basic ideas of American constitutionalism. These included these points: that sovereignty resides in the people; that written constitutions are produced by conventions and ratified by the people; that there exist constitutional limits on governmental functions; and that the protection of religious liberty must be observed. Consequently, most of the new state governments were significantly more democratic than the colonial regimes they replaced. Indeed, the Revolutionary generation did not believe that elected officials should conduct themselves in an independent fashion. Instead, they were seen as the people’s direct representatives. Moreover, the assemblies had additional power, which was gained at the expense of the governors. Most important, every state prevented any executive officer from also holding a position in the legislature. This ensured that the legislative and the executive branches would be completely separate. However, by the late s, many Americans were increasingly concerned about the ineffectiveness and instability of the state governments. Believing that the problem was one of too much democracy, most of the states in the s significantly strengthened the executive branch. The people would now directly select the governor, who was to have a fixed salary and thus not be dependent on the legislature for his wages. Furthermore, the governor’s powers would include the right to veto legislative acts.

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As a significant part of their effort to protect civic virtue and thus preserve the republic, Americans also made the national government relatively weak in relation to the states. For six years, the Second Continental Congress, which had been created in , was the only institution of national political authority. It was then replaced in  by the Articles of Confederation government, which lacked sufficient power to deal with many important issues. It had the authority to conduct foreign relations, to declare war, and to borrow and to issue money. But only the state legislatures could raise troops or levy taxes. The Articles of Confederation government did not have a separate executive or judicial branch. The government consisted of a single legislative body in which each state had one vote. Before any important measure could be passed,  of the  states had to give their approval. Moreover, only a unanimous vote by the states would allow the ratification and amending of the Articles of Confederation. Both the Second Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation government had to deal with major economic problems. Independence had broken the Americans’ ties with Great Britain’s imperial system and left the United States to deal with the economic consequences. Indeed, the Revolutionary War was more economically disruptive than any other conflict in American history. In particular, the Anglo-American war halted most of America’s waterborne commerce, which was the lifeblood of the American economy. The British fleet blockaded the American coast and swept many of the American merchant ships from the sea. Furthermore, with slaves escaping and white males entering the military, the cost of agricultural labor escalated, and thus crop acreage decreased. Food shortages also resulted from the disruption of trade and farmers’ unwillingness to sell their product for depreciated currency. This forced the civilian population to make food substitutes, including maple syrup for sugar, salt produced from lye in walnut ashes, and “tea” made from checkerberries. In addition, to pay for the war, the Congress and the state governments issued paper currency and bonds and imposed various taxes. The paper money remained in the United States, but the Continental money soon rapidly depreciated in value because of repeated issuings of the currency, which eventually totaled $ million. In March , the Continental Congress ordered that the states would receive $ in new bills for every $ in old bills that were destroyed. The plan was largely unsuccessful, though, and, by December , $ of old Continental money was worth only $ of specie. Nevertheless, occasionally merchants and ship captains were able to turn a profit through privateering, which involved state governments or Congress chartering private vessels to seize British merchant ships. Moreover, the war led to the production of some manufactures to make up for the loss of imported goods. It was difficult, however, to increase production, since nearly all goods were handmade by artisans and craftsmen. The largest profits came from government contracts, which were often awarded to merchants with the right government connections. Price-gouging, the hoarding of necessary goods, and refusal to accept paper currency for purchases quickly led to mob action. In , Philadelphia experienced social unrest. In January, soldiers were called in to end a strike by  merchant seamen who were demanding higher wages. In May, gangs intimidated merchants and imprisoned several of them. Then, in early October, the tension climaxed during the “Fort Wilson” riot. Between  and  militiamen who supported price controls moved toward the home of James Wilson, where several dozen prominent free-market men had gathered.

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Someone inside the house shot at the militiamen, who returned the fire. During the -minute skirmish,  people were killed, and  were wounded. Eventually, a number of Philadelphia’s elite militia, known as the “silver stocking” cavalry, and some Continental dragoons arrived at Wilson’s home and arrested  militia protestors. After the “Fort Wilson” riot, the effort in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the United States to control prices by popular action started to decline. However, the mob action did compel the government in Philadelphia to distribute food to the poor. While dealing with the economic consequences of the war, the state governments also passed laws to punish the Loyalists, those Americans who remained loyal to the British government, by depriving them of property, voting rights, and other liberties. Many Loyalists fled to the protection of British-controlled locations, and subsequently the Loyalists often went with the British forces when they evacuated an area. During and after the war, approximately , Loyalists left the United States and relocated in England or in some part of the British Empire. Some, however, returned to the United States, especially after most states repealed the anti-Loyalist legislation. Women, whether they were Loyalists or Rebels, were forced to adjust to new roles during the Revolutionary War. With so many men serving in the military, many women had to manage farms or businesses during a time of significant economic problems. Some women also formed volunteer groups to provide supplies to the soldiers. For example, the Ladies Association of Philadelphia, founded in , solicited funds, eventually totaling $,, that were used to acquire supplies for the American troops. The success of this organization led to the formation of similar groups in other states. As these organizations developed on the home front, other women went to the army camps to join their male relatives and to provide nursing and cooking services. A few women even served as spies or disguised themselves as men to participate in battles. In the decades after the war, there would emerge a new role for women within America’s republican society. In particular, women would embrace republican motherhood, which meant that women were to act as educators by raising children to be virtuous citizens of the republic. As a consequence, there developed a new emphasis on female education to provide women with better preparation for republican motherhood. This did not, however, lead to suffrage rights or other direct political participation for women. As women adjusted to their new wartime roles, African Americans often experienced the effects of the war. Although protecting freedom and avoiding political enslavement were basic ideas of the American Revolution, in  some , African Americans were held in slavery. As a result, many African Americans opposed the Revolution. Approximately , slaves won their liberty during the war. One-half escaped to the British army or navy, while most of the rest fled to the cities, where they lived as free individuals; some even joined the Indian tribes on the frontier. Initially, the Continental Congress excluded African Americans from military service, but this policy was reversed at the end of . Eventually, about , blacks, primarily free individuals living in the north, fought for the United States during the Revolutionary War. Slaves who served in the war received their freedom and occasionally some land. African American troops usually served in largely white units. However, Massachusetts and Rhode Island organized a few all-black companies. In the northern states, manumission, or the voluntary freeing of slaves, increased during the s. And, in , Pennsylvania became the first state to pass an emancipation

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statute that called for the gradual end of slavery for those slaves born after the enactment of the law. Over the next  years, all northern states, except Delaware, passed laws to bring about the gradual end of slavery. Furthermore, by , every state except South Carolina and Georgia had outlawed the slave trade. This resulted from adherence to Revolutionary ideas, a decrease in the need for slaves because of a declining tobacco market, an increase in the slave population in the United States, and southern fears about possible slave revolts. In addition, some slave owners in the upper south, affected by changing economic conditions or Revolutionary principles, supported individual manumission. In the lower south, however, slave owners moved to maintain the slave system without any manumission or decline in control. The Second Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation government also sought foreign assistance. The Revolutionary leaders especially pursued a military alliance with France. Initially, the French government gave supplies to the United States but refused an alliance. As the primary American representative in France, Benjamin Franklin continued to lobby for diplomatic relations. When news arrived in France and England in December  concerning the British defeat at Saratoga, Lord North, the British prime minister, offered the Americans complete home rule within the empire if they would end the war. Concerned by this offer, the French government, which wanted to weaken Great Britain even further, agreed in February  to two treaties with the United States. According to the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, the United States gained mostfavored-nation status in its trade with France. As a result of the Treaty of Alliance, France formally recognized the United States and guaranteed in perpetuity American “liberty, sovereignty and independence.” Eventually, the French would contribute about , troops and a fleet to the American cause. In addition, the French government rejected any claim to Canada but continued to assert its claim to the important Newfoundland fishing area. Moreover, France promised that it would not make peace until Great Britain recognized American independence, and a secret addendum to the treaty invited Spain to join the Franco-American alliance, which the Spanish government did in April . The intervention by France and Spain thus made the Anglo-American conflict an international war. This significantly complicated Great Britain’s effort to end the Revolutionary War and substantially helped America to achieve its eventual victory over England. The war that started in New England in  and shifted the next year to the middle states moved into a southern phase in . Great Britain adopted a southern strategy because its leaders believed that the south was overwhelmingly populated by Loyalists. Since Britain now faced a worldwide war against France, the London planners recognized that fewer British troops were available to be used in the American colonies. Thus, there was a need to rely more on the Loyalists. In addition, if Britain could retain control of only some of the rebellious North American colonies, the London government preferred the southern region because of its important raw materials. British leaders, however, had overestimated Loyalist strength in the south. Indeed, brutal civil war occurred between the Loyalists and the Revolutionaries, with the former suffering a crushing defeat at King’s Mountain, North Carolina, in October . Furthermore, as the British forces moved northward through the Carolinas, they suffered significant casualties at the Battle of the Cowpens and the Battle of Guilford

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Courthouse. After these setbacks, Gen. Charles Cornwallis led Britain’s primary southern army into Virginia to cut off the rebel supply lines into the Carolinas. In , as the war entered its seventh year, the main Continental Army, under the command of George Washington, faced a mutiny. More than a thousand Pennsylvania troops marched off for Philadelphia to force the Continental Congress to provide back pay. An agreement was reached by the end of January, but by then New Jersey troops had also mutinied. This time there was no settlement, and several of the leaders of the New Jersey force were executed before the affair was ended. Moreover, despite the French entrance into the war in , the United States had failed to win a decisive battle since Saratoga in October . But, on October , , a Franco-American naval and land operation forced British general Cornwallis to surrender his entire army at Yorktown, Virginia. After the surrender of Lord Cornwallis’s army, a new British government took office in March , under the Marquis of Rockingham, who died on July , and then under the Earl of Shelburne. The new ministry sent Richard Oswald to Paris to open peace negotiations with an American delegation that eventually included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay. The Continental Congress also appointed Thomas Jefferson and Henry Laurens as negotiators, but neither played a substantive role in the negotiations. The final Anglo-American treaty that ended the Revolutionary War was signed in Paris on September , . It was remarkably favorable to the United States. Great Britain recognized American independence and provided a very generous cession of territory. Unable to control the area west of the Appalachian Mountains and unwilling to see the French or the Spanish seize control, the British government not only recognized the independence of the  rebelling colonies but also ceded to the United States all the territory south of Canada from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River. The southern boundary would be the frontier of Spanish-controlled East and West Florida. Moreover, the British government included no provisions in the treaty to guarantee the lands of their Indian allies. Another article of the treaty secured for Americans all the privileges of fishing off Newfoundland’s Grand Banks and in the Gulf of the Saint Lawrence. The Americans also could dry and cure fish on the unsettled shores of Magdalen Island, Nova Scotia, and Labrador. But the British inserted the “liberty” to fish for the “right” to fish, which would create a long-standing controversy in Anglo-American relations. The treaty further asserted that British creditors should “meet with no lawful impediment” in recovering their prewar debts. In addition, all prosecutions of Loyalists should cease, and the Articles of Confederation Congress was to recommend strongly that the Loyalists’ property be restored by the states. And the British pledged to evacuate their remaining forces “with all convenient speed” from United States territory. Actually, the British would remain in forts in the Old Northwest until the signing of Jay’s Treaty, in . During the Revolutionary era, Americans emphasized the interconnection between culture and liberty. The nation’s public symbols demonstrated America’s reliance on those virtues espoused by ancient republics, including simplicity, industry, morality, patriotism, and civic spirit. Indeed, many felt that art could promote these virtues and inspire the citizenry. As patronization of the arts occurred after the Revolutionary War, the number of artists more than tripled in America. John Trumbull spent his career

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portraying the great events from America’s past. His works include four panels in the Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C., depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga, the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, and the resignation of General Washington. Charles Willson Peale, who had fought at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton and endured the harsh winter at Valley Forge, depicted the Revolutionary leaders with extraordinary realism. During a -year period, he painted George Washington seven times from life. John Singleton Copley, perhaps the best American artist of the early republic, painted famous historical scenes and created portraits that have almost a three-dimensional effect. Moreover, Gilbert Stuart’s paintings, including three portraits of George Washington, showed an incredible accuracy, and Stuart later foreshadowed Impressionistic art by working with pigment dots. At the same time, American architecture was greatly influenced by the Federal style, which synthesized Roman classicism and th-century English concepts. Examples of this were the Virginia state capitol, finished in , and Federal Hall in New York City, which was the first seat of Congress under the Constitution. In addition, music was used to induce people to place the public good above self-interest. As singing schools multiplied, American composers published numerous tunes to inspire the public. The two leading composers were Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and William Billings, trained as a tanner. Hopkinson’s most important work was a cantata, “The Temple of Minerva,” that praised America’s alliance with France. And Billings’s marching song “Chester” became the war hymn of the American Revolutionaries. Once the Revolutionary War ended, there also occurred a major revival of interest in the theater. Though largely writing in imitation of English farces, American playwrights stressed the theme of a contrast between American virtue and European corruption. Leading playwrights were Mercy Otis Warren, Robert Munford, William Dunlap, and Royall Tyler. By , private academies and charity schools were widespread. Yet, a public school system existed only in New England. The Revolutionaries’ republican ideology, however, asserted that education was needed to promote civic virtue and to maintain the republic. Thus, most state constitutions called for public schools. But progress was slow, especially in the south, where the southern gentry believed that universal education would be financially wasteful and could be potentially dangerous if the poor became too ambitious. During the Revolutionary War, higher education experienced reduced enrollments and generally difficult times. But, in the postwar period, American colleges significantly expanded. In addition, schools changed their primarily classical curriculums to programs that provided a more “practical” education, though classics were still covered. Moreover, higher education became considerably more nonsectarian. Of the nine colleges established before the Revolutionary War, eight were associated with a particular religious sect. Of the  colleges founded between  and , however,  were nonsectarian. The University of Georgia, chartered in , became the first state university, but the University of North Carolina, chartered in , was the first to open, in . Certainly education in the United States promoted cultural nationalism. Noah Webster published a spelling book in  titled The American Spelling Book, but among

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several generations of Americans it was commonly known as “the Blue-backed Speller.” This work standardized spelling often different from the British usage. Combined with a grammar book and a reader that Webster published in –, the spelling book helped forge a common language for the American people. In , Webster asserted that “As an independent nation our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government.” Also in the s, Jedidiah Morse published two geography textbooks to provide “a description of our own country.” The expansion of education created a society with the world’s highest literacy rate, and America’s literate citizens wanted additional publications to read. Between  and , the number of newspapers increased from  to . Between  and ,  new magazines were published. In addition, the number of books published in America significantly increased. Readers wanted an American literature that emphasized American themes. Though few people wrote American history, almanacs started to include articles on historical topics, especially the Revolutionary War. Moreover, David Ramsay, a Charleston physician, wrote History of the American Revolution (), which stressed the rise of America’s republican nationalism. In , Mercy Otis Warren finished a history of the Revolution, but she did not publish it until . The most popular account of the American Revolution was published in  by William Gordon, who had plagiarized much of it from British sources. Works of fiction were also very popular in America. The most prominent poets were the Connecticut Wits, including John Trumbull (cousin of the painter), Timothy Dwight, David Humphreys, Joel Barlow, and Lemuel Hopkins. Often using mock-heroic satire, these Yale graduates glorified the union of the states. Many American leaders opposed the reading of novels, however, because they believed it induced readers to neglect republican simplicity and exposed them to corrupting ideas. Nevertheless, novel writing, which often promoted civic virtue, prospered in the United States. Indeed, Charles Brockden Brown in  published Wieland and thus established the Gothic romance in America. Cultural nationalism and increased education also helped to advance scientific studies in the United States. Though Americans had little interest in pure science, they made advancements in surveying, navigation, cartography, instrument making, natural history, and other fields. Moreover, learned societies increased in number and often promoted agricultural changes. And various types of museums were established, including Charles Willson Peale’s museum of natural history, in . The law also changed in America during the Revolutionary era. The Revolution in some ways freed American law from a dependence on English precedent. In particular, the American Revolution clearly had an immediate impact on laws concerning slavery, criminal punishment, and inheritance. For example, by the end of the th century, nearly every state had established partible inheritance by which all children, not just the eldest son, would inherit property from their father. Most legal reform, however, involved processes that had started before the Revolution began. The Revolution in some cases interrupted or accelerated these reforms, but it did not transform them. At the same time, church-state relations changed in a number of the former colonies. Though the Congregational Church retained its legal establishment in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the Anglican Church was disestablished in five southern states

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and in several counties in New York. But the Revolution also provided a new worldview that was conducive to creating a reorganization of the churches. This resulted in a nationalization of denominations. The Baptist and Methodist sects dramatically increased their memberships. The Methodists, led by Francis Asbury, formed a united organization in  and expanded southward and westward, especially through the work of itinerant preachers. As a result of the American Revolution, the destiny of the American people had been changed. The Revolution altered the nature of American society in important ways and created a new nation based on the idea of republican liberty. Furthermore, the American Revolutionaries hoped that their new nation would be an example for the illumination and emancipation of the rest of the world. Indeed, many believed, as Thomas Jefferson asserted, that the United States was “the last best hope of mankind.” SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Willi P. The First American Constitutions: Republican Ideology and the Making of the State Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . A comprehensive discussion of the political effects of the American Revolution in the states. Brown, Wallace. The King’s Friends: The Composition and Motives of the American Loyalist Claimants. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, . This work demonstrates that the Loyalists came from all classes of colonial society. Calhoun, Robert M. The Loyalists in Revolutionary America, –. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, . (Originally published in .) This study emphasizes the Loyalists’ views, which were generally similar to those of other colonists prior to , and the Loyalists’ subsequent reaction against the direction of the Revolutionary movement. Carp, Benjamin L. Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, . Carp argues that the movement toward revolution was led by those in urban areas through a process of “political mobilization.” Carp, E. Wayne. To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration as American Political Culture, –. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . An analysis of how Americans’ political ideals contributed to the Continental Army’s logistical problems and thus prolonged the war. Davis, David B. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, –. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . A study of how Americans dealt with the issue of slavery during a Revolution based on the idea of liberty. Dull, Jonathan R. A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . The most recent comprehensive study of American foreign policy during the Revolution. Greene, Jack P. Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development in the Extended Politics of the British Empire and the United States, –. Athens: University of Georgia Press, . This work covers the constant conflict between local and centralized power during the Revolutionary era. Greene, Jack P., and J. R. Pole, eds. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, . A comprehensive account of the events, people, and ideas involved in the Revolutionary movement. Henderson, H. James. Party Politics in the Continental Congress. New York: McGraw-Hill, . An analysis of the increasing sectionalism in the voting in the national government.

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Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practices, –. New York: Macmillan, . An outstanding survey from the Macmillan Wars of the United States series. Jameson, J. Franklin. The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . A study of the social change of the Revolutionary era and the internal conflict connected with it. Jensen, Merrill. The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation, – . New York: Vintage, . This work contends that a group of radical democrats created the American Revolution but that conservative aristocrats regained control with the adoption of the Constitution. Kerber, Linda. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . An analysis of the Revolution’s effects on the status of American women. Main, Jackson Turner. The Social Structure of Revolutionary America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . This work demonstrates that there was a significant amount of social mobility in the Revolutionary era. Morgan, Edmund S. The Birth of the Republic, –. rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . A balanced account of the Americans’ search during the Revolutionary era for principles on which they could take a common stand. Nelson, William H. The American Tory. New York: Oxford University Press, . The author characterizes the Loyalists as “cultural minorities.” Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, – . Boston: Little, Brown, . A study of how the Revolution affected American women. Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . This work contains information on the African Americans’ military involvement in the Revolutionary War. Rakove, Jack N. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . The author analyzes the creation of an effective national government. Royster, Charles. A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, –. New York: W. W. Norton, . In this important book, the author attempts to integrate the history of the Continental Army with the social context of the Revolutionary era. Shy, John. A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence. New York: Oxford University Press, . This study provides insights on various social and political aspects of the war. Silverman, Kenneth. A Cultural History of the American Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, . An extensive study of painting, music, literature, and the theater from  to . Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution.  vols. New York: Macmillan, . A very detailed account of the military campaigns. Ward, Harry. The American Revolutionary: Nationhood Achieved, –. New York: St. Martin’s Press, . A comprehensive overview of America’s Revolutionary experience. Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, –. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . This study argues that the Revolutionaries were more radical and democratic than most previous historians had believed. ———. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Knopf, . The author contends that the Revolution was “the most radical and far-reaching event in American history.” Young, Alfred F., ed. The American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, . Some of the essays assert that there

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existed a lower-class ideology calling for more democratic reform than the Revolution’s political leaders were seeking. Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . This work covers the American Revolution’s impact on African Americans in the northern states.

AMERICAN INVASION OF CANADA (1775) When the  American colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in September , they made decisions that inevitably led to rebellion against Great Britain. Judging that armed conflict would come soon, the Congress hoped to gain allies in the British colony of Quebec. Because the entire area, from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River to the Great Lakes and beyond, had been a French colony until the Treaty of Paris (), the Americans were sure that the predominantly French population would be glad to take up arms against a traditional enemy. Their delegations to French leaders, however, received no widespread promises of aid. Still, the Continental Congress assumed that, while the Canadians might not openly support rebellion, they would not hinder American efforts to expel the British. When Ethan Allen captured Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point, at the southern end of Lake Champlain, from the British in early May , a natural invasion route was opened. Two plans were developed to launch the conquest of Quebec. One would drive northward up Lake Champlain into Canadian territory and thence to Montreal. From there, a force could float downstream to the main prize: the city of Quebec. A second attack would move through Maine, up the Kennebec and down the Chaudiere rivers to the Saint Lawrence, just opposite the city of Quebec. Both plans were implemented in the fall of , and both were doomed because of timing. The Continental Congress judged correctly that British forces in Canada were too few to defend both Montreal and the city of Quebec. Hence, with a two-pronged attack, at least one must surely succeed. Gen. Philip John Schuyler received directions from the Continental Congress to attack Montreal. He spent the summer of  gathering men and arms, both of which were in short supply. A man of irregular temperament, Schuyler did not get his expedition of , men moving until September and then abandoned it to his second in command, Richard Montgomery, when the Americans reached Saint John’s, some  miles east of Montreal. Montgomery had too few men either to storm the British position or to leave a detachment behind and bypass it. He therefore was obliged to lay siege. The British held out  days, a delay the Americans could not afford. Sir Guy Carleton, the governor of Canada and commander of British forces, had spent the summer trying to raise troops amid a disinterested population. He had three infantry regiments and three artillery companies in the entire country; with one regiment and one company assigned to protect Detroit and Niagara, there was precious little left with which to defend Montreal and Quebec. The fort at Saint John’s held  men, all lost when the American siege was successful, on November . Meanwhile, Montgomery had been receiving some reinforcements and was partially successful in finding a few Canadians willing to assist. Carleton was obliged to abandon Montreal on

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November  when the inhabitants told him they would not help him fight the Americans. He lost even more of his men, and he himself only narrowly escaped during the withdrawal down the Saint Lawrence toward Quebec. In the meantime, the second American advance was under way through Maine. Led by Benedict Arnold, those , men were also too late in getting started; they did not move up the Kennebec River until September . They soon ran into harsh weather and began to run low on supplies. Arnold pushed his men through the freezing wilderness in October and November and lost many to disease and desertion. Gaining some aid from local Frenchmen, Arnold managed to reach the Saint Lawrence opposite Quebec on November , his force reduced to  men. A quick assault on the city would have found it undefended because the troops assigned to it were out on patrol. However, Arnold was unable to cross the river for three days, and the defending troops returned in time to hold off an attack on the walled city. Montgomery and Arnold joined forces on December  some  miles upriver; their combined army numbered almost , men. As at Saint John’s, there were too few men to take the city by storm, so another siege began. It was doomed; the British had more supplies than their besiegers, and the winter weather bothered them much less. The few attacks the Americans made were repulsed (Montgomery was killed), and Carleton was smart enough not to sally out of his defenses. The Americans suffered through the cold until spring , when reinforcements arrived from Britain. Arnold withdrew to Montreal, but his force was decimated by smallpox, and the Canadian population there would not support him. By June, the Americans had abandoned the invasion.

paul k. davis BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL (1775) The Battle of Bunker Hill was the first formal battle of the American Revolution. It showed that American forces would face the British regulars in open battle and helped to convince British commanders that they would have to evacuate Boston. After the defeat of British raiding parties at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April , American militia units rose in open revolt against British authorities. The British commander, Gen. Thomas Gage, concentrated his forces in Boston. A loose blockade of the city by New England militia ensued. After reinforcements were received from England in May, Gage planned to break the blockade by capturing the Dorchester Heights to the south of Boston. The Charlestown Heights to the north would be captured later. When the Americans learned of the British plans, they decided to fortify the Charlestown Heights to delay the British assault. On the night of June , , about , Americans under Col. William Prescott moved onto the Charlestown peninsula. They began digging a redoubt on what later became known as Breed’s Hill, with a smaller work farther back on Bunker Hill. By dawn, the dirt walls were approximately six feet high. While the Americans continued to work, the British decided to attack the fortification. Gen. Sir William Howe commanded a force of , men, who landed on the peninsula at around : p.m. His attack had been delayed by the need to obtain boats and to wait for high tide. The delay allowed the Americans to strengthen their position. When sniper fire was received from the town of

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Charlestown, the British burned the town. The American observers, both civilian and military, were incensed by that apparently senseless act of destruction. The first British assault came at around : p.m. An effort to outflank the American position by light infantry was beaten back by heavy and disciplined fire. A simultaneous frontal attack was also defeated. The baffled British regrouped and attacked again. American fire was disciplined and especially directed at officers. Howe’s command was reinforced by  more men from Boston for a third assault. By the time that assault began, at : p.m., the Americans were low on ammunition. Their fire slowed the British but did not stop them. British grenadiers broke into the redoubt and bayoneted those Americans who did not run. Despite fire from British warships in Boston’s harbor, the Americans were able to stage an orderly withdrawal from the Charlestown peninsula. Howe’s forces were too spent to pursue. British casualties totaled ,, including  killed. American losses were  dead,  wounded, and  captured. Although an American loss, Bunker Hill showed that Americans could stand up to the British in a formal battle, and it prevented the siege of Boston from being raised.

tim watts

BATTLE OF YORKTOWN (1781) The Battle of Yorktown proved to be the decisive battle in the Revolutionary defeat of Great Britain at the hands of American colonists. After the failure of his Carolinas campaign, British general Lord Charles Cornwallis withdrew his army into Virginia and positioned his forces behind fortifications at the town of Yorktown. Cornwallis hoped to receive reinforcements from Gen. Henry Clinton’s army, which was then stationed in New York. Before that could occur, however, the Franco-American Army, commanded by Gen. George Washington and Gen. Jean Baptiste de Rochambeau, arrived outside Yorktown and laid siege to the city. British reinforcements were also cut off by the arrival of French admiral François de Grasse, who drove the British Navy out of Chesapeake Bay and ensured that it could not support Cornwallis. Giving up any hope of assistance, Cornwallis surrendered his troops on October , . The British Army was forced to march to Surrender Field between two lines of French and American soldiers, whose uniforms were tattered but whose faces were beaming. Yorktown proved to be the final engagement of the war.

CONTINENTAL ARMY On June , , the Second Continental Congress voted to raise a Continental Army that would provide for the security of the colonists and bolster the forces already gathering in defense of New England. The Continental Army illustrated both the promise and the limitations of a revolutionary military force facing the professional soldiers of an imperial army.

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Congress sought a regular force of , soldiers, but at its height the Continental Army had only , men. Recruits were to be paid, and the first ones came from the lower classes of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Because the British standing army that had been stationed in the colonies had been portrayed as a symbol of tyranny and corruption, many of the colonists were reluctant to raise a standing army of their own. To command this new force, the Congress unanimously chose Gen. George Washington. Washington became commander “of all the Continental forces, raised or to be raised, for the defense of American liberty.” Washington was widely considered a military genius, but the fact that he was from Virginia, the largest and wealthiest colony, was also important. To fund Washington’s force, Congress issued £ million of paper currency. The Continental Army’s first test came at the Battle of Bunker Hill, where, on June , , , Continental Army regulars resisted the frontal attack of , British soldiers. By the time the American sharpshooters ran out of ammunition and were forced to retreat, they had killed , men. Although the Continental Army did not win the battle, it scored a victory of sorts by demonstrating that it would fight fiercely and that the British recapture of the American colonies would be no easy task. News of the battle inspired patriots throughout the colonies. Soldiers in the Continental Army signed up for one-year terms. This proved a worrisome problem for Washington, who saw the dissolution of his army as a greater threat than defeat by the British. He wrote, “You may as well attempt to stop the winds from blowing or the sun in its diurnal as the regiments from going home when their terms expire.” The coming term expirations inspired Washington’s bold decision to cross the icy Delaware on Christmas night, , to invade Trenton. Having lost at Newport, Rhode Island, and been driven out of New York, the army’s morale was very low. But the victories at Trenton and then Princeton turned the tide for the Americans. Problems of insufficient supplies and irregular pay also plagued the Continental Army. Such low points as the winter of – at Valley Forge nearly led to mutiny. By , however, the war was won and the peace settled, and the soldiers were discharged and sent home.

brett schmoll and karen mead DOCUMENT: GEORGE III’S PROCLAMATION OF REBELLION (1775) On August , , King George III of Great Britain issued this proclamation declaring the American colonists in open rebellion. Fighting had already erupted the previous spring between the patriots and the British Army, but many leading colonists continued to advocate peace and some sort of compromise with Great Britain. It was nearly a year after George’s proclamation that the Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, finally declaring themselves in rebellion against British rule. (A Proclamation by the King for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, August , .

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Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, National Archives.) Whereas many of our subjects in divers parts of our Colonies and Plantations in North America, misled by dangerous and ill designing men, and forgetting the allegiance which they owe to the power that has protected and supported them; after various disorderly acts committed in disturbance of the publick peace, to the obstruction of lawful commerce, and to the oppression of our loyal subjects carrying on the same; have at length proceeded to open and avowed rebellion, by arraying themselves in a hostile manner, to withstand the execution of the law, and traitorously preparing, ordering and levying war against us: And whereas, there is reason to apprehend that such rebellion hath been much promoted and encouraged by the traitorous correspondence, counsels and comfort of divers wicked and desperate persons within this realm: To the end therefore, that none of our subjects may neglect or violate their duty through ignorance thereof, or through any doubt of the protection which the law will afford to their loyalty and zeal, we have thought fit, by and with the advice of our Privy Council, to issue our Royal Proclamation, hereby declaring, that not only all our Officers, civil and military, are obliged to exert their utmost endeavours to suppress such rebellion, and to bring the traitors to justice, but that all our subjects of this Realm, and the dominions thereunto belonging, are bound by law to be aiding and assisting in the suppression of such rebellion, and to disclose and make known all traitorous conspiracies and attempts against us our crown and dignity; and we do accordingly strictly charge and command all our Officers, as well civil as military, and all others our obedient and loyal subjects, to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion, and to disclose and make known all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which they shall know to be against us, our crown and dignity; and for that purpose, that they transmit to one of our principal Secretaries of State, or other proper officer, due and full information of all persons who shall be found carrying on correspondence with, or in any manner or degree aiding or abetting the persons now in open arms and rebellion against our Government, within any of our Colonies and Plantations in North America, in order to bring to condign punishment the authors, perpetrators, and abetters of such traitorous designs. Given at our Court at St. James’s the twenty-third day of August, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, in the fifteenth year of our reign. GOD save the KING.

DOCUMENT: LORD DUNMORE’S PROCLAMATION, 1776 In an effort to undermine the patriot fighting spirit during the American Revolution, Virginia’s last royal governor, Lord Dunmore, issued this proclamation on November , , from the ship on which he had taken refuge in the harbor of Norfolk, Virginia. The proclamation offered freedom for any slaves who deserted their patriot masters and fought for the British. Hundreds of slaves answered his call, but most met with sad ends. Those who weren’t killed in the fighting were frequently sold by the British into slavery in the West Indies. Americans saw Dunmore’s proclamation as an attempt to

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incite a slave rebellion. (Proclamation of Lord Dunmore. National Archives, CO / Part  f.:  November .) By His Excellency the Right Honorable JOHN Earl of DUNMORE, His Majesty’s Lieutenant and Governor General of the Colony and Dominion of VIRGINIA, and Vice Admiral of the same. A PROCLAMATION As I have ever entertained Hopes, that an Accommodation might have taken Place between GREAT-BRITAIN and this Colony, without being compelled by my Duty to this most disagreeable but now absolutely necessary Step, rendered so by a Body of armed Men unlawfully assembled, firing on His MAJESTY’S Tenders, and the formation of an Army, and that Army now on their March to attack his MAJESTY’S Troops and destroy the well disposed subjects of the Colony. To defeat such treasonable Purposes, and that all such Traitors, and their Abettors, may be brought to Justice, and that the Peace, and good Order of this Colony may be again restored, which the ordinary Course of the Civil Law is unable to effect; I have thought fit to issue this my Proclamation, hereby declaring, that until the aforesaid good Purpose can be obtained, I do in Virtue of the Power and Authority to ME given, by His MAJESTY, determine to execute Martial Law, and cause the same to be executed throughout this Colony: and to the Peace and good Order may the sooner be restored, I do require every Person capable of bearing Arms, to resort to His MAJESTY’S STANDARD, or be looked upon as Traitors to His MAJESTY’S Crown and Government, and thereby become liable to the Penalty the Law inflicts upon such Offenses; such as forfeiture of Life, confiscation of Lands, &. &. And I do hereby further declare all indented Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His MAJESTY’S Troops as soon as may be, foe the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty, to His MAJESTY’S Crown and Dignity. I do further order, and require, all His MAJESTY’S Liege Subjects, to retain their Quitrents, or any other Taxes due or that may become due, in their own Custody, till such a Time as Peace may be again restored to this at present most unhappy Country, or demanded of them for their former salutary Purposes, by Officers properly to receive the same. GIVEN under my Hand on board the Ship WILLIAM by Norfolk, the th Day of November in the SIXTEENTH Year of His MAJESTY’S Reign. DUNMORE (GOD save the KING.)

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8 The Declaration of Independence, 1776

INTRODUCTION The Declaration of Independence was written and published more than a year after serious fighting between colonial militias and British forces had begun. The First Continental Congress, convened in response to the Intolerable Acts (see Chapter ), adjourned in late , and, in the spring of , county militias in New England began to collect arms and ammunition and hold training sessions. Gov. Thomas Gage of Massachusetts learned of an arsenal of colonial arms at Concord and sent several hundred troops there to seize it. As the soldiers marched through the town of Lexington on April , several dozen militiamen, warned the night before by Paul Revere and William Dawes, waited silently on the Lexington commons, an open grassy area in the center of town. No one knows who fired the first shot, but, after a short encounter, in which  colonial “minutemen” (so called because they were reputedly able to be ready for action in a minute) were killed and  wounded, the British moved on to Concord and burned what was left of the supplies, although the forewarned colonists had moved most of the weapons to a safe place. On the march back, colonists fired upon Gage’s men from behind trees and fences, and, in the end, the raid on Concord cost the British  dead, wounded, or missing; the colonists lost . The real significance of the affair was the propaganda value Sam Adams and others made out of it; by exaggerating reports of British atrocities, they convinced many people in other colonies that the British were nothing more than cruel barbarians. Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts, colonial militias from counties in various New England colonies came together and laid siege to Gage and his forces in Boston by occupying two pivotal hills overlooking the harbor. In the misnamed Battle of Bunker Hill (the fighting actually took place on the other hill, called Breed’s Hill), the British dislodged the Americans, but only at a terrific cost. They lost more than , men to the Americans’ , and the battle showed that the raw, largely untrained Americans could hold their own against the professional British Army. The skirmishes at Lexington and Concord in April had brought about the convening of the Second Continental Congress, in Philadelphia, on May , . Its chief purpose was to organize resistance capable of meeting the new military situation in New England. George Washington, accordingly, was chosen commander in chief of a yet unformed continental army; indeed, his first duty was to organize that army. Washington was chosen because he had had just about as much military experience as any

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The segmented snake banner represented the necessity for colonial unity at the time of the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin first used this image in 1754 to encourage unity at the beginning of the French and Indian War. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

other colonist and because he came from the largest and most important of the colonies, Virginia, whose support was needed in the fighting in New England. Washington took command almost immediately, traveling to Massachusetts to lead the assembled militias in a new siege of Boston, which lasted until the spring of , when Gage went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, after the colonists mounted artillery on the hills overlooking the city. The Second Continental Congress remained America’s national government until nearly the end of the Revolutionary War, although its personnel changed constantly. It was an extralegal body, never really authorized by anyone, but it assumed the attributes of a national government. It raised an army, printed money, opened relations with foreign governments, and concluded treaties. It had initially been called as an ad hoc body, and it had to depend on the good will and cooperation of the colonial (soon to be state) governments to accomplish its aims. After the appointment of Washington as commander in chief, the Congress sent a petition to King George III—the Olive Branch Petition—which, despite its name, was less peace loving and humble than earlier petitions from the colonies, blaming as it did all the recent troubles on the king’s ministers and their policies. But it went unheeded, since Parliament would not negotiate with what it considered to be an illegal government. Thus, the drift toward complete separation

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continued. In August , Parliament concluded that the colonies were “in open and armed rebellion.” George III, for his part, issued a proclamation declaring the colonies in rebellion and denouncing their leaders as traitors. The Congress now announced that the colonies would engage in free and open commerce with the rest of the world, thus abolishing mercantilist ties with Great Britain and the empire and abandoning the last economic reason for staying within the empire. Many colonists remained proud of their British heritage, but, after combat started, this position was not very practical. Yet, as late as mid-, most colonial leaders were still not thinking in terms of complete independence. Although hopes for reconciliation were all but abandoned, the colonies were in a kind of transitional state, where all agreed that Britain was the enemy but few could agree on where the momentum of events would take them. For many, it was not a question of home rule but rather one of who should rule at home, and many merchants and upper-class colonists were afraid of the radicals and activists who had the support of the mobs. What would happen to them and their property if these mobs took control? On the other hand, the very fact of independence was becoming increasingly evident. Sentiment for it grew under the careful pushing of the radicals, and the newspapers were almost unanimous in their support of it. Unless Congress acted swiftly, said one colonial leader, a great mob would march on Philadelphia, purge the Continental Congress, and set up a dictator. The most eloquent of the spokesmen for independence was Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet, Common Sense, appeared in January . Paine wrote clearly and persuasively as he argued for the advantages of a separate national existence. With independence, a new nation could enjoy free trade with all the other nations of the world. With independence, a new nation would be free from Europe’s wars, since there would be no need to fight with the British, and, with independence, Americans were freed from the absurdity of having a continent ruled by a small island , miles away. Paine summed his argument up with an analogy: “To know whether it be the interest of this continent to be Independent, we need only ask this simple question: Is it the interest of a man to be a boy all his life?” For the first time in anti-British literature, moreover, Paine’s pamphlet ridiculed the monarchy, calling George III a “royal brute” and showing that the policies of Lord North, the prime minister, were really the policies of the king. This countered traditional colonial thinking that drew a distinction between a good king and evil ministers. Common Sense was an important piece of propaganda; Americans bought an astonishing , copies, and it helped prepare the public for the final break. In the spring of , several colonies instructed their delegates at the Continental Congress to vote for separation from Great Britain if the issue came up. In June, Virginian Richard Henry Lee moved the resolution of separation, and the Congress appointed a five-member committee to work out the details of the resolution and stipulate the causes for separation. This committee included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, whose leadership abilities were widely recognized. Jefferson, the best stylist, was given the task of writing up the committee’s report on the reasons for separation. On July , , Congress formally declared independence, and, on July , the members adopted the report prepared by Jefferson’s committee, which was then signed by the members of the Congress over the next several weeks. It is this committee report that we know as the Declaration of Independence.

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The Declaration of Independence is deservedly famous in American history. One would hardly expect to find in it an unbiased résumé of grievances; it was meant as propaganda aimed at the undecided both in America and abroad, especially the French. In France, England’s long-standing rival, intellectuals were already talking about independence and freedom from an oppressive monarchy and aristocracy. In the Declaration, Jefferson tried to convince people that there were certain times when revolution might be justified. He derived much of his argument from th- and th-century philosophers, especially John Locke, who had written to justify the Glorious Revolution in England, in . Jefferson, like his predecessors, looked at the very nature of government and decided that initially government was a social contract made to protect certain rights and liberties, including the natural rights to life, liberty, and property (although Jefferson changed “property,” with its elitist implications, to “pursuit of happiness”). In a state of nature, before government, certain men had tended to deprive others of their liberties, so a body of people came together and agreed to give up some rights to organize a government and protect the remaining rights and liberties. A few were chosen to lead the government and to maintain law and order and were rewarded with wealth and power, but their essential purpose was to protect the natural rights of the people; this, too, was a contract, set up by the people and their rulers. By the end of the th century, the natural-rights philosophy, as it became known, had become part of the accepted ideological patterns of the age. There was so little quarrel about it that Jefferson could refer to natural rights as being “self-evident.” It was, he said, the right of the people to alter or abolish the government when it (or its rulers) failed to fulfill its end of the contract. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson asserted that George III had indeed violated his contract, and much of the Declaration is a list of grievances against the king, indicating all the ways in which he had done so. Jefferson pointed out, moreover, that it was not the catalogue of abuses that made revolution necessary but rather what they stood for—an intention to place the colonies under the autocratic will of a despot. Independence thus came slowly, more than one year after the outbreak of fighting, and it came reluctantly in many places, as there were many Loyalists in the colonies, including groups around the colonial governors, backlands people in the south, and Philadelphia and New York merchants with important financial ties to London. These groups looked askance at independence, but several important groups or factions worked to propel the colonies toward separation from Britain and independence. These groups included the Continental Congress itself, and especially a vocal and dominant minority within it, including Sam and John Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee. In addition, by , the army was an important catalyst for independence. By mid-, it was truly a continental army—not just a collection of local militiamen—that camped outside Boston, and its very existence was a powerful symbol of a new nation. Before he took command, Washington had been among the least revolutionary-minded of colonial leaders, but in quite a short time the army instilled in him a spirit of popular sovereignty more liberal than was felt by most of his compatriots. With the presence of an army that included men from all over colonial America, continental unity, so important for nationhood, was an inspiring reality. Finally, the press contributed much to the march toward independence. Nearly unanimous in their desire for separation, the -odd colonial newspapers in  were

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more journals of opinion than fact, and they became more opinionated as the war drew nearer. Newspapers were widely read and discussed in the taverns of every town and village, and their role as opinion makers cannot be overlooked.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY rick kennedy “Yesterday,” John Adams wrote excitedly to his wife in July , “the greatest question was decided, which ever was decided in America, and a greater question perhaps, never was or will be decided among men.” That was the day the Second Continental Congress passed the resolution that created a new nation. It is awkward to note, however, that the date of that letter was July , . Thus, “yesterday” was July . The United States was legally created on July . On July , the Congress approved a propaganda pamphlet to explain the July  vote. No better evidence exists of the power of the Declaration of Independence than that our Independence Day is July  and not July . But that power is the power of cultural influence, not legislative statute. The power of the Declaration of Independence is actually not even in the main argument of the document; rather, the amazing influence of the Declaration of Independence is found in just two sentences in the second paragraph. Much of the rest is wrong or at least misleading. This essay focuses on the power and importance of the Declaration, first as a document inventing America and second as a logical structure with great influence in the world but losing power in the th century. British and American soldiers began shooting each other on April , . Killing people, however, does not found a new nation. On June , , Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed the resolution that would be put to a vote and passed on July  by the duly appointed representatives of the colonies. Such legislative action, though, does not necessarily found a new nation. At the time, some delegates did not think that the congressional debate was very important. Richard Henry Lee, for example, the man who proposed the resolution on June , actually left town on June ! Lee, like many congressional delegates, considered state resolutions of independence and state constitutions more important than national ones. So a diminished Congress representing  future states voted on July . The New York delegates got permission from their legislature to give assent on July . Back on June , the Congress appointed an ad hoc committee to draft an announcement of independence if the June  resolution was eventually approved. Five representatives of various regions were put on the committee: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson. After voting on the resolution on July , the Congress set to work editing and discussing what the ad hoc committee called a Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote in his autobiography that on July  the Declaration was “agreed to by the house and signed by every member present except Mr. Dickinson,” who still held hope of reconciliation with Britain. This is a justification for the picture in many people’s minds of the signers all gathered in one room lining up to sign the Declaration—but the picture is false. As already noted, a number of delegates were not in the building on July  and did not take part in the editing. The

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Declaration that was sent to the printers that evening bore only the signatures of John Hancock, president of Congress, and Charles Thomson, secretary. On July , Congress decided that a copy of the Declaration should be “engrossed and signed.” This parchment copy of the Declaration that was received on August  is the one displayed in the National Archives. For the next few months, it collected the signatures of the delegates who participated at different times in the process of voting on the June  resolution. One signer, Matthew Thornton, was not a member of Congress until after independence was declared. The printed versions of the Declaration were distributed around the country and to ships heading to England and Europe. Newspapers published it. Gen. George Washington had it read to his troops. Most people heard it read aloud, and it is still better heard than read. In Garry Wills’s terms, the Declaration of Independence invented America. The date on top of the Declaration of Independence is the proper beginning of the United States because the United States is not just a political unit with a Gross National Product (GNP) rating. America is an idea; more than just an idea, it is an abstraction of what we want to mean to the rest of the world. The Declaration of Independence invented America in the minds of its citizens and the citizens of other nations. Nobody cared then or should care now about the exact wording of the June  resolution passed on July . That resolution is boring and does not tell Americans what they are about. The troops under Washington rallied to the July  Declaration, not the July  resolution. Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration. John Adams explained in his autobiography that the young Jefferson was asked to draft the Declaration because he had “a masterly pen.” Benjamin Franklin certainly wielded the most famous pen in colonial America; however, Franklin was  years old, a bit tired, and he had a reputation for wit, not gravity. Adams himself had a reputation for writing weighty prose—too weighty. On May , , Adams had proposed a type of independence declaration to Congress. It was filled with lawyerly “whereases” and so many dependent clauses that finding a verb was as hard as discerning the point. Jefferson, however, was a “felicitous” writer. Jefferson had shown in his Summary View of the Rights of British America an ability to fashion a memorable argument that did not get bogged down in the facts. “When in the course of human events,” Jefferson grandly began the Declaration. He knew his audience was not only th-century Europeans but also all future generations, everywhere. Although it was grandly garbed, Jefferson clearly stated the purpose of the document: to explain to readers and listeners what the members of the Congress had done on July , because “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” The “causes” are actually rather embarrassing. The most inaccurate statements by Jefferson—that the king was responsible for American slavery and that colonial legislatures wished to mitigate the evils of slavery—were edited out by the Congress. The fundamental error, however, remained. This error is the statement that “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.” The Declaration states that, because of this objective of King George III, the colonists had the right and duty to create their own government—to make a preemptive strike before the king actually accomplished his goal.

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This theory of a plot in Great Britain is completely false. More cynical readers have been willing to say that this is evidence that the Declaration is merely propaganda and constructed around a conscious lie. Robert Middlekauff in The Glorious Cause writes more sympathetically that the notion of a conspiracy in Britain “was too widely disseminated and accepted to be dismissed as propaganda; and virtually every sort of colonial leader—ministers, merchants, lawyers, and planters—sounded them through all the available means.” Middlekauff goes on to offer some historical and psychological reasons for the “almost paranoid delusions of covert designs and evil conspiracies” that are the foundation of the Declaration of Independence. Certainly, something deep inside Americans made them unable to see the truth about British intentions. Responding to a supposed plot in Britain, the initial role of the Declaration of Independence was to offer a well-written, compelling, logical demonstration of why Americans should continue shooting at British soldiers. The basic structure of the Declaration follows this standard Aristotelian form: Major Premise: Individuals have self-evident rights and equality that governments are organized to protect. When governments don’t protect these rights, people have the right to change their government. Minor Premise: The king of England is engaged in a conspiracy to slowly reduce the American colonists to a position similar to that of slaves under a tyrant. Therefore: People in colonial America have a right to change their government. In this structure, the minor premise is false, and the whole of the demonstration falls apart. The Declaration succeeded in rallying troops to a cause, but it was by a faulty logical demonstration. In one sense, the invention of America was done through faulty argument. However, when people talk of the Declaration inventing America, they do not mean the whole Declaration, especially the erroneous factual material about the king’s plot. What invented America was the major premise found in three sentences in the second paragraph: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Jefferson did not make these ideas up. They were commonly believed by colonial leaders. They could not be claimed to be self-evident unless people assumed them almost without thinking. Richard Henry Lee accused Jefferson of plagiarizing the English political theorist John Locke for the “life, liberty, . . .” line; Jefferson insisted he consulted no books. Adams more correctly noted that the ideas and phrases in the Declaration were well known and accepted in Congress before Jefferson wrote them.

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The Declaration’s major premise stated more succinctly and forcefully than ever before an assumption that people increasingly felt was true: that individuals are equal and do have unalienable rights and that governments should protect those rights. French revolutionaries and the progressive revolutionaries in Latin America and Europe that later followed America’s example were inspired by the Declaration of Independence, not because the ideas were new but because, as one Frenchman wrote, “America has given us this example. The act which declares its independence is a simple and sublime exposition of those rights so sacred and so long forgotten.” The revolutionaries did not think the Declaration told them anything new; rather, the Declaration reminded them of what God had already written on their hearts. After the war, George Washington declared that in the American Revolution “the rights of mankind were better understood” and “are [now] laid open for our use.” Even later, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “The Revolution of America, by recognizing those rights which every man is entitled to by the laws of God and Nature, seems to have broken off all those devious trammels of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition which have long depressed the human mind. . . . Every door is now open to the sons of genius and science.” If, as Adams knew, the Declaration was born out of ideas commonplace in colonial America, Jefferson should be credited with the feat of distilling those commonplaces into words and phrases that not only affirmed what was already assumed but also inspired further development. The Declaration transcended its own context. The two key sentences ceased to be part of a flawed document and became a cornerstone, a motto, a maxim for modern society. In the history of the United States, no two sentences are more radical. Gordon Wood in The Radicalism of the American Revolution shows that many citizens of the newly created United States took seriously the individualistic and egalitarian implications of the Declaration. The Declaration seemed invariably to point in the direction of pure democracy. The authors of the Constitution successfully hedged these implications. However, Jefferson’s election to the presidency in  and especially Andrew Jackson’s election in  showed that democracy, individualism, and egalitarianism remained powerful forces pushing further than the authors of the Constitution wanted. In most people’s minds, July , , was the founding day of American government, not some day in  or  when the Constitution formed our present government. Soon after the Revolution, July  celebrations began to be an American ritual, and in them democracy, equality, and liberty were praised. Gordon Wood writes that a social revolution resembling “the breaking of a dam, releasing thousands of pent-up pressures,” quickly swept the country, overwhelming the more hierarchical and controlled systems of the Founding Fathers. Wood is amazed: “Perhaps no country in the Western world has ever undergone such massive changes in such a short period of time.” The speed of this revolution is largely due to the power of the Declaration of Independence. Robert Owen, creator of one of the first and most famous early American utopian communities, gave a speech on the Declaration’s th anniversary, July , , which he called a “Declaration of Mental Independence.” He declared that the signers of the Declaration had wanted to lead further but that the people at that time were not ready. His new society would show the way to the final stages of implementing the Declaration of Independence. Ralph Waldo Emerson in  called for American students to finally throw off their Old World chains and start thinking for themselves. His speech was called a “Declaration of Intellectual Independence.” In Seneca Falls, New York, on

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July , , Elizabeth Cady Stanton and some other women wrote a “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” that exactly paralleled Jefferson’s Declaration, beginning with “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of earth a position different from what they have hitherto occupied.” The second paragraph begins: “We hold these truths to be selfevident: that all men and women are created equal.” The list that follows parallels the original complaints except that the plot to reduce women to slavery was perpetrated by men in general, not just the king. On July , , Henry David Thoreau moved into a cabin on Walden Pond to live deliberately as a free individual. He, like Owen, Emerson, Stanton, and thousands of others, wanted to push America further, to jump-start progress beyond constitutional compromises. In the conclusion to “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau wrote, “Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened state, until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power.” In , Abraham Lincoln wrote to a friend that the writers of the Declaration of Independence meant to set up a standard maxim for a free society, which should be familiar to all and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated and, thereby, constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. As president, Lincoln took part in spreading, deepening, and augmenting the influence of the Declaration of Independence in the Gettysburg Address when he called for the Civil War to end with a “new birth of freedom” What Lincoln called a “maxim” for America, William Henry Seward called a “higher law.” In , on the Senate floor, Seward, one of the great leaders of midcentury America, delineated the fundamental tension in American history between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution: The Constitution regulates our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. Seward astutely separated the working, day-to-day law of the land from the guiding ideals of that law. The former is founded in the Constitution and the latter in the Declaration of Independence. For the most part, Seward would say, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence work well together; however, when in conflict, such as in the case of legal slavery, Americans must follow the Declaration of Independence instead of the Constitution. In his essay on civil disobedience, Thoreau offered a stark example of the principle: every good American should be sent to jail every once in a while. This tension between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, between higher law and working law, still exists in America. The tension reflects the difference between the July  resolution and the July  declaration. In law, the United States was created on July . In the minds of most Americans, the United States was invented on July . On the latter date, a higher law than courtroom law was recognized as the purpose for the new nation.

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Higher law is known in one’s conscience, one’s intuition, one’s soul. Higher law is sometimes called natural law, and its force comes from being “self-evident.” In Jefferson’s language, higher law was the law of “God and Nature.” For early Americans from Jefferson to Lincoln, that higher law was a communication from God, self-evident because God the creator put it in every conscience. In modern terms, God hard-wired it into people. The Declaration simply helped people recognize what they already knew: that the individual has unalienable natural rights and that government must protect those individual rights. For Jefferson, Thoreau, Lincoln, Seward, and probably almost all Americans before more recent times, self-evident higher law was known by intuition and communicated by a creator God. In this sense, the power of the Declaration of Independence for its first  years can be considered to be dependent on belief in a creator and sovereign God. For Jefferson, most other early Americans, and most people in the history of Western civilization, powerful and compelling demonstrations had to begin with knowledge that God put in one’s mind. Aristotle constructed his logic on the foundation of self-evident intuitions. At the end of his Posterior Analytics, one of the seminal books of Western logic, Aristotle declared that intuition was higher and more important than science, since intuition is the “originative source” of knowledge. Euclid followed Aristotle in this by constructing geometry on self-evident axioms known by intuition. For Jefferson, Lincoln, and most other early Americans, the certainty of geometry and logic depended on intuitions, and those intuitions were created in humans by a God who does not deceive people. The certainty and power of the Declaration of Independence were similar to the certainty of geometry and stark Aristotelian demonstration. For early Americans, the construction of an argument that compels assent began with a major premise of self-evident truths, then linked those truths to consequences through facts. As already noted, we now know that the Declaration’s logic failed because it linked its major premise to an incorrect assertion: the king was not plotting to place Americans under tyranny. This did not matter in the long run. What mattered is that the Declaration of Independence clearly stated some self-evident truths that were accepted as intuitional, higher law. Americans quickly began to use the Declaration as a model to prove other things: given the major premise, then American slavery must end, then democracy must be enhanced, then women must be given their rights, then immigrants must be accepted as full citizens, then . . . then . . . then. . . . The radical social changes demanding more equality and democracy that Gordon Wood shows quickly spreading after the Revolution and the governmental reforms of the Jacksonian era were empowered by the compelling logic of the major premise of the Declaration of Independence. In more recent times, however, the Declaration’s power to compel has diminished. If the power of the major premise is founded on self-evident truths communicated by “nature’s God,” then a declining belief in a God that communicates truths diminishes the power of the Declaration to compel society to reform. In the th century, fewer and fewer American leaders have been willing to make a logical case based on the higher law of self-evident truths. The major premise of the Declaration of Independence has increasingly become more a rhetorical ploy or ineffective faith than a self-evident truth. Laura Kalman, in Legal Realism at Yale, –, quotes a law professor who matter-of-factly noted that “legal concepts” such as Jefferson’s self-evident truths “are

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supernatural entities which do not have a verifiable existence except to the eyes of faith.” For people who believe this, the Declaration of Independence is only a weak statement of faith and not compelling logic. Since the middle of the th century, demonstrations founded on self-evident truths have no longer commanded assent among many leading intellectuals. Modern philosophers such as John Rawls in his A Theory of Justice try to argue that civil rights such as equality and liberty can still be affirmed as a foundation for a just society; however, the fact that he must argue so strenuously and against so many critics shows how far our public intellectuals have moved away from simple assent to the Declaration’s logic. The Declaration, we should remember, is not a statute passed by Congress. It has no force of law. The Declaration was not Congress’s instrument of creating a new nation. The Declaration was only a statement of what had already been done on July . The Declaration is not a working part of the laws of the United States. The power of the Declaration has always been its role as a statement of higher law that could influence by compelling logic the course of normal law. Certainly, people still quote the Declaration on equality and rights. It is most often quoted, however, as a vague faith or hope, not as a truth. As such, it has less power. The best example of the diminishing political power of the Declaration of Independence is the history of civil rights for African Americans. Before the Civil War, the most powerful abolitionist argument was that a higher law stated in the Declaration of Independence demanded that constitutional slavery must end. There was no legal basis to force the end of slavery. There was only the compelling logic of a higher law. With the end of slavery, the Declaration of Independence helped change the law of the land. In the th century, the demand for African American civil rights moved on two parallel tracks. Martin Luther King Jr. exemplifies a cultural track that used the Declaration of Independence as a rhetorical tool to stir American sensibilities. In local, state, and federal courts, however, where reality was at work and fundamental changes were brought about, lawyers from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) such as Thurgood Marshall kept higher-law arguments about equality in the background. In the courts, Marshall used such concepts as “stigmatic injury” to show that black children suffered in segregated schools. Marshall himself believed in the self-evident truths of equality and rights, but to get things done he focused on normal manipulation of legal arguments. Certainly, the cultural exhortations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Marshall’s intermittent quotations from the Declaration were influential, but a significant change in the power of the Declaration of Independence occurred between the early th century and the late th. Internationally, the core statements of the Declaration of Independence are still revered, but there, too, the power of the logic is diminished. The United Nations (UN) in many ways is the greatest monument to the influence of the American Revolution in the modern world. The UN charter echoes the Constitution; both begin, “We, the people(s) of the United. . . .” In , the UN echoed the Declaration of Independence with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the preamble, the terms, phrases, and ideas parallel Jefferson’s declaration—even to the point of using Jefferson’s term “inalienable rights.”(Somewhere between Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration and the final version, his “inalienable” became “unalienable.”)

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But the UN Declaration is constructed on lawyerly “whereases” and does not have the full force of demonstration in the manner of Jefferson’s logic. The “inalienable rights” of humans are simply associated with a vague “recognition of the inherent dignity” of people. The UN Declaration’s logic is not founded on claims of transcendent truth. At best, the UN Declaration’s logic accepts being founded on a vague faith and hope. The newer way of viewing individual rights and equality as a weak faith and hope is most often considered “being realistic.” Maybe it is. We must take stock, however, of what that means for the Declaration of Independence. The major premise of the Declaration had great power in early America—in the words of Gordon Wood, power to break the dams, to explode and quickly revolutionize society with a new radical order. Without a strong foundation in self-evident truths and a society that believes in selfevident truths, the United Nations Declaration cannot have the power to change the way people think that the Declaration had as it changed America between the Revolution and the Civil War. The Declaration of Independence used to be able to compel assent in a society that honored demonstrations constructed on self-evident intuition. The Declaration of Independence no longer has that power in America, and neither does the UN Declaration have that power in the world. On July , , the th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died. Most Americans then believed that God, with the act of taking these two men, had stamped the Declaration with a seal of approval. Most people raised in American schools today simply smile at the foolishness of their ancestors’ thinking a mere coincidence to be a sign from God. In this change of perception lies the fate of the Declaration of Independence. If the self-evident truths stated by Jefferson no longer anchor logical arguments that compel assent, then the Declaration will increasingly be only a historical artifact and no longer a force in American history. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Becker, Carl L. The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas. New York: Random House, . The classic work on the intellectual background of the Declaration of Independence by one of the greatest American historians. Donovan, Frank. Mr. Jefferson’s Declaration: The Story behind the Declaration of Independence. New York: Dodd, Mead, . One of the clearest point-by-point narratives of events surrounding the Declaration. Fliegelman, Jay. Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, . Examines how Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence as an oratorical performance as well as an eloquent published document. Gerber, Scott Douglas. To Secure These Rights: The Declaration of Independence and Constitutional Interpretation. New York: New York University Press, . An analytical work that suggests the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to implement the natural-rights principles expressed in the Declaration. Hawke, David Freeman. Honorable Treason: The Declaration of Independence and the Men Who Signed It. New York: Viking, . Excellent bicentennial account of the most important events, along with biographical information about each signer. Howell, Wilbur Samuel. “The Declaration of Independence and Eighteenth-Century Logic.” William and Mary Quarterly  (): –. One of the rare studies of the way in which logic was structured in the Declaration by one of the best historians of modern British logic.

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Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf, . A detailed study of the social context in which the Declaration of Independence was conceived and written that de-emphasizes Jefferson’s role. Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, –. New York: Oxford University Press, . A comprehensive narrative of the causes, military aspects, and consequences of the American Revolution. Peterson, Merrill D. Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary Dialogue. New York: Oxford University Press, . The best biographer of Jefferson presents a clear study of the divergent minds and personalities of the two most politically influential authors of the Declaration. Wills, Garry. Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. New York: Vintage, . A deeper and broader study than Becker’s or Howell’s of the intellectual context of the Declaration. Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Knopf, . Emphasizing their radicalness, Wood shows that the implications of the Declaration of Independence helped bring rapid change to the social and political structure of the new nation.

GEORGE III (1738–1820) King George III was the British monarch from  to . As such, he ended the “Whig oligarchy” in England and allowed Tories back into government, presided over a long and taxing war with France, and saw the colonies in America gain independence. His obstinate resistance to American independence made him a symbol of British tyranny to the American patriots. He eventually went mad but ended his reign as a popular king within Great Britain. George was born on June , , in London, England. He was the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gothe. He became heir to the throne after his father’s death, in . In , George’s grandfather, George II, died, and George ascended the British throne as King George III. A devoted family man, George had  children by his wife, Charlotte of Mecklenberg-Strelitz. In the early s, he purchased the Queen’s House for his wife, a structure that was later enlarged to become Buckingham Palace. As a ruler, George had a deep sense of moral duty and wanted a direct role in Great Britain’s politics. In particular, he hoped to reestablish some of the royal rights and privileges that his predecessors had allowed to pass to the British Parliament. The dominance of the British Whig Party in all aspects of British society ended when George took the throne, and he allowed Tories back into public life. George also wanted to establish Britain on a more solid financial footing, as frequent wars throughout the first half of the th century had drained the country’s treasury. The Seven Years’ War (known as the French and Indian War in America), which had begun in , lasted three years into George’s reign. The Treaty of Paris () ended the costly war in February , but Great Britain’s success came at a cost. The national debt nearly doubled, as did Britain’s power in the world. George decided to make a concerted effort to bring his growing empire more firmly under his control, especially his colonies in North America. The British government endeavored to rein in the American colonists by reforming the colonial government and increasing colonial taxes (which were significantly lower than the taxes paid by those who lived in England). The new taxes were aimed at reducing Great Britain’s postwar debt and at shifting a greater part of the cost of North

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America’s defense to the colonists. George supported and encouraged these changes. He believed the colonies were economic satellites of Britain and that Parliament had unquestioned authority to tax and rule the colonists. Conflict arose when the colonists resisted Britain’s attempts to reassert power after more than  years of neglect. Throughout the s and s, the American colonists protested against increased taxes and the British government’s attempt to exert more control over them. They believed, however, that these objectionable actions were those of the government and not necessarily sanctioned by the king. By the late s, most colonists maintained that George either did not know about the colonists’ objections or had been seriously misled by his ministers as to the situation in the colonies. When fighting broke out between colonists in Massachusetts and the British Army at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April , many leading colonial figures decided that they must appeal directly to the king to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict. In July , the Second Continental Congress sent a letter to George that became known as the Olive Branch Petition. In it, the colonists urged the king to redress their grievances and restore order to America. What the colonists did not know, however, was that George had been well informed about the American situation throughout the s and s and that all of the measures to which the colonists objected had had George’s full approval. In response to the petition, George declared the Americans in open rebellion. After the American Revolution, George bemoaned the loss of the American colonies and seriously considered abdicating the throne. He believed that the loss of the colonies signaled the end of Britain’s status as great world power. In , he suffered from a severe bout of depression and dementia, a condition that many in England blamed on his devastation at the loss of America. Some even questioned his ability to rule. He eventually recovered, however. The English public did not know that in fact George had been suffering from periods of depression throughout most of his adult life. Many historians now believe that he was afflicted with porphyria, a metabolic defect that may cause delirium and mental instability, as well as great physical discomfort. The episode in  was merely the worst attack of the disease that he had suffered up to that point. The outbreak of the French Revolution and its resulting wars did nothing to help George’s condition. He became a symbol of the old ways so passionately being fought against, and his mental instability made him largely ineffective as a ruler. In , George suffered a more serious attack of the disease from which he never made a full recovery. His son, the Prince of Wales (later King George IV), acted as regent for the remainder of George’s reign, during which his popularity surprisingly blossomed. George III died at Windsor Palace on January , .

THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743–1826) Thomas Jefferson wrote the lines inscribed on his tombstone, listing the three accomplishments of which he was most proud: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, and the father of the University of Virginia.” It is a modest epitaph for a man who founded a

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major political party and served as minister to France, governor of Virginia, secretary of state, vice president, and president of the United States. He was also an accomplished writer, lawyer, farmer, naturalist, architect, musician, linguist, philosopher, scientist, geographer, surveyor, botanist, ethnologist, and paleontologist. Jefferson was born on April , , into a prominent family at Shadwell plantation in Albemarle County, Virginia. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in  and was admitted to the bar in  after an exceptionally thorough preparation in legal theory. Until the outbreak of the American Revolution, Jefferson lived the life of a wealthy Virginia aristocrat. He practiced law; married Martha Wayles Skelton, on January , ; began the construction of his mansion at Monticello; and served variously as magistrate, county lieutenant, and member of the Virginia House of Burgesses (–). As the crisis intensified between Great Britain and its American colonies, there was no doubt in Jefferson’s mind about the right of colonists to refuse to obey the decrees of the British Parliament. In A Summary View of the Rights of British America, a pamphlet prepared for the Virginia convention in , he argued that, under English law, the legal precedents of emigration and natural rights meant that the colonies owed allegiance to the king but did not have to obey Parliament in matters of taxation or trade. A tall, lanky, and shy man, Jefferson impressed his colleagues through the quality of the written committee reports he prepared rather than by his speeches. As a member of the Second Continental Congress, Jefferson, along with Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, was asked to draw up a declaration of independence. The completed document was composed from ideas suggested by the committee members and the Congress. Jefferson actually wrote the text, contributing the impassioned and stirring prose that continues to inspire Americans. The vision of a world in which all people are treated equally regardless of their birth, class, or status and in which governments exist to improve the quality of life of their citizens, not to control them, still serves as a model for oppressed people around the world. Jefferson resigned from the Congress in September  to serve in the Virginia House of Delegates and to be closer to his family. He concentrated his energies for the next several years on trying to institutionalize his ideas of political and religious freedom in Virginia. He believed that a social revolution, as well as a war with Great Britain for independence, needed to occur. His goal was to create a meritocracy, a society in which a natural aristocracy based on talent and merit rather than wealth and birth would lead. Although he was disappointed by the results of his efforts in Virginia, he did manage to have all the feudal aspects of land ownership in Virginia abolished. He also led the successful effort to end government support for the Anglican Church. Jefferson’s most famous single bills were for Establishing Religious Freedom (introduced in  but not adopted until ), which provided for the separation of church and state, and a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, to create a public education system (which was never adopted as he envisioned). Jefferson was elected governor in  and was in office when Virginia was devastated by the invasion of the British in  and . He was blamed for Virginia’s inability to defend itself, even though the restrictions on the powers of the office had given him little authority to act. After his term ended, in , a legislative inquiry cleared him of all charges of dereliction of duty, but Jefferson was so humiliated that he decided to

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retire from public life. He might have remained secluded at Monticello, but the death of his wife, in September , drove him to seek escape from his grief through work. Jefferson returned to the Continental Congress in  and served there until he was appointed a special commissioner to France in  and then minister to France in . His most notable accomplishment in Congress was securing adoption of the decimal system of coinage. His Report of Government for the Western Territory, in which he advocated prohibiting slavery in all western territories, became the foundation for the Northwest Ordinance of . Jefferson remained in Paris as Franklin’s successor until . While in Paris, his Notes on the State of Virginia (), a highly respected natural history that established his reputation in Europe as a scientist, was published. It was from Paris that Jefferson reviewed the newly written Constitution and added his support to the need for amendments (the Bill of Rights) to ensure adequate protection of individual liberties. Before his return to the United States, Jefferson witnessed the early stages of the French Revolution. He could not hide his enthusiasm for the principles heralded in the revolt or his support for the moderate factions led by such men as the Marquis de Lafayette. Shortly after Jefferson’s return to the United States in , President George Washington asked him to become secretary of state. Jefferson reluctantly agreed and served in that post until the end of Washington’s first term, in . It was during this period that the bitter rivalry began between Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, which led to the formation of two major political parties in America: the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists. Jefferson’s fears about the dangers of a strong central government, his desire to protect small farmers—the people he believed constituted the foundation of a republic— and his wish to forge a close political bond with France were not shared by Hamilton. Hamilton advocated interpreting the Constitution broadly, or loosely, using the doctrine of “implied powers,” so that the new central government could establish a strong nation with an expanding industrial base and increased trade with Great Britain. Each man sought to persuade Washington of the correctness of his perspectives. Washington attempted to follow a middle path, but Jefferson, a strict constructionist who believed in a narrow interpretation of the Constitution, decided that the president had adopted Hamilton’s perspective after he supported the establishment of a national bank under the broad interpretation of the Constitution. Jefferson became the leader of those opposed to the Federalists and to Hamilton’s programs; he helped to found an opposition press and what became known as the Democratic-Republican Party. Finally convinced that he could not persuade Washington to adopt his perspective or stop Hamilton while both were serving in the cabinet, Jefferson decided to retire to Monticello in . For the next three years, his supporters and other opponents of Hamilton and the Federalist Party worked to secure Jefferson’s election to the presidency. In , although Jefferson did no campaigning, he received only three fewer electoral votes than Federalist John Adams and therefore was elected vice president. Relations between Jefferson and Adams were cordial at first (in fact, the two men had been close friends for years), but Adams’s decision to support most of Hamilton’s programs and the Alien and Sedition Acts earned Jefferson’s enmity. Jefferson opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts on the grounds that they stifled free speech and political

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opposition. He even went so far as to claim in his so-called Kentucky Resolutions (as James Madison did in the Virginia Resolutions) that states could declare the acts null and void. The tumult caused by the Alien and Sedition Acts, the growing international crisis precipitated by the French Revolution, and the domestic conflict arising from Hamilton’s national economic development program culminated in Jefferson’s election to the presidency in  after an acrimonious campaign between himself and Adams. Jefferson’s taking office, however, was delayed several weeks as the result of a controversy caused by a flaw in the Constitution. At that time, there was no distinction made on the ballots between candidates for president and vice president. The man with the most votes became president, and the second-place finisher became vice president. In the event of a tie, the election was automatically thrown into the House of Representatives. In the election of , however, Aaron Burr, the vice presidential candidate, received as many electoral votes as Jefferson. Burr briefly capitalized on the confusion in the House to try to usurp Jefferson’s election and win the office himself, but Hamilton’s advice to Federalists to vote for Jefferson as the lesser of two evils helped settle the matter. The Twelfth Amendment remedied this defect in the Constitution by changing the procedure for the election of president and vice president. During his first term in office, Jefferson reduced the national debt, cut taxes, and sought unsuccessfully to reduce the power of the Federalist-dominated judiciary. Although he believed in a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution in theory, in practice he was more flexible. When a unique opportunity was provided by France’s emperor Napoleon to purchase the Louisiana Territory, Jefferson committed the United States to the sale although the Constitution did not specifically authorize the government to acquire foreign territory. The only foreign conflict he faced at this time involved his ordering the small American navy to blockade Tripoli to suppress the raids of Barbary pirates on American shipping. Although the military effects of the action were mixed, the action was extremely popular, and the securing of a favorable treaty in  with Tripoli seemed to justify his resort to force. His efforts to have western Florida included in the Louisiana Purchase failed, but, overall, his first term was remarkably successful, and he was easily reelected in . Jefferson’s second term was dominated by efforts to protect American trade rights as a neutral party when warring England and France both established naval blockades against each other. The British impressment of seamen was a constant grievance, and, when a British ship fired upon and boarded a U.S. naval frigate, the Chesapeake, in , the American public might have backed a declaration of war. Jefferson, who never wanted to resort to war and who opposed constructing a large navy, decided to rely on economic pressure tactics. First the Nonimportation Act of  was tried, then the Embargo Act of . Unfortunately, these acts required Americans not to attempt to trade with their principal clients, England and France, and brought economic havoc to merchants as well as to shippers. New England, the maritime center of America, was especially hurt. In addition, enforcement of the embargo required infringements upon the very individual rights that Jefferson heralded as inviolate. The result was that, by the time he left office, in , even though the Embargo Act had been repealed, he was the target of considerable public hostility.

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The furor was not sufficient to prevent the election of Jefferson’s chosen successor, Madison, however. Jefferson retired to Monticello secure in the knowledge that his policies would be continued. Retirement to Monticello in  did not mean inactivity. Before his death, Jefferson achieved one more major goal, the establishment of the University of Virginia. He was also active as the president of the American Philosophical Society (–). He mended his friendship with Adams and began a long correspondence with his old companion in which they discussed political theory and the state of the country. Jefferson died on the th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July , , shortly after noon and just a few hours before Adams.

steven g. o’brien

JOHN LOCKE (1632–1704) John Locke is considered one of the first of the modern philosophers. Combining the rationalism of René Descartes with the empiricism and inductive scientific method of Francis Bacon, Locke gave the Western world the first distinctly modern theory of human nature. Locke was born on August , , in the small English village of Wrington, in Somerset. His father, John Locke Sr., was a local attorney of modest means. Both his father and his mother, Agnes Kneene, were educated Puritans who kept a pious, yet intellectual household. Locke’s father was a stern man who showed a general lack of interest in the young Locke but became closer to him as he grew into adulthood. Locke had one brother, Thomas, who was born in , not long after which the family moved to Belluton. Locke’s early education was at home. When he was , his father arranged his entrance into Westminster School, located next to Westminster Abbey, in London. There, he studied Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew in order to read the classic books written in those languages. Three years after entering the school, Locke was elected a King’s Scholar, meaning he would board in the school rather than outside in private quarters. This honor also meant Locke was eligible for a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge when he graduated. In , Locke’s brother, Thomas, also entered Westminster School. In May , at the age of , Locke was elected along with five other students for a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford. He enrolled there the following November. Though he lost his mother during these years, he continued his studies, graduating with a bachelor of arts in  and then beginning the three years of study necessary for the master of arts degree. Already in his young career, Locke believed that uncritical adherence to tradition and irrational emotional convictions were the two primary causes of human error. Thus, he undertook his advanced academic studies with the search for a rational and empirical method of finding truth. This search would remain constant throughout all of his later philosophical efforts. Locke’s father died in , and, two years later, his brother also died. His father left him some land and a few cottages, providing him with a small but adequate income for the remainder of his life. Yet Locke found himself alone in the world just as he was

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entering his thirties. Also in , however, Locke was elected lecturer in Greek by Christ Church. Two years later, he was appointed lecturer in rhetoric. In his early years as a teacher, Locke frequently considered becoming a clergyman in order to advance his career, since England’s highest educational institutions were governed by the Anglican Church. Yet, his dislike for theology and his keen interest in science seem to have kept him from following through with this idea. In , with the Great Plague decimating London’s population, King Charles II and his court came to Christ Church for a long stay. At this time, Locke accepted a secretarial post to the diplomatic mission in Brandenburg. During this mission, he was deeply impressed by the way Brandenburgers accepted religious differences—an experience that would shape much of his future thought on toleration and religion. For instance, in his work A Letter Concerning Toleration, finished in  but not published until , Locke concluded that all Christian denominations except Catholicism must be tolerated. In Locke’s view, the Catholic’s unswerving allegiance to the papacy and the nonbeliever’s threat to social peace disqualified them from the benefits of toleration. For Locke’s time, this was considered a quite liberal position; in the wake of Locke’s later fame, this view of his was influential in the development of full toleration in England. In the summer of , Locke met Anthony Ashley Cooper, who later became the Earl of Shaftesbury. Cooper soon invited Locke to his London home to serve first as his houseguest and later as his personal physician—an interesting position for Locke, given that he never had any formal medical training. Through Cooper’s many political and intellectual connections, Locke was able to develop his skills as a philosopher and to gain appointments to several public offices related to trade and commerce. As a result of respiratory problems exacerbated by the London smog, Locke went to France for an extended stay in . While there, he met the well-respected philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and a number of other people associated with the French Royal Society. In , it was discovered that Locke’s friend Cooper was plotting an overthrow of Charles II in order to prevent the king’s legitimate heir, his brother James, from establishing a Catholic monarchy. From this point on, it became very dangerous to be recognized an associate of Cooper; thus, Locke secretly slipped out of London, making his way to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, by February . While in the Netherlands, Locke visited several of his famous friends, including Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, the inventor of the microscope, and Prince William of Orange and his wife, Mary Stuart, who would become the next monarchs of England. Locke spent the winter of – in Utrecht beginning work on his book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In this work, Locke addressed three main questions: how do we gain knowledge? How reliable is that knowledge? What is the scope of what can be known by human knowledge? In reaching his conclusions on these questions, Locke relied heavily on the newly emerging empirical method. Empiricism argued that humans were born with empty minds and that the only link the mind had with the external world was through the senses. Thus, Locke established a clear distinction between knowledge reached through reason, which he thought could be empirically verified, and knowledge reached through faith or opinion, which he thought was mere mental fantasy. When William and Mary took over the throne, just prior to , Locke returned home to England aboard Princess Mary’s ship. King William offered Locke several

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diplomatic posts, but, not wanting to leave England, he refused them all and took only a part-time position as commissioner of appeals. Locke’s position at Oxford had been lost while he was in the Netherlands. After he withdrew his request for reappointment after learning that someone else would be dispossessed of his position, he turned his attention to finishing his main work on political philosophy, Two Treatises of Government, which he published anonymously in . In Two Treatises, Locke maintained the “social contract” theory of government by claiming that people establish societies and enter into a contractual relationship with their created government for convenience and better protection of their rights. Thus, for Locke, the only legitimate reason for a government to exist was to preserve and protect these rights, including life, liberty, and property. If any government should violate these rights of an individual, then the social contract was destroyed, thus leaving the individual free to rebel in order to establish a new and better contract. This position of Locke’s was one of the earliest defenses of the concept of civil disobedience. In the later years of his life, Locke published a few little-known works, including a special edition of Aesop’s Fables written in English and Latin to help children learn Latin, as well as The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures. In , the same year he published this latter work, his asthma became so bad during London winters that he moved in permanently with his closest female friend, Lady Masham. He spent the remainder of his life in her house, taking visits from the friends, disciples, and dignitaries who came to pay him their respect. King William III personally requested that Locke take the post of embassy secretary in Paris in , a critical time in the negotiation of the Partition Treaties with King Louis XIV. However, due to his failing health, Locke refused the request. In , he began having serious trouble with swelling in his legs, which kept him confined to bed for lengthy periods of time. Locke’s health continued to decline, and, on October , , he died peacefully while sitting in a chair with Lady Masham at his side.

SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS The Second Continental Congress served as the colonial government during the American Revolution. The Continental Congress issued paper money, made decisions that controlled the Continental Army, established committees to acquire war supplies, and investigated the possibilities of foreign assistance. The Second Continental Congress was the crucial governmental body of revolutionary America. On April , , the governor of Massachusetts, Gen. Thomas Gage, sent  troops to seize the colonial powder supply at Concord and arrest John Hancock and John Adams. The battles that ensued initiated the fighting of the American Revolution. Three weeks later, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. This Congress remained active until , when elections created a new governing body. In contrast to the First Continental Congress, every colony was now represented, and such colonial leaders as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson joined John Adams and George Washington as influential delegates. The most immediate concerns for the Second Continental Congress were the organization of armies and the arrangement of central authority. John Adams and Samuel

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Adams argued that Washington should lead the military effort, and delegates approved their suggestion unanimously. In July, the Continental Congress sent delegates to negotiate pacts with Indian groups. It also organized a post office, with Franklin as the postmaster general. In October, the Continental Congress published a Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms, which urged colonists to support the war “for the preservation of our liberties; being with our one mind resolved to die free men rather than live as slaves.” The Continental Congress created a navy and a marine corps and began seeking foreign aid for the anti-British cause. In June , it appointed a committee, led by Franklin and Jefferson, to draft the Declaration of Independence. Plans for a more permanent form of government were on the minds of delegates to the Second Continental Congress. John Dickinson took steps toward that end when he drafted the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union on July , . After much debate, the Articles of Confederation were ratified in . The resulting Confederation Congress would inherit the successes and difficulties of its predecessor, but it would also have to face such vexing problems as national finance without the exigency of war to bring people together.

DOCUMENT: OLIVE BRANCH PETITION, 1775 Although fighting had already erupted between the colonists and the British Army, the Second Continental Congress sent this petition to King George III in July , requesting that the sovereign help broker a compromise between the patriots and the British Parliament. George never answered the petition and in fact, in August , proclaimed the colonists to be in rebellion. The fighting escalated during  and , prompting the Continental Congress to adopt the Declaration of Independence in July . (The Olive Branch Petition to King George III, Second Continental Congress, .) To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. Most Gracious Sovereign, We your Majestys faithful subjects of the colonies of Newhampshire, Massachusettsbay, Rhode-island and Providence plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the counties of New-Castle, Kent and Sussex on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, in behalf of ourselves and the inhabitants of these colonies, who have deputed us to represent them in General Congress, entreat your Majesty’s gracious attention to this our humble petition. The union between our Mother Country and these colonies, and the energy of mild and just government, produced benefits so remarkably important, and afforded such an assurance of their permanency and increase, that the wonder and envy of other Nations were excited, while they beheld Great Britain riseing to a power the most extraordinary the world had ever known. Her rivals observing, that there was no probability of this happy connection being broken by civil dissentions, and apprehending its future effects, if left any longer undisturbed, resolved to prevent her receiving such continual and formidable accessions of

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wealth and strength, by checking the growth of these settlements from which they were to be derived. In the prosecution of this attempt events so unfavorable to the design took place, that every friend to the interests of Great Britain and these colonies entertained pleasing and reasonable expectations of seeing an additional force and extention immediately given to the operations of the union hitherto experienced, by an enlargement of the dominions of the Crown, and the removal of ancient and warlike enemies to a greater distance. At the conclusion therefore of the late war, the most glorious and advantagious that ever had been carried on by British arms, your loyal colonists having contributed to its success, by such repeated and strenuous exertions, as frequently procured them the distinguished approbation of your Majesty, of the late king, and of Parliament, doubted not but that they should be permitted with the rest of the empire, to share in the blessing of peace and the emoluments of victory and conquest. While these recent and honorable acknowledgments of their merits remained on record in the journals and acts of the august legislature the Parliament, undefaced by the imputation or even the suspicion of any offence, they were alarmed by a new system of Statutes and regulations adopted for the administration of the colonies, that filled their minds with the most painful fears and jealousies; and to their inexpressible astonishment perceived the dangers of a foreign quarrel quickly succeeded by domestic dangers, in their judgement of a more dreadful kind. Nor were their anxieties alleviated by any tendancy in this system to promote the welfare of the Mother Country. For ’tho its effects were more immediately felt by them, yet its influence appeared to be injurious to the commerce and prosperity of Great Britain. We shall decline the ungrateful task of describing the irksome variety of artifices practised by many of your Majestys ministers, the delusive pretences, fruitless terrors, and unavailing severities, that have from time to time been dealt out by them, in their attempts to execute this impolitic plan, or of traceing thro’ a series of years past the progress of the unhappy differences between Great Britain and these colonies which have flowed from this fatal source. Your Majestys ministers persevering in their measures and proceeding to open hostilities for enforcing them, have compelled us to arm in our own defence, and have engaged us in a controversy so peculiarly abhorrent to the affection of your still faithful colonists, that when we consider whom we must oppose in this contest, and if it continues, what may be the consequences, our own particular misfortunes are accounted by us, only as parts of our distress. Knowing, to what violent resentments and incurable animosities, civil discord are apt to exasperate and inflame the contending parties, we think ourselves required by indispensable obligations to Almighty God, to your Majesty, to our fellow subjects, and to ourselves, immediately to use all the means in our power not incompatible with our safety, for stopping the further effusion of blood, and for averting the impending calamities that threaten the British Empire. Thus called upon to address your Majesty on affairs of such moment to America, and probably to all your dominions, we are earnestly desirous of performing this office with the utmost deference for your Majesty; and we therefore pray, that your royal magnanimity and benevolence may make the most favourable construction of our expressions

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on so uncommon an occasion. Could we represent in their full force the sentiments that agitate the minds of us your dutiful subjects, we are persuaded, your Majesty would ascribe any seeming deviation from reverence, and our language, and even in our conduct, not to any reprehensible intention but to the impossibility or reconciling the usual appearances of respect with a just attention to our own preservation against those artful and cruel enemies, who abuse your royal confidence and authority for the purpose of effecting our destruction. Attached to your Majestys person, family and government with all the devotion that principle and affection can inspire, connected with Great Britain by the strongest ties that can unite societies, and deploring every event that tends in any degree to weaken them, we solemnly assure your Majesty, that we not only most ardently desire the former harmony between her and these colonies may be restored but that a concord may be established between them upon so firm a basis, as to perpetuate its blessings uninterrupted by any future dissentions to succeeding generations in both countries, and to transmit your Majestys name to posterity adorned with that signal and lasting glory that has attended the memory of those illustrious personages, whose virtues and abilities have extricated states from dangerous convulsions, and by securing happiness to others, have erected the most noble and durable monuments to their own fame. We beg leave further to assure your Majesty that notwithstanding the sufferings of your loyal colonists during the course of the present controversy, our breasts retain too tender a regard for the kingdom from which we derive our origin to request such a reconciliation as might in any manner be inconsistent with her dignity or her welfare. These, related as we are to her, honor and duty, as well as inclination induce us to support and advance; and the apprehensions that now oppress our hearts with unspeakable grief, being once removed, your Majesty will find your faithful subjects on this continent ready and willing at all times, as they ever have been with their lives and fortunes to assert and maintain the rights and interests of your Majesty and of our Mother Country. We therefore beseech your Majesty, that your royal authority and influence may be graciously interposed to procure us releif from our afflicting fears and jealousies occasioned by the system before mentioned, and to settle peace through every part of your dominions, with all humility submitting to your Majesty’s wise consideration, whether it may not be expedient for facilitating those important purposes, that your majesty be pleased to direct some mode by which the united applications of your faithful colonists to the throne, in pursuance of their common councils, may be improved into a happy and permanent reconciliation; and that in the meantime measures be taken for preventing the further destruction of the lives of your Majesty’s subjects; and that such statutes as more immediately distress any of your Majestys colonies be repealed: For by such arrangements as your Majestys wisdom can form for collecting the united sense of your American People, we are convinced, your Majesty would receive such satisfactory proofs of the disposition of the colonists towards their sovereign and the parent state, that the wished for opportunity would soon be restored to them, of evincing the sincerity of their professions by every testimony of devotion becoming the most dutiful subjects and the most affectionate colonists. That your Majesty may enjoy a long and prosperous reign, and that your descendants may govern your dominions with honor to themselves and happiness to their subjects is our sincere and fervent prayer.

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DOCUMENT: RICHARD HENRY LEE’S RESOLUTION PROPOSING A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 1776 Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced three resolutions at the Second Continental Congress on June , , the first of which began the legal action to formally separate the American colonies from Great Britain and was later incorporated into the closing lines of the Declaration of Independence. The second resolution demonstrated the importance of procuring help from foreign governments, and the third resolution led to the creation of the Articles of Confederation. Lee’s resolutions opened a fierce debate in the Continental Congress regarding the colonies’ allegiance to Great Britain that culminated in the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July , . (Lee Resolution showing congressional vote, July , . Papers of the Continental Congress, –; Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, –, Record Group ; National Archives.) Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances. That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.

DOCUMENT: DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 1776 One of the foremost documents in American history is the one that explained the reasons that the colonies were declaring their independence from Great Britain in , shortly after the outbreak of the American Revolution. The Second Continental Congress delegated the task of writing the Declaration of Independence to a committee of five men, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Jefferson did the initial drafting, and the document was subsequently debated and revised by Congress as a whole. Congress voted to accept the document on July , , and it was signed over the next several months. ( Journals of the Continental Congress, –, ed. Worthington C. Ford et al. [Washington, D.C., –], :, Library of Congress.) When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of

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Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository or their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

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He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States; For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world; For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent; For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury; For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses; For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies; For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments; For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every state of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which,

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would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, Therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. [Signators] John Adams, Samuel Adams, Josiah Bartlett, Carter Braxton, Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase, Abraham Clark, George Clymer, William Ellery, William Floyd, Benjamin Franklin, Elbridge Gerry, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, John Hancock, Benjamin Harrison, John Hart, Richard Henry Lee, Joseph Hewes, Thomas Heyward Jr., William Hooper, Stephen Hopkins, Fras. Hopkinson, Samuel Huntington, Thomas Jefferson, Frans. Lewis, Francis Lightfoot Lee, Phil. Livington, Thomas Lynch Jr., Thomas M’Kean, Arthur Middleton, Lewis Morris, Robert Morris, John Morton, Thomas Nelson Jr., William Paca, John Penn, George Read, Caesar Rodney, George Ross, Benjamin Rush, Edward Rutledge, Roger Sherman, Jason Smith, Richard Stockton, Thomas Stone, George Taylor, Matthew Thornton, Robert Treat Paine, George Walton, William Whipple, William Williams, James Wilson, Johnothan Witherspoon, Oliver Wolcott, George Wythe.

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9 Republican Motherhood, 1780–1820

INTRODUCTION The phrase “Republican Motherhood” comes from the era immediately following the American Revolution when the belief emerged that women, relegated to keeping house and raising children, had the patriotic duty to teach their children to be virtuous, responsible citizens. The concept of virtue was thought to be very important as a key to the new nation’s success. Only if its citizens were virtuous in their public and private life could the United States survive and prosper as a nation. This related to the role of women, because they, by nature, were considered more virtuous, and men had a much better chance of maintaining their virtue if virtuous women nurtured them. This provided women a distinct role in the new republic and a responsibility that everyone considered important. It was also at least a partial answer to the question that some women had raised about participating in public affairs outside the home, a notion that in the late th century was far ahead of its time. As the interpretive essay shows, American women had participated in many of the protests and boycotts before the Revolution and had engaged in a wide variety of useful services during the war itself. But, in the years immediately after the American Revolution, a greater public role for women was not an idea that many men could accept. Rather, women’s place would remain in the home. Benjamin Rush, the most celebrated doctor of the era and an advocate for better female education, wrote, “It will be in your power, ladies, to correct the mistakes and practices of our sex.” Opportunities for women, even women who had been educated by tutors or parents in the home, were confined to caring for their families and managing the household, and proper women were expected “to please, charm, and entertain, at home, their families and friends.” Consequently, Rush and others urged that girls be taught music, dancing, and arts and crafts generally associated with women. These skills would both aid their social skills and relieve “the vexation and distress” of a husband. Some women educated in this way were frustrated by their lack of a future outside domestic life and probed the possibility of independence, as demonstrated by controlling their own property, earning an income on their own, or participating in government at some level. But society’s male leaders felt that domestic life trumped any other interests a woman might have. The changes women sought were still in the future, but education for women was a necessary beginning.

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During the Revolution, women often participated in war-related protests, such as gathering to support the boycott of English tea or sign petitions critical of British policy, as this group of ladies from Edenton, North Carolina, is doing. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Mary Beth Norton, a historian of women, points to the popular magazines of the time, such as the American Magazine, the Columbian Magazine, and the United States Magazine, which appealed to both male and female readers, as the most important means by which the role of women was addressed: Articles such as “The Happy Influence of Female Society” and others discussing the styles of women’s dress attracted much attention. . . . A woman who dressed too flamboyantly put her virtue in doubt, and the simpler styles of pre-Revolutionary days became popular again. None of this was intended to move women out of their traditional focus on domestic life, and civic leaders reinforced this notion by emphasizing the beneficial influences a virtuous woman could pass on to her children through her natural nurturing qualities. James Tilton, a Revolutionary War veteran, noted that “the female parent is considered of greater importance to their descendants, by stamping their manners and sentiments in the early periods of childhood and youth.” (Quoted in Norton, pp. –) In general, these magazines portrayed the ideal Republican mother as one who participated fully in family life, managed the household, and raised the children, making sure that they did their chores punctually and filled their free time with culturally uplifting activities. To be the ideal Republican mother, however, a woman needed to be properly educated so that she could pass on to her children the essentials of morality and liberty in the new nation. Educators pointed out that children receive their earliest education from their mothers, who therefore need to be careful in what they impart to their very young sons and daughters. It was especially important to teach sons properly, since they would grow up to be society’s leaders.

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Discussions of this sort led some women to consider the broader question of gender equality. For example, an anonymous essay in the Columbian Magazine in , “On the Supposed Superiority of the Masculine Understanding,” asserted that, while men thought they were superior because God had “assigned” the important “duties of life” to them, it was really women who were superior since they implanted the “first impressions . . . of the whole human race in the minds of babies.” And Abigail Adams, the wife of the second president, wrote to her sister in , “I will never consent to have my sex considered in an inferior [sic] point of light” (quoted in Norton, p. ). This discussion of women’s status carried over into the realm of education, where there were differing views, even among reformers, about the nature and content of what the respectable Republican mother should learn. Prior to the Revolution, education for girls was rudimentary at best, and this became troublesome when the poorly trained girls became women and had to write or do arithmetic. Many women were openly embarrassed by their letters full of grammatical errors and misspellings. The sorry state of girls’ education before the war lent impetus for educational reform in the postwar years, but the nature of reform was not something about which everyone agreed. One common objection was that more education would make women less feminine. Women, said those who were dubious about reform, should concentrate on “refined” subjects, like art, fashion, and music, rather than “profound” ones, like philosophy, mathematics, and politics. Those who embraced a limited degree of reform argued for a curriculum that was expressly feminine and stressed the importance of social graces but also included some traditional academic subjects. They asserted that more education would make women better wives and mothers and, thus, better able to fulfill their feminine roles by turning their children (and, perhaps, their husbands) into better citizens. One of the civic leaders who advocated this level of reform was Benjamin Rush, who thought a utilitarian curriculum would suffice to satisfy the need for good Republican mothers. According to Linda Kerber, in Women of the Republic (), the notion of motherhood and all that it entailed were discussed as if mothers were a “fourth branch of the government,” and that implied that education for women was important. In addition, the coming Industrial Revolution also demanded literate women, who could read and understand directions in the factories. Yet another rationale for female education was that it would prepare them better for marriage. Women whose training was limited to music, sewing, and fashion were increasingly thought to be intellectually shallow and dependent on the men in their families. Republican mothers should become more self-reliant. On the other hand, more radical reformers said that women should be allowed to participate in all areas of study and that they should learn “how to reason,” since that would allow them to attain a status less dominated by men. Schooling for girls challenged the idea that women were mentally inferior to men. Prominent women writers like Mary Otis Warren, who wrote a lengthy history of the American Revolution, and Judith Sargent Murray, who published an essay, “On the Equality of the Sexes,” argued that any disparity between the intellectual ability of men and women stemmed from the inferior educational opportunities for women and not from any genetic difference. The more radical reformers did not carry the day in the late th century, and most of the schools that were established for girls offered a more traditional curriculum. While Quakers and Moravians had been operating schools for girls all year, other jurisdictions

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allowed girls to attend school only in the summers, when boys were working on the farms. Gradually, schooling for girls was made available throughout the year, either in coeducational systems or in girls’ academies. Rush was one of the founders of the Philadelphia Young Ladies’ Academy, opened in , which offered a fairly conservative curriculum that included writing and bookkeeping, to enable women to manage the household, and history, geography, religion, and natural philosophy, to prepare them to initiate their children’s education. The faculty and administration of the academy were exclusively male, but the school did reflect the prevailing feeling that education for all was beneficial to the country; many similar schools for boys had been established in the years before the American Revolution. The Young Ladies’ Academy had a curriculum virtually identical to that of most boys’ schools, based on the belief that women had as much intellectual potential as men, regardless of other gender distinctions, and that women could and should be better nurturers of men if they were educated. Beginning in the s, academies for girls, like the Philadelphia Young Ladies’ Academy, were established in many New England and Middle Atlantic towns and cities. These provided educational opportunities for middle- and upper-class girls. These schools emphasized academic subjects but also taught more traditional female subjects such as music and needlework. Many were boarding schools located in small towns, and many flourished as institutions, with their own buildings and instructors; they became important assets to their communities and enjoyed considerable public support. They developed a sound financial and academic footing and operated for relatively long periods of time. As part of the educational reform of the period, women began to be accepted as teachers outside the home. In , Massachusetts school law first spoke of school mistresses along with schoolmasters, although women had probably been teaching outside the home for some time. Southern attitudes toward education for girls was not as reformist as those in the north, and there was a long wait before southern academies began to be created. Part of the reason for the south’s lag in this endeavor stemmed from the longer time it took for that region to recover from the damage caused by the war. The plantation economy had been badly disrupted, and many public buildings had been destroyed in the campaigns of the early s. Not until  was a female academy based on the northern models established in the south. Consequently, those families who wanted their daughters educated had to send them far from home. While many did not like this arrangement, they convinced themselves that it was in the daughter’s best interests. For poorer children, towns and cities, first in the Middle Atlantic states, began in the s to establish town (or charity) schools, using recent female academy graduates as instructors. These young women, who represented the first wave of women elementary school teachers, took their jobs out of a need for money or a desire to live independently away from home. Some became charity school teachers out of a sense of obligation to help the poor, but, whatever their motivation, the great majority seemed to have liked their work, and, because of them, the reputation of the teaching profession was elevated. Republican Motherhood also had important links to religion. In an era where evangelical religion was becoming increasingly common (see Volume , Chapter , “The Second Great Awakening, –”), women were accorded greater equality in religious

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ceremonies. They often participated in services together with men and, at times, even spoke at public meetings or revivals. Evidently, the movement appealed to many women, because three out of every five converts were female. This was a throwback to Puritan days, where conversion was seen as a feminine experience and converts became “brides of Christ,” regardless of gender. The evangelical movement created a new opportunity for women to play a public role in post-Revolutionary America. In settled churches, women organized “voluntary associations,” such as sewing circles and charitable groups within the structure of the church organization. The revival movement that is central to the Second Great Awakening was determinedly egalitarian, which meant that women could participate to the degree that they wanted. Some spoke from the pulpit and tried to win souls over to God, while others worked behind the scenes, doing such things as organizing prayer groups. The American Revolution and its aftermath brought changes to the core idea of women’s role in society and the economy, principally by creating new opportunities for women both to exercise their civic responsibilities and to work for pay outside the home. During the war, for example, women had managed farms and businesses in place of their husbands or fathers, had performed useful work in the war itself as nurses and provisioners, and had become involved in the ongoing political debate over the future of America. After the war, women helped push the frontier westward, worked on farms, helped manage slaves in the south, and, by the early th century, began working in small, home-centered craft industries, particularly in the textile area, where home production greatly outstripped factory output. It was not long, however, before women moved to factory work in textile mills, where, in the early th century, they outnumbered male workers by more than six to one. All of this contributed to the idea that women could function responsibly beyond the narrow range of housekeeping and childrearing. The era of Republican Motherhood did not come close to bringing equality between the sexes. Women were still women, but their role in society had been redefined and recognized as important. In their role as nurturers of husbands and children, women, and especially white women, had a real impact on the world outside the home. The American Revolution, with all its drama, made the vast majority of women more aware of the new nation’s birth and development and of women’s place in that process, however limited it might seem to the modern observer. No one, for example, seriously thought women should actually participate in politics, either by voting or by holding office. But, in the domestic sphere, women could (and did) support their husbands and tried to raise patriotic and virtuous sons, while new opportunities as teachers or religious activists beckoned to them outside the home.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY kelly a. ryan In , in Edenton, North Carolina,  women signed a petition acknowledging their support of the North Carolina boycott of British tea and cloth. The Edenton women explained, “We cannot be indifferent on any occasion that appears nearly to affect the

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peace and happiness of our country, and . . . it is a duty which we owe, not only to our near and dear connections, . . . but to ourselves.” Prior to the imperial crisis with Britain, it was not the custom for women to participate in political causes. In , Phillip Dawes, a Londoner, created a cartoon intended to ridicule the Edenton women. He characterized the petitioners as lewd and as heavy drinkers who had abandoned their domestic duties to engage in politics. Dawes highlighted the Edenton women’s desertion of their domestic duties by drawing a neglected child at the foot of the table holding the petition. While Dawes rendered the efforts of white and black women as humorous, colonial men and women understood the vitality of women’s work in support of the American Revolution. White and black women supported the American Revolution by engaging in boycotts, declaring their loyalty to the colonies, and maintaining family stability while men participated in the war and the fashioning of the American government. Women’s active participation in the imperial crisis altered dramatically the perception of women. White middle-class and upper-class women became the beneficiaries of a new ideology that highlighted their roles as wives and mothers in the republic. White women’s new roles as “Republican wives and mothers” provided the moral and educational backbone for republic. As wives and mothers, women were to safeguard the republic by imbuing their children and husbands with the principles of working for the good of many over selfish interests. African American women and lower-class white women were not included in this idealized version of womanhood, but they did contribute to the success of the American Revolution and saw other benefits flow to them in the form of educational opportunities that were created initially for middle- and upper-class white women but that eventually opened up to them. Although lower-class white women and African American women did not benefit from the new ideology of Republican Motherhood, they were as important as middle- and upper-class white women in the success of the American Revolution. Prior to the American Revolution, women’s engagement in political causes was limited, as society viewed them as physically and emotionally weak. But the work of both white and black women was vital to the corporate household production of goods, and they took an active part in religious services. Women were thought to be overly lustful, less intelligent than men, and less capable than men of upholding their moral virtue. The English common law of coverture and the institution of slavery exemplified society’s disregard of the capacities of women and African Americans to govern themselves. According to the laws of coverture, a woman’s property and legal rights transferred to her husband upon marriage, and men represented the family in legal, political, and economic matters. Benjamin Wadsworth, a Boston minister, described women’s and men’s roles in his tract “A Well Ordered Family.” Wadsworth proposed that “Wives are part of the house and family, and ought to be under the husband’s government. Yet his government should not be with rigor, haughtiness, harshness, severity, but with the greatest love, gentleness, kindness, tenderness that may be” (Wadsworth, pp. –). As Wadsworth suggested, women were subordinated to men religiously and legally. African American women faced the burden of enslavement. Slavery confined African American women’s activity outside the home as their masters made major decisions about work, family life, and religion. These legal and social strictures on women’s participation in the economy and politics did not prevent them from voicing their concerns to their

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husbands, neighbors, and community leaders and occasionally using a variety of tactics to subvert their husbands’ and masters’ authority. Upon the commencement of the imperial crisis, all women’s roles expanded beyond the domestic sphere because women were required to voice their loyalty to the colonists’ cause. In the first stage of the American Revolution, after the passage of the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, women’s participation was limited to the northeastern cities when protests against Britain moved outside the legislative halls of the colonies. Women’s first acts of political engagement were public expressions of solidarity with the men who opposed the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts. For example, in , after news of the Stamp Act reached the colonies, colonial newspapers noted women’s public disapproval and their support of the men who fought against the actions of the British Parliament. The Boston Evening Post reported that a Boston woman claimed that if she were given the choice, “she should choose rather to be an Old Maid, than that the operation of the Stamp Act should commence in the colonies.” Other women suggested they would “sooner spend their days in a state of virginity, than tie the connubial knot with the man whose dastard soul rendered him unworthy the glorious title of a true Son of Liberty.” As tensions between Britain and the American colonies heightened, men asked for stronger assertions of women’s loyalty to the colonies. During the s, men demanded women’s loyalty by seeking their signatures on nonimportation lists and socially ostracized them if they refused to sign. When women expressed political allegiance to the patriot cause, they pushed beyond the borders of their traditional domestic and spiritual duties. Some African American women were as active as white women in protesting British authority and promoting American liberty. In , Phillis Wheatley, a recently emancipated African American woman, wrote a poem to the Earl of Dartmouth, the newly appointed secretary of state for North America, whom she believed could greatly ease the tensions between Britain and the colonies. She wrote: No more, America, in mournful strain Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain, Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand Had made, and with it mean t’ enslave the land Wheatley’s poem shows African American women’s commitment to the same political concerns that animated her fellow white colonists. However, she also reveals an additional anxiety about slavery. Wheatley’s poem demonstrates that African Americans did not divorce the struggle for American liberty from that of their own race. Wheatley had met Dartmouth in London and knew him to be acquainted with abolitionists. The poem she dedicated to Dartmouth also included stanzas on slavery: Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song, Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung, . . . I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat: What pangs excruciating must molest,

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What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast? . . . Such, such my case. And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway? (Wheatley, p. ) Wheatley’s poem shows that she connected the fight against tyranny to a broader movement against slavery, and she used her personal experiences with slavery to push whites to consider slavery’s immorality. African Americans like Wheatley were successful in linking the fight for liberty with African American freedom in the north. As early as , the Pennsylvania Society for Abolition was formed, and African Americans across the north began petitioning for their freedom. By , women’s protests against Britain included more than their public denunciation of British tax policies. Between  and , women added to their retinue of political activity an engagement in the extensive boycotting that characterized the imperial crisis. Many women became involved in nonimportation of British goods in reaction to the Townshend Acts, the Boston Massacre, the Tea Act, and the Coercive Acts. In , the Continental Congress united in advocating that citizens adopt nonimportation practices to send the king and Parliament a message about the importance of the colonies to the economy of the British Empire. Women’s activity in the nonimportation of British goods was necessary because they made the majority of decisions about what the households purchased and consumed. Women did the everyday work of ensuring that their families avoided British goods, including tea and cloth, and some women even signed loyalty oaths in support of the boycotts. This came to the attention of colonial newspapers, which commented regularly on women’s protest activities. In , many colonial newspapers printed a poem, “A Lady’s Adieu to Her Tea-Table,” in which a woman declares her intent to stop drinking tea: No more shall my teapot so generous be In filling the cups with this pernicious tea, For I’ll fill it with water and drink out the same, Before I’ll lose LIBERTY that dearest name, Because I am taught (and believe it is a fact) That our ruin is aimed at in the late act, Of imposing a duty on all foreign Teas, Which detestable stuff we can quit when we please. (Wheatley, p. ) The nonimportation movement required domestic production of goods to replace those brought previously from Britain. Enslaved and free women’s spinning and weaving of cloth is the most noteworthy of women’s efforts during this time. Women provided a critical service to their families, communities, and the army in their production of cloth. In , one individual in the widely circulated newspaper series “A Journal of the Times” noted, “I presume there never was a Time when, or a place where, the Spinning Wheel could more influence the affairs of men, than at present, in this and the neighbouring Colonies.” Colonial newspapers acknowledged the importance of women’s spinning and published figures on the amount of cloth that communities and individuals produced. For example, one man from Newport, Rhode Island, commented that

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he “was extremely pleased by having the Admittance into the Company of Eleven of the Daughters of Liberty” who engaged in a spinning bee. Spinning bees, like women’s engagement in nonimportation, politicized women’s domestic roles. Places where women spun and weaved became social and political events where both men and women gathered to discuss the state of affairs with Britain. Women’s roles as caretakers of the family during the exigencies of war took them far beyond women’s traditional work roles and changed their conception of themselves. The law of coverture and custom denied married women the right to make contracts and to take charge of the family business, yet the necessity of war and the absence of men at home required that they do so. Women from across the colonies had to learn to maintain family farms and businesses when inflation, lack of specie, and a shortage of goods and laborers were the norm. They also had to make important decisions about whether to stay or to leave their homes when the threat of war or smallpox came close to their communities. In , Lucy Flucker Knox wrote to her husband, Henry, a brigadier general in the Continental Army, that she had gained much experience during the war, and she hoped “you will not consider yourself as commander in chief of your own house—but be convinced that there is such a thing as equal command” when he returned. African American women were among those women who were left behind as their husbands joined in the militias fighting for the British and American forces. Historian Benjamin Quarles estimates that , African American men fought for the colonies in the war. (African American men also assisted the British.) Like white women, African American women gained confidence in their abilities as managers of the household and demanded respect from their husbands for the work they accomplished. As men left their homes to serve their country, enslaved African American women took advantage of the dislocation of war to make a path toward freedom or sought refuge in their homes on plantations. Historians estimate that between , and , southern slaves fled to the British forces or to Canada during the war. African American women who stayed on the plantation found their energy redirected toward supplying the war effort, which included spinning and weaving cloth. Slave owners pushed their slaves harder during the American Revolution to provide for the American forces and to make up for the loss of those slaves who ran away. These efforts had mixed results. Some African American women resisted work with masters absent and the British army nearby. One North Carolina mistress noted that slaves “do now as they please everywhere.” In particular, she complained about Sarah, who would not come to her when called and who, when she did arrive, “was very impudent.” When slaves left their plantations, they left a vacuum in the labor force that ultimately hurt the American army and economy. Slaves could not produce clothes, food, and other staples when they absented themselves from work, and they found their own supplies of food and clothing reduced as the wartime economy led owners to cut expenditures. The well-being of African Americans was a low priority for many masters. Once military engagement with the British began, lower-class women played a vital role in the military campaigns of the war as camp followers. Women followed their husbands, lovers, and family members into war and served as cooks and laundresses, sometimes for pay. Sarah Osborn, who followed her husband in the campaigns, recorded that she “busied herself washing, mending, and cooking for the soldiers.”

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Women camp followers walked behind the troops as they moved from engagement to engagement and often risked their lives taking care of the soldiers. Women brought food and water to men during battles and even took up their posts when they fell in the line of duty. Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, also known as Molly Pitcher, is the most celebrated of these women. In June , she brought pitchers of water and assisted her husband and his fellow artillerymen during the Battle of Monmouth. Joseph Plumb Martin, a soldier at the battle, recorded that, while Mary was “in the act of reaching for a cartridge, a cannon shot from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat. Looking at it with apparent unconcern she observed that it was lucky it did not pass a little higher, for in that case it might have carried away something else” (Martin, pp. –). George Washington disliked the stretching of provisions and slow pace of movement that went with having camp followers, but he was also impressed with the courage of some of the women he encountered. Sarah Osborn remembered that, when she was “carrying provisions” to the men engaged in battle, Washington asked if she “was not afraid of the cannonballs.” Osborn replied that “It would not do for the men to fight and starve too.” Most upper- and middle-class white women did not become camp followers and instead remained at home with their families. However, they did work to promote the welfare of the soldiers by forming groups dedicated to supporting the movement for independence. In , Ester DeBert Reed founded the Ladies Association to raise money for American soldiers. Reed wanted women to “render themselves more really useful” to the war effort by posting broadsides throughout Philadelphia. The Ladies Association spread from Philadelphia into Maryland and New Jersey and raised $, for the Continental Army by canvassing their communities for donations for the ill-equipped soldiers. Washington agreed with the Ladies Association that the money should be used to make shirts for soldiers. Other women donated their money, labor, and provisions to the army when soldiers billeted at their homes. Rachel Wells, who gave the government £ in gold, felt she had “Don as much to Carrey on the Warr as maney that Sett now at ye healm of government.” Women of all races and classes added to the war effort in ways that befitted their social situation. The American Revolution highlighted the importance of the domestic sphere in political and social life, as women participated in the protest movements and maintained family stability during the war. A new ideology regarding middle- and upperclass white women’s character emerged that highlighted the roles they played in the domestic sphere. Historian Linda Kerber coined the term “Republican Motherhood” and described the idealized mother as “self-reliant (within limits); literate, untempted by frivolities of fashion . . . dedicated to the service of civic virtue; she educated her sons for it; she condemned and corrected her husband for lapses from it” (Kerber, p. ). As Kerber suggests, the republic demanded a virtuous citizenry that could put public good before personal benefit. A solid moral foundation was necessary to keep the republic intact, and people looked to white middle- and upper-class women to help their husbands and children develop these traits. These women were particularly important in the campaign to fashion good citizens because their sons would become the leaders of the next generation and their daughters would have to carry on the nurturing role.

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Middle- and upper-class white women did not find their rights increased in the new republic even though their roles as wives and mothers were increasingly respected. Linda Kerber noted that Republican mothers “had a responsibility to the political scene, though not to act on it.” The law of coverture continued, and women could not vote in any state except New Jersey, where the state constitution did not expressly prohibit women from voting and indicated only that voters had to satisfy certain property requirements. Single and widowed white women with property took the opportunity to vote in state and local elections until , when the state legislature restricted suffrage to men who met property qualifications. Some women chafed at the limitations placed on them in the new nation. In , Abigail Adams requested that her husband, John Adams, a member of Continental Congress, “[r]emember the [l]adies” when he constructed new laws. Abigail Adams threatened that women would “not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or no Representation.” But, the overwhelming majority of women did not press for representation and voting rights. As the guardians of religious and moral virtue in the new republic, white middleand upper-class women demanded access to more education to fulfill their new roles. Abigail Adams argued that “If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women” because women take charge of the “early education of youth” and the “first principles which are instilled” in children. Middle- and upperclass women found allies in the postwar era among men who also saw the need for the improvement in American women’s access to education. Benjamin Rush, a member of the Continental Congress, argued that women needed a broad education that included reading, writing, grammar, basic accounting skills, history, science, and philosophy. Rush believed that women’s primary role in society was to educate their children so that they would guide the nation into sound moral decisions as adults. Rush believed “the happiness of a country where knowledge and virtue were generally diffused among the female sex” would be greatly increased. The push for education led to the proliferation of women’s academies after the American Revolution. These academies did not adopt the broad-based education plan that Rush suggested, but women received a secondary level of education beyond the rudiments of reading and writing. Female academies geared specifically toward middle- and upper-class white women focused on enhancing women’s grammar, reading, and writing skills, as well as offering more traditional subjects for women, including needlework, French, and music. By the s, lower-class white women and African American women benefited from the increased educational access offered in the north. The expansion of women’s education also provided additional avenues of employment. Increasing numbers of women took jobs teaching or running schools for women in the s and early s. African American women and lower-class white women did not benefit from the ideology of “Republican Motherhood” immediately after the American Revolution. Racial and class based hierarchies in early America led to the stereotyping of these women as lascivious, morally suspect, and less religious than their middle- and upper-class counterparts. In particular, the economic circumstances of lower-class women often took them outside the domestic sphere and compromised their ability to claim moral righteousness in a public sphere inhabited largely by men.

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Nevertheless, enslaved African American women took hold of the rhetoric of liberty that was so widespread during the American Revolution and pressed for freedom. When women of the north and south refused to work for their slave masters, ran toward freedom, or sued the government for freedom, they appropriated liberty for themselves. Mum Bett, a slave in Massachusetts, was inspired after hearing the discussions about the formation of new governments that respected individual liberty to sue for her freedom. In , Bett was angered by her mistress’s physical abuse of her and sought refuge at Theodore Sedgewick’s home. In , the Massachusetts state constitution declared all men “free and equal.” Sedgewick, an antislavery lawyer, provided Mum Bett and her fellow slave Brom a legal defense that made them the first slaves freed by the Massachusetts Supreme Court after the adoption of the state constitution. This case was fundamental to the same court’s decision, in, to declare all slaves in the state free. By , all northern states had passed immediate or gradual emancipation acts. These statutes led to the formation of African American educational and religious institutions and helped bring about the rise of an African American middle class that contributed to the abolitionist movement of the s. The American Revolution had profound implications for the future of the republic for both African American and white women. After the s, women created numerous associations to promote the welfare of the nation. Women formed charitable organizations to aid the sick, poor, and orphaned in their communities, missionary groups to spread Christianity, and mutual benefit societies to aid one another in dire circumstances. As in Esther DeBert Reed’s organization, women took charge of drawing up membership lists, gathering donations, distributing alms, and assisting in the moral welfare of the state. Women began targeting temperance in the s, and, by the s, they eagerly joined abolitionist groups emerged. Perhaps the most extraordinary change in women’s lives after the American Revolution concerned their perception of themselves. Women gained confidence in their own abilities, and some women pushed against the legal, social, and political hierarchy that subordinated them. In , Judith Sargent Murray published her essay “On the Equality of the Sexes,” in which she declared boldly, “Yes, ye lordly, ye haughty sex, our souls are by nature equal to yours; the same breath of God animates, enlivens, and invigorates us.” Murray argued that “from the commencement of time to the present day, there hath been as many females, as males, who by the mere force of natural powers, have merited the crown of applause” (Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes”). In this essay, Murray drew attention to the fact that women earned the esteem of others even though they did not have the advantages that men had in earning an education. The United States relied on women during the American Revolution in ways that suggested women were innately equal to and as worthwhile as men. Women gained a new confidence in themselves as a result, and this was fundamental to the growth of the women’s rights movement that would emerge in the s. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bloch, Ruth. “The Gendered Meanings of Virtue in Revolutionary America.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society  (): –. Bloch found that virtue and independence were critical prerequisites for citizenship in the Revolutionary and Early Republican

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eras. She discovered these qualifications for citizenship were gendered in a way that women could never claim full citizenship due to laws of coverture and cultural constructions of womanhood. Jones, Jaqueline. “Race, Sex, and Self-Evident Truths: The Status of Slave Women during the Era of the American Revolution.” In Women in the Age of the American Revolution. Edited by Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, . Jones argues that race was a central component in defining women’s experiences. Her study of the changes in the southern slave plantation system during the American Revolution shows the myriad ways African American women responded to the Revolution. Kerber, Linda. “The Republican Mother: Women and the Enlightenment—An American Perspective.” American Quarterly  (Summer ): –. Kerber investigates the influence of Enlightenment era philosophies on the role of women in Western Europe to discover the role white women were accorded in the new Republic. She defined the term “Republican Motherhood” in this essay. ———. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Kerber concludes that women’s active participation in the American Revolution led to changes in the way women were perceived in the early Republic and shows that women actively advocated for an enhanced role in the new republic based on their roles as mothers. Lewis, Jan. “The Republican Wife: Virtue and Seduction in the Early Republic.” William and Mary Quarterly, rd Series,  (October ): –. Lewis identified women’s roles as wives as central to new conceptions of womanhood in the American Revolution and early republic. She argues that women used their experiences and roles as wives to advocate for more authority within the new nation. Melish, Joanne Pope. Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and Race in New England, –. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Melish argues that slavery was critical to New England’s racial hierarchy. She shows that northern whites begrudgingly and gradually emancipated African Americans but never created a way for them to be included in the new republic. She also details the ways African Americans advocated and took their own freedom. Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, –. Boston: Little, Brown, . Norton details the various experiences of women in the American Revolution and shows that women emerged from the American Revolution with a new conception of their own capabilities. Sheer, George F., ed. Joseph Plumb Martin, Private Yankee Doodle: being a Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier. Boston: Little, Brown, . The American Revolution from a Continental Army soldier’s viewpoint. Shields, John, ed. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. New York: Oxford University Press, . The poems of the most noteworthy African American poet of the early Republic era. Smith, Barbara Clark. “Food Rioters and the American Revolution.” William and Mary Quarterly, rd Series,  (January ): –. Smith’s work shows that women played pivotal roles in the nonconsumption efforts of American patriots, and that women rioted on behalf of their families to assure that food was available to families during the chaos of war. Wadsworth, Benjamin. A Well-Ordered Family. Boston: Bartholomew Green, . Provides some interesting insights on families and roles within families in colonial New England. Zagarri, Rosemarie. “Morals, Manners, and Republican Motherhood.” American Quarterly  (June ): –. Zagarri argues that the Scottish Enlightenment was important in the ways that Americans conceptualized womanhood in the early republic. She shows that Scottish Enlightenment thinkers believed women were part of the body politic but thought of them as inactive citizens.

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ABIGAIL ADAMS (1744–1818) Abigail Adams holds an important place in American history as both the wife of one president and the mother of another. In her own right, Adams was an ardent American patriot. Her perseverance during the American Revolution kept her family together and enabled her husband, John, to devote himself entirely to the patriot cause. Her letters provided her husband with information and shrewd insights into the political situation in Boston while he was absent. Adams remained a dedicated correspondent and apt political observer during the tumultuous early years of the nation until her death in . Adams was born Abigail Smith on November , , in the town of Weymouth, Massachusetts. Her father, William Smith, was the town pastor, and her mother, Elizabeth Quincy Smith, was a descendant of a prestigious Massachusetts family. The second of three daughters, Adams, like most young girls of her station, was educated at home by her mother. She learned to read, write, and cipher, as well as to cook, clean, and manage a household. In addition, Adams, along with her three siblings, read from her father’s extensive library. She proved an eager student, though she always regretted the lack of a formal education. By the age of , when she met her future husband, Adams was not only well read but clever and quick-witted. John Adams, then a young, aspiring lawyer, was promptly taken with the vivacious young woman. The two soon entered into a flirtatious, romantic courtship that often found expression in playful letters. The serious John wrote often to his Miss Adorable, offering her millions of kisses, and she returned his affections, informing him that he was always in her dreams. The two were married on October , , and settled on John’s farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. They remained there for most of the next decade as John worked hard to build his reputation as a lawyer in town and in nearby Boston. Adams herself was busy raising a family, giving birth to five children between  and . During these years, she was kept busy by her domestic cares, but, on the birth of her first child, in July , she found time to express to a friend her happiness that she was “Blessd with a charming Girl whose pretty Smiles already delight my Heart, who is the Dear Image of her still Dearer Pappa.” The Adamses’ domestic bliss, however, was interrupted by public events. As early as , with her husband becoming an increasingly influential local leader in the political conflict with England, Adams began to fear the direction that events were taking; she wrote to her friend Mercy Otis Warren about her fears that “The flame is kindled and like Lightening it catches from Soul to Soul. Great will be the devastation if not timely quenched or allayed by some more Lenient Measures.” In , John was elected a representative to the First Continental Congress, which was to convene in Philadelphia. His departure proved the beginning of a decade-long separation for the couple, as John’s growing national reputation drew him into even greater service to his country. This left Adams as the primary caretaker for her young family, a duty that would prove increasingly more difficult when war broke out, in . Adams tackled her new role with spirit; taking over maintenance of the family farm, she wrote to John that she hoped to be as good a “Farmeress” as her husband could hope to be a good “Statesman.” She wrote frequently to her husband, keeping him informed about political developments in Massachusetts. It was during this time that

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Adams wrote to her husband reminding him that, while obtaining independence for the men of the former colonies, he should also “Remember the Ladies.” The exigencies of the war made providing for her family very difficult, especially as food became scarcer and inflation made money practically useless. Though she often commented that she felt unequal to the cares placed upon her, Adams discovered she had a knack for business and even speculated in land sales. When her husband was sent to Europe as an ambassador, she asked him to send her such goods as scarves, laces, and gloves, which she could sell locally for profit. Like many women during the Revolution, Adams, while often feeling overwhelmed by her new activities, considered her personal sacrifices to be her patriotic duty. In , she wrote to her husband that she accepted their separation by regarding it as a contribution to the common good. Though she bore his absence with patriotic fortitude, the separation proved extremely trying for Adams, particularly in such difficult times. In , after a four-year absence from both John and her eldest son, John Quincy Adams, who had accompanied his father to Europe, she overcame her dislike for leaving home and set sail for Europe in the company of her daughter, Nabby. The Adamses remained in Europe for some time, first in France and then in England, where John served as the American ambassador. Adams felt no affinity for life among Europeans; their manners and customs did not suit her Puritan sensibilities. During these years, however, she had the pleasure of developing a deep friendship with Thomas Jefferson, then ambassador to France. The two maintained a lively correspondence on politics and, even more so, on personal matters. Adams often sent the widower advice and insight on raising his three daughters. She even took charge of Jefferson’s daughter, Polly, for a brief period while the girl was traveling to join her father in Paris. After their stint in Europe, the Adamses professed a desire for retirement to their farm, but John felt compelled to continue his public service, first as vice president under George Washington and, from  to , as president. The couple continued to endure frequent separations while Adams divided her time between her Massachusetts home and the nation’s capital. More trying for them, perhaps, was the political turmoil of John’s presidency. In February , remarking on criticism of the president following the XYZ Affair, in which French officials purportedly tried to bribe American envoys, Adams wrote bitterly that the presidency was a mark at which envy, pride, and malevolence will shoot their poisoned arrows. Particularly bitter was the loss of their friendship with Jefferson, who proved a staunch opponent to the Adams administration and who won the presidency from him in . The Adamses’ dismay over John’s political defeat was compounded by the death of their son, Charles, from alcoholism, in November . John, mourning his son and hurt by the years of political attacks, left the capital without attending Jefferson’s inauguration. In , Abigail and John finally returned to private life on their Braintree farm, where they would remain in contented retirement for the next two decades. The peace of retirement helped heal old political wounds, and the Adamses repaired their friendship with Jefferson, an event in part precipitated by Abigail’s note of condolence to Jefferson on the death of his daughter, Polly, in . Adams was initially reluctant to write to Jefferson because of the political rift between them, but, she wrote, “I know how

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closely entwined around a parent’s heart are those cords which bind the parental to the filial bosom; and when snapped asunder, how agonizing the pangs!” She would again feel these pangs herself when, in , her daughter Nabby was diagnosed with breast cancer. Nabby returned to Braintree during her illness to be cared for by her mother. After her death in July , Adams confided to Jefferson that she suffered a great affliction for the loss of her “dear daughter.” Though in declining health herself, Adams remained active on the family farm and continued her lively correspondence with close friends. On October , , she passed away in Quincy, Massachusetts, after a bout with typhus. John survived her for nearly eight years, always missing the companionship of his Miss Adorable.

MARY LUDWIG HAYS (1754–1832) Mary Ludwig Hays was a washerwoman in the Continental Army until the Battle of Monmouth, when she replaced her husband at an artillery piece and gained celebrity as “Molly Pitcher.” Hays was born in Trenton, New Jersey, on October , , the daughter of German immigrants. In , she relocated to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and worked as a servant in the household of Dr. William Irvine. That same year, she met and married her husband, John Hays, a barber. They had a son, John Ludwig Hays, who later became a sergeant in the War of . When the American Revolution broke out, in December , John Hays joined the First Pennsylvania Artillery Regiment as a gunner under Col. Thomas Proctor. Almost two years later, he reenlisted in Col. William Irvine’s Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment as a private. Hays, as was customary at the time, followed him into the field to perform such domestic chores as cooking, washing, and nursing injured soldiers. Both John and Hays were present at the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey, on June , . This was an attempt by Gen. George Washington to intercept part of the British Army as it withdrew from Philadelphia to New York City. It was a hard-fought action and was nearly lost by the Americans because of the tactical indiscretion of Gen. Charles Lee, who was later removed from command. The Continental Army won the battle because of the determined leadership of Washington and the efforts of Baron von Steuben, who during the previous winter had thoroughly drilled American troops into battlefield proficiency. After Monmouth, the Americans and British were on an equal military footing. Although nominally an infantryman, John was detached to serve in a nearby battery because of his experience with artillery. Since the day was scorchingly hot, Hays and other women were employed carrying pitchers of water to troops in the front line. Suddenly, her husband collapsed, either from wounds or from heat exhaustion. Tradition holds that Hays threw down her pitcher, picked up John’s artillery rammer, and ably served as part of the gun crew for the rest of the battle. Tradition also holds that, while she was serving the piece, a British cannonball rebounded through the grass, passed between her legs, and carried away part of her petticoat. Hays kept on working and commented how she “was lucky it did not pass any higher.” This bravery under fire caught the attention of Gen. Nathanael Greene, who introduced Hays to Washington. He thanked Hays for her coolness under fire and promptly promoted her to sergeant.

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Hays apparently served in the military for eight more years as a washerwoman without further notoriety. However, from her performance at Monmouth grew a national legend, and she became universally known by the nickname “Molly Pitcher.” Hays returned to Carlisle after the war to work as a servant. When her husband died, in , she then married another veteran, John McCauley, and spent the rest of her days supporting him. In , the Pennsylvania General Assembly, in a special act, voted her a $-per-month pension in recognition of her service during the American Revolution. Hays died in Carlisle on January , , and received a military funeral. During the centennial of the revolution, in , she was further honored by a special marker placed on her grave.

john c. fredriksen

MOTHERHOOD IN THE COLONIAL ERA During the colonial period, the literature on raising children was generally directed toward fathers; however, women were primarily responsible for looking after the basic needs of the family. They were the ones who fed the children, made or darned their clothes, and cared for them when they were ill. Elizabeth Drinker, from Philadelphia, wrote that it had been a “tedious long and anxious Day” when her daughter Sally developed a fever and sore throat in the summer of  after having been ill for several days. With evident concern over the health and well-being of her daughter, she made careful note in her diary of Sally’s progress over the next few days. The Drinkers were a wealthy family, and Elizabeth was able to call on the services of doctors to try to relieve the suffering of her daughter. Many other families in the colonies would not have been so fortunate. Colonial America could be an unhealthy and dangerous place to live. Both children and adults were at great risk of ill health, serious injury, or death from disease or accidents. Given the demands made on their time by housework and the constant cycle of pregnancy, birth, and nursing, women were not always able to keep a close eye on their older children. This, combined with hazards in the kitchen, garden, and farm areas, meant that children were quite often at risk. The accidents that befell Mehetabel Chandler Coit’s young family in Connecticut were fairly typical. On March , , Coit noted in her diary that Martha, her two-year-old daughter, had “burntt” her “foot . . . with a warming pan.” Less than two months later, she reported that a wooden plank had fallen on her son Thomas “& struck him down but gott no grate mater of hurt.” Neither Martha nor Thomas died from these injuries, but Mehetabel still suffered the pain of having to bury one of her children. On May , , she noted simply “Samuell Coit dyed in his th year.” He was her third son. In later years, her son Thomas and her daughter Elizabeth died. Mortality rates were particularly high in the Chesapeake, where roughly a quarter of children did not live to see their first birthday. However, in every American colony, mothers faced the possibility, and the reality, of losing their children. Elizabeth Montague Minor was very unfortunate, but not unusual, in having to bury half her children before they reached adulthood. The awareness that a number of their children would be unlikely to survive into adulthood does not seem to have

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hardened mothers’ feelings toward their offspring. Despite Coit’s apparently cold response to the death of her young son, a later letter written to her daughters reveals that she was a loving mother who cared deeply for her children. By this time, her children had grown up, moved away, and formed families of their own. “[T]his comes to bring you my very hart to be divided among you, so you may tak your shares & send the rest back to your poore brothers,” she wrote. “I long to see you all, my affections are allmost upon the wing, Ready to fly, tis a tryall to Live so remote I find myself sumthing inclined to impatience, and am sometimes hardly capable of any moderatian, and am Ready to wish the time to fly swifter, that we may meet again.” The ever-present threat of death, together with the piety of many female colonists, meant that many mothers took a keen interest in the spiritual well-being of their families. This concern extended into adulthood. Coit concluded the letter to her daughters with an exhortion to “persue the best things, Seek first the Kingdom of heaven and the Riteousness thereof, and then all other neadfull blessings shall be added.” In correspondence with her grown son Nathaniel, Anne Broughton of Charles Town begged him to “remember the great account wee are all to give one day, that it may preserve you from being led into sin, by the ill examples that surrounds you.” She elaborated on this plea in a letter the following year: “[M]y Dear Natt the consarn for your soul lies heivily upon my heart. . . . I have often desired you to look over your catichisem and consider what vows and promises was made for you in your baptisem which it is now high time for you to think of renewing at the lord’s table as your sister has don. . . . Remember you depend on the allmighty for life and all things, and it is impieous to live without acknowledging that dependance by praying to him, and praising of him.” It was not only Christian women who took pains to remind their children of their religious obligations, however. In a letter to her son Naphtali Franks, Abigail Bilhah Levy Franks, a Jew from New York, urged him once more “not to be Soe free in y[ou]r Discourse on religeon and be more Circumspect in the Observence of some things Especialy y[ou]r morning Dev[otio]ns for tho’ a Person may think freely and Judge for themselves they Ought not to be to free of Speach nor to make a Jest of wath ye multitude in A Society think is of the Last Consequence.” Through example, instruction, and prayer, women undertook the responsibility of saving the souls of their offspring. As part of their moral instruction, women played a role in disciplining their children when they fell out of line. In colonies both north and south, mothers were viewed as the parent who indulged the child with love and affection, whereas fathers were viewed as the providers of order and correction. It was not uncommon for men to complain that their wives spoiled the children with too much attention. They were concerned that the indulgences of the mother would have a detrimental effect on the character of their offspring, particularly the sons. Given the amount of time women spent in the company of their young children, it is hardly surprising that there were differences in parenting styles. However, children were expected to obey both parents, and, while they were likely to be generous and kindhearted in the children’s early years, women tended to become stricter in their discipline as the children matured. This was particularly true of families in New England, where behavior was closely linked to morality and submission to parental authority was a religious duty. The family was therefore one of the few places where white women could exercise some authority in colonial America.

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Women were also responsible for providing some basic education, particularly to their daughters. There were few schools in the American colonies, and therefore most children who were taught to read and write learned to do so in the home. Reading and writing were viewed as separate skills during this period. While large numbers of girls and boys were taught how to read, learning how to write was a skill generally reserved for the male members of the family. This distinction had a religious foundation: Protestant parents, particularly those in the Puritan and Quaker communities, were keen for each and every one of their children to read the Bible, but they saw no particular reason why girls should be able to write. Mothers were therefore able to teach their children the rudiments of reading, but sons were sent to their fathers for instruction in writing. Childhood education extended beyond moral instruction, reading, and writing. Parents often assumed the duty of teaching their sons and daughters the practical skills they would need in adulthood. Girls and young women learned how to manage a home and look after young children by watching and helping their mothers. Families in New England, fearful of excessively indulging their daughters, often sent them out to learn housekeeping from another family, just as sons were sent out to learn a trade. In , -year-old Elizabeth Nevenson was taken into the Hammond family as a servant “to be taught, instructed and provided for as shalbe meet.” Whether observing their own parent or someone else’s, girls learned what it meant to be a woman and how to be a woman by following the example set by the mother. Many women in the early colonial period, particularly in the Chesapeake and in New France, were not able to learn from their mothers this way: either they arrived in the New World without their families or their mothers died before the daughters reached adolescence. However, as the colonies matured, young women in these regions came to benefit from the experience of their mothers in the same way as others living in more stable and healthy environments. Although women of different generations did not have identical experiences of the New World, their lives were very similar in a number of fundamental ways. As mistresses of their households, daughters had the same duties to fulfill as their mothers; they had to raise children, prepare and cook food for their families, clean and tidy the house, sew and mend clothes, tend to the garden, and purchase goods for the family at market. Wealthier women had servants to complete some of these tasks, but most mothers were responsible for these duties, just as their mothers had been.

john a. grigg JUDITH SARGENT MURRAY (1751–1820) Judith Sargent Murray, a feminist and writer, was the first American woman dramatist to have a play staged professionally. Murray was born on May , , in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was such a precocious student that she was permitted to participate in her brother’s school lessons as he studied to enter Harvard College. She began writing verse during the s but turned to essays as the Revolutionary period stimulated her to think about the rightful place of women in society. In , Murray wrote an essay arguing that men and women are of equal intelligence and should be equally educated. In , using the pseudonym Constantia, she

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wrote an essay in Gentleman and Lady’s Town and Country Magazine in which she asserted that if women had more self-respect they would not marry early in life simply to gain status or avoid being single. A few other essays by Murray also appeared in the Boston Magazine under her pseudonym, earning the author the reputation of a feminist. Murray’s first husband, John Stevens, whom she had married in , died in . Two years later, she married John Murray, pastor of the first Universalist meeting house in the United States. In , still under her pen name, Murray began to write a column, “The Gleaner,” for Massachusetts Magazine. She wrote about politics, education, religion, and other topics until , once commenting that women, capable of more than reflecting on the “mechanism of a pudding,” should be allowed to earn a living, receive equal education, and be an equal companion to men. In , Murray’s play The Medium, or A Happy Teaparty was staged at Boston’s Federal Street Theatre. It was the first play by an American staged at that theater. She wrote another play, The Traveller Returned (), and, in , published The Gleaner, a three-volume collection of her columns. More of her poems were published between  and . Murray also compiled and edited a three-volume collection of her husband’s writings, Letters and Sketches of Sermons (–). After her husband’s death, in , Murray edited his autobiography, Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray, Written by Himself, with a Continuation by Mrs. Judith Sargent Murray (). That year, Murray left Boston to live with her daughter in Natchez, Mississippi, where she died, on July , .

elizabeth frost-knappman

DEBORAH SAMPSON (1760–1827) Deborah Sampson remains the most celebrated female veteran of the American Revolution. Unlike Mary Ludwig Hays (“Molly Pitcher”), she did not accompany her husband as a woman but instead wore a uniform and fought in several battles as a man before her gender was discovered. Sampson was born in Plympton, Massachusetts, on December , , into a poor farming family. Her father died at sea, leaving her mother to care for six young children, and she was raised by an elder family member. At the age of , Sampson became an indentured servant to a farmer, Jeremiah Thomas, and spent the next several years working to obtain her freedom. Years of toiling in the fields rendered her tall, strong, and hardy for a young woman. However, Sampson was also determined to improve herself by education, and, being unable to attend school, she studied by herself at night. In , at the age of , Sampson was finally released from her indenture and worked several years as a schoolteacher. The American Revolution was then in full swing, and thoughts of patriotism and adventure appealed to her. In , she decided to join the Continental Army. Disguising herself as a man, Sampson signed up at Middleborough under the name Timothy Thayer and accepted the usual enlistment bounty. Unfortunately, she spent her money at the local tavern and became drunk, and her true identity became known. Angry authorities discharged her and retrieved the money, while neighbors expelled her from the local Baptist church. Sampson had better luck a few months

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later when she repeated the attempt, at Uxbridge, Massachusetts,  miles away. There, she signed on for three years as a private in Capt. George Webb’s company of the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, enlisting under the name of Robert Shurtleff. Following the dramatic American victory at the Battle of Yorktown, in , military action in the final phases of the American Revolution was restricted to picket skirmishes and raids. Sampson, true to her adventurous nature, managed to be in the thick of things. In the summer of , her company was posted near West Point, New York, a region noted for Tory activities. She fought in several skirmishes at Tappan Bay, receiving a sword wound on the head that she bandaged herself to avoid detection. Several weeks later, Sampson was shot in the thigh during a skirmish at East Chester. Again, she refused proper medical treatment, and the ball remained lodged in her leg, but her gender remained a secret. Despite pain from an unhealed wound, Sampson conducted surveying work in the Ohio Valley and became known as an excellent soldier. In , she became an aide to Gen. John Patterson in Philadelphia. Her wound grew infected, however, and she collapsed from fever. When the doctor treating her uncovered the charade, he informed Patterson. The general was bemused and paraded Sampson in front of her regiment in a dress. So carefully had she carried out her ruse that none of her erstwhile compatriots recognized her. She was then honorably discharged from the service in October  by Gen. Henry Knox, who commended her for  months of service to the country. A year after the war ended, in , Sampson met and married Benjamin Gannett, and they settled on his farm in Sharon, Massachusetts. She remained in poor health as a result of her wounds, and, by , the couple was desperate for money to raise their three children. Accordingly, Sampson petitioned the state for a military pension and received £. In , she also published an account of her military experience, entitled The Female Review, which further spread her notoriety. To further supplement her income, Sampson began touring New England in  to discuss her wartime experiences, decked out in her old uniform. She thus became one of the first female lecturers in the country. In , Sampson approached Congress for additional funding with a recommendation from Paul Revere. Through his intercession, she was placed on the Massachusetts Invalid Pension Roll at $ per month. In , when Congress passed additional veterans legislation, this amount was increased to $. Sampson died in Sharon on April , , survived by her husband. This placed Benjamin Gannett in the unusual position of being a widower eligible for a military pension based on his wife’s prior service. He died before this eventuality came to pass, but, in , Congress authorized payment of $. to Sampson’s children in recognition of her service to the country. In , the Liberty ship Deborah Gannett was also christened in her honor.

EMMA WILLARD (1787–1870) Emma Hart Willard was a pioneer in education for women. She founded the highly successful Troy Female Seminary, which offered a collegiate curriculum to women; brought up for the first time the issue of privately endowed educational institutions for women; and publicized the need for trained women teachers.

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Born on a farm in Berlin, Connecticut, on February , , the th of her father’s  children, Willard grew up in an atmosphere that encouraged learning. Her well-educated, open-minded father discussed current events and philosophy with her, and she learned geometry on her own. In , she enrolled in the Berlin Academy, and, in , she began teaching young children in the village school. The next year, she began teaching older children in the family house while continuing her own education at a school in Hartford, Connecticut. In , Willard became the head of the Female Academy in Middlebury, Vermont. Here, she met and married Dr. John Willard, a physician who shared her commitment to education for women. A visit by her husband’s nephew strengthened her conviction that women’s education was deficient when compared to men’s. In , she opened a school in the Willard home to equalize women’s education. Her Middlebury Female Seminary offered academic subjects like math and philosophy instead of the usual female program of sewing, singing, and painting. Encouraged by her success at Middlebury, Willard petitioned Gov. DeWitt Clinton of New York and the state legislature in behalf of a program of state-financed schools for girls. In her influential Plan for Improving Female Education, published at her own expense in , she skillfully argued the benefits of such a program, pointing out that educated women would make better wives, mothers, and elementary schoolteachers. She was also the first to call for private funding of schools that could teach women of limited means. Willard’s plan so impressed Clinton that he invited her to move her school to Waterford, New York, that same year. Though chartered by the legislature, the school received no state funds. So, when the small industrial town of Troy, New York, offered her $, to start a school for girls there, Willard readily accepted. Founded in , the Troy Female Seminary was unique in offering a college-level curriculum that stressed history, philosophy, the sciences, modern languages, and gymnastics. It quickly gained a national reputation, particularly for turning out qualified schoolteachers, who, in turn, spread Willard’s educational ideas throughout the country. An innovative teacher who was one of the first to use maps in teaching history and geography, Willard was also an able administrator. Under her direction, the Troy Female Seminary prospered. In addition to her work as a teacher and administrator, Willard wrote a number of textbooks. Based on her methods, the textbooks sold well and earned her substantial royalties. After the death, in , of her husband, who had served as school physician and business manager, Willard took full charge of the Troy Female Seminary. Besides her work for her own school, she campaigned and raised money for a girls’ teacher-training school that was established in Athens, Greece, in . To further publicize the need for trained teachers in the United States, Willard, in , formed the Willard Association for the Mutual Improvement of Female Teachers, the first organization of its kind in the country. Retiring from the Troy Female Seminary the following year, Willard turned its administration over to her son and her daughter-in-law. Following a disastrous and short-lived second marriage, she returned to Troy, where she spent the rest of her life supporting education and other reform causes through writings and lectures. Willard worked to improve the public schools in New York and Connecticut and, from  to ,

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traveled throughout the south and the west, campaigning for more women teachers, higher salaries, and better school buildings. In , she represented the United States, along with Connecticut educator Henry Barnard, at the World’s Educational Convention in London. Though no suffragist, Willard did advocate financial independence for women and an extension of married women’s property and legal rights. She died in Troy on April , , at the age of .

william mcguire and leslie wheeler

DOCUMENT: ABIGAIL ADAMS’S “REMEMBER THE LADIES” LETTER, 1776 Abigail Adams holds a unique place in American history as the wife of President John Adams. While her husband was in Philadelphia as a representative to the First Continental Congress, Adams wrote letters providing him with information and shrewd insights into the political situation in Boston. The letter excerpted here urges him to “Remember the Ladies” while obtaining independence for the men of the former colonies and warns of a possible rebellion if women continue to have no voice or representation. (Butterfield, L. H., ed., Adams Family Correspondence [Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, –, :–. Electronic version: Massachusetts Historical Society].) I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I would desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness.

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10 The Constitutional Convention, 1787

INTRODUCTION During the Revolutionary War, there was much discussion about how the new United States should govern itself, that is, what form of central government should be established to replace royal authority. By , all of the former colonies had replaced their governments, and, in , new constitutions had been approved. In general, the format of these governments was similar to that of the colonial government, with an executive and a two-house legislature and at least one house elected by the people. Most states considered two fundamental reforms: the strict limitation of executive authority, which stemmed from colonists’ experience with Great Britain, and the inclusion of bills of rights in constitutions, to guarantee the kinds of fundamental liberties expressed in the Declaration of Independence. These included guarantees such as freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and the press; certain procedural rights within the legal system; and protection against arbitrary treatment or seizure. Replacing the central government was a harder task because there was nothing to build upon, as there had been with the states. No one wanted to build on the example of the British monarchy, and the Second Continental Congress was an extralegal legislative body in which each state had one vote; it was inefficient, dependent on the voluntary cooperation of the delegates and their states, and lacking in authority and prestige. It was just the kind of government one would expect from a nation breaking away from a strong central government. In , therefore, John Dickinson of Pennsylvania drew up a plan of union that came to be known as the Articles of Confederation. Though Dickinson’s original plan called for a fairly strong central government, the Congress weakened it considerably by the final draft; after being voted by the Congress, it was sent to the states for ratification, which was completed by . The Articles created what amounted to a perpetual league between independent nations. It was a confederation in the true sense of the word, a legalization of the Second Continental Congress. The Articles clearly stated that each state retained its sovereignty and that Congress could act only in those areas specifically assigned to it. It created a unicameral legislature, like the Congress, with delegates selected by state governments, and each state had one vote. Congress was given authority to control foreign affairs, declare war and make peace, coin money, borrow money, requisition states for money, settle interstate disputes, govern the western territory and admit new states,

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The delegates at the Constitutional Convention were a distinguished group of Americans that included John Dickinson of Delaware, shown here, who had drafted the Articles of Confederation in 1777. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

run the postal service, and handle Indian affairs. However, to act in any of these areas, the consent of at least  of the  states, rather than a simple majority, was necessary. In addition, Congress was not authorized to levy taxes or regulate interstate commerce, two features that plagued the government during the s. Finally, Congress had no powers of enforcement; it had to rely on the voluntary cooperation of the states. While the Articles of Confederation were a clear reaction against the authoritative British government, the reaction was overdone—the Articles of Confederation government was impotent to deal with the serious problems of the postwar era. There was a severe depression between  and , a not unusual occurrence after a war. Loss of trade with Britain was one problem, but another was the Confederation Congress’s inability to do anything about interstate trade barriers that various states erected against their neighbors. In addition, the government showed diplomatic weakness by its inability to force the British to vacate forts in the northwest or to cease selling arms to the Indians, who were using them to kill settlers. Finally, the financial distress of the government continued because the states refused requests for money and refused to approve an amendment that would have allowed Congress to impose a tax on imports. During this period, many public figures in America saw these weaknesses in the Confederation and supported movements to make changes in the Articles to bring about a stronger central government. George Washington said in , “I predict the worst consequences from a half-starved limping government, always moving upon crutches and tottering at every step,” and, in early , Alexander Hamilton decided that the country had reached “almost the last stage of national humiliation.” Despite these well-founded concerns, the Constitutional Convention came about somewhat inadvertently; it was a spin-off from a  conference at Mount Vernon, called to discuss navigation on the

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Potomac River, and a subsequent conference the following year in Annapolis, at which delegates realized that problems other than navigation and commerce needed to be dealt with. The Confederation Congress authorized a new conference, therefore, and it convened at the State House in Philadelphia in the summer of . Technically, the  delegates were there to devise amendments to the Articles of Confederation, but most were thinking in terms of a completely new document. Jefferson called the delegates “an assembly of demi-gods.” While they were not quite that, they were a distinguished group that included two future presidents, two future chief justices, and six future state governors. Thirty were college graduates, many had served in the army, and most had served either in Congress or in their state legislatures. And many were very young—James Madison was , Hamilton just , and Jefferson —although Benjamin Franklin, at , was also an active participant. Washington led the Virginia delegation and was chosen the presiding officer; he lent inspiration and dignity to the proceedings but added little to the debate. The most important decisions of the Constitutional Convention centered around three major areas: representation in Congress, separation of powers, and division of power between the states and the national government. With respect to representation in Congress, delegates asked whether all states should have equal representation (as the smaller states wanted) or whether representation should be apportioned on the basis of population (as the larger states wanted). And, if representation was to be based on population, how would slaves be counted? Finally, would members of Congress be chosen by state legislatures or by a vote of the people? The key to this issue was to establish a two-house legislature, in which the states would be equally represented in the upper house (the Senate), while population would determine how many representatives each state had in the lower house (the House of Representatives). In that way, each faction was satisfied. As for slaves, a compromise was made in which five slaves counted as three people in the determination of congressional representation (as well as in the amount of direct taxation Congress could impose). State legislatures would select senators (and continued to do so until ), while the people would elect the members of the House of Representatives. The second issue, separation of powers, concerned the amount of power Congress (the legislative branch) should have over the executive and judicial branches of the government. Some thought Congress should retain considerable authority over the other branches, while others argued that there should be divided authority among the branches, which then might be able to check and balance one another to reduce the possibility of oppression. In this argument, those who favored separating power among the branches of the government won out. The Constitution provided for an elaborate set of checks and balances, including such things as the presidential veto, congressional authority over money matters, and lifetime tenure for judges, to ensure a government in which no single branch could predominate. The third major issue, that of federalism, or the division of power between the states and the national government, revolved around differences of opinion as to how much power to give to the new government and how much to leave to the states. When the dust settled, the federal government was assumed to have no powers other than those granted to it by the Constitution. These included many of the same powers the Articles of Confederation government nominally enjoyed, as well as the power to levy taxes, the

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power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce, and the power to pass laws “necessary and proper” for implementing its other powers. These were clearly responses to perceived problems of the Articles of Confederation government. In addition, certain restrictions were placed on the states, principally in areas where they might come into competition with the federal government. States were thus forbidden to issue paper money or levy taxes on foreign or interstate commerce. Those who wrote the Constitution hoped to create a government that, in Madison’s words, was “for the ages.” For this reason, they wrote in very general terms so that the federal government could adjust its powers in various ways as changing times demanded. When the deliberations ended, in September , the document was submitted to the people and the states for ratification. The framers of the Constitution had wisely declared that it would go into effect once  states had ratified it, knowing that it might be impossible to obtain ratifications from all  states. Two factions quickly arose: those supporting the Constitution, who were called Federalists, and those who were against it, generally known as Anti-Federalists. These were not political parties in any but the vaguest sense but rather groups of people divided over a certain issue. Still, there is a considerable amount of correlation between these groups and the parties that formed around Hamilton and Jefferson in the s. The ratification debate captured national attention and was often bitter and uncompromising. The objections of the Anti-Federalists focused on two areas. Some detractors deplored the absence of a guarantee of fundamental liberties in the Constitution and feared that the strong federal government would deny these liberties to the people, while others were upset about the limitations on states’ rights, reflecting the chronic fear of an authoritarian central government. For many, it was hard to accept such a drastically different form of government when they had no idea how it would work in practice. Each state held its own ratification convention, and some states ratified quickly and by overwhelming margins, especially the smaller states, which feared that if the Constitution were not ratified, the nation would break apart and their chances for survival would be minimal. In other states, there were considerable numbers of opponents, and the vote in the conventions was very close. In Massachusetts, the promise that a bill of rights would be added to the Constitution changed enough votes to win ratification by a margin of  out of . In June , New Hampshire was the ninth state to ratify, which ensured the implementation of the Constitution, but it was problematical because the two largest states, New York and Virginia, still were outside the fold. Finally, in Virginia, Washington exerted his influence, and the ratification forces won, –. In New York, the convention was almost equally divided between Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and Anti-Federalists, led by the popular governor George Clinton. To counter Clinton’s strength, Hamilton lined up James Madison and John Jay, and together they wrote a series of essays arguing in favor of the Constitution. Published together later, they are known as the Federalist Papers and represent a very thorough contemporary commentary on the Constitution. These essays, along with news of ratification in New Hampshire and Virginia, finally allowed the Federalists to prevail by a vote of –. Significantly, in the first session of Congress,  amendments were agreed upon, of which  were rather quickly ratified by the states and became known collectively as the Bill of Rights.

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INTERPRETIVE ESSAY julia a. woods On May , , a group of men met at Independence Hall, in Philadelphia. They were acutely aware of the historical importance of their meeting. Eight of the men at this gathering had been present before in the same room for an equally important task: the fearful prospect of war with England—if they had failed then, they would have expected to be hanged for treason. Now their problems were no less serious, though more complex. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention believed that their presence was the best chance they had of saving all that their new nation had gained since the signing of the Declaration of Independence  years before. The Constitutional Convention represents an extraordinary event in the history of governments. Before the Convention, structures of government were formed in entirely different ways, either by evolving over long periods of time, as in the case of the British and French governments, or by imposition of government by military commanders after a successful invasion or coup d’état. The U.S. Constitution represented a new, rational, and peaceful way of changing forms of government. A group of prominent men, chosen by popularly elected legislatures, assembled to create a new form of central government, which was then ratified by specially elected assemblies in each state amid free and occasionally furious debate. After the states ratified the Constitution, voters peacefully elected the political leaders of the new nation, who then set about the business of establishing the day-to-day functions of a national government. Such a thing had never before been accomplished. European observers watched in wonderment, marveling at the absence of violence, the freedom of debate, and the orderliness of it all. Americans themselves were acutely aware that they were attempting to create a government in an entirely new way. The Continental Congress had started out as an organized means of communicating among the colonies and presenting their collective demands to the British government. In , the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, which laid out a plan for a central government to coordinate wartime needs among the former colonies during the Revolution, but the states did not ratify the Articles until . Waging a war on several fronts presented a different set of problems than governing a large territory in peacetime. The Baron de Montesquieu, a French political theorist, had written that republics could exist only in tiny countries, not in the vast region included in the new American states. The drafters of the Constitution, many of whom had either read Montesquieu or were familiar with his views, were in a difficult position. Should they defy the wisdom of one of the most respected political theorists of the century? Could they create a government that united the states without destroying their independence? They believed that they had no alternative and so chose to act boldly; their success was proof of their determination to create a unified whole with the same sense of purpose that had united them against Britain in defense of their rights. The Articles of Confederation, which created a loose confederation among the states, proved inadequate. The authors of the Articles had been railing at the British government for years about its overbearing and unfair impositions and were determined not

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to re-create such a despotic government among themselves. Furthermore, none of the newly formed governments of the former colonies was disposed to trust the other states or the central government. From their founding, the various colonies had varying interests, with their economies based on different crops, trade goods, and businesses. New York and Massachusetts, for example, shared similar trading interests but also had hostile boundary disputes. Southern and northern colonies had different climates, cultures, and interests, and travel between them was so slow that many colonists had traveled to England and yet had never visited a colony a few hundred miles to the north or south. Most people’s loyalty was to their local and their state governments, not to a distant central authority. As a result, the Articles were carefully designed to ensure that no one state could dominate the others. Any state could veto an enactment of the central government, and so agreement on most matters was difficult, if not impossible. The fundamental flaw in the Articles was that they merely created an alliance among the states and had no power to compel state governments to balance their individual interests with the collective interests of all the states. The result was a weak central government. The Constitution of  created a central government with the power to act against individuals rather than just the states, thus creating a much stronger government. After the war, some leaders in the newly independent states were convinced that a stronger central government was needed. These men had a continental, rather than a regional, perspective. Some of these men had served in the Continental Army or the Continental Congress and were impatiently waiting for the states to pay long-overdue assessments necessary to pay off the remaining war debt. Others were men who wanted to do business in more than one state but were frustrated by the confusion created by the existence of different state currencies, the value of which fluctuated wildly. Merchants who wished to trade with other countries were discouraged by Congress’s inability to pass and enforce trade regulations; European countries, seeing the weakness of the American government, had passed high taxes on American goods without fear that similar tariffs would be imposed on their own goods sold in America. Citizens of states that had paid their share of the Continental war assessments were unhappy with states that clearly had no intention of doing so. The chaos in trade and currency made it difficult for many merchants and shopkeepers to do business. Many people hoped that a stronger government would bring order. Trade regulation was to be the topic of discussion for a group of men who met in Annapolis, Maryland, in August . With only five states represented, the delegates decided that a later convention was necessary with representatives from all the states and with an agenda that included more than trade. They issued a call for a convention to be held the following summer and urged the state legislatures to select delegates to go to Philadelphia to discuss a revision of the Articles of Confederation. Not long after, a group of disgruntled farmers and war veterans in western Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays forced the closure of local courts to prevent foreclosures on their land. Many war veterans had been unable to pay their mortgages or taxes because of the economic chaos and currency fluctuations. The rebels were defeated by the local militia before they could seize a local arsenal, but when the news of Shays’ Rebellion spread, lawmakers were alarmed. The Annapolis Convention’s recommendation that a convention be called to revise the Articles made a lot of sense, as a strong central government would

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help prevent such rebellions in the future. George Washington himself urged the Virginia legislature to send a delegation. Washington’s support was particularly important because, as the general who led the new nation to victory in the Revolution, he was regarded in all the states as the war’s greatest hero. So great was his influence and prestige that no one believed that he would involve himself in a disreputable enterprise; his support established the credibility of the Convention. By the middle of October, seven state legislatures had selected delegates for the Convention, and Congress issued a call for the remaining states to choose their delegates. The plan was for the Convention to meet on May  in Philadelphia. The Virginia delegation arrived early, forcing the delegates to wait for a majority of the other states’ representatives to arrive. The states had selected  delegates in all, although no more than  would actually attend the debates, and the delegates arrived and departed according to the difficulties of travel, their business or governmental responsibilities at home, or their dissatisfaction with the decisions of the Convention. Two of the most eminent men of the country were missing: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both of whom were serving as ambassadors in Europe. Others did not attend because they distrusted the Convention’s agenda: John Jay of New York thought the Convention had little chance of success in revising the Articles, Samuel Adams disliked the idea of a general revision of the Confederation, and Patrick Henry was suspicious, stating later that he had refused his appointment as a delegate because “I smelt a Rat” (quoted in Peters, p. ). Because many of those who disagreed with the business of the Convention excused themselves from attending, the men who met in Philadelphia tended to support a strong central government. The delegates were a respectable, though young, group. Their ages ranged from  to . Benjamin Franklin, the oldest delegate and a highly respected veteran of the Revolutionary cause, was so hobbled by gout that he had to be carried into the chamber in a sedan chair he had brought back from France. The average age of the delegates was . They were substantial farmers, lawyers, merchants, and state officeholders and typically occupied a combination of these roles. Six had signed the Articles of Confederation. Forty-two had served in Congress,  had helped draft their states’ constitutions, and  had fought in the Revolutionary War. Most came from well-to-do families. More than half were college educated, at a time when few men, even the sons of wealthy men, went to college. They came from long-settled regions of their home states, rather than the frontier. Many had traveled, both in America and in Europe. Most of these men knew or knew of one another, so the Convention met in an air of familiarity and mutual respect. The only state not to send delegates was Rhode Island. Since Virginia had led the way by selecting delegates first, the Virginia delegation took a leadership role. James Madison, a -year-old former Virginia legislator and Confederation Congressman, had spent a great deal of time pondering the problem of the structures of government. He had been troubled about the state of government under the Confederation and had read a great deal about government, including books suggested by his friend Thomas Jefferson. Despite his youth, he exercised a great deal of influence in the drafting of the Constitution, and much of what we know of the debates during the Convention comes from his notes. The first order of business was to vote for a presiding officer, and the delegates elected George Washington. The delegates agreed on the rules of procedure, with an especially

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important and unusual provision: they agreed to keep the proceedings entirely secret. None of the delegates was permitted to take notes from the official journal of the Convention without permission. Only members of the Convention would be permitted to look at the journal. The proceedings were not to be printed or even discussed outside the Convention room. The reason for this rule was that no member wished to have his own views published; a member could thus feel free to change his views as the discussion proceeded. These men were all politicians, and politicians are expected to maintain some consistency in their opinions; having one’s opinions published tends to make it hard to change them later. No delegate wanted to be obligated to explain to his supporters back home why he was so positively on one side of a debate, only to change sides later. The delegates typically held strong views about the nature and duties of government, but they were not sure about how to put such ideas into practice. The secrecy rule was intended to allow free and vigorous debate and to make compromise as easy as possible. Not everyone approved of this rule. Jefferson, writing letters from Paris, disapproved of secrecy but nevertheless hoped for the best from the Convention. The delegates obeyed this rule faithfully; even Franklin, a famously talkative man, followed the rule, though he had to be reminded on occasion. The delegates agreed to another important procedural rule. The standard procedure for such deliberative bodies was to debate matters one at a time, voting on each issue in turn and then moving on to the next item; once an item was voted on, it would not be reopened. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention agreed instead to form a Committee of the Whole. This decision allowed for debate in which no provision would be formally adopted until the entire Constitution was complete. After the Committee of the Whole completed its work, the Convention would vote to adopt or reject the document entirely. The result was that the majority of debate on the Constitution took place in the Committee of the Whole or in different subcommittees. As discussion of a provision clarified delegates’ views of previous issues, prior matters could be freely reopened and revised. The result was that each delegate knew that if he was unsure about an issue or disliked a provision, he could postpone argument on the matter while debate continued and hope to raise the issue again, perhaps after other delegates had thought about the matter more thoroughly in the context of subsequent debates. For example, the delegates discussed representation in Congress repeatedly, discussing the problem for a while, then turning to other matters while tempers cooled, then raising the issue again for further debate until a compromise was finally reached. The Convention was operating under rules designed to ensure a maximum of flexibility and compromise, with every delegate given ample opportunity to reconsider matters and make his views known. After agreeing on procedure, the Convention was ready to get to the work at hand. Edmund Randolph, the governor of Virginia and leader of the Virginia delegation, presented what came to be known as the Virginia Plan. Madison had drafted this plan soon after the Annapolis Convention, and the members of the Virginia delegation had been discussing it since their arrival in Philadelphia while they waited for delegations to arrive from other states. Virginia was then one of the largest and most populous states, and no one was surprised that the Virginia Plan reflected the concerns of the larger states. The Virginia Plan proposed to eliminate the Confederation mechanism of one vote in Congress for each state, instead apportioning representation in a two-part legislative body by the population. This legislature would be dominated by the larger, more populous

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states. The central government would also have executive and judicial branches, both of which would have the power to override state action in matters of particular national interest. The Virginia delegation clearly proposed to scrap the Confederation government altogether and create a strong central government. The reaction to the Virginia Plan varied. Some delegates were concerned about exceeding their authority to revise the Articles of Confederation, but they were so unhappy with the state of government under the Articles that they were willing to stay in the Convention to find a solution, regardless of the form it took. Other delegates were interested in the proposal but not happy with specific provisions. Alexander Hamilton, representing New York, was pleased that the Convention was considering abandoning the Articles. He recommended abolishing state governments entirely and creating a new national government without individual state governments to interfere. Hamilton’s views were the most strongly nationalistic of those of the delegates, and few of the delegates liked the idea of abolishing the state governments, to which they had strong loyalties. If the delegates would not accept Hamilton’s extreme views, then they might have been persuaded that bold action was necessary, if only to prevent radicals like Hamilton from winning later. Opposition to the Virginia Plan was based primarily on two issues. The first was that the plan proposed to give too much power to the central government. Not only did the delegates not want to create a central government with the power to oppress them as the British government had, but they also were practical politicians who doubted that such a plan would ever be ratified by the states. The states, they argued, would never agree to a government with the power to veto state laws. The second objection to the Virginia Plan was that it gave too much power to the larger states; the proposed legislature would be dominated by large states, and so getting smaller states to ratify the amendments would be impossible. A more powerful legislative branch, as envisioned in the Virginia Plan, was needed, but the representatives from the smaller states wanted a stronger voice in this government and thought that their states’ interests would be ignored in a legislature controlled by larger states. Despite their differences, the delegates chose to remain and to debate specific provisions to reach a compromise, rather than give up and go home. Any disgruntled former delegate to the Convention could have created substantial opposition to the Convention, especially had he chosen to reveal the details of the debate, but most of the delegates stayed, and all obeyed the secrecy rule. After two weeks of debate, some of the delegates proposed a break. The Convention had postponed discussion on the issue of representation in Congress, turning its attention to other matters. Delegates debated the nature of the executive branch, agreeing on an individual as president rather than an executive council, and they discussed the creation of a Supreme Court. After a few days’ break, the delegates returned on June  to resume debate. William Paterson, the former governor of New Jersey, presented a plan intended to address the concerns of delegates from smaller states. Paterson was well regarded despite his short stature (at five feet two inches, he was even shorter than Madison, who stood five feet four inches), and the delegates respected his views. The New Jersey Plan resembled the Virginia Plan in some respects but had important differences regarding the executive branch and representation in the legislature; it expressly retained sovereignty in the states.

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The idea of sovereignty, which is the theoretical source of political power, was important to political theory of the time, an age when sovereigns, or monarchs, held all political power in most countries. Without a monarch, where would political authority reside? Contrary to some people’s expectations, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention devoted little of their time to discussing the finer points of political theory. But Paterson’s proposal to retain sovereignty in the states made one fact clear: by proposing that the states retain ultimate political power, he asserted that the smaller states would rather remain in a loose, even chaotic, confederation than consent to be dominated by the large states in a strong national government. During the debate on the New Jersey Plan, another fact became clear: the small states would consider abandoning the Confederation government if the new form of government would not protect their interests. The Convention rejected the New Jersey Plan, but debate continued with the delegates well aware that they must find a plan acceptable to delegates from both the large and the small states. After fruitless debate in the steamy summer heat, the Convention was deadlocked and voted to create a committee charged with resolving the issue of representation. The Convention chose committee members on the basis of their willingness to compromise, which meant that Madison, a strong supporter of the Virginia Plan, was not chosen. The committee reached a compromise, based on a suggestion from Franklin: the lower house would consist of members elected in proportion to the population of the states, and the states would be represented equally in the upper house. The committee presented its compromise when the Convention resumed debate on July , after a break to celebrate Independence Day. The delegates hated the committee’s proposal and, after heated debate, referred the proposal to another committee. Eventually, the second committee created a modified version of Franklin’s suggested compromise. At this point in the debates, one of the most divisive issues arose: slavery. The debate began with a practical problem: how were the slaves to be counted when calculating the number of representatives for each state? Delegates from nonslave states argued that only the free population should be counted, and delegates from slave states wanted all persons, slave and free, to be counted. What about when levying taxes on a per capita basis? Were slaves to be included in that calculation? The delegates did not debate the morality of slavery at this point because they knew such a discussion would only infuriate both sides and make compromise impossible. The compromise that a committee eventually reached was that three out of five slaves would be counted for the purpose of both representation and taxation. Many observers have wondered how these men who claimed such an interest in freedom could agree to create a government that permitted slavery. Some of the delegates believed, perhaps naively, that slavery would disappear on its own when it ceased to be profitable. Other delegates believed that the right to own other human beings was as important as the right to own land, since both were the source of income that freed a man from domination from an employer and allowed for true independence. Most of the delegates also shared the views of most Europeans and white Americans that Africans and their American descendants were inferior to whites. They did not consider African Americans, whether enslaved or free, to be their political or social equals.

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Ironically, the presence of slaves in their midst may have made many of these men more aware of the value of freedom and more determined to secure their own political rights. These questions remain a controversial issue among historians, and their full implications merit more consideration than is possible in this essay. One of the most intense debates at the Convention was about the importation of slaves. Some of the delegates raised the issues of the immorality of slavery and its harmful economic effects. In some of the nastiest debates of the Convention, southern delegates forcefully reminded the others that the south would never ratify a constitution that endangered slavery. Without ratification by southern states, the Constitution would fail, the states would dissolve into bickering, helpless, and isolated governments, and the delegates would have wasted their time entirely. So, once again, compromise was necessary. The compromise reached was that Congress would have the power to ban the importation of slaves, but not before the year . Nearly  years after the Convention, President Jefferson signed a law ending the international slave trade as of January , , making the importation of slaves from Africa illegal. However, the trade continued illegally until the Civil War. Some delegates believed that if they closed down the international slave trade, slavery would eventually disappear without a struggle. They were wrong; the slavery issue had to be decided in a bloody civil war. The next extensive debate concerned the presidency. The easiest decision was that the president and the vice president would be elected for four-year terms and would be eligible for reelection. A more difficult problem concerned the procedure for these elections. The Committee for Postponed Matters was assigned the task of devising an election procedure. The committee devised the Electoral College, a complicated mechanism that would solve two problems: the Electoral College guaranteed each state, no matter how small, at least three votes in the election of the president, thus preventing large states from completely dominating the small ones in the selection of the president. Also, if no candidate received a majority of votes in the Electoral College, the president was to be elected by the House of Representatives. The procedure was set up so that, once the people voted for the president, electors would then vote according to the wishes of the people. Thus, the Electoral College was to serve essentially as a counting mechanism and an administrative convenience. The candidate with the second largest number of votes was to become the vice president. This provision caused problems when, in the election of , Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes, leading to a bitter fight when the election was decided in the House of Representatives. The procedure was changed by the Twelfth Amendment, which required voting for the president and the vice president in separate ballots. The next issue involved powers of the executive branch. The vice president was given the role of presiding over the Senate, with the power to vote only to break ties, and the result was a vice presidency without any real power. The powers of the president were a more difficult matter. The president was to have the power to make treaties and to appoint ambassadors, Supreme Court justices, and other important public officials with the consent of the Senate. Treaties were to require a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate. As a means of preventing the abuse of power, the Convention created a procedure for the impeachment of the president, the vice president, and other federal officials. The House would vote to impeach, and the Senate would hold a trial, with a two-thirds

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vote required for a conviction, which would result in the official’s expulsion from office. The delegates were optimistic that the powers of the presidency, while substantial, would be balanced by those of the House and Senate and that thus neither branch would be able to dominate the other. By early September, the Convention was nearly through with its work. The Convention had worked all summer, with only occasional breaks, and everyone was relieved to turn the task of drafting a final document over to the Committee of Style. While the committee worked, delegates struggled with a few last problems concerning ratification and other issues. The delegates worked out a procedure that required ratification by  of the  states for the Constitution to go into effect. Each state would hold elections to select delegates to a convention to ratify the Constitution. This mechanism bypassed the requirement in the Articles that changes be confirmed by unanimous vote, but the delegates by this time were long past caring about that issue. Most of the delegates were eager to get home and start the political maneuvering necessary to ratify the Constitution in their state’s convention. By the time the work on the Constitution was finished, some of the delegates had doubts. Edmund Randolph, who had presented the Virginia Plan to the Constitution, refused to sign, though in the end he recommended ratification to the Virginia convention. George Mason, also from Virginia, refused to sign and wrote a tract opposing ratification. One of the Massachusetts delegates, Elbridge Gerry, refused to sign and later stated his objections publicly, citing in particular the absence of a bill of rights. Approval by the large and commercially dominant states of Virginia and New York would be necessary for a workable government to take effect, and the supporters of the Constitution would follow developments in those states very closely. Madison’s energy and Washington’s prestige worked together to ensure ratification in the Virginia convention, and other states soon joined in the movement toward ratification. Eventually, all of the states ratified, though some conventions called for the passage of a bill of rights. Madison had promised to see personally to the passage of a bill of rights, and did so after his election to the new Congress. At the Philadelphia Convention, he and other delegates had not seen a need for a bill of rights and were preoccupied with the other problems in drafting the Constitution. The addition of the bill of rights to the Constitution points out one of the most ingenious accomplishments of the Constitutional Convention. The delegates were awed by the task before them and struggled mightily with the problems of creating a new government. In some controversial provisions, they were careful to use general language, knowing that later generations would have to determine exactly what those words meant. They also realized that they could not possibly anticipate all of the problems that the government would encounter, and so they devised a means of amending the Constitution. This mechanism requires that two-thirds of both houses of Congress and threequarters of the states approve of any amendment, thus ensuring that as many people as possible have an opportunity to influence such an important measure. The greatest insight of the framers was their humility as they realized that they could not possibly foresee the future challenges the Constitution would face. Because of their wisdom, the U.S. Constitution has withstood enormous social upheaval, including the bloody Civil War and its bitter aftermath. Americans knew then that the flexibility of the Constitution is its greatest strength.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, John K. Selling of the Constitutional Convention: A History of News Coverage. Madison, WI: Madison House, . An interesting approach to the subject of the public’s view of the Convention. Anderson, Thornton. Creating the Constitution, The Convention of  and the First Congress. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, . Looks at the Convention in the context of its immediate political aftermath. Banning, Lance. The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Banning analyzes Madison’s thought and argues persuasively that Madison’s political principles remained consistent throughout his political career. Barlow, J. Jackson, Leonard W. Levy, and Ken Masugi, eds. The American Founding: Essays on the Formation of the Constitution. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, . A classic collection of essays on the Convention, with a wide range of interpretations. Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: Macmillan, . Beard shocked many by arguing that the Founding Fathers were, in fact, looking out for their own financial interests, a view that provoked a furious debate among historians. Beeman, Richard R., Stephen Botein, and Edward C. Carter II, eds. Beyond Confederation: Origins of the Constitution and American National Identity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Before the former colonies would accept a constitution binding the former colonies together, they had to accept the idea that their destiny was a shared one. Bowen, Catherine Drinker. Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September. Boston: Little, Brown, . An entertaining narrative of the Convention. Brookhiser, Richard. Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington. New York: Free Press, . An engaging biography of Washington written from a conservative perspective. Collier, James L., and Christopher Collier. Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of . New York: Random House, . An interesting narrative of the Convention. Coulter, Ellis Merton. Abraham Baldwin: Patriot, Educator and Founding Father. Arlington, VA: Vandamere Press, . An interesting study of a lesser-known delegate. Cunliffe, Marcus. Washington: Man and Monument. Boston: Little, Brown, . A classic biography of an enigmatic subject. Finkelman, Paul. Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, . Argues that the Constitution was in essence a proslavery document. Kaminski, John P., and Richard Leffler, eds. Federalists and Antifederalists. Madison, WI: Madison House, . An excellent source for those interested in the debate on the Constitution. Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Presents the women’s perspective on the Revolution and its consequences. Levy, Leonard W., and Dennis J. Mahoney, eds. The Framing and Ratification of the Constitution. New York: Macmillan, . A collection of very different views on the Convention and the politics surrounding it. Madison, James, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers. Edited by Isaac Kramnick. ; New York: Penguin, . Essential for every serious student of the Constitution and the ratification debates. Main, Jackson Turner. Political Parties before the Constitution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Each of the delegates had to consider his political allies at home, and so this book presents an essential background to the Convention. May, Henry. The Enlightenment in America. New York: Oxford University Press, . A classic work that traces the influence of the Enlightenment on the drafting of the Constitution.

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McCoy, Drew R. The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . An account of Madison’s later life. McDonald, Forrest. We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, . A response to Charles Beard’s arguments regarding the economic motives of the delegates. ———. Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, . By one of the foremost biographers of the Founding Fathers. Middlekauff, Robert. Benjamin Franklin and His Enemies. Berkeley: University of California Press, . This biography takes the unusual approach of describing a man by the nature of his enemies, and Franklin, as always, emerges as charming as ever. Miller, William L. The Business of May Next: James Madison and the Founding. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, . An eccentric but accessible account of the Convention. Paine, Thomas. The Thomas Paine Reader. Edited by Michael Foot and Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin, . A study of the most radical and one of the most engaging political writers of his time. Peters, William. A More Perfect Union. New York: Crown, . Presents an entertaining and detailed account of the substance of the delegates’ debates. Purcell, Edward A. Originalism, Federalism, and the American Constitutional Enterprise. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . An analysis of the notion of federalism and its meaning at the Constitutional Convention. Rakove, Jack N. James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, . An excellent work from the Library of American Biography and thus focused on Madison and his role in the Convention and ratification. ———. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. New York: Knopf, . Addresses the ideas behind the Constitution in all their complexity. Wood, Gordon S. The Creation of the American Republic, –. New York: W. W. Norton, . A massive analysis of the changing American political culture that produced the Constitution.

ANTI-FEDERALISTS Anti-Federalists were a loosely organized group that arose after the American Revolution to oppose the Constitution and the strong central government that it created. The Anti-Federalists feared the potential both large nations and strong governments had to infringe on the liberties of the people. They were less coherent as a group than the Federalists and came from a wide variety of backgrounds. The history of the AntiFederalists demonstrates how the goals of the American Revolution and the resistance to tyranny in many ways contradicted the goals of the men seeking to provide a strong foundation for the newly independent nation. Gov. George Clinton of New York was one prominent Anti-Federalist. He held great sway over the powerful state of New York and feared that the Constitution would give some of that state’s power to the central government. Other Anti-Federalists included farmers who had a long-standing disdain for the merchants who composed the Federalist ranks. As one Massachusetts farmer wrote, “These lawyers and men of learning and moneyed men expect to be managers of this Constitution and get all the power and all the money into their own hands and then they will swallow up all us little folks . . . just as the whale swallowed up Jonah.” One critic called the Anti-Federalists “men of little faith” because they did not believe that the Constitution would bring national cohesion.

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Anti-Federalists feared that a Federalist system would inevitably lead to the same sort of corrupt system that the colonists had seen with the British. One Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention refused to sign, saying, “This power is calculated to annihilate totally the state governments.” Anti-Federalists feared the rise of tyranny and the loss of state autonomy. They also feared that the electoral systems set out in the Constitution would always favor the election of elite leaders who would be out of touch with the needs of the common people. The great weakness of the Anti-Federalists was that they proposed no viable alternative to the Constitution. They preferred to wait, allowing the country to be governed under the Articles of Confederation and allowing states to control their own destinies within a very loosely organized Union. Another problem was that the Federalists had already taken the name “Federalist,” even though “federal” stems from confederation, which was what the Anti-Federalists wanted. What would have been the logical label for their own concerns, therefore, was already in use, and the Anti-Federalists had to choose their rather negative-sounding label since there was no other word that described their position. Anti-Federalists had little influence over the drafting of the Constitution but sought to affect the outcomes of the state ratification conventions in late . Though they were able to delay ratification in some states and although their concerns produced the promise that a Bill of Rights would be immediately added to the Constitution, they could not stem the momentum of the Federalists, and the Constitution was ratified in .

brett schmoll and karen mead ELECTORAL COLLEGE Specified in Article II, Section  of the Constitution, the Electoral College elects the nation’s president. The Electoral College was a compromise worked out during the Constitutional Convention of  that allowed small and large states, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, to feel that their interests were being met. The Electoral College placed power in the hands of the states by allowing state delegates to choose the president. The Electoral College is an important invention of the early republic and signifies the Founding Fathers’ distrust of popular sovereignty. The Electoral College system came about after great debate regarding the division of powers within the new nation. Delegates to the convention voted down four proposals to allow Congress to elect the president. Twice they voted that the citizenry should not choose the president. Believing that the average citizen was not sufficiently educated enough to vote, delegates feared such popular democracy. Slave states like Virginia and North Carolina also feared that, since they had fewer white inhabitants than northern states, their attachments to slavery might be compromised. Within the convention, a group known as the Committee of Eleven began studying various means of electing the president and recommended on September  that a college of electors would elect the president. The plan held that each state would have electors, chosen by the state legislature and equal in number to the sum of the state’s representatives and senators. The only task of the electors would be to decide who would

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be president and vice president. If no candidate gained a majority, as happened in  and , then the House of Representatives would choose the president. With little debate, the Constitutional Convention adopted the Electoral College plan on September , . Alexander Hamilton wrote of the Electoral College in the Federalist Papers in , “If the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.” The Electoral College kept the presidency out of the reach of direct democracy. One reason there was so little debate on the Electoral College was that everyone assumed that George Washington would be chosen president, regardless of the system of election. With so many pressing issues to solve, they agreed quickly on the Electoral College system. Convention delegates also assumed that once Washington’s tenure as president was over, there would be no possibility of gaining an absolute majority for any one candidate, which meant that the president would then be determined by the House of Representatives. They could not have known how entrenched the political party system in the United States would become or that the system would be amended in  to make the Electoral College more responsive to the popular vote.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON (1757–1804) During the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton helped lead the assault at Yorktown that resulted in a British surrender. As one of the new nation’s most important architects, he eventually received the important place in history he felt he deserved and, with it, the controversy attached to his grandiose style. Hamilton’s life began in controversy. He was born January , , on Nevis, a British colony in the Leeward Islands, and was the offspring of an adulterous relationship between his father, James Hamilton, and his mother, Rachel Fawcett Lavien, who was married to John Lavien (although separated from him). James came from a prominent Scottish family but failed at his business endeavors and, near the time of Hamilton’s birth, declared bankruptcy. Furthermore, his relationship with Rachel soon unraveled, and, in , he abandoned his family, leaving them destitute. When Rachel died, in , young Hamilton found himself deserted, and this situation may have shaped his view that life required conquest. The boy’s salvation came through the intervention of Nicholas Cruger, a merchant who employed the youngster as a bookkeeper. Alexander had obtained some education from his mother and a clergyman, and to Cruger he seemed unusually bright. When Cruger departed the island temporarily, he appointed Hamilton the manager of his firm, a position that gave the boy substantial authority over businessmen and lawyers many years his senior. Despite his managerial success, Hamilton considered his job boring and longed to sail for America and advance his education. The opportunity came in October  after Cruger and Hugh Knox, a Presbyterian clergyman, supported him with money and letters of recommendation. Like his revolutionary colleague Thomas Paine, Hamilton arrived in America only a short time before war erupted against British rule. Already the colonies had been stirred by Parliament’s attempts to tax them, the arrival of British troops in the cities, the outbreak of demonstrations and boycotts, and the fervent pleas of Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. Hamilton, however, did not immediately embrace revolution; in fact, after gaining some education at a preparatory school in Elizabethtown, New

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Jersey, he enrolled at King’s College (today Columbia) in New York City, partly because of its Loyalist sympathies. Ironically, revolutionary fervor soon interrupted his college work. Historians debate the point at which Hamilton adopted a revolutionary position, with some arguing it occurred in , after he journeyed to Boston, studied the situation there, and met with the city’s radical leaders. Whatever the case, that summer, at age , he began writing articles strongly critical of British actions and, in December, anonymously authored a prominent pamphlet so perceptive in its analysis that several observers thought it had been penned by an older, more experienced revolutionary. In March , after completing his college education, Hamilton obtained a commission in the New York militia as an artillery commander. He trained his men effectively and fought alongside Gen. George Washington’s troops on Long Island. He participated in their ensuing retreat and won the general’s attention for his dedication and intelligence. In March , Washington made Hamilton his aide-de-camp with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Once again, the young man proved insightful, handling an enormous workload and becoming Washington’s main adviser. This experience gave him considerable knowledge about America’s military and financial condition. In January , he issued a brilliant report on the need to reorganize the army. Despite his prestige and influence, Hamilton craved the glory of the battlefield and bemoaned his relegation to a desk job. Ambitious and, to a degree, vainglorious, he constantly pushed Washington to grant him a command. When the general proved reluctant, Hamilton provoked a dispute with him and, in February , quit as aide-de-camp. The previous year, he had married Elizabeth Schuyler, daughter of Philip John Schuyler, one of the most prominent men in New York. The union ended Hamilton’s meager financial situation and boosted his social standing. Now, he retreated to his home and wrote extensively, including a proposal for a national bank. He expressed his preference for a representative government, but one with a strong executive. Retirement to home and hearth, however, was not for Hamilton, and he still awaited military glory. Fortunately for the New Yorker, Washington relented and allowed him to lead an infantry regiment attached to the Marquis de Lafayette’s force. Late in , Hamilton commanded an attack upon a British redoubt at Yorktown, a successful maneuver whose prominence earned him greater recognition. As the war neared its end, Hamilton served in the Continental Congress in November  and expressed his disgust with the disorder and weakness of the national government. In , he began practicing law in New York City but continued his interest in national politics. He remained a vocal critic of the Articles of Confederation, condemning them for their ineffectiveness and wary that turmoil and excessive popular power would prevail. When several states proposed a commercial convention at Annapolis in September , Hamilton won appointment as a New York delegate and formulated the plan to hold another meeting in Philadelphia dedicated to political matters. Hamilton had in mind jettisoning the Articles and writing a new constitution. A populist uprising in Massachusetts, called Shays’ Rebellion, added momentum to the Philadelphia meeting, and, as a representative in the New York Assembly, Hamilton got his colleagues to support a constitutional convention. The legislature named him one of the state’s three delegates to Philadelphia. At the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton, with such notables as James Madison and Benjamin Franklin present,

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pushed for a powerful executive, one who could serve for life. As an ardent nationalist, he wanted all state laws subject to federal laws. Yet, Hamilton was not a leading figure at the convention; rather, his most important work occurred in New York, where he rallied support for the new constitution through adroit political maneuvering in the state ratification convention and through his writing of several articles that, along with those of Madison and John Jay, became known as the Federalist Papers. Eighty-five in number, they appeared between October  and May . Meanwhile, Hamilton again served in the Confederation Congress as it prepared to accede to the new national government. He supported Washington for the presidency and fully expected a top-level appointment in the administration. In September , Washington chose him to serve as secretary of the treasury. Hamilton immediately confronted the main problem facing the new government, namely its finances. He crafted his proposals based on three beliefs: first, that financial reform was imperative to the government’s survival; second, that loyalty to the government rested far more on economic concerns than on patriotic ones; and third, that the wealthy elite must be linked closely to the government. His proposals entailed assuming the state debts, funding the national debt, establishing a national bank, and levying excise taxes. He believed these measures, all interrelated, would give the elite a stake in the government’s survival, for, if the government should collapse, the bonds held by the elite would decline in value and the money they invested in the national bank would disappear. Hamilton’s proposals passed Congress in  and , but only after great controversy. In particular, Madison and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson accused him of creating an overbearing national government and an aristocracy. In building support for his program, Hamilton created the Federalist Party. In opposition to it, Jefferson and Madison organized the Jeffersonian Republicans, or Democratic-Republican Party (no relation to the modern Republican Party). Differences between these two groups intensified during the French Revolution. Hamilton considered the revolution evil, as threatening to undermine order everywhere. Jefferson saw it as good, as an extension of the American Revolution in its fight against entrenched aristocracy. When war erupted between Britain and France, Hamilton, biased toward the British side and opposed to America’s being pulled into the conflict, convinced Washington to issue a proclamation of neutrality. Late in , Hamilton presented to Congress his infamous Report on Manufactures (). In it, he proposed government help to developing industries through protective tariffs and bounties. The report, coolly received in the agrarian south, further stirred the Republicans, who believed it would bias the national government against agriculture. Hamilton’s financial program caused a protest called the Whiskey Rebellion, a refusal by farmers in Pennsylvania to pay the tax on distilled liquor. Hamilton used the uprising to exert national authority, and, in , he and Washington led an army into the backwoods. The rebellion collapsed, and Hamilton claimed he had proved the primacy of the federal government. Meanwhile, the differences between Hamilton and Jefferson had reached a breaking point. Hamilton constantly interfered in the State Department, and, shortly before the Whiskey Rebellion, Jefferson quit the cabinet. Early in , Hamilton resigned, partly because of exhaustion. He never again held public office, although for years he

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remained the most powerful man in the Federalist Party. He returned to his law practice and, by , was making substantially more money than he had while in the federal government. Controversy dogged him, however, and, in , opponents charged he had mishandled Treasury business. Hamilton denied these accusations but admitted he had paid money to silence the husband of a woman with whom he once had an affair. This infamous scandal involving Maria Reynolds embarrassed Hamilton’s wife and encouraged scurrilous remarks about him, but his marriage remained intact. Hamilton tried to secretly direct Washington’s successor as president, John Adams. He did so by having Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, Secretary of War James McHenry, and Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott act as his spies, providing him information and working to undermine Adams’s orders. When Adams discovered the situation and criticized Hamilton, Hamilton broke completely with the president—a fellow Federalist—and set out on a path to destroy him. In , after it appeared France might attack the United States, Congress enlarged the army and appointed Washington to lead it. Hamilton maneuvered the Virginian into naming him second in command, a move that greatly angered Adams. Hamilton developed grandiose plans to attack South America and establish an American empire there, but, before he could act, tensions with France eased, particularly after Adams sent a peace delegation to Paris, a decision Hamilton vehemently opposed. Hamilton worked hard in  to deny Adams reelection as president. In so doing, he split the Federalist Party and sent the election into the House of Representatives. Congress had to choose the new president from among the two top vote-getters, both Republicans: Jefferson and the New York politician Aaron Burr. Hamilton disliked both men but despised Burr more and so used his power to swing the election to Jefferson. Thereafter, Hamilton’s influence at the national level waned, and, in , he began building a new home, The Grange, located in Manhattan, and focused his attention on family matters. Two years later, however, he entered the state political fray by opposing Burr’s bid to become governor. He believed that his nemesis intended to join with malcontents in New England and take New York out of the union. Burr lost his bid, and the animosity between the two men grew deeper. During the election, Burr discovered statements made by Hamilton accusing him of being a dangerous man who could not be trusted. Burr demanded a retraction, but Hamilton refused. There followed on July , , a duel between the two men at Weehawken Heights in New Jersey. Burr’s shot struck Hamilton, who fell, mortally wounded. He was taken to the home of William Bayard in New York City, where he died the next day.

steven g. o’brien JAMES MADISON (1751–1836) Although he never claimed the title, James Madison is often called the “Father of the Constitution” for his critical role in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. In addition to his remarkable contributions at the Constitutional Convention, Madison, over the course of a life dedicated to public service, was elected to four terms in the House of

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Representatives, completed eight years as secretary of state, and served two terms as president. Madison was born on March , , in Port Conway, Virginia, into a prominent family. After graduating from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in , he remained for six additional months to pursue graduate study in law and theology with the goal of becoming either a minister or a lawyer. He concluded, however, that neither profession was satisfactory and returned to his plantation in Orange County, Virginia, still in search of a career. Like other members of the Virginia planter class, including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, Madison supported efforts to oppose British colonial policy. In , he was made chairman of the Orange County Revolutionary Committee of Safety and, one year later, was elected to the convention that declared Virginia independent. He also helped to draft the new state constitution and managed to insert a strong religious freedom clause in that text. In , he became the youngest person elected to the Second Continental Congress. During his almost four years as a member of the Continental Congress, he became a well-known advocate of the need for a strong central government, as well as a highly respected debater. While serving in the Virginia Assembly from  to , Madison played a major role in bringing about the series of meetings that led to the convening of the Constitutional Convention. Among the  delegates who met in Philadelphia in  to correct flaws in the Articles of Confederation, Madison was recognized as the best-prepared scholar of political history. He also quickly became recognized as the leading advocate of a new government plan that contained a much stronger central government than could be crafted under the Articles of Confederation. The physically frail Madison was an unlikely candidate for political greatness. A slight speech impediment and a tendency to talk very softly made public speaking a particular challenge. Nevertheless, through a combination of intense intellectual efforts and a deep appreciation for the need to check the evil as well as to count on the good of human nature, Madison managed to play the central role in the work at the convention. Although the deliberations of the delegates were conducted in private, Madison took detailed notes of the proceedings and recomposed every day’s events in his journal. It is from this document that historians have been able to obtain invaluable insight into how the structure of the central government of the United States was created. After the Constitution was completed, Madison, along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, wrote the Federalist Papers. These essays brilliantly explained the goals and theory behind the organization of the new national government. Madison also led the successful ratification effort—part of which involved besting antiratification leader Patrick Henry in debate—in Virginia. Finally, as a member of the House of Representatives from  to , Madison helped to implement the new government by compiling and sponsoring the first  amendments to the Constitution (the Bill of Rights), introducing revenue bills, and ensuring that the president alone was responsible for the conduct of the executive branch. Although he had led the effort to establish a new federal government, Madison was appalled by Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton’s vision of using it to facilitate the transformation of America from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Convinced that

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Hamilton’s national financial program threatened the rights of the states and undermined the prosperity of small farmers—the people he believed history showed were absolutely essential to a successful republican government—Madison joined Jefferson in founding the opposition Democratic-Republican Party. Their vision was carefully to adhere to the limits placed on the power of the federal government in the Constitution. In foreign policy, Madison favored developing close relations with the revolutionary government of France and avoiding entanglement with the “old world” government of Great Britain. Hamilton advocated restoring commercial relations with England and avoiding entanglement in the turmoil of the revolution in France. Bitterly disappointed by the ratification of Jay’s Treaty, which he viewed as a betrayal of the republican principles of the revolution, Madison retired from Congress in  to his plantation. He did not, however, retire from public life. The following year, he drafted the Virginia Resolves, which protested the Alien and Sedition Acts (). In this document and a report defending it in , Madison delivered a powerful defense of freedom of the press and declared the acts to be unconstitutional on the grounds that, since the Constitution was based on a compact among states, the federal government had acted contrary to the compact. The states, according to the Virginia document, had the right and duty to “interpose for arresting the progress of evil.” After playing a major role in securing the election of Jefferson as president, Madison was appointed secretary of state. As secretary of state in the Jefferson administration from  to , Madison guided the successful negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, demanded that Spain recognize U.S. ownership of the coastal territory between New Orleans and Florida, and supported the need for the United States to deal forcefully with the North African Barbary pirates. His area of greatest frustration concerned the inability of the United States to force Great Britain to recognize American neutral trade rights. Unable to cajole Britain to stop seizing (impressing) alleged deserters serving on American ships, Madison resorted to advocating the unsuccessful Embargo Act of . When it had become clear by the end of Jefferson’s second term that the embargo had failed, Madison accepted its repeal. After overcoming a bid by James Monroe to win the Democratic-Republican nomination for president, Madison easily won the general election for president in . He made poor choices for Cabinet positions in a vain attempt to maintain party unity without Jefferson’s leadership. This, combined with his belief that the president should not play a strong role in shaping national policy, severely weakened his authority and reinvigorated Federalist Party opposition in Congress. Finally, in , having been unable to force Great Britain to stop impressing American sailors and facing a difficult reelection campaign, Madison decided to support a declaration of war. Madison won reelection, but his hopes that the War of  would be a short conflict leading to the annexation of Canada were crushed as the badly prepared American army failed in its efforts to invade Canada. The end of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe led to a massive increase in British military power in America, culminating in the burning of Washington, D.C., in . The performance of the American forces began to improve, but the war had wreaked such economic devastation on the economy of maritime New England that secession was openly discussed at the so-called Hartford Convention. The convention was made up of Federalist delegates from the New England states who met in secret at Hartford, Connecticut, in December  to air their opposition to the war.

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The report of the meeting declared the right of nullification (much as the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions had done), but the news of Andrew Jackson’s victory at the Battle of New Orleans discredited the proceedings and brought accusations of sedition against the delegates. Although the Treaty of Ghent, signed in December , merely restored the nation to the territorial position it had occupied in  and failed to resolve the issue of American maritime rights, the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the successful defense of American independence led to a surge of American nationalism that Madison basked in during his last two years in office. Having matured in office, he overcame his initial opposition to the federal government’s playing a strong role in economic development and, in , advocated the rechartering of the national bank, a protectionist tariff, federal funding for internal improvements, the creation of a national university, and the maintenance of a professional navy and army. After retiring to his Virginia plantation in , Madison supported Jefferson’s efforts to found the University of Virginia, served as a foreign policy adviser to President Monroe, and participated in the Virginia constitutional convention of  before his death on June , .

steven g. o’brien

DOCUMENT: THE VIRGINIA PLAN, 1787 The Virginia Plan set the agenda for the first two weeks of the Constitutional Convention and for much of the convention as a whole. The plan was believed to have been written chiefly by James Madison, but the governor of Virginia, Edmund Randolph, introduced the plan’s  proposals. Although it was devised as a means to correct and enlarge the Articles of Confederation, the Virginia Plan was in many respects a major departure from that form of government. Although the plan underwent many modifications, key principles such as the separation of powers and bicameralism and key institutions such as the executive and judicial branches clearly originated in the Virginia Plan. It is most remembered now for its rejected proposal that representation within the national legislature be based solely on population, thus granting the large states more power than the small states in the new federal government. (Virginia [Randolph] Plan as Amended [National Archives Microfilm Publication M,  roll]; The Official Records of the Constitutional Convention; Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, –, Record Group , National Archives.) Resolved that the Articles of Confederation ought to be so corrected and enlarged as to accomplish the objects proposed by their institution; namely “common defence, security of liberty and general welfare.” Resolved therefore that the rights of suffrage in the National Legislature ought to be proportioned to the Quotas of contribution, or to the number of free inhabitants, as the one or the other rule may seem best in different

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cases. Resolved that the National Legislature ought to consist of two branches. Resolved that the members of the first branch of the National Legislature ought to be elected by the people of the several States. . . . to receive liberal stipends by which they may be compensated for the devotion of their time to public service, to be ineligible to any office established by a particular State, or under the authority of the United States, except those peculiarly belonging to the functions of the first branch, during the term of service, and for the space of after its expiration; to be incapable of reelection for the space of after the expiration of their term of service, and to be subject to recall. Resolved that the members of the second branch of the National Legislature ought to be elected by those of the first, out of a proper number of persons nominated by the individual Legislatures, to be of the age of years at least; to hold their offices for a term sufficient to ensure their independency; to receive liberal stipends, by which they may be compensated for the devotion of their time to public service; and to be ineligible to any office established by a particular State, or under the authority of the United States, except those peculiarly belonging to the functions of the second branch, during the term of service, and for the space of after the expiration thereof. Resolved that each branch ought to possess the right of originating Acts; that the National Legislature ought to be impowered to enjoy the Legislative Rights vested in Congress by the Confederation and moreover to legislate in all cases to which the separate States are incompetent, or in which the harmony of the United States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual Legislation; to negative all laws passed by the several States, contravening in the opinion of the national Legislature the articles of Union; and to call forth the force of the Union against any member of the Union failing in its duty under the articles thereof. Resolved that a National Executive be instituted; to receive punctually, at stated times, a fixed compensation for the services rendered, in which no increase or diminution shall be made so as to affect the Magistracy, existing at the time of the increase of diminution, and to be ineligible a second time; and that besides a general authority to execute the National laws, it ought to enjoy the Executive rights vested in Congress by the Confederation. Resolved that the Executive and a convenient number of the national Judiciary, ought to compose a Council of revision with authority to examine every act of the National Legislature before it shall operate, and every act of a particular Legislature before a Negative thereon shall be final; and that the dissent of the said Council shall amount to a rejection, unless the Act of the National Legislature be passed again, or what of a particular Legislature be again negatived by the members of each branch. Resolved that National Judiciary be established to consist of one or more supreme tribunals, and of inferior tribunals to be chosen by the National Legislature, to hold their offices during good behaviour; and to receive punctually at stated times fixed compensation for their services, in which no increase or diminution shall be made so as to affect the persons actually in office at the time of such increase or diminution. That the jurisdiction of the inferior tribunals shall be to hear and determine in the dernier resort, all piracies and felonies on the high seas, captures from an enemy; cases in which foreigners or citizens of other States applying to such jurisdictions may be interested, or which respect the collection of the National revenue; impeachments of any National officers, and questions which may involve the national peace and harmony. Resolved that provision ought to be made for the admission of States Lawfully arising within the limits of the United States, whether from a voluntary junction of

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Government and Territory or otherwise, with the consent of a number of voices in the National legislature less than the whole. Resolved that a Republican Government and the territory of each State, except in the instance of a voluntary junction of Government and territory, ought to be guaranteed by the United States to each State. Resolved that provision ought to be made for the continuance of Congress and their authorities and privileges, until a given day after the reform of the articles of Union shall be adopted, and for the completion of all their engagements. Resolved that provision ought to be made for the amendment of the Articles of Union whensoever it shall seem necessary, and that the assent of the National Legislature ought not to be required thereto. Resolved that the Legislative Executive and Judiciary powers within the several States ought to be bound by oath to support the articles of Union. Resolved that the amendments which shall be offered to the Confederation, by the Convention ought at a proper time, or times, after the approbation of Congress to be submitted to an assembly or assemblies of Representatives, recommended by the several Legislatures to be expressly chosen by the people, to consider and decide thereon.

DOCUMENT: THE NEW JERSEY PLAN, 1787 After about two weeks of debate at the Constitutional Convention, representatives of the small states became concerned about the direction the deliberations were taking. William Paterson introduced what became known as the New Jersey Plan on their behalf, in direct response to the previously proposed Virginia Plan. Although this plan accepted a number of features that the Virginia Plan had already introduced, it clearly was closer in spirit to the existing Articles of Confederation than the Virginia Plan. After Alexander Hamilton gave an extended speech in which he advocated a stronger government than that proposed by either the Virginia or the New Jersey plans, delegates voted to continue their discussion of the former plan, eventually agreeing on the Connecticut Compromise. However, in addition to the supremacy clause, the New Jersey Plan’s proposal of equal state representation in the Senate was embodied in the Constitution. Just as important, the New Jersey Plan introduced positions and arguments (especially those representing the views of the smaller states) that might not otherwise have been heard at the convention, leading the delegates to see the need to compromise in order to achieve a more perfect union. (The New Jersey Plan of Government in James Madison’s notes of the Constitutional Convention, June , . Manuscript. James Madison Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress [..].) . Resolved, that an union of the states, merely federal, ought to be the sole object of the exercise of the powers vested in this convention. . Resolved, that the articles of the confederation ought to be so revised, corrected, and enlarged, as to render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of government, and the preservation of the union.

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. Resolved, that in addition to the powers vested in the united states in congress, by the present existing articles of confederation, they be authorized to pass acts for raising a revenue by laying a duty or duties on all goods and merchandise of foreign growth or manufacture, imported into any part of the united states; by imposing stamps on paper, parchment, and vellum; and by a postage on all letters and packages passing through the general post office, to be applied to such federal purposes, as they shall deem proper and expedient; to make rules and regulations for the collection thereof; and the same from time to time to alter and amend in such manner as they shall think proper: provided that all punishments, fines, forfeitures, and penalties, to be incurred for contravening such rules and regulations, shall be adjudged by the common law judiciaries of the state in which any offense, contrary to the true intent and meaning of such rules or regulations, shall be committed or perpetrated; with liberty of commencing all suits or prosecutions for that purpose, in the first instance, in the supreme common law judiciary of such state-subject, nevertheless, to an appeal in the last resort, for the correction of errors, both of law and fact, in rendering judgment, to the judiciary of the united states; and that the united states shall have authority to pass acts for the regulation of trade and commerce, as well with foreign nations, as with each other. . Resolved, that should requisitions be necessary, instead of the present rule, the united states in congress be authorized to make such requisitions in proportion to the whole number of white and other free citizens and inhabitants, of every age, sex, and condition, including those bound to servitude for a term of years, and three-fifths of all other persons, not comprehended in the foregoing descriptions (except Indians not paying taxes.) . Resolved, that if such requisitions be not complied with, in the time specified therein, the united states in congress shall have power to direct the collection thereof in the non-complying states; and for that purpose to devise and pass acts directing and authorising the same: provided that none of the powers hereby vested in the united states in congress shall be exercised without the consent of at least ______ states; and in that proportion, should the number of confederated states hereafter be increased or diminished. . Resolved, that the united states in congress, shall be authorised to elect a federal executive, to consist of _____ person or persons, to continue in office for the term of _____ years, to receive punctually, at stated times, a fixed compensation for the services by him or them to be rendered, in which no increase or diminution shall be made, so as to affect the executive in office, at the time of such increase or diminution, to be paid out of the federal treasury; to be incapable of holding any other office or appointment during the time of service, and for _____ years after; to be ineligible a second time, and removable on impeachment and conviction for mal-practice, corrupt conduct, and neglect of duty. . Resolved, that the executive, besides a general authority to execute the federal acts, ought to appoint all federal officers, not otherwise provided for, and to direct all military operations; provided that the executive shall not on any occasion take command of any troops, so as personally to conduct any military enterprise as general, or in any other capacity. . Resolved, that the legislative acts of the united states, made under and in pursuance to the articles of union, and all treaties made and ratified under the authority of

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the united states, shall be the supreme law of the respective states, as far as those acts or treaties shall relate to the said states or their citizens and inhabitants; and that the judiciaries of the several states shall be bound thereby in their decisions; any thing in the respective laws of the individual states to the contrary notwithstanding. . Resolved, that if any state or body of men in any state, shall oppose or prevent the carrying into execution such acts or treaties, the federal executive shall be authorised to call forth the powers of the confederated states, or so much thereof as may be necessary to enforce and compel an obedience to such acts, or an observance of such treaties. . Resolved, that a federal judiciary be established, to consist of a supreme tribunal; the judges of which to be appointed by the executive, and to hold their offices during good behaviour; to receive punctually, at stated times, a fixed compensation for their services, to be paid out of the federal treasury; in which no increase or diminution shall be made, so as to affect the persons actually in office, at the time of such increase of diminution. That the judiciary so established, shall have authority to hear and determine, in the first instance, on all impeachments of federal officers, and by way of appeal in the dernier resort in all cases touching the rights and privileges of ambassadors; in all cases of captures from the enemy; in all cases of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas; in all cases in which foreigners may be interested in the construction of any treaty or treaties, or which may arise on any act or ordinance of congress for the regulation of trade, or the collection of the federal revenue; that none of the judiciary officers shall be capable of receiving or holding any other office or appointment, during the time they remain in office, or for ____ years afterwards. . Resolved, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers within the several states, ought to be bound by oath to support the articles of union. . Resolved, that provision ought to be made for hearing and deciding upon all disputes arising between the united states and an individual state, respecting territory. . Resolved, that provision ought to be made for the admission of new states into the union. . Resolved, that it is necessary to define what offenses, committed in any state, shall be deemed high treason against the united states. . Resolved, that the rule for naturalization ought to be the same in every state. . Resolved, that a citizen of one state, committing an offense in another state, shall be deemed guilty of the same offense, as if it had been committed by a citizen of the state, in which the offense was committed.

DOCUMENT: BILL OF RIGHTS, 1791 The first  amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights was ratified by the requisite number of states on December , , and went into effect on March , . The U.S. House of Representatives had already granted its approval for these amendments on September , , with the U.S. Senate concurring on the following day. The Bill of Rights assuaged the fears of many Anti-Federalists, who were concerned that the newly adopted federal Constitution concentrated too much power in the national government, which might in turn deprive the people of certain fundamental liberties. Although

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the Bill of Rights was originally intended to apply only to the national government, beginning in the late th century, the U.S. Supreme Court mandated that many of the liberties protected by the various amendments to the Constitution be acknowledged by state governments, as well. (Engrossed Bill of Rights, September , ; General Records of the U.S. Government, Record Group , National Archives.)

AMENDMENT I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

AMENDMENT II A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

AMENDMENT III No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

AMENDMENT IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

AMENDMENT V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

AMENDMENT VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been

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committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

AMENDMENT VII In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

AMENDMENT VIII Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

AMENDMENT IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

AMENDMENT X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

11 The XYZ Affair, 1798–1800

INTRODUCTION Probably no one had had as much experience in public affairs as John Adams had when he came to the presidency, in . He was  years old and had graduated from Harvard, defended the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, and served as a delegate to both the First and Second Continental Congresses. He was a member of the peace commission that negotiated the Treaty of Paris (), had been minister to Great Britain from  to , and, finally, was vice president under George Washington for eight years. He was honest, intelligent, and devoted to his country. What faults he had, however, lay in his personality and were enough to keep him from being a truly great president. Adams was seriously impressed with his own importance, and, in the early days of the government, he had favored ornate titles and decorum for high officials, which offended those who thought that titles and decorum seemed a little too British. Physically, Adams was short and rather fat, and this made his appeal to dignity appear even more ridiculous, especially when he was compared to the tall, lean figure of Washington. It was no surprise that Adams’s political foes referred to him as “His Rotundity.” Also, Adams lacked tact and the politician’s touch for conciliating party dissension and maintaining party harmony. At this time, the Federalist Party was divided between those loyal to Adams and those who saw Alexander Hamilton as the rightful political heir to Washington, despite the fact that the young former Treasury secretary held no official post in the Adams administration. In this circumstance, Adams needed the skill of a master politician to hold the Federalists together while he was president, since many, if not most, of the party regulars looked to Hamilton for leadership. Adams lacked this ability and spent an often lonely and frustrating four years in office, his miseries compounded by the necessity of spending long periods of time in Massachusetts attending his ailing wife, Abigail. Foreign affairs dominated Adams’s administration. The principal issue was a dangerous breakdown in relations with France and its domestic consequences. While many Americans had appreciated the help of France during the Revolutionary War and had applauded the outbreak of the French Revolution, their ardor for the French had been cooled somewhat by news of the excessive violence of the early s. France, meanwhile, had been quite upset when the United States signed Jay’s Treaty with Great Britain, in . Although unpopular in the United States, this treaty settled a variety of grievances left over from the Revolution and improved trade relations between the two

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The XYZ Affair led to a quasi-war with France, in which the U.S. Navy performed very well. Here the U.S.S. Constellation is locked in battle with the French ship L’Insurgent in February 1799. (Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation.)

countries. This state of better Anglo-American relations left Britain ready to become a greater threat to its traditional rival, France, and the French thought the Americans quite ungrateful for signing and ratifying the treaty. They read more into Jay’s Treaty than was actually there, seeing it as an alliance between the two countries and therefore as a repudiation of the Franco-American alliance of . At this time, France was ruled by a five-man committee called the Directory, and the wise and shrewd Charles Maurice de Talleyrand was the foreign minister. He issued an order confiscating all foreign ships engaged in trade with the British, and in a very short time some  U.S. ships were seized and sold to the highest bidder. Furthermore, the French refused to accept the credentials of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the new American minister to France, and told him that he would be arrested if he stayed in the country. The angry Pinckney went to Amsterdam, where he was joined by John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry. The three Americans constituted a commission that returned to France to negotiate a settlement in the matter of the confiscated ships. In Philadelphia, Congress approved Adams’s request for increased military spending. When Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry reached Paris, they were ill received. Three of Talleyrand’s agents met them and demanded a payment of $, as a bribe and

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$ million as a loan to France to be paid before negotiations could begin. The outraged commissioners reported the incident to Adams, who sent a short note to Congress, denouncing the French for their insulting treatment and urging readiness for war. Republicans in Congress, still somewhat sympathetic to the French, doubted that Talleyrand’s agents had done what Adams said they had done and demanded that the president make public the diplomatic correspondence concerning the incident. Adams complied and sent the report of the commissioners to Congress, deleting the actual names of the Frenchmen and substituting for them the letters X, Y, and Z, thus giving the affair its name. The publication caused a great sensation; the country was swept with nationalistic pride, and Adams was genuinely popular for perhaps the only time in his life. The army and navy were quickly expanded, and old General Washington was called out of retirement to be commander in chief; he agreed only on condition that Hamilton be named his second in command. Americans became outspokenly anti-French all over the country. Those wearing the tricolor in sympathy with the French Revolution suddenly ran the risk of being mobbed, and , young men of Philadelphia marched to the president’s home to offer their services in the fight against France. Everyone took to wearing a black cockade—a rose of black ribbon about four inches in diameter—as a symbol of federalism and patriotism. There were wild rumors of invasions and French-inspired slave insurrections, and known French immigrants were harassed. Harvard dropped the French oration from its commencement program, and July  speakers universally praised Adams and damned the French; the Federalist president of Yale went so far as to say that, if French ways prevailed, “we may see our wives and daughters the victims of legal prostitution; soberly dishonored; speciously polluted.” Along with enlarging the army and the navy, Adams and Congress cut off all trade with France, abrogated the treaty of , and authorized public and private American ships to capture French vessels. But Adams refused to request that Congress make a formal declaration of war, much to the disgust of Hamilton, who was itching for military glory, and of the Hamiltonian Federalists, who thought a war would entrench them in control of the federal government. As a result, an undeclared naval war (sometimes called a “Quasi-War”) took place in  and , in which the American navy, new as it was, fought with considerable credit, capturing some  prizes and taking advantage of France’s preoccupation with European problems. At the height of the hysteria, and in an effort to maintain authority and weaken the political opposition, the Federalists in Congress came up with the Alien and Sedition Acts. These were passed for the stated purpose of protecting the country from subversion or dangerous foreign influence in the midst of the hostility with France. Since it was the Republican Party that traditionally favored France and since many Republicans were foreigners by birth, French or Irish for the most part, the Alien and Sedition Acts were quite clearly aimed at them. There were four acts in all: • The Naturalization Act lengthened from  to  years the length of residence required for citizenship. • The Alien Act gave the president power to deport any foreigner considered dangerous.

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• The Alien Enemies Act threatened all foreigners with imprisonment if war was declared with or invasion threatened by their native country. • The Sedition Act, the most extreme of all, prescribed fines of up to $, and prison sentences of up to two years for anyone speaking, writing, or publishing antigovernment material. Though the Naturalization and Alien Acts were never enforced, they probably had the desired effect of discouraging immigration and encouraging some resident foreigners to leave. The Sedition Act was enforced, and some  newspaper editors were convicted, one for hoping that, when a salute was fired in honor of the president, the wadding of the cannon would strike ‘‘him in the rear bulge of his breeches.’’ More serious was the imprisonment for four months of Matthew Lyon, a Republican congressman and publisher from Vermont, who wrote that he saw in the president ‘‘every consideration of public welfare swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfless avarice.’’ In addition to his four-month prison term, Lyon had to pay a fine of $,. On the other hand, he became a martyr to his constituents—he was overwhelmingly reelected to Congress, and his conviction convinced Republicans everywhere that the Federalists were denying constitutional liberties by means of these acts. To dramatize their determination not to submit to what they viewed as a clear violation of the Constitution, Jefferson and Madison each wrote a set of resolutions that were then passed by the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, as they are commonly known, set forth an explicit states’-rights interpretation of the Constitution, declaring it to be a contract with the people, who retained the right to judge infractions of that contract (at this time the Supreme Court had never acted on the constitutionality of an act of Congress). The resolutions went on to say that Congress had violated the Constitution, and each author delineated a specific remedy. The more cautious Madison spoke of states stepping in between the federal government and the people and suggested that a convention of the states might more clearly define the powers of the federal government. The more radical Jefferson suggested the idea of nullification—that a state could nullify or abrogate federal laws that it felt violated the Constitution. Neither Kentucky nor Virginia ever acted on the remedies suggested in the resolutions their legislatures had passed, but the proposals were circulated to other state legislatures, some of which rejected the ideas in them. State sovereignty as a political concept had little appeal then, and it is probable that the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were written more for their political effect; in a sense, they were part of the Republican platform for the  election. Meanwhile, it was becoming apparent that there would be no declared war between the United States and France. Talleyrand finally saw the wisdom of accommodation and let Adams know that France was now ready to accept his diplomatic representatives. After a further break with Hamiltonian Federalists, who did not want to reestablish relations with France so readily, Adams fired his secretary of state, Thomas Pickering, an ally of Hamilton’s, and sent a new commission of three to France in . There Napoleon Bonaparte, who had recently assumed authority in France, greeted them cordially. In the negotiations, France refused to pay indemnity (for damages to American interests) unless the treaty of  was reactivated. But the U.S. commissioners were not

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authorized to do that, so a kind of honorable forgive-and-forget agreement was signed. Called the Convention of , it was important because it formally released the United States from the treaty of , included a mutual understanding about neutral rights, and secured the goodwill of Napoleon, which quite likely made possible the purchase of Louisiana, in . President Adams thought the Convention of  was important. Years later, he said, “I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of the peace with France in the year .”

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY donald a. rakestraw “Are our commissioners guillotined,” inquired the venerable George Washington, “or what else is the occasion of their silence?” The silence of Charles C. Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry, the special mission sent by President John Adams to resolve differences with the French Republic, was indeed, by the close of , ominous. The success or failure of the envoys would likely spell the difference between peace and war. The longer they kept the Adams administration waiting, the greater the anxiety became. Adams was right to fret. He presided over a nation far from prepared for an altercation with a major European power. The American republic had achieved much in its brief life—a peaceful transfer of power from George Washington to John Adams, the implementation of a federal constitution, the establishment of a national financial system, and the completion of significant treaty arrangements with Britain and Spain. Despite the noteworthy successes, however, the nation remained young and vulnerable. To be drawn into the squabble between Britain and France could threaten not only the security but also the independence of the United States. As the close of the th century approached, the United States was still in the early stages of its republican experiment, with newly formed political parties distinguished most by their opinion on the limits of republican liberty and the role of government in that determination. The natural affinity that many Americans had for libertarian ideals had been complicated by the degradation of a revolution for liberté in France into a bloody European war pitting France against Great Britain. The conflict increased the skepticism in the United States among members of the Federalist Party by confirming their worst nightmares of unchecked republicanism. The Republican Party, however, strained to remain sympathetic to fellow libertarians. As the conflict increased between Britain and France, the two American parties chose sides. It is always dangerous for domestic policy to be too closely associated with foreign controversies, and it was particularly perilous for a nation susceptible to exploitation by one or both of the belligerents. In this context, the interplay of domestic and foreign policy required careful management. Even a minor incident might tempt the astute politico to find domestic capital in foreign adventure. The Adams administration, reflecting that fragile balance, was precariously perched atop a dysfunctional Federalist Party with a Republican serving as vice president. Having won the election of  by a meager three electoral votes, Adams could not wield

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authority with absolute confidence. He had been opposed by the powerful Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton, whose machinations to secure the presidency for the more malleable Thomas Pinckney had so fouled the outcome as to make opposition leader Thomas Jefferson vice president. In addition, Adams’s decision to retain Washington’s cabinet gave Hamilton, though a private citizen, considerable influence over the formulation of national policy. Joseph McHenry at the War Department, Oliver Wolcott at Treasury, and Timothy Pickering at State were more inclined to follow Hamilton than their president. Adams was a president with a delicate popular base surrounded by dubious advisers. Under these circumstances, pressed from both sides, Adams had much at risk with the diplomatic mission of Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry: the High Federalists (the more extremist wing of the party) wanted war but had acquiesced to this one good-faith effort to negotiate restitution from the French Directory. It is perhaps because of the general apprehension of a young nation and an intense desire to win its due respect that the so-called XYZ Affair had such astounding repercussions. Indeed, what appeared a seemingly inconsequential occurrence to the seasoned European diplomats would explode into an incident that came to dominate the attention of the Adams administration and much of the nation. In the two years following the affair, reactions altered the American political landscape with a near-fatal blow first to one party, then to the other; prompted the restructuring of the U.S. military and revival of the debate over the need for and the danger of a standing army in peacetime; undermined the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens; affected the course of America’s future both hemispherically and internationally; and introduced the United States to the paradox of limited war. In March , news of the U.S.-French negotiations finally reached the eager ears of the Adams administration in Philadelphia. As if to heighten the drama, a painstakingly slow process of deciphering the despatches was required before the full extent of the debacle could be understood. The only thing known immediately was that the mission had not been a success. Rumors circulated from Europe about the mission’s failure. Adams’s insecurity had been evident in his queries to his cabinet in January as to what course he should pursue if the news was bad: should he call for war? Should he issue an embargo? Hamilton had earlier supported a limited war that retained diplomacy as an option, but it was apparent that Adams was uncertain. When the alleged affront was finally made known, Adams was more inclined toward a formal declaration of war than Hamilton’s faction had been. The president believed full-scale war to be an economic imperative. Without it there would be no way to sustain the national honor and the U.S. economy. It should be noted that the suspected insult was no more than diplomats had come to expect in Europe. Bribes were customary. In fact, the United States had recently paid the Barbary states tribute to secure American trade in the Mediterranean. The actual problem faced by the envoys had been more a technical one than one of honor: they had not been authorized to disburse such a sum, and to do so would have violated neutrality and perhaps provoked the British. The reaction to news of the failed mission was immediate. Federalists called for war in the name of honor, while Republicans chastised them for overreacting in an attempt to rationalize an unnecessary war waged for political advantage. Suspicious Republicans demanded to see all the correspondence from the mission. Only too glad to comply, Adams transmitted the entire deciphered record to Congress, the only alteration

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being the substitution of the letters X, Y, and Z for the names of the three offending French commissioners. (A fourth commissioner, code-named ‘‘W,’’ was also part of the affair, but he played a lesser role, and the appellation “XYZ Affair” soon became popular.) Stunned Republicans hastily reconsidered their position on public disclosure of the documents and insisted that they be withheld from public view. It was too late, however; the genie had escaped the bottle. The Federalists seized upon the failed mission as a golden opportunity to solidify their political base at the expense of the now-embarrassed Republicans. Not only would the XYZ correspondence be made public but also, within short order, the Federalists saw to the dissemination of thousands of free copies throughout the nation. The offense that had in fact been a technicality was now obscured by the lurid description of the humiliating treatment of official representatives of a sovereign nation required to pay a bribe merely to be recognized. Pinckney’s rejection of the French demand with “No, no; not a sixpence” would soon be heralded as a heroic rebuff of an improper advance. National hackles were up. Honor had been maligned. Merchants in a number of cities volunteered to subscribe warships to lend to the government for retaliation against the now-hated French. As word circulated, a contagious war fever spread in the name of national honor and a determination to redress the disrespectful treatment of America’s envoys. Addresses were delivered from lectern, stump, and pulpit across the United States. The mantra erroneously attributed to Charles Pinckney, “Millions for defense but not a penny for tribute,” quickly became the favorite refrain in public gatherings and rallies. The song “Hail Columbia” was composed to sound out the patriotic theme of American national honor. Many of the addresses were directed to Adams, who was delighted with his sudden and unaccustomed popularity. The best way to retain it and the political rewards that should accrue to the party was to feed the patriotic zeal and capture it as exclusively Federalist. Adams devoted considerable time and attention to responding to the addresses, denouncing the godless French, questioning the patriotism of the Republicans, and calling for war to preserve “the national character when its existence as an independent nation is at stake.” In the second week of May, he proposed a day of “humiliation, fasting, and prayer” and, in one particularly exuberant moment, admonished a crowd that the “finger of destiny writes on the wall the word: War.” The correspondence addressed to Adams indicated a public consensus forming around common themes. The nation was willing to unite in a rare show of support for the government in Philadelphia and to invert its former fondness for revolutionary France to resentment and disgust; honor demanded a firm and concerted response. Americans were finally casting an objective and critical eye on their recent friend and ally. Hamilton published a series of newspaper articles collectively entitled “The Stand,” in which he argued that France was bent on the domination of mankind. In the process, the Gallic aggressors would cripple the power balance in Europe—a change portending grave consequences for the United States. “Standing, as it were,” Hamilton warned, “in the midst of falling empires, it should be our aim to assume a station and attitude which will preserve us from being overwhelmed in their ruin.” It soon became not only unpopular but also downright dangerous to express a sympathetic word for the French. Children of Federalists squared off against their “Republican” peers in street fights as the parents of each held the fate of the nation in their hands. Prominent Republicans, including the vice president himself, were placed under surveillance for fear that they, in collusion with subversive French

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and Irish aliens, would bring down the government. Even fashion was affected: anything associated with France was called into question, especially the tricolor cockades or rosettes that had been sported by citizens as a not-too-subtle indication of support for the French. The Federalists saw to their substitution with a black rosette that, perhaps remotely coincidental, was also the formal cockade of Britain. To be observed sporting the tricolor in the aftermath of the XYZ disclosures was not the surest way to win friends or invite polite gestures. Any American concerned with continued good health was careful not to display the tricolor on July , , when perhaps the most frequently repeated holiday ritual was the burning of the French foreign minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, in effigy. The XYZ Affair had given the Federalist Party an issue—a face-saving foreign war—to serve its political purposes. Most important, it could be used as a lever to force the Francophile Republicans from national prominence. Some Federalists also believed that war with France would permit the government to move beyond unprofitable defensive measures toward offensive action that would profit American producers and shippers and bring about increased American influence in the Western Hemisphere. If properly maintained, the frenzy for war also could be exploited to justify the collection of taxes, hasten a military buildup, and sever communication between Republicans and their fellow French “radicals.” To draw southerners into the fracas, rumors were spread in collusion with the secretary of state that reported a French plan to incite a slave rebellion in the south to be orchestrated from Santo Domingo. Saboteurs, the rumors contended, were already at work distributing arms among the American slave population. In their overzealous determination to hold the advantage over Republicans and republicanism, the Federalists pushed through legislation that jeopardized constitutional rights and illustrated the extreme lengths to which they were willing to go. On June , Adams signed into law the Naturalization Act—the first of four laws that would jointly be called the Alien and Sedition Acts. These, more than any laws since colonial times, deserved the label “intolerable.” The acts were thinly veiled attempts by Federalists to put an end to republicanism and to drive dissent out of public discourse and dissenters out of the country. Under the Naturalization Act, the period required for U.S. citizenship was raised from  to  years and included an addendum that required registration with and surveillance by the government. Since most immigrants identified with the Republican Party, this law offered the bonus of depleting the ranks of the opposition. Two alien acts were passed that authorized the president to deport any noncitizen believed to be a threat to the security of the nation. This subjected all aliens to harassment by American zealots stirred by the XYZ agitation. The Sedition Act imperiled the rights of citizens most. In its initial form, anyone convicted of offering aid to the French could face execution. In its slightly tamer final form, passed in mid-July, the act held that anyone conspiring or criticizing the government would be subject to fine or imprisonment. Twenty-five Republican newspapermen were indicted and  were convicted under this law for articulating what most Republicans believed. Republicans howled in protest at this patently unconstitutional assault, which posed more of a threat to Americans, many said, than the French ever had. Albert Gallatin, who had emerged as the leader of the congressional Republicans, reminded his colleagues that in such a crisis the only satisfactory method of opposing political enemies was by the device of counterargument. To eliminate that device was to hazard dire

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consequences. Dire indeed were the consequences imbedded in the most significant and, as it turned out, most far-reaching response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison secretly penned two resolutions channeled through the state legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia, respectively. Although Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolution was the harsher of the two, Madison’s Virginia Resolution concurred that the Alien and Sedition laws were blatant assaults on freedom. Pointing to the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the resolutions contended that the states stood between the people and the central government as guarantor of liberty. To have Philadelphia impose on the people such rigid constraints could well necessitate, in Jefferson’s view, a drastic and perhaps violent reaction. Jefferson called on the states to nullify the laws by declining to respect or enforce them within their boundaries. He argued that the central government owed its existence to a compact of the several states. If, in the eyes of those states, the federal government attempted to exercise power not expressly delegated by the Constitution, the states were obligated to oppose it. The dangerous nature of these notions would be felt within a matter of decades as a future generation put the theory of nullification and interposition to the test. The suggestion of possible insurrection became entangled with an institution that, some feared, the Federalists might be tempted to use to press the United States toward monarchical government—a standing army. Hamilton felt that Jefferson’s subtle threat of insurrection added justification for a standing army. It might be necessary to force compliance with federal law. Hearing that Virginians were preparing for armed defense against the encroachment of the central government on their rights, Hamilton proposed dispatching a “clever force” to “put Virginia to the Test of resistance.” Hamilton was one of the most vocal advocates of an enhanced military. The call to arms by Adams after the XYZ disclosures was met in Congress by a number of significant changes in U.S. military capabilities and structure. Prior to the public exposure to the XYZ correspondence, Adams had called for such measures as the production of armaments, defense of American shipping, and stepped-up security along the coast. In April, immediately following the broadcast of the XYZ dispatches, Congress established the Department of Navy and authorized the president to increase the fleet from  to  vessels, to arm merchant ships, and to commission privateers. Along with the establishment of the navy as a separate service, another important contribution to the long-term structure of the U.S. military was the establishment of a separate branch for the Marine Corps. To safeguard the republic on land, Adams was to commission officers to command an army of , to augment the , troops currently in service on the frontier. Further, plans were made for a provisional army of , to be formed in the event of all-out war. The seriousness of the crisis could be felt in every community, since the president was directed to activate , militia. The buildup would be financed by a direct tax on houses and slaves of $ million. Hamilton had aspirations to lead the new army, but Adams felt that the focus of the conflict with France should be on the seas. In early July , the newly constituted navy captured its first prize and by the end of the year had been so successful that the French had practically conceded U.S. dominance in the Caribbean. Finally, the United States had gained some respect from the European powers. Early the following year, one of the navy’s new ships, the Constellation, engaged the French frigate L’Insurgente. Although the United States lauded the victory, the French captain seemed confused by

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the exchange. He was sailing under orders to avoid engagement with U.S. ships. France had refused to declare war, and, as far as France knew, so had the United States. “Why,” the French captain queried, “have you fired on the national flag of a people with whom you are at peace?” This was indeed an appropriate question. The nearest Adams had come to a formal pronouncement of hostilities was the abrogation of all treaties with France in early July and his eviction of the French consuls in the United States shortly afterward. The Adams administration faced a dilemma after the furor of the XYZ Affair. The heated rhetoric that benefited the president’s party demanded a declared war. How could the popularity of the president and his party be sustained short of all-out war? Further complicating the president’s position was the problem of funding. The people would submit to the so-called window tax (a tax assessed on houses calculated by the number of windows) and taxes on slaves if indeed the proceeds were dedicated to public defense. But this had become a limited war. The so-called Quasi-War of – had the president questioning his executive prerogative. How far could he go short of a formal declaration of war? The president vacillated on the decision of declared war for several reasons. First, despite his public pronouncements, he knew that a war with a European power would be potentially devastating for the ill-prepared United States. Second, he understood that the chances were great that a declared war on France would force the United States into a closer relationship with Britain, a prospect that could make America too beholden to the British navy for security. Third, and perhaps most significant, Adams shuddered at the specter of a standing army controlled by his nemesis Hamilton. General Washington had let it be known that he would lend his essential name as titular commander of the army only if Hamilton was named inspector general and served as the actual commander. When Adams, under duress, conceded and called Hamilton to lead the prospective army, he determined that the safest option was to keep it a paper army, effectively neutralizing Hamilton’s warrior ambitions. At the same time that he appointed Hamilton inspector general, he made public his fateful decision to keep to a limited naval war against France. It was during the deliberation over the selection of Hamilton that Adams finally faced the fact that his cabinet was less than fully committed to him and that many had fallen in with Hamilton’s grand designs. The inspector general intended to direct American foreign policy and to use the army, when called into existence, to conquer western territories for the United States. The ambitious New Yorker schemed to place Louisiana and the Floridas under American control. Such an accomplishment would not only add valuable land to the nation but would also block the French in the west and squelch republicanism and secessionist talk in that quarter. The breach between the United States and France created by the XYZ Affair encouraged renewed interest in the political shape of the Western Hemisphere. Some Americans wanted to assist the people of Santo Domingo in their challenge to French rule. A Venezuelan hatched a scheme whereby the United States would join Britain and the Spanish colonies in the Americas against Spain and France. In return for the effort, the United States would receive the Floridas and Louisiana. Hamilton, keen on conquest, thought the plan worthy of consideration, but Adams, much as his son would do two decades later, declined on the grounds that the United States should act independently. Besides, Adams thought, at this juncture it was best to have Spain neutral.

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The increasingly irreconcilable differences between Hamilton and Adams portended serious problems for the Federalist Party. When Adams made up his mind to avoid fullscale war with France, his decision exposed to attack Federalists who had implemented taxation to produce an army for a war that apparently would not occur. The outrage at the thought of supplying funds to a government that would use those funds to field an army to collect those funds began to rival the animus directed at the French. Although the provisional army remained provisional, the force that had been produced took on the appearance of a threat to American liberty. In Pennsylvania, for example, farmers who protested the property tax followed John Fries in outright anti-Federalist defiance, providing Congress with the excuse to dispatch the army against the quasi-insurrection in the name of putting down a Jacobin uprising. The Federalists had fallen into a trap. The taxation had been used to activate a military that, by taking the field against U.S. citizens, had proved itself to be the very danger the Republicans had described. Fortunately, Adams in the end was able to put rational behavior ahead of partisan politics and pardoned the rebels. The Adams administration was such a disappointment to the High Federalists that Hamilton in June  encouraged his devotees to seize control of policy from Adams, who, he argued, was no longer fit to lead. If necessary, Hamilton would come to Philadelphia to aid in what some have described as a threatened palace revolt. Meanwhile, there was renewed activity on the diplomatic front. Talleyrand had been stunned by the U.S. reaction to the XYZ Affair and, in his typically shrewd fashion, feigned ignorance of the despicable actions of Messieurs X, Y, and Z. He denounced them publicly and demanded to know who the troublemakers were. Gerry, who had, to the disdain of the Federalists, remained in Paris, revealed the names. They had not, Talleyrand asserted, acted in his name or that of the Directory. Talleyrand, of course, secretly reveled in the thought of the stress that he had brought on the American political system, especially on the pro-British Federalists. “We have succeeded,” he quietly boasted, “in dividing the party of Mr. Adams himself.” In addition, he continued, French diplomatic moves had paralyzed “all the efforts of the English faction to start war and force[d] the president to start negotiations again.” Appreciating the gravity of the situation, the French government backed away from its previous position and agreed to end privateering, ease the embargoes on American ships, release captured U.S. sailors, and, perhaps most important, welcome unequivocally a new minister from the United States. Adams had Talleyrand’s change of attitude confirmed by two other sources. His son, John Quincy, wrote him from Berlin that the French wanted to talk, and the U.S. minister to The Hague, William Vans Murray, assured Adams that the French would receive a new mission without preconditions. Adams, who saw this as the only possible means of extraction from the crisis, decided to send Murray to Paris to negotiate. Murray’s appointment left no doubt that war with France was unlikely and that Adams had chosen peace at the expense of his party’s welfare. High Federalists would not be permitted to take the country into the caldron of European war. Hamilton knew that Adams’s decision would be a deadly blow to the party. Not only would Federalists lose the issue, but also the people would blame them for the unnecessary panic. Hamilton thus attempted to block the Murray mission, and Secretary of State Thomas Pickering, glad to do Hamilton’s bidding, delayed preparing Murray’s instructions for his

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mission. Hamilton warned Adams that the British would consider negotiations with France a betrayal and would declare war. The Adams government now fractured completely. The Hamilton faction determined in the summer of  that Adams should be dropped and another standard bearer found for the upcoming presidential campaign. The split was irreversible when Adams denounced the Hamiltonians as warmongers subservient to the directives of London rather than Philadelphia. Republicans seized the opportunity to recover lost ground. By placing taxes, the national debt, and arguably exorbitant war expenditures at the feet of the Federalists, they could credibly contend that it had all been a political ploy to muzzle open discourse and to force upon the people a military government. Ironically, the Federalists, with the Alien and Sedition laws, had supplied Republicans with the means of their own undoing. Even though the Federalists, using thousands of copies of the XYZ correspondence, had ridden the war scare to a majority in both houses of Congress in the elections of – (election dates differed by state), the victory had been a Pyrrhic one. Many of the Federalists who came in with the Sixth Congress were moderates—like those in the south who supported candidates such as the heralded former envoy to France John Marshall—who would push for peace. To the chagrin of Hamilton, the moderate faction in the party rejected his leadership in particular and that of the High Federalists generally. Instead, that group joined with Republicans to suspend military enlistment and to abort the provisional army. Republicans, as a result of the Quasi-War experience, were themselves undergoing a reassessment of their commitment to unbridled republicanism. Jefferson, once a staunch advocate of the French, had become disillusioned with their vulgar aggression. Whereas he had once thought their taming of Britain a benefit to the cause of liberty, after the XYZ Affair and the difficulties that it produced, he decided that the United States should not be linked to any nation. Republicans in the United States no longer felt it necessary or desirable to associate French success with the survival or promulgation of republican ideals. During the Quasi-War, Jefferson lamented that, although he applauded “the progress of liberty in all nations, and would forever give it the weight of our countenance, yet they are not to be touched without contamination from their other bad principles.” The disruption within the ranks in many ways broke the Federalist majority and sent the party into decline. The internal squabble became more overt during the  campaign when Hamilton issued an attack on Adams in the form of a pamphlet entitled “Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq., President of the United States.” Adams’s advocates soon retaliated, publishing letters blasting the arrogant and reckless Hamilton. The Republicans looked on as their opponents did more than they ever could to salvage the Republican Party’s political fortune. Although Adams in the end championed peace, his vacillation and the party’s persistent push for war handed the peace agenda to Jefferson and the Republicans. The hard decision by the Adams administration to dispatch a peace mission to France would achieve his goal, but too late to refurbish his and his estranged party’s tarnished image. Adams belatedly attempted a corrective, ousting the most disloyal of his cabinet and deploying the new diplomatic mission to France. John Marshall replaced Pickering at State, and Samuel Dexter took over for McHenry at War. In March, after adding (a concession to Hamilton) Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth and William R. Davie of North

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Carolina to the mission, the delegation departed for Paris. Before the envoys’ arrival, however, a coup d’état in Paris had brought in a new French government, the Consulate, under the direction of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon, plotting a grand scheme that necessitated a respite from the French conflict with Britain, worked through the resilient Talleyrand, who had returned to the Foreign Office with the new government, to propose acceptable terms to the new American mission. Circumstances in the European war had convinced Napoleon that he should attempt (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) to draw the United States into a new league of armed neutrals. Also, if an accommodation could be found with the United States, perhaps Spain would find it in its interest to relinquish Louisiana to France. With Louisiana as a granary to feed Santo Domingo and the island a source of sugar for France, the complementary regions might form the nexus of a revived French Empire in the Americas. Negotiations between the French and the new American mission moved forward in fits and starts for more than six months. The Americans stood firm on their instructions to preserve the integrity of Jay’s Treaty with Britain, refuse any discussion of aid or loans, reject anything resembling an alliance, and limit any new arrangement to  years. Finally, in the fall, an agreement was reached in which the French acceded to American principles of neutrality, the two nations exchanged most-favored-nation status, ships taken during the Quasi-War were returned, and, most important for the American negotiators, the French accepted Adams’s de facto abrogation of the  treaties. The obligations made by the Americans during the struggle for independence had proved a constant source of grief and the pith of international aggravation through two presidential administrations. The new envoys fared considerably better than their predecessors. For the signing of the Convention of , the new American mission was entertained at Môrtefontaine, the country estate of Napoleon’s brother Joseph. As Davie, Ellsworth, and Murray enjoyed the fruits of success with the comforting knowledge that they had officially ended the Quasi-War, freed American commerce from French harassment, and released the United States from its problematic treaty obligations, Napoleon’s government was secretly concluding a treaty with Spain at San Ildefonso for the transfer of Louisiana. Napoleon’s maneuver would soon have monumental importance for the United States. His clever step would open the way for a new American president to achieve through negotiation and dollars what Hamilton had dreamed of doing by force of arms—the annexation of the vast Louisiana Territory. The century ended with the outrage of the XYZ Affair waning as Americans looked with a new optimism to a new century. The incident’s effects, however, had been astounding. The fallout had produced a limited war with France, a rare national cohesion and passion for the respect of national sovereignty, an assault on the liberties of the people from within, the liberation of U.S. foreign policy from the fetters of European diplomacy, and a substantial contribution to what some have called a political revolution. When the th century officially began, in , the governance of the republic soon passed to the Republican Party. The disillusionment brought on by the Franco-American crisis and the split in the Federalist ranks over the handling of that crisis had played a big role in placing Thomas Jefferson in charge of the new Federal City in Washington, D.C., and his Republican colleagues in charge of Congress. The impact of the crisis with France would be seen in the surprisingly pragmatic approach to foreign policy that the

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new government exhibited. The Convention of  (or the Treaty of Môrtefontaine) had sealed the end to the first phase of American foreign policy, bequeathing to Jefferson the hard lessons of neutrality and entangling alliances. Sadly, the lessons would be ultimately of little use once the Europeans set their minds again to the exploitation of a neutral America—an exploitation that would, with Republicans at the helm, propel the nation into a second war with Britain. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bowman, A. H. The Struggle for Neutrality: Franco-American Diplomacy during the Federalist Era. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, . Describes the anti-French foreign policy under the Federalist administrations of Washington and Adams and assesses the French desire to draw the United States into the European war. Clarfield, Gerald H. Timothy Pickering and American Diplomacy, –. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, . Examines Secretary of State Pickering’s policies toward France during the Quasi-War. DeConde, Alexander. The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France. New York: Scribner’s, . Details the slide into the undeclared war by an Adams administration undercut from within by the president’s own department heads. Hill, Peter A. William Vans Murray, Federalist Diplomat: The Shaping of Peace with France. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, . Focuses on Murray’s part in resolving the QuasiWar with France. Kaplan, Lawrence S. Colonies into Nation: American Diplomacy, –. New York: Macmillan, . A useful survey of early U.S. diplomacy that places the XYZ Affair into a broader historical context. Kurtz, Stephen G. The Presidency of John Adams: The Collapse of Federalism, –. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, . Study of the Adams presidency, emphasizing the president’s defiance of other Federalist leaders to work for peace with France. Leiner, Frederick C. “The Subscription of Warships of .”American Neptune , no.  (): –. Discusses how merchants in various cities volunteered to support the construction of warships for loan to the government after hearing of the XYZ Affair. Lyon, E. Wilson. “The Franco-American Convention of .”Journal of Modern History , no.  (): –. Surveys the negotiated settlement at Môrtefontaine between the United States and the French government under Napoleon. Perkins, Bradford. The First Rapprochement: England and the United States, –. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, . Notes that improved relations with England after Jay’s Treaty influenced the foreign policy of the Adams and Jefferson administrations. Stinchcombe, William C. The XYZ Affair. Westport, CT: Greenwood, . A detailed account of the mission of Charles C. Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry in Paris from their appointment in  to the breakdown of negotiations after the bribe and loan demands. Tucker, Robert T., and David C. Hendrickson. Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Oxford University Press, . Contains an excellent though brief account of Jefferson’s perception of the XYZ Affair and his involvement in the subsequent crisis.

JOHN ADAMS (1735–1826) Brilliant and vain, industrious and argumentative, John Adams used his powers to help launch the movement for independence and, as president and diplomat, to launch the

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new nation. Adams’s wife, Abigail, whom he married in , was a well-informed woman whose letters to her husband provide a lively and intelligent view of life in colonial times. John and Abigail were the first presidential family to inhabit the White House and, prior to , the only presidential parents to have a son (John Quincy Adams) become president. Their grandson, Charles Francis Adams, also became a prominent statesman. Adams was born on October , , in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in , was admitted to the bar in , and quickly established a successful Boston practice. Although by nature an upholder of the law and not a revolutionist, Adams opposed the Stamp Act of , which required Americans to purchase stamps to place on all legal documents and newspapers, because the colonists had never given their consent to such taxation. The resolutions of protest against British rule he prepared for Braintree were adopted throughout Massachusetts. In , though he knew it was an unpopular cause, Adams was one of the lawyers who agreed to defend the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, which, in part, had been instigated by his cousin, Samuel Adams. The soldiers, who had fired into a mob and killed five men, were acquitted of murder. His prestige untarnished, Adams was then elected to the Massachusetts General Court as a representative from Boston. In , he was chosen as one of the delegates from Massachusetts to the First Continental Congress. At the Second Continental Congress, in , Adams pressed for a complete break with England and was responsible for George Washington’s appointment as commander in chief of the new Continental Army. The following year, it was Adams who seconded the motion of Richard Henry Lee for a declaration of independence; he was also appointed to the committee charged with drafting the document. While in the Continental Congress during –, Adams served on many important committees, including the one (on which Thomas Jefferson took the lead) responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence. In , he was sent to Europe to obtain a treaty of alliance with France, only to find when he arrived that this had already been accomplished by Benjamin Franklin. Jealous of Franklin’s popularity and unhappy with his own position, Adams returned home and began work on the Massachusetts Constitution, becoming its principal author. In , Congress asked him to go back to Europe to help negotiate peace and commercial treaties. As minister to Holland, Adams secured that country’s recognition of the United States, as well as some badly needed loans for the new nation. Later, Adams returned to France and, in concert with Franklin and John Jay, negotiated the Treaty of Paris () with Great Britain to end the Revolution. Adams remained in Europe as the American minister to Great Britain until . After his return, he was elected the first vice president of the United States, a post to which he was reelected in  despite the opposition of Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton and Adams disliked each other. Hamilton felt that Adams did not believe strongly enough in the need for a powerful central government and in protecting the rights of the newly emerging wealthy business class, and Adams was sure that Hamilton wanted to establish aristocratic rule in the United States. In , Adams overcame Hamilton’s opposition to his candidacy to win a narrow victory for the presidency. The Adams administration was dominated by the growth of the two-party system and the repercussions of the French Revolution. Adams assumed the office of the presidency

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during the emergence of two national political parties—the Federalists, nominally led by Hamilton, and the Democratic-Republicans (more often called Republicans), led by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson and his supporters felt that Adams, who actually considered himself above party affiliation, was a Federalist and a man who wanted to be king and subject the populace to his tyranny. To the Republicans, Adams did not believe strongly enough in the need to keep the central government weak in order to forestall threats to individual liberty. A deep antagonism developed between Adams and Jefferson, his vice president. Adams followed Washington’s advice of maintaining strict American neutrality in the war between England and France. His efforts were complicated by the fact that Hamilton and other Federalists were sympathetic to England, while Jefferson and his Republicans were sympathetic to France and the French Revolution. France, angry over the U.S. refusal to help its cause and what it perceived to be U.S. support for Great Britain, began attacking American ships. As soon as he became president, Adams sent agents to France to resolve the disagreement, but the French government refused to meet with them. When secret agents of the French government demanded that the United States agree to loan France $ million and pay a bribe of $, before talks could begin, Adams relayed the insult to Congress. The incident became known as the XYZ Affair after the initials Adams substituted in his report for the names of the French secret agents. Adams’s popularity soared as he strengthened the nation’s defenses, though he himself was against war. He nominated Washington as commander in chief and supported a naval buildup, including the outfitting of the frigate Constitution (“Old Ironsides”). Between  and , an undeclared naval war, known as the Quasi-War, raged between the United States and France. Full-scale war seemed inevitable, but, by , passions had cooled. Napoleon had gained control in France and, preoccupied with other matters, wanted peace with the United States. Adams seized the opportunity to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the problem. Although a wise decision for the nation, it was a costly one politically. Adams’s action infuriated Hamilton and his Federalist supporters, who had been pressing for war. But it was characteristic of Adams to choose his country over self-interest. However, the outbreak of hostilities with the French in  also had enabled the Federalists to push through Congress the repressive Alien and Sedition Acts. The acts were aimed against the many foreign-born (especially French and Irish) Republican critics of the government and made it more difficult for them to become American citizens. The acts also allowed the government to prosecute citizens who expressed opposition. Ten men, mostly newspaper editors, were convicted for their opinions. Although no one was deported, immigration was discouraged, and some foreigners left the country. The laws were vigorously opposed by Jefferson and the Republicans, who felt the acts violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. Without the support of many of the Federalists and vilified by the Republicans for not vetoing the Alien and Sedition Acts, Adams was defeated for reelection by Jefferson in . One of his final actions as president was to appoint Federalists (known as Midnight Judges) to newly created federal judgeships. The appointments were later voided. His appointment of John Marshall as chief justice of the Supreme Court, however, would endure for  years.

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Adams retired to Braintree after leaving the White House, in . He spent the last  years of his life corresponding with friends, among them Jefferson, with whom he had a warm reconciliation, writing about contemporary affairs, and recording his experiences in politics. Adams died on July , , exactly  years to the day from the signing of the Declaration of Independence. His last words are reported to have been “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” He did not know that Jefferson had himself succumbed about five hours earlier on that very day.

steven g. o’brien ELBRIDGE GERRY (1744–1814) Elbridge Gerry was a member of the Second Continental Congress, governor of Massachusetts, and vice president of the United States under James Madison. Born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, on July , , to a wealthy shipping family, Gerry graduated from Harvard College in . While working in his father’s shipping business, he became a follower of Samuel Adams. Because of his strong anti-British views, he was elected to the Massachusetts colonial legislature, in . Four years later, he was elected a representative to the Continental Congress. In addition to signing the Declaration of Independence, Gerry served on the important Treasury board. Angry at what he felt were infringements upon states’ rights by the Continental Congress, Gerry resigned in  but returned again in  and served until . In , Gerry was elected to the Massachusetts state legislature and, a year later, was chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Although he actively participated in the debates that created the Constitution, Gerry refused to sign or support its ratification because he felt it contained too many ambiguities that could prove dangerous to republicanism. However, once the Constitution was adopted, he supported Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist financial policies as a member of the House of Representatives from  to . President John Adams chose Gerry, as a representative of the Anti-Federalists, whom he trusted, to join John Marshall and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney on a peace commission to France in . In Paris, the French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand managed to take advantage of Gerry’s pro-French feelings to divide the American mission. Much to the distress of Pinckney and Marshall, Gerry refused to join them when they returned to the United States after rejecting Talleyrand’s infamous bribery request that became known as the XYZ affair. When Gerry returned home by command of President Adams, he was snubbed by the Federalists and embraced by the DemocraticRepublicans. In , while Massachusetts was still a Federalist stronghold, Gerry, running as a Democratic-Republican, managed to win the governorship. To help his party, he supported a bill in  that redistricted the state in such a way that more DemocraticRepublican state senators than Federalists could be elected. This was accomplished by putting all strong Federalist voting areas into a few districts and connecting disparate Democratic-Republican voting areas into numerous new election districts no matter how irregularly shaped they might have to be. This technique of rearranging the boundaries of voting districts to favor the party in power became known as gerrymandering.

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Gerry was in his sixties when he was nominated as Democratic-Republican presidential candidate James Madison’s vice president in . He was considered valuable to the ticket because he was a Democratic-Republican from a Federalist state. Gerry died in office in Washington, D.C., on November , , two years after being elected.

steven g. o’brien QUASI-WAR (1798–1800) Since , revolutionary France had been embroiled in a war with England, and it sought to keep foreign shipping from carrying cargoes to English ports. Accordingly, in , the French Directorate issued several decrees authorizing the seizure of U.S. merchant vessels that were trading with England. On April , , President John Adams created the U.S. Navy as a separate department and ordered it into action against French privateers attempting to halt the Anglo-American trade. The conflict became known as the Quasi-War. Although war was never officially declared between the United States and France, the Quasi-War was the first overseas conflict waged by the United States. Most fighting in the Quasi-War took place in the waters surrounding the West Indies, where the small U.S. Navy defeated French privateers and ships of the regular French Navy in numerous and celebrated actions. Such men as Thomas Truxtun and Edward Preble became the country’s first naval heroes, and the wartime experience trained an entire cadre of naval officers. In September , the United States and France concluded the Treaty of Môrtefontaine, which ended French harassment of American shipping and brought the Quasi-War to a close.

CHARLES MAURICE DE TALLEYRAND (1754–1838) Charles Maurice de Talleyrand was a leading personality in late th- and early thcentury France whose career spanned the reign of King Louis XVI, the French Revolution, Emperor Napoleon I’s regime, and the restoration of the monarchy. His activities, particularly in foreign affairs, were often decisive and shaped the fortune of his country. Talleyrand was born in Paris on February , , to a prominent aristocratic family. He was the son of a general in the army of French king Louis XV. Talleyrand was to have followed his father into a military career, but a childhood injury left him with an injured foot and a permanent limp. He embarked on a religious education and studied at Reims (where his uncle was archbishop), and the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. He became a priest in December  and then agent general of the clergy of France in . By , he drew income from a number of abbeys and was made bishop of Autun in January of that year. Talleyrand was a gifted administrator and led a life at odds with his position as a cleric. He was worldly, some said dissolute, and enjoyed the physical pleasures of aristocratic living (which included the company of women) and even taking part in the decidedly irreligious intellectual atmosphere of the salons and Enlightenment thought. Throughout his life, he rarely even visited his bishopric of Autun.

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When the French Revolution broke out, in , Talleyrand immediately became an ardent supporter and participant. He sat in the French National Assembly, helped to draft a new constitution, and introduced an education bill that removed public instruction from the hands of the Church and placed it in those of the state. He also supported both the nationalization of Church property and the civil constitution of the clergy, which forced priests to swear an oath of loyalty to the revolutionary government. As the revolution grew more radical, however, France became a dangerous place for aristocrats like Talleyrand, and he emigrated first to England and then to the United States. After the fall of Maximilien Robespierre and the end of the radical phase of the revolution, Talleyrand was able to return to France. He arrived in Paris in September  and was made foreign minister of the republican regime on July , . Revolutionary France had been at war since , and the new foreign minister pursued a policy of peace. Peace proved elusive, however, and it was during that time that he formed his fateful bond with Napoleon. Talleyrand supported Napoleon’s coup d’état, in November , and became foreign minister in the new regime, a post he would hold for the next eight years. He continued to work for peace, and, helped by Napoleon’s victories on the battlefield, he signed treaties with Austria in  and Great Britain in . During this period, tensions with the United States had surfaced in regard to French pirate ships that were raiding and seizing U.S. commercial vessels. The United States sent three diplomats to France to meet with Talleyrand. The U.S. diplomats were met by three representatives of the French foreign ministry who were referred to by the Americans only as “Messrs. X, Y, and Z” (the incident has subsequently been referred to as the XYZ Affair). Talleyrand’s men indicated to the U.S. ministers that no treaty could even be discussed unless the United States agreed to loan France $ million and pay a $, bribe to Talleyrand himself. Under those circumstances, the outraged Americans withdrew and declared the mission a failure. After Napoleon added the Russians to the list of the defeated and signed the Treaty of Tilsit in , it seemed that France could finally be at peace after  years of continuous war. Yet, the British had resumed hostilities, and Napoleon showed no signs of ceasing his military initiatives; he involved himself in a war with Spain and set up a continental blockade against the British. Talleyrand opposed both the continuation of the war and Napoleon’s plans for the Continental System, which denied the British access to a Europe that Napoleon had brought completely under his control. In protest, Talleyrand left his post as foreign minister in August . Talleyrand believed Napoleon’s policies were not in the best interests of France, and he began to conspire against the imperial regime. After Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign of  and his defeat at the Battle of Leipzig, in , Talleyrand was involved in bringing about the restoration of the monarchy under King Louis XVIII. Appointed to represent France at the Congress of Vienna by the new king, Talleyrand found his work interrupted by the return of Napoleon in March . Napoleon’s return to power proved brief, however, as he was defeated by the allied powers for the last time at the Battle of Waterloo, on June , . With Napoleon safely exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena, Talleyrand resumed his work as foreign minister for Louis XVIII. At the Congress of Vienna, he was successful in exploiting divisions among the allies and in pinning responsibility for the wars on Napoleon alone. France thus emerged from the peace conference with much of its territory and power intact.

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Talleyrand retired from political life in , but he voiced his increasing opposition to the regime of Louis XVIII’s successor, King Charles X, who ascended the throne in  and immediately showed absolutist inclinations. When Charles was overthrown in the Revolution of , Talleyrand gave his support to the liberal King Louis-Philippe. Talleyrand served as ambassador in London, where he smoothed relations with Great Britain and helped to establish Belgium as an independent nation at an international conference in . He retired permanently in . During his long life, Talleyrand served many different regimes but always claimed that the interests of the French people remained his first priority. He had a reputation as a somewhat corrupt figure, for he never passed up an opportunity to enrich himself while in his capacity as a public servant, but he was a formidable proponent of France’s interests throughout his whole life. On his deathbed, in , he told the priest administering him last rites, “Do not forget that I am a bishop,” a remarkable but characteristic statement for such a man of the world. Talleyrand died in Paris on May , .

DOCUMENT: PRESIDENT GEORGE WASHINGTON’S PROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITY, 1793 President George Washington issued this proclamation of U.S. neutrality in the ongoing Anglo-French wars on April , . The British and the French had been fighting each other for years, first in the wars of the French Revolution and then in the Napoleonic Wars. Although popular sentiment in the United States backed up Washington’s statement of neutrality, the American population was split between sympathy for the French and sympathy for the British. Most agreed, however, that the country was better off without getting entangled in European affairs. The proclamation set a precedent for U.S. isolationism that remained strong well into the th century. (Proclamation of Neutrality, April , , American State Papers, rd Congress, st Session, Foreign Relations, :.) Whereas it appears that a state of war exists between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain, and the United Netherlands, of the one part, and France on the other; and the duty and interest of the United States require, that they should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerant Powers; I have therefore thought fit by these presents to declare the disposition of the United States to observe the conduct aforesaid towards those Powers respectfully; and to exhort and warn the citizens of the United States carefully to avoid all acts and proceedings whatsoever, which may in any manner tend to contravene such disposition. And I do hereby also make known, that whatsoever of the citizens of the United States shall render himself liable to punishment or forfeiture under the law of nations, by committing, aiding, or abetting hostilities against any of the said Powers, or by carrying to any of them those articles which are deemed contraband by the modern usage of nations, will not receive the protection of the United States, against such punishment

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or forfeiture; and further, that I have given instructions to those officers, to whom it belongs, to cause prosecutions to be instituted against all persons, who shall, within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, violate the law of nations, with respect to the Powers at war, or any of them. In testimony whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand. Done at the city of Philadelphia, the twenty-second day of April, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the seventeenth. GEORGE WASHINGTON April , 

DOCUMENT: ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS, 1798 A series of four laws championed by the Federalists in the U.S. Congress and President John Adams, the Alien and Sedition Acts made it more difficult for immigrants to obtain U.S. citizenship, enacted stricter laws against immigrants that increased the risk of deportation, and limited the rights of freedom of assembly and freedom of the press for U.S. citizens under the guise of preparing the United States for its entry into the Napoleonic Wars against France. Democratic-Republicans maintained that the acts were a weapon to suppress political dissent, and the acts themselves proved wildly unpopular. The laws included here are the Alien Enemies Act (passed July ) and the Sedition Act (passed July ). The other two laws were the Naturalization Act (passed June ) and the Alien Act (passed June ). (The Alien Act, July , , and The Sedition Act, July , . Fifth Congress; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions; General Records of the U.S. Government; Record Group , National Archives.)

ALIEN ENEMIES ACT Section . Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government, and the President of the United States shall make public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies. And the President of the United States shall be, and he is hereby authorized, in any event, as aforesaid, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed, on the part of the United States, towards the aliens who shall become liable, as aforesaid; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject, and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those, who, not being permitted to reside within the United States,

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shall refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which shall be found necessary in the premises and for the public safety: Provided, that aliens resident within the United States, who shall become liable as enemies, in the manner aforesaid, and who shall not be chargeable with actual hostility, or other crime against the public safety, shall be allowed, for the recovery, disposal, and removal of their goods and effects, and for their departure, the full time which is, or shall be stipulated by any treaty, where any shall have been between the United States, and the hostile nation or government, of which they shall be natives, citizens, denizens or subjects: and where no such treaty shall have existed, the President of the United States may ascertain and declare such reasonable time as may be consistent with the public safety, and according to the dictates of humanity and national hospitality. Section . And be it further enacted, That after any proclamation shall be made as aforesaid, it shall be the duty of the several courts of the United States, and of each state, having criminal jurisdiction, and of the several judges and justices of the courts of the United States, and they shall be, and are hereby respectively, authorized upon complaint, against any alien or alien enemies, as aforesaid, who shall be resident and at large within such jurisdiction or district, to the danger of the public peace or safety, and contrary to the tenor or intent of such proclamation, or other regulations which the President of the United States shall and may establish in the premises, to cause such alien or aliens to be duly apprehended and convened before such court, judge or justice; and after a full examination and hearing on such complaint. and sufficient cause therefor appearing, shall and may order such alien or aliens to be removed out of the territory of the United States, or to give sureties of their good behaviour, or to be otherwise restrained, conformably to the proclamation or regulations which shall and may be established as aforesaid, and may imprison, or otherwise secure such alien or aliens, until the order which shall and may be made, as aforesaid, shall be performed. Section . And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the marshal of the district in which any alien enemy shall be apprehended, who by the President of the United States, or by order of any court, judge or justice, as aforesaid, shall be required to depart, and to be removed, as aforesaid, to provide therefor, and to execute such order, by himself or his deputy, or other discreet person or persons to be employed by him, by causing a removal of such alien out of the territory of the United States; and for such removal the marshal shall have the warrant of the President of the United States, or of the court, judge or justice ordering the same, as the case may be.

SEDITION ACT Section . Be it enacted That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding a place or office in or under the government of the United States, from undertaking, performing or executing his trust or duty; and if any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot. unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt shall

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have the proposed effect or not, he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and on conviction, before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, and by imprisonment during a term not less than six months nor exceeding five years; and further, at the discretion of the court may be holden to find sureties for his good behaviour in such sum, and for such time, as the said court may direct. Section . That if any person shall write, print, utter. Or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them. or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years. Section . That if any person shall be prosecuted under this act, for the writing or publishing any libel aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the defendant, upon the trial of the cause, to give in evidence in his defence, the truth of the matter contained in the publication charged as a libel. And the jury who shall try the cause, shall have a right to determine the law and the fact, under the direction of the court, as in other cases. Section . That this act shall continue to be in force until March , , and no longer.

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12 The Revolution of 1800

INTRODUCTION By the election of , a fairly well-defined two-party political system had developed in the United States, evolving from the differences of opinion that had surfaced during the campaign to ratify the Constitution and from the policies of the Washington and Adams administrations, particularly with regard to foreign policy. In general, the Federalist Party, that of George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, believed in a strong federal government closely tied to the rising commercial establishment and to Great Britain. The Republican Party (sometimes called the Jefferson-Republican or Democratic-Republican Party), which had developed out of the old Anti-Federalist faction, was headed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and placed its faith in an agricultural-based society and close relations with France, whose revolution, it was felt, gave it a kinship with the United States. Rivalry between Federalists and Republicans could be fierce; during the campaign of , a Federalist minister, Thomas Robbins, wrote in his diary: “I do not believe that the Most High will permit a howling atheist [Jefferson] to sit at the head of this nation.” Robbins later recorded in his diary, “In the morning we had news of the death of Mr. Jefferson. It is to be hoped that it is true.” The rumor was, of course, not true, and, in the presidential election of , the Federalists nominated the incumbent John Adams and, as his running mate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney; the Republicans named Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The main interest in the election centered on the split in the Federalist Party between Adams and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, angry with Adams for bringing the Quasi-War with France to a close before he could attain military glory, plotted with certain electors from one Adams state to vote only for Pinckney, thus giving Pinckney more electoral votes than Adams and the presidency. But the ploy failed, and, worse still, the Republicans, to Hamilton’s surprise, won enough votes to capture the election. But this was not the end of problems in this election. Jefferson and Burr each received  electoral votes (Adams had , Pinckney ). According to the Constitution, the House of Representatives had to decide between the two men, both Republicans, by voting on the basis of states, with  of the then  states needed to win. Burr, who should have known better, plotted with the disappointed Federalists, who controlled six states, to upset Jefferson. The first vote taken was eight for Jefferson, six for Burr, with two state delegations divided and not voting. This went on for  ballots, and, finally, on the th, representatives from three states gave in, and Jefferson was elected. This

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Elected president in 1800, Thomas Jefferson brought about what he felt was a revolution within the American political system. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

nonsense brought about the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, which provided for separate ballots for president and vice president. Jefferson liked to refer to his election as the Revolution of , although it is hard in retrospect to see just why. There were no revolutionary or major changes of any kind on the part of the Constitution or the government. Jefferson sought no alteration in the fundamental law; he felt that any political objectives could be accomplished through the correct administration of the existing government. Possibly, the phrase “Revolution of ” has significance in Jefferson’s belief that the Republican triumph was a signal that the people wanted to govern themselves. He viewed the ideal United States as an enlarged agrarian society, a simple society based on the honest, hard-working farmer tilling his own little plot of land. He believed in a limited central government, with a well-defined division of power between the central and local governments. The national (or central) government should deal with foreign concerns, the local government with domestic matters. It is one of the ironies of history that Jefferson, as president, was guilty of all the abuses of power that he had accused the Federalists of and then some. Pledged to economy, he nevertheless spent more in  years than had been spent in the previous . Pledged to maintain peace, he nevertheless fought the Barbary pirates and initiated the policies that led to the War of . Pledged to ending the ties between business and government and ushering in a laissez-faire policy, he nevertheless implemented an embargo that was a serious infringement on business and the right of an individual to an occupation. Jefferson’s inconsistencies are among his more interesting aspects; he wrote much about freedom, yet owned slaves; he lacked all the attributes of popularity—not very good-looking, shy in crowds, a poor public speaker—but he remained popular, at least in his own party, throughout his presidency. Still, historians who take Jefferson’s belief in the idea of a “Revolution of ” seriously can marshal some evidence to support the assertion, particularly during Jefferson’s

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first term. Jefferson’s second term was plagued with the difficult events preceding the War of  and for that reason does not represent as well his political program; his presidency was driven more by circumstances out of his control. In the domestic arena, Jefferson and his congressional leaders tried to undo as much of the Federalist agenda as possible. Although Jefferson had been vice president under the Federalist president John Adams, he was not in a position to influence Adams’s policies. After , however, he was president and had a sympathetic congressional majority. Thus, his administration, working with Congress, brought about the repeal of the obnoxious Alien and Sedition Acts, passed during the XYZ Affair, and pardoned those persons who had been convicted under their provisions. Congress did away with the various internal taxes that had been levied to pay for the Quasi-War with France and began the process of reducing the size of the army and navy and the amount of money appropriated for the armed services. Much of this work fell to Jefferson’s secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, a Swiss-born Republican who worked well with Congress. Gallatin persuaded Congress to repeal internal taxes to the extent that  percent of government revenue came from import taxes; his view was that if the people did not have to pay taxes during peacetime, they would be much less likely to object to them during times of war or other national emergencies. Along with tax cuts, Gallatin also tried to cut government spending. Republicans felt that this was an easy target, since they believed that the Federalists had spent extravagantly during their years in power. As it turned out, that was not the case. Although Congress did trim military spending substantially, Gallatin found that there was little other waste in federal spending and that bureaucratic fraud was practically nonexistent. Despite the tax cuts and an unexpected $ million expenditure for the Louisiana Purchase, the national debt dropped from $ million to $ million during Jefferson’s years as president. This was due less to Jefferson’s policies than to the large profits American shippers earned during the early years of the century as the leading neutral traders in the world, a gift, in a sense, from the British, who allowed the trade to continue while they were embroiled in European conflict, since they were the main beneficiaries of it. In another area of domestic politics, Jefferson was less successful in winning his way. In literally the last hours of his term, President Adams had appointed a large number of judges under the provision of the recently passed Judiciary Act of . Since the Constitution provided lifetime tenure for well-behaved judges, it appeared that, even though Republicans held the presidency and controlled Congress, Federalists would continue to be influential in the judiciary branch for many years to come. Consequently, the Republicans planned to repeal the Judiciary Act and thus abolish the judgeships it had created. But this raised a constitutional question: was it constitutional to remove a judge by abolishing his job when the Constitution provided lifetime tenure? At this time, moreover, another question was equally relevant. Who decided what was constitutional? While some maintained that it was the responsibility of the courts to make this determination, many people disagreed strenuously, and the federal courts had never dealt with the issue. The question was finally decided in the landmark Supreme Court decision in Marbury v. Madison. This case involved one of Adams’s midnight appointees, Stephen Marbury, who brought suit against the Jefferson administration to force it to give him a legal document called a writ of mandamus that would allow him to take his seat on the bench

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as a justice of peace in Washington, D.C. In the decision, which Chief Justice John Marshall, another Adams appointee, wrote, Marbury was denied his writ because the Court ruled that the part of the Judiciary Act of  under which Marbury was claiming his writ was unconstitutional. The Jeffersonians had to settle for a Pyrrhic victory; they could keep Adams’s midnight judges from their posts, but they had to accept the much larger (and, to many, much more offensive) principle that the Supreme Court did indeed have the power to judge the constitutionality of congressional acts. The success of the Revolution of  in the area of foreign affairs is harder to see, but certainly the Louisiana Purchase of  represented a major accomplishment on the part of Jefferson, one that a Federalist administration would not have been likely to carry out. Jefferson and his supporters had always been more favorably disposed toward the French than the British, even with the embarrassments of the excesses of the French Revolution and the XYZ Affair. Soon after he became president, Jefferson was able to ingratiate himself with Napoleon by offering support to Napoleon’s effort to suppress a revolution on Santo Domingo led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, whose mulatto background won him little sympathy in Virginia. Although Napoleon’s efforts in Santo Domingo came to naught, Jefferson’s professions of friendship no doubt helped make possible the sale of the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States, in  after Napoleon had decided he needed to raise cash for European wars. The purchase of Louisiana challenged Jefferson’s constitutional scruples, since there was no expressed power in the Constitution that allowed the president to acquire territory. While some of his advisers said such authority was implicit in the fact of nationhood, Jefferson considered linking the sale with a constitutional amendment. But Napoleon seemed eager to close the deal quickly, so the president threw caution to the wind and bought the land. Once done, the Louisiana Purchase agreement raised little protest, and much of the land itself was so remote that Americans reacted with indifference. With respect to the Revolution of , however, the Louisiana Purchase represented a bold departure from the cautious and formal diplomacy of the Federalists during the preceding decade and demonstrated the pragmatic, commonsense mindset of Thomas Jefferson.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY peter g. felten In , Thomas Jefferson called the election of  “as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of  was in its form.” The former president proudly recalled his triumph in the most hotly contested election in the nation’s short history. Jefferson’s Republicans ousted the Federalists from power, launching more than two decades of Jeffersonian domination of national politics. To Jefferson, this signaled the “Revolution of .” Despite Jefferson’s boasts and his Republicans’ achievements, many historians contend that  represented more of an evolution than a revolution. These historians highlight the gradual changes undertaken by Jefferson as president. He maintained key portions of the Federalists’ economic policies. Jefferson also, like his predecessors from the opposing party, interpreted the Constitution broadly to give the

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president substantial power. The election of  changed the nation, but these historians insist that it cannot be compared to the revolution of . The different perspectives of Jefferson and modern historians explain their contradictory interpretations of the election. Jefferson remembered the fiery words of the opposing parties and the tense days when the election’s outcome remained uncertain. Jefferson naturally compared  and , the two most decisive events in his public life. Historians, looking back  years, emphasize the long-term trends toward democracy, political party development, and presidential power. They more easily dismiss the outward appearance of change that swept the nation in , focusing instead on the larger forces moving through U.S. history. America in  still had not fully emerged from the turmoil of rebellion and independence. The Constitution remained a relatively untested experiment; it had survived so far, but the failed Articles of Confederation also had lasted more than a decade before being replaced. Who could say the Constitution would not suffer the same fate? If this attempt at constitutional government collapsed, European powers were prepared to exploit conflicts between the states. The success of the American Revolution remained very much in doubt. Compounding these worries, competing political factions emerged during the s. The Constitution’s authors had not expected parties to arise. Many of the Founding Fathers feared that “factions,” as they called the new political alliances, would destroy the country. James Madison, for instance, argued, “The violence of faction is the MORTAL disease under which popular governments everywhere perished.” Factions represented only the narrow interests of a few people, rather than the needs of the whole nation. For a republic like the United States to survive, it was widely agreed, honorable citizens would have to act for the common good. Rival factions had no place in this understanding of American politics. George Washington said as much in his last formal speech to the nation: “The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.” Ironically, during the early s, these same men created what became the first national political parties. President Washington’s cabinet of top advisers repeatedly divided over important issues, including the creation of a national bank and the funding of debts left over from the Revolutionary War. On one side of this debate stood Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, two leading Federalists. This party was strongest in New England. Federalists championed the cause of the rich and the powerful. Hamilton in particular argued that the national government could not survive without the support of the wealthy. Hamilton’s successful effort to shore up the American credit rating directly benefited the rich. His advocacy of a national bank and of tariffs aimed to reward the powerful for backing the Constitution. The Federalists celebrated the wealthy because party members believed an elite ought to manage the country. This party held onto the traditional European view that a strict hierarchy should govern society. Those at the top, Federalists contended, merited the respect and the deference of ordinary citizens. They alone should rule. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and their allies led the opposition to the Federalists. This party, strongest in the south, became known as the Republican Party. Its leaders clung to the ideals of the Revolution, including a belief in the equality and rights of all free Americans. While the Federalists saw the need for a strong and active national

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government, Republicans favored a smaller, less centralized administration. The Jeffersonians, for example, worried that a national bank could dominate the economy, helping the rich but hurting the majority. This party called for policies that aided ordinary farmers. The Jeffersonian faith in regular citizens marked a dramatic difference from the Federalists’ trust in the elite. The contrast between these newly forming factions went deeper than policy issues; it centered on their belief in the wisdom and virtues of the majority. Although Jeffersonians still excluded women, slaves, free blacks, and the poor from their definition of citizens, the Republicans advocated the expansion of governing power to include ordinary white men. In other words, the Federalists and the Jeffersonians squabbled over more than just minor policy issues. They disagreed fundamentally over who should control the United States. The hostility between these groups became so intense that prominent members of each faction begged a reluctant George Washington to accept a second presidential term in . Many politicians feared the nation could not survive an election. Washington acquiesced, but the political debate intensified. The parties became more organized and active during the s. As Washington’s retirement neared, tensions again rose over the dangers of competing factions in national politics. The French Revolution gave Americans a regular dose of what they might expect if their republican experiment failed. Initially, public sympathies in the United States supported the French rebels. The former British colonists believed the French would follow the American republican example. By the early s, however, increasing numbers of Americans worried about the radicalism of the French revolutionaries. The rebels executed their king, banned Christianity, and waged a war against Great Britain. Because of these excesses, Americans allied with the still-forming Federalist political faction that generally opposed the French revolutionaries. A leading Federalist declared: “The French Revolution has been, from the first, hostile to all right and justice.” After France and England went to war, many Federalists considered the British to be the champion of order and Christianity in Europe. One Federalist, for instance, wrote that England was “fighting the battle of the civilized.” With the stakes so high, Federalists dismissed the American rebellion against the British as ancient history. They demanded the United States resist French radicalism, even if it meant cooperation with, or at least toleration of, the British. Jefferson and his allies, on the other hand, remembered the pains of British colonial rule and praised the French revolutionaries. The Jeffersonians at times frowned on French excesses, yet they viewed the rebels as the European model of the American Revolution. Across the United States, Republicans drank toasts to French “liberty” and condemned those in Europe and America who favored English-style “despotism.” The issue raised such passions because the French rebels had challenged the old social order, replacing elite rule with government by the will of the people. The French conflict highlighted the different visions of the future held by the young political parties in the United States. Jeffersonians paralleled the French Revolution to the American Revolution, while Federalists saw it as a threat to the stability and structure necessary for civilization’s survival. In , despite the bitter divisions in his country, President Washington announced his retirement. The United States then held its first contested presidential election. Federalists and Republicans vied for control of national politics. Under the Constitution,

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the candidate who finished first in the Electoral College balloting would be president, while the runner-up would be vice president. Each state chose its own electors, often by a vote in the state legislature. The competing parties restrained themselves during the campaign, largely out of respect for President Washington. When the votes were counted, the Federalist candidate, John Adams, had won the presidency by a narrow margin. The vice president would be the leader of the opposing party, Thomas Jefferson. All was not well within the Federalist Party, however. Before the Electoral College counted its votes, Alexander Hamilton had launched a secret plot to have the Federalists’ vice presidential candidate, Thomas Pinckney, replace Adams at the top of the ticket. Hamilton’s last-minute bid failed, but it angered Adams. President Adams and Vice President Jefferson squabbled over issues large and small. Both men recognized that their many disputes served as a prelude to the  presidential election. This contest held particular significance because it would be the first real referendum on the course of the nation since Washington’s retirement. The  election had been a cautious trial run;  would be the real thing. If Adams won, the Federalists would solidify their control of national politics. If Jefferson triumphed, he and his allies could overturn Federalist policies and lead the nation in a new direction. For both sides, the stakes were very high. As the election neared, the crisis atmosphere became more intense. The  Alien and Sedition Acts symbolized the growing divide between Federalists and Jeffersonians. President Adams and the Federalists in Congress enacted these laws to control what they saw as dangerous revolutionary tendencies. Many Federalists feared the political influence of exiles from recent European rebellions. To minimize the clout of immigrants, the Alien Act extended from  to  years the time a person had to live in America before he or she could become a citizen. The new law also expanded the president’s power to expel aliens from the country. This disturbed Jeffersonians because their party included many immigrants, but the Sedition Act troubled them much more. The Sedition Act banned “false, scandalous, and malicious” writing and speech that criticized the government or the president (the vice president, a Republican, could be criticized under this law). The Federalists had seen what rabble-rousers had done in France. They had no intention of letting their critics endanger the country’s stability. Jefferson and the Republicans denounced the Federalists’ laws as illegal expansions of the government’s power and as violations of the First Amendment to the Constitution. When zealous Federalist judges began handing out sentences under the Sedition Act, the controversy grew worse. Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont was fined and sent to prison for four months because he joked about Adams’s “unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp.” Another judge convicted Thomas Cooper for trying “to mislead the ignorant and inflame their minds against the President and influence their votes in the next election.” Outraged Republicans responded with the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Critics of Adams in these two state legislatures adopted proclamations secretly written by Jefferson and Madison. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions insisted that the Constitution was designed to maximize individual rights and to limit the power of the national government. The Alien and Sedition Acts, the resolutions argued, marked an illegal extension of presidential authority. Jeffersonians called for a smaller, decentralized government. They pointed to the Alien and Sedition Acts as evidence of a Federalist plot to destroy the Constitution. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions had

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little immediate impact on the nation, but their extremely strict interpretation of constitutional powers illustrated the anger many Jeffersonians felt about Federalist policies. George Washington’s death, in , freed the competing political factions to sharpen their attacks on each other. Respect for the former president had limited the appeal of formal parties, which Washington repeatedly had condemned. Washington’s influence already had declined, but he remained a symbol of revolutionary glory and antiparty sentiment. With his death, politicians felt even less restraint. No matter how far they went, there was no danger Washington would come out of retirement to criticize their behavior. Sensing the new mood, Abigail Adams, the president’s wife, predicted there would be enough political mudslinging in  “to ruin & corrupt the minds and morals of the best people in the world.” Politicians attacked one another bitterly during the  presidential campaign. Republicans accused President Adams of being an arrogant fool. Jeffersonians also said the Federalists favored conflict with France: “The friends of war will vote for Adams.” Anti-Federalist newspapers even claimed that the president planned to marry one of his sons to the daughter of the British royal family. Taking this story to its logical conclusion, a Jeffersonian writer said that the Federalists wanted their own king: “There is a monarchical party in the United States, and . . . Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Adams belong to that party.” When it came to making outrageous political charges, however, the Federalists far exceeded their Republican opponents. Federalists borrowed freely from the horrors of the French Revolution to taint their political enemies. They maintained that Jefferson hated Christianity, favored anarchy, and practiced all sorts of sexual perversities. “Consider the effects [of ] the election of any man avowing the principles of Mr. Jefferson,” claimed one Federalist. “The effect would be to destroy religion, introduce immorality, and loosen all the bonds of society.” A Connecticut Federalist insisted that, if Jefferson were to be elected, “There is scarcely a possibility that we shall escape a Civil War. Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will all be openly taught and practiced.” A Federalist placard put it most succinctly: “GOD—AND A RELIGIOUS PRESIDENT” or “JEFFERSON—AND NO GOD!” The hostility of the political rhetoric was not the only difference between the presidential elections of  and . The Republicans used these four years to become a much better-organized party. Members caucused in every state, planning strategy and winning votes. At the same time, by , the Federalists had become weaker internally. Adams and Hamilton had been feuding since the end of Washington’s presidency. The young, ambitious Hamilton had been Washington’s closest adviser. When Adams became president, Hamilton resented his loss of power. Adams, on the other hand, envied Hamilton’s influence over Washington. Even after he was elected president, Adams continued to doubt Hamilton’s motives. Privately, Adams called Hamilton “a man devoid of every moral principle.” Adams deliberately excluded his rival from an official position of power, yet Hamilton retained his clout as an informal adviser to many Federalists. In , Adams and Hamilton clashed over taxes, the size of the army, and the value of negotiations with France. Hamilton soon began plotting an independent strategy for the presidential campaign. Hamilton and his allies wanted a Federalist elected. They were determined, however, that President Adams not serve a second term. Hamilton knew his efforts would divide the Federalists. He launched his scheme on the assumption that the possibility of Jefferson’s election would terrify Federalists enough to unite the party’s internal divisions behind Hamilton’s candidate. After surveying the political

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landscape, he decided to back General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, whose brother Hamilton had supported in . Hamilton knew he could shape Pinckney’s policies, a major consideration for the ambitious schemer. However, Hamilton also chose Pinckney because he seemed to offer the best Federalist hope to unseat Adams while still carrying the majority in the Electoral College. Pinckney did not rank with Jefferson and Adams among the top figures in American politics, but from Hamilton’s perspective he had some attractive attributes, including a solid reputation as a patriot based on his military service during the Revolution and his rejection of French extortion in the XYZ Affair. Pinckney’s home state also made him appealing, since South Carolina appeared to be the most likely place for Federalists to crack the Jeffersonian hold on the southern states. For all these reasons, Hamilton mobilized his political forces behind Pinckney. The most public aspect of Hamilton’s assault on Adams came in a letter “Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq., President of the United States.” Hamilton intended the letter only for Federalists, but a copy fell into Aaron Burr’s hands. Burr, a leading New York Republican, guaranteed that it received attention across the country. In the letter, Hamilton charged that Adams suffered from “great and intrinsic defects in his character which [make him] unfit for the office of” president. Hamilton accused the president of “undermining” the government to the point where the nation might “totter, if not fall” upon Adams’s reelection. Yet, Hamilton maintained that, despite Adams’s faults, “I have finally resolved not to advise the withholding from him of a single vote.” Instead, Hamilton urged Federalist electors to support both Adams and Pinckney. Hamilton secretly hoped a few Federalists would not favor Adams, allowing Pinckney to carry the election. Hamilton claimed to have reached his conclusions “reluctantly” after “careful observations” of Adams, but his indictment of the president guaranteed a wide division among Federalists. “We are broken to pieces,” one Federalist despaired. While the Federalists feuded, the Republicans won a crucial victory. Political observers agreed that New York could be decisive in the  presidential contest. The Federalists had carried the state in the previous election, gaining the votes necessary to triumph in the Electoral College. Unlike Federalist New England and the Jeffersonian south, however, neither party could be certain of controlling New York. Early in , the ambitious Republican Aaron Burr helped his party win a crucial ballot in New York City. This victory assured the Republicans that they would carry New York’s electors. The New York vote had more to do with local than with national concerns, but its impact was felt around the country. Burr’s manipulation made the Jeffersonians the leading contenders in the presidential campaign. Burr also secured his party’s nomination for the vice presidency. State elections progressed through the autumn. State legislatures were the main battleground, since they chose nearly two-thirds of electors in , a larger number than four years earlier. Although the count in the Electoral College appeared to be close, Jeffersonians were confident that, with New York in their column, they would win in the end. The divided Federalists hoped Pinckney could bring South Carolina into their camp, but they were disappointed when the state followed its region and favored the Republicans. When Electoral College votes officially were counted, the Republicans carried the day. Jefferson received  electoral votes, while Adams tallied just . In the heated

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atmosphere of the election, however, the Jeffersonians made a major mistake. Since the Constitution declared that the candidate with the second most votes in the Electoral College would be the vice president, observers expected one Jeffersonian to cast his ballot for someone other than Aaron Burr. If that had happened, Jefferson would have had  votes and Burr would have had . Instead, Jefferson and Burr tied at  because no elector wasted his vote. The Constitution stated that if the Electoral College failed to resolve the presidential election, the House of Representatives would choose the president. This complicated matters considerably. Republicans would dominate Congress after the representatives elected in  took office, but that would not happen until March . Until then, Federalists ran the House. Even though nearly everyone recognized that Jefferson should have won in the Electoral College, the Republicans’ error gave the Federalists an opportunity to choose the next president. Congress met in early  for the next, unprecedented stage of the  election. Under the rules established in the Constitution, each state could cast just one vote for president in the House. If the majority of House members from a state agreed on a candidate, the state would vote for him. If the state’s representatives could not reach a consensus, the state would not vote. To win the presidency in the House, a candidate had to be approved by a majority of the states. Aaron Burr could have proclaimed his support for Jefferson, graciously accepting the vice presidency and resolving the problem rather easily. Burr, however, sent a letter to a supporter indicating that he would serve if elected president by the House. He later denied having written the letter, but, by refusing to withdraw his candidacy, he in effect campaigned for the presidency. Burr apparently hoped Federalists would rally behind him as the best alternative to Jefferson. Federalists were delighted. They had been the divided party throughout . Now, when the stakes were highest, the Republicans had fallen apart. Federalists could not name just anyone president, however. Jefferson had the strong support of seven states in the House. That made him the leading candidate, yet he needed two more votes to triumph. Federalist schemers expected that if Jefferson failed to win in the early balloting, another candidate could surpass him. Most Federalists doubted they could get a member of their party elected, but they assumed that whomever they chose would owe them. They intended to collect on their political debts after the election. Even if a Republican like Burr were chosen by the House, Federalists assumed he would be a compromised and weakened president. Jeffersonians reacted with scorn toward the plots hatched by the Federalists. The governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania, both staunch Republicans, threatened to send state troops to the Capitol if the House elected anyone but Jefferson. Republicans viewed the Federalists with contempt for seizing on their mistake to overturn the election’s results. They saved their strongest hostility for Aaron Burr. The politician who had been their hero for bringing New York into the Republican camp now became their most hated enemy. Despite the Jeffersonian outrage, the practical politics of the House meant that Federalists would select the next president. Federalist representatives were reluctant to select Jefferson, even if he deserved to win. The balloting stretched for days. The House voted  times without a resolution. “It is impossible to determine which of the two

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candidates will be chosen President,” a commentator noted. “Rumors are various and intrigues great.” As inauguration day approached, the most serious crisis in the nation’s history gripped the Capitol. Huge, restless crowds gathered in Washington. Rumors of death threats against Federalists swept the streets. Mysterious fires burned two government buildings, leading to wild speculation about politically motivated arson. Fights broke out in the House gallery. Chaos seemed imminent. Under intense pressure, Alexander Hamilton and a few of his Federalist allies made a difficult choice. “If there be a man in the world I ought to hate, it is Jefferson,” Hamilton said. “With Burr I have always been personally well, but the public good must be paramount to every private consideration.” Hamilton cast his support to Jefferson. In the end, Hamilton concluded Jefferson was an honorable man with dangerous ideas. Burr, on the other hand, was reckless and corrupt. Hamilton called him the “most unfit man in the United States for the office of President.” Jefferson might lead the nation down the wrong path, the Hamiltonians decided, but a Burr presidency would endanger the Constitution. On February , the logjam in the House finally broke when several Federalists submitted blank ballots. By not voting for Burr, they permitted Jefferson to win previously deadlocked states. Jefferson carried  states,  more than he needed. Burr won four states, making him vice president. Ironically, after the most bitterly partisan campaign in the nation’s short history, Federalist votes secured Jefferson’s election. Before the next election, the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution was drafted and ratified, creating separate presidential and vice presidential electoral ballots; never again would running mates tie in the Electoral College. Jefferson took the oath of office on March , less than two weeks after finally winning the presidency. His inaugural address aimed to heal some of the wounds left from the bruising campaign and the brutal fight in Congress. President Jefferson did not use revolutionary words. He did not chart a bold course for his party’s first term in power. Instead, he made a conciliatory gesture to his opponents by saying, “We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.” Jefferson underscored the shared experiences and beliefs of Americans. This not only helped calm his defeated rivals but also reflected Jefferson’s understanding of politics in the new nation. He considered the Republicans to be the rightful heirs of the American Revolution. Jefferson felt he was restoring the spirit of , not replacing rule by one legitimate political party with a government led by another party. Shortly after his inauguration, Jefferson privately wrote: “I was always satisfied that the great body of those called federalists were real Democratic Republicans as well as federalists.” To Jefferson, the Republicans stood for all Americans, not for the interests of a faction. President Jefferson’s understanding of his party came close to becoming reality. Many people reacted with horror to the crisis surrounding the  election. The Federalists withered under the public’s anger because cynical Federalists had ignored the intent of the Electoral College in their bid to defeat Jefferson. Additionally, the Federalists had squabbled among themselves during ; they emerged from the campaign both discredited and divided. Reflecting these problems, the Federalists lost roughly one-third of their seats in the House in the  congressional elections. They never regained their majority. When Burr killed Hamilton in a duel in , the Federalists’ most effective leader died. The party faded over the next decade. By the presidential election of , the Federalists had ceased to exist. As Jefferson had said in , everyone was a Republican.

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Although the Federalists largely destroyed themselves, President Jefferson’s popular policies won over many of his old critics. Jefferson maintained the core of the Federalist economic program, including Hamilton’s Bank of the United States. With the national economy growing, Jefferson decided to stay the course. Jefferson reduced the size of the military and applied the savings to the national debt, living up to his pledge to be “rigorously frugal and simple.” The president also eliminated or let die unpopular laws that lingered from the Adams years, such as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Perhaps most important, Jefferson bought Louisiana from the French in . The president privately worried that the Constitution did not permit the acquisition of new national territory. He considered proposing a constitutional amendment to overcome his legal qualms about the purchase. In the end, however, Jefferson decided he had to act quickly. Jefferson had criticized Federalists for loosely interpreting the Constitution, but now he shared their expansive view of national powers. He put aside his doubts and bought Louisiana, nearly doubling the nation’s territory. Jefferson’s flexible leadership earned the respect of many who had doubted him. His Republicans even temporarily united Americans across sectional boundaries, obscuring the significant differences between north and south. Although Jefferson’s presidency was not a revolution, his election in  was revolutionary. In economics and diplomacy, he followed the path established by Washington and Adams. Historians correctly highlight the significant continuities between Jefferson and his predecessors. However, Jefferson accurately labeled the  election a “revolution.” The peaceful transition of power between rival parties was a revolution in modern world history. In addition, Jefferson’s victory in  marked a fundamental shift in the prevailing vision of who ought to rule in America. A cultural and political revolution occurred when the elitist Federalists collapsed in favor of the more inclusive Republicans. Not only did that shift take place, but Federalists accepted and grudgingly ratified it. Jefferson’s ideal of political equality among white men would become an American ideal during the next decades. Still, this revolution was not without irony. Jeffersonians, after all, were strongest in the south, the home of slavery in the United States. The Republicans preached equality while strongly favoring slavery. Indeed, the additional Electoral College votes the south gained from the Constitution’s Three-Fifths Compromise permitted Jefferson to win in . The democratic revolution of  could not have occurred without slavery. Jeffersonians may have been revolutionary for their time, but  was a distinctly limited revolution.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Appleby, Joyce. Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the s. New York: New York University Press, . Emphasizes the cultural and economic ideals of the Jeffersonians. Banning, Lance. The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Crucial for understanding Jeffersonian thought in the s. Brown, Ralph Adams. The Presidency of John Adams. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, . A useful study of Adams’s presidential administration. Buel, Richard, Jr. Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, –. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Emphasizes the influence of public opinion on politics.

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Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . A thorough, thoughtful, and relatively brief biography. ———, ed. The Making of the American Party System, –. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall, . A useful collection of primary source documents. Elkins, Stanley, and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, – . New York: Oxford University Press, . A massive and important synthesis by two highly respected historians of the period. Ferling, John. John Adams: A Life. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, . An important biography that is sympathetic to Adams. Fischer, David Hackett. The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy. New York: Harper and Row, . An influential profile of the Federalists. Hoadley, John F. Origins of American Political Parties, –. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, . Employs statistical analysis to conclude that, by the s, parties existed in national politics. Hofstadter, Richard. The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, . An important study by a distinguished historian of American politics. Horn, James, Jan Ellen Lewis, and Peter S. Clark, eds., The Revolution of : Democracy, Race, and the New Republic. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, . Collection of essays on Jefferson and the election of . Johnstone, Robert M., Jr. Jefferson and the Presidency: Leadership in the Young Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Uses political science methodology to demonstrate Jefferson’s significance as president. Kerber, Linda K. Federalists in Dissent: Imagery and Ideology in Jeffersonian America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Contrasts Federalist and Republican cultural ideals. Malone, Dumas. Jefferson and the Order of Liberty. Boston: Little, Brown, . The most detailed exploration of Jefferson during the  election. McCoy, Drew R. The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Analysis of the ideas and public policies of the contending parties. McDonald, Forrest. Alexander Hamilton: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, . A sympathetic but fair biography. Randall, Willard Sterne. Thomas Jefferson: A Life. New York: HarperPerennial, . A solid examination of Jefferson’s public and private life. Sharp, James Roger. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . Emphasizes sectional and partisan conflict. Sisson, Daniel. The American Revolution of . New York: Knopf, . Argues strongly that a revolution did occur with Jefferson’s election. Tucker, Robert W., and David C. Hendrickson. Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Oxford University Press, . The best analysis connecting Jefferson’s diplomacy and politics.

AARON BURR (1756–1836) A dynamic politician and charismatic adventurer, Aaron Burr is chiefly remembered as the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in . In addition, as vice president, Burr engaged in a scheme to establish several states in what was then the western United States as an independent country. This plan to help these areas secede from the

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United States was a treasonable offense and almost resulted in his conviction and execution in . Burr was born on February , , in Newark, New Jersey, into a family of wealth and intellectual accomplishment. His grandfather, Jonathan Edwards, was one of the leading New England theologians of the colonial period and a central figure in the Great Awakening. His father, who died when Burr was only two, helped found the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and became its second president. Burr was brought up by a stern uncle and educated by a private tutor. Bright but restless and hostile to authority, Burr managed to escape from his uncle’s control by entering the College of New Jersey at age . He graduated three years later, in , and joined the Continental Army encamped around Boston in  in the opening days of the American Revolution. After serving on Benedict Arnold’s staff, he briefly served on George Washington’s staff before moving on to serve under Gen. Israel Putnam. In July , as a lieutenant colonel, Burr took over command of a regiment. He fought in the Battle of Monmouth and was angered by a rebuke from Washington that he felt was unwarranted. Washington, believing Burr harbored a grudge about the reprimand, never forgave him for his decision to resign from the army on the grounds of illness in . Burr was admitted to the New York state bar in . His political career was complicated by the hostility of Hamilton. He and Hamilton had met during the Revolution when they had both served on Washington’s staff and had taken an instant dislike to each other. They were both remarkably intelligent and ambitious men who hoped to use a political power base in New York as a springboard to higher office. In addition to becoming rival lawyers, they soon became rival politicians. Before the development of political parties, New York state was divided between two factions, one led by Hamilton and the other by George Clinton. Burr became politically active in , when Governor Clinton appointed him attorney general. In , Burr managed to win a Senate seat by defeating Philip John Schuyler, Hamilton’s father-in-law. Defeated for reelection in , he successfully ran for election to the state legislature. By , Burr, through the establishment of a powerful New York City–based Republican political machine, controlled the state legislature. This meant he also exercised considerable control over the choice of presidential electors. To ensure his support, the Republicans placed him on the ticket as candidate for vice president along with Thomas Jefferson. With the Federalists split in the election of  between John Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Jefferson’s victory seemed assured until the electoral votes were counted: Adams had  votes, Pinckney , and Jefferson and Burr each . (No distinction was then made on the ballots for president and vice president, an oversight corrected by the Twelfth Amendment.) With no clear winner, the Constitution provided that the House of Representatives elect one of the two highest vote getters. The Federalists decided to thwart Jefferson by securing the election of Burr instead, despite Hamilton’s (a Federalist) intense dislike of Burr. Burr, however, refused to seek the Federalists’ assistance in the election. Finally, on the th ballot, Hamilton’s influence helped secure the election of Jefferson for president and Burr for vice president. Although Burr had not encouraged the Federalists, Jefferson never trusted him again. It quickly became apparent to Burr that he had no future with the Republicans, and he began courting the Federalists. He ran for governor of New York in , perhaps with the fantastic plan of uniting the state with a New England movement to secede, but, once again, because of Hamilton’s opposition, his ambition was frustrated, and he lost

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the election. Angered by a derogatory remark Hamilton made about Burr’s daughter in a letter that was published, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. The two men faced each other on the morning of July , , at Weehawken, New Jersey, and Hamilton was mortally wounded. Surprised by the public outcry over Hamilton’s death and the indictments for his arrest on murder charges issued by the states of New York and New Jersey, Burr fled to Philadelphia. While in Philadelphia, Burr hatched a scheme with Jonathan Dayton, another former senator, to create a vast empire in the west by conquering Mexico and encouraging the secession of the states west of the Appalachian Mountains. At the next session of Congress (–), Burr completed his term as vice president by presiding over the Senate and the impeachment trial of U.S. Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase. After leaving office in March , Burr continued to work on launching his separatist scheme. He attempted to secure British support and recruited new members to his conspiracy, one of whom, James Wilkinson (the governor of the Louisiana Territory), betrayed him to federal authorities just as he was about to begin implementing his plan in . Burr was arrested and tried for treason in Washington, D.C., in May . He narrowly avoided conviction through the good fortune of having John Marshall preside at his trial. Marshall’s refusal to allow hearsay evidence and his narrow construction of the clause in the U.S. Constitution dealing with treason led to Burr’s acquittal. Burr’s political career and personal reputation, however, were ruined. To escape his creditors and to continue to recruit investors in new schemes, Burr traveled to Europe. He returned to New York in May , reestablished his law practice, and spent the last  years of his life in relative obscurity as a moderately successful lawyer. Throughout his life, he was both a notorious womanizer and a devoted family man. His later years were marred by the death of his grandson, in July , and that of his beloved daughter, Theodosia, in December . He was also renowned for his carelessness with money, resulting in financial difficulties that plagued him for most of his life. He died on September , .

steven g. o’brien DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY The Democratic-Republicans (sometimes referred to as “Jeffersonian Republicans”) organized in the s and became the first opposition party in the United States after the country secured its independence from Great Britain. Following the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the Democratic-Republicans were opposed to a strong central government and a central bank and supported strict construction of the Constitution and the predominance of agriculture in the economy. The Democratic-Republicans were formed largely in opposition to the policies of Alexander Hamilton in the s. As the first secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton acted aggressively to deal with the new republic’s financial troubles, offering proposals to fund the national debt, create a central banking system and uniform currency, and promote manufacturing through a high protective tariff. Jefferson opposed these policies, objecting to the concentration of power in the hands of bankers and currency speculators. Jefferson also believed that an economy dominated by small farmers, not manufacturers, would best preserve republican values.

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In , Jefferson resigned as secretary of state at the outset of Washington’s second term and began organizing opposition to Hamilton’s policies. Drawing support from members of “Democratic” and “Republican” clubs that had formed to support the French Revolution, Jefferson continued to criticize the Washington administration’s domestic and foreign policies and narrowly missed being elected president over Federalist John Adams in  as the candidate of a new party called the “Democratic-Republicans.” As their name implied, the party claimed to represent the values for which the American Revolution had been fought, while Federalists were portrayed as a party of “aristocrats” attempting to rule according to monarchical principles. Under Adams, the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, in . The acts allowed for the deportation of foreigners and the imprisonment of persons deemed hostile to the government. Under these laws, several Jeffersonian editors and supporters were jailed. Jefferson and Madison responded with the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (), which argued that individual states had the right to nullify acts of the federal government if deemed unconstitutional by the states. In , Jefferson was elected president after a bitter political campaign against Adams. For the first time, power was transferred peacefully from one faction to another. The “Revolution of ,” as the election was sometimes called, set an example for future elections. The Federalists continued to be a political force, but, after , they never won another presidential election. Instead, the election of Jefferson inaugurated what became known as the “Virginia Dynasty,” meaning the election to the presidency of Virginians who were basically Jeffersonian in outlook (Jefferson, –; Madison, –; James Monroe, –). After the War of , the Federalists declined as a viable political force outside New England, and, in , they fielded their last presidential candidate. No opposition party emerged to take the Federalists’ place. Accordingly, the two-term presidency of Monroe (–) became known as the “Era of Good Feelings” for its lack of serious political contention between parties. This mask of unity, however, covered divisions within the Democratic-Republican Party that would eventually result in the exodus of several factions in the s. Although numerous small groups splintered from the Democratic-Republicans, the main party divided into two factions. One faction was deemed “Hamiltonian” for its nationalistic economic policies; this group coalesced around the leadership of such young statesmen as John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun and came to be known as National Republicans. In , John Quincy Adams ran for the presidency on the National Republican ticket and won. Eventually, the National Republicans would evolve into the Whig Party. The other faction formed around Andrew Jackson and quickly became known as Jacksonian Democrats or simply Democrats. Jackson adhered more closely to the principles of Jefferson and Madison, advocating a strict construction of the Constitution and limited federal powers.

FEDERALIST PARTY The Federalists formed one of the first two political parties in the United States after the country secured its independence from Great Britain. Born out of the movement to

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ratify the Constitution of , the Federalists supported a “federal” system of state governments guided by a strong national government in matters of national policy. Under the leadership of George Washington and the intellectual guidance of Alexander Hamilton, the Federalists envisioned policies that would promote a thriving union based on a mixed economy of agriculture and manufacturing, a strong central banking system, opposition to widespread suffrage, and alliance with Britain—all to be directed by a strong national government. Along with the Democratic-Republicans, the Federalists, albeit grudgingly, participated in laying the foundation of the two-party political system. The Federalist Party was formed during Washington’s first administration in the heat of conflict over Hamilton’s proposals to salvage the finances of the new republic. While many Federalists had been supporters of the Constitution, such notable statesmen as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson broke with the Federalists out of opposition to Hamilton’s plans. Hamilton led the Federalist Party and was the most influential Federalist thinker. Arrogant, elitist, and brilliant, he was chosen by Washington to be the first secretary of the Treasury and quickly became a dominant figure in Washington’s administration. He devised a series of bold plans to remedy the financial trouble that the republic had inherited from the American Revolution and the resulting economic depression of the s. Hamilton’s plan to set the nation on a course of prosperity consisted of three proposals. First, he proposed that Congress “fund” the large national debt by redeeming war bonds and securities at face value and assuming payment of the state debts. Second, he proposed the charter of a national bank that would handle government funds and issue a uniform currency. Third, Hamilton argued for high protective tariffs to help pay for the debt-funding schemes and promote domestic manufacturing. Jefferson and Madison led the opposition to Hamilton’s proposals. Because the government securities had depreciated in value since they were issued, the debt-funding plan was criticized for being designed to enrich speculators who had bought up securities at discounted prices and who stood to profit if they were paid back at face value. In a similar vein, Jefferson and Madison criticized the idea of a national bank as a dangerous concentration of moneyed power that fell outside the powers assigned to the federal government by the Constitution. As for manufacturing, the two Virginia landowners saw farming as the centerpiece of the American economy and an independent yeomanry as the backbone of the new republic. In addition to domestic economic issues, conflict arose over Washington’s foreign policy as well. In , the new republican government of France had gone to war with Britain, and Americans divided over which side the United States should support. The Federalists supported Britain, while Jeffersonians sided with many “Democratic” and “Republican” clubs that had formed to support France and the principles of its revolution. In , a congressional proclamation of neutrality and a treaty made with Britain by Federalist John Jay greatly angered the pro-French Jeffersonians. Subsequently, a new party was formed under Jefferson and was called the Democratic-Republican Party. The presidential election of  was the first election that saw a contest between two competing parties. Federalist John Adams narrowly defeated Jefferson (running as a Democratic-Republican) for the presidency. Adams sought to continue the Federalist

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policies of the previous administration, but his own administration became mired by factions that disagreed on foreign policy issues. The most notorious event of Adams’s tenure in office was the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, in . The legislation, which allowed for imprisonment of those deemed “alien” or “seditious” in times of war, was aimed at French nationals agitating in the United States and at domestic critics of Adams’s Federalist administration. Several Democratic-Republican newspaper editors were jailed under the acts. Popular backlash against the Alien and Sedition Acts and Federalist high-handedness helped Jefferson win the presidency in the “Revolution of .” The significance of that election was the accomplishment of a peaceful transfer of power between factions. Thereafter, the Federalists would never again win the presidency, though they remained a force in national politics. The Federalists were dealt a further blow in  when Hamilton was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. No leader of comparable brilliance emerged to replace Hamilton, and the Federalists struggled to maintain party unity. The Federalists enjoyed a resurgence of popularity during the events leading up to the War of . When Jefferson’s Embargo Act of  brought recession to the economy, the Federalists made a strong showing in the election of  and an even stronger showing in  after the United States declared war on Britain, but they ultimately lost both presidential elections to the Democratic-Republican candidate, James Madison. Federalist opposition to the War of  culminated in the Hartford Convention of . At the convention, delegates from several New England states where Federalism was strongest met to discuss ways to bolster Federalist power at the national level in return for support of the war. Proposals that New England secede from the Union were heard but voted down. When the war ended, in , many remembered that the Federalists had discussed disunion, and the stain was enough to ensure a dive in popularity. In the election of , the Federalists fielded a candidate for president for the last time. Although for much of their existence the Federalists were a minority party, their influence far outreached their success in officeholding. Most of Hamilton’s economic plans were enacted, and they were largely successful in controlling the national debt, raising revenue, and stabilizing the U.S. economy. In addition, key Federalist appointments to various offices had important consequences. The most notable example can be found in Adams’s appointment of John Marshall as chief justice of the Supreme Court—a position that Marshall held until his death in . In decision after decision, Marshall vindicated the Federalists’ nationalist vision of the supremacy of the federal government over the states. Marshall gave the Supreme Court final review over federal law instead of the states, as Madison and Jefferson had argued, and linked federal activism to the promotion of national commerce.

CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY (1746–1825) A leading figure in the formative years of the republic, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney took part in the Constitutional Convention in , played a role in the XYZ Affair, and made two unsuccessful bids for the presidency.

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Pinckney was born in Charles Town (Charleston), South Carolina, on February , , and educated in England. He graduated from Oxford University and was admitted to the English bar before returning to South Carolina in . In South Carolina, Pinckney immediately established a successful law practice and became active in local politics. He was elected to the provincial assembly in , the provincial congress in , the South Carolina House of Representatives in , and the South Carolina Senate in . During the American Revolution, he fought in numerous battles, rising in rank from captain to brigadier general. In , he was again elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. A prominent delegate to the Constitutional Convention, in , Pinckney later declined President George Washington’s offers to appoint him commander of the army, Supreme Court justice, or secretary of war; however, he accepted the post of minister to France in . His diplomatic mission was frustrated by the refusal of the revolutionary French government to receive him, and Pinckney decided to return to the United States. A year later, he returned to Paris as one of the agents in the mission that culminated in the notorious XYZ Affair. Nominated as the Federalist candidate for vice president in , Pinckney received only  electoral votes and finished well behind Thomas Jefferson. (Alexander Hamilton had tried to prevent Adams’s reelection by having Federalist members of the Electoral College cast their ballots for Pinckney as president.) In , his party chose him to oppose Jefferson’s virtually certain reelection; Pinckney lost by a landslide,  electoral votes to . He was nevertheless nominated for president again in  and defeated again, this time by James Madison. Despite his three electoral defeats, Pinckney remained active in various public affairs until his death, in Charleston, on August , .

steven g. o’brien DOCUMENT: TWELFTH AMENDMENT, 1804 Following several chaotic presidential elections from which intense partisan acrimony emerged over the election of a president and vice president from different parties, the U.S. Congress adopted the Twelfth Amendment on December  and , , proposing serious electoral reform for the presidency and vice presidency. The requisite number of states had given their endorsements by late July , and thus the amendment took effect in time for the  presidential election in November. (Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed December , . Ratified June , . National Archives.) The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President,

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and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;—The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;—The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President;—The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND PEOPLE

Austrian Succession, War of (–). A war over who should claim the throne of the Holy Roman Empire after the death of Charles VI, in ,that pitted Austria, Great Britain, and Holland against Prussia, France, and Spain. Generally, British land and naval forces prevailed, and the war ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in , confirming the accession of Charles’s daughter, Maria Theresa. Bank of the United States (–). Located in Philadelphia, this bank was established following a proposal of Alexander Hamilton. It had an initial capital of $ million and was a commercial bank, forbidden to deal in real estate or commodity trading or to charge more than  percent interest on loans. The bank worked well for  years as a federal government bank and as a stabilizing influence on state banks. Its charter was not renewed in  because of questions about its constitutionality. Barré, Isaac (–). The son of a French refugee living in Ireland, Barré graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, in , joined the army, fought, and was wounded in the French and Indian War. He entered Parliament in  and opposed the Stamp Act, making him a hero in America and an enemy of George III. Checkerberry. The name of any of several red berries but most commonly applied to the spicy red berry-like fruit of the wintergreen. Coverture. A common-law term referring to the condition of a woman who is married and by law under the authority and protection of her husband. In a practical sense, it meant that, upon marriage, a husband acquired legal rights to his wife’s property and the wife could not make contracts or file lawsuits on her own. Over time, these restrictive laws were abolished. Divine Right of Kings. The Divine Right of Kings was the dominant political theory for most of Europe during the th and th centuries. It provided justification for monarchs to exercise absolute power. According to the theory, God, who is perfect, endorses the monarch, who rules by “the grace of God.” In doing so, the monarch executes God’s Divine Will. Any challenge to the monarch is tantamount to challenging God and, thus, is intolerable.

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APPENDIX A

Fries, John (–). Born in Pennsylvania, Fries was a militia captain and auctioneer who gained notoriety by leading a group of Pennsylvania Germans in opposition to a federal property tax. Arrested and convicted of treason, Fries was sentenced to death but was pardoned by President John Adams. Hanoverian succession. This term refers to the royal family from the German principality of Hanover, which assumed the British crown in , after Queen Anne died, leaving no children. During the th century, the Hanoverian kings were George I (–); his son, George II (–); and George II’s grandson, George III (–). Henry, Patrick (–). A lawyer, Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in . He helped organize the Committee of Correspondence in Virginia in , served in both Continental Congresses, and was governor of Virginia from  to  and again from  to . He was a delegate at the Virginia ratification convention, where he opposed ratification of the Constitution because it did not contain a bill of rights. Indentured servant. During colonial times, indentured servants were adult whites who were under contract (called an indenture) that obliged them to work for their employer at least three years. Some indentured servants were willing to do this in return for their passage to America, some were virtually kidnapped, and some were convicts. The practice was regulated by colonial governments and ended after the American Revolution. Jacobite. This term refers to one who supported the royal house of Stuart after its exile from England in the Glorious Revolution of –. Jacobites included Scottish Highlanders, who rose against the English in , , and . Jay’s Treaty (). Negotiated by John Jay of New York, this treaty with Great Britain settled a number of issues left over from the American Revolution and its aftermath. It was prompted by problems arising from Britain’s refusal to leave forts in the Old Northwest and its barring of American ships from West Indian ports. In the treaty, the British agreed to evacuate the forts, while the Americans guaranteed payment of old debts left over from the Revolution. Nothing was done about maritime issues. The treaty was narrowly ratified in the Senate after stubborn Republican opposition. King George’s War (–). This was the American phase of the War of the Austrian Succession. The French tried to recapture Port Royal (called Annapolis Royal by the English) but failed, while the British captured Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, in . The French and their Indian allies raided towns in what is now Maine, and the Iroquois Indians fought with the British against the French. The war ended with the Treaty of Aix-laChapelle, which returned Louisbourg to the French and restored America to the status quo ante bellum. King William’s War (–). This was the American phase of the War of the League of Augsburg. It was fought between English and French forces on Hudson Bay and between the Iroquois and the French in the region of the Saint Lawrence River. The French attacked the northern border in present-day New Hampshire, while the English

APPENDIX A

285

captured Port Royal in , only to lose it back to the French a year later. The war ended with the Treaty of Ryswick (), which restored the status quo ante bellum in North America. Laissez-faire. In economics, the theory of laissez-faire postulates that the economy will perform most effectively when the state refrains from interfering in economic life. Loudon, Lord John Campbell (–). A career army officer, Loudon was named commander in chief of British forces in America in . He alienated the colonists by insisting on the illegal practice of billeting officers and by forcing an embargo on colonial trade. Militarily, his strategy failed to defeat the French despite an advantage in troop strength. After his failure to capture Louisbourg, he was recalled by William Pitt and reassigned to Portugal in . North, Lord Frederick (–). North entered Parliament in  and served until his death. He rose in Tory circles, becoming chancellor of the exchequer in  and prime minister in . He was prime minister throughout the American Revolution era, resigning only after the British surrender at Yorktown. Owen, Robert Dale (–). Born in Scotland, Owen came to the United States in the s and was among the group that founded the Utopian community of New Harmony, Indiana. He was involved in various social reform movements and was a strong supporter of the emancipation of slaves. Paine, Thomas (–). Born in England, Paine came to America in , bearing letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. He became a free-lance journalist and wrote the pamphlet Common Sense at the suggestion of Dr. Benjamin Rush, a colonial leader. Paine fought in the American Revolution until  and then took a job with the Second Continental Congress. Later, he spent time in Europe promoting the design of an iron bridge he had invented and became a defender of the French Revolution. His criticism of George Washington ruined his reputation in the United States after his return in . Philosophe. Philosophe is French for philosopher. However, in the context of the Enlightenment, a philosophe was one who embraced reason and rational thought. More specifically, the term was applied to authors, academics, journalists, and publicists who promoted the ideas and ideals of the Age of Reason. Pinckney, Thomas (–). The brother of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and a graduate of Oxford University, Pinckney was admitted to the South Carolina bar in . He fought in the American Revolution, serving under Lafayette at the battle of Yorktown. He was governor of South Carolina (–), president of the South Carolina ratification convention (), and a member of the state legislature (–). He negotiated Pinckney’s Treaty with Spain in ; this treaty clarified the U.S.-Spanish border and gave the United States navigation rights on the Mississippi River. He was a vice presidential candidate in  and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (–) and fought in the War of .

286

APPENDIX A

Queen Anne’s War (–). The American phase of the War of the Spanish Succession, this conflict saw England and France fighting in North America only sporadically and inconclusively. An English expedition attacked the Spanish Florida town of Saint Augustine in , causing much damage, and other English forces captured Port Royal in . The Treaty of Utrecht ended the war; the English received Newfoundland, Acadia, and Hudson Bay, while the French retained Cape Breton and the islands of the Saint Lawrence River. Rockingham, Marquis of [Charles Watson-Wentworth] (–). Rockingham became a member of the British House of Lords upon his father’s death, in . He rose in Whig circles and generally opposed the policies of George III. He succeeded George Grenville as prime minister in  and brought about the repeal of the Stamp Act. In , he returned as prime minister following the resignation of Lord North and worked on peace negotiations with the United States until his sudden death in July of that year. Tennent, William (–). Born in Ireland, William Tennent came to America around  and became an evangelical minister who helped prepare the way for the Great Awakening. His son, Gilbert, was a prominent figure in that movement. Tory. The name given to a British political party (or one of its members) between  and . The Tory party is the forerunner of the present-day Conservative Party and was usually supported by the landed gentry and the Church of England. Promonarchy in its views, the Tory Party was opposed by the Whig Party, composed of commercial interests and religious dissenters. Westminster Confession. This was a statement of Calvinist faith written by the Westminster Assembly of Divines in the s. With modifications, it is still the doctrinal basis of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. Wheatley, Phillis (–). Wheatley was probably born on the west coast of Africa and transported to America in . There she was purchased by John and Susannah Wheatley and became a house servant. The Wheatleys taught her to read and write, and she soon displayed a talent for poetry. She became well known after the publication of her poem “On the Death of the Reverend George Whitefield,” the popular evangelist. In , she was granted her freedom and sent to England, where she was already something of a celebrity. In the mid-s, she inherited some money from the Wheatleys and married John Peters, who spent her money and ignored her talent. Her last years were lived in poverty in Boston, where she died in December .

APPENDIX B: TIMELINE

: Yale College founded. : Indians attack Deerfield, MA. Forty killed,  carried off. Boston News Letter, first regular newspaper, started by John Campbell. : British and colonial troops capture Port Royal from the French. : Slave revolt in New York. Six commit suicide, and  are executed. : First theater opens in Williamsburg. : Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac first published. : Peter Zenger’s acquittal on libel establishes the right of freedom of the press. –: Vitus Bering reaches Alaska. : Second slave revolt in New York. Thirteen hanged,  burned, and  deported. : British and colonial troops capture Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island. : Benjamin Franklin establishes that lightning is electricity by flying kite in storm. : French and Indian War begins. French occupy Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh). : British move Acadian French from Nova Scotia to Louisiana. : British capture Quebec. : French and Indian War ends. : Sugar Act places duties on lumber, foodstuffs, molasses, and rum. : Stamp Act requires revenue stamps to help defray costs associated with French and Indian War. Declaration of Rights opposing taxation without representation passed by nine colonies. : Stamp Act repealed. : Townshend Acts levy taxes on paper, glass, and tea. : Boston Massacre. Townshend Duties repealed on all items except tea. : East India Company tea ships turned back in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

APPENDIX B

288

: Boston Tea Party. : Intolerable Acts of Parliament curtail self-rule in Massachusetts until tea dumped at tea party paid for. First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia. Rhode Island abolishes slavery. : Patrick Henry delivers “give me liberty or give me death” speech. Paul Revere’s ride. Minutemen fight British at Lexington; Ethan Allen captures Fort Ticonderoga; Battle of Bunker Hill. George Washington named commander in chief. : France and Spain provide arms to Americans. Declaration of Independence adopted. Nathan Hale executed as spy. Washington crosses Delaware River and defeats Hessians at Trenton. : Battle of Saratoga. Articles of Confederation adopted. France recognizes American independence. : France signs treaty of alliance with United States and sends fleet to aid Americans. : John Paul Jones defeats Serapis. : Charleston falls to the British. Battle of Kings Mountain. Benedict Arnold discovered to be a traitor. : Bank of North America founded in Philadelphia. Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown. : Preliminary peace treaty signed in Paris. : Massachusetts Supreme Court outlaws slavery. Britain and United States sign Treaty of Paris; Washington orders army disbanded. Noah Webster publishes American Spelling Book. : Jefferson’s proposal to ban slavery in new territories defeated. : Debt-ridden farmers stage Shays’ Rebellion. Northwest Ordinance adopted, setting up government for Northwest Territories. Constitutional Convention opens in Philadelphia. : Ratification of Constitution complete. : George Washington chosen first president. First Congress meets in New York City. Congress submits Bill of Rights to states for ratification.

APPENDIX B

: Capital moved to Philadelphia. : Bill of Rights goes into effect. : U.S. Mint established in Philadelphia. White House cornerstone laid. : Eli Whitney invents cotton gin. : Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania. : United States pays tribute to Barbary pirates to ransom seamen. North Carolina establishes first state university. : Washington’s farewell address. : First two frigates built for navy. : Alien and Sedition Acts passed. War with France threatened over raids on U.S. shipping.

289

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APPENDIX C: POPULATION OF COLONIES AND SELECTED COLONIAL TOWNS

TABLE 1: Population of Selected Colonial Towns, 1700–1790 1700

1720

1742

1760

1775

1790

Boston

6,700

12,000

16,382

15,631

16,000

18,300

Charleston

2,000

3,500

6,800

8,000

12,000

16,300

Newport

2,600

3,800

6,200

7,500

11,000

6,700

New York

5,000

7,000

11,000

18,000

25,000

33,100

Philadelphia

5,000

10,000

13,000

23,750

25,000

42,444

TABLE 2: Population of American Colonies, 1700–1790 (in thousands)

Connecticut Delaware

1700

1720

1740

26.0

58.8

89.6

111.3

183.9

238.0

2.5

5.4

19.9

28.7

35.5

59.0

2.0

5.2

23.4

83.0

Georgia

n/a

n/a

Maryland

29.6

66.1

Massachusetts

55.9

New Hampshire

1750

1770

1790

116.1

141.1

202.6

320.0

91.0

151.6

188.0

235.3

379.0

5.0

9.4

23.3

27.5

62.4

142.0

New Jersey

14.0

29.8

51.4

71.4

117.4

184.0

New York

19.1

36.9

63.7

76.7

162.9

340.0

North Carolina

10.7

21.3

51.8

73.0

197.2

394.0

Pennsylvania

18.0

31.0

85.6

119.7

240.1

434.0

Rhode Island

5.9

11.7

25.3

33.2

South Carolina Virginia All colonies

58.2

69.0

5.7

17.0

45.0

64.0

124.2

249.0

58.6

87.8

180.4

231.4

447.0

747.6

250.9

466.2

905.6

1,170.8

2,148.1

3,929.2

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975.

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ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

EDITORS JOHN E. FINDLING is professor emeritus of history at Indiana University Southeast. He earned his PhD in history from the University of Texas and has pursued research interests in world’s fairs and the modern Olympic movement for nearly  years. Among his recent publications are Fair America (), coauthored with Robert Rydell and Kimberly Pelle, and Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement () and Encyclopedia of World’s Fairs and Expositions (), both coedited with Kimberly Pelle. In retirement, he sells stamps and vintage postcards at Collectors’ Stamps, Ltd., in Louisville, Kentucky. FRANK W. THACKERAY is professor emeritus of history at Indiana University Southeast. A former Fulbright scholar in Poland, he received his PhD from Temple University. Specializing in Russian-Polish relations in the th and th centuries, he is the author of Antecedents of Revolution: Alexander I and the Polish Congress Kingdom (). He also edited Events That Changed Russia since  () and Events That Changed Germany (). Currently, he is term professor of history at the University of Louisville.

CONTRIBUTORS THOMAS CLARKIN received his doctorate in U.S. history from the University of Texas at Austin in . He has completed a manuscript on federal Indian policy during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and he currently teaches at San Antonio College. PETER G. FELTEN received his PhD in U.S. and Caribbean history from the University of Texas at Austin. He taught history and leadership development at Tulsa Community College and presently teaches history at Elon College, Elon, North Carolina. He is working on a research project involving desegregation in higher education. RICK KENNEDY is professor of history at Point Loma Nazarene University. He received his PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is the author of A

294

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

History of Reasonableness: Testimony and Authority in the Art of Thinking () and has contributed to The Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. CARL E. KRAMER is director of the Institute for Local and Oral History and adjunct professor of history at Indiana University Southeast and vice president of Kramer Associates, Inc., a public history consulting firm. He received his PhD from the University of Toledo and is the author of  books, including Capital on the Kentucky: A Year History of Frankfort and Franklin County () and This Place We Call Home: A History of Clark County, Indiana (). A member of the United Church of Christ, he has a special interest in that denomination’s history; his interest in the Civil War dates to the centennial years, –. THOMAS C. MACKEY is professor of history at the University of Louisville and adjunct professor of law at the Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville. He earned his PhD at Rice University. He is the author of Pursuing Johns (), Pornography on Trial (), and Red Lights Out: A Legal History of Prostitution, Disorderly Houses, and Vice Districts, – (). HENRY E. MATTOX retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in  after  years of service, mostly abroad. Since that time, he has earned a PhD in U.S. history from the University of North Carolina and has engaged in teaching and writing. Among his publications are Twilight of Amateur Diplomacy () and Army Football in  (). In , he was a cofounder of the journal American Diplomacy, and he currently serves as its editor. THOMAS A. PRASCH is professor of history at Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas. He received his PhD in British history from Indiana University, where he was the film review editor for the American Historical Review. His current research interests include Victorian photography, international exhibitions, and museum history. DONALD A. RAKESTRAW is professor of history at Georgia Southern University. Specializing in U.S. diplomatic history, he is the author of For Honor or Destiny: The Anglo-American Crisis over the Oregon Territory (). Currently, he is working on a study of the Anglo-American dispute over the C.S.S. Alabama during the American Civil War. KELLY A. RYAN is assistant professor of history at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany, Indiana. She earned her MA at Boston College in  and her PhD from the University of Maryland in . She is currently working on a book manuscript titled “Regulating Passion: Sexual Regulation and Patriarchal Rule, –.” STEVEN E. SIRY is professor of history at Baldwin-Wallace College. He received his PhD from the University of Cincinnati, and he is the author of Greene: Revolutionary General (). LARRY A. SKILLIN is assistant professor of history at Saint Ambrose University. He received his PhD in early American history from the Ohio State University. His research interests include religious and intellectual history, with a particular focus on colonial American print culture and the emergence of an American public sphere. JULIA A. WOODS received her MA and PhD in history from the University of Texas at Austin and a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation dealt with southern lawyers before the Civil War.

INDEX

Abenakis tribe, 1:227 Abnaki War. See King William’s War Abolition (abolitionism), 3:65–85 American Anti-Slavery Society, 3:78–79 Birney, James G., 3:67, 73, 79 Child, Lydia Maria, 3:78, 79–82 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 3:69–76 Douglass, Frederick, 3:67, 75, 224 of France, 1:152 Garrison, William Lloyd, 3:66–67, 72–73, 75, 79 of Great Britain, 1:152 Grimké, Angelina and Sarah, 3:73 John Brown’s Final Statement to Virginia Court, 3:84–85 The Liberator First Edition excerpt, 3:83–84 Liberty Party, 3:65, 67, 75, 79, 81–82 Nat Turner’s Rebellion, 1:152, 158–159, 3:72 overview, 3:65–69 participation by African Americans, 3:71 Pennsylvania Society for Abolition, 2:194 during the Progressive era, 4:9 Southern states hatred of, 3:68, 69 Tappan, Arthur, 3:73, 75–76 Tubman, Harriet, 3:82–83 See also Douglass, Frederick; Slaves/slavery Académie des Sciences of Paris, 2:25, 28 Acheson, Dean, 4:182–183 Act of Toleration (1649), 1:170, 183 Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves (1807), 1:152 Acts of Confiscation (1861, 1862), 3:193 Acts of Trade (1660), 2:7 Adams, Abigail (wife of John, mother of John Quincy), 2:189, 197, 200–202, 209 See also “Remember the Ladies” letter Adams, Henry, 3:262 Adams, John, 1:109, 2:95, 124, 3:142 abrogation of 1778 treaties, 2:251 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2:28 American Revolution involvement, 2:143

arrest of, 2:178 biographical data, 2:252–255 commercial interests, 2:263 Continental Congress participation, 2:162, 163, 253 Convention of 1800, 2:243 Declaration of Independence role, 2:253 denunciation of French, 2:245 1800 presidential election, 2:263 Federalist opposition to, 2:244 as Founding Father, 2:25 Hamilton’s opposition to, 2:271 Jefferson’s association with, 2:174 Judiciary Act (1801), 2:265 letter of attack by Hamilton, 2:250 Naturalization Act, 2:241, 246 political experience of, 2:239 role in XYZ Affair, 2:247–248, 252–255 Second Continental Congress participation, 2:173 slavery opposed by, 3:69 split 1800 election, 2:276 Talleyrand’s interactions with, 2:249 Adams, John Quincy (son of John Adams), 2:201, 278, 3:89, 92, 99–101, 109, 146 See also Monroe Doctrine Adams, Samuel (1722–1803), 1:109, 226 Boston Tea Party instigation, 2:126–128, 217 British plans for capturing, 2:131 Committees of Correspondence and, 2:117, 120 Constitutional Convention participation, 2:217 Continental Congress participation, 2:127, 162 Declaration of Independence signatory, 2:185 Franklin’s warnings against, 2:35 Hutchinson’s confrontations with, 2:107 “Innocent Blood Crying to God from the Streets of Boston” pamphlet, 2:116 North Caucus Club formation, 2:130 Sons of Liberty movement formation, 2:108 Stamp Act Riots participation, 2:110

I-2

INDEX

Adams-Onis Treaty, 3:47, 51, 137 Addams, Jane, 3:170, 257, 279 Adler, Dankmar, 3:255 Administration of Justice Act, 2:118 Admittance into the Company of Eleven of the Daughters of Liberty, 2:194–195 Adopting Act (1729), 2:52 Adros, Gov. Edmund, 1:217 Africa, slave-trading history, 1:140–141, 148–153 African Americans black colleges, 4:52 “Colored People’s Day” (Columbian Exposition), 3:261 effects of war on, 2:145 emancipation of, 4:51 freedom movement, 4:263 Great Migration (1920), 2:145, 53, 54 Industrial Revolution era, 3:166 Niagara Movement (1905), 4:13 post-WW I influx of, 4:53 rejection as equals, 2:220–221 suburbanization efforts, 4:134, 138 suffrage rights, 3:214 support for American Revolution, 2:192 votes for Grant for presidency, 3:215 World War I service, 4:54, 58 See also Emancipation Proclamation; Harlem Renaissance; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Slaves/slavery African Methodist Episcopal Church, 3:13 Age of Reason, 2:25 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), 4:78 Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), 4:82–83, 84 Agriculture European benefit from, 1:11 Farmer’s Alliance, 1:95 Hopewell’s contributions, 1:17 Hopi technology, 1:72 influence of Columbian exchange, 1:8–9 slash-and-burn method, 1:5 Aguinaldo, Emilio, 3:274–275, 278 Ahlstrom, Sydney, 3:1 Aircraft inventions (Bell), 3:175 Albany Plan of Union (document, 1754), 2:90–92 Alden, Capt. John, 1:263 Aldrich, Nelson, 3:279 Algonquins, 1:12–13, 40, 42, 47, 117, 217–218, 220–221 Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), 2:174–175, 231, 241, 246–247, 254, 259–261, 265, 280, 3:2 Alien Enemies Act (from Alien and Sedition Acts), 2:242, 259–260 All in the Family (TV show), 4:202

Allen, Ethan, 2:152 Alliance, Treaty of, 2:142, 146 Alvarado, Hernando, 1:63 Amadas, Philip, 1:115 Ambrister, Robert C., 3:23 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2:29 American Anti-Slavery Society, 3:65, 66–67, 72–74, 78–79 American Broadcasting Company (ABC), 4:206 American Colonization Society, 3:65–66, 105 American Dream, 4:5, 85, 132, 136, 141 American Enterprise Institute, 4:278 American Expeditionary Force (AEF), 4:26, 40–43 See also Pershing, Gen. John J. American Federation of Labor (AFL), 3:162, 4:38 American Historical Association meeting (1893), 3:240 American Independence Day, 3:143 American Letter of Marque (1812, document), 3:62–63 American Magazine (American Revolution era), 2:188 The American Nation Series (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:250 American Philosophical Society, 2:29, 33–34, 176 American Protective League (vigilante group), 4:33 American Revolution, 1:44, 92–93, 159, 208, 2:5–6, 30, 139–157 Adams, John, involvement, 2:143 America’s invasion of Canada, 2:152–153 Bunker Hill, Battle of, 2:153–154 causes of, 2:80 Continental Army, 2:154–155 Dulany’s role, 2:106 Franklin’s contributions, 2:34 George III’s Proclamation of Rebellion, 2:155–156 Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, 2:156–157 magazines of the era, 2:188–189 overview, 2:139–143 role of women, 2:196, 198 Siry’s interpretive essay, 2:143–150 Sons of Liberty’s role, 108–109 Yorktown, Battle of, 2:154 American Socialist Party, 4:38 American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States, 3:70 The American Spelling Book (Webster), 2:148–149 American Temperance Union (1836), 3:5 Americas Columbus’s expeditions to, 1:6–8, 15–16 early diseases, 1:4 flourishing of agriculture, 1:11

INDEX

hunters and gatherers, 1:1, 5 Italian expeditions to, 1:99 pre-1492 population, 1:1–2 Spanish colonization of, 1:73–76, 83, 87–90, 2:1–2 Amerindians, 1:4 Amistad legal case (1841), 3:101 Amity and Commerce, Treaty of, 2:146 Amusing Ourselves to Death (Postman), 4:207 Anasazi culture, 1:13–15 Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy (Remini), 3:120 Andros, Sir Edmund, 1:234, 239–240, 246–247, 250–251, 263, 2:3 Anglican Church, 1:234–235, 244, 2:27, 47, 51, 55, 3:8 See also Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1701), 2:63 Anglo-American Convention (1818), 3:26 Anglo-American treaty, 2:147 Anglo-Dutch Wars, 1:205, 206 Anglo-Soviet-U.S. alliance, 4:174–175 Angola slave trading posts, 1:151 Anschluss policy (German), 4:86 Anthony, Susan B., 3:257 Anti-Federalists, 2:224–225 Anti-Imperialist League (Boston, 1898), 3:279 Anti-Masonic Party (1831), 3:116–117 Anticommunist movement (1950s), 1:262 Antiem Creek, Battle of, 3:194 Antislavery Whigs, 3:148 Antiwar movement (1960s), 4:231–232 Anzaldua, Gloria, 4:265 Apalachee tribe, 1:79 Apocalypse Now (war movie), 4:228 An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (Child), 3:79–80 An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty (Backus), 3:16 Appy, Christian G., 4:225 Arbuthnot, Alexander, 3:23–24 Architecture of the World’s Columbian Exposition (Brunt), 3:260 Arkansas territory, 3:26–27 Armstrong, John, 3:55 Armstrong, Louis, 4:55 Army of the Potomac, 3:194 Army of the Potomac (Union Army), 3:194, 201 Army of the Republican of Vietnam (ARVN), 4:222–223 Arnold, Benedict, 2:153 Articles of Confederation (1776), 2:144, 147, 179

I-3

Continental Congress adoption, 2:215 function of, 3:46 Hamilton’s criticism of, 2:227 inadequacy of, 2:215–216 signers, 2:217 Asbury, Francis, 2:150 Ashburton, Lord, 1:152–153 Atomic bomb, 4:107, 116, 150, 154 See also Manhattan Project Atomic Energy Act (1954), 4:152 Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 4:150, 152, 163–164 Atomic energy development (1945–1995), 4:149– 167 atomic bomb, 4:107, 116, 150, 154 Atomic Energy Commission, 4:150, 152, 163–164 Baruch Plan, 4:149 Cuban Missile Crisis, 4:151, 175–176, 186–188 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 4:151 hydrogen bomb, 4:175 Kunetka’s interpretive essay, 4:153–161 Manhattan Project, 4:149 nuclear freeze movement, 4:164 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 4:160, 165–166 overview, 4:149–153 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 4:153, 157, 167 U-2 incident (1960), 4:151 Atoms for Peace proposal (Eisenhower), 4:151 Austrian Succession, War of (1740–1748), 2:9, 12 Automobile vs. streetcar suburbs, 4:131–132 Aztec Empire (Mexico), 1:98 Baby and Child Care (Spock), 4:257 Backus, Isaac, 3:15–16 Bacon, Nathaniel, 1:233–234, 247–248 Bacon’s Rebellion (1676), 1:112, 1:233, 247–248 Bagdikina, Ben H., 4:205 Bailyn, Bernard, 2:11 Baker, Josephine, 4:55 Balboa, Vasco Núñez de, 1:93 Bancroft, George, 3:153 Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 3:256 Bank of the United States, 3:111–112, 122–125 Bank War (Jackson), 3:129 Banking acts, 3:197 Baptist Church, 2:48, 150, 3:6, 7, 12, 15–16 See also Backus, Isaac Baptiste de Rochambeau, Gen. Jean, 2:154 Barbary pirates, 3:21 Barlow, Joel, 2:149 Barlowe, Arthur, 1:115–116 Barnard, Henry, 2:209

I-4

Barney, Joshua, 3:57 Barré, Isaac, 2:108 Bartram, John, 2:33 Baruch, Bernard, 4:25, 149 Beattie, Blake, 1:82–90 Beaver trade, 1:38–39 Beaver Wars, 1:40 Beecher, Henry Ward, 3:258 Beecher, Lyman, 3:2, 4, 9 Bell, Gen. J. Franklin, 3:275 Bell, John, 3:191 Bell Telephone Company, 3:174 Bellamy, Edward, 3:163 Benson, Thomas Hart, 3:117 Bering Strait, 1:4 Beringia, 1:1, 4 Berkeley, Gov. William, 247–248 Berle, Milton (1908–2002), 4:212–214 Berlin Wall, 4:171, 172, 174 Bessemer, Sir Henry, 3:176 Bett, Mum, 2:198 Biddle, Nicholas, 3:112, 124, 128 See also Bank of the United States Big Horn, Battle of, 3:29 “Big Three.” See Churchill, Winston; Roosevelt, Franklin D.; Stalin, Joseph “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom” (Jefferson), 2:57 Bill for More General Diffusion of Knowledge (Jefferson), 2:173 Bill of Rights (document, U.S. Constitution), 1:180, 2:32, 230, 236–238 Billings, William, 2:148 Bingham, Anne Willing, 2:28 Birney, James G., 3:67, 73, 79 See also Liberty Party Bishop, Bridget, 1:264 Bishop, Maurice, 4:281 “Black Codes” (Johnson), 3:213, 218, 220 Black Diaspora, 1:141 Black Hawk War, 3:156, 204 Black Hills Dakota Territory, 3:29 Black Muslims, 4:240 Black Panthers, 4:240 Black Power movement, 4:247, 265 See also Davis, Angela Black Thursday, 4:80 Blaine, James, 3:255 Blair, Frank, Sr., 3:117 Blake, Eubie, 4:55 “Bleeding Kansas” territory, 3:28 Bloody Marsh, Battle of (1742), 1:95 Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (Williams), 1:187–189

INDEX

Blount, William, 3:125 Board of Lady Managers (Columbian Exposition), 3:260 Board of Nine Men (New Netherland Colony), 1:211–212 Board of Trade and Plantations, 2:3, 8, 13–14 Boas, Franz, 3:256 Bolívar, Simón, 3:101–103 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 2:242, 251, 257, 266, 3:21, 36, 43, 87 Bonus Army (post-WW I), 4:77, 81 Book of Mormon (Smith), 3:13 The Book of Negro Poetry (Jams Weldon Johnson), 4:59 The Book of the Fair (Bancroft), 3:256 Boone, Daniel, 3:242 Booth, John Wilkes, 3:207 The Boston Evening Post newspaper, 2:193 Boston Massacre (1770), 2:116, 122, 239, 253 Boston Port Act, 2:118 Boston Port Bill, 123 Boston Tea Party, 2:108, 115–138 Adams, Samuel, organization of, 2:126–128 East India Company, 2:112, 120, 123, 125, 128–129 First Continental Congress, 2:129–130 Hewess’s account of (document), 2:136–138 Mattox’s interpretive essay, 2:119–126 overview, 2:115–119 Revere, Paul, 2:130–132 Tea Act (1773) document, 2:132–135 vessels (ships) involved, 2:121–122 Boy Spies of America (vigilante group), 4:33 Boycotts and protests, by women, 2:187, 191 Braddock’s (Gen. Edward) Campaign (1755), 2:72, 74–75, 83 Bradford, Sarah, 3:82–83 Bradley, Omar (1893–1981), 4:120–121 “Brain Trust” advisory (of FDR), 4:82 Brandeis, Louis, 4:4, 84 Breckinridge, John, 3:26 Brendan (Saint, Irish monk), 1:2 Brezhnev, Leonid, 4:176 A Brief History of the War with the Indians (Increase Mather), 1:268 British West Indies, 2:4 Bronxville, New York, 4:131 Broward, Napoleon Bonaparte, 1:96 Brown, Charles Brockden, 2:149 Brown, James, 4:54 Brown, Joseph, 3:193 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Supreme Court decision), 4:237–239, 244 Bryan, William Jennings, 3:30, 279

INDEX

Buade, Louis de, 1:48–50 Bubble Act, 2:7 Buchanan, James, 3:147 Buckley, William F., 4:278 Buena Vista, Battle of (1847), 3:138, 140–141, 144, 152, 157, 203 Bulge, Battle of the (1944), 4: 119–120, 121 Bull Moose Party. See Progressivism Bunker Hill, Battle of (1775), 2:153–154, 159 Bureau of Refugees, 3:217 Burger, Warren E., 4:275 Burgoyne, Gen. John, 2:140, 141, 148, 3:55 Burke, Edmund, 2:5–6 Burnham, Daniel, 3:254–25, 3:254–255, 259, 264–265 Burr, Aaron, 2:175, 229, 263, 271–273, 275–277, 3:23 Burroughs, George, 1:258 Bus boycott (Montgomery, Alabama), 4:238 Bush, George H. W., 4:174, 228–229, 240, 247, 261, 277, 283, 285–287 Bush, George W., 4:284 Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núnez, 1:57, 65, 67–68, 70, 75 Cable News Network (CNN), 4:208 Cabot, John (Giovanni Caboto), 1:99, 110–111 Calef, Robert, 1:260, 265 Calhoun, John C., 2:278, 45, 51, 92, 126, 130, 146, 190 Calvert, Cecil, 1:177, 181–183 Calvert, George, 1:176–177 Calvert, Leonard, 1:177, 182–183 Calvin, John, 1:34, 84, 172 Calvinism, 1:34, 172, 2:27, 49, 2:66, 3:1, 9 Calvinist Puritans, 1:168–169 Cambodia, 4:219 Cambodian incursion (1970), 4:232–233 Campbell, John (Lord Loudon), 2:76–78 Canada Algonquins, 1:12–13, 40, 42, 47, 117, 220–221 American invasion of, 2:152–153 Buade’s stand for Quebec, 1:48 Cartier’s visits, 1:45–46 Champlain’s visits, 1:47–48 dependence on France, 2:69 exploration aid by slaves, 1:135 Great Treaty of Montreal, 1:41 Joliet in, 1:50–51 Quebec City, founding of, 1:38 siege of Quebec, 1:48, 50 Tecumsah supplied by, 3:44 Cancer de Barbastro, Fray Luis, 1:80 Cane (Toomer), 4:59

I-5

Canning, George, 3:88–89 Cape Cod/ranch-style homes, 4:132, 134, 137 See also Levittowns (NY, NJ, PA) Cárdenas, Garciá López de, 1:62, 65 Cardozo, Benjamin, 4:84 Carleton, Sir Guy, 2:152–153 Carmichael, Stokely, 4:247 Carnegie, Andrew (1835–1919), 3:163, 175–178, 279, 6 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1910), 3:178 Carnegie Steel, 3:163 Carson, Rachel, 4:142 Carter, Jimmy, 4:173, 273–274, 275, 278 Cartier, Jacques, 1:35, 37, 45–46, 84 Cartwright, Peter, 3:5–6, 8, 16–17, 19 Case, Lewis, 3:190 Cases of Conscience (Mather), 1:258 Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (Increase Mather), 1:268 Castillo de San Marcos (in St. Augustine), 1:92–93 Castro, Fidel, 4:172 Cateau-Cambresis Treaty, 1:33 Cato Institute, 4:278 Cattle ranching, 3:30–31 Cavelier, René-Robert, 1:36, 40–41, 49, 50 CCC. See Civilian Conservation Corps Census Bureau (U.S.), pre-1890 report, 3:239 Central America Contras/Sandinistas, 4:275 Court of Justice, 3:178 Central American Court of Justice, 3:178 Ceremonial cycles (Native Americans), 1:71, 73, 77 Cervera, Adm. Pascual, 3:277 Champlain, Samuel de, 1:38, 47, 47–48, 2:69 Channing, William, 3:3 Charles I (King of England), 1:169–170, 176–177, 181–182, 246 Charles II (King of England), 1:137, 169–170, 196–197, 203–204, 233, 246, 262, 2:50, 177 Charles IX (French King), 1:33, 81 Charles of Habsburg (Spain), 1:83–84 Charles V (Spanish Emperor), 1:68, 93, 168 Charlie’s Angels (TV show), 4:202 Charter of Liberties (England, 1701), 1:171 Chauncy, Pastor Charles, 2:54 Cheers (TV show), 4:202 Cherokee Indians, 1:5–6, 3:127, 132 Chesapeake naval affair, 3:42–43, 100 Cheves, Langdon, 3:124 Chiang Kai-shek, 4:171 Chicago, Illinois. See Burnham, Daniel; World’s Columbian Exposition (1893)

I-6

INDEX

Chickahominy Indians, 1:130 Chickasaw tribes, 3:49 Child, Lydia Maria (1802–1880), 3:78, 79–82 Child labor laws, 3:164–165 China war with Japan, 4:106 Choctaw tribes, 3:49 The Christian Philosopher (Cotton Mather), 1:268 Christianity abolition and, 3:68 ascendancy of Church, 2:21 banning of, 2:268 British/U.S. evangelicals, 1:152 Columbus era missionaries, 1:10–11 defense of slavery, 3:3 Dwight’s lectures on, 3:2 English North America, 1:167 Indian women conversions, 1:43 slave conversion attempts, 2:62 Chubb British warship, 3:56 Church, Benjamin, 1:223–224, 249 Church of England, 1:113, 168, 172, 1:172, 234, 2:26, 3:8 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 3:13–14 Churchill, Winston, 3:56–57, 4:105, 178 Atlantic Charter, 4:110 “iron curtain” speech, 4:175 Cities, Industrial Revolution growth, 3:165–167, 171 City Beautiful movement (Burnam), 3:264–265 “Civil Disobedience” essay (Thoreau), 2:167 Civil Rights Act (1866), 3:198, 3:198, 219 Civil Rights Act (1964), 4:226, 239, 245, 259 Civil Rights Act (1968), 4:239, 240 Civil Rights Movement (ca. 1954-Present), 4:237–256 Black Power movement, 4:247 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 4:237–239, 244 Civil Rights Act (1964), 4:226, 239, 245 Civil Rights Act (1968), 4:239, 240 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 4:240–249 Freedom Riders, 4:239 Freedom Summer, 4:247, 252–253 Greensboro Sit-Ins, 4:251–252 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 4:239, 244, 245–246, 253–255 Los Angeles Riots, 4:247, 256 March on Washington (1963), 4:239 Montgomery bus boycott, 4:238, 251 overview, 4:237–240 Plessy v. Ferguson, 4:12, 237, 241 Project C (confrontation), 4:246

SNCC, 4:225, 240, 245, 247 Voting Rights Act, 4:234, 239, 247 See also National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Civil Service Commission (U.S.), 4:1 Civil War (1861–1865), 1:77, 95, 153, 3:185–209 Army of the Potomac, 3:194, 201 commercial cattle ranching, 3:30 Confederate States of America, 3:143, 185, 200–202 Conscription Act, 3:195 Davis, Jefferson, 3:193, 202–204 Dred Scott decision, 3:191 economic impact of, 3:195–196 Emancipation Proclamation, 1:160, 3:194, 195, 196, 206 Gettysburg Address, 1:167, 2:167, 3:198, 207 Harper’s Ferry raid, 3:191 Indian revolts, 3:28 issues resolved by, 3:216 Kramer’s interpretive essay, 3:189–198 Lee’s surrender to Grant, 3:202, 207 Lincoln, Abraham, 3:204–207 Lincoln on cause of, 1:160 National Banking Acts, 3:197 Ordinance of Secession (South Carolina), 3:208–209 overview, 3:185–189 Radical Republican view of, 3:218–219 role in Industrial Revolution, 3:159 Sanitary Commission, 3:198 Sherman’s March to the Sea, 3:207–208 United States Military Railroads, 3:196 See also Abolition Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 4:77, 87 Clark, William, 3:25, 35 See also Lewis and Clark expedition Clark, York (d. 1770-ca. 1832), 3:33–35 Clarke, John, 1:169 Clarkin, Thomas, interpretive essays Abolition, 3:69–76 Expedition of Coronado, 1:58–66 French and Indian War, 2:73–81 Clay, Henry, 2:278, 3:44, 45, 70, 81, 87, 92, 109, 111, 114, 126, 139 See also Whig Party Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914), 4:4 Clayton-Bulwer agreement, 3:144 Clement VII (Pope), 1:168, 172 Cleveland, Grover, 3:96, 239, 259 Clinton, Bill, 4:229, 284 Clinton, Gov. DeWitt, 2:208, 3:130 Clinton, Gov. George, 2:224, 276 Clooney, George, 4:206

INDEX

Closing of the frontier (ca. 1890s), 3:233–251 costs of settlement, 3:238 Devine’s interpretive essay, 3:237–242 Ghost Dance movement, 3:29, 235, 243–245, 248, 250, 251 Immigration Reduction League, 3:239 Little Big Horn, Battle of, 3:234 mining phase, 3:233 myths about the frontier, 3:242 “New Frontier” slogan, 3:242 overview, 3:233–237 Sand Creek Massacre, 3:234 Sioux Indian War, 3:245–246, 247 Sitting Bull, 3:29, 235, 246–248 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 3:248–250 Wounded Knee Massacre, 3:245, 250–251 Cochrane, Sir Alexander, 3:54, 57 Cockburn, Sir George, 3:57 Cody, William F. “Buffalo Bill,” 3:30, 242 Coercive Acts (1774), 2:104, 127, 129 Coetus party (of Frelinghuysen), 2:61 Cohen, Lizabaeth “Consumers’ Republic,” 4:140 “Purchaser Citizens,” 4:136 Coit, Mehetabel Chandler, 2:203 Cold War, 4:115–117, 121, 169–197 atomic energy cause, 4:151 “Consumers’ Republic,” 4:140 Cuban Missile Crisis, 4:151, 175–176, 186–188 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 4:171–172, 188–190 Far East involvement, 4:171 inevitability of, 4:178–179 Korean War, 4:171, 175, 190–193 length of (1946–1991), 4:180 Mayers’ interpretive essay, 4:174–184 name derivation, 4:174–175 North-South Korea engagement, 4:124 nuclear arsenals, 4:155 overview, 4:169–174 Stalin’s inflammatory rhetoric, 4:170 Trotsky’s characterization of, 4:176 Truman, Harry, 4:169–170, 175, 178, 193–196 Colden, Cadwallader, 2:108 Cole, Donald B., 3:117 Coligny, Gaspard de, 1:34, 84 College of William and Mary (Virginia), 2:27 Colonial National Historic Park System, 1:112 Colonial Virginia, slavery (mid-18th century), 1:161–163 “Colored People’s Day” (Columbian Exposition), 3:261 Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 4:200, 206 Columbian Exposition. See World’s Columbian Exposition

I-7

Columbian Magazine (American Revolution era), 2:188–189 Columbine High School shooting, 4:209 Columbus, Christopher, 1:2, 15–16 childhood years, 1:2–3, 15 Document: journal (1492), 1:18–32 inspirational sources for, 1:15 Native Americans and, 1:6–8 plants/animals introduced by, 1:8–9 voyages/explorations, 1:3–4, 6–8, 15–16 See also Ferdinand V; Isabella I; World’s Columbian Exposition Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Causes, 1:234 Committee for Postponed Matters, 2:221 Committee of Correspondence, 2:108, 117 Committee of Safety, 1:242 Committee on Public Information (CPI), 4:25, 32, 37–38 Committee on the Conduct of the War (1861), 3:229 Common Sense pamphlet (Paine), 2:125, 161 Communist doctrine, 4:177 The Communist Manifesto, 4:117 Community antenna television (CATV), 4:201 Compact discs (CDs), 4:201 Compromise of 1850, 3:68, 133, 158 Compton, Henry, 1:234–235 Comte de Frontenac. See Buade, Louis de Confederate States of America (CSA), 3:143, 185, 191, 200–202 post-Civil War turmoil, 3:213 See also Davis, Jefferson Confiance British warship, 3:56 Congregational Churches (New England), 1:82, 2:149–150, 3:7 Congregationalists (“Old Lights”), 2:48 Congress (U.S.) arms appropriation for McKinley, 3:276 Bureau of Refugees, creation of, 3:217 Consumer Product Safety Act, 4:135 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, 4:135 Federal Highway Act, 4:139 Freedman’s Bureau, 3:212, 217 Lend-Lease military aid bill, 4:105 Macon’s Bill No. 2, 3:43 Meat Inspection Act, 4:2 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, 4:135 negative view of Confederacy, 3:211 Payne-Aldrich Tariff, 4:3 Prohibition legislation, 4:34 Pure Food and Drug Act, 4:2 Reconstruction passed by, 3:212, 214

I-8

INDEX

Revenue Act (1942), 4:108 Smoot-Hartley tariff bill, 4:76 support for FDR’s reforms, 4:84 Voting Rights Act, 4:239 War of 1812 actions, 3:44 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 4:39 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 4:243, 245 Congress of Vienna, 2:257 Connecticut Indians, 1:218 “Conscience Whigs,” 3:148 Conscription Act (1863), 3:195 Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes in the British Colonies, for the Purpose of raising a Revenue, by Act of Parliament (Dulany), 2:106 Constitution (U.S.), 2:30 Bill of Rights, 1:180, 2:32, 236–238 Eighteenth Amendment, 4:34 Electoral College, 2:221, 225–226, 263 Fifteenth Amendment, 3:22, 198, 4:51 First Amendment, 1:180, 2:269 Fourteenth Amendment, 3:198, 212 Nineteenth Amendment, 4:4, 34, 263 Seventeenth Amendment, 4:2–3 Sixteenth Amendment, 4:2–3, 11–12 Thirteenth Amendment, 1:156, 160, 3:198, 3:212, 219, 227, 4:51 Three-Fifths Compromise, 2:274 Twelfth Amendment, 2:175, 221, 264, 281–282 Twentieth Amendment, 4:77 Twenty-First Amendment, 4:5 “We the people” preamble, 2:31 Constitutional Convention (1787), 1:150, 159, 34, 106, 211–238 Anti-Federalists, 2:224–225 Bill of Rights (document), 2:236–238 Committee for Postponed Matters, 2:221 Committee of Style review, 2:222 Electoral College, 2:221, 225–226, 263 European observer experiences, 2:215 Franklin’s participation, 2:218, 220 Hamilton, Alexander, role, 2:226–229 Madison, James, role, 2:217, 218, 227, 229–232 New Jersey Plan (document), 2:220, 234–236 overview, 2:211–214 presidency discussions, 2:221 Supreme Court creation discussions, 2:219, 221 trade regulation discussions, 2:216 Virginia Plan (document), 2:218–219, 222, 232–234 Woods’ interpretive essay, 2:215–222 Consumer Product Safety Act (1970), 4:135 Continental Army, 2:125, 139, 154–155, 159–160 Continental Association (1774), 2:124, 130

Continental Congress (1776), 2:30, 36 Articles of Confederation adoption, 2:215 mission to France, 2:140 money plan, 2:144 Convention of 1800, 2:243, 252 Convention of 1818, 3:44 Convention of Pardo (1739), 2:9 Coode, John, 1:236–237, 241, 243 Cooker, Jay, 3:197 Cooper, James Fenimore, 3:242 Copernicus, 2:22–23 Copley, John Singleton, 2:148 Copley, Lionel, 1:236 Copper Sun (Cullen), 59 Corey, Giles, 1:259, 262, 264 Cornwallis, Lord Charles, 2:142, 147, 154 Coronado, Francisco Vásques de, 1:68–69 abandonment by followers, 1:69 appointment as governor, 1:57 interactions with Native Americans, 1:58, 62, 63, 72–73 la Tierra Nueva expedition, 1:58–60 loyalty of army to, 1:59 search for Quivira, 1:58, 63–64, 69 search for Seven Cities of Cíbola, 1:57, 59–61, 68, 75–76 Coronado Expedition (1540–1542), 1:55–78 background information, 1:55–58 Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núnez, 1:67–68 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 1:58–66 Esteban, 1:69–71 Hopi Indians, 1:71–73 Spanish colonization of Americas, 1:73–76 Zuni Indians, 1:61, 68–69, 76–78 Corporation Act, 1:235 “Corps of Discovery” exploration, 3:25 Cortés, Hernán, 1:55–56, 74 The Cosby Show (TV show), 4:202 Cotton Club jazz club, 4:58 Cotton gin, 1:150–151, 160 The Cotton Kingdom (Olmsted), 3:267 “Cotton Whigs,” 3:148 Coughlin, Charles E. “Radio Priest,” 4:79 Council for National Defense (CND, 1916), 4:24–25, 29, 30 Council of Trade and Plantations, 1:234–235, 237 Council of Trent, 1:43 Council of War (Rhode Island colony), 1:218 Court of Honor (Columbian Exposition), 3:254–255, 259, 261 Court of Oyer and Terminer (Massachusetts Bay Colony), 1:257, 262 Cowboy life, 3:30 Cowpens, Battle of, 2:146

INDEX

Crabgrass Frontier (Jackson), 4:131 Crandall, Prudence, 3:73 Crawford, William H., 3:92, 3:130 Crazy Horse (Native American chief ), 3:29 Credit cards, introduction of, 4:134 Credit Mobilier scandal, 4:5 Creek Indians, 3:47, 49, 125, 234 Creel, George, 4:32 Crevecoeur, St. John de, 3:238 The Crisis (Du Bois), 4:54, 60 Crittenden, John J., 3:191 Crockett, Davy, 3:242 Cromwell, Oliver, 1:169, 178, 183 Cronkite, Walter (1916–2009), 4:214–216 Crothers, A. Glenn, 3:5–14 Cruger, Nicholas, 2:226 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 4:151, 175–176, 186–188 Cuban Revolution (late 1950s), 1:96 Cullen, Countee, 4:55, 58, 59–60 Cullom, Shelby, 3:162 Currency Act (1751), 2:4, 99 Custer, George A., 3:234, 246 Custer’s Last Stand, 3:246 Cutler, Timothy, 2:54 D-Day invasion (northern France), 4:106 Danbury Baptist Association, 1:171 Darwin, Charles, 3:168, 273 Davenport, James, 2:53–54 Davie, William R., 2:250–251 Davis, Angela, 4:265 Davis, Jefferson, 3:193, 202–204, 3:217 Davis, Joseph (brother of Jefferson Davis), 3:217 Davyes, William, 1:233 Dawes, Phillip, 2:192 Dawes Act (1887), 1:73 Dawes Severalty Act, 3:234–235 The Day the Earth Stood Still (war movie), 4:224 De Delon, Daniel, 4:38 De Loet, Johannes, 1:193 De Soto, Hernando, 1:57, 75, 93–94 battles with indigenous peoples, 1:75, 86, 94 expedition failures, 1:80, 83 Gulf Coast exploration, 1:57 search for gold, 1:7 search for Seven Cities, 1:60 Deane, Silas, 2:140 Death Warrant of Five Women Convicted of Witchcraft (document), 1:274–275 Debs, Eugene V., 4:34, 38 Decapitation of Native American women prisoners, 1:218

I-9

Declaration of Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (Washington and Jefferson), 2:125, 179 Declaration of Colonial Rights and Grievances conceded to Parliament, 2:124 Declaration of Independence, 1:260, 139, 141, 159–185 Adams, Samuel, as signatory, 2:117 African Americans and, 2:169 Declaration of Independence (document), 2:182–185 diminishing power of, 2:169–170 Franklin’s involvement, 2:30, 34, 161–164, 173, 179, 182 George III, 2:171–172 God’s inclusion in, 2:23 Jefferson, Thomas, 2:172–176 Kennedy’s interpretive essay, 2:163–170 Lee’s proposal resolution, 2:161, 163, 182 Lincoln’s thoughts on, 2:167 Locke, John, 2:176–178 major premise of, 2:166 Olive Branch Petition, 2:125, 179–181 overview, 2:159–163 Second Continental Congress, 2:178–179 structural components, 2:165 Washington’s reading to troops, 2:164 See also Enlightenment in North America “Declaration of Intellectual Independence” speech (Emerson), 2:166–167 Declaration of Liberated Europe (1945), 4:169 Declaration of Sentiments (American Anti-Slavery Society), 3:73 “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” (Stanton), 2:167 “Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonies” (Stamp Act Congress), 2:103, 129–130 Declaratory Act (1776), 2:95, 104 Deism, 3:7 Democracy Triumphant (Carnegie), 3:178 Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 4:219–220 See also Vietnam War Democratic-Republican Party, 2:174, 228, 231, 254, 263, 277–278, 279, 3:7, 26, 36, 104, 126 Descartes, René, 2:176 “Detente” policy, 4:151, 173 Devil in the Shape of a Woman (Karlsen), 1:261 Dewey, George, 3:277, 283 See also Spanish-American War; U.S. Navy Dexter, Samuel, 2:250 Diaz, Melchior, 1:62 Dickens, Charles, 3:239 Diem, Ngo Dinh (South Vietnam prime minister), 4:220–221

I-10

INDEX

Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam village), 4:219 Diggers (communistic group), 1:170 Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Rousseau), 2:41–42 A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts (Rousseau), 2:41 The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit God (Edwards), 2:60 “Distributor of Stamps for Massachusetts.” See Oliver, Andrew Dominion of New England creation of, 1:239 dismantling of, 1:247 Domino Theory, 4:220 Donnelly, Ignatius, 3:239–240 Dorantes, Esteban de, 1:57 Dorantes de Carranza, Andrés de, 1:67–68, 70 Douglas, Aaron, 4:58 Douglas, Stephen A., 3:27, 190 Douglass, Frederick, 3:67, 75, 224, 261 Dow Chemical Company, 4:141 Dr. Strangelove (war movie), 4:224 Drake, Sir Francis, 1:100–101 Dreamer Religion (Native Americans), 3:244 Dred Scott decision, 3:191 Drinker, Elizabeth, 2:203 Du Bois, W.E.B., 1:135, 4:52–54, 56, 58 Dulaney, Daniel, 2:105–107 Dulles, John Foster, 4:172 Dunk, George (Earl of Halifax), 2:14 Dunlap, William, 2:148 Dunmore’s Proclamation (document, 1776), 2:156–157 Dupey de Lôme, Enrique, 3:274, 276 Dutch East India Company, 1:198, 206–207 Dutch Reformed Church, 1:207–208, 212, 2:49, 61 Dutch West India Company, 1:118, 136, 193–194, 196, 198, 200, 208–210 DVD (digital video disc), 4:201 Dwight, Timothy, 2:149, 3:2, 9 Eagle warship, 3:56 Earl of Chatham. See Pitt, William East India Company, 2:112, 117, 120, 123, 125 Eaton, John H. and Peggy, 3:127 Edenton (North Carolina) women, 2:191–192 Edison, Thomas, 3:159–160, 262 Education black colleges, 4:52 Progressive Era importance, 4:8–9 in Puritan communities, 2:205 push for academies for, 2:197 in Quaker communities, 2:189, 205

Willard’s role, 2:208–209 for women, 2:190 World Education Convention, 2:209 Edwards, Jonathan (1703–1758), 2:52, 55, 59–60, 3:2, 6–7 Egypt, 4:172 Eighteenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:34 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 4:120, 150–151, 171–172, 188–190, 209–210, 244 Election of 1876, 3:225 Electoral College, 2:221, 225–226, 263, 271–272 Eliot, John, 1:117, 216 Elizabeth I (Queen of England), 1:84, 100, 168, 172 Elizabethan Compromise (17th Century), 1:168 Elkins Act (1903), 4:2 Ellington, Duke, 4:55, 58 Ellsberg, Daniel, 4:226 Ellsworth, Oliver, 2:250 Ely, Richard, 3:239 Emancipation Proclamation (1862), 1:160, 3:194, 195, 196, 206, 216 Embargo Act (1807), 2:175, 3:43 Emergency Banking Act, 4:82 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 2:166, 3:3 The Empire of Business (Carnegie), 3:178 The End of Victory Culture (Engelhardt), 4:227 Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), 4:150 Engels, Friedrich, 3:169–170 Englehardt, Tom, 4:227 English Bill of Rights (document, 1689), 1:251–253 English Civil War, 1:177–178, 246 English Colonization Efforts (ca. 1584–1630), 1:99–116 Cabot, John, 1:110–111 “First Voyage to Roanoke” excerpt, 1:115–116 Jamestown, founding of, 1:82, 112 Kennedy’s interpretive essay, 1:103–109 overview, 1:99–103 Pilgrims, 1:112–113 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1:113–114 reasons for, 1:140 religious influences, 1:100 Roanoke Colonies, 1:114–115 English Reformation, 1:176 English Royal African Company, 1:138 Enlightenment in North America (1727–1790), 2:21–44 American Philosophical Society, 2:33–34 Franklin, Benjamin, 2:34–36 Junto, 2:36–37 Letter on Science and the Perfectibility of Men (Jefferson), 2:43–44

INDEX

overview, 2:21–24 Priestley, Joseph, 2:37–40 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 2:40–42 Skillin’s interpretive essay, 2:25–32 See also Declaration of Independence Epidemic diseases, 1:4 of Native Americans, 1:6–7, 40 in New England, 1:120 in St. Augustine, Florida, 1:82 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 4:239, 259 Equal Pay Act (1963), 4:259 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 4:257, 262, 264, 271, 275 Equal Rights Party, 3:129 Equiano, Olaudah, 1:148, 150, 153 “Era of Good Feelings” (1817–1825), 2:278, 3:103, 104, 105 Erie Canal construction, 3:130 Eriksson, Leif, 1:2 Espionage Act (1917), 4:33 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke), 2:177 Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life (Priestley), 2:38 Essex legal case, 3:41 Establishing Religious Freedom bill (Jefferson), 2:173 Esteban (Esteváncio the Moor), 1:60, 67–68, 69–71 European Age of Discovery, 1:33 European-Native American encounters (1607–1637), 1:117–134 Kennedy/Perdisatt’s interpretive essay, 1:120–127 Opechancanough, 1:129–130 overview, 1:117–120 Pequot War, 1:130–131 Pocahontas, 1:131–132 smallpox epidemic, 1:4, 40, 120, 128–129 Smith, John, 1:133–134 Squanto (Patuxet Indian), 1:134 European Renaissance, 1:135 Evans, George Henry, 3:129 Evarts, William M., 3:271 “Evil Empire” (Soviet Union), 4:152, 227–228 Excise Bill (1733), 2:10 Exposition and Protest pamphlet (Calhoun), 3:51 Fail Safe (war movie), 4:224 Fair Employment Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 4:243 A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (Edwards), 2:59

I-11

Falwell, Jerry, 4:279 Farmer’s Alliance, 1:95 Fascism, rise of, 4:85 Faust, Jessie, 4:58, 60 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (1965), 4:135 Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 4:199, 201, 206 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), 4:78, 280 Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), 4:77 Federal Highway Act (1956), 4:139 Federal Housing Authority (FHA), 4:132, 133, 139 Federal Reserve Act (1913), 4:4 Federal Reserve Bank, 3:125 Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), 4:4 Federalist Papers (Hamilton, Madison, Jay), 2:228, 230 Federalist Party, 2:174–175, 228, 229, 231, 239, 243 background/description, 2:278–280 commercial interests, 2:263 dissent within, 2:269 end of (1812), 3:44–45 Hamilton’s intellectual guidance, 2:79 Jefferson/Madison opposition to, 2:267–268, 3:50 War of 1812 opposed by, 2:280 Washington’s leadership of, 2:279 XYZ Affair issues, 2:246, 249 See also Adams, John The Female Review (Sampson), 2:207 The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 4:259, 264–265, 267–269 Feminist activism, 4:262–263 See also Women’s Rights Movement Feminist Majority, 4:267 Fendall, Josias, 1:233 Ferdinand V (King of Spain), 1:4, 15–16, 55, 73–74, 83 Ferdinand VII (King of Spain), 3:87, 88–89 Ferraro, Geraldine, 4:262 Ferris, George (1859–1896), 3:255, 265–267 Fessenden, William Pitt, 3:231 Fifteenth Amendment (Constitution), 3:22, 198, 4:51 Fifth Monarchy Men, 1:170 Filene, Edward, 4:134 Fillmore, Millard, 3:158 Finch British warship, 3:56 Fine Arts Building (Columbian Exposition), 3:254–255 Finney, Charles Grandison, 3:2–3, 4, 6, 13, 17–18

I-12

INDEX

First Amendment (Constitution), 1:180, 2:269 First Anglo-Dutch War (1652), 1:206 First Blood (war movie), 4:228 First Church of Boston, 2:54 First Continental Congress (1774), 2:106, 119, 124, 129–130, 152, 159, 178, 200, 209, 253 See also Intolerable Acts First Encounters, ca. 40,000 (BCE-CE 1492), 1:1–32 Algonquin, 1:12–13 Anasazi culture, 1:13–15 background information, 1:1–4 Columbus, Christopher, 1:15–16 Frank’s interpretive essay, 1:4–11 Hopewell culture, 1:17 Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492), 1:18–32 Mississippian culture, 1:17–18 First Great Awakening, 2:66, 3:1, 7–8 See also Second Great Awakening First Hundred Days (FDR Presidency), 4:89–90 First Seminole War, 1:95 “First Voyage to Roanoke” (Barlowe) excerpt, 1:115–116 Fisk College, 4:52 Fithian, Philip Vickers, 1:161–163 Five Nations of the Iroquois, 1:216–217 Flagler, Henry, 1:96, 3:182–183 Florentine Renaissance, 2:143 Florida, 1:94–97 Caribbean refugees in, 1:96–97 ceding of to Great Britain, 1:95 colonization attempts, 1:80, 81 Gulf Coast discovery, 1:74, 79, 83 Jesuit conversions in, 1:82 Luna y Arellano’s settlement attempts, 1:83 naming, by Ponce de Léon, 1:94 Philip II’s involvement in, 1:80–81, 83 post-WW II population changes, 1:96 See also St. Augustine, founding of Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, 4:38 Folk magic, 1:261 Food Administration, 4:25 Ford, Henry, 4:133 Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 3:74 Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 3:213 See also Ku Klux Klan Fort Laramie Treaty (1851), 3:27, 234, 247 Fort Wayne, Treaty of, 3:48 Fort Wilson riot, 2:144–145 Fortune magazine, 4:141–142 Founding Fathers (of the U.S.) Electoral College and distrust of, 2:225 engagement with Age of Reason, 2:32

fears of “factions,” 2:267 hierarchical/controlled systems, 2:166 role in Enlightenment of America, 2:25, 30 Fountain of Youth, 1:74 Fourteen Points (Wilson), 4:26, 47–49 Fourteenth Amendment (Constitution), 3:198, 212, 214 Fox, George, 1:178, 184–185 See also Quakers (Society of Friends) France abolitionists of, 1:152 Académie des Sciences of Paris, 2:25, 28 Canada claimed for, 1:46 Cavalier’s land claims for, 1:36 D-Day invasion, 4:106 five-man committee rulership, 2:240 Franklin’s mission to, 2:25, 140–142, 147 Jay’s mission to, 2:142, 147 Jefferson’s mission to, 2:147 Louis XIV, 1:49, 249 Louis XV, 2:256 Louis XVIII, 2:257–258 Murray’s mission to, 2:249–250 Oswald’s mission to, 2:147 Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:87 reign of Francis I, 1:33, 45 Revolutionary War aid to U.S., 2:239 Roman Catholic Church, 1:34 Spain vs., for North America, 1:83 Treaty of Alliance, 2:142, 146 Treaty of Paris signing, 1:44, 2:12, 72, 79, 87 West Africa’s wars with, 1:137 XYZ Affair (France), 2:201, 239–261 See also Cartier, Jacques; Coligny, Gaspard de; Marquette, Jacques; New France Francis I (French King), 1:33, 37, 46 Franciscan missionaries, 1:215 Franco-American alliance, 2:141 Frank, Andrew, 1:4–11 Franklin, Benjamin (1706–1790), 2:34–36 Adam’s jealousy of, 2:253 American Philosophical Society founded by, 2:29, 33–34 biographical information, 2:24, 34–36, 122 Constitutional Convention participation, 2:218, 220 Declaration of Independence involvement, 2:30, 34, 161–164, 173, 179, 182 electricity experiments, 2:29, 34–35 French and Indian War involvement, 2:75 Junto established by, 2:27–28, 36–37 mission to France, 2:25, 140–142, 147 Second Continental Congress participation, 2:173

INDEX

slavery opposed by, 3:69 stance for Native Americans, 2:35 Franklin, John Hope, 1:135 Franks, Abigail Bilhah Levy, 2:204 Fray Marcos, 1:60–61, 70–71 Frederick the Great (of Prussia), 2:139 Free Soil Party, 3:132, 157 Free Speech Movement (UC Berkeley), 4:225 Freedman’s Bureau, 3:212, 217, 219, 220 Freedom of the Will (Edwards), 2:60 Freedom Riders, 4:239, 245 Freedom Summer (1964), 4:247, 252–253 Freethinkers, 3:7 Frelinghuysen, Theodorus (1691-ca. 1747), 2:47, 52, 60–62 Fremont, Gen. John C., 3:192 French and Indian War (1756–1763), 1:41, 44, 92–93, 2:5, 69–92 Albany Plan of Union (document), 2:90–92 Braddock’s campaign, 2:72, 74–75, 83 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 2:73–81 Great Britain and, 2:69–70 guerilla warfare, 2:71 Kentucky rifle introduction, 2:71 Montcalm-Gozon, Louis-Joseph de, 2:84–85 overview, 2:69–73 Pitt, William, 2:18, 72, 73, 78, 80, 85–87 problems created by, 2:93 Rogers, Robert, 1:223, 2:87–89 segmented state banner symbol, 2:160 Wolfe, James, 2:72, 78, 84–85, 89–90 French Company of the West Indies (company), 1:137 French in North America (1534–1701), 1:33–53 beaver trade, 1:38–39 Buade, Louis de, 1:48–50 Cartier, Jacques, 1:45–46 Champlain, Samuel de, 1:47–48 conversion of Indians to Catholicism, 1:41–42 fur trade, environmental consequences, 1:48 Hunt’s interpretive essay, 1:37–44 interactions with Native Americans, 1:35, 38, 39–40 Joliet, Louis, 1:50–51 King William’s War, 1:49–50 Marquette, Jacques, 1:51–53 “Middle Ground” legacy, 1:41 Mississippi River Valley exploration, 1:51–52 North America resettlement, 1:37 overview, 1:33–36 Thirty Years War, 1:49 French Indochina, 4:219–220 French Wars of Religion (1589), 1:37–38 French West Indies, 2:4

I-13

Friedan, Betty (1921–2006), 4:259, 264–265, 267–269 Friedman, Milton, 4:278 Friends of Equal Rights group, 3:129 Frobisher, Martin, 1:100–101 Frontenac, Comte de. See Buade, Louis de Frontier. See Closing of the frontier (ca. 1890s) The Frugal Housewife (Child), 3:80 Fuel Administration, 4:25 Fuller, Margaret, 3:3 Fuller, William, 1:178 Fulton, Robert, 3:36 Fur trade (17th/18th centuries), 1:48 Fur Trade Wars, 1:40, 43 Gabriel’s Rebellion (1800), 1:152 Gadsden Purchase, 3:203, 233 Gage, Thomas, 2:75–76, 88, 107, 118–119, 123–125, 129, 159 See also Bunker Hill, Battle of (1775) Galileo, 2:22–23 Gallatin, Albert, 2:246–247, 265, 3:52 Galloway, Joseph, 2:129 Gallup, John, 1:119 Garay, Francisco de, 1:55–56 Garfield, James, 3:174 Garland, Hamlin, 3:29 Garrison, William Lloyd, 3:66–67, 72–73, 75 See also American Anti-Slavery Society Garvey, Marcus, 4:55 See also Universal Negro Improvement Association Gates, Gen. Horatio, 2:140 The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (Smith, 1624), 1:133–134 Geneva Accords conference, 4:220–221 Gentleman and Lady’s Town and Country Magazine (Murray), 2:206 George, Henry, 3:162 George Fox Digg’d Out of His Burrowes (Williams), 1:187 George I (King of England), 2:6, 17–18 George II (King of England), 2:7, 9, 18, 93, 171 George III (King of England), 2:73, 87, 93, 109, 123, 125, 130, 140, 160, 171–172 See also Declaration of Independence; Olive Branch Petition George IV (King of England), 2:172 Germany Battle of the Bulge defeat, 4: 119–120 Berlin blockade, 4:171 British attacks on, 4:105 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, 4:86, 179

I-14

INDEX

response to Great Depression, 4:85 rise of Hitler, 4:85–86 submarine attacks by, 4:110 weapons development, 4: 154 World War II surrender, 4:169 Gerry, Elbridge, 2:222, 240–241, 243, 255–256 Gettysburg Address (Lincoln), 2:167, 3:198, 207 Ghana slave trading posts, 1:151 Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 2:232, 3:44, 47, 49, 54, 55, 60, 100 Ghost Dance religion (Native Americans), 3:29, 235, 243–245, 248, 250, 251 GI Bill, 4:136, 137 Gilded Age (1877–1901), 3:159, 161 Glass-Steagall Banking Act (1933), 4:78 The Gleaner (Murray), 2:206 Glee TV show, 4:204 The Glorious Cause (Middlekauff ), 2:165 Glorious Revolution in America (1688–1689), 1:168, 233–253 Andros, Sir Edmund, 1:246–247 Bacon’s Rebellion, 1:247–248 English Bill of Rights (document), 1:251–253 King William’s War, 1:248–250 Leisler, Jacob, 1:236–237, 250–251 Locke’s justification for, 2:162 origins of, 1:235, 247, 2:6–7 overview, 1:233–237 Swiney’s interpretive essay, 1:237–245 Gold and silver mining, 3:27, 233 Good, Sarah, 1:256, 258, 264 Good-Bye Columbus (Roth), 4:138 Good Neighbor Policy, 4:85–86 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 4:152, 174, 176, 277, 281–282 Gordon, William, 2:149 Gorgas, Gen. Josiah, 3:196 Gorton, Samuel, 1:175 Gosnold, Captain Bartholomew, 1:101, 112 “The Gospel of Wealth” (Carnegie), 3:177 Goulaine de Laudonnière, René, 1:81, 84 Gould, Jay, 3:163 Gradualism, 3:71–72 Graeme, Elizabeth, 2:28 Graham, Sylvester, 3:65 Grand Itinerants, 2:54 Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., 3:95, 143, 192, 201–202, 207, 215, 222, 223 Grasse, Admiral François de, 2:154 Great American Desert, 3:25 Great Awakening (ca. 1730s-1760), 1:208, 221, 2:45–67 Congregationalists (“Old Lights”), 2:48 controversy created during, 2:47–48 Edwards, Jonathan, 2:51, 59–60

Frelinghuysen, Theodorus, 2:51, 60–62 Halfway Covenant (1662), 2:45, 51 intellectual side of, 2:48–49 Kramer’s interpretive essay, 2:49–57 “Old Lights”/”New Lights,” 2:54–55 origins of, 2:51 overview, 2:45–49 pietism/revivalism during, 2:46–47, 49 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52 slave religion during, 2:62–63 Stoddard, Solomon, 2:45, 51 Tennent, GIlbert, 2:63–65 Whitefield, George, 2:65–66 women in, 2:66–67 See also Religious traditions Great Britain abolitionists of, 1:152 Atlantic Charter, 4:110 attacks on Germany, 4:105 capture of Washington, D.C., 3:57–58 Coercive Acts (1774), 2:104 Currency Act (1751), 2:4, 99 Declaratory Act, 2:95, 104 Florida ceded by Spain to, 1:95 French and Indian War and, 2:69–70 Intolerable Acts, 2:123 Jay’s Treaty, 2:147, 239, 251 losses at Bunker Hill, 2:153–154 Madison’s sanctions against, 3:25–26 mercantilist policies, 2:3 Molasses Act (1733), 2:4, 5, 8, 94 North American takeover by, 1:74 occupation of Oregon territory, 3:139 Orders-in-Council decrees, 3:41 Proclamation of 1763, 2:93–94, 97 Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:87 Quartering Act (1765), 2:102 salutary neglect policy, 2:70 Seven Years’ War (with France), 2:71 Sugar Act (1764), 2:5, 93–94, 99 Townshend Duties (1776), 2:104 Treaty of Alliance, 2:142, 146 Treaty of Ghent, 3:44 Treaty of Paris signing, 1:44, 2:12, 72, 79, 87 war with Holland, 1:205 Weber-Ashburton Treaty, 1:152–153 World War II involvement, 4:110 Yorktown, Battle of, 2:154 See also Stamp Act (1765) Great Commoner. See Pitt, William Great Depression (1929-ca. 1939), 4:39, 56, 75–103 Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 4:82–83, 84

INDEX

events leading up to, 4:80 First Hundred Days (FDR Presidency), 4:89–90 Greenspan’s interpretive essay, 4:79–87 Hoover, Herbert, 4:76–77, 79–80, 90–92 Long, Huey “Kingfish,” 4:79, 83–84, 92–93 National Recovery Administration, 4:78, 82, 84 overview, 4:75–79 post-WW I origins, 4:75 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 4:76–77, 81 Social Security Act, 4:84 stock market crash, 4:75, 80, 102–103 suburban housing boom, 4:132 Works Progress Administration, 4:78, 79, 84 See also New Deal; Roosevelt, Franklin D. Great Migration (of African-Americans, 1920), 2:145, 53, 54 Great Plains territory, 3:29–30 Great Society (Lyndon Johnson), 4:234 Great Swamp Fight, 23, 1:215, 217–218, 223, 225 Great Treaty of Montreal, 1:41 Great War for Empire, 2:71 See also Seven Years’ War Green, Nancy, 3:261 Green Party USA (political party), 4:146 Greene, Gen. Nathaniel, 2:202 Greenleaf, Stephen, 2:97 Greensboro Four activists, 4:141 Greensboro (North Caroline) Sit-Ins (1960), 4:251–252 Greenspan, Anders, 4:79–87 Greenwich Village (New York City), 4:59 Grenville, George, 2:73, 93, 98 Grenville, Richard, 1:101, 114 Grimké, Angelina and Sarah, 3:73, 78 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 3:141, 143, 149, 154, 190, 233 Guerilla warfare (French and Indian War), 2:71 Guilford Courthouse, Battle of, 2:146–147 Gulf War (1990), 4:229 Hague, Laura, 4:5–13 Hague Peace Palace (Netherlands), 3:178 Haitian Revolution (1791), 1:152 Hakluyt, Richard, 1:101 Hale, John, 1:265 Halfway Covenant (1662), 2:45, 51, 55 Hall of Manufactures (Columbian Exposition), 3:256 Hamilton, Alexander, 2:25, 174, 219, 226–229, 239 Bank of the United States actions, 3:123 commercial interests, 2:263 Federalist Papers, 2:228, 230

I-15

hatred of/duel with Aaron Burr, 2:273 intellectual guidance of Federalists, 2:79 letter attacking John Adams, 2:250 opposition to Murray’s French mission, 2:249–250 “The Stand” newspaper, 2:245 warrior ambitions of, 2:248 See also Federalist Papers; Federalist Party; Yorktown, Battle of (1781) Hampton Institute, 4:52 Hancock, John, 2:35, 102, 164, 178 Handy, Moses P., 3:258 Hanikuh (Zuni leader), 1:70 Hanoverian monarchy, 2:6–7, 8, 15–17, 73, 85–86 Hansen, Chadwick, 1:261 “The Harlem Dancer” (McKay), 4:59 Harlem Renaissance (1917–1935), 4:51–73 Beeby’s interpretive essay, 4:56–63 Hughes, Langston, 4:55, 56–58, 68–69 Hurston, Zora Neale, 4:57, 58, 69–70 Johnson, James Weldon, 4:58, 59, 70–72 McKay, Claude, 4:54, 57, 59, 72–73 NAACP, 4:13, 52, 58–60, 71–72 overview, 4:51–56 Harlem Shadows (McKay), 4:59 Harper’s Ferry raid (1859), 3:191 Harriet, the Moses of Her People (Bradford), 3:83 Harrison, William Henry, 3:43–44, 46, 48 Hartford Convention (1814), 3:44–45, 50, 52, 58–60 Hartford Treaty, 1:203 Harvard College, 2:24, 26, 53, 116, 126, 205, 241 Harvey, William, 2:22–23 Hat Act (1732), 2:3 Hatch Act (1939), 4:78 Hay, John, 3:275–276, 278 Hayden, Tom, 4:140 Hayes, Rutherford, 3:211, 215, 223, 225 Haymarket Riot (1886, Chicago), 4:7 Hays, John, 2:202 Hays, Mary Ludwig, 2:202–203 Haywood, Bill, 4:38 Hazel Bishop cosmetics, TV advertising, 4:205 Head Start program, 4:234 Hearst, William Randolph, 3:274, 276, 283–285 Henderson, Francis, 3:12 Henry, Patrick, 2:102–103, 117, 129, 226, 230, 3:69 Henry II (French King), 1:33 Henry IV (French King), 1:34, 36, 47 Henry VII (French King), 1:167, 172 Henry VII (King of England), 1:99, 111 Henry VIII (King of England), 1:100, 167–168, 172, 176, 234

I-16

INDEX

Hepburn Act (1906), 4:2, 18 Heritage Foundation, 4:278 Hernández de Córdoba, Francisco, 1:75 Hewes, George, account of Boston Tea Party (1773), 2:136–138 Hiacoomes (Native American), 1:121, 124–126 Hidden Persuaders (Packard), 4:140 Higher law, 2:168 Highway Revenue Act, 4:279 Hill, Anita, 4:263, 265–266 Hill Street Blues (TV show), 4:202 “Hippie” movement, 4:141 The History and Present State of Discoveries relating to Vision, Light and Colours (Priestley), 2:39 The History and Present State of Electricity with Original Experiments (Priestley), 2:38 The History of all the Branches of Experimental Philosophy (Priestley), 2:39 A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists (Backus), 3:16 History of the American Revolution (Ramsay), 2:149 The History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay (Thomas Hutchinson), 2:108 History of the Standard Oil Company (Tarbell), 3:184 History of the United States (Bancroft), 1:261 History of the World (Raleigh), 1:113 Hitler, Adolf, 4:85–86, 181, 242 Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam leader), 4:219–220, 224 Hohokam culture, 1:14 Holy Alliance Latin America ambitions, 3:92–93 Monroe’s warnings against, 3:94 Holy Roman Emperor, 1:83 Home to Harlem (McKay), 4:57 Homestead Act (1862), 3:28, 196, 236 Homestead Strike (1892, Pennsylvania), 4:7 Hong, Stephen H., 3:25 Hoover, Herbert, 4:76–77, 79–80, 90–92 presidency of, 4:79–80 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 4:76–77 Roosevelt vs. (presidential election), 4:77 Hopewell culture, 1:17 Hopi Indians (“Peaceful People”), 1:68, 71–73 Hopkins, Lemuel, 2:149 Hopkinson, Francis, 2:148 Horseshoe Bend, Battle of, 3:47 House Committee on Un-American Activities, 4:182 House of Burgesses (Virginia), 1:157, 2:102 House of Commons, 1:176

Boston Tea Party role, 2:118 Grenville’s role, 2:100–101, 103 Newcastle’s role, 2:15, 16–18 Pitt’s role, 2:85–86, 103 repeal of Stamp Act, Declaratory bill, 2:104 Walpole’s role, 2:9–10 Houston, Charles, 4:237 Houston, Sam, 3:138 Howard (Lord of Effingham), 1:236 Howard University, 4:52, 54 Howe, Elizabeth, 1:258 Howe, Gen. Sir William, 2:153–154 Howells, William Dean, 3:272 Hudson, Henry, 1:193, 197–198 Hughes, Langston, 4:55, 56–57, 56–58, 58, 68–69 Huguenots, 1:34, 37, 81, 84 Hull House (Jane Addams), 3:170 Hulu Web site, 4:204 Humphreys, David, 2:149 Hungarian Revolution, 4:175 Hunt, Capt. Thomas, 1:118 Hunt, John M., 1:37–44 Hunt, Richard, 3:255 Hunters and gatherers, 1:1, 5 Huron nation, 1:38, 47 Hurston, Zora Neale, 4:57, 58, 69–70 Hutchinson, Anne, 1:174–175, 183–184, 263, 2:49–50 Hutchinson, Thomas, 2:35, 90, 95, 107–108, 121–12 Hutchinson, William, 1:174–175 “Hydra of corruption” (of Biddle), 3:112 ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), 4:154 “If We Must Die” (McKay), 4:54 Igbo language (Africa), 1:148 Immigration Reduction League (1894), 3:239 Independent Treasury Act (1846), 3:154 Indian War (1675–1676), 1:247 Indians. See Native Americans Indigenous peoples Cabeza de Vaca and, 1:57 early North America, 1:1 Ponce de Léon confrontations with, 1:75 Industrial, northern states, 3:65 Industrial Revolution (ca. 1860s-1890s), 3:159–184 American Federation of Labor, 3:162 Bell, Alexander Graham, 3:173–175 Carnegie, Andrew, 3:175–178 child labor laws, 3:164–165 Edison’s inventions, 3:159–160 growth of cities, 3:165–167, 171 Knights of Labor (labor union), 3:161–162

INDEX

labor practices/unions, 3:161, 168, 170, 178–179 meat packing plants, 3:160 Morgan, J. P., 3:179–181 onset of (1794), 1:151 overview, 3:159–163 railroads, 3:165, 175 Rockefeller, John D., 3:181–184 steel industry, 3:160–161, 163, 171 women’s movements, 3:170–171 Woods’ interpretive essay, 3:163–171 World’s Columbian Exposition and, 3:257, 263 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), 4:34, 38–39 The Influence of Sea Power upon History (Mahan), 3:272 Ingoldesby, Maj. Robert, 1:251 “Innocent Blood Crying to God from the Streets of Boston” pamphlet (Sam Adams), 2:116 Intercolonial congress. See First Continental Congress (1774) Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) treaty (1987), 4:152, 174, 277, 281–282 International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 4:229 Internment camps, of Japanese, in U.S., 4:109, 114 Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 3:162, 163 Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), 3:162, 4:2, 18 Intolerable Acts, 2:123, 159 Iran, 4:169 Iran-Contra Scandal, 4:276, 288 Iron Act (1750), 2:3 Iroquois nations, 1:38 Irvine, Col. William, 2:202 Isabella I (Queen of Spain), 1:4, 15–16, 83 Italian expeditions to America, 1:99 See also Cabot, John (Giovanni Caboto) Izard, George, 3:55 Jackson, Andrew (1767–1845) admission to bar, 3:125 Bank of America favored by, 3:111–112 Battle of New Orleans actions, 3:110 biographical data, 3:125–128 “Kitchen Cabinet” of, 3:126 presidency of, 3:114, 116, 124 Texas annexation, 3:138 Trail of Tears against Cherokees, 3:127 War of 1812 participation, 3:23–24, 45, 47, 54, 92, 3:109 Jacksonian Democracy (1828–1840), 3:109–135 Bank of the United States, 3:111–112, 122–125 Bank War, 3:129 codification of common law, 3:119–120

I-17

Equal Rights Party, 3:129 Free Soil Party, 3:132 Friends of Equal Rights group, 3:129 Jackson, Andrew, 3:125–128 Locofoco Party, 3:128–129 Mackey’s interpretive essay, 3:113–121 Nullification Document (Jackson), 3:134–135 overview, 3:109–113 Van Buren, Martin, 3:129–132 Whig Party, 2:278, 3:67, 81, 132–134 Workingman’s Party, 3:128 Jacobite rebellion (1715), 2:7, 249 Jacobs, George, Sr., 1:258 Jacobsen, Capt. Cornelius, 1:199 James (Duke of York), 1:239 James, Henry, 3:272 James, William, 2:60 James I (King of England), 1:101, 137, 169, 170, 196, 2:112 James II (King of England), 1:234, 239, 249, 250, 2:6–7 Jamestown arrival of slaves, 1:136 founding (1607), 1:82, 112, 121 naming of, 1:101 Opechancanough attack on, 1:130 Tercentenary Exposition, 1:100 Japan atomic bombing of, 4:107, 116, 150, 154, 159 internment order (1942), 4:109, 114, 128–129 Pearl Harbor attack, 4:106, 107, 110–111, 126–127 war with China, 4:106 Jarratt, Devereux, 2:55–56 Jay, John, 2:129, 142, 147, 3:36 See also Federalist Papers Jay’s Treaty (1795), 2:147, 239, 251 Jefferson, Thomas, 1:145–146, 160, 3:142, 190 Adams, John, association with, 2:174 American Philosophical Society activities, 2:176 anti-Federalist stance, 2:263 anti-slavery document signing, 2:221 anti-slavery stance, 3:70 Bible edited by, 2:26 “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” 2:57 Committees of Correspondence and, 2:117 Continental Congress participation, 2:173, 174 Danbury Baptist Association speech, 1:171 Declaration of Independence role, 2:162, 164, 172–176 1800 presidential election, 2:263 election of 1800 viewpoint, 2:266–267 election to vice-presidency, 2:28 embargo on East India Company, 2:129

I-18

INDEX

Essex legal case, 3:41 Establishing Religious Freedom bill, 2:173 Federalists opposed by, 2:267 as Founding Father, 2:25 higher law and, 2:168 Kentucky Resolution, 2:175, 247, 269 Letter on Science and the Perfectibility of Men, 2:43–44 Louisiana Purchase viewpoint, 2:266 mission to France, 2:147 Monroe’s studies with, 3:103 More General Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 2:173 Notes on the State of Virginia, 2:30, 174, 3:169 presidency of, 2:273, 3:21 Quasi-War affair viewpoint, 2:250 Report of Government for the Western Territory, 2:174 resolutions penned by, 2:247 A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 2:164, 172 vice-presidency of, 2:265 Virginia State of Religious Freedom, 2:172 Washington’s association with, 2:174 See also Louisiana Purchase The Jeffersonian Image in the American Mind (Peterson), 3:31 Jenkin’s Ear, War of, 2:9 Jennings, William Sherman, 1:96 Jesuits (Society of Jesus) Beaver Wars and, 1:40 Canadian settlements, 1:38 college in Quebec, 1:50 conversion of Native Americans, 1:36, 40, 42–43, 215 conversions in Florida, 1:82 New France missions, 1:42 Jewish people, 1:170, 175 Jim Crow Laws, 4:54, 241–242 John Brown’s Final Statement to Virginia Court, 3:84–85 John I (King of England), 1:167 Johnson, Andrew, 3:95 biographical background, 3:226–228 Black Codes enactment, 3:213 Reconstruction ideas of, 3:211–212, 217–218 resistance to Fourteenth Amendment, 3:212 Johnson, James Weldon, 4:58, 59, 70–72 Johnson, Lyndon, 4:135, 221–222, 233–234, 239–240 Johnson, Sir William, 2:75, 87–88 Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), 4:150 Joliet, Louis, 1:50–51

Jones, Mary Harris (Mother Jones), 4:38 Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492), 1:18–32 “A Journal of the Times” newspaper series, 2:194 Journals of Lewis and Clark, 3:38–39 A Journey in the Back Country (Olmsted), 3:267 A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (Olmsted), 3:267 A Journey through Texas (Olmsted), 3:267 Judiciary Act (1789), 2:266 Judiciary Act (1801), 2:265 The Jungle (Sinclair), 4:2, 20 Kalman, Laura, 2:168–169 Kansas-Nebraska Act, 3:28 Karlsen, Carol, 1:261 Katsinas (ceremonial spirits), 1:71 Kelly, Abby, 3:74 Kennan, George, 4:170, 182 Kennedy, Anthony M., 4:275, 280 Kennedy, John F., 3:242, 4:172–173, 202, 208, 210, 220, 259 Kennedy, Rick, 1:103–109, 120–127, 2:163–170 Kennedy, Robert F., 4:234 Kentucky Resolution (Jefferson), 2:175, 247, 2:247, 269, 3:190 Kentucky rifle introduction, 2:71 Kerber, Linda, 2:189, 196 Kerner Commission Report, 4:240 Kerry, John, 4:229 A Key into the Language of America (Williams), 1:186 Khrushchev, Nikita, 4:172–173 Kieft, Willem, 1:201–202 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 2:169, 225, 239, 244, 245–246, 253–255, 264 King George’s War (1743–1748), 2:73, 87 King Philip’s War (1675–1676), 1:186, 213–231, 263 Bacon’s Rebellion association with, 1:247 Church, Benjamin, 1:223–224 defeat of Algonquins, 1:220–221 Great Swamp Fight, 1:215, 217–218, 223, 225 Massasoit Peace Treaty (document), 1:230–231 Metacom (ca. 1638–1676), 1:224–226 Mohawk Indians and, 1:215 Narragansett Indians and, 1:213–214 Narragansetts, 1:226–227 overview, 1:213–216 Powhatan confederacy depopulation, 215–216 Rowlandson, Mary, 1:227–228 Savage, Thomas Savage, 1:214 Siry’s interpretive essay, 1:216–222 triggering event, 1:223 Wampanoag Indians, 1:126, 214, 217, 223, 228–230

INDEX

King William’s War (1689–1697), 1:49–50, 248– 250, 2:73 King’s Mountain (NC) battle, 2:146 Kinnersley, Ebenezer, 2:29 Kinsey, Alfred, 4:257 Kipling, Rudyard, 3:273 Kissinger, Henry, 4:173, 222, 282 “Kitchen Cabinet” (of Jackson), 3:126 Kiva ceremony (Hopis), 1:71 Knights of Labor (labor union), 3:161–162 Knox, Hugh, 2:226 Knox, Lucy Flucker, 2:195 Kongo Empire slave trading posts, 1:151 Korean War, 4:171, 175, 190–193, 202, 219 Kramer, Carl E., 2:49–57 Kramer, Heinrich, 1:259 Krol, Bastiaen Jansen, 1:194 Ku Klux Klan (KKK), 3:213, 221 La Farge, Oliver, 1:72 La Follette, Robert “Fighting Bob” (1855–1925), 4:15–16 Labor practices/unions, Industrial Revolution era, 3:161, 168, 170, 178–179 Lachine Massacre, 1:249 Ladies Association of Philadelphia, 2:145 “A Lady’s Adieu to Her Tea-Table” poem, 2:194 Lake George, Battle of, 2:75 Lamb, John, 2:108 Laos, 4:219 Larsen, Nella, 4:58 Latin America, 1:96, 2:2 anti-Napoleonic movements, 3:87 Franco-Spanish military expedition, 3:89 Holy Alliance interest in, 3:92–93 progressive revolutionaries, 2:166 Roosevelt’s involvement with, 3:96 slave labor colonies in, 1:156 Spanish-American War origination, 3:274 U.S. protection for, 3:104 U.S./Great Britain’s interests, 3:88, 91 See also Bolívar, Simón; Monroe Doctrine Latin Christian Church, 1:167 Laurens, Henry, 2:147 Lawrence, William Van Duzer, 4:131 Lay, Benjamin, 3:69 League of Nations, 4:16, 25–26, 26, 39–40, 85 Lecompton Constitution, 3:191 Lectures on History and General Policy (Priestley), 2:38 Lectures on Revivals (Finney), 3:18 Lectures on Systematic Theology (Finney), 3:18 Lee, Arthur, 2:140 Lee, Gen. Charles, 2:202

I-19

Lee, Gen. Robert E., 194, 201–202, 207 Lee, Richard Henry, 2:161, 163, 182, 253 See also Resolution Proposing a Declaration of Independence Lee, Robert E., 3:143 LeFeber, Walter, 3:240 Legal Defense Fund (NAACP), 4:237 Legal Realism at Yale, 1927–1960 (Kalman), 2:168–169 Legal Tender Act (1862), 3:197 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 2:177 Leisler, Jacob, 1:236–237, 241–242, 250–251 Lend-Lease military aid bill, 4:105, 178 Leopard (British ship), 3:42–43 A Letter Concerning Toleration (Locke), 2:177 Letter on Science and the Perfectibility of Men (Jefferson), 2:43–44 Letters and Sketches of Sermons (Murray), 2:206 Letters from an American Farmer (Crevecoeur), 3:238–239 Levitt, Alfred and William, 4:132–134, 136–138 Levittowns (NY, NJ, PA), 4:132–134, 136–137, 144 Lewis, David Levering, 4:59 Lewis, Meriwether, 3:25, 35 See also Lewis and Clark expedition Lewis and Clark expedition (1803–1806), 3:35–36 “Corps of Discovery” exploration, 3:25, 35 journal excerpts, 3:38–39 Sacajawea’s assistance, 3:34, 37–38 York Clark’s assistance, 3:33–35 Lexington and Concord, Battle of,, 2:30, 35, 124–125, 130, 131–132, 153, 159, 171, 172 The Liberator (First Edition) excerpt, 3:66–67, 72, 78, 83–84 Liberia, 3:65–66 Liberty Bonds, 4:32 Liberty Party, 3:65, 67, 75, 79, 81–82 Light Brigade, 3:57 Limerick, Patricia Nelson, 3:241 Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963), 4:156 Lincoln, Abraham, 1:77, 3:204–207 Acts of Confiscation, 3:193 Amnesty and Reconstruction Proclamation, 3:211 appointment of Johnson, 3:226 assassination of, 3:207, 211, 218 on cause of Civil War, 1:160 Democratic Party vs., 3:185, 206 1860 presidential election, 3:191 Emancipation Proclamation, 1:160, 3:194, 195, 196, 206, 216 Gettysburg Address, 2:167, 3:198, 207 inauguration (1861), 3:192

I-20

INDEX

Mexican-American War opposition, 3:205 Republican abolitionist support, 3:194 rivalry with Cartwright, 3:16 Ten Percent Plan, 3:211 thoughts on Declaration of Independence, 2:167 Lindbergh, Charles, 4:134 Linnaeus, Carl, 2:29 Linnet British warship, 3:56 Little Belt (American vessel), 3:44 Little Big Horn, Battle of, 3:234, 245 Livingston, Robert R. (1746–1813), 2:173, 3:22, 36–37, 104 Lloyd, Henry D., 3:163 Locke, Alain, 4:58 Locke, John, 2:59, 143, 162, 176–178 See also Declaration of Independence Lockwood, W. J., 4:139 Locofoco Party, 3:128–129 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 3:271, 279 Logan, James, 2:25 Long, Huey “Kingfish,” 4:79, 83–84 Long Island (NY) suburbanization, 4:132–134 Looking Backward (Bellamy), 3:163 Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation (document, 1776), 2:156–157 Lords of Trade (1675), 1:239 Lords of Trade and Plantations, 1:246 Los Alamos, New Mexico (Manhattan Project), 4:149 Los Angeles Riots (1992), 4:247, 256 Louis XIV (French King), 1:49, 249 Louis XV (French King), 2:256 Louis XVIII (French King), 2:257–258 Louisiana Purchase (1803), 2:266, 3:21–39, 233 Clark, York, 3:33–35 initial steps, 3:24 Journals of Lewis and Clark, 3:38–39 land acquisitions, 3:26 Lewis and Clark expedition, 3:35–36 Livingston, Robert R., 3:36–37 overview, 3:21–24 role of Jefferson, 3:21 Sacajawea, 3:37–38 Siry’s interpretive essay, 3:24–31 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904, St. Louis), 3:267 Louisiana Territory, 2:175, 251 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 2:266, 3:21–22, 261 Loyola, Ignatius, 1:52 Luna y Arellano, Tristán de, 1:80, 83 Lundy’s Lane, Battle of (1814), 3:154 Luther, Martin, 1:83–84, 167, 172, 2:22 Lutheranism, 1:83–84, 2:50 Lyon, Matthew, 2:242, 269

Mabila, Battle of (Florida), 1:94 MacArthur, Douglas, 4:81–82, 122–125 MacArthur, Gen. Arthur, 3:275 MacArthur, Gen. Douglas, 4:81–82 Mackey, Thomas A. Jacksonian Democracy, 3:113–121 Stamp Act, 2:96–105 surrender of New Amsterdam, 1:197–205 Macomb, Alexander, 3:55, 56 Macon’s Bill No. 2, 3:43 Madison, James Federalists opposed by, 2:267, 3:50 resolutions penned by, 2:247 role in War of 1812, 3:45 sanctions against Great Britain, 3:25–26 Treaty of Ghent accepted by, 3:51 view of federal government, 3:123 Virginia Resolution, 2:247, 269 Madison, James (1751–1836), 2:217, 218, 227, 229–232 Magazines, American Revolution era, 2:188–189 Magic Electric Button (Columbian Exposition), 3:259 Magnalia Christi Americana (Cotton Mather), 1:267 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 3:272, 280 Main-Travelled Roads (Garland), 3:29 Malcolm, Pulteney, 3:57 Malcolm X, 4:247 Malenkov, George, 4:175 Manhattan Project (atomic bomb), 4:149, 161 Manifest destiny (1840s), 3:46 Manila Bay, Battle of, 3:283 Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building (Columbian Exposition), 3:261 Manufacturing Acts, 2:3 Mao Zedong, 4:171, 182–183 Marbury v. Madison, (Supreme Court decision), 2:265–266 March to the Sea (Sherman, 1864), 3:207–208 Marcos de Niza, Fray. See Fray Marcos Marcy, William L., 3:117–118 Marital rape, criminalization of, 4:260–261 Markham, Sir Clements Robert, 1:18 See also Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492) Marquette, Jacques, 1:36, 51–53 Marshall, George, 4:170, 182–183 Marshall, John, 2:240, 250, 266, 3:25, 70 Marshall, Thurgood, 4:237, 242 Marshall Plan, 4:115, 170–171, 175, 181 Martha’s Vineyard (Massachusetts), 1:117, 125 Martial law, 3:214 Martin, Joseph Plumb, 2:196

INDEX

Martin, Susannah, 1:258, 264 Marx, Karl (Marxism), 3:169–170, 4:177, 180 Mary II (English monarch), 1:236, 241, 243, 247 Mary III (English monarch), 1:178 The Mary Tyler Moore Show (TV show), 4:202 Maryland Act of Toleration (Lord Baltimore, 1649), 1:189–192 M*A*S*H (TV show), 4:202, 204 Massachusetts Bay Colony Court of Oyer and Terminer, 1:257, 262 founding by Puritans, 1:113 Gorton’s expulsion from, 1:175 growth phase, 1:102 Hutchinson’s expulsion from, 1:183 Phips’ service to, 1:249, 257, 258, 263, 271 Plymouth Colony merge with, 1:235–236 Puritan founding of, 1:113, 238 ruling by self-proclaimed “saints,” 1:168 separation of church and state, 1:264 Stone’s expulsion from, 1:119 structure/purpose of, 1:107 Williams’s expulsion from, 1:173, 187 Massachusetts Bay Company, 1:10, 102–105, 130–131, 168, 2:50 Massachusetts Government Act, 2:118 Massachusetts Justice Act, 2:123 Massasoit Peace Treaty (document), 1:230–231 Matanzas (Place of Killing), in Florida, 1:81 Mateo Sagasta, Praxedes, 3:276 Mather, Cotton (son of Increase), 1:123, 217, 260, 265, 266–268, 2:50 Mather, Increase (father of Cotton), 1:258, 268– 269 Mattox, Henry E., 2:119–126 Maximilian I (Spanish Emperor), 1:83, 95 Mayhew, Thomas, 1:117, 124–126 McCain, John, 4:229 McCall’s women’s magazines, 4:258 McCarthy, Eugene, 4:234 McCarthy, Joseph, 1:259, 262, 4:150, 160, 171, 182, 202 McCarthyism, 4:150, 171, 258 McCauley, Mary Ludwig Hays, 2:196 McClellan, Gen. George B., 3:156, 194, 201, 206, 229 McDougall, Alexander, 2:108 McFarlane, Robert, 4:276 McGinniss, Joe, 4:210 McGovern, George, 4:226 McGready, James, 3:8, 18–19 McHenry, James, 2:229, 244, 250 McKay, Claude, 4:54, 57, 59, 72–73 McKinley, William, 3:96, 274, 276–277, 279, 285–287, 4:1

I-21

McLaurin v. Oklahoma (Supreme Court decision), 4:243 McLuhan, Marshall, 4:207 McNamara, Robert, 4:220 Measles epidemic, 1:4 Meat Inspection Act (1906), 4:2, 18 Meat packing plants, 3:160 The Medium, or A Happy Teaparty play (Murray), 2:206 Megapolensis, Johannes, 1:208 Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions (Cotton Mather), 1:267 A Memorial Relating to the Kennebeck Indians (Sewall), 1:272 Mendoza, Antonio de, 1:57 Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro, 1:81, 85 colony maintained by, 1:87–88 defeat of French in St. Augustine, 1:86 expedition to Florida, 1:81, 85 post-death succession of, 1:90 St. Augustine christened by, 1:83, 85 Mennonites, 2:50 Mercantilism, 2:14 Acts of Trade (1660), 2:7 colonies development of, 2:1–2 described, 2:14 Great Britain’s policies, 2:3 Hat Act (1732), 2:3 Iron Act (1750), 2:3 Molasses Act (1733), 2:4, 5 Sugar Act (1764), 2:5 Woolens Act (1699), 2:3 See also Navigation Acts Meredith, James, 4:245 Metacom (ca. 1638–1676), 1:217, 224–226 attack of camp of, 1:219 English humiliation of, 1:216 murder of, 1:219 poisoning of brother of, 1:124 war with Puritans, 1:126, 217 Methodism, 2:47, 53, 56, 65, 150, 3:1, 2 See also Wesley, John Mexican-American War, 3:132, 137–158 Buena Vista, Battle of, 3:138, 140–141, 144, 152, 157, 203 Confederate involvement, 3:143 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 3:141, 143, 149, 154, 190 overview, 3:137–141 Polk, James, 3:152–154 Rakestraw’s interpretive essay, 3:141–149 Scott, Winfield, 3:154–156 Taylor, Zachary, 3:132, 133, 156–158 Wilmot Proviso (document), 3:158

I-22

INDEX

Mexico Aztec Empire, 1:98 gold and silver resources, 1:140 independence won from Spain, 3:137 “Middle Ground” legacy (French colonialism), 1:41 Middle Passage (of slave trade journey), 1:149– 150, 158 Middle Plantation Treaty (1677), 1:248 Middlekauff, Robert, 2:165 Midway, Battle of, 4:106 Military Affairs Committee, 4:42 Military Reconstruction Act of March 1867, 3:214 Miller, Perry, 1:260 Mining phase of Western settlement, 3:233–234 Minor, Elizabeth Montague, 2:203–204 Minuit, Peter, 1:193, 210–211 New Netherland Colony service, 1:193, 199, 200 purchase of Manhattan Island, 1:209 Swedish South Company service, 1:195 Mississippi Rifles Unit (Civil War), 3:203 Mississippi River Valley exploration, 1:50–52 Mississippian culture, 1:17–18 Missouri Compromise (1820), 1:160, 3:27–28, 148, 191–192 Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 4:242 “Model of Christian Charity” essay (Winthrop), 1:103, 104, 106, 108, 109 Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (Farnham), 4:257 Mogollon culture, 1:14 Mohawk Indians, 1:118, 215 Mohawk tribe (of Iroquois nation), 1:42 Mohegan tribe, 1:227 Moki (Moqui) Indians. See Hopi Indians (“Peaceful People”) Molasses Act document (1733), 2:4, 5, 8, 18–20, 94 Monmouth, Battle of, 2:196, 202 Monroe, James, 2:278, 3:22, 26, 36, 103–105, 126 Monroe Doctrine (1823), 3:87–107 Adams, John Quincy, 3:99–101 basic points, 3:89–90 Bolívar, Simón, 3:101–103 Felten’s interpretive essay, 3:90–97 Monroe, James, 3:103–105 Monroe Doctrine document, 3:105–107 overview, 3:87–90, 171 Roosevelt, Theodore, 3:96–97 Roosevelt Corollary, 3:96 Montcalm-Gozon, Louis-Joseph de, 2:72, 77, 84–85 Montesquieu, Baron de, 2:215 Montgomery, Richard, 2:152–153 Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956), 4:238, 251

Moore, James, 1:92 Moral Majority (Falwell), 4:279 Moravians, 2:50, 189 More Wonders of the Invisible World (Calef ), 1:260 Morgan, Edmund S., 1:121 Morgan, J. P., 3:163–164, 4:2, 6 Mormonism, 3:13–14 Morrill Land-Grant College Act, 3:196–197 Morris, Gouvernor (NY State), 3:36 Morse, Jedediah, 2:149 Môrtefontaine, Treaty of (1800), 2:252 Morton, Levi, 3:259 Moseley, Capt. Samuel, 1:218 Motherhood in the colonial era, 2:203–205 Mott, Lucretia, 3:78 Moyne, Pierre le, 1:36 Mr. Cotton’s Letter Lately Printed, Examined, and Answered (Williams), 1:186 MTV TV show, 4:207 Muckrakers, 4:1 Munford, Robert, 2:148 Murray, Donald Gaines, 4:242 Murray, Judith Sargent, 2:189, 198, 205–206 Murray, William Vans, 2:249 Murray v. Maryland (Supreme Court decision), 4:237, 242 Murrow, Edward R., 4:206 Mutiny Act, 1:235 Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), 4:155–156 My Lai massacre (Vietnam War), 4:227 The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction (Trend), 4:209 Nader, Ralph, 4:142, 144–146 Napoleon III, 3:95 Napoleonic Wars (1803–1805), 1:152, 3:41, 87 Narragansett tribe/group of tribes, 1:213–214, 226–227 Narváez, Pánfilo de, 1:56–57, 75 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 4:172 Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831), 1:152, 158–159, 3:72 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 2:169, 4:13, 52, 58–60, 59, 71–72, 237, 242 National Association Opposed to Women Suffrage (1911), 4:2 National Banking Acts (1863, 1864), 3:197 National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 4:201 National Educational Television (NET), 4:201 National Intelligencer Offices, 3:58 National Labor Relations (or Wagner) Act (1935), 4:78 National Organization for Women (NOW), 4:259–260, 269

INDEX

National Park Service (1916), 4:13 National People’s Party (1892), 3:30 National Recovery Administration (NRA), 4:78, 82, 84, 87 National Right to Life Committee, 4:261 National Security Council (NSC), 4:276 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 4:135, 142 National Urban League (NUL), 4:58, 59 Native Americans Algonquins, 1:12–13, 40, 42, 47, 117, 217–218, 220–221 Anasazi culture, 1:13–15 Battle of Pavonia, 1:202 Cabeza de Vaca’s interactions with, 1:67 Cartier’s interactions with, 1:45–46 CCC programs for, 4:77 Christianity and, 1:10–11 Connecticut Indians, 1:218 conversion to Roman Catholicism, 1:41–42 Coronado’s interactions with, 1:58, 62, 63 decapitation of women prisoners, 1:218 displacement threats, 2:11 Dreamer Religion, 3:244 English thoughts about, 1:216 epidemic diseases of, 1:4, 6–7, 11, 40, 128–129 Five Nations of the Iroquois, 1:216–217 Florida tribes, 1:79 French interaction with, 1:35, 38, 39–40 Ghost Dance religion, 3:29, 235, 243–245, 248, 250, 251 Hopi Indians, 1:68, 71–73 Huron nation, 1:38, 47 impact of gold prospecting on, 3:29 impact of War of 1812, 3:45 Indian War (1675–1676), 1:247 Iroquois nations, 1:38, 42 Jesuit missionaries and, 1:36, 40, 42–43 Louisiana Purchase era, 3:27 Mohawk tribe, 1:42, 118, 215 new animals incorporated by, 1:9–10 Pawnee Indians, 1:58, 63 Peoria Indians, 1:51 Prophet Dances, 3:244 Pueblo Revolt, 1:72–73, 76 religious traditions, 1:5–6 Rowlandson captured by, 1:228 Seminole Indians, 3:47 Seminole Wars, 1:95 slash-and-burn agriculture, 1:5 tribal intermarriages, 1:10 tribal-restructuring, 1:7–8 Wampanoag Indians, 1:126, 214, 217, 223, 228–230

I-23

Wichita Indians, 1:64 Wounded Knee massacre, 3:245 Zuni Indians, 1:68–69, 76–78 See also French and Indian War Native Americans, European encounters with, 1:117–134 Naturalization Act, 2:241, 246 Naval War College (U.S.), 3:272 Navigation Act (1651), 1:203, 234, 2:2 Navigation Act (1660), 2:2, 14 Navigation Act (1696), 1:237, 243–244, 2:2, 7 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (1939), 4:86, 179 “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (Hughes), 4:55 Nelson, Horatio, 3:41 Neutrality Acts, 4:86, 105 Neutrality theories, 3:45–46 New Amsterdam, surrender of (1664), 1:193–212 Anglo-Dutch Wars, 1:206 Dutch East India Company, 1:206–207 Dutch Reformed Church, 1:207–208, 212 Dutch West India Company, 1:118, 136, 208–210 Mackey’s interpretive essay, 1:197–205 Minuit, Peter, 1:210–211 overview, 1:193–197 Stuyvesant, Peter, 1:195–196, 200–205, 211–212 New Deal (1930s, FDR), 4:12, 77, 93–98 Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 4:82–83, 84 Civilian Conservation Corps, 4:77, 87 National Recovery Administration, 4:78, 82, 84, 87 opposition to, 4:79 programs created by, 4:77–78, 82–85 Social Security Act, 4:84 suburban housing boom, 4:132 weakening policies of, 4:83 Works Progress Administration, 4:78, 79, 84, 87 New England centrality of religion in, 1:82, 101 Champlain’s voyages, 1:47 conversions of Native Americans, 1:10–11 Dominion of, creation of, 1:239 Indian-white distrust, 1:118 King Philip’s War and, 1:186, 213–231 Narragansett tribe/group of tribes, 1:213–214, 226–227 Native American tribes, 1:5, 8–9, 118–119 Pequot Indians-white battles, 1:120 Pilgrim settlements, 1:102, 113 Puritan colonies in, 1:103, 113 Quakers, 1:106

I-24

INDEX

Salem witch trials, 1:82 slavery population, 1:138 smallpox epidemic, 1:120 New England Anti-Slavery Society (1832), 3:67 New France, 1:35–36, 38–44, 2:69, 72, 80 See also Buade, Louis de; Champlain, Samuel de New Freedom program (Wilson), 4:3 “New Frontier” slogan (JFK), 3:242 New Harmony community, 3:5 New Jersey Plan (document), 2:220, 234–236 New Jewel Movement (Grenada), 4:281 New Left activism, 4:141 New Light Party, 2:54–55, 57 New Light Presbyterians, 2:38, 55, 56–57, 3:7, 15 The New Negro (Locke), 4:54 New Negro Movement. See Harlem Renaissance New Netherland Colony, 1:7, 118 Dutch vs. English in, 1:196–197, 201, 203–205 Dutch West India Company and, 1:193–194, 200, 208–209 English takeover of, 1:197 establishment of, 1:199 Kieft’s service in, 1:201–202 Minuit’s service in, 1:199, 200, 210–211 patroonships in, 1:210 relations with Native Americans, 1:118, 202 slavery in, 1:137 Stuyvesant’s service in, 1:211–212 Van Twiller’s service in, 1:195, 200–201 Verhurst’s service in, 1:199 New Netherland Company, 1:198 New Orleans, Battle of (1815), 3:51–52, 54–55, 60, 110–111, 125, 145 New Orleans, settlement of, 1:36 New Sweden Colony, 1:194, 195, 197, 211–212 New World Cartier’s voyages to, 1:37, 45–46 Champlain’s voyages to, 1:47 Christianity in, 1:10 Columbian exchange and, 1:8–10 Columbus’s voyages to, 1:3, 4 Cortez’s plundering of, 1:59–60 epidemic diseases in, 1:11, 40 French colonization, 1:33, 37, 39–41 Italian expeditions to, 1:99 Marquette’s voyages to, 1:52 plantation economy, 1:149 Spanish colonization, 1:73–76, 83, 87–90 See also Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492) New York Gazette article (1764), 2:94 New York Stock Exchange, 4:80 Newton, Sir Isaac, 1:268, 2:22–23, 59 Niagara Movement (1905), 4:13

Niantic Indians, 1:131, 1:227 Nicholson, Francis, 1:236, 240–241, 250–251 Nicolls, Colonel Richard, 1:204 Nielsen, A. C. (1897–1980), 4:217–218 Nielsen (TV rating) Company, 4:203–204, 207 Niña (ship of Columbus), 1:4, 16 Nineteenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:4, 34, 263 Nixon, Richard, 4:209–211, 239 Consumer Product Safety Act, 4:135 “detente” policy, 4:173 Moscow mission, 4:140 SALT I treaty, 4:176 Nixon Doctrine, 4:183 No Child Left Behind Act (2001), 4:284 Norse people, 1:2 North, Col. Oliver, 4:276 See also Iran-Contra Scandal North, Lord Frederick, 2:108, 115, 128, 142 See also East India Company North America archaeological evidence, 1:2 Cabeza de Vaca’s crossing of, 1:67 England’s colonization efforts, 1:99–116 English NA, religious toleration, 1:167–192 English resettlement in, 1:35 French resettlement in, 1:37 indigenous peoples of, 1:1 introduction of slavery, 1:135–165 smallpox epidemic, 1:4, 40, 128–129 See also Enlightenment in North America; Religious toleration, English North America North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 4:284 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 4:115, 171, 177, 180 North Caucus Club (political group), 2:130 North Star periodical (Douglass), 3:67 Northern Securities Company railroad trust, 4:2 Northwest Indians, 3:49 Northwest Passage, 1:207 Notes on the State of Virginia (Jefferson), 2:174, 3:169 Noyes, John Humphrey, 3:5 Nuclear freeze movement, 4:164 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968), 4:151, 158 Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), 4:150 Nullification Document (document, 1832), 3:134–135 Nurse, Rebecca, 1:258, 1:259, 264–265 Oberlin College, 3:73 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 4:262, 275, 280, 288–290

INDEX

Office of Price Administration (OPA, WW II), 4:108 Office of War Information (WW II), 4:113 Office of War Mobilization (OWN, WW II), 4:107–108 O’Higgins, Bernardo, 3:87 Okeechobee, Battle of, 3:156 Old Fuss and Feathers. See Scott, Winfield Old Light Party, 2:54–55, 57, 63 Old Northwest Territory, 3:2 Old Rough and Ready. See Taylor, Zachary Oldham, John, 1:119 Olive Branch Petition (1775), 2:125, 160, 171, 179–181 Oliver, Andrew, 2:96–97, 127 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 3:253, 259–260, 267–269 Olney, Richard, 3:96 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1987), 4:279 “On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry” sermon (Tennent), 2:53, 55 “On the Equality of the Sexes” essay (Murray), 2:189, 198 Opechancanough, 1:121, 122, 129–130, 216 Open Door note (1900), 3:278–279 Open Door Policy (Eastern Europe), 4:177 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 4:160, 165–166 Orange County Revolutionary Committee of Safety, 2:230 Orders-in-Council decrees, 3:41 Ordinance of Secession (South Carolina, 1860), 3:208–209 Oregon Territory, 3:44, 94, 148 Oregon Trail, 3:143 Oregon Treaty (1864), 3:233 Origin of Species (Darwin), 3:273 The Origins of American Politics (Bailyn), 2:11 O’Sullivan, John L., 3:137, 142, 237 Oswald, Richard, 2:147 Otis, James, 2:107 Our Country: It’s Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (Strong), 3:273 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 2:266, 3:21–22, 261 Owen, Robert, 2:166, 167 Owens, Robert Dale, 3:128 See also Locofoco Party Pacific Railroad Act, 3:197 Packard, Vance, 4:138, 140 Paine, Thomas, 2:125, 161, 226, 3:99, 103 See also Common Sense pamphlet Pakenham, Sir Edward, 3:54, 55 Palmer, Bertha, 3:256, 260 Pan-Americanism, 3:255

I-25

Panama Canal, 3:279, 280, 4:18 Paris, Treaty of (1763), 1:44, 2:12, 72, 79, 87, 140, 171, 239, 253, 3:36 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 3:274, 278 Paris Peace Agreement, 4:222 Parker, Alice, 1:264 Parks, Rosa, 4:258 Parris, Betty, 1:255, 262 Parris, Reverend Samuel, 1:255–256, 262, 265 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 4:151 Pate, John, 1:233 Paths of Glory (war movie), 4:224 Patterson, Daniel Todd, 3:55 Pavonia, Battle of (1643), 1:202 Pawnee Indians, 1:58, 63 PAYGO system (Bush, G.H.W.), 4:283–284 Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909), 4:3 Peace Democrats, 3:218 Peace of Amboise (1563), 1:84 Pearl Harbor attack, 4:106, 107, 110–111, 126–127 Pelham-Holles, Thomas, 2:6, 14–16 Penn, William adoption of Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, 1:191 founding of Pennsylvania, 1:178 landownership rights and, 1:106, 170–171, 179, 239 slavery views of, 1:138 See also Quakers (Society of Friends) Pennsylvania emancipation statute, 2:145–146 Ladies Association (Philadelphia), 2:145 Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges (1701), 1:191 Pennsylvania Railroad, 3:175 Pennsylvania Society for Abolition, 2:194 Pentecostal Protestants, 2:56 People’s Party (Populist Party), 1:95 Peoria Indians, 1:51 Pequot Indian tribe (Connecticut), 1:118–119, 120 Pequot War (1636–1637), 1:118, 130–131, 156, 213, 218 Perdisatt, Kathleen, 1:120–127 Perry, Oliver Hazard (1785–1819), 3:60–62 Pershing, Gen. John J. (1860–1948), 4:26, 40–43 See also American Expeditionary Force Peterson, Merrill, 3:31 Philadelphia Young Ladies’ Academy, 2:190 Philip II (Spanish King), 1:80–81, 83–85 Philippine-American War (1899–1902), 3:287–288 Philippines. See Spanish-American War (1898–1910)

I-26

INDEX

Philips vs. Martin Marietta (Supreme Court decision), 4:261 Phillips, Wendell, 3:78 Phips, Sir William, 1:249, 257, 258, 263, 265, 271 Pickering, Timothy, 2:229, 244, 249–250, 250 Pierce, Franklin, 3:155, 203 Pietism, 2:46–47, 49, 50 Pike, Zebulon, 3:25 “Pikes Beak or Bust!” slogan, 3:233 Pilgrims, 1:112–113 break with Church of England, 1:112 New England settlements, 1:102 Plymouth Rock landing, 1:82, 113 Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 2:240, 243, 244, 263, 271, 280–281 Pinckney’s Treaty (1795), 3:22 Pinta (ship of Columbus), 1:4, 16 Pitcher, Molly. See McCauley, Mary Ludwig Hays Pitt, William, 2:5, 18, 72, 73, 78, 80, 85–87, 103 Pizarro, Francisco, 1:74 Plains Indians, 1:6 Plan for Improving Female Education (Clinton), 2:208 “Plan of Chicago” (Burnham), 3:265 Planned Parenthood of Southern Pennsylvania v. Casey (Supreme Court decision), 4:261–262 Plantation economy (New World), 1:149 Platt Amendment, 3:96 Plattsburgh, Battle of (1814), 3:55–57 Plessy v. Ferguson (Supreme Court decision), 4:12, 237, 241 Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts), 1:82, 102, 117, 120, 123–124, 134, 223, 235–236 Pochahontas, 1:82, 121–122, 131–132 See also Rolfe, John; Smith, Capt. John Poetry, of Phillis Wheatley, 2:193–194 Poindexter, John, 4:276 See also Iran-Contra Scandal Polk, Gen. Leonidas, 3:192 Polk, James K., 3:117 biographical information, 3:152–154 Buena Vista, Battle of, 3:153 Davis’ support of, 3:203 expansionist ideas, 3:139 Independent Treasury Act, 3:154 Mexican-American War association, 3:143–149 Monroe Doctrine association, 3:90, 96, 144–149 presidency, 3:67, 81, 94–95, 131, 139 protection of Texas, 3:140 See also Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of Ponce de Léon, Juan, 1:97–98 arrival in West Indies, 1:55 financial ruin of, 1:83

Gulf Coast Florida discovery, 1:74, 79, 83 indigenous people confrontations, 1:75 naming of Florida, 1:94 Pontiac (Indian Chief ), 2:93, 97 Poor Richard’s Almanack (Franklin), 2:34 Populist Party (1892), 3:30, 239 Port Bill (Boston), 2:123 Port Huron Statement, 4:140, 141 Portuguese slave trade, 1:70, 149–150 Post, George B., 3:255 Posterior Analytics (Aristotle), 2:168 Postman, Neil, 4:207 Potsdam Conference, 4:178 Powhatan Confederacy, 1:131, 143, 215–216 Powhatan Indians, 1:121–122, 129, 130–133 See also Opechancanough Powhatan War, 1:248 Prasch, Thomas A., 2:5–12 Pratt, Julius W., 3:280 Preble warship, 3:56 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52–53, 53, 3:1 Prescott, Col. William, 2:153 The Presidency of Andrew Jackson (Cole), 3:117 President (American vessel), 3:44 President’s Commission on the Status of Women, 4:269–271 Prevost, Sir George, 3:55 Price-Anderson Act (1957), 4:152 Priestley, Joseph (1733–1804), 2:37–40 Princeton, Battle of, 2:148 Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) issue, 4:228 Privy Council, 1:239, 242 Proclamation of 1763, 2:93–94, 97 Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (Lincoln), 3:211 Proclamation of Neutrality (Washington, 1793), 2:258–259 Proclamation of Rebellion (1775, George III), 2:155–156 Proctor, John and Elizabeth, 1:258, 264 Progress and Poverty (George), 3:162 Progressive Party, 4:3, 16, 44 Progressivism (1901–1914), 3:170, 4:1–21 anti-corruption mayors, 4:1 anti-suffrage movement, 4:2 Credit Mobilier scandal, 4:5 education’s importance, 4:8–9 growth of national wealth, 4:8 Hague’s interpretive essay, 4:5–13 La Follette, Robert “Fighting Bob,” 4:15–16 overview, 4:1–5 Payne-Aldrich Tariff, 4:3 political reforms, 4:4, 10–11, 11–12

INDEX

Progressive Party, 4:3, 16, 44 Roosevelt, Theodore, 4:3, 13, 16–18 Settlement House movement, 4:11, 18–19 Sinclair, Upton, 4:1–2, 19–21 Social Gospel movement, 4:7, 9 Underwood Tariff, 4:3 Prohibition legislation, 4:34 Project C (confrontation), 4:246 Prophet Dances (Native Americans), 3:244 Prosser, Gabriel, 1:152 Protestant-Catholic War (1593–1598), 1:47 Protestant Reformation, 1:100 Protestantism, 1:34, 140, 169, 235, 239, 243, 2:67, 3:5, 7, 17 Protests, by women, 2:187, 191 Prussia, Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:87 Public Broadcasting System (PBS), 4:201 Public Interest Research Group (Nader), 4:145 Pueblo Revolt (1680), 1:72–73, 76 Pulitzer, Joseph, 3:274, 276 Pullman Strike (1894, Chicago suburbs), 4:7 Pure Food and Drug Act, 4:18 Puritan Revolution, 2:50 Puritans Act of Toleration accepted by, 1:183 Andros’ leadership of, 1:240 Calvinist Puritans, 1:168–169 campaign against Indians, 1:220 conflict with Catholicism, 1:102 dissatisfaction with Elizabethan Compromise, 1:168 education valued by, 1:107–108 “experimental” Puritanism, 2:52 King Philip’s War and, 1:221 Massachusetts Bay Colony founded by, 1:113, 238 Massachusetts covenants, 1:107 Metacom’s war with, 1:126 New England colonies, 1:103, 113 non-Puritans vs., 2:45 “praying towns” established by, 1:10 Rogers’ ideas rejected by, 1:169 Salem witch trials and, 1:260, 269–271 slavery justified by, 1:138 See also Cromwell, Oliver; Edwards, Jonathan; Winthrop, John Putnam, Ann, Jr., 1:262 Putnam, Frederick War, 3:256 Quadruple Alliance (in Europe), 3:87 Quakers (Society of Friends), 1:170, 184–185 anti-slavery stance, 1:138, 3:69 beliefs of, 1:138, 178–180 emergence of, 1:178

I-27

Fox’s founding of, 1:184–185 friendship with Indians, 1:106 girls schools, 2:189 opposition to Penn, 1:171 Stuyvesant’s opposition to, 1:212 Williams’ defense of, 1:187 See also Penn, William Quartering Act (1765), 2:102, 118 Quasi-War (1798–1800), 2:241, 248, 250–251, 256, 263, 3:60 Quebec Act, 2:118 Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713), 1:224, 2:9, 73 Quivira (golden city), 1:58, 63–64, 65, 69 Race riots, 4:53 Radical Republicans, 3:213–214, 218, 228–230 The Radicalism of the American Revolution (Wood), 2:166 Radio Corporation of American (RCA), 4:200 Railroad Administration, 4:25 Railroads, 3:165, 175, 196, 197, 221, 237 Rain-in-the-Face (Native American chief ), 3:29 Rainey, Ma, 4:55 Rakestraw, Donald A., 3:141–149 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1:101, 113–114 Ramsay, David, 2:149 Randolph, A. Philip, 4:58 Randolph, Gov. Edmund, 2:218 Rawls, John, 2:169 Reagan, Ronald, 3:242, 4:143, 146, 152, 155, 227, 240, 288–290 Reagan Revolution (1981–1989), 4:273–293 attacks on communism, 4:275 criticism of Carter, 4:275 INF treaty, 4:152, 174, 277 Iran-Contra Scandal, 4:276, 288 legislation, 4:279 meeting with Gorbachev, 4:277 myth vs. fact basis, 4:283 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 4:262, 275, 280, 288–290 overview, 4:273–277 Staten’s interpretive essay, 4:277–284 Strategic Defense Initiative, 4:152, 155, 174, 276, 282 See also Bush, George H. W.; Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) “Reaganomics” (economics), 4:274 The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures (Locke), 2:178 “Reconcentrado” camps (Spanish-American War), 3:275 Reconstruction era (1863–1876), 3:211–231 Black Codes, 3:213, 218, 220

I-28

INDEX

Civil Rights Act (1866), 3:198, 219 Committee on the Conduct of the War, 3:229 election of 1876, 3:225 Freedman’s Bureau, 3:212, 219, 220 Hayes, Rutherford, 3:211, 215, 223, 225 Johnson, Andrew, 3:226–228 Ku Klux Klan, 3:213, 221 overview, 3:216–224 Peace Democrats, 3:218 Radical Republicans, 3:213–214, 218, 228–230 Redemption Democrats, 3:215 “Rehearsal for Reconstruction,” 3:217 Stevens, Thaddeus, 3:230–231 term derivation, 3:216 Tilden, Samuel J., 3:25, 215, 223 Wade-Davis Bill, 3:211, 227 Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), 4:76–77 Red Fox of Kinderhook. See Van Buren, Martin Red Scare (communist scare), 1:262 Reed, Ester DeBert, 2:196 Reform Act (1832), 2:10 Rehnquist, William, 4:275 Relación de la Jornada de Cíbola (Castañeda), 1:70 Religion Calvinism, 1:34, 172, 2:27, 49, 66, 3:1 Deism, 3:7 Jewish people, 1:170, 175 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52–53, 3:1 Protestantism, 1:34, 140, 169, 235, 239, 2:67, 3:5, 7, 17 Unitarianism, 3:3 See also Christianity; Religious revivalism; Roman Catholic Church Religious History of the American People (Ahlstrom), 3:1 Religious revivalism, 2:46–47, 66, 3:3, 4 appeal of, 3:10–13 consequences of, 3:13–14 Finney’s writings on, 3:18 origins/spread of, 3:6–10, 71 women and, 3:12 See also Cartwright, Peter; Edwards, Jonathan; Finney, Charles Grandison Religious Right politics (U.S.), 4:263, 279 Religious toleration, English North America (1636–1701), 1:167–192 Bloudy Tenet of Persecution excerpt, 1:187–189 Calvert, Cecil, 1:181–183 Hutchinson, Anne, 1:183–184 Maryland Act of Toleration (document), 1:189–192 overview, 1:167–171

Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges excerpt, 1:192 Rhode Island colony, 1:169, 171–173, 175–176 Society of Friends (Quakers), 1:184–185 Woods’ interpretive essay, 1:171–180 See also Williams, Roger Religious traditions Anglican Church, 1:234–235, 244, 2:27, 47, 51, 55 Baptist Church, 2:48 Calvinism, 1:34, 172, 2:27, 49 Congregationalists (“Old Lights”), 2:48 Dutch Reformed Church, 1:207–208, 212, 2:49, 61 early Native Americans, 1:5–6 Halfway Covenant, 2:45, 51, 55 Methodism, 2:47, 53, 56, 65 New Light Presbyterians, 2:38, 55, 56–57 Pentecostal Protestants, 2:56 pietism, 2:46–47 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52, 53 Protestantism, 1:34, 140, 169, 235, 239, 2:67 revivalism, 2:46–47 of slaves, Great Awakening era, 2:62–63 Remarkable Providences (Increase Mather), 1:268 “Remember the Ladies” letter (Adams), 2:209 Remini, Robert V., 3:120 Renaissance (Europe), 1:135, 2:22–23 Report of Government for the Western Territory (Jefferson), 2:174 Report on Manufactures (Hamilton, 1791), 2:228 Republican Motherhood (1780–1820), 2:187–209 Adams, Abigail, 2:200–202, 209 Hays, Mary Ludwig, 2:202–203 motherhood in the colonial era, 2:203–205 Murray, Judith Sargent, 2:205–206 name derivation, 2:187 overview, 2:187–191 religious links, 2:190–191 “Remember the Ladies” letter (Adams), 2:209 Ryan’s interpretive essay, 2:191–198 Sampson, Deborah, 2:206–207 Willard, Emma, 2:207–209 Resolution Proposing a Declaration of Independence (Richard Henry Lee), 2:182 Resolutions of Stamp Act Congress (document, 1765), 2:110–112 Revenue Act (1762), 2:5 Revenue Act (1942), 4:108 Revere, Paul, 2:119, 130–132 Revivalism. See Religious revivalism Revolution of 1800, 2:263–282 Burr, Aaron, role, 2:275–277 Democratic-Republican Party, 2:277–278

INDEX

Federalist Party, 2:278–280 Felten’s interpretive essay, 2:266–274 Jefferson’s viewpoint, 2:266–267 name derivation, 2:264 overview, 2:263–266 Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 2:280–281 Twelfth Amendment (document), 2:281–282 Revolving Old Age Pension Plan (Townsend), 4:79 Rhode Island colony, 1:169 Council of War/Town Council, 1:218 founding of, 1:171–173 governing difficulties, 1:175–176 Ribault, Jean, 1:34, 81, 84 Rights of Man (Paine), 3:99 The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (Davis), 3:204 The Rise of the New West (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:250 Rittenhouse, David, 2:25, 29 Roanoke (Virginia) Colonies (1585, 1587), 1:114–115 “Robber barons.” See Carnegie, Andrew; Morgan, J. P.; Rockefeller, John D. Roberval, Jean-François de La Rocque de, 1:46 Robeson, Paul, 4:55 Robespierre, Maximilien, 2:257 Robinson, Bill “Bojangles,” 4:55 Rockefeller, John D., 4:6 Rockingham, Marquis of, 2:103–104 Roe v. Wade (Supreme Court decision), 4:261 Rogers, Robert (1731–1795), 1:223, 2:87–89 Rolfe, John, 1:132, 139, 156 See also Pochahontas Rolling Stone magazine, 4:141 Roman Catholic Church, 1:34, 36 encumbrances of, 2:51 England, 16th century, 1:167–168, 170, 172 James’ conversion to, 1:239 Native American’s conversions, 1:41–42 Protestant Church vs., 1:47 Spanish colonization and, 1:74 Roosevelt, Franklin D. (FDR, 1882–1945), 3:241, 275, 98–102 Atlantic Charter, 4:110 “bank holiday” declared by, 4:77 Executive Order 9066 (1942), 4:109 federal judge appointments, 4:84–85 initial view on WW II, 4:110 Lend-Lease bill, 4:105–106 Manhattan Project authorization, 4:149 Neutrality Acts, 4:86, 105 presidential victory, 4:79, 82 Victory Program (WW II), 4:112 See also New Deal

I-29

Roosevelt, Theodore, 3:96–97, 145, 240, 279, 283, 4:3, 13, 16–18 See also Rough Riders Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, 3:96 Roosevelt Field Shopping Center (LI, NY), 4:134 Root, John Welborn, 3:254 Rosenberg, Ethel and Julius, 4:171 Roth, Philip, 4:138 Rough Riders, 3:288–289, 4:42 See also Roosevelt, Theodore Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778), 2:40–42 Rowlandson, Mary, 1:220, 227–228 Royal Society of London, 2:25, 28, 33 Rudiments of English Grammar (Priestley), 2:38 Runaway servants, 1:154–156 Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 2:187, 190 Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 3:44 Russia defeat by Napoleon, 2:257 Holy Alliance membership, 3:92 Monroe’s warnings to, 3:93–94 Pitt’s aid to, 2:72 Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:88 U.S. tensions with, 3:91 Russian Revolution (1917), 4:39 Russo-Japanese War, 4:18, 42 Ryan, Kelly A., 2:191–198 Ryswick Treaty, 1:250 Sacajawea (d. 1812), 3:34, 37–38 Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572), 1:34 Salem witch trials (1692), 1:82, 255–275 Death Warrant of Five Women Convicted of Witchcraft, 1:274–275 Mather, Cotton, 1:266–268 Mather, Increase, 1:268–269 overview, 1:255–259 Puritan family, 1:269–271 Sewall, Samuel, 1:271–272 Stowell’s interpretive essay, 1:259–265 women tries as witches, 1:257–258, 264 Wonders of the Invisible World (Mather), 1:272–274 Salem Witchcraft (Upham), 1:260 Salons, establishment of, 2:28 SALT (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks), 4:151–152, 156 SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks), 4:151–152, 156 SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks), 4:151–152, 156, 173 Salutary Neglect, Era of (1720s-1750), 2:1–20 Board of Trade and Plantations, 2:13–14 Burke’s speech, 2:5–6

I-30

INDEX

mercantilism, 2:14 Molasses Act document, 2:18–20 overview, 2:1–5 Pelham-Holles, Thomas, 2:14–16 Prasch’s interpretive essay, 2:5–12 Walpole, Robert, 2:16–18 Sampson, Deborah, 2:206–207 Sampson, William T., 3:277 San Jacinto, Battle of, 3:138 San Martín, José de, 3:87, 102 Sand Creek Massacre, 3:234 Sands of Iwo Jima (war movie), 4:224 Sanitary Commission (U.S.), 3:198, 268 Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 3:138 Santa Domingo (Haiti) naval base, 3:21–22 Santa Maria, 1:3, 16 Saratoga, Battle of (1777), 2:36, 146, 147, 148 Saratoga warship, 3:56 Sassacus (Pequot chief ), 1:119 Savage, Capt. Thomas, 1:214 Scalia, Antonin, 4:275, 280 Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (Bradford), 3:82–83 Schechter v. U.S. (Supreme Court decision), 4:78, 84 Schlafly, Phyllis, 4:262, 264 Schley, Winfield Scott, 3:277 Schuyler, Gen. Philip John, 2:152 Schwenkfelders, 2:50 Scientific Revolution, 2:22–23, 28–30 See also Priestley, Joseph; Royal Society of London Scott, Thomas A., 3:175–176 Scott, Winfield, 3:134, 144, 152 See also Whig Party Searles, Robert, 1:92 Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667), 1:205 Second Bank of the United States, 3:124–125 Second Continental Congress (1775), 2:125, 128, 144, 146, 155, 159, 160, 163, 172–173, 178–179, 182, 211, 230, 239, 253, 255, 285 See also Declaration of Independence Second Continental Congress (1776), 2:35, 88, 3:36 Second Great Awakening, 2:54–55, 191, 3:1–19 Backus, Isaac, 3:15–16 Cartwright, Peter, 3:16–17 Crothers’ interpretive essay, 3:5–14 Finney, Charles Grandison, 3:17–18 McGready, James, 3:18–19 Old Northwest Territory, 3:2 origins, 3:1–2 overview, 3:1–5 revivalism during, 3:3, 4 upstate New York, 3:2, 5, 13

Second Seminole War, 1:95 Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), 4:78 Sedgewick, Theodore, 2:198 Sedition Act, 2:242, 246 Sedition Act (from Alien and Sedition Acts), 2:260–261 Sedition Slammers (vigilante group), 4:33 Selective Service Act (1917), 4:25–26 The Selling of Joseph (Sewall), 1:163–165, 272 The Selling of the President (McGinniss), 4:210 Seminole Indians, 3:47, 156 Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention (1848), 4:263 Settlement House movement, 4:11, 18–19 Settlement houses, 4:11 Seven Cities of Antillia, 1:59 Seven Cities of Cíbola, 1:57, 59–61, 68, 75–76 Seven Year’s War. See French and Indian War (1756–1763) Seventeenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:2–3 Sewall, Samuel, 1:163–165, 271–272 Seward, William Henry, 2:167, 3:95, 194 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Kinsey), 4:257 Shafter, Gen. William, 3:272, 277 “Share the Wealth” program (Long), 4:79 Shay’s Rebellion, 2:216, 227 Shelley v. Kraemer (Supreme Court decision), 4:139 Sherman, Gen. William T., 3:201 capture of Atlanta, 3:206 March to the Sea (1864), 3:207–208 Special Field Order No. 15, 3:217 Sherman, Roger, 2:173 Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890), 3:163, 4:2, 4 Shirley, Gov. William, 2:75, 77, 88 Shopping center development, 4:134 The Significance of Sections in American History (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:240 The Significance of the Frontier in American History (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:240, 248–249 Sigur, Hannah, 3:257–263 Silent Spring (Carson), 4:142 Sinclair, Upton, 4:1–2, 2, 19–21 “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” speech (Edwards), 2:46, 59–60 Sioux Indian War (1876–1877), 3:235, 245–246, 247 See also Sitting Bull (Native American chief ) Siry, Steven E. American Revolution essay, 2:143–150 King Philip’s War essay, 1:216–222 Lewis and Clark essay, 3:24–31

INDEX

Sitting Bull (Native American chief ), 3:29, 235, 246–248 See also Sioux Indian War Sixteenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:2–3, 11–12 Sixty Minutest (TV show), 4:203 Slash-and-burn agriculture, 1:5 Slaughter, Henry, 1:236 Slave religion, during the Great Awakening, 2:62–63 Slavery, North American introduction (1619), 1:135–165, 215 accidental introduction, 1:138–139 African slave trade, 1:140–141, 148–153 arrival in Jamestown, 1:136 colonial Virginia, mid-18th century, 1:161–163 end of, in America, 3:217 initial English resistance, 1:141 in Missouri, 3:26 in New Netherlands, 1:137 newspaper advertisements, 1:154 Puritan justification of slavery, 1:138 Quaker influence, 1:138 runaway servants, 1:154–156 The Selling of Joseph excerpt, 1:163–165 slavery, 1:156–161 Woods’ interpretive essay, 1:138–146 Slaves/slavery, 1:156–161 African slave trade, 1:148–153 Cartwright’s opposition to, 3:17 Christian conversion attempts, 2:62 Christian defense of, 3:3 effects of American Revolution on, 2:145 freeing of, 1:95 Ghana slave trading posts, 1:151 Haitian Revolution (1791), 1:152 historical background, 1:141–142, 145 indentured servitude vs., 1:144 Jefferson’s feelings about, 1:145–146, 2:221 of John Smith, 1:133 Middle Passage (of journey), 1:149–150, 158 Portuguese sale of, 1:70, 149 Portuguese slave trade, 1:70, 149–150 Quaker opposition to, 3:69 racism relation to, 1:141 rise of, 1:36 runaways, 1:154–156 Sewall’s opposition to, 1:272 Spanish capture/forcing of, 1:75 of Squanto, 1:134 Thirteenth Amendment and, 1:156, 160, 3:212, 219 See also Abolition; Bett, Mum; Civil War Sloughter, Col. Henry, 1:251

I-31

Smallpox epidemic, 1:4, 40, 128–129 Smith, Adam, 2:7 Smith, Bessie, 4:55 Smith, Capt. John, 1:133–134 Congressional Church guidance, 1:82 interactions with Indians, 1:121, 126, 129 opposition to Wingfield, 1:112 voyage to Cape Cod, 1:123 See also Pochahontas legend Smith, Gen. Jacob H. “Hell-Roarin,” 3:275 Smith, Gerrit, 3:78 Smith, Joseph, 3:13 Smith, William, 2:25 Smith, Willie “The Lion,” 4:55 Smohalla (Wanamum Prophet), 3:244 Smoot-Hartley tariff bill, 4:76 The Social Contract (Rousseau), 2:42 Social Darwinism, 3:168, 273 Social Gospel movement (Progressive era), 4:7, 9 Social Security Act (1935), 4:84 Social Security Reform Act (1983), 4:279 Socialism, 3:169–170 Socialist Labor Party, 4:38 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1:244 Society of Friends. See Quakers (Society of Friends) Solemn League and Covenant, 2:124 Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England (Edwards), 2:60 Sons of Liberty Movement, 2:95, 103, 108–109, 193 “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” (Kennan), 4:170 South Carolina, Ordinance of Secession (1860), 3:208–209 South Sea Bubble crisis (1720), 2:7, 8, 17 Southern States class warfare, 3:195 end of military rule, 3:214 pro-slavery stance, 3:68, 69, 73 Soviet Union Afghanistan invasion, 4:273 aid to Ho Chi Minh, 4:219 atom bomb detonation, 4:154 Baruch Plan rejection, 4:149–150 Chernobyl nuclear accident, 4:157 detente with, 4:173 European occupations, 4:169 as “evil empire,” 4:152, 227–228 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 4:152 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, 4:86, 179 response to Marshall Plan, 4:170–171 SALT I treaty, 4:176 Yalta Conference, 4:107

I-32

INDEX

Spain (Spanish) Charles of Habsburg, 1:83–84 colonization of the Americas, 1:73–76, 83, 87–90, 2:1–2 indigenous Indians enslaved by, 1:135–136 interactions with Native Americans, 1:117 Latin America and, 3:89, 91 Maximilian I, 1:83 Mexico’s independence from, 3:137 Philip II, 1:80–81, 83–85 Spanish-American War (1898–1910), 3:144, 198, 271–289 Cuban blockade, 3:277 Dewey, George, 3:277, 283 Hay, John, 3:275–276, 278 Hearst, William Randolph, 3:274, 276, 283–285 as historical turning point for U.S., 3:279 Manila Bay, Battle of, 3:283 Mattox’s interpretive essay, 3:275–281 McKinley, William, 3:274, 276–277, 279, 285–287 Open Door note (1900), 3:278–279 overview, 3:271–275 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 3:274, 278 Philippine-American War, 3:287–2888 “reconcentrado” camps, 3:275 Roosevelt, Theodore, 3:279, 283 Rough Riders, 3:288–289 USS Maine battleship, 3:274, 276, 280, 287, 289 Spanish Succession, War of, 2:16 Special Field Order No. 15 (Sherman), 3:217 Specie Circular (Jackson), 3:112 Speech on Conciliation with America speech (Burke), 2:5–6 Spencer, Herbert, 3:273 Spock, Dr. Benjamin, 4:257 Sporting events (on TV), 4:203, 204 Sprenger, Jacob, 1:259 Squanto (1580–1622), 1:118, 121, 123–124, 134 St. Augustine, founding of (1565), 1:79–98 attack by Searles, 1:92 attempts by Spain, 1:83 Beattie’s interpretive essay, 1:82–90 Castillo de San Marcos, 1:92–93 De Soto, Hernando, 1:93–94 demographics, 1:87 disease epidemics, 1:82 Florida, 1:94–97 Menéndez de Avilés and, 1:81, 83, 85–88, 90 overview, 1:79–82 Ponce de Léon, Juan, 1:97–98 Stalin, Joseph, 4:106–107, 170, 175, 177, 178 Stamp Act (1765), 2:93–113 description, 2:94–95, 101

Dulaney, Daniel, 2:105–107 Grenville, George, 2:73, 93, 98, 101 Hutchinson, Thomas, 4, 2:35, 97, 107–108 Mackey’s interpretive essay, 2:96–105 modification/repeal appeals, 2:95 Oliver, Andrew, 2:96–97 opposition of John Adams, 2:253 overview, 2:93–95 Resolutions of Stamp Act Congress, 2:110–112 Sons of Liberty Movement, 2:95, 108–109 Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions, 2:112–113 “virtual representation” discussions, 2:116 Stamp Act Congress (1765), 2:103, 109 Stamp Act Crisis (1765–1766), 2:86, 98, 104–105 Stamp Act Riots (1765), 2:96, 102, 109–110 “The Stand” newspaper (Hamilton), 2:245 Standard Oil Company (Rockefeller), 3:164, 181, 184, 4:1 Standish, Miles, 1:124 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 2:167, 3:257 Stanton, Theodore, 3:276 Staple Act (1663), 2:2 START (Strategic Arms Reductions Talks), 4:152 The Status Seekers (Packard), 4:138 Steamship invention, 3:36 Steel industry, 3:160–161, 163, 171, 176, 4:6 See also Carnegie, Andrew Steffens, Lincoln, 4:1 Stephens, Alexander, 3:193, 212 Stevens, Thaddeus (1792–1868), 3:214, 230–231 Stock market crash (1929), 4:75, 80, 102–103 See also Great Depression Stoddard, Solomon, 2:45, 51, 55, 59 Stone, Capt. John, 1:119, 133–134 Stone, Harlan, 4:84 Stone, Lucy, 3:257 Stono Rebellion (1739), 1:158 STOP ERA movement, 4:262 Stoughton, William, 1:262 Stowell, Frederick M., 1:259–265 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (1991), 4:282 Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), 4:152, 155, 174, 276, 282 Strayhorn, Billy, 4:55 Streetcare vs. automobile suburbs, 4:131–132 Strong, Josiah, 3:273 Stuart monarchy restoration (1660), 1:238, 2:50 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 4:225, 240, 245, 247 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 4:140–141, 225–226 Stuyvesant, Peter, 1:211–212 creation of Board of Nine Men, 1:211–212 Dutch West India Company employment, 1:196

INDEX

feuds with Dutch/English, 1:200–201 relations with Indians, 1:200 service in New Netherland Colony, 1:195, 200, 202–205, 211–212 surrender of power to Nicolls, 1:197 Suburbanization and consumerism (1945–1990), 4:131–147 American Dream, 4:5, 85, 132, 136, 141 automobile vs. streetcar suburbs, 4:131–132 credit cards, introduction of, 4:134 Dunak’s interpretive essay, 4:135–143 Federal Housing Authority, 4:132, 133, 139 government-forced segregation, 4:138 “hippie” movement, 4:141 Levittowns (NY, NJ, PA), 4:132–134, 136–137, 144 Nader, Ralph, 4:142, 144–146 overview, 4:131–135 post-WW II embrace of, 4:136 post-WW II onset of, 4:131 “Purchaser Citizens” (Cohen), 4:136 shopping center development, 4:134 Thompson, Joe, Jr., 4:146–147 Suez Canal crisis, 4:172, 175 Suffrage, for African Americans, 3:214 Sugar Act (1764), 2:5, 93–94, 99 Sullivan, Louis, 3:255, 260, 3:261 A Summary View of the Rights of British America (Jefferson), 2:164, 172 Sumner, Charles, 3:214, 231 Supreme Court, 4:42 Cherokee decision, 3:127, 132 creation discussions, 2:219, 221 justice opposition to New Deal, 4:84 Thomas, Clarence, 4:263 See also individual Supreme Court decisions Supreme Court creation discussions, 2:219, 221 Swartout, Samuel, 3:111 Sweatt v. Painter (Supreme Court decision), 4:243 Swedish South Company, 1:195 Swiney, P. D., 1:237–245 Taft, William Howard, 3:265, 4:2–3, 18 “Take the A Train” music (Strayhorn), 4:55 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de Adam’s interactions with, 2:242 burning of, in effigy, 2:246 committee rulership of France, 2:240 role in XYZ Affair, 2:249, 256–258 Tallmadge, James, Jr., 3:26 Talon, Intendant, 1:50 Taney, Roger B., 3:128 Tappan, Arthur, 3:73, 75–76 Tarbell, Ida, 3:181, 4:1

I-33

Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA), 4:279 Taylor, Nathaniel William, 3:2 Taylor, Zachary (1784–1850), 3:132, 133, 144, 148, 153–154, 156–158 Taylor-Rostow mission (to Vietnam), 4:220–221 Tea Act (1773), 2:120–121 Tea Act document (1773), 2:132–1135 Tecumseh (Indian leader), 3:42, 43–44, 48 Teheran Conference, 4:106 Tekesta Indians, 1:79 Telephone, invention of, 3:173, 4:204–205 Television, rise of (1948–2010), 4:199–218 Berle, Milton, 4:212–214 Clair’s interpretive essay, 4:203–211 Cronkite, Walter, 4:214–216 Federal Communications Commission, 4:199 overview, 4:199–203 post-WW II experimentation, 4:199 Teller, Henry M., 3:277 Ten Percent Plan (Lincoln), 3:211 Tennent, Gilbert (1703–1764), 2:63–65 Tennent, William, Sr., 2:52 Tenure of Office Act, 28, 3:214 Tet Offensive (Vietnam War), 4:221–222, 234–236 Texas admission to statehood, 3:138–139 independence from Mexico, 3:138 Textile manufacturing, 3:159 A Theory of Justice (Rawls), 2:169 Theory of Language and Universal Grammar (Priestley), 2:38 There is Confusion (Faust), 4:60 Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1674), 1:205 Third-wave consumerism, 4:135 Thirteenth Amendment (Constitution), 1:156, 160, 3:212, 219, 227, 4:51 Thirty-Nine Articles (England, 1563), 1:168 Thirty Years War, 1:49 Thomas, Clarence, 4:263, 265–266 Thompson, Joe, Jr. (1901–1961), 4:146–147 Thomson, Charles, 2:164 Thoreau, Henry David, 2:167, 168 Thornton, Larry, 4:109–117 Thornton, Matthew, 2:164 Thornton, Sir William, 3:55 Three-Fifths Compromise (Constitution), 2:274 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 4:153, 157, 167 Thurman, Wallace, 4:56–57, 58 Ticonderoga warship, 3:56 Tilden, Samuel J., 25, 3:215, 223

I-34

INDEX

Timber Culture Act (1873), 3:28, 236 Timucua indigenous culture, 1:79 Tingey, Thomas, 3:58 Tippecanoe, Battle of, 3:43–44 Tituba (Rev. Parris’s slave), 1:256–257, 262 Tobacco advertising (on TV), 4:202 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 3:239 Toleration Act, 1:235 Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 4:221, 224 Toomer, Jean, 4:59 Toral, Gen. Jose, 3:272 Town Council (Rhode Island), 1:218 Townsend, Francis E., 4:79 Townshend, Charles, 2:115 Townshend Acts (Duties) (1776), 2:104, 116, 120, 127, 194 Trafalgar, Battle of, 3:41 Trail of Tears, 3:127 The Traveller Returned play (Murray), 2:206 A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (Edwards), 2:60 Trend, David, 4:209 Trenton, Battle of, 2:139, 148 Trotsky, Leon, 4:176 Truman, Harry, 4:107, 121, 158, 169–170, 175, 178, 193–196 Truman Doctrine, 4:115, 181 Trumbull, John, 2:147–148, 149 Trumbull, Lyman, 3:231 Tubman, Harriet (ca. 1820–1913), 3:82–83 Tudor dynasty, 1:167 Turner, Frederick Jackson (1861–1932), 3:248–250, 256 Turner, Jackson, 3:240–241 Turner, Nat, 1:152, 68, 72 Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, 3:220, 4:52 TV Guide study, 4:208 Twain, Mark, 3:272, 279 Twelfth Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 2:175, 221, 264, 281–282 Twentieth Amendment (Constitution), 4:77 Twenty-First Amendment (Constitution), 4:5 Two Treatises of Government (Locke), 2:178 Tyler, John, 3:94, 138 Tyler, Royall, 2:148 U-2 incident (1960), 4:151, 172, 196–197 Ubeda Friar Luis de, 1:65–66 UHF (Ultra High Frequency) stations, 4:201 Underwood Tariff (1913), 4:3 Unitarianism, 3:3, 4, 7, 9 United Auto Workers (UAW), Women’s Bureau, 4:259

United Nations (UN) atomic energy control dispute, 4:169 Lebanon peacekeeping, 4:275–276 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 2:169–170 woman’s conferences, 4:265 United Nations (UN) Charter, 2:169 United Nations Security Council, 4:169 United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 4:55, 57 United States (U.S.) Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, 1:152 as “American Eden,” 3:239 American Independence Day, 3:143 anti-Catholic/anti-Semitic sentiment, 3:169 anti-Communist hysteria, 4:160 Atomic Energy Commission, 4:150 cities, Industrial Revolution era, 3:165–167 Civil Service Commission, 4:1 closing of the frontier (ca. 1890s), 3:233–251 Constitutional Convention, 1:150 early history, 1:1 Emancipation Proclamation, 1:160 France’s Revolutionary War aid, 2:239 Good Neighbor Policy, 4:85–86 Green Party USA, 4:146 introduction of slavery, 1:135–165 Jay’s Treaty, 2:239 Missouri Compromise, 1:160 Naval War College, 3:272 occupation of Oregon territory, 3:139 “Religious Right” politics, 4:263 Sanitary Commission, 3:198 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 4:153, 157 Weber-Ashburton Treaty, 1:152–153 World War I costs, 4:25 XYZ Affair, 2:201, 239–261 Yalta Conference, 4:107 See also Industrial Revolution; MexicanAmerican War The United States 1830–1850 (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:240 United States Magazine (American Revolution era), 2:188 United States Military Railroads (USMRR), 3:196 United States Telegraph Pro-Jackson newspaper, 3:117 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN), 2:169 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 4:55 See also Garvey, Marcus Unsafe at Any Speed (Nader), 4:142, 145 Upham, Charles, 1:260

INDEX

U.S. Navy, 3:272, 277, 283 See also Dewey, George U.S. Shipping Board, 4:25 U.S. v. Butler (Supreme Court decision), 4:78 USS Constellation, 2:247–248 USS Maine battleship, 3:274, 276, 280, 287, 289 USS Nautilus nuclear submarine, 4:152 USS Olympia battleship, 3:277 Utopian communities, 2:166 Utrecht, Treaty of, 2:7, 9 Valley Forge, Battle of, 2:155 Van Buren, Martin, 3:112–113, 127, 129–132, 148, 153 Van Twiller, Wouter, 1:95, 200–201 Vance, Zebulon, 3:193 Vane, Governor Henry, 1:120 The Varieties of Religious Experiences (James), 2:60 Velásquez, Gov. Diego, 1:55–56 Vergennes, Count Charles, 2:140 Verhurst, Willem, 1:199 Verin, Joshua, 1:173–174 Verrazano, Giovanni de, 1:35 Versailles, Treaty of, 4:16, 26, 86 Victory Program (WW II, 1943), 4:112 Video cassette recorders (VCRs), 4:201 Video Home System (VHS) tapes, 4:201 Vietnam Veterans against the War, 4:229 Vietnam War (1960s), 3:280, 141, 176, 183, 219–236 Abbott’s interpretive essay, 4:223–229 antiwar movement, 4:231–232 Cambodian incursion, 4:232–233 Johnson, Lyndon, 4:221–222 Kissinger, Henry, 4:222 My Lai massacre, 4:227 overview, 4:219–223 POW/MIA issue, 4:228 Taylor-Rostow mission, 4:220–221 Tet Offensive, 4:221–222 Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 4:221 U.S. citizen skepticism about, 4:226–227 U.S. death figures, 4:224–225 war movies, 4:224, 227–228 Virginia Company (of London) formation (1606), 1:101 New World colonization plans, 1:112 Pilgrims’ relationship with, 1:102 relation to slavery, 1:139 Virginia Constitutional Convention, 3:105 “Virginia Dynasty” (presidents from Virginia), 2:278 Virginia Plan (document), 2:218–219, 222, 232–234

I-35

Virginia Resolution (Madison), 2:247, 269, 3:190 Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions (document, 1965), 2:112–113 Virginia State of Religious Freedom (Jefferson), 2:172 Voter literacy test (Mississippi), 4:241 Voting Rights Act (1965), 4:234, 239, 247 Wade-Davis Bill (1864), 3:211, 227 Wadsworth, Benjamin, 2:192 Wahunsonacock (Native American), 1:121–122 Walker, Alice, 4:265 Walker, Robert J., 3:147 Walker River Reservation (Native Americans), 3:244 Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England (Olmsted), 3:267 Waller, “Fats,” 4:55 Walpole, Robert, 2:1–2 financial management skills, 2:7 patronage system of, 2:3–4 political ascendancy of, 2:6 war avoidance efforts, 2:8, 9, 12 withdrawal of Excise Bill, 2:10 See also Salutary Neglect, Era of Wampanoag Indians (Martha’s Vineyard), 1:126, 214, 217, 223, 228–230 See also Metacom War Industries Board, 4:25, 31 War Labor Board (WW II), 4:108 War Manpower Board (WW II), 4:108 War movies, 4:224, 227–228 War of 1812, 1:95, 260, 2:264, 3:41–63 American Letter of Marque document, 3:62–63 British capture of Washington D.C., 3:57–58 as end of Federalist Party, 3:44–45 as “forgotten conflict,” 3:45 Hadden’s interpretive essay, 3:45–52 Hartford Convention, 3:44–45, 50, 52, 58–60 Jackson’s commission, 3:125 neutrality theories, 3:45–46 New Orleans, Battle of, 3:51–52, 54–55 overview, 3:41–45 Perry, Oliver Hazard, 3:60–62 Plattsburgh, Battle of, 3:55–57 role in Industrial Revolution, 3:159 U.S. expansionist dreams, 3:47–48 See also Jackson, Andrew War of Jenkin’s Ear, 2:9, 47 War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), 2:9, 12, 47, 84, 85 War of the League of Augsburg, 1:249 War of the Polish Succession (1733–1735), 2:9, 84 War of the Spanish Succession, 2:16

I-36

INDEX

Warren, Dr. Joseph, 2:131 Warren, Earl, 4:238, 244 Warren, Helen Frances, 4:42 Warren, Mary Otis, 2:189 Warren, Mercy Otis, 2:148, 149, 200 Warren Association, 3:16 Warsaw Pact, 4:171 Washington, Booker T., 3:220, 4:52, 53–54 Washington, George, 1:146, 2:72, 74, 76, 83, 125, 129 cabinet divisions, 2:267 comments on American Revolution, 2:166 commercial interests, 2:263 Constitutional Convention participation, 2:217–218 Continental Army leadership, 2:139, 159–160 Copley’s portrait of, 2:148 death of, 2:270 Declaration of Independence reading to troops, 2:164 Farewell Address, 3:93, 280 Federalist Party leadership, 2:279 Hamilton’s association with, 2:227 Jefferson’s association with, 2:174 positive opinions of women, 2:196 power transfer to John Adams, 2:243 Proclamation of Neutrality document, 2:258–259 second presidential term, 2:268 XYZ Affair role, 2:241 Watergate Scandal (Nixon administration), 4:223 Waterloo, Battle of, 2:257 Watson, Thomas, 3:174 Wealth against Commonwealth (Lloyd), 3:163 The Wealth of Nations (Smith), 2:7 The Weary Blues (Hughes), 4:60 Webster, Daniel, 1:152–153, 148–149, 3:112 Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), 1:152–153, 3:155 Weld, Theodore, 3:73, 78 “A Well Ordered Family” essay (Wadsworth), 2:192 Wells, Rachel, 2:196 Wesley, Charles, 2:53, 55–56, 65 Wesley, John, 1:11, 2:47, 53, 55, 65, 3:8 West Africa, slavery and, 1:137, 141, 153 Western Federation of Miners, 4:38 Westminster Confession, 2:52 Weyler, Gen. Valeriano, 3:274, 276 Wheatley, Phillis, 2:193 Whig Party, 2:278, 3:67, 81, 132–134, 144, 145 See also Antislavery Whigs Whiskey Rebellion, 2:228, 3:2 White, Richard, 3:241

White, Walter, 4:58 White City (Columbian Exposition), 3:254, 257, 259–262, 265 “White Man’s Burden” (Kipling), 3:273 White resistance, Reconstruction era, 3:215 See also Ku Klux Klan Whitefield, George (1714–1770), 2:46–47, 54, 55, 65–66, 3:6–7 Whitney, Eli, 1:150–151, 160 Wholesome Meat Act (1967), 4:145 Wichita Indians, 1:64 Wild West shows, 3:30 Wildes, Sarah, 1:258 Willard, Emma, 2:207–209 Willard, Frances, 3:170, 3:257 Willard, John, 1:258 Willard Association for the Mutual Improvement of Female Teachers, 2:208 William III (English monarch), 1:178, 235, 236– 237, 241, 243, 249, 2:13 William of Orange. See William III (English monarch) Williams, Abigail, 1:255, 262 Williams, Roger, 1:86, 185–187, 214 expulsion from Massachusetts colony, 1:173, 187 founding of Rhode Island, 1:172–173, 175, 2:49–50 governing attempts by, 1:176, 180 Pequot War and, 1:131, 227 Puritans challenged by, 1:168–169 writings of, 1:186, 187–189 Wilmot, David, 3:147–148 Wilmot Proviso document (1846), 3:147, 149, 158, 190, 203 Wilson, Governor Edward, 1:214–215 Wilson, James, 2:144–145 Wilson, Woodrow, 3:240, 4:23–27 biographical information, 4:43–46 Clayton Anti-Trust Act, 4:4 Committee on Public Information, 4:25, 32 Federal Reserve Act, 4:4 Federal Trade Commission Act, 4:4 Fourteen Points, 4:26 on German submarine attacks, 4:110 League of Nations, 4:16, 25–26 National Park Service, 4:13 Underwood Tariff, 4:3 winning presidential election, 4:29 World War I actions, 4:23–27, 43–46 See also Fourteen Points Wingfield, Edward Maria, 1:112 Winslow, Josiah, 1:225 Winthrop, John, 1:102–109

INDEX

“city on a hill” quote, 1:105 land giveaways to immigrants, 1:106 law delineations, 1:107 “Model of Christian Charity” essay, 1:103, 104, 106, 108, 109 Puritan friends membership, 1:104 Van Twiller’s correspondence with, 1:201 See also Massachusetts Bay Company; Puritans Witchcraft at Salem (Hansen), 1:261 Witchcraft hysteria. See Salem witch trials (1692) The Witches’ Hammer (Kramer & Sprenger), 1:259 Wolcott, Oliver, 2:229, 244 Wolfe, James (1727–1759), 2:72, 78, 84–85, 89–90 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 3:170–171 “Woman’s lib” movement, 4:263 Women AFL union workers, 4:39 African America, 2:192, 195 boycotts and protests by, 2:187, 191 caretaker roles, 2:195 colonial era motherhood, 2:203–205 education for, 2:190 in the Great Awakening, 2:66–67 poetry of Phillis Wheatley, 2:193–194 religious revivalism and, 3:12 Victorian vs. Progressive eras, 4:8–9 Washington’s positive opinion of, 2:196 “A Well Ordered Family” essay, 2:192 white, middle-/upper-class, 2:197 See also Republican Motherhood Women of the Republic (Kerber), 2:189 Women’s Building (Columbian Exposition), 3:256, 260 Women’s Rights Movement (1961–1991), 4:257–271 Equal Rights Amendment, 4:257, 262, 264, 271 Feminist Majority, 4:267 Fosl’s interpretive essay, 4:263–266 Friedan, Betty, 4:259, 264–265, 267–269 National Organization for Women, 4:259–260, 269 overview, 4:257–263 President’s Commission on the Status of Women, 4:269–271 Wonders of the Invisible World (Cotton Mather, 1693), 267, 1:272–274 Wood, Gordon, 2:166, 168 Wood, Timothy L., 1:171–180 Woods, Julia A., 1:138–146, 2:215–222, 3:163–171 Wool, Gen. John E., 3:152

I-37

Woolens Act (1699), 2:3 Woolman, John, 3:69 Working Class War (Appy), 4:225 The Working Man’s Advocate (Evans), 3:129 Workingman’s Party, 3:128 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 4:78, 79, 84, 87 World Court, 4:27 World Education Convention (London), 2:209 World Trade Organization, 4:284 World War I (1914–1918), 4:23–48 African American soldiers, 4:54, 58 Committee on Public Information, 4:25, 32, 37–38 costs to U.S., 4:25 Council for National Defense, 4:29, 30–31 Espionage Act, 4:33 Fourteen Points (Wilson), 4:26, 47–49 Industrial Workers of the World, 4:34, 38–39 influx of African-Americans (U.S.), 4:53 League of Nations, 4:16, 25–26, 39–40 Liberty Bonds, 4:32 obstacles to presidential policies, 4:28–29 overview, 4:23–27 Pershing, Gen. John J., 4:26, 40–43 post-war “bonus army,” 4:77 Russian Revolution, 4:39 Selective Service Act, 4:25–26 Treaty of Versailles ending, 4:16, 26, 86 U.S. unity building, 4:28 Vander Meulen’s interpretive essay, 4:27–35 vigilante groups, 4:33 War Industries Board, 4:25, 31 Wilson, Woodrow, 4:23–27 women union workers, 4:39 World Court, 4:27 Zimmerman Note, 4:23–24, 46–47 World War II (1939–1945), 4:105–129 atomic bombing of Japan, 4:107, 116, 149 Battle of Midway, 4:106 Bradley, Omar, 4:120–121 Bulge, Battle of the, 4: 119–120 economic impact, in U.S., of, 4:112 German’s surrender, 4:169 industrial component of, 4:111 Japanese internment order, 4:109, 114, 128–129 MacArthur, Douglas, 4:81–82, 122–125 Navajo Code Talkers, 4:125–126 Office of War Information, 4:113 overview, 4:105–109 Pearl Harbor attack, 4:106, 107, 110–111, 126–127 propaganda by entertainers, 4:113

I-38

Teheran Conference, 4:106 Thornton’s interpretive essay, 4:109–117 Truman Doctrine, 4:115 Victory Program (1943), 4:112 Yalta Conference, 4:106–107 Zoot Suit Riots, 4:127–128 World’s Columbian Exposition (1893), 3:253–269 architectural ideas, 3:253–254 Burnham, Daniel, 3:254–25, 259, 264–265 Ferris, George, 3:255, 265–267 global transformation effect, 3:262–263 Industrial Revolution’s inspiration, 3:257, 263 Japan’s contributions, 3:255–256 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 3:253, 259–260, 267–269 overview, 3:253–257 Sigur’s interpretive essay, 3:257–263 time spend building, 3:255 White City, 3:254, 257, 259–262, 265 women’s representation, 3:256–257 World’s Congress Auxiliary, 3:256 World’s Congress of Representative Women (1898), 3:256–257 Worster, Donald, 3:241 Wounded Knee Massacre, 3:245, 250–251 Wright, Francis, 3:128 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 3:255

INDEX

X, Malcolm, 4:247 XYZ Affair (France), 2:201, 239–261 Adams, John, role, 2:47, 252–255 Alien and Sedition Acts document, 2:259–261 Bonaparte, Napoleon, role, 2:242, 251 Elbridge, Gerry, role, 2:255–256 Federalist Party issues, 2:246, 249 name derivation, 2:241, 254 overview, 2:239–243 Proclamation of Neutrality document, 2:258–259 Quasi-War, 2:241, 248, 250–251, 256 Rakestraw’s interpretive essay, 2:243–252 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 2:256–258 Yale College, 2:24, 26, 51, 53, 241 Yalta Conference, 4:106–107 Yarmouth Stone (Nova Scotia), 1:2 Yeltsin, Boris, 4:174 Yorktown, Battle of (1781), 2:141, 154, 206, 226 Young Ladies Academy, 2:190 “Yuppies” movement, 4:143 Zapata, Emiliano, 4:54 Zenger, Peter, 1:244–245 Zimmerman Note (1917), 4:23–24, 46–47 Zoot Suit Riots (1943), 4:127–128 Zuni Indians, 1:68–69, 76–78

WHAT HAPPENED? AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EVENTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA FOREVER

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WHAT HAPPENED? An Encyclopedia of Events That Changed America Forever VOLUME III: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY JOHN E. FINDLING AND FRANK W. THACKERAY, EDITORS

Copyright  by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data What happened? : an encyclopedia of events that changed America forever / John E. Findling and Frank W. Thackeray, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN ---- (set : alk. paper) — ISBN ---- (set ebook) . United States—History—Encyclopedias. I. Findling, John E. II. Thackeray, Frank W. E.W  .—dc  ISBN: ---- EISBN: ---- 

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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC  Cremona Drive, P.O. Box  Santa Barbara, California - This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Illustrations

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Preface and Acknowledgments

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1. THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING, 1790–1840 Introduction Interpretive Essay by A. Glenn Crothers Isaac Backus (–) Peter Cartwright (–) Charles Grandison Finney (–) James McGready (ca. –)

      

2. THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE, 1803 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Steven E. Siry York Clark (ca. –ca. ) Lewis and Clark Expedition (–) Robert R. Livingston (–) Sacajawea (d. ) Document: Excerpt from the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 

      

3. THE WAR OF 1812 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Sally E. Hadden Battle of New Orleans () Battle of Plattsburg () British Capture of Washington, D.C. ()

     



vi

CONTENTS

Hartford Convention () Oliver Hazard Perry (–) Document: American Letter of Marque,  4. ABOLITION, ca. 1820s–1860 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Thomas Clarkin American Anti-Slavery Society Lydia Maria Child (–) Liberty Party Harriet Tubman (ca. –) Document: Excerpt from the First Edition of The Liberator,  Document: John Brown’s Final Statement to the Virginia Court, 

           

5. THE MONROE DOCTRINE, 1823 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Peter G. Felten John Quincy Adams (–) Simón Bolívar (–) James Monroe (–) Document: Monroe Doctrine, 

      

6. JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY, 1828–1840 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Thomas C. Mackey Bank of the United States Andrew Jackson (–) Locofoco Party Martin Van Buren (–) Whig Party Document: President Andrew Jackson’s Nullification Proclamation, 

        

7. THE WAR WITH MEXICO, 1846–1848 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Donald A. Rakestraw Battle of Buena Vista () James K. Polk (–) Winfield Scott (–) Zachary Taylor (–) Document: Wilmot Proviso, 

       

CONTENTS

vii

8. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, ca. 1860s–1890s Introduction Interpretive Essay by Julia A. Woods Alexander Graham Bell (–) Andrew Carnegie (–) Labor in the Industrial Revolution J. P. Morgan (–) John D. Rockefeller (–)

       

9. THE CIVIL WAR, 1861–1865 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Carl E. Kramer Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis (–) Abraham Lincoln (–) Sherman’s March to the Sea () Document: South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, 

       

10. RECONSTRUCTION, 1863–1876 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Stephen Rockenbach Election of  Andrew Johnson (–) Radical Republicans Thaddeus Stevens (–)

      

11. THE CLOSING OF THE FRONTIER, ca. 1890s Introduction Interpretive Essay by Michael J. Devine Ghost Dance Religion Sioux War (–) Sitting Bull (ca. –) Frederick Jackson Turner (–) Wounded Knee Massacre ()

       

12. THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, 1893 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Hannah Sigur Daniel Burnham (–) George Ferris (–) Frederick Law Olmsted (–)

     

CONTENTS

viii

13. THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR, 1898–1901 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Henry E. Mattox George Dewey (–) William Randolph Hearst (–) William McKinley (–) Philippine-American War (–) Rough Riders Sinking of the USS Maine ()

        

Appendix A: Glossary of Terms and People

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Appendix B: Timeline

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Appendix C: Presidents, Vice Presidents, and Secretaries of State in the th Century

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About the Editors and Contributors

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Index

I-

ILLUSTRATIONS

Worshipers at a camp meeting

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Transfer of the Louisiana territory, 

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Death of Tecumseh, 

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Boston Abolition Rally, 

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President James Monroe and his Cabinet, 

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Andrew Jackson, ca. 



The Battle of Buena Vista, 



Sprawling factories characterized the Industrial Revolution



The dead at Gettysburg, 



Figures representing the White League and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) shake hands, 



Pioneers lured to the West, 



The World’s Columbian Exposition, 



Troops in Cuba, 

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This volume, which describes and evaluates the significance of  of the most important events in the United States during the th century, is the third in a multivolume series intended to acquaint readers with the seminal events of American history. Other volumes cover the most important events of earlier centuries. A companion series of volumes will address the global experience, “Events That Formed the Modern World.” Our collective classroom experience provided the inspiration for this project. Having encountered literally thousands of entry-level college students whose knowledge of the history of their country was sadly deficient, we determined to prepare a series of books that would concentrate on the most important events affecting those students (and advanced high school students as well) in the hope that they would better understand their country and how it came to be. Furthermore, we hope these books will stimulate the reader to delve further into the events covered in each volume and to take a greater interest in history in general. The current volume is designed to serve two purposes. First, the editors have provided for each chapter an introduction that presents factual material about a particular topic in a clear, concise, chronological order. Second, each introduction is followed by a longer, interpretive essay by a specialist exploring the ramifications of the event under consideration. Each essay includes an annotated bibliography of the most important works about the event. Following the bibliography are a number of shorter essays featuring people or events closely related to the chapter topic. In some cases, there are primary source documents related to the topic as well. The  chapters are followed by three appendices that provide additional information useful to the reader. Appendix A is a glossary of additional names, events, organizations, and terms mentioned but not fully explained in the introductions and essays that comprise each chapter. Appendix B is a timeline of th-century and early th-century events, and Appendix C is a listing of presidents, vice presidents, and secretaries of state between  and . The events covered in this volume were selected on the basis of our combined teaching and research activities. Colleagues and contributors made suggestions as well, and for this we thank them. Of course, another pair of editors might have arrived at a some-

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

what different list than we did; but we believe that we have assembled a group of events that truly changed America in the th century.

As with all published works, numerous people behind the scenes deserve much of the credit for the final product. Barbara Rader, our editor at Greenwood Publishing Group, encouraged us as we prepared the first edition of this book in the late s. Others who gave assistance to that edition included the staff of the Photographic Division of the Library of Congress, and our student research assistant, Bob Marshall. Brigette Adams, Carol Findling and Jo Ann Waterbury all helped with word processing in the final stage of the project. For this edition, we are grateful to James Stewart, John Wagner, Jennifer Boelter, and several others at ABC-CLIO who have answered our questions and addressed our concerns in a positive and timely manner. Special thanks go to Glenn Crothers and John Hunt, who helped us find excellent authors for several of the interpretive essays. We are also grateful to the authors of the shorter essays at the end of each chapter. These historians, provided by ABC-CLIO, wrote fine essays that significantly increased the value of each chapter. Among others who helped us in one way or another to make both the first edition and this one better books are John Newman, Sam Sloss, Sheila Anderson, Kim Pelle, Brook Taylor, Andrew Trout, and Deborah Bulleit. And, most important, we thank our authors, whose essays were well conceived and thoughtful and whose patience when the project seemed to lag was much appreciated. Finally, we wish to express our appreciation to our spouses, Carol Findling and Kathy Thackeray, and to our children, Jamey and Jenny Findling and Alex, Max and Melanie Thackeray, whose patience with us and interest in our work made it all worthwhile. John E. Findling Frank W. Thackeray

1 The Second Great Awakening, 1790–1840

INTRODUCTION The Second Great Awakening refers to a period of intense religious activity in the history of the early republic, from about  to . It was marked by significant changes in the nature of the major Calvinist denominations—Methodism, Presbyterianism, and Congregationalism, and by new outreaches in social services and social reform. There was a widespread desire, as Sydney Ahlstrom puts it in Religious History of the American People, “to make America the world’s great example of a truly Protestant republic.” The vehicle by which this was to be done was the interdenominational voluntary association, organized by causes: Sunday school, temperance, antidueling, and so forth. The movement was further characterized by a high level of emotionalism, seen in charismatic preachers and enthusiastic revivals. The Awakening took different forms in different parts of the country. In New England, it challenged the long-established authority of orthodox ministers, who were concerned about the unrest brought about by revivalism, although they agreed with the core principles of the revivalists. In rural areas of the Middle Atlantic states, it featured enthusiastic revivalism; in other regions, it centered around camp meetings, devout prayer, and a high level of emotionalism. In the South, it was intermingled with the growing controversy over slavery. Many historians have identified the Awakening purely as a period of religious revivalism, similar to that of the First Great Awakening almost a century earlier. But these historians oversimplify the definition of “revival,” and overlook the fact that to have a revival, one must have something to revive—in this case, a church. So the Second Great Awakening is as much about the state of organized churches in this time period as it is about the dramatic impact of great revival meetings. Another feature of the Second Great Awakening was the influence of newly formed evangelical congregations to help organize society, especially on the frontier, where new communities needed organizing, and settlers in these congregations and their associations needed a greater sense of democracy that appealed to frontier sensibilities. The Second Great Awakening had its origins among the social tensions that gripped America in the years right after the Revolution. Fear and anxiety were common elements among people as they struggled to build new governmental institutions, cope

2

WHAT HAPPENED?

with a greatly altered economy, and look toward a very uncertain future in the new nation. Both the people and the government often responded to these anxieties in violent or repressive ways, seen in such events as the Whiskey Rebellion and the Alien and Sedition Acts. Society was changing rapidly, but few knew where it was headed, and religion provided a comforting way station. For example, the Methodist Episcopal Church sent out missionaries (or preachers) who founded new churches wherever there was a willing group of people to form a congregation. In the decade between  and , the denomination’s membership increased from , to , and set an example that Baptists (and others) quickly followed. In response, older, more established denominations stressed to their congregations their social obligations and helped them form missionary or benevolent associations, a development that brought together many of the disparate elements of the Awakening. Among the leaders of the Second Great Awakening was Timothy Dwight, the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, and Dwight’s lectures on Christianity and its moral obligations converted many Yale students in the s. Dwight served as president of the college from  until his death in . Two of his most prominent students were Nathaniel William Taylor and Lyman Beecher. Taylor postulated that man becomes a sinner by his own inevitable failings, a concept that found great appeal with revivalist preachers, who could emphasize morality and convince the listening sinners to repent. Beecher, a Congregationalist already “baptized with the revival spirit,” graduated from Yale in  and went to a church on Long Island. He moved to Connecticut in  as a full-blown revivalist and began to involve himself in social reform, especially in the temperance movement, and in a persistent anti-Unitarian campaign. In , he moved to Cincinnati as president of the Lane Theological Seminary, in large part because he saw the development of the West as a crucial step in the future of the United States and was determined not to let it fall under the control of the Catholic Church. Of even more significance to the Awakening was Charles G. Finney, a lawyer who became an evangelist within the Congregationalist Church after a conversion experience in . After a short period of divinity study, Finney became an itinerant evangelistic preacher, traveling from town to town and enjoying great success in converting audiences by the strength of his charismatically delivered but plain-spoken message. His revivals were centered more in urban settings than the typical rural revivals or camp meetings of earlier days, and one of Finney’s revivals would last for several consecutive days, or even longer. His appearances were heralded with advance publicity and featured women’s public testimony, quite unusual and moving for the era, and an “anxious bench” full of people uncertain about their faith, which became the center of attention. Finney’s highly organized methods produced results but angered many conventional religious leaders who believed that divine intervention brought a soul to God. Finney focused attention on the Second Great Awakening in upstate New York and the states of the Old Northwest Territory in the s. One of his most noteworthy revivals took place in Rochester, New York, in . Rochester was a city booming from trade brought about by the new Erie Canal. With large numbers of working-class people flooding the city, new social problems arose, fueled by the opening of taverns and other disreputable places. Civic leaders invited Finney to come, and his almost nonstop preaching first converted those who had invited him and then the workers, all within a period of six months. Finney’s evident and well-publicized success caused others to

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emulate him, and by the s, a contemporary observer wrote that “revivals are a constituent part of the religious system.” Finney and other revivalists believed that the success of revivals stemmed from the effectiveness of the evangelist in arousing the emotional fervor of those to whom he spoke. Finney also tried to convince his converts that they needed to commit to social reform as well, and this fed into the development of several notable reform movements beginning in the s. In the South, revivals were popular and effective in winning souls, but by the early years of the th century, the issue of slavery entered the debate. Christian views in the North on slavery generally encompassed a righteous opposition to the practice, but in the South, Christians defended slavery; by the mid-s, debate on the slavery question was all but impossible. Antislavery literature was suppressed, antislavery advocates were threatened, and antislavery organizations disappeared. Southern evangelists found and recited those texts in the Bible that spoke of black inferiority and implied approval of slavery by Old Testament prophets. They did conclude that they had an obligation to Christianize slaves, however, and did so as the abolition movement intensified in the North. The religious emotionalism on both sides of the slavery issue probably heightened the hostility between North and South before the Civil War. In the West, which at this time included states like Kentucky and Tennessee, revivals often took the form of camp meetings, where hundreds or even thousands of people would congregate in a rural area, pitch tents, and participate in extended religious services and other related activities. The most notable of these camp meetings took place at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in August . This revival, a collaboration between Presbyterians and Methodists, attracted a crowd estimated at between , and , and carried on for nearly a week at a high emotional level, which, according to some critics, led to an excess of “fleshly lust.” This revival was marked by various physical manifestations of enthusiastic spirituality, including falling down and appearing to be dead, or uncontrolled jerking of the head or other body parts, which frequently led to wild dancing and spontaneous barking, laughing, or singing. The Cane Ridge camp meeting was an unforgettable experience to all who attended and sparked a revitalization of the churches of the region. Those denominations that were the targets of many preachers of the Awakening responded in varying ways. For example, Catholics adopted some of the same missionary tactics as evangelical churches, as a way to combat the all-too-common prejudice against their religion. Only by energizing individual Catholics through revivalism could their religion survive. Unitarians, on the other hand, adopted a more intellectual approach. Centered in the Boston area, Unitarian leaders such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Ellery Channing, and Margaret Fuller emphasized the spiritual benefits of doing good works during one’s lifetime, and many Unitarians became central figures in the various social reform movements of the era. Social reform was not limited to Unitarians, however. The increased interest and involvement in religion prompted many Americans to concern themselves with social reform, and the need for such reform was made more evident by the growth of cities in the period between  and . In such settings, the problems of poverty, drinking, and illiteracy attracted reformers to densely populated urban areas. Virtually all the reform movements were motivated by church leaders and their appeals to “Christian

4

WHAT HAPPENED?

This lithograph, from the early 19th century, shows worshipers at a camp meeting. Such events were important elements of the Second Great Awakening. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

principles,” although there was great diversity among the movements to which these leaders were attracted. Some reformers acted out of a desire to create a perfect world that would last for a millennium, while others were inspired by more secular motives, such as political advantage, family traditions, or anxiety over the threat posed by social problems. This impulse was seen not only in the United States but also in Great Britain, where Parliament abolished slavery in , and in continental Europe, where, among other things, a strong temperance movement emerged in the s. In the Second Great Awakening, revivalism went hand in hand with social reform, based on the notion that the world and its people must be made right before the second coming of Christ. By the s, a wide array of reforms was attracting interest, and organizations were formed to bring about those reforms. The interest in these reforms, combined with an optimistic sense of inevitable progress that had been a legacy of the Revolutionary War era and its leaders, created a sense of purpose that was particularly inviting to Unitarians, as well as to committed evangelicals like Beecher and Finney. Temperance was the first great reform, as enthusiastic drinking in America dated back to Puritan days, when rum was important to the New England economy. Early temperance leaders recognized that drinking was the cause of poverty, broken homes, and serious health problems, and they were able to rationalize temperance from a civic or political standpoint. Those who drank too much seemed mostly to be nonreligious

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and political opponents of the temperance leaders. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, temperance societies were created in the early s, and not long afterward, the focus of the movement changed from intemperance to the encouragement of total abstinence. By the s, temperance had become a national movement, marked by the creation of the American Temperance Union in , which enjoyed considerable success for the next  years. Other reforms movements included women’s rights, which culminated in a great meeting at Seneca Falls, New York, in , that launched the long and difficult campaign for woman suffrage. Some reformers involved themselves in so-called humanitarian reform and worked for improving conditions in mental institutions or prisons, while others saw much significance in what people ate or how they dressed. In the North, the antislavery movement had the greatest impact, since, unlike the other reform movements, it became a divisive national crusade that went far beyond the influence of revivalism. Individuals were implored to consider their belief in the practice of slavery as a sin and renounce it. The existence of a parallel proslavery movement in the South created a great deal of conflict and ultimately led to schisms in several mainstream Protestant denominations in the decade before the Civil War. Finally, some reformers chose not to work within society as a whole but rather attempted to create perfect communities—utopias—largely isolated from outside influences. Among these communities was Oneida, in upstate New York, where founder John Humphrey Noyes emphasized free love and socialism, and New Harmony, founded by Robert Owen in southwestern Indiana, which was planned as a model community based on good working conditions and an emphasis on culture and education. But these utopias all failed when individuals within them could not adhere to the often harsh rules imposed by the founders.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY a. glenn crothers In , Methodist minister Peter Cartwright recalled his days as an itinerant preacher, when he traveled throughout the sparsely settled Ohio Valley spreading the evangelical message. He remembered particularly fondly the years after , when “a blessed revival of religion spread through almost the entire inhabited parts of the west, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and many other parts.” “In this revival,” he remembered, “originated our camp-meetings, and in both the [Methodist and Presbyterian] denominations they were held every year.” At “their camps,” ministers erected wood frame sheds covered “with boards or shingles” “sufficiently large to protect five thousand people from wind and rain.” They built “a large stand,” placed seats in the shed, and here listeners collected “together from forty to fifty miles around, sometimes further than that.” At these ecumenical meetings, “ten, twenty, and sometimes thirty ministers, of different denominations” came “together and preach[ed] night and day, four or five days together.” “Some sinners mocked,” Cartwright reminisced, and “some of the old starched Presbyterian preachers” opposed the meetings, but still “great good resulted from them.” Most important, “many happy thousands were awakened and converted to

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God at these camp-meetings. . . . The work went on and spread in almost every direction . . . until our country seemed all coming home to God.” Nearly  years after the Ohio Valley revivals Cartwright described, Presbyterian minister Charles Grandison Finney arrived in Rochester, in upstate New York, where “religion was in a low state.” In this booming market town, located along the recently completed Erie Canal, the charismatic evangelist preached for the next six months “nearly every night, and three times on the Sabbath” in the city’s Presbyterian churches and the surrounding towns. Using an emotional appeal and a “voice of great compass and melody,” Finney had an immediate impact and some “very marked conversions” took place. During services, he called those most “exercised” about their spiritual fate to the front of the church to sit in the “anxious seat,” singling them out as “subjects of prayer” for the meeting. “Then and there,” Finney noted, many gave “up their hearts” to God. “As the revival swept through town,” it transformed the city, converting “the great mass of the most influential people.” Word of “this great revival” soon “spread like waves in every direction,” sparking religious upheavals throughout New York, New England, and “in many parts of the United States.” The “very fame” of the Rochester meetings, Finney believed, made them “an efficient instrument in . . . promoting the greatest revival of religion . . . that this country had then ever witnessed.” “One hundred thousand,” recalled the Congregational minister Lyman Beecher years later, “connected themselves with churches as a result of this great revival.” Cartwright and Finney’s reminiscences point to a profound change in American cultural and religious life between  and . In these years, Protestant evangelical sects—most notably, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians—helped foment what historians call the Second Great Awakening, a series of religious revivals that began in the Ohio Valley but soon spread throughout the nation. In , historians estimate, perhaps  in  Americans attended church regularly; by , more than  in  did so. In the same years, the number of Christian congregations and ministers in the country rose from some , to more than ,. The revivals they held featured large religious meetings—sometimes in churches, sometimes outdoors at camp meetings—at which hundreds and sometimes thousands gathered. The evangelical preachers employed plain but theatrical and emotional language that called on listeners to atone for their sins and, in Finney’s words, “offer themselves up to God.” The revivals attracted Americans from all walks of life, wealthy and poor, women and men, black and white. But evangelical religion held particular appeal for women and African Americans, who gravitated to the preachers’ message of spiritual equality and who carved out new spiritual roles for themselves within the growing number of churches. The revivals helped democratize American religion, sparking competition for believers among a growing number of Protestant sects and drawing increasing numbers into the churches. Above all, the revivals inspired a wave of benevolent and social reform, led by women and men committed to removing sin from this world in anticipation of Christ’s imminent return. THE ORIGINS AND SPREAD OF REVIVALISM Evangelical Protestantism first appeared in North America in the s and s, sparked by the powerful preachers George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. Both appealed to their listeners’ emotions, emphasizing the sinful nature of all human beings

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and the need for believers to acknowledge their depravity—to atone for their sins— and surrender to God’s will to avoid damnation. Edwards and Whitefield sparked many imitators, and their emotional style and emphasis on atonement had a transformative effect on American Protestantism. The evangelical style enjoyed rising popularity before the American Revolution, and the denominations that embraced the style—New Light Presbyterians, Baptists, and, in the s, Methodists—attracted a growing number of members. The revivals posed a challenge to the authority of established ministers and churches. These older denominations, some supported legally and financially by the colonial governments, lost adherents. During and after the American Revolution, evangelicals in states where church establishments existed called for an end to state support. In response, southern states disestablished the Anglican (soon to be Episcopalian) Church in the s. In New England, the Congregational Church enjoyed state support in the th century, but it retained fewer adherents as people flocked to the new evangelical sects. The decline of the established churches in the new republic created a religious free market in which evangelical denominations competed fiercely. Measured by church attendance, however, many Americans responded by abstaining altogether from organized religion, a particular problem in frontier regions like the Ohio Valley, where few churches existed. As the French visitor Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur noted in , “religious indifference is imperceptibly disseminated from one end of the continent to the other.” In the s and s, the Enlightenment ideas that helped propel and justify the American Revolution remained a strong influence. Freethinkers, many associated with Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party, embraced Deism—the conviction that God expressed himself through natural laws. In New England, Unitarians rejected the doctrine of the Trinity—the belief in the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—and emphasized instead a faith based on rational thought and the free will of the believer. Popular superstitions—a belief in the occult, alchemy, witchcraft, and astrology—also remained prevalent. Many more Americans thought that republican government required removing religion from public life, a sentiment that Jefferson expressed when he called in  for “building a wall of separation between the Church and State.” Churchgoers of all stripes worried about the apparent prevalence of “infidelity” in late-th-century America. But the evangelical churches responded most effectively, particularly west of the Appalachian Mountains, where Americans moved in increasing numbers in the post-Revolutionary era. In the s and s, western migrants established forts and farms, but the dispersed population hindered the development of organized churches. Older denominations, meanwhile, responded slowly to the spiritual vacuum in the West. Preoccupied in the post-Revolutionary years by declines in attendance, legal battles over control of church property, and internal schisms, Episcopalian and Congregational leaders failed to push their churches west. In addition, their insistence on an educated clergy made rapid expansion into the western country difficult. Most ministers graduating from the new nation’s elite colleges had little interest in settling in the uncultured, primitive, and sometimes dangerous conditions of the backcountry. Evangelical churches, in contrast, expanded rapidly in the West. The Baptist Church, which first experienced significant growth along the eastern seaboard during the First Great Awakening of the mid-th century, had fewer problems establishing a presence

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on the frontier for a number of reasons. First, Baptists adopted a congregational organization, reflecting their belief that every church had its own covenant or relationship with God. As a result, the denomination eschewed church hierarchy and accorded each congregation significant decision-making power, including the ordination and hiring of ministers. When a group of like-minded frontier settlers decided to form a congregation, they had only to agree among themselves to hire a minister. Baptists also rejected the idea that their clergy needed a formal religious education, widening the pool of prospective candidates. Instead, ministers required divine inspiration—a calling to preach— and they needed to convince the congregation that they possessed this call. As a result, Baptist congregations could select clergy from within their membership, often identifying promising youth regardless of education level or (on occasion) even literacy. Methodists had even greater success on the frontier. An evangelical outgrowth of the Church of England, or Anglican Church, Methodists first rose to prominence in America in the s. In , John Wesley, the founder of the English Methodism, appointed Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first American bishops. Methodists retained the hierarchical organization of the Anglican Church, leaving the choice of ministers to religious leaders, but the church possessed other attributes that enabled it to expand into the frontier and throughout the nation. Methodist preachers, like their Baptist counterparts, did not require a formal education beyond literacy. If a candidate demonstrated preaching ability and spiritual commitment, the annual conference of Methodist ministers accepted him as a candidate for the ministry and provided the necessary training. In the final stage of preparation, ministerial candidates served an apprenticeship with a more experienced circuit rider or itinerant minister. The practice of circuit riding or itinerancy, developed by Methodists in the s and emulated by other denominations, helped the church spread its evangelical message. Itinerants did not possess a fixed congregation. Instead, they traveled from place to place, sometimes thousands of miles per year, and preached anywhere and to anyone who would listen. Methodist circuit riders carried the denomination’s spiritual teachings into the backcountry, where thousands who might otherwise never have attended a church heard it. Methodist itinerants also established the camp meeting, the new method of preaching that Peter Cartwright described, to attract more listeners. Every summer and fall evangelical preachers organized these outdoor meetings, which lasted up to a week and to which thousands flocked. Camp meetings combined two evangelical practices: the outdoor ministry of itinerants and the group preaching that often followed the annual meetings of church governance bodies. Presbyterian minister James McGready organized the first camp meeting in Logan County, Kentucky, anticipating that attendees would remain at the revival until they felt moved by the Holy Spirit. Inspired by the success of this meeting, the Presbyterian and Methodist organizers of the August  Cane Ridge revival, in Bourbon County, Kentucky, advertised widely and prepared for an encampment. Contemporaries estimated that between  and  thousand people attended during the days-long revival, where they heard preachers emphasize the possibility of redemption for all who would atone for their sins. The success of the Cane Ridge meeting and the emotional response it engendered among many attendees convinced evangelical leaders to make the camp meeting a regular feature of their ministry over the next  years.

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These popular western revivals represented one source of the rising spiritual enthusiasm that engulfed the United States in the early th century. A second source came from New England, where Congregational ministers, upset by the erosion of the church’s authority and its loss of members, sought to rejuvenate their Calvinist faith. At the center of this project stood Timothy Dwight, who became president of Yale College in . Though Dwight embraced many aspects of Enlightenment thought, he worried deeply about the growth of Deism and Unitarianism, both of which denied the power and mysteriousness of God. To fight back, Dwight used evangelical methods—emotional sermons that emphasized his listeners’ sinfulness and need for atonement—to provoke a series of campus revivals among students at Yale and Harvard. He then helped his converted students, among them a young Lyman Beecher, obtain positions in churches around New England. Beecher became a leading proponent of revivalism in the Northeast. After graduation, he preached in Litchfield, Connecticut, moving in the s to a larger church in Boston. Like Dwight, Beecher worried about the popularity of New England Unitarianism, and he used emotional appeals to shatter the complacency of his listeners. But he also began softening Dwight’s tough Calvinist message. Calvinists stressed the sinfulness of all individuals and espoused the doctrine of predestination, the belief that God had preordained the eternal fate of all human beings. This message, Beecher believed, generated fatalism among believers and denied human agency. In response, he and likeminded preachers tempered Calvinism. They emphasized humanity’s free will and argued that individuals could overcome their natural propensity for sinfulness. Delivered in an emotional fashion, this hopeful message—known as New School Calvinism—convinced listeners that they could change and helped spark revivals in Congregational churches throughout the Northeast. In the late s, Beecher joined forces with itinerant Presbyterian Charles Finney, inviting him to speak in Boston in . The neo-Calvinism of Beecher and Finney, with its optimistic stress on human agency and universal redemption for those who would atone for their sins, became a theological hallmark of the revivals of the Second Great Awakening. Perhaps most important, evangelicals like Beecher shared a deep and abiding faith in the biblical millennium—the return of Christ and the end of days. In keeping with their optimistic view of human nature, they embraced postmillennialism, the belief that the thousand days of peace foretold in the Bible would precede the return of Christ. Beecher and fellow evangelicals deemed it their responsibility to prepare the nation and the world for the millennium and the second coming of Christ. Indeed, they believed they could hasten Christ’s return through the moral redemption of America and ultimately the world. “The stated policy of heaven,” Beecher declared, “is to raise the world from its degraded condition.” By , with the northeastern revivals attracting ever larger numbers and Unitarianism in retreat, Beecher headed west to Cincinnati to accept the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary. He decided he must compete for the unregenerate souls of the West, because this rapidly growing but, to his mind, uncivilized region posed the most immediate threat to the nation’s moral reformation. He believed the outcome of the contest in the Ohio Valley, with its “unprincipled” and “reckless” inhabitants, would decide the spiritual fate of the nation. With Beecher’s move west, the revivals of the Second Great Awakening had come full circle, spreading throughout the

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nation. A majority of Americans did not yet embrace the evangelical message, but its proponents had achieved such rapid progress that they could believe the moral redemption of the nation eminent. THE APPEAL OF REVIVALISM But why did the revivals, even if they failed to entice most Americans, generate such passion among a growing number of converts? The appeal of evangelicalism differed among believers and was influenced by region, social class, race, and gender. Certainly, converts found within evangelicalism a means to assuage insecurities generated by the social and economic transformations of the early th century. The evangelical faith also provided a moral compass that helped believers negotiate this rapidly changing world. Still other converts enjoyed within the evangelical churches a sense of purpose and a welcoming community they could not find elsewhere. For their part, women and free and enslaved African Americans embraced the evangelicals’ emphasis on the spiritual equality of believers. Equally important, the churches opened new opportunities and responsibilities that were denied these groups within secular society. Regardless of motivations, most believers had emotional conversion experiences. Some entered trances; others barked like dogs or spoke in tongues. At an early Kentucky revival, one young girl was “struck down[.] [She] fell stiff[,] heer hand and arm also became as cold as Death[;] heer fingers cramp’d.” “Two hours” later she “recover[ed] heer speech,” but she “continued in a state of despare” for another “three weekes.” Peter Cartwright described camp meeting attendees afflicted with “the jerks,” a “convulsive jerking all over” that could strike anyone. Even “proud young gentlemen and young ladies, dressed in their silks, jewelry, and prunella, from top to toe,” could “take the jerks.” “The first jerk or so,” Cartwright remembered, “you would see their fine bonnets, caps, and combs fly; and so sudden would be the jerking of the head that their long loose hair would crack almost as loud as a wagoner’s whip.” Sometimes the jerks could affect “more than five hundred persons . . . at one time.” Cartwright viewed “the jerks as a judgment sent from God.” The “exercise” helped “bring sinners to repentance,” while revealing to all the omnipotence of Him who “could . . . do whatsoever seemeth to him good, to the glory of his grace and the salvation of the world.” Other observers were less certain. English visitor Frances Trollope visited an Indiana revival in  and recalled with a “shudder,” the “terrible” “utterings, howlings, and groans.” She found “the hysterical sobbings” and “shrieks and screams” of the “poor maniacs” who attended “most appalling,” and left in disgust when “the atrocious wickedness . . . increased” to an unbearable “degree of grossness.” Like Trollope, many people attended the revivals to see an entertaining spectacle. Indeed, clergymen often employed impassioned and theatrical preaching styles to attract unbelievers. Others came, as some ministers recalled with chagrin, to mock and jeer the preachers and the spiritually distressed. Just as often those who came to ridicule got caught up in the excitement of the meeting—as preachers gleefully pointed out. For other attendees, revivals and camp meetings represented important community events that enabled friends and family to mingle and renew old ties. Backcountry and rural residents who lived some distance from their nearest neighbors relished the opportunity to socialize. After months of relative isolation, the camp meeting provided a chance to meet people and develop a sense of community. It also provided a brief respite from

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the work demands of backcountry living. Many farmers welcomed a few days away from the backbreaking frontier labor of clearing trees and planting crops. They also learned political and market news from fellow attendees. Women derived comparable emotional satisfaction from the revivals. The geographic isolation of backcountry regions reduced most households’ access to manufactured goods, requiring frontier wives and daughters to produce much of what the family needed. The household remained a site of productive and often unremitting labor, and most frontier women filled their hours with cloth and food production, along with child rearing. Revivals and camp meetings liberated them, if only for a few days, from the drudgery of domestic labor. For the many young people who attended, revivals provided an important opportunity for mingling and flirting with the opposite sex. As Elizabeth Roe recalled, the camp meeting was “a great place to show off, and make a grand appearance” for young men. She spared “no expense or trouble” to “appear fine.” Evangelical religion also provided a comforting and familiar refuge for Protestant Americans buffeted by the rapid economic changes of the early national period. Between  and , Americans lived through a national economic transformation. The changes were most pronounced in some of the longest-settled regions of New England and New York—not coincidentally regions greatly impacted by evangelical revivalism. The transportation revolution—the development of turnpikes, canals, steamboats, and railroads—created a national market that enriched many but profoundly unsettled American lives. The Erie Canal transformed upstate New York, opening productive lands for settlement, and creating urban centers along its entire route. When the produce from these regions flooded eastern markets, small farmers on older lands could not compete. Some farmers sent their children out to work; eventually, many had to sell their farms. Some families and many sons who saw no future in the East headed to the promising lands of the Northwest. Other families headed to the growing urban centers along the Erie Canal and the eastern seaboard. In New England, the number of people living on farms fell from  to  percent of the total population between  and , while New York City grew from , to more than , inhabitants in the same years. Expanded transportation facilities also increased market access for manufacturers, who responded by expanding their output through production innovations and mechanization. The rural population pushed off the land—and especially farm daughters—provided much of the labor necessary to work in these new factories. Even Americans who embraced and benefited from these social and economic changes—and many did—found them deeply unsettling. The economic transformation of the early republic enriched many and sparked development and growth, but it also shattered lives. People left, often unwillingly, occupations and communities they had known for years. Westward movement promised opportunity, but it drew rural people into the unknown and away from the emotional and economic support networks provided by kin and community. And in a republican nation that linked economic and political independence, small farmers found the shift from landowning producer to dependent wage laborer a profound shock. For many Americans, the economic changes of the early th century proved bewildering. Faced by such disruption, scores of Americans—rich and poor, white and black, male and female—sought a haven in religion. Here the converted enjoyed a sense of community, acceptance, and security that they lacked in a world driven by unfamiliar market forces.

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Women found revivalism particularly welcoming, and they outnumbered men among converts. In the Northeast, the movement of women into evangelical churches reflected in part changing social conditions. In the early th century, poor farmers’ sons moved west in search of better opportunities, while their daughters, bounded by the era’s gender conventions, often remained at home. As a result, women soon outnumbered men. At the same time, easier access to manufactured consumer goods eliminated many of the domestic functions and duties of women. With marriage prospects dimmed and less of their time consumed by domestic labor, many women entered the church, where they found a productive and socially permissible outlet for their energies. The availability of consumer goods also transformed the households and roles of urban middle-class women. Formerly sites of production, middle-class households became primarily sites of consumption. In the process, women became consumers and had more free time. For many prosperous women, the church provided a socially approved outlet for their energies and talents. Clergymen confronted by congregations dominated by women refused to relinquish control, but women did alter churches in a number of ways. Most evangelical sects abandoned the practice of gender-segregated seating at revivals, prayer meetings, and church services. Indeed, some ministers concluded that women and men praying together was “the greatest means of the conversion of souls.” A few evangelicals also welcomed female preachers, providing a few women like Nancy Towle, a Baptist itinerant, the opportunity to exercise spiritual leadership. In , another female Baptist itinerant, Harriet Livermore, preached to Congress, the first of four times she did so. But female preachers were a rarity, especially after  as the evangelical denominations became more socially respectable. More striking, women provided the labor and sometimes the leadership of the benevolent programs directed or inspired by evangelical churches. Women took the lead in Bible societies, which distributed the Gospel and religious tracts around the country. They helped create and oversaw the operation of local and national charitable organizations, orphan societies, and religious schools, particularly in northern towns. They also became mainstays of the antebellum era’s most popular reform movement, temperance, the campaign to curb alcohol consumption. Eventually, women’s involvement in the evangelical churches’ “Benevolent Empire” led many to more radical reforms such as antislavery and women’s rights. Despite the segregation within most churches, African Americans converted to evangelical denominations in large numbers in the early th century. In part, they found the faith attractive because early Baptist and Methodist itinerants in the South condemned slavery. Even after white evangelicals abandoned this stance to attract more southern white adherents, they remained committed to converting free and enslaved African Americans. Evangelical preachers welcomed slaves to their revivals and sponsored black preachers who possessed spiritual gifts. African Americans embraced the evangelical emphasis on the spiritual equality of believers and concluded that God endorsed freedom. After his conversion to Christianity, former slave Francis Henderson reported, “I felt that God had made all men free and equal, and that I ought not to be slave.” When white evangelicals resisted this interpretation, African Americans created their own churches. In the South, blacks had difficulty founding churches, and those they established in urban centers like Richmond and Louisville usually operated under white oversight. Still, these black institutions became centers of the African American

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community, espousing a Christianity that celebrated freedom, and developing distinctive worship practices. In the northern states, African Americans had more opportunity to establish churches and develop distinctive religious practices. In , Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which by  consisted of more than  congregations. Likewise, in the s black Baptists began organizing throughout the Midwest. CONSEQUENCES OF REVIVALISM The appeal of evangelicalism to women and African Americans reveals the potential radicalism of the revivalists’ message. Preacher Charles Finney emphasized that his preaching attracted the most respectable members of the community. But his revivalist style and message—emotional, theatrical, and comprehensible to all—appealed to a wide range of people. Indeed, Finney himself believed that everyone—black, white, male, female—deserved a place “in the folds of faith.” Finney’s broad appeal enabled him to attract large crowds wherever he traveled, and the many revivals he inspired earned upstate New York the title “the Burned Over District.” But Finney’s preaching style was not the only draw. The reworking of traditional Calvinism by evangelical clergymen broadened its appeal. In abandoning predestination, evangelical Protestants fundamentally changed people’s perception of human nature. Clergymen continued to emphasize the innate depravity and sinfulness of humanity, but they also affirmed that all people could do something about their sinful state. For the first time, evangelicals accepted the doctrine of universal redemption, arguing that through the exercise of free will—by making the choice of atonement—believers could bring about their salvation. They advocated, in short, a faith far more democratic than their Protestant predecessors. Evangelical beliefs implied that all Americans, regardless of social class, race, or gender, could be saved. Here was a theology that conformed to and reinforced Americans’ conception of their national identity, for they lived in a nation where republican government and a bounteous frontier ensured widespread opportunity. A democratic nation, in short, required a democratic faith. The evangelical emphasis on individual free will of the believer opened the floodgates to a variety of new religious expressions, turning the antebellum United States into what one scholar has called “a spiritual hothouse.” Every person believed they could decide their own spiritual fate, and many chose to do so outside the existing churches. Former Baptist William Miller believed the millennium imminent and calculated that Christ would return on March , . When Miller’s first forecast proved faulty, he recalculated and predicted Christ’s return on October , . Thousands of his followers, known as Millerites, gathered on a hill in Vermont, only to face what they called the “Disappointment.” Most of Miller’s followers dispersed to their original denominations, but a remnant established the Seventh Day Adventists. Another spiritual seeker, Joseph Smith, began in the s to report a series of angelic visions that led him to find golden plates that held the Book of Mormon. The events described in Smith’s new Scripture took place in America, making the nation a sacred site. From the Book of Mormon, Smith established a new, male-dominated denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, over which he ruled as Patriarch. Smith attracted thousands of followers, but the new faith also engendered widespread hostility, particularly for

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Smith’s endorsement of polygamy (or multiple wives). After his murder in Nauvoo, Illinois, Brigham Young led the faithful to Utah, where the church’s headquarters remain today. Miller and Smith were only the most successful of a variety of religious seekers who contributed to the religious energy of antebellum America. These groups shared with all evangelicals a belief in millennialism. Indeed, the religious revivals of the era raised Americans’ expectations that the Kingdom of God on earth—the millennium—was imminent. But the postmillennialism of most evangelicals directed their spiritual energy into a variety of social reforms and causes that ultimately reshaped the nation. Evangelicals believed that people need not sit idle in anticipation of the return of Christ. In keeping with their emphasis on human agency, revival leaders like Charles Finney preached that believers, through their good deeds and moral lives, could initiate the thousand years of peace and prosperity that would precede Christ’s reappearance. Thus, postmillennialism gave rise to an activist spirit, or what Finney called a “disinterested benevolence.” He and like-minded revivalists preached that Christians should perform benevolent deeds to improve the world and thereby hasten Christ’s return. “True Christians,” Finney wrote, are committed “[t]o the universal reformation of the world.” The theological innovations of Finney and his fellow revivalists dramatically revised their estimate of human nature. Nineteenth-century evangelicals believed human beings capable of improvement and ultimately perfection. But they believed they must take immediate action. Thus, evangelicals promoted and led a series of social reform movements that reshaped American behavior and the nation’s political life. Antimasonry, anti-Catholicism, temperance, prison reform, antislavery, and women’s rights could trace their roots back to the revivalist impulse and evangelicals’ desire to effect the moral reformation of the nation as the first step in a divine narrative. Evangelical reformers, spurred by their religious beliefs and the social dislocations of the early th century, did not aim to make things better; instead, they wanted to make things right. Their efforts transformed the United States. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Abzug, Robert H. Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, . Provocative examination of the link between religious revivalism and reform. Ahlstrom, Sydney. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . An older general history of religion in the United States, but encyclopedic in its coverage and well-written. Boles, John B. The Great Revival, –: The Origins of the Southern Evangelical Mind. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, . Excellent study of the first revivals of the Second Great Awakening. Butler, Jon. Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Invaluable and insightful overview of American religious life between Europeans’ first settlement and the Civil War. Hambrick-Stowe. Charles E. Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, . Most recent biography of a key figure of the Second Great Awakening. Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization of American Christianity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . Landmark study of the appeal of evangelicalism in antebellum America.

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Heyrman, Christine Leigh. Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt. New York: Knopf, . A well-written and erudite study of the spread of evangelicalism in the southern states. Johnson, Paul E. A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, – . New York: Hill and Wang, . A debatable, but still valuable study of revivalism in upstate New York, and of Charles G. Finney’s impact. Mathews, Donald G. Religion in the Old South. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . Valuable study of what evangelical religion meant in the lives of black and white southerners. Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, . Groundbreaking study of the meaning of black Christianity in the slave South. Westerkamp, Marilyn J. Women and Religion in Early America, –: The Puritan and Evangelical Traditions. New York: Routledge, . Examination of the relationship between society, gender, politics, and religion before .

ISAAC BACKUS (1724–1806) Isaac Backus was the foremost Baptist leader in the American colonies during the th century. He was active in the Great Awakening and in initiating the Second Great Awakening in the South near the end of his life. Although not highly educated, Backus was intelligent and a skillful preacher. He became an advocate of the separation of church and state in the United States and opposed any established churches. Backus also wrote an important history of the colonies, which, despite its sectarian bias, is still highly regarded for its thorough research. Backus was born on January , , in Norwich, Connecticut. He was the son of a prosperous farm family. Backus’ father died when he was only . He received only seven years of elementary education and began his adult life as a farmer. Backus later credited his mother with providing him with a strong religious foundation. He also inherited a strong tradition of religious dissent. His grandfather was expelled from the Connecticut legislature for opposing the Saybrook Platform, which reorganized Connecticut’s churches along Presbyterian lines. His mother separated from her home congregation for the same reasons. In June , the Great Awakening reached Norwich when Eleazar Wheelock preached there. In August, James Davenport also preached at Norwich, and Backus underwent a conversion. He later wrote that he was mowing in his field on August , , when he suddenly saw his past life and how it was filled with sin. He joined the Norwich Congregationalist Church, although he was dissatisfied with the way it was run and hoped for a reformation. When the Norwich church voted to admit those people who did not claim a change of heart and to accept the Saybrook Platform, a large minority, including the Backus family, withdrew. They formed the Separatist New Light Church on July , . Years later, after Backus had left home, his mother and brother were thrown in prison for failing to pay taxes to support the established church. In September , Backus experienced a call to preach. For two years, he served as an itinerant preacher. He settled in Titicut parish, Massachusetts, where a new Separatist congregation ordained him as minister in April . His income as a minister was ably supplemented by a family iron business. Backus almost immediately challenged the Massachusetts laws supporting the established churches. He refused to pay a £ tax

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and was arrested but soon released. Backus married Susanna Mason of Rehoboth, Massachusetts. He was apparently influenced by his new wife’s Baptist leanings and struggled with the question of infant versus adult baptism for several years. He operated his church under a rule of “open communion,” in which both Baptists and Separatists were welcomed. In , Backus came down squarely on the side of the Baptists and reconstituted his church as the First Baptist Church of Middleborough. For the rest of his life, Backus wrote, organized, and traveled to promote the Baptist cause. He promoted the idea of individual churches joining together in the Warren Baptist Association. The institution was founded in  to aid Baptist churches in their struggles against civil authorities and established churches, and to spread Baptist teachings throughout New England. Backus especially opposed the church taxes that were imposed on all to support the established church. From that beginning, Backus advanced to belief in religious liberty and the separation of church and state. He was familiar with the arguments of John Locke but never endorsed the legalistic stance of Thomas Jefferson. While Backus believed that government should have no influence on church affairs, he firmly upheld the proposition that Massachusetts, and the United States, should be Christian entities. Backus’ most influential writing calling for civil disobedience in defense of religious liberty was An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty (). Backus was a supporter of American independence and joined together the issues of political and religious liberty. Despite vigorous lobbying, he was unable to convince the writers of Massachusetts’ new state constitution to exclude church taxes from their draft in . When it came time to consider a federal constitution in , Backus modified his antifederalist views. He gave qualified support at the Massachusetts convention to ratify the Constitution (), despite the opposition of most other Baptists. Backus praised the bans on religious tests and a hereditary nobility. He supported Jefferson and opposed John Adams, who had supported the religious establishment in Massachusetts. Backus traveled extensively to preach. His logbooks reveal that he averaged at least , miles annually for  years. The Warren Association sent him to preach throughout Virginia and North Carolina in  and . He helped to spark the Second Great Awakening in the South. Despite his lack of higher education, Backus supported a learned ministry. He was a trustee of the College of Rhode Island (later Brown University) from  to . He also wrote numerous tracts on freedom of conscience and other theological and ecclesiastical issues. Backus’ most important work was his threevolume A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists (–). Modern historians still regard it highly and as thoroughly researched. Backus died at his home in Middleborough, Massachusetts, on November , .

tim watts PETER CARTWRIGHT (1785–1872) A Methodist frontier preacher, Peter Cartwright was Abraham Lincoln’s main rival in the Illinois legislature and an unsuccessful opponent in the  congressional election. Politics was an aside, as Cartwright’s passion in life was to preach the gospel. Born

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on September , , in Amherst County, Virginia, Cartwright moved with his family to frontier Logan County, Kentucky, in . He received little education and led a rogue youth of drinking and gambling before converting to Methodism during the Great Western Revival of . Cartwright was given an exhorters license in , and from  to , he was a circuit rider (a minister who traveled a circuit). Cartwright denounced drinking, gambling, and all other rival denominations in a mastered extempore style as he rode the Red River circuit in Kentucky, the Waynesville circuit in Tennessee, the Scioto circuit in Ohio, and the Salt River and Shelbyville circuits in Indiana. Cartwright was ordained as a deacon in Kentucky in  and as an elder two years later. From  to , Cartwright was a presiding elder of the Methodists’ Cumberland District. Cartwright detested slavery and moved to Sangamon County, Illinois, in  to live in a free state. He made his home at Pleasant Hills and went on to serve as a presiding elder of the Illinois Methodist Conference for the next  years. Cartwright entered politics to oppose slavery, serving  years as a member of the Illinois state legislature beginning in . In his reelection campaign in , he defeated Lincoln. Cartwright’s only political defeat was by Lincoln in a race for the U.S. House of Representatives in . Known as “Uncle Peter,” Cartwright was a delegate to  Methodist General Conferences. He died on September , , and is buried near Pleasant Plains, Illinois.

CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY (1792–1875) Charles Grandison Finney was the leading Protestant evangelist of the great religious revival that swept th-century America and helped spark the many social reform movements of the midcentury. Born on August , , in Warren, Litchfield County, Connecticut, at a young age Finney moved to Oneida County, New York. He spent two years studying at the Hamilton Oneida Academy and then taught school. Largely selfeducated, he completed a rigorous course of independent study while teaching school in New Jersey. In , he began reading law in the office of Benjamin Wright in Adams, New York, and was admitted to the state bar in . Handsome and full of energy, Finney was a popular young man in Adams and participated in several activities in the town, taking a particular interest in music. Finney received little religious training as a child, and although he regularly attended church as a young man, he was unmoved by traditional preaching and worshipping. His legal studies introduced him to the Bible, prompting him to embark on a self-led spiritual exploration. After much turmoil, he underwent a religious epiphany, which culminated in a dramatic conversion experience. Finney talked later of great waves of joy that swept over him as he fully recognized the power and glory of God. The experience was so powerful that he decided to renounce his legal practice and become an evangelist. In , Finney became a candidate for the ministry at the St. Lawrence Presbytery and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in . He married Lydia Andrews of Oneida County the following October (the first of his three wives). During the next decade, Finney conducted revivals in the Midwest and the East. In his highly personal and direct sermons, he stressed the dire consequences of disobedience to God’s will, emphasizing repentance and urging converts to accept salvation. People responded strongly to his charismatic preaching. Rejecting traditional forms of worship, congregants frequently

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expressed their religious fervor through emotional outbursts and trances, which became a standard feature of Finney-led revivals. By combining emotional appeals with lawyerly logic, Finney was able to reach a wide audience that included all social classes. He quickly established a large and devoted following. In , a group of merchants, among them the reformers Arthur and Lewis Tappan, invited Finney to come to New York City as pastor of the Second Free Presbyterian Church. In New York, Finney again made many converts. He was so successful that within a few years, several other churches had been established, including the Broadway Tabernacle, which was built for Finney with the help of such wealthy patrons as the Tappans. Increasingly dissatisfied with conservative Presbyterian theology and discipline, Finney withdrew from the Presbyterian Church and embraced Congregationalism while preaching at the tabernacle. Besides working to save souls, Finney took a stand against intemperance and slavery, two of the major social movements of the time. His followers, eager for causes to which they could dedicate their energies, quickly took up his call for action on these issues. Finney’s supporters became the basis for both movements. He publicly and actively supported Theodore Weld when Weld left the Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, because discussion of slavery was forbidden, urging religious leaders to exert themselves on behalf of the antislavery cause. In , he traveled to the newly created Oberlin College and became the chairman of Oberlin’s department of theology. Two years later, he left his post at the Broadway Tabernacle and moved permanently to Oberlin. At Oberlin, Finney served as pastor of the First Congregational Church from  to  and as president of the college from  to . Under his guidance, the school became a center of antislavery agitation and a station on the Underground Railroad. Finney also made evangelistic tours of the United States and Great Britain and was a frequent contributor to the Oberlin Evangelist. He wrote many books, including two collections of sermons, Lectures on Revivals () and Lectures on Systematic Theology (two volumes, , ), and his Memoirs (). By the time of his death on August , , at the age of , the evangelical movement that he had done so much to shape and direct was firmly established within American Protestantism.

william mcguire and leslie wheeler JAMES MCGREADY (ca. 1760–1817) An influential th-century Presbyterian minister, James McGready, who lead the Great Revival of , figured prominently in the Second Great Awakening. McGready’s fervent religious zeal and charismatic preaching style converted thousands of Americans across the country around the turn of the th century. McGready was born in western Pennsylvania in about  to Scotch-Irish parents. The family moved to North Carolina several years later, and McGready spent the majority of his childhood there. At the urgings of an uncle, McGready began training to become a Presbyterian minister as a young adult. At , he returned to Pennsylvania to study Latin, theology, and literature under several different preachers. He earned his preaching license at the Presbytery of Redstone, Pennsylvania, on August , .

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Following his ordination, McGready became profoundly influenced by the evangelical preaching of Dr. John Blair Smith, the leader of a burgeoning religious revival in Virginia. During his tutelage under Smith, McGready first felt the zealous stirrings of a revivalist leader. In , McGready married Ann Nancy Thompson, with whom he had two daughters, and then struck out on his own to spread the good word. He settled in North Carolina and began preaching to great effect; McGready’s fire-and-brimstone oratory drew hundreds of ardent followers. His resonant voice, passionate style, and keen physical endurance, which allowed him to pontificate for hours at a time, inspired many people searching for meaning in their lives. However, although McGready’s charisma earned him the respect and religious fanaticism of many, it alienated others. His wild condemnation of sinful behavior angered many North Carolinians who did not share his strict code of decorum and reverence. Following repeated threats, McGready and many of his followers migrated to the Kentucky frontier in . There, they established three congregations in Logan County. McGready soon convinced his North Carolina converts and the parishioners of his new congregations to sign a covenant binding the members to a doctrine of fasting and extensive prayer for the absolution of others’ sins. As a result, frenetic revivals broke out during church services at all three parishes during the late s. As profound as these mass conversions were, they merely set the stage for the Great Revival of , which was orchestrated by McGready. The revival was a massive conversion movement that began in Logan County and swept across the West and South. Pioneers across the frontier were seized by McGready’s thundering zeal, fainting during services and fervently worshiping for hours on end. Wagon trains stretched for miles as frontiersmen and their families flocked to hear McGready and other pastors preach the Presbyterian doctrine of salvation. Many attendees were affected by such extraordinary states as visions and trances. The revival resulted in the formation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which disagreed with the traditional Presbyterian authority about two points; the Cumberland Presbyterian Church believed in the necessity of a classical education in religious ordination and abandoned the fatalism of traditional doctrine. Although McGready concurred with the Cumberland contingent on the classical education issue, he split from the nascent sect regarding its rejection of the Calvinist interpretation of classical Presbyterianism. McGready was disciplined by the head of the Transylvania Presbytery for his transgression but was eventually reinstated in the orthodox Presbyterian church. In , McGready went to southern Indiana to start Presbyterian parishes. Although he converted hundreds of believers, old age began to rob him of his thunderous voice and physical strength during the six years he ministered there. However, at a fervent camp meeting in , McGready made an impassioned proclamation for which he is well known: “I this day feel the same holy fire that filled my soul  years ago, during the glorious revival of !” Soon after that successful revival, McGready returned to his home in Henderson County, Kentucky. He died there in February , although his exact death date is unknown.

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2 The Louisiana Purchase, 1803

INTRODUCTION When Thomas Jefferson was elected president in , the change to Republican control meant a change in foreign policy from Alexander Hamilton’s tough realism and commercial orientation to Jefferson’s nationalistic assertiveness. Jefferson and his secretary of state, James Madison, took seriously any slights to U.S. national dignity and had confidence in the nation’s ability to defend itself. In power, Jefferson and Madison sought to implement an ideal, based on a moralistic approach of American concepts of what was right and wrong, with the assumption that these American concepts were universally valid. It was a distinctive approach to foreign affairs—a blend of high purpose and selfish national interest. The first test of Jefferson’s foreign policy came in , when the president decided to confront the Barbary pirates, who stopped ships in the vicinity of their ports on Africa’s Mediterranean coast and demanded a payment called a tribute. Although this practice had been going on since at least the s, Jefferson considered it an affront to American honor and sent U.S. naval vessels to the area to protect U.S. commercial shipping. A naval battle at Tripoli, one of the pirate ports, resulted in the destruction of several enemy ships, but when an American ship ran aground pursuing a pirate ship, its crew was captured, creating an early hostage crisis. After further sea and land battles and a final payment of $,, the crew was released, and the sultan of Tripoli pledged not to interfere further with U.S. shipping. Jefferson’s greatest achievement in office, though it strained his constitutional principles, was the Louisiana Purchase. This territory is a funnel-shaped area that included many of the present-day plains states west of the Mississippi River and stretched down to the port city of New Orleans. Spain had acquired this territory in  as a result of the French and Indian War. But in , Napoleon Bonaparte, now the unquestioned ruler of France, reacquired Louisiana from Spain in exchange for some territory elsewhere. Napoleon wanted to develop Louisiana into a source of food for his possessions in the French West Indies and end their dependence on the United States. But in , his hands were tied in Europe with all the military activity there; neither men nor money was available to occupy and develop Louisiana. Another problem cropped up when Napoleon tried to establish a naval base at Santo Domingo (Haiti) for protection against the British navy. A slave insurrection, led by the Haitian hero Toussaint L’Ouverture, broke out in . Napoleon sent a military force to

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The formal transfer of the Louisiana territory from France to the United States was concluded in New Orleans on December 20, 1803. (Courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol.)

the island, and most Americans presumed that it would easily put down the trouble in Santo Domingo and then move on to occupy New Orleans and perhaps West and East Florida as well. Should this happen, it would threaten U.S. security and might lead to the eventual absorption of adjacent U.S. territory into the French empire. To prevent this, Jefferson was prepared to make an alliance with Great Britain. As it turned out, French forces proved nearly helpless against both the Haitian rebels and an outbreak of yellow fever. In the end, Napoleon lost some , men, and Haiti became independent. This catastrophe caused the French emperor to reassess his plans about an American empire. He decided that perhaps it was not such a good idea after all; conquering Europe might be a better choice. Meanwhile, with its problems in Haiti, France made no move to occupy Louisiana, and nothing really was different from the time Spain had controlled the territory. Indeed, the Spanish still exercised nominal authority in Louisiana, including control over the use of the port of New Orleans, which Americans had been guaranteed under the provisions of Pinckney’s Treaty (). But in October , Spain suddenly withdrew permission for Americans to use New Orleans, in violation of the treaty. This left the city open for French occupation and caused a good deal of political turmoil in Washington, where Jefferson’s Federalist opponents urged him to send troops to seize New Orleans and the Floridas. At this point, in January , Jefferson appointed James Monroe as a special envoy to go to Paris to buy the territory around New Orleans, as well as the territory of Florida, which the president suspected might also have gone from Spain to France. Monroe was to work with Robert Livingston, the U.S. minister to France, and the two diplomats were instructed to go to England with suggestions for an alliance if Napoleon was unwilling to sell. At about the time Monroe arrived in Paris in April , however, Napoleon received even more bad news from Santo Domingo and made the offer to sell not just the New Orleans area but the whole of the Louisiana Territory. Monroe and Livingston knew a good deal when they saw one and concluded the sale on April , . No one specified exactly what had been bought—simply the territory that had been in the

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hands of Spain—but the price was $ million. At the time of the sale, Monroe and Livingston were not quite certain what had been purchased; later, it was found that the sale did not include the Floridas but did encompass some , square miles of territory, bought for the princely sum of three cents an acre. There were certain irregularities about the sale that threatened to cause problems. France had never officially taken over the land from Spain, and French constitutional law decreed a vote of its legislature to approve the sale of territory. Moreover, nothing in the U.S. Constitution said anything about the authority of the president to buy territory, and Jefferson considered a constitutional amendment to authorize the purchase. But there was reason to believe that Napoleon might withdraw the offer if there was any kind of delay, so Jefferson put principles aside and sent the treaty to Congress. Some Federalists thought the purchase expensive and unnecessary, and others worried about the incorporation of , new French-Creole citizens, but the Senate ratified the treaty by a – vote and the House of Representatives appropriated the money by a wide margin. The formal transfer of sovereignty took place in New Orleans on December , . Although the Floridas were not included in the sale, Jefferson said, “If we push them strongly with one hand, holding out a price in the other, we shall certainly obtain the Floridas, and all in good time.” After the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson hoped to continue his expansionist drive and acquire both Florida and Texas from Spain. He tried unsuccessfully to get Napoleon’s help in this, and then he had to deal with his former vice president, Aaron Burr, now a hated political rival, who led an expedition down the Mississippi River that Jefferson (and many others) believed was aimed at creating a secessionist republic in Louisiana under Burr’s rule. Burr was arrested, but the onset of maritime troubles with Great Britain prevented Jefferson from making any further progress in acquiring Florida or Texas. Jefferson remained confident that the acquisition of Florida would be the second step in the century-long process of U.S. expansion. In , long after Jefferson had left the presidency, the Spanish still owned Florida. Near the town of Apalachicola in what is now the Florida panhandle, a group of Seminole Indians and their chief, Billy Bowlegs, were causing trouble for the United States by crossing the border into Alabama and scalping unsuspecting settlers. Complicating the situation was the fact that the Indians were apparently being advised and encouraged by two resident British subjects, an elderly Scottish trader named Alexander Arbuthnot and a young English adventurer named Robert C. Ambrister. President James Monroe responded to the Indian depredations by ordering Andrew Jackson, then a frontier military officer, to raise a force and subdue the Seminoles, even if it meant chasing them into Florida. Jackson, whose regard for Indians was scant indeed, chased the Seminoles to the Gulf Coast at the town of St. Mark’s, where a gunboat flying the Union Jack was anchored in the harbor. Two Seminole chiefs, associates of Billy Bowlegs, rowed out, intending to seek sanctuary among the friendly British. To their surprise, they met Jackson, who had been flying the British flag on an American gunboat as a trick. The next day, Jackson entered St. Mark’s over the protests of the Spanish governor, hauled down the Spanish flag, hanged the two Indians without a trial, and arrested Arbuthnot, who kept a trading ship there. Next, Jackson set out after Billy Bowlegs, who, with his contingent of Indians, had escaped from St. Mark’s. Jackson

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learned how they managed to escape when Ambrister and a few accomplices stumbled into his camp by mistake, and on one of the men was found a secret note from Arbuthnot warning the Indians of Jackson’s pursuit and offering  kegs of gunpowder. Jackson was upset. In a quickly assembled court-martial, Arbuthnot was tried for espionage and inciting the Indians against the United States, while Ambrister was tried for actively leading the Indians into war against the United States. Arbuthnot put up a defense, but Ambrister pleaded guilty and threw himself on the mercy of the court. It mattered little. Both were found guilty and sentenced to death, and Jackson threw aside considerations of mercy for the two, terming them “unprincipled villains” and “wretches who by false promises delude and excite an Indian tribe to all the horrid deeds of savage war.” Ambrister went to his death before a firing squad, while Arbuthnot was hanged from the topsail yardarm of his own trading ship. Although Great Britain and Spain protested Jackson’s arbitrary actions, no diplomatic crises ensued. Britain acted with restraint, disclaiming the actions of its subjects in the light of more serious considerations, such as profitable trade relations with the United States. Spain’s protests were dismissed by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who said that Spain got what it deserved for failing to keep order on its borders. In the negotiations that followed, Spain agreed to cede all of Florida to the United States in exchange for U.S. payment of $ million owed to Americans who had lost goods to Spanish ships during the recent Napoleonic wars. Additionally, the United States gave up some dubious claims to Texas in return for Spanish claims to the Oregon Territory and a clarification of the boundary between the United States and Spanish America. This began at the Sabine River (which separates Louisiana and Texas today) and then moved northwestward in a series of steps to the Rocky Mountains, to a point where the Oregon Territory began. The assumption of Spanish claims to that territory gave the United States equal standing with Great Britain in what is now the Pacific Northwest and satisfied Adams’s desire to have a claim to the Columbia River basin. In , the deal was concluded in the Adams-Onís Treaty, or, as it sometimes called, the Transcontinental Treaty. Two years later, the Senate ratified the treaty. The Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of Florida were the first two steps toward the completion of American expansion across the North American continent. Jefferson died in , but he would have approved the continuation of U.S. territorial acquisition across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean and deep into Mexico. His expansionist policy, based on an assumption of U.S. moral superiority and the pursuit of practical national interests, was one of his most important legacies.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY steven e. siry Thomas Jefferson never journeyed more than a hundred miles west of Monticello, yet since at least the Revolutionary War, he had dreamed of an American “empire of liberty.” Believing that freedom was threatened by the consolidation of power in the hands of a few people, the Virginian wanted to maintain an open and roughly equal society.

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In particular, Jefferson emphasized territorial expansion in conjunction with access to foreign markets as the best way to keep America dominated by independent landowning farmers to prevent the problems associated with urban centers and preserve social equality and civic responsibility. Furthermore, westward expansion would secure America’s borders and thus help reduce the threat from foreign powers. The Jefferson administration’s acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France in  expanded America’s “empire of liberty” by more than doubling the size of the nation. Eventually all or part of  states would be carved out of the territory. There existed, however, great uncertainty about the territory’s extent since the treaty of  did not delineate clear boundaries. In response to American inquiries concerning the territory’s exact boundaries, the French foreign minister asserted: “You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will make the most of it.” If America’s vast new domain were to serve the needs of the agrarian republic, it would have to be explored and made ready for settlement. Thus in the summer of , President Jefferson sent an expedition to the trans-Mississippi West. Led by Jefferson’s personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, and a young army officer, William Clark, the expedition wanted to find a useful transcontinental route to the Pacific Ocean, study the terrain and animals, and develop a fur trade with the Indians. The “Corps of Discovery” left St. Louis in May  and went up the Missouri River. With a Shoshone woman, Sacajawea, acting as their interpreter, the group of explorers followed the Snake and Columbia Rivers to the Pacific Ocean. Using the same route, the expedition returned to St. Louis in September . The expedition’s report greatly increased American interest in the fur trade of the trans-Mississippi West and suggested, incorrectly, that the route to the Pacific could easily lead to increased trade with China. In addition, in –, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike explored the sources of the Mississippi River into northern Minnesota. Later he ventured into New Mexico and Colorado, where he sighted the peak that now bears his name. Pike subsequently reported that the Great Plains was a treeless waste on which settlers could never survive. Major Stephen H. Long, leader of an expedition in –, supported Pike’s report and misleadingly referred to the region as the Great American Desert. During the time of Pike’s explorations, Aaron Burr and  followers went down the Mississippi River on flatboats, either to capture Texas from the Spanish or to set up an independent nation in the Mississippi Valley. Whatever the purpose of Burr’s adventure, President Jefferson had his former vice president arrested, and peace was maintained with Spain. A grand jury indicted Burr for treason on charges that he was attempting to cause the secession of lands in the Louisiana Territory and to become the head of a new republic in the trans-Mississippi area. Chief Justice John Marshall, a political opponent of Jefferson, presided at the trial and interpreted the Constitution’s treason clause as tightly as possible by barring evidence of conspiracy until it had been proved that Burr had raised a military force. The jury consequently found Burr not guilty. The Louisiana Purchase, which had secured access to the Gulf of Mexico, was supposed to promote the Jeffersonian vision of an expanding agrarian republic based on unimpeded access to foreign markets. But the renewal of the Anglo-French conflict in  had limited American access to these markets. As a result, Jefferson and his handpicked successor, James Madison, imposed economic sanctions against Great Britain and France between  and  to liberate American commerce from foreign

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restrictions. These sanctions, however, fueled the growth of manufacturing in the United States and thus ironically began to undermine the Jeffersonian vision of an agrarian-dominated nation. Eventually British violations of American neutrality, which placed restrictions on access to foreign markets and created political divisions within the Democratic-Republican Party, led to President Madison’s June  decision to request a declaration of war against Great Britain. After the War of , there developed a renewed interest in western expansion. Over the next decade, the government established military posts on the Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas Rivers. The posts helped to expand America’s agrarian republic by securing the frontier, promoting the fur trade, and supporting white settlement. In addition, the Anglo-American Convention of  adjusted the poorly defined northern boundary of the Louisiana Territory by asserting that the Canadian-American border would start at the Lake of the Woods and then run westward along the th parallel to the “Stony [Rocky] Mountains.” Following the Louisiana Purchase, American diplomats had tried to obtain part of Florida by arguing that it had always been included in the Louisiana Territory, but the Spanish refused to accept this view. Then as Spain’s power declined, the United States took West Florida between  and . Finally in , as a result of the AdamsOnís Treaty (also known as the Transcontinental Treaty), the United States acquired East Florida, and Spain recognized that previously occupied West Florida was part of the Louisiana Purchase. Furthermore, the treaty established a new boundary line that started at the mouth of the Sabine River, moved in a northwestward direction to the nd parallel, and then went straight west to the Pacific Ocean. The United States thus surrendered its vague claims for Texas arising from the Louisiana Purchase. President James Monroe and his cabinet did not know that the Spanish government would have retreated even on the Sabine boundary; therefore, the Monroe administration, which considered Florida to be more important than Texas, did not pursue the issue. Despite the failure to acquire Texas, the Adams-Onís Treaty embraced the grand Jeffersonian vision of an expanding empire of liberty. By  the United States had  slave and  free states, with the Ohio River and the southern and western boundary of Pennsylvania defining the line between them. The dividing line had not been extended across the Mississippi River, although slavery had existed there since the French and Spanish had controlled the area. In , the Missouri legislature petitioned Congress for admission to the Union as a slave state, an action that heightened northern fears over the extension of slavery. Thus, in early , a New York Congressman, James Tallmadge Jr., offered an amendment to the Missouri statehood bill that would bar further importation of slaves into Missouri and free, at age , all those born there. By the narrowest of margins, the amendment was defeated in Congress, and the northern majority fell short of its objective of keeping slavery out of the rest of the Louisiana Territory. Ultimately Congress decided to admit Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. In addition, Congress prohibited slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Territory north of the southern boundary of Missouri (the °' parallel). Northern and southern nationalists praised the Missouri Compromise, but sectional conflict had only been postponed. White settlers had also started moving into the area south of Missouri. Bordering the state of Louisiana () on the north was the Arkansas Territory, which had been

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created in . The settlement of Arkansas continued slowly, partly due to the swamps and mountains that covered significant areas in the territory. However, as more eastern states became crowded, the overflow of population moved into Arkansas. In , with a population of fewer than ,, Arkansas was admitted to the Union to offset the admission of Michigan, whose citizens were “free-soil,” or antislavery. During the period between  and , Americans engaged in fur trading in the Rocky Mountains region. Traders from St. Louis, known as the Gateway to the West, met in the wilderness each summer with mountain men and Indians to barter for beaver pelts. By the mid-s, the beavers had almost been exterminated. Trade until after  then shifted to bison robes. Among the earliest people in this period to settle west of the Mississippi River were Native American tribes from the South and the Old Northwest that the federal government forcibly relocated in present-day Kansas and Oklahoma. Then in the s, white Americans, especially those moving along the overland trails to the Far West, made extensive contacts with the approximately , Native Americans who lived on the Great Plains. The Pawnee, Omaha, Oto, Ponca, and Kansa lived nearest the Missouri and Iowa frontier. Unlike other Plains Indians, these border tribes lived in villages and raised crops while supplementing their diets with buffalo meat in the summer. The Central Plains Indians included the Brule and Oglala Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Shoshone, and the Arapaho. These were aggressive nomadic tribes who used horses to attack the border Indians and to track the buffalo for as much as  miles. Although their cultures varied, all the Indians of the Great Plains shared a Neolithic culture using stone and bone tools. The warriors carried bows and arrows, stone-tipped lances, and shields made of buffalo hide so tough they could deflect bullets. The warriors also used a secret system of signals to execute intricate cavalry maneuvers. The migration of whites along the overland trails across the Plains to the Pacific coast led to conflict with the Indians. Whites fed their oxen and horses on the grass that both the Indians’ horses and the buffalo needed. The whites also began to hunt the buffalo for profit and sport. As the great buffalo herds began to shrink, the Indian tribes increasingly fought each other for the dwindling supply of food. The discovery of gold in California, which brought , people across the Plains in  alone, led to federal action. The vast number of gold seekers turned the Platte Valley into a wasteland for the tribes. In addition, diseases carried by white immigrants killed thousands of Indians. To manage the Indians better and to uphold the Jeffersonian vision of an expanding agrarian civilization, the government decided to construct a chain of forts to protect the pioneers. Furthermore, according to the Fort Laramie Treaty (), the federal government would compensate the Indians for the destruction of the buffalo and other resources and annually provide various goods to the tribes. In return, the tribes had to stay within certain boundaries, and some tribal lands were sold. When the Fort Laramie Treaty was signed, there were few white settlers in the area west of the Mississippi River, east of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the Missouri Compromise line of °'. Nevertheless, in  Senator Stephen A. Douglas introduced a bill to organize that area as an important prelude to building a transcontinental railroad and to promoting white settlement in the region. To win southern backing, Douglas added a clause to his bill that explicitly repealed the antislavery provision of the Missouri Compromise. In the territory north of °' the status of slavery would be

28

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determined by the territorial legislature. This was known as popular sovereignty. After a bitter debate, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. No other piece of legislation in American history has produced such immediate and far-reaching changes. The act divided the northern Democrats and led directly to the collapse of the Whig Party and the formation of the Republican Party, which opposed the extension of slavery into any territory. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, thousands of settlers moved to Kansas. As proslavery and antislavery groups competed for control in the area, violence eventually escalated until the territory became known as “Bleeding Kansas.” In  proslavery forces wanted to elect delegates to a convention at Lecompton, the territorial capital, to write a constitution and seek admission to the Union as a slave state. Since an overwhelming majority of the settlers in the territory held free-state views, the success of the proslavery plan depended on holding a rigged election for convention delegates. But the antislavery settlers boycotted the election. Unless a fair election was held, Congress would reject the Lecompton Constitution, which protected slavery. The proslavery forces now permitted a vote on allowing or preventing the future importation of slaves into Kansas. But the free-soilers, still unable to vote for the abolition of slavery in Kansas, again boycotted the election, and consequently the proslavery constitution that had no restrictions on importing slaves was ratified. However, the bill to admit Kansas to the Union as a slave state was defeated in the House of Representatives. The Lecompton controversy thus greatly worsened the sectional controversy. In Kansas the antislavery forces soon took control of the government and repealed Kansas’s laws protecting slavery. By  only two slaves remained in Kansas, and in late January , after six southern states had seceded from the Union, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state. In , some . million Americans lived west of the Mississippi River. To increase this trans-Mississippi population and to promote agrarian expansion, Congress in  passed the Homestead Act, which gave  acres of land to anyone who would pay a $ registration fee and pledge to live on the land and cultivate part of it for five years. Between  and  nearly , families obtained land under the act. But the Homestead Act’s land allotment was not suited to the semiarid area comprising much of the Louisiana Territory. On the Great Plains, annual precipitation averages less than  inches and annual runoff less than  inch. Lacking irrigation, a -acre farm was too small to be self-supporting on the Great Plains. In  in an attempt to adjust the Homestead Act to western conditions, Congress passed the Timber Culture Act, which allowed homesteaders to purchase an additional  acres if they planted trees on onefourth of the land within four years. The act successfully encouraged forestation and increased farms to a self-supporting size. During the Civil War, Indian revolts occurred in the trans-Mississippi West. The Indians opposed encroachments by miners, hunters, and settlers on their lands and denounced the failure of the government to provide annual supplies of the quality stated in treaties. Moreover, builders of the first transcontinental railroad, completed in , wanted rights of way through tribal lands and brought thousands of white settlers to ensure profits for their operation. As a result of the conflict, a government commission in  recommended that two large Indian districts should be formed to hold all the Plains Indians. The northern and

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southern districts were to comprise roughly what is now South Dakota and Oklahoma. In the end only the latter was created. Over the next  years the slaughter of millions of buffalo on the Plains, the construction of several transcontinental railroads, and the rising tide of white settlers broke the Indians’ resistance. Between  and  many of the tribes of the Plains and elsewhere were assigned to the Indian Territory. But in  the federal government permitted gold prospectors to move into the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory, a sacred part of the Sioux reservation. Led by Chiefs Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Rain-in-the-Face, the Sioux went to war and achieved initial success, especially with their stunning victory in  over the troops led by General George A. Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Nevertheless, the U.S. Army eventually defeated the Sioux. In , Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act, which asserted that whenever the president believed an Indian tribe sufficiently civilized to become farmers and the reservation land fertile enough for cultivation, the tribal land should be divided among the Indians. For at least  years the federal government would retain full title on behalf of the Indians. During that period the Indians could not sell the land and a mortgage could not be put on it. The government would also confer U.S. citizenship on all Indians obtaining a trust title. The government would sell surplus land, and proceeds would be held in trust for the tribe. By the late s, their situation made many Indians receptive to the visionary message of Wovoka, a Paiute prophet who asserted that natural disasters would soon destroy the white race and allow the Native Americans to reclaim their lands. Dancing and meditating Indians demonstrated their faith in the prophecy and called on their ancestors to return to life. This Ghost Dance movement did not advocate Indian violence against whites, but settlers became very concerned. Some of the Sioux left their reservations, and in late December  at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, the army killed over  men, women, and children of the tribe. Between  and , a tremendous number of settlers, including many Canadian and European immigrants, flocked to the Great Plains. Numerous pioneer accounts contain expressions of relief on emerging from the eastern forest wilderness to the openness of the Great Plains, which they frequently referred to as a “garden.” Nevertheless, many settlers soon found the vast, treeless Plains depressing. Several “prairie realists” wrote of the settlers’ many hardships and bitter disappointments. One of these writers was Hamlin Garland, who grew up on farms in Iowa and the Dakota Territory. In Main-Travelled Roads (), he described the drudgery and the misery of life on the prairie. The “Main-Travelled Road in the West,” asserted Garland, “[is] long and wearyful, and has a dull little town at one end, and a home of toil at the other. Like the maintravelled road of life, it is traversed by many classes of people, but the poor and weary predominate.” Life on the Plains was not always so discouraging as Garland suggested, although settlers were forced to adapt to the new environment in many ways. For example, due to a lack of firewood, the settlers burned corncobs and twisted wheat, and the farmers used sod “bricks” to build their houses. The dramatic increase in settlers on the Great Plains after  resulted in an immense increase in food production in the United States. Intensive farming was developed from the eastern boundary of the Louisiana Territory to the rainfall line of the one

30

WHAT HAPPENED?

hundredth meridian. In particular, on the central Plains was the “corn-hog belt,” and in the Red River Valley of western Minnesota and eastern North Dakota emerged one of the world’s most productive granaries. In combination with great increases being made in other countries, agricultural overproduction became a worldwide development, which caused steadily declining farm prices and produced a period of significant distress for American farmers. But a greater-than-normal dry cycle on the Great Plains began in  and continued for nearly  years. Since many of the Plains farmers were not experienced at dryland farming, they had one crop failure after another. Usually the prices of grain and meat rise during a period of crop failures. In the s, however, prices remained extremely low because of the substantial production of crops by the farmers of the Midwest and in foreign countries. Consequently, between a third and a half of the farmers in Nebraska, South Dakota, Colorado, and western Kansas were ruined. In the late s, in response to the economic crisis, Farmers’ Alliances were created on the northern Great Plains and in the South. These groups blamed their problems on a conspiracy of bankers, railroad owners, and Republican and Democratic Party leaders. Beginning in , Farmers’ Alliances in local elections backed candidates who would work to assist farmers. Victories on the local level prompted agrarian leaders to meet at Omaha, Nebraska, in July  to create the National People’s Party, commonly called the Populist Party, and to nominate a candidate to run for the presidency. The Populists’ “Omaha platform” called for the federal government to increase significantly its involvement in the economy to assist the farmers. The Populists wanted a graduated income tax, government regulation of transportation and communications systems, the direct election of U.S. senators, a new government-controlled banking system, and, especially, the unlimited coinage of silver to boost commodity prices through inflation of the money supply. Winning only  percent of the popular vote in , the Populist leaders in  decided to back Nebraska’s William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, who espoused ideas that the farming community supported. Bryan particularly opposed the gold standard and endorsed the purchase and coinage of silver at the ratio of  to  of gold. But Bryan was defeated by the Republican Party’s candidate, William McKinley, who campaigned in favor of the gold standard. Soon after the election, the Populist Party virtually disappeared. Despite its short life, its ideas would substantially influence the reform movements of the Progressive era. In addition to the climatic problems on the Great Plains, farmers in the s and s also clashed with cattlemen over the use of the land. Commercial cattle ranching on the Plains developed rapidly after the Civil War. Ranchers used cattle drives to take longhorns to newly built railroad connections for shipment to slaughtering and packing houses in cities such as Kansas City and St. Louis. By the late s huge ranches had been established in western Kansas, Nebraska, eastern Colorado, the Dakotas, and elsewhere. As this occurred, the public became fascinated with the cowboys who worked for the cattle barons. The romantic portrayal of the cowboy was promoted by “dime” novels and better-written books, such as Owen Wister’s The Virginian (). Moreover, Wild West shows, featuring Calamity Jane, “Buffalo Bill” Cody, and other living legends of the West, traveled to cities in the East and Europe and contributed to the romantic mythmaking about the trans-Mississippi West and the cowboys.

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Ranchers in the s overstocked their herds, and hungry cattle grew weak as grass became scarce. Then in  a harsh winter featuring several blizzards killed  percent of the cattle. The cattle ranchers subsequently began to replace the longhorns with new breeds, to fence in the cattle using the newly invented barbed wire, and to feed the herds grain during the winter. In short, ranching was rapidly becoming a modern business. In , the United States commemorated the th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase by holding an exposition in St. Louis. Millions of visitors at the fair gazed upon a statue of Thomas Jefferson and learned of his part in the founding of the West. The Louisiana Purchase International Exposition ended with a substantial surplus, and the funds were used to build in St. Louis the first significant memorial to Jefferson. It was especially meant to honor Jefferson’s acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, which was the most far-reaching act of his life for the nation. As Merrill Peterson asserted in The Jeffersonian Image in the American Mind (): “The Declaration [of Independence] and the Louisiana Purchase were viewed as promise and fulfillment, the abstract idea and the thing itself, the dream of freedom and the awakening of national destiny.” But ironically, by the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase it was not a “destiny” that upheld the Jeffersonian vision of a republic dominated by independent landowning farmers. During the th century, as the United States became a more industrialized and urbanized nation, the Jeffersonian vision increasingly had succumbed to the imperatives of modernity. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon & Schuster, . Authoritative account of the Lewis and Clark expedition (–), which first made Americans aware of what was included in the Louisiana Purchase. Andrist, Ralph K. The Long Death: The Last Days of the Plains Indian. New York: Macmillan, . A well-written account of the Plains Indian wars. Banning, Lance. The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Argues that Jeffersonian thought was an Americanization of the antiurban British political ideology that the country gentry espoused. Barney, William L. The Passage of the Republic: An Interdisciplinary History of NineteenthCentury America. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, . A study of the transformation of the United States from its th-century roots into a market society, including an overview of the diplomatic and political issues related to the Louisiana Territory. Billington, Ray Allen. America’s Frontier Heritage. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, . Uses the literature of numerous disciplines to present a view of the frontier’s important role in the development of democratic institutions in the United States. Dangerfield, George. The Awakening of American Nationalism, –. New York: Harper & Row, . Provides insightful coverage of the Anglo-American Convention of , the Adams-Onís Treaty, and the Missouri Compromise. DeConde, Alexander. This Affair of Louisiana. New York: Scribner’s, . Provides an analysis of the Louisiana Purchase within the larger context of the history of manifest destiny. Dick, Everett N. The Sod-House Frontier, –: A Social History of the Northern Plains from the Creation of Kansas and Nebraska to the Admission of the Dakotas. New York: AppletonCentury, . A study of the entire process of settlement, which the author claims was mostly uniform throughout Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas.

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Dykstra, Robert R. The Cattle Towns: A Social History of the Kansas Cattle Trading Centers: Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell, –. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . A study of the bitter local conflicts between rival interests that led to major problems in the cattle towns. Ellis, David M., ed. The Frontier in American Development: Essays in Honor of Paul Wallace Gates. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Contains several articles dealing with the agrarian development of the Great Plains and its impact on U.S. history. Fite, Gilbert C. The Farmer’s Frontier, –. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, . A study of the economic conditions that resulted in widespread agrarian protest. Foley, William E. Wilderness Journey: The Life of William Clark. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, . Biography of one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition that explored the Louisiana Purchase. Goetzmann, William H. Army Exploration in the American West, –. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . An analysis of the role played by the U.S. Army in exploring the transMississippi West, especially the actions by the topographical engineers from  to . Goodwyn, Lawrence. Democratic Promise: The Populist Movement in America. New York: Oxford University Press, . A revisionist work that downplays the Populists’ radicalism and views the Populist movement as a cooperative, democratic challenge to an inegalitarian political and financial system. Greever, William S. The Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes, –. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, . Presents detailed information on the mining expeditions in the Dakotas. Hicks, John D. The Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers’ Alliance and the People’s Party. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, . A comprehensive work on the Populists. Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . A Pulitzer Prize–winning book that describes the Populists as unsophisticated reformers and criticizes them for espousing myths, including a conspiracy theory of history, that obscured the real reasons for the farmers’ economic problems. Kennesy, Roger G. Mr. Jefferson’s Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase. New York: Oxford University Press, . Argues that Jefferson betrayed his principles and gave in to Virginia planters and their slave economy with terrible consequences. Kukla, Jon. A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America. New York: Knopf, . Places the Louisiana Purchase in an international context and praises Jefferson’s skill at acquiring the territory. Lamar, Howard R. The Trader on the American Frontier: Myth’s Victim. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, . Contends that farmers had no need of Indian trade, and this eventually caused the decline of commercial contact with the Indians and led to the demise of the Indian way of life. _____, ed. The Reader’s Encyclopedia of the American West. New York: Crowell, . A reference work with information on the Louisiana Territory and related topics. Levinson, Sanford, and Bartholomew H. Sparrow, eds. The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion, –. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, . Collection of essays about the Louisiana Purchase and its influence on later territorial acquisitions. Limerick, Patricia Nelson. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. New York: W. W. Norton, . A synthesis of recent scholarship that argues that the American West was a cultural meeting ground and an area of conquest, especially due to ethnic conflicts and competition for resources. McCoy, Drew R. The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Describes the European ideas behind Jefferson’s

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dream of an agrarian empire of liberty and analyzes the relationship between the Jeffersonian view of the political economy and party politics. Merk, Frederick. History of the Westward Movement. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . A wideranging volume that contains information about farming and the cattle industry on the Great Plains. Milner, Clyde A. II, Carol A. O’Connor, and Martha A. Sandweiss, eds. The Oxford History of the American West. New York: Oxford University Press, . A valuable reference work that contains entries on the Louisiana Territory and related topics. Moore, Glover. The Missouri Controversy, –. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, . The fullest account of the Missouri crisis. Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. Rev. ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . Provides useful insights on pioneers’ first impressions of the Great Plains. Paterson, Thomas G., J. Garry Clifford, and Kenneth J. Hagan. American Foreign Policy: A History to . d ed. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, . A general history that includes coverage of American diplomacy dealing with the Louisiana Territory. Peterson, Merrill D. The Jefferson Image in the American Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, . A detailed study that shows the changing views over a century and a half of Jefferson’s ideas and actions, including the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Vol. . Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, . A survey of the policies of the national government toward the Indians in the th century. Rawley, James A. Race and Politics: “Bleeding Kansas” and the Coming of the Civil War. Philadelphia: Lippincott, . Covers the consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . An important interdisciplinary work that includes an analysis of “dime” novels’ mythical portrayal of western heroes. Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, . A collection of essays that includes Turner’s seminal paper, written in , which asserts that the American nation was unique in its character and development because it had been shaped less by transatlantic ties than by the conquest of a series of frontiers across the North American continent. Utley, Robert M. Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, –. New York: Macmillan, . A survey of the U.S. Army’s victory over the Plains Indians. Webb, Walter Prescott. The Great Plains. Boston: Ginn and Company, . Offering an environmental interpretation, this work, which affected many subsequent studies of the Great Plains, argues that the essential characteristics of the region are its level surface, treelessness, and semiaridity, which have also been the principal factors in shaping a way of life on the Plains different from that fashioned in the eastern forested areas.

YORK CLARK (ca. 1770–ca. 1832) An integral part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of –, York was William Clark’s African American “manservant,” or slave. Little is known about him aside from what was recorded in Clark’s journal of the expedition, but what is known is that he performed his full share of duties and that he was viewed with great astonishment by western Native Americans, who had never seen a black man before. His participation in the journey made him the first black person to cross North America north of Mexico.

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York is thought to have been about the same age as Clark, who was born in . He grew up with Clark in the woods of Kentucky. Clark’s father, John Clark, bequeathed York to his son in a will dated July , . The slave’s first name is believed by some to have been Ben, but there is no record of this in the Lewis and Clark journals or any other contemporary primary source. In , York was living with Clark in Clarksville, in the Indiana Territory, near Louisville. On October , , he joined his master and the “nine young men from Kentucky” on their expedition to explore the western part of the North American continent. Not much is recorded about how he spent the first winter at Camp Dubois in Illinois, though Clark does report that he worked with the other men. As the group ascended the Missouri River, York helped with food preparation by swimming in the river to gather greens. When Sgt. Charles Floyd became ill and died of a ruptured appendix, York was his principal caretaker. York hunted regularly, shooting buffalo and other animals, an unusual activity because slaves ordinarily were not allowed to use firearms. Though York is often portrayed as having been huge and immensely strong, Clark does not describe him that way. York hiked with several men to explore “Spirit Mound,” a site feared by local Native Americans, and finished the trip nearly exhausted with heat, thirst, and fatigue. Clark attributed this to York being overweight and not accustomed to walking fast. Later writers have also attributed great sexual prowess to York, but Clark’s original journals never mention this. York was known for play-acting and practical jokes. While staying with the Arikaras Indians in October , he apparently frightened them by claiming to have been wild and eaten children before he was captured and tamed by Clark; Clark seems to have thought that York took this joke too far. York appears to have been quite courageous and loyal to the expedition. At one point, Clark, Sacajawea, her son, and her husband were nearly washed into the Missouri River by a flash flood. York disregarded his own safety to rescue them. Clark’s consideration of York as a full member of the party is illustrated by Clark’s naming several geographic features after him; apparently everyone in the group, including Meriwether Lewis’ dog, had places named for them. The western Native Americans were fascinated by York’s black skin and curly hair. Lewis and Clark traded with the Indians to get horses, but York was one of the last members of the party to be given a horse. Instead, he walked until his “feet became so sore that he had to ride on horseback.” When the expedition reached the Columbia River in present-day Washington, York was a member of the group who walked  extra miles to see the Pacific Ocean. When the party elected to cross to the south side of the river, where the weather and hunting were supposedly better, York was allowed to vote on the decision as an equal member of the group (as was Sacajawea). On the south shore of the Columbia River (in Oregon), the group built their –  winter quarters, which they named Fort Clatsop after the local Clatsop Indians. York participated fully in the construction, despite being sick with the cold that plagued all of the expedition members that winter. On the return trip, York helped trade for basic food items from the Nez Percé Indians, and Clark named a small tributary stream after his servant, calling it “York’s Dry

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River.” When the group arrived back in St. Louis on September , , York was as admired as the rest of the party. Once daily life resumed at home, York went back to being an ordinary slave. He asked Clark to free him or at least to hire him out near Louisville so he could be closer to his wife, who had a different master. Clark refused at first but then sent him to Kentucky in . Ten years after the expedition, Clark granted York his freedom, and York went into the freighting business, working in Kentucky and Tennessee. He is believed to have died of cholera sometime before .

amy hackney blackwell LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION (1803–1806) The Lewis and Clark expedition of – was the first government-sponsored exploration of the United States’ newly acquired Louisiana Territory. The adventure, which was undertaken during President Thomas Jefferson’s term, accomplished its primary goal of reaching the Pacific Ocean and also yielded a comprehensive map of the western terrain; descriptions of flora, fauna, and animals in the wilderness; and interaction with western Native Americans. President Jefferson conceived the idea of westward expansion long before it came to fruition in . Having inherited his father’s skill at surveying and love of exploration, Jefferson had already considered a major westward expedition before he was elected president in . He hired U.S. Army ensign Meriwether Lewis, a family acquaintance, as his personal secretary. In , Jefferson sent Lewis to the University of Pennsylvania to learn scientific skills. Lewis was also trained in celestial navigation and wilderness survival techniques in preparation for the overland expedition to come. Jefferson secretly sent a message to Congress in January  asking for funds to explore the Louisiana Territory. His request was granted during the spring; coincidentally, Jefferson’s opportunity to purchase the Louisiana Territory from the French government arose in May. Jefferson named Lewis the commander of the Corps of Discovery exploration, and they immediately set about preparations for the arduous journey. Lewis tapped William Clark, with whom he had served in the army, to serve as unofficial cocaptain of the expedition. Once technicalities were resolved, Lewis, Clark, and their cadre of  men set out from St. Louis, Missouri, on May , . The Corps of Discovery began the long journey up the Missouri River. By late October, they had traveled more than , miles and reached a ,-person settlement of Hidatsa and Mandan people in what is now North Dakota. Lewis decided to camp there for the winter, in a structure they named Fort Mandan, across the river from the Native American settlement. There, they hired the French fur trader Toussaint Charbonneau and his Shoshone wife, Sacajawea, to serve as guides and interpreters for their journey to the Pacific. Sacajawea’s role became highly romanticized in the decades following the expedition. Throughout the trip, Lewis kept multiple copies of his maps and notes of observations of the climate, vegetation, and people. Both Lewis and Clark kept diaries with complex scientific observations of the animal and plant life encountered by the expedition. In

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the spring of , Lewis sent  of his men back down the river toward St. Louis with his various reports and a selection of artifacts—including a small selection of previously unknown live animals—for shipment to Washington. The remainder of the party headed west. Meanwhile, Lewis crossed the continental divide, and the party began the long trek to the Pacific Coast. For the rest of August and September , they struggled through the mountains of what are now Montana and Idaho. By September, they reached a tributary of the Columbia River that enabled them to resume their travel by canoe. In late November, they reached the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia near presentday Astoria, Oregon. After wintering on the coast, Lewis and Clark began the journey homeward up the Columbia. By mid-summer , they crossed the continental divide again and reached the tributaries of the Missouri River. On September , , they returned to St. Louis. Lewis rested in St. Louis for several months but headed east again in November. In late December, he arrived in Washington, D.C., and was received as a conquering hero. Lewis and his men all received double pay and land grants from the army. Jefferson appointed Lewis governor of the Louisiana Territory and Clark official Indian agent for the West. Despite Lewis’ success on the frontier, depression and financial problems beset him in the years following his famous expedition. Lewis committed suicide at an inn in Tennessee, en route from St. Louis to Washington, D.C., in .

anne blaschke ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON (1746–1813) Robert R. Livingston’s role in the negotiation of the Louisiana Purchase in  capped a remarkable career of public service. Livingston was born on November , , in New York City into one of the most prominent families in that area. He was educated at King’s College (now Columbia University) and admitted to the bar in . As a delegate to the Second Continental Congress from  to , Livingston was on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence but was absent when the document was signed. In two more terms as a member of the Continental Congress from  to  and from  to , he served on a wide range of committees. Elected by Congress as the nation’s first secretary of foreign affairs in , he oversaw the signing of the Treaty of Paris before resigning in . Active in New York political affairs, Livingston, with John Jay and Gouverneur Morris, helped write the state constitution. From  to , he was New York state chancellor; as such, he administered the presidential oath to George Washington in . It was an appropriate duty for a man who had played a prominent part in obtaining New York’s ratification of the U.S. Constitution. When he did not receive what he felt was his just share of patronage positions, Livingston split with the Federalists in  and joined the new Democratic-Republican Party. After failing to win election as New York governor in , he was appointed by Thomas Jefferson as minister to France in . When Napoleon offered to sell all of Louisiana to the United States, Livingston, along with James Monroe, boldly exceeded his authority and accepted.

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After returning to the United States in , Livingston helped finance Robert Fulton’s development of the Hudson River steamship Clermont. Although clouded by almost continuous legal challenges, Livingston continued to exercise the monopoly on steam navigation he had obtained from the state of New York in  for supporting Fulton until his death on February , .

steven g. o’brien SACAJAWEA (d. 1812) Sacajawea accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition during its journey to the Pacific Ocean between  and . Although her name has been traditionally spelled as “Sacajawea” and sometimes “Sakakawea,” “Sacagawea” is probably the most accurate spelling. Lewis noted in his journal that her name was “Sah ca gah we ah” and meant “bird woman” in the Hidatsa language. Sacajawea was born into the Lemhi band of Shoshone Indians, whose home was in the Lemhi Valley of present-day Idaho. Around , Hidatsa Indians captured her in a raid on the Lemhi band’s camp near the Three Forks of the Missouri River, in presentday Montana. Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian fur trader, purchased Sacajawea from the Hidatsa sometime between  and . In , Charbonneau and Sacajawea were living with a band of Hidatsa on the Missouri River in present-day North Dakota. In November , Charbonneau met Meriwether Lewis and William Clark at their Corps of Discovery’s winter camp at Fort Mandan and signed on with the expedition as an interpreter. Sacajawea gave birth to a son, Jean Baptiste (whom Clark called “Pompey”), on February , . In April , when the party proceeded westward with Charbonneau, Sacajawea accompanied them. Sacajawea has been mythologized as Lewis and Clark’s “guide” to the Pacific. She was not. In fact, most of the territory through which the expedition passed was as new and unfamiliar to Sacajawea as it was to the explorers. Despite her much-heralded role in helping the party obtain horses from the Lemhi Shoshone, Lewis and Clark’s success was due more to promises of trade and firearms than to Sacajawea’s kinship with the band. Nevertheless, Sacajawea did make contributions to the success of the Corps of Discovery. In August , she recognized landmarks that helped the party locate the Lemhi Shoshone and their horses. In , she helped Clark locate Bozeman Pass, between the Three Forks of the Missouri and the upper Yellowstone Rivers. Although not the party’s principal interpreter, she did help translate when the party encountered the Shoshone and other tribes that had Shoshone prisoners, such as the Flathead, Nez Percé, and Walula. Sacajawea’s foremost contribution to the party was her mere presence, helping convince tribes along the way that the party came in peace. Clark wrote of Sacajawea’s role in this regard: “The Wife of Shabono our interpreter We find reconsiles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions. A woman with a party of men is a token of peace.” Sacajawea remained with Charbonneau at the Mandan villages when Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis in . In , Clark persuaded them to come to St. Louis, where he educated Jean Baptiste while Charbonneau and Sacajawea joined a fur-trading expedition back up the Missouri River. Sacajawea probably died “of a putrid fever” on

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December , , on the Fort Manuel Reservation in present-day South Dakota. Another Shoshone woman who claimed to be Sacajawea died in Wyoming in .

doug dodd DOCUMENT: EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNALS OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION, 1805 In , Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out from St. Louis, Missouri, with  men to explore the vast new lands the United States had acquired with the Louisiana Purchase of . President Thomas Jefferson had commissioned the two former soldiers to investigate the new U.S. territory with an eye toward expansion and eventual settlement. Aided by a Native American woman named Sacajawea, the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled all the way to the coast of Oregon before returning to Washington, D.C., with their maps and notes in . Below is an excerpt of their journals from the expedition. (Thwaites, Reuben Gold (editor). Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, –. Printed from the Original Manuscripts in the Library of the American Philosophical Society and by Direction of Its Committee on Historical Documents, Together with Manuscript Material of Lewis and Clark from Other Sources, including Note-Books, Letters, Maps, etc., and the Journals of Charles Floyd and Joseph Whitehouse, Now for the First Time Published in Full and Exactly as Written. ([New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, –]. Volumes –.) April ,  [Meriwether Lewis] Fort Mandan Our vessels consisted of six small canoes, and two large perogues. This little fleet altho’ not quite so rispectable as those of Columbus or Capt. Cook, were still viewed by us with as much pleasure as those deservedly famed adventurers ever beheld theirs; and I dare say with quite as much anxiety for their safety and preservation. we were now about to penetrate a country at least two thousand miles in width, on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden; the good or evil it had in store for us was for experiment yet to determine, and these little vessells contained every article by which we were to expect to subsist or defend ourselves . . . enterta[in]ing as I do, the most confident hope of succeeding in a voyage which had formed a da[r]ling project of mine for the last ten years, I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the most happy of my life. The party are in excellent health and sperits, zealously attached to the enterprise, and anxious to proceed; not a whisper of murmur or discontent to be heard among them, but all act in unison, and with the most perfict harmony. April ,  [Patrick Gass] About  o’clock in the afternoon we left fort Mandan in good spirits. Thirty one men and a woman [Sacagawea] went up the river and thirteen returned down it in the boat.

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We had two periogues and six canoes, and proceeded about four miles, and encamped opposite the first Mandan village, on the North side. April ,  [John Ordway] . . . our Intrepter and them that went with him returned brought with them  of the RickaRee Savages. . . . they Informed us that only  of their nation had come up to the Mandanes villages to treat & Smoak a peace pipe with them . . . they brought a letter from Mr Tabbo who lives with [the] R.Ree . . . with news that  of the Souix chiefs was going down on the Big barge to see their Great father and that Some of the Rick a Ree chiefs was going also. About  oClock we all went on board fired the Swivel and Set off on our journey. at the Same time the barge Set off for St Louis  frenchmen in a perogue in company with them. they took down the letters and all the writings which was necessary to go back to the States also Some curious animals such as Goat Skins & horns, a barking Squerrell Some Mountain Rams horns a prarie hen & badgers Some birds cauled magpies & a nomber of other curious things too tedious to mention &.C. The returning party, in charge of Corporal Warfington, consisted, in addition to the leader, of six private soldiers, Gravelines, who had been engaged as pilot, and two other Frenchmen. Temporarily accompanying it, also, were the two engages, Rivet and Degie, and a lame Arikara who had been granted the privilege of transportation in the boat to his tribal home. The party was to be joined at the Arikara village by Tabeau, the trader, and four hands, making a party of fifteen to descend the river. None of them had originally intended to become permanent members of the exploring expedition with the exception of Newman and Reed, the two men who had been discharged for misconduct.) April ,  [Patrick Gass] The woman that is with us is a squaw of the Snake nation of Indians, and wife to our interpreter. We expect she will be of service to us, when passing through that nation.

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3 The War of 1812

INTRODUCTION The War of  was the last significant military conflict between Great Britain and the United States. A direct outgrowth of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the War of  involved two and a half years of land and sea warfare; its end marked the beginning of a long period of profitable trade relations and generally cordial diplomatic relations between the two nations. After a brief interlude from  to  (when the Louisiana Purchase was made), the Napoleonic Wars resumed in , and by , Napoleon’s victories had given France control of most of the European continent, while British admiral Horatio Nelson’s brilliant naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar had ensured British control of the seas. For the United States, this meant increasing pressure from the British and the French, both quite unwilling to have Americans trading with the enemy. British pressure began in  with the Essex case. Prior to , the British had allowed American ships to carry goods from the French West Indies to France, provided they stopped at an American port on the way. This “reexport” trade formed more than half of America’s neutral trade. But in the Essex case, tried in a British court, it was ruled that goods could be sent on to France only if an American duty or tariff had been paid on them and if it could be shown that the West Indian goods had not been meant for France in the first place. Ships that could not show evidence of this were liable to British seizure. In the wake of the Essex case, President Thomas Jefferson sent emissary William Pinckney to join James Monroe, the U.S. minister in Britain, to work out some kind of agreement. During these negotiations, Napoleon increased French pressure by issuing the Berlin Decrees in December  and the Milan Decrees in December , which established a blockade around the British Isles and ordered the confiscation of all ships that had visited a British port or were on their way to one. Since most neutral ships were from the United States and since most U.S. trade was with or through Great Britain, the major impact of these decrees was on the United States. To make matters worse, the British responded with the Orders-in-Council, a series of decrees that blockaded French-controlled ports and subjected to capture any ships headed to or from those ports. As a result, American merchants lost several hundred ships during Jefferson’s second term, mostly to the British. Altogether something over , American ships were captured in the eight or nine years before the declaration of war in . Although

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Tecumseh, the greatest Indian leader during the War of 1812, was killed at the Battle of the Thames in Ontario on October 5, 1813. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

the ships captured represented only about one in every six ships that made the voyage, and the profits earned by the other five ships more than offset the loss of the sixth, the captures were an insult to the honor of the United States and contributed significantly to the coming of the war. Impressment, the British practice of stopping American ships at sea and taking off men alleged to be deserters from the British Navy, was another serious problem after . Desertion was quite common in the British Navy, for it was a cruel and harsh institution, and with the expansion caused by the war with Napoleon, the navy always needed men and was eager to recapture its deserters. On the other hand, the American merchant marine was growing rapidly by means of its profitable neutral trade, and shipowners could entice British sailors by offering higher wages and better working conditions. As a result, many British deserters did end up on American ships. Many of them took out U.S. citizenship papers or even completed the process of becoming American citizens, but the British policy was “once an Englishman, always an Englishman.” Thus, sailors were often impressed despite having evidence that they were Americans; often one’s accent was the determining criterion. The practice of impressment had been going on since the Revolutionary War, and it was redoubled after , but the climactic event, the Chesapeake affair, happened in June  and almost led to war. The American warship Chesapeake was suspected by the British of having a certain deserter on board. Near Chesapeake Bay, the Leopard, a British ship, stopped the

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Chesapeake, and its captain demanded the right of search. When the captain of the Chesapeake refused, the Leopard fired on the American ship, causing  casualties. Members of the Leopard’s crew then boarded the Chesapeake, found the man they were looking for, and also took three American citizens who, they claimed, had once served in the British Navy. The reaction to the Chesapeake affair was, as expected, a loud outcry for war. But Jefferson hated war and searched for a policy that would avoid it. In December , he announced a policy of “peaceful coercion,” in which American vessels would be kept off the seas to avoid capture and to save the country from insults to its honor. He reasoned that Britain and France would miss American goods so much that they would come to recognize the neutral rights of the United States. Congress agreed and passed the Embargo Act on December , , cutting off all U.S. foreign trade, even with Canada. The effect of this act was to bring ruin to American commerce and American ports. Trade dried up, and this spread to other sectors of the economy. Although all sections of the country were hurt, the Northeast, dominated by Jefferson’s political opponents, the Federalist Party, was hurt worst, and the embargo became a divisive political issue. Federalists accused Jefferson of buckling under to Napoleon with the embargo and of discriminating against Federalist shipping interests. Had the Federalists been a stronger party, the embargo might have been a crucial issue in the presidential election of , but Republican strength was more than enough to guarantee the victory of its candidate, James Madison, over the Federalist, C. C. Pinckney. One of the last actions Jefferson took as president was to sign the repeal of the Embargo Act. After  months, even most Republicans had had it with the embargo. In its place, Congress passed the oddly named Non-Intercourse Act, which prohibited trade with both Britain and France but opened it to all other nations. If either Britain or France removed its offending decrees, moreover, the trade prohibition would continue to apply only to the other. Neither Britain nor France chose to nibble at the American carrot, however, and U.S. economic conditions continued to worsen. In May , Congress passed yet another variation of economic warfare with Macon’s Bill No. . Under this act, trade was resumed with both Britain and France, but if either revoked their decrees, the United States would reinstitute nonintercourse against the other. Trade immediately resumed with Britain, and merchants began earning greater profits than ever. In November , Napoleon announced that the French decrees were revoked, and Madison cut off trade with the British in March . This was probably a trick on Napoleon’s part, since he failed to abide by his announced revocation and French ships continued to prey on American commerce. Meanwhile, relations with Britain deteriorated; the British minister in Washington returned to London, and the U.S. minister there was called home. In the West, yet another Anglo-American dispute accelerated the course toward war. This involved the resident Indians, toward whom the general policy had been to move them farther and farther west to make room for white settlers. In , the great Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, decided that the Indians had been pushed around enough; they would fight further efforts to displace them. In July, he warned Indiana territorial governor William Henry Harrison that he intended to form an alliance with several southern tribes. Intended to intimidate Harrison, Tecumseh’s warning only encouraged the unimaginative general into attacking Tecumseh’s followers in his absence. At the Battle of Tippecanoe in north-central Indiana, Harrison’s forces prevailed and burned

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the Indian encampment. The outraged Tecumseh promised eternal war, and many settlers fled the territory. This became a diplomatic problem, because it was universally believed that the British in Canada supplied Tecumseh and his Indians and encouraged their violence toward settlers. Thus war against the Indians was war against the British, and western congressmen demanded the conquest of Canada to remove the British menace. The Congress that met in November  was more warlike than the previous one due to a number of outspoken western representatives, dubbed War Hawks by their eastern colleagues. The Kentuckian Henry Clay was elected Speaker of the House, and under his direction, Congress passed bills to create a large army and enlarge the small navy. There was still considerable Federalist opposition to the war, and Madison was reluctant to press for it, but when an American vessel, the President, beat a smaller British ship, the Little Belt, in an impromptu naval battle, a war spirit arose in the country, and the president sent Congress a declaration of war. Congress approved it on June , , unaware that Britain’s House of Commons had repealed the Orders-in-Council on June . Militarily, the war was a draw. Britain was involved in European wars and could not devote its full energy to fighting the United States. In the United States, considerable difficulties were encountered in preparing the country for war. Congress balked at raising taxes and tariffs to pay for the war, and only half of an $ million bond issue was sold. Six months after war had been declared, Congress appropriated money to enlarge the navy and enlarge the army from , to , men. Enlistment, however, was slow; in the first two months, only  Kentuckians signed up, and no other state had wanted war more. Because of the lack of preparation and poor military leadership, American efforts to conquer Canada got nowhere. On both land and sea, where the American navy fought very well, a kind of stalemate existed until April , when Napoleon abdicated, freeing Britain to launch a new offensive against the upstart Americans. A blockade of the American coast was extended, and a raid on Washington in August resulted in the burning of the Capitol and White House, forcing Madison and his family to flee ignominiously into Virginia. A major British attack against Niagara and Lake Champlain in the North and New Orleans in the South stalled, but peace negotiations, which had begun in early , finally resulted in the Treaty of Ghent, signed on Christmas Eve . The treaty was merely a cease-fire, which returned the status of the combatants back to the way it was before the war. Basic settlements came in the Rush-Bagot Agreement (), which demilitarized the Great Lakes, and in the Convention of , which extended the U.S.–Canadian boundary along the th parallel to the Rocky Mountains and established a northern border for the Louisiana Purchase. The convention also provided for a -year joint occupation of the Oregon Territory and included an agreement on the use of fishing areas off the coast of Newfoundland. Politically, the War of  marked the end of the Federalist Party. In the election of , the Federalists tried to exploit the substantial lack of sympathy for the war but failed to prevent Madison’s reelection. During the war, the Federalist stronghold of New England lent little support to the effort, sending few men and little money forth in the service of the country. Worse, the Hartford Convention of , a gathering of New England dissidents, championed a group of constitutional amendments designed to protect the political influence of the region and threatened secession if Congress failed

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to meet its demands. When the war ended shortly after the convention, the Federalist Party was left with the stigma of disloyalty, which marked its doom. By , the United States would have but one viable Republican political party.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY sally e. hadden Sandwiched between the American Revolution and the American Civil War, the War of  has been termed the “forgotten conflict.” Descriptions of the th century frequently dismiss the impact of this war on American society, pointing out that the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the conflict, resolved none of the issues—impressment and seizure of ships on the high seas by the British Navy—that Americans ostensibly entered the war to fight for. The treaty did not change British policy, and no territory changed hands between the Americans and British as a result of the conflict. So what did the war accomplish? Surprisingly, the war had a tremendous long-term impact on international law of the sea, American foreign and domestic policies, and America’s plans for expansion to the south and west, which altered American–Indian relations for the rest of the century. The war elevated men like Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun to power in American politics; all would effect momentous decisions in the years before the American Civil War. Although the War of  made its greatest mark on American domestic policy, its influence on international law and international affairs should not be underrated. In the period before the War of , Secretary of State James Madison attacked the British policy of seizing ships from neutral countries (of which the United States was one). At this time, America was a weak nation militarily, and it sought to defend itself through international law as well as by economic means like trade embargoes. As secretary of state, Madison developed a cogent theory of neutrality to combat British policies, one still in use today. The term neutrality appeared as early as the th century, but theories of neutrality experienced full development during the th century, in part because of the role played by Madison and the United States during this period. Madison’s complaints about the impressment of private citizens and the seizure of neutral ships during wartime were elaborated most fully in his anonymously authored treatise on the doctrine of neutral trade, Examination of the British Doctrine, Which Subjects to Capture a Neutral Trade Not Open in Time of Peace (?). Madison’s ideas about the rights of neutral countries were to have a long-lasting appeal. Unfortunately, his views on neutral shipping rights were not shared by the British government in , which served as one of the causes for the War of . But following the war, the British stopped impressments and never used them again. More significant, Madison’s ideas about the absolute sovereignty of a ship’s flag have been widely adopted and are almost universally employed to the current day, giving neutral countries greater security on the high seas. Ships sailing under the flag of a given nation are under that nation’s exclusive jurisdiction while at sea and may not be boarded or stopped by another nation’s ships without consent. It does not matter what strength either nation’s navy may have—strength alone cannot force a neutral ship to let itself be

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boarded, have its sailors taken away, or have its cargo seized. These ideas have significantly improved the position of neutral countries, and with the exception of the American Civil War and World War I, the United States has continued to support the rights of neutral countries to “free trade in free ships,” which it first championed in the War of . Madison’s views on the position of neutral countries continue to hold sway even today, although they were novel and largely unpopular outside the United States in his own time. However, America’s attempt to enforce the right of neutrals while remaining militarily weak had proved unworkable in the years before the War of . The war’s outcome demonstrated that some degree of military preparation was essential to the nation’s ability to affect international affairs. Americans realized that they would have to maintain a sizable standing army and standing navy in times of peace to receive any international respect. The rights of neutral countries alone, however, did not lead to America’s entry into the War of ; territorial expansion was a crucial concern for many Americans. Maritime grievances like impressment and ship seizures hardly explain the unanimity of transAppalachian votes taken in the House of Representatives on war measures. What did inland congressmen hope to gain from promoting a war against England? There must have been other motives to explain their behavior. The traditional answers, according to historians like L. M. Hacker, Julius W. Pratt, and Bradford Perkins, could be found in the drive for territorial expansion to the west, including Canada to the north, in fears of uneasy coexistence with Indians in the Ohio Valley, plus southern expansionist dreams of obtaining Florida, or in the absolute necessity for war to save the Republican Party and the fledgling nation from the appearance of cowardice. None of these explanations has conclusively been proved to the exclusion of the others, and most textbooks stress some combination of maritime grievances plus the other three causes. Indeed, the most popularly used explanation suggests an alliance between western and southern expansionists. Although historians have yet to prove unequivocably the existence of an alliance between congressional representatives of the West and South, the effects of the war in both areas must have been precisely what many of those congressmen had hoped for. One of the undeniable effects of the War of  was territorial expansion into both the West and South. Although we more frequently associate the term manifest destiny with the s, the concept of territorial expansion was rooted in American history from the first settlement and reconfirmed at the time of independence. From charters that granted colonists rights to lands distant and unseen, to the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, which set out the methods by which new states could join the government, Americans had long expected to move westward into the seemingly vacant frontier. As the population of the United States soared from  million in  to more than . million in , population pressures drove Americans west to seek new homes, and the lack of restraint from the nation’s government placed few impediments in their way. By the time the War of  began, families had moved into the Ohio country and were settled down the Ohio River all the way to its junction with the Mississippi River. Ohio had been home to only a few hundred whites in , but by , its population had grown to nearly  million. While marching west against the Indians, General William Henry Harrison expressed feelings shared by many other Ohio migrants when he asked, “Is one of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a

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few wretched savages, when it seems destined by the Creator to give support to a large population and to be the seat of civilization, of science, and of true religion?” Other expansionist visionaries focused on moving into Florida, which with the Gulf of Mexico seemed a natural southern boundary to the United States, one that many Americans considered a simple extension of American settlement already occurring in the Deep South. One newspaper said that lands in Florida “as naturally belong to us as the county of Cornwall does to England.” Desire for Florida was heightened by the sense that the lands could be easily obtained from Spain, weakened significantly in this period because of its involvement in Napoleon Bonaparte’s ongoing wars. With multiple governments competing for control in Spain, the Spanish were hardly in a position to safeguard their distant Florida colony. Because of an alliance with Spain in , Great Britain was also embroiled in the Floridas. It was in Britain’s interest to sustain Spanish territorial claims in Florida, and it provided military and naval support to the Spanish both before and during the War of . But the combined strength of British and Spanish forces was not enough to deter American expansionist goals. Portions of West Florida were annexed by America a few weeks before war was declared in , and Congress authorized President Madison to take possession of East Florida during the war, but this never happened. Instead Andrew Jackson led an attack on Spanishand British-garrisoned Pensacola in , which fell to the Americans shortly before the war’s closing battle at New Orleans. Although no territory changed hands as a result of the Treaty of Ghent, America annexed parts of Spanish West Florida at the expense of neutral Spain rather than belligerent Great Britain. In the years following the War of , Americans continued to hunger for the parts of Florida that they did not already control. In December , Andrew Jackson invaded Florida as part of his campaign to crush the Seminole Indians. Jackson’s expansionist goals for annexing Florida were well known to President Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who may have disapproved of Jackson’s ideas but did nothing to stop him. Indeed, Adams shared Jackson’s vision of acquiring Florida, even if he did not necessarily approve of Jackson’s methods. As early as , Adams had written that “the whole continent of North America appears to be destined to be peopled by one nation.” After dispersing the Seminoles, it seemed perfectly natural for Jackson’s armed forces to move against and subdue Spanish forces in Pensacola. Monroe’s administration then presented the Spanish with a warning that the Spanish must either control the Indians or turn over Florida to the United States. By the time the Adams-Onís Treaty was finally ratified in , Spain had ceded all of Florida to the U.S. government, completing the American takeover that had begun during the War of . Elsewhere in the South, Jackson and American troops confronted the Creeks in , becoming embroiled in an ongoing civil war between the elder chiefs and younger Creek warriors, commonly called Red Sticks. Jackson led incursions into Creek territory and crushed the Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama, which broke the power of the Creek nation. As a result of Jackson’s continued predations, tribal elders ceded large portions of Georgia and Alabama to the United States in . The younger warriors fled into Florida and continued fighting as allies of the Seminoles against the United States until well into the s. In addition to annexing parts of Florida and gaining control over portions of Georgia and Alabama, the U.S. government’s participation in the War of  fueled expansionist

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dreams of many Americans in other ways. Americans had long considered expanding beyond their northwestern territorial boundaries to acquire Canada and western lands held by Native Americans. Invasions of Canada had been tried before, in the colonial period and during the American Revolution, but none had been successful, and indeed, attempts to claim Canada militarily during the War of  proved unsuccessful once again. But while forcible annexation of Canada failed, Americans were much more successful in their efforts to remove American Indians from western lands. The war provided the pretext for settling a long-burning problem: how to put an end to alleged British intrigues with Indians in the northwest Ohio Valley. As events preceding the War of  moved toward confrontation, westerners believed—incorrectly as it turned out—that British officials in Canada had used their influence with the Indians of the Northwest to deny Americans use of the Ohio Valley region for fur trading. Instead, much of the Indian hostility can be accounted for by the prewar land policies of westerners themselves. In the Treaty of Fort Wayne (), territorial governor (and later military general) William Henry Harrison gained Indian concessions of nearly  million acres, in return for a few lifetime annuities and a lot of whiskey. Outraged by this kind of treaty, many Indians claimed that the lands still belonged to the tribes, not whites. The Shawnee were particularly resistant to these treaties, and they became the focal point for encouraging other tribes to resist the incursions of whites. In fact, although the Indians of the Northwest were commonly perceived as alliesin-waiting for the British, it took American action in the immediate prewar years to make the alliance reality. With his warriors, the Shawnee war chief Tecumseh took up arms against the American “long knives” in . His efforts at the Battle of Tippecanoe in  promoted the political fortunes of General William Henry Harrison. At Tippecanoe, fought while Tecumseh was away, the Indian forces were routed, leaving behind British-made weapons. The loss at Tippecanoe convinced Tecumseh that he should seek out British military assistance in , something he had avoided doing earlier. Conversely, Tecumseh’s loss convinced some Indian tribes, like the Choctaw and Pushmataha, that resistance to American forces was futile. Meanwhile, certain that Tecumseh’s efforts were supported by the British with guns, westerners eagerly supported the approaching war with Britain. Following the Battle of Tippecanoe, congressional leader and War Hawk Felix Grundy described the alleged conspiracy between Indians and the British as one between weak, gullible natives and malign foreigners: “[The Indians] understand too well their own weakness, and our strength. They have already felt the weight of our arms. . . . How, then, sir, are we to account for their late conduct? In one way only; some powerful nation must have intrigued with them, and turned their peaceful disposition towards us into hostilities. Great Britain alone has intercourse with those Northern tribes.” As war with Britain loomed, government agents circulated among the Northwest Indian tribes, urging them to remain neutral during the coming war but threatening retribution if they allied with the British. Tecumseh represented a threat to American expansion not only because of his military activities, but also because of his attitude toward land sales to white men. Tecumseh urged northwestern tribes to stop selling land piecemeal to Americans and instead adopt a “common property” idea that would prevent further American expansion. Tecumseh realized that a never-ending series of treaties transferring land from the Indians to the government could result only in the eventual total loss of the Indian way of life.

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He also tried to establish a form of tribal confederation that would prevent any further land sales by providing political unity among the various tribes. Although Tecumseh’s ideas were opposed by some Indians and even divided some tribes internally, his views became a rallying point for Indians who hoped to prevent American expansion into the Northwest. Tecumseh confronted American agents and territorial governors using the same rhetoric and reasoning. He told government officials that among the Indians, land “never was divided, but belongs to all, for the use of each. . . . No part has a right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers.” In  Tecumseh attempted to spread these ideas across the South by traveling among the Creek, Chickasaw, and Choctaw tribes in an effort to convince them to put aside their divisions and unify against the white men politically and militarily. He attempted to bring unity to the previously disunited tribes of the North and South, with a single goal: to prevent the spread of trans-Appalachian American settlements onto Indian lands. Westerners used the War of  as a pretext to make repeated attempts to drive the Native Americans out of Ohio and Indiana. Much of the war’s impact can be measured in the fighting between U.S. forces and Indian tribes that allied with the British on the country’s northwestern and southwestern borders. Here, at least, the United States won some devastating military victories over the Indians that were of lasting importance. In October  at the Battle of Thames River, Tecumseh and his Indian warriors, along with an army of British troops, were overrun by General Harrison. Tecumseh died in the fighting at Thames River, leading to the breakup of the incipient Indian alliance he had forged. Probably the most important American victories came during Andrew Jackson’s campaign against the Creek nation, which led to the destruction of their military power in the Deep South. At the war’s conclusion, Tecumseh’s death and the withdrawal of the British signaled an end to the Indians’ ability to stop westward migration. The conclusion to the War of  effectively left the Northwest Indians at the mercy of frontiersmen and the American government. Similarly, Jackson’s defeat of the Creeks brought to a close the possibility of widespread Indian resistance to white expansion in the Southwest. Indeed, the weakness of the remaining Creek Nation made it more likely that all southern Indians would be removed from lands east of the Mississippi. The conclusion of the war also killed any hopes for a larger pan–American Indian confederation that could forestall American expansion to the south and northwest. In , while negotiating the peace treaty in Ghent, British officials demanded that Native Americans be given a secure territory in the Northwest. Neither the British nor the Americans would be permitted to buy the lands in this “buffer state,” which would be a permanent area for Indian settlement. The American negotiators rejected these proposals outright, claiming that the Indians were not independent nations but living within territory controlled by the American government as a result of the Treaty of Paris (), which had concluded the Revolutionary War. The creation of such a buffer area would effectively preclude American settlement in the Old Northwest and close off a major route of western expansion, and American diplomats were unwilling even to discuss the British proposals. Further efforts by the British to protect Indian interests were similarly rejected. British diplomats soon realized that curtailing American expansion to the west could not be an issue at the Ghent peace talks. At the war’s conclusion, the power of the northwestern Indians had been broken. Tecumseh’s death removed their most effective leader, and the attempts of other tribes

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to stop the American migration into the Northwest met with failure and served to accelerate the postwar process of government-managed forced removal. In the years following the War of , Indians in all of the Old Northwest were moved to lands beyond the Mississippi River. Their removal would hasten the arrival of even more settlers bent on moving westward into newly opened “frontier.” Further, European powers would no longer attempt to influence or coerce Native Americans to act as their cat’s-paw to prevent American expansion. The war’s impact can also be seen in domestic politics, where it led to a renewal of intense sectional squabbling and the eventual demise of the Federalist Party. The Federalists relentlessly opposed the war and any effort that would boost the fortunes of the Republican-dominated army and navy. Federalists refused to support direct taxation to finance the war and did as much as they could to undermine war recruiting and public opinion on the war. Indeed, throughout the war, the Federalists claimed that the conflict was being prosecuted as nothing more than an attempt by the Republican Party to grab Canadian lands by underhanded means. The commercial community, long a mainstay of the Federalist Party, felt that it had little to gain from territorial expansion in the South and West and much to lose from congressionally imposed embargoes of U.S. trade. Federalist members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives urged citizens to resist the war and refused to let their state militia leave home. On the national scene, Federalists in Congress united against the Madison administration’s war efforts in over  congressional votes. The Federalists also took advantage of sectional tension to build opposition to the war. Their efforts had the potential for greatest success at the  Hartford Convention. Dominated by delegates from New England and Federalists, the men who met in Hartford discussed their growing frustration with the war as well as the loss of New England’s power within the national government. They wanted to reverse the threefifths compromise that gave southern states greater power in the House of Representatives and sought to limit the presidency to one term to break the apparent hold Virginians had on that office. They considered separating from the national government if their suggestions were not acted on, although they never actually voted for secession, a step prevented by moderates in the convention. Their proposals were designed to reduce the power of the South in the national government while boosting their own political power. The activities of the Hartford Convention clearly revealed the potential for sectionalism that existed in America before the Civil War and would resurface again. The efforts of the Federalist-dominated Hartford Convention were ultimately swept away when their delegates arrived in Washington at the same time news arrived of the rousing victory at New Orleans and the conclusion to peace treaty negotiations at Ghent. Opposition to war measures came at a cost for the Federalists. Had the war been perceived as a total failure and waste of effort by the American people, it is likely that the Federalist Party would have been rewarded for its steadfast opposition to Madison and the military. But in spite of its military losses, Americans came to believe that the country had “won” the war and had triumphed in the peace negotiations: the myth of the “successful” War of  became accepted across America. Following , Americans viewed the war as a positive expression of national pride and identity. As a result, Federalists looked unpatriotic, and Republicans appeared heroic. Despite their repeated

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bungling of the war, Republicans received a major boost with news of Jackson’s victory at New Orleans. And Madison’s acceptance of the Treaty of Ghent, which acquired no new territory for the United States, stood as a stark rebuke to Federalists’ claims that the war had been nothing but a land grab. At the war’s conclusion, the Republican Party was rewarded for its handling of the War of , easily winning the  presidential and congressional elections and eventually placing Republican James Monroe in the presidential race of  with negligible opposition. The activities of the Hartford Convention, combined with their earlier antiwar criticism, spelled the end for the Federalist Party and gave unlooked-for support to the Republican Party, which remained the dominant party of the s until the rise of Andrew Jackson. The War of  boosted the fortunes of young political War Hawks and military war heroes alike. Aggressive young Republicans who touted the war, like John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay, would play important roles in national politics for the next  years. Calhoun and Clay would both suffer with unrequited presidential ambitions that would ultimately lead them to diametrically opposed positions on national unity. Clay would earn his greatest fame as a political compromiser in the House of Representatives, forging temporary agreements in  and  in an effort to overcome the tragic effects of sectionalism. Thwarted in the s in his desire to move up from the vice presidency to the presidency, Calhoun would provide the theoretical underpinning for nullification in the s with his pamphlet Exposition and Protest, temporarily reviving the old Federalist arguments about secession. Similarly, the war would promote military figures William Henry Harrison and Andrew Jackson to the presidency, and Jackson’s political fortunes would eventually lead to the creation of the Democratic Party in the mid-s. Indeed, we might credit the war with giving Jackson’s heroism the chance to outshine the political efforts of Henry Clay, creating a stronger leader to serve as the voice of western leadership. Riding the national wave of military popularity and expansionist rhetoric generated by the War of , Jackson and the rapidly growing Democratic Party succeeded in holding onto power at the national level for decades preceding the Civil War. In the immediate postwar period, the Republican Party developed a new national program for the government, reversing many of its traditional political stances by calling for (and getting) a new national bank, greater spending on land and naval defenses, and the introduction of a protective tariff. In his  message to Congress, President Madison said that the war had demonstrated the need for a national bank and better means of transporting men and material throughout the country. Cut off from European markets and goods, the war had made domestic manufacturers appear patriotic, to the point that even the postwar Republican Party sought to reverse its long-held hostility to promoting business and other internal improvements. These new Republican programs would be dubbed the “American System” by Henry Clay. In areas beyond the bank, the military, and commerce, revitalized American nationalism was revealed; in the era following the war, America was able to negotiate the Adams-Onís Treaty and legitimate Jackson’s invasion of Florida. The War of  swamped any growing sectionalism with a contagion of nationalism. Many believed the war had begun as a contest to defend the nation’s honor over maritime insults, and the war concluded on the same note after the Battle of New Orleans, with an exultation of national honor. Patriotism had been championed throughout the war. Touting national honor and the necessity of preserving a republican form of government,

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War Hawk Republicans and President Madison played on the patriotism of Americans to garner support for the war. If Britain continued to deal with the United States as if it were still a colony, then America must once again prove its independence from British policies. The war showed that the nation was capable of defending itself without sacrificing the republican form of government. The conflict seemed to be a second war for national independence against their old foes, the British, a conflict that America “won” a second time. Jefferson and Madison’s secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, believed that the war had strengthened American nationalism: “The war has renewed and reinstated the national feelings and character which the Revolution had given, and which were daily lessening. . . . [Because of the war] they are more Americans; they feel and act more as a nation; and I hope that the permanency of the Union is thereby better secured.” The war revived American nationalism, born in the era of the Revolution, and gave Americans something to be proud of by creating a symbol for national unity. Yet it was unclear what kind of nationalism Americans would support in the years immediately following the War of . Would they favor internal improvements and the systematic creation of economic incentives that would help the economy flourish (and line the pockets of the wealthy at the same time), or would they prefer a more piecemeal approach to economic activities that might curb the privileges and wealth of the unpopular “aristocratic” elites? Historian Steven Watts has suggested that the nationalism revived by this war helped transform the country’s values from civic-minded republicanism to more liberal values. The notion of the self-made man, the ethics of industrial capitalism that came to dominate the th century, Watts believes, were significantly strengthened in the war’s aftermath. By using, as Watts puts it, “the complicated function of war in American society,” he describes how liberal America was shaped from elements in society that survived the crucible of war. Although this is a suggestive interpretation, it has yet to be taken up by a majority of scholars who study the th century and must still be considered a theory in the making. Even so, historians continue to debate exactly which nationalism Americans were attracted to in the postwar era. By creating a new pride in the Union, the War of  neatly undercut the growing sectional divisions that were apparent at the Hartford Convention. Historian Samuel Flagg Bemis has suggested that the strength of American nationalism generated by the War of  made it possible for the country to triumph over the growing threat of states’ rights later in the th century. As he put it, “We may say that if it had not been for the War of  the Union might not have triumphed in .” This may be overstating the importance of the War of , yet the wave of nationalism that swept through the United States certainly delayed many of the divisive events that led to the Civil War, while fueling the westward expansion that ultimately threatened to undo the political ties binding together the North and the South. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bartlett, Ruhl J. “Neutrality.” In Alexander DeConde, ed., Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, . New York: Scribner, , pp. –. Brief overview of the concept of neutrality as it pertains to America and developments in its uses up to the modern day. Bemis, Samuel Flagg. A Diplomatic History of the United States. th ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, . Of the major surveys of American diplomatic history, the strongest on thcentury affairs, although tinged with patriotism.

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Brooks, Philip C. Diplomacy and the Borderlands. Berkeley: University of California Press, . Still the best introduction to the Adams-Onís Treaty. Broussard, James H. The Southern Federalists, –. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . Argues that the Federalist Party in the South was not destroyed by antiwar sentiment or support for the Hartford Convention but through loss of major issues dividing the party from Republicans. Brown, Roger. The Republic in Peril: . New York: Columbia University Press, . Highlights the importance of Federalist–Republican partisan fighting as a cause of the War of , making the war necessary to show the viability of the republican experiment. Burt, Alfred. The United States, Great Britain, and British North America from the Revolution to the Establishment of Peace after the War of . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . Stresses the importance and complexity of impressment and ship seizure as a cause for the war. Cayton, Andrew R. L. The Frontier Republic: Ideology and Politics in the Ohio Country, – . Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, . Links territorial politics to ideology and provides local background to Northwest controversies. Dangerfield, George. The Awakening of American Nationalism, –. New York: Harper & Row, . Best short introduction to the impact of the war on nationalism and the ensuing debate about the type of nationalism (economic or democratic) that would be best for America. Edmunds, R. David. Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership. Boston: Little, Brown, . Well-written, insightful study of the Shawnee leader and his followers in the period before and during the War of . Fredriksen, John C. Free Trade and Sailor’s Rights: A Bibliography of the War of . Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, . Contains more than , items, published and unpublished, relating to the war. Hacker, Louis M. “Western Land Hunger and the War of .” Mississippi Valley Historical Review  (–): –. Although now discredited by Julius Pratt (see below), Hacker formulated the theory that westerners supported the War of  to acquire Canadian lands and gain control of the fur trade. Hickey, Donald R. The War of : A Forgotten Conflict. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, . Most recent general history of the war, focusing primarily on the military and naval campaigns and emphasizing America’s political ineptitude and military unpreparedness. Higginbotham, Don. “The Early American Way of War: Reconnaissance and Appraisal.” William and Mary Quarterly, d ser.  (): –. Surveys the most recent writings in military history; excellent analysis of the impact of political ideology on the issue of standing armies and citizen-soldiers. Horsman, Reginald. The Frontier in the Formative Years, –. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, . Describes both northwest and southeast frontiers and their expansion in concise fashion. Merk, Frederick. Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation.  ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood, . Chapter  discusses territorial expansion in the early th century, focusing on the sense of mission behind expansionism, in response to Albert Weinberg (see below). Merk, Frederick. History of the Westward Movement. New York: Knopf, . Describes westward migration in American history from the th to the th centuries. Owsley, Frank Lawrence Jr. Struggle for the Gulf Borderlands: The Creek War and the Battle of New Orleans, –. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, . Brief survey of the southern theater of war, discussing the importance of removing the Creek Indians and the activities of Andrew Jackson. Perkins, Bradford. Prologue to War: England and the United States, –. Berkeley: University of California Press, . Focuses on the importance of national pride and effects of repeated British insults that required a war to “vindicate the nation’s character.”

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Pratt, Julius W. Expansionists of . New York: Macmillan, . Gives a full explanation of Pratt’s thesis of the alliance between southern and western expansionists; most textbooks still rely on this interpretation. Prucha, Francis P. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indian. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, .  vols. One of many important works about Indians by Prucha, providing a sweeping review of government policy toward Native Americans from white settlement to the th century. Remini, Robert. Andrew Jackson and the Course of Empire –. New York: Harper & Row, . One of several excellent studies by Remini tracing the rise of Jackson and the Democratic Party in the early th century. Risjord, Norman K. “: Conservatives, War Hawks, and the Nation’s Honor.” William and Mary Quarterly, d ser.  (): –. Focuses on national honor as a unifying force leading to the war’s onset. Rossignol, Marie-Jeanne. The Naturalist Ferment: The Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy, –. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, . Rossignol traces the diplomatic background to the War of . Smith, Dwight L. The War of : An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Press, . Over  full annotations of major sources on the war. Stagg, J.C.A. Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy and Warfare in the Early American Republic, –. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . Discusses domestic politics, administrative incompetence, and finance while ranging briefly beyond the war to examine its impact on American society. Stuart, Reginald C. United States Expansionism and British North America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Gives a new twist to the Hacker-Pratt land expansion controversy, suggesting that the war was driven by military defensive motives rather than conquest. Watts, Stephen. The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, –. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . Cultural history that suggests the War of  served as a vehicle for the transformation of American character from republican citizenship to liberal capitalism. Weinberg, Albert K. Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History.  ed. New York: AMS Press, . Surveys a variety of American ideas toward territorial expansion, including the early th century. White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . Excellent introduction to the intricate relations between Indians and American settlers, explaining cultural as well as political contact and activities.

BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS (1815) The Battle of New Orleans in late  and early  resulted in an American victory over British invaders. The battle took place after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which brought the War of  to an end. British actions in Florida and Mobile, Alabama, correctly convinced Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson that the British planned larger operations in the Gulf of Mexico: Adm. Sir Alexander Cochrane planned to stage a major invasion of New Orleans. Jackson arrived in New Orleans on December , , and began to organize his defenses. Cochrane landed on December , established headquarters at Villeré Plantation, and waited for the arrival of Lt. Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham’s land forces.

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Jackson intended to attack the British before they were fully organized, and on December , while Cmdr. Daniel Todd Patterson’s naval gunboats fired on Villeré Plantation, Jackson advanced on the British encampment. Both U.S. assaults pushed the British back, but the redcoat line held, and low visibility forced a U.S. withdrawal. The U.S. attacks had done little besides buy Jackson time to strengthen his defenses. Unaware that the Treaty of Ghent had been signed on December , Pakenham arrived on December  and attacked three days later. Jackson’s right flank, however, was well guarded by the Louisiana, and Pakenham called off the attack to bring up more artillery. Three days passed before he had what he considered enough ordnance for another offensive, during which time Jackson also brought in more artillery, including naval guns, to double the number of his batteries from four to eight. On the morning of January , , Pakenham opened up with his extra artillery, and Jackson returned fire with his enlarged batteries. Jackson’s guns scored devastating hits on the British batteries as the British guns overshot their marks. After a brief infantry assault failed, Pakenham and his colleagues suddenly seemed uncertain about how to proceed. While they mulled over the possibilities, Jackson received reinforcements. Cochrane persuaded Pakenham to let the British Royal Navy ferry a detachment under Col. Sir William Thornton to the west bank of the Mississippi to capture naval batteries there under Commander Patterson. Thornton then was to turn those guns on Jackson’s line to assist in the massive frontal assault. As it turns out, Thornton successfully carried the U.S. batteries, but not until the main assault had been defeated and almost  British soldiers, including Pakenham, lay dead, mingled with , wounded. The American losses were six killed and seven wounded in Jackson’s main lines on the east bank. The British campaign against New Orleans failed for several reasons, but probably the most important one was Jackson’s ample time given to prepare a defense of the city.

david s. heidler and jeanne t. heidler BATTLE OF PLATTSBURG (1814) During the War of , the British plan was to invade the United States to move closer to their food supplies and increase territorial gains. A natural gateway to the United States existed along the Richelieu River–Lake Champlain line. (It was used as an invasion route by Gen. John Burgoyne in  and would be used by the British again in .) The British southward movement culminated in the Battle of Plattsburg. Upon Napoleon I’s abdication in , England moved large numbers of troops from Spain to Canada. By August, Maj. Gen. Sir George Prevost had almost , of Arthur Wellesley’s veterans assembled in the Quebec and Montreal areas. Those land forces, supported by a British fleet on Lake Champlain, were designated for the invasion of the United States. That operation appeared all the easier for the British because Secretary of War John Armstrong had ordered Maj. Gen. George Izard, commander of U.S. forces at Plattsburg, New York, to move the bulk of his forces to Sacket’s Harbor. Izard departed on August , , leaving Brig. Gen. Alexander Macomb in command of the , men remaining at Plattsburg. Fortunately, Izard had established a defensive position in the southern part of Plattsburg on the peninsula between the Saranac River and

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Lake Champlain. With water protecting three flanks, the Americans constructed three forts (Brown, Moreau, and Scott) and two blockhouses to protect the open end of their position. After discovering British intentions, Macomb called on the governors of Vermont and New York for volunteers. Soon, , Vermonters and  New Yorkers were en route to Plattsburg. They would be joined on September  by Lt. Thomas Macdonough and his fleet of three warships, the Saratoga, Ticonderoga, and Preble; the sloop Eagle; and  gunboats. By September , the British had neared Plattsburg and divided into two columns to move on the town. Maj. John Wool and  regulars ambushed the inland column, while Macdonough’s gunboats harassed the shore column. However, both British columns persevered and arrived in Plattsburg after suffering more than  casualties. The Americans held those forces in check by occupying their prepared defenses and destroying the bridges across the Saranac. Prevost ordered an immediate assault but then canceled it when he could not find a suitable ford. Prevost then decided to await the arrival of the British fleet. He planned to have Maj. Gen. Thomas Brisbane’s brigade of , pin down Macomb’s force, while Maj. Gen. Frederick Robinson would cross the Saranac a few miles upstream from the bridges with , men. Maj. Gen. Manley Power’s brigade of , would follow Robinson. As Robinson turned the U.S. flank, Brisbane would attack forward. All this would be predicated on the British naval attack on Lake Champlain. Capt. George Downie arrived on September  with the British fleet, which consisted of the Confiance, Linnet, Chubb, Finch, and  gunboats. The British were then ready for battle. Macdonough knew that he was outgunned at long range, so he anchored his ships to force the British to come within carronade range. At  a.m. on September , the British approached, and the Saratoga scored the first hit on the Confiance. The British responded with a broadside that killed or wounded  seamen aboard the Saratoga. In the first  minutes, Downie was killed aboard the Confiance. The battle then raged along the entire line, with the Eagle crippling the Chubb. An hour later, the Ticonderoga sent the Finch aground on the shoals of Crab Island. Next, the British gunboats put the Preble out of action. At the front end of the line, the Eagle was out of action, which exposed the Saratoga to devastating fire. With most of their exposed guns damaged, the Americans appeared defeated. However, Macdonough swung the Saratoga to bring a fresh broadside against the British. Lt. James Robertson, having succeeded Downie in command, tried the same maneuver but failed. At : a.m., the Confiance struck its colors, and the battle ended in a U.S. victory. The British land forces began their attack in concert with the naval action. Brisbane was stopped at the bridges, while Robinson made better progress at the ford. After being driven back several times, Robinson succeeded in bringing most of his forces across the river. Before he could advance, however, Robinson received orders from Prevost to withdraw, a decision made after the news of the British defeat on the lake. Prevost did not think he could hold Plattsburg without control of the lake. Early the next morning, the British began their retreat into Canada with a loss of more than , men, compared to  for the Americans. This U.S. victory—what Winston Churchill would later call “the most decisive engagement of the war”—shattered any hopes of British gains in the north. It was also to

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affect favorably U.S. negotiations for peace at Ghent. Coming at a time when the nation reeled under the sack of the national capital, the triumph at Plattsburg helped to maintain morale during the final days of what had been a dark summer for the Americans.

david s. heidler and jeanne t. heidler BRITISH CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON, D.C. (1814) The British capture of Washington, D.C., on August , , was a humiliating experience for President James Madison’s administration. Adm. Sir Alexander Cochrane, British commander in chief, left Bermuda on August , , with  warships and  transports to campaign in Chesapeake Bay. Aboard was Gen. Robert Ross’ armed brigade of , troops, dispatched from France, and a regiment from Maj. Gen. Gerard Gossling’s division. Cochrane was supported by three rear admirals, Captain of the Fleet Edward Codrington, Sir George Cockburn, and Pulteney Malcolm, who escorted the transports. On August , the main force entered the Patuxent River and disembarked near Benedict, Maryland. Cockburn’s advance squadron attacked Commo. Joshua Barney’s gunboat flotilla above Pig Point. Barney had been ordered by Secretary of the Navy William Jones to retreat toward Queen Anne’s Town, and facing imminent destruction, Barney burned his flotilla. Cochrane also dispatched a frigate squadron to bombard Fort Washington,  miles below Washington, and another squadron toward Baltimore. Madison called for , Maryland troops to defend Washington, and on August , Brig. Gen. Tobias Stansbury’s th Brigade and two battalions of the Second and Ninth Brigades totaling about , men moved toward the capital. Barney’s  seamen were available. Some , Baltimore militia and , Pennsylvania militia were alerted. Brig. Gen. William H. Winder, in command of regulars in the newly created th Military District, fell back toward Washington and camped near Old Fields. On August , Ross’ Light division reached Nottingham and the next day moved to Upper Marlboro, where it camped in the evening. Cockburn’s armed launches and pinnaces guarded the river flank. Near Upper Marlboro, the British Light Brigade under Col. Sir William Thornton aimed for Old Fields and dispersed , militia on the evening of August . At daylight the next day, the brigade resumed its march to Washington via the Bladensburg Road. Ross’ forces attacked Winder’s, posted “on very Commanding Heights formed in two lines, his Advance occupying a fortified House which with Artillery covered the bridge over the Eastern Branch.” About , men of Thornton’s th Foot and the light companies of other regiments broke through and drove a wedge between Stansbury’s and Winder’s positions. The British lost  killed and  wounded, including Thornton. As Winder’s defense crumbled, however, Ross’ forces captured  guns and  stands of arms. The two regiments of the Light Brigade rested for two hours and then advanced to Washington, which they reached at dusk. Citizens streamed out of the city to the north and west. Winder’s troops joined the exodus. British skirmishers were fired on from two houses, which were promptly burned, and Ross had two horses shot from under him. Finding no one with whom to negotiate to ransom the city, Ross judged it necessary to destroy the public buildings without delay, “so that the Army might retire without loss

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of time.” The Capitol building, including Senate chamber and House of Representatives, Department of the Treasury, War Office, and the “President’s Palace,” as Pulteney Malcolm called it, were burned. Offices of the National Intelligencer, the Arsenal, the dockyard, and a ropewalk were destroyed. Winder’s forces burned two bridges over the eastern branch of the river to prevent pursuit. The Washington naval dockyard, under the command of Capt. Thomas Tingey, the public shipping, and the naval stores were fired on orders from Secretary Jones. Tingey later estimated the naval yard’s damages and losses at $,, with $, recoverable. The British destroyed  pieces of heavy ordnance,  brass, and the remaining iron guns. Between August  and , U.S. defenders lost  cannon,  barrels of gunpowder, , rounds of ammunition,  barrels of fine ground powder, and , stands of arms in the retreat. Driven out of the capital and mortified at the debacle, Madison demanded the resignation of John Armstrong as secretary of war. James Monroe replaced him. Satires on “The Bladensburg Races” parodied the administration. James Rhea, brother of Congressman John Rhea of Tennessee, labeled the attack “a lasting Monument of disgrace to the nation at large.” Ross’ troops retraced their steps to Benedict on August  and reembarked on August . This fast-moving, impressive victory over a numerically superior but relatively untrained and hastily gathered force exposed the weakness of using uncoordinated militia for national military requirements. In  days, British light troops had marched  miles, won one battle and two skirmishes, destroyed the Chesapeake gunboat flotilla, burned the public buildings of Washington, humiliated the U.S. administration, and rejoined their supporting vessels with a loss of less than  men.

david s. heidler and jeanne t. heidler HARTFORD CONVENTION (1814) The climax of Federalist opposition to the War of  was the Hartford Convention, a regional conference held in the Connecticut state capital near the end of the war. Although generated by the frustrations of the War of —particularly the problem of providing for local defense—the Hartford Convention was also an attempt to deal with long-term problems growing out of the Virginia dynasty’s domination of national politics. A feud with the federal government over the deployment and control of the militia was the catalyst for the Hartford Convention. Throughout the war, the New England governors were reluctant to place their militia under U.S. officers because they would lose control over their only means of defense. By the fall of , that dispute, combined with an empty federal treasury, had forced the New England states to finance their own defense measures. More and more frequent British raids along the region’s long and exposed coast drove those costs steadily upward. In Massachusetts, the total reached $,; in Connecticut, $,; and in Rhode Island, $,. Because the federal tax burden was heavy and still growing, and because the British blockade had thrown the region into a depression, new state taxes were especially unpalatable. Nor could state officials borrow the money they needed. The suspension of special payments elsewhere in the nation had created a credit squeeze in New England that dried up bank funds.

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Facing this crisis, Governor Caleb Strong of Massachusetts summoned the state legislature to a special session in the fall of . That body recommended a convention to air the region’s grievances and resolve its problems. Connecticut and Rhode Island soon endorsed the proposal. Massachusetts appointed  delegates to attend the convention; Connecticut, ; and Rhode Island, . Although New Hampshire and Vermont declined to take part in the proposed convention, two counties from each selected delegates, and three of the four delegates were seated by the convention. In all,  delegates took part in the convention. Despite pleas in the New England press for secession and a separate peace, most of the delegates taking part in the Hartford Convention were determined to pursue a moderate course. Only Timothy Bigelow of Massachusetts apparently favored extreme measures, and he did not play a major role in the proceedings. When asked what the result of the convention was likely to be, Massachusetts hothead Josiah Quincy replied: “A GREAT PAMPHLET!”—a prediction that proved remarkably accurate. The Hartford Convention held its deliberations in secret. At the opening session, George Cabot of Massachusetts was unanimously chosen president, and Theodore Dwight, editor of the Connecticut Mirror, was chosen secretary. No log of the debates was kept, and no one ever revealed their content. The only record was Dwight’s barebones journal. Harrison Gray Otis of Massachusetts was the driving force behind the deliberations. The final report of the convention, which was published on January , , was largely his work. About half of the report was devoted to war-related issues: the defense problem, a federal law that authorized the enlistment of minors in the army, and federal proposals to draft men into the army and navy. To finance local defense measures, the report recommended that the states seek authority from the national government to use federal tax money collected within their borders. To deal with proposals to fill the ranks of the army and navy by conscripting adults and enlisting minors, the report—in its only radical proposal—recommended state nullification. The other half of the report was devoted to New England’s long-term problems. To resolve those problems, the report recommended seven constitutional amendments. Those would require a two-thirds vote in Congress to declare war, interdict trade with foreign nations, or admit new states to the Union; limit embargoes to  days; repeal the three-fifths rule for apportioning direct taxes and representation in Congress; bar naturalized citizens from holding federal office; limit presidents to a single term; and prohibit the election of a president from the same state twice in succession. The amendments represented a catalog of New England’s grievances over the previous decade. They struck at the overrepresentation of white Southerners in Congress, the growing power of the West, the trade restrictions and the war, the influence of foreigners (like Albert Gallatin), and the Virginia dynasty’s domination of national politics. Federalists hoped that the adoption of those amendments would restore New England’s influence in the Union and prevent a recurrence of those policies they considered destructive of the region’s vital interests. Although the report of the Hartford Convention recommended the nullification of federal laws, otherwise the tone of the document was moderate. The report expressly opposed any “irrevocable” step that might lead to disunion and recommended instead “a course of moderation and firmness.” Even if New England’s grievances were not

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redressed, the report simply called for another convention to be convened in June , or sooner if necessary. Massachusetts and Connecticut formally approved the convention report and endorsed the constitutional amendments. Both states also nullified the minor enlistment law (the only one of the proposed recruitment measures that was actually adopted by Congress), although Massachusetts judiciously waited until after the war was over and recruiting had been suspended. Both states sent emissaries to Washington to seek federal tax money to finance local defense measures. On their way to the nation’s capital, the emissaries learned of Andrew Jackson’s victory at the Battle of New Orleans, and news of the Treaty of Ghent soon followed. Those events effectively killed their mission. Although the Hartford Convention was essentially a victory for moderation, few people remembered it that way in the rush of events at the end of the war. Instead, the very term “Hartford Convention” became a synonym for disloyalty and treason, and the Federalist Party, which rapidly declined after the war, never lived down its notoriety.

david s. heidler and jeanne t. heidler OLIVER HAZARD PERRY (1785–1819) Battling great odds, Oliver Hazard Perry constructed a battle fleet in the wilderness and led it to victory during the  Lake Erie Campaign. His triumph culminated in the successful invasion of Canada and an end to the War of  in the Old Northwest. The charismatic -year-old Perry seemed destined for greatness, but death ended his promising career six years later. Perry was born on August , , in South Kingston, Rhode Island, the son of Capt. Christopher R. Perry, a distinguished naval veteran of the American Revolution. Perry and his three brothers, including Matthew Perry, also served in the U.S. Navy. He joined as a midshipman in  and served with his father on the ship General Greene throughout the Quasi-War with France. Perry subsequently sailed to the Mediterranean under Commo. John Rodgers, rising to lieutenant in  at the age of . He remained on station with the frigate Constitution until , when he reported back to Newport, Rhode Island, to construct gunboats. For four years, Perry sailed these vessels while enforcing the Embargo Act of President Thomas Jefferson. This policy, enacted in the wake of the  ChesapeakeLeopard affair, sought to punish Great Britain by denying it trade and occasioned much smuggling. In , Perry gained command of the schooner Revenge, which he sailed to the Florida coast to protect American commerce. In this capacity, he seized the American ship Diana from Spanish authorities at Amelia Island, Florida, and sailed it home. However, while surveying coastal waters off of Westerly, Rhode Island, the Revenge ran aground and sank in January . Perry was tried for the loss of his ship, but a court of inquiry cleared him. Shortly after war was declared against England in June , Perry was promoted to master commandant. However, he tired of lackluster gunboat duty and petitioned the Navy Department for service on a frigate. In February , orders arrived from Commo. Isaac Chauncey to report for duty on the Great Lakes. Chauncey was then

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engaged in a shipbuilding campaign to seize control of strategic Lake Ontario and directed Perry to report to Presque Isle (now Erie), Pennsylvania, for similar work. Here, he replaced Lt. Jesse Duncan Elliott as commanding officer. Elliott, who had been present at Erie since the previous winter, apparently resented the intrusion. Perry’s mission represented an extremely tall order, for the Americans possessed little shipbuilding capacity on the lake. Worse, Lake Erie was being patrolled by a six-ship squadron commanded by Capt. Robert H. Barclay of the British Royal Navy, which constantly monitored American efforts to construct a fleet there. Nonetheless, Perry threw himself vigorously into his task, and, aided by noted shipwright Noah Brown, he laid the keels for two -gun brigs, named the Lawrence and the Niagara, by summer. Other commercial vessels were armed and impressed into service for the navy. These ships had to be released from the port of Black Rock, New York, as they were trapped there by the guns of Fort Erie, across the Niagara River. In May , Perry briefly rejoined Chauncey in the dramatic seizure of Fort George on Lake Ontario, which induced the British to abandon Fort Erie. This freed the vessels at Black Rock, and they were added to the embryonic fleet at Erie. One major, seemingly insurmountable problem remained. Presque Isle had a fine harbor, but it was obstructed by a sandbar that Perry’s heavily armed new brigs could not cross. Undeterred by the fact that Barclay was patrolling the lake for this reason, he ordered the brigs stripped of their armament and assisted over the sandbar by the use of devices known as camels, which could be inflated with air and used to raise ships out of the water. In this manner, both the Lawrence and the Niagara were deployed onto the lake and rearmed. By August , the army of Gen. William Henry Harrison was poised in Ohio, ready for an invasion of Canada, but control of Lake Erie was a prerequisite for success. In an attempt to speed events along, he partially reduced Perry’s manpower shortage by lending him over  soldiers and militia to serve as marines, while Chauncey also contributed some crewmen, mostly African Americans. With this motley assemblage, Perry slipped from his anchorage in September and cruised the lake looking for the British. On September , , Perry and Barclay engaged in one of the most decisive battles in American history. The British squadron was outnumbered  vessels to , but they outgunned the Americans  to  and fought in the finest tradition of the Royal Navy. They were assisted, ironically, by Perry, who rushed his flagship Lawrence into battle without closing up his line. Prior to engaging, he ran up a flag inscribed with Capt. James Lawrence’s words, “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” to inspire his men. Once in range, literally the entire British squadron opened up on the Lawrence while the Niagara, under Elliott, stood idly by. After a one-sided contest of many hours, Perry’s ship was a battered hulk, and most of his crew were casualties, but he remained miraculously unscathed. Rather than concede the day to Barclay, he directed the Lawrence to surrender and then dramatically transferred his command by rowboat to the Niagara. Once aboard, Perry ordered Elliott to bring up the rest of the fleet while he led the fresh brig back into the fray. This new infusion of firepower proved too much for Barclay, whose ships had been pummeled by the Lawrence, and he struck his flag in a matter of minutes. This was the first time in history that an entire British squadron had capitulated. Perry then penned his famous dispatch to Harrison, stating, “We have met the enemy and he is ours.” Elliott’s behavior caused much dissension among the crew, but Perry was circumspect and made no mention of it in his official report. Consequently,

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Perry received a promotion to captain, the thanks of Congress, and a gold medal struck in his likeness. He had become one of the War of ’s foremost heroes. The Americans had no sooner won control of Lake Erie than Harrison transferred his army to Perry’s ships, and the troops were transported to Canada. Perry then accompanied the army in its pursuit of British forces under Gen. Henry Procter and a large Indian contingent under the celebrated leader Tecumseh. He served as Harrison’s aide-de-camp during the climactic Battle of the Thames in October , in which the British were defeated and Tecumseh killed. He then requested service onboard a frigate and was accorded command of the Java, then under construction in Baltimore. Perry was on hand during the British attack on that city in September  and commanded a water battery against warships operating on the Potomac River. His remaining service proved uneventful. After the war, Perry endured another spate of gunboat construction in Newport, and in , he sailed with Cmdr. Stephen Decatur against Algiers. He remained in the Mediterranean until  and then returned to Newport. The cruise was uneventful save for an incident in which Perry struck Marine Corps Capt. John Heath over a personal dispute. A court-martial ensued, and Perry was let off with a reprimand. He also had difficulty with Elliott, who felt slighted in Perry’s official account and challenged him to a duel. Perry declined the contest and instead proffered charges against Elliott. In , Perry hoisted his ensign on the corvette John Adams and sailed a small squadron to the new republic of Venezuela. He traveled up the Orinoco River and negotiated an end to the seizure of American shipping by privateers. However, Perry contracted yellow fever on the return voyage and died at sea on August , . He was initially buried in Trinidad and received full military honors from the nearby British garrison. In , he was reinterred at Newport, due to his stature as Rhode Island’s most famous military figure.

john c. fredriksen DOCUMENT: AMERICAN LETTER OF MARQUE, 1812 With a letter of marque, governments granted ship captains authority to seize merchant ships from other countries on the high seas. Without a letter of marque, such an act would be considered piracy. American privateers used letters of marque throughout the War of , to hinder British trade. This particular letter was granted by President James Madison to a Capt. Millin of the privateer Prince of Neufchatel in . (Letter of Marque, James Madison to Capt. Millin of the Prince of Neufchatel. Public Record Office, National Archives, Richmond, Surrey, UK [High Court of Admiralty HCA/].) James Madison, President of the United States of America, To all who shall see these presents, Greeting: BE IT KNOWN, That in pursuance of an act of congress, passed on the th day of June one thousand eight hundred and twelve, I have Commissioned, and by these presents do commission, the private armed Brig called the Prince Neufchatel of the burden

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of three hundred & Nineteen tons, or thereabouts, owned by John Ordronaux & Peter E. Trevall of the City & State of New York and Joseph Beylle of Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania Mounting eighteen carriage guns, and navigated by one hundred & twenty nine men, hereby authorizing Nicholas Millin captain, and William Stetson lieutenant of the said Brig and the other officers and crew thereof, to subdue, seize, and take any armed or unarmed British vessel, public or private, which shall be found within the jurisdictional limits of the United States, or elsewhere on the high seas, or within the waters of the British dominions, and such captured vessel, with her apparel, guns, and appertenances, and the goods or effects which shall be found on board the same, together with all the british persons and others who shall be found acting on board, to bring within some port of the United States; and also to retake any vessel, goods, and effects of the people of the United States, which may have been captured by any British armed vessel, in order that proceedings may be had concerning such capture or recapture in due form of law, and as to right and justice shall appertain. The said Nicholas Millin is further authorized to detain, seize, and take all vessels and effects, to whomsoever belonging, which shall be liabel thereto according to the law of nations and the rights of the United States as a power at war, and to bring the same within some port of the United States, in order that due proceedings may be had thereon. This commission to continue in force during the pleasure of the president of the United States for the time being. GIVEN under my hand and seal of the United States of America, at the City of Washington, the twelfth day of December in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and fourteen and of the independence of the said states the thirty ninth. BY THE PRESIDENT James Madison Jas. Monroe, Secretary of State.

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4 Abolition, ca. 1820s–1860

INTRODUCTION The movement to abolish slavery in the United States was the most significant reform movement in an era of reform that swept the country between  and . The many other reforms ranged from the beginning of the women’s rights movement to improvements in prisons and mental health facilities to various health-oriented reforms, such as Sylvester Graham’s promotion of the nutrient value of the type of flour that came to bear his name. The abolition movement nevertheless transcends all of these, and its impact on the country was seen in its contribution to the sectional hostility that produced the Civil War. The history of abolition divides into three periods. From about  to , the movement was dominated by the American Colonization Society, which worked to colonize former slaves in a new African nation called Liberia. During the s, the movement was centered in the American Anti-Slavery Society, which helped sectionalize abolition and laid out some of the basic tenets of the drive to rid the country of slavery. After , the formal structure of the movement was more political, focused first in the Liberty Party, a single-issue party, and later in the Republican Party, a sectional party that developed in the s in opposition to the extension of slavery into newly acquired territory. By , the year prescribed in the U.S. Constitution for the end of the foreign slave trade, all of the northern and none of the southern states had abolished slavery. Over the next two decades, the industrialization of the North further sectionalized the slavery issue, especially since the South continued to be almost completely reliant on an agrarian economy. The situation was worsened by the migration of some prominent southerners north during this time. They freed their slaves and became abolitionists, making the dividing line between the sections still sharper by depriving the South of voices of moderation. The American Colonization Society was founded in  by people who believed in the biological inferiority of the Negro race and did not think that whites and blacks could ever live freely together in harmony. Thus they urged the expatriation of consenting “free persons of color,” who, with aid from the federal or state governments, would go to Africa. But Congress was not willing to subsidize this migration, nor were most state governments, and, in the end, only about  emigrants traveled to Liberia. Many in the South feared that even discussing the financing of black migration would lead

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The abolition movement was often marked by rallies like this one, where African Americans and abolitionists were expelled from Tremont Temple in Boston on December 3, 1860. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

to debate about the nature of slavery itself and, quite possibly, governmental interference into the private business of slave owners. But it is important to note that the colonization movement was a perpetuation of the idea of racial inferiority; no one wanted to admit the possibility of racial equality or in any other way raise the status of black people. In the early s, a distinction between antislavery and abolition developed. While antislavery was seen as a reform movement designed to bring an end to a particular social problem through colonization, gradual or compensated emancipation, or some other way, abolition involved loftier values. Abolitionists believed that not only was colonization impractical and economically unsound, but also it was philosophically flawed because it was based on racial prejudice. Moreover, sending free blacks to Africa would strengthen the institution of slavery. Abolitionists were convinced that slave owners would never consent even to gradual emancipation and thus saw their struggle in more apocalyptic terms. To them, it was a struggle not just for a specific reform but part of the loftier fight for human rights and dignity. Out of this line of thinking came the American Anti-Slavery Society, founded in  with a doctrine of immediate emancipation. Within the American Anti-Slavery Society, an extremist group developed, led by William Lloyd Garrison, who had begun publishing the abolitionist tract, the Liberator,

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in  and had helped found the New England Anti-Slavery Society in . That group was folded into the American Anti-Slavery Society at its founding two years later. Garrison’s views were more extreme; he denounced the Constitution as a proslavery document and repudiated the federal government by refusing to vote, hold office, or in any other way recognize a government that recognized slave owners. The mainstream membership of the American Anti-Slavery Society suffered financially in the depression that followed the panic of  and joined in the creation of the Liberty Party in , a political organization based on the single principle of hostility to slavery. A Kentucky lawyer, James G. Birney, was its leader. He was inflexibly antislavery and piously Christian. Although Birney and the Liberty Party received only , votes in the  election, it may have made the difference in a very close election between James K. Polk, the Democratic candidate, and Henry Clay, the Whig. Polk won the popular vote by just , votes; most of Birney’s votes would have been cast for Clay had Birney not run. But the election convinced Birney that a single-issue party could not succeed in American politics. The Liberty Party faded from the political landscape, and its followers joined with former Whigs in  to form the Republican Party, which soon became the principal national rival to the Democratic Party. After its experience with the Liberty Party, the American Anti-Slavery Society was reluctant to become directly involved in national electoral politics. Rather, it became the base of a widespread social reform organization in the North that worked hard to persuade northerners that slavery was a national disgrace and should be eliminated. One of the most persuasive of the abolitionist spokesmen during this time was Frederick Douglass, who became the best-known black person in th-century America. Douglass was born a slave but escaped in  to Massachusetts, where he met Garrison and became associated with the Massachusetts abolitionists. He was a superb orator, and his lectures about his own experiences as a slave were particularly compelling. During the s, he made lecture tours throughout the northern states and Great Britain, and he also published a periodical, the North Star, which served as a platform for black and reformist writers. Douglass was also involved in other reform movements of the time, most notably the women’s movement, prohibition, and the campaign to end capital punishment. The abolitionists had many arguments against slavery, and different abolitionists opposed slavery for different reasons, but most arguments centered around a religious and moral base or focused on legal and political questions. Many theology students and preachers joined the movement because they saw slavery indicated as a sin in the Bible, noting that humans were created in the image of God and therefore should not be reduced to a piece of merchandise to be bought and sold. Others stressed the moral deficiencies of slave owners, castigating them for failing to establish a common school system in the South, for resorting to murder under the dueling code, for their propensity for drinking and gambling, and for their frequent immoral sexual liaisons with female slaves. For the slaves, their dependence on their owners impaired their manliness, crushed their souls, and destroyed their ability to distinguish right from wrong. Slavery cultivated immorality, placed a premium on deception, and made lying and stealing acts of self-deception. Other abolitionists pointed out how slavery was contrary to the fundamental principles of the American way of life and plundered slaves of the inalienable rights guaranteed

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them as Americans. Abolitionists were concerned that slaves had no protection against the arbitrary power of their owner, who had nothing to restrain his behavior toward his slaves except his own conscience and will. Indeed, a slave had no legal rights whatsoever; he could not testify in court against a white man, could not make contracts, and could not own property. Finally, abolitionists hit on the well-known southern fear of slave insurrection and called it a national weakness. The South, they asserted, was dependent on the entire nation for protection from outside interference or internal combustion. In the South between  and , a proslavery argument permeated regional writing and oratory. Newspapers, periodicals, sermons, essays, and lectures all touched on the general theme. Although historians once thought that the proslavery argument was a direct response to abolitionists, more recent research suggests that it was probably intended as a device to reassure and unify southerners, since little writing from either side was seen in the other. What southern writing did make its way to the North was not likely to have been thought credible in any case. The keynote of the proslavery argument was that slavery was a national benefit, not a national evil. This feeling resulted in the suppression of slavery criticism in the South; prices were even put on the heads of northern abolitionists, and mail from the North was seized and censored. Proslavery writers tried to demonstrate classical and biblical sanction, referring to Aristotle’s insistence on an orderly and functional society and to biblical evidence that slavery had existed in early times and that God had designated the darker races to be the “hewers of wood and the drawers of water.” Science, such as it was in the early th century, provided additional justification for slavery, based on purported evidence that blacks were physically and intellectually inferior to whites. Indeed, some scientists refused to consider blacks as members of the human species. Many of these scientific arguments were not convincingly refuted until the th century. Other proslavery advocates raised the specter of the horrors of life in a society without slavery. A few slave insurrections, such as that led by Nat Turner in , were ample evidence that black people could not be expected to live peaceably in a society of laws. Even worse was the specter of miscegenation (the intermarriage of blacks and whites). Almost all southerners believed unquestioningly that racial intermarriage would degrade the white race while doing nothing to improve the black race. So strongly held was this notion that laws forbidding miscegenation remained on the books in most southern states until the s. During the s, events began to overtake the abolitionists. While they worked hard to persuade people to ignore the provisions of the fugitive slave law that was part of the Compromise of , the issue of the extension of slavery into territories such as Kansas and Nebraska and the rise of the Republican Party engaged politicians at the national level and meant that abolitionism was no longer the defining sectional issue. By the outbreak of the Civil War, abolitionism was just one of many problems dividing North and South. The abolitionists fanned the passions that led to the Civil War, but the argument that had they kept silent, emancipation would have come peacefully, does not ring convincingly. Abolition was an irresistible force in a Christian world and was not confined to the United States. But the trouble with the abolitionists was that they spent all their compassion on the slave and had none for the southern white who was so involved in the system and could see no way to get rid of it. Although abolition doubtless created

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its share of hatred, in view of southern resistance to any limitation on the institution of slavery, as well as southern insistence on acquiring more slave territory and more guarantees of protection of slave property, it is unlikely that emancipation could ever have come any other way than through civil war.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY thomas clarkin One of the many reform movements that developed in th-century America, abolition refers to the abolishment of slavery. Although the term generally encompasses any antislavery sentiment, it is typically used to refer to the radical abolitionist movement that appeared in the s. Not merely opposed to slavery, the radical abolitionists called for the emancipation of all slaves and the guarantee of some political and legal rights for freedmen. Despised in the South and shunned by many northerners as extremists, abolitionists nonetheless influenced and intensified the national debate over slavery in the years before the Civil War. For almost  years after the first slaves arrived in Jamestown in , there was no significant opposition to the institution of slavery in North America. Most Europeans disdained African societies and cultures as inferior to their own; they regarded dark skin as further proof that Africans were not their equals. Moreover, slaves provided the labor necessary to make the British colonies economically viable. Southern colonies depended on slaves to work the fields and harvest the crops, especially tobacco and rice. Colonies that did not rely directly on slave labor profited from the lucrative slave trade. The combination of these factors, the assumption of African inferiority, and the need for workers who could be controlled created an acceptance of slavery as a natural feature of colonial life. Quakers made the first attacks on slavery in America. Although many Quakers owned slaves, they found slavery difficult to reconcile with their belief that all men are brothers. Individual Quakers, such as Benjamin Lay and John Woolman, denounced slavery as a sin. Antislavery Quakers in America received support and encouragement from their counterparts in Britain, who were actively protesting slavery in the West Indies. Quaker opposition to slavery slowly mounted until , when leaders at the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia condemned both the slave trade and slavery. Quakers in other northern states followed suit, and the few Quakers who refused to free their slaves were banned from positions of authority within the Society of Friends. At first the Quakers gained few converts outside their religion, but the growing conflict with England raised new questions about the legality and morality of slavery that contributed to the growing unease with the institution. Many supporters of the American Revolution saw a fundamental contradiction between their own demands for liberty and the ownership of other human beings. In addition to concerns over the morality of slavery, many Americans feared that their slaves would rise in rebellion or support the British war effort. The rhetoric and idealism of the Revolution and anxieties about the response of slaves to the war prompted leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Patrick Henry to denounce slavery.

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The abolitionist sentiments generated by the American Revolution had a tremendous impact on American slavery. Abolitionist societies organized in many states and agitated for the end of slavery. Free and enslaved blacks in the North circulated petitions calling for emancipation. In , the constitution of the new state of Vermont banned slavery. The following year a Pennsylvania law required the gradual emancipation of all slaves. In , a Massachusetts court outlawed slavery on the grounds that it conflicted with the state’s constitution, which contained a clause declaring that all men were free and equal. A census taken seven years later reported no slaves in the state. By  all northern states except New York and New Jersey had enacted emancipation laws. Resistance from powerful slaveholders slowed the cause of abolition in those states but could not stop it; by  both states had enacted abolition laws. The newly freed slaves in the North nevertheless encountered racial prejudice and discrimination. They were often denied the protection of the law, could not vote or serve on juries, usually held only the poorest-paying jobs, and lived in segregated neighborhoods. In addition, the gradual emancipation laws enacted by several states left thousands of men and women in bondage. Nonetheless, northern abolitionists had scored a tremendous victory in the years after the Revolution. Unlike the North, the South considered slavery an essential economic and social institution, and the southern states had not responded enthusiastically to the calls for emancipation. For a brief time the egalitarian spirit of the Revolution encouraged some liberalization of laws regarding slaves, but most southern states had laws that made manumission, the freeing of slaves, illegal. In , Virginia permitted slave owners to free their slaves voluntarily, and soon all southern states except North Carolina allowed some private manumission. However, these changes were short-lived. A successful slave revolt on the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo frightened southerners, who responded with stricter slave laws. The growing demand for slaves to work the fields of the new states of Alabama and Mississippi also contributed to the waning influence of abolitionism in the southern states. Southern abolitionism foundered on fear, racism, and profit. The success of abolitionism in the North and its failure in the South calmed most abolitionist agitation. The urge to ignore regional differences in the interests of nationalism, economic ties with the South, and racism all blunted the desire of northerners to carry the cause of emancipation to the southern states. By the end of the first decade of the th century, abolitionism had little force in American society and politics. Although abolitionism faltered, anxiety over slavery continued. One outlet for those concerned about slavery was the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States, commonly referred to as the American Colonization Society. Founded in , the society was in no sense an abolitionist organization. Although it advocated the voluntary emancipation of slaves by their owners, its true aim was to send all free blacks to Africa. The sheer expense of transporting thousands of men and women across the Atlantic Ocean made the goal of the society impossible; nonetheless, it attracted many supporters, including prominent leaders such as Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Henry Clay. Free blacks recognized the racism inherent in the transportation proposal and vigorously condemned the scheme. They rejected the argument that Africa was their homeland and proclaimed themselves Americans. Despite its failure to condemn slavery, the American Colonization Society attracted a number of

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young men who remained doubtful of the morality of slavery, men motivated by ideals that would lead them to radical abolitionism during the s. The new idealism that spurred the future abolitionists to condemn slavery had its roots in a wave of religious revival that swept across the United States in the early th century. Referred to by historians as the Second Great Awakening, this great outpouring of religious enthusiasm exposed thousands of Americans to new ideas about themselves and their society. Revivalist lecturers exhorted their listeners to strive for perfection here on earth while awaiting the Kingdom of God. They preached the virtue of “disinterested benevolence,” the value of doing good merely for the sake of doing so without receiving any reward. These ideas inspired thousands of American men and women to join reform movements dedicated to improving American society. Among the more popular movements were temperance, education, prison reform, and abolitionism. Most antislavery appeals in the early th century advocated a gradual approach to emancipation. It was argued that if slavery were to end too quickly, the resulting economic and political disruption would be far worse than the evils of slavery. In addition, advocates of gradualism argued that slaves were not prepared for freedom and that a long process of education and preparation was necessary before slaves could become free. Gradualism seemed a reasonable and balanced method of solving the problem of slavery. However, it quickly became apparent that gradualism offered no real solutions and that slavery was becoming more entrenched and problematic. As the nation grew, the institution of slavery spread across the lower South. Controversy over the expansion of slavery had sparked a national crisis in , a crisis resolved by the Missouri Compromise. Fearing that education would spark rebellion, southerners rejected any programs for improvement of the slaves. Freed blacks also opposed gradualism, demanding a more strident response to the slavery problem. Gradualism conflicted as well with the high ideals of the reformers, who saw it as an unacceptable tolerance of evil and sin. In  the British abolitionist Elizabeth Heyrick had composed a pamphlet condemning gradualism and defending immediate emancipation. By the early s American antislavery advocates raised the cry of immediatism, an ambiguous and confusing term. Immediatism did not mean the immediate emancipation of all slaves, an act that even the most ardent abolitionists recognized would cause dislocation and turmoil. Rather, it referred to the personal commitment of reformers to the abolition of slavery. The immediatists condemned slavery as sinful and immoral and called for immediate action to begin the end of slavery. In addition, the immediatists maintained that blacks deserved not only their freedom but full rights as citizens. The turn to immediatism marked the radicalism of abolitionism and its return as a social and political force in American society. The appeal of abolitionism to American blacks is easily understood. Whether enslaved or free, blacks had experienced the burdens of racism. However, most blacks were dependent on whites for employment, so it took exceptional courage for blacks to call openly for emancipation. Most black abolitionists had personal experience with the Protestant religious revivals that inspired the reform movements. They also tended to be highly educated. Black participation served to keep abolitionism, with its aim of equality for blacks, from degenerating into an antislavery movement, which would oppose slavery but ignore the needs of free blacks.

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Historians have puzzled over the attraction of abolition for white reformers and have attempted to create personality profiles of prominent abolitionists to understand their motivations. Most abolitionists came from religious households that placed great emphasis on moral behavior. They also had at least one parent who was very strongwilled. Many abolitionist leaders were ministers or deacons in their churches. Although the leaders of the movement tended to come from cities, most followers lived in farming communities. These attempts to identify particular features common to abolitionists have created debates among historians that have not been resolved. It can only be said that abolitionists were highly moral individuals who recognized in slavery a great moral evil. Historians point to the year  as a major turning point in abolitionist activity. That year the British government enacted a program of gradual emancipation in the West Indies. In America, an influential new abolitionist periodical, the Liberator, first appeared. William Lloyd Garrison, its publisher, had been a supporter of colonization in the s. Association with the Quaker antislavery leader Benjamin Lundy led him to a more radical stance. In the Liberator, Garrison denounced both colonization and gradualism and called for immediate abolition. Garrison was one of many prominent abolitionists, but his publications and activism served to place him in the forefront of the cause. His pronouncements energized opponents of slavery in the North, who were drawn to his calls for action and condemnation of slavery as a sin. In the South, however, Garrison’s message was taken as a threat. Slaveholders considered gradualism and colonization as mild but inconsequential critiques of slavery; immediatism, with its accusations of sin, was taken as an attack not only on slavery but also on southern morality. Southerners charged that immediatism fostered rebellion among slaves, who took its message as a call to arms. They pointed to Nat Turner’s  slave rebellion in Virginia as evidence that abolitionist pieties led to dead southerners. Although it was only coincidental that Turner’s rebellion came just months after the first edition of the Liberator was published, southerners remained convinced that there was a connection between the two events. The Georgia legislature offered five thousand dollars to anyone who would kidnap Garrison and bring him to Georgia to stand trial. Any expression of antislavery sentiment in the South was met with hostility or even violence. Southern advocates of abolition either kept their opinions to themselves or moved to the North. Like their southern counterparts, most northerners also considered abolitionism an extremist and dangerous position. They regarded slavery as a southern problem, one that might be disgraceful but that nonetheless was not their concern. Antislavery agitation caused conflict between the two regions of the nation that might disrupt commerce. Moreover, most northerners correctly perceived that abolitionism might ultimately result in equal rights for freed blacks. Most northerners were profoundly racist in their views and had no desire to mingle socially with blacks or to compete with them for employment. In the s, abolitionists were regarded with disdain in both the North and the South. Despite the hostility and criticism, abolitionists continued to organize and agitate for an end to slavery. In  they founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, an organization with members in the northern and western states. Although dominated by white men, the founding members included both blacks and women. William Lloyd Garrison

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wrote the group’s Declaration of Sentiments, a document that spelled out both strategies and goals. The declaration, which denounced colonization, called for nonviolence in the struggle to achieve emancipation, required members to reject all racial prejudice, and sought equal opportunity for both blacks and whites to enjoy the benefits of education and prosperity, offering a vision of a racially integrated society completely at odds with life in America. Abolitionism had become more than an attack on the institution of slavery; it now called for the complete reform and revision of society in both the North and the South. To achieve such a goal, the American Anti-Slavery Society hoped to use moral suasion, the appeal to the consciences of slavery supporters. Political campaigns might change laws, but the key to ending racial prejudice lay in changing attitudes. Although the abolitionists undertook their cause with great fervor and enthusiasm, they met with significant opposition. When Prudence Crandall opened a boarding school for black girls in Canterbury, Connecticut, the townspeople poisoned the school’s well, attacked the building, and had Crandall jailed. That same year a mob of , antiabolitionist New Yorkers rushed a chapel in search of Garrison and Arthur Tappan, another prominent abolitionist. Another mob paraded Garrison through the streets of Boston with a rope around his neck in . Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist printer in Illinois, was murdered by a crowd in  while he defended his printing press. Mob violence was a common occurrence in America in the s, and abolitionists often found themselves confronted by angry and even violent crowds. Abolitionists did score some victories. In  the wealthy abolitionist Arthur Tappan sent Theodore Weld to Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. An advocate of immediate abolition, Weld so greatly influenced the students and faculty at Lane that  days after his arrival, they voted to endorse abolition. When the people of Cincinnati demanded that the student antislavery organization disband, a group of  students left the seminary. They founded Oberlin, the first American college open to both blacks and women. If the abolitionist cause met with little success in the North, its efforts in the South were complete failures. In  a man caught with abolitionist literature in Tennessee was given  lashes. The few southern converts to abolitionism, such as James G. Birney and Sarah and Angelina Grimké, moved to the North. Southerners remained intransigent, and abolitionists risked life and limb if they journeyed south with their crusade. In response, the American Anti-Slavery Society organized a postal campaign to flood the South with abolitionist literature. A fine example of moral suasion, the postal campaign began in May . The abolitionists hoped, naively, that exposure to abolitionist arguments would persuade southern ministers and politicians to turn their backs on slavery. By  over  million antislavery tracts had been distributed through the mails. The campaign led to violence and repression throughout the nation. In the North, angry crowds confronted the abolitionists. Several states considered legislation to limit antislavery activism. In the South, a mob broke into the Charleston post office and burned the mail from New York. Throughout the region, mail was searched for abolitionist literature, which was then destroyed. In response former president Andrew Jackson, himself a slaveholder, called for a ban on the mailing of antislavery literature. The postal campaign failed to convert any southerners or change attitudes toward slavery. Yet the campaign was not a total failure. The uproar in the North served to bring the abolitionist cause to the attention of the public, and the abolitionists used the publicity

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to spread their message and seek new converts. Angered by the censorship of the mail, abolitionists began sending petitions denouncing slavery to the U.S. Congress. Southern representatives demanded that the petitions be ignored. In  the Congress adopted the gag rule, which allowed for abolition petitions to be tabled without consideration. Abolitionists correctly charged that the gag rule violated their constitutional right to petition Congress, but Congress refused to repeal the rule. Still they continued to send the petitions; by , over , had arrived at the Capitol. The censorship of the mail and the gag rule in Congress prompted many northerners uninterested in the abolitionist cause to wonder if the South, in its zealous defense of slavery, was not willing to sacrifice the civil liberties of all Americans. Although the postal campaign failed to achieve its goal of converting southerners, it raised doubts in the minds of many northerners about the intentions of slaveholders in the South. As a result, membership in antislavery societies rose significantly in the last years of the s. The stresses of continuing the abolitionist campaign and disagreements over strategy caused factions to develop within the American Anti-Slavery Society. By  many abolitionists argued that moral suasion had failed and that political strategies would best serve the cause. They advocated aligning with political parties, endorsing candidates, and changing laws. Opponents charged that a political strategy would require compromise and that any compromise was an unconscionable bargain with the sin of slaveholding. They also maintained that political strategies might end slavery but would not bring about equality for the freedman. This could be achieved only through moral suasion. Divisions within the society were deepened when Garrison and his followers embraced a radicalism that many conservative abolitionists could not support. Garrisonians, as they were known, adhered to an extreme form of Christianity that rejected all forms of authority as coercive. They called for a total reform of all social institutions, a position that conservatives claimed not only detracted from the goal of abolition but was also unattainable. Garrisonians also championed women’s rights, another controversial issue that conservatives refused to support. Women had been active in the American Anti-Slavery Society since its founding. They generally served in all-female organizations and worked to convert other women. However, as they became more active in the movement, conflicts arose. Revealing a deep-seated racial prejudice, some men worried about sexual contact between the female abolitionists and the black men they insisted were their equals. Women also spoke to groups that included men, which was considered improper by the standards of the day. The issue became a serious problem when the Congregationalist churches circulated a pastoral letter condemning Sarah and Angelina Grimké for speaking to audiences of men and women. Although the pastoral letter troubled many abolitionists, the Garrisonians shrugged it off as yet another example of authoritarianism. The conflict caused irreparable damage to the already divided American Anti-Slavery Society. When at the  convention, Garrisonians managed to elect a feminist, Abby Kelly, to the executive committee, angry conservatives abandoned the society and formed the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. The split marked the decline of abolitionism as a social movement in the United States.

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Garrison and his followers continued to agitate throughout the s. In  Garrison presented a series of resolutions that called for peaceful dissolution of the United States. He condemned the Constitution as a proslavery document, argued that slavery could not continue to exist in the South without the military and economic support of the North, and said that if the northern states left the Union, slavery in the South would be doomed. At first Garrison’s suggestions were met with shock, but within two years the American Anti-Slavery Society had adopted disunion. The disunion strategy garnered public attention and reflected the highly moral and religious origins of abolitionism, the absolute refusal to tolerate sin and evil. The political abolitionists formed the Liberty Party, devoted to the single issue of the abolition of slavery. Political abolitionists realized that the party would not win elections, but they wished to keep the abolition campaign in the public eye. They also hoped that the Liberty party would gain enough votes to worry the major political parties, which in turn might adopt antislavery measures to attract Liberty votes. Originally dedicated to equal rights for freedmen, the party’s lack of success by  led several leaders to abandon the fight for equal rights in the hope of gaining votes from northerners who opposed slavery but also disliked blacks. Garrison had been correct: the political strategy required compromises that ultimately destroyed the abolitionist agenda. After the  presidential election, the Liberty Party virtually ceased to exist. Black abolitionists were not as troubled by the abolitionist schism. Although they too experienced some conflict over differing strategies, they were willing to work as a group and use a variety of methods to achieve their goals. As the goals of abolitionism gave way to mere antislavery during the s, blacks showed a greater interest in militant responses, including the validity of violence in certain circumstances. Some blacks argued that the only reasonable response to the racism of American life was to leave; they advocated emigration to Canada and, ironically, even Africa. Abolitionism declined as a force not only because of the factional split of  but also because events outpaced the abolitionist movement. Northern suspicions of southern intentions spawned fears that a conspiracy of slave owners and sympathetic northern politicians was attempting to control the federal government. The growth of antislavery sentiment in the North during the s and s was born out of hostility toward the South and had little to do with concern for the fate of blacks, as reflected in the platforms of the Free Soil and Republican Parties. The abolitionist commitment to nonviolence could not withstand the tensions generated by the slavery conflict, and a bloody civil war was necessary to end the institution of slavery on American soil. Although abolition had ceased to exist as a movement, the abolitionists lived on. During the war abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass pressured Lincoln and the Republicans to make abolition a war aim, and after the release of the Emancipation Proclamation they pressed for a constitutional amendment banning slavery. The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment achieved the abolitionist goal of ending slavery but did nothing to ensure that blacks would be treated as equals in American society. Although many antislavery societies disbanded after the war, several abolitionists, including Douglass and Lewis Tappan, Arthur Tappan’s brother, turned to black education

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and improvement of the black standard of living. Their efforts never attracted the attention of the abolitionist movement of the s, and by the s the last remnants of abolitionism had faded away. Historians debate the impact and the importance of abolitionism in American history. Abolitionists clearly failed to achieve their aims. They inspired few southerners to abandon slavery; on the contrary, the abolitionist crusade inspired the South to defend slavery as a beneficial institution for both masters and slaves alike. In the North, abolitionists remained a tiny minority. Historians estimate that abolitionism attracted less than  percent of the North’s population. Both the strategies of moral suasion and political abolition had little influence over the fate of the nation’s slaves and freedmen. These criticisms have drawn vigorous responses from defenders of the abolitionists. Although the abolitionists failed to achieve any of their stated objectives, they nonetheless made slavery an issue of national debate. They attracted enormous public attention, though not always positive, and their influence far outweighed their numbers. Most important, they attacked the racism prevalent in th-century America and raised significant questions about the roles of minorities in American society that have yet to be resolved. A far more serious criticism contends that abolitionists heightened regional tensions and contributed to the coming of the Civil War. Motivated by unresolved social and economic tensions within their own lives, abolitionists freely criticized a feature of American society far removed from their own neighborhoods. Their shrill and even hysterical condemnations of slavery and the South forced southerners to defend and bolster an institution that might have eventually faded away for economic and social reasons. This argument places the blame for the Civil War squarely on the very advocates of nonviolence. These criticisms have also received attention from historians. Recognizing abolitionism as part of the larger reform movement in the United States, they argue that abolitionism was a natural response to a glaring social problem of the time. The fact that abolitionists were confined to the North, far from the institution that they criticized, ignores the fact that southerners reacted to abolitionism with a far more violent response than did unappreciative northerners; it was prudent to criticize slavery from a distance. Moreover, the abolitionists were just as quick to condemn the North for profiting from the labors of slaves and for accepting the existence of the institution anywhere on American soil. To blame the abolitionists for the Civil War is to ignore the serious social and economic tensions generated by the existence of slavery in a nation that was becoming increasingly modern in its outlook and its economy. Regardless of its failures, abolition remains a movement that articulated beliefs in equality and liberty that still resonate in the American political dialogue. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Absuz, Robert H. Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and the Dilemma of Reform. New York: Oxford University Press, . A biography of an important abolitionist that includes material on the Grimké sisters. Barnes, Gilbert Hobbs. The Antislavery Impulse. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, . A classic study that drew attention to the work of Weld.

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Bartlett, Irving H. Wendell Phillips, Brahmin Radical. New York: Greenwood Press, . A portrait of a wealthy intellectual and active abolitionist. Berlin, Ira, and Ronald Hoffman, eds. Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, . Includes several articles on the Revolution’s impact on slave societies. Bracey, John H., Jr., ed. Blacks in the Abolition Movement. Belmont, MA: Wadsworth, . Articles profiling black leaders and their roles as abolitionists. Burin, Eric. Slavery and the Peculiar Solution: A History of the American Colonization Society. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, . A general history of this alternative solution to the slavery question. Curry, Richard, ed. The Abolitionists. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press, . Includes articles very critical of the abolitionists. Davis, David Brion, ed. Ante-Bellum Reform. New York: Harper & Row, . Contains several brief articles on antislavery. Dillon, Merton L. Elijah P. Lovejoy, Abolitionist Editor. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, . A biography of the abolitionist printer murdered in . Filler, Louis. The Crusade against Slavery. New York: Harper & Row, . A general survey of abolitionism. Friedman, Lawrence J. Gregarious Saints: Self and Community in American Abolitionism, – . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . Focuses on immediatism in the abolitionist campaign. Harrold, Stanley. The Rise of Aggressive Abolitionism: Addresses to the Slaves. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, . Study of efforts to hasten abolition by engaging slaves in the process between  and . Hersh, Blanche Glassman. The Slavery of Sex: Feminist-Abolitionists in America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, . Examines the lives of  women in the abolitionist movement. Kraditor, Aileen S. Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, –. New York: Pantheon Books, . Includes chapters on religion, politics, and the women in abolitionism. Kraut, Alan M. Crusaders and Compromisers. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, . Essays about party politics and abolitionism. Lerner, Gerda. The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Woman’s Rights and Abolition. New York: Shocken Books, . A fascinating biography of two southern sisters who became prominent reform leaders. Lumpkin, Katharine Du Pre. The Emancipation of Angelina Grimke. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . A readable biography of the younger Grimké sister. Magdol, Edward. The Antislavery Rank and File. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, . Offers social profiles of people attracted to abolitionism. McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass. New York: W. W. Norton, . A biography with illustrations and photographs. Merrill, Walter H. Against Wind and Tide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Casts William Lloyd Garrison as the central figure of the abolitionist movement. Nash, Gary B. Race and Revolution. Madison, WI: Madison House, . Considers the impact of the American Revolution on slavery. Perry, Lewis. Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Focuses on the Garrisonians within abolitionism. Perry, Lewis, and Michael Fellman. Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Abolitionists. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . Articles that synthesize the historical interpretations produced during the s.

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Quarles, Benjamin. Black Abolitionists. New York: Oxford University Press, . Studies the motivations and methods of the black abolitionists. Sorin, Gerald. Abolitionism: A New Perspective. New York: Praeger, . Offers a brief but useful overview of abolitionism influenced by the civil rights movement of the s. Stampp, Kenneth M. The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, . Contains Stampp’s essay “The Irrepressible Conflict,” which examines the claim that abolitionists caused the Civil War. Stewart, James Brewer. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery. New York: Hill and Wang, . Perhaps the best general introduction to abolitionism. Walters, Ronald G. American Reformers, –. New York: Hill and Wang, . Contains useful chapters on the origins of reform movements and antislavery. ———. The Antislavery Appeal: American Abolitionism after . New York: W. W. Norton, . Examines abolitionism in the contexts of family life, religion, and other topics. Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War against Slavery. Cleveland: Press of Case Western University, . A biography that contrasts Tappan’s roles as abolitionist and capitalist. Zilmersmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . A detailed discussion of abolitionism in the last decades of the th century.

AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY The American Anti-Slavery Society was formed in  by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur and Lewis Tappan. One of many groups to emerge from the abolition movement, the American Anti-Slavery Society became the largest and most influential abolition organization in the United States. Abolitionism was one of several reform movements sparked by the religious revivalism of the Second Great Awakening. Although antislavery sentiment had been present in the North and upper South since the American Revolution, abolition advocated for immediate emancipation of the slaves, while other antislavery movements toyed with more moderate proposals, such as gradual or compensated emancipation or colonization of free African Americans. Abolitionism, however, burst upon the scene during the late s and early s, led by Garrison and his controversial newspaper, The Liberator. Dozens of local, state, and regional abolition organizations sprang up almost overnight. The American Anti-Slavery Society was an attempt to unite these disparate groups into an influential organization. The society sponsored speakers to travel around the North and lecture about the evils of slavery, supported Garrison’s newspaper, organized petition campaigns to state legislatures and Congress, mailed pamphlets to the South urging emancipation, and published tracts, sermons, and firsthand accounts of slavery. The society quickly gathered a group of energetic and devoted reformers, including Theodore Weld, Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, Lucretia Mott, and Lydia Maria Child. From its earliest days, the American Anti-Slavery Society was a controversial organization, not only because of the cause it espoused, but also because of the methods it employed to promote its cause. Although women were excluded as voting members of the organization, they still played a central role in the society’s activities, particularly as

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public speakers—a role that many found objectionable for women. Women also joined the society in large numbers and energetically undertook political action in their cause, shocking much of the public with their willingness to enter public life. Throughout the s, the American Anti-Slavery Society played a dominant role in the abolition movement, although other antislavery societies did exist and made significant contributions as well. By the end of the decade, however, the American AntiSlavery Society threatened to split into several divergent factions. At issue were two controversies that had plagued the organization since its founding: the role of politics and that of women. The society’s membership was divided over whether slavery could be eradicated by political action or by moral suasion. Garrison maintained that only a belief in the immorality of slavery could bring about the demise of the “peculiar institution.” Furthermore, Garrison denied the authority of the federal government and the Constitution, because they recognized slavery as a legitimate and lawful institution. (Garrison believed that slavery violated God’s higher law.) Others argued that abolitionism must become a political issue at the national level if slavery was ever to be eradicated. They proposed forming a political party based on abolitionism and running candidates in local, state, and national elections. The second division emerged over the role of women. Garrison once again led the more radical faction of the society in affirming that women were equal to men in every respect and should be treated accordingly. Some among this faction even suggested that women’s rights were just as important a cause as abolition. The Grimké sisters, who had shocked public opinion by speaking to “mixed audiences” of men and women, claimed that women were just as much slaves as African Americans in the United States. In , these splits finally divided the American Anti-Slavery Society. James G. Birney, a former slaveholder, led a faction to form the Liberty Party, which in turn nominated Birney as its presidential candidate in  and . Weld and the Tappan brothers organized the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Ironically, the membership of the American Anti-Slavery Society peaked that year at ,. In , Garrison was elected president of the organization, a post he held until . Although the membership was reduced, women participated fully. At the end of the Civil War, Garrison announced the end of his abolitionist work and advised that the American Anti-Slavery Society be dissolved. The group carried on, however, under the leadership of Wendell Phillips, until .

elizabeth dubrulle LYDIA MARIA CHILD (1802–1880) The author Lydia Maria Child wrote An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (), an early and important antislavery book that attracted a number of prominent people to the abolition movement, while costing Child much of her popular readership. Lydia Maria Francis Child was born on February , , in Medford, Massachusetts. After her mother died, Child moved to Maine to live with her older sister Mary. Although her formal education went no further than attendance at a local girls’ school, she was an

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avid reader. Child briefly became a schoolteacher in Gardiner, Maine, but later returned to Massachusetts. In , at the age of , she published her first novel, Hobomok, the controversial story of a marriage between a white woman and a Pequot Indian. The novel enjoyed considerable success and was followed by a collection of stories and a second novel, The Rebels, or, Boston before the Revolution. In , she also began publishing Juvenile Miscellany, a bimonthly educational magazine for children that was the first of its kind in America. At the peak of her popularity, Child’s career took a sharp turn in another direction. In , she married David Lee Child. Though a talented lawyer, her husband incurred tremendous debts. To provide for her family in the midst of her husband’s financial insolvency, Child became a parsimonious homemaker. She parlayed her frugality into a book titled The Frugal Housewife (), a compendium of practical suggestions about household management that was aimed at women of moderate means. The book went into  editions in America and many editions abroad. After the publication of that book, she published two other books about women’s work and three volumes of biographical essays for a series called the Ladies’ Family Library, which were hailed by the prestigious journal North American Review. Child’s husband, a lawyer and a reform-minded editor, helped William Lloyd Garrison found the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Child published An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans in  after being converted to the cause by her husband and Garrison. The book traced the history of slavery from ancient times, detailed its evils, and called for the immediate emancipation of the nation’s slaves. An Appeal came out at a time when feelings against abolitionists ran high. A horrified public stopped buying Child’s books in protest of her involvement with the movement. Nevertheless, the book helped persuade William Ellery Channing, Wendell Phillips, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson to join the fight to end slavery. Child joined the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society in . She published, among other antislavery works, an anthology called The Oasis (), as well as her most popular romantic novel, Philothea, but she and her husband failed to prosper financially. In , when the abolitionist movement split apart over the role of political action and women in the fight against slavery, Child sided with the more radical faction led by Garrison, supporting the use of moral persuasion rather than political activism and defending women’s rights to speak in public. A year later, she moved to New York to become the editor of the American Anti-Slavery Society’s official newspaper, the National Anti-Slavery Standard, whose readership soon surpassed that of Garrison’s The Liberator. In , she resigned from the editorship and withdrew from the American Anti-Slavery Society after sharp disagreement with Garrison over his “no Union with slaveholders” position. Garrison advocated the destruction of the federal Union to exclude the South and slaveholding territories from government and Northern society. Child stopped short of supporting such a radical course of action. For the next  years, Child maintained a low profile with regard to abolition, although her devotion to the cause never wavered. Instead, she spent her energies on writing journalistic pieces, children’s literature, and other books directed toward a popular audience. Then, in , fired up by John Brown’s unsuccessful Harpers Ferry raid, she wrote to him in prison, offering her services to him as a nurse. Her overture to the

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radical antislavery leader yielded an angry letter from the wife of a Virginia senator. In response, Child replied with an eloquent assault on the restriction of free speech and the use of violence against abolitionists. Picked up by the New York Tribune and later reprinted by the American Anti-Slavery Society in pamphlet form, the correspondence sold more than  million copies. In , Child published three more antislavery pamphlets and, after emancipation, compiled The Freedmen’s Book, an instructional anthology for and about African Americans, which was distributed free of charge by the Freedmen’s Aid Society. In her remaining years, Child wrote An Appeal for the Indians () and articles for various periodicals on such subjects as civil service reform and the eight-hour workday. A supporter of women’s rights in principle, she nevertheless was critical of the organized woman suffrage movement. Child died in Wayland, Massachusetts, on October , , at the age of .

william mcguire and leslie wheeler LIBERTY PARTY The Liberty Party was an influential political party in the s that was entirely devoted to securing the abolition of slavery. Though short-lived, the Liberty Party drew enough votes in the presidential election of  to swing the election away from Whig candidate Henry Clay and make Democratic candidate James K. Polk president. The success of the Liberty Party signaled the growing importance of slavery in national politics. By the late s, many leading abolitionists were discouraged by the lack of attention paid by the major political parties to the issue of slavery. As a result, several abolitionists—including the wealthy financier brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan of New York and Theodore Weld of Ohio—met in Albany, New York, in  and formed the Liberty Party with the sole purpose of bringing the issue of slavery directly into the political arena. In the presidential election of that same year, the Liberty Party ran a Southern abolitionist and former slave owner, James G. Birney, as a candidate but received only , popular votes. Between  and , the Liberty Party attracted more supporters by moderating the moral and religious tone of its rhetoric and advocating more political goals, such as the divorce of the federal government from the institution of slavery and blocking the admission of new slave states. In , with Birney again as its presidential candidate, the Liberty Party drew , popular votes, mostly from antislavery Whigs, which was enough to swing the states of Michigan and New York to the Democrats and deny victory to Henry Clay of the Whigs. Though the Liberty Party had moderated its abolitionist tone, its unity was nevertheless hampered by disagreements among its leaders—many of whom were devout evangelical Christians—as to how far the party should go in trying to balance moral and political rhetoric. Unable to resolve those issues, the Liberty Party collapsed in  after failing to agree on a presidential candidate. The issue of slavery, however, had firmly entered the political arena and would become increasingly divisive in national politics over the course of the next decade. Thus,

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the Liberty Party achieved its goals. After the Liberty Party’s demise, many of its supporters switched their allegiance to the newly formed Free Soil Party, which also advocated the abolition of slavery.

HARRIET TUBMAN (ca. 1820–1913) Hailed as “the Moses of her people” because of her courageous rescues of hundreds of slaves on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman was a living symbol of the resistance of African Americans to slavery in the United States. Born to slave parents around  on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman began working as a field hand when she was seven years old. She received no schooling and grew up strong-willed and independent, possessed of incredible physical strength and stamina. When she was , the plantation overseer struck her on the head while she was protecting another slave from punishment, causing her afterward often to fall suddenly asleep and experience visions. In , she married John Tubman, a free African American. Five years later, when the plantation where she lived was sold, Tubman decided to escape to the North in order to avoid being sold out of state. Her husband decided not to accompany her, so Tubman traveled by herself on the Underground Railroad. She eventually returned for John Tubman, but he had remarried in the interval. Not long after her safe arrival in Philadelphia, Tubman began making trips to the South to help other slaves escape on the Underground Railroad. In December , she brought out her sister and two children from Maryland, and later she helped her brother and two other slaves. Tubman’s most daring exploit occurred in , when she hired a wagon and brought from Maryland her elderly parents. Armed with a rifle, Tubman brought out not only her family but hundreds of other slaves as well. In the decade before the American Civil War, Tubman guided to freedom about  slaves without ever losing a slave through capture. Deeply religious, Tubman thought all her actions were guided by God. Maryland slave owners offered a reward of $, for her apprehension and circulated wanted posters with her picture throughout the South. Fellow abolitionists extolled her virtues, and in the late s, she began speaking at abolitionist meetings. In , Tubman met radical abolitionist John Brown in St. Catherines, Ontario, where she and her parents were then residing. She became a coconspirator in planning his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in . She had initially planned to participate in the raid herself but was compelled by illness to miss the opportunity; the raid resulted in Brown’s capture and death. During the first year of the Civil War, Tubman continued her rescue work across enemy lines into the South. In early , she joined the Union forces at Beaufort, South Carolina, serving as a scout and spy. She also worked as a nurse and helped slaves who sought refuge with the Union Army. After the war, Tubman returned home to Auburn, New York, where she had resettled her parents on a farm in the late s. In , she married Nelson Davis, a disabled veteran. She also cared for a number of African American orphans and elderly former slaves. Part of the money that enabled her to do this came from royalties turned over to her from Sarah Bradford, who wrote two biographies: Scenes in the Life of

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Harriet Tubman () and Harriet, the Moses of Her People (). Although Tubman repeatedly applied to the federal government for compensation for her wartime services, the only money she received was a small pension as the widow of Nelson Davis, who had died in . In the last years of her life, Tubman raised money for freedmen’s schools and helped spur the growth of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in upstate New York. In , she donated  acres of land to the church for the establishment of a shelter for poor and homeless African Americans. Tubman died of pneumonia on March , .

william mcguire and leslie wheeler DOCUMENT: EXCERPT FROM THE FIRST EDITION OF THE LIBERATOR, 1831 On January , , reformer William Lloyd Garrison published the first number of his newspaper, The Liberator, a weekly paper published in Boston that became the mouthpiece for the abolition movement of the s. Although antislavery sentiment had existed for several decades in the United States, Garrison revitalized the movement with his call for immediate action to end slavery, abandoning the movement’s reliance on a gradualist approach. Although many believed him to be a mentally unbalanced agitator, Garrison inspired dozens of equally diligent abolitionists to challenge the South’s peculiar institution. Garrison’s dedication to the abolitionist cause never wavered, and he published the paper every week until the end of , after the South had been defeated in the Civil War and Congress had abolished slavery in the United States with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Below is an excerpt of the first number of The Liberator. (Garrison, William Lloyd, “To the Public,” The Liberator, January , .) During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting the minds of the people by a series of discourses on the subject of slavery, every place that I visited gave fresh evidence of the fact that a great revolution in public sentiment was to be effected in the free states— and particularly in New England—than at the South. I find contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen, than among slaveowners themselves. Of course, there were individual exceptions to the contrary. This state of things afflicted but did not dishearten me. I determined, at every hazard, to lift up the standard of emancipation in the eyes of the nation, within sight of Bunker Hill and in the birthplace of liberty. That standard is now unfurled; and long may it float, unhurt by the spoliations of time or the missiles of a desperate foe—yea, till every chain be broken, and every bondman set free! Let Southern oppressors tremble— let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble. . . . Assenting to the “self-evident truth” maintained in the American Declaration of Independence “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain

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inalienable rights—among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. . . . In Park Street Church, on the Fourth of July, , in an address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popular but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this opportunity to make a full and unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardon of my God, of my country, and of my brethren the poor slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice, and absurdity. . . . I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat in a single inch— and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead. It is pretended that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true. On this question my influence—humble as it is—is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years—not perniciously, but beneficially—not as a curse, but as a blessing. And posterity will bear testimony that I was right.

DOCUMENT: JOHN BROWN’S FINAL STATEMENT TO THE VIRGINIA COURT, 1859 A militant abolitionist, John Brown believed that slavery must be overthrown by force. In , he led an unsuccessful raid against the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to spark a local slave rebellion. Brown was taken to prison in Charlestown, Virginia, and put on trial for treason. In his final statement to the Virginia Court, Brown gives this defense of his raid. He was ultimately convicted and then hanged. (Sanborn, F. B., ed. The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas and Martyr of Virginia [Boston: Roberts Brothers, ].) I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny every thing but what I have already admitted, of a design on my part to free Slaves. I intended, certainly, to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter, when I went into Missouri, and there took Slaves, without the snapping of a gun on either side, moving them through the country, and finally leaving them in Canada. I desired to have done the same thing again, on a much larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite Slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection. I have another objection, and that is, that it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner, and which I admit has been fairly proved,—for I

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admire truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case,—had I so interfered in behalf of the Rich, the Powerful, the Intelligent, the so-called Great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right. Every man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy a reward, rather than a punishment. This Court acknowledges too, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I saw a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that, “All things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them.” It teaches me further, to “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.” I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done, in behalf of his despised poor, I have done no wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life, for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this Slave country, whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments,—I say, LET IT BE DONE. Let me say one word further: I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all the circumstances, it has been more generous that I expected; but I feel no consciousness of guilt. I have stated from the first what was my intention, and what was not. I never had any design against the liberty of any person, nor any disposition to create treason, or excite Slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of that kind. Let me say something, also, in regard to the statements made by some of those who were connected with me. I hear that it has been stated by some of them, that I have induced them to join me; but the contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regarding their weakness. Not one but joined me of his own accord, and the greater part at their own expense. A number of them I never saw and never had a word of conversation with, till the day they came to me, and that was for the purpose I have stated. Now I have done.

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5 The Monroe Doctrine, 1823

INTRODUCTION During the th century, the United States and the Latin American colonies of Spain had little in common. The systems of government, the predominant religion, and the racial mixtures were all very different, and there was little trade with or travel to South America from the United States. But in , when Napoleon invaded Spain during the Napoleonic Wars, Latin American revolutionaries took advantage of the disruption of their home government to lead anti-Napoleon movements loyal to ousted King Ferdinand VII. By , the principal South American colonies had achieved de facto independence from Spain and looked to make contact with other nations. Great Britain took the lead in establishing trade relations, but the United States sent money to relieve victims of an earthquake in Venezuela, and two enterprising Americans established the first newspaper in Chile. To facilitate the growing American trade, consuls were sent to Caracas and Buenos Aires in  and , respectively. When Ferdinand VII was restored to his throne in Spain in , he tried to put his former South American colonies under Spanish rule again. He sent a sizable army and fleet and had indeed subdued all of them except La Plata (Argentina) by . But the revolutionary leaders José San Martín, Simón Bolívar, and Bernardo O’Higgins kept up the fight, and by , most of the old colonies had once again secured their independence or had come close enough so that their leaders were requesting of the United States that they be extended diplomatic recognition. Chile, Venezuela, and La Plata compared their struggle for independence to that of the United States and expected U.S. recognition of their independence. In the United States, they had some strong advocates. Speaker of the House Henry Clay spoke eloquently of the “glorious spectacle of  million people struggling to burst their chains and be free.” But President James Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams were cautious, fearful of antagonizing Spain, which though weak itself had strong European allies, and Congress passed a neutrality act with respect to Latin America. Adams did not have much faith in the newly independent countries; he “wished them well” but saw no prospect that they could establish free governments, since they had no such tradition. Monroe and Adams were not interested enough to champion Latin American independence; they were content to let Spain fight it out with its former colonies as long as other European states did not intervene and threaten U.S. security. There was no desire in the administration to dominate a Western Hemisphere league or obtain exclusive trading privileges.

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President James Monroe meets with his cabinet during discussions leading up to the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. (Courtesy of the Office of the Curator, Architect of the Capitol.)

In , Monroe did go so far as to ask his minister in Britain to propose to the London government a joint Anglo-American statement of recognition, but the British declined, torn between their desire to help maintain monarchy (and thus assist Spain) and their interest in preserving the trade advantages they had already won in Latin America. Britain tried to persuade Spain to agree to a compromise measure whereby the former Latin American colonies would retain their autonomy but stay under the shadow of the Spanish crown. But Spain was insistent on restoring the status quo before the revolutions. By , Peru and Mexico had been added to the list of free republics, revolution had spread to Spain itself, and Brazil had worked free from Portugal. In Europe, the Quadruple Alliance, consisting of Russia, Prussia, Great Britain, and France, had been formed in  and had held some discussions about a joint military expedition to restore Spain’s former colonies to Spanish control, but Britain’s objections prevented the implementation of this scheme. By , Britain had left the alliance. Between Mexico and Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America, only Belize, Bolivia, and the Guianas were still under colonial rule. In March , Monroe extended diplomatic recognition to the governments of La Plata, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico, and Congress appropriated money to send missions to these countries. Britain was not yet ready to recognize rebel republican nations for fear of inciting Irish nationalists, but Prime Minister George Canning knew that if Britain did not take some sort of action, the United States might walk off with exclusive commercial advantages and possibly even a hemispheric defense alliance. Both the United States and Great Britain had definite interests in Latin America. For the United States, there was the ideological sympathy of fellow republicans; any Latin American republic represented a blow against monarchy. And if Europe were kept outside the Western Hemisphere, there was less chance of the United States becoming entangled in a future European war. Finally, the commercial advantages, once ignored, were taking on more importance as American traders saw a sizable new market in independent Latin America. As for Britain, its commercial ties with Latin America were well established by , and Britain looked to the United States mainly for help in protecting its investments in Latin America. By , France had sent troops to Spain to help halt the revolution against Ferdinand VII, and it was common knowledge in Europe that planning was underway for a joint

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Franco-Spanish military expedition to Latin America. Neither Britain nor the United States wanted the French to reestablish any kind of influence in the Western Hemisphere. This consideration, along with the commercial interests involved, prompted Canning to suggest to Richard Rush, the U.S. minister in London, that the two nations make a joint protest against intervention in Latin America. Rush was flattered at Canning’s suggestion but aware of the traditional American opposition to entangling alliances. He responded that the United States would consider a joint declaration if Britain would recognize the newly independent Latin American nations. This idea, along with the knowledge that the proposed Franco-Spanish intervention was not likely to occur, cooled Canning’s ardor for a joint statement. Nevertheless, Rush sent the idea back to Monroe, who received it in October . Another issue that entered into the Monroe administration’s discussions in  concerned the Russians, who controlled what is now Alaska and were attempting to extend Russian control down to the st parallel in the Pacific Northwest, and Russian claims all the way to San Francisco Bay. Moreover, non-Russian ships were to stay at least  miles away from the coast. This conflicted with claims to that area that Adams had obtained in the Adams-Onís Treaty and dealt a blow to American shipping interests in that area. Adams told Russia in the summer of  that its moves in the region were improper and that no part of the American continents was subject any longer to European colonization. This declaration found its way into the Monroe Doctrine and American diplomacy as the noncolonization principle. In Washington, Monroe consulted with his cabinet and also with former presidents Jefferson and Madison about the joint Anglo-American declaration idea. Jefferson and Madison thought the idea a good one, but Secretary of State John Quincy Adams noted that it might cause difficulties if the United States ever wanted to acquire Cuba or Texas. Moreover, wrote Adams, Britain was clearly a stronger nation than the United States, and with a joint declaration, the United States would be seen “as a cockboat in the wake of the British man-o-war.” He urged that the United States act alone in opposing intervention in the Western Hemisphere. Another current issue concerned revolutionary affairs in Europe. The Greeks were revolting against a harsh Turkish regime in a movement that had won a great deal of sympathy (and money) among Americans, and the Spanish were staging an uprising against French occupation. Monroe was very interested in helping the rebels, especially the Greeks, and he wanted to make some mention of that fact in his annual message to Congress, but Adams convinced him that these were European matters and no business of the U.S. government. If the United States did not want European intervention in the Western Hemisphere, it should not involve itself in European conflicts. Adams’ positions on an independent pronouncement and on remaining isolated from Europe won the day, and, after another month of cabinet deliberations, the policy that became known as the Monroe Doctrine was worked out and included in the annual message of the president to Congress on December , . It presented three basic points: . The American continents shall be considered closed for future colonization, and any effort of European powers to establish new colonies would be considered dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.

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. Any attempt of European powers to interfere in the political systems of American nations would be considered dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States. . The United States had no intention of meddling in European affairs. In the United States, public opinion reacted enthusiastically to the nationalistic spirit of Monroe’s message. The Latin American nations were disposed in a friendly way, although they realistically expected more protection from the British than from their neighbors to the north. Canning was irritated at the decision of the United States to act alone, and most of the rest of Europe did not take it seriously. In reality, the Monroe Doctrine had little immediate practical application. President James K. Polk,  years later, was the first to use the name “Monroe Doctrine,” and it did not become a significant tenet of U.S. foreign policy until the Civil War era. If the Monroe Doctrine was not immediately applicable, it did probably spur more interest in Latin American affairs among U.S. policy makers. In , Simón Bolívar called a meeting of Latin American representatives in Panama to discuss his idea of a Latin American alliance against Spain. Bolívar disliked Americans and did not invite the United States to the congress, but he did invite the British, whom he saw as the logical European patron of his alliance. Mexico and Colombia, however, extended an invitation to the United States, and Secretary of State Adams thought it would be a good idea to have delegates in attendance. Congress was less certain and failed to appropriate money in time for U.S. delegates to reach Panama before the congress adjourned. In the end, the Panama Congress, with only four Latin American nations and Great Britain present, failed to accomplish anything, although the British delegates were able to propagandize against the United States. When Canning died in , the seriousness of the Anglo-American rivalry over Latin America faded. Although British trade and investment would remain paramount in Latin America until well into the th century, the United States had the freedom to use the Monroe Doctrine as it saw fit for political and security reasons without significant interference from the British.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY peter g. felten James Monroe would have been pleasantly surprised at the centennial celebration of his most famous presidential message in , when public figures around the country sang the praises of his declaration, even comparing it in importance to the Constitution. Yet there are few other subjects in American diplomacy that have been more misunderstood. The confusion has resulted primarily from how politicians have used the ideas he outlined in . President Monroe established a fairly clear policy based on pressing international, political, economic, and cultural concerns. Over the years, however, others have revived his words under very different circumstances and for quite different purposes. The Monroe Doctrine expanded from a statement of principles to become both a domestic political weapon and a justification for U.S. intervention in Latin America.

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In , James Monroe recognized that his long and distinguished career soon would end. He had completed most of his second presidential term, and he could look back proudly on his achievements as a diplomat and politician. He had been a member of both houses of Congress during the nation’s earliest days and had served as an ambassador in major European capitals, the governor of Virginia, the secretary of state, and, finally, president. Yet Monroe worried that his accomplishments paled in comparison to those of his friends and predecessors, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Throughout his presidency, Monroe hoped to make an indelible mark on American history, guaranteeing that he too would be remembered. He did not believe a complex crisis in  presented such an opportunity, but it did. Since declaring independence nearly  years earlier, many Americans considered their nation the first wave in a global republican tide. Monroe and others saw the United States as the model for freedom everywhere. They feared that hostile European monarchies planned to destroy the American experiment. The decades of international conflict since , in particular bitter disputes with Great Britain and Spain, confirmed these suspicions. This combination of worries and pride mixed to produce an increasingly nationalistic culture after the War of . Politicians like President Monroe, reflecting the views of the population at large, were determined to protect American interests in the world and to project American ideals around the globe. Economic considerations reinforced these nationalist aspirations. The economy expanded rapidly following the War of . Industrialization spread, protected by tariffs that excluded foreign competition for American goods. Cotton from the South blanketed the world, making trade with the textile factories of Great Britain crucial to prosperity. Farmers brought the market economy further into the center of the continent, and American merchant ships became an important presence in both Latin America and Asia. To guarantee continued economic growth and to preserve the American republic, politicians focused on securing global trading rights while defending industrial development at home. Economic interests led to heightened tensions between the United States and Russia in the Pacific. Both nations had vague claims to lands along the west coast of North America, and a bustling fur trade after  made the competition more intense. The area also served as an important launching point for commercial expeditions to Asia. Because of this economic potential, each country coveted the area. Between  and , more than  American merchant ships visited the Northwest. A nervous Russian ruler in  tried to check the growing U.S. presence by strengthening his forts in the area and by banning foreign vessels in his nation’s territorial waters in the Pacific. During the summer of , President Monroe’s secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, bluntly warned the Russians that America would contest any new colonization in the region. Monroe and Adams worried about European moves not only in the Far West but also to the south. The Spanish Empire had been crumbling in Latin America for more than a decade. Local insurgents, at times modeling themselves on the revolutionaries of , declared independence throughout the hemisphere. Many U.S. citizens identified with the rebels and supported their cause. The United States additionally had an economic stake in the success of the new nations, since trade with them could support prosperity and growth. Finally, President Monroe and others feared that European monarchs

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would reestablish colonial control in the region, threatening both U.S. commerce and the American republican experiment. In  the rulers of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and France, calling themselves the Holy Alliance, united to overthrow the infant republican government in Spain. The Holy Alliance then cast its gaze on Latin America. The United States found an unlikely ally in its opposition to European expansion in the Americas. Fifty years before, the North American colonists had rebelled against Great Britain. In  the two nations fought again. In , however, they shared a desire to keep the Holy Alliance out of the Western Hemisphere. The British were the world’s greatest trading nation, and they stood to gain the most economically from the loss of Spanish influence in the Americas. Recognizing the common interests of these once bitter enemies, British diplomats suggested to their Yankee peers that they cooperate. The marriage of America’s location close to the contested territories and the powerful British navy, it was thought, would convince the Holy Alliance that an invasion of the former Spanish colonies would be ill-advised. International coordination with the British made practical sense for the United States but not political sense for important American policy makers. President Monroe was on the verge of retirement in , and many of his advisers sought his office in the  election. Unlike the president, they had to calculate how voters would react if they worked in tandem with the hated British. John Quincy Adams had the most to lose in this equation. Adams had an impressive political record, and as secretary of state he held the office that had propelled both James Monroe and James Madison to the presidency. Adams had used his diplomatic position in  to negotiate the popular Adams-Onís Treaty with Spain, purchasing Florida and extending the nation’s border to the Pacific. But cooperation with Great Britain in  threatened to undermine Adams’ presidential ambitions by reinforcing suspicions that he, like his Federalist father, former president John Adams, was not sufficiently nationalistic and was too sympathetic to the British. Secretary of State Adams politically could not afford to coordinate U.S. policy with London, no matter how sensible it seemed in the international arena. Adams’ opponents in the presidential race, however, generally saw unity with Britain as good foreign policy and an effective way to undercut one of their political rivals. Besides Adams, the leading candidates in the  election were Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and Gen. Andrew Jackson. Clay in particular used global issues to attack Adams and to boost his own chances. He called for the United States to grant diplomatic recognition to rebel governments in Greece and in Latin America, declaring the spread of republicanism to be the American national mission. Adams could not take such a step without seriously jeopardizing other U.S. interests in the world, so he resisted this popular move. More important, Clay, Calhoun, and others (including former presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison) encouraged President Monroe to work with Great Britain against the Holy Alliance. Their argument rested on solid international considerations, but it also had a political angle for some of those involved. Since Adams was secretary of state, his opponents could blame him if the policy failed or lost favor with the voters. To preserve his political hopes while securing U.S. interests in the widening global crisis, Adams persuaded President Monroe to take a different course. Adams convinced

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Monroe that America could resist European moves in the region without openly cooperating with the British. This would preserve American independence in its foreign policy, something prized since George Washington’s Farewell Address. It also would be as effective as a joint Anglo-American statement. The United States on its own would be declaring what Britain had proposed to do together. This unilateral doctrine, finally, would undermine the allegations that Adams was too cozy with the British. On the advice of Secretary of State Adams, President Monroe responded to the international tensions in his December  annual message to Congress. Ironically, what became known as the Monroe Doctrine was not included in one clear passage but rather appeared in two distinct parts of the president’s statement. Near the beginning of his text, Monroe discussed the Pacific Northwest. He declared the American continents “are henceforth not to be considered as subject for future colonization by any European power.” The United States could tolerate the existing European colonies in the region but would oppose the establishment of new ones. Later in the document Monroe returned to foreign affairs, this time focusing on the Holy Alliance’s ambitions in Latin America. The president said the United States would not interfere with purely European affairs and warned European states that their intervention in the Americas would be seen as “dangerous to our peace and safety . . . [and] the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States.” In short, Europe should keep its hands off the Western Hemisphere. Americans greeted Monroe’s words with pleasure. The president’s declaration appealed to nationalist sentiments by asserting that America’s republican culture would dominate the area, to the exclusion of Old World monarchy. At the same time, Monroe had defended the country’s economic and international interests, again popular causes, yet the president said little that was new or surprising. The warning to Russia had been issued previously by Secretary of State Adams. Monroe’s hostility toward the Holy Alliance, and toward European recolonization in general, merely stated the obvious. Additionally, since the United States lacked a large military, Monroe did not have the power to support his words with deeds had he been challenged. Despite this, Monroe had neatly summarized the nationalist beliefs of his countrymen, winning their praise and ultimately securing a place in history books. Outside the United States, the president’s statement received a mixed response. Latin American rebels rejoiced, reasonably assuming that Monroe had implied the United States would protect the new nations from foreign powers. Over the next three years, these republics issued five appeals to Washington for such action, but none was forthcoming. Monroe’s pledges, it turned out, had been aimed more at protecting American interests than at spreading American ideals. Europe’s experienced and cynical diplomats generally recognized this, leading many to discount the significance of Monroe’s words. The Holy Alliance disliked the upstart United States, but the member nations already had decided an invasion of Latin America was not practical. The British Navy, not Monroe’s policies, scared them away. Great Britain welcomed the declarations, which paralleled ideas they had proposed for a joint statement, although officials in London frowned on the more nationalistic portions of Monroe’s message, which warned all Europeans, including the British, to stay out of the Americas. Regardless of the national and international reaction, Monroe’s doctrine soon faded into obscurity. The Holy Alliance never attacked, and Russia in  offered to divide

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up the northwest coast, acknowledging the growing American dominance in the region. Without a crisis to give Monroe’s message relevance, people in the United States turned their attention to other matters, including the upcoming election. The president’s unilateral declaration guaranteed that Secretary of State Adams would not be seen as too friendly with the British, so foreign policy was not a major campaign issue. Adams had defused a potentially explosive political problem, but this alone did not win him the presidency in . The nation largely had forgotten Monroe’s words when politicians in the s revived them. Territorial expansion had become an increasingly important national concern over the previous two decades. President John Tyler recalled the Monroe Doctrine in  when he demanded that the independent Republic of Texas be brought into the United States. In , James K. Polk won the presidency in part by promising to annex Texas. He also pledged to establish firm American control over the Oregon country, a huge area under joint Anglo-American occupation and bordered by Mexican California to the south, Russian Alaska to the north, the Rocky Mountains in the east, and the Pacific Ocean in the west. Motivated by an upsurge of aggressive nationalism in American culture, often called Manifest Destiny, Polk and his followers vowed to extend the nation across the continent. In his December  message to Congress, President Polk claimed his ideas were in line with the  doctrine, so his bold policies would “reiterate and reaffirm the principle avowed by Mr. Monroe.” By recalling Monroe, Polk cleverly associated his controversial stand on expansionism with a nationalist hero. This was good politics, but it obscured the very real differences between Monroe’s goals and Polk’s intentions. President Polk refocused the Monroe Doctrine to cover two contemporary issues. First, he narrowed its scope from encompassing all of the Western Hemisphere to concentrating primarily on the territories surrounding the United States. Polk made it clear that his concerns centered on North America. Second, he expanded the definition of the types of European interference that threatened American interests. President Monroe had warned against a military invasion by the Holy Alliance and against Russian colonization of the Pacific coast. Polk opposed any European involvement in the region. He particularly feared British and French advice that the Republic of Texas not accept the statehood offer from Washington. Monroe had spoken against concrete actions by European powers, while Polk reacted to their mere words. With these alterations, President Polk used the Monroe Doctrine to justify territorial expansion. He argued that European meddling in Texas violated cherished American principles, requiring immediate annexation of the Republic. Polk also insisted the United States had a right to the entire Oregon Territory. He denied any British claim to the area on the grounds that it would constitute new colonization, another blow to Monroe’s dictum. Allies of Polk, and at times the president himself, even stated that the United States ought to acquire Mexican California and Spanish Cuba to prevent potential British moves that would challenge the doctrine. What had been a defensive declaration under Monroe, warning Europeans to stay out, became under Polk an aggressive assertion of America’s right to expand. Fundamentally, however, Polk’s meaning remained similar to Monroe’s original ideas. In , President Monroe had unilaterally declared America’s right to defend its interests in the hemisphere. In , Presi-

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dent Polk reaffirmed that principle, adding his conclusion that the United States must acquire new land to preserve its independence. Although territorial expansion largely was completed during Polk’s administration, his broad view of the Monroe Doctrine would be dominant in American politics long into the future. The new interpretation mirrored a growth of U.S. power. Industrialization throughout the th century transformed the country from its agrarian youth into a mature manufacturing giant. American trade around the globe grew apace, with total exports jumping from $ million in  to $. billion in . As the country became more influential and active in the world, Americans widened their understanding of their nation’s rights and obligations in the hemisphere, expanding the doctrine. Although President Monroe lacked the military might to back up his declaration in , by the end of the Civil War the United States had become the dominant force in the region. Monroe’s hands-off policy now could be enforced against Europeans. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Monroe’s words were recalled, again for both political and diplomatic reasons. French and Austrian influence in Mexico caused this outburst. The ambitious leader of France, Napoleon III, used Washington’s distraction during the Civil War to install his Austrian ally, Ferdinand Maximilian, as ruler of Mexico. As the conflict in the United States concluded, Secretary of State William Henry Seward convinced Napoleon to withdraw his troops from Mexico, leaving Emperor Maximilian in the lurch. Rumors that Austria planned to send a small contingent of soldiers to prop up Maximilian led Seward to trumpet the Monroe Doctrine. The threat presented by the Austrian force was minor, hardly justifying the secretary’s passion. Seward apparently reacted so strongly because it suited his political needs at home. In early , President Andrew Johnson faced Republicans in Congress who increasingly opposed his lenient Reconstruction policies. Seward revived Monroe’s principles as part of an attempt to rally nationalists around the controversial president. His effort failed both because the Austrians backed down quickly and because the differences over Reconstruction could not be obscured by Seward’s smoke and mirrors. American power had deflated the crisis, but Seward was neither the first nor the last to use the Monroe Doctrine primarily for political reasons. A more significant expression of Monroe’s principles occurred a few years later, in . Early in his administration, President Ulysses S. Grant tried to annex the Dominican Republic, the eastern portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Santo Domingo, as the country sometimes was called, possessed excellent harbors and lush farm lands, making it attractive as a regional base for both the U.S. Navy and American traders. The formerly independent nation, however, recently had fallen under Spanish control. When Dominican rebels drove the Spanish out, Grant saw an opportunity to add this valuable real estate to the United States. A political uproar forced Grant to abandon his plans, but he used the hubbub to announce an addition to the Monroe Doctrine: “Hereafter no territory on this continent shall be regarded as subject to transfer to a European power.” The “no-transfer” principle had roots in American diplomacy predating President Monroe, reaching back at least to an  controversy concerning Spanish Florida. Grant for the first time made “no-transfer” a formal part of what Americans understood to be the Monroe Doctrine. Now the United States claimed both that Europeans could not recolonize the hemisphere and that Washington should have something to say in how

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empires disposed of their colonies. Under this expanded vision of Monroe’s ideas, the United States exercised its new power to supervise the decolonization of the Americas. The doctrine’s growth climaxed in a series of incidents around the turn of the century. President Grover Cleveland and Secretary of State Richard Olney dramatically unfurled Monroe’s banner in a conflict with Great Britain. The crisis arose out of an old dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana, both of which claimed territory along the Orinoco River that provided valuable commercial access into northern South America. The debate had been simmering for decades when President Cleveland suddenly inserted the United States into the equation in . Washington had no direct interest in the affair, but Cleveland concluded that confronting London would be popular with American voters and would calm jitters about alleged British violations of the Monroe Doctrine. Cleveland sent Great Britain a note demanding international arbitration to settle the matter. When busy British diplomats ignored him, an outraged Cleveland instructed Secretary Olney to get London’s attention. Olney wrote a second message with gusto, this one warning British diplomats that American “honor and interests” required a prompt and favorable resolution to the border issue. “Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent,” Olney asserted, “. . . its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it master of the situation and practically invulnerable as against any or all other powers.” London, preoccupied with more serious problems and worried about the surprising American hostility, quickly agreed to arbitration. President Cleveland succeeded in this strange affair. More important, Secretary of State Olney had extended Polk’s aggressive Monroe Doctrine to cover the entire hemisphere. In essence, the United States declared the Americas to be its sphere of influence, forcefully opposing any European meddling in its backyard. The  war with Spain confirmed the new reality. When rebellion broke out in Cuba during the s, the United States recognized an opportunity to exercise its growing military might against a weakened Spanish Empire, the ruler of Cuba and neighboring Puerto Rico. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Th eodore Roosevelt and others urged President William McKinley to support the Monroe Doctrine with the armed forces. After tensions escalated, McKinley led the country into war in April . The United States easily defeated the Spanish, and McKinley made Puerto Rico an American territory. Congress, however, contained his ambitions toward Cuba. Under the Platt Amendment, Washington established its control over Cuban affairs without taking on the day-to-day governing of the island. In the name of Monroe, the United States had moved from vocally opposing the creation of new European colonies in the Americas to waging war to oust a long-established empire. The doctrine’s defensive pretext had been dropped. The war also represented a major step beyond Olney’s words of just three years earlier. The United States progressed from publicly rejecting European involvement in the hemisphere to forcefully ejecting that presence. President Theodore Roosevelt completed the doctrine’s evolution. Roosevelt feared that debts Latin American nations owed European creditors might squeeze U.S. influence out of certain countries. Citing the need for order and stability, in  he issued what became known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. “Chronic wrongdoing . . . ,” Roosevelt claimed, “may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere . . . the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.”

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Roosevelt expanded Monroe’s principles far beyond their original scope, creating a distinct doctrine rather than simply an addition to the original. The United States now asserted the right both to exclude European activity from the Americas and to regulate the internal affairs of regional states. Monroe had supported hemispheric rebellion because it removed European influence and fostered republican values; Roosevelt opposed such rebels because they threatened order, giving outside powers an opportunity to become involved in the Americas. By asserting the right to act as the hemisphere’s policeman, Roosevelt was taking on a fundamentally new role for the United States. This position matched the country’s growing economic and military power and fit with the aggressive nationalism of the times, yet it was so far removed from James Monroe’s  words that it represented something entirely different. The country had changed, and politicians like Roosevelt had molded the Monroe Doctrine to fit the new realities. Throughout the th century, the process of adapting Monroe’s legacy to conform to contemporary needs continued, with the doctrine fading in and out of fashion. The s witnessed its strongest revival since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. President Ronald Reagan wielded the Monroe Doctrine to rally popular support behind his policies in Central America. He opposed the government of Nicaragua, alleging that its sympathies for the Soviet Union violated the doctrine. Reagan contended that, in effect, the Soviets had established a colony in Nicaragua. The United States funded a rebellion to overthrow Nicaragua’s ruling party and to restore a pro-Washington regime. Reagan’s use of the Monroe Doctrine, however, had more to do with domestic politics than with international affairs. By recalling a policy that stretched back to the early days of the republic, Reagan associated his actions with the patriotic legacies of the founding fathers. Congressional opponents of White House moves in Nicaragua could point to the very real differences between Monroe’s words and Reagan’s deeds, but their historical arguments often were overwhelmed by the nationalist appeal of the doctrine. Once again, the Monroe Doctrine had been revived and reinterpreted to suit the political needs of a president. With the end of the Cold War, Monroe’s principles seemed to lose their practical meaning. Any external threat to the nations of the Western Hemisphere vanished. But the doctrine had evolved considerably since Monroe’s times, and its more recent incarnations may keep it out of the dustbin of history. The United States remains dominant in the region. Secretary of State Olney’s assertion of an American sphere of influence continues to be a reality. The United States also maintains its role as the policeman of the Caribbean, sending troops into Haiti in an effort to restore democracy to that troubled nation in . Most important, the political value of the dictum endures. Politicians since John Quincy Adams have employed Monroe’s words as a powerful weapon against their domestic opponents. The Monroe Doctrine’s practical uses almost certainly guarantee its future relevance, even if, as in the past, its meaning is obscured or altered in the struggle to solve modern problems. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Ammon, Harry. James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity. New York: McGraw-Hill, ; Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, . A detailed biography. Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . A classic that some dismiss for its nationalist interpretation.

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Coleman, Kenneth M. “The Political Mythology of the Monroe Doctrine: Reflections on the Social Psychology of Hegemony.” In Latin America, the United States and the Inter-American System. Edited by John D. Martz and Lars Schoultz. Boulder, CO: Westview, . A provocative interpretation of the flaws in American memory of the doctrine. Collin, Richard H. Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Latin American Context. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . A strong defense of Roosevelt’s policies. Commager, Henry Steele, and Milton Cantor, eds. Documents of American History. Vol. : To . th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, . An easily accessible collection, including the text of the Monroe Doctrine and other relevant documents. Dangerfield, George. The Awakening of American Nationalism, –. New York: Harper & Row, . An insightful look at Monroe’s era. Dozer, Donald Marquand, ed. The Monroe Doctrine: Its Modern Significance. New York: Knopf, . A useful collection of commentaries. Johnson, John A. A Hemisphere Apart: The Foundations of United States Policy toward Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . Explains the policymaking context of the doctrine’s development. Kaplan, Lawrence S. “The Monroe Doctrine and the Truman Doctrine: The Case of Greece.” Journal of the Early Republic , no.  (Spring ): –. An insightful contrast between two crucial events in U.S. diplomacy. LaFeber, Walter. “The Evolution of the Monroe Doctrine from Monroe to Reagan.” In Redefining the Past: Essays in Diplomatic History in Honor of William Appleman Williams. Edited by Lloyd C. Gardner, –. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, . A critical view of the doctrine’s development emphasizing economics and spheres of influence. Langley, Lester D. America and the Americas: The United States in the Western Hemisphere. Athens: University of Georgia Press, . A solid introduction to inter-American relations. ———. Struggle for the American Mediterranean: United States–European Rivalry in the GulfCaribbean, –. Athens: University of Georgia Press, . A detailed but accessible examination of th-century inter-American affairs. Liss, Peggy K. Atlantic Empires: The Network of Trade and Revolution, –. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . Explains the regional and historical context of Monroe’s decision. Logan, John A. Jr. No Transfer: An American Security Principle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . A thorough look at this partner to the Monroe Doctrine. May, Ernest R. The Making of the Monroe Doctrine. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, . A persuasive argument for the domestic political motives behind the doctrine. Merk, Frederick, with Lois Bannister Merk. The Monroe Doctrine and American Expansion –. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . Explores how expansionists transformed the Monroe Doctrine to justify their goals. Perkins, Dexter. A History of the Monroe Doctrine. Boston: Little, Brown, . Still the place to start for the doctrine and its development over the years. ———. The Monroe Doctrine, –. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . A detailed examination of the doctrine’s creation. ———. The Monroe Doctrine, –. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . A thorough look at the doctrine’s early decades. ———. The Monroe Doctrine, –. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . A comprehensive study of the doctrine’s evolution. Russell, Greg. John Quincy Adams and the Public Virtues of Diplomacy. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, . A complex analysis of the political and diplomatic philosophy of Adams.

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Schoultz, Lars. National Security and the United States Policy toward Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . An insightful examination of contemporary inter-American affairs. Smith, Gaddis. The Last Years of the Monroe Doctrine, –. New York: Hill and Wang, . Explains the Cold War’s impact on the doctrine. Stagg, J.C.A. Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, –. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . A thoughtful summary of diplomacy of the era. Valone, Stephen J. “ ‘Weakness Offers Temptation’: William H. Seward and the Reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine.” Diplomatic History , no.  (Fall ): –. Stresses Seward’s political motives for reviving the doctrine. Weeks, William Earl. John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, . Clearly links the Monroe Doctrine and the  Adams-Onís Treaty. Whitaker, Arthur Preston. The United States and the Independence of Latin America, – . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . A classic study of early inter-American relations.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (1767–1848) Although he was able and principled, John Quincy Adams served as an ineffectual president, hampered by politics and his own forbidding personality. He is far better remembered for his earlier accomplishments as a diplomat, notably as secretary of state under President James Monroe, and for his postpresidential years in Congress. Born on July , , in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, Adams traveled extensively throughout Europe as a young man. His father, John Adams, served as minister to Great Britain in the s, and consequently, John Quincy studied in France and Holland while his father carried out his diplomatic duties. Adams returned to the United States in the mid-s, graduated from Harvard College in , and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in . He established his law practice in Boston, but after having served as his father’s secretary when he was minister to France (–) and as the secretary to the minister to Russia (), it was politics, not the practice of law, that attracted his keen mind. In , he published an anonymous series of articles in answer to Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man. These articles were so well reasoned that they were attributed to the senior Adams. President George Washington appointed the -year-old Adams minister to the Netherlands in . His father, after becoming president in , appointed him minister to Prussia in . After Adams’ father became president, Washington squelched any misgivings about the propriety of the younger Adams serving in the foreign service with the comment, “Adams is the most valuable public character we have abroad . . . he will prove himself to be the ablest of all our diplomatic corps.” In July , while serving as minister to Prussia, Adams married Louisa Catherine Johnson, the daughter of a wealthy Maryland expatriate in Great Britain. Adams returned to Massachusetts in  and was elected to the state Senate in April . However, his Federalist Party colleagues referred to him as “too unmanageable” because he did not respect party affiliations, and he was defeated in a close race for Congress that November. In , however, Adams was elected by the state legislature to the U.S. Senate. He proved to be just as “unmanageable” there. Against the Federalist Party’s position,

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he supported several controversial issues, including the Louisiana Purchase, President Thomas Jefferson’s handling of the impressment issue (especially during the Chesapeake-Leopard affair), and finally the implementation of an embargo as an alternative to war. He so infuriated the Federalist Party leadership in Massachusetts that they named his successor a full two years before the end of his term. Rather than stay in office in the face of such hostility, Adams resigned his Senate seat in . He declined to run for office as a Jeffersonian Republican and chose instead to become an independent politician. Adams served presidents Jefferson and James Madison as minister to Russia from  to  and chaired the commission that negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of . Extremely religious and by nature a loner, the intellectual Adams seldom mixed with his fellow delegates. Often, when Henry Clay and his friends retired from their card games in the early hours of the morning, Adams would already be rising for his daily walks and Bible reading. By the time Adams was selected in  to be President James Monroe’s secretary of state, no candidate had ever been more superbly trained or qualified in European diplomacy. During the Monroe administration, he performed his duties magnificently. He defended Andrew Jackson’s invasion of Florida, worked out the treaty by which Spain ceded Florida to the United States, reached a compromise agreement with Great Britain for the joint occupation of the Oregon Territory, maintained U.S. neutrality during the course of the wars for independence by Spain’s Central and South American colonies, and drafted the Monroe Doctrine. The presidential election of  propelled Adams to the forefront of controversy once again. There were four candidates for the election: Clay, William Crawford, Jackson, and Adams. Jackson received the largest number of popular votes, but none received an electoral majority. Following the dictates of the U.S. Constitution, this undecided election was sent to the House of Representatives for resolution. Since Clay’s nationalistic beliefs were closer to those of Adams than to those of Jackson, Clay withdrew from the race and threw his crucial support to Adams, who then won. After his inauguration as president, Adams appointed Clay secretary of state, prompting Jackson’s supporters to suggest that Adams and Clay had struck a “corrupt” bargain to secure positions of power for both men. They argued that Clay gave his support to Adams for the presidency in return for Clay’s subsequent appointment as head of the State Department, a stepping-stone to the White House. Adams attempted to ignore the charges, but the unpopular corrupt bargain divided Adams’ Whig Party and doomed the programs Adams wished to enact. Adams had hoped to use the powers of the central government for internal improvements—a cornerstone of Clay’s American System—promoting the sciences, arts, national transportation, and trade. His high-minded but ineffectual presidency was frustrated by a Congress torn by politics and sectional conflicts. Congress opposed his requests for funds for national improvements, thwarted his attempts to deal diplomatically with Latin America, and was strongly divided over the protectionist tariff of . After a bitter and personally abusive campaign, Jackson won a decisive election for the presidency in . After his presidential defeat, Adams expected to return to Massachusetts and retire from politics, as his father had done after a similarly abusive campaign against Jefferson

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in . Instead, the people of the Plymouth district elected him to Congress. Although he had not entered his name as a candidate, Adams accepted the position and was reelected eight times, from  to . This was a remarkably productive period in his life. He became a spokesman for the abolition movement and fought for the impartial application of the right of citizens to petition Congress on any topic. In response to the rise of the antislavery movement in the s, Congress enacted a gag rule in  in order to avoid hearing petitions from abolitionists. Adams consistently objected to the gag rule as a curtailment of First Amendment rights and continued to make antislavery speeches in an attempt to overturn the rule. As a consequence, he was frequently the target of motions of censure initiated by Southern members infuriated by his conduct. Because of his heroic efforts on behalf of this cause, he was nicknamed “Old Man Eloquent” in , when the gag rule was finally repealed. Adams also represented the mutineers in the famous Amistad case in . On February , , Adams suffered a stroke while at his desk in the House. He died two days later in the speaker’s room without having regained consciousness. That same year, his son, Charles Francis Adams, a candidate for vice president, was beginning his own career as a statesman.

steven g. o’brien SIMÓN BOLÍVAR (1783–1830) Grandiose in his schemes, headstrong and difficult, Simón Bolívar nevertheless conquered enormous obstacles in gaining South American independence from Spain, particularly in his homeland of Venezuela. Bolívar was born on July , , in Caracas, Venezuela, to a wealthy family of Spanish descent. By the time he was nine years old, he had lost both his parents, and his maternal uncle, Carlos Palacios, supervised his upbringing. From a tutor, he learned Enlightenment ideas and was especially attracted to the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In , he was sent to Europe, where he completed his education. He lived in Spain for three years and married Maria Teresa de Toro, the daughter of a Spanish nobleman. Soon after Bolívar returned to Venezuela in , his wife died of yellow fever. Bolívar again journeyed to Europe in  and visited Italy and France, where Napoleon I’s grandeur impressed him. He traveled to the United States in  and then sailed to Venezuela. The following year, the Spanish Empire trembled when Emperor Napoleon I conquered the Iberian peninsula and appointed his brother ruler of Spain. In Spanish America, confusion resulted. Although the colonies unanimously refused to recognize the new ruler, some colonists opted to remain loyal to the deposed king, while others decided to fight for independence. Bolívar sided with the latter and, in , joined a revolutionary group that expelled the Spanish governor from Venezuela. The ruling junta then sent Bolívar to England in search of assistance. Although the English refused Bolívar’s requests, the revolutionary convinced Francisco de Miranda, a prominent Venezuelan nationalist, to return home and help the rebellion. In , Venezuela declared its independence, and early the following year, Miranda became head of the revolutionary government (the rebel Congress eventually granted

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him dictatorial powers). Bolívar won an important battle at Valencia, an engagement that earned him the loyalty and admiration of his men. A split developed in the revolutionary leadership, however. Miranda gained Bolívar’s enmity when he signed an armistice with Spain—a move engendered in part by Bolívar’s having lost a harbor fortress to the enemy. Bolívar then delivered Miranda to the Spanish. In gratitude, Spain decided not to jail Bolívar and instead rewarded him with passage to Curacao, a Dutch Caribbean island. After journeying to New Granada (Colombia), Bolívar planned another attack; in August , he led an army triumphantly into Caracas, proclaimed the country a republic, and was made its leader with the title of “Liberator.” He had not, however, secured his position, and in , the Spanish, supported by Venezuelan llaneros, or cowboys, defeated the Liberator, who fled to Jamaica. Bolívar then wrote one of the most important works in Latin American history, “The Letter from Jamaica,” in which he expressed his grand scheme to establish republics throughout Spanish America, with representative bodies and presidents chosen for life. Anxious to continue the fight, he obtained weapons and money from Haiti and, in March , sailed for Venezuela. However, Spanish forces again turned him away. Despite this setback, several factors converged to work in Bolívar’s favor. For one, the llaneros, led by José Antonio Páez, a daring cavalryman who became one of the founders of Venezuela, shifted their loyalty to the revolutionaries. Second, Bolívar changed his strategy to focus on the resource-rich Orinoco River basin, rather than Caracas with its heavy fortifications. Third, several thousand adventurers arrived from England to help Bolívar. In , Bolívar led his army into the Orinoco region and established a temporary capital, Angostura. He then surprised the Spanish by attacking New Granada. In , he and his men trekked through steamy tropical jungles and across the frigid ,foot Andes and, on August , met the enemy at Boyacá, scoring a stunning victory. Even though Spain still held substantial territory, Bolívar audaciously formed a new state, Gran Colombia, encompassing Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. By now, he held the initiative, and turmoil within Spain disrupted the Spanish war effort. In June , Bolívar, leading an army of , men, won a crucial battle at Carabobo, and the following year, Antonio de Sucre, Bolívar’s foremost general, defeated the Spanish at Pichincha, in Ecuador. On June , Bolívar marched his army into Quito. Thus Gran Colombia had been liberated, and Bolívar ruled under a new constitution that made him president. Spain still maintained control of Peru, however, and at this point, Bolívar met with José de San Martín, the great Argentinean revolutionary who had liberated his homeland and Chile. San Martín had already entered Lima and declared Peruvian independence, but the Spanish retained a grip on the interior. On July , , Bolívar and San Martín conferred at Guayaquil in Ecuador. Details of their discussion have been lost, but San Martín left Ecuador, apparently resigned to Bolívar’s dominance, and went into exile. In August , Bolívar and Sucre defeated the Spanish at Junin in Peru, and four months later, Sucre defeated them at Ayacucho. The country was now free of Spanish influence, and Bolívar was made president of Gran Colombia and Peru. In , Sucre eliminated the last Spanish opposition in Upper Peru, which upon independence

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became the country of Bolivia, named after Bolívar. Bolívar drafted the constitution for that republic, complete with a weak legislature and a lifetime president, a position filled by Sucre (after Bolívar ruled on an interim basis for five months). Bolívar, meanwhile, battled severe illness and a spreading discontent with his rule. In , he crafted a league of Hispanic-American states that held a congress in Panama. Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and the Central American Federation sent delegates, and they agreed to a treaty of alliance. Plans for a joint military and a regular congress proved unsuccessful, however. Civil war soon erupted in Gran Colombia when Venezuelan and Colombian forces clashed. Bolívar quickly left Peru and arranged a new constitution that granted Venezuela greater autonomy. Elections to a national convention in  produced more opposition to Bolívar, who then assumed dictatorial powers over Gran Colombia. That autumn, dissidents tried to kill Bolívar but failed. As he battled tuberculosis, Venezuela seceded from Gran Colombia in September , followed by Ecuador. On May , , Bolívar left Bogotá, headed for exile in Europe, but he made it only to Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast, where he died on December .

JAMES MONROE (1758–1831) James Monroe, the last of the th-century revolutionary patriots to lead the nation, served as president during the period known as the Era of Good Feeling, a time of exceptional national political consensus that briefly overshadowed some growing national problems. Monroe was born on April , , in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He enrolled at the College of William and Mary in  but left two years later, before graduating, to fight in the American Revolution. He joined the Virginia militia and then served under George Washington in the Continental Army, incurring a severe wound at the Battle of Trenton. In late , Monroe left active military service and studied law from  to  under Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson became Monroe’s mentor, and the friendship that developed between the two men provided the foundation for Monroe’s public service. Monroe began his political career in  by winning election to a term in the Virginia legislature. The next year, he was elected to the Confederation Congress, where he quickly became identified as a champion of states’ rights and an advocate for the development of the frontier. In , Monroe supported Patrick Henry’s efforts to prevent ratification of the Constitution by Virginia on the grounds that the new central government threatened to undermine the power of the states. After an unsuccessful effort to win election to the U.S. House of Representatives in , he was elected two years later by the Virginia legislature to the U.S. Senate. During his four years in the Senate, Monroe, acting as Jefferson’s lieutenant in concert with James Madison and sometimes Aaron Burr, proved to be an extremely effective opposition leader to Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist policies. In , President Washington appointed Monroe minister to France in the hope that his pro-French sentiments would calm hostilities between the United States and the revolutionary French government. While in France, Monroe managed to secure the release of the imprisoned American patriot Thomas Paine, but he failed to garner support for the Jay Treaty (), and Washington recalled him.

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Although Monroe’s diplomatic mission to France was not successful, his political career flourished upon his return to the United States, because of the successful efforts of Jefferson and Madison to make it appear that his recall was based on partisan political grounds. Monroe became one of the leaders of the new Democratic-Republican Party and, from  to , served as governor of Virginia. Just over two years after winning election as president in , Jefferson dispatched Monroe to France as a special envoy. He remained in Europe until . During this period of his diplomatic career, Monroe assisted Robert R. Livingston in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase and participated in the unsuccessful negotiations with the Spanish government to sell Florida. In , Monroe made his first tentative effort to secure the nomination for president. The unsuccessful attempt temporarily alienated him from Madison, the man who was nominated. The two quickly reconciled, however, and in , while Monroe was serving another term as governor of Virginia, Madison appointed him secretary of state. Monroe employed his superb administrative and organizational skills so successfully in Madison’s cabinet that he remained in office until . He played a vital role during the War of , serving, after the dismissal of John Armstrong, as the secretary of war in  and . In , Monroe won the Democratic-Republican Party’s nomination for president and the ensuing general election. During Monroe’s first term in office, rival political parties disappeared. Monroe was so popular and the nation appeared so prosperous and content that, in , a Boston newspaper coined the phrase “era of good feeling” to describe the mood that had settled upon the country. The financial panic of  and the depression that followed, however, soon turned that feeling from good to bad. Although Monroe won a landslide reelection in  (he lost only one vote in the electoral college), he had to confront large issues. Monroe’s two administrations spanned the national expansion of the U.S. population into the Midwest and a dramatic period of growth in the national economy. They also heralded the divisive role that slavery was going to play in the territories, although the matter was temporarily resolved in  by the Missouri Compromise. At this time, the United States also asserted its role as protector of the newly independent nations of Latin America with the pronouncement of the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine was prompted by a dispute with Russia over the boundary of Alaska and by an invitation from Great Britain to issue a joint declaration concerning Latin America. During the Napoleonic Wars, Spain’s Latin American colonies had declared their independence. Now, there was a growing threat that European powers would again attempt to colonize the region. Great Britain favored keeping the former colonies independent for commercial development and trade purposes. The United States also supported Latin American independence. However, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams successfully persuaded President Monroe to reject the British joint declaration offer. Instead, he inserted into Monroe’s message to Congress on December , , a succinct statement: “The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.” In effect, the United States had announced a clear foreign policy position separate from Great Britain. Although dismissed by European nations at the time, the Monroe Doctrine became the foundation of U.S. foreign policy in the Americas. Eventually, the Monroe Doctrine achieved

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meaning as a result of the actions of later presidents who referred to it for the rationale of U.S. interventions in the region. Foreign policy proved to be the area of greatest success for Monroe. During his administration, the Florida question was resolved through a treaty with Spain in . In addition, the boundary line with Canada was settled along the th parallel and the Great Lakes were demilitarized. It was also during the Monroe administration that an experiment was tried by the American Colonization Society to resolve the slavery issue in the United States. The idea, which Monroe endorsed, was to send the descendants of slaves in America to Africa. A region in equatorial Africa was colonized by the United States and named Liberia. The idea was that freed American slaves would voluntarily return to live in Africa. Eventually, the sponsors of the idea dreamed, there would be no more slave problem or racial problem in the United States. The fact that, as Americans, African Americans had no more connection to Africa than European-descended Americans had to their ancestral homes was overlooked, and this reality eventually led to the demise of the colonization scheme. Partisan politics reemerged with ferocity during the presidential election of , effectively ending the Era of Good Feeling. Monroe retired to his Virginia estate in  after the inauguration of John Quincy Adams as president. Four years later, he served as presiding officer of the Virginia Constitutional Convention. He died on July , .

steven g. o’brien DOCUMENT: MONROE DOCTRINE, 1823 Although the Monroe Doctrine is not an actual law, it has profoundly influenced the making of U.S. foreign policy. On December , , President James Monroe announced this policy in an annual message to Congress that he drafted with the help of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Subsequent presidents often referred to the Monroe Doctrine as justification for U.S. intervention in hemispheric affairs. Below is the portion of Monroe’s message that is now known as the Monroe Doctrine. (Richardson, James D., ed. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents –. Washington, DC: GPO, –.) A precise knowledge of our relations with foreign powers as respects our negotiations and transactions with each is thought to be particularly necessary. . . . At the proposal of the Russian Imperial government, made through the minister of the emperor residing here, full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St. Petersburg to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the northwest coast of this continent. A similar proposal had been made by His Imperial Majesty to the government of Great Britain, which has likewise been acceded to. The government of the United States has been desirous, by this friendly proceeding, of manifesting the great value which they have invariably attached to the friendship of the emperor and their solicitude to cultivate the best understanding with his government.

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In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. . . . It was stated at the commencement of the last session that great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal to improve the condition of the people of those countries and that it appeared to be conducted with extraordinary moderation. It need scarcely be remarked that the result has been so far very different from what was then anticipated. Of events in that quarter of the globe with which we have so much intercourse and from which we derive our origin, we have always been anxious and interested spectators. The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellowmen on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments; and to the defense of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. In the war between those new governments and Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judgment of the competent authorities of this government, shall make a corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable to their security. The late events in Spain and Portugal show that Europe is still unsettled. Of this important fact no stronger proof can be adduced than that the allied powers should have thought it proper, on any principle satisfactory to themselves, to have interposed by force in the internal concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition may be carried, on the same principle, is a question in which all independent powers whose governments differ from theirs are interested, even those most remote, and surely none more so than the United States.

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Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none. But in regard to those continents, circumstances are eminently and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference. If we look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new governments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, in the hope that other powers will pursue the same course.

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6 Jacksonian Democracy, 1828–1840

INTRODUCTION Named for Andrew Jackson, the noted War of  veteran and Indian fighter from Tennessee who served as president from  to , Jacksonian democracy represented a new and different concept of the nature and responsibilities of the federal government. Jacksonian democracy was seen primarily in a greater sense of democratic participation in the government and in a reduction of federal responsibility, particularly with respect to the nation’s economic system. Andrew Jackson had lost the  presidential election to John Quincy Adams in a close and controversial contest that was decided in the House of Representatives. Although Jackson had received a plurality of electoral votes in the general election, he had fallen short of a majority, and when third-place finisher Henry Clay shifted his support to Adams in the House of Representatives vote, it was sufficient to vault the former secretary of state into the White House. Although many at the time thought a secret deal had been made between Adams and Clay, especially since Clay became Adams’ secretary of state, no hard evidence has ever been found to prove what was called a “corrupt bargain.” Jackson was not a man to forget or forgive, however, and he came back with a vengeance in the election of . This campaign was the first in which personal attacks played a role. Jackson’s campaign spread the word that Adams had installed a billiards table and a chess set in the White House and claimed that the White House now contained “gaming tables and gambling furniture.” Adams’ campaign retaliated with tales about Jackson’s frontier brawls and, worse, Jackson’s alleged premarital relations with the woman he later married. Possibly because of the stress of these personal attacks, Jackson’s wife died soon after the election and never lived in the White House. Adams had not had a very successful presidency, and that, combined with Jackson’s heroic military exploits, was enough to carry the day. Jackson won states in every region of the country and, to use the present-day term, clearly won a national “mandate” to govern. And with Jackson’s highly personalized presidency came that which is known as Jacksonian democracy. The process of democratization that is central to Jacksonian democracy was clear in the election itself. Between  and , six new states had entered the union with constitutions that contained no property qualifications for voting; other states

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This engraving of Andrew Jackson suggests his determination to pursue policies in which he strongly believed. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

liberalized their qualifications. The result was that the number of voters increased from just , in  to . million in . Over the next  years, the number voting jumped to nearly  million, an increase far greater than can be accounted for by population growth. In more general terms, other changes were accomplished in the political system. The increase in population in the West, along with the economic distress that followed the panic of , showed the need for electing officials who would represent the true interests of the majority. Through the growth of free public education and a cheap press during this time, the common man became much more aware of the political system and what it could do to protect or advance his opportunities in society. One immediate result was the scrapping of the old system of nominating presidential candidates through a congressional caucus, a process that the public now viewed as remote and aristocratic. Additionally, growing sectional conflicts made it more difficult for the caucus to achieve consensus on a single candidate. Consequently, parties turned to the national party convention during this time, a move that allowed far more democratic participation and deliberation. By the time Jackson left office, all parties were holding conventions on a regular basis. Although Jackson was not nominated at a party convention, he nevertheless personified the democratic movement. He was the first president from outside the Virginia or Massachusetts aristocracy. Born on the Tennessee frontier, he was of humble origins, and the people loved him for it. His military victory at the Battle of New Orleans in , moreover, had made him a kind of folk hero, a symbol of American valor and nationalism. And he looked the part—tall and lean, with a hawklike frontier face and a thatch of thick white hair. He was quick to anger and slow to forgive, and he had been in

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more than one duel. He was known for his chivalrous attitude toward “the fair,” and his excellent manners, provided he kept his temper. Jacksonian democracy would not allow for class distinction, so all were invited to the White House inauguration party, and some , people showed up, standing on chairs with muddy boots, fighting for the limited refreshments, and breaking glass and porcelain. Jackson escaped the mob by climbing out a window, and the guests were induced to leave the White House by the ploy of placing large tubs of punch out on the lawn. More serious events during the early months of Jackson’s presidency contributed to the idea of Jacksonian democracy. One issue was the nature of bureaucratic appointments and the spoils system, the process of replacing public servants from the previous administration with loyal supporters of the new administration. Although the spoils system had been common practice at the state level for some time, Jackson is particularly identified with it. He was the first to discard bureaucrats on a wide scale at the national level for no other reason than to reward deserving Democrats, and the haste with which he did it was alarming. In the end, he removed only  of  presidential appointments, but the Adams people were shocked, and Adams charged that it made government “a perpetual and unintermitting scramble for office.” Jackson, however, considered it a positive good—a reform. To him, it was the rooting out of a permanent office-holding class. He felt that most bureaucratic jobs were simple and routine enough that any citizen with average intelligence could adequately perform them and that the country gained more from the rotation of bureaucrats than it did from having experienced people in the offices. Thus, old and able Jeffersonians were replaced by young and often disreputable Jacksonians, the worst of whom was one Samuel Swartout, who became the collector of customs of the port of New York. He managed to steal over $ million before he was caught. The spoils system endured on a large scale until the s, when civil service reform was introduced, and it still continues to some degree. Jackson’s belief in greater democracy became apparent in his dealings with Congress. He conceived of himself as a national leader responsible to the people as a whole. Presidents before him had been content simply to administer laws Congress passed; Jackson, however, vetoed more legislation in his two terms than all his predecessors combined. He was also the first to take advantage of the pocket veto: the provision that permits a president to kill a measure passed fewer than  days before the adjournment of Congress simply by withholding his signature. In reply to charges of presidential usurpation of power, Jackson maintained that he needed to use his office as a bulwark against aristocratic establishments and powerful monopolies. He favored what he called a “plain system” of government, “void of pomp—protecting all and granting favors to none—dispensing its blessings, like the dews of heaven, unseen and unfelt save in the freshness and beauty they contribute to produce.” In the  presidential election that matched Jackson, running for his second term, against Henry Clay, the Bank of the United States was the major issue. The bank had been chartered in  for a –year period to handle federal finances, issue national bank notes, and maintain financial stability in the country, but many were critical of the bank for its refusal to honor the paper money of state banks, which often was overissued relative to the real value of the bank’s assets. Jackson had at first favored the Bank

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of the United States, but by , he had come to doubt both its constitutionality and its value to the country. He believed it operated in the spirit of monopoly, and he hated monopolies. Nevertheless, he was reluctant to attack the bank, because several of its supporters sat in his cabinet and because the bank did provide certain useful services for the country. Jackson instead contented himself with pressuring Nicholas Biddle, the bank’s president, to place more administration people on the bank’s payroll. Biddle resisted, fearing that the bank would fall under the spoils system, and instead he tried to influence key members of Congress by offering them advances on their salaries or low-interest loans. Among the bank’s friends in Congress were Henry Clay, who saw political advantage in siding with the institution, and Daniel Webster, who earned a handsome fee serving as the bank’s legal adviser. Biddle’s lobbying efforts only made the stubborn Jackson more determined to get rid of the bank when its charter came up for renewal in . In early , the bank’s supporters in Congress decided to make the renewal of its charter a central campaign issue by bringing forward a bill for renewal four years early. They reasoned that the bank was so popular in the country that Jackson would have no choice but to sign the renewal if he expected to be reelected. But Jackson told his vice president, Martin Van Buren, “The Bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill it.” And so he vetoed the renewal bill, concluding in his veto message that the bank was neither necessary, nor proper, nor constitutional. Biddle thought Jackson’s message was so outrageous that he circulated it as probank propaganda during the campaign, but Jackson was an easy winner in the election, which he took as a mandate to carry on against Biddle’s “Hydra of corruption.” Over the next four years, Jackson and Biddle battled over the status of the bank. Biddle thought that Jackson might withdraw government funds from it and so used a good part of those already on deposit to make even more loans and publicize the bank’s virtues in the press. Jackson became convinced that federal funds were not safe in the bank and, after some political infighting with his cabinet, succeeded in placing most government money in selected state banks. Biddle responded by launching a campaign to restrict credit and create enough financial distress in the country to force the president to change his policies. Although Biddle did manage to create some distress, Jackson was able to turn the blame on Biddle, who in  was forced to retreat from his campaign at the urging of his friends in the business community. But by this time, it was too late; the battle between Biddle and Jackson had caused irreparable damage to the economy. Two years of unrestrained land speculation on the part of the state banks, fat with federal funds, followed. To try to halt this, Jackson issued the Specie Circular in , requiring that all land payments to the government be in specie, or gold and silver. This decision made the paper money that state banks issued virtually worthless, and almost overnight land sales collapsed, followed in  by a disastrous fall in stock and commodity prices and the worst economic downturn of the century. Jackson left office two months before the onset of the economic crisis and thus escaped most of the blame for the troubles, which fell on the administration of his handpicked successor, Martin Van Buren. Hoping to lead people out of oppression, Jackson led them into depression. Van Buren entered office in March  riding the crest of Jackson’s popularity, but the depression that began later in the year dominated his single term. Van Buren’s

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solution to restore confidence in the banking system and the crippled economy was something called the Independent Treasury System, whereby federal funds would be taken from banks and placed in subtreasuries around the country. Receipts from customs duties and federal land sales would also be deposited in the subtreasuries, and government expenditures would be made in cash. The idea would have protected government funds and discouraged speculation, but it would have taken much specie out of circulation, which would have hurt business. Still, Van Buren managed to push the measure through Congress in , and it, along with the depression, cost him reelection in November of that year. The next administration did away with the Independent Treasury System, the economy recovered mostly on its own, and one of Jackson’s legacies passed from the scene. Not until the Civil War would the nation see another centralized national banking system. Jackson’s was a flawed presidency, but it was a significant one. He reshaped the whole character of the office by his belief in greater democracy and by his own autocratic and imperious style. As Van Buren and many others who followed him discovered, Jackson was a hard act to follow.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY thomas c. mackey Of the portraits on the currency of the United States, President Andrew Jackson’s image on the $ bill is the most dashing. George Washington, on the $ bill, will always be the marble, unmoving man; Abraham Lincoln, on the $ bill, appears strained yet redeemed—ever the Old Testament patriarch “Father Abraham.” Alexander Hamilton, on the $ bill, appears haughty and aloof from the real world. Then there is Andrew Jackson’s unabashedly stirring romantic portrait. With his tousled hair, his high prominent forehead, his cape pulled firmly but not tightly against him, shielding him from the elements, Jackson appears firmly in control. As he peers past his right shoulder staring down the elements, Jackson’s portrait exudes the qualities attributed to him by his loyal legions of supporters: strength and confidence. Jackson’s image on the $ bill suggests an uncommon man who, ironically, loomed over a time when Americans hailed the common man as the ultimate American. No other president’s name has become identified with the key changes and developments of his era as Jackson with “Jacksonian America.” Although Jackson (affectionately nicknamed “Old Hickory”) himself did not personally bring about the numerous changes of his times, his struggle for the presidency, his election, and his administration occurred during a time of profound change in American social, economic, and political cultures, changes that he came to symbolize. Ironically, although Jackson became the leader of the era, he was as much a follower of the larger social, cultural, and political trends of his times as he was the leader of those trends. His influence on the United States can be suggested through analyzing the changes wrought in American politics and democracy when Jackson’s name and presence hung heavy in the air. It is these changes in American political and civic culture from  until  (and beyond) that provide the topics for this chapter.

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Just as Jackson the person came to symbolize all the changes of his era, so too has an event in Andrew Jackson’s presidency come to be seen as a symbol of the social and political changes sweeping the land. That event occurred on March , , the day of Jackson’s first inaugural as president. After being sworn into office at the capital, Jackson and his friends returned to the White House (then called the Executive Mansion) to greet his supporters. And his supporters turned out en masse. In fact, so many “common people” turned out to greet the new president that they crowded the rooms of the Executive Mansion to overflowing proportions. They stood on the furniture to get a peek at the new president, turning over the tables by their sheer numbers. Jackson escaped the press of people by leaving the mansion by a side exit, but to encourage the crowd to leave the mansion, aides had to move the punch bowls out on to the grounds of the house. This near riot and breach of public decorum led one commentator to write in his diary that “King Mob,” not Jackson, now governed in America. This scene at the Executive Mansion can be seen as a symbolic takeover of the presidency by the people, represented by Jackson, and the turning out of the “interests” and aristocrats who had dominated the presidency from George Washington to John Quincy Adams. By taking over the building and grounds of the Executive Mansion, the crowds announced the end of the old republic and the arrival of popular democracy in the United States. With Jackson’s presidency, a new era in America’s history had begun. Just as in any other age, most of the reforms of the Jacksonian era sought to fix problems inherited from an earlier time. What the Jacksonians opposed from this earlier period was the perceived dominance of the federal government by the “interests,” the “privileged,” and the Northeast states. Most of Jackson’s supporters and political strength came from the South and such newly emerging western areas of the nation as Jackson’s own Tennessee and Kentucky. These supporters believed that the established (and wealthier) areas of the country, especially the political leaders and cities of the Northeast, held an unwarranted stranglehold on the nation and its economy and, through their dominance, corrupted the federal government. President John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, the second president, and perhaps the quintessential New Englander, came to represent for the Jacksonians everything that was wrong with the country. His education, his ties to trade and commerce, his support of the national bank (the ultimate symbol of “special privilege”), his encouragement of commerce and manufacturing rather than farming, his historic name, together with his aloof personality, all combined to make him appear distant and out of touch with the rising masses of the country. Add in Jackson’s allegation of a “corrupt bargain” between Adams and Henry Clay in the presidential election of  to swing the election away from Jackson and to Adams, and the stage was set for Jackson and his supporters to paint Adams as the personification of northeastern corruption. Such an image was an unfair and inaccurate depiction of Adams, but at the dawn of mass politics in America, the political technique of putting one’s own opponent in the wrong and keeping him there already operated. Special privilege especially interested, irritated, and motivated the Jacksonians. To that era, special privilege entailed almost any sort of governmental largesse or favoritism to one person or a group of persons that was not available to all persons. By “person,” Jacksonian spokesmen almost always meant white males over  years old, and although this definition of political persons did not mean universal suffrage (women and most blacks, for example, were not included), still it was a broader definition of

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suffrage than previously existed. For example, part of the resentment against special privilege came to focus on the privilege of voting, which many localities and states had restricted to property owners only. But in an era that proclaimed the equality of white males, property requirements for voting appeared unequal, unfair, and a special privilege of an elite few. Therefore, when Jackson’s supporters, organized in the nation’s first truly national political party, the Democratic Party of , held majorities in the state legislatures, one of their first tasks and accomplishments was to drop the property requirement for voting and to move toward universal white male suffrage. Also, when the Jacksonians came to dominate state governments in the late s and s, they reapportioned the electoral districts in their states. These new political majorities, drawn from the more western and rural parts of the states, altered the election district lines so that the older, more well-established, and wealthier sections of the states lost political power relative to the newer, more westerly, and rural parts of the states. In this fashion, then, universal white male suffrage changed the face and composition of the state legislatures and, in time, even Congress. Jacksonians aimed their crusade against special privilege against more than just the suffrage requirements; they also attacked the ties between the social and economic elites and the government. A good example of this resentment against elites was the movement in the states and localities to lower the requirements to enter the professions. Traditionally, if someone wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer, he (almost never she) would apprentice with a practicing doctor or lawyer, emulate his actions, and read and study his books. Local or state boards of experts in the professions, such as the local bar association or the local medical association, oversaw the examination of those students who wished to enter the profession, although occasionally local judges decided when an apprentice was ready to enter the law on his own. In some instances, these private associations of professionals had the power of issuing licenses to their members. Through licensing, the profession oversaw the quality of its members and could limit the numbers of people in the profession, thereby maintaining the social standing of its members and a shortage of practitioners and keeping fees up. In other words, this power to license practitioners of a profession constituted a special privilege for these key social groups. Jacksonians argued that such elitism constrained the market for professional services and violated the fundamental principles of the country that “all men are created equal.” If that proposition were true, Jacksonians reasoned, then anyone, regardless of skills or training, ought to have a chance to become a doctor or a lawyer. They attacked professional associations as examples of elite and special privilege, unfairly limiting the economic ability of the common man and his chance in the market. As a result of these attacks on the professions, by the s, all anyone who wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer had to do was hang out a sign and start practicing. Numerous states had dropped their licensing and education requirements in the s and s under the weight of criticism of their medical and bar associations. Although the quality of services the average doctors and lawyers delivered declined during the Jacksonian era, the lowering of professional standards nicely fit and reflected the general mood of the country against special privilege for special groups. But such social and legal reforms did not happen overnight or magically. Social and political reforms need a structure to channel reformers’ energies, and the Jacksonians created just such an organization. What propelled Andrew Jackson into the

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Executive Mansion was a political creation he helped to build and manage: the nation’s first truly national political party. His party differed from earlier political organizations such as the Federalist or Jeffersonian-Republican factions in that his party was built to endure. Factions formed around prominent political figures and lasted only as long as the political figure remained prominent and important. Political factions lacked the internal structure, such as party discipline and party dues, which later political parties developed. What Jackson set about doing after he lost the  election to the alleged “corrupt bargain” between Adams and Clay was to build a permanent political organization with loyal members, a central treasury to support candidates, common party policies described in a party platform and organized from the most local, grass-roots level up. Jackson used this political organization to appeal not to the local elites and the northeastern elites who had dominated politics and policy from the founding of the Constitution until the late s, but to the masses. Jackson, a southerner and a westerner, used his political organization to motivate and inspire the electorate in ways not previously seen in America. Through party newspapers, parades, barbecues, and rallies (all adequately supplied with spirited liquid refreshments), Jackson’s Democrats swept into office in  from local courthouse to the Executive Mansion. Although control of political parties might be dominated by cliques of powerful persons, for Jackson’s era the political theory held and people believed that the party embodied and represented the people. And through the party, the people governed. Jackson’s party and his appeal through mass politics were something new in the country that changed the country then and have since become American traditions. A sure sign that political appeals to the masses and the use of political parties were ideas whose time had come was the reaction of Jackson’s opponents. To counter Jackson’s claim to the loyalty of the people and with the hope of capturing some offices for themselves, Jackson’s opposition found it necessary to copy his methods and form their own permanent political organizations. Jackson’s opponents called themselves the Whigs, as had the American revolutionaries, a group with whom the anti-Jackson forces wished to be identified as the true inheritors of the Revolution. They discovered that to remain viable politically, they needed an equally organized party to battle the Democratic Party for votes and the right to set state and national policies. Two-party politics, by the s an American tradition, emerged and crystallized because of Jackson’s Democrats. As parties sought to organize to attract the attention of voters to select national candidates, the Jacksonian era witnessed the start of another American political tradition, the party-nominating convention. Prior to this time, men interested in serving in a political office let their desire be known to powerful people in Congress, in the states, and in their localities. Then a political caucus consisting of members of the faction decided which candidates to support. Party conventions theoretically changed that selection process. Instead of the leadership of the party huddling together and announcing the party’s candidates, delegates to a party convention would nominate and vote on who would lead the party in the upcoming election. In this way, the “people,” the common men, of the party chose their leaders, who then ran against the other party’s candidates in the general election. To a minor third party of the period, the Anti-Masonic Party, goes the distinction of holding the nation’s first political convention; the Democrats and Whigs quickly followed suit. In September , the Anti-Masonic Party held a

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convention to select its candidate to run in the  presidential race. Not only did the party set the model for party conventions, but it also adopted the first party platform, which served to tell the voters where candidates stood on the pressing issues of the day. Adherence to one’s party platform became the requirement if a candidate wanted money, advice, and support from his party. Party platforms made public what the party stood for and stood against, and party platforms became one standard for judging whether a particular party lived up to its stated goals. This political innovation continues to be an important document for parties’ publicity and legitimacy, and often some of the fiercest political battles are waged within parties over the language and content of their platforms. Too often dismissed as self-serving puffery, political party platforms form another American heritage and tradition inherited from the age of Jackson. Political parties are extraconstitutional, meaning that the Constitution does not explicitly provide for them. Parties formed to serve immediate political needs and in time became legitimate. So too did another extra-constitutional political body, the president’s cabinet. To discuss policy and to decide on party strategies, President Jackson relied on a series of unofficial advisers. Although Jackson had a formal cabinet composed of the heads of prominent federal departments, he preferred informal groups for discussion. In time, his opponents labeled these informal groups the “Kitchen Cabinet,” as opposed to the more formal “Parlor Cabinet.” As historian Donald B. Cole has argued in his important book, The Presidency of Andrew Jackson, “More than any president before him, [Jackson] needed men who could offer ideas, writing skills, organizational ability, and political contacts—in addition to loyalty.” Jackson always insisted on making any final decision himself, and he occasionally did not consult anyone, including the Kitchen Cabinet, before he made important decisions, but it is also true that he usually relied on friends and colleagues for discussion and help in running the government. Among the most important of the Kitchen Cabinet were Martin Van Buren, secretary of state in the first administration and vice president in the second, as well as one of the few Parlor Cabinet heads who served also in the Kitchen Cabinet; Amos Kendall of Kentucky, postmaster general in the second administration; Duff Green, the editor of the important pro-Jackson newspaper the United States Telegraph; Thomas Hart Benson and James K. Polk from Congress; and Frank Blair Sr., the editor of another pro-Jackson newspaper, the Globe. Reliance on unofficial and informal groups of advisers began with President Jackson and became a tradition as numerous later presidents continued the practice. One of the most important topics for discussion among President Jackson and his Kitchen Cabinet was political patronage. Although it would be incorrect to say that Jackson and his administration started the spoils system, he strongly supported the awarding of political offices to faithful party workers. This system formed the reason that a person might support a particular candidate: if the candidate won the election, the loyal party worker hoped to receive appointment to a government office (in addition to the wages and benefits of the office). Democratic senator William L. Marcy of New York summed up the idea of the spoils system in an  speech defending the practice when he stated that in America “politicians followed ‘the rule, that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.’ “In practice the rule meant that when one political faction or party took over from another political faction or party, then most (if not all) of the appointed positions in the government ought to be taken by persons loyal to the new political majority. In

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that way, the new ideas, programs, and policies of the new political majority could be carried out without interference from partisan officeholders of the previous administration. Although this system ran the risk of placing undeserving or unqualified persons into jobs, the Jacksonians did not view the issue in that manner. Instead, they saw the spoils system as a solution for the aristocratic dominance of the federal government and as another way to attack and limit special privilege. Through the spoils system, the state and federal governments could be made more accountable to the masses, as plain people, and not elites, received the offices and jobs. Jackson defended the spoils system by pointing out that such turning over of officeholding, from one political officerholder to another, was common in the states and that all he sought to implement was the same system on the federal level. In this way, then, the democratization of the republic could advance; the federal government would become more truly of the people. Jackson and his administration defended and certainly used the spoils system, but Jackson never used it to the extremes his critics claimed or his successors did. Some of his opponents claimed that up to  percent of the federal workforce (mostly treasury and post office employees) were turned out of office in favor of loyal Democrats, but that number was far too high. Studies have shown that only about  percent of federal workers lost their positions for political reasons during Jackson’s years. In fact, later presidents would remove and replace more workers than Jackson, but the term and its usage came to acceptability at the federal level during his times. Jacksonians brought about still other reforms and changes in state and federal politics, which further signaled a shift in the country from an elite-led republic to a mass democracy. Jackson and his followers believed in frequent rotation in officeholding. This political value was both new on the American scene and a ripple effect of the spoils system. If the people governed, then no one should hold office, especially high office, for very long. A high turnover in officeholding was to be encouraged as a sign of the vitality of the democracy—of the people governing and sharing the responsibility of governing. Also, through rotation in office, government could be held accountable to the people of the country. Since no one would serve for long, no one could amass undue influence and power; each officeholder would have to act in the best interest of all since each would soon be out of office and just another one of the masses. Further, in a political democracy, the theory ran, anyone ought to be able to fill any office. If, as the Declaration of Independence states, “all men are created equal,” then any and all offices ought to be available to anyone wishing to serve. Although this political belief, like the spoils system, could result in unqualified persons seeking office for the glory (and salary) of the position and thereby potentially abusing the system, to the Jacksonians rotation in office formed another technique to diminish what they perceived to be an overly elitist government. Only when anyone could hold any office would democracy exist in the United States. As a direct result of the political value of frequent rotation in office, numerous previously appointed offices and even administrative positions became electable by the people. So-called long ballots developed. Voters sometimes faced extended lists of offices and candidates running for those offices. It became common to elect administrative department heads and their assistants in local elections; even city dog catchers and their assistants stood for election by the people. Although electing dog catchers might appear inefficient and even silly to modern voters, electing such officials made

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perfectly good political sense to the Jacksonians as a method for making democracy a reality. Further, the Jacksonians broadened the logic and value of rotation in office and selection by the people not only to administrative officials but also to the judiciary. Law must be made accountable to the people in a political democracy, and one way to make sure law stayed close to the people was through frequent rotation of legislators and executive officers. But legislative lawmaking was only one side of the coin; administration of the law was the other, and the administration of the law fell to the judges. Prior to the Jacksonian era, judges, even local ones, received their appointment to the bench from executives such as governors, who appointed state judges, and mayors, who appointed some city judges and justices of the peace. In theory, this selection process would protect judges from popular pressures and local prejudices and thus ensure fair administration of the law. Yet to the Jacksonian, appointed judges were another form of special privilege for a select few elites in the community. Because the Jacksonians could not stand that privilege—the people must rule—the practice of appointed state and local judges came to an end. Though highly controversial then (and even now to some degree), the popular election of state and local judges became another lasting political reform of the age of Jackson. Mississippi led the way in  when its legislature adopted legislation requiring not only the election of lower court judges but also of appellate and even state supreme court judges. Beginning in the s, numerous other states followed Mississippi and changed the selection process of their judges from appointive to elective. Jacksonians believed that the law must stay close to the people and reflect the values of the mass of the people; law must not be a tool of the elite or the wealthy. Their hope for electing judges even to high appellate courts was an increased accountability to the masses. Since law could be used to protect special privileges such as monopolies, the democratization of the nation generally called for the democratization of the law as well. Make the judges accountable to the people in scheduled elections and the judges will think twice before rendering opinions contrary to the will of the majority of the people, the argument went. It worked well in theory, but in reality, the election of state judges actually changed very little, because of the law’s own internal rules and standards. Although some talked of making federal district judges electable, the federal judiciary was not affected, and federal judgeships remained appointed positions. The symbolic change of electing state judges was enough to signal the new political values on the American scene. In keeping with these same values and parallel to electing judges, a movement began in the Jacksonian era to simplify the common law systems of the states. Instead of relying on a common law system made up of a jumble of statutes, social and legal customs, judicial opinions, and mysterious rules, reformers argued that in a political democracy, the law had to be accessible and understandable to plain people. Therefore, what was needed was the codification of the common law. Codification offered the hope of simplicity and accessibility of the law, its rules, and its procedures to plain people; it also offered the hope of avoiding a specially privileged group, lawyers. Some reformers argued that the common law had become too inflexible and too technical for most people, especially the poor, to understand; as a result, the law offered little fairness. Other legal reformers stressed that the common law provided too many exceptions and too few clear and concise rules for even the lawyers to follow. In particular, this

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second group of law reformers wanted to clarify the rules of the law to create a more stable and hospitable climate in which businesses could operate. Providing a clear code of the rules of contract, for example, would create a legal climate in which businessmen would be willing to risk investment since they could know their potential liabilities before investing. Codification went furthest in New York, which authorized lawyer and reformer David Dudley Field (brother of Stephen Field, who became a U.S. Supreme Court justice, and Cyrus Field, who invented and laid the first transatlantic cable) to design a law code for that state. His code, which he presented to the legislature in , dramatically simplified civil and criminal procedure and generally streamlined the state’s law. Although New York chose not to adopt Field’s code, Missouri (in ) and California (in ) adopted variations of it. Codification, like the election of state judges and the rotation in office, reflected the values of the era in its antielite appeal to the masses’ values. But unlike elected state judges, codification never caught on widely, which left the common law and its system of case-by-case, statute-by-statute analysis in place. In this dramatic period of reform, yet another important political alteration can be linked to Andrew Jackson and his era: a strengthening of the presidency. Although Jackson’s immediate successors did not follow up on his style of strong presidential leadership, in time presidents built on and added to the strengthened presidency Jackson forged. Abraham Lincoln, for example, used the expanded powers of the presidency in his struggle to hold the nation together during the Civil War and to protect constitutional government. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt regularly relied on the strengthened presidency first achieved or foreshadowed by Andrew Jackson. In particular, Jackson changed the popular perception of the presidency. Prior to Jackson, Americans thought of the presidency as simply the administrative branch of the federal government, with the real political power located in the Congress. Congress, not the president, best represented “the people.” But Jackson changed that popular perception, as well as political theory. He saw himself as not merely someone carrying out the wishes of Congress but rather as the keystone in the formation of federal public policy, as the leader of his political party, and at least as important a representative of the people as Congress was. For Jackson, the presidency represented the people and, largely through his own forceful personality and the good press stimulated by the United States Telegraph, Jackson sold the image to the American people. The seeds of his arguments and his dramatic popular image would have failed to take root, however, if Jackson’s ideas about the importance of the presidency were not in keeping with the general mood of the country. Jackson’s arguments for an expanded presidency reflected the popular will of the times, and his ideas exactly fit the needs of the times. Jackson was both benefactor of the new mood in the country and beneficiary of the new era. As one of the most important Jackson historians, Robert V. Remini, argues in Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, “Jackson had become [the people’s] spokesman and symbol; they were quite prepared to accept him as their representative at the seat of government.” Jackson understood that large numbers of people in the country wanted to bring to bear their political will on the federal government and, through the president, to see their political will reflected in the nation’s policies and decisions. Jackson was the right man at the right time to assist in moving the country from its old republican origins to political majoritarian democracy.

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And the people loved Jackson for his actions and for what he represented. He was the head of the government, carrying out the will of political majorities; by turning majority will into public policy, the people governed. By relocating some of the southeastern Indian tribes west of the Mississippi River, Jackson’s actions reflected the anti–Native American fears of those who elected him. This bond of respect and empowerment between the president and the people was something that earlier presidents had not experienced and only a few later presidents built upon. This popular bond, combined with Jackson’s strong personality and military background, made him a force to be reckoned with for political friends and foes alike. On issues that mattered to Jackson, such as the destruction of the premier example of special privilege, the Bank of the United States— which Jackson referred to as “the monster”—or turning back the South Carolina nullifiers, who sought to nullify or invalidate disagreeable federal laws within their state, in –, Jackson used strong leadership to keep his party united behind him and to separate himself from the Whigs. By establishing a strong presidential presence in the federal government and thereby shaping public policy decisions, Jackson represented the rising tide of democratic sentiment in the country. He stood for the sometimes subtle and sometimes dramatic changes occurring in the presidency specifically and in the country generally. During the era of Jackson’s presidency, the people not only invaded the Executive Mansion (literally and figuratively), but political majorities came to dominate the political scene as never before. Leading the common people was an uncommon man, Andrew Jackson. It is no wonder, then, that Jackson’s portrait on the $ bill shows him confidently facing the winds of change. He knew (and the country was about to find out) that the will of political majorities, organized in mass political parties, constituted an unstoppable wave of political change, which Jackson both directed and rode. From the $ bill, Jackson stares into the future, challenging his political enemies to run counter to the times and his supporters to upset the conventional wisdom of the times and follow him in remaking the country from a republic into a democracy. That road to political democracy was not always even or certain, yet Jackson and the Jacksonians succeeded in changing the country, the government, and thus themselves and all Americans who followed. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Cole, Donald B. The Presidency of Andrew Jackson. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, . An impressive and important biography of Jackson suggesting that Jackson was not quite the “man of iron will” as he is usually portrayed. In fact, argues Cole, events controlled Jackson as much as he controlled events during his presidency. As a result of this interpretation, a more human and less deified Jackson emerges. Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, –. New York: Oxford University Press, . Part of the Oxford History of the United States series, this book traces the evolution of America into “modernizers” and democratizers,” who emerged in the s as Whigs and Democrats. Latner, Richard B. The Presidency of Andrew Jackson: White House Politics, –. Athens: University of Georgia Press, . An intriguing account of the politics, power struggles, and disputes within Jackson’s Kitchen Cabinet and national politics generally during Jackson’s administrations.

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Pessen, Edward, ed. New Perspectives on Jacksonian Parties and Politics. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, . A collection of essays that surveys the ongoing areas of discussion and dispute between historians of Jackson and his times. Reid, John, and John Henry Eaton. The Life of Andrew Jackson. M. Carey and Son, ; reprint, Frank Lawrence Owsley Jr., ed. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, . A good example of a primary source promoting and advertising Andrew Jackson and his personal qualities and military successes. Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, –. Vol. . New York: Harper & Row, . The first volume of Remini’s important multivolume biography of Andrew Jackson; describes the United States in the late th century during Jackson’s formative years and follows Jackson’s life and development through his governorship of the Florida Territory. ———. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, –. Vol. . New York: Harper & Row, . The second volume, which interprets Jackson’s life from his return to Nashville in  after serving as the territorial governor of Florida through his first administration as president. ———. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, –. Vol. . New York: Harper & Row, . The third volume, examining Jackson’s life, influence, and accomplishments from his second term as president through his death on June , . ———. The Legacy of Andrew Jackson: Essays on Democracy, Indian Removal, and Slavery. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . Brings together the Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures delivered at Louisiana State University in  by one of the most important Jackson scholars. In this volume, Remini seeks to assess and weigh the lasting importance of Jackson on these three key issues: democracy, Indian removal, and slavery. ———, ed. The Age of Jackson. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, . A useful compilation of important primary sources necessary for understanding Jackson and his times. Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. The Age of Jackson. Boston: Little, Brown, . Emphasizes the expansion of democracy and the struggle for power between the people and the interests in the Jacksonian era. Later historians have revised some of Schlesinger’s arguments, but this work remains a powerful interpretation favoring Jacksonian reforms. Sellers, Charles. The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, –. New York: Oxford University Press, . An impressive and satisfying overview of the economic and social changes sweeping the country before, during, and after Jackson’s presidency. This work demonstrates how the rising economy paralleled the rising movement in the country for the people to govern more directly as they assumed greater prominence in the economy. Ward, John William. Andrew Jackson: Symbol for an Age. New York: Oxford University Press, . Argues that Jackson, the symbol of the rising democracy, was as important as (if not more important than) Jackson the man or Jackson the president. One of the most widely read and influential books on Jackson.

BANK OF THE UNITED STATES The Bank of the United States and the Second Bank of the United States were both attempts by Congress to establish a federal bank. The banks served as a depository for federal funds and acted as the government’s agent in collecting customs fees and issuing bank notes, but they also supported businessmen as a commercial bank. Although both banks were eventually closed, each defined how a federally owned, central bank could stabilize America’s economy.

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Responding to a request from Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, Congress chartered (incorporated) the Bank of the United States in . The decision was a particularly controversial one for the new republic and in fact served as a pivotal issue in the establishment of two political parties in the United States. Hamilton, the unofficial leader of the Federalists, believed the federal government should exercise broad political powers to stabilize and foster growth in the country, including taking an active role in managing the economy and the establishment of a national bank. The Antifederalists, led by Thomas Jefferson, disagreed; they advocated for a limited federal government and strong state and local governments. The notion of a central bank for the country was particularly abhorrent to them, as they supported the creation of state banks for what little management the economy required. The issue polarized the two parties and sparked much debate in Congress before Hamilton rallied enough support for the idea to secure the bank’s charter. The charter authorized the Bank of the United States for an initial -year period and established its headquarters in Philadelphia. The central bank was both a government bank (regulating the flow of currency) and a commercial bank (holding deposits from both the government and businesses and lending money to them). The government provided one-fifth of the $ million capital required to establish the bank and controlled one-fifth of the  seats on the bank’s board of directors. Private investors provided the rest of the capital and controlled the remaining seats on the board. Over the bank’s initial -year charter period, it collected the government’s customs duties, lent the government more than $ million, stabilized the country’s currency by regulating the circulation of bank notes, and made a profit of $,. Despite this apparent success, there was much criticism of the bank and its policies, in part because of the diverse banking needs of the country. The commercial, industrial Northeast needed short-term loans (usually repaid within one or two months) to finance production ventures and ease cash-flow problems. The more agriculturally based South and West, however, required long-term loans (usually repaid over the course of one or more years) to finance significant investments in property, equipment, and seeds for farming. As the bank’s funding was insufficient to meet the needs of all, it usually favored the Northeast to the growing dismay of the South and West. By  (when the bank’s charter was due to expire), the South and West’s disenchantment with the bank had made itself felt in Congress. In addition, President James Madison and most of the country were firm adherents of Jefferson’s views regarding the role of the federal government in regulating the economy. Hence, Congress decided (by only one vote) not to renew the bank’s charter, and the Bank of the United States closed its doors that same year. The closure of the Bank of the United States had a profound impact on the national economy, initiating a disastrous economic cycle that plagued the country for the next decade. First, the supply of federally secured bank notes dried up, and as the federal government was no longer capable of issuing currency, there was not enough money in circulation to support the growing country. The currency shortage encouraged statechartered banks and private banks to issue their own bank notes, secured only by the money they held in reserve. Many of these banks recklessly created bank notes beyond their reserves, which inflated the economy. Inflation reduced the value of the bank notes

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in circulation, causing the notes to lose value and circulate below the value printed on the face of the note. Such discounting led to speculation in notes and more discounting, sometimes to below half of the face value of the notes, a cycle that continued until banks went bankrupt—which led to an economic depression. Government borrowing during the War of  exacerbated the banking situation. In desperation, Congress explored the need for a central bank once again and in  chartered the Second Bank of the United States for a -year period. As with the first bank, the government provided one-fifth of the capital required to establish the bank ($ million this time) and controlled one-fifth of the  seats on the bank’s board of directors, with private investors picking up the rest. Initially, the bank struggled, primarily because of the deep economic depression gripping America. In addition, the bank committed many of the state and private banks’ mistakes regarding note speculation and thus contributed to the country’s financial instability. In contrast to the first Bank of the United States, the bank supported the agricultural South and the West, ignoring the businessmen in the Northeast and making many enemies in this region. By , the situation had become desperate. Langdon Cheves was brought in first as a member of the board of directors and then became president of the bank on March  of that same year. In the midst of the depression, Cheves restored the bank to solvency, primarily by raising interest rates and reducing both the number of loans and the amount of currency in circulation. These measures saved the bank from disaster but also worsened the country’s economic situation, at least for a time. In , Nicholas Biddle succeeded Cheves as president of the Second Bank of the United States. Biddle changed the bank’s focus back to the conservative approaches that favored the Northeast to the detriment of the speculative South and West. His strategy improved America’s financial condition and stabilized the money supply, although it stifled growth in the South and West. In , the election of Andrew Jackson as president of the United States brought the bank to the center of Americans’ attention. As a Southerner and a strong believer in Jefferson’s state-oriented view of government, Jackson was an outspoken enemy of the bank, although he refrained from meddling in the bank’s affairs during his first term. Biddle made a major tactical blunder in , however, by calling for Congress to renew the charter for the Second Bank of the United States for another  years—four years earlier than necessary. Despite growing national resentment of the bank, Congress approved the renewal but Jackson vetoed it and made the bank the major issue of his reelection campaign later that year. Jackson’s Bank War, as it came to be called, quickly became an extremely divisive partisan issue, with Democrats supporting Jackson and Whigs supporting the bank. The controversy continued after Jackson won reelection, as the president and Congress battled over the issue. Exercising his executive power, Jackson quietly began removing federal deposits from the bank and placing them in state-chartered banks (also known as pet banks). When the bank’s charter expired in , it was forced to close its doors once again. Biddle reopened the bank as a state bank that same year. Although the bank was initially successful, it failed in  after investing in a speculative cotton venture that failed. The dissolution of the Second Bank of the United States in  sparked another disastrous economic cycle for the country. By , wild speculation, fueled mostly by

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inflated bank notes, initiated a serious financial depression. Without a central bank to stabilize the currency, the depression ran its course well into the mid-s. Wild swings in currency values continued intermittently until , when Congress passed the National Currency Act, requiring that all currency, including bank notes, be backed by the U.S. Treasury. Finally in , Congress formed the Federal Reserve Bank, giving the United States a federally owned, central bank.

ANDREW JACKSON (1767–1845) Andrew Jackson, rough-hewn military hero of the Battle of New Orleans and bold national leader, left a political legacy known as Jacksonian democracy that encompassed a new political party and a new interpretation of the role of the president. Jackson was born on March , , in the Waxhaw, a wooded frontier region in South Carolina. His father, an immigrant from northern Ireland, died two weeks before his birth. Jackson received only a rudimentary education before he became a mounted courier at age  for the patriot cause in the American Revolution. Although he was severely wounded by a saber blow while a prisoner of war after he refused to polish a British officer’s boots, Jackson survived the war. His mother and two brothers did not. In , after studying law at Salisbury, North Carolina, Jackson was admitted to the bar. The next year, he moved to the western district of North Carolina (now Tennessee) and became a public prosecutor. He settled in Nashville and had just begun to accumulate a substantial sum of wealth when the panic of  deprived him of much of his fortune. Jackson married Rachel Donelson Robards in . Two years later, the couple learned that her first husband, contrary to what they had been led to believe, had just obtained a divorce. They immediately remarried in January , but ugly rumors that Jackson had stolen another man’s wife and lived with her out of wedlock haunted the couple for the rest of Rachel’s life. Jackson fought several duels in the course of defending his wife’s reputation. When Tennessee became a state in June , Jackson was elected to the House of Representatives. The next year, when his political mentor, William Blount, was expelled from the Senate, Jackson resigned from the House. To vindicate his party, he then won election to the U.S. Senate. He served only briefly in the Senate, however, before financial difficulties forced him to resign in . His difficult personal financial situation was relieved when he was appointed a judge of the superior court of Tennessee. For the next six years, Jackson was a popular frontier judge who told jurors to “do what is right between these parties. That is what the law always means.” With the outbreak of the War of , Jackson sought a commission in the regular army. He had to settle for the rank of major general of volunteers in charge of two expeditions to crush a Creek Indian uprising in Mississippi. It was during these campaigns, which culminated in the end of Indian resistance at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in , that he earned the nickname Old Hickory for his iron will in the face of adversity. Promoted to major general in the regular army, Jackson won national fame for his brilliant defense of New Orleans in January . The battle was fought shortly before news reached America that a peace treaty had been agreed to in Europe. Jackson’s overwhelming success (more than , British casualties to  American casualties) contributed to the upsurge in American nationalism that followed the war.

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In , President James Monroe dispatched Jackson to suppress attacks by Creek and Seminole Indians on settlers along the Florida frontier. Instead of just halting the raids, Jackson pursued the Indians to their villages in Florida, captured Pensacola, deposed the Spanish governor, and hanged two British citizens blamed for encouraging the Indian attacks. Amidst the outrage of Great Britain, President Monroe and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun denied authorizing Jackson’s behavior and contemplated punishing him, but Secretary of State John Quincy Adams prevailed upon the president to seize the opportunity to pressure Spain into selling Florida. After all, argued Adams, negotiations would be greatly simplified by the fact that the United States already controlled the area. Jackson was not reprimanded, and as Adams had predicted, Spain agreed to relinquish control of Florida to the United States the following year. Once again, Jackson’s individual effort made him a national hero. President Monroe appointed Jackson governor of Florida in , but the post held little interest. He resigned after only four months in office and returned to Tennessee, where he was elected to the Senate in . Pressure gradually mounted for Jackson to run for president in  as the representative of the common man who epitomized the dreams of the expansionist West. The election of  was a four-way split in which all the candidates represented various wings of the Democratic-Republican Party: Adams’ power base was in New England; William Crawford’s support was primarily in the South; Henry Clay and Jackson shared the West, with Jackson clearly perceived as the true Democrat. Although Jackson won the highest number of popular and electoral votes, no candidate won enough electoral votes to become president. The election had to be decided in the House of Representatives. The winner was settled when fourth-place Clay agreed to support second-place Adams. Jackson accepted the outcome with grace until Adams appointed Clay secretary of state. Then Jackson and his followers attacked Adams and Clay for their “corrupt bargain.” It was, they claimed, clearly a case of two representatives of old vested interests combining to cheat the rightful victor and true representative of the people out of becoming president. For the next four years, while his backers worked to defeat Adams’ legislative goals, Jackson began building support for the next presidential contest. In , Jackson, at the head of the new Democratic Party and with Calhoun as his vice presidential running mate, won a landslide victory. The inauguration of Jackson—and the beginning of the movement that became known as Jacksonian democracy—marked the emergence of a new, much broader electorate on the American political scene, due to the elimination of property and other qualifications for white men to vote. Jackson embraced these new “common man” voters as his own and moved to place them in governmental offices. The disorderly and disheveled rabble that attended Jackson’s inauguration celebration appalled many in the upper middle class. Although Jackson did not replace any more government officeholders than Thomas Jefferson had during his first year in office, he was attacked for the quality of the replacements and accused of establishing the spoils system in the federal government. In policy matters, President Jackson relied upon several of his close friends. This influential “Kitchen Cabinet” included William Lewis, Duff Green, Isaac Hill, and Andrew Jackson Donelson. Jackson’s first term in office was dominated by three issues: the firm manner in which the president opposed the states’ rights doctrine of nullification; the rival ambitions of

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Secretary of State Martin Van Buren and Vice President Calhoun to be Jackson’s successor; and the decision by Jackson to oppose the rechartering of the Bank of the United States. At the start of Jackson’s administration, Calhoun seemed the most logical candidate to become his successor. Calhoun had a national reputation and a strong power base in the South. Van Buren, the bachelor political organizer who had delivered New York’s electoral votes in , had no such national stature. However, over the course of Jackson’s first term, Jackson and Calhoun became locked in a fierce political confrontation over the proper role of the federal government in fostering national economic development and states’ rights. A personal animosity between the two men quickly developed soon after Jackson assumed office, first over an incident involving treatment of a Cabinet member’s wife accused of adultery, and second when Jackson found out about Calhoun’s behavior during the Florida controversy. Calhoun refused to make any effort to encourage his wife to treat Peggy Eaton, Secretary of War John H. Eaton’s wife, with respect. Jackson, sensitive to the harm caused because of the unfair labeling of his own wife, felt a personal need (which fellow widower Van Buren supported) to defend Mrs. Eaton’s honor. Nettled by Calhoun’s attitude about Peggy Eaton, Jackson then discovered government documents describing how Calhoun had advocated that Jackson be reprimanded for his actions in Florida in . These matters, however, paled in comparison to the drama that unfolded over states’ rights. Calhoun led efforts to oppose the tariff bills in  and  that protected the industrial Northeast at the expense of the South. As the spokesman of the South, Calhoun promulgated the doctrine of nullification—the belief that a state could refuse to obey a federal law—to justify South Carolina’s refusal to honor the tariffs. At first, Calhoun hoped Jackson’s support could be enlisted; but Jackson’s toast at a dinner party in Washington, D.C., in —“Our Union, it must be preserved”—boldly and succinctly stated his opposition to nullification. Jackson’s toast captured the mood of the nation and prompted a surge of nationalism. In , after a furious Jackson had threatened to use military force to ensure South Carolina’s compliance with the tariff of , a military confrontation was barely avoided by the enactment of a new compromise tariff. The matter, however, was only temporarily resolved. It convinced Calhoun and his loyal followers that their interests in the Union were endangered. They resolved to become even more adamant in refusing to compromise when they sensed Southern interests threatened. In the end, it would take the Civil War to resolve the issue. Jackson’s support of the national government was not consistent, however. When the Supreme Court ruled in  that Georgia had to honor its treaties with the Cherokee Indians, Jackson did not hesitate to support Georgia’s right to deal with the Cherokees without federal interference. Jackson reputedly said: “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” Jackson’s position was a shrewd political ploy that successfully discouraged Georgia from supporting South Carolina’s militant nullification stand. Jackson hoped that the Cherokees would quietly give up their tribal lands and become assimilated. They did not, and finally, in , approximately , Cherokees were forced by the U.S. Army to resettle west of the Mississippi in a long winter journey (the Trail of Tears) that caused great suffering. Because he believed the federal government should play a carefully limited role in fostering national development, Jackson opposed federal funding for internal

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improvements. During his first term this belief, combined with his distrust of aristocrats and speculators, convinced him that the federal government charter granting the private Bank of the United States the right to handle all government funds should not be renewed in . When Nicholas Biddle, president of the bank, supported by Clay and Daniel Webster, persuaded Congress to pass a rechartering bill in advance in , Jackson promptly vetoed it, and the veto stood. After winning a massive reelection victory, with Van Buren as his vice presidential running mate, Jackson kept his word. In , with the help of treasury secretary Roger B. Taney (whom Jackson later appointed as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court), he began to remove government deposits from the national bank, placing them in small regional banks (pet banks). Biddle continued the war over the bank by keeping interest high and causing money to be scarce, hoping that by making borrowing more difficult, business would be hurt and the bank would be rechartered. But when unemployment occurred and businessmen applied to Jackson for relief, he said, “Go to Biddle.” Biddle was finally forced to back down and grant credit on reasonable terms. Jackson had won, and the bank passed out of existence in . However, economic troubles lay ahead for his successor. In the foreign policy arena, the Jackson administration managed to obtain the reopening of Great Britain’s Caribbean colonies to U.S. trade. The United States also formally recognized the independence of Texas. Jackson did not advocate the admission of Texas as a state in  because he realized it would tear the Democratic Party apart by disrupting the delicate balance that existed between the slave and free states. Van Buren, Jackson’s designated successor, won an easy election victory over his Whig rival. Pleased with the outcome of the  election, Jackson retired to The Hermitage, his Tennessee plantation, where he died on June , . Two political parties had been formally organized during the period—the Democrats and the opposing Whigs—and it was the Jackson presidency, built on strong leadership and the belief in limiting the power of the federal government, as well as opposing privilege in favor of the common man, that would help define not only the Democratic Party, but an era.

steven g. o’brien LOCOFOCO PARTY The Locofoco Party was the name of the radical wing of the New York Democratic Party. Formally called the Equal Rights Party, Locofoco was organized in  in an attempt to reform the Democratic Party and end Tammany Hall’s domination of New York City politics. The Locofoco split the Democratic Party in promoting its platform but maintained that it was trying to reform the Democratic Party, not build a new, separate party. The Locofoco was inspired by Robert Dale Owen’s and Frances Wright’s Workingmen’s Party of the late s and early s. The Workingmen’s Party began its political organization in response to lowered wages, technological changes, and the factory system of the Industrial Revolution. The party also opposed military conscription and imprisonment for debt. The Democratic Party absorbed the Workingmen’s Party after

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its unsuccessful showing in the election of . George Henry Evans’ The Working Man’s Advocate was a mouthpiece for the parties in New York City from  to . In , a radical faction split off from the Tammany Hall leaders of the Democratic Party. The faction supported President Andrew Jackson’s so-called Bank War in opposition to the rechartering of the Bank of the United States and thought that the movement should be expanded to an opposition against state banks and monopolies. Jackson viewed the bank as an elitist institution that benefited East Coast financiers and hurt everyone else, and the faction believed that central banks and monopolies were antidemocratic. The faction became disenchanted with the Democratic Party, as party members never acted on their antimonopoly rhetoric and promises. In September , Tammany Hall expelled radical William Leggett from the party. Leggett, the editor of New York City’s Evening Post, was an advocate of free trade and an opponent of the Bank of the United States. In response to his expulsion, several former members of the Workingmen’s Party decided to make an attempt to take control and reform the Democratic Party. The first goal was to defeat the renomination of party members they deemed unfavorable. At the October , , Tammany Hall meeting to ratify the party nominations, the reformers rejected the chairman selected by the party. Before the meeting could be resumed with a chairman of the reformers’ liking, the Tammany Hall members turned off the gas lights of the meeting hall. However, some Workingman members had selflighting “Locofoco” wooden matches, so they lit candles and continued the meeting. In January , the faction, now known as the Locofoco, formally organized as the Equal Rights Party, or the Friends of Equal Rights. The party represented owners of small businesses, workers, artisans, and lawyers. The party outlined its laissez-faire philosophy in opposition of state banks and monopolies and iterated its support for free trade with its desire for the elimination of any subsidies or favors, like tariffs, to private business. The Equal Rights Party called for the end of imprisonment for debt and for the suspension of the use of paper money. The party also called for legal protection of organized labor. The Locofoco Party defeated many Tammany Hall candidates in the April  city election. In the November  election, two Locofoco members were elected to the state assembly. The November  election also saw the election of Jackson’s vice president, Martin Van Buren, as president. Van Buren promised to continue Jacksonian democracy, a movement for egalitarianism among white men that was sometimes seen as a struggle to overthrow the elite political classes in Virginia and Massachusetts. Tammany Hall soon accepted much of the Locofoco platform. However, the Panic of  severely damaged Van Buren’s popularity and, with it, the Locofoco Party. The Locofoco Party dispersed back into the Democratic Party by .

philip j. macfarlane MARTIN VAN BUREN (1782–1862) As President Andrew Jackson’s campaign manager, political confidant, secretary of state, vice president, and finally, handpicked successor, Martin Van Buren played a major role

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in national politics and the establishment of Jacksonian democracy as a significant political force. According to historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “Van Buren’s understanding of the new functions of public opinion, as well as of Congress, furnished the practical mechanisms [that] transformed Jackson’s extraordinary popularity into the instruments of power. . . . Without them, the gains of Jacksonian democracy would have been impossible.” Van Buren was born on December , , in Kinderhook, New York. His formal education was limited to the local elementary school and the private Kinderhook Academy. At the age of , he began his legal education by working in a local law office. In , at age , Little Van—he was only five feet, six inches tall—passed the bar and established his own successful practice in Kinderhook. He became deeply interested in politics as a Jeffersonian Republican. On February , , he married his childhood sweetheart, Hannah Hoes, who eventually bore four sons. From  to , Van Buren was surrogate of Columbia County. His opponents chastised him for so blatantly embracing partisan politics, but Van Buren’s affable and charming personality often won over the public and fellow politicians. In , he was elected to the state Senate on an anti-United States Bank platform. In the state Senate, he supported the War of , the construction of the Erie Canal, the revision of the New York Constitution, and proposed legislation to eliminate imprisonment for debt. Van Buren assumed command of the wing of the New York Democratic-Republican Party (called the Bucktails) that opposed the rule of fellow politician DeWitt Clinton. By , he had accumulated enough anti-Clinton followers to win appointment as state attorney general, but he was forced out of office three years later when Clinton was elected governor. His wife died that same year (). Van Buren rebounded from these setbacks by launching a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate the following year. When he set out for Washington, D.C., in  to begin his national political career, Van Buren left behind a well-organized political machine in New York based on patronage and known as the Albany Regency. In the Senate, Van Buren earned the title “Red Fox of Kinderhook” because of his shrewd political judgment and the care he exercised to avoid taking a stand on controversial issues. A firm supporter of front-runner William Crawford for president in , Van Buren was dismayed when Crawford was forced out of the race by a paralyzing stroke and John Quincy Adams was elected. Returned for another term to the Senate in , Van Buren became an avid supporter of Jackson. To ensure the success of the Jackson ticket in New York, Van Buren gave up his seat in the Senate and ran for governor. Although elected governor, he quickly resigned after only two and a half months in office in order to become President Jackson’s secretary of state. Despite a power struggle with Vice President John C. Calhoun in the first years of Jackson’s administration, Van Buren established an intimate relationship with Jackson that was based upon mutual trust and appreciation for each other’s political talents. He was the most powerful man in Jackson’s inner circle of advisers, known as the Kitchen Cabinet. It was Van Buren who welded the disparate groups of anti-Adams forces into the cohesive Democratic Party that overwhelmingly reelected Jackson in . While secretary of state, Van Buren reached a settlement with England on West Indian trade, negotiated with Turkey for American access to the Black Sea, and persuaded the French to pay American damage claims from the Napoleonic Wars. His greatest

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accomplishment, however, was not in foreign policy but at home in managing to replace Calhoun as Jackson’s successor. In , Jackson and Calhoun clashed over the issue of nullification. Van Buren seized the opportunity to remind an angry Jackson that Calhoun had also lied about the fact that he had opposed Jackson once before—when Jackson had invaded Florida in . Van Buren also sided with Jackson (and against Calhoun) in the Peggy Eaton affair. Jackson appointed Van Buren minister to Great Britain in  while Congress was in recess. When Congress reconvened, the Senate refused to confirm his appointment by one vote—cast by a vengeful Calhoun. Calhoun’s action prevented Van Buren’s appointment, but it backfired by encouraging Jackson to choose Van Buren to be his vice presidential running mate in . Four years later, running as Jackson’s designated successor against a fragmented field of several opposition candidates, Van Buren easily defeated his rivals, garnering  electoral votes to his nearest rival William Henry Harrison’s . In his inaugural address, Van Buren promised to adhere to Jackson’s policies, but a severe economic depression, the Panic of , lasted throughout his administration and quickly undermined his popularity. Firmly committed to avoiding increased power for the federal government, Van Buren’s approach to coping with the hard economic times consisted of supporting the gold standard, removing federal deposits from all private banks (the federal government had lost more than $ million due to the failure of state banks), and establishing an independent treasury in the Independent Treasury Act of . As the depression worsened, Van Buren was attacked as incompetent and heartless. Against great opposition, he managed to secure legislation that established a so-called independent treasury, or subtreasury system. Government funds would be placed in an independent treasury in Washington and in subtreasuries in certain other cities for exclusive use by the government through its agents. Thus no bank could use government money for speculative purposes. He also instituted the -hour workday for all laborers on federal projects, an act that did nothing to endear him to the average voter in the face of continued hardship. More positively received were the talks initiated with Canada to avoid war over the Maine boundary. These resulted in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (). In many ways, the campaign of  was a replay of the campaign Van Buren had helped Jackson win in  against Adams. Van Buren was successfully portrayed by the Whig Party as an effete, insensitive aristocrat (as Adams had been), as opposed to “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” military hero Harrison (portrayed as Jackson had been). Van Buren won only  electoral votes to Harrison’s . In March , Van Buren returned to Kinderhook, New York, where he moved into a completely remodeled Italo-Gothic mansion named Lindenwald, which he furnished with antiques. He planned to run for president again in  and might have secured the Democratic nomination if he had not lost the support of Jackson and many other Democrats because of his refusal to support the annexation of Texas. Van Buren was against the admission of another slave state and feared a war with Mexico. The Democrats chose expansionist James K. Polk instead. In , the wing of the New York Democratic Party that opposed the extension of slavery into the newly won territory from Mexico (known as the Barnburners)

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nominated a reluctant Van Buren. A month later, a coalition of other disgruntled Democrats and Whigs met in Buffalo, New York, formed the Free Soil Party, which was pledged to a platform against slavery, and nominated Van Buren. The party’s slogan was “Free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men.” The Democrats nominated Lewis Cass and the Whigs, Mexican-American War hero Zachary Taylor. Taylor went on to win the election. After the  election, Van Buren spent several years traveling in Europe, where he collected antiques to furnish Lindenwald. Back in Kinderhook in , Van Buren lived in relative obscurity until his death on July , .

steven g. o’brien WHIG PARTY The Whig Party, formed in  and lasting until , was the major political party opposing the Democratic Party in the antebellum era. The Whigs inherited the Federalist Party belief in a strong federal government and adopted many Federalist and National Republican policy ideas, including federal funding for internal improvements (building roads, canals, bridges; improving harbors), a central bank, and high tariffs to protect the growth of manufacturing enterprises. The Whig Party emerged in the early s to oppose President Andrew Jackson’s domestic policies, mainly his veto of the Maysville Road Bill in , which would have granted money for internal improvements, and his opposition to the Second Bank of the United States. Jackson’s veto of the recharter for the bank in  angered many leading members of Congress, who thought that a strong central bank was necessary to ensure national economic prosperity. The conflict became known as the Bank War, and Jackson delivered his veto with the claim that the bank “is trying to kill me, but I will kill it!” Finally, Jackson outraged many when he ignored an  U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed white encroachment on Cherokee lands in Georgia. Upon learning of the Supreme Court decision, Jackson supposedly remarked, “John Marshall [chief justice of the Supreme Court] has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” Jackson knew that enforcing the decision would require the use of the army, which he alone commanded, and as he refused to use the army to protect the Cherokees, the Supreme Court decision was rendered meaningless. Such activities were the last straw for Jackson’s angry opponents, who dubbed him “King Andrew,” suggesting that he was a tyrannical enemy of democratic government. When Jackson’s opponents, led by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, organized a party to fight Jackson, they took the name “Whigs” from the opposition party in England that had sought to limit the power of King George III in the th century. Initially, the Whigs were too disorganized to present much of a challenge to the popular Democratic Party, whose candidate, Martin Van Buren, easily won the presidential election of  as Jackson’s successor. In , however, the Whig Party mounted an effective campaign for the presidency. The Whigs pioneered the modern campaign technique of image manipulation when they portrayed their candidate William Henry Harrison, who was elderly and ailing, as a hardy backwoodsman who drank “hard cider” and lived in a “log cabin.” It helped too that Van Buren’s popularity had been greatly

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diminished when a financial panic in  triggered a nationwide economic depression, the effects of which were still being felt in . Whig propagandists called Van Buren “Martin Van Ruin” and attacked him ceaselessly in partisan newspapers. With vice presidential candidate John Tyler, the Whigs ran Harrison on the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” (to commemorate Harrison’s victory over Native Americans at the Battle of Tippecanoe in ) and resoundingly defeated Van Buren in the election. In the s, the issue of expansion into the Western territories dominated national politics and threatened to divide the Whig Party into Northern antislavery and Southern proslavery factions. Just as Whigs and Democrats disagreed over such economic issues as tariffs and the role of the government in fostering economic growth, so did they disagree over the issues of slavery and Western settlement. On the whole, Whigs tended to be more sympathetic toward African Americans and Native Americans and less enthusiastic about expansion than were the Democrats. Both parties, however, were beset by divisions over these issues, and in the s, such divisions threatened to upset the cross-sectional alliances of both parties. The Whigs fared worse from the growing sectional tension than the Democrats, however. Only one month after taking office, Harrison died of pneumonia, and Tyler was elevated to the presidency. Tyler was hostile to many of the policies of his own party and so came into conflict with Whig congressional leaders, who derided him as “His Accidency.” Without the support of his party, Tyler suffered through four years of an ineffectual presidency. In , the Whig presidential candidate was Henry Clay, the guiding light behind the Whig Party. The centerpiece of his campaign was called the “American System,” which advocated a national bank, a high tariff, and federal support for internal improvements. On the issue of expansion, Clay waffled and hinted late in the race that he might support the annexation of Texas, though he had long opposed such a move. Clay might have won the election had not a third party—the Liberty Party—captured enough antislavery Whig votes in New York and Michigan to cost Clay the election and grant victory to his opponent, Democrat James K. Polk of Tennessee. In the following years, Whigs in Massachusetts would divide into “Conscience Whigs” who opposed slavery, and “Cotton Whigs” who supported slavery, foreshadowing a more substantial party division in the s. The annexation of Texas led to war with Mexico, as Clay had earlier predicted, and the presidential election of  centered on the issue of what to do with the territory that had been won by the United States in the Mexican-American War. The fact that many Whigs disliked slavery and had opposed the war did not stop them from nominating the war’s hero, Gen. Zachary Taylor (who was also a slave owner) to be the Whig candidate for president. This time it was the Whigs who benefited from the efforts of a third party, as the antislavery Free Soil Party and its candidate Martin Van Buren drew enough votes from “Barnburner” (antislavery) Democrats in New York to give the state, and its valuable electoral votes, to the Whigs. However, in what must have seemed like déjà vu to many Whigs, Taylor died in  only halfway through his term, and Vice President Millard Fillmore succeeded him. In the s, the issue of slavery in the Western territories destroyed the Whig Party altogether and threatened the unity of the country itself. Clay’s last achievement as a politician was a series of agreements known as the Compromise of  that staved

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off—temporarily—the threat of civil war between Northern and Southern states. However, certain provisions of the Compromise—particularly the Fugitive Slave Act (), which required the local, state, and federal governments to assist slave owners in recapturing runaway slaves in the North—proved to be an especially divisive issue for both parties. In the election year of  (during which both Clay and Webster died), the party split irrevocably over the Compromise and fielded a presidential candidate for the last time. Whig candidate Winfield Scott was defeated decisively by Democrat Franklin Pierce in the contest for president. The Whigs eventually dissolved completely over the admission of Kansas and Nebraska into the Union. In the wake of the Whigs’ collapse, a new major party arose—the Republican Party—that became the vessel of Whig ideas and policies as many former Whigs joined its ranks.

DOCUMENT: PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON’S NULLIFICATION PROCLAMATION, 1832 One of President Andrew Jackson’s most important pronouncements, on December , , he issued his Proclamation to the People of South Carolina, in which he decried the doctrine of nullification as impractical while elevating the sovereignty of the federal government over states’ rights. The climactic end of the nullification controversy that heightened sectional tensions between  and , Jackson’s proclamation was initially met with hostility from South Carolinians. In fact, Vice President John C. Calhoun, himself from South Carolina, resigned his office in protest. As South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union, Jackson simultaneously asked Congress to reduce the hated Tariff of Abominations and pass the Force Bill, which gave him the authority to use federal troops to enforce U.S. law in all the states. The dual policy eventually worked, and the country temporarily pulled back from the brink of civil war. (U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, – , Elliot’s Debates, , :–. Library of Congress.) For what would you exchange your share in the advantages and honor of the Union? For the dream of a separate independence—a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your neighbors and a vile dependence on a foreign power. If your leaders could succeed in establishing a separation, what would be our situation? Are you united at home? Are you free from the apprehension of civil discord, with all its fearful consequences? Do our neighboring [Latin American] republics, every day suffering some new revolution or contending with some new insurrection, do they excite your envy? But the dictates of a high duty oblige me solemnly to announce that you cannot succeed. The laws of the United States must be executed. I have no discretionary power on the subject; my duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution deceived you; they could not have been deceived themselves. They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent

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the execution of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their object is disunion. But be not deceived by names. Disunion by armed force is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences; on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the punishment. On your unhappy state will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government of your country. . . . The consequence must be fearful for you, distressing to your fellow citizens here and to the friends of good government throughout the world. Its enemies have beheld our prosperity with a vexation they could not conceal. It was a standing refutation of their slavish doctrines, and they will point to our discord with the triumph of malignant joy. It is yet in your power to disappoint them. There is yet time to show that the descendants of the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Rutledges, and of the thousand other names which adorn the pages of your Revolutionary history will not abandon that Union to support which so many of them fought and bled and died. I adjure you, as you honor their memory, as you love the cause of freedom, to which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your state the disorganizing edict of its convention; bid its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided expressions of your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor.

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7 The War with Mexico, 1846–1848

INTRODUCTION Westward expansion had been occurring in America since the earliest colonial days. The purchase or annexation of new territory, the impulse or economic necessity to move on, the improved facilities for migration provided by canals and railroads in the early th century all stimulated the idea of expansion. Land hunger, especially in the South where soil depleted rapidly, was another strong force for westward movement. In the s, an editor, John L. O’Sullivan, gave a label to the spirit of expansionism, Manifest Destiny, which encompasses the idea that the United States was preordained to occupy and control all of North America, if not even a greater area. This was not something that persons willed, but rather the product of greater forces, and seen through geographical, cultural, and historical evidence. In a sense, Manifest Destiny, an expression of American nationalism, was a rationalization for expansionism. Americans thought their culture and institutions were better than those of other nations and therefore they had a right, even an obligation, to impose these better ways on less fortunate peoples. They pursued this obligation with a conviction that took the form of a mission to demonstrate to all the world the virtues of democracy. Another reason for American expansion was the fear of a powerful rival blocking further growth. Usually this power was Great Britain, and American expansionist desires were often directed against areas where British influence was high. Other reasons were more crass. The United States desired, in the case of Oregon, to control the northern Pacific waters and the shorter route to the trade of the Orient. The first major outlet for American expansion after the Adams-Onís Treaty () was Texas. U.S. claims to Texas had been transferred to Spain by the treaty, but ratification had been delayed partly by the objections of senators interested in the Texas territory. After Mexico won independence from Spain in , the Mexican government asked Americans to settle there, hoping that the new Texans would provide a buffer between the United States and its Indians and the rest of Mexico, as well as build up the economy and tax receipts of the province. By offering land grants to settlers and promoters, Mexico attracted about , Americans with , slaves to Texas by . In fact, Texas–Mexican relations steadily deteriorated. In , to combat growing bitterness, Mexico tried to exert control by stopping further immigration of Americans, sending occupation troops in, and asserting other laws, such as those prohibiting

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General Zachary Taylor and his Army of Occupation defeat Mexican troops under General Antonio López de Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

slavery and those requiring Texans to become Catholics and to settle only in certain areas not reserved for Mexicans. The result was to increase Texans’ irritation. In , a revolution in Mexico put Antonio López de Santa Anna in power, and in , the Texans revolted, first for reforms, and then, when Santa Anna threatened to exterminate them, for independence on March , . The war was short and ended at the Battle of San Jacinto on April , when Santa Anna was taken prisoner. The treaty brought Texan independence and established a vague boundary between Texas and Mexico. The Republic of Texas had little desire to remain independent. Texans wanted to obtain U.S. recognition, followed by annexation, and for good reason: protection against Mexico. With , people, Texas was not big enough to maintain a national government; moreover, most Texans were Americans and thus had a natural affinity for the United States. Between  and , pressure for annexation increased. Britain was wooing Texas but demanding the abolition of slavery. Northern businessmen and southern planters both feared this development would injure American commerce, and southerners worried that abolition of slavery in Texas might cause a great slave insurrection throughout the South. Sam Houston, who had led Texan forces in their fight for independence, propagandized effectively for Texas’ annexation, and exPresident Andrew Jackson warned that Texas must be annexed, “peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.” President John Tyler worked hard for it, and finally, in February , the Congress passed a joint resolution favoring annexation. Texas became a state on December , .

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By the time Texas became a state, James Knox Polk was president. The election of  had featured expansionism as the major issue. The Democrats had nominated Polk, a former governor of Tennessee, and put together a platform that stood for the annexation of Texas and the reoccupation of Oregon up to °'. The Whigs nominated Henry Clay and tried to evade the issue by saying nothing at all in their platform about Texas. Clay had first opposed Texas annexation, but when the sentiment for it became apparent, he said he would not object to annexation if it could be done “without dishonor, without war, with the common consent of the Union, and upon just and fair terms.” This equivocal statement angered both southern and northern supporters and may have cost Clay victory in a close election. The first major problem Polk had to deal with after taking office was the Oregon question. Both Britain and the United States had occupied this territory since  and had been unable to resolve ownership. Indeed, both countries had good claims to the territory. British traders had been there since the late th century, and Boston traders since , buying furs to sell in China. Americans controlled the coastal trade, but the British had a stronger hold on the interior. The area most in dispute was the area between the Columbia River and the th parallel. The British claimed that the mouth of the river was essential; the Americans were eager to have a port at Puget Sound. Three times the British had refused to compromise by extending the th parallel to the Pacific. Neither Britain nor Polk was willing to go to war over the issue, and in fact Britain’s interest in the area was declining as the fur trade declined and as American settlement increased. Moreover, British–American commercial relations were good, and both countries wanted them to stay that way. Polk and the Congress were on the brink of war with Mexico and were naturally reluctant to fight Britain and Mexico at the same time. Polk’s advisers, furthermore, had told him that the land north of the th parallel was unsuitable for farming, and the real plum was the harbor at Puget Sound. America’s gateways to the Pacific, they said, were the Pacific harbors. On both sides of the Atlantic, calmer voices prevailed, and on June , , the Oregon Treaty was signed, with benefits for both sides. It extended the U.S.–Canada boundary at the th parallel to the Puget Sound and then out the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The territory between there and the Columbia River fell to the Americans, but England got navigation rights on the river and possession of Vancouver Island. Although northwesterners felt that Polk had sold out on them by not getting all of Oregon, the Senate ratified the treaty over their objections. Polk’s ideas of expansion went beyond just Oregon and Texas. He had designs on California and New Mexico (the land between Texas and California), and possibly more of the northern part of Mexico as well. Although he hoped to fulfill his desires peaceably, he was not opposed to war, an increasingly likely prospect since Mexico was not at all happy about the Texas annexation. It had broken off diplomatic relations with the United States upon the Texas annexation, and with that, a dispute over the Texas–Mexico boundary broke out. Texas claimed that its territory extended to the Rio Grande; the Mexicans claimed the boundary was at the Nueces River out of Corpus Christi. Polk, of course, recognized the Texas claim and sent Gen. Zachary Taylor to the Nueces line, ostensibly to protect Texas against Mexico. Polk doubtless thought he needed to support the Texans, but the Mexicans thought it was an act of aggression. Also at this time, Polk

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brought up the issue of several million dollars that were due American citizens from Mexico for various losses and damages. To Mexico, Polk seemed in a terrible hurry to collect the debts. Meanwhile, California was becoming an issue. California, like Texas under Mexico, was distant from the capital and only loosely governed. American whalers had been stopping at California ports for  years before the s, and fur traders, deserters from ships, and occasional emigrants from the east had bought land in California and were of great influence in the commerce of the province. Expansionists urged Polk to take over California before the British did, and Polk himself dreamed of a transcontinental railroad to link California with the Mississippi Valley. Besides, the ports of San Francisco, Monterey, and San Diego were valuable. The problem was that the United States had no claims to California as it had to the Oregon Territory, and Mexican–American relations, being what they were over Texas, did not allow for the purchase of California from Mexico. But Polk decided to make one last try at acquiring California by diplomacy. He sent John Slidell, a politician from Louisiana, to Mexico City to try to settle the differences between the two nations with American money. If Mexico would acknowledge the Rio Grande border, the United States would assume the damage claims against Mexico. For the cession of New Mexico, the United States would pay $ million, and for California, up to $ million. But Slidell unfortunately arrived in Mexico just at the time the government was about to be overthrown by another revolution. The government falling out of power did not dare weaken itself further by talking with him, and the one coming into power had done so by denouncing the United States, so it could hardly deal with him as well. Slidell notified Polk that his mission had failed, and with this news Polk ordered Taylor’s army to move from the Nueces to the Rio Grande. Polk’s reason was again to protect Texans from a Mexican attack, but he hoped that the show of force might cause Mexico to reconsider its refusal to negotiate. Failing this, Polk perhaps hoped that the presence of American troops on disputed soil might provoke an incident that would provide an excuse for war. For several months, nothing happened, and when Slidell returned from Mexico in May , Polk decided to send a war message to Congress based on the damage claims and other past grievances. Just as he was preparing this message, news arrived that Mexicans had crossed the Rio Grande and attacked U.S. troops stationed near what is now Brownsville, causing several casualties. Polk then changed his war message, calling for war to avenge “American blood shed on American soil” and sent it on to Congress, where it was passed by wide margins. Despite the congressional approval of the war (the vote was – in the Senate and – in the House), there was quite a lot of opposition. In the Northeast, people objected on moral and political grounds, and even in the South, fear surfaced that the acquisition of that much territory would cause sectional tension. As the war costs and causalities mounted, Whigs in particular denounced “Mr. Polk’s war” and its aggressive origins. The greatest support came from the Mississippi Valley and Texas; they sent , of , volunteers. The war was quickly won. General Taylor marched south of the Rio Grande to capture Monterrey in September  and then defeated a Mexican army of , led by Santa Anna at Buena Vista near Monterrey the next February. Politically sensitive about the popularity of his Whig generals, Polk tabled Taylor after Buena Vista and

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sent General Winfield Scott to lead an expedition against Mexico City, which was taken in September . California was handled by Colonel Stephen W. Kearney, who led an overland expedition from Missouri, captured Santa Fe, and moved into California, where he joined with John Fremont and established American rule in early . After the Buena Vista victory and capture of Vera Cruz at the beginning of Scott’s expedition, Polk decided to make a try for peace. For this mission, the secretary of state, James Buchanan, chose Nicholas P. Trist, a former consul at Cuba and a Spanish speaker. Trist was instructed to insist on the Rio Grande boundary and the cession of New Mexico and California; in return the United States would assume the Mexican damage claims and pay an extra $ million—what some have called conscience money. At first, Santa Anna refused the terms, and when Trist became too friendly with General Scott, Polk ordered him back to Washington. Then he and the cabinet began contemplating more severe terms, such as cession without payment and an occupation of Mexico. Some superexpansionists thought fondly of taking over all of Mexico, justified by Manifest Destiny. Oddly, the South was largely against it, for fear that northern freesoilers would insist on the prohibition of slavery if the territory became states and that this would cause an irreparable sectional split. Trist also recognized this problem. Although he had been recalled, he stayed at his diplomatic post and resumed negotiations with the new, more moderate government that had just assumed power in Mexico. He had great success and, on February , , signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, securing the Rio Grande boundary and gaining for the United States upper California, including the port of San Diego, and New Mexico (including present-day Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and parts of Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas). He agreed that the United States would assume Mexican claims up to $. million and would pay an additional $ million. The signing of the treaty by what amounted to an unauthorized negotiator gave Polk something of a problem, for the treaty’s conditions met those that Polk had given Trist. If Polk repudiated the treaty, it would seem inconsistent, would certainly perplex Mexico, and would stir up all kinds of trouble in Congress, where the Whigs controlled the House. With all this, Polk accepted it and sent it to the Senate, which ratified it, –, gaining majorities in both parties. The treaty added , square miles of territory to the United States and was an excellent diplomatic achievement. Five years later, in , the continental expansion of the United States was completed with the Gadsden purchase—, square miles in what is now southern Arizona—for another $ million, because through it ran the best route for the southern railroad to the Pacific.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY donald a. rakestraw Few other events in U.S. history have produced greater effect—both immediate and over the long term—than the war with Mexico in the s. Coming as the climax to an expansionist quest, the war was the product and the reflection of a unique and critical stage in the development of the nation. Woven within the pull and tug of a people whose diverse and often incompatible interests defied national identity, the Mexican War’s

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significance rests on its positive contribution to American unity and national growth, as well as its ominous portents for national disaster and fragmentation. The war’s place in the course of American civilization is located within the mundane calculations of miles and acres and the grand reckoning of consequences and legacies. As America approached midcentury, it continued to grapple with questions of identity, world context, and direction. Societal changes that were the consequence of a young nation in transition to adulthood generated a certain amount of tension and insecurity. Thomas Jefferson’s agrarian ideal seemed threatened by a society following in Britain’s industrial footsteps. Writer Washington Irving observed that the “march of mechanical inventions is driving everything political before it.” Farm was challenged by factory, rural commonwealth by urban oligarchy. A romantic season of nationalist introspection and pride yielded to a shallower and more materialistic age committed to trade and industry. In this atmosphere, Americans strained to find a mooring. The memory of revolutionary progress had faded, and with it, some feared, the rationale for the American experiment. The growth of the American population and a series of financial calamities undercut the personal independence and self-sufficiency of the Jacksonian “common man.” His redemption lay in the active pursuit of what Andrew Jackson aptly called the “area of freedom.” At the same time a reactionary Europe seemed determined to contain the liberal principles of republican government and to squelch democracy with monarchical rule. Rumors were rife that France had designs on a throne for Mexico and that abolitionist Europeans were set to pounce at the first sign of weakness to cordon off America’s slave system and to lock the United States behind its current restrictive borders. There, they hoped, slavery (dubbed the “peculiar institution”) would die and democracy would decay. If, however, Americans could break that containment and revive their fervor for patriotism and republican virtue, a new era would be theirs. Expansionism seemed the perfect vehicle for such a revival. Rooted in the colonial tradition and encouraged by the vision of Thomas Jefferson and the continentalism of John Quincy Adams, territorial expansion could unharness the energy of America’s burgeoning population, spark nationalist pride with images of western vistas, and transform an insulated and parochial people into a hemispheric power. It was, according to journalist John L. O’Sullivan, their “manifest destiny.” The concept was made a cause célèbre in the s by newspapermen who found that technology had supplied them with the ability to broadcast their enthusiasm for expansion throughout the country. Northern editors from east to west tirelessly heralded America’s geographic calling. Many were driven by the belief that farm surplus and packed warehouses could be relieved only by the continued cultivation of new markets. To them, territorial expansion would create the markets and at the same time temper the ardor for industrialization and urbanization by opening new land for rural living. Equally essential was another type of cultivation, that of liberty and freedom. The Mexican War affirmed a sense that the United States was on a divine mission, the course of which could not be altered even if it meant the forcible appropriation of another nation’s land. The zeal with which America pursued the accession of the Southwest demonstrated what some students of the period have dubbed exceptionalism—that feeling that the United States was uniquely positioned to elevate humanity to the next stage of development. What had previously been scorned as vulgar imperialism when undertaken

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by other nations was somehow different when effected by the United States. Washington’s energies were driven, leaders would argue, not by greed or animus but by a noble desire to disseminate benevolent American institutions. There was no better evidence of this thinking than the war of conquest in the American Southwest. Although an unintended consequence of U.S. determination to follow the hand of providence to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, alleged Mexican intransigence opened the door for an awesome and glorious means to the expansionist end. Supplanting the tedious prodding of American settlers along the Oregon Trail, armed conflict offered the expansionist movement intangibles like heroism, patriotism, and the chance to showcase America’s military prowess. Communities from across the nation dispatched their young heroes to the battlefields under the banner of God, country, and retribution for the alleged shedding of the blood of their brothers at the Rio Grande. The war made Manifest Destiny, previously the preserve of editors and pioneers, real to the entire population. American soldiers would return having experienced more than war and victory: a wide and exotic world where people spoke, ate, worshipped, and generally behaved differently. Never again would Americans be the insular and at times ingenuous citizens that they once were. The war would expand more than the territorial limits of the republic. It would expand America’s perspective and, as predicted, awaken the nationalist pride of a unified people. Volunteers from one end of the United States to the other stood together in crisis and in battle for the United States of America. It is small wonder that the July  festivities following the victorious end to the war in  seemed charged with excitement and promise. In Washington, the celebration of American Independence Day seemed to herald the opening of a new and prosperous era in the development of American civilization. As celebrants in the nation’s capital commemorated the date by laying the foundation stone for a monument to George Washington, they were captivated by the magnitude of their accomplishment. Before the day ended, Polk received news of the Mexican government’s ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Coinciding with word that the French had thrown off the yoke of monarchy and rekindled the spark of liberty in Europe with another revolution, the news of the treaty confirmed for the crowd that their republic had indeed inaugurated a new order: it had secured its manifest destiny to extend liberty across the continent and simultaneously proved the value, ability, and stamina of democracy. To many Americans, the war was a test of their democratic institutions. Not only had the test been passed, but the reputation of republicanism had been elevated even in the eyes of Europeans, who considered no better gauge to success than a victorious war. Even the Whig Party leaders in Congress, skeptical of any expansion beyond the limited addition of Pacific harbors, hoisted their own valiant generals in celebration. The Mexican War provided a proving ground where the U.S. Army could demonstrate its capabilities and where national reputations could be shaped. In fact, the war produced seasoned leaders for the American Civil War, among them future Confederate commander Robert E. Lee and his Union counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant. The conflict with Mexico also produced, to the chagrin of Democrat James K. Polk, the next two Whig presidential candidates. President Polk provoked the war by dispatching American forces to the Rio Grande under the command of Whig general

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Zachary Taylor. Winning immediate affection at home by suffering the first casualties of the war—on American soil, according to Polk—Taylor quickly led his outmanned troops into Mexico. The general shortly reported a series of victories at such soon-to-be-immortalized places as Monterrey and Buena Vista. In the process he ensured for himself an esteemed reputation throughout the country, from which he could later transpose military campaigns into a successful political campaign for the White House. In tandem with Taylor’s successes was a brilliant move by another Whig general, Winfield Scott. Demonstrating sagacity and daring, Scott used the first landing craft in U.S. military history to deploy an amphibious operation at Vera Cruz. From there, in defiance of the opinions of the best European military strategists, he marched an army overland to Mexico City to press the Mexican government to come to terms. Even the duke of Wellington, Britain’s famed conqueror of Napoleon, was impressed. The Mexican War added to the U.S. military’s thin résumé an impressive list of firsts, not the least of which was the successful landing at Vera Cruz. The war experience transformed internal military communications, as the army became increasingly dependent on the electric telegraph and effected external reporting with the introduction of war correspondents, to ensure that the folks back home were appropriately informed of the heroics of their native sons and the advance of the troops. Field hospitals in future conflicts would be far more humane thanks to the army’s adoption of ether for anesthesia. Among the other novel experiences credited to the Mexican War were the military occupation of an enemy’s capital, the institution of martial law on foreign soil, and the U.S. army’s first successful offensive war. These firsts combined with the success of a volunteer army deployed by a true (some would say the true) republic against a professional army fielded by a dictatorship to impress Europeans. The military performance won new respect for the United States and the “Napoleon of the backwoods,” as the British press dubbed Polk, among the community of nations. The successful prosecution of the war had a tremendous impact on U.S. security and international status. Victory in the war with Mexico established the ability of a republic to engage in foreign war without jeopardizing its democratic values, mobilizing both its people and its resources. Although the war did not elevate the United States to great power status in the European sense, it did draw the nation considerably closer to that rank and made it the undisputed bully of the Western Hemisphere. Even Britain would concede America’s preeminence in the hemisphere, two years after the war, in the Clayton-Bulwer agreement that compromised British influence in Central America. After the Mexican War, the great powers would not again seriously challenge the United States by force in the Western Hemisphere. When Spain helped to usher the United States across the divide to major power status in the Spanish-American War at the end of the th century, it did so not by choice but because Washington’s assertion of U.S. interests in the Caribbean left them no alternative. Polk’s revival and expansion of the Monroe Doctrine, which had decreed the hemisphere off-limits to European imperialists, left little doubt that the United States had adopted a sort of paternal obligation to the Americas. Unlike earlier intrusions, such as Britain’s appropriation of the Falkland Islands and French bombardment of Mexico in the s, Europeans moved more gingerly in America’s neighborhood after Polk’s Mexican adventure. The United States, now a continental power, could justifiably claim leadership as the world’s most successful and powerful republic, and it could

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press its economic interests in the Western Hemisphere and perhaps even consider an isthmian canal. Although a small affair when measured against the yardstick of similar wars of conquest, to the patriotic zealots in the United States, “Mr. Polk’s War” was the most laudable event since Jackson’s defeat of the British at New Orleans in . At a cost of just over $ million, including both military expenditures and the treaty award to Mexico, and a loss of about , American lives, the United States had acquired over , square miles of territory, including the Rio Grande boundary for Texas and all contiguous land from the river to the Pacific. And if the cost was not adequately balanced by the acquisition of millions of acres, the soon-acknowledged wealth of upper California went far to pacify even the most frugal citizen. In the four years following the war, the value of gold extracted from that newly annexed territory more than doubled the fiscal expense of the war. Augmenting the natural wealth of the territory, the addition of San Francisco and San Diego to the harbors of Puget Sound in the Oregon territory gave the United States control of virtually the entire Pacific coast of North America, allowing Washington to cast more than an avaricious eye on Asia. It could now work to advance America’s influence on Pacific commerce. With the capture of the Pacific coast through diplomacy in Oregon and war in the Southwest, Asia had been drawn closer to the United States than ever before. There was little doubt that Americans would pursue its exploitation in their typically dogged fashion. Within a decade, Washington had negotiated treaties in the Far East, and American ships carried approximately one-third of China’s trade with the Western world. In purely military terms, the administration’s efforts had been a resounding success that established a number of important precedents. By developing limited war aims and holding to them against pressure from some to annex all Mexico, Polk managed to secure peace without the necessity of maintaining a postwar occupation force and firmly established an executive prerogative to wage war on foreign soil. Subsequent presidents and diplomats such as Theodore Roosevelt would find Polk’s example of bold executive leadership in foreign policy an appropriate model for a much different America of the th century. Beneath the euphoric surface, however, the war had exposed dangerous fault lines that would ultimately rearrange the political landscape and fracture the republic. When the war started, the opposition Whig Party found it expedient to straddle a fine line between criticism of the war and patriotic support for the troops. The vote on the war resolution—– in the House of Representatives and – in the Senate—thus deceptively conveyed overwhelming support for the war. Arguing that the conflict was a fait accompli presented to Congress rather than a declaration requested of Congress, the Whigs focused their attack on the method more than the conduct of the war. They feared that an executive war jeopardized the federal government’s balance of power. In their attack, Whigs found that they had paradoxically switched constitutional postures with the Democrats. In previous partisan squabbles over such issues as the tariff, bank projects, and internal improvements, the Whigs had broadly interpreted the Constitution to gain latitude in pressing their agenda. But in the case of the war, they reversed themselves. Contending that the president had circumvented the letter of the Constitution, they aimed to rein in the executive, which was not strictly empowered to pursue a war of conquest bent on the acquisition of territory. John Quincy Adams,

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elder statesman from Massachusetts and author of early American expansion, found it impossible to support this executive usurpation of power. Adams cautioned that Polk had “established as an irreversible precedent that the President of the U.S. has but to declare that War exists with any Nation upon Earth and the War is essentially declared.” He asserted that it was simple “to foresee what the ultimate issue will be to the people of Mexico, but what it will be to the People of the United States is beyond my foresight, and I turn my eyes away from it.” What Adams could not know was that the unseen specter for both Mexico and the United States would be the most ominous legacy of the Mexican War: fragmentation and civil war. Suffering tremendously in a war on its own soil, Mexico lost , lives and forfeited more than half of its national territory—arguably the most valuable half. In addition, Mexico forfeited everything from food to livestock and any part of its artistic culture not nailed down. There was little hesitation in ravaging Mexico since there was near consensus in the United States that Mexicans, like Native Americans, were an inferior people who should be brushed aside. According to prominent American journalists, the Mexican people were incapable of self-government and required Washington’s supervision. An egocentric question arose concerning the likelihood that the native population of Mexico could be regenerated. In early , John C. Calhoun volunteered that the United States had “never dreamt of incorporating into [the] Union any but the Caucasian race—free white race.” Attitudes reflected in such remarks relegated the Spanish-speaking Californios, Tejanos, and Nuevo Mexicanos to a heritage of racism at the hands of their new masters. Already straining at the tremendous influx of immigrants into the United States in the s, nativist sensitivities would not warmly extend citizenship to non-Anglo-Saxon Catholic peoples absorbed along with the territory. American politicos, some would argue, did not want Mexicans, only Mexico. This attitude presaged America’s later treatment of Latin Americans and Asians at the close of the century. The war doomed Mexico to approximately  years of political turmoil and civil war plagued by factional strife, authoritarian rule, and, ironically, the turn toward monarchy as perhaps the most feasible solution to Mexican instability. While the United States heralded the end to European intrigue in North America, the war it waged on Mexico actually invited foreign intervention to cure the “sick man of America.” Also, not surprisingly, the war wrought a lasting legacy of bitterness among Mexicans toward the invader from the North. As Mexico receded to a national territory of , square miles, it found it was contained on the north by a United States that, at Mexico’s expense, had swelled to over  million square miles and on the south by Central America. It was more than the concession of valuable territory to the United States that fueled the resentment and ensured its perpetuity. The United States would perpetuate an arrogant tendency to intrude in the affairs of all countries from Mexico southward, reminding them of American superiority. To many Americans, the Mexicans should have considered themselves fortunate to retain any of their country after . When the war began, Polk had hoped for a short military exchange with a quick and favorable diplomatic settlement. He had wanted territory, not war, especially since Mexico’s professional army outnumbered that of the United States by five to one. In fact, he was sensitive about any commentary that presented the conflict as a “war of conquest.” It was, he argued, a war prosecuted to “conquer the peace.” But all efforts at securing peace through diplomacy failed, and the war dragged on. Polk did not seem

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to fathom that any Mexican government that relinquished California would itself be lost. As Mexico’s practical dilemma prolonged the war, many of Polk’s advisers, including his secretary of state, James Buchanan, and his treasury secretary, Robert J. Walker, began to press for an enlargement of U.S. goals to include the procurement of the entire nation of Mexico. Polk knew that such a change contained unknown consequences for both the war and American politics. A move to take all of Mexico might protract the conflict into a guerrilla war and agitate his political rivals. He was right. But despite his more conservative decision to withstand the pressure from the “all-Mexico” movement in favor of retaining his limited aims, political agitation materialized nevertheless. Polk’s decision angered many members of his own party, especially in New York and in the western states, where expansionism had become a second religion, and failed to assuage northern leaders. The all-Mexico talk, disgruntled party members contended, proved that the slaveholding South meant to capture more territory for plantation agriculture. Few seemed to realize that Mexican soil and climate were not amenable to the plantation system and that many southern leaders had already satisfied their territorial ambitions with Texas. The all-Mexico movement therefore contributed to the shake-up of the parties and their sectional realignment. Underneath the partisan banners of the s were sectional cracks that stood ready to widen into irreparable crevices at the proper time and with the proper issue. Northern politicians had been most apprehensive about the war because they assumed that new territory in the Southwest would invite the expansion of the South’s slave economy. Although there was adequate evidence that this would not be the case, antislavery Whigs would not run the risk. And considering the later reclamation of land in the Southwest through irrigation and the emergence of cotton as a staple, perhaps they were correct to be cautious. Their skepticism at the time prompted the introduction of the topic to the war debate. A freshman Democrat from Pennsylvania who favored expansion, David Wilmot, tried to dissociate slavery from the issue of territorial indemnity. Shortly after the war began, Wilmot attached an addendum to an appropriation request from Polk for $ million to purchase peace (and California) from Mexico. His so-called Wilmot Proviso amounted to a disclaimer that slavery would be barred from any territory ceded by Mexico to the United States as a result of the conflict. Wilmot unwittingly rerang the “firebell,” signaling the awakening of the dormant and potentially disastrous debate over slavery. His -minute presentation had won for him instant notoriety and a prominent place in the most onerous legacy of the Mexican War. The motion exposed the frailty of party cohesion among both Democrats and Whigs. For years, the Democratic party had exhibited surprising homogeneity, but the issues resulting from the war proved that it had been little more than an illusion. Northern Democrats were disenchanted with the Polk administration, believing that he was driven by his southern cousins to pacify their promotion of their economic system. Democrats as well as some Whigs saw Wilmot’s proposal as the perfect opportunity to express their discontent and oppose slavery without being classified among the zealot abolitionists. In fact, some had determined that support for the maintenance of Mexican territorial spoils as “free soil” could work to preserve the West for white farmers and restrict blacks to the South. Although Wilmot’s suggestion could never garner enough support to pass both houses, it opened the way for political realignment on the basis of section over party.

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When a New York congressman revived the notion, it exposed the fracture in the Democratic Party, as Martin Van Buren’s “Barnburners” moved to join with antislavery forces of the North, while southern Democrats tagged Wilmot and his associates as traitors. Whigs too broke by section. Mostly northern “Conscience Whigs” heralded the proviso as if sent down from heaven; southern or “Cotton Whigs” condemned Wilmot and their northern Whig associates as troublemakers. Democrats and Whigs both crossed lines and began to vote with one another as sectional division prevailed over party unity. Thus, members of both parties in the South condemned the proposal, although not for the same reasons and not out of a particular zeal for conquest. The Whigs in the South still preferred expansion by proxy on the orthodox Jeffersonian model, whereby independent republics would spring up in emulation of the United States. Democrats in the South, like John C. Calhoun, had their appetite satisfied with Texas and had no desire to add Mexican land, especially if Mexicans came with it. Southern Democrats were already on poor terms with many of their western associates, who felt betrayed by Calhoun and company for their compromise on the Oregon Territory that led to its partition with Britain in . This, the western Democrats believed, was a breach of an alleged  campaign promise that combined the goals of Texas and Oregon. Astute politicians recognized the danger and worked to find a solution. After Calhoun argued that Wilmot’s proposal was a violation of property rights under the Constitution, Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton warned that the Calhoun/southern position and the Wilmot Proviso were two blades that together could shear the bonds of the Union. Polk’s first reaction was denial, contending that slavery was a domestic issue that had no business in foreign affairs and that it had merely been injected into the war debate to undercut him and his party. When he faced the seriousness of the problem, his attempt at a solution was to extend the Missouri Compromise line, which had resulted from the last debate over slavery and territory a quarter century before, across the new territories to the Pacific. Michigan senator Lewis Cass introduced a concept that would be one of the mainstays of compromise in the volatile s: squatter’s or popular sovereignty. This notion, primarily subterfuge, would have left the question to the people who settled the territories. In the  presidential campaign, both parties, appreciating its disruptive nature, tried to set the slavery issue aside. The Democrats chose Cass, who hoped to remain silent on the subject. The Whigs, to Polk’s dismay, chose General Zachary Taylor, a slaveholder who would run on his battlefield laurels and sidestep the controversy. But this was wishful thinking. There was no avoiding the matter. Antislavery Whigs and rebellious northern Democrats joined with Van Burenites to put forward former president Martin Van Buren as the candidate of the Free Soil Party in . By splitting the Democratic vote in New York, the freesoilers ensured the Whig victory. More important, they spelled the beginning of the end of political stability. The sections were going their separate ways. The shears were at work. National parties that had forged national institutions based on common interests and beliefs that overcame sectional bias were breaking apart. The issues created by the war had produced the ingredients of a new party, one that was almost entirely sectional, the party of Abraham Lincoln. The generation of the Mexican War would witness Republican victories that so alienated the South and stratified the nation as to make the dissolution of the Union nearly certain. The Mexican War had laid bare the incompatibility of an expansionist policy

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proclaiming the goal of liberty while insisting on the progress of slavery. The bitter contest over the Wilmot Proviso foreshadowed the tragic course that the nation had unwittingly plotted toward hardening sectional lines and ultimate disintegration. In the years immediately following the war, the prospect of dissolution of the Union was unthinkable. The “Young America” movement seemed capable of tapping the nationalist enthusiasm generated by the war and preserving unity. In fact, apart from the wrangling of politicians over the extension of slavery, most Americans rejoiced in the victory over Mexico. It ushered in several years of prosperity, satisfied the fetish common to Americans that there should always be land to own, and brought under the Stars and Stripes several future and resource-rich states. The final chapter in U.S. expansion was not written in . Blocked by popular sovereignty in the West, southerners in the s co-opted Manifest Destiny and refocused it southward toward the Caribbean and Central America. The Mexican War may have satisfied some expansionist appetites, but the de facto restriction of slavery to many meant the restriction of their political power. The only hope was to reach out to the South. Over the years following the Mexican War, southern newspapers and secret societies applauded private attempts by military adventurers known as filibusters to forcibly capture the tropical states for America. One southern congressman self-servingly offered that the inhabitants of Central America awaited “our coming, and with joyous shouts of ‘Welcome! Welcome!’ will they receive us.” By the end of the th century, the expansionist quest would go global with a new Manifest Destiny that relied on many of the old attitudes but would not be hindered by geographic contiguity. Over the decades since the Guadalupe Hidalgo treaty, the war has rarely been exalted by the American public as one of the highlights of its history. The war’s omission from such a list seems curious considering its many ramifications for American civilization. The American Revolution, the Constitutional Convention, the Louisiana Purchase, even the War of  customarily arouse more familiarity with the general reader. This is partly due to the Mexican conflict’s proximity to the Civil War, which tends to obscure all other topics in its vicinity. But this is only part of the explanation. Although the topic of a plethora of books and articles, the Mexican War fell out of favor because of a certain sense of guilt. Despite the salving of conscience at the time with the acceptance of Polk’s rather lame argument that they started it, an uncomfortable feeling emerged that the United States had engaged in an old-fashioned war of conquest—a feeling that did not seem compatible with the principles of the republic. This judgment, however, is perhaps too harsh. Assessed within the confines of America’s idealist opinion of its model republic, the war earns ignominy. Evaluated within the reality of the th-century world, however, Polk’s accomplishments, despite the dreadful residue, set the United States on track to become first a continental, then a hemispheric, and ultimately a global power. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bauer, K. Jack. The Mexican War, –. New York: Macmillan, . Devoted to an examination of the military operations and occupation of Mexico that draws heavily from military sources.

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Bergeron, Paul H. The Presidency of James K. Polk. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, . Contains a useful chapter on Polk’s handling of the Mexican War. Bill, Alfred H. Rehearsal for Conflict: The War with Mexico, –. New York: Knopf, . Stresses the military and assesses the performance of future Civil War officers seasoned in the Mexican War. Brack, Gene M. Mexico Views Manifest Destiny, –: An Essay on the Origins of the Mexican War. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, . Examines Mexican attitudes toward U.S. expansionism in the period before the war. Collins, John R. “The Mexican War: A Study in Fragmentation.” Journal of the West , no.  (): –. Discusses the partisan and sectional schisms that developed during the war. Connor, Seymour V. “Attitude and Opinions about the Mexican War, –.” Journal of the West , no.  (): –. A short but very helpful attempt to quantify  works concerning the war according to their perspective and bias. Connor, Seymour V., and Odie B. Faulk. North America Divided: The Mexican War, –. New York: Oxford University Press, . A concise volume that examines the causes of the war and provides a comprehensive annotated bibliography arranged by topic. DeVoto, Bernard. The Year of Decision . Boston: Little, Brown, . Focuses on the extension of American civilization and addresses both the acquisition of Oregon and the siege of Mexico City. Eisenhower, John S. D. So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, –. New York: Random House, . A very readable work that chronicles the war by military campaign from the annexation of Texas to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Garrett, Jenkins, and Katherine R. Goodwin, eds. The Mexican-American War of –: A Bibliography of the Holdings of the Libraries of the University of Texas at Arlington. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, . An extensive annotated bibliography that is indispensable for research on the war from almost any conceivable angle. Goffin, Aivin M. “Nationalism and Mexican Interpretation of the War of the North American Invasion, –.” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism , nos. – (): –. Suggests that the war was seen in Mexico as an imperialist move by the United States that encouraged an evolving Mexican nationalism. Graebner, Norman A. “How Wars Begin: The Mexican War.” In Proceedings of the Citadel Conference on War and Diplomacy. Edited by David H. White and John W. Gordon. Charleston, SC: Citadel Development Foundation, , pp. –. Surveys the various interpretations of the causes of the war. Graebner, Norman A. “Lessons of the Mexican War.” Pacific Historical Review , no.  (): –. An insightful article that examines President James K. Polk’s struggle to balance the opposition to the war, territorial indemnity, and the all-Mexico proponents. Hale, Charles A. “The War with the United States and the Crisis in Mexican Thought.” Americas , no.  (): –. Discusses the dilemma faced by Mexican liberals who, having lauded U.S. institutions before the war, found themselves struggling for reconciliation once the war began. Harstad, Peter T., and Richard W. Resh. “The Causes of the Mexican War: A Note on Changing Interpretations.” Arizona and the West , no.  (): –. A concise article that traces the varying interpretations on the causes of the conflict; especially useful for the historiography of the war. Johannsen, Robert W. “America’s Forgotten War.” Wilson Quarterly , no.  (): –. An enlightening article that continues Johannsen’s efforts to provide a balanced view of the United States and the war.

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———. To the Halls of Montezuma: The Mexican War in the American Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, . An artfully written volume that does not deal with the war directly but analyzes the factors that shaped Americans’ attitudes toward the war and the effects of the war on American society. Lambert, Paul F. “The Movement for the Acquisition of All Mexico.” Journal of the West , no.  (): –. Suggests that the scope of manifest destiny grew to include all Mexico in spite of the strife over slavery and the disdainful view Americans generally had of the Mexican people. Lander, E. M. Jr. Reluctant Imperialists: Calhoun, the South Carolinians, and the Mexican War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . Examines the southern position on the war and substantiates that the so-called slaveocracy of the South was not behind the war. Merk, Frederick. “Dissent in the Mexican War.” In Dissent in Three American Wars. Edited by Samuel Eliot Morison, Frederick Merk, and Frank Freidel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, , pp. –. An interesting and useful survey of American opinion as reflected in the antiwar press. Merk, Frederick, with Lois Banister Merk. Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation. New York: Knopf, . Argues that American expansionism drew on two themes: an oppressive and manifest destiny that runs contrary to American principles, and a mission that depicts the American idealism. Morrison, Michael A. “New Territory versus No Territory: The Whig Party and the Politics of Western Expansion, –.” Western Historical Quarterly , no.  (): –. Offers a useful examination of Whig attitudes toward the war: party members feared that the acquisition of any territory would resurrect the slavery issue, sectionalize the party, and fracture the Union. Pletcher, David M. The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, . An exhaustive treatment of U.S. expansion in midcentury that is a mainstay for understanding the broad context of American territorial acquisition and the complex issues that were involved. Robinson, Cecil, ed. The View from Chapultepec: Mexican Writers on the Mexican-American War. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, . Attempts to illustrate the impact of the war on Mexican attitudes toward the United States by exhibiting the works of a variety of Mexican writers from different times and perspectives. Schroeder, John H. Mr. Polk’s War: American Opposition and Dissent, –. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, . A concise volume that is essential for an understanding of the opposition to the war in the United States. Silbey, Joel H. “The Consequences of Manifest Destiny, –.” In The Mexican War Crisis for American Democracy. Edited by Archie McDonald, –. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, . Analyzes congressional voting behavior and argues that the sectional division that would lead to secession after another decade had not solidified in the late s. Singletary, Otis A. The Mexican War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . Stresses partisan politics and the difficulties created by interservice rivalry in the war. Smith, Justin H. The War with Mexico.  vols. New York: Macmillan, . An exhaustive treatment of the war that is extremely favorable to the United States. Tutorow, Norman. The Mexican-American War: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, . A useful and extensive annotated bibliography of the war. Weems, John Edward. To Conquer a Peace: The War between the United States and Mexico. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, . A thorough treatment of the Polk administration’s prosecution of the war, which chronicles the numerous considerations that occupied the president and prolonged the war.

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BATTLE OF BUENA VISTA (1847) The Battle of Buena Vista (“good view”) was an important turning point in the MexicanAmerican War. Known to the Mexicans as La Angostura (“the narrows”), the battle was fought on February , , between Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna’s Army of the North and Gen. Zachary Taylor’s Army of Occupation. The last battle in northern Mexico, it resulted in a demoralizing and costly loss for the Mexican Army, which had been on the verge of victory all day. The armistice signed between Taylor and Gen. Pedro de Ampudia following Taylor’s hard-fought victory at Monterrey in September  forbade any deep U.S. penetration to the south for eight weeks. However, on November , by order of President James K. Polk, Taylor notified Santa Anna that the armistice was terminated, and the army occupied Victoria on January , . A second front was opened under the command of Gen. Winfield Scott at the port city of Veracruz. Arriving in January, Scott took most of Taylor’s regular regiments to be the core of his invasion force. Taylor advanced his remaining force to Agua Nueva, south of Saltillo. When Santa Anna learned of Scott’s plans to remove men from Taylor’s army and attack Veracruz, he hurried to start his poorly fed and ill-supplied army toward Saltillo to overwhelm Taylor. After losing nearly , men on the march, by February , Santa Anna’s forces had gathered at La Encarnación, south of the U.S. encampment at Agua Nueva. Reconnaissance gave Taylor the location and strength of the Mexican force. After consulting with Gen. John E. Wool, Taylor pulled back from Agua Nueva to a better defensive position south of hacienda Buena Vista: La Angostura, a narrow opening in the rugged hills through which the road to Agua Nueva passed. At about : a.m. on the morning of February , Santa Anna demanded surrender, but Taylor flatly rejected the offer. Using the rough terrain as a screen, Santa Anna deployed his men slowly and crept close enough to skirmish with the U.S. left. At dawn on the rd, the U.S. troops discovered that the Mexicans had positioned a battery on a higher slope that could enfilade their line. Santa Anna rode along the lines on horseback, and the assault soon began. The U.S. line’s left flank was pushed into the center, and Santa Anna’s men began to surround them. However, a few divisions of the U.S. Army pushed back and the fighting soon devolved into hand-to-hand combat. When Taylor’s artillery joined the fray, the Mexican soldiers retreated to Agua Nueva. Fortunately for the U.S. Army, the Mexican attack had been a series of separate, poorly coordinated advances. Taylor’s men withdrew to Monterrey and remained there as an occupational force for the rest of the war.

mark crawford JAMES K. POLK (1795–1849) James Knox Polk was one of the most effective chief executives in American history. In his single term in office, he accomplished all of his major objectives. During his administration, more than a million square miles of new territory were added to the United States. But this also revived the slavery controversy in a major and divisive way that

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polarized the country and led to a civil war a dozen years later—a consequence, in part, of the achievements of Polk’s administration. Born on November , , in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, the frequently sick and frail Polk was strong-willed enough to survive a gallstone operation without the benefit of anesthesia at age . Deeply religious, his teacher noted that “his moral conduct was . . . exemplary . . . he never missed a recitation nor omitted the punctilious performance of any duty.” After graduating from the University of North Carolina in , Polk moved to Tennessee and was admitted to the bar. A successful attorney, he developed a close personal friendship with Andrew Jackson. On January , , Polk married Sarah Childress, the daughter of a prosperous local farmer. Later that same year, after serving two terms in the Tennessee legislature, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Jacksonian Democrat. Physically slender and of medium height, the somber, secretive, thin-lipped Polk quickly earned a reputation as an industrious Democrat. Polk said he worked so hard that “he had but little opportunity to read newspapers.” He described himself as “the hardest-working man in this country.” He expected, and obtained, no less industrious behavior from his subordinates. As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee in , he supported Jackson’s opposition to the rechartering of the Bank of the United States. In , he became speaker of the House. His close identification with Jackson made him an easy target for Southern radicals angry over the president’s stands on tariff legislation and nullification. Although challenged to duels on several occasions during heated House debates, Polk refused to be provoked. In , at the request of the Tennessee Democratic Party, Polk left Washington, D.C., to run a successful campaign for governor. He was not reelected in , however, and was again defeated in . In the following year Polk emerged as a candidate for national office once again. Although Martin Van Buren appeared to be the logical choice for the Democratic presidential nomination in , the convention chose “dark horse” Polk after Jackson persuaded party leaders that Polk’s strong support for the annexation of Texas and Oregon would enable him to defeat Henry Clay. Just as Jackson predicted, Clay refused to take a stand on the annexation of new territory during the campaign, while Polk did not equivocate. Following the advice of Jackson, Polk had made the acquisition of “all of Oregon, and all of Texas” the cornerstone of his campaign. Such decisiveness impressed voters, and Polk won the close race with  electoral votes to Clay’s . The virtually unknown Polk was to become the only “strong” president between Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. Shortly after his inauguration in , Polk told Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft that he had four things he wanted to accomplish as president: “one, a reduction of the tariff ; another, the independent treasury; a third, the settlement of the Oregon boundary question; and, lastly, the acquisition of California.” He achieved all of his objectives during his four years in office. First, disregarding his campaign pledge, Polk informed Great Britain of his willingness to settle the Oregon boundary dispute at the th parallel. (The Oregon territory had been jointly occupied by the two countries as a result of their inability to resolve their separate claims to the area.) The British countered by insisting on the Columbia River for the boundary line, but Polk refused to budge. War seemed likely. At the same time, without waiting to settle the issue with England, Polk ordered Gen. Zachary

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Taylor to take American troops into the disputed Rio Grande region of Texas. War had already begun between Mexico and the United States when Polk received news of Great Britain’s acceptance of the th parallel. Able to focus all its power in one region, the United States soon overwhelmed Mexico during –. Under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of , Mexico recognized the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas and surrendered control of New Mexico and California to the United States in return for $ million. Polk had already secured passage in  of the Independent Treasury Act, which provided the secretary of the treasury with legal guidelines, and the Walker tariff, which greatly reduced tariff duties. Thus, he had accomplished all four of his goals by the end of his term. In his last annual message to Congress in , Polk announced that gold had been discovered in California, attacked Clay’s American System, and advised that the issue of slavery should not be allowed to hinder the settlement and development of the newly acquired territory. Exhausted and prematurely aged due to his overwork and poor health, Polk decided not to run for reelection in . He died on June , , only a few months after retiring from office.

steven g. o’brien WINFIELD SCOTT (1786–1866) Known as “Old Fuss and Feathers” for his meticulous dress and behavior, Winfield Scott was the founder of America’s professional army. He led the United States through the triumphant Mexican-American War of – and influenced a remarkable generation of military men who would command both sides of the fighting in the Civil War. In , as sectional tension threatened to rip the country apart, the Whig Party nominated Scott as its presidential candidate. His unsuccessful candidacy marked the last time that the Whig Party would field a presidential candidate before its decline shortly thereafter. Scott was born on June , , near Petersburg, Virginia. He briefly attended William and Mary College and studied law before joining the army in . He was tried and suspended from active duty in  for a year for questioning the competence of his commanding officer. Scott used the year to read everything he could about military tactics and returned to his command in . Scott was so frustrated by the incompetence he found in the army that he would have resigned in disgust if he had not been so eager to participate in the War of . As soon as the fighting began, he traveled to New York and gallantly tried to whip recalcitrant American militia troops into combat-ready soldiers. Wounded and briefly captured in the fighting around the Great Lakes, Scott behaved so impressively in battle that he was promoted, though only , to brigadier general in . He used the authority provided by his new rank to train, and then command in several battles, the U.S. Army’s best fighting force. Severely wounded at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane on July , , Scott became a national hero. After the war, Scott used the free time provided by peace to study abroad and write about military tactics. He implemented several administrative reforms for the army that increased efficiency. He eradicated harsh punishments and worked to improve the lot of

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common soldiers, earning the loyalty and respect of his men. He encouraged a sense of professionalism among the officers, proclaiming that they should not only understand soldiering but also the finer aspects of art, culture, and learning as well. He gave strong support for the training supplied by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, although he was not a graduate of the institution himself. He also indulged his passions for fine food and elegant uniforms. On March , , he married Maria D. Mayo from Richmond, Virginia. The couple subsequently had seven children, although Scott would outlive all but three of them. On three occasions, Scott served presidents with distinction during the Jacksonian era. First, when South Carolina threatened to secede over the tariff controversy in , President Andrew Jackson sent Scott to Charleston as a show of force. Scott proved to be diplomatic with the enraged Carolinians and played a crucial role in resolving the crisis. Second, in , Jackson ordered Scott to pacify the Creek and Seminole Indians in Florida. Scott failed due to a lack of sufficient supplies and men and was questioned by a board of inquiry, which ultimately exonerated him of any wrongdoing and praised him for his “energy, steadiness and ability.” Third, ordered by President Martin Van Buren to engage British troops along the Maine–Canada border in the late s, Scott won international recognition for his successful diplomatic handling of the emergency, which averted a war and led to a final settlement of the long-term boundary dispute in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of . In light of Scott’s involvement with national affairs, he became increasingly considered for political office. As general in chief of the army at the outbreak of war with Mexico, Scott devised a plan for winning the war, but President James K. Polk did not want to allow the possibility of any more glory accruing to a potential political rival. Finally, once it became clear that a quick victory was not going to be attained and under pressure from Secretary of War William Marcy and others, Polk relented and allowed Scott to implement his plan for a bold thrust directly at the heart of Mexico. The plan called for an amphibious assault on Veracruz and a march inland along the same route Cortés had used to attack the Aztecs in Mexico City. After overcoming tremendous logistical problems and defeating numerically superior Mexican armies in his path, Scott managed to occupy Mexico City on September , , leading to the defeat of the Mexican Army. As soon as Mexico had been defeated, the Polk administration embarked on a campaign to discredit Scott’s remarkable accomplishments in central Mexico. He was relieved of command and summoned to Washington, D.C., to appear before a court of inquiry. He was cleared of all charges. A bill to promote him from general in chief of the army to lieutenant general was submitted, but because of Democratic political opposition, it was not passed until . Although his name was mentioned several times as a possible Whig Party candidate for president, it was not until , when the party was disintegrating over the slavery issue, that Scott received the nomination. The Whigs hoped his military glory could carry him to the White House over the sectionalism tearing the party and nation apart. Although this strategy had worked earlier with the selection of Mexican-American War hero Gen. Zachary Taylor, this time the Whig Party miscalculated. Scott, brilliant as a general, was a poor political campaigner. He was soundly defeated by Democrat Franklin Pierce by a vote of ,, to ,, popular votes. Pierce secured  electoral votes to Scott’s .

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After his election defeat, Scott remained as head of the army. By , he plainly saw that war between the North and South was imminent and urged his superiors in Washington, D.C., to reinforce defensive positions in the South against possible capture by the Southerners. Although he himself was from Virginia, he resisted the many offers to join the Confederacy and remained a supporter of the Union. He personally supervised the defense of Washington, D.C., during the opening days of the conflict, provided Lincoln with a bodyguard for his inauguration, and began mobilizing the massive Union war effort. When the Civil War began, he developed sound plans for the Union, including the blockade of Southern ports that was eventually taken up as part of the strategy. Because of Scott’s advanced age, many politicians and military men concluded that he was not fit to lead the military in war. He objected to Gen. George B. McClellan’s appointment at the head of the Army of the Potomac but worked diligently to assist the younger man in his duties once the appointment had been made. On October , , citing his age and infirmities, Scott requested permission from President Abraham Lincoln to retire. The following day, Lincoln and his entire cabinet went to Scott’s house to accept his resignation and pay tribute to the old general. After his retirement, Scott traveled to Europe but returned after the Trent affair in case his counsel was sought. He died on May , .

steven g. o’brien ZACHARY TAYLOR (1784–1850) Although he served less than  months as president, popular career soldier and national hero Zachary “Old Rough and Ready” Taylor played an important part in the events that led up to the Compromise of . Born on November , , in Orange County, Virginia, Taylor grew up on a farm near Louisville, Kentucky, a member of a large, distinguished Virginia family. In , he joined the army and was commissioned a first lieutenant of infantry. Four years later as a captain, Taylor so ably defended Fort Harrison in Indiana that he was promoted as the first brevet major in the U.S. Army. In , after again performing with distinction at the Battle of Credit Island in Illinois, Taylor was promoted to full major. Promoted to colonel in , Taylor fought that year in the Black Hawk War against the Sac and the Fox Indians and earned his nickname “Old Rough and Ready” fighting the Seminole Indians in Florida from  to . The name was bestowed by his men after his courageous, determined, and improvised tactical skill resulted in a rare victory against the Seminole at the Battle of Okeechobee. “He looked like a man born to command,” a fellow officer had written in . Yet, in traditional military terms, his appearance and behavior were odd. A short man with a large head, Taylor’s usual attire, whether in battle or not, consisted of baggy pants, a plain coat bearing no insignia, and a farmer’s wide-brimmed straw hat. He reviewed his troops or observed a battle’s progress seated sideways on his horse with one leg crossed over the saddle. The Mexican-American War enabled Taylor to win his greatest glory. In , President James K. Polk ordered Taylor to lead a small American army of , men to the Rio Grande. Texas, which had just been annexed, claimed the Rio Grande as its southern border. Mexico claimed that the border was actually much farther north at the Nueces

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River. Fighting broke out between the two armies near Matamoros in April . In the next two days, although confronting a Mexican force twice as large as his own, Taylor won two victories at the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. He was immediately embraced as a national hero and mentioned as a possible candidate for president. The apolitical Taylor, who had never voted, replied that the idea of running for president “seems . . . too visionary to require a serious answer.” During the summer of , Taylor was promoted to major general and led his volunteer army of , men in the fierce battle for Monterrey. Fearful that Taylor would become a rival candidate for president, Polk then decided to transfer most of Taylor’s regular army troops to Gen. Winfield Scott’s invasion of Mexico. Infuriated, Taylor led , of his men deeper into Mexico instead of withdrawing into a defensive position. Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna’s decision to attack at Buena Vista with four times as many men on February , , provided Taylor with his most spectacular victory. The Mexicans lost twice as many men as the Americans and retreated the next day. Buena Vista, more than any other event in his career, made Taylor president. After being nominated by the Whig Party in , Taylor shrewdly promised that if elected, he “would not be the mere president of a party . . . [but] endeavor to act independent of party domination and should feel bound to administer the Government untrammeled by party schemes.” With the Democratic Party divided over the slavery issue and the appearance of the Free Soil Party, Taylor was elected. President Taylor assumed office at a time of national crisis. The central issue of his administration concerned whether slavery was going to be allowed into the new territory acquired from the Mexican-American War. Southerners wanted the Mason-Dixon line extended to California. Northerners wanted slavery contained. Armed conflict had broken out between antislavery settlers and proslavery Texans over land claimed by both sides in the New Mexico territory. After assuming the presidency, Taylor, a slaveholder himself, made it clear that he did not support the extension of slavery into the newly acquired territory. He met Southern threats of secession with the promise that if any state tried to leave the Union, he would personally lead the U.S. Army against it. With the nation on the verge of civil war, the great compromisers Senators Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas attempted to put together a series of bills—which became known as the Compromise of —that could settle the issue by giving both sides some of what each wanted. California would be admitted as a free state; the people in the territories would have the right through the ballot box to determine whether their state would be free or not; a strict fugitive slave law requiring Northerners to send all runaway slaves back to their owners would be implemented; and the slave trade would be abolished in Washington, D.C. Taylor wanted to end national debate on slavery permanently; he was sure it could be accomplished by halting the extension of slavery and guaranteeing the right of existing slave states to maintain the institution. He did not agree with Clay and Douglas’ compromise approach and promised to stymie their efforts through the use of his veto power. California would have to be admitted alone as a free state, and the South would have to accept that fact. With the president hostile to compromise, Congress became deadlocked, and armed rebellion seemed inevitable. Then Taylor attended the Fourth of July festivities at the unfinished Washington Monument. Exhausted from the heat, he drank large amounts of milk that had spoiled. Within hours he was gravely ill with

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gastroenteritis. He died five days later. Taylor’s tragic death on July , , enabled his successor, Millard Fillmore, to secure the passage of the Compromise of .

steven g. o’brien DOCUMENT: WILMOT PROVISO, 1846 Introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives by Democrat David Wilmot on August , , the Wilmot Proviso advocated a ban on slavery in all territory acquired by the United States as a result of the Mexican-American War. As the war was only a few months old, the proviso illustrated Northerners’ great concern about the potential of adding slave territory to the Union. Although the proviso passed in the House of Representatives, it failed in the Senate on August . Southerners were greatly offended by the Wilmot Proviso; they saw it as a sign that Northerners intended to destroy the institution of slavery or, at the very least, limit it severely. (Wilmot Proviso, amendment to H.R. , August , . Original House Bills (HR A-B), th Congress, Library of Congress Collection; Record Group , Records of the U.S. House of Representatives.) Provided, territory from That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted.

8 The Industrial Revolution, ca. 1860s–1890s

INTRODUCTION The Industrial Revolution in the United States, usually thought of as a phenomenon of the Gilded Age (–), had its origins in the early years of the th century with the development of textile mills in New England. By the s, farm machinery was being manufactured in considerable quantity, and railroads were beginning to replace canals as the country’s principal means of transportation. The census of  showed for the first time that the value of all industrial products was greater than that of agricultural products, although the figures were close and agricultural products regained their lead in the  census. By the s, the beginnings of the North’s Industrial Revolution were quite clear. Abundant natural resources, growing numbers of immigrants, an inventive people, and a flow of investment capital contributed to this transformation of the northern economy, a transformation accelerated by the demands of the Civil War. Still, in , most of the richest men in America were merchants, not industrialists, and the relative weakness of U.S. industry was shown at the beginning of the war by the urgent missions abroad to buy arms and woolen cloth for uniforms, paid for with the proceeds from agricultural exports. The factory system had become firmly established after the War of  with New England’s textile manufacturing. This, along with shoemaking, iron, and lumber, were the major industries, and by , factory employment had risen to over . million, not including construction workers, who, when added, drove the total industrial force to around  million workers. The first few miles of American railroad service began in ; by , there were , miles of track; by , , miles; and by , , miles. Chicago and St. Louis were connected by rail with the Atlantic coast by the s, and Chicago was the nation’s rail center by . The great majority of track mileage was in the North, although by , rail lines connected Memphis, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Charleston with the major cities of the North and, except for New Orleans, with each other. After the Civil War, the pace of industrialization rapidly picked up, fueled by the convergence of a number of important factors. Further discoveries of natural resources, particularly iron ore, coal, and oil, provided the raw materials needed in the factories. Technological advances, from Thomas Edison’s brilliant inventions to subtle changes in machine tools, greatly increased production. More and more immigrants arrived every

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Sprawling factories belching thick black smoke characterized the Industrial Revolution. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

year and provided a cheap labor supply, and more and more money, earned during the Civil War or drawn from real estate holdings, provided investment capital. Finally, aid from a friendly federal government in the form of protective tariffs, railroad subsidies, and an unwillingness to regulate industrial abuses did its part in helping pave the way for unparalleled industrial growth. The period was also marked by the emergence of several important new industries that had never existed before on a national scale. Among these was the petroleum industry, which developed quickly after the first producing oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania in . Oil was valuable first as an illuminant and lubricant; gasoline for automobiles was not a factor until the end of the century. John D. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company in  and led the way in the formation of large monopolistic businesses. Another important new industry was meat packing, which came about with the rise of beef cattle raising on the Great Plains and the growth of railroads in that region. In the s, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago became centers of the meat-packing industry, from where meat products could be safely shipped east in newly invented refrigerator cars. In some ways, the steel industry may have been the most important new industry of the age because of the many applications of steel, from railroad tracks to machine tools. This industry developed because of the development of both the open-hearth and Bessemer processes during the s, both of which greatly increased the supply and decreased the price of steel. The steel industry had an important impact on the railroad industry, perhaps its largest customer. Track mileage increased by a factor of six during the last third of the th century, from , miles to , miles, and the nation’s coasts were linked by

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the completion of several transcontinental routes. Other technological improvements played a large role in railroad expansion. The safety coupler allowed trains to be much longer and thus carry more goods. The air brake enabled trains to stop more quickly, and the Pullman sleeping car made passenger travel over long distances bearable by creating a hotel-like atmosphere for travelers. The federal government helped railroads through land grants, loans, and subsidies, and state and local governments, aware of the importance of rail routes for economic survival, plied railroad officials with stock purchases and various kinds of financial inducements, including outright bribes, to persuade them to route their lines through a particular state or locality. Accompanying the expansion of America’s industrial production was the growth of big business, the administrative arm of industry. Fundamental to all ambitious businessmen was the belief that combination and consolidation (and the consequent elimination of competition) were essential to success and the prosperity that came with success. Thus most American industrialists engaged in a ruthless struggle for existence, battling their competitors for dominance of their industry. Although this period has been called the era of trusts, a trust was only one of several different methods by which business combination and the reduction or elimination of competition could take place. These methods ranged from very simple, informal gentlemen’s agreements, wherein two businessmen would agree to share a market or divide a territory, to more formal arrangements called pools, in which a written, specific set of rules were made among a number of people in the same line of business to govern their production or market share. A trust was a still more sophisticated arrangement, whereby a number of corporations would agree to place control of their stock into the hands of a board of trustees (hence the name), which would make decisions for all the corporations as if they were one. Trusts often controlled a large proportion of trade in their field and could easily force smaller companies out of business (or into the trust) by undercutting their prices or harassing them in other ways. Toward the end of the century, some business managers moved in the direction of outright amalgamation or merger, wherein the total structures of two (or more) companies were combined into a single new company. Although business combinations brought many advantages to the successful business manager, they often brought higher prices and limited choices to the consumer. Yet the general public accepted business combinations, at least early in the Gilded Age, because of a preference for laissez-faire economics, which mandated no governmental interference into what were thought to be the natural laws of economics, and because of a sense that the rich and powerful were so because God had intended for them to be so, and that the reward of the poorer classes would come in heaven. Public acceptance of big business organization did not extend to labor organization. When labor activists, often with experience in the radical politics of their European homelands, tried to create labor unions in the years following the Civil War, they ran into great resistance from the public and politicians alike. As a consequence, most of the earliest labor unions tried to be secret organizations, a tactic that never worked very well. The most prominent of the early labor unions was the Knights of Labor, organized in  to combat the poor pay and working conditions that were the hallmarks of America’s Industrial Revolution. At the end of the s, for example, only  percent of industrial workers earned more than $ per year, then considered the poverty line, and the average day worker earned $. for up to  hours of work. Working

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conditions too were often atrocious. On the railroads, , workers were killed on the tracks and another , were killed in shops and roundhouses between  and . Similar casualty rates existed in the steel and coal industries, and few factories of any description paid much heed to worker safety issues. Workers tried to attract the attention of their employers about these issues through strikes, often accompanied by violence, and through unions such as the Knights of Labor. Although strikes seldom accomplished anything constructive, the union showed some promise, as when the Knights blossomed in the s under the leadership of Terence V. Powderly. With , members in , the Knights were potentially a significant political force, but the organization dissipated its energy on marginal political issues such as an income tax and then bore the brunt of the blame for the Haymarket Square “massacre,” in which a number of policemen were killed or injured by a bomb thrown while they attempted to break up a labor rally in . Seven anarchists, four of them members of the Knights, were convicted and given death penalties, and the incident was a virtual death penalty for the Knights, whose membership declined sharply after the affair. Far more successful was the American Federation of Labor (AFL), created in , which limited its membership to skilled workers (the Knights took in anybody) and focused its efforts on the much narrower goals of better pay and working conditions for its members. Strong leadership and disciplined members enabled the AFL to survive the depression years of the s with a steady core of , members and move into the th century as the most important labor union in the United States. By the s, farmers in the plains states and the rest of the Midwest began to express their discontent with what they perceived as unfair and discriminatory treatment at the hands of the railroads. For example, railroad companies usually controlled warehouses where farmers stored their crops and charged extremely high prices for the service, knowing that the farmers had no alternative. This unrest led to the formation of the Grange, a widespread political movement in the s that had some success in persuading state legislatures to adopt state regulatory laws against the railroads. Although the Supreme Court initially upheld the constitutionality of these laws, it reversed itself in the early s, leading to calls for a federal effort at railroad regulation. In the mid-s, the Cullom Committee, named for Senator Shelby Cullom, a Republican from Illinois, investigated the railroads and uncovered many malpractices. The Cullom Committee report resulted in the passage by Congress of the Interstate Commerce Act (), a landmark act that established the first great regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). Under the law, the ICC could require that railroad rates be “reasonable and just,” with no pooling, no rebates, and no discriminatory practices. But enforcement of the law was left up to the courts, and the understaffed commission found it difficult to prove its allegations. Farmers’ dissatisfaction with their treatment at the hands of the railroads continued, however, and helped lead to the creation in the early s of the Populist movement, a rural-based political movement that brought a number of reforms to national attention for the first time. Businesses apart from railroads began to come under criticism in the s, led by some well-known literary figures. Henry George wrote Progress and Poverty (), a best-seller that pointed out the great contrast between the rich and the poor, and advocated a “single tax” on land values, which George felt increased because of social

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evolution and not the efforts of the landowner. Although the single tax never came into being, the book raised the consciousness of many Americans about the way in which the Industrial Revolution was shaping society. Other books, such as Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, – (), which painted a utopian picture of a future America, and Henry D. Lloyd’s Wealth against Commonwealth (), which attacked monopolies, added to public concern. In , Congress responded by passing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which declared any business combination “in restraint of trade” to be a misdemeanor. Theoretically designed to outlaw trusts and other nefarious kinds of business combinations, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was ineffective during the s. Unlike the Interstate Commerce Act, no agency was created to investigate business malpractices, and the government was reluctant to bring cases to court. Indeed, the only times the act was enforced during the s were against labor unions, which on a number of occasions were declared to be combinations “in restraint of trade.” Despite the ineffectiveness of early reform measures such as the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the attention surrounding them kept the important issues in the public arena, and when the progressive movement matured after , during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, a suitable climate for constructive reform was at hand.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY julia a. woods Industrialization was more than building factories and railroads, although factories and railroads were the most visible signs of the changes that were occurring. Industrialization transformed the American economy, the landscape of both cities and countryside, and the lives of people everywhere. Industrialization transformed the functioning of the American economy. Building factories and railroads was expensive and risky. Entrepreneurs created enormous companies that dominated the industries. Andrew Carnegie consolidated the steel industry, John D. Rockefeller created a monopoly in oil production and distribution, and Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay Gould built railroads. Many of these entrepreneurs were not born to wealth. Andrew Carnegie, for example, rose from modest beginnings in Scotland and emigrated to the United States at the age of  in . He rose through the ranks of the Pennsylvania Railroad, invested shrewdly, and with his investment fortune built Carnegie Steel. He paid his workers low wages, prevented them from joining unions, and crushed the violent Homestead Strike in . In , Carnegie Steel produced more steel than all the steel companies in Great Britain. In , he sold Carnegie Steel to J. P. Morgan and devoted himself to philanthropy. Rapid industrial growth created problems. In the railroad industry, for example, competition led to disaster. Speculators like Jay Gould built tracks parallel to established lines to force competitors to buy the tracks or to drive them out of business. The railroad companies fought bitterly to control important routes, offering reduced rates to large shippers, while smaller companies paid inflated prices. Gould and others bought

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and sold railroads, stripped their assets, and watered, or inflated, railroad stock. People who had invested their savings in railroad stocks suffered enormous losses. After the panic of , many railroads, which had undertaken tremendous debts to expand their lines, were bankrupt. The banking industry, which stood to lose large sums of money in bad loans, stepped in. J. P. Morgan, in particular, showed how banks could control businesses by controlling money. He and other bankers refinanced many of the financially troubled railroads’ loans and, as a condition for not foreclosing, required that the railroads undertake sound financial and business practices. Soon the railroads were controlled by a handful of financially sound and efficient companies, and Morgan and other bankers became rich and powerful. The pattern for American industrialization began with competition among a large number of small companies, followed by the emergence of a few dominant companies, causing a concentration of money and industrial power in the hands of a few wealthy industrialists. For example, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil company controlled  percent of the oil industry, having ruthlessly bought out or driven out competitors. This emergence of big business created efficiently run industries and a powerful banking and investment industry, but at the expense of small businesses and investors. The emergence of huge industrial enterprises had a profound effect on the lives of ordinary people. Many small entrepreneurs lost their businesses in the rush to consolidate, and they and their employees were often forced to go to work for the big companies. Fewer people worked in small factories and shops where everyone knew the owner on personal terms. Instead, they worked in huge buildings and factories, where they might never even glimpse the owner. Greater efficiency meant that industrial workers were often required to work at their utmost physical limits, making jobs in factories and on railroads exhausting and dangerous work. Skilled craftsmen were not needed as much in highly mechanized factories, so much of the work was unskilled and low paying. Industrialists had little motivation to reduce workplace hazards as long as there were more unskilled laborers, often immigrants, so desperate for work that they would risk their lives in dangerous jobs. Many workers were killed and maimed, with minimal if any compensation. One in every  railroad workers was injured on the job every year and one in every  was killed. More workers found their bodies and spirits steadily broken down by the strenuous, dangerous physical labor:  days a week for at least  hours a day. Managers fired workers who complained about conditions or joined unions and gave their names to managers at other factories and railroads, preventing troublemakers from finding work anywhere. Few industrial workers earned enough money to support their families decently. Women and children in these families typically had to work to make ends meet, earning substantially lower wages for difficult and often hazardous work. The loss of a family member to illness, injury, or death caused not only anguish but also a catastrophic loss of income. The life of an industrial worker was an exhausting round of work and sleep, with the constant risk of injury, job loss, illness, and death. One of the most striking aspects of the lives of industrial workers was the treatment of children and women. Children, small and quick, and thus able to dart among moving machinery in spaces that an adult would find too confining, were very useful for factory work. They were also cheap, earning significantly less than adult men. Child labor laws at first provided minimal restrictions on the number of hours that a child could work

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daily and limited the jobs that the youngest children could work. The idea of childhood at that time was different from the modern view of it as a time to be set aside for education and emotional growth. Nineteenth-century children, especially the children of poor immigrants, were regarded essentially as smaller adults, with as much right to sell their labor and take risks as any adult. Parents were largely unrestricted in their power to treat their children as they pleased. Also, the th-century idea of women as delicate creatures who needed to be spared the rigors of the commercial world simply did not apply to poor women. Young women, like children, were small and quick and were paid less than men and thus were very useful for factory work. Women with small children often earned meager pay doing piecework at home, sewing or other small manufacturing tasks, and were paid a few cents at most per item. This work required long hours to make any significant amount of money. The wages these women and children earned were often the only way the family avoided complete destitution. Many of the workers in these dangerous jobs were immigrants. Shifting industrial and agricultural patterns, war, ethnic strife, and other pressures in many European countries encouraged poor farmers and workers to come to America in search of work. Many industries distributed flyers throughout Europe, claiming that workers in America earned higher wages than anyone could expect to find in Europe. Immigrants often brought their families, enduring an unsanitary and uncomfortable crossing of the Atlantic. These workers often found life difficult in America. Their appearance and unfamiliarity with English made them easily identifiable, and many people regarded them with suspicion and hostility. Railroads were responsible for bringing in another group of immigrants—Chinese workers, who arrived on the West Coast in large numbers, imported by the railroads to work on building the western railroads. Railroad companies had found that few American workers were willing to endure the miserable and dangerous working conditions at the low wages the railroads offered; hence, they brought in Chinese workers to do the hardest work, including building the tracks that ran over the Rocky Mountains. Large numbers of these men died, and the survivors’ endurance in the face of horrible conditions seemed only to reinforce prejudices against them. Only subhuman beings could survive sleeping at night in winter in the tunnels under the Rockies, or so the foremen thought. After the worst of the railroad-building work was done, many people became alarmed at the large number of such foreign-seeming people living in the United States, and Congress passed laws excluding further Chinese immigration. The Industrial Revolution caused one of the most important changes in the th century: the transformation of the cities. City planning, which had never been entirely systematic, could not keep up with the rapid growth in population as European immigrants and rural Americans flooded the cities in search of industrial jobs. Agricultural depressions, in which the prices for farm products plummeted even as the costs of growing them remained the same, drove large numbers of farm workers to the cities in search of work. A major change in American demographics resulted from an internal migration: the movement of African Americans from the rural South to northern and Midwestern industrial cities. Struggling small landowners and sharecroppers found it hard to farm profitably in the face of low prices, stable costs, and the increased mechanization of farming. Mechanical harvesters, pulled by horses, enabled wealthier farmers to produce

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crops more cheaply and with lower labor costs. African American workers found the cities less ruthlessly segregated than those in the South. Chicago, for example, was residentially segregated, with African Americans living mostly on the South Side and different immigrant groups living in separate neighborhoods. Though they faced discrimination in all aspects of life, African Americans were not treated significantly worse than any other ethnic group and were not required to ride in separate streetcars or to show the same level of deference to whites as in the South. Many African Americans who migrated north found the industrial work very hard and were often relegated to the lowestpaying and most dangerous jobs. However, they also found that their opportunities were not as restricted as in the South, and the luckiest and most industrious of the migrants’ children and grandchildren were able to buy their own homes and small businesses. The neighborhoods built to house industrial workers were not comfortable places to live. Many European immigrants, drawn to industrial jobs by advertisements promising high wages, were shocked at the high cost of living in industrial cities. Tenements were often divided into tiny, windowless rooms, housing large families or even multiple families in small spaces. Factory workers often both worked and slept in shifts, with sleeping people occupying the entire apartment both day and night. Sanitation was typically inadequate, and residents were often required to haul water, which was often contaminated, over long distances. Some cities passed laws requiring multifamily dwellings to have windows for ventilation and plumbing for water taps and toilets, but the laws often applied only to new buildings, and many landlords evaded these requirements by bribing inspectors. Street life in the industrial cities was also not pretty. In the th century, most urban transportation was by horse, streetcar, or train. Horses made life difficult for pedestrians, who needed to be nimble to dodge the horses pulling wagons and carriages and the manure on the streets. Streetcars, pulled at first by horses, then electrically powered, were also a terrible hazard for pedestrians. Chicago streetcar conductors were admonished in their rule books not to throw unruly male passengers from the cars without stopping first, but contemporary accounts indicate that this rule was often ignored. Streetcar conductors only slowed to let men and boys disembark, and anyone leaping from a moving streetcar was risking a fall under its wheels. Traffic regulation was often minimal, with few or no lane designations or pedestrian crossings. Women in particular found the streets hazardous, since the fashions of the day required them to wear long, heavy skirts and corsets that restricted their breathing. For women, moving quickly enough to evade an oncoming streetcar or wagon was especially difficult. Many people lost limbs or were killed on the streets by streetcars and horse-drawn vehicles. Pollution was a terrible problem in industrial cities. A city full of horses created two sources for pollution: manure and horse carcasses. Both were often deposited in dumps, which produced foul odors and contaminated the water, hardships that fell hardest on poor people who lived near the dumps and polluted waterways. Coal was an important fuel for residential and industrial use, as many factories were powered by coal-fired steam boilers. Much of the heating in cities was in coal-burning furnaces, stoves, and fireplaces. In some cities, winter weather conditions caused nearly unbreathable air. The term “pea soup,” used to describe fog, refers not only to the fog’s density but also to the floating coal particles that resembled tiny peas. At times, air pollution in some cities was so severe that the sky was darkened, making day resemble night. For a typical

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industrial worker, who worked long hours in windowless factories and lived in filthy, dark tenements, the sight of a clear sunny sky and a breath of fresh air were rare treats. Industrialization and immigration also affected city politics. The th century saw the rise of machine politics, in which a few powerful individuals dominated political life by controlling the vote in various immigrant neighborhoods. Reformers were horrified at corrupt voting practices, in which voters, often poor immigrants, were paid to vote several times for candidates they knew nothing about. For the immigrants, machine politics had some important advantages. A poor worker who allied himself with a local politician could get help applying for his naturalization papers, and then trade his support for a job, help with problems at work, or other assistance when times were bad. For many workers, the local political boss was their only source of help if a family member was sick, and thus out of work, or if a family member died and had to be buried. A significant risk was getting on the wrong side of a political boss, which meant that these benefits were cut off and that finding employment or a decent place to live might suddenly become impossible. The Industrial Revolution caused broader changes in Americans’ lives. Most people’s standard of living improved as a wider variety of manufactured goods became available at lower prices. Factories and railroads meant that mass-produced, cheaply transported goods were available to people who before had been able to purchase only handmade, locally produced goods. For example, a typical family who before may have owned only a few locally made chairs, a table, and a bed would be able to afford such novelties as massproduced upholstered sofas and chairs. Many of the carpenters who once made furniture by hand for local sale may have been forced to go to work in factories by the competition from cheaper manufactured goods. Other people benefited not only from cheaper manufactured goods but also from the increase in white-collar jobs for large enterprises, where they worked as managers, accountants, and clerks. Young, unmarried women worked as clerks, earning less than men but more than they could earn in occupations traditionally held by women. Although the Industrial Revolution made life harder for many working people, others benefited by finding jobs in the offices of large industrial enterprises. Another result of the Industrial Revolution was the industrialization of transportation. Railroads did more than make the cheap transportation of goods possible. The advent of the cheap and speedy transport of people meant that the United States was not only a nation of immigrants but a nation of migrants as well. Railroads transformed journeys that once took weeks or even months into trips of just a few days. People moved from rural areas to the city and from east to west in large numbers, and far fewer people lived all their lives in the place where they were born. Improved transportation also meant that information traveled faster. For the first time, national publications could be transported quickly by railroad, and the telegraph, which was vital to railroads, also made it possible for news to travel quickly. Reporters could telegraph their stories to their newspaper offices instead of sending dispatches that took days or weeks to reach print. For the first time, people all over the United States were reading the same magazines, making purchases based on the same advertisements, and getting news within a day or two of the events. Many Americans saw these changes as beneficial, not only for individuals but also for the nation as a whole. Progress was a term that encompassed technological advancement, industrial development, and economic enrichment. American exceptionalism—the idea

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that America has a unique destiny that will serve as an example to the rest of the world— had been around since the first settlements in the New England colonies. Many people believed that the fact that industrial production in the United States surpassed Old World industrial nations such as Germany and England was further proof of a unique American destiny. Progress was seen not only as a positive good but as inevitable and many believed that opposition to the building of factories or railroads was not only misguided but doomed to failure. America would demonstrate to the rest of the world how progress improved everyone’s lives and made the world a better place. Many of these people also believed in Social Darwinism, an idea described by Herbert Spencer, an English social scientist. Spencer applied Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection to society and concluded that the “survival of the fittest,” in his phrase, meant that people who prospered were naturally stronger than those who did not. Interference with poverty and wealth was a bad idea, in Spencer’s view, because it interfered with the natural process that ensured that society as a whole was strong. If poor people died young, according to Spencer, then it was simply nature’s way of eliminating the insufficiently fit, making room for those better suited to survival. Social Darwinism applied to nations suggested that America’s economic success marked it as one of the nations best adapted to survive and dominate the world. One of the important institutions changed by the idea of progress was the law. In the preindustrial era, people regarded the law as a moral force. The idea that progress, in the form of industrial development, was both inevitable and good influenced the operation of the law. Judges and lawyers began to regard the law as a neutral set of rules instead of a moral force. This transformation of the basic concept of law meant, for example, that industrial workers who sued their employers were unable to recover the costs of jobrelated injuries. In their opinions, judges often expressed sympathy toward an injured worker, acknowledging that the employer had a moral obligation to help the worker but that there was no legally enforceable requirement to compensate for injuries. Such rulings functioned as a subsidy to industry that spared industrial enterprises the cost of compensating workers and placed the burden on the injured employee. At the same time that judges and lawmakers were recommending that industry be permitted to develop without interference, they did not apply this laissez-faire policy to workers who sought to organize. Laissez-faire is often defined as noninterference in the marketplace, but during the th century it really meant noninterference with industrial development. Workers who attempted to join unions to demand higher wages or better working conditions were attempting to consolidate in much the same way that businesses consolidated to exert greater influence in the marketplace. Judges, however, did not see unionizing as simply another enterprising activity in a free market. They declared unions to be “unlawful combinations,” issued injunctions against strikes, and jailed strike leaders, all the while insisting that they were obliged to do so by the neutral rules that make up the law. Similarly, when state legislatures attempted to regulate working conditions, as in a New York law that regulated the working hours for bakery workers, judges used these same neutral rules to invalidate these regulations. Behind all these neutral rules was the unspoken belief that attempts to interfere with progress were not only futile but terribly wrong. Not everyone regarded industrialization as positive. Many looked back nostalgically to a time when most men could be independent yeoman farmers, living on the fruits

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of their labor and manufacturing most of the goods required to satisfy their families’ modest needs. Artisans in cities believed in an urban version of these ideas and saw the honest craftsman working in his own shop with a few apprentices as independent and virtuous like the yeoman farmer. Both the pastoral idealists and urban artisans feared that industrial development was creating a nation of employees—men who would always be dependent on their bosses. These employees could never be truly independent voters, since they depended on their employers for their livelihood, and their employers would influence their votes. They believed that dependence is also degrading and crushes the human spirit. As early as , Thomas Jefferson expressed these ideas in his book Notes on Virginia and in letters to friends, yet he also hoped that industrial development in the United States would help Americans become independent from buying manufactured goods from England. He, like many others, never completely solved the problem of how a nation could enjoy the benefits of industrialization without also paying a cost in human misery. This problem continued to trouble people through the th century and beyond. Another worrisome problem was the demographic effects of industrialization. Some people regarded the large numbers of immigrants with alarm, fearing that they would bring terrible social problems with them from the Old World: poverty, disease, drunkenness, political corruption, undesirable religions, and dangerous political ideas. The last two items particularly reveal something about the biases of the period. Immigrants who brought the “undesirable religions” were Catholics, mostly from Ireland and Italy, and Jews, from Eastern Europe. Anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic sentiments had been present in the United States throughout its history, and immigration revived these ideas. The “dangerous political ideas” were socialism and Marxism and did in fact originate in Europe. People who feared these ideas preferred to think of them as alien European imports rather than ideas that Americans, both immigrant and native-born, might find appealing. The first four items noted—poverty, disease, drunkenness, and political corruption—were features of immigrant life in industrial cities, but not everyone who was concerned about these problems blamed them on the immigrants. Reformers saw the problems in the cities and sought to remedy them. Radical socialist and Marxist reformers sought to improve the lives of working people by transforming both political and economic structures. Progressive reformers, many of whom were deeply religious, sought similar goals but preferred to work within existing structures. Some Progressives, in fact, saw their work as important for preventing the spread of radical ideas. Unions were interested in improving the lives of working people, especially by increasing wages and improving working conditions, and their supporters held various political ideas, from Progressive to radical. Socialism and Marxism were important political and economic theories during the th century. Briefly, socialism is the advocacy of a political and economic system in which workers both own the means of production and distribution and exert political power. Karl Marx, with his collaborator Friedrich Engels, developed socialist ideas into a system of thought based on class struggle. According to Marx and Engels, this struggle would inevitably move society from a capitalist economy governed by a bourgeois democracy to a socialist society and then to communism. The most radical aspect of Marxist ideas is the prediction that workers would rise in violent revolt to bring about these changes. These ideas were very appealing to people who were appalled at

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the human costs of industrial development and saw little chance for economic fairness within the economic and social world of the time. These ideas were simultaneously alarming to people who thought industrial development was both inevitable and good. The bourgeoisie—the owners of factories and railroads—were horrified to imagine their employees in violent revolt. Socialists and Marxists sought to bring about social change by a variety of means—some of them peaceful, such as organizing unions, writing pamphlets, and speaking to gatherings about socialist reform, but some of them violent, such as actively seeking revolution. The fact that most middle- and upper-class people, along with law enforcement authorities, regarded all socialists and Marxists as bomb-throwing revolutionaries meant that radical reformers faced great difficulties, including threats to their personal safety. Unions were faced with and presented tremendous challenges. They presented a challenge to employers, who took the threat of radical ideology and its violent implications very seriously, and who found the idea of overturning American social structures quite shocking. Employers also thought they would be driven out of business if their employees demanded higher wages. Economic instability during the th century had caused recurring downturns, which made industrialists try to keep profits high during periods of economic stability to weather the occasional downturn. Other costs were typically fairly stable, and hiring workers cheaply when needed and firing them when necessary was the most flexible means of controlling costs. Unions threatened this flexibility, and the employers sought to resist unions with every means available to them. Unions were faced with the challenge as well of persuading workers that it was in their best interests to join, although many workers who joined unions ran the risk of being fired or beaten up by thugs hired by the bosses. If the union did manage to persuade workers to join and pay dues from their meager earnings, it was then faced with the challenge of gaining recognition from the bosses to speak for its members. Employers typically refused to bargain with union leaders and scoffed at threats of a strike. When unions did go on strike, employers hired scabs to replace striking workers and brought in men from the Pinkerton Agency, who intimidated, beat up, or even murdered strikers. Unions responded by intimidating scabs and staging sit-down strikes, where workers occupied the factory to keep replacements out. In some strikes, policemen and soldiers from the National Guard or the army protected replacement workers and sought to prevent violence and property damage. Not until the th century, when Congress passed legislation against unfair labor practices, were employers and unions consistently able to negotiate without resorting to violence. Another reaction to the problems of industrialization was the reform movement known as Progressivism. Progressive reformers began their work in the last decade of the th century, but their work continued through the early years of the th. Progressive reformers employed a variety of means to ease the social problems caused by industrial development. Some used the newly emerging social sciences to study social problems and recommend solutions. Women such as Jane Addams saw problems and took active measures to correct them. Addams founded Hull House, a Chicago institution staffed by college-trained social scientists, which offered recreational facilities, vocational training, and child care to immigrants. Temperance reformers such as Frances Willard of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) sought not only to reduce drunkenness but also to correct social problems that caused excessive drinking.

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The WCTU was made up only of women and campaigned for public improvements such as public water fountains and toilets, so that men would not have to buy a drink in a bar to relieve their thirst or gain access to restrooms. WCTU members and other Progressive reformers learned how to organize and lobby, and many called on these skills later in the campaign to win votes for women. Some Progressive reformers turned their attention to other reform issues, seeking to break up large business conglomerates and reform urban machine politics. Industrial development in the United States created an important international role for the nation. The United States’ industrial production of such commodities as steel soon outpaced other industrial nations. The United States became an exporter of manufactured goods and enormous amounts of grain. Before , America had imported most of its manufactured goods and exported raw materials for use in manufacturing in British factories. As the United States became an industrial nation, many American manufacturers looked abroad for potential sources for raw materials. For many, it seemed obvious that the time had come for America to become an imperial power, with colonies of its own. The Monroe Doctrine sought to limit European imperial expansion or recolonization in the Western Hemisphere, and many Europeans regarded this doctrine as an excuse for the United States to dominate the hemisphere. By the century’s end, the United States had completed its continental expansion, purchased Alaska, annexed Hawaii, and acquired as colonies the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Cuba was a U.S. protectorate, and several other Latin American nations would soon experience U.S. intervention. The urge to expand into new territory in search of new markets for American manufactured goods and new sources for raw materials would strongly influence American international relations for a long time. The Industrial Revolution in America caused enormous changes in international relations, American economic development, and especially the lives of ordinary people. In , America was a small nation on the eastern edge of the North American continent. The vast majority of people lived on farms, and American cities such as New York and Philadelphia were quite small in comparison to European cities. By , America had been transformed. The nation spanned a continent and looked far beyond for wider spheres of influence. It had surpassed European nations in the size of its manufacturing and transportation industries. New cities like Chicago joined New York and Philadelphia as important international trade and cultural centers, though most Americans still lived on farms and in small towns. Life was indeed very different for many people. The debate about the effects of the Industrial Revolution and how to cope with the resulting human costs continues.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alger, Horatio. Ragged Dick, and Mark, the Match Boy. . Reprint, New York: Collier Books, . Alger’s novels influenced the way many people thought about upward mobility. These two depict the experiences of plucky young men in an urban, industrial setting. Banner, Lois W. Women in Modern America: A Brief History. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, . A good general source for information about women’s experiences; covers industrialization well.

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Bodnar, John. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, . Addresses the important subject of urban immigrants. Bordin, Ruth. Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, –. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, . An interesting history of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, an important social movement in the late th century. Campbell, Charles S. Jr. Transformation of American Foreign Relations, –. New York: Harper & Row, . A useful overview, including American imperial aspirations. Clemens, Samuel Langhorne [Mark Twain], and Charles Dudley Warner. The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. . Reprint, New York: New American Library, . The title of this book became the name for the entire era, and the book is still worth reading. Cronen, William. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton, . An original and fascinating study of Chicago and its regional influence. Cruden, Robert M. Ministers of Reform: The Progressives’ Achievement in American Civilization, –. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, . Presents an unsentimental and informative account of Progressive reform. Eller, Ronald D. Miners, Millhands and Mountaineers. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, . Addresses the neglected subject of industrialization in the Appalachian South. George, Henry. Progress and Poverty. . Reprint, New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, . In this influential book, George depicted the depths of American poverty amid wealth and shocked many of his readers. Gould, Lewis L., ed. The Progressive Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, . An informative book covering the period from varying perspectives. Gutman, Herbert G. Work, Culture and Society in Industrializing America. New York: Vintage Books, . An especially perceptive treatment of industrial society and workers. Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted. d ed. Boston: Little, Brown, . A study of immigrants in America that influenced many historians and remains a useful survey. Hindle, Brooke, and Steven Lubar. Engines of Change: The American Industrial Revolution, – . Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, . Presents a good survey of early industrial development. Horwitz, Morton J. The Transformation of American Law: –. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Presents the argument that law served the interests of industry; indispensable to anyone interested in the subject. Kennedy, Susan Estabrook. If All We Did Was to Weep at Home: A History of White Working Class Women in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, . Presents a useful approach to an interesting, and neglected, subject. Kirkland, Edward C. Industry Comes of Age: Business, Labor and Public Policy, –. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, . Presents a detailed survey of this subject. Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford University Press, . The most lucid analysis of American thought and industrialization. McCraw, Thomas K. Prophets of Regulation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . An especially interesting profile of Charles Francis Adams and his efforts to regulate railroads. Pursell, Carroll. The Machine in America: A Social History of Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . An especially good source on the effects of the Industrial Revolution on ordinary people. Salvatore, Nick. Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, . A biography of the socialist labor leader and presidential candidate, as well as a good examination of socialism in unions and politics at the turn of the century. Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. . Reprint, Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer Books, . Sinclair once said that he aimed at the nation’s heart and hit it in the stomach; his vivid descriptions of

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working conditions in Chicago slaughterhouses are both unforgettable and nauseating, but he also tells a gripping story of immigrant life in an industrial city. Spear, Allen H. Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto, –. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . An excellent study of the African American community in turn-of-theth-century Chicago. Steffens, Lincoln. The Shame of the Cities. . Reprint, New York: Hill and Wang, . A collection of articles that Steffens wrote for McClure’s Magazine exposing corruption in city governments across the nation. Stilgoe, John R. Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . An excellent source for information on the railroad industry. Wall, Joseph F. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Oxford University Press, . A sound biography of one of the Gilded Age’s “captains of industry.” Warner, Sam B. Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, –. New York: Oxford University Press, . An intensive look at the growth of one American city. ———. The Urban Wilderness: A History of the American City. New York: Harper & Row, . An interesting look at the role of technology in city development. Wertheimer, Barbara Mayer. We Were There: The Story of Working Women in America. New York: Pantheon Books, . A good general work on women’s experiences in the Industrial Revolution. Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, –. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, . A classic work describing the southern experience during this period.

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL (1847–1922) A person of astonishing ingenuity, Alexander Graham Bell is best remembered for his invention of the “electrical speech machine”—the telephone—which quickly became the industrialized world’s only means of long-distance vocal communication. The device’s influence was so profound that the telephone remains our main method of communication even today. In addition to the telephone, Bell also made several other significant technological discoveries, holding  patents in his name alone and  for products on which he collaborated with others. Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March , . His father, a pioneer in “visible speech” (a form of sign language), and his grandfather were both scholars of the mechanics of sound. Bell received most of his education from members of his family, especially his deaf mother, and through his own investigations. He attended the Weston House private boys’ school for one year, spent two years at Edinburgh’s Royal High School, and routinely went to various lectures at Edinburgh University and London’s University College. From  to , Bell joined his father in studying speech and teaching elocution to deaf and mute children in Edinburgh. His work was interrupted by family tragedy, however, when an outbreak of tuberculosis in the family killed two of his brothers. The family moved to Canada to benefit from the drier air, and Bell’s health, never strong, improved. The following year, he moved to the United States, settling in Boston, and in  founded a school for the deaf-mute and concentrated on inventing machines to help deaf people communicate. In , he took a job as a professor of vocal physiology at Boston University and soon fell in love with one of his deaf students, Mabel Hubbard. They married in .

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In addition to his work with deaf-mutes, Bell also became interested in other forms of communication. He began to concentrate on the possibility of improving the telegraph by modifying another of his creations, the harmonic telegraph, which could send multiple messages simultaneously over a single telegraph wire. He had an idea that if the sound wave vibrations could be transformed into a fluctuating electric current, the current might then be changed back into sound waves identical to the original at the other end of the circuit. This would allow wires to carry sound at the speed of light. On February , , Bell filed an application to patent his discovery, although he had to fi ght off others’ claims to the technology, and on March , , U.S. Patent No. , for the telephone was granted to Bell. Three days later, on March , Bell was in his laboratory when he accidentally spilled battery acid on his pants. He yelled to Thomas Watson, his young assistant and mechanic, “Watson, please come here! I want you!” When the accident occurred, Watson was on another floor at the other end of a circuit with which they had just been working. Much to Watson’s shock, he heard Bell’s summons loud and clear through the instrument at his end of the circuit. Watson ran downstairs immediately with the wonderful news. This was the first true communication by telephone. Bell’s telephone was a main attraction at the  Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, and soon such important personages as Britain’s Queen Victoria had acquired a telephone. The device’s immediate popularity made Bell wealthy and famous by the time he was . In , Bell formed the Bell Telephone Company, having successfully defended his patent against another inventor, Elisha Gray. Over the next year, he set up the first telephone exchange, choosing New Haven, Connecticut, as its site. His establishment of the Volta Laboratory Association followed in , where he continued his work for the deaf and invented the photophone—a machine that could transmit sound on a beam of light, making it an early predecessor of fiber optic systems. He also worked on making improvements to the phonograph, a new sound-producing machine invented by Thomas Edison. Edison, in the meantime, had created a special mouthpiece for Bell’s telephone that improved its ability to transmit sound. In an odd twist, Bell had another chance to increase his fame in  after an assassin shot President James Garfield. The president was slowly dying of his wound. Bell offered a metal locator he had developed to help surgeons find the bullet. The device worked, but the president’s wound had already caused considerable damage. Garfield died shortly thereafter. In , Bell used some of his fortune to build himself a summer home in Nova Scotia. He also founded Science, an American scientific journal, and funded it almost exclusively for the first few years of its publication. In addition, interest in the telephone grew, prompting several small telephone companies to form to provide local service. In , the first long-distance call was placed from New York to Boston. Starting in , Bell’s scientific interest began turning in a new direction, although he was still working on means of communication and had invented the graphophone (an alternative to Edison’s phonograph) in . Having started experimenting with rocketpowered propellers in  and donating money to support Samuel P. Langley’s experiments with flight, Bell became increasingly fascinated with aeronautics. He used kites to work on some of his theories about flight and, in , created one that he dubbed a

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tetrahedral kite, which was capable of carrying a man. That year, he also established the Aerial Experimental Association. His other advances in the field of flight are still with us today, including the aileron, the part of an airplane’s wing that the pilot can manipulate to control roll, and the tricycle landing gear, which facilitated takeoff and landing on a runway. The five aircraft Bell created, and for which he was issued patents, include the Baddeck , the Baddeck , and the Silver Dart. Bell was intellectually active even into his last years. He founded the National Geographic Society in  and served as its president from  to . In , he participated in a ceremony in which he and Watson recreated their historic  exchange to celebrate the opening of the first transcontinental telephone line. Two years later, the final version of Bell’s “hydrodrome,” an air-powered hydrofoil boat, reached speeds of more than  miles per hour and set a record that would hold for many years. In addition, Bell continued his long experiments with air conditioning and breeding animals, also making numerous suggestions for the uses of electricity in medicine, although he himself performed few experiments. Bell died on August , , in Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia.

ANDREW CARNEGIE (1835–1919) Andrew Carnegie rose from poverty to become one of the richest men in the world by gaining virtual control of the U.S. steel industry. He was also notable as a philanthropist, who gave millions of dollars to advance education, establish public libraries, and promote world peace. Carnegie was born on November , , in Dunfermline, Scotland. His father, a handloom weaver, was impoverished by the introduction of power looms. In , the destitute family emigrated to the United States. They settled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Carnegie found work as a bobbin boy in a textile mill at a salary of $. a week. A year later, he got a job as a messenger in a telegraph office and began his rise from “rags to riches,” earning a salary of $. a week. In these early days of telegraphy, instruments were needed to translate the sound emanating from the telegraph wires into letters of the alphabet. Amazingly, Carnegie learned to distinguish the wire sounds without using the instruments and thus became one of the first operators in the country to be able to take messages “by sound.” His astonished employers promoted him from delivery boy to operator and raised his salary to $ a week. Carnegie also impressed Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad, a businessman whom Carnegie saw frequently in the telegraph offices. Scott hired him in  to be his personal clerk and telegraph operator, at a salary of $ a month. Again, Carnegie did such a good job that six years after joining the railroad, he was named superintendent of the Pittsburgh division. When Scott was appointed assistant secretary of war in , Carnegie became superintendent of the eastern military and telegraph lines. During the Civil War, he helped coordinate rail transportation for the Union Army and organized the army’s telegraphic system. During the early s, Carnegie, with advice and loans from Scott, had begun to invest in telegraph, oil, iron, bridge, and railroad companies. In , though offered the post of assistant general superintendent on the Pennsylvania Railroad, he resigned and devoted himself to his other business interests. Within a few years, he had an annual

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income of $, and was considering retiring and taking up a scholarly life. Ultimately deciding against retirement, Carnegie nevertheless frequented intellectual as well as business circles in New York City, where he lived after . He also traveled extensively throughout Europe, becoming the best-read and -traveled American businessman of his time. In the early s, Carnegie threw himself wholeheartedly into a new venture: steel manufacturing. The steel production industry in the United States was struggling under the shadow of its international competitors, led by Great Britain. The need for steel during the Civil War had boosted production in the United States, but Great Britain continued to produce more steel of a higher quality and dominate the world market. In , while the rest of the United States was mired in a deep financial depression, Carnegie invested the vast majority of his fortune in steel production. He described the first incarnation of his famous investment policy as “putting all my eggs in one basket, and then watching the basket.” Drawing on his extensive business ties with Europe, Carnegie cultivated relationships with the leaders of Great Britain’s steel industry, particularly Sir Henry Bessemer. Bessemer instructed Carnegie in a revolutionary process that allowed a higher quality of steel to be manufactured at relatively low cost. Bessemer had introduced this process to British steel manufacturers in , but Carnegie brought it to the United States. In addition, Carnegie hired the best people in steel technology and plant management and introduced several other innovations to his American steel company, the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Mills. In this way, he was able to produce a higher quality steel at a lower price than his American competitors. He also kept production costs, wages, and salaries down and maintained complete control over his enterprise, in order to plow profits back into it. During the next  years, U.S. steel production increased until the nation surpassed Great Britain as the foremost steel producer in the world, thanks largely to Carnegie. He steadily expanded his holdings by lease or purchase, in  acquiring the important steel works at Homestead, Pennsylvania. Four years later, however, Carnegie’s reputation as an employer was damaged by the bloody Homestead Strike at the plant. The strike, which began on June , , revealed Carnegie’s plans to destroy the iron and steel workers’ union, and the event raised a public outcry. Otherwise, the decade of the s was a time of even greater growth for Carnegie’s steel operations. Already, Carnegie had begun the process of vertical integration, by which he came to control raw materials, transportation, and distribution within the steel industry, managing every stage of the production process from beginning to end. From  to , he took advantage of a nationwide financial depression to acquire the rich iron deposits of the Mesabi Range in Minnesota and to purchase the Pittsburgh, Shenango, & Lake Erie Railroad, connecting the steel-producing center with the Northwest water routes. Carnegie’s success was secured by the well-run organization of his company. He believed in rewarding talent and frequently promoted exceptional workers into the ranks of management. He made his senior executives partners, thus providing them with greater incentives to work hard and make the company profitable. Carnegie himself remained actively involved in the business and was perhaps the hardest worker in the company, despite his enormous wealth and capable associates. His daring and business

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acumen repeatedly foiled his competitors, and he was famous for expanding his company during times of financial depression, when other companies were paring down their operations. As in the depression of , Carnegie used the depression of the s to acquire new property and interests. His willingness to expand during these times was based on two reasons: first, he could buy resources at low cost because of the depression, and second, he had unbounded optimism regarding the fate of the United States. Convinced that America would recover from its economic woes, Carnegie wanted to be ready to meet rising demand for steel when prosperity returned. By , the Carnegie Steel Company—organized a year earlier with a capital of $ million—controlled the bulk of U.S. steel production, making Carnegie the second richest man in the world. In , Carnegie sold the Carnegie Steel Company to J. P. Morgan, who incorporated it into the newly formed United States Steel Corporation. Upon turning his steel empire over to Morgan, Carnegie remarked, “Well, Pierpont, I am now handing the burden over to you.” Having made a fortune, Carnegie could now dedicate his life to other interests, mainly philanthropy and scholarship. As early as , Carnegie had written himself a memorandum declaring that “the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry—no idol more debasing than the worship of money.” A few years later, he made his first gift—public baths given to his birthplace of Dunfermline, Scotland. At the same time that Carnegie was building his steel empire, he was also indulging in his other interests, writing articles for several well-known journals and newspapers and making periodic bequests to various organizations and individuals. In , Carnegie published an article entitled “Wealth” in the North American Review. In this article, which became known as “The Gospel of Wealth” in Great Britain and the United States, Carnegie stated his belief that every man’s life should have two periods: the accumulation of wealth and then the distribution of that wealth back to the community. He maintained that rich men had a moral obligation to distribute their money for the public good with the same energy and systematic thoughtfulness they had used to acquire it. This idea was revolutionary for the time and prompted much discussion among the upper classes. Putting into practice his own gospel of wealth, Carnegie and his wife, the former Louise Whitfield (whom he had married in ), made benefactions totaling about $ million. This money provided for thousands of public libraries and church organs and helped advance both higher education and the cause of peace. One of his earlier philanthropic measures was the establishment of a large pension and benefit fund for the workers of the former Carnegie Company. Carnegie endowed the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh (), the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (), and the Carnegie Institute of Washington (), as well as dozens of other institutions. He also helped establish the schools that are now part of Carnegie Mellon University and contributed generously to such African American schools as Hampton and Tuskegee institutes. In , he started the first pension fund for college and university professors. In , the Carnegie Corporation of New York was created to handle the distribution of Carnegie’s money for educational and research purposes. In recognition of his beneficence, Carnegie received many honors, but he declined an aristocratic title offered by England’s King Edward VII in , no doubt feeling that he was too strong an advocate of democracy to accept.

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In the interests of world peace, Carnegie established the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in  and gave money for the construction of three “temples of peace”: the Hague Peace Palace in the Netherlands, a Central American Court of Justice in Costa Rica, and the Pan American Union Building in Washington, D.C. The outbreak of World War I in  shattered his optimism, and he never fully recovered, physically or emotionally, from the blow. Carnegie died from pneumonia five years later, on August , , at the age of . In addition to “Wealth,” Carnegie wrote numerous articles on business and public affairs. His best-known books include Democracy Triumphant (), The Empire of Business (), and his Autobiography (), published posthumously.

william mcguire and leslie wheeler LABOR IN THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION In the early th century, as tremendous industrial growth took place throughout New England, the demand for factory labor rose correspondingly. The trouble was locating a supply, since labor was increasingly scarce and the immigrants who would later dominate American industrial labor had not yet arrived in force. As the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains were progressively opened up to settlement after , many farmers left the fickle weather and rocky, substandard soil of New England and emigrated to fertile lands in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. One th-century New Hampshire history book, remembering the particularly long winter of , noted glumly, “Not a few came to the conclusion that it was vain to think of raising their bread on the cold hills of New Hampshire, and that they must hasten to the remote WEST. . . . Never was the passion for emigration, then familiarly called ‘Ohio fever,’ at a greater height.” As farmers headed west, rural New England towns faced a demographic and economic crisis—what and who would be left after a town’s young men, seeing no future for themselves in their ancestral homes, left the region? Hancock, New Hampshire, nearly doubled in population between  and , but then lost six townspeople by . Acworth slipped from , citizens in  to , by , Epping from , to ,, and Greenfield from  to . Many rural towns began to age and decline. Industrial growth provided some of the solution, at least for a time. Since farmers’ sons were leaving for opportunities in the West, many families were left with teenage daughters not earning income and without suitors. Thus, a ready female labor supply of prospective “mill girls” was waiting to be tapped. Industrial employment in places like Lowell offered many benefits. It allowed rural New England females to earn wages, send money back to their families, and help maintain the family farm, as well as introduce them to a wider world outside their normal rural environs. Mill cities like Lowell offered not only jobs but also entertainment, social life, and an education. Many young women stayed employed for only a couple of years, courted and married, and moved on. Lowell mills provide an excellent example of the effect of changing industrial practices on labor, specifically women’s labor. Lowell mill operators wished to create a new factory system that would provide a better working environment than existed in factories in England. This was particularly important as women worked in these new

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factories. At the time the Lowell mills developed, owners and operators expressed concern over the effects prolonged factory work would have on their “mill girls.” Lowell mill workers in the first decades of operation were primarily from rural New England. They endured long and exhausting work days (a -hour work week was common) as the girls toiled from dawn until dusk. Mill owners, when creating an ordered factory town, also constructed housing for their female workers. These boardinghouses, while initially expensive to build, enabled the employers to keep wages low and to monitor and regiment their mill girls. This not only contributed to more efficient production of goods, but it also allowed them to ensure that female workers’ moral and physical health would be maintained. As the “girls” were leaving the protection of home and going to work in factories, many operators felt required to extend paternalist protection over them. This paternalism translated into a total system of living, whereby women were required to live in boardinghouses owned by the mills with matrons to watch over the workers in their free time. Women followed strict rules of their houses. While each company had its own regulations, all generally required regular church attendance, abstinence from consumption of alcohol, and observance of a curfew. Within each boardinghouse, the matron supervised her tenants, ensuring that employees of the mills behaved morally. Companies also required that boarders keep an orderly and clean appearance, were punctual to meals served within the house, and assisted in the cleaning of the boardinghouse. Matrons were required to “report . . . the names and occupations of their boarders, also give timely warning to the unwary, and report all cases of intemperance, or of dissolute manners.” Such reports could result in the dismissal of the offending parties. Along with regulating the lives of their workers, companies also wished to provide social activities and endeavors that would foster cohesion and enjoyment. While various nearby churches provided wholesome entertainments for the workers, the nature of boardinghouse living created a community in which women’s only recreation and socialization was among fellow workers. The overwhelming number of native-born workers in the early decades of the companies’ operation also contributed to this community life, as the workers shared a common background and area of origin: rural New England. The owners helped create this cohesion through their regulation of work and leisure time. The manufactured social life of the mill girls also resulted in solidarity between the women that gave them the courage to form unions and call strikes.

mark cheathem and peter mancall J. P. MORGAN (1837–1913) J. P. Morgan was one of the richest men in America and was a dominant figure in the U.S. economy during the late th and early th centuries. Although many criticized his shrewd business practices and envied his outrageous success, he twice saved the U.S. economy from collapse, preventing a financial disaster for American businesses. He was also, however, a symbol of the growing power of finance and industry and served as an impetus for federal antitrust legislation. Born on April , , in Hartford, Connecticut, John Pierpont Morgan was the eldest son of a prominent and wealthy family. His father, Junius Spencer Morgan, was

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a successful banker with significant European connections and a solid banking house in the United States. His mother, Juliet Pierpont Morgan, was the daughter of Reverend John Pierpont, a dynamic and charismatic minister, reformer, and poet. Morgan spent his childhood in Hartford and then Boston. Upon his graduation from English High, a well-known private school in Boston, he departed for Europe. His father had recently entered into a partnership with prominent London banker George Peabody that brought the family to Europe for an extended period. Morgan studied mathematics at the University of Göttingen in Germany, earning his degree in . The following year, Morgan embarked upon a career in banking, joining his father’s firm. His first assignment took him to New York to work in the American branch of the family’s banking house. He remained with his father’s firm in varying capacities until , when he became a partner in his own firm, Drexel, Morgan and Co., which had offices on the corner of Wall and Broad streets in New York City, at the heart of America’s financial district. In , in Paris, Morgan married Amelia Sturges from New York City. She died the following year, and in , he married Frances Louise Tracy, also from New York City. The couple had four children, one son and three daughters. Morgan’s firm enjoyed enormous success, particularly after he merged his business with his father’s banking house after the latter’s death in . The new firm—J. P. Morgan and Company—was one of the largest and most stable banking houses in the world and had significant holdings in both the United States and Europe. Although Morgan dealt in a wide range of businesses, his success and prestige were founded on three areas of financial dealings. First, he reorganized American railroads, becoming the greatest railroad magnate of his day. The massive and unregulated growth of railroads in the mid-th century resulted in a tangled web of railroad ownership and cutthroat competition among railroad companies. In an effort to drive competitors out of business, companies engaged in rate wars that ultimately produced variable levels of service and prices. Morgan resolved to stabilize this wildly fluctuating business and prove to the world that American railroads were a sound investment, capable of producing predictable dividends for their investors. To that end, he hoped to eliminate rampant competition and show railroad companies that cooperation could prove more profitable than competition. He consolidated two-thirds of the country’s railroad lines into seven firms: Vanderbilt, Pennsylvania, Morgan, Gould, Rock Island, Hill, and Harriman lines. In addition to making the owners of these lines incredibly wealthy, Morgan also introduced more reliable service for passengers and shippers and stable dividends for investors. This organization was a first step toward regulation of the railroads and orderly interstate commerce. Second, Morgan funded mergers among several prominent American companies, creating large American corporations, including General Electric Company, American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), and the United States Steel Corporation (which was the single largest corporation in the world in ). This move toward consolidation granted Morgan control of huge sectors of the American economy. Through U.S. Steel alone, Morgan controlled  percent of steel production in the United States. Morgan’s growing success and power frightened many people and prompted the U.S. government to take a more active part in regulating the economy. Reformers clamored against the giant monopolies Morgan and others (Cornelius Vanderbilt,

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John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie) had built in the late th century and advocated for the passage of federal antitrust legislation to curb their power. Morgan himself did not categorically object to federal regulation. An essentially conservative man, he sought to bring order and stability to the U.S. economy. His position was basically that if the federal government would not regulate business, he would. In an effort to support the economy in times of distress, Morgan embarked on his third substantial area of business: public finance. Although the United States experienced unprecedented economic growth throughout the th century, several depressions or panics threatened the country’s financial prosperity. Morgan’s dealings had actually contributed to the financial depression that began in . By the s, however, when economic depression again gripped the country, Morgan used his wealth to support the country’s weakened financial frame, although he turned a significant profit on the effort at the same time. In , gold reserves in the U.S. Treasury dropped to an alarmingly low level. Morgan stepped in and organized a $ million loan among financiers for the U.S. government that kept the treasury afloat but also secured a tremendous profit for the investors. Again, in , when the economy teetered on the brink of collapse, Morgan organized several prominent New Yorkers to stabilize the country’s banking system, successfully averting financial disaster. After public confidence in the economy had been restored, Morgan worked with the secretary of the treasury to develop the foundations of the Federal Reserve System, which was implemented in . In addition to the world of finance, Morgan also loved the world of art. In the early s, he began collecting art and eventually accumulated the largest private art collection in the world. Most of these treasures were ultimately deposited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He also served for years as the president of the museum. His literary collection, comprising more than , books and manuscripts, was established in the J. P. Morgan Library, housed in a building adjoining his New York City residence. Although he did not establish prominent charitable trusts as Rockefeller and Carnegie did, he was a great benefactor throughout his life, contributing to causes that interested him, including the Young Men’s Christian Association and dozens of schools, hospitals, and churches. He was also a devoted member of St. George’s Episcopal Church in New York City and served as a warden and trustee for the church for many years. Morgan died in Rome on March , , and was buried in Hartford, Connecticut. At the time of his death, his estate was valued at more than $ million.

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER (1839–1937) As the moving force behind the Standard Oil Company, John D. Rockefeller helped create the American petroleum industry. Reform journalist Ida Tarbell pilloried him; others called him, as many still do, the greatest business leader in American history. Early in his career, he said prophetically to a banker, “Some day I’ll be the richest man in the world.” He also pioneered in large-scale, systematic philanthropy, giving away millions of dollars for the advancement of education, medicine, and science. Born on July , , in Richford, New York, John grew up under the influence of his strict Baptist mother, Eliza Davison Rockefeller, and his shrewd businessman father,

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William Avery Rockefeller. He attended school in Monrovia, New York, where his father owned a farm. In , he moved with his family to Oswego, New York, and three years later, to Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating from Cleveland High School, he had hopes of going to college, but his father insisted that he embark on a career in business, and the serious, reserved young man took courses for three months at a commercial school. Securing employment as a clerk, Rockefeller joined a commission merchant firm, where he received important training and made contacts with Cleveland businessmen. In , he formed a partnership with Maurice B. Clark, and with $, in capital, the two entrepreneurs traded in grain, hay, and meats. During the Civil War, Clark & Rockefeller made a considerable sum provisioning the Union Army; in fact, the early s brought Rockefeller the capital he needed to expand into other businesses. He did not serve in the war, opting instead to pay $ to hire a substitute, which the government allowed and many wealthy young men did. While the war raged, Rockefeller surveyed the developing oil frenzy in northwestern Pennsylvania. The first oil well had been drilled in  in Titusville, Pennsylvania, and new opportunities appeared with the rapid growth of petroleum refining and with the building of a railroad between Cleveland and the oil fields. As the oil arrived in Cleveland, refineries sprang up to process it, and Rockefeller decided this would be the endeavor to earn him fame and fortune. After all, it cost little to enter the new technology—a person could build a small refinery for as little as $,. In , he and several partners constructed the Excelsior refinery near the Cuyahoga River. The following year, in September , he married Laura Celestia Spelman, daughter of a Cleveland businessman. The couple subsequently had four children. Putting his future prospects in oil, Rockefeller quit the merchant business and in February  bought out all his partners except Samuel Andrews, a move he later referred to as having “determined my career.” Before the end of the year, the firm of Rockefeller & Andrews was operating the largest of Cleveland’s  refineries. He then brought his brother, William Rockefeller, into the business and built a second refinery. A postwar drop in the oil market in  wiped out several refineries, but Rockefeller’s remained strong, a credit to his efficiency and commitment. He always saw himself as engaged in a high calling; the oil deposits, he said, “were the gifts of the great Creator, the bountiful gifts of the great Creator.” That year, Rockefeller took in another talented businessman, Henry Flagler, as a partner. Flagler entered the partnership with capital, an ability to negotiate lower shipping rates with the railroads, and an austere, puritanical attitude that complemented Rockefeller’s. The firm became known as Rockefeller, Andrews, & Flagler. Despite chaotic conditions in an oil industry that was subject to sharp price fluctuations and unrestrained competition, Rockefeller and his associates prospered. To provide a more flexible organization, in , the partners founded the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. Throughout the s, the Standard Oil Company continued to grow and expand. It did so by keeping production costs down, obtaining favorable rates from the railroads in the form of rebates, engaging in occasional price slashing, and buying out competitors. By the mid-s, the company had either absorbed or forced out of business the majority of its rivals. Under Rockefeller’s skilled leadership, the company also pioneered in vertical integration within the oil industry,

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acquiring or building its own pipelines, controlling local distributors, and using its own tank cars. Thus, by , Standard Oil had managed to secure a virtual monopoly over oil refining and transportation and had become one of the largest corporations in the United States. Although Rockefeller’s ruthless and cutthroat business practices brought him tremendous wealth, his reputation with the public became severely damaged. With the public resoundingly convinced that everything Rockefeller did was motivated by greed, all of his ventures became tainted by public mistrust. In addition to becoming one of the wealthiest men in America, he entered the export market as well, shipping oil and kerosene to Asia, Africa, and South America. Throughout his career and amidst widespread public disapproval, Rockefeller insisted his drive was to bring order to the chaotic oil industry, known for its boom and bust cycles. He intended to provide the nation with a reliable energy source, and although he made money, accrued power, and crushed competitors, he allegedly saw these as secondary to his greater service. In , a Rockefeller attorney devised a new organization for the company called the trust, which placed Standard Oil stock, and that of its subsidiaries, in the hands of nine trustees. Since the trustees rather than the company held the stock, this allowed Standard Oil to circumvent laws that curtailed its right to own property outside Ohio. Within a short time, “trust” came to mean any big business combination—a recognition of the drive toward mammoth corporations accelerated by Rockefeller. Newspapers, politicians, and the public increasingly attacked trusts, especially Standard Oil. Many suspected that Rockefeller and his associates had used illegal tactics and immoral business practices. Although Rockefeller paid fair market value for many companies he acquired, he drove others into submission through cutthroat attacks, such as selling oil at a loss and then, after the competitor collapsed, driving up prices. He was also directly involved in bribing politicians—one observer commented that Standard Oil had done everything with the Pennsylvania legislature except refine it. Antitrust legislation by Congress and a decision by the Ohio Supreme Court forced Rockefeller to disband his trust in . He maintained centralized control, however, by simply transferring properties to subsidiary companies in several different states. In , he placed Standard Oil in a New Jersey holding company, with himself as president and Flagler as vice president, in an effort to subvert new federal laws against trusts. While the public criticized and even condemned Rockefeller, he quietly gave much of his money away to charities and educational institutions, often under the guidance of the Baptist church, in which he had long been a lay leader. He gave money to Spelman College in Georgia to educate African American women and founded the University of Chicago (ultimately giving it $ million). He spent a good deal of his time establishing philanthropic institutions, most prominently the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, founded in , and the Rockefeller Foundation, chartered in  “to promote the well-being of mankind and the world.” The latter helped eliminate yellow fever, gave money to hospitals overseas, and provided relief after World War I. Rockefeller’s wealth peaked at about $ million—a considerable sum at the turn of the century, more than the entire federal budget. As more than  percent of the gross national product, his fortune qualifies him as the wealthiest man in America’s history. He gave away more than $ million.

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Rockefeller had little to do with the corporation by the time Standard Oil suffered the widely read attacks from Tarbell in her History of the Standard Oil Company in , and the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the breakup of Standard Oil in  as a company in restraint of trade. Rockefeller died on May , , an enigmatic business leader who denied a desire for great wealth but obtained it; who praised competition but crushed it; who shunned the public that scorned him but contributed lavishly to help it.

william mcguire and leslie wheeler

9 The Civil War, 1861–1865

INTRODUCTION After years of political compromises, agitation by antislavery and proslavery groups, and weak presidential leadership during the s, the nation moved closer to civil war in . The presidential election that year pitted Abraham Lincoln of the Republican party against two candidates from a sectionally divided Democratic party and a candidate from a fourth party whose purpose was to find a way to avoid war. Southern leaders had warned that the election of Lincoln would mean secession; as the governor of South Carolina put it, his election would “inevitably destroy our equality in the Union and ultimately reduce the Southern states to mere provinces of a consolidated despotism . . . fatally bent upon our ruin.” Most southerners saw Lincoln as a die-hard abolitionist, and their attachment to the Union had been weakened over the past decade as they felt that northerners scorned them and that the balance of political and economic power had turned permanently against them. Few in the South anticipated the aftermath of secession. Not many believed the North would go to war, and fewer still believed that if war came, the outcome would be so disastrous for the South. With these thoughts in mind, delegates came to a convention in South Carolina in December  and formally repealed that state’s ratification of the Constitution, thus seceding from the nation. By February , , six other states had followed suit. Four more states seceded after the war began in April. All hope of compromise failed when delegates from the seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama, in February and formed the Confederate States of America. Thus, when Lincoln was inaugurated in early March, secession was an accomplished fact; a rival government was now in control of important Union property. Lincoln’s most immediate problem was what to do about this property, mostly federal forts and other military installations. The critical site was Fort Sumter, in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor, one of the few Union outposts not yet seized by Confederates. Lincoln had to decide the difficult question of whether to reinforce and supply Fort Sumter. If he retreated from a confrontation, he would lend credence to the power and legitimacy of the Confederate government; if he tried to use force to deliver supplies to Sumter, he would risk a violent response and possibly look like an aggressor. He attempted a moderate course of trying to supply Sumter peaceably, notifying South Carolina of his intentions. This placed the burden on the Confederates, who would be branded the aggressors if they provoked a confrontation. Deciding to take that risk, they attacked the fort with artillery on April  and brought about its surrender the following day. The country was at war.

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The Civil War was the first war to be photographed extensively. This shot, by T. H. O’Sullivan, shows the dead at Gettysburg, July 1863. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

As the war began, the North had tremendous material advantages. The population of the North numbered  million; of the South,  million, including nearly  million slaves, whose function in the Confederate military was unclear at best. The North had  times the number of industrial workers, more than twice the railroad mileage, and almost twice as many horses and mules. In the end, the North raised an army of just over . million men; the South claimed almost . million. By and large, the northern armies were better armed, clothed, and fed than their southern counterparts. The southern advantage lay in the greater motivation of fighting for its independence. When the war began, neither side had a prepared war plan. There was hardly a Confederate government at all, and no agency in the federal government to do such a thing. But clearly the northern strategy had to be offensive: to try to restore the Union by force through invasion and occupation of large parts of the South. The Confederate strategy could be defensive; victory could be theirs if they could stave off defeat until the North tired of the war and accepted the reality of southern independence. The strategy of both sides was much influenced by the dominant geographical feature of the Appalachian mountains, which split the war into western and eastern theaters. The northern strategy at first was simple: a northern army would march south and capture Richmond, which had replaced Montgomery as the Confederate capital. After a military disaster at the First Battle of Bull Run, however, Lincoln and his advisers developed a more complex plan, which called for a naval blockade of southern ports, a splitting of the Confederacy at the Mississippi River, and the building of a new army to invade Virginia. The South also settled on a defensive strategy early on, using its armies, led by the capable Robert E. Lee, to wear down the northern will to fight by putting up a

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strong defense, while working hard to obtain foreign recognition and the aid that would come with it. In the West, General Ulysses S. Grant led northern troops toward the goal of capturing control of the Mississippi River. Here the key battles were at Shiloh (April ), a two-day struggle in which the North repulsed a southern attack but failed to follow up on its advantage, and Vicksburg (May–July ), where a siege of several weeks finally resulted in the northern capture of the last southern point of control on the river. In the east, Lincoln’s first general, George B. McClellan, took an army into eastern Virginia, but his excessive cautiousness stalled any action until the spring of , when Lee’s armies met McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign. The cautious McClellan was no match for Lee, whose troops inflicted thousands of casualties and forced the northern army back toward Washington and finally into Maryland, where the critical battle of Antietam was fought in September. Neither side won this battle, but the result was worse for the South, whose advance into the North was stalled at a time when a decisive victory might have prompted recognition from the French and British. The result was just as bad for McClellan, whose lack of aggressiveness had frustrated Lincoln long enough. He was replaced by General Ambrose E. Burnside. If McClellan was too cautious, Burnside was just the opposite. He rushed his northern army back into Virginia and met a well-entrenched Confederate force at Fredericksburg in December. When the North suffered a stinging defeat there, Burnside was replaced by General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker. He rebuilt the army, marched it again into Virginia, and, in April , met Lee’s forces at Chancellorsville. Hooker fared no better than Burnside, and the North lost once again. At this point, Lee took the offensive and marched his troops north into Pennsylvania, still seeking the dramatic victory that would bring foreigners to the side of the Confederacy. In early July, his troops reached the town of Gettysburg, where they encountered the northern army, now led by General George Meade. In a climactic threeday battle that was the turning point of the war, Meade turned back Lee’s offensive and sent the Confederate Army retreating back into Virginia. His victory might have been overwhelming had he pressed his advantage and pursued Lee southward. Nevertheless, the tide of the war had turned. In the same week, the North split the Confederacy at the Mississippi River and blunted the last southern offensive in the east. In the west after Vicksburg, northern armies shifted their attention to Chattanooga, captured in November , and Atlanta, which fell in September . By this time, Grant had been brought back to Washington as general-in-chief (and commander of the eastern forces), and General William T. Sherman led the northern troops at Atlanta and then on a notorious and highly destructive sweep through central and eastern Georgia, culminating in the capture of the coastal town of Savannah in December . In , however, the real focus of the war was in Virginia, as Grant and Lee fought a series of bloody battles. These battles were different from those earlier in the war, as Grant never fell back but kept continuous pressure on Lee. Gradually northern troops inched toward Richmond, and although casualty figures on both sides were staggering, the North by this time was much more able to replace its losses than the South. After more than three years of often intense fighting, the resources of the Confederacy were running out. Its economy was a shambles, its currency was virtually worthless, and its troops were suffering the effects of poor rations and not enough ammunition.

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The fighting in Virginia continued through early , with the southern forces continuing to weaken in the face of Grant’s pressure. When Richmond fell on April , Lee realized the game was up. He surrendered to Grant in a private home in the small town of Appomattox, west of Richmond, on April . This was a very costly war in terms of lives: more than , Union deaths from battle, disease, or other causes and more than , Confederate deaths. Since virtually all of the war had been fought in the South, its property losses were massive. Some two-thirds of southern railroad mileage had been destroyed, and agricultural output was so disrupted that prewar levels of production were not reached until . What had been accomplished? Negro slavery was dead, but racial injustice was hardly forgotten. The concept of secession was likewise dead, and national unity was ensured, although sectional animosity would become a cultural staple. Over the long term, the war resulted in a better-balanced economy for the South, including a productive technological and industrial base. Militarily, the Civil War stands as the first total war, in which massive armies, using the output of economies dedicated to the war, fought each other in a conflict where there could be no compromise. The South had to fight for independence or quit; the North had to restore the Union or quit. At the same time, the Civil War was the last of the old-style wars, with massed armies charging across open fields, horse cavalries making forays, and generals giving inspirational speeches to their troops, all wrapped in the idea that war was something fought by gentlemen. It is not too much to say that the Civil War was two rather different wars in one. Although the fighting ended in April , the conflict did not end for another  years. The years from  to  are known as Reconstruction, a period during which native white southerners struggled to reclaim regional political power. Reconstruction might have been a much less contentious era had Lincoln not been assassinated just five days after Appomattox. Lincoln, who was given to political compromise, was replaced by his vice president, Andrew Johnson, the living incarnation of stubbornness. The problem lay in the manner in which Reconstruction was to be effected. Lincoln and Johnson envisioned a lenient policy under the direction of the executive branch, but congressional leaders wanted to punish the South for the war. While Lincoln would probably have found a middle ground with Congress, Johnson went into open warfare with the legislature, and when the midterm election of  created a veto-proof Congress, its version of Reconstruction policy was bound to prevail. This included the military occupation of the South to prevent lawlessness and protect former slaves from white retribution. Although President Johnson was rendered powerless by the midterm election, vengeful congressional leaders tried to remove him from office through impeachment. They failed by just one vote to win conviction in the Senate trial. In its Reconstruction policy, Congress also stripped most native white southerners of their civil rights, and local and state government in the South fell to a mix of carpetbaggers, or northerners who came to the South for a variety of reasons, and former slaves. These governments, loyal to the Republican majority in Congress, quickly wrote new state constitutions that barred slavery and secession and included ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed civil rights to all Americans. By the early s, all the states of the former Confederacy had been readmitted to the Union, and native southern whites were gradually winning back their rights. During the

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decade, a process historians call “redemption” took place; in state after state, southern whites recaptured political control through the ballot box, redeeming their state from the hated carpetbag-black governments. Following a disputed presidential election in , the last federal occupation troops were removed from the South in early , marking the end of Reconstruction. Most of the former slaves, now freedmen, ended up working on the same plantations where they had been slaves. The federal government discouraged migration and set up agencies called Freedmen’s Bureaus to assist blacks in arranging labor contracts or sharecropping agreements with their former masters. Black families received legal recognition for the first time, black churches and schools were quickly established and became the center of community life, and some blacks began dreaming of full equality. But that was not to come for a century; white rule in the South became more and more oppressive beginning in the s, creating a racially segregated society that proved to be very difficult to break down.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY carl e. kramer With the exceptions of the American Revolution and the framing of the Constitution of the United States, no other event has played so defining a role in American history as the Civil War. By simultaneously preserving the Union, ensuring the supremacy of the national government, and destroying chattel slavery, the northern victory resolved issues that had confounded the nation’s political leaders since the Constitutional Convention. By the same token, the Civil War opened a broad array of new issues, and in so doing played a critical role in shaping the nation’s political, social, and economic agenda up to the present time. Not surprisingly, the Civil War has fascinated Americans since the guns fell silent in . The causes of the Civil War are a subject of debate that may never be resolved. During the postbellum decades, some suggested that it was a moral struggle between northern abolitionists and southern slaveholders. In the early th century it often was depicted as an economic conflict between a modernizing industrial North and a traditional agrarian south, in which slavery had limited relevance. More recently, as a result of research prompted by the Civil War centennial and the modern civil rights movement, it has become apparent that the war’s causes were much more complex than either of these broad interpretations suggested. The Civil War is perhaps best viewed as a conflict between two opposing ways of life within the context of a constitutional-ideological struggle over the issue of expansion of slavery into the territories. By the mid-th century the North was characterized by a dynamic capitalist economy built on small shops, factories, and independent farms and embodying a belief in the dignity and worth of free labor and free agriculture, and the ideal of social mobility. To many northerners, slavery represented a serious threat to their ability to advance socially and economically. The South, on the other hand, had a predominantly plantation, staple crop economy, which was based on a slave labor system and supported by a sense of romanticism that

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equated this way of life with an idealized version of medieval feudalism. Cotton was the chief cash crop, and in the eyes of most southerners, the region’s survival depended on the Cotton Kingdom’s ability to expand westward. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War in , gave the United States all or part of the present states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado and immediately raised the question of whether this vast area would be open to slavery. About the only point on which all parties agreed was that the issue had to be resolved in a manner consistent with the Constitution, but the Constitution lacked a clear solution to the dilemma. Thus, three broad constitutional doctrines emerged, each combining elements of historic constitutional argument and regional self-interest: free soil, popular sovereignty, and state sovereignty. As tensions mounted, Americans gravitated toward the doctrine that best fit their views on the issue, regardless of their traditional partisan identification. This process eventually destroyed the established party alignment, and with it the ability of the constitutional political order to achieve a resolution that was morally acceptable across sectional lines. The prevailing northern view was free soil, based on the constitutional provision giving Congress exclusive authority to “make all . . . rules and regulations respecting the territory . . . belonging to the United States.” Free-soilers argued that this language empowered Congress to prohibit the introduction of slavery into any territory acquired from Mexico. The central expression of this doctrine was the Wilmot Proviso, introduced in the House of Representatives in August  by David Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Democrat, as an amendment to a military appropriations bill. Wilmot’s provision stipulated that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of . . . [any] territory” acquired from Mexico. The proviso twice passed the northerndominated House but died in the Senate. Although the proviso failed in Congress, it embodied the northern sentiment that the West should be left open to free white workers and farmers and eventually became a core component of Republican party ideology and a powerful expression of opposition to the expansion of slavery. Popular sovereignty, most commonly associated with Democratic senators Lewis Cass of Michigan and Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, found favor primarily in the Old Northwest. Its proponents agreed with the free-soilers that Congress had exclusive authority to legislate for the territories, but they reasoned from that position that Congress could allow the people of the territories to decide the issue of slavery’s expansion for themselves. Popular sovereignty had a strong appeal because it seemed consistent with the democratic value of self-determination. Douglas used popular sovereignty as a cornerstone of both the Compromise of  and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but both efforts at compromise broke down, the former when many northerners defied the fugitive slave law and the latter when civil war broke out in Kansas between antislavery and proslavery forces attempting to control territorial organization. The failure of compromise contributed directly to the collapse of the Whig Party, the growing sectional division of the Democratic Party, and the emergence of a new Republican Party based on free soil. State sovereignty, favored by the South, was formulated largely by South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun and was rooted in the compact theory of the Constitution, enunciated in  by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. They argued that the Constitution was a voluntary compact among

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sovereign states to create a central government that would perform certain functions on behalf of all the states that they could not carry out effectively on their own. Inherent in the doctrine was the idea that no state would voluntarily consent to actions by the central government that were destructive to its people’s fundamental interests. Therefore, any state had an implicit power to judge the constitutionality of acts of the national government within its boundaries and to nullify legislation it judged unconstitutional. An essential corollary was that the national government also had the positive responsibility to protect each state’s interests beyond the state’s boundaries, if necessary. Calhoun and his followers argued that slavery was fundamental to the southern way of life and that any attempt by the national government to block its expansion into the territories was unconstitutional. Indeed, not only could Congress not attempt to block slavery’s expansion, it also was obliged to protect slaveholders who were attempting to move into federal territories. While southerners failed to obtain congressional legislation to this effect, the Supreme Court translated state sovereignty into constitutional law in  when it ruled in the Dred Scott decision that Congress lacked power to regulate slavery in the territories. Sectional divisions hardened over the next three years, aggravated by events such as President James Buchanan’s endorsement of the proslavery Lecompton Constitution for Kansas in  and John Brown’s Harper’s Ferry raid in . Northerners became increasingly convinced of a southern slave power conspiracy to destroy their liberty. And more and more southerners were certain that northern abolitionists were unwilling to let them live in peace with their “peculiar institution.” With each section increasingly wedded to its position and persuaded that the other intended to destroy its way of life, compromise became politically unfeasible and morally unacceptable. The intensity of sectional feelings was highlighted in the  presidential election. Four candidates represented competing constitutional and sectional positions. Republican Abraham Lincoln carried the free-soil banner; Stephen A. Douglas represented the northern Democrats, who hoped to stave off permanent division through popular sovereignty; Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky was the southern Democratic standard-bearer, running on a state sovereignty platform that included a national slave code; and the Constitutional Union party, composed primarily of conservative Whigs, nominated John Bell of Tennessee on a platform supporting “the Union, the Constitution, and the Enforcement of the Laws.” With the Democrats split and the Constitutional Unionists appealing to the border states and upper South, a Republican victory was all but inevitable. Before the election, South Carolina politicians promised that if Lincoln were elected, their state would secede. When Lincoln won, South Carolina kept its word, withdrawing from the Union in December. Six other states of the lower South followed, and in February the seven seceded states formed the Confederate States of America. Meanwhile, conservative Unionists attempted to convince the South that it could live with Lincoln. The most prominent of these efforts was a compromise introduced by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. It took the form of a thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, which would reestablish the Missouri Compromise line and extend it to California. During the territorial phase, slavery would be prohibited above the line and protected below the line. Moreover, this would be an unamendable amendment, so any future attempt by the American government to abolish slavery would be unconstitutional. Lincoln took

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no public position on the Crittenden compromise, but he privately considered it constitutional blackmail and passed the word to his senatorial allies that his opposition to expansion of slavery into the territories was firm. The amendment died in the upper chamber. With Lincoln’s inauguration on March , , and his subsequent decision to reinforce Fort Sumter, the divided nation hurtled toward war. To South Carolina and the Confederacy, Fort Sumter represented a symbolic threat to southern nationhood. In the early morning of April , , after the fort’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, refused a surrender ultimatum, Confederate batteries in Charleston Harbor opened fire. Thirty-four hours later, the battered fort’s garrison surrendered. The next day, President Lincoln called , state militia into federal service. The northern states responded enthusiastically, but Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee refused to answer the call and joined the Confederacy. Less than six weeks after Virginia seceded, Richmond became the Confederate capital. The four years of bloody warfare understandably have been the primary focus of both scholarly and popular interest in the Civil War, a preoccupation that has often obscured the war’s broader political and diplomatic objectives and long-term social and economic consequences. To overlook these aspects is to lose perspective on what the war was about and why each side acted as it did. As the war began, President Lincoln had one stated aim: to restore the Union. This required that the North win the war militarily. Because northern opinion was sharply divided on numerous issues, especially the future of slavery, Lincoln had to perform a delicate balancing act to maintain public support for the war effort. This helps explain his seemingly contradictory actions at many points. A dramatic example involves his dealings with the border states. While radical abolitionists wanted to end slavery quickly, the president recognized that to do so would alienate those loyal states where slavery was protected by the Constitution. Instead, he dealt with each state in a manner that reflected its strategic importance to the Union. Maryland lay to the north of Washington, and its loss meant that the nation’s capital would be surrounded by enemy territory. When pro-Confederate units began organizing and drilling, Lincoln sent troops to Maryland and suspended the writ of habeus corpus, allowing the government to detain people without charging them with a crime for an indefinite length of time. Kentucky was critical because it controlled access to western rail routes and shipping on the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers. But the state legislature proclaimed its intention to remain neutral. Consequently, rather than take forceful action, Lincoln outwardly respected the state’s “neutrality” and waited for the Confederates to make the first move. His patience was rewarded in early September when Confederate General Leonidas Polk invaded Columbus, on the Mississippi River. General Ulysses S. Grant occupied Paducah, and the Kentucky legislature declared for the Union. In Missouri, after months of vicious fighting between pro-Union and pro-Confederate forces, Lincoln relieved General John C. Fremont from command and issued an emancipation order that infuriated slaveholding Unionists in all border states. Meanwhile, Lincoln struggled to hold the support of Republican abolitionists. Radicals like William Lloyd Garrison argued that freeing the slaves was more important than preserving the Union or defending the Constitution. But more moderate abolitionists soon advanced the notion that emancipation could be justified as “military necessity.”

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Noting that slaves performed much labor for the Confederate Army, they argued that emancipation of slaves in Confederate territory captured by Union troops constituted legitimate confiscation of enemy property. Accepting this argument, Lincoln signed the Acts of Confiscation in August  and March . He unsuccessfully encouraged border state leaders to support a plan for gradual, compensated emancipation. But as the war moved into its second year, it became increasingly apparent to Lincoln that it would be impossible to preserve the Union without destroying slavery. The issue became one not of goals but of timing and approach. Whereas the North had to achieve a decisive military victory to restore the Union, the Confederacy’s primary aim was to secure its independence and thus preserve slavery. In short, the South did not so much have to win the war as to prevent the North from winning. Many southerners believed that if they could achieve a military stalemate and gain European diplomatic recognition, then northern voters might demand that the South be allowed to go in peace. From this perspective, southerners began the war with several advantages, including superior military leadership and a high level of morale that resulted from fighting in defense of their homeland. The South also benefited from its geography, which included a large, heavily wooded territory and poor, often unmapped roads and railroad tracks that were vulnerable to cavalry and guerrilla attacks. These conditions would make it difficult for an invading army to protect its supply lines. The Confederacy also had many sympathizers among British and French aristocrats, who considered southern planters their kindred spirits. Similarly, many planters believed they could pressure textile manufacturers in England and France to support their cause because of a need for cotton. These advantages were offset by some significant disadvantages with which Confederate President Jefferson Davis had to contend. A major weakness was the lack of an established central government capable of waging full-scale war. In addition, many of the South’s best political leaders sought military commands. Consequently, many Confederate cabinet members and congressmen were mediocrities. This resulted in poor legislative performance, high leadership turnover, and terrible administrative inefficiency. Compounding these problems was a southern tradition of political obstructionism aimed more at blocking Yankee attempts to destroy slavery than at crafting positive legislative programs. Davis himself was a target of considerable criticism. Although a reasonably able administrator, he interfered too much in the operations of cabinet departments and often became bogged down in administrative detail. A West Point graduate, he fancied himself a grand strategist and spent too much time trying to conduct military affairs. But Davis’s chief problem was a humorless personality that caused him to make enemies quickly. He quickly fell out with Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, Georgia governor Joseph Brown, and North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance, all strong states’ rights advocates who challenged Davis at every step in his efforts to fashion an effective national government. Complicating the situation was the Confederacy’s nonpartisan political culture, which made normal conflicts all the more personal and divisive. This contentious atmosphere made it harder to overcome fundamental economic weaknesses such as limited manufacturing capacity, inadequate revenue, and excessive diplomatic and economic dependence on cotton. By mid-, it was clear to both sides that the war would be a long one and that their war aims had to be reassessed and strategies adjusted accordingly. These adjustments

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had important diplomatic, social, and economic as well as military implications. For Lincoln and the Union, the question of slavery’s future was critical. The president had exercised caution for fear of alienating border state loyalists and War Democrats, but Republican abolitionists continued to demand action to free the slaves, and Lincoln could not afford to lose their support. The issue also had a diplomatic side. Southern sympathizers in the British and French governments had taken numerous actions on the South’s behalf, and vessels built by British shipyards for the Confederate navy were taking a heavy toll on Union shipping. In both countries there was talk of diplomatic recognition for the Confederacy. European antislavery leaders opposed intervention but felt it could not be prevented unless abolition became a Union war aim. On July , , after border state leaders again rejected Lincoln’s plan for compensated emancipation, he revealed to the cabinet his intention to issue an emancipation proclamation. The proposal won nearly unanimous support, although Secretary of State William H. Seward urged that the president postpone the proclamation until the military situation and northern morale improved. Meanwhile, the war on the battlefield, particularly in the east, was going the South’s way. But it was taking a large toll on rebel manpower and ravaging the land. In addition, the South had not obtained the European recognition it so desperately needed. In September General Robert E. Lee decided to take the offensive. He moved his Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland, hoping that a victory would gain diplomatic recognition and persuade the neighboring state to join the Confederacy. On September  he met George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac at Antietam Creek. The bloody battle there was a military draw but strategically decisive. By stopping Lee’s invasion, it all but eliminated the South’s hopes of diplomatic intervention and gave Lincoln the “victory” he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Six days after the battle, Lincoln announced his preliminary proclamation and stated that slaves in states still in rebellion on January , , would be “forever free.” In truth, the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free a single slave. It did not affect slaves in the border states or those in parts of the South already under federal control. From a legal-constitutional standpoint, it was a conservative measure based on the doctrine of military necessity. A constitutional amendment would be necessary to abolish slavery permanently, and that could not occur until the war was won. In the meantime, the proclamation encouraged thousands of slaves to desert their owners and gave Union generals the power to liberate slaves in Confederate territory captured after the document took effect. Most important, the proclamation made abolition a formal war aim, giving the Union the moral advantage not only at home but in the court of world opinion. In short, the war’s purpose was transformed from restoring the Union as it had been to creating a new nation without slavery. Emancipation was one of many social and economic changes that helped transform American society as civil war became total war. As casualty lists lengthened, both sides resorted to the draft to replenish their ranks. The Confederate Congress enacted its first conscription law in April , and the federal Congress passed its own draft law in March . The primary motive for the Union draft law was to encourage enlistments, and to a large degree it succeeded, but draft laws on both sides were riddled with loopholes that led to charges that the conflict was “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

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Although this charge has been largely refuted, opposition to the war and the draft certainly had elements of class warfare. Northern Democrats opposed to the Emancipation Proclamation charged that the draft would require working-class whites to fight a war to free the slaves, who would then move north and take their jobs. Several antidraft riots erupted during the summer of , the most violent in New York City, where in mid-July mobs of mostly Irish Americans lynched blacks, burned draft offices, and destroyed the homes of Republican leaders. It took city police and regiments of the Army of the Potomac four days to quell the violence. Class warfare of a different sort broke out in the South. By the summer of  several areas were suffering from severe inflation and food shortages as a result of destruction of croplands, demands for food by the army, and a shortage of manpower to cultivate crops. By the spring of  civilian food supplies were almost gone, and bread riots broke out in several cities. In Richmond, hundreds of women and boys looted stores before the militia brought the violence under control. Better crops that summer improved the situation for a time, but food shortages were a recurring problem in the South throughout the war. Almost as controversial as conscription in the North was the issue of enlisting blacks as soldiers. Some abolitionists had proposed such a move during the summer of . Lincoln believed in the concept but rejected it for the moment for fear of losing the support of the border states and of giving the Democrats an issue for the fall congressional races and the  gubernatorial contests in Ohio and Pennsylvania. But the Emancipation Proclamation and passage of the  Conscription Act gave the idea of allowing blacks to fight for their own freedom powerful logic. Lincoln openly endorsed the recruitment of black troops in March , and by late spring numerous regiments had been organized. Led by white officers and paid less than their white counterparts, these black troops were initially expected to perform labor, supply, and garrison duties, but when given the opportunity to fight, they performed well. Their courage not only torpedoed Democratic opposition to use of black troops but helped abolitionists obtain legislation in  to give them equal pay. By the war’s end, at least , troops had been enlisted. Their performance played a vital role in passage of Reconstruction legislation and constitutional amendments to abolish slavery and give blacks equal citizenship status. The Civil War had a profound impact on the American economy. The years before the war witnessed many modernizing tendencies, particularly the application of new technologies in agriculture, transportation, and manufacturing, but the benefits of these changes were concentrated in the North. On the eve of the war, southern cotton remained the nation’s dominant export commodity and the most expansive force in the American economy. The drive by planters to protect King Cotton and promote its expansion blocked other improvements sought by northern businessmen, such as a national banking and currency system, a transcontinental railroad, federal assistance to higher education, and distribution of public land to farmers. Secession made it impossible for southerners to block the forces of modernization any longer. The effects were not long in coming. As a result of the Union blockade and European crop failures in the early s, northern grain and other foodstuffs displaced cotton as America’s chief export, helping also to cement diplomatic relations with England and France. Large-scale demand for food to feed the troops, at a price acceptable to government purchasing agents, also stimulated output while driving down production costs.

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Meanwhile, the need to move goods and troops stimulated improvements in transportation. Soaring traffic volume on the internal waterways, along with a need for more naval and merchant vessels, triggered a boom in production of both river and seagoing craft. Even greater expansion occurred in the railroad industry. To handle vastly increased traffic, northern railroads laid thousands of miles of new track, double-tracked busy corridors, built new bridges across rivers and valleys, standardized rail gauges, and built union terminals in major cities. The Confederacy too struggled to expand its rail system, but it faced the added burden of rebuilding tracks and bridges destroyed by invading Yankees or by Confederate cavalry and guerrillas to prevent their use by Union troops. As Union armies occupied large sections of the South, Confederate railroads came under control of the United States Military Railroads (USMRR), a branch of the War Department. To supply advancing troops, the USMRR rebuilt wrecked tracks and facilities, laid new lines, and acquired new locomotives and cars. By the end of the war, the USMRR operated the largest rail system in the world. For American industry, the Civil War was a mixed blessing. Industries that made a direct contribution to the war effort, such as firearms, leather, explosives, wagon building, clothing, iron production, and coal mining, experienced significant growth. Particularly notable is that many industries grew despite the loss of skilled workers to military service. The shortage of workers was overcome by the use of unskilled women and children and the introduction of new technologies. But many industries, such as cotton textiles and shoes, suffered because of the loss of the southern market and the redirection of capital to production of war-related goods that had little long-term civilian use. The South also experienced rather substantial industrial development, as the Confederate ordnance chief, General Josiah Gorgas, established dozens of factories across the South to produce arms and ammunition. But war-induced industrialization was temporary. As the Union armies advanced, they destroyed most of the new factories. By the war’s end the South was worse off industrially than it had been before secession. From a purely statistical perspective, economic growth during the war years was roughly even with the decades before and after the war, but such comparisons must take into account both the North’s considerable economic growth and the balancing effect of the destruction of southern resources, productive capability, and purchasing power. It also must be remembered that growth measures for the immediate postwar years reflect the cost of rebuilding the South’s productive capability as well as new investment. The Civil War’s most important economic consequence, however, was the reordering of the nation’s political economy. Just as the North won the war on the battlefield, its industrial might became the driving force in the national economy, and its political power provided the social force behind economic modernization. The restructuring of the nation’s political and economic landscape became apparent well before the war ended. Not only did the Emancipation Proclamation represent the triumph of the free-soil doctrine, but also congressional Republicans enacted a host of bills to advance the development of a modern capitalist economy. In  Congress enacted three pieces of legislation that embodied various forms of capital development. The Homestead Act, which granted  acres of public land to settlers who would live on it for five years, provided farmers with land as capital. The Morrill Land-Grant College Act gave every state , acres for each of its U.S. representatives and senators,

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with proceeds from the sale of the land to go toward financing colleges to teach “agricultural and mechanical arts.” It represented a critical investment in human capital. Similarly, the Pacific Railroad Act authorized a grant of , acres of public land and $, in federal loans for each mile of a transcontinental railroad between Omaha and San Francisco. This legislation, along with larger grants and loans two years later, was an investment in development capital to expand markets and tap the West’s vast natural resources. Wartime financial needs created an opportunity to build a sound national banking and currency system. The Legal Tender Act, also passed in , authorized the Treasury Department to issue $ million in treasury notes. Intended for payment of nearly all public and private debts, “greenbacks” served as a ready medium of circulating currency, both facilitating commercial transactions and making it easier for citizens to pay the many taxes levied to finance the Union war effort. The treasury also sold over $ billion in war bonds, many through Jay Cooke, a Philadelphia banker. Although the bonds were aimed originally at large investors, Cooke’s agents blanketed the country, selling securities to average citizens, including the families of soldiers. By making the purchase of war bonds a patriotic act, Cooke helped democratize the marketing of government bonds and forge a stronger link between the general public and the nation’s financial community. The objectives of the National Banking Acts of  and  were to establish a new central banking system, create a market for war bonds, and create a more stable bank note currency. These acts provided for the organization of federally chartered banks, which would issue national bank notes backed by government bonds. The goal was to use the national bank notes to drive less stable state bank notes out of circulation. The system caught on slowly, but in March  Congress enacted a -percent tax on state bank notes. By year’s end, most state bank notes had been withdrawn, and most state banks had obtained federal charters. The banking system created by the National Banking Acts operated until establishment of the Federal Reserve System in . Beyond their individual consequences, the political, economic, and social changes wrought by the Civil War were part of a larger organizational revolution whose effects are still felt more than a century later. When the war began, the United States was still a highly fragmented, unorganized nation. But the demands of total warfare required a high degree of central coordination and affected nearly every aspect of society. Over the four years, millions of soldiers were transformed from raw, undisciplined recruits into highly disciplined fighting units. For more than a century to follow, the same hierarchical army model would serve as the organizing principle for American industry. Likewise, every facet of war support services, from manufacture of ordnance and uniforms to collection of taxes and care of freed slaves, required creation of a specialized government bureau staffed with personnel assigned to plan, organize, and carry out the agency’s work. This organizational revolution also affected the nongovernmental sphere, where it took on a highly voluntaristic character. Primary responsibility for tending sick and wounded Union soldiers was given to the U.S. Sanitary Commission. Organized and governed by civilian directors, the Sanitary Commission recruited thousands of doctors and nurses, established hospitals, stockpiled food and medicine, inspected military

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camps, and performed many other functions for the care and relief of soldiers. Stressing both efficiency and humanitarianism, it was the forerunner of the American National Red Cross and a model for scores of other charitable organizations founded in the decades ahead. The war contributed to a resurgence in the labor movement. Workers in numerous industries, pushed to the limit to meet wartime production requirements, organized unions and went on strike for higher wages. In some cases, such as in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania, where the unions were dominated by Irish Catholics, workers combined demands for better wages and working conditions with opposition to emancipation and the draft in strikes against firms owned by Protestant Republicans. This pattern would be repeated again and again in the labor–management strife that accompanied postwar industrialization. Accompanying the organizational revolution was a self-confident nationalism that emerged from the Union victory. This feeling had many expressions. For the congressional Republicans who drove Reconstruction, it was a single-minded conviction that the nation and its interests were superior to those of the individual states. Tens of thousands of Union veterans expressed similar sentiments by joining the Grand Army of the Republic, a powerful voice of national unity and expansion within the Republican party for the remainder of the century. In the diplomatic arena, Secretary of State William Seward sketched a blueprint for international economic expansion that undergirded American diplomacy until the Spanish-American War. The ultimate expression of this new sense of nationhood was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, wherein he proclaimed “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” In these words, Lincoln redefined the United States from a voluntary union of sovereign states to a unified, democratic nation whose government was superior to the states and responsible directly to the people. While the Civil War and Reconstruction set the nation on the path toward the “new birth of freedom,” Lincoln’s vision has yet to be fully realized. The Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment ended chattel slavery; the Civil Rights Act of  gave blacks the same rights as whites; the Fourteenth Amendment gave those civil rights constitutional protection; and the Fifteenth Amendment ensured adult black men the right to vote. But even constitutional rights and protections were not immune to the resurgent tide of white supremacy that brought down Reconstruction and ushered in a new era of racial segregation and discrimination. Throughout the South, blacks were denied civil and voting rights, and blacks in the North and West were subjected to social and institutional racism that blocked equal opportunity to education, employment, housing, and public accommodations. The civil rights movement of the s and s swept away many legal and institutional forms of discrimination, but the aftereffects of centuries of slavery, segregation, and discrimination are still apparent in the disproportionately high levels of poverty, unemployment, crime, and other social and economic problems that affect black Americans. Until these disparities are eliminated and racial equality becomes a reality, Lincoln’s new birth of freedom will remain an unrealized dream, and the Civil War will continue to a play a central role in defining the American social agenda.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Beringer, Richard E., Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, and William N. Still Jr. Why the South Lost the Civil War. Athens: University of Georgia Press, . Argues that the Confederate defeat resulted not so much from military and economic weakness as from the weakness of Southern nationalism and a loss of will rooted in evangelical Protestantism. Bernstein, Iver. The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, . A vivid account not only of the riots themselves but of their long-term impact on New York City’s political culture. Bestor, Arthur. “The American Civil War as a Constitutional Crisis.” American Historical Review  (January ): –. The classic statement of the argument that the Civil War was a conflict among the free-soil, popular sovereignty, and state sovereignty positions on the issue of expansion of slavery into the territories. Catton, Bruce. This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, . A vivid narrative treatment of the Union war effort. Cornish, Dudley Taylor. The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, –. New York: W. W. Norton, . A pioneering study of the northern struggle to allow African Americans to fight for their own freedom. Davis, William C. “A Government of Our Own”: The Making of the Confederacy. New York: Free Press, . The definitive examination of the creation of the Confederacy and its government. Davis, William C. Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour. New York: HarperCollins, . A balanced, well-written biography that depicts the Confederate president as a complex and misunderstood figure whose strengths fully equaled his weaknesses. Donald, David H. Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, . A distinguished study of President Lincoln as political leader, statesman, husband, and father. Foner, Eric. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, . An excellent analysis of the Republicans’ attitudes and beliefs about labor and human rights that undergirded the party’s opposition to the extension of slavery. Fredrickson, George M. The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union. New York: Harper & Row, . A pathbreaking analysis of the reaction of northern thinkers to the Civil War and the impact thereof on postwar science, humanitarianism, and social thought. Genovese, Eugene D. The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South. New York: Random House, . A collection of pioneering essays by a leading student of slavery and the southern way of life. Goodwin, Doris Kearnes. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, . Best-selling study of Lincoln and his relations with his Cabinet. Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, . Examines the North’s military triumph from the perspective of strategy and tactics, logistics, diplomacy, resources, and command and organizational competence. Holzer, Harold, and Sarah Vaughn Gabbard, eds. Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, . A collection of essays dealing with Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, the context of emancipation, and the evolution of the antislavery amendment. McFeely, William S. Grant: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, . The definitive biography of the Union’s commanding general and the th president of the United States. McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, . The best single-volume narrative of the Civil War and its causes.

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Marszalek, John F. Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order. New York: Free Press, . An outstanding biography of the Union’s leading exponent of total war. Nichols, Roy F. The Disruption of American Democracy. New York: Macmillan, . The best analysis of the division of the Democratic Party before the Civil War. Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis, –. Completed and edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher. New York: Harper & Row, . A masterful analysis of the events between the Mexican War and the attack on Fort Sumter. Pressly, Thomas J. Americans Interpret Their Civil War. New York: Free Press, . An excellent discussion of historical viewpoints on the Civil War and its meaning from the beginning of the conflict through the early s. Rable, George C. The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . An insightful treatment of Confederate political culture and the conflicts between political ideals and political behavior in the absence of political parties. Rawley, James A. The Politics of Union. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press, . A concise summary of northern politics during the Civil War. Thomas, Emory M. Robert E. Lee: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, . An outstanding profile of the Confederate commander by a distinguished historian of the Confederacy. Wert, Jeffery D. General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier—A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, . A probing yet sympathetic assessment of one of Lee’s top lieutenants, including Longstreet’s opposition to Lee’s frontal assault at Gettysburg on July , . Wiley, Bell I. The Life of Billy Yank. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, . The definitive account of soldier life in the Union Army. ———. The Life of Johnny Reb. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, . The definitive work on soldier life in the Confederate Army. Williams, T. Harry. Lincoln and His Generals. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . A pioneering study of Lincoln as a strategist and commander-in-chief by a distinguished Civil War historian. Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. New York: Simon & Schuster, . A brilliant analysis of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and its role in redefining the meaning of the United States in the light of the Civil War. Woodward, C. Vann, ed. Mary Chesnut’s Civil War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . A fascinating day-by-day account of life in the Civil War South through the eyes of the wife of a powerful South Carolina politician. Woodworth, Stephen. Decision in the Heartland: The Civil War in the West. Westport, CT: Praeger, . Emphasizes the importance of both land and naval action in the West in determining the outcome of the war. ———. Jefferson Davis and His Generals. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, . Argues that the Confederate defeat stemmed in part from contentious relations between Davis and his generals in the western theater of operations.

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA Formed in early February , the Confederate States of America (CSA) was a collection of Southern states that had seceded from the United States and formed a separate nation. The Confederacy was formed for the purpose of preserving and protecting slavery, establishing Southern autonomy from the U.S. federal government, and ensuring the sovereignty of individual Southern states before a central government. The CSA survived only for the duration of the Civil War, which ended in total defeat for the South in .

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Events in the s had so polarized politics along sectional lines that by the time Abraham Lincoln was elected president on the strength of Northern votes alone (his name had not even appeared on ballots in the South), Southerners were convinced that the outcome of the election signaled the permanent demise of Southern political power and threatened the existence of slavery. Though Lincoln had assured the South that he would not interfere with slavery where it already existed, leaders in the Southern states were convinced that the times called for drastic action and began organizing secession conventions within their states. South Carolina led the way on December , , followed by Mississippi (January , ), Florida (January ), Alabama (January ), Georgia (January ), Louisiana (January ), and Texas (February ). On February , , representatives from these seven states met in Montgomery, Alabama, and formed the Confederate States of America. In four short days, they drafted a provisional constitution, which resembled the U.S. Constitution in most regards except that it strengthened the position of individual states in respect to the federal government and included strong, explicit guarantees for the protection of slavery and the interstate slave trade (although it continued the ban on the foreign slave trade). Former senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected president, and Alexander Stephens of Georgia became vice president, declaring that slavery was the “corner-stone” of the Confederate Constitution. The states of the upper South seceded over the course of that spring—Virginia (April ), Arkansas (May ), North Carolina (May ), and Tennessee (June )—and promptly joined the CSA. Hostilities between the United States and the Confederacy erupted on April , , after Confederate artillery fired on the federally held Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. The Confederate Army was quickly flooded with volunteers as the nation organized for war. Just one year later, in April , the CSA would institute the first draft in American history in an attempt to compete with the superior numbers of troops available to Northern recruiters. At first, the war went well for the CSA, as Union armies were hampered by hesitant generals, and the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia rallied behind the brilliant leadership of Gen. Robert E. Lee. During the first two years of the war, Lee would become legendary for his bold tactics and cunning maneuvers against hapless Union forces. All did not bode well for the Confederacy, however. For one, the Union had vastly superior numbers of manpower and resources at its disposal. The Union’s Army of the Potomac was larger than Lee’s, better equipped, and more rigorously trained under Gen. George B. McClellan, although McClellan was reluctant to fight. The Confederacy’s forces did not fare well in the West, where such forceful generals as Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman methodically captured Confederate strongholds in the Mississippi River Valley. After Grant was given charge of all Union forces in March  and transferred to the eastern theater, he and Sherman would drive on to defeat the South. The Union Navy quietly chipped away at the Confederacy as well, dealing the first serious blow when it captured the port of New Orleans in April . Lincoln’s imposition of a blockade on all Southern ports and shipping, declared in the early days of the war, slowly strangled the South, denying it precious supplies and halting all cotton exports. In addition to these problems on the battlefield, the home front of the Confederacy also began to unravel. Class tensions erupted after planters were given the option to buy

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substitutes for themselves for the draft, leading to the widespread notion that it was “a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight.” Furthermore, leaders of the CSA had come to rue the nation’s strong states’ rights position, as governors refused to send the requisite supplies or men to the military. Coordination between the central government and state governments became increasingly difficult throughout the war. Ironically, in many ways the CSA became what it sought to escape—a powerful central government that usurped local and state authority in its effort to fight the war successfully. Relations between Davis and the Confederate Congress were strained for much of the war, at times crippling the central government. Diminished trade, inflation, and food shortages threatened many with hunger and privation. As the war effort became more difficult and more hopeless, Confederate soldiers deserted the army in ever increasing numbers in the hope that they could ease the hardships of their families back home. The greatest irony of all came at the end of the war when the Confederate Congress debated and passed measures to emancipate slaves who would fight for the Confederacy. A “colored” regiment was organized in Richmond in , but by that time, it was too late to reverse the South’s fortunes on the battlefield. After Lee surrendered unconditionally to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April , , the CSA crumbled. In its place, the Union established a military government to reconstruct the South and ultimately to readmit the Southern states to the Union. The ill-fated effort of the CSA to establish a separate republic cost the South dearly in lives and destruction of property and ultimately destroyed the very institution that it had hoped to preserve—slavery.

JEFFERSON DAVIS (1808–1889) Military hero and successful politician Jefferson Davis accepted the office of president of the Confederacy, said his wife, “as a man might speak of a sentence of death.” He would have preferred a military command in the new Confederate Army and had little taste for political intrigue and infighting. Born on June , , in Kentucky, but raised in Wilkinson, Mississippi, Davis attended several private schools before securing an appointment to West Point in . The six-foot-tall, strong-willed, and emotionally intense Davis thrived in the military. Upon graduation in , he was stationed on the northwestern frontier (present-day Wisconsin and northern Illinois). In the early s, he served in the Black Hawk Indian War. After marrying Sarah Knox, the daughter of his commander, Zachary Taylor, on June , , Davis resigned his commission to develop Brierfield, a ,-acre plantation in Mississippi. His wife lived only three months after their marriage, dying of malarial fever on September , . For the next  years, Davis committed himself to establishing his plantation out of the wilderness. Convinced that African Americans were biologically inferior and that the Bible supported the institution of slavery, Davis sincerely believed that slavery benefited slaves as much as white slaveholders. The profits he made from his plantation and the good care he took of his slaves corroborated his beliefs. He was a hard worker and expected a great deal from his slaves, but he also frequently worked alongside them in the fields, clearing trees and stumps from the land to make room for crops. During this period, he began to read history and politics voraciously, forming opinions on states’ rights doctrines in response to abolitionists’ attacks on the institution of slavery.

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On February , , Davis married again; his new wife was Varina Howell, a beautiful and vivacious southern belle with strong ties to the local aristocracy. In November of that same year, Davis was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat. Always partial to military life, he resigned from Congress to fight in the Mexican War the following June. Taking command of a volunteer unit known as the “Mississippi Rifles,” Davis joined General Taylor (his former father-in-law) in time to help negotiate the surrender of Monterrey. He and the Mississippi Rifles became heroes at Buena Vista for a decisive stand that quite possibly salvaged a victory for Taylor’s army. After the Mississippi Rifles disbanded in the summer of , Davis was elected to the U.S. Senate. A loyal Southern Democrat, he supported President James K. Polk in his expansionist policies and opposed the admission of California as a free state. He also opposed the Wilmot Proviso. After the Compromise of  was adopted over his protest, Davis resigned his Senate seat to run an unsuccessful campaign for governor of Mississippi. In , he helped elect Democrat Franklin Pierce to the presidency, in recognition of which Pierce appointed Davis secretary of war in . While secretary of war, Davis increased the size of the army; improved military regulations, equipment, and salaries; and unsuccessfully attempted to replace seniority with merit as the basis for promotion. His greatest accomplishment lay in encouraging railroad construction by authorizing survey parties to prepare detailed reports on possible railroad routes. Davis supported a southern route for the first transcontinental railroad and played an important role in the Gadsden Purchase. He also favored annexing Cuba and Nicaragua. After Pierce left office, Davis was reelected to the Senate in  and quickly became the chief spokesman for Southern legislators advocating the extension of slavery into the territories. Davis believed that since the Constitution protected slavery and also protected private property, no federal legislation could be passed that inhibited the right of slave owners to take their slaves anywhere in the United States. Indeed, the Constitution made it the duty of the federal government to protect the property of slaveholders. A moderate advocate of secession, Davis argued that the United States was composed of sovereign states that, because they had voluntarily joined the Union, could also choose to leave it. By the s, he had come to regard the South as a country within a country and himself as its spokesman. After the Democratic Party split over the slavery issue in , Davis supported the unsuccessful candidacy of John Breckinridge. Realistic enough to know that secession would not be accomplished peacefully, Davis supported efforts to find some kind of compromise solution to the crisis posed by Abraham Lincoln’s election. When Mississippi voted on January , , to secede, however, he resigned from the Senate and went with his state. Back in Mississippi, Davis was appointed major-general of the state’s troops and hoped to be selected as commander of the South’s army. Instead, the general convention of seceding states elected Davis president of the newly formed Confederacy for a single six-year term. Although unhappy about his election, he accepted the position and was inaugurated at the Confederate capital of Montgomery, Alabama, on February , . As president of the Confederacy, Davis frequently tried to force his own military strategies for victory upon his generals. His insistence upon the need for a strong central

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government in order to win the war (he favored general conscription and suspending the writ of habeas corpus) convinced many in the South that he was unsympathetic to the states’ rights doctrine. Davis justified his actions with the reply, “We are fighting for independence, and that, or extermination, we will have.” Short-tempered and opinionated, Davis quickly amassed political enemies within the South, including his own vice president, Alexander Stephens. Throughout the war, he attempted to maintain control over the unwieldy Confederate government, frequently quarreling with both the Confederate Congress and state governments throughout the South. After the Confederacy collapsed in April , Davis fled from Richmond to the south, attempting to escape to Mexico. He was arrested by federal troops on May  in Georgia. Although twice threatened with indictment for treason, he was released after serving two years in the federal prison at Fortress Monroe, without ever going to trial or being convicted on any charge. During his imprisonment, his health suffered considerably as he was kept in irons for part of the time. Although President Andrew Johnson pardoned most ex-Confederates, Davis never asked for, nor was he ever granted, a pardon. At first unpopular in the South and blamed for its defeat, Davis’ harsh treatment while in prison and unfaltering devotion to the South gradually restored his popularity. Hollow-cheeked, gaunt, and blind in one eye, he supported himself as a private businessman and author (The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, published in ) until his death on December , , in New Orleans. He never wavered in his view that the South was a victim of Northern aggression, but shortly before his death he advised his countrymen, “The past is dead; let it bury its dead, its hopes, and its aspirations; before you lies the future of expanding national glory before which all the world shall stand amazed.”

steven g. o’brien ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809–1865) Abraham Lincoln is perhaps the most loved of all the U.S. presidents. A photograph of Lincoln taken toward the end of the Civil War shows a gaunt, exhausted leader whose visible anguish moves nearly every American. His words, always simple and eloquent, exhorting preservation of the Union, then asking forgiveness and peace for all who fought and suffered in the war, are equally familiar and moving. For most people, Lincoln personifies the American spirit of freedom and equality. Lincoln was born on February , , and grew up on frontier farms in Kentucky and Indiana. From an early age, despite his father’s discouragement, he was obsessed with obtaining an education. The goal had to be innate, for, as he observed later, Indiana offered “absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education.” Lincoln always attributed his love of books to his mother. “I owe everything I am to her,” he said. She died when he was nine, but his stepmother encouraged him to continue his studying. The year after the family moved to Illinois in , Lincoln decided to live on his own. A job as a store clerk in New Salem gave him access to books and plenty of time to read. During the Black Hawk War, a conflict between the Sac and Fox Indians and the

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United States in , Lincoln served a short stint in the militia but did not see combat. When he returned to New Salem, he ran unsuccessfully for the state assembly in a predominantly Democratic district as an anti-Jackson Whig. After his defeat, he purchased a general store with a partner. Their venture failed because of the partner’s alcoholism. Although it took Lincoln  years, he paid off all their debts in full, earning the nickname “Honest Abe.” In , Lincoln won the first of his four two-year terms to the Illinois state assembly. As a state legislator, he generally supported internal improvements and the development of the nation’s resources and was soon the leader of the Whig minority. In addition to his work in the assembly, Lincoln began to study law. After moving to the new state capital in Springfield, he was admitted to the bar in . In , Lincoln married Mary Todd, and in , he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In his single term in the House, Lincoln opposed the Mexican-American War and the extension of slavery into the territories and supported the right of voters in the District of Columbia to be able to abolish slavery. In , Lincoln vigorously campaigned across New England for Zachary Taylor. He was so disappointed when he did not obtain an expected appointment as commissioner of the general land office that he withdrew from politics and concentrated on his law practice for five years. Lincoln returned to the political arena when reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act helped forge the new Republican Party. In , he campaigned throughout Illinois, delivering speeches in favor of antislavery Republican presidential candidate John C. Fremont. In , the Illinois Republican Party nominated him to run for the Senate against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. In his acceptance speech, Lincoln succinctly summed up his view of the situation the nation was in due to slavery: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” Slavery, he warned, was a threat to free labor, and there was no way to reconcile it with a free society. By preventing its expansion, its ultimate extinction could be gradually obtained. Lincoln’s preferred solution to this vexing social problem was to recolonize African Americans outside the country. Though he opposed slavery, he was not free of his era’s pervasive racism. From town to town during the  campaign, in a series of debates, Lincoln and Douglas appeared on the same stage. What they said was reported across the nation, because Douglas was widely regarded as the front-runner for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in . In his speeches, Lincoln repeated that slavery was morally wrong and attacked his opponent’s “declared indifference” to it: I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world—enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites—causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty—criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.

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The Republicans won , more popular votes than the Douglas Democrats (, to ,), but the Democrats still managed to win more seats in the state legislature, and Douglas was returned to the Senate. Friends consoled the disappointed Lincoln with the advice that, although he had lost the Senate race, he was now a strong candidate for the Republican nomination for president. Lincoln replied, “I . . . admit that I am ambitious, and would like to be President . . . but there is no such good luck in store for me. . . .” A prominent figure after the debates, Lincoln toured the nation giving speeches to increasingly enthusiastic crowds prior to the  Republican convention. At the convention, he was nominated on the third ballot over front-runner William H. Seward. The Republican platform in  called for noninterference in the slave states, the exclusion of slavery from the territories, a homestead act to give free land to settlers, government support for the construction of a transcontinental railroad, and protective tariffs. Against a divided Democratic Party, Lincoln was able to win election by securing the electoral votes of every nonslave state (), even though he won only  percent of the popular vote. Warned of an assassination plot, Lincoln had to enter Washington, D.C., by secret train to assume office. He promised not to interfere with slavery in the South. However, the month before he took the oath of office, seven Southern states met at Montgomery, Alabama, to proclaim the Confederate States of America. One month after he assumed the presidency, Fort Sumter was fired upon. The Civil War, which would claim the lives of at least , Americans, had begun. Lincoln moved swiftly to deal with the rebellion. At first, he left the conduct of the war up to his generals; but following the dismal performance of the Union Army in , Lincoln began studying military tactics. After George B. McClellan’s lack of success, Lincoln even tried to direct military operations himself. In , he finally found a general he had faith in, Ulysses S. Grant. By executive decree, Lincoln increased the size of the army and navy, suspended the writ of habeas corpus where necessary, placed treason suspects in military custody, and forbade the use of the mails for treasonable correspondence. By mid-, Lincoln had decided that the war aims of the North had to include ending slavery. He felt, however, that he couldn’t say so publicly as long as the South appeared to be doing well. Thus, as late as August, he still spoke of preserving the Union as the only goal. Then, on September , , after interpreting the bloody Battle of Antietam as a victory, Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. (He signed the final version on January , .) He described the proclamation as “an act of justice as well as a fit and necessary war measure. . . .” The Emancipation Proclamation freed only the slaves in the Southern states that had seceded from the Union, leaving the system intact in those states that fought with the Union. Emancipation as a war goal, however, even in this incomplete fashion, made it extremely difficult for the British government to side with the South. As the war dragged on and the casualties mounted, Lincoln’s popularity fell to an all-time low. He despaired of being reelected but was renominated in  for a second term by the Republicans. When the Democrats in turn nominated McClellan on a platform of stopping the war and negotiating a settlement, Lincoln admitted to his Cabinet: “It seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be reelected.” But when a string of Union victories, especially General William T. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, indicated that the end of the war was in sight, Lincoln was elected for a second term.

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At his inauguration, he recalled the sacrifice made to preserve the Union and looked forward to the need for reconciliation: Fondly we do hope—fervently we do pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. . . . With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting peace. . . . Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on April , , effectively ending the war. Two days later, Lincoln addressed a crowd at the White House on reconstruction. He took a bold stand concerning a politically volatile issue. If the Confederate states had left the Union, as Northern radical politicians claimed, then they had abrogated their constitutional rights and could be treated as foreign territories. But if secession was impossible, the view favored by Lincoln and other moderates, then the citizens of the Confederate states who had remained loyal, as well as those who would promise to be loyal again, could reestablish state governments that supported civil liberties for African Americans and elect representatives and senators to Congress. “Finding themselves safely at home,” argued Lincoln, “it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad.” Lincoln cited the procedures followed in Louisiana and Arkansas, where  percent of the  voting population was considered a sufficient number to set up state governments capable of petitioning for readmission to Congress, as a model for how the course of Reconstruction might proceed. The agony of the war, the death of his young son from typhoid in , and the subsequent emotional breakdown of his wife caused Lincoln to age dramatically in office. However, he had acquired tremendous wisdom about the underlying principles of American political institutions. His eloquent speeches expressed the vision he had of the long-term prospects for the nation. In his Gettysburg Address, he began with the immortal lines, “Four score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal . . .” and concluded with the promise “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” On the evening of April , , Lincoln was fatally shot by the actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth as he watched a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Lincoln’s tragic death the next day became a symbol of the human toll the Civil War cost the nation.

steven g. o’brien SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA (1864) Near the end of the Civil War, William Tecumseh Sherman led , Union soldiers on his March to the Sea, a -mile-wide path of destruction that stretched  miles across Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah. Sherman’s troops departed for Savannah on November , . As one of the most important seaports in the South, Savannah was

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key to Confederate transportation between Gen. Robert E. Lee’s troops in Virginia and the Deep South. Sherman’s forces quickly broke away from the Union supply lines and foraged in the Southern countryside, utilizing Confederate resources to supply themselves. What the troops did not consume, they destroyed. The total Confederate losses included more than , head of cattle, some  million rations of bread and beef, and about , bales of cotton. Many sawmills, cotton gins, foundries, and warehouses also fell into Union hands. Sherman himself estimated his raid had inflicted $ million worth of damage. Sherman’s strategy of destruction was designed, as his own saying went, to “make Georgia howl.” Sherman’s forces burned and looted much of the northern Georgia countryside. Although he did not condone wanton acts of violence and devastation, he certainly tolerated them. Drawing from experiences fighting the Seminole in the early s, Sherman believed that destruction or confiscation of Southern property was necessary to cripple Confederate logistics and morale. The only opposition during the five-week campaign came on November  at Griswoldville, where several hundred members of the Georgia militia attacked Sherman’s troops. After  Georgians had been killed or wounded in action, the remaining militia retreated. In retaliation, Sherman’s seasoned veterans wrecked more than  miles of Confederate railroad track, depriving the Confederate soldiers in Virginia of muchneeded rations. By November , Sherman’s men sacked the state capital at Milledgeville. Union troops then occupied Sandersville on November , Louisville on November , and Millen on December . A week later, Sherman’s forces took up positions outside Savannah and readied their attack against the heavily fortified city with its ,-man garrison. Rather than fight a losing battle, Confederate commander William J. Hardee evacuated his troops to South Carolina. On December , Sherman occupied Savannah, effectively isolating the upper South from the lower South. He offered the city to President Abraham Lincoln as a Christmas present. Because Sherman demolished Confederate logistics and crushed Southern morale, it has often been argued that Sherman’s raid was an example of modern and total war. A war may be considered modern if a nation utilizes its industrial capabilities and arouses nationalism among its citizens to achieve victory. Likewise, a war may be considered total if a nation attempts to harness all its natural and human resources as effective means to achieve victory. After Sherman’s March to the Sea was over, Southerners were left with little hope of victory in the war.

david s. heidler and jeanne t. heidler DOCUMENT: SOUTH CAROLINA ORDINANCE OF SECESSION, 1860 On December , , a state convention in South Carolina called after the election of Republican President Abraham Lincoln unanimously passed this ordinance of secession, thus severing the state’s ties to the United States. Ten other Southern states followed suit in the winter and spring of – , leading to the outbreak of the Civil War in April . (Constitutional

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Convention [–]. Ordinance of Secession, . Constitutional and Organic Papers. S . South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina.) We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the d day of May, in the year of our Lord , whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying the amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States under the name of the United States of America is hereby dissolved.

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10 Reconstruction, 1863–1876

INTRODUCTION In the context of U.S. history, the term Reconstruction applies to that period beginning with the January , , Emancipation Proclamation and ending with the presidential election of Rutherford B. Hayes in . Reconstruction was the intense, contentious, and often bitter struggle over how and when to reintegrate the former Confederate States of America back into the Union. Well before Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, two distinct schools of thought concerning the reintegration process had begun to emerge. President Abraham Lincoln believed that the victorious United States would be well served if the Civil War wounds were healed as quickly as possible in a spirit of “malice toward none.” As early as December , Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction that allowed most white southerners (military and civilian leaders of the rebellion were excluded) to rejoin the Union with full civil rights and all property intact—except for slaves—once they had sworn allegiance to the United States. He then put forward the Ten Percent Plan. According to this idea, once  percent of those who had voted in the  election from any single Confederate state swore allegiance to the Union, they would have the right to form a state government that in turn would be recognized as legitimate by the Union. In this manner, even a very small number of citizens of a Confederate state could easily lead that state back into the Union without paying much of a price for rebellion beyond the loss of their slaves. Lincoln, however, did not speak for the U.S. Congress. A majority in that body viewed the Confederacy with considerably less magnanimity than Lincoln did, although there was plenty of disagreement about just how harshly they should treat the Confederacy. In , Congress responded to Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan with the Wade-Davis bill, demanding that fully  percent of the white male citizens of any Confederate state swear loyalty to the Union before even initiating the process of reintegration, and that emancipated slaves be treated equally in the eyes of the law. Lincoln used the pocket veto to kill Wade-Davis. In the meantime, Congress defied Lincoln when it refused to seat elected representatives from Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, three states that had agreed to the Ten Percent Plan. Obviously, President Lincoln and the Congress were on a collision course. Lincoln’s assassination on April , , cut short his role in Reconstruction. Vice President Andrew Johnson succeeded Lincoln, and the South’s surrender moved the question of reintegration to the top of the agenda. Johnson was an interesting character.

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A southerner by birth and a lifelong Democrat, he opposed secession because he thought it a selfish step taken by the South’s wealthy planters, a class of people whom he despised. Johnson was both a self-made man and an unabashed racist. He also had a temper and a drinking problem. Moreover, he viewed presidential power as supreme and lacked the tact and political skills to deal effectively with a Congress that was showing clear signs of wanting to dictate policy itself. Like Lincoln, Johnson wanted Reconstruction done quickly and painlessly. He maintained that individuals rather than states had rebelled against the Union and, consequently, punishment of individuals might be appropriate but punishment of entities such as the various states was unconstitutional. Moreover, he argued that the president held almost absolute power to determine how to carry out Reconstruction and when it would be complete. Under his leadership, thousands of rebels were pardoned and southern states were allowed to select representatives and senators to Congress as they saw fit, provided they renounced succession and accepted the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery. The subsequent elections boggled the mind: four former Confederate generals were elected to Congress, and Alexander H. Stephens, vice-president of the Confederate States of America, was sent to Washington as senator from Georgia. With these elections, Johnson declared Reconstruction successful. While Johnson viewed the restoration of the Union as complete, Congress most emphatically did not. Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, although they were split between moderate and radical wings. Nevertheless, all Republicans agreed that Johnson was overstepping his bounds and that Congress should determine the issue of Reconstruction. Consequently, Congress defied the president when in December  it refused to seat those white southerners, many of whom had been rebels or rebel supporters, who had been elected by virtue of Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction policy. The following spring, Congress pressed its version of Reconstruction. It passed a civil rights bill that put some teeth in the Thirteenth Amendment. Congress also reauthorized the Freedman’s Bureau. Originally established in March , the Freedman’s Bureau provided assistance to the newly emancipated slaves, including food, clothing, and fuel. By establishing hospitals, schools, and labor exchanges, the Freedman’s Bureau also took steps to facilitate the ex-slaves’ progress into civil society. Citing constitutional reasons, Johnson opposed both bills; however, a defiant Congress easily overrode his vetoes. At this time, the congressional Republicans also proposed the Fourteenth Amendment. After defining who was a citizen, a key portion of the amendment read: No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Johnson resisted the proposed amendment and used his opposition to mount a vigorous campaign designed to return a Congress more to his liking during the  midterm elections. This strategy backfired. Johnson proved to be an intemperate boor before audiences in the North, thereby virtually guaranteeing the victory of radical Republicans who, in fact, concluded the election with a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress.

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Many white Southerners violently opposed Reconstruction. In this illustration from 1874, triumphant figures representing the White League and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) shake hands over cowering African Americans. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Meanwhile, the defeated Confederacy experienced chaos, confusion, bloodshed, bigotry, and economic collapse. At the close of the Civil War, the South lay in ruins. Many of its cities were destroyed, the rail system had ceased to function, and the financial infrastructure had disappeared. Tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers had died and countless more suffered debilitating wounds. Land lay fallow, and livestock and draught animals were in short supply. Moreover, more than  million slaves had been freed, thereby destroying the foundation of the Confederacy’s plantation-based economy. Nevertheless, huge numbers of white southerners remained defiant and unrepentant. For many, their hatred knew no bounds. In , Nathan Bedford Forrest of Tennessee, a former slave trader and general in the Confederate Army, founded the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), an organization dedicated to the cause of white supremacy. The Klan and similar groups spread quickly throughout the South. Fanatically opposed to racial equality, they focused on emancipated blacks, whom they terrorized mercilessly. Even earlier, states that had been restored according to Johnson’s plan enacted a series of “Black Codes” that severely limited prospects for the emancipated slaves. Although varying in their specifics from state to state, at the very least these codes relegated the freedmen to an inferior, second-class status. In some instances, they seemed to suggest a reimposition of servitude. For example, Mississippi required freedmen to sign yearlong labor contracts or face arrest for vagrancy. If arrested, whites could then purchase their labor at auction regardless of the freedman’s desires. The law also forced children to work, denied the vote to former slaves, and restricted where they could reside. The Black Codes and southern violence directed against the freedmen proved to be more than northerners were willing to tolerate, although a majority did not support full equality for blacks, especially political equality. They showed their displeasure at the polls, rejecting Johnson and embracing the radical Republicans. Having humiliated Johnson in the midterm elections, the radical Republicans who now controlled Congress moved to assert their authority. While some of the Republicans

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such as Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts fervently believed in equality for the black man, virtually all of them saw an opportunity to advance the fortunes of the Republican Party. The result was “Congressional Reconstruction.” In addition to the Fourteenth Amendment passed in , in the following year the radical Republicans pushed through several laws that collectively constituted their version of Reconstruction. The centerpiece was the Military Reconstruction Act of March . This law dismantled the southern state governments formed on the basis of Johnson’s earlier and lenient restoration efforts and called for the division of the  former Confederate states that had not ratified the Fourteenth Amendment into five military districts. The Union Army supplanted local authority and a Union major general directed a martial law regime in each of the five districts. To end this burden, the former Confederate states were obliged to hold constitutional conventions, whose delegates would be elected by blacks as well as whites. Martial law authorities stood ready to insure that freedmen could both register to vote and exercise the suffrage without fear of intimidation or violence from disgruntled whites. Once formed, the constitutional conventions were further required to draft constitutional provisions guaranteeing the suffrage for blacks and ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment. Once that task had been completed, a southern state could then apply for and gain readmission to the Union if its new constitution met with congressional approval. Needless to say, President Johnson vetoed the Military Reconstruction Act and several others designed to supplement it. Not surprisingly, Congress overrode his vetoes. Politics played a major role in Congressional Reconstruction. The Republicans calculated that newly enfranchised African Americans would team with a minority of the South’s white population to elect a fair number of Republicans to Congress, thereby solidifying the Republican grip on the nation’s legislative branch. In fact, this is precisely what occurred. In , military rule came to an end in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina as those states rejoined the Union. Due to white intransigence, two more years elapsed before Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, and Virginia came aboard. In subsequent elections, many southern Republicans came to Washington; however, only a handful were African American. Moreover, this was only a temporary trend. White southerners’ hatred of blacks and their Republican supporters was inextinguishable, and once they had regained their footing they would flock in droves to the lily-white Democratic Party. At the same time, the question of how and when to reintegrate the Confederate states back into the Union had morphed into a full-blown constitutional crisis. President Johnson viewed Congress with the utmost disdain and Congress reciprocated the sentiment. Fearful that Johnson, who made no bones about his hated of Congressional Reconstruction, would continue to obstruct their plans, radical Republicans rammed through the Tenure of Office Act, which prohibited the president from dismissing any presidential appointee who had been confirmed in office by Congress without the explicit permission of Congress. When Johnson circumvented this law, the House of Representatives impeached the president in February ; however, in May the Senate failed to convict and Johnson served out his term of office. The presidential election of  brought Ulysses S. Grant, the triumphant Civil War general, to the presidency. Although Grant easily won the electoral college vote, his popular mandate was much smaller. Republican strategists quickly noted that the

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estimated , votes Grant received from African Americans in the southern states provided his margin of victory. Moreover, they calculated that if northern blacks had been enfranchised, Grant and the Republicans would have won an even larger victory. Consequently, in early  the new, Republican-dominated Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment, the last of the so-called Civil War Amendments. The Fifteenth Amendment prevented states from denying the right to vote to any person on the basis of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” With the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, Congressional, or radical, Reconstruction appeared complete. However, the Reconstruction saga continued. Throughout the South, whites refused to recognize the legal equality of African Americans. White resistance often took violent forms. Threats, beatings, lynchings, and organized mob violence, often led by a resurgent Ku Klux Klan, shook the South. The Republican Congress responded with a series of laws designed to break the Klan and to protect the freedmen. On occasion, President Grant sent troops to southern locales to restore law and order; however, racial hatred and an unshakeable belief in white supremacy permeated the former Confederacy. Southern resistance to Reconstruction also took an effective political form. Beginning with Virginia in , southern Democrats, often called Redemption Democrats because they were “redeeming” their states from rule by allegedly traitorous white Republicans and unfit African Americans, began to win elections. These Democrats adamantly opposed all facets of Reconstruction and fiercely denied that blacks were equal to whites. By the mid-s, Redemption Democrats controlled all but a few southern states. Using their power, Redemption Democrats passed legislation to undo much of Congressional Reconstruction and to impose an inferior status on blacks. African Americans now found it increasingly difficult to vote, secure a decent education, or find meaningful work. By the s, national political attitudes greatly strengthened the southern Democrats. For one thing, racism in the North was almost as omnipresent as it was in the South, although not nearly as virulent. Fewer and fewer Northerners took up the African American cause. Moreover, a certain fatigue with the Reconstruction issue surfaced. In the North, at least, the Civil War passions began to fade, especially as rapid industrialization and expansion to the West fueled a period of remarkable economic growth. Finally, the Grant administration scandals undermined the Republican Party, including the aging supporters of Congressional Reconstruction. All of this became evident in the  midterm elections that saw the Democrats—their ranks bolstered by Redemption Democrats from the old Confederacy—take control of the House of Representatives for the first time since . The presidential election of  definitely ended the Reconstruction era. The Republican candidate, Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, narrowly lost the popular vote to Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York. The margin in the electoral college was larger,  to  in favor of Tilden. However, the Republican leadership of three southern states—South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana—declared that their electoral votes would go to Hayes rather than Tilden, thereby giving Hayes a one-vote victory in the electoral college. Needless to say, this outraged the Democrats. After some high drama and a good deal of back room horse trading, a compromise was reached: Hayes would be declared president and in return he would withdraw the remaining federal

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troops from the former states of the Confederacy. With this bargain, the United States moved on; almost  years would pass before the thorny issues raised by Reconstruction resurfaced.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY stephen rockenbach The American Civil War resolved two very important issues in the history of the United States: the status of slavery and the role of the federal government. Although emancipation only came about during the middle of the war, from the very beginning of the conflict Unionists and Confederates disagreed over whether secession was legitimate and whether federal or state government was supreme. The expansion of slavery and the rights of states to adopt, exclude, or enforce slavery lay at the core of what citizens called “state’s rights.” However, once the Union defeated the Confederacy, the matter of federal versus state power continued, even though the war had decided the fate of chattel slavery. The end of slavery brought the hope of a society that lived up to its commitments to equality and freedom, at least in the legal and political sense. President Abraham Lincoln’s own promise of a “new birth of freedom” resonated with Unionists and freed slaves alike. But Reconstruction was actually a political and often literal battleground over what that freedom would be and who would define it. The term Reconstruction describes the period from  to  when the United States reestablished control over the states that seceded and reformed the governmental and legal structure of these states. But it was much more than that to many Americans. Former slaves realized the dream of being free and looked forward to a life of independence and stability. Free black Americans envisioned an equal place in society in both the South and the North, where some states had restricted citizenship and other civil rights of black residents. White Unionists celebrated their victory and desired a stronger Union that would allow them to achieve economic success. Former Confederates feared the possibility of sweeping social change that would alter the status quo in the South. More immediately, they wondered how they would recover from the financial and psychological strain of almost four years of war. All Americans held their own ideas of what freedom meant and how it would be realized during Reconstruction. The era was one of alternating progress and disappointment, success and failure, profit and loss. There was no question that the war would result in significant social and political change, particularly after January . Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was in many ways the official beginning of Reconstruction. The Proclamation was part of an evolving policy recognizing the importance of slavery to the Confederacy and the military advantage of freeing slaves. When the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January , , it raised the stakes of the war and set the tone for the reorganization of society. After this date, slaves who were in Confederate territory would be free once they reached Union lines or when Union forces advanced. The main controversy over Lincoln’s proclamation revolved around uncertainties about the rights of freedmen, the rights of their former masters, and the impact emancipation would have on American society as a whole. Union officers and northern missionaries struggled with

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this question as early as  when the Union army and navy captured coastal areas in Virginia, South Carolina, and Louisiana. One historian referred to the efforts of white missionaries in the Sea Islands off Port Royal, South Carolina, as a “Rehearsal for Reconstruction.” As their masters fled from Union gunboats, slaves took control of the plantations, stopped growing cotton, and began growing food. The task for northern businessmen and missionaries was to convince former slaves to return to growing cotton instead of working the land for subsistence. Also, the “Port Royal Experiment,” as it was called, demonstrated the problem of conferring freedom upon slaves without giving them land to work as their own. In the Sea Islands, few former slaves were able to obtain land, as the government seized the plantations and auctioned the property off to the highest bidder. There were some cases in which it seemed that former slaves would be able to gain land and no longer be dependent on their former masters, but these turned out to be the exception and not the rule. When Joseph Davis fled his Louisiana plantation in , his slaves leased the land from the occupying Union forces. This plantation, Davis Bend, which Davis owned with his brother, president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis, was significant because the Davis’s former slaves worked the land during the war, producing cotton for northern markets. After the war, the federal government returned most confiscated lands to their former owners, but Joseph Davis secretly sold the land to his former slave Benjamin Davis. Even this rare model of economic stability for free black southerners had its limits. After Joseph Davis died in , a court ruling returned the land to Davis’s family. Unfortunately, this was commonplace throughout Reconstruction. The end of slavery in America was truly significant, but considering that both the Union and the Confederacy had fought a long and bitter war, the challenges toward realizing freedom and independence for former slaves were great. After the war, most of the former Confederacy was completely devastated. There were shortages of food, clothing, and medicine, and homes, property, and businesses were destroyed. The destruction of railroads and an overall shortage of horses disrupted transportation. In March , Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, later known simply as the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Bureau initially distributed food to white and black refugees, and provided supplies and shelter. With these basic needs fulfilled, the Freedmen’s Bureau set about renting abandoned land to former slaves and loyal refugees to stabilize the economic situation in war-torn parts of the South. Initially, Republicans in Congress had imagined that the Bureau would oversee the distribution of confiscated or abandoned land to freedmen in the form of -acre plots. During the war, Union general William Tecumseh Sherman’s Special Field Order No.  had conferred upon former slaves in the Sea Islands and an area around Charleston, South Carolina,  acres of confiscated land. Sherman’s motivations were based more on military matters than any concern for social reform. He was raiding through the Confederacy and did not want large numbers of former slaves following his army. Moreover, his order can be seen as a type of vengeance against South Carolina, the first state to secede and symbolic of the cotton south. In fact, General Oliver O. Howard, head of the Freedman’s Bureau, did oversee the allocation of land to freedmen, but President Andrew Johnson’s liberal use of his power to pardon complicated matters. Johnson ordered the land of pardoned Confederates restored. Howard personally delivered

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the news to freed slaves in South Carolina who had received land under Sherman’s order. The reaction of the former slaves was anger, disappointment, and frustration. Historians refer to this false start to Reconstruction as Presidential Reconstruction, because the policies of President Andrew Johnson hindered the economic progress and social change that many northerners expected and most white southerners feared. Johnson was a Unionist Democrat and Tennessean whom Lincoln chose as a running mate for the crucial  election. Lincoln hoped that Johnson would draw the support of slave-state Unionists and prowar Democrats, which was important in the face of growing antiwar, or Peace Democrat, sentiment in the North. As a working-class nonslaveholder, Johnson despised the slaveholding planter class and supported emancipation. Initially, Radical Republicans embraced Johnson because it seemed he would be harsher than Lincoln on former Confederates. Lincoln’s proposed Ten Percent Plan was designed to bring seceded states back into the Union quickly by requiring a very small portion of male residents ( percent of the population based on the  census) to swear loyalty. After Lincoln’s assassination in April , Johnson assumed the presidency and surprised Republicans by not only adopting Lincoln’s lenient plan, but also liberally granting pardons to any former Confederates who requested them. The Radical Republican desire for harsh punishments, including redistributing the land of disloyal citizens to slaves and withholding citizenship (including the suffrage) from former Confederates, was thwarted by Johnson’s reluctance to elevate the status of black southerners or reduce the status of white southerners. Although a dedicated Unionist, Johnson’s own racism convinced him that ex-slave voters would present a danger to Reconstruction. He assumed they would simply vote as their former masters instructed them. To Johnson, Reconstruction was not about realizing political and legal equality for all races, but only for whites. Johnson’s socially conservative view of Reconstruction, coupled with his innate stubbornness, turned Presidential Reconstruction into a disappointment for northern Unionists while offering an opportunity for southern resistance. Not only did Johnson’s policies prevent the allocation of land to former slaves and undermine the protection of civil rights that Radicals desired, his plans also allowed the former Confederate states to re-form their governments quickly. Some of the Confederacy’s defeated leaders regained control of their states, and Johnson’s plans to replace the elite planter class with working-class white southerners failed miserably. These state governments predictably resisted change and simply created laws to reinstitute the racial caste system of slavery and to restrict black voting. State legislatures in former Confederate states adopted the infamous “Black Codes,” which were discriminatory state statutes designed to recreate the conditions of slavery as much of possible. While realizing some legal rights for emancipated slaves (including marriage), the codes required black residents to sign yearly labor contracts and included harsh punishments for “vagrancy.” Without the right to come and go as they pleased, freed slaves were still bound to work the land of former masters, with little opportunity for advancing their status or improving their lives. Politically, Republicans became further disillusioned with Johnson’s leadership and attempted to implement more progressive change in the South. Within the Republican Party in the North, there was some disagreement on the exact goal and methods of Reconstruction. The Radicals insisted that for freedmen to achieve equality all black adult men should be able to vote and to hold political office. Radicals saw the Civil War as

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nothing less than a revolution to realize true equality in America, and they did not fear limiting the rights of former Confederates to achieve it. The party’s moderate faction, which included Lincoln, supported limited voting rights for some African American men (meaning previously free men and Union veterans) but opposed doing anything that would slow or complicate reforming the Union. As it would turn out, Johnson did not fit into either one of the categories. Johnson’s resistance to enforcing any significant change in the former slave states caused moderate and radical Republicans to unite against him. Johnson consistently vetoed legislation protecting the rights of freed people or limiting the actions of state governments. He successfully prevented the passage of a bill extending the life of the Freedman’s Bureau, but Congress was able to pass the Civil Rights Act over Johnson’s veto. The Civil Rights Act followed up the Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery, by specifying the rights of citizens. Congress also passed the Fourteenth Amendment, which went beyond defining citizenship to assert the federal government’s duty to protect these rights and to prohibit states from limiting them. Johnson bristled at these changes and continued to oppose Congress. The Reconstruction Act of , passed over Johnson’s veto, essentially dissolved the state governments created under Johnson’s policies. Instead, the act divided the former Confederacy into five military districts, requiring the states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and write new state constitutions to be allowed back into the Union. The Reconstruction Act eliminated the state governments of Presidential Reconstruction and provided for a fresh start in defining freedom and civil rights. The struggle over the meaning of Reconstruction was not just a matter of race relations in the South, but also a question of what freedom meant in the United States and whether the federal or state government could best realize this freedom. Johnson’s very restricted view of freedom for black Americans as simply the end of slavery was not shared by all Americans, white or black. For political reasons, some white southerners supported equal rights for blacks. They believed that black voters would be allies in their drive to remove the elite planters from power and bring about social reform. Branded as “scalawags” by their conservative neighbors, white Republicans in the South opposed the state governments created under Johnson and embraced the opportunity to start anew. Many white northerners saw Johnson’s conservative approach to Reconstruction as an insult to the Union soldiers who gave their lives to save the Union and end the contradiction of slavery in a country that prided itself on being the land of the free. Johnson’s stubborn and often aggressive opposition to Republican legislation played a large role in the impeachment trial that failed to remove Johnson from office by only one vote. Although unsuccessful, the impeachment sent a strong message to Johnson and the rest of the nation. Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction had ended. A new effort to realize the new birth of the freedom Lincoln proclaimed would begin. Congressional Reconstruction promised to realize the hopes of freed people and build a new South. Reconstruction was a struggle between forces of progress and the status quo, not only politically but also socially. With slavery gone and the bid for southern independence squashed, southerners set forth to understand and even shape the world around them. Former slaveholders faced a future without the control of labor that they once exercised. Combined with the fact that many planters had heavily invested in the Confederate war effort, the switch to wage labor was difficult and uncertain. The relationship

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between former slave owners and former slaves varied widely throughout the South. In some cases, freed slaves remained with their previous masters; in other cases, freed slaves left their former owners at the first chance. During Presidential Reconstruction, the Black Codes prevented this expression of freedom, but during Congressional Reconstruction African Americans were able to negotiate contracts, move freely about the countryside, and set about building lives as free citizens. The reaction of white southerners was mixed, but there was a prevailing sense of white supremacy in the United States that was not exclusive to the South. White concerns about the consequences of black independence and freedom led to fears of racial mixing, black political dominance, and even violent retribution. However, the primary objective of most freedmen was not revenge but working within the system and profiting from it. The most important changes to southern society were the appearance of public schools and independent black churches. Both of these institutions gave a sense of community and progress to African Americans, even if the former slaves saw little change in how they worked or for whom they worked. Pressured by northern industry to resume growing cotton, freedmen still labored long and hard in the lower south’s fields. But now they worked to allow their children to go to school and to carve out their own private space. Initially, the Freedmen’s Bureau set up schools throughout the former Confederacy with help from northern missionaries. Single female teachers from the North, dubbed “Yankee schoolmarms,” moved to the South to teach eager freed people. Black southerners also pooled their resources to bring teachers to their communities. More than one Yankee schoolmarm received appreciative donations from black families in the form of chickens, cornmeal, or eggs. When state conventions met to draft new constitutions throughout  and , white and black delegates agreed on the importance of state-funded education. The concept of public education was new to the South, as previously only the wealthier planters or the urban middle class could afford tutors for their children. Most of the schools were segregated, but many black families— mainly concerned that their children receive a good education—did not protest. More importantly, these black schools created a demand for black teachers, which was met by the creation of “normal schools,” such as Booker T. Washington’s well-known Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Like Tuskegee, many of the institutions formed to train black educators grew into historically black universities and colleges. Newly formed independent black churches also flourished under the political and social atmosphere of Congressional Reconstruction. Before emancipation, black churches were extremely rare in the slave South, although some southern cities with a sizable free black population did have black churches. However, even these churches had white preachers and a white board of trustees. Slaves usually went to church with their masters and often stood in the back or listened from outside. In some cases, slave owners even held special services. The sermons were usually crafted to stress humble obedience and meekness. During Reconstruction, black southerners left integrated churches and formed their own denominations, usually Protestant. With spiritual independence came social independence. Much like the establishment of schools, churches became some of the first institutions in the South founded and operated by black men. Churches were also the center of political gatherings and social events, and in some cases schoolhouse and house of worship were one in the same.

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The most significant change brought about by Congressional Reconstruction, however, was a realization of political rights for freedmen. The Reconstruction Acts offered black southerners the opportunity to participate in electing representatives and drafting state constitutions. The Republican Party gained increasing support in the South, particularly among former slaves. Black southerners formed Union Leagues and other pro-Republican organizations as they rallied to the party of Lincoln and Emancipation. These organizations held campaign rallies, formed militias, educated voters, and debated important issues. The Republican Party also had some support from white southerners, although mainly in upcountry areas where few white citizens owned slaves before the war, or in parts of the upper South, such as Tennessee, where Unionism was strong during the war. Although early-th-century historians perpetuated the stereotype of the uneducated black politician and the traitorous white southern Republican, or “scalawag,” both black and white southerners were drawn to the Republican Party because of its prewar platform of opportunity and advancement for working-class men. Republican support of industry and railroads also lured some former Confederates to the party, including former Gen. James Longstreet and the infamous partisan ranger John Singleton Mosby. The Republican Party offered a vision of the South that mirrored the modernity and progress of the North. Some Republican politicians in the South were actually northern transplants who moved South after the war and were dubbed “carpetbaggers” by bitter ex-Confederates because of the luggage made from old carpet in which these northerners supposedly carried their belongings. Far from greedy opportunists, most northern Republicans who migrated to the South were former Union soldiers who had seen the region during the war and decided to move there and play a role in Reconstruction. Although they supported the Republican Party and had fought against the Confederacy, these men often socialized with white planters, even marrying their daughters. They were not intent on punishing the former Confederacy. In truth, Republican political dominance in the South during Reconstruction was due to a coalition of voters who embraced the Republican vision of wage labor, affordable land, and industrial progress. But there were many different kinds of Republicans and they still faced significant political challenges. Democrats, both North and South, united in resistance to Reconstruction and advocated a conservative approach to the rights of freedmen. Democrats embraced racial stereotypes depicting black southerners as ignorant and easily corrupted, and they played on the racial fears of white citizens. At the same time, former planters dreaded the voting power of black southerners. In some parts of the lower South, blacks outnumbered whites, which meant a black majority at the polls. White Democrats resorted to threats and intimidation in their effort to deter black voters. Planters and landlords refused to hire black workers unless they promised to vote Democrat, and some Democrats even used violence to discourage black political participation. The Ku Klux Klan, started by Confederate veterans in Tennessee in , quickly became a widespread secret society in the South dedicated to terrorizing all Republicans, black and white. The Klan’s hooded riders would beat, threaten, and even kill Republicans in an effort to eliminate opposition to the Democratic Party. Overall, Democrat resistance to Reconstruction jeopardized the fulfillment of black rights, economic opportunity, and the expansion of civil rights.

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The federal government did not sit idly by as some white southerners struggled to prevent change to the racial status quo, but laws alone would not transform southern society. The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in  and reaffirmed the right of African American men to vote. The amendment was not exactly radical, because black men were already voting throughout the South. The amendment prohibited federal or state authorities from citing race to prevent citizens from voting. It did not guarantee the right to hold office or outlaw limitations on voting that were not based on race, including literacy tests or poll taxes. More importantly, the amendment could only prohibit state discrimination; it had no way to bring cases where individuals were using violence or terrorism to discourage voting. In  Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which allowed a federal district attorney to try individuals in a federal court if they denied someone else their legal rights, including voting. The act targeted the problem, but enforcement was left to southern courts and police, some of which were influenced by, if not in support of, the Ku Klux Klan. The act successfully weakened the Klan and violence in the South decreased; but it was one of the few aggressive measures taken during President Ulysses S. Grant’s two terms and demonstrated the kind of constant attention required to guarantee equal civil and political rights in the South. The Reconstruction governments of the South were well-established by , but an economic downturn and the continued resistance of southern Democrats limited the gains for black southerners. Black politicians held various local government positions and served in state legislatures, but they did not achieve a commanding role in most southern state governments. South Carolina was the exception. There black politicians gained a majority in both houses of state government by . At the national level, several black politicians occupied seats in Congress, including Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi, a minister and teacher from North Carolina. Black politicians included former slaves, free-born black southerners, and black carpetbaggers who moved to the South specifically to pursue a career in politics. Several decades after Reconstruction ended, white historians alleged that most black politicians were poor, illiterate freedmen with no stake in the economic success of the state governments; in fact, many were landowners and some had acquired an education. In Louisiana, some black politicians were actually creoles who had white ancestry and French names. Black legislators and local officeholders were ministers, lawyers, Union army veterans, blacksmiths, tailors, and farmers. White supremacists later scornfully described this period as the “negro rule” of Reconstruction, but it was actually a balance of white and black political participation in most states. In fact, within the Republican Party there was great rivalry for office, and black Republicans often found it hard to compete with white Republicans. In spite of the gains made by black southerners and the efforts of many Republicans to achieve legal and political equality in the South, much about southern society remained unchanged. Many white southerners refused to see their black neighbors as social equals. White men forced black women off the sidewalk or in other ways refused to treat them with respect. Some bitter white citizens used demeaning nicknames like “uncle,” “auntie,” or “boy” when referring to blacks and would not address black acquaintances as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” When African Americans asserted their social equality, they were often met with insults, threats, and even violence. The result was the appearance of an independent black community life separate from the white community. Black schools, churches, militias, social groups, and charities offered the fellowship

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and cohesion that had been denied black southerners under slavery. Everything from clothing to hairstyles offered a new venue for expression and independence. For some southern whites, the sight of a black family dressed in its Sunday best was an act of defiance in itself. Although legal and political equality could be legislated, social equality could not. Many black men worked to achieve economic independence and to emulate the family life of their white neighbors. Freedmen in particular wanted their wives to stay at home and their children to pursue an education. However, some white landlords and planters drafted contracts that required the entire family to perform agricultural labor. White planters in particular were still highly motivated to grow cotton and other staple crops and therefore resisted the social changes that made it harder for them to control laborers. Because there had been no redistribution of land, most black farmers were still dependent on white landowners. Although renting or “tenant farming” was common, by the end of Reconstruction many white landowners preferred sharecropping arrangements, which allowed tenant farmers to pay their rent with a portion of their crop and keep the profit from what was left. Often there was very little left over, and most sharecropping contracts required that the tenant farmers purchase all supplies from the landowners. When the account was balanced at the end of the year, sharecroppers often found that they were actually in debt and would have to make enough the following year to pay it off. This cycle of debt kept sharecroppers in a state of dependence, while restrictive contracts often allowed the landowner to control the sharecroppers’ labor. Historians have concluded that sharecropping often seemed very similar to the dependence and lack of freedom common to slavery, but the social benefits of sharecropping, although small, should not go unnoticed. Black families had their own living quarters far away from the landlord’s reach, and many former plantations were broken up into individual sharecropper’s plots. Usually there were schools and churches nearby that offered a social cohesion that was not possible under slavery. This system became common in the South for both white and black farm laborers who could not afford to purchase land. The sharecropping system prevented nonlandowners from being able to achieve financial independence and was responsible for much of the widespread poverty in the South after Reconstruction. In spite of the possibilities for an expansion of freedom and opportunity in the South, political struggles ultimately led to the end of Reconstruction and an eventual reversal of much of what had been gained politically, legally, and socially. White Republicans in the North tired of the attention required to enforce Reconstruction and turned instead to the task of building railroads and settling the West. Political corruption in President Grant’s administration (–) strengthened Democratic opposition. The establishment of powerful Democratic political organizations, or “machines,” based in northern cities, also lessened the Republican Party’s effectiveness. In many ways, white Republicans lost heart for the struggle to create lasting social change in the South,while white Democrats known as “redeemers” renewed their efforts to regain political control of southern state governments. The presidential election of  marks the end of Reconstruction. This contested election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden paved the way for a political deal that gave the victory to Hayes but placed control of Reconstruction into the hands of state governments. Historians disagree whether this was a secret backroom deal or Hayes’ misguided attempt to

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gain the favor of Democratic voters. Regardless, Hayes withdrew troops from the more volatile portions of the South and simply walked away from the matter of protecting hard-won black rights in southern states. After , redeemer state governments set about restricting black voting, enforcing racial segregation, and reshaping the memory of the war to emphasize the sacrifice of white Confederates. Redemption allowed white supremacists to lessen the political influence of black southerners, but only reconciliation with white northerners would guarantee that the federal government did not again interfere with southern society. During the s and s, white northerners and southerners began to craft a common story of the war as heroic, tragic, and honorable. Reunions between white veterans of the Union and Confederate armies, the commemoration of fallen Confederate soldiers, and battlefield memorials all drew attention away from the sacrifice of black soldiers, southern slaves, and white abolitionists. Some black citizens, including former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, continued to remind anyone who would listen of the wartime promise of civil rights and black equality, but by the end of the th century most white Americans—North and South, East and West—had disconnected the fascinating stories of war from the dubious results of Reconstruction. If the Union had won the war, then the former Confederates had won the peace, and the struggle for civil rights would have to continue into the following century.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Benedict, Michael Les. The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson. New York: Norton, . This study presents a detailed look at the process and political issues leading up to the impeachment trial and ending with Johnson avoiding conviction by one vote. Blight, David W. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Blight’s narrative outlines the struggle over memory during Reconstruction into the early th century. He demonstrates how northern and southern whites crafted a memory of the war that left out the role of race and slavery and ignored the failed revolution of Reconstruction. Carter, Dan T. When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self-Reconstruction in the South, – . Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, . Carter focuses on the southern politicians who presided over Presidential Reconstruction in the southern states, with an emphasis on their attempt to create a place for former slaves and their failure to realize the full implications of emancipation. Foner, Eric. Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. New York: Vintage Books, . This is an illustrated narrative of Reconstruction that focuses on the black political, economic, and social experience during the era. ———. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, –. New York: Harper & Row, . A path-breaking comprehensive study of the political and economic effects of Reconstruction, and still the dominant interpretation of the era. Foner investigates all of the aspects of Reconstruction, including northern politics and industrialization. In  a concise version of this seminal work, titled A Short History of Reconstruction, –, was published. Holt, Thomas. Black over White: The Political Leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, . Holt offers an in-depth study of the black politicians in South Carolina, with detailed information on their backgrounds, education, voting patterns, and political careers.

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Litwack, Leon. Been in The South So Long. New York: Knopf, . This book remains the most extensive history of the reactions of former slaves to freedom and the many, often contradictory, actions taken by freedmen and their former masters. McFeely, William S. Yankee Stepfather: General O. O. Howard and the Freedmen. New York: Norton, . Oliver Otis Howard’s wartime career and his tenure as the head of the Freedman’s Bureau demonstrate the possibilities and pitfalls of the agency during the early years of Reconstruction. Roark, James L. Masters without Slaves. New York: Norton, . This is a seldom-considered look at Reconstruction through the eyes of southern planters. It is particularly useful for showing how rapidly and drastically southern society changed for former slaveholders after the Civil War. Rose, Willie Lee. Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment. Athens: University Press of Georgia, . This study of the actions of educators, businessmen, former slaves, and missionaries in the South Carolina Sea Islands during Reconstruction tells the story of one of the wartime transitions from slavery to freedom.

ELECTION OF 1876 Although it is not generally regarded as a realigning election, the presidential election of  is especially important. The compromise that settled the election brought military Reconstruction to an end. The election also serves as an example of the winner of the popular vote not winning the electoral college. Republicans nominated Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio for president and William Almon Wheeler of New York for vice president. Democrats nominated New York governor Samuel J. Tilden for president and Indiana’s Thomas Hendricks for vice president. In a campaign characterized by harsh words and widespread fraud and intimidation (especially in the South), Tilden received a reported ,, votes to Hayes’ ,,. Tilden also claimed  electoral votes to Hayes’ , but  additional votes from the states of Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana (and later Oregon) were disputed. After Democrat and Republican groups certified different outcomes in each state, Congress created an electoral commission comprising  members—seven Democrats, seven Republicans, and one independent, Supreme Court justice David Davis. When Davis resigned from the commission after being selected as an Illinois senator, Republican justice Joseph Bradley was appointed in his place. In subsequent votes, the electoral commission split eight to seven (Bradley voted with the Republicans) to give all the disputed votes to Hayes, who became president with a one-vote margin of victory in the electoral college. Although Democrats were hardly pleased with the outcome, they had worked behind the scenes for concessions. Most important, Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the Southern states, and Democrats gave vague guarantees to respect the civil rights of both black and white citizens. The withdrawal of federal troops from the South in  is generally regarded as the end of Reconstruction. Although the electoral college is sometimes blamed for giving the election to the candidate who did not win the popular vote, disputes under any system were almost inevitable given the climate of the times, and it can be argued that the electoral college actually helped to confine the controversy to a distinct section of the nation rather than expand it nationwide.

john vile

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ANDREW JOHNSON (1808–1875) Andrew Johnson was one of only two U.S. presidents (the other was Bill Clinton) to endure the agony of an impeachment trial. He escaped conviction for high crimes and misdemeanors by one vote in . Johnson was born on December , , in Raleigh, North Carolina, and spent his childhood in grinding poverty. Apprenticed to a tailor, he learned the trade and ran away, settling in Greeneville, Tennessee, where he married in . Denied formal schooling, Johnson, with the help of his wife, educated himself. He developed a flare for public debate through contacts he made at Greeneville College and Tusculum Academy. After being elected alderman and mayor of Greeneville, Johnson was elected to the state legislature in , defeated in , and reelected in . In , he was elected to the state Senate; two years later, he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat. He served in the House until , when he was elected to two terms as governor of Tennessee. He became a U.S. senator in . In both the state legislature and Congress, Johnson identified with common citizens and attacked anyone—which over the course of his career meant virtually everyone—who spoke against their interests. At the same time, he was a staunch defender of states’ rights and slavery (he owned a few slaves himself ), although there were few slaves in the section of eastern Tennessee that he represented. Johnson quarreled with his fellow Democrats and became identified with the “radical” idea of basing political representation on the number of white persons in the area instead of counting slaves as three-fifths (as provided for in the Constitution at that time). He also was in favor of electing U.S. senators by popular vote, electing federal judges, and abolishing the electoral college. Johnson backed the passage of a homestead law that would grant small parcels of government-owned land in the West to settlers for free or at a nominal price, thus supporting the interests of the small laborer against the large plantation owner. When the Democratic Party met at Charleston in April , Johnson’s name was placed in nomination for the presidency by the Tennessee delegation, but any hope he had of being selected for the vice presidency vanished when the party broke into sectional factions. He supported Southerner John Breckinridge in the general election. However, when the senators from seceding states withdrew from Congress in , Johnson declared himself for the Union and remained in Washington, D.C. It was Johnson who wrote the resolution that explained the purpose of the North’s resort to arms as solely to preserve the supremacy of the Constitution and the Union. In March , after the western half of Tennessee fell to Union forces, Johnson was appointed military governor of Tennessee by President Abraham Lincoln with instructions to reestablish the authority of the federal government in the state. As military governor, Johnson had the difficult task of balancing the needs of the army with the political interests of a hostile population, as well as trying to rally Unionists in the state around a moderate Reconstruction policy. After the Union forces had driven all Confederate troops from eastern Tennessee in , Johnson managed to reestablish civil government and secure, by state constitutional convention and popular vote, the abolition of slavery. Johnson viewed his experience in Tennessee as a successful example of the approach that would be necessary for the North to follow in reconstructing the Union

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after the Civil War. His success in Tennessee also made Johnson the logical choice for Lincoln’s vice presidential running mate in . When Johnson became president after Lincoln’s assassination, he promised to continue Lincoln’s policies and retain his Cabinet. Congress was not in session when Johnson became president in April  and was not scheduled to return until December. The Republicans wanted Johnson to call Congress into special session so that they could make the rules for the treatment of the conquered South. Johnson refused and decided to use the time to resolve the matter on his own. Lincoln had favored leniency toward the South. He believed that since states could not legally secede, the Confederate states should be treated as if they had never left the Union. Therefore, as soon as one-tenth of the voting population in a state took an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and agreed to abolish slavery, they should be allowed to establish a new state government. The Radical Republicans in Congress disagreed. They argued in the Wade-Davis Bill, passed in July  but vetoed by President Lincoln, that since the Southern states had seceded, they would have to apply for readmission to the Union under new terms established by Congress. Among these terms was the requirement that  percent of the enrolled white male citizens take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution before a convention could be called to reestablish the state government. In order to be a delegate to the convention or vote for a delegate, a person would have to take an “ironclad oath,” swearing that he had never voluntarily fought against the United States or given aid to the rebels. Once the new state government was accepted by Congress, it could, if it wished, proceed to reenfranchise ex-Confederates. Lincoln died before having to confront the Radical Republicans on the issue. Johnson proceeded to implement his own plan; he hoped to present Congress with an already readmitted South when the legislature convened in December. He almost succeeded, but his decision to let the Southern states determine their own courses of action proved his downfall. Johnson suggested that Southern conventions—gathered under his interpretation of Lincoln’s plan—ought to refuse to pay their war debts, nullify their ordinances of secession, and adopt the Thirteenth Amendment freeing the slaves. These conditions were the least the North might have accepted, but Johnson failed to make them requirements. The result was that South Carolina repealed rather than nullified its ordinance of secession. This implied that states had a right to secede. Mississippi refused to adopt the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, and both South Carolina and Mississippi refused to repudiate their war debts (although they were compelled to do so later). Further, many of the new Southern state legislatures adopted laws, called Black Codes, that severely restricted the civil rights of free African Americans. They also proceeded to allow former high-ranking Confederate government officials to accept political office. By the time Congress reconvened, the stage was set for a fierce battle between it and the president. Johnson refused to back down or seek compromise. Radical Republicans, led by Thaddeus Stevens, refused to recognize the Southern representatives and passed various Reconstruction measures to protect the rights of the newly freed African Americans. In February , Congress passed a bill to extend and strengthen the Freedmen’s Bureau. The bureau had been established for one year in  to assist and protect freed slaves and settle them on abandoned lands in the South. Now

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Congress wanted to try in military courts anyone who attempted to deprive freedmen of their civil rights. Johnson, believing that the bill was unconstitutional, vetoed it. The attempt to override the veto failed. Congress then passed the Civil Rights Act, which granted citizenship to African Americans. Johnson again vetoed this measure, but the bill was passed over his veto. This victory by the Radical Republicans allowed them to garner sufficient support for the passage of a new Freedmen’s Bureau bill in July . The Tenure of Office Act of , passed by Congress over Johnson’s veto, set the stage for a final confrontation by prohibiting the president from dismissing his own Cabinet members or other federal officeholders without the consent of the Senate. In August , Johnson suspended Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, pending Senate approval. When the Senate refused to approve his action, Johnson fired Stanton anyway in February . The moment Radical Republicans had been hoping for had arrived. Impeachment proceedings for high crimes and misdemeanors began in the House. Johnson was tried by the Senate in March . The trial lasted until the end of May, when the motion to impeach him failed by one vote short of the required two-thirds majority,  to . While he retained office, Johnson’s power was reduced. None of his vetoes were upheld during his last year in office. One of his last acts as president was to grant amnesty “without limitation to all who had participated in the rebellion.” Johnson returned to Tennessee in . He sought election to the Senate in  and the House of Representatives in  and was elected to the Senate in . He served in one special session of Congress before his sudden death on July , , while visiting his daughter near Carter Station, Tennessee.

steven g. o’brien RADICAL REPUBLICANS The Radical Republicans were a political faction in the North devoted to a vigorous prosecution of the Civil War, immediate emancipation and rights for the slaves, and a thoroughgoing postwar reconstruction of the South. The unhappiness of antislavery activists with national parties that compromised on slavery led in the antebellum years to independent antislavery organizations in the Liberty Party, Free Soil Party, and finally the Republican Party. Only the Republican Party reached major party stature, however, and only then by muting its abolitionism and broadening its appeal to include other issues. The party’s “radicals” emerged as the conscience of the party, attempting to keep it true to its original antislavery idealism. Tracing their intellectual and often geographical roots to New England and its Puritan past, radicals believed political leaders must pursue morally just policies regardless of their political expediency. Even the Constitution must not be allowed to stand in the way of achieving a just and moral society. While all Republicans shared a dislike of slavery and preference for free labor, only the radicals insisted that correcting the moral wrong of slavery outweighed all considerations of property loss, possible civil war, constitutional objections, and existing racial prejudices.

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Democrats, and even some conservative Republicans, found what they perceived as radical self-righteousness and indifference to the Constitution hard to bear. Democrats in particular happily labeled all Republicans “radicals.” They recognized that many of the causes championed by individual radicals (racial equality, temperance, labor reform, and women’s rights along with abolition) were in fact highly controversial and sure to alarm many voters outside reform-minded New England and the upper Midwest. The efforts of moderate Republicans to dissociate the party from extreme stands and radical candidates characterized the period of Republican growth before the war. Moderate Abraham Lincoln’s nomination for president in  in preference to the more radical William H. Seward was just one example of this. The radicals’ extreme stands on issues and unwillingness to compromise led to constant frustration in the prewar era. Only with the secession of the Southern states and the onset of war did the political situation change to accommodate those at the political extremes. Those who had defied the South for years now took positions as chairs of congressional committees (Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, Zachariah Chandler, and Henry Wilson, among others) or served in the cabinet (Salmon P. Chase). In addition, the revolutionary wartime situation seemed opportune for emancipation. Convinced that the Northern public would support seizure of Southern property, arrests of Northern and border state “traitors,” abolition of slavery, and African American soldiers, radicals challenged those who would proceed more cautiously, including Lincoln. Although the moderate Lincoln sought to maintain good relationships with radicals in his party, the latter openly cringed at his preference for creating a broad coalition in favor of the war over pursuing a “principled” radical agenda of confiscation and abolition. In December , Congress authorized a joint investigative committee, the Committee on the Conduct of the War, which was presided over by radical Benjamin Wade. It offered a vehicle for radicals to comment on the war’s management by Lincoln. Democratic generals such as George B. McClellan were criticized for being overly sympathetic to the South and slaveholders, while ineffective but radical generals such as Benjamin Butler found a friendly forum for defending their military actions. The committee issued reports on treatment of Union prisoners of war sure to arouse hatred of the South and calls for a more vigorous prosecution of the war. But although radicals could investigate Lincoln’s war effort, the committee produced little legislation and had no direct impact on the military; its main influence was on public opinion. Indeed, radicals may have served the president’s cause by preparing the way for some of the more extreme measures the war dictated. Dissatisfied with Lincoln’s avoidance of emancipation early in the war, radicals pursued, over Lincoln’s objections, confiscation bills that would free most Southern slaves. They also offered in  an alternative (the Wade-Davis Bill) to Lincoln’s reconstruction ideas, which would have permitted those who had supported the Confederacy to assume political roles on the taking of oaths of future loyalty. When the president pocket vetoed the measure, Wade and Davis openly attacked the president in the Wade-Davis Manifesto for “dictatorial usurpation.” Radicals Wade, Chase, and John C. Fremont all maneuvered for the Republican nomination in . Radicals even spearheaded a drive in August (after the Republican Convention) to replace Lincoln as the party’s nominee. Historians have long debated the radicals’ significance. Analysis of congressional votes reveals that consistent radicals never were a majority of their party, much

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less Congress. Many individuals shifted factional allegiances from session to session. Seward, a prewar radical, took moderate positions during the war. Wartime radical Butler had been a prewar Democrat, even favoring Jefferson Davis for the Democratic Party nomination in . Such factional inconsistency suggests that some who favored radical policies did so as a result of political calculation, not solely as a moral imperative. The radical faction was far from unified or stable. Despite the intraparty feuding, Lincoln could normally count on most radicals for support—as his decisive victory in  demonstrated. Nevertheless, radicals added a distinctive element to Civil War politics. By acting as a faction and threatening to withdraw support at key moments, radicals could gain concessions. Some regard the Emancipation Proclamation itself as an attempt to forestall a boycott of the war by frustrated radicals. When Lincoln removed the scheming Chase from his cabinet in , he compensated radicals by removing a conservative (Montgomery Blair) as well. While radicals may have found many wartime policies regarding race and reconstruction too conservative for their tastes, their contributions to the debates on those topics also guaranteed that the most conservative options would be rejected. In this way they exercised influence. Some historians have defined the radicals in economic terms as defenders of Northern capitalism. While long discounted, analysis of wartime congressional voting shows radicals disproportionately favored measures promoting economic growth and development at the national level. Such views suggest a linking in radical minds of free labor and capitalism as signs of a modern, progressive nation. Lincoln’s death would lead to the period of greatest radical influence as Andrew Johnson squared off with Congress on Reconstruction. The nation had not been radicalized, however; by  the radicals began a permanent decline.

david s. heidler and jeanne t. heidler THADDEUS STEVENS (1792–1868) Thaddeus Stevens led the Radical Republicans in Congress during the Reconstruction period and was the primary instigator in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. Born on April , , in Danville, Vermont, Stevens grew up in poverty after his father abandoned the family. Although a sickly child, he refused to allow his financial and physical handicaps to quell his ambition. He gained admission to Dartmouth College and, after graduating in , moved to Pennsylvania. He was admitted to the bar in that state in  and established a law practice in Gettysburg. Stevens invested his earnings in local real estate and the relatively unprofitable charcoal-iron industry. He began his political career in  in the state legislature, where he served until  as a member of the Federalist Party, taking stands against slavery and freemasonry. He quickly established a reputation as an aggressive, fiercely uncompromising leader in Pennsylvania affairs. In addition to protecting banking interests, Stevens supported extending the free public school system of Philadelphia throughout the state in . When public reaction set in against increased taxes in , he helped to prevent the repeal of the free school law as “an act for branding and

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marking the poor.” During this period, Stevens, a determined abolitionist, defended fugitive slaves free of charge. He once reportedly paid $ to secure the release of a hotel servant who was about to be sold away from his family. After eight years in the state legislature, Stevens was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Whig in  and served until . Opposed to the Compromise of , he was especially virulent and caustic in his denunciation of the Fugitive Slave Act (), taunting Southerners for devoting their lives to “selecting and grooming the most lusty sires and the most fruitful wenches to supply the slave barracoons.” After leaving the House in  in disgust over the moderation of his colleagues on the slave issue, Stevens joined the new Republican Party in . Reelected to the House in  as a Republican, Stevens used his sarcastic wit, knowledge of parliamentary procedure, and eloquence to become the leader of the Radical Republicans. First as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, then as the head of the Appropriations Committee, Stevens came to command tremendous authority in the House. Stevens’ passion earned him the admiration of many of his colleagues. However, his stubbornness, harsh language, and vindictive nature, while making him a formidable adversary, prevented him from achieving greatness. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee during the Civil War, Stevens urged President Abraham Lincoln to deal harshly with the “rebels” of the South (“Oh, for six months of stern old [Andrew] Jackson!” was one of his frequent admonitions). He called for the emancipation of all slaves and the confiscation of planter estates in the South to be divided into small farms for the freed African Americans. Stevens helped to secure the passage of increased protective tariffs, encouraged the construction of railroads through government subsidies, backed the issuing of paper (greenback) money, and fought to allow African Americans to enlist in the Union Army. After Johnson became president in April , Stevens served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, where he openly battled against the conciliatory policies of the president. He succeeded in imposing military reconstruction on the South, which he viewed as a “conquered province” with which Congress could do as it pleased. However, more moderate Republicans, like Lyman Trumbull and William Pitt Fessenden, played a more important role in crucial facets of Reconstruction than radicals like Stevens and Charles Sumner. Throughout the first few years of Reconstruction, Stevens remained an ardent supporter of granting full African American civil rights and believed the South should be severely punished for what he saw as its treachery. It was Stevens who introduced the resolution in the House calling for the impeachment of President Johnson. However, his failing health prevented him from taking part in the trial itself. Deeply depressed by the president’s acquittal, Stevens died shortly thereafter on August , .

steven g. o’brien

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11 The Closing of the Frontier, ca. 1890s

INTRODUCTION Following the Louisiana Purchase in , settlement of the West proceeded rather slowly until midcentury, when the Oregon Treaty () and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo () completed the territorial expansion of the United States, with the minor exception of the Gadsden Purchase (). The additional territory opened up new frontiers that stretched to the Pacific Ocean, and the discovery of gold, silver, and copper, especially in the lands acquired from Mexico, caused a rush across the plains to the West that changed that region and the lives of its indigenous people permanently. The settlement of the West that led to the closing of the frontier occurred in three stages. Between  and the s, mining was predominant, with the dream of striking it rich drawing thousands of people to the areas that are now California, Nevada, Colorado, and Montana. From the s to the s, conflicts with Indians were the major concerns of those interested in western settlement. And as the Indians were subdued, an influx of farmers and ranchers into the plains region between  and  completed the process of western settlement. The mining phase of western settlement began with the discovery of gold in California in the late s that brought enough people to the newly acquired territory in  to produce a folklore and a nickname—the Forty-Niners—and to make California a state by . The gold in California played out quickly, however, and prospectors next looked to Colorado, where significant gold discoveries in the late s gave rise to the nickname Fifty-Niners and the slogan “Pike’s Peak or Bust!” Enough of the Colorado prospectors stayed on and went into farming or ranching so that Colorado became a territory in  and a state in . In Nevada, gold was discovered at Virginia City in , and the legendary Comstock lode, located in the middle of the desert, yielded $ million in gold and silver in , bringing enough people to the area for Nevada to achieve territorial status in  and statehood in . Similar mining booms led to the creation of the Idaho, Montana, and Arizona territories in the early s. Mining towns declined fairly rapidly, however, as accessible sources of gold and silver disappeared, and by the s, most places were little more than ghost towns. Montana was an exception; there, gold and silver mining was replaced by copper, which allowed towns like Butte to flourish well into the th century.

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The rush of settlers across the plains in search of gold and silver inevitably brought them into conflict with the Indians. In an effort to head off trouble, the federal government negotiated the Treaty of Fort Laramie () with Indian leaders, in which Indian territory was defined and the Indians agreed to refrain from hostile acts against whites in return for annual government payments. But it was not long before the treaty was violated by the government, which reneged on the annuity payment provisions; by settlers, who refused to recognize Indian territory; and by Indians, who did not always agree with what their chiefs had signed. During the s, Indian–white conflicts continued and, indeed, were marked by a heightening of brutality. In , for example, Sioux warriors killed about  settlers on the Minnesota frontier and forced the state to use about half its Civil War recruits to protect remaining settlers. In retaliation, the federal government publicly hanged  Sioux leaders and stopped payment of annuities for four years. Two years later, the Sand Creek massacre in Colorado was a particularly shocking incident, in which U.S. military forces, commanded by Col. J. M. Chivington, killed about  Indians, including many women and children, and mutilated their bodies. Although Chivington was a local hero in Colorado, where he liked to display his collection of  Indian scalps, a storm of protest from easterners finally forced his resignation from the army. As a result of this kind of hostility, a peace commission toured the plains in  and recommended that Indians end their nomadic ways and be placed permanently on reservations. Subsequent treaties tried to implement these recommendations, but renegade Indians, upset by poor conditions on the reservations, continued to hunt buffalo and raid settlers’ herds. This brought the army out again, and a new series of Indian–white clashes ensued. The Indians initially gained the upper hand with their devastating victory at the Battle of Little Big Horn in eastern Montana, where a large Indian force annihilated a smaller cavalry force led by General George A. Custer in June . But it was the last great Indian victory. Gradually weakening from the effects of disease, alcohol, and the disappearance of the buffalo, the Indians eventually had no choice but to accept government terms. After the Civil War, reports of high casualties in Indian battles and poor conditions on Indian reservations began to stir the American conscience. By , this growing concern over Indian welfare had resulted in the creation of several Indian aid organizations, such as the Indian Rights Association, which investigated Indian conditions and lobbied Congress for better treatment of Indians, and the National Indian Association, composed principally of women, which sponsored missions among Indians. Helen Hunt Jackson, a writer and Indian reformer, published A Century of Dishonor (), an exposé of broken Indian treaties that attracted much attention to the cause. In , Congress responded with the Dawes Severalty Act, which attempted to bring about a new policy toward Indians by assimilating them into mainstream America. Severalty refers to the partitioning of land among the Indians, and the main feature of the Dawes Act was the survey of Indian reservation land and the allotment of parcels of that land to the resident Indians. The land was to be held in trust for the Indians for  years to ensure that they would not sell or be cheated out of their allotment. Each family was given  acres, and each head of a family was granted U.S. citizenship. Any surplus land was made available for sale on the open market. The idea was to make Indians into small independent farmers, but this was an idea the Indians, who had no concept of private land ownership, could not comprehend.

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As a consequence, the Dawes Act was generally a complete failure. Reformers who had pushed for the act lost interest as soon as it was passed, assuming the problem was solved. The land allocated to the Indians was often the least productive on the reservation; the surplus land sold to speculators was much more desirable. Clever speculators found loopholes through which they could obtain control over an Indian’s allotment, sometimes through the device of persuading the Indian to appoint him as his guardian. Less clever speculators talked Indians into writing wills naming the speculators as beneficiaries and then killed the Indians to inherit their land. Incompetent or corrupt federal agents added to the problem. The Board of Indian Commissioners made the first appointments and often chose naive or uninformed (if well-meaning) agents in the West; these were later replaced by standard political appointees, who were often people of very low character. One Republican said of an appointee: “His character is such that he ought not to hold office even if he is a Republican.” Missionaries were not much better. Most Indians were not receptive to the standard versions of Christianity; only when a missionary was perceptive enough to mix Christianity with the indigenous religion by giving sermons utilizing Indian legends and the like could he hope to win souls. Other laws and regulations attempted to augment the policy of assimilation (or acculturation, as it is sometimes called). Off-reservation boarding schools took Indian children at a young age and forced a complete separation from their native culture, teaching them skills that would be useless in traditional Indian life and making them outcasts when they returned to their communities. Indian police and Courts of Indian Offenses were used in Indian areas as acculturation agents. Indian police worked as truant officers, ran down bootleggers and rustlers, and gathered census data. They were urged to set an example for other Indians by cutting their hair, wearing white man’s clothes, having just one wife, and taking an allotment. Other Indians generally scorned them as turncoats and as part of the common enemy. At the end of the s, Indians were living in miserable conditions. In South Dakota, government allotments of food were insufficient, and a drought had severely curtailed farm production. A Paiute Indian named Wovoka, who claimed to have had a mystical religious experience, became a prophet to the Indians, predicting the coming of a new Messiah. Wovoka’s movement was marked by the Ghost Dance (which lent its name to the movement), in which Indians danced until they passed out. When they awoke, they would tell tales of visits with the dead. In late , the army concluded that this kind of uncontrolled behavior was dangerous and decided to put a stop to it by arresting the Sioux chief, Sitting Bull. The ensuing fracas escalated into the Battle of Wounded Knee, in which some  Indian men, women, and children were killed. This event effectively ended Indian resistance to white rule. By , the former domain of the Plains Indians was largely settled by farmers and ranchers. These activities developed in proportion to the decline of the Indians and the disappearance of the buffalo. Before , enormous herds of buffalo roamed the plains. They had no natural enemies, but the Indians killed them in limited numbers for their meat, hides, and other useful parts. In , however, there were an estimated  to  million buffalo in a range that extended from North Dakota to Texas. During the s, the organized killing of buffalo almost made the species extinct. Trains, which first crossed the plains in , brought parties of hunters from the East who shot thousands

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The growth of farming and ranching in the West and on the Great Plains brought permanent settlements to that area and led to the closing of the frontier. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

of buffalo for the sport of it or to feed the current fashion trend of buffalo robes. In addition, a tick-borne disease killed many more buffalo at this time, so that by  only , survived. Buffalo bones were collected for years afterward and sent east to be ground into fertilizer. With the removal of the buffalo, federal policies encouraging farmers to go west could be more fully implemented. The Homestead Act () provided a family with  acres of public land if it stayed five years. The Timber Culture Act () stipulated that a settler would receive  acres of public land if he agreed to plant  acres in trees. These acts were well intentioned, but much of the land ended up in the hands of speculators. Others discovered that  acres was not enough farmland to support a family in the arid West. Still others did not have the money to get out West to claim their land. All in all, it was a difficult life, with a lack of timber for houses and fuel, unpredictable weather, and invasions of grasshoppers or locusts at periodic intervals. As the popular musical Oklahoma pointed out, there were frequent conflicts between farmers and ranchers. Cattle raising on the plains became popular with the growing popularity of beef in the East and the ability of railroads to get it to hungry easterners. Cowboys could herd cattle in great numbers and drive them from Texas or the Dakotas to rail points in Kansas or Nebraska, where they would be shipped to meatpacking centers in Kansas City, St. Louis, or Chicago. The range cattle industry was relatively cheap and thus a good investment that attracted a good deal of U.S. and European capital. By the mid-s, however, conflicts with growing numbers of farmers and their enclosed lands,

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overstocked ranges, and a succession of severe winters had greatly reduced the number of cattle and the attractiveness of the range cattle industry, which was replaced on a smaller scale by ranching. An important cultural legacy, though, was the legend and lore of the American cowboy, immortalized in literature, film, and music during the th century. Farmers enjoyed some success on the plains in the early s, despite the hard living conditions. Railroads brought many settlers out to the region, and windmills, iron plows, and barbed wire helped increase productivity. In the northern plains, the population increased sixfold between  and , and cities like Omaha, Topeka, and Kansas City developed. What boom there was, however, collapsed in , when a very dry summer was followed by a harsh winter. Farmers returned to the Midwest and East, with the jingle, “Fifty miles to water, a hundred miles to wood; To hell with this damned country, I’m going home for good,” fresh in their minds. In , the census declared that there were no more unsettled parts of the United States. The basic frontier problems of Indians, water, and fencing were largely solved, and by , all the western territories except Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona had achieved statehood. Clearly the time was appropriate in  for Frederick Jackson Turner to speak of the significance of the frontier and to warn about the dangers to American democracy of its closing.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY michael j. devine Near the end of the th century, when America’s sparsely inhabited frontier regions began to vanish, the idea of the closing of the frontier created anxiety about the very survival of the nation. The settlement of successive frontiers had occupied the attention and absorbed the energies of the American people for nearly three centuries. From the establishment of the earliest colonies in the first decades of the th century through the creation of new states in the Rocky Mountains at the end of the th, millions of pioneers, speculators, prospectors, developers, and adventurers had sought new opportunities on America’s western frontier. Americans had come to view the conquest and settlement of vast territories as their special mission, and they accepted the claim of John L. O’Sullivan, a journalist and politician, that “our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions.” As the dawn of the th century approached, national leaders grew concerned about stability without the social safety valve that had allowed room for those unhappy with their condition to start anew on the frontier. Fears arose that the nation might soon become overpopulated, face food shortages, and rapidly exhaust vital natural resources. Policy makers began to consider the need to abandon the country’s traditional posture of nonalignment and isolation in favor of a more assertive foreign policy, which sought new foreign markets and overseas sources for raw materials. Meanwhile, historians came to view the passing of the frontier as a significant turning point; they began to pay greater attention to America’s frontier experience, and during the first decades of the th century, a new and contentious western American historiography established itself.

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The frontier can be defined in various ways and, in the study of American history, the term is almost synonymous with “the West.” Generally a frontier region is one that is in transition from an unsettled wilderness to a more modern, complex society, and the line of the frontier is that part of the developed area that fronts an unsettled wilderness region. The North American frontier usually was occupied by nomadic native peoples, traders, hunters, miners, and various sorts of adventurers. In most instances, there was an evolutionary pattern to the frontier’s development, from basic trading, hunting, and trapping to a more complex social and economic system featuring farms or ranches, permanent urban communities, and a cultural life of some sophistication. In America, the frontier experience consisted of three general phases. In the first, following the establishment of colonies along the eastern seaboard, pioneers moved inland to the Appalachian Mountains. The second phase, following the American Revolution, saw the settlement of the Old Northwest (the Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes Region); and the third and final phase, which occupied most of the th century, consisted of transMississippi migration across the Great Plains to California, and then back inland to fill in the Rocky Mountain regions and the Southwest. In recent decades historians have paid increasing attention to the settlement of the southwestern frontier by Spanish-speaking people and noted the permanent communities established in California and New Mexico prior to the American Revolution. Throughout the th century, the U.S. census officially defined a frontier as having fewer than two inhabitants per square mile. The cost of frontier settlement was high in both capital and human suffering. The advancement of the frontier produced demands on the federal government for policies favorable to and supportive of the settlement of frontier or western lands. The westerners wanted cheap land or—better yet—free land. Their constant demands ultimately led to the passage of the Homestead Act in . Upon arrival in the frontier region, settlers called for government protection, removal of the Indians, and the construction of internal improvements, principally roads, canals, and railroads. Meanwhile, people of the frontier regions usually insisted on high protective tariffs to create a market for their products. Near the close of the th century, settlers in the remaining frontier regions, including land speculators and developers, successfully secured federal assistance in the construction of huge dams and irrigation projects to open the less desirable, arid lands to homesteading. Throughout the era of frontier settlement, the constant conflict between the Native Americans and the pioneers resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, the devastation of Indian culture, and the eventual displacement of the Indian tribes from their traditional homelands. The advancing frontier also caused, in large part, the rupture of the federal union and the Civil War in , as political leaders were unable to resolve questions related to the extension of slavery into the frontier regions. The frontier’s unstructured society and individual freedom influenced the character of the American people, and this phenomenon was noted by Europeans who visited the new nation. In , J. Hector de St. John de Crevecoeur observed that as people from many nations arrived in America to settle new regions, they quickly “melted into a new race of men, whose labors and property will one day cause great changes in the world.” A naturalized citizen of New York, the French-born Crevecoeur went on to write in his Letters from an American Farmer, “He is an American, who leaving behind him all ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys and the new rank he holds. . . . The American is a

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man who acts upon new principles.” In the s, Alexis de Tocqueville, a French sociologist, saw Americans as an energetic and restless people, practicing greater equality than the Europeans and enjoying a wider distribution of land. He observed American women enjoying greater freedom and individual liberties than in the more authoritarian and socially stratified European nations. However, he expressed deep concern over the institution of slavery and questioned whether American individual liberties and democratic institutions could survive as the nation became more industrialized and urbanized. Other European observers, such as British writer Charles Dickens, found Americans, particularly on the frontier, materialistic, vulgar, and crude. By the s, careful observers of American life began to notice that the frontier was rapidly disappearing, and they expressed concern. Americans had been conditioned to think of their nation as an agrarian utopia, an “American Eden,” with unlimited resources. Some recalled that in the previous century Thomas Jefferson had warned James Madison that Americans would “remain virtuous . . . as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled up upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another.” Suddenly in the late th century, some American policy makers noted with dismay that much of the land in the United States was controlled by foreign syndicates, railroads, or giant monopolies. They worried that American stability would be threatened by further immigration, and they endeavored to curtail it. A few of the most anxious worriers considered annexing Canada as a means of providing the growing population of the United States with additional lands to settle. The popular theologian and philosopher Josiah Strong noted “pressure of population on the means of sustenance” would inevitably lead to a drive for overseas expansion. Government actions during the decade reflected the growing public anxiety. The administration of President Grover Cleveland sought to restore to the public domain lands acquired through fraud, and an executive order in  called for the removal of fences placed on the public domain by private individuals and corporations. Two years later, the Dawes Severalty Act opened millions of acres of Indian land for white settlement. Even with these actions, Americans remained fearful that the loss of the agrarian ideal envisioned by Jefferson would cause disaster. Events in the s tended to confirm the nation’s worst fears about the closing of the frontier. Prior to , the U.S. Census Bureau report had always featured a map with a frontier line, but the new figures from the  census indicated that now such a line would be meaningless. In effect, the bureau declared the frontier officially closed. This news arrived just as the nation entered into a devastating and prolonged economic depression. Meanwhile, the rise of the radical Populist Party, growing out of agrarian discontent, threatened the nation’s ruling class, and increasingly militant labor unions demonstrated through strikes their dissatisfaction with low wages and abysmal working conditions. Suddenly America seemed too crowded. Hoping to stem the tide of European immigrants, worried Americans formed the Immigration Reduction League in . In  economist Richard Ely predicted overpopulation and disaster in the near future. “We have practically reached the limit of our free land supply,” social reformer Ignatius Donnelly wrote in . “That free land has been the safety valve of Europe and America. When the valve is closed, swarming mankind every day will increase the danger of explosion. Nothing can save the world but greater wisdom, justice, and fair play.”

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Donnelly, a Minnesotan, may have written his warning after learning of a scholarly paper recently presented by a young historian from the neighboring state of Wisconsin. At the  annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Chicago, Frederick Jackson Turner of the University of Wisconsin delivered what would become one of the most influential essays in American history. Historian Walter LaFeber has written that Turner’s name will be associated with the importance of the frontier “as long as historians are able to indent footnotes.” In “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” Turner contended that the development of the frontier was the principal factor in the emergence of a uniquely American character and civilization. Among the first generation of American historians trained in the new analytical methods of German historical writing, Turner, like his contemporaries, believed historical evidence, particularly economic data, could be scientifically studied to provide useful knowledge. In his study of the successive American frontiers Turner observed that “American History has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of settlement westward, explain American development.” Turner found that Europeans were “Americanized . . . in the crucible of the frontier” and developed the “stalwart and rugged qualities of the frontiersman.” Furthermore, “each frontier” had, in Turner’s view, provided the liberated and increasingly democratic and individualistic settlers with “a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past.” Turner concluded by stating: “And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of one hundred years of life under the constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.” Following his presentation in Chicago, Turner lectured widely and published in the nation’s most influential magazines, elaborating on his frontier thesis. He raised questions about the impact the loss of the frontier would have on the nation’s democratic institutions and American society. In , he wrote in the Atlantic Monthly that the loss of the frontier “demands a vigorous foreign policy . . . and the extension of American influence to outlying islands and adjoining countries.” Similar articles and speeches followed. Throughout his long and productive career, Turner refined and modified his frontier thesis and attained wide recognition among the nation’s leading intellectuals. Theodore Roosevelt expressed his admiration for Turner in , writing, “I think you . . . have put into shape a good deal of thought which has been floating around rather loosely.” Woodrow Wilson, another future American president who had known Turner at Johns Hopkins University, agreed that with the closing of the frontier, the United States needed to seek new frontiers overseas, in Asia and the Pacific. In the halls of Congress, politicians cited the frontier thesis in debating naval appropriations. In , Turner assumed a chair at Harvard University. He won election by his peers to the presidency of the American Historical Association, and he was posthumously twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize. But he was not without his critics. Historians have noted that the frontier did not abruptly close in , and many challenged Turner’s glowing description of the American character, which he believed featured “coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness, that practical, innovative turn of mind . . . that restless nervous energy, that dominant individualism . . . that buoyancy and exuberance that comes with freedom.” Critics of Turner’s frontier thesis questioned the extent to which the frontier experience actually led

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to increased democracy, noting that the frontier’s democratic institutions were usually copied from and modeled after those in the more settled states. Also, scholars pointed out the contradiction between individualism and community effort in the taming of the frontier, where all settlers relied heavily on government assistance, neighbors, and voluntary associations. Turner’s critics maintained that few urban workers actually left the crowded cities for a farm or ranch on the frontier and that solutions other than a return to the agrarian ideal of Jefferson had to be found to stem depression, social unrest, and political radicalism. Finally, since the s, revisionist or new western historians, among them Donald Worster, Richard White, and Patricia Nelson Limerick, have disagreed with Turner’s heroic interpretation of the settlement of the frontier and have dismissed his sharp division of American history into pre- and post-frontier epochs. Historians of the new western history have attacked Turner for neglecting the issue of slavery and the critical roles blacks, Hispanics, and women played in the development of the West. Their studies have tended to emphasize exploitation of natural resources, racial conflict, and the excessive lawlessness of the frontier. However, the attacks on Turner have not lessened his influence, and Patricia Limerick has observed that “the New Western History’s campaign to declare Turner irrelevant revitalized Turner’s reputation.” After the turn of the th century, as the anxiety over the closing of the frontier subsided, the debate over the frontier’s significance was just beginning. With the th century came economic stability, a new overseas empire, and a more assertive national foreign policy. However, the frontier stubbornly refused to vanish for another generation. More homesteads were established in the first two decades of the th century than in the final four decades of the th, and the center of the nation’s population continued to move steadily westward. American leaders came to understand that solutions to social and economic problems required more than just free and open land. Turner himself modified his views on the frontier and in the s urged his countrymen to abandon the “squatter ideal,” which allowed “individual freedom to compete unrestrictedly for the resources of a continent.” Convinced that some of his followers had misinterpreted his thesis, Turner confided to a colleague, “Some of my students have approached only certain aspects of my work and have not always seen them in relation.” Some Americans recognized that the myth of rugged, pioneer individualism had warped the American consciousness, but the myth had a seductive appeal. In a radio address to the nation in , President Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans, “We can no longer escape to virgin territory: we must master our environment.” He added that Americans needed to “unlearn the too comfortable superstition” that all the nation’s economic and social problems could be resolved simply with the mere application of the “American spirit of individualism—all alone and unhelped by the cooperative efforts of government.” But many Americans, perhaps most of them, ignored Roosevelt’s eloquent appeal and remained convinced that the American pioneer spirit and rugged individualism provided all that was required to conquer any frontier. Whether intentionally or not, Turner’s writings on the frontier clearly helped advance the myth of America as an agrarian garden populated by virtuous and heroic white people. However, the myth was being vigorously perpetuated long before Turner entered the history profession. The myth has origins at least as far back as the era of Jefferson. From the very beginning, Americans seem to have viewed their nation as a new beginning,

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a fresh start on a unspoiled wilderness, an escape from injustice, tyranny, and corrupt social systems. Some have even viewed the nation as anointed by God for a special mission, a concept called “exceptionalism.” Throughout the th century, a frontier mythology grew with the widely read novels of romantic writers like James Fenimore Cooper and the popular fiction surrounding the lives of Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, and other heroes who achieved mythic status. While the physical frontier eventually vanished in the th century, the frontier myth emerged stronger than ever as a popular theme for innumerable books and stories known as westerns, which came to constitute an entire literary genre. During the th century, thousands of movies, radio shows, and television programs have employed the western frontier as a setting for a heroic tale. Furthermore, government officials and political leaders have frequently turned to the history of the frontier, as they envision it, to explain their policies to the American public. For example, in  the director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development entitled his report to the president, Science: The Endless Frontier. The highly technical study received a favorable review in the White House, and natural science research received generous funding in Congress the following year. In , John F. Kennedy’s use of the slogan “New Frontier” in his acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination “tapped a vein of latent ideological power,” according to historian Richard Slotkin, as the candidate attempted to portray himself as a new type of frontiersman. Governor Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate for president in , spoke of science as the “next American frontier,” and many Americans have turned to outer space as the frontier of the future. President Ronald Reagan, perhaps the nation’s most effective politician in the use of symbol and myth, and a fervent believer in American exceptionalism, proclaimed in his Thanksgiving Day speech in , “I have always believed that this anointed land was set apart in an uncommon way, that a divine plan placed this great continent here between the oceans to be found by people from every corner of the earth who have a special love of faith and freedom.” America entered the st century with scholars continuing their debate over the nature of frontier history, the public demanding more western movies and western literature, and political leaders still looking to the symbol of the frontier to help rally public opinion. As the nation moves ever further from the time when the frontier was a physical reality, Americans hold to the belief that there are still frontiers yet to be conquered. It appears that the influence of the frontier on American civilization is a permanent and indelible characteristic. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY The American Heritage Book of the Frontier Spirit. New York: American Heritage Publishing, . An extensive summary of the traditional, heroic version of the frontier experience, with essays by a number of notable historians of the West. Anderson, Terry, and Peter J. Hill. The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, . Discusses the evolution of private property rights in the th-century West. Athearn, Robert. The Mythic West in Twentieth Century America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, . Studies the impact of western mythology from a scholarly but highly personal perspective.

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Billington, Ray Allen. Frederick Jackson Turner: Historian, Scholar, Teacher. New York: Oxford University Press, . A sound biography by one of the most highly regarded historians of the American West. Billington, Ray Allen, ed. Frontier and Section: Selected Essays of Frederick Jackson Turner. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, . Contains a good selection of Turner’s writings. Cronon, William, George Miles, and Jay Gitlin, eds. Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America’s Western Past. New York: W. W. Norton, . Contains essays tracing the changing debate over the validity of the Turner thesis. Etulain, Richard W. A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Western American Literature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, . A good introduction to the sources for study of the frontier. Kerstetter, Todd M. God’s Country, Uncle Sam’s Land: Faith and Conflict in the American West. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, . Study of the role of religion, mythical culture, and the U.S. government in the history of the American West. LaFeber, Walter. The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, –. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Discusses the impact that the closing of the frontier had on overseas expansion. Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America. New York: HarperCollins, . A careful examination of the impact of the frontier on modern American culture. Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . A seminal work discussing how the idea of the West stirred the consciousness of Americans and influenced public affairs. Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry Holt, . Contains many of Turner’s most important writings, including “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” Webb, Walter Prescott. Divided We Stand: The Crisis of a Frontierless Democracy. Rev. ed. Austin, TX: Acorn Press, . A classic study of the concern raised by the closing of the frontier. Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . The most thoughtful and comprehensive study of the long-neglected Spanish frontier. Williams, William A. The Roots of the Modern American Empire: A Study in the Growth and Shaping of a Social Consciousness in a Marketplace Society. New York: Random House, . Places the West and the closing of the frontier in the historical context of America’s development as an international economic giant in the th century. Wrobel, David. The End of American Exceptionalism: Frontier Anxiety from Old West to New Deal. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, . An excellent analysis of the crisis in American life generated by anxiety over the closing of the frontier.

GHOST DANCE RELIGION What non-Indian observers deemed the Ghost Dance was a much older belief and ceremony among various Numic-speaking peoples, which emerged as a pan-Indian faith in two movements: – and –. Both movements began among the Numu (northern Paiutes) of the Walker River Reservation in western Nevada and promised the reunification of the living and the dead on a reborn earth, the return of game animals, and, by varying accounts, the elimination of non-Indians or nonbelievers. Both movements found adherents far beyond the Numu homeland. There were, however, important differences between the two movements, with the latter being more widespread

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and exhibiting much greater Christian syncretism. “Ghost Dance” is a non-Indian term; each American Indian people has its own specific name for the ceremony. The Ghost Dance religion is a pan-Indian movement that exhibited similarities to pan-Indian religions stretching back to the th century. During the French and Indian War, the Delaware prophet Neolin preached that Native peoples must wean themselves of dependence on the Europeans in order to clear a path to heaven. His teachings were the spiritual underpinning of Pontiac’s coalition of Native peoples, which for a time stalled British expansion in the Ohio country. A half-century later, the Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa announced a similar prophecy, which played a similar role in his brother Tecumseh’s attempt to create a pan-Indian political and military alliance. On the Columbia Plateau, the Prophet Dances and the Dreamer Religion of the Wanapum Prophet Smohalla also proposed a millennial vision of a pan-Indian future and identity. The first pan-Indian Ghost Dance movement emerged from the vicinity of the Walker River Reservation around . The  Ghost Dance has remained far more obscure than the religious movement that followed two decades later. Contemporary non-Indian observers did not even recognize the larger pattern within scattered reports of religious excitement among Native peoples. The  Ghost Dance prophet was Wodziwob (Gray Hair or Gray Head), a Fish Lake Valley Paiute who lived at Walker River, where he was also known as Hawthorne Wodziwob and Fish Lake Joe. Announcing his initial prophecies at communal gatherings, Wodziwob told his followers that Indian people could radically transform the present through supernatural means by practicing the prescribed ceremonies. He prophesied a return of the old ways, with all the Indians living and dead reunited on a renewed earth. The ceremonial base of both Ghost Dance movements was the Great Basin Round Dance, a rite that served a number of important ritual purposes during communal gatherings, such as rabbit drives and fish runs. Men, women, and children all participated. Within the circle, they alternated sexes, interlocked fingers, and shuffled slowly to the left, all the while singing songs revealed to individual dancers in visions. The dances occurred five nights in succession, and the cycle could be repeated up to  times a year. The  Ghost Dance spread north and west to the Washoes, Pyramid Lake Paiutes, Surprise Valley Paiutes, Modocs, Klamaths, Shastas, Karoks, Maidus, and Patwins. In California, the dances inspired revivals of preexisting religions (the Kuksu or God Impersonating cult) or were transformed into new belief systems (the Bole-Maru and Dream religions). Contrary to established historical opinion, the  Ghost Dance spread at least as far east as the Rocky Mountains, where Shoshones, Bannocks, and Utes all practiced the religion continuously throughout the last three decades of the th century. The second Ghost Dance movement also began on the Walker River Reservation. The prophet Wovoka (also known as Jack Wilson) experienced his first vision on New Year’s Day, . He reported traveling to heaven and meeting God. He was instructed to return to earth and to tell the people to lead good and loving lives and to follow a ritual that, if faithfully obeyed, would reunite them with their deceased loved ones and friends in a world without “death or sickness or old age.” The first dances took place at Walker River shortly thereafter, and word of the prophecy spread rapidly to reservations across the West. Native peoples from across the Great Basin attended the second series of dances later that spring, and by the end of  a delegation had arrived from the Lakotas and other Plains peoples.

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Broad similarities notwithstanding, several aspects of Wovoka’s doctrine marked important departures from the earlier movement. First, the  Ghost Dance was as “redemptive” as it was “transformative.” Wovoka did prophesy a radical transformation of the existing order—a renewal of the earth and the reunification of all American Indian people—but he also preached a gospel of peace, love, and accommodation that, by eliminating many of the causes of internal discord, served to strengthen Indian communities. Caspar Edson, an Arapaho who visited Wovoka in August , was the only Native person to record a written version of the doctrine: the famed Messiah Letter. Wovoka told his followers to live at peace with the non-Native immigrants: “Do not fight. Do always right.” On the other hand, his words also could be interpreted to suggest that non-Indians, or even Native nonbelievers, would not survive the coming cataclysm. Second, Wovoka’s doctrine exhibited far greater Christian influence than the earlier movement. As a young child, he had been exposed to Christian teachings (acquiring the name Jack) while working on the Mason Valley ranch of David and Abigail Wilson. By several accounts, Wovoka claimed he was Jesus and even reportedly showed the stigmata of crucifixion to a number of Native seekers, including the Cheyenne holy man Porcupine. In most accounts, the Ghost Dance of  has been inextricably linked to the tragic events that took place on the Lakota reservations. The popularity and perceived militancy of the religion among the Lakotas (many Lakota dancers wore Ghost Shirts, which were reputed to be bullet-proof ) panicked non-Indian settlers and elicited an overwhelming military response. Following Sitting Bull’s assassination at Standing Rock, the Minneconjou Lakota headman Bigfoot led his band south toward a hoped-for refuge at Pine Ridge. Instead they were intercepted by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry and, on December , , along the banks of Wounded Knee Creek, Bigfoot and well over  of his people died as the soldiers’ attempt to take them into custody degenerated into a slaughter. Contrary to popular understanding, the Ghost Dance religion was not a short-lived phenomenon. In many cases, it inspired cultural revitalization among Indian peoples. The Lakotas continued to practice the religion for at least two years after the massacre at Wounded Knee. In  the Lakota apostle Kicking Bear once again visited the prophet Wovoka and later introduced the religion to the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. From there, an Assiniboine man named Fred Robinson took his interpretation of the doctrine—emphasizing Wovoka’s admonition to lead a “clean, honest life”—to the Wahepton Sioux of Saskatchewan, where it survives as the New Tidings religion. The Ghost Dance religion also facilitated the revitalization of Pawnee culture in the s and early th century, while the Kiowas practiced a modified version of the dance from  to . Moreover, the Ghost Dance continues to be practiced today among Paiutes, Shoshones, Bannocks, and Utes, where it was a customary religious practice long before the movements of  and .

gregory e. smoak SIOUX WAR (1876–1877) Sometimes called the Great Sioux War, the Sioux War is one of the best known of the American Indian wars, primarily because its apex—the Battle of the Little Bighorn, or

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Custer’s Last Stand—has assumed mythic status in the American experience. The Sioux War had its roots in the Treaty of Fort Laramie, signed in . One of the most significant documents of its kind, this treaty contained several important provisions, the most important of which set aside, as unceded hunting grounds, a sprawling tract bordered by the Black Hills on the east, the Big Horn Mountains on the west, the Yellowstone River on the north, and the North Platte River on the south. Additionally, the Black Hills were made off-limits to white development, and the U.S. government agreed to remove its military presence from the Bozeman Trail. In return for those concessions, the tribes agreed to reside on permanent reservations and to allow passage across the hunting grounds. The treaty was flawed from the outset because the so-called wild bands of Teton Lakotas (the western branch of the Sioux Nation), under such leaders as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, refused to sign it or even acknowledge its provisions. As a consequence, the peace supposedly achieved through the signing of the treaty was tenuous at best, and conditions on the northern plains were unsettled during the next eight years. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills in  led to an invasion by hordes of prospectors that the army was unable to thwart. That in turn led to retaliatory raids by Indians. When the hostile bands, as they were then referred to, failed to return to their agencies, the problem was turned over to the War Department for resolution early in . Responsibility for conducting the campaign against the hostiles fell to Lt. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, who commanded the vast Military Division of the Missouri, headquartered in Chicago. Sheridan, long a believer in winter campaigns, immediately directed his senior field commanders, Brig. Gen. George Crook and Brig. Gen. Alfred H. Terry, commanding the departments of the Platte and Dakota, respectively, to take the field as soon as possible, thereby initiating military action against the recalcitrant Sioux and their northern Cheyenne allies. During the next  months, the U.S. Army waged a mostly unsuccessful campaign against the hostile bands and achieved few results until the latter part of  and early . Despite the strong columns that were sent against them, the Indians more than held their own—and scored the resounding victory over George Armstrong Custer and his regiment at the Little Bighorn on June , . In November , a column under Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie destroyed the northern Cheyenne village on the Powder River, and during the winter of –, forces under Col. Nelson A. Miles, operating out of Cantonment Keogh on the Yellowstone River (present-day Miles City), inflicted harsh defeats on the remnants of the Sioux coalition at Wolf Mountain and Lame Deer, Montana, that brought the war to a close.

jerry keenan SITTING BULL (ca. 1832–1890) Perhaps the best-known Native American warrior, Sitting Bull was an implacable enemy of white encroachment and assimilation. His skill in uniting the various Plains Indian tribes led to the Great Sioux War of  and the defeat of Col. George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Even when it was clear that his people could not prevail in the conflict with whites, Sitting Bull refused to abandon his traditional way of life.

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Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) was born around  on the Grand River, South Dakota, into the Hunkpapa Sioux nation. His father, a war chief of the same name, christened his son Hunkesni (Slow) on account of his deliberate mannerisms, but the youngster became renowned for physical prowess. He killed his first buffalo at the age of  and by age , was involved in raids against neighboring Crow Indians, counting many “coups,” or personal acts of bravery, against them. Sometime around , Sitting Bull became head of the Strong Heart’s lodge, an elite warrior society, on account of his skill in battle. He was also highly regarded for his spirituality and the great number of visions he experienced. At this time, the tide of white expansion began to infringe on Hunkpapa hunting grounds. In , Sitting Bull skirmished with the U.S. Army and came into contact with representatives of the U.S. government for the first time. Sitting Bull, a generous man, treated his erstwhile enemies cordially but made clear his determination to preserve the traditional Sioux hunting grounds and his way of life. It was a theme he endlessly repeated over the next three decades. By , Sitting Bull had become one of the principal war chiefs of the Lakota and Oglala Sioux, in league with his talented subordinate Crazy Horse. They did not participate in Chief Red Cloud’s victorious war along the Bozeman trail in  but did accept the conditions of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which removed white influence and reserved the Black Hills region of South Dakota for the Sioux. An uneasy truce of six years ensued, which was broken in  by the gold-hunting expedition into the Black Hills led by Custer. Sitting Bull, a medicine man, was so incensed by this desecration of sacred ground that he began gathering various bands into a coalition to drive the whites out. By , he had assembled upwards of , warriors from the Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne nations and was chosen head of the war council. The U.S. government, disturbed by this unusual display of unity, summarily ordered the nontreaty, or “hostile,” Sioux factions to reservations by the end of January , threatening military action if the Sioux did not relocate. However, Sitting Bull functioned as a rallying point for Sioux nationalism. When he and the others refused to be intimidated, the army began marshaling its strength against them. The result was the Great Sioux War of , the last attempt by plains tribesmen to preserve their autonomy. By June , three army columns were converging on the Native American confederation, but Sitting Bull remained undeterred. That same month, he performed a Sun Dance lasting a day and a half, during which he was smitten by visions of army soldiers falling on the Native American camp like rain, which was interpreted as a sign of victory and redoubled the warriors’ courage. On June , Crazy Horse engaged a column led by Gen. George Crook at Rose Bud Creek and forced its withdrawal. The Native Americans soon after regrouped along Greasy Grass Creek near Little Bighorn Mountain to await developments, and on June , they were attacked by a second column under Custer. As senior warrior, Sitting Bull was not allowed to participate in the fighting: his duty was to remain behind and make “good medicine” to affect the outcome of events. In his absence, war bands under Crazy Horse and Gall defeated a detachment of the Seventh U.S. Cavalry under Maj. Marcus A. Reno and drove it off. The victorious warriors then returned, surrounded five companies of cavalry under Custer,

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and annihilated them. This humiliating defeat for the army electrified the nation and spurred the U.S. government into prosecuting the war with greater vigor. No sooner had the Native American coalition beaten Custer than they broke up to forage and were continually harried by soldiers well into the winter. At one point, Sitting Bull’s ravaged band parleyed with Gen. Nelson A. Miles, but when the chief refused to lay down his arms and live on a reservation, fighting broke out. The majority of cold, hungry Sioux laid down their arms, but Sitting Bull rejected compromise and fled to Canada with , followers in May . The Canadian government made no effort to evict them, but they also refused to supply them with food. Famine and disease took their toll among the survivors, and in July , Sitting Bull led the remaining  followers back to Fort Buford, North Dakota, under a general amnesty. Sitting Bull remained imprisoned for nearly two years at Fort Randall, South Dakota, before rejoining his people. He then took up residence at the Standing Rock Reservation, remaining contemptuous of whites and resisting all attempts at either religious or cultural conversion. The Indian Agency was uneasy about his sullen defiance, and, eager for him to leave, they encouraged Sitting Bull to tour the United States as part of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show during –. He apparently enjoyed the attention of white audiences and autographed hundreds of photographic portraits of himself. He even met with President Grover Cleveland in Washington, D.C. By the time Sitting Bull returned to Standing Rock in , a new religious movement had appeared among the Sioux, the so-called Ghost Dance Religion. This form of nativistic worship, which involved much dancing and ranting, was viewed as a source of potential hostility by the Indian Agency. Sitting Bull encouraged the movement to counter Christian missionaries sent among the tribesmen. He also vigorously condemned the land agreement of , which split the Sioux reservation in half and opened it to homesteaders. Fearing a general uprising, the authorities decided that it would be safer if Sitting Bull was removed from the reservation, and on December , , orders to arrest him were issued. Several Apache Indian police confronted the old chief at his residence on that same day, and he surrendered without a struggle. However, numerous followers surrounded his lodge and blocked his departure. Shots rang out on both sides and Sitting Bull, his teenage son, and five Sioux lay dead in the snow. Six Apache policemen also died. A few days later, a detachment of the Seventh U.S. Cavalry also massacred a number of Ghost Dance followers at Wounded Knee, bringing the tale of Sioux resistance to its final, tragic conclusion. Defeat may have been inevitable, but to his final days, Sitting Bull was unyielding in his determination to live the life of his forefathers.

john c. fredriksen FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER (1861–1932) Historian Frederick Jackson Turner was the author of a provocative essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” which opened up a new period in the interpretation of American history. Born on November , , in Portage, Wisconsin, Turner grew up in a family that stressed learning and culture. Educated at local schools, he earned both his bachelor’s degree () and master’s degree () at the University

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of Wisconsin. He received his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied under Herbert Baxter Adams. Adams was one of a group of American historians who applied Darwinian evolutionary ideas to the study of history. According to Adams and others of this school, American democracy had originated among the primitive tribes of Germany. Turner retained the evolutionary thrust of Adams’ thinking, while significantly modifying this theory. In , as a young professor at the University of Wisconsin, Turner presented his famous paper, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” at a meeting of the American Historical Association. In Turner’s view, American democracy had begun in American rather than German forests. American history, he maintained, was to a great extent the history of the conquest of the West. The availability of free land had drawn settlers farther and farther westward, and as each successive wave of immigrants struggled with the “primitive conditions” of the frontier, they were transformed by the experience. According to Turner: The advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement away from the influence of Europe, a steady growth of independence along American lines. And to study this advance, the men who grew up under these conditions, and the political, economic, and social results of it, is to study the really American part of our history. Turner believed that the frontier had shaped the American character; from it stemmed the American’s toughness, resourcefulness, and individualism, as well as American democracy. He also believed that the frontier had served as a kind of safety valve for Americans, allowing mobility and the promise of new opportunities. “So long as free land exists,” he wrote, “the opportunity for a competency exists, and economic power secures political power.” Yet as of , Turner observed, citing a recent bulletin from the superintendent of the census, the western frontier was officially gone. He worried what the future held in store for Americans without a western frontier, but he hoped that because of their frontier heritage, Americans would avoid many of the social ills that beset Europeans. Turner’s essay catapulted him to celebrity. By focusing on an area that until then had been neglected, he brought about a major shift in the interpretation of American history. While previous American historians had concentrated on the nation’s European origins, Turner was the first to look for what was unique about the American experience. He was also among the first to apply interdisciplinary techniques to the study of history in the seminars he taught at the University of Wisconsin. Turner remained at the University of Wisconsin until , when he became a professor at Harvard. From  to , he served as president of the American Historical Association, and from  to , he was on the board of the American Historical Review. Upon his retirement from Harvard in , he worked as a research associate at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. Here, he devoted himself to an analysis of such problems as the depletion of natural resources, population explosions, and the prospect of another world war more terrible than the last. Turner died on March , , at the age of , before such a war occurred. Turner’s dedication to teaching, combined with the painstaking process by which he gathered and verified facts, meant that his publication output was relatively slight. In

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, he published The Rise of the New West, covering the period from  to  as part of The American Nation series. One other book, a collection of essays entitled The Significance of the Frontier in American History (), appeared during Turner’s lifetime. Two additional books were published posthumously: The Significance of Sections in American History (), which was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, and The United States – (). Turner is best known for his frontier theory, which started a controversy that has continued into the present, with some historians arguing that he overemphasized the role of the frontier in shaping the American past. But he also deserves to be remembered as a historian who brought to historical research a scientific and interdisciplinary approach. He preferred to think of himself not as a historian of the West, but as one seeking to explain the United States of his day through its history, defined by Turner as the interrelations of its economics, politics, sociology, culture, and geography.

william mcguire and leslie wheeler WOUNDED KNEE MASSACRE (1890) For all intents and purposes, the Wounded Knee Massacre of  marked the end of organized American Indian resistance to the white culture that had arrived in the New World four centuries earlier. The Ghost Dance, a nonmilitant, quasireligious movement among many Indian tribes during the late th century, had a reverse effect on the Lakota Sioux. Militant leaders among the Sioux, angered by the plight of their people who were suffering from hunger and sickness, capitalized on the Ghost Dance fervor by preaching the overthrow of the white man and his rule. They promised that the sacred ghost shirt would protect them from soldiers’ bullets. Government officials watched with growing concern. At the Pine Ridge Agency and the Rosebud Agency, emotions ran high, and nearby settlements feared an uprising. In response to settlers’ cries for military protection, President Benjamin Harrison ordered the War Department to take control of a rapidly deteriorating situation. Accordingly, in mid-November , army troops occupied both agencies. Within the Sioux tribe, two factions had emerged: friendlies (those not wanting trouble) and hostiles (the militants). In December, the hostile ghost dancers, numbering perhaps  or , had come together in the northwest corner of the Pine Ridge Reservation. Elsewhere, other Sioux bands, notably that of Sitting Bull, also appeared threatening. One in particular, that of Big Foot, steadfastly refused the army’s efforts at pacification. Meanwhile, Gen. Nelson A. Miles, having recently assumed command of the Military Division of the Missouri, ordered the arrest of Big Foot and Sitting Bull. Much to Miles’ chagrin, however, the death of Sitting Bull, killed by Indian policemen attempting to arrest him, further provoked a charged situation, which was beginning to receive considerable media attention. Most of Sitting Bull’s Hunkpapa band agreed to be relocated, but a few hardliners joined Big Foot’s band. Lt. Col. Edwin Sumner, with orders to arrest Big Foot, deemed it more prudent to hold off temporarily on the execution of his orders to avoid trouble. His delay led to trouble nevertheless.

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Although militant, Big Foot had a reputation as a peacemaker and had been asked by some of the Oglalas to come down from his Cheyenne River camp to Pine Ridge to help ease tensions. When Sumner finally decided to carry out his orders, he found that Big Foot and his band had quietly slipped away under cover of night for Pine Ridge. On December , an angry Miles took personal charge of a situation that he felt had been bungled. His troops were still trying to persuade the militants to come in from the remote corner of Pine Ridge where they had been holding out, and Miles now sought to keep Big Foot from joining them. Accordingly, elements of the Sixth and Ninth Cavalry were directed to prevent such a union. Big Foot, however, managed to elude the cavalry patrols and made his way toward Pine Ridge by way of the Badlands. Along the way, the Oglala leader was stricken with pneumonia. Meanwhile, a frustrated Miles ordered George Armstrong Custer’s old regiment, the Seventh Cavalry, now commanded by Col. James W. Forsyth, to intercept the elusive Oglalas. Forsyth succeeded where the others had failed. On the night of December , , his advance units located and surrounded Big Foot’s camp along Wounded Knee Creek. Surrounded by  soldiers and four field pieces, the Sioux, numbering about  men and perhaps  women and children, readily agreed to be escorted to the railhead for transfer to Omaha. However, when Forsyth demanded surrender of all weapons, the Sioux grew angry and refused to comply. Soldiers, understandably nervous, were sent in among the throng of murmuring Indians to search for concealed weapons. It was a volatile situation. In a disagreement between one of the soldiers and a Sioux, a rifle was discharged. Suddenly both sides were firing at each other. Brutal, close-in fighting ensued, with shooting and stabbing. As the fighting broke off and the two sides gradually separated, Forsyth’s Hotchkiss guns began firing into the camp with deadly effect, scattering the Indians. When the shooting finally ended, some  Sioux including Big Foot lay dead, and another  were wounded. Army losses amounted to  killed and  wounded. Miles was furious. He considered the massacre totally unnecessary, a blunder, and relieved Forsyth of command (that decision was later overturned). Wounded Knee was a genuine tragedy, but it was not a massacre in the sense that Sand Creek was a massacre, as it was neither deliberate nor indiscriminate. Further violence was averted, due mainly to Miles’ avoidance of dangerous situations. The power and attraction of the Ghost Dance waned after that.

jerry keenan

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12 The World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893

INTRODUCTION Chicago had been devastated by a fire in October  that left two-thirds of the city and virtually the entire business district in ruins. Civic and business leaders worked hard to rebuild the city, which became a national showcase for new architectural and engineering techniques. In the early s, forward-looking Americans began to discuss the idea of holding a world’s fair to commemorate in  the th anniversary of Columbus’ first voyage to the New World. Early on, some Chicagoans started touting their city as an ideal location for such a fair, because of its central location, excellent railroad connections, and reasonably temperate summer weather. New York, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., also launched campaigns to host a world’s fair in . Of these, New York emerged as the most serious competitor to Chicago. In , a citizens’ committee was formed to organize Chicago’s bid for the fair, and a similar group was created in New York, which could promote itself as the nation’s most important commercial center and port. Both cities lobbied Congress, which would make the final decision. Chicago had to withstand New York’s claim that their campaign was just the nonsense of a “windy city” (a reference to Chicago’s talkative boosters, not its weather) and that it was able to take advantage of political infighting that weakened New York’s effort. In the end, Congress chose Chicago in April , probably because its boosters had received $ million in pledges to finance the exposition. Congress also provided that the fair would take place in , a year late, because of the late date of the authorization. The organizing committee had to wrestle with the important and difficult issue of where to build the exposition. Chicago had several large, unimproved parks that seemed suitable to some, but others objected to the damage that roads and buildings would do to the park that was chosen for the site. Still others argued for a downtown site close to the central business district and the principal train station, but no site near downtown offered enough space for the many agricultural and livestock exhibits that were contemplated. Finally, Frederick Law Olmsted, the noted landscape architect and developer of Chicago’s park system, suggested Jackson Park, situated on Lake Michigan some eight miles south of downtown but easily accessible by train and boat. The organizing committee agreed, and planning went forward.

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The World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, was one of the first world’s fairs to make extensive use of electric lighting. This image shows the U.S. Government Building and part of the lagoon aglow with lights. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

The architecture of the fair was entrusted to the prominent local firm of Burnham and Root, which had played a major role in the city’s postfire rebuilding. Daniel Burnham became chief of construction, while John Wellborn Root served as supervising architect until his untimely death in January . Before Root’s death, he and Burnham had settled on a site plan that featured a grouping of major buildings around a large formal lagoon. Other buildings were to be constructed in a more parklike setting around a lake. Because of the large number of buildings that Burnham and Root contemplated, a team of highly regarded architects from Chicago and many other parts of the country was assembled. At a meeting in December , the assembled architects agreed that a formal neoclassical style would be used for the buildings around the formal lagoon, which would be known as the Court of Honor. To add to the formal appearance, all the buildings would have cornices of uniform height and would be painted white. When the fair opened, these buildings dazzled visitors and gave rise to the nickname “White City.” North of the Court of Honor was an area of lesser exhibit buildings, as well as state and foreign pavilions. Notable among these was the Fine Arts Building, the only permanent structure on the site. Since valuable works of art were to be on exhibit, insurance providers demanded that a fireproof building house the art exhibit. The Fine Arts Building is the only building from the fair left in Jackson Park and is now the popular Museum of Science and Industry. Another remarkable structure was the Transportation

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Building, designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. Its brilliant golden arched entrance provided a welcome splash of color among the constant whiteness that marked the other major fair buildings. To the north of this area, and extending  blocks along a wide thoroughfare, was the entertainment zone, known as the Midway Plaisance. The first such dedicated entertainment zone within the grounds of an American exposition, the Midway, as it was called, contained the great Ferris wheel,  feet high and the most prominent structure at the fair, and an array of exotic shows, many from different countries or displaying people of different races or cultures. Some of these took the form of native “villages,” where the mostly white fairgoers could marvel at the “primitive” lifestyles of natives from Africa, Oceania, or Asia. After a building project of mammoth proportions that took about  months, the exposition opened May , , although some of the exhibition halls and pavilions were not completed. Bad weather and labor disputes had slowed the pace of the work, but the Court of Honor was ready for visitors on Opening Day, and it was a wonder to behold. Five gigantic neoclassical buildings, painted white, surrounded the lagoon, in which two huge sculptures seemed almost to float on the water. The largest building, the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, designed by George B. Post, measured  feet by , feet. Indeed, no other building in the world at this time was larger. At the west end of the lagoon rose Richard Morris Hunt’s Administration Building, topped with an imposing black and gold dome. The other three buildings around the lagoon complemented these two and left visitors with a visual experience they would never forget. In addition to the stunning architecture, the exposition boasted all the attributes of a small city. Daniel Burnham oversaw the construction of sewers, water lines, and electricity, and arranged for fire and police protection. The fairgrounds had its own local transportation network: small boats ran up and down the lakeshore, a moving sidewalk brought people in from the dock, and an elevated railway circled the site. Fairgoers could immerse themselves in commercial exhibits, scientific displays, or the beauty of fine arts. During the s, U.S. interest in foreign trade increased substantially, and goods from abroad generated much interest. Fair organizers made a special effort to involve Latin American nations in the exposition, building on former Secretary of State James Blaine’s interest in Pan-Americanism. They sent a mission to Latin America in  to encourage participation from that part of the world, and all the countries agreed to send exhibits to Chicago. Six Latin American nations built their own pavilions, and others mounted extensive displays in Agricultural, Horticultural, or Mining Buildings. The Hispanic presence was further emphasized by replicas of Columbus’ three ships appearing in Lake Michigan. As important as the Latin American presence was to fair organizers, the Japanese exhibit at the fair attracted far more attention. Japan had budgeted $, for its participation and spent the money well. Japan’s building was known as Ho-o-den, a replica of an th-century temple, with a central section flanked by two wings. It was located on two acres on Wooded Island, apart from all the other foreign pavilions. Ho-o-den contained an extensive exhibit of Japanese paintings, metalwork, textiles, silk screens, and embroidery, all executed by some of the nation’s most celebrated artists. The Japanese building was left as a gift to the city at the end of the exposition, and it remained in place for some  years, inspiring architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, who visited many times.

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In addition, more than , Japanese firms sent samples of their work to Chicago, seeking to build closer commercial connections with American distributors. Many of these products were decorative objects: porcelains, lacquered goods, and tapestries. These were displayed in the Hall of Manufactures. Hubert Howe Bancroft, in The Book of the Fair (), his close examination of everything at the Columbian Exposition, noted that this exhibit of Japanese goods was not as effective as that at the Centennial Exhibition in , which marked Japan’s first appearance at an American exposition. Since , asserted Bancroft, Japanese exports had become “vulgarized”; the purity and simplicity of the designs had been altered to make them more appealing to purchasers. Despite Bancroft’s criticism, visitors admired the goods and were also highly impressed with a section of a model Japanese home, complete with examples of furniture, lighting, decorative objects, and screens, that was located in the Women’s Building, as well as a bazaar on the Midway, a teahouse on Wooded Island, and a botanical garden. Japan’s financial outlay for this array of exhibits was the third largest among foreign participants. Only Germany and France spent more. Among scientific exhibits, anthropology was probably the most prominent. That section was headed by Frederick Ward Putnam and Franz Boas, whose efforts at sober education through static exhibits of skulls, tools, and other artifacts were sometimes thwarted by Sol Bloom, the young impresario who organized the Midway and arranged for its native villages. Bloom, whose object was more commercial than educational, encouraged exhibits that would amaze and titillate and imposed a separate charge for each of the Midway attractions. The World’s Columbian Exposition also contained an intellectual side, known as the World’s Congress Auxiliary, which consisted of some  departments and eventually sponsored , sessions on topics as varied as medicine, music, and moral reform. These meetings drew a large number of scholars and other experts to give presentations. Among them was the historian Frederick Jackson Turner, who spoke of the significance of the American frontier in the development of American democracy and raised serious concerns about the future of the nation when he declared that all parts of the frontier were now settled and that, therefore, the frontier was closed. No previous fair had ever involved women to the degree that the World’s Columbian Exposition did. Fair managers created a Women’s Department as well as a Board of Lady Managers, headed by prominent Chicago socialite Bertha Palmer. These groups played significant roles in fair planning, entertainment of distinguished visitors, and arranging exhibits by women. The Women’s Building, designed by Sophia Hayden, a young architect educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a ’ x ’ structure in the currently popular Italian Renaissance style. It was filled with displays of arts and crafts that women from the United States and many foreign countries had made, as well as exhibits of scientific and educational accomplishments to which women had contributed. Equally important was the participation of women in the World’s Congress Auxiliary. The World’s Congress of Representative Women was the section designated for the dissemination of information concerning women, and its sessions ran from May  to May , . Some  meetings involving about  scheduled women presenters made up the agenda, which ranged from the controversial issue of woman suffrage, which many upper-class women were not ready to accept, to dress reform,

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which attracted a great deal of attention, to women in the theater and in other art forms. Black women were allowed to speak, and most who did spoke in uplifting and optimistic terms. Many of the most prominent women in America were present, including Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Frances Willard. Total attendance at the women’s congress meetings, some of which were held at the new Art Institute in downtown Chicago, was estimated at ,. The World’s Columbian Exposition closed October , , in an atmosphere of shock and sorrow occasioned by the assassination the day before of Chicago’s mayor, Carter H. Harrison. More than . million paying visitors had come to the White City (total attendance was about . million), and the fair earned a profit of $. million, enabling the fair board to repay private investors. There was some talk of preserving the buildings and reopening the fair for a second season in , but vandals burned several structures in January , and in July of that year, most of the rest of the structures were consumed in a spectacular blaze. A few of the surviving buildings were dismantled and moved to other parts of the country over the next two years, although the German Building remained as a restaurant and ice cream parlor in Jackson Park for a number of years, gracefully deteriorating, until fire damaged it beyond repair in .

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY hannah sigur Daniel Burnham, director of works, declared the  World’s Columbian Exposition the “third greatest event in American history,” superseded only by national independence and the outbreak of the Civil War. A colleague divided the world into “those who have attended the Fair and those who have not.” Such grandiosity. In the United States, neither the first, the last, nor even the largest, the World’s Columbian Exposition’s marvels and dramas were quickly eclipsed by those still more awesome in Buffalo, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Yet, in the century since its concessions were closed, exhibits dismantled, dazzling lights switched off, milling thousands gone their separate ways, and palaces reduced to ashes, consensus holds that this th anniversary tribute to the “discovery” of the New World marked a high point in the American cultural landscape. People then saw it as the clarion of the new century a mere seven years away. Now, in addition, as the summation of all that preceded it, its importance lies in the light it cast upon challenges crucial to a young nation still considered a utopian experiment, and as an instructive mirror for our own epoch. In , the World’s Columbian Exposition was the latest and grandest of a self-congratulatory international movement inspired by messianic faith in the benefits of the Industrial Revolution to civilization. Fêtes of shared values, each fair was a crosssection of its moment; participants put their best foot forward in mutual instruction and genial competition to establish “the best” among them. Yet, looking to the coming century, this fair pressed the status quo, beginning with its controversial host. Poised at the knife-edge of the nation’s westward thrust, Chicago was to many the vibrant emblem of the dynamic toughness propelling the adolescent United States. A mere  years had seen a hardscrabble settlement on a strategic yet miserably swampy site on

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Lake Michigan and the Chicago River transform itself into a major regional city and then emerge from conflagration as the splendid vision of : the nation’s second-largest metropolis; a continental transportation hub; a shipping, manufacturing, and meat packing powerhouse; with the most modern mass transit expanding its suburbs, and its skyline punctuated by that signature hallmark of modernity, the skyscraper. International condolence over the fire gave way to awe for such muscular rebirth. Henry Ward Beecher dubbed it the “Phoenix City.” Chicagoans saw the exposition as the capstone of their accomplishment and the impetus to a matching cultural, civic, and intellectual ascendancy to membership among the world’s great urban centers. The congressional act awarding the fair, won over stiff competition, was a national first for a peacetime enterprise. The city then embarked on a juggernaut of repaving, cleaning, replanting, and painting; new office buildings, boarding houses, hotels, restaurants, and saloons, and expanded transportation—as the perfect, grand stage for a gala to last from groundbreaking to closing. Chicago invited the world as its honored guest. The visionary newspaperman Moses P. Handy harnessed the era’s new communications technologies with a systematic, targeted information blitz starting with the fair’s earliest stages. Daily dispatches, , weekly mailings in  languages, , electrotypes, and , lithographs distributed gratis, all free advertising—went to , North American and foreign newspapers and periodicals, and every foreign minister, commissioner, state legislator, territorial official, member of Congress, consular official, and seemingly every other prominent person. Handy published special articles, pamphlets, guides, and handbooks, and organized a promotional bicycle race to New York. His welcome at the fair was equally innovative: the first official press center accommodated , journalists in a centrally located headquarters divided into international and national departments and supplied with desks, typewriters, and admission passes. The “Stupendous Advantages Derived Therefrom” transformed public relations. Fair and city officials alike sought to deflect the revealing light Chicago’s bright surfaces cast upon its flimsy foundation. The city had a turbulent underbelly of organized crime and corrupt politics. Its population,  percent recently immigrant, was the nation’s most diverse in an era of diversity, a ragbag of impoverished Germans, Irish, Scandinavians, Poles, Croatians, Slovakians, Lithuanians, Greeks, Swedes, Norwegians, Dutch, and Danes. New Englanders, white Southerners devastated by the Civil War, and ex-slaves fleeing Jim Crow also flocked to the city. Most lived and worked in disease-ridden slums and sweatshops amid filthy streets and open sewage; the resulting volatility gave Chicago the unenviable identity of “most radical of American Cities.” Skeptics believed the exposition could only fail and besmirch the reputation of the entire nation. But Chicago was merely a symptom of a national house in disorder and tottered on a compromised financial foundation, a fragile scaffold that could not hold. The fair coincidentally opened as if on cue at the moment of the inevitable implosion of the American economy, which led to the country’s worst financial panic to date. Some  banks failed and thousands of businesses closed, throwing more than . million out of work. Unemployment of more than  percent persisted for seven unrelenting years. Yet nothing stopped Chicago and its exposition, leaving the American experiment enhanced by what was accomplished in the face of such odds.

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The city ushered in the fair with an extended celebration. The October  groundbreaking by Vice President Levi Morton featured a grand parade of tens of thousands of tradesmen, marching bands, national and foreign regiments in gorgeous uniforms, dignitaries in sashes, and children strutting in lock-step, with banners fluttering before buildings festooned with bunting and colored lights. Spectators jammed sidewalks and boulevards to see the parade. At the May , , opening by President Grover Cleveland, ambassadors, governors from every state and territory, military top brass, members of the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, religious leaders, and  Texan beauties representing the original states attended speeches, balls, and concerts with full orchestras and choruses totaling in the thousands. It seemed a moment of paramount symbolic importance: Chicago’s turpitude was only one variant of a noxious divisiveness in the American experiment. Cynics predicted the nation inevitably would die by its own hand, pointing to more than a million aging Civil War veterans, and the iniquities of life in the South and in Northern cities as open sores in the national flesh. But spontaneous ovations had greeted the marching Southern delegations, which joyfully dipped their flags and doffed their hats, and cheers met the Ninth Colored Cavalry as it passed at a spirited gallop. Public order, enthusiasm, and above all conscious disregard for differences of opinion, religion, wealth, and ethnicity that had riven the nation since its founding led idealists to conclude that the exposition had sparked, finally, the emergence of the proud and inclusive true American character. How fitting an end to the century! What a culmination to that which Christopher Columbus had begun four centuries before! At noon sharp on May , President Cleveland pressed the Magic Electric Button, a gold telegraph key. It completed an electrical circuit to a gigantic steam engine in nearby Machinery Hall; this, to booming cannon, pealing bells, blowing trumpets, , flags unfurling, the deafening roar of ,, and children fainting with excitement, triggered fountains to jet  feet into the air. “The greatest and grandest day in the history of Chicago” had begun. Fifty cents opened the wonderland of Jackson Park. What Chicagoans knew as a huge lakeshore swamp Frederic Law Olmsted had dredged, engineered, and designed into a gracefully planted landscape laced by walks, ponds, fountains, and canals. A large lagoon nestling a Wooded Isle balanced elegant rusticity with the formal grandeur of the rectangular Grand Basin. This was the exquisite setting for more than  structures dedicated to presenting  nations, colonies, and principalities, and all the states and U.S. territories, at their prideful best. Most of the main buildings, including those for agriculture, manufactures and liberal arts, mines and mining, electricity, machinery, and fair administration, were designed by the country’s preeminent architects under Daniel Burnham’s direction and were situated around the Grand Basin as the Court of Honor. Their imperially scaled white façades dazzled in the daylight and glowed at night with thousands of incandescent lights. To a populace that mostly had yet to experience electricity, the sight immediately inspired the romantic epithet, “White City.” The plan originated in the era’s didactic conviction that architecture reflected and influenced the character of its inhabitants. Thanks to the power of that idea, the complex did distill the values, paradoxes, and triumphs of America at the cusp between centuries. To understand the White City is to understand the fair’s historical significance.

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With Olmsted’s setting, the White City conveyed a universal language of classically inspired Beaux-Arts style, including the mistaken idea that ancient architecture originally was white. It asserted that like Europe, the nation had always and would continue to follow the ideals of Greece and Rome. With the conservative view of the “real” United States, the White City boosters indicted new inspirations as affected, insincere, ungrammatical, and self-conscious. “It would be supererogation to force a patriotic expression of spurious originality, to construct a new language when none was needed; in using the classic types, our architects were performing their highest duty to contemporaneous civilization” (Brunt, Architecture of the World’s Columbian Exposition, , p. ). For the budding City Beautiful movement, this was the remedy to unbridled growth in cities like Chicago. But coming from an exposition judge, these words defended against a fly in the ointment of conformity: Louis Sullivan, the Chicago architect who excoriated the entire fair as a corruption of American life. Claiming that the White City had set back American architecture  years, he defied the classical mandate for his Transportation Building. Progressives derided classicism in America as backward, insecure, grandiose, immature, and stale. They saw the fair as the moment to recast the national vision with an architectural style born in the values of its new society, heterogeneous and free from European shackles. The Transportation Building was a lavish vision of geometric arches, Moorish-inspired cupolas, and rich filigrees of polychrome surface ornament. Out of step with the mood of the economic collapse, not to mention the architecture of the other major buildings, it was not well received. To progressives’ dismay, the White City influenced many cities, including Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, and New York to adapt the City Beautiful model, as did Columbia University, Yale University, and the University of Washington. Their elements mark the turn of the th century in North American cities. The Transportation Building, the first American modernist public building, pointed to the future for most urban business and institutional centers. But for an America that entangled staid past with dynamic present, classicism legitimized controversy by clothing it in accepted values. Such was the Italian Renaissance– style Women’s Building. Initially it was a placating bone to the Board of Lady Managers, but under Mrs. Bertha Palmer’s dynamic leadership it became the centerpiece of a project to confront the urgent plight of “the weaker sex” in the s—millions forced by outdated social mores to choose between penurious respectability and economic stability. Proof that women could be independent without compromising their virtue demanded world-class achievement by women of unimpeachable character, in a worldclass milieu of classical style. The surprised plaudits won by exhibits from every branch of industry, science, health care, education, financial planning, medicine, and art made the fair an important step forward in the struggle for women’s rights. But the Women’s Building itself became a scapegoat for conservatives to show that the Board of Lady Managers had pushed the outer limits of tolerance. Sophia Hayden, MIT’s first female architecture graduate, had won the coveted commission to design the Women’s Building over a nationwide field of competitors, and her design met Burnham’s critical standards. But in an era where adjectives for feminine qualities served also for triviality and weakness, withering condescension could be conveyed subtly. When critics used words such as “delicacy,” “timidity,” and “gentleness” in their commentary on Hayden’s design, and compared her buildings with its “colossal neighbors,” the implication was

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clear. Adding salt to the wound was the vastly greater pay awarded the other White City architects. Discouraged, Hayden left her career, at a time when women remained virtually excluded from most professions. The exposition movement’s fervent idealism hid many social problems and obscured the incremental nature of change in a conflicted era. Sanctioned discrimination was a fact of daily life for every immigrant group. In the crosshairs of the worst of these iniquities, African Americans ultimately coalesced around the view of Frederick Douglass that their best interests required the fullest possible participation. Cheers for the Ninth Colored Cavalry notwithstanding, official recognition included only the Hampton Institute exhibit with the Department of Agriculture display in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, and “Colored Peoples’ Day,” one of several hundred such celebrations, many dedicated to ethnic populations. More important was the commercial recognition given to charismatic former slave Nancy Green, hired by the R. T. Davis Milling Company as Aunt Jemima. Some found her jolly plantation slave cook portrayal an offensive catering to a romanticized view of a national shame, but as the world’s first living trademark and a highly popular one at that, she made the fair the first positive, mainstream commercial inroad for African Americans. No American ethnic group had its own pavilion, but as former slaves, African Americans felt special kinship with the recognition accorded Haiti. The columns, pediment, and dome of its small yet gracefully dignified colonial-style pavilion showed adherence to the White City ideals. Its exhibits, commensurate with those of other nations, embraced the exposition movement’s ideology of pride in national history, identity, and progress: a bust and relics of hero Toussaint L’Ouverture, a painting of President Hippolyte, displays of military dress, embroideries, and gold work, and “La Reverie,” a piece by Haiti’s internationally famous sculptor, Edmund Laforestrie. The exhibit pointedly linked the fair’s theme to its geographic origins by including an anchor from one of Columbus’ ships. Haiti’s pavilion also contained aboriginal trophies. With these, Haitians created a social hierarchy, their version of the current theory that equated “civilization” with the Industrial Revolution. Nations less developed were “less civilized,” in that day inevitably progressing downward from “white” to “yellow” to “brown” to “black.” In assuming this model, Haiti, a nation of black people, asserted that color was disconnected from “civilization.” It was not the only nation presenting itself in this way. Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Brazil did much the same. More confident countries replaced White City classicism with architecture derived from their own distinct traditions, among them Turkey, Sweden, and Norway. Of these none matched Japan’s Ho-o-den, or “Phoenix Hall.” The third largest foreign participant and sole East Asian nation with an official building, Japan had an impact that far outstripped its size. In  years since embracing the Industrial Revolution, it had propelled itself from backwater to export powerhouse in both arts and crafts and mass-produced goods. The pavilion’s exquisite celebration of a distinctly Asian feudal and imperial heritage was an unsettling declaration that progress had nothing to do with Europe’s vaunted values. To further chagrin, Japan underlined its point by securing through diplomatic artistry the serene Wooded Isle. There the Ho-o-den stood, in contrast to the Court of Honor. Gifted to Chicago, it remained on Wooded Isle as a memento of the exposition. A statement for Japan, the Ho-o-den for Americans became a model of modernism in home design, the domestic partner to Louis Sullivan’s grand public architecture.

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For all the talk of classical values, the fair as much celebrated the Industrial Revolution’s fruits. One of the era’s most perceptive observers, Henry Adams, noted the dissonance between its professed principles and the barrage of products. For most, the rambles through the great buildings, pavilions, kiosks, and bazaars dazzled visitors with the coming era’s promise: a -foot tower of light bulbs and another of oranges, the world’s largest conveyor belt, a ,-pound chocolate Venus de Milo, an -ton cheese, the first electric chair, a pea-shelling machine, a moving sidewalk, motor launches, elevated trains, and Thomas Edison’s kinetograph motion picture camera. Aunt Jemima shared attention with Cream of Wheat, Postum, Juicy Fruit gum, Shredded Wheat, beef bouillon, condensed meat pies, canned goods, saccharin, condensed milk, and Cracker Jack—the “convenience” revolution in the American diet had begun. After a refreshing Pabst beer (here awarded the Blue Ribbon that became part of its name), fairgoers could indulge in a mile of delight on the Midway Plaisance. There, edification and entertainment entangled. Its “living tableaus,” inventions of the new social science of anthropology, were supposed to emphasize the progressive civilizing force of classical ideals by contrasting the “primitive” conditions of those without them against the wonders of the White City. The naively condescending concept cast a wide net. A display of “savage” Dahomeans that angered African Americans shared denigrating attention with other “savages” native to North and South America and the South Seas, “heathen” Egyptians, Turks, Chinese and Japanese, and “nomadic” Laplanders. But Tunisian belly dancers and “typical” Irish, English, Germans, Italians, and French in fake castles and villages distracted visitors from the serious attempts at authenticity, while bazaars and concessions sold everything from exotic souvenirs to apple cider. “Sightseeing” continued though giant panoramas of the Swiss Alps, models of the Blue Grotto of Capri, a Colorado gold mine, Hawaii’s Kiluea volcano, the Eiffel Tower, St. Peter’s Cathedral, and an ostrich farm. The entire scheme collapsed into incoherence in world-class fun, including wild-animal acts, the captive balloon that carried riders , feet in the air, and most of all, the gargantuan Ferris wheel, the engineering marvel that rotated  cars of  passengers each nearly  feet over the fair. The Midway Plaisance inspired countless pale imitations, the staples of the traveling circus, the beach boardwalk, and the county fair; its surreal atmosphere became a muse for artists in all media. “White City” was an apt epithet for an ephemeral Oz. The main buildings, whose colossal domes and record-breaking acreage made them engineering masterpieces, were designed to be temporary structures. Hopes of making them permanent were dashed when fires destroyed all but the Palace of Fine Arts, now the Museum of Science and Industry. Three smaller pavilions were purchased and moved: the Norway pavilion to Blue Mound, Wisconsin; the Maine State Building to Poland Springs, Maine; and the Dutch House to Brookline, Massachusetts. The Ho-o-den burned, suspiciously, in . The World’s Columbian Exposition did transform the world, according to the complexities of its time. Because its ideals were acknowledged and largely accepted by all participating nations, it revealed a unity of values. Against that benchmark was projected each individual’s and each society’s best sense of self, fantasy or not, and also aspiration. Distilling all before the judgmental view of everyone, the fair clarified a consensus on what would be consigned to the past, and what would assume importance in

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the future—for women and minorities, for the international dynamic, for the look of modern cities, for the pulse of daily life. People of  did not need the fair to recognize cataclysm; just as they idealized the Industrial Revolution they feared it. Beneath the White City’s hubris, bombast, conservatism, and naiveté lay anxiety; its classicism and bigotries are best understood as futile efforts to control the uncontrollable. It also is a cautionary mirror instructing that only the illusory luxury of history allows us to dismiss the World’s Columbian Exposition as simply an arrogant hypocrisy. Because their encounter with change uncannily parallels upheavals in our era, we might be surprised at what its reflection reveals of us to future generations. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Appelbaum, Stanley. The Chicago World’s Fair of : A Photographic Record. New York: Dover, . This book is useful both for its photographs of many of the foreign buildings and for the biographical information about the fair’s architects. Badger, Reid. The Great American Fair: The World’s Columbian Exposition and American Culture. Chicago: Nelson Hall, . Perhaps the best general history of the exposition and its Chicago context. Burg, David. Chicago’s White City of . Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, . Detailed account of the fair, with special attention to architecture, art, and general exhibits. The Columbian Gallery: A Portfolio of Photographs from the World’s Fair. Chicago: The Werner Company, . An exhaustive photographic collection of the buildings, people, and places of the fair. Most useful as an image resource of unusual breadth and depth, with captions that reflect the romantic perspective of the time. Findling, John E. Chicago’s Great World’s Fairs. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, . A comparative study of the World’s Columbian Exposition and the Century of Progress Exposition (–), with particular attention to art and design. Harris, Neil, William de Wit, James Gilbert, and Robert Rydell. Grand Illusions: Chicago’s World’s Fair of . Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, . Collection of essays emphasizing the disconnect between the fair and the reality of life and society in that era. Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. New York: Random House, . Best-selling book that couples the fair with the life of a serial killer who lived nearby. Muccigrosso, Robert. Celebrating the New World: Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of . Chicago: I. R. Dee, . Short general survey of the fair with emphasis on its social history. Rydell, Robert. All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, –. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . One of the first scholarly monographs on expositions, this book surveys U.S. fairs from  to , with a sharp focus on their international and racially themed exhibits. Rydell, Robert. The Books of the Fairs: Materials about World’s Fairs, –, in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. Chicago: American Library Association, . Invaluable bibliographic resource on early American fairs, based on the holdings of the Smithsonian Institution. Schlereth, Thomas J. Victorian America: Transformation in Everyday Life, –. New York: HarperCollins, . Includes a chapter on the World’s Columbian Exposition and its impact on the America of the s. Weimann, Jeanne Madeline. The Fair Women: The Story of the Women’s Building, World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, . Chicago: Academy Press, . Detailed account of the Women’s Building, as well as the many and varied activities of women at the fair.

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DANIEL BURNHAM (1846–1912) Daniel Hudson Burnham was a brilliant organizer, who pioneered modern civic design in America and was the founder of the City Beautiful movement. With his first partner, John Wellborn Root, he produced some of Chicago’s most famous skyscrapers and was in the forefront of the modern movement in architecture as an adherent of the Chicago school. Burnham was born on September , , in Henderson, New York, and moved to Chicago in . He was a poor student and failed the entrance exams for Harvard University and Yale University. After pursuing assorted jobs like store clerk, miner, and Illinois Senate candidate, Burnham gained his first architectural training and experience working in the offices of Loring and Jenney from  to . Burnham served a brief apprenticeship in the Chicago architectural firm of Carter, Drake & Wight in , where he met Root. Root was a multitalented man from an affluent southern family, who had studied architecture and music in England and received an engineering degree from New York University. In , the two men formed the Chicago-based architectural firm of Burnham and Root. A propitious partnership, the two men complemented each other perfectly. Burnham, who was aggressive, persuasive, and people-oriented, had a command of the technical, utilitarian, and financial aspects of architecture and became the firm’s planner and administrator. Root, a shy dreamer with formal training and experience, became the designer. They produced many new buildings and residences in the wake of the Chicago Fire in . Their earliest commissions were residences for some of Chicago’s elite, including the  home for stockyard magnate James Sherman, whose daughter Burnham married. However, Burnham wanted to produce “big buildings” for “big businessmen.” During the s, Burnham and Root began doing just that. They created three famous Chicago skyscrapers for developers Peter & Shepherd Brooks: the Montauk building (– ), the Rookery building (–), and the Monadnock building (–). The Rookery, influenced by the style of Henry Hobson Richardson, was noted for Root’s exquisite ornamentation and Burnham’s interior plan of a light court surrounded by four connecting wings, which became a model for skyscraper layouts. The sharply outlined, dark, unembellished Monadnock building became an emblem of modernist design. In , the firm built the first all-steel skeleton-framed structure, Chicago’s Rand McNally building. Their -story, steel-skeletoned Masonic Temple, built in Chicago in , was the world’s tallest building at the time. The firm reorganized as D. H. Burnham & Company in , as a result of Root’s untimely death that year, and established branch offices in New York City and San Francisco. Thereafter, Burnham worked with several design partners and moved toward the Beaux-Arts style and neoclassicism. Chicago’s Reliance building, begun with Root and finished with Charles B. Atwood in , heralded the steel-framed, glass-skinned skyscrapers of the th century. Burnham’s skyscrapers aligned him with the Chicago school, an architectural group prominent in establishing the modern movement. Capitalizing on the technological advances of central heating and elevators, the group spearheaded the development of the modern steel and glass skyscraper, espousing a stripped-down, proportionally balanced, functional design.

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One of Burnham’s major achievements was as organizer, chief of construction, and chief consulting architect for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in , for which he gathered an impressive group of artists and architects. The expo’s “White City,” with its formal, ordered, axially oriented plan and neoclassical architecture, became the catalyst for Burnham’s City Beautiful movement. He promoted city planning on a grand scale that would give American cities a certain cultural parity with the great European cities. The City Beautiful movement became the major motivating force in urban design from the s until the s, and Burnham became famous as a master city planner for such cities as Cleveland (), San Francisco (), and Manila, in the Philippines. He also served as chairman of the commission for completing plans for Washington, D.C. Perhaps Burnham’s greatest achievement was the  “Plan of Chicago,” which was designed in collaboration with Edward Bennett. A careful integration of pragmatic, aesthetic, and ideological concerns, the plan detailed the development of a -mile radius around the city center. It provided for a radial and concentric system of boulevards to connect city center to the suburbs and link suburbs to each other. Among other things, it also provided a network of parks throughout the city and for  miles along Lake Michigan. In , Burnham collaborated with landscape architect Jens Jensen to construct Grant Park and begin the park system. Among Burnham’s other architectural successes were Chicago’s Railway Exchange building (), Philadelphia’s Wanamaker’s department store (), London’s Selfridge’s store, and New York’s striking triangular-shaped Fuller, or Flatiron, building (). The epitome of his neoclassical style, commonly called Burnham Baroque, was Union Station in Washington, D.C. (–), which formed an integral part of his city plan. It is noted for its arched entrance porch and barrel-vaulted waiting-room ceiling, which was expressed as the building’s dominant exterior feature. Burnham was also one of the shapers and benefactors of the American Academy in Rome, which was founded in . He was appointed by President William Howard Taft as the first chairman of the National Commission of Fine Arts in . After his death, the firm continued with two of his sons, in partnership with Ernest Robert Graham, and later reorganized as Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. As both architect and planner, Burnham followed his own dictum: “Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.” Burnham died in Heidelberg, Germany on June , .

justin harmon, et al. GEORGE FERRIS (1859–1896) George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. was the inventor of the Ferris wheel. A popular attraction at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in , the Ferris wheel was one of the first industrial inventions to give people a view of the world from a great height. Ferris was born on February , , in Galesburg, Illinois. When he was five, his father moved the family to Carson Valley, Nevada Territory. As a child, the tale goes, Ferris drew his inspiration for the Ferris wheel by observing the large undershot water

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wheel near Cradlebaugh Bridge on the Carson River and imagining what it would be like riding around on one of its buckets. Ferris attended high school in Oakland, California, then enrolled at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute in Troy, New York. He graduated in  with a degree in engineering. He became a civil engineer and pursued a long-standing interest in bridge building by becoming a designer of such iron and steel structures as train trestles and bridges in the railroad industry. Foreseeing an increase in the use of structural steel, he founded G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh, a firm that tested and inspected metals for railroads and bridge builders. When the World’s Columbian Exhibition of  was planned in Chicago to celebrate the th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America, the -year-old Ferris arrived, hoping to help build a structure to outdo the Eiffel Tower, the centerpiece of the Paris International Exhibition of . The exhibition’s planners wanted something “original, daring and unique” that would have the visual and visceral impact the tower had had only a few years before. Inspired, Ferris sketched a huge, revolving “observation wheel” on some scrap paper, providing details all the way down to the ticket price. The next day, Ferris presented his idea to the committee. Its members had heard of smaller, wooden “pleasure wheels” that had begun to appear at various vacation spots about  years before, and they were familiar with merry-go-rounds. (Ferris envisioned the observation wheel as a merry-go-round that operated in the vertical plane.) Seeing the sheer size of Ferris’ wheel, however, the committee dismissed him as crazy. A few weeks later, Ferris returned to the committee. He had convinced several fellow engineers to endorse his structure as both possible and safe. More importantly, he had found local investors to cover the $, cost of construction. This time, Ferris’ plan was approved. The wheel was  feet by  feet in circumference,  feet broad, and the maximum height was  feet. It weighed more than , tons. Supported by two -foot steel towers, its -foot axle was the largest single piece of forged steel at the time in the world. Each of its  cars could hold  people, sitting and standing. Each car was  feet long,  feet high, and  feet broad. From platforms built on the ground, six cars were loaded at one time. Each car could seat, on revolving chairs,  passengers. The  cars could seat , passengers, but with standing room occupied, the wheel had a capacity of more than , people. As soon as the first six cars were loaded, the man in charge gave the signal, and steam went into the cylinders of the two ,-horsepower engines that moved the vast machine. The wheel used air brakes built by George Westinghouse’s company for control. The Ferris wheel had its grand opening on June , . Among the invited first riders were Ferris and his wife, the mayor of Chicago, and a -piece band, all of whom squeezed into one car. At  feet in the air, Ferris’ wife stood on a chair as the car swayed in the wind and offered a toast, “To the health of my husband and the success of the Ferris wheel.” The wheel was a great success and thrilled thousands of riders. Some even wrote to family back home and encouraged them to make the journey just to take a ride and look at the world from the perspective of a bird. The Ferris wheel cost each passenger  cents for two revolutions. It grossed $,. during its short time in operation.

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The wheel’s popularity quickly became Ferris’ undoing. After the exhibition ended, the owners of resorts like Coney Island stole Ferris’ idea and built smaller, less expensive versions of the wheel. Ferris nearly went bankrupt over lawsuits with the exposition over the wheel’s profits. He thought the exposition management had robbed him and his investors of their rightful portion of the nearly $, profit that his wheel brought in. During the winter of –, the wheel was left deserted. With a brief appearance at the North Clark Street Fair beginning in early , the wheel regained some of its original popularity, but it had simply lost its novelty. Neighbors in Clark Street campaigned to remove the wheel, ironically, complaining of its “undesirable industrialism.” The wheel then appeared at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of  in St. Louis, Missouri, and was still running perfectly. With interest diminished, however, it remained unsuccessful. In , following the Louisiana Exposition, the great wheel was brought tumbling down with  pounds of dynamite and then was sold for scrap metal. The Chicago Tribune reported, “Within a few minutes, it was a tangled mass of steel and iron forty feet high.” It was a sad ending for the great machine. Ferris was not there to see its end. He had died unexpectedly in a Pittsburgh hospital on November , , at the age of .

james lewis FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED (1822–1903) Frederick Law Olmsted, the first professional landscape architect in the United States, is famous for his public park designs and for developing the first urban park systems. He also designed landscapes for many private estates and college campuses and anticipated the national parks movement with his promotion of conservation and preservation. Olmsted was born on April , , in Hartford, Connecticut. His schooling was erratic, and he lost the opportunity to attend college when sumac poisoning threatened his eyesight. As a result, he explored many potential careers: surveying, clerking for a New York City firm, seafaring on a voyage to China (–), farming in Connecticut and on Staten Island (–), and writing and publishing (–). A tour of England sparked his interest in landscape gardening, and he envisioned “People’s Parks” in America, like the publicly owned Birkenhead Park outside Liverpool. The trip resulted in his first successful book, Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England (). Olmsted became involved with writing during the s and acted as a New York Times roving correspondent throughout the southern states. His portraits of the antebellum South mixed travel details with commentaries on the social issues surrounding slavery and were eventually collected into four highly successful books: A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (), A Journey through Texas (), A Journey in the Back Country (), and The Cotton Kingdom (). Olmsted’s management skills and his imaginative improvements of appearance and convenience at his Staten Island farm contributed to his appointment as superintendent for the development of Central Park in New York City in . In addition to supervising the clearing of the land, Olmsted produced the winning design for the park in collaboration with English architect Calvert Vaux. During the next  years, Olmsted

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worked intermittently on Central Park, a landmark of landscape architecture and one of the first large parks designed specifically for public use. His design approach was to evaluate the terrain, weather, soil conditions, surroundings, and the ways in which the land could enhance the community’s well-being. Faced with a long, narrow, treeless, and swampy terrain with elevations from  feet to  feet, Olmsted designed a country park with lakes in the main hollows, lawns and meadows in the flatter areas, and clusters of evergreens and foliage for a wooded effect, highlighted by the natural rock outcroppings. Although some formal settings provide for specific gatherings, like concerts, Central Park is a masterpiece of the English picturesque tradition, adapted to American needs. A popular th- and th-century English landscape garden style for private estates, the picturesque is an informal, pastoral design that stresses the wild, irregular aspects of nature and is distinguished by twisting paths, plant variety, and the use of natural-appearing creations rather than architectural steps, terraces, or walls to mark or link varying gradations. Olmsted made the picturesque style a standard for the American public park. Two innovations in Central Park were placement of the four transverse roads below grade to hide them from view, and creation of separate foot and bridle paths and a carriage road that crossed them only at underpasses and overpasses formed by Vaux’ bridges. During the Civil War, Olmsted served as general secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, changing the course of army medical practice through his expert organization and supervision. From  to , he was the development manager for Mariposa Estates in the Sierra Nevada, California, then returned to New York, where he resumed work on Central Park and formed a partnership with Vaux (–). Olmsted’s design for Brooklyn’s Prospect Park (–) opened up vistas of water and meadow and preserved much of the varied terrain, underscoring his aim for “natural, in preference to artificial, beauty.” For Riverside, a model suburban garden community along the Des Plaines River near Chicago (), the firm created a river park, a commercial district around the railroad station, and a curvilinear street system with a central town common, all in the picturesque mode. As early as the mid-s, Olmsted’s belief in establishing a balance between use and preservation in land management led him to propose the creation of a scenic reservation for California’s Yosemite Valley. His fight to save Niagara Falls from uncontrolled development culminated with the creation of the Niagara Falls Reservation, designed with Vaux (). Although partially blocked today by a highway on the American side, the scenic winding paths and carriageways opened romantic vistas of the rapids and falls accented by indigenous foliage. Olmsted envisioned park systems and parkways as part of planning cities and their suburbs and created the country’s first park systems linked by parkways. His most renowned park and parkway system was for Boston, initially begun in  as a plan to eliminate the health hazard of the polluted Back Bay waters and to improve accessibility to the city. The completed system provided sewers, basins, tidal gates, causeways, and bridges, artfully strung in a series of pleasure drives, parks, and connected ponds along a shaped and planted Muddy River, which he thought of as an “emerald necklace” around the city. The Charles River area was linked to the inner city via the Fenway, Jamaicaway, and Arborway, which comprised the country’s first parkway system.

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Commissioned to improve the setting for the enlarged Capitol in Washington, D.C. (–s), Olmsted subordinated the landscape design to the architecture, providing shade trees that allowed for vistas of the imposing edifice. He designed a “grand pedestal” for the Capitol: a marble terrace and fountain with two staircases and a parapet encircling the Senate and House wings, in the classical mode. His vision of a federal city park system connecting the Capitol grounds with the Mall, the White House grounds, and the river parks was realized by his son, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., in the s. In , Olmsted moved his practice to Brookline, Massachusetts, at the urging of Henry Hobson Richardson, with whom he collaborated on several projects, including the Oakes Ames Estate (–) in North Easton and the Crane Memorial Library (–) in Quincy, Massachusetts. In , his stepson, John C. Olmsted, became his partner in the firm. Among Olmsted’s many landscape designs for private estates, the most prominent is George Washington Vanderbilt’s Biltmore near Asheville, North Carolina (). Faced with more than , acres of mountain and river valley terrain and a French Renaissance–style chateau (by Richard Morris Hunt), Olmsted created formal terraces close to the mansion, with a shrub garden sloping to a valley, pond, and waterfall below. He put aside the river bottom lands for farming, and the rest of the estate became a managed forest and arboretum, the first scientific forest management experiment in the country. Olmsted’s last major design was for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (; with Henry Sargent Codman). Here, on the swampy land along Lake Michigan, he created a lagoon containing a wooded island filled with gardens and small buildings as the focal point for the fair’s neoclassic white city, designed by such architects as McKim, Mead & White. The design meshed with his plan for a water park (Jackson Park) to be created there as part of his earlier design for a Chicago park system (). Olmsted retired from the firm in , but his son and stepson carried on. By , his advancing senility required commitment to McLean Hospital (whose grounds he had designed) in Waverly, Massachusetts, where he subsequently died. He left a legacy of  parks,  park systems,  college campuses,  estates, and other projects in which designed landscape elements were used to enhance the all-important natural scenery. He was the first to sign his drawings with “landscape architect,” to charge fees for such work, to bring a social consciousness to landscaping, and to design huge public parks and suburban developments. Olmsted pioneered the profession of landscape architecture, where previously there had been merely landscape gardeners, who created beautiful but functionless estate and city gardens.

justin harmon, et al.

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13 The Spanish-American War, 1898–1901

INTRODUCTION The Spanish-American War was the culmination of a generation of U.S. diplomacy that, while often low key and unnoticed by the public, prepared the nation for the world leadership role that it came to assume after the turn of the century. For many years, historians neglected the diplomacy of this period, emphasizing instead domestic matters, such as Reconstruction, industrialism, and the settlement of the West. To some degree, the lack of emphasis on diplomacy is appropriate. There was a great deal of concern with internal matters, and the press, for instance, had little to say about foreign affairs. Henry Cabot Lodge, a senator from Massachusetts, said in , “Our relations with foreign nations today fill but a slight place in American politics and excite generally a languid interest.” More recently, diplomatic historians have discovered that the – period may not have been so dormant as was thought. Evidence on various fronts indicates that this period contained personalities and events that hinted strongly at a new Manifest Destiny and the imperialist surge of the s. Although the diplomatic history of the late s may at first glance seem somewhat chaotic, many of the events can be linked in the ways that they contributed to the success of America’s first entrance onto the global stage. One concern of quite a number of people during the years after the Civil War was the sorry state of the diplomatic service. Many, concerned with other matters, denounced the foreign service as too costly or nothing more than a medieval relic and tried to reduce its funding. There were, however, strong currents in the business community to strengthen, not curtail, the consular service—that part of the diplomatic corps that promoted American business abroad. The reason was made evident in  when America’s manufacturing potential reached a point where domestic consumption could no longer buy all that was produced. Thus foreign markets became essential to assume the surplus of industrial goods. By , the consular service had been revitalized in a process begun  years earlier under Secretary of State William M. Evarts, who appointed consuls with business experience and began a system of monthly consular reports. The well-qualified consuls themselves used their reports to advise American businessmen in an overseas venture and give them local assistance when they came on site to develop their business.

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Spanish General Jose Toral surrenders to U.S. General William R. Shafter on July 17, 1898, near Santiago, Cuba. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Interest in a strengthened U.S. Navy was also a forerunner of the imperial days of the late s. In the s and s, there were frequent comments about the rusting and obsolete navy, and boosters pressed Congress to appropriate money to build a new, modern fleet. Congress responded in  with the first in a series of steel ship construction authorizations, which by the time of the Spanish-American War gave the United States a navy that easily destroyed the Spanish fleet. Much of the interest in a new navy, as it was called, came from the founding of the Naval War College in  and from the publication of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan’s seminal work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History (), which demonstrated convincingly how a strong navy was essential for the continuance of national greatness. Public interest in foreign matters was heightened by hardy bands of missionaries who traveled to remote places in search of souls to win over to Christ and who frequently wrote or spoke about their activities, and by a number of literary figures who wrote of the foreign scene or used it as a setting in their novels. William Dean Howells, Henry James, Mark Twain, and other well-known writers brought a more cosmopolitan spirit to the American reading public. Other less well-known individuals traveled to Asia, Africa, or the Middle East and wrote descriptive accounts or gave public lectures, often accompanied by pictures, of their adventures. The popularity of stereoscopic viewers and the colorful pictures that could be seen through them brought the world into the average American home. As political and popular interest in foreign affairs increased, so too did a philosophical rationale to justify American expansion overseas. The old Manifest Destiny of the s had used geographical determinism and a romantic sense that America was

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God’s chosen nation to explain continental expansion; the new Manifest Destiny relied on the newer and more controversial ideas of Charles Darwin, altered into Social Darwinism by sociologists like Herbert Spencer. Darwin’s ideas, spelled out in his  book, Origin of Species, included the notions of “survival of the fittest,” “natural selection,” and “struggle for existence.” In Social Darwinism, human life (like plants and animals) was also viewed as a struggle for existence, and success in life was seen as evidence that an individual was among the fittest. This observation was easily converted into terms of nationhood, with those nations that had the attributes of a great power—industrial and military strength, population, wealth— obviously being the fittest nations, chosen to be world leaders and to instruct and guide less fortunate nations up the path of civilization. Inevitably the ideas inherent in the new Manifest Destiny were wrapped up in a belief in Anglo-Saxon racial superiority. While belief in the white man’s superiority was common before Darwin, the concept of Social Darwinism left no doubt. All one had to do was note which nations had the attributes of a great power—the United States, Great Britain, Germany—and then note what race governed these nations. It logically seemed to follow that if the Anglo-Saxons were the leaders of the greatest nations on earth, then the Anglo-Saxons must be the most superior race on earth. Scientists scurried to find proofs of this. Some used the so-called raceclimate hypothesis, which asserted that darker races, living in warm climates near the equator, never had to work very hard to survive, while whites, living in temperate climate, had to work harder to provide shelter, food, and clothing sufficient to get through the long, cold winters. Consequently they evolved into a more intelligent, harder-working race. Believers in the new Manifest Destiny had an important ally in organized religion, with many leaders promoting their denominations along Social Darwinist lines, emphasizing the obligation of Anglo-Saxons to spread the Gospel to the darker races and help them along the path of civilization. The British writer Rudyard Kipling popularized this with the phrase, “White Man’s Burden.” Josiah Strong, one of the most widely known religious leaders in the United States in the s, published Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (). This book declared that because of the rapid expansion of the Anglo-Saxon race, it would soon come to dominate the world, and because the United States was so much larger than Great Britain, the United States would become the center of Anglo-Saxon civilization. According to Strong, this was the desire of God, whose commandment, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” was directed at Anglo-Saxons. In , the United States suffered a severe economic downturn that developed into a four-year depression. Many people were thrown out of work, labor discontent simmered, and, given the laissez-faire economic beliefs of the time, virtually no government action was taken to relieve the crisis. One remedy that was frequently the topic of discussion was the need to develop foreign markets more aggressively, since one of the causes of the depression was thought to be overproduction. The depression of the s went far in convincing many in the business community to embrace a more activist and expansionist foreign policy, a need made more pressing by the fact that Great Britain, France, and Germany were all engaged in a race to colonize Africa, Asia, and the Pacific islands.

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By the mid-s, America had exerted some clout in Latin America, under the aegis of the Monroe Doctrine, but had been very quiet with regard to diplomacy in other parts of the world. And although the Spanish-American War would originate in Latin America, it would take the United States halfway around the world with a colonial outpost in the Philippines. Cuba had long been an object of American expansionists. Thomas Jefferson had coveted it, filibusters in the s had tried to conquer it, and American business interests had plowed about $ million into the burgeoning sugar industry by the s. Despite that investment, Americans were not much concerned when a civil war broke out between Cubans and their Spanish colonial masters in . By the  election, however, Cuban rebels had adopted a policy of trying to force U.S. intervention by wantonly destroying American property. The Spanish, meanwhile, sent a new military commander, General Valeriano Weyler, to suppress the rebellion. Weyler’s tactic of herding Cuban civilians into “reconcentrado” camps, where many died under terrible conditions, was widely noted in the U.S. press and helped turn American public opinion against the Spanish. By late , due largely to a much heralded press war between William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, publishers of rival New York newspapers, American opinion was solidly on the side of the Cubans, although President William McKinley and a majority of Congress opposed any kind of active intervention. Two events in early  were responsible for pushing the United States into war with Spain. In January, the Spanish minister to the United States, Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, wrote a letter to Madrid characterizing McKinley in decidedly unflattering terms. The letter was intercepted in New York and its contents released to the press. Dupuy de Lôme’s undiplomatic language symbolized to many the perfidy of the Spanish and served to drive the two countries even further apart. The second event was the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February , , killing  Americans. No one knows who or what caused the explosion that sent the ship to the bottom of the harbor, but the press and many American politicians blamed the Spanish. The crisis escalated to new emotional heights, and many demanded war with Spain. McKinley, the last Civil War veteran to serve as president, had seen war and was reluctant to commit the United States to another one. But the pace of events overtook the president, who finally passed the issue to Congress in early April. Congress passed a joint resolution making impossible demands on the Spanish, who responded by declaring war on the United States. Militarily, the war was an easy win for the United States. The navy destroyed Spanish fleets in Manila Bay and off the Cuban coast, and a brief land war secured victory over Spanish forces in Cuba. The war was concluded with the Treaty of Paris (), in which the United States received title to the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and a protectorate over Cuba in return for $ million. Opponents in Congress criticized the responsibility the United States was taking on by acquiring overseas possessions and nearly kept the treaty from being ratified when the vote was taken in February . Just at the time the treaty vote was taking place, native Filipinos, expecting independence and realizing that they had traded one colonial master for another, launched an insurrection against U.S. occupation troops. At first the war was fought between well-equipped U.S. forces and native armies led by Emilio Aguinaldo. After a series of defeats in late , the Filipinos abandoned conventional warfare and adopted guerrilla

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tactics: ambushing small patrols, sniping, committing acts of sabotage, and committing assorted atrocities. In early , the situation began deteriorating for the Americans, and the U.S. commander, General Arthur MacArthur, invoked General Order , which dated from the Civil War and attempted to set up codes of conduct between the warring parties. It did not change the situation markedly, and MacArthur proceeded to build U.S. troop strength up to ,, including over , Filipino scouts. In another part of the islands, General J. Franklin Bell rounded up , civilians and placed them into concentration “zones,” like Weyler’s “reconcentrado” camps, where there was much suffering. By early , the insurgency had weakened badly, and Aguinaldo was captured. He issued a proclamation urging his followers to surrender, and many did, but in September , a guerrilla massacre of a U.S. infantry company in a rural area prompted brutal retaliation under General Jacob H. “Hell-Roarin’ ” Smith. By April , all resistance had ended. The result of the insurrection was a widespread anti-imperialist sentiment in the United States. Congress demanded an investigation, which friends of the administration managed to whitewash, but it was hard to ignore the fact that the insurrection had cost nearly , American lives and $ million. In addition, , Filipino soldiers and , civilians died in the conflict, many from famine and disease. While the Philippines remained an American colony until , the insurrection convinced the Theodore Roosevelt administration and those that followed it that there must be other, better ways to be an imperial power than by acquiring overseas colonies.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY henry e. mattox “It has been a splendid little war,” wrote John Hay to Colonel Theodore Roosevelt in July . At that time, before the end of hostilities between the United States and Spain, Hay served as U.S. ambassador in London, and a few months later President William McKinley named him U.S. secretary of state. Students of the era often include Hay’s striking phrase in their accounts of the Spanish-American War of . The senior American diplomat made appropriate use of the word little in one sense to describe the conflict. While military and naval action took place in both the Caribbean and the distant western Pacific Ocean, the conflict was short. It began when Spain and the United States declared war on each other in April  and was followed that spring and summer by major naval battles in the Philippines and off the coast of Cuba, and by clashes on land in Cuba. The fighting ended in August, less than four months after the opening of hostilities. Representatives of the two powers signed a formal peace treaty in December. Further, an American might be excused for calling the war “little” in the sense that “only” , U.S. servicemen perished from all causes, including diseases (fewer than  died in action, with , wounded). These casualty figures contrasted starkly with the total of more than , dead in the nation’s most recent experience of combat a generation earlier, the Civil War.

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Hay’s choice in this letter of the adjective splendid might seem to indict him as a warmonger. But John Hay had been private secretary to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and had witnessed the effects of that dreadful bloodletting. He explained himself in this regard in another letter written from London, this one in May . After expressing happiness to a friend, Theodore Stanton, over the United States’ victory earlier that month over the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay, he continued: “I detest war, and had hoped I might never see another, but this [war] was as necessary as it was righteous.” He termed “splendid” the resounding success of American arms and what he saw as the “necessary” and morally “righteous” effort to overthrow oppressive Spanish rule in Cuba, the last of that nation’s major colonies in the Western Hemisphere. The war had its immediate causes in a mix of factors that included Spain’s less-thanenlightened rule of Cuba, the eruption once again in early  of long-standing Cuban desires to gain independence, the political dangers to the Spanish government of appearing to be overly accommodating in the face of demands, the American public’s sympathy for the rebels, and an American press campaign featuring the plight of the Cuban peasantry. Spain did not help its own cause with its policy, devised by General Valeriano Weyler, of “reconcentrating” the populace in camps to control rebel activities. The Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers in New York competed for the more sensational coverage of these events. Additionally, the Spanish ambassador in Washington, Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, indiscreetly discussed President McKinley in derogatory terms in a private letter, which found its way into a New York newspaper in early February . This diplomatic gaffe angered segments of the American public, not to mention the president. Further, certain U.S. business interests expressed concern about investment holdings on the island totaling as much as $ million, mainly in sugar cane, and other leaders saw a need to obtain markets for American exports. Diplomatic negotiations continued, but official relations between the United States and Spain worsened steadily and by early  had reached a stage of considerable strain. It took the tragic destruction of the U.S. battleship Maine to provide the spark to set off this volatile mix. Dispatched to Havana in January  to show the flag, the warship blew up in a terrific explosion the evening of February  while riding at anchor in the harbor. More than three-fourths of the -man crew perished. The exact cause of the disaster has never been determined, but a U.S. Navy board of inquiry at the time concluded in a voluminous report—without fixing responsibility on any particular party— that a submerged mine had destroyed the Maine. The report was promptly leaked to the newspapers. Much of the American public, urged on by sensationalist press reports, and nearly all of the Congress immediately blamed Spain, as contrary to Spanish interests as such drastic action would have seemed to be. Reflecting the opinion of many Americans, Theodore Roosevelt, then assistant secretary of the navy, privately attributed the sinking to “the dirty treachery” of the Spaniards. The die was cast. The following month, President McKinley obtained a $ million appropriation from Congress for arms. By April, despite the last-minute efforts of U.S. ambassador Stewart L. Woodford in Madrid, who hoped that a peaceful resolution could be reached, President McKinley found the gathering impetus toward war irresistible. In Madrid, the government of Prime Minister Praxedes Mateo Sagasta made conciliatory moves, measures that were short of granting independence yet largely met Washington’s demands. McKinley by many accounts was reluctant to opt for war; he

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placed the matter in the hands of Congress, with his own intentions still a matter of historical debate. On April , the Congress adopted a bellicose joint resolution making war virtually unavoidable, while at the same time, by adopting without dissent an amendment to the resolution introduced by Senator Henry M. Teller (R.-Colorado), the Congress disclaimed any intention to exercise U.S. sovereignty over Cuba. Two days later, Spain and the United States went to war. The course of the conflict can be recounted briefly. The U.S. Navy, well prepared to take on the obsolete Spanish fleet, carried the fight to the enemy almost immediately. The first decisive action took place, unexpectedly, in the distant Philippine Islands. After sailing from Hong Kong promptly at the end of April, the nine-ship U.S. Asiatic Squadron, commanded by Commo. George Dewey aboard the U.S.S. Olympia, attacked at dawn on May  and destroyed  Spanish warships in Manila Bay under the command of Adm. Patricio Montojo y Paseron. It was a complete victory, achieved at little cost to the American side but with comparatively heavy Spanish losses. Closer to home in the Caribbean Sea, the U.S. North Atlantic Squadron under Rear Adm. William T. Sampson blockaded Cuba and bombarded the port city of Matanzas early in the war. At the end of May, Sampson’s powerful flotilla, which included four new battleships and two modern cruisers, bottled up at Santiago a naval force sent out from Spain commanded by Adm. Pascual Cervera. The Spanish admiral’s hand eventually was forced by defeats administered to the Santiago army garrison. On Sunday morning, July , Cervera’s six ill-equipped warships took to sea to challenge the Americans, temporarily led by Commo. Winfield Scott Schley. “Poor Spain!” exclaimed one of the Spanish captains when ordered to break the blockade. Barely five hours later, the American fleet had destroyed all of the Spanish warships, killing well over  Spaniards. Only one American lost his life in the action. The , Spanish troops scattered throughout Cuba now found themselves cut off from their homeland with no naval support. The American army, by nearly all reports as ill prepared for war as the navy was ready, underwent a brief phase of training for the volunteer units that were added to the small number of regulars available for duty. The forces then experienced organizational and logistical confusion at the invasion embarkation point at Tampa, Florida. With the focus of the military campaign on Santiago because of the presence in that harbor of Cervera’s warships, the inexperienced troops encountered sporadic but frequently fierce opposition once they came into contact with the Spanish in Cuba. On June , marines landed, to establish a base at Guantanamo Bay to the east of Santiago on the southeastern coast; they soon drove off the defenders. Some , army troops under General William Rufus Shafter began landing closer to Santiago on June . Two days later they clashed with Spanish soldiers at Las Guasimas, only eight miles from the city. On July , the American force fought ill-coordinated battles at El Caney, Kettle Hill, and the adjacent San Juan Heights overlooking Santiago (it was here that Roosevelt led the disorganized but successful charge of his famed Rough Riders). The soldiers of Spain resisted stoutly in each instance, but eventually they gave way and retreated into the Santiago defensive perimeter. General Shafter considered withdrawing to regroup, but at Washington’s insistence he forged ahead and enveloped the city. On July , two weeks after the decisive defeat of Admiral Cervera’s fleet, the near-starving, diseaseridden Spanish defenders of Santiago surrendered.

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The brief war had nearly run its course. American troops invaded Puerto Rico against light opposition at the end of July. On August , the French ambassador in Washington, acting at the request of Spain, signed an armistice agreement that provided for the transfer to the United States of Puerto Rico and Guam, and for the U.S. occupation of Manila until a decision was made on the final disposition of the Philippines. There, on August , Commodore Dewey’s forces and Gen. Wesley Merritt’s army troops, unaware of the peace move, attacked Manila. The Spanish in the Philippines promptly surrendered, and the war was over. With peace negotiations underway in the fall, the consequences of victory in the brief war became evident. Most significant, President McKinley decided that the United States should keep all of the Philippine archipelago, not just a base at Manila; he so instructed the U.S. delegates to the peace talks in Paris. The Spanish objected but could do nothing under the circumstances. After two months of discussions, the two nations signed the Treaty of Paris in December. The United States agreed to pay $ million to obtain Spain’s agreement to relinquish title to the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico, along with its express grant of independence to Cuba. Defeated Spain’s overseas empire virtually disappeared. In July  during the course of the war, Congress had resolved a long-simmering issue, the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, by joint resolution. Washington’s expansion-minded leaders viewed Hawaii as vital to U.S. interests, as a steppingstone to the Orient. In addition, the navy claimed Wake Island in the mid-Pacific. Finally, late in  during an outbreak of fighting between rival factions, U.S. sailors landed in the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific, where for the past nine years the United States had participated in a protectorate arrangement with Great Britain and Germany. At the beginning of , that fateful year in American history, the United States consisted almost entirely of contiguous states and territories on the North American continent. The only geographically separate area of note was the territory of Alaska, with just , inhabitants. By year’s end, the American flag flew, or was very shortly to be raised, over a number of places beyond the continental limits of the United States, many of which lay outside the Western Hemisphere. Newly acquired colonies and areas occupied by U.S. troops stretched from the Caribbean far across the Pacific to East Asia. Approximately  million people overseas, most of them Filipinos, had come under American rule for the indefinite future. In addition, U.S. troops occupied Cuba, now a protectorate of the United States, on a temporary basis. More changes from the United States’ long-standing practice of avoiding involvement beyond its shores were to come, and soon. By April , the American takeover of the Philippines had led to the beginning of a particularly vicious guerrilla war against the “insurrectos” of General Emilio Aguinaldo, who sought independence (it took three years for American forces to repress the movement and establish firm U.S. control). In September, Secretary of State Hay sent to four European powers the first of two Open Door notes concerning far-off China: the United States endeavored to ensure equal commercial opportunities in that ancient nation ruled by the enfeebled Manchu dynasty. Late in , a portion of Samoa formally came under American rule following negotiations with Britain and Germany. The second Open Door note, issued by Hay in July , restated the U.S. trade position and in addition avowed America’s interest

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in China’s maintaining its territorial and administrative integrity. That summer , American soldiers formed part of an international force sent to China to put down the Boxers, an antiforeign, anti-Christian armed sect that had besieged the Western diplomatic community in Peking. America found itself engaged in military actions in both the Philippines and China. Soon after, old Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt, as president, engineered and abetted Panama’s independence from Colombia in , thereby clearing the way for the United States to build and control the Panama Canal. As evidence of its dominance in the Caribbean, the United States assumed a protectorate over the Dominican Republic in  and sent marines to that Caribbean nation. U.S. forces occupied Vera Cruz, Mexico, for six months in  in response to what was deemed to be an affront to the American flag. Haiti came under protectorate status and military occupation in . In , the United States bought from Denmark its part of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. That year also brought U.S. intervention in Mexico against the depredations of Pancho Villa in an invasion that lasted until early . In April, the nation entered World War I, the first time the United States had become involved in a conflict in Europe. Thus, the Spanish-American War marked a clear turning point in American history. During the th century, the nation had significantly expanded its territorial holdings on the North American continent, but America had not taken over noncontiguous lands. Not until almost the turn of the th century did the United States acquire overseas colonies. Establishing dominance in the Caribbean and Central America, the United States laid the groundwork for construction of the strategically crucial Panama Canal. America also instituted a significant, if exposed, presence in East Asia through the acquisition of the Philippines. The Pacific suddenly became the equivalent on the west of the Atlantic on the east, a focus of strategic interest. The nation, long potentially an important world power, had now become a major player on the international scene. As a result directly or indirectly of the “splendid little war,” in Hay’s phrase, the United States had come into possession of a far-flung empire that promised to rival that of the major imperial European powers of the day and soon threatened competition with the rising sun of Japan. Not all Americans supported these policy initiatives, as evidenced by a close vote in the Senate on ratification of the peace treaty with Spain, and the Congress’s resort to a majority vote and joint resolution to annex Hawaii because a treaty would have occasioned another Senate fight. Anti-imperialist forces, including important congressional and intellectual leaders, objected strenuously, if in a disunited fashion and for different reasons. Individuals as varied in their interests and backgrounds as Senator George F. Hoar, steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie, Democratic party leader William Jennings Bryan, reformer Jane Addams, and author Mark Twain all protested. In particular, opponents objected to the annexation of the Philippines. Those who saw problems, moral or practical, with the U.S. moves overseas organized the Anti-Imperialist League in Boston in late , but no effective, cohesive action ever was taken to reverse the course of empire. Those favoring America’s expansion abroad—those who pushed for a “large policy” in the power struggle following victory in the  war—included President McKinley (at least when it came to negotiating a peace) and his successor, Theodore Roosevelt; leading senators such as Henry Cabot Lodge and Nelson Aldrich; naval strategist

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Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan; influential newspaper editors and publishers, including the Hearst chain; many of the less conservative business leaders; and a large percentage of a younger generation of intellectuals. In consequence, while the issue was disputed, the United States propelled itself promptly onto the world scene following the defeat of Spain, notwithstanding a long-held belief in the benefits of isolation from overseas complications. The nation for a time abandoned its traditional policy, attributed to President George Washington in his Farewell Address of , of avoiding entanglements abroad. Historians have been no more united on the reasons for this sudden policy change than were the contemporary policy makers and opinion leaders on its adoption. The scholarly issue has centered on whether the acquisition of empire was more or less accidental or the result of deliberate policy. A related question has focused on the role of McKinley in U.S. expansion: did he effectively plan and implement the move abroad, or was he a reluctant participant? Traditional interpretations of American expansionism at the turn of the th century tend to deny planning and deliberate intent as central factors. These scholars see political considerations and the element of chance as playing large roles. The government had no prior plans to expand American hegemony and territorial holdings from the Caribbean to the Philippine seas. The president sought peace until almost the last hour, and leading businessmen did not want the interruption and uncertainties of war. The nation fell heir to an empire largely as a result of a short-lived swell of public opinion and American outrage at the sinking of the Maine, followed by reluctance to give up to international rivals the gains from the successful pursuit of the war. America took the Philippines because “they were attractive and available.” In the s, Julius W. Pratt’s arguments along these general lines influenced a generation of researchers. Beginning in the s with increased U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and the rising level of public controversy over that ill-fated venture, a revisionist school of scholars began a reinterpretation of the Spanish-American War, among other important episodes in American history. Influenced by the earlier writings of historian Charles A. Beard, these diplomatic historians founded their explanations of causality on trade and investment interests—on economic determinism. They saw McKinley as virtually Machiavellian in the subtlety of his machinations for war in response to the “large policy” views of (mainly) Republican political figures and the promptings of big business. Proponents of expansionism advanced the need for overseas markets in an economy that had begun to overproduce for the home market. Many such leaders, especially in the business community, looked to China as the principal potential outlet. For the United States to tap the supposedly vast China market, it was necessary to establish a forward base in the Philippines and to protect the sea lanes across the Pacific, eventually along with those that led through the Panama Canal. Economic considerations were paramount in the deliberate buildup of American territorial and trade interests abroad. Whatever the factor or combination of factors advanced later to explain the Spanish-American War, by the beginning of the s, the American people had adopted and implemented, even if without unanimity, policies that set the tone for their

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active engagement in the world during a large part of the th century. That participation ranged from various interventions in the politics of Latin American neighbors to participation in two world wars and a decades-long global confrontation with the Soviet Union, a series of events that affected virtually every American living during the century. By the pivotal year of , which saw the nation fighting and winning a war against Spain, the events of a decade or more had converged toward the time when the United States would be obliged to depart from its established attitude of relative political, economic, and cultural isolation. The nation reinterpreted its view of the Monroe Doctrine, thereby redefining its stance toward Europe, and adopted a revised view of Manifest Destiny, thereby opening a new chapter in its relations with the Pacific and East Asia. During the following century, the United States would be unable to avoid the associated obligations, advantages, complications, and dangers. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Beisner, Robert L. From the Old Diplomacy to the New, –. New York: Crowell, . Suggests that the nation moved from passive approaches to a new paradigm of diplomatic activism, a change not primarily related, however, to economic factors. ———. Twelve against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, –. New York: McGraw-Hill, . Investigates the actions and motivations of leading anti-imperialists. Brands, H. W. Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines. New York: Oxford University Press, . A study in power relationships; an overview of U.S. relations with the Philippines from the s to the s. Chadwick, French Ensor. The Relations of the United States and Spain: The Spanish-American War.  vols. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, . The first general history of the war but one that still merits attention. Challener, Richard D. Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Policy, –. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . Study of civil–military relations and the influence of the military during the period covered. Foner, Philip Sheldon. The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism.  vols. New York: Monthly Review Press, . A denunciation of the American role, stressing economic motivations. Friedel, Frank. The Splendid Little War. Boston: Little, Brown, . A popular, readable account including numerous contemporary letters, reports, and photos. Go, Julian. American Empire and the Politics of Meaning: Elite Political Cultures in the Philippines and Puerto Rico during U.S. Colonialism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, . Deals with the relationship of U.S. officials and local political elites in U.S. territories during the decade after the Spanish-American War. Grenville, John A. S., and George B. Young. Politics, Strategy and American Diplomacy: Studies in Foreign Policy, –. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . Emphasizes strategic factors as an explanation for war and expansion. Harbaugh, William H. Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, . Good survey of Roosevelt’s career by one of the leading scholars in the field. Healy, David. U.S. Expansionism: The Imperialist Urge in the s. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, . A review of the decade, with attention paid to both expediency and morality in expansionist ideas.

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LaFeber, Walter. The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, –. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . One of several important interpretations highlighting economic motives for the war and U.S. expansion. Leech, Margaret. In the Days of McKinley. New York: Harper and Brothers, . A detailed, sympathetic treatment of McKinley’s role in policy determination. Linderman, Gerald F. The Mirror of War: American Society and the Spanish-American War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, . Considers the effect of the war on both ordinary Americans and their leaders. Livezey, William E. Mahan on Sea Power. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, . An account of the American naval theorist’s contemporary influence. May, Ernest R. American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay. New York: Atheneum Press, . Notes that American leadership was influenced in favor of expansion by political ideas from abroad. McCormick, Thomas J. China Market: America’s Quest for Informal Empire, –. Chicago: Quandrangle, . Emphasizes economic factors in the McKinley administration’s commitment to market expansion as a rationale for East Asia policy. Morgan, H. Wayne. America’s Road to Empire: The War with Spain and Overseas Expansion. New York: Wiley, . Cites expansion as part of a conscious program to extend U.S. power in the world. Offner, John L. An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain over Cuba, –. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . A detailed account, based on multiarchival research, with a focus on domestic U.S. political considerations in the decision for war. Plesur, Milton. America’s Outward Thrust: Approaches to Foreign Affairs, –. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, . Discusses diplomatic activities during the Gilded Age in the context of preparations for America’s imperial surge. Pratt, Julius W. Expansionists of : The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . Classic presentation of noneconomic reasons for expansion, emphasizing the support of religious groups. Rickover, Hyman G. How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Division, . The final verdict: an internal explosion, probably from coal gasses and munitions. Sprout, Harold, and Margaret Sprout. The Rise of American Naval Power, –. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . A lesson of the war was the need for supply stations abroad. Tone, John Lawrence. War and Genocide in Cuba, –. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Discusses the Cuban insurgency of – and the Spanish government’s response to it in the context of the U.S. decision to go to war with Spain. Trask, David F. The War with Spain in . New York: Macmillan, . Comprehensive study with somewhat positive interpretation of army’s readiness; views McKinley as imperialist, albeit reluctant. Traxel, David. : The Birth of the American Century. New York: Knopf, . Argues that much more was going on in  that was important for America’s future than the Spanish-American War. Varg, Paul A. The Making of a Myth: The United States and China, –. East Lansing: Michigan State Press, . Includes nonofficial as well as official reports on Sino-American relations; emphasizes factors other than economic. Williams, William Appleman. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. Cleveland: World Publishing Co., . Highly influential economic explanation for expansion, based on policymakers’ belief that foreign markets were essential.

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GEORGE DEWEY (1837–1917) As the commander of the U.S. naval forces that routed the Spanish in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War, Adm. George Dewey helped to establish the United States as a global power at the end of the th century. Dewey was born on December , , in Montpelier, Vermont. He attended Norwich University prior to attending the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, from which he graduated in . Commissioned a lieutenant in , he saw extensive action during the Civil War. He served under Adm. David Farragut at New Orleans and Port Hudson and participated in the blockade of the Confederacy. Dewey rose steadily through the ranks during and after the war by gaining promotion to lieutenant commander in , commander in , and captain in . He was an aggressive and enterprising officer who believed in careful training, planning, and the acquisition of top-level equipment. As chief of the Bureau of Equipment in  and president of the Board of Inspection and Survey in , Dewey gained firsthand knowledge of the potential of the modern battleship in naval strategy and became one of the prime architects and advocates of a technologically advanced U.S. Navy. After he was promoted to commodore in , Dewey requested to be reassigned to sea duty and was posted as the commander of the U.S. Asiatic squadron. While in Hong Kong with his fleet, Dewey received word on April , , of the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. He responded to telegraphed orders from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt to “capture or destroy the Spanish fleet” then in Philippine waters. He entered Manila Bay by night on May  and discovered Adm. Patricio Montojo’s Spanish fleet anchored in the bay. At : a.m., Dewey turned to Capt. Charles Gridley and said, “You may fire when ready, Gridley,” and the American fleet proceeded to launch a devastating surprise attack. The resulting Battle of Manila Bay was one of the most one-sided naval engagements in history. All of the Spanish vessels were either sunk or abandoned within six hours with the loss of only one American sailor—and he to a heart attack. Only the lack of ground forces prevented Dewey from capturing Manila. After being promoted to rear admiral on May , , his squadron provided naval support for the U.S. Army, which ultimately captured the city of Manila on August . Dewey remained in the Philippines with his squadron for the next year to assist in maintaining control over the conquered territory. Dewey was promoted to admiral of the navy on March , —a rank previously held only by his former commander Farragut and revived specifically by an act of Congress for Dewey. When he returned to the United States on September , , Dewey received a hero’s welcome. Exempted from the navy’s mandatory retirement regulations, he continued to advocate the strengthening of America’s battleship fleet and worked to modernize the U.S. Navy. He was named president of the Navy General Board in , for which he served until his death on January , .

andy johns WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST (1863–1951) Through the sensationalism he promoted in his journalistic empire and his own lavish lifestyle, William Randolph Hearst became one of the best-known public figures of his

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day. Hearst was born on April , , in San Francisco, the son of a millionaire miner and rancher. Enrolling at Harvard in , he was expelled three years later because of a tasteless prank. Undaunted, Hearst persuaded his father to let him take over the family’s failing newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, in . He modeled the paper after Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, with its mixture of sensationalism and reform, and hired a talented, well-paid staff. After initially going into debt, Hearst finally began to make a profit with the paper. With his purchase of the New York Journal in , Hearst challenged Pulitzer on his own turf. He brought the best of his San Francisco staff to New York, lured other talented people away from the New York papers, and slashed the price of his paper to one cent. When the Cubans revolted against Spanish rule, Hearst tried to outdo Pulitzer in printing exaggerated accounts of Spanish “atrocities.” The circulation war between the two papers produced “yellow journalism,” or an excessively lurid style of reporting. Also, by firing public sentiment against Spain, Hearst and Pulitzer helped cause the Spanish-American War of , bringing tensions between the two countries to a fever pitch with reports of Spanish outrages against the Cuban people. Hearst’s enthusiasm for the war was illustrated in the well-circulated story of his dealings with sketch artist Frederic Remington. Hearst had sent Remington to Cuba to make sketches of Spanish atrocities. Remington, however, found nothing outrageous in Cuba and sent Hearst a telegraph telling him so. Hearst wired back, “You furnish the pictures and I will furnish the war.” The Spanish-American War not only increased the circulation of Hearst’s newspapers, it also increased Hearst’s fame across the nation. In , Hearst married a showgirl, Millicent Willson. Millicent quickly shed her image as a stage performer, however, and assumed all the characteristics of a high-society wife. Harboring political as well as journalistic ambitions, Hearst made a successful bid for a seat in Congress in , serving until . Despite an undistinguished record, he made a determined but ultimately losing effort to win his party’s presidential nomination in . He then tried for the mayoralty of New York City, taking on the Democratic machine of Tammany Hall and almost winning in . The following year, he struck a bargain with Tammany Hall that he hoped would win him the governorship, but he was defeated. Hearst then launched his own personal third party, the Independence Party, but in the presidential election of , it polled less than , votes and soon sank into oblivion. Despite political activity, Hearst did not ignore newspapers. His journalistic empire grew through buying or starting newspapers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Seattle, and other cities. He also acquired such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and Harper’s Bazaar and created both the King Features Syndicate and the International News Service to supply newspapers throughout the country with news and features. In , he branched into motion pictures by producing a weekly newsreel. Not afraid of taking unpopular stands, Hearst opposed U.S. entry into World War I and was accused of being pro-German as a result. After the war, Hearst took a stand against America’s joining the League of Nations and helped to keep the nation from participating in the World Court. Throughout the s, Hearst was riding high. His handpicked candidate, John F. Hylan, was mayor of New York, enabling Hearst to influence city government for eight years. Hearst also started a motion picture company aimed at

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making a star of a Ziegfield Follies girl, Marion Davies, whom Hearst had met and fallen in love with in  and who became his closest companion, despite the fact that he was already a married man with a family. His wife refused to divorce him, despite the openness of his affair with Davies. Indulging his taste for luxury, Hearst began building a mansion at San Simeon on the California coast, where he entertained prime ministers and film stars in a princely manner. Throughout his life, he indulged his passion for art, buying vast amounts of paintings, sculptures, artifacts, furniture, and jewelry while traveling around Europe. At one point, he bought an entire castle, with all of its furnishings, in England. Many of these treasures he put on display at San Simeon, but the majority remained in warehouses in New York. In , Hearst wielded political clout by swinging the Democratic presidential nomination in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s favor through his control of the California delegation. He soon turned against Roosevelt, however, because of the latter’s attempts to regulate business, and by , Hearst papers were calling Roosevelt’s New Deal the “Raw Deal.” The Great Depression, combined with Hearst’s spendthrift ways, almost cost him his empire. He not only lost control of his publishing ventures, but also suffered the humiliation of seeing many of his art treasures sold at auction at Gimbel’s department store in New York City. With World War II and the return of prosperity, Hearst succeeded in regaining a measure of control over a publishing conglomerate that, though diminished in size, was still the largest in the nation. He also consolidated his hold over the motion picture industry during the s. When the brilliant young filmmaker Orson Welles produced Citizen Kane, a movie based on a thinly veiled account of Hearst’s life, Hearst exerted his power in Hollywood to blacklist Welles and nearly ruined the younger man’s career. After suffering a heart seizure in , Hearst spent his last few years as an invalid, who, nevertheless, managed to read the various papers he owned and issue instructions to editors. Hearst died at Marion Davies’ Beverly Hills home on August , , at the age of .

william mcguire and leslie wheeler WILLIAM MCKINLEY (1843–1901) William McKinley Jr. was president when the United States became a world power at the turn of the th century. During his administration, the country defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War, annexed the Hawaiian Islands, and acquired other overseas colonial possessions. Born on January , , in Niles, Ohio, McKinley attended Allegheny College for one term before illness forced him to withdraw. Unable to afford to return, he taught school and clerked in a post office until volunteering for the Ohio militia at the outbreak of the Civil War. During the war, McKinley rose to the rank of major and established a permanent friendship with his commanding officer, Rutherford B. Hayes. Upon his discharge in , McKinley studied law for less than one term at Albany Law School and in  established his own successful practice in Canton, Ohio. A Republican, the

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popular and confident McKinley immediately became active in local politics and won election as a prosecuting attorney in Stark County. A tragic result of McKinley’s quick climb to political and social success was his wife’s deteriorating mental health over the course of their marriage. Apparently due to the death of their two children, she suffered increasingly frequent epileptic seizures and prolonged periods of depression. McKinley, who remained a loyal and devoted husband, found solace in his deep religious faith. The popular and convivial McKinley was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in . As congressman from Ohio, he supported civil service reform, efforts to ensure that newly enfranchised African American males could exercise their right to vote, and high tariffs. At the  Republican national convention, McKinley made an important friendship. Multimillionaire Mark Hanna, eager to use his fortune and organizing skills to elect a Republican president, was so impressed by McKinley’s economic views and political skill that he vowed to use all his influence to help McKinley achieve the presidency. In , the Democratic Ohio legislature gerrymandered McKinley’s congressional district so that he failed to win reelection. Before the end of his term, however, Congress passed the protectionist McKinley Tariff Act. The controversial tariff made McKinley a well-known national figure. The next year, with the support of Hanna’s money and organizational skills, McKinley was elected governor of Ohio by a wide margin. As governor, McKinley earned a reputation as someone who would look after the interests of the average voter as well as those of the business community. Although he called out the National Guard to crush a violent strike by coal miners in , he also won legislation that established a board to arbitrate labor disputes and succeeded in reforming the Ohio tax code so that proportionately more money was collected from corporations than from small property owners. McKinley’s reelection as governor and Hanna’s skill in securing delegate support before the Republican convention met combined to win McKinley the Republican nomination for president in  on the first ballot. The most controversial issue in the election concerned the party’s position on the use of gold and/or silver to back the nation’s currency. The nation was divided between those who believed in the unlimited coinage of silver (known as free silver) and those who supported the exclusive use of gold. McKinley and the Republican Party argued that the “existing gold standard must be maintained.” The Democrats, with William Jennings Bryan as their nominee, supported the coinage of silver. The well-financed and superbly organized McKinley campaign was orchestrated by Hanna. McKinley shrewdly conducted a restrained “front porch” campaign. Funds were provided for voters to visit him in Canton, Ohio, and the railroad companies issued free passes. Bryan, introducing a new style of campaign, stumped every section of the nation systematically. He spoke to millions of voters and apparently antagonized many, for McKinley won the election with  electoral votes to Bryan’s . McKinley’s first priority in office was to secure the passage of a new high protective tariff, which he accomplished in . The issue that dominated his first term, however, was the war with Spain that began in . Aroused by the brutal efforts of the Spanish to crush a rebellion in Cuba and the growing imperialist sentiment to acquire colonies, McKinley attempted to seek a diplomatic solution. Events, however, such as the publication of an insulting letter about McKinley by the Spanish ambassador, the explosion

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of the U.S. battleship Maine in Cuba, the inability of Spain to reach a settlement with the Cuban rebels, and the efforts of William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper chain to provoke a war, pushed a reluctant McKinley to request a declaration of war against Spain. The exhausted Spanish forces (who had been fighting in Cuba since ) were defeated in only a few months of fighting by the modern U.S. Navy and the ill-equipped but still superior U.S. Army. Spain accepted the terms for peace: independence for Cuba, and the transfer of Puerto Rico and the island of Guam to the United States. The fate of the conquered Philippine Islands was to be decided at the peace conference. During the war, McKinley had also accomplished the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands through a joint resolution of Congress. The question over what to do with the conquered Philippines was the most controversial territorial acquisition decision McKinley had to make. He later said that he “walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight, and I am not ashamed to tell you . . . I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night it came to me . . . that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift them and civilize and Christianize them.” McKinley overlooked the fact that the islands were already Christian and had a revolutionary government that had supported the U.S. invasion under the promise that the Philippines would obtain their independence. Spain surrendered the islands for $ million. The annexation of the Philippines stirred a frenzy of debate in Congress. The Treaty of Paris with Spain passed by only one more vote than needed in the Senate. The Filipinos did not accept American domination without resistance, and a fierce and costly guerrilla war began between Filipino independence fighters and U.S. forces that lasted three years. Another foreign policy issue of great importance during McKinley’s first term concerned the American reaction to the scramble of European powers to carve up China into colonial spheres of influence. In , Secretary of State John Hay made the position of the United States in China clear with the announcement of U.S. support for an Open Door policy, a policy actually originating with the British. Hay stated that it was the goal of the United States in China to ensure equality of commercial exploitation opportunity among all nations and guarantee existing Chinese rights and treaties. The final accomplishment of the McKinley administration concerned the debate over whether gold or both gold and silver should be used to back the nation’s currency. In , with the passage of the Gold Standard Act by Congress, McKinley delivered on his campaign pledge to support gold exclusively. Although tired, McKinley accepted nomination for a second term. His new vice presidential running mate was Theodore Roosevelt, the popular leader of the Rough Riders and hero of the Spanish-American War. Once again, McKinley easily defeated Democratic candidate Bryan. Only six months into his second term, on September , , McKinley was shot by an anarchist. He died eight days later.

steven g. o’brien PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WAR (1899–1902) The Philippine-American War was an outgrowth of the Philippine Revolution and the Spanish-American War of . The Filipinos, who had been fighting for independence

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from Spain since , aided the United States in the Spanish-American War and expected to become independent at its conclusion. Instead, the Spanish-American War Treaty () transferred control of the region from Spain to the United States. On June , , just over a month after the U.S. Navy fleet led by Commo. George Dewey had subdued the Pacific fleet of the Spanish Navy, Filipino revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo declared Philippine independence. Although he expected the United States to support the declaration, the U.S. government refused. On December , , the Spanish-American War Treaty gave control of the Philippines to the United States, which wanted to establish democracy and a commercial and military presence in the region. Though it purported to oversee the Philippines, in reality, the United States did not control much of the country. That fact, combined with the U.S. government’s refusal to recognize Aguinaldo’s authority when he was proclaimed president on January , , led Aguinaldo to declare war on U.S. forces in the islands on February . Aguinaldo and his rebels took up arms against their erstwhile ally and precipitated a bloody insurrection not put down until . Aguinaldo was captured by U.S. forces on March , , and he subsequently agreed to swear allegiance to the United States and withdraw from public life. On July , , U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt declared that the conflict was over. However, minor guerrilla warfare was a problem as late as . The PhilippineAmerican War had cost the United States more than $ million and some , American casualties. Estimates vary, but Filipino casualties among soldiers probably numbered in the tens of thousands, and the number of civilians killed by disease, starvation, and cross fire as a result of the war is said to have been in the hundreds of thousands. Following the war, the United States began to develop a program for granting independence to the Philippines. Over time, members of the upper classes gained participation in government. The Republic of the Philippines was created in , but independence was put off by the invasion of the Japanese in . The United States reconquered the area in  and granted full independence in .

lisa mccallum ROUGH RIDERS The First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, more commonly known as the Rough Riders, was formed in  on the eve of the Spanish-American War by Assistant Secretary to the Navy Theodore Roosevelt. The Rough Riders were composed of a diverse mix of Americans. Roosevelt recruited cowboys, Native Americans, Eastern aristocrats, and Ivy League athletes, among others. Recruits were all required to be physically fit and to be skilled horsemen and marksmen, assets that made them quickly ready to see action. These , soldiers were shipped out to Cuba on June , , and saw their first action in the Battle of Las Guasimas on June . On June , Roosevelt was promoted to the rank of colonel and the following day led the charge on Kettle Hill to help drive the Spanish from their fortifications on San Juan Hill. On July , the Spanish forces at Santiago de Cuba surrendered, bringing the brief war to an end.

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In the months that followed, such tropical diseases as typhus, malaria, dysentery, and yellow fever took a heavy toll on the Rough Riders. Roosevelt cabled Washington to request that the volunteers be sent home. On September , , the men were shipped home after  days of service. In the end, one out of three Rough Riders was either killed, wounded, or afflicted by disease, the highest casualty rate among troops who served in the Spanish-American War. After returning home, Roosevelt and the Rough Riders were given much media attention and enjoyed wide popularity among the American people. Roosevelt was able to use this notoriety to become governor of New York, vice president, and later president of the United States. On January , , Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish-American War, the first U.S. president to receive such a distinction.

ryan durham SINKING OF THE USS MAINE (1898) On February , , the battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor. Some  crewmen lost their lives in the incident, which had its roots in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain and was one of the triggers of the Spanish-American War. The explosion was blamed on a mine, but some experts have presented the opinion that the explosion was internal in origin and accidental in nature. Congress authorized construction of the Maine in  as part of a post-Civil War rehabilitation of the navy. The battleship was formally commissioned on September , . As the th century drew to a close, U.S. expansionists had their sights set on Spain’s overseas territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Cuba had endured an unsuccessful decade-long revolution against Spain that ended in . Cuban rebels took up arms again in , and the threat to U.S. economic interests on the island strained relations with Spain. Reports of Spanish atrocities against rebels further damaged already tense relations, and demands for American intervention grew in political and press circles. In January , news of possible concessions to Cuban rebels led Spanish colonists to riot in Havana. The battleship Maine was sent to Havana harbor to protect U.S. interests and to evacuate U.S. citizens if necessary. On February , an explosion sank the ship and killed  of its  crewmen. Although the cause was never determined, many Americans believed Spain was responsible. The Spanish government made the conciliatory gesture of offering more autonomy to Cuba, but a United States war against Spain became inevitable. The rallying slogan “Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!” swept the country. In April , Congress called for Spain to relinquish authority over Cuba and declared war. The Spanish-American War ended later in  with a treaty that not only ceded Cuba but also added the Philippines to the United States’ Pacific territories. In , the navy constructed a cofferdam around the Maine, and on February , , the battleship was floated out to the Caribbean Sea, where the ship was buried.

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APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND PEOPLE

American System. The American System was the name given to a plan for U.S. economic development during the Madison administration. It called for the creation of a national bank, improvements in communication and transportation, and high tariffs to protect America’s young industries. Anti-Imperialist League. The Anti-Imperialist League was an organization created in  to campaign against American acquisition of colonies. Andrew Carnegie funded the organization, which included a number of prominent politicians and intellectuals. Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation, ratified in , established the first national government for the United States. It was replaced by the Constitution in . Beaux-Arts Style. In architecture, this term refers to the French art school, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in Paris, at which many American architects studied in the latter half of the th century. There they learned the basics of classical architecture and applied that to the neoclassical designs favored in late-th-century commercial and public buildings. Collectively, the term “Beaux-Arts Style” is used to describe the appearance of these buildings. Border states. The border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were situated between the North and the South in the Civil War. Slavery was legal in these states, but none of them joined the Confederacy. Boxer Rebellion. This was a terrorist campaign waged against foreigners in the late s by the Boxers, a secret society in China. In , the Boxers besieged the diplomatic community in Peking, which was saved by the arrival of a multinational force that had marched inland. Burr, Aaron (–). A New York politician, Burr was elected vice president under Thomas Jefferson in . He killed his political rival, Alexander Hamilton, in a duel in  and led a suspected separatist expedition to the lower Mississippi River Valley, where he was captured and tried for treason but acquitted. In later life, he practiced law in New York.

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Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (). This treaty between the United States and Great Britain provided that any isthmian canal that might be built across Central America would be under joint Anglo-American control. It was superseded in  by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which allowed for a canal built and operated solely by the United States. Compromise of . This was a series of political measures devised to calm growing sectional tensions. It included the admission of California as a free state; the adoption of the doctrine of popular sovereignty, or the vote of the people, regarding slavery in other territories; an end to the slave trade (but not slavery) in Washington, D.C.; and a new, tough fugitive slave law to help southerners recover slaves who had fled to the North. Democratic Party. This political party was created in  by Martin Van Buren and others dissatisfied with the results of the election of  and the growing centralism of the Republican Party, sponsors of the American System. They rallied behind Andrew Jackson, who was elected in . This party is sometimes referred to as the DemocraticRepublican Party and is the direct ancestor of the modern-day Democratic party. Douglass, Frederick (–). A former slave in Baltimore, Frederick Douglass escaped and went to New England, where he became a leading lecturer and publisher in the abolitionist movement. After the Civil War, he held a number of government posts and continued to work for black equality. Dred Scott decision (). This U.S. Supreme Court decision established that a slave was still a slave, even though he or she had lived in a state or territory where slavery was illegal. In the decision, the Court ruled that slaves were property, not people, and were forever barred from U.S. citizenship. The decision fanned the flames of sectionalism shortly before the Civil War. Dwight, Timothy (–). Born into a wealthy merchant family in Northampton, Massachusetts, and the grandson of the famous Jonathan Edwards, Timothy Dwight was a precocious child who graduated from Yale at age , was a chaplain during the American Revolution, managed family affairs after his father’s death, and became a prominent Northampton citizen. In , he became the pastor of a Congregational church in Greenfield Hill, Massachusetts, and spent  years there, leaving in  to become president of Yale University. He served in that post for more than  years, teaching and becoming well-known throughout New England for his theological views, as well as his good judgment and common sense. He greatly influenced many of his students, many of whom, like Lyman Beecher, went on to becoming leading lights of the Second Great Awakening. Emerson, Ralph Waldo (–). A writer, lecturer, and philosopher, Emerson was the chief architect of the transcendentalist movement in the s. As such, he spoke and argued that social reform must come from the hearts of individuals, rather than from organized political efforts. Evarts, William M. (–). Secretary of state under President Rutherford B. Hayes (–), Evarts helped promote the growth of foreign commerce by raising

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the standards of consular appointments and negotiating commercial treaties with China and Japan. Falkland (Malvinas) Islands controversy. In the s, Great Britain occupied this group of islands, which Argentina also claimed. The United States chose not to invoke the Monroe Doctrine against Britain, and the islands remained in British hands. In , Britain and Argentina fought a short war over the islands, which Britain won. Federalist Party. The Federalists developed as a faction during the constitutional ratification process, in which they supported ratification and a strong central government. During the s, they evolved into a loosely organized party headed by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams. They favored Great Britain over France in the European wars and the centralization of power in the federal government. Filibuster. A filibuster refers to any of a number of private adventurers who led expeditions to Cuba or various Central American countries during the mid-th century, with the object of overthrowing their governments and colonizing them under the U.S. flag. Finney, Charles G. (–). Born in Connecticut and raised in western New York state, Finney was a schoolteacher and lawyer early in life. In , after a religious conversion, he entered divinity school and became a Presbyterian preacher in . He won national fame for his successful revivals in western New York between  and , in which he appealed to professional people with his less-emotional, more measured style of speaking. In , he accepted the pastorship of Second Presbyterian Church in New York City, and in , he began teaching theology at Oberlin College in Ohio, while continuing to organize revivals in the North. He served as president of Oberlin from  to  and for many years was active in the abolition and other reform movements of the time. Fugitive Slave Act (). Part of the Compromise of , this law obliged northern law enforcement officials to return escaped, or fugitive, slaves to their southern owners. Gould, Jay (–). Jay Gould was a speculative investor, principally in railroads during the late s and s. He and his associates waged a titanic battle with Cornelius Vanderbilt for control of the Erie Railroad in , and in , he attempted to manipulate the gold market by persuading President Ulysses S. Grant to withhold federal gold from public sale. Before Grant released the gold to the market, Gould and his partners had made an $ million profit. Habeas corpus, writ of. This legal term refers to an accused person’s right to appear before a court to determine whether he or she should be charged with a crime or released. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln suspended this right, allowing persons to be held without charges for an indefinite period of time. Hoar, George F. (–). A Republican from Massachusetts, George F. Hoar was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from  to  and the U.S. Senate from  until his death. He is best known for his leading role in the anti-imperialist movement.

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Holy Alliance. The Holy Alliance, created in  by Czar Alexander of Russia, joined his country with Prussia and Austria in a “Christian unity of charity, peace, and love.” Homestead Strike (). This strike occurred at the Homestead steel factory in Pennsylvania, owned by Andrew Carnegie. When workers walked out over a proposed wage cut, a battle broke out between the striking workers and detectives from the Pinkerton Agency, sent in to protect the plant. The workers forced the surrender of the Pinkerton detectives, but the governor sent in the state militia, who restored order and took control away from the strikers. Their union never recovered from its defeat. Houston, Sam (–). Sam Houston was the principal leader in the fight for Texas independence and subsequent annexation to the United States. He was the military commander of Texan forces in their civil war against Mexico, the first president of the Republic of Texas, and, after statehood, one of Texas’ first two senators. Impeachment. Under the U.S. Constitution, impeachment is part of a process for the removal of “all civil officers of the United States,” including the president and vice president. Similar to an indictment in criminal law, the House of Representatives has the right to impeach or indict. After impeachment, a trial will be held in the Senate, where a two-thirds vote is required for conviction or removal from office. Lodge, Henry Cabot Sr. (–). A long-time Republican senator from Massachusetts (–), Henry Cabot Lodge was an ardent supporter of U.S. expansion and a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt. Later he became a leading opponent of President Woodrow Wilson in the fight to ratify the Treaty of Versailles (), ending World War I and creating the League of Nations. Louisiana Purchase International Exposition (). A great world’s fair held in St. Louis (one year late) to celebrate the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. Almost  million visitors attended the fair, which sprawled over , acres in Forest Park. Missouri Compromise (). The Missouri Compromise was an early attempt to resolve the growing sectional strife between North and South. Under its terms, Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and the latitude of ° ’ was to be extended to the west as a demarcation of slave territory (south of the line) and free territory (north of the line). Nativism. This term refers to the dislike of immigrants and their beliefs and values and the consequent opposition to further immigration. During the s, nativist organizations argued that excessive immigration threatened American traditions and values. New Frontier. President John F. Kennedy’s (–) term refers to his domestic program of aid to education, urban renewal, and other social legislation. Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail was the most famous of the several trails taking people to various parts of the American West. Beginning in , large-scale migration occurred over the Oregon Trail, so named because it went to the Oregon Country in the Northwest.

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Panic of . The Panic of  came about after the Second Bank of the United States tightened credit and called in loans in an attempt to put the brakes on land speculation. The policies of the bank went too far and caused a six-year economic depression. Pinckney’s Treaty (). This treaty settled a number of problems between the United States and Spain. Most notably, the United States acquired full navigational rights on the Mississippi River and the right to use the port of New Orleans. Pinkerton Agency. This private detective agency was established by Allan Pinkerton in . During the Civil War, Pinkerton agents worked behind Confederate lines, and after the war, they frequently were used as strikebreakers and factory police. Republican Party. This name was first used for a political faction that emerged in the s in opposition to the Federalist Party and its beliefs in a strong central government and friendship with Great Britain. Under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the Republicans, who believed in a weak federal government and supported France in Europe, became the dominant party in the United States between  and . The party is sometimes referred to as the Jeffersonian Republican party to distinguish it from the Republican party of the s, which developed in the North among those who opposed the extension of slavery into the territories. Roosevelt Corollary. Named for President Theodore Roosevelt (–), the Roosevelt Corollary is an addition to the Monroe Doctrine, in which the United States reserved the right to intervene in a Latin American nation in order to forestall a European intervention. Roosevelt announced the corollary in . It was implemented on several occasions between  and the s before being renounced in the s. Santa Anna, Antonio López de (–). A resilient Mexican general, Santa Anna served several times as president of Mexico between the s and the s. He is best remembered for leading Mexican forces to defeat in the civil war with Texas () and again in Mexico’s war with the United States (–). Seward, William Henry (–). Governor of New York (–) and senator from the same state (–), Seward is best known as secretary of state under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson (–). During his tenure as secretary of state, he successfully prevented foreign intervention on the side of the Confederacy during the American Civil War and, in , negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia. Sherman, William Tecumseh (–). Sherman made his mark as a Union general during the Civil War. Commanding federal troops in the western sector of the conflict, he successfully employed scorched earth tactics as he captured Atlanta and swept through Georgia and the Carolinas in –. Subsequently, he served as commanding general of the army during the period of the Indian Wars (–). Stanton, Elizabeth Cady (–). A leading figure in the woman suffrage movement, Stanton attended the Seneca Falls convention () that launched the drive for

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suffrage and worked toward that goal with Susan B. Anthony for many years as an organizer, lecturer, and writer. Sullivan, Louis Henri (–). Considered America’s first great modern architect, Sullivan was born in Boston and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but he did not graduate from either one. He settled in Chicago in , joined the firm of Dankmar Adler in , and formed a partnership with Adler that lasted until  and included many notable early skyscrapers in Chicago, as well as the Transportation Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition. Sullivan was the first architect to emphasize the verticality of tall buildings and to get away from the applied classical ornamentation that was popular in that day. In the late s, his career began to decline, and he became an alcoholic, producing relatively little over the next  years and dying in obscurity in . Thoreau, Henry David (–). A New England writer and poet, Thoreau was important in the transcendentalist movement, dealing with those aspects of one’s nature that do not relate to actual experience. Thoreau is best known for his essay Walden, on his experiment of living along and being completely self-reliant Three-fifths compromise. A compromise made at the Constitutional Convention (), wherein five slaves were counted as three people in determining the number of U.S. representatives to which a state would be entitled under the new Constitution. Trafalgar, Battle of (). This was a major naval encounter off the Spanish coast near Cadiz between a fleet of  British ships, commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson, and a combined Franco-Spanish fleet of  ships, commanded by Admiral Pierre Villeneuve. Nelson’s victory ensured British control of the seas and the admiral’s reputation as a great naval commander. Turner, Nat (–). Nat Turner was a Virginia slave who, with seven followers, launched an insurrection in the Virginia countryside in August . Turner’s following grew, as did the level of violence, and as a result,  whites were killed, and Turner and  of his followers were captured and executed. The rebellion heightened sectional tensions and convinced many southerners that blacks and whites could never live peaceably together in a free society. War Hawks. War Hawks was the name given to a group of U.S. congressmen, principally from the West, who enthusiastically urged war with Great Britain in the year before the outbreak of the War of .

APPENDIX B: TIMELINE

: Federal government moves from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. : Tripoli declares war on the United States. : In Marbury v. Madison Supreme Court overturns a U.S. law for the first time. France sells Louisiana to United States. : Lewis and Clark expedition leaves from St. Louis. Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a duel. : Zebulon Pike explores Colorado and New Mexico. : Robert Fulton builds first steamboat. Embargo Act bans all foreign trade. : Slave importation outlawed. : William H. Harrison defeats Indians at Battle of Tippecanoe. Cumberland Trail opens. : War of  with Britain begins. British capture Detroit. : Oliver Perry defeats British fleet on Lake Erie. : British burn Capitol and White House in Washington. British fleet repulsed at Fort McHenry. Francis Scott Key writes “Star Spangled Banner. ” Treaty of Ghent ends War of . : Andrew Jackson defeats British at the Battle of New Orleans. Congress authorizes peacetime army. : Second Bank of the United States chartered. : Rush-Bagot treaty signed limiting armaments on the Great Lakes. : Spain cedes Florida to United States in Adams-Onís Treaty. USS Savannah makes first partial steam crossing of the Atlantic.

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: First immigration of American blacks back to Africa begins. Missouri Compromise passed by Congress. : First college for women, Troy Female Seminary, founded by Emma Willard. : Monroe Doctrine announced. : Erie Canal completed. John Stevens builds first steam locomotive in United States. : South Carolina declares that states have the right to nullify federal laws. American Dictionary of the English Language published by Noah Webster. Baltimore & Ohio, the first passenger railroad, inaugurated. : Joseph Smith founds Mormon church. : Abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator, started by William Lloyd Garrison. Nat Turner leads slave insurrection in Virginia. : South Carolina threatens withdrawal from the Union over tariff issue. Congress passes compromise tariff act; South Carolina remains in Union. : First coeducational college, Oberlin College, founded in Ohio. : Seminole war begins in Florida. Texas declares independence from Mexico. Oberlin College refuses to bar students because of race. : Battle of the Alamo fought in Texas. Texas army under Sam Houston defeats Mexicans at the Battle of San Jacinto; Texas wins independence and becomes a republic. First white women cross Oregon Trail. : Cherokee forcibly removed to Oklahoma in “Trail of Tears. ” : First wagon train reaches California. : Seminole war ends in Florida; Seminoles removed to Oklahoma. Webster-Ashburton Treaty establishes border between Canada and Minnesota and Maine. First use of anesthetic in surgery. : Samuel Morse sends first telegraph message. : Texas annexed and admitted to Union. : Mexican War begins. California declares itself a republic. United States and Great Britain sign Oregon Treaty. Mormons under Brigham Young begin to settle in Utah. Elias Howe invents sewing machine.

APPENDIX B

299

: First adhesive postage stamp issued. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow publishes Evangeline. : Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends Mexican War; treaty cedes California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico to United States. Women’s Rights Convention, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, held at Seneca Falls, New York. Gold discovered in California. : Compromise of  allows admission of California to Union. Slave trade in District of Columbia forbidden. : Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin. : Commodore Matthew Perry negotiates treaty to open Japan to U.S. trade. Gadsden Purchase settles boundary with Mexico by adding present-day southern Arizona to U.S. : Republican Party formed. Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden. : Walt Whitman publishes Leaves of Grass. First railroad crosses Mississippi River. : Lawrence, Kansas, sacked by proslavery forces. : Dred Scott decision announced by the U.S. Supreme Court. : Lincoln-Douglas debates held in Illinois. : First commercial oil well drilled. John Brown leads raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia; John Brown hanged for treason. : Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, elected president. Pony express between Sacramento, California, and St. Joseph, Missouri, begins. : Having seceded from the Union, seven southern states form the Confederate States of America. Confederate firing on Fort Sumter starts Civil War; President Lincoln calls for , volunteers to crush the rebellion. First Battle of Bull Run, a Confederate victory, fought. First transcontinental telegraph in operation. Trent Affair strains relations with Britain. : Homestead Act passed by Congress. Morrill Act passed by Congress, leading to establishing of state land grant universities. New Orleans falls to North; Battles of Shiloh, Antietam, and Fredericksburg are fought.

APPENDIX B

300

: Emancipation Proclamation takes effect on January . Battle of Gettysburg fought; Vicksburg, Mississippi, falls to North. Draft riots erupt in New York City. President Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address. : General Sherman takes Atlanta. Indians are massacred at Sand Creek, Colorado Territory. : Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant, ending the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln assassinated. Thirteenth Amendment ratified, abolishing slavery. : Ku Klux Klan formed. : Alaska purchased from Russia. The Grange organized. : Fourteenth Amendment ratified, giving blacks citizenship and protection of civil rights. President Andrew Johnson impeached, but Senate fails to convict. : Attempt to corner gold market causes “Black Friday” in New York. First transcontinental railroad completed. Knights of Labor formed. Woman suffrage law passed in Wyoming Territory. First college football game played. : Fifteenth Amendment ratified, giving blacks the vote. : Great fire destroys much of Chicago. Civil Service Commission established. : Amnesty Act restores civil rights in the south. Congress makes Yellowstone the first national park. : First postal card issued. Bank panic and beginning of depression. William “Boss” Tweed convicted of stealing public funds. : First Kentucky Derby held. : General George A. Custer killed by Indians at Battle of Little Big Horn in Montana Territory. National [Baseball] League established. Mark Twain publishes Tom Sawyer. Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia. : Troops used to end railroad strike. Molly Maguires, a radical labor group, broken up.

APPENDIX B

301

: First commercial telephone exchange opened. Thomas Edison founds Edison Electric Light Co. : First five-and-dime opened by F. W. Woolworth. : President James A. Garfield assassinated. Tuskegee Institute founded by Booker T. Washington. : Brooklyn Bridge opened. : Haymarket riot in Chicago. Statue of Liberty dedicated. American Federation of Labor formed. : Interstate Commerce Commission established. : Great blizzard paralyzes East Coast. : Oklahoma opened for white settlement. Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flood. : Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed. Indians massacred at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. : Homestead steel strike. : Financial panic leads to depression. World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago. : First showing of Edison’s motion picture machine. Jacob Coxey leads march of unemployed on Washington. : William Jennings Bryan delivers “Cross of Gold” speech at Democratic convention. U.S. Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision permits “separate but equal” doctrine in race relations. : Battleship Maine sunk in Havana harbor. Spain declares war on United States. United States annexes Hawaii. Spain cedes Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam and permits Cuban independence, ending the Spanish-American War. : United States declares Open Door Policy in China.

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APPENDIX C: PRESIDENTS, VICE PRESIDENTS, AND SECRETARIES OF STATE IN THE 19TH CENTURY

Presidents

Vice Presidents

Secretaries of State

Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809) Democratic-Republican

Aaron Burr (1801–1805) George Clinton (1805–1809)

James Madison (1801–1809)

James Madison (1809–1817) Democratic-Republican

George Clinton (1809–1813) Elbridge Gerry (1813–1817)

Robert Smith (1809–1811) James Monroe (1811–1817)

James Monroe (1817–1825) Democratic-Republican

Daniel D. Thompkins (1817–1825)

John Quincy Adams (1817–1825)

John Quincy Adams (1825–1829) Democratic-Republican

John C. Calhoun (1825–1829)

Henry Clay (1825–1829)

Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) Democrat

John C. Calhoun (1929–1833) Martin Van Buren (1833–1837)

Martin Van Buren (1929–1831) Edward Livingston (1831–1833) Louis McLane (1833–1834) John Forsyth (1834–1837)

Martin Van Buren (1837–1841) Democrat

Richard M. Johnson (1837–1841)

John Forsyth (1837–1841)

William Henry Harrison (1841) Whig

John Tyler (1841)

Daniel Webster (1841)

304

APPENDIX C

Presidents

Vice Presidents

Secretaries of State

John Tyler (1841–1845) Whig

Office Vacant

Daniel Webster (1841–1843) Hugh S. Legare (1843) Abel P. Upshur (1843–1844) John C. Calhoun (1844–1845)

James K. Polk (1845–1849) Democrat

George M. Dallas (1845–1849)

James Buchanan (1845–1849)

Zachary Taylor (1849–1850) Whig

Millard Fillmore (1849–1850)

John M. Clayton (1849–1850)

Millard Fillmore (1850–1853) Whig

Office Vacant

Daniel Webster (1850–1852) Edward Everett (1852–1853)

Franklin Pierce (1853–1857) Democrat

William R. King (1853)

William L. Marcy (1853–1857)

James Buchanan (1857–1861) Democrat

John C. Breckinridge (1857–1861)

Lewis Cass (1857–1860) Jeremiah S. Black (1860–1861)

Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) Republican

Hannibal Hamlin (1861–1865) Andrew Johnson (1865)

William H. Seward (1861–1865)

Andrew Johnson (1865–1869) Unionist

Office Vacant

William H. Seward (1865–1869)

Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877) Republican

Schuyler Colfax (1869–1873) Henry Wilson (1873–1877)

Elihu B. Washburne (1869) Hamilton Fish (1869–1877)

Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–1881) Republican

William A. Wheeler (1877–1881)

William M. Evarts (1877–1881)

James A. Garfield (1881) Republican

Chester A. Arthur (1881)

James G. Blaine (1881)

Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885) Republican

Office Vacant

Frederick T. Frelinghuysen (1881–1885)

APPENDIX C

305

Presidents

Vice Presidents

Secretaries of State

Grover Cleveland (1885–1889) Democrat

Thomas A. Hendricks (1885–1889)

Thomas F. Bayard (1885–1889)

Benjamin Harrison (1889–1893) Republican

Levi P. Morton (1889–1893)

James G. Blaine (1889–1892) John W. Foster (1892–1893)

Grover Cleveland (1893–1897) Democrat

Adlai E. Stevenson (1893–1897)

Walter Q. Gresham (1893–1895) Richard Olney (1895–1897)

William McKinley (1897–1901) Republican

Garret A. Hobart (1897–1901) Theodore Roosevelt (1901)

John Sherman (1897–1898) William R. Day (1898) John Hay (1898–1901)

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ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

EDITORS JOHN E. FINDLING is professor emeritus of history at Indiana University Southeast. He earned his PhD in history from the University of Texas and has pursued research interests in world’s fairs and the modern Olympic movement for nearly  years. Among his recent publications are Fair America (), coauthored with Robert Rydell and Kimberly Pelle, and Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement () and Encyclopedia of World’s Fairs and Expositions (), both co-edited with Kimberly Pelle. In retirement, he sells stamps and vintage postcards at Collectors’ Stamps, Ltd., in Louisville, Kentucky. FRANK W. THACKERAY is professor emeritus of history at Indiana University Southeast. A former Fulbright scholar in Poland, he received his PhD from Temple University. Specializing in Russian–Polish relations in the th and th centuries, he is the author of Antecedents of Revolution: Alexander I and the Polish Congress Kingdom (). He also edited Events That Changed Russia since  () and Events That Changed Germany (). Currently, he is term professor of history at the University of Louisville.

CONTRIBUTORS THOMAS CLARKIN received his doctorate in U.S. history from the University of Texas at Austin in . He has completed a manuscript on federal Indian policy during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and he currently teaches at San Antonio College. A. GLENN CROTHERS is assistant professor of history at the University of Louisville and director of research at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville. He is also co-editor of Ohio Valley History. He has published numerous articles on pedagogy, the social and economic history of the antebellum south, and southern Quakers. His study, “Living in the Lion’s Mouth: The Quakers of Northern Virginia, –,” is forthcoming from the University Press of Florida.

308

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

MICHAEL J. DEVINE received his doctorate from Ohio State University in  and held administrative positions with the Ohio Historical Society and Historic St. Mary’s City, Maryland, before becoming Illinois State Historian in . In , he became director of the American Heritage Center and adjunct professor of history at the University of Wyoming. He is presently director of the Harry S Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Missouri. He is the author of John W. Foster: Politics and Diplomacy in the Imperial Era, – () and has been a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in Argentina and Korea. PETER G. FELTEN received his PhD in U.S. and Caribbean history from the University of Texas at Austin. He taught history and leadership development at Tulsa Community College and presently teaches history at Elon College, Elon, North Carolina. He is working on a research project involving desegregation in higher education. SALLY E. HADDEN received her BA from the University of North Carolina and her MA, JD, and PhD from Harvard. She teaches courses in early American history, thcentury law and legal culture, cities, and slavery at Florida State University. CARL E. KRAMER is director of the Institute for Local and Oral History and adjunct professor of history at Indiana University Southeast and vice president of Kramer Associates, Inc., a public history consulting firm. He received his PhD from the University of Toledo and is the author of  books, including Capital on the Kentucky: A Year History of Frankfort and Franklin County () and This Place We Call Home: A History of Clark County, Indiana (). A member of the United Church of Christ, he has a special interest in that denomination’s history; his interest in the Civil War dates to the centennial years of –. THOMAS C. MACKEY is professor of history at the University of Louisville and adjunct professor of law at the Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville. He earned his PhD at Rice University. He is the author of Pursuing Johns (), Pornography on Trial (), and Red Lights Out: A Legal History of Prostitution, Disorderly Houses, and Vice Districts, – (). HENRY E. MATTOX retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in  after  years of service, mostly abroad. Since that time, he has earned a PhD in U.S. history from the University of North Carolina and has engaged in teaching and writing. Among his publications are Twilight of Amateur Diplomacy () and Army Football in  (). In , he was a cofounder of the journal American Diplomacy and currently serves as its editor. DONALD A. RAKESTRAW is professor of history at Georgia Southern University. Specializing in U.S. diplomatic history, he is the author of For Honor or Destiny: The Anglo-American Crisis over the Oregon Territory (). Currently, he is working on a study of the Anglo-American dispute over the C.S.S. Alabama during the American Civil War. STEPHEN ROCKENBACH is assistant professor of history at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia. He received his PhD in American History from the University of Cincinnati in . He enjoys teaching courses on the American Civil War and

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

309

military history only a few miles from the Petersburg National Battlefield and historic Old Towne Petersburg. HANNAH SIGUR is a specialist on the arts of Japan and is the author of The Influence of Japanese Art on Design (). She is also the coauthor of A Master Guide to the Art of Floral Design () and has taught a variety of courses as an adjunct instructor at San Francisco State University and the University of California (Davis). STEVEN E. SIRY is professor of history at Baldwin-Wallace College. He received his PhD from the University of Cincinnati, and he is the author of Greene: Revolutionary General (). JULIA A. WOODS received her MA and PhD in history from the University of Texas at Austin and a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation dealt with southern lawyers before the Civil War.

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INDEX

Abenakis tribe, 1:227 Abnaki War. See King William’s War Abolition (abolitionism), 3:65–85 American Anti-Slavery Society, 3:78–79 Birney, James G., 3:67, 73, 79 Child, Lydia Maria, 3:78, 79–82 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 3:69–76 Douglass, Frederick, 3:67, 75, 224 of France, 1:152 Garrison, William Lloyd, 3:66–67, 72–73, 75, 79 of Great Britain, 1:152 Grimké, Angelina and Sarah, 3:73 John Brown’s Final Statement to Virginia Court, 3:84–85 The Liberator First Edition excerpt, 3:83–84 Liberty Party, 3:65, 67, 75, 79, 81–82 Nat Turner’s Rebellion, 1:152, 158–159, 3:72 overview, 3:65–69 participation by African Americans, 3:71 Pennsylvania Society for Abolition, 2:194 during the Progressive era, 4:9 Southern states hatred of, 3:68, 69 Tappan, Arthur, 3:73, 75–76 Tubman, Harriet, 3:82–83 See also Douglass, Frederick; Slaves/slavery Académie des Sciences of Paris, 2:25, 28 Acheson, Dean, 4:182–183 Act of Toleration (1649), 1:170, 183 Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves (1807), 1:152 Acts of Confiscation (1861, 1862), 3:193 Acts of Trade (1660), 2:7 Adams, Abigail (wife of John, mother of John Quincy), 2:189, 197, 200–202, 209 See also “Remember the Ladies” letter Adams, Henry, 3:262 Adams, John, 1:109, 2:95, 124, 3:142 abrogation of 1778 treaties, 2:251 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2:28 American Revolution involvement, 2:143

arrest of, 2:178 biographical data, 2:252–255 commercial interests, 2:263 Continental Congress participation, 2:162, 163, 253 Convention of 1800, 2:243 Declaration of Independence role, 2:253 denunciation of French, 2:245 1800 presidential election, 2:263 Federalist opposition to, 2:244 as Founding Father, 2:25 Hamilton’s opposition to, 2:271 Jefferson’s association with, 2:174 Judiciary Act (1801), 2:265 letter of attack by Hamilton, 2:250 Naturalization Act, 2:241, 246 political experience of, 2:239 role in XYZ Affair, 2:247–248, 252–255 Second Continental Congress participation, 2:173 slavery opposed by, 3:69 split 1800 election, 2:276 Talleyrand’s interactions with, 2:249 Adams, John Quincy (son of John Adams), 2:201, 278, 3:89, 92, 99–101, 109, 146 See also Monroe Doctrine Adams, Samuel (1722–1803), 1:109, 226 Boston Tea Party instigation, 2:126–128, 217 British plans for capturing, 2:131 Committees of Correspondence and, 2:117, 120 Constitutional Convention participation, 2:217 Continental Congress participation, 2:127, 162 Declaration of Independence signatory, 2:185 Franklin’s warnings against, 2:35 Hutchinson’s confrontations with, 2:107 “Innocent Blood Crying to God from the Streets of Boston” pamphlet, 2:116 North Caucus Club formation, 2:130 Sons of Liberty movement formation, 2:108 Stamp Act Riots participation, 2:110

I-2

INDEX

Adams-Onis Treaty, 3:47, 51, 137 Addams, Jane, 3:170, 257, 279 Adler, Dankmar, 3:255 Administration of Justice Act, 2:118 Admittance into the Company of Eleven of the Daughters of Liberty, 2:194–195 Adopting Act (1729), 2:52 Adros, Gov. Edmund, 1:217 Africa, slave-trading history, 1:140–141, 148–153 African Americans black colleges, 4:52 “Colored People’s Day” (Columbian Exposition), 3:261 effects of war on, 2:145 emancipation of, 4:51 freedom movement, 4:263 Great Migration (1920), 2:145, 53, 54 Industrial Revolution era, 3:166 Niagara Movement (1905), 4:13 post-WW I influx of, 4:53 rejection as equals, 2:220–221 suburbanization efforts, 4:134, 138 suffrage rights, 3:214 support for American Revolution, 2:192 votes for Grant for presidency, 3:215 World War I service, 4:54, 58 See also Emancipation Proclamation; Harlem Renaissance; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Slaves/slavery African Methodist Episcopal Church, 3:13 Age of Reason, 2:25 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), 4:78 Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), 4:82–83, 84 Agriculture European benefit from, 1:11 Farmer’s Alliance, 1:95 Hopewell’s contributions, 1:17 Hopi technology, 1:72 influence of Columbian exchange, 1:8–9 slash-and-burn method, 1:5 Aguinaldo, Emilio, 3:274–275, 278 Ahlstrom, Sydney, 3:1 Aircraft inventions (Bell), 3:175 Albany Plan of Union (document, 1754), 2:90–92 Alden, Capt. John, 1:263 Aldrich, Nelson, 3:279 Algonquins, 1:12–13, 40, 42, 47, 117, 217–218, 220–221 Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), 2:174–175, 231, 241, 246–247, 254, 259–261, 265, 280, 3:2 Alien Enemies Act (from Alien and Sedition Acts), 2:242, 259–260 All in the Family (TV show), 4:202

Allen, Ethan, 2:152 Alliance, Treaty of, 2:142, 146 Alvarado, Hernando, 1:63 Amadas, Philip, 1:115 Ambrister, Robert C., 3:23 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2:29 American Anti-Slavery Society, 3:65, 66–67, 72–74, 78–79 American Broadcasting Company (ABC), 4:206 American Colonization Society, 3:65–66, 105 American Dream, 4:5, 85, 132, 136, 141 American Enterprise Institute, 4:278 American Expeditionary Force (AEF), 4:26, 40–43 See also Pershing, Gen. John J. American Federation of Labor (AFL), 3:162, 4:38 American Historical Association meeting (1893), 3:240 American Independence Day, 3:143 American Letter of Marque (1812, document), 3:62–63 American Magazine (American Revolution era), 2:188 The American Nation Series (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:250 American Philosophical Society, 2:29, 33–34, 176 American Protective League (vigilante group), 4:33 American Revolution, 1:44, 92–93, 159, 208, 2:5–6, 30, 139–157 Adams, John, involvement, 2:143 America’s invasion of Canada, 2:152–153 Bunker Hill, Battle of, 2:153–154 causes of, 2:80 Continental Army, 2:154–155 Dulany’s role, 2:106 Franklin’s contributions, 2:34 George III’s Proclamation of Rebellion, 2:155–156 Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, 2:156–157 magazines of the era, 2:188–189 overview, 2:139–143 role of women, 2:196, 198 Siry’s interpretive essay, 2:143–150 Sons of Liberty’s role, 108–109 Yorktown, Battle of, 2:154 American Socialist Party, 4:38 American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States, 3:70 The American Spelling Book (Webster), 2:148–149 American Temperance Union (1836), 3:5 Americas Columbus’s expeditions to, 1:6–8, 15–16 early diseases, 1:4 flourishing of agriculture, 1:11

INDEX

hunters and gatherers, 1:1, 5 Italian expeditions to, 1:99 pre-1492 population, 1:1–2 Spanish colonization of, 1:73–76, 83, 87–90, 2:1–2 Amerindians, 1:4 Amistad legal case (1841), 3:101 Amity and Commerce, Treaty of, 2:146 Amusing Ourselves to Death (Postman), 4:207 Anasazi culture, 1:13–15 Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy (Remini), 3:120 Andros, Sir Edmund, 1:234, 239–240, 246–247, 250–251, 263, 2:3 Anglican Church, 1:234–235, 244, 2:27, 47, 51, 55, 3:8 See also Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1701), 2:63 Anglo-American Convention (1818), 3:26 Anglo-American treaty, 2:147 Anglo-Dutch Wars, 1:205, 206 Anglo-Soviet-U.S. alliance, 4:174–175 Angola slave trading posts, 1:151 Anschluss policy (German), 4:86 Anthony, Susan B., 3:257 Anti-Federalists, 2:224–225 Anti-Imperialist League (Boston, 1898), 3:279 Anti-Masonic Party (1831), 3:116–117 Anticommunist movement (1950s), 1:262 Antiem Creek, Battle of, 3:194 Antislavery Whigs, 3:148 Antiwar movement (1960s), 4:231–232 Anzaldua, Gloria, 4:265 Apalachee tribe, 1:79 Apocalypse Now (war movie), 4:228 An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (Child), 3:79–80 An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty (Backus), 3:16 Appy, Christian G., 4:225 Arbuthnot, Alexander, 3:23–24 Architecture of the World’s Columbian Exposition (Brunt), 3:260 Arkansas territory, 3:26–27 Armstrong, John, 3:55 Armstrong, Louis, 4:55 Army of the Potomac, 3:194 Army of the Potomac (Union Army), 3:194, 201 Army of the Republican of Vietnam (ARVN), 4:222–223 Arnold, Benedict, 2:153 Articles of Confederation (1776), 2:144, 147, 179

I-3

Continental Congress adoption, 2:215 function of, 3:46 Hamilton’s criticism of, 2:227 inadequacy of, 2:215–216 signers, 2:217 Asbury, Francis, 2:150 Ashburton, Lord, 1:152–153 Atomic bomb, 4:107, 116, 150, 154 See also Manhattan Project Atomic Energy Act (1954), 4:152 Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 4:150, 152, 163–164 Atomic energy development (1945–1995), 4:149– 167 atomic bomb, 4:107, 116, 150, 154 Atomic Energy Commission, 4:150, 152, 163–164 Baruch Plan, 4:149 Cuban Missile Crisis, 4:151, 175–176, 186–188 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 4:151 hydrogen bomb, 4:175 Kunetka’s interpretive essay, 4:153–161 Manhattan Project, 4:149 nuclear freeze movement, 4:164 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 4:160, 165–166 overview, 4:149–153 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 4:153, 157, 167 U-2 incident (1960), 4:151 Atoms for Peace proposal (Eisenhower), 4:151 Austrian Succession, War of (1740–1748), 2:9, 12 Automobile vs. streetcar suburbs, 4:131–132 Aztec Empire (Mexico), 1:98 Baby and Child Care (Spock), 4:257 Backus, Isaac, 3:15–16 Bacon, Nathaniel, 1:233–234, 247–248 Bacon’s Rebellion (1676), 1:112, 1:233, 247–248 Bagdikina, Ben H., 4:205 Bailyn, Bernard, 2:11 Baker, Josephine, 4:55 Balboa, Vasco Núñez de, 1:93 Bancroft, George, 3:153 Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 3:256 Bank of the United States, 3:111–112, 122–125 Bank War (Jackson), 3:129 Banking acts, 3:197 Baptist Church, 2:48, 150, 3:6, 7, 12, 15–16 See also Backus, Isaac Baptiste de Rochambeau, Gen. Jean, 2:154 Barbary pirates, 3:21 Barlow, Joel, 2:149 Barlowe, Arthur, 1:115–116 Barnard, Henry, 2:209

I-4

Barney, Joshua, 3:57 Barré, Isaac, 2:108 Bartram, John, 2:33 Baruch, Bernard, 4:25, 149 Beattie, Blake, 1:82–90 Beaver trade, 1:38–39 Beaver Wars, 1:40 Beecher, Henry Ward, 3:258 Beecher, Lyman, 3:2, 4, 9 Bell, Gen. J. Franklin, 3:275 Bell, John, 3:191 Bell Telephone Company, 3:174 Bellamy, Edward, 3:163 Benson, Thomas Hart, 3:117 Bering Strait, 1:4 Beringia, 1:1, 4 Berkeley, Gov. William, 247–248 Berle, Milton (1908–2002), 4:212–214 Berlin Wall, 4:171, 172, 174 Bessemer, Sir Henry, 3:176 Bett, Mum, 2:198 Biddle, Nicholas, 3:112, 124, 128 See also Bank of the United States Big Horn, Battle of, 3:29 “Big Three.” See Churchill, Winston; Roosevelt, Franklin D.; Stalin, Joseph “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom” (Jefferson), 2:57 Bill for More General Diffusion of Knowledge (Jefferson), 2:173 Bill of Rights (document, U.S. Constitution), 1:180, 2:32, 230, 236–238 Billings, William, 2:148 Bingham, Anne Willing, 2:28 Birney, James G., 3:67, 73, 79 See also Liberty Party Bishop, Bridget, 1:264 Bishop, Maurice, 4:281 “Black Codes” (Johnson), 3:213, 218, 220 Black Diaspora, 1:141 Black Hawk War, 3:156, 204 Black Hills Dakota Territory, 3:29 Black Muslims, 4:240 Black Panthers, 4:240 Black Power movement, 4:247, 265 See also Davis, Angela Black Thursday, 4:80 Blaine, James, 3:255 Blair, Frank, Sr., 3:117 Blake, Eubie, 4:55 “Bleeding Kansas” territory, 3:28 Bloody Marsh, Battle of (1742), 1:95 Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (Williams), 1:187–189

INDEX

Blount, William, 3:125 Board of Lady Managers (Columbian Exposition), 3:260 Board of Nine Men (New Netherland Colony), 1:211–212 Board of Trade and Plantations, 2:3, 8, 13–14 Boas, Franz, 3:256 Bolívar, Simón, 3:101–103 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 2:242, 251, 257, 266, 3:21, 36, 43, 87 Bonus Army (post-WW I), 4:77, 81 Book of Mormon (Smith), 3:13 The Book of Negro Poetry (Jams Weldon Johnson), 4:59 The Book of the Fair (Bancroft), 3:256 Boone, Daniel, 3:242 Booth, John Wilkes, 3:207 The Boston Evening Post newspaper, 2:193 Boston Massacre (1770), 2:116, 122, 239, 253 Boston Port Act, 2:118 Boston Port Bill, 123 Boston Tea Party, 2:108, 115–138 Adams, Samuel, organization of, 2:126–128 East India Company, 2:112, 120, 123, 125, 128–129 First Continental Congress, 2:129–130 Hewess’s account of (document), 2:136–138 Mattox’s interpretive essay, 2:119–126 overview, 2:115–119 Revere, Paul, 2:130–132 Tea Act (1773) document, 2:132–135 vessels (ships) involved, 2:121–122 Boy Spies of America (vigilante group), 4:33 Boycotts and protests, by women, 2:187, 191 Braddock’s (Gen. Edward) Campaign (1755), 2:72, 74–75, 83 Bradford, Sarah, 3:82–83 Bradley, Omar (1893–1981), 4:120–121 “Brain Trust” advisory (of FDR), 4:82 Brandeis, Louis, 4:4, 84 Breckinridge, John, 3:26 Brendan (Saint, Irish monk), 1:2 Brezhnev, Leonid, 4:176 A Brief History of the War with the Indians (Increase Mather), 1:268 British West Indies, 2:4 Bronxville, New York, 4:131 Broward, Napoleon Bonaparte, 1:96 Brown, Charles Brockden, 2:149 Brown, James, 4:54 Brown, Joseph, 3:193 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Supreme Court decision), 4:237–239, 244 Bryan, William Jennings, 3:30, 279

INDEX

Buade, Louis de, 1:48–50 Bubble Act, 2:7 Buchanan, James, 3:147 Buckley, William F., 4:278 Buena Vista, Battle of (1847), 3:138, 140–141, 144, 152, 157, 203 Bulge, Battle of the (1944), 4: 119–120, 121 Bull Moose Party. See Progressivism Bunker Hill, Battle of (1775), 2:153–154, 159 Bureau of Refugees, 3:217 Burger, Warren E., 4:275 Burgoyne, Gen. John, 2:140, 141, 148, 3:55 Burke, Edmund, 2:5–6 Burnham, Daniel, 3:254–25, 3:254–255, 259, 264–265 Burr, Aaron, 2:175, 229, 263, 271–273, 275–277, 3:23 Burroughs, George, 1:258 Bus boycott (Montgomery, Alabama), 4:238 Bush, George H. W., 4:174, 228–229, 240, 247, 261, 277, 283, 285–287 Bush, George W., 4:284 Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núnez, 1:57, 65, 67–68, 70, 75 Cable News Network (CNN), 4:208 Cabot, John (Giovanni Caboto), 1:99, 110–111 Calef, Robert, 1:260, 265 Calhoun, John C., 2:278, 45, 51, 92, 126, 130, 146, 190 Calvert, Cecil, 1:177, 181–183 Calvert, George, 1:176–177 Calvert, Leonard, 1:177, 182–183 Calvin, John, 1:34, 84, 172 Calvinism, 1:34, 172, 2:27, 49, 2:66, 3:1, 9 Calvinist Puritans, 1:168–169 Cambodia, 4:219 Cambodian incursion (1970), 4:232–233 Campbell, John (Lord Loudon), 2:76–78 Canada Algonquins, 1:12–13, 40, 42, 47, 117, 220–221 American invasion of, 2:152–153 Buade’s stand for Quebec, 1:48 Cartier’s visits, 1:45–46 Champlain’s visits, 1:47–48 dependence on France, 2:69 exploration aid by slaves, 1:135 Great Treaty of Montreal, 1:41 Joliet in, 1:50–51 Quebec City, founding of, 1:38 siege of Quebec, 1:48, 50 Tecumsah supplied by, 3:44 Cancer de Barbastro, Fray Luis, 1:80 Cane (Toomer), 4:59

I-5

Canning, George, 3:88–89 Cape Cod/ranch-style homes, 4:132, 134, 137 See also Levittowns (NY, NJ, PA) Cárdenas, Garciá López de, 1:62, 65 Cardozo, Benjamin, 4:84 Carleton, Sir Guy, 2:152–153 Carmichael, Stokely, 4:247 Carnegie, Andrew (1835–1919), 3:163, 175–178, 279, 6 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1910), 3:178 Carnegie Steel, 3:163 Carson, Rachel, 4:142 Carter, Jimmy, 4:173, 273–274, 275, 278 Cartier, Jacques, 1:35, 37, 45–46, 84 Cartwright, Peter, 3:5–6, 8, 16–17, 19 Case, Lewis, 3:190 Cases of Conscience (Mather), 1:258 Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (Increase Mather), 1:268 Castillo de San Marcos (in St. Augustine), 1:92–93 Castro, Fidel, 4:172 Cateau-Cambresis Treaty, 1:33 Cato Institute, 4:278 Cattle ranching, 3:30–31 Cavelier, René-Robert, 1:36, 40–41, 49, 50 CCC. See Civilian Conservation Corps Census Bureau (U.S.), pre-1890 report, 3:239 Central America Contras/Sandinistas, 4:275 Court of Justice, 3:178 Central American Court of Justice, 3:178 Ceremonial cycles (Native Americans), 1:71, 73, 77 Cervera, Adm. Pascual, 3:277 Champlain, Samuel de, 1:38, 47, 47–48, 2:69 Channing, William, 3:3 Charles I (King of England), 1:169–170, 176–177, 181–182, 246 Charles II (King of England), 1:137, 169–170, 196–197, 203–204, 233, 246, 262, 2:50, 177 Charles IX (French King), 1:33, 81 Charles of Habsburg (Spain), 1:83–84 Charles V (Spanish Emperor), 1:68, 93, 168 Charlie’s Angels (TV show), 4:202 Charter of Liberties (England, 1701), 1:171 Chauncy, Pastor Charles, 2:54 Cheers (TV show), 4:202 Cherokee Indians, 1:5–6, 3:127, 132 Chesapeake naval affair, 3:42–43, 100 Cheves, Langdon, 3:124 Chiang Kai-shek, 4:171 Chicago, Illinois. See Burnham, Daniel; World’s Columbian Exposition (1893)

I-6

INDEX

Chickahominy Indians, 1:130 Chickasaw tribes, 3:49 Child, Lydia Maria (1802–1880), 3:78, 79–82 Child labor laws, 3:164–165 China war with Japan, 4:106 Choctaw tribes, 3:49 The Christian Philosopher (Cotton Mather), 1:268 Christianity abolition and, 3:68 ascendancy of Church, 2:21 banning of, 2:268 British/U.S. evangelicals, 1:152 Columbus era missionaries, 1:10–11 defense of slavery, 3:3 Dwight’s lectures on, 3:2 English North America, 1:167 Indian women conversions, 1:43 slave conversion attempts, 2:62 Chubb British warship, 3:56 Church, Benjamin, 1:223–224, 249 Church of England, 1:113, 168, 172, 1:172, 234, 2:26, 3:8 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 3:13–14 Churchill, Winston, 3:56–57, 4:105, 178 Atlantic Charter, 4:110 “iron curtain” speech, 4:175 Cities, Industrial Revolution growth, 3:165–167, 171 City Beautiful movement (Burnam), 3:264–265 “Civil Disobedience” essay (Thoreau), 2:167 Civil Rights Act (1866), 3:198, 3:198, 219 Civil Rights Act (1964), 4:226, 239, 245, 259 Civil Rights Act (1968), 4:239, 240 Civil Rights Movement (ca. 1954-Present), 4:237–256 Black Power movement, 4:247 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 4:237–239, 244 Civil Rights Act (1964), 4:226, 239, 245 Civil Rights Act (1968), 4:239, 240 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 4:240–249 Freedom Riders, 4:239 Freedom Summer, 4:247, 252–253 Greensboro Sit-Ins, 4:251–252 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 4:239, 244, 245–246, 253–255 Los Angeles Riots, 4:247, 256 March on Washington (1963), 4:239 Montgomery bus boycott, 4:238, 251 overview, 4:237–240 Plessy v. Ferguson, 4:12, 237, 241 Project C (confrontation), 4:246

SNCC, 4:225, 240, 245, 247 Voting Rights Act, 4:234, 239, 247 See also National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Civil Service Commission (U.S.), 4:1 Civil War (1861–1865), 1:77, 95, 153, 3:185–209 Army of the Potomac, 3:194, 201 commercial cattle ranching, 3:30 Confederate States of America, 3:143, 185, 200–202 Conscription Act, 3:195 Davis, Jefferson, 3:193, 202–204 Dred Scott decision, 3:191 economic impact of, 3:195–196 Emancipation Proclamation, 1:160, 3:194, 195, 196, 206 Gettysburg Address, 1:167, 2:167, 3:198, 207 Harper’s Ferry raid, 3:191 Indian revolts, 3:28 issues resolved by, 3:216 Kramer’s interpretive essay, 3:189–198 Lee’s surrender to Grant, 3:202, 207 Lincoln, Abraham, 3:204–207 Lincoln on cause of, 1:160 National Banking Acts, 3:197 Ordinance of Secession (South Carolina), 3:208–209 overview, 3:185–189 Radical Republican view of, 3:218–219 role in Industrial Revolution, 3:159 Sanitary Commission, 3:198 Sherman’s March to the Sea, 3:207–208 United States Military Railroads, 3:196 See also Abolition Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 4:77, 87 Clark, William, 3:25, 35 See also Lewis and Clark expedition Clark, York (d. 1770-ca. 1832), 3:33–35 Clarke, John, 1:169 Clarkin, Thomas, interpretive essays Abolition, 3:69–76 Expedition of Coronado, 1:58–66 French and Indian War, 2:73–81 Clay, Henry, 2:278, 3:44, 45, 70, 81, 87, 92, 109, 111, 114, 126, 139 See also Whig Party Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914), 4:4 Clayton-Bulwer agreement, 3:144 Clement VII (Pope), 1:168, 172 Cleveland, Grover, 3:96, 239, 259 Clinton, Bill, 4:229, 284 Clinton, Gov. DeWitt, 2:208, 3:130 Clinton, Gov. George, 2:224, 276 Clooney, George, 4:206

INDEX

Closing of the frontier (ca. 1890s), 3:233–251 costs of settlement, 3:238 Devine’s interpretive essay, 3:237–242 Ghost Dance movement, 3:29, 235, 243–245, 248, 250, 251 Immigration Reduction League, 3:239 Little Big Horn, Battle of, 3:234 mining phase, 3:233 myths about the frontier, 3:242 “New Frontier” slogan, 3:242 overview, 3:233–237 Sand Creek Massacre, 3:234 Sioux Indian War, 3:245–246, 247 Sitting Bull, 3:29, 235, 246–248 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 3:248–250 Wounded Knee Massacre, 3:245, 250–251 Cochrane, Sir Alexander, 3:54, 57 Cockburn, Sir George, 3:57 Cody, William F. “Buffalo Bill,” 3:30, 242 Coercive Acts (1774), 2:104, 127, 129 Coetus party (of Frelinghuysen), 2:61 Cohen, Lizabaeth “Consumers’ Republic,” 4:140 “Purchaser Citizens,” 4:136 Coit, Mehetabel Chandler, 2:203 Cold War, 4:115–117, 121, 169–197 atomic energy cause, 4:151 “Consumers’ Republic,” 4:140 Cuban Missile Crisis, 4:151, 175–176, 186–188 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 4:171–172, 188–190 Far East involvement, 4:171 inevitability of, 4:178–179 Korean War, 4:171, 175, 190–193 length of (1946–1991), 4:180 Mayers’ interpretive essay, 4:174–184 name derivation, 4:174–175 North-South Korea engagement, 4:124 nuclear arsenals, 4:155 overview, 4:169–174 Stalin’s inflammatory rhetoric, 4:170 Trotsky’s characterization of, 4:176 Truman, Harry, 4:169–170, 175, 178, 193–196 Colden, Cadwallader, 2:108 Cole, Donald B., 3:117 Coligny, Gaspard de, 1:34, 84 College of William and Mary (Virginia), 2:27 Colonial National Historic Park System, 1:112 Colonial Virginia, slavery (mid-18th century), 1:161–163 “Colored People’s Day” (Columbian Exposition), 3:261 Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 4:200, 206 Columbian Exposition. See World’s Columbian Exposition

I-7

Columbian Magazine (American Revolution era), 2:188–189 Columbine High School shooting, 4:209 Columbus, Christopher, 1:2, 15–16 childhood years, 1:2–3, 15 Document: journal (1492), 1:18–32 inspirational sources for, 1:15 Native Americans and, 1:6–8 plants/animals introduced by, 1:8–9 voyages/explorations, 1:3–4, 6–8, 15–16 See also Ferdinand V; Isabella I; World’s Columbian Exposition Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Causes, 1:234 Committee for Postponed Matters, 2:221 Committee of Correspondence, 2:108, 117 Committee of Safety, 1:242 Committee on Public Information (CPI), 4:25, 32, 37–38 Committee on the Conduct of the War (1861), 3:229 Common Sense pamphlet (Paine), 2:125, 161 Communist doctrine, 4:177 The Communist Manifesto, 4:117 Community antenna television (CATV), 4:201 Compact discs (CDs), 4:201 Compromise of 1850, 3:68, 133, 158 Compton, Henry, 1:234–235 Comte de Frontenac. See Buade, Louis de Confederate States of America (CSA), 3:143, 185, 191, 200–202 post-Civil War turmoil, 3:213 See also Davis, Jefferson Confiance British warship, 3:56 Congregational Churches (New England), 1:82, 2:149–150, 3:7 Congregationalists (“Old Lights”), 2:48 Congress (U.S.) arms appropriation for McKinley, 3:276 Bureau of Refugees, creation of, 3:217 Consumer Product Safety Act, 4:135 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, 4:135 Federal Highway Act, 4:139 Freedman’s Bureau, 3:212, 217 Lend-Lease military aid bill, 4:105 Macon’s Bill No. 2, 3:43 Meat Inspection Act, 4:2 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, 4:135 negative view of Confederacy, 3:211 Payne-Aldrich Tariff, 4:3 Prohibition legislation, 4:34 Pure Food and Drug Act, 4:2 Reconstruction passed by, 3:212, 214

I-8

INDEX

Revenue Act (1942), 4:108 Smoot-Hartley tariff bill, 4:76 support for FDR’s reforms, 4:84 Voting Rights Act, 4:239 War of 1812 actions, 3:44 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 4:39 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 4:243, 245 Congress of Vienna, 2:257 Connecticut Indians, 1:218 “Conscience Whigs,” 3:148 Conscription Act (1863), 3:195 Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes in the British Colonies, for the Purpose of raising a Revenue, by Act of Parliament (Dulany), 2:106 Constitution (U.S.), 2:30 Bill of Rights, 1:180, 2:32, 236–238 Eighteenth Amendment, 4:34 Electoral College, 2:221, 225–226, 263 Fifteenth Amendment, 3:22, 198, 4:51 First Amendment, 1:180, 2:269 Fourteenth Amendment, 3:198, 212 Nineteenth Amendment, 4:4, 34, 263 Seventeenth Amendment, 4:2–3 Sixteenth Amendment, 4:2–3, 11–12 Thirteenth Amendment, 1:156, 160, 3:198, 3:212, 219, 227, 4:51 Three-Fifths Compromise, 2:274 Twelfth Amendment, 2:175, 221, 264, 281–282 Twentieth Amendment, 4:77 Twenty-First Amendment, 4:5 “We the people” preamble, 2:31 Constitutional Convention (1787), 1:150, 159, 34, 106, 211–238 Anti-Federalists, 2:224–225 Bill of Rights (document), 2:236–238 Committee for Postponed Matters, 2:221 Committee of Style review, 2:222 Electoral College, 2:221, 225–226, 263 European observer experiences, 2:215 Franklin’s participation, 2:218, 220 Hamilton, Alexander, role, 2:226–229 Madison, James, role, 2:217, 218, 227, 229–232 New Jersey Plan (document), 2:220, 234–236 overview, 2:211–214 presidency discussions, 2:221 Supreme Court creation discussions, 2:219, 221 trade regulation discussions, 2:216 Virginia Plan (document), 2:218–219, 222, 232–234 Woods’ interpretive essay, 2:215–222 Consumer Product Safety Act (1970), 4:135 Continental Army, 2:125, 139, 154–155, 159–160 Continental Association (1774), 2:124, 130

Continental Congress (1776), 2:30, 36 Articles of Confederation adoption, 2:215 mission to France, 2:140 money plan, 2:144 Convention of 1800, 2:243, 252 Convention of 1818, 3:44 Convention of Pardo (1739), 2:9 Coode, John, 1:236–237, 241, 243 Cooker, Jay, 3:197 Cooper, James Fenimore, 3:242 Copernicus, 2:22–23 Copley, John Singleton, 2:148 Copley, Lionel, 1:236 Copper Sun (Cullen), 59 Corey, Giles, 1:259, 262, 264 Cornwallis, Lord Charles, 2:142, 147, 154 Coronado, Francisco Vásques de, 1:68–69 abandonment by followers, 1:69 appointment as governor, 1:57 interactions with Native Americans, 1:58, 62, 63, 72–73 la Tierra Nueva expedition, 1:58–60 loyalty of army to, 1:59 search for Quivira, 1:58, 63–64, 69 search for Seven Cities of Cíbola, 1:57, 59–61, 68, 75–76 Coronado Expedition (1540–1542), 1:55–78 background information, 1:55–58 Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núnez, 1:67–68 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 1:58–66 Esteban, 1:69–71 Hopi Indians, 1:71–73 Spanish colonization of Americas, 1:73–76 Zuni Indians, 1:61, 68–69, 76–78 Corporation Act, 1:235 “Corps of Discovery” exploration, 3:25 Cortés, Hernán, 1:55–56, 74 The Cosby Show (TV show), 4:202 Cotton Club jazz club, 4:58 Cotton gin, 1:150–151, 160 The Cotton Kingdom (Olmsted), 3:267 “Cotton Whigs,” 3:148 Coughlin, Charles E. “Radio Priest,” 4:79 Council for National Defense (CND, 1916), 4:24–25, 29, 30 Council of Trade and Plantations, 1:234–235, 237 Council of Trent, 1:43 Council of War (Rhode Island colony), 1:218 Court of Honor (Columbian Exposition), 3:254–255, 259, 261 Court of Oyer and Terminer (Massachusetts Bay Colony), 1:257, 262 Cowboy life, 3:30 Cowpens, Battle of, 2:146

INDEX

Crabgrass Frontier (Jackson), 4:131 Crandall, Prudence, 3:73 Crawford, William H., 3:92, 3:130 Crazy Horse (Native American chief ), 3:29 Credit cards, introduction of, 4:134 Credit Mobilier scandal, 4:5 Creek Indians, 3:47, 49, 125, 234 Creel, George, 4:32 Crevecoeur, St. John de, 3:238 The Crisis (Du Bois), 4:54, 60 Crittenden, John J., 3:191 Crockett, Davy, 3:242 Cromwell, Oliver, 1:169, 178, 183 Cronkite, Walter (1916–2009), 4:214–216 Crothers, A. Glenn, 3:5–14 Cruger, Nicholas, 2:226 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 4:151, 175–176, 186–188 Cuban Revolution (late 1950s), 1:96 Cullen, Countee, 4:55, 58, 59–60 Cullom, Shelby, 3:162 Currency Act (1751), 2:4, 99 Custer, George A., 3:234, 246 Custer’s Last Stand, 3:246 Cutler, Timothy, 2:54 D-Day invasion (northern France), 4:106 Danbury Baptist Association, 1:171 Darwin, Charles, 3:168, 273 Davenport, James, 2:53–54 Davie, William R., 2:250–251 Davis, Angela, 4:265 Davis, Jefferson, 3:193, 202–204, 3:217 Davis, Joseph (brother of Jefferson Davis), 3:217 Davyes, William, 1:233 Dawes, Phillip, 2:192 Dawes Act (1887), 1:73 Dawes Severalty Act, 3:234–235 The Day the Earth Stood Still (war movie), 4:224 De Delon, Daniel, 4:38 De Loet, Johannes, 1:193 De Soto, Hernando, 1:57, 75, 93–94 battles with indigenous peoples, 1:75, 86, 94 expedition failures, 1:80, 83 Gulf Coast exploration, 1:57 search for gold, 1:7 search for Seven Cities, 1:60 Deane, Silas, 2:140 Death Warrant of Five Women Convicted of Witchcraft (document), 1:274–275 Debs, Eugene V., 4:34, 38 Decapitation of Native American women prisoners, 1:218

I-9

Declaration of Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (Washington and Jefferson), 2:125, 179 Declaration of Colonial Rights and Grievances conceded to Parliament, 2:124 Declaration of Independence, 1:260, 139, 141, 159–185 Adams, Samuel, as signatory, 2:117 African Americans and, 2:169 Declaration of Independence (document), 2:182–185 diminishing power of, 2:169–170 Franklin’s involvement, 2:30, 34, 161–164, 173, 179, 182 George III, 2:171–172 God’s inclusion in, 2:23 Jefferson, Thomas, 2:172–176 Kennedy’s interpretive essay, 2:163–170 Lee’s proposal resolution, 2:161, 163, 182 Lincoln’s thoughts on, 2:167 Locke, John, 2:176–178 major premise of, 2:166 Olive Branch Petition, 2:125, 179–181 overview, 2:159–163 Second Continental Congress, 2:178–179 structural components, 2:165 Washington’s reading to troops, 2:164 See also Enlightenment in North America “Declaration of Intellectual Independence” speech (Emerson), 2:166–167 Declaration of Liberated Europe (1945), 4:169 Declaration of Sentiments (American Anti-Slavery Society), 3:73 “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” (Stanton), 2:167 “Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonies” (Stamp Act Congress), 2:103, 129–130 Declaratory Act (1776), 2:95, 104 Deism, 3:7 Democracy Triumphant (Carnegie), 3:178 Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 4:219–220 See also Vietnam War Democratic-Republican Party, 2:174, 228, 231, 254, 263, 277–278, 279, 3:7, 26, 36, 104, 126 Descartes, René, 2:176 “Detente” policy, 4:151, 173 Devil in the Shape of a Woman (Karlsen), 1:261 Dewey, George, 3:277, 283 See also Spanish-American War; U.S. Navy Dexter, Samuel, 2:250 Diaz, Melchior, 1:62 Dickens, Charles, 3:239 Diem, Ngo Dinh (South Vietnam prime minister), 4:220–221

I-10

INDEX

Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam village), 4:219 Diggers (communistic group), 1:170 Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Rousseau), 2:41–42 A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts (Rousseau), 2:41 The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit God (Edwards), 2:60 “Distributor of Stamps for Massachusetts.” See Oliver, Andrew Dominion of New England creation of, 1:239 dismantling of, 1:247 Domino Theory, 4:220 Donnelly, Ignatius, 3:239–240 Dorantes, Esteban de, 1:57 Dorantes de Carranza, Andrés de, 1:67–68, 70 Douglas, Aaron, 4:58 Douglas, Stephen A., 3:27, 190 Douglass, Frederick, 3:67, 75, 224, 261 Dow Chemical Company, 4:141 Dr. Strangelove (war movie), 4:224 Drake, Sir Francis, 1:100–101 Dreamer Religion (Native Americans), 3:244 Dred Scott decision, 3:191 Drinker, Elizabeth, 2:203 Du Bois, W.E.B., 1:135, 4:52–54, 56, 58 Dulaney, Daniel, 2:105–107 Dulles, John Foster, 4:172 Dunk, George (Earl of Halifax), 2:14 Dunlap, William, 2:148 Dunmore’s Proclamation (document, 1776), 2:156–157 Dupey de Lôme, Enrique, 3:274, 276 Dutch East India Company, 1:198, 206–207 Dutch Reformed Church, 1:207–208, 212, 2:49, 61 Dutch West India Company, 1:118, 136, 193–194, 196, 198, 200, 208–210 DVD (digital video disc), 4:201 Dwight, Timothy, 2:149, 3:2, 9 Eagle warship, 3:56 Earl of Chatham. See Pitt, William East India Company, 2:112, 117, 120, 123, 125 Eaton, John H. and Peggy, 3:127 Edenton (North Carolina) women, 2:191–192 Edison, Thomas, 3:159–160, 262 Education black colleges, 4:52 Progressive Era importance, 4:8–9 in Puritan communities, 2:205 push for academies for, 2:197 in Quaker communities, 2:189, 205

Willard’s role, 2:208–209 for women, 2:190 World Education Convention, 2:209 Edwards, Jonathan (1703–1758), 2:52, 55, 59–60, 3:2, 6–7 Egypt, 4:172 Eighteenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:34 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 4:120, 150–151, 171–172, 188–190, 209–210, 244 Election of 1876, 3:225 Electoral College, 2:221, 225–226, 263, 271–272 Eliot, John, 1:117, 216 Elizabeth I (Queen of England), 1:84, 100, 168, 172 Elizabethan Compromise (17th Century), 1:168 Elkins Act (1903), 4:2 Ellington, Duke, 4:55, 58 Ellsberg, Daniel, 4:226 Ellsworth, Oliver, 2:250 Ely, Richard, 3:239 Emancipation Proclamation (1862), 1:160, 3:194, 195, 196, 206, 216 Embargo Act (1807), 2:175, 3:43 Emergency Banking Act, 4:82 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 2:166, 3:3 The Empire of Business (Carnegie), 3:178 The End of Victory Culture (Engelhardt), 4:227 Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), 4:150 Engels, Friedrich, 3:169–170 Englehardt, Tom, 4:227 English Bill of Rights (document, 1689), 1:251–253 English Civil War, 1:177–178, 246 English Colonization Efforts (ca. 1584–1630), 1:99–116 Cabot, John, 1:110–111 “First Voyage to Roanoke” excerpt, 1:115–116 Jamestown, founding of, 1:82, 112 Kennedy’s interpretive essay, 1:103–109 overview, 1:99–103 Pilgrims, 1:112–113 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1:113–114 reasons for, 1:140 religious influences, 1:100 Roanoke Colonies, 1:114–115 English Reformation, 1:176 English Royal African Company, 1:138 Enlightenment in North America (1727–1790), 2:21–44 American Philosophical Society, 2:33–34 Franklin, Benjamin, 2:34–36 Junto, 2:36–37 Letter on Science and the Perfectibility of Men (Jefferson), 2:43–44

INDEX

overview, 2:21–24 Priestley, Joseph, 2:37–40 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 2:40–42 Skillin’s interpretive essay, 2:25–32 See also Declaration of Independence Epidemic diseases, 1:4 of Native Americans, 1:6–7, 40 in New England, 1:120 in St. Augustine, Florida, 1:82 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 4:239, 259 Equal Pay Act (1963), 4:259 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 4:257, 262, 264, 271, 275 Equal Rights Party, 3:129 Equiano, Olaudah, 1:148, 150, 153 “Era of Good Feelings” (1817–1825), 2:278, 3:103, 104, 105 Erie Canal construction, 3:130 Eriksson, Leif, 1:2 Espionage Act (1917), 4:33 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke), 2:177 Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life (Priestley), 2:38 Essex legal case, 3:41 Establishing Religious Freedom bill (Jefferson), 2:173 Esteban (Esteváncio the Moor), 1:60, 67–68, 69–71 European Age of Discovery, 1:33 European-Native American encounters (1607–1637), 1:117–134 Kennedy/Perdisatt’s interpretive essay, 1:120–127 Opechancanough, 1:129–130 overview, 1:117–120 Pequot War, 1:130–131 Pocahontas, 1:131–132 smallpox epidemic, 1:4, 40, 120, 128–129 Smith, John, 1:133–134 Squanto (Patuxet Indian), 1:134 European Renaissance, 1:135 Evans, George Henry, 3:129 Evarts, William M., 3:271 “Evil Empire” (Soviet Union), 4:152, 227–228 Excise Bill (1733), 2:10 Exposition and Protest pamphlet (Calhoun), 3:51 Fail Safe (war movie), 4:224 Fair Employment Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 4:243 A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (Edwards), 2:59

I-11

Falwell, Jerry, 4:279 Farmer’s Alliance, 1:95 Fascism, rise of, 4:85 Faust, Jessie, 4:58, 60 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (1965), 4:135 Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 4:199, 201, 206 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), 4:78, 280 Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), 4:77 Federal Highway Act (1956), 4:139 Federal Housing Authority (FHA), 4:132, 133, 139 Federal Reserve Act (1913), 4:4 Federal Reserve Bank, 3:125 Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), 4:4 Federalist Papers (Hamilton, Madison, Jay), 2:228, 230 Federalist Party, 2:174–175, 228, 229, 231, 239, 243 background/description, 2:278–280 commercial interests, 2:263 dissent within, 2:269 end of (1812), 3:44–45 Hamilton’s intellectual guidance, 2:79 Jefferson/Madison opposition to, 2:267–268, 3:50 War of 1812 opposed by, 2:280 Washington’s leadership of, 2:279 XYZ Affair issues, 2:246, 249 See also Adams, John The Female Review (Sampson), 2:207 The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 4:259, 264–265, 267–269 Feminist activism, 4:262–263 See also Women’s Rights Movement Feminist Majority, 4:267 Fendall, Josias, 1:233 Ferdinand V (King of Spain), 1:4, 15–16, 55, 73–74, 83 Ferdinand VII (King of Spain), 3:87, 88–89 Ferraro, Geraldine, 4:262 Ferris, George (1859–1896), 3:255, 265–267 Fessenden, William Pitt, 3:231 Fifteenth Amendment (Constitution), 3:22, 198, 4:51 Fifth Monarchy Men, 1:170 Filene, Edward, 4:134 Fillmore, Millard, 3:158 Finch British warship, 3:56 Fine Arts Building (Columbian Exposition), 3:254–255 Finney, Charles Grandison, 3:2–3, 4, 6, 13, 17–18

I-12

INDEX

First Amendment (Constitution), 1:180, 2:269 First Anglo-Dutch War (1652), 1:206 First Blood (war movie), 4:228 First Church of Boston, 2:54 First Continental Congress (1774), 2:106, 119, 124, 129–130, 152, 159, 178, 200, 209, 253 See also Intolerable Acts First Encounters, ca. 40,000 (BCE-CE 1492), 1:1–32 Algonquin, 1:12–13 Anasazi culture, 1:13–15 background information, 1:1–4 Columbus, Christopher, 1:15–16 Frank’s interpretive essay, 1:4–11 Hopewell culture, 1:17 Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492), 1:18–32 Mississippian culture, 1:17–18 First Great Awakening, 2:66, 3:1, 7–8 See also Second Great Awakening First Hundred Days (FDR Presidency), 4:89–90 First Seminole War, 1:95 “First Voyage to Roanoke” (Barlowe) excerpt, 1:115–116 Fisk College, 4:52 Fithian, Philip Vickers, 1:161–163 Five Nations of the Iroquois, 1:216–217 Flagler, Henry, 1:96, 3:182–183 Florentine Renaissance, 2:143 Florida, 1:94–97 Caribbean refugees in, 1:96–97 ceding of to Great Britain, 1:95 colonization attempts, 1:80, 81 Gulf Coast discovery, 1:74, 79, 83 Jesuit conversions in, 1:82 Luna y Arellano’s settlement attempts, 1:83 naming, by Ponce de Léon, 1:94 Philip II’s involvement in, 1:80–81, 83 post-WW II population changes, 1:96 See also St. Augustine, founding of Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, 4:38 Folk magic, 1:261 Food Administration, 4:25 Ford, Henry, 4:133 Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 3:74 Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 3:213 See also Ku Klux Klan Fort Laramie Treaty (1851), 3:27, 234, 247 Fort Wayne, Treaty of, 3:48 Fort Wilson riot, 2:144–145 Fortune magazine, 4:141–142 Founding Fathers (of the U.S.) Electoral College and distrust of, 2:225 engagement with Age of Reason, 2:32

fears of “factions,” 2:267 hierarchical/controlled systems, 2:166 role in Enlightenment of America, 2:25, 30 Fountain of Youth, 1:74 Fourteen Points (Wilson), 4:26, 47–49 Fourteenth Amendment (Constitution), 3:198, 212, 214 Fox, George, 1:178, 184–185 See also Quakers (Society of Friends) France abolitionists of, 1:152 Académie des Sciences of Paris, 2:25, 28 Canada claimed for, 1:46 Cavalier’s land claims for, 1:36 D-Day invasion, 4:106 five-man committee rulership, 2:240 Franklin’s mission to, 2:25, 140–142, 147 Jay’s mission to, 2:142, 147 Jefferson’s mission to, 2:147 Louis XIV, 1:49, 249 Louis XV, 2:256 Louis XVIII, 2:257–258 Murray’s mission to, 2:249–250 Oswald’s mission to, 2:147 Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:87 reign of Francis I, 1:33, 45 Revolutionary War aid to U.S., 2:239 Roman Catholic Church, 1:34 Spain vs., for North America, 1:83 Treaty of Alliance, 2:142, 146 Treaty of Paris signing, 1:44, 2:12, 72, 79, 87 West Africa’s wars with, 1:137 XYZ Affair (France), 2:201, 239–261 See also Cartier, Jacques; Coligny, Gaspard de; Marquette, Jacques; New France Francis I (French King), 1:33, 37, 46 Franciscan missionaries, 1:215 Franco-American alliance, 2:141 Frank, Andrew, 1:4–11 Franklin, Benjamin (1706–1790), 2:34–36 Adam’s jealousy of, 2:253 American Philosophical Society founded by, 2:29, 33–34 biographical information, 2:24, 34–36, 122 Constitutional Convention participation, 2:218, 220 Declaration of Independence involvement, 2:30, 34, 161–164, 173, 179, 182 electricity experiments, 2:29, 34–35 French and Indian War involvement, 2:75 Junto established by, 2:27–28, 36–37 mission to France, 2:25, 140–142, 147 Second Continental Congress participation, 2:173

INDEX

slavery opposed by, 3:69 stance for Native Americans, 2:35 Franklin, John Hope, 1:135 Franks, Abigail Bilhah Levy, 2:204 Fray Marcos, 1:60–61, 70–71 Frederick the Great (of Prussia), 2:139 Free Soil Party, 3:132, 157 Free Speech Movement (UC Berkeley), 4:225 Freedman’s Bureau, 3:212, 217, 219, 220 Freedom of the Will (Edwards), 2:60 Freedom Riders, 4:239, 245 Freedom Summer (1964), 4:247, 252–253 Freethinkers, 3:7 Frelinghuysen, Theodorus (1691-ca. 1747), 2:47, 52, 60–62 Fremont, Gen. John C., 3:192 French and Indian War (1756–1763), 1:41, 44, 92–93, 2:5, 69–92 Albany Plan of Union (document), 2:90–92 Braddock’s campaign, 2:72, 74–75, 83 Clarkin’s interpretive essay, 2:73–81 Great Britain and, 2:69–70 guerilla warfare, 2:71 Kentucky rifle introduction, 2:71 Montcalm-Gozon, Louis-Joseph de, 2:84–85 overview, 2:69–73 Pitt, William, 2:18, 72, 73, 78, 80, 85–87 problems created by, 2:93 Rogers, Robert, 1:223, 2:87–89 segmented state banner symbol, 2:160 Wolfe, James, 2:72, 78, 84–85, 89–90 French Company of the West Indies (company), 1:137 French in North America (1534–1701), 1:33–53 beaver trade, 1:38–39 Buade, Louis de, 1:48–50 Cartier, Jacques, 1:45–46 Champlain, Samuel de, 1:47–48 conversion of Indians to Catholicism, 1:41–42 fur trade, environmental consequences, 1:48 Hunt’s interpretive essay, 1:37–44 interactions with Native Americans, 1:35, 38, 39–40 Joliet, Louis, 1:50–51 King William’s War, 1:49–50 Marquette, Jacques, 1:51–53 “Middle Ground” legacy, 1:41 Mississippi River Valley exploration, 1:51–52 North America resettlement, 1:37 overview, 1:33–36 Thirty Years War, 1:49 French Indochina, 4:219–220 French Wars of Religion (1589), 1:37–38 French West Indies, 2:4

I-13

Friedan, Betty (1921–2006), 4:259, 264–265, 267–269 Friedman, Milton, 4:278 Friends of Equal Rights group, 3:129 Frobisher, Martin, 1:100–101 Frontenac, Comte de. See Buade, Louis de Frontier. See Closing of the frontier (ca. 1890s) The Frugal Housewife (Child), 3:80 Fuel Administration, 4:25 Fuller, Margaret, 3:3 Fuller, William, 1:178 Fulton, Robert, 3:36 Fur trade (17th/18th centuries), 1:48 Fur Trade Wars, 1:40, 43 Gabriel’s Rebellion (1800), 1:152 Gadsden Purchase, 3:203, 233 Gage, Thomas, 2:75–76, 88, 107, 118–119, 123–125, 129, 159 See also Bunker Hill, Battle of (1775) Galileo, 2:22–23 Gallatin, Albert, 2:246–247, 265, 3:52 Galloway, Joseph, 2:129 Gallup, John, 1:119 Garay, Francisco de, 1:55–56 Garfield, James, 3:174 Garland, Hamlin, 3:29 Garrison, William Lloyd, 3:66–67, 72–73, 75 See also American Anti-Slavery Society Garvey, Marcus, 4:55 See also Universal Negro Improvement Association Gates, Gen. Horatio, 2:140 The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (Smith, 1624), 1:133–134 Geneva Accords conference, 4:220–221 Gentleman and Lady’s Town and Country Magazine (Murray), 2:206 George, Henry, 3:162 George Fox Digg’d Out of His Burrowes (Williams), 1:187 George I (King of England), 2:6, 17–18 George II (King of England), 2:7, 9, 18, 93, 171 George III (King of England), 2:73, 87, 93, 109, 123, 125, 130, 140, 160, 171–172 See also Declaration of Independence; Olive Branch Petition George IV (King of England), 2:172 Germany Battle of the Bulge defeat, 4: 119–120 Berlin blockade, 4:171 British attacks on, 4:105 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, 4:86, 179

I-14

INDEX

response to Great Depression, 4:85 rise of Hitler, 4:85–86 submarine attacks by, 4:110 weapons development, 4: 154 World War II surrender, 4:169 Gerry, Elbridge, 2:222, 240–241, 243, 255–256 Gettysburg Address (Lincoln), 2:167, 3:198, 207 Ghana slave trading posts, 1:151 Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 2:232, 3:44, 47, 49, 54, 55, 60, 100 Ghost Dance religion (Native Americans), 3:29, 235, 243–245, 248, 250, 251 GI Bill, 4:136, 137 Gilded Age (1877–1901), 3:159, 161 Glass-Steagall Banking Act (1933), 4:78 The Gleaner (Murray), 2:206 Glee TV show, 4:204 The Glorious Cause (Middlekauff ), 2:165 Glorious Revolution in America (1688–1689), 1:168, 233–253 Andros, Sir Edmund, 1:246–247 Bacon’s Rebellion, 1:247–248 English Bill of Rights (document), 1:251–253 King William’s War, 1:248–250 Leisler, Jacob, 1:236–237, 250–251 Locke’s justification for, 2:162 origins of, 1:235, 247, 2:6–7 overview, 1:233–237 Swiney’s interpretive essay, 1:237–245 Gold and silver mining, 3:27, 233 Good, Sarah, 1:256, 258, 264 Good-Bye Columbus (Roth), 4:138 Good Neighbor Policy, 4:85–86 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 4:152, 174, 176, 277, 281–282 Gordon, William, 2:149 Gorgas, Gen. Josiah, 3:196 Gorton, Samuel, 1:175 Gosnold, Captain Bartholomew, 1:101, 112 “The Gospel of Wealth” (Carnegie), 3:177 Goulaine de Laudonnière, René, 1:81, 84 Gould, Jay, 3:163 Gradualism, 3:71–72 Graeme, Elizabeth, 2:28 Graham, Sylvester, 3:65 Grand Itinerants, 2:54 Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., 3:95, 143, 192, 201–202, 207, 215, 222, 223 Grasse, Admiral François de, 2:154 Great American Desert, 3:25 Great Awakening (ca. 1730s-1760), 1:208, 221, 2:45–67 Congregationalists (“Old Lights”), 2:48 controversy created during, 2:47–48 Edwards, Jonathan, 2:51, 59–60

Frelinghuysen, Theodorus, 2:51, 60–62 Halfway Covenant (1662), 2:45, 51 intellectual side of, 2:48–49 Kramer’s interpretive essay, 2:49–57 “Old Lights”/”New Lights,” 2:54–55 origins of, 2:51 overview, 2:45–49 pietism/revivalism during, 2:46–47, 49 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52 slave religion during, 2:62–63 Stoddard, Solomon, 2:45, 51 Tennent, GIlbert, 2:63–65 Whitefield, George, 2:65–66 women in, 2:66–67 See also Religious traditions Great Britain abolitionists of, 1:152 Atlantic Charter, 4:110 attacks on Germany, 4:105 capture of Washington, D.C., 3:57–58 Coercive Acts (1774), 2:104 Currency Act (1751), 2:4, 99 Declaratory Act, 2:95, 104 Florida ceded by Spain to, 1:95 French and Indian War and, 2:69–70 Intolerable Acts, 2:123 Jay’s Treaty, 2:147, 239, 251 losses at Bunker Hill, 2:153–154 Madison’s sanctions against, 3:25–26 mercantilist policies, 2:3 Molasses Act (1733), 2:4, 5, 8, 94 North American takeover by, 1:74 occupation of Oregon territory, 3:139 Orders-in-Council decrees, 3:41 Proclamation of 1763, 2:93–94, 97 Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:87 Quartering Act (1765), 2:102 salutary neglect policy, 2:70 Seven Years’ War (with France), 2:71 Sugar Act (1764), 2:5, 93–94, 99 Townshend Duties (1776), 2:104 Treaty of Alliance, 2:142, 146 Treaty of Ghent, 3:44 Treaty of Paris signing, 1:44, 2:12, 72, 79, 87 war with Holland, 1:205 Weber-Ashburton Treaty, 1:152–153 World War II involvement, 4:110 Yorktown, Battle of, 2:154 See also Stamp Act (1765) Great Commoner. See Pitt, William Great Depression (1929-ca. 1939), 4:39, 56, 75–103 Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 4:82–83, 84

INDEX

events leading up to, 4:80 First Hundred Days (FDR Presidency), 4:89–90 Greenspan’s interpretive essay, 4:79–87 Hoover, Herbert, 4:76–77, 79–80, 90–92 Long, Huey “Kingfish,” 4:79, 83–84, 92–93 National Recovery Administration, 4:78, 82, 84 overview, 4:75–79 post-WW I origins, 4:75 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 4:76–77, 81 Social Security Act, 4:84 stock market crash, 4:75, 80, 102–103 suburban housing boom, 4:132 Works Progress Administration, 4:78, 79, 84 See also New Deal; Roosevelt, Franklin D. Great Migration (of African-Americans, 1920), 2:145, 53, 54 Great Plains territory, 3:29–30 Great Society (Lyndon Johnson), 4:234 Great Swamp Fight, 23, 1:215, 217–218, 223, 225 Great Treaty of Montreal, 1:41 Great War for Empire, 2:71 See also Seven Years’ War Green, Nancy, 3:261 Green Party USA (political party), 4:146 Greene, Gen. Nathaniel, 2:202 Greenleaf, Stephen, 2:97 Greensboro Four activists, 4:141 Greensboro (North Caroline) Sit-Ins (1960), 4:251–252 Greenspan, Anders, 4:79–87 Greenwich Village (New York City), 4:59 Grenville, George, 2:73, 93, 98 Grenville, Richard, 1:101, 114 Grimké, Angelina and Sarah, 3:73, 78 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 3:141, 143, 149, 154, 190, 233 Guerilla warfare (French and Indian War), 2:71 Guilford Courthouse, Battle of, 2:146–147 Gulf War (1990), 4:229 Hague, Laura, 4:5–13 Hague Peace Palace (Netherlands), 3:178 Haitian Revolution (1791), 1:152 Hakluyt, Richard, 1:101 Hale, John, 1:265 Halfway Covenant (1662), 2:45, 51, 55 Hall of Manufactures (Columbian Exposition), 3:256 Hamilton, Alexander, 2:25, 174, 219, 226–229, 239 Bank of the United States actions, 3:123 commercial interests, 2:263 Federalist Papers, 2:228, 230

I-15

hatred of/duel with Aaron Burr, 2:273 intellectual guidance of Federalists, 2:79 letter attacking John Adams, 2:250 opposition to Murray’s French mission, 2:249–250 “The Stand” newspaper, 2:245 warrior ambitions of, 2:248 See also Federalist Papers; Federalist Party; Yorktown, Battle of (1781) Hampton Institute, 4:52 Hancock, John, 2:35, 102, 164, 178 Handy, Moses P., 3:258 Hanikuh (Zuni leader), 1:70 Hanoverian monarchy, 2:6–7, 8, 15–17, 73, 85–86 Hansen, Chadwick, 1:261 “The Harlem Dancer” (McKay), 4:59 Harlem Renaissance (1917–1935), 4:51–73 Beeby’s interpretive essay, 4:56–63 Hughes, Langston, 4:55, 56–58, 68–69 Hurston, Zora Neale, 4:57, 58, 69–70 Johnson, James Weldon, 4:58, 59, 70–72 McKay, Claude, 4:54, 57, 59, 72–73 NAACP, 4:13, 52, 58–60, 71–72 overview, 4:51–56 Harlem Shadows (McKay), 4:59 Harper’s Ferry raid (1859), 3:191 Harriet, the Moses of Her People (Bradford), 3:83 Harrison, William Henry, 3:43–44, 46, 48 Hartford Convention (1814), 3:44–45, 50, 52, 58–60 Hartford Treaty, 1:203 Harvard College, 2:24, 26, 53, 116, 126, 205, 241 Harvey, William, 2:22–23 Hat Act (1732), 2:3 Hatch Act (1939), 4:78 Hay, John, 3:275–276, 278 Hayden, Tom, 4:140 Hayes, Rutherford, 3:211, 215, 223, 225 Haymarket Riot (1886, Chicago), 4:7 Hays, John, 2:202 Hays, Mary Ludwig, 2:202–203 Haywood, Bill, 4:38 Hazel Bishop cosmetics, TV advertising, 4:205 Head Start program, 4:234 Hearst, William Randolph, 3:274, 276, 283–285 Henderson, Francis, 3:12 Henry, Patrick, 2:102–103, 117, 129, 226, 230, 3:69 Henry II (French King), 1:33 Henry IV (French King), 1:34, 36, 47 Henry VII (French King), 1:167, 172 Henry VII (King of England), 1:99, 111 Henry VIII (King of England), 1:100, 167–168, 172, 176, 234

I-16

INDEX

Hepburn Act (1906), 4:2, 18 Heritage Foundation, 4:278 Hernández de Córdoba, Francisco, 1:75 Hewes, George, account of Boston Tea Party (1773), 2:136–138 Hiacoomes (Native American), 1:121, 124–126 Hidden Persuaders (Packard), 4:140 Higher law, 2:168 Highway Revenue Act, 4:279 Hill, Anita, 4:263, 265–266 Hill Street Blues (TV show), 4:202 “Hippie” movement, 4:141 The History and Present State of Discoveries relating to Vision, Light and Colours (Priestley), 2:39 The History and Present State of Electricity with Original Experiments (Priestley), 2:38 The History of all the Branches of Experimental Philosophy (Priestley), 2:39 A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists (Backus), 3:16 History of the American Revolution (Ramsay), 2:149 The History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay (Thomas Hutchinson), 2:108 History of the Standard Oil Company (Tarbell), 3:184 History of the United States (Bancroft), 1:261 History of the World (Raleigh), 1:113 Hitler, Adolf, 4:85–86, 181, 242 Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam leader), 4:219–220, 224 Hohokam culture, 1:14 Holy Alliance Latin America ambitions, 3:92–93 Monroe’s warnings against, 3:94 Holy Roman Emperor, 1:83 Home to Harlem (McKay), 4:57 Homestead Act (1862), 3:28, 196, 236 Homestead Strike (1892, Pennsylvania), 4:7 Hong, Stephen H., 3:25 Hoover, Herbert, 4:76–77, 79–80, 90–92 presidency of, 4:79–80 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 4:76–77 Roosevelt vs. (presidential election), 4:77 Hopewell culture, 1:17 Hopi Indians (“Peaceful People”), 1:68, 71–73 Hopkins, Lemuel, 2:149 Hopkinson, Francis, 2:148 Horseshoe Bend, Battle of, 3:47 House Committee on Un-American Activities, 4:182 House of Burgesses (Virginia), 1:157, 2:102 House of Commons, 1:176

Boston Tea Party role, 2:118 Grenville’s role, 2:100–101, 103 Newcastle’s role, 2:15, 16–18 Pitt’s role, 2:85–86, 103 repeal of Stamp Act, Declaratory bill, 2:104 Walpole’s role, 2:9–10 Houston, Charles, 4:237 Houston, Sam, 3:138 Howard (Lord of Effingham), 1:236 Howard University, 4:52, 54 Howe, Elizabeth, 1:258 Howe, Gen. Sir William, 2:153–154 Howells, William Dean, 3:272 Hudson, Henry, 1:193, 197–198 Hughes, Langston, 4:55, 56–57, 56–58, 58, 68–69 Huguenots, 1:34, 37, 81, 84 Hull House (Jane Addams), 3:170 Hulu Web site, 4:204 Humphreys, David, 2:149 Hungarian Revolution, 4:175 Hunt, Capt. Thomas, 1:118 Hunt, John M., 1:37–44 Hunt, Richard, 3:255 Hunters and gatherers, 1:1, 5 Huron nation, 1:38, 47 Hurston, Zora Neale, 4:57, 58, 69–70 Hutchinson, Anne, 1:174–175, 183–184, 263, 2:49–50 Hutchinson, Thomas, 2:35, 90, 95, 107–108, 121–12 Hutchinson, William, 1:174–175 “Hydra of corruption” (of Biddle), 3:112 ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), 4:154 “If We Must Die” (McKay), 4:54 Igbo language (Africa), 1:148 Immigration Reduction League (1894), 3:239 Independent Treasury Act (1846), 3:154 Indian War (1675–1676), 1:247 Indians. See Native Americans Indigenous peoples Cabeza de Vaca and, 1:57 early North America, 1:1 Ponce de Léon confrontations with, 1:75 Industrial, northern states, 3:65 Industrial Revolution (ca. 1860s-1890s), 3:159–184 American Federation of Labor, 3:162 Bell, Alexander Graham, 3:173–175 Carnegie, Andrew, 3:175–178 child labor laws, 3:164–165 Edison’s inventions, 3:159–160 growth of cities, 3:165–167, 171 Knights of Labor (labor union), 3:161–162

INDEX

labor practices/unions, 3:161, 168, 170, 178–179 meat packing plants, 3:160 Morgan, J. P., 3:179–181 onset of (1794), 1:151 overview, 3:159–163 railroads, 3:165, 175 Rockefeller, John D., 3:181–184 steel industry, 3:160–161, 163, 171 women’s movements, 3:170–171 Woods’ interpretive essay, 3:163–171 World’s Columbian Exposition and, 3:257, 263 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), 4:34, 38–39 The Influence of Sea Power upon History (Mahan), 3:272 Ingoldesby, Maj. Robert, 1:251 “Innocent Blood Crying to God from the Streets of Boston” pamphlet (Sam Adams), 2:116 Intercolonial congress. See First Continental Congress (1774) Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) treaty (1987), 4:152, 174, 277, 281–282 International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 4:229 Internment camps, of Japanese, in U.S., 4:109, 114 Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 3:162, 163 Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), 3:162, 4:2, 18 Intolerable Acts, 2:123, 159 Iran, 4:169 Iran-Contra Scandal, 4:276, 288 Iron Act (1750), 2:3 Iroquois nations, 1:38 Irvine, Col. William, 2:202 Isabella I (Queen of Spain), 1:4, 15–16, 83 Italian expeditions to America, 1:99 See also Cabot, John (Giovanni Caboto) Izard, George, 3:55 Jackson, Andrew (1767–1845) admission to bar, 3:125 Bank of America favored by, 3:111–112 Battle of New Orleans actions, 3:110 biographical data, 3:125–128 “Kitchen Cabinet” of, 3:126 presidency of, 3:114, 116, 124 Texas annexation, 3:138 Trail of Tears against Cherokees, 3:127 War of 1812 participation, 3:23–24, 45, 47, 54, 92, 3:109 Jacksonian Democracy (1828–1840), 3:109–135 Bank of the United States, 3:111–112, 122–125 Bank War, 3:129 codification of common law, 3:119–120

I-17

Equal Rights Party, 3:129 Free Soil Party, 3:132 Friends of Equal Rights group, 3:129 Jackson, Andrew, 3:125–128 Locofoco Party, 3:128–129 Mackey’s interpretive essay, 3:113–121 Nullification Document (Jackson), 3:134–135 overview, 3:109–113 Van Buren, Martin, 3:129–132 Whig Party, 2:278, 3:67, 81, 132–134 Workingman’s Party, 3:128 Jacobite rebellion (1715), 2:7, 249 Jacobs, George, Sr., 1:258 Jacobsen, Capt. Cornelius, 1:199 James (Duke of York), 1:239 James, Henry, 3:272 James, William, 2:60 James I (King of England), 1:101, 137, 169, 170, 196, 2:112 James II (King of England), 1:234, 239, 249, 250, 2:6–7 Jamestown arrival of slaves, 1:136 founding (1607), 1:82, 112, 121 naming of, 1:101 Opechancanough attack on, 1:130 Tercentenary Exposition, 1:100 Japan atomic bombing of, 4:107, 116, 150, 154, 159 internment order (1942), 4:109, 114, 128–129 Pearl Harbor attack, 4:106, 107, 110–111, 126–127 war with China, 4:106 Jarratt, Devereux, 2:55–56 Jay, John, 2:129, 142, 147, 3:36 See also Federalist Papers Jay’s Treaty (1795), 2:147, 239, 251 Jefferson, Thomas, 1:145–146, 160, 3:142, 190 Adams, John, association with, 2:174 American Philosophical Society activities, 2:176 anti-Federalist stance, 2:263 anti-slavery document signing, 2:221 anti-slavery stance, 3:70 Bible edited by, 2:26 “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” 2:57 Committees of Correspondence and, 2:117 Continental Congress participation, 2:173, 174 Danbury Baptist Association speech, 1:171 Declaration of Independence role, 2:162, 164, 172–176 1800 presidential election, 2:263 election of 1800 viewpoint, 2:266–267 election to vice-presidency, 2:28 embargo on East India Company, 2:129

I-18

INDEX

Essex legal case, 3:41 Establishing Religious Freedom bill, 2:173 Federalists opposed by, 2:267 as Founding Father, 2:25 higher law and, 2:168 Kentucky Resolution, 2:175, 247, 269 Letter on Science and the Perfectibility of Men, 2:43–44 Louisiana Purchase viewpoint, 2:266 mission to France, 2:147 Monroe’s studies with, 3:103 More General Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 2:173 Notes on the State of Virginia, 2:30, 174, 3:169 presidency of, 2:273, 3:21 Quasi-War affair viewpoint, 2:250 Report of Government for the Western Territory, 2:174 resolutions penned by, 2:247 A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 2:164, 172 vice-presidency of, 2:265 Virginia State of Religious Freedom, 2:172 Washington’s association with, 2:174 See also Louisiana Purchase The Jeffersonian Image in the American Mind (Peterson), 3:31 Jenkin’s Ear, War of, 2:9 Jennings, William Sherman, 1:96 Jesuits (Society of Jesus) Beaver Wars and, 1:40 Canadian settlements, 1:38 college in Quebec, 1:50 conversion of Native Americans, 1:36, 40, 42–43, 215 conversions in Florida, 1:82 New France missions, 1:42 Jewish people, 1:170, 175 Jim Crow Laws, 4:54, 241–242 John Brown’s Final Statement to Virginia Court, 3:84–85 John I (King of England), 1:167 Johnson, Andrew, 3:95 biographical background, 3:226–228 Black Codes enactment, 3:213 Reconstruction ideas of, 3:211–212, 217–218 resistance to Fourteenth Amendment, 3:212 Johnson, James Weldon, 4:58, 59, 70–72 Johnson, Lyndon, 4:135, 221–222, 233–234, 239–240 Johnson, Sir William, 2:75, 87–88 Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), 4:150 Joliet, Louis, 1:50–51

Jones, Mary Harris (Mother Jones), 4:38 Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492), 1:18–32 “A Journal of the Times” newspaper series, 2:194 Journals of Lewis and Clark, 3:38–39 A Journey in the Back Country (Olmsted), 3:267 A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (Olmsted), 3:267 A Journey through Texas (Olmsted), 3:267 Judiciary Act (1789), 2:266 Judiciary Act (1801), 2:265 The Jungle (Sinclair), 4:2, 20 Kalman, Laura, 2:168–169 Kansas-Nebraska Act, 3:28 Karlsen, Carol, 1:261 Katsinas (ceremonial spirits), 1:71 Kelly, Abby, 3:74 Kennan, George, 4:170, 182 Kennedy, Anthony M., 4:275, 280 Kennedy, John F., 3:242, 4:172–173, 202, 208, 210, 220, 259 Kennedy, Rick, 1:103–109, 120–127, 2:163–170 Kennedy, Robert F., 4:234 Kentucky Resolution (Jefferson), 2:175, 247, 2:247, 269, 3:190 Kentucky rifle introduction, 2:71 Kerber, Linda, 2:189, 196 Kerner Commission Report, 4:240 Kerry, John, 4:229 A Key into the Language of America (Williams), 1:186 Khrushchev, Nikita, 4:172–173 Kieft, Willem, 1:201–202 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 2:169, 225, 239, 244, 245–246, 253–255, 264 King George’s War (1743–1748), 2:73, 87 King Philip’s War (1675–1676), 1:186, 213–231, 263 Bacon’s Rebellion association with, 1:247 Church, Benjamin, 1:223–224 defeat of Algonquins, 1:220–221 Great Swamp Fight, 1:215, 217–218, 223, 225 Massasoit Peace Treaty (document), 1:230–231 Metacom (ca. 1638–1676), 1:224–226 Mohawk Indians and, 1:215 Narragansett Indians and, 1:213–214 Narragansetts, 1:226–227 overview, 1:213–216 Powhatan confederacy depopulation, 215–216 Rowlandson, Mary, 1:227–228 Savage, Thomas Savage, 1:214 Siry’s interpretive essay, 1:216–222 triggering event, 1:223 Wampanoag Indians, 1:126, 214, 217, 223, 228–230

INDEX

King William’s War (1689–1697), 1:49–50, 248– 250, 2:73 King’s Mountain (NC) battle, 2:146 Kinnersley, Ebenezer, 2:29 Kinsey, Alfred, 4:257 Kipling, Rudyard, 3:273 Kissinger, Henry, 4:173, 222, 282 “Kitchen Cabinet” (of Jackson), 3:126 Kiva ceremony (Hopis), 1:71 Knights of Labor (labor union), 3:161–162 Knox, Hugh, 2:226 Knox, Lucy Flucker, 2:195 Kongo Empire slave trading posts, 1:151 Korean War, 4:171, 175, 190–193, 202, 219 Kramer, Carl E., 2:49–57 Kramer, Heinrich, 1:259 Krol, Bastiaen Jansen, 1:194 Ku Klux Klan (KKK), 3:213, 221 La Farge, Oliver, 1:72 La Follette, Robert “Fighting Bob” (1855–1925), 4:15–16 Labor practices/unions, Industrial Revolution era, 3:161, 168, 170, 178–179 Lachine Massacre, 1:249 Ladies Association of Philadelphia, 2:145 “A Lady’s Adieu to Her Tea-Table” poem, 2:194 Lake George, Battle of, 2:75 Lamb, John, 2:108 Laos, 4:219 Larsen, Nella, 4:58 Latin America, 1:96, 2:2 anti-Napoleonic movements, 3:87 Franco-Spanish military expedition, 3:89 Holy Alliance interest in, 3:92–93 progressive revolutionaries, 2:166 Roosevelt’s involvement with, 3:96 slave labor colonies in, 1:156 Spanish-American War origination, 3:274 U.S. protection for, 3:104 U.S./Great Britain’s interests, 3:88, 91 See also Bolívar, Simón; Monroe Doctrine Latin Christian Church, 1:167 Laurens, Henry, 2:147 Lawrence, William Van Duzer, 4:131 Lay, Benjamin, 3:69 League of Nations, 4:16, 25–26, 26, 39–40, 85 Lecompton Constitution, 3:191 Lectures on History and General Policy (Priestley), 2:38 Lectures on Revivals (Finney), 3:18 Lectures on Systematic Theology (Finney), 3:18 Lee, Arthur, 2:140 Lee, Gen. Charles, 2:202

I-19

Lee, Gen. Robert E., 194, 201–202, 207 Lee, Richard Henry, 2:161, 163, 182, 253 See also Resolution Proposing a Declaration of Independence Lee, Robert E., 3:143 LeFeber, Walter, 3:240 Legal Defense Fund (NAACP), 4:237 Legal Realism at Yale, 1927–1960 (Kalman), 2:168–169 Legal Tender Act (1862), 3:197 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 2:177 Leisler, Jacob, 1:236–237, 241–242, 250–251 Lend-Lease military aid bill, 4:105, 178 Leopard (British ship), 3:42–43 A Letter Concerning Toleration (Locke), 2:177 Letter on Science and the Perfectibility of Men (Jefferson), 2:43–44 Letters and Sketches of Sermons (Murray), 2:206 Letters from an American Farmer (Crevecoeur), 3:238–239 Levitt, Alfred and William, 4:132–134, 136–138 Levittowns (NY, NJ, PA), 4:132–134, 136–137, 144 Lewis, David Levering, 4:59 Lewis, Meriwether, 3:25, 35 See also Lewis and Clark expedition Lewis and Clark expedition (1803–1806), 3:35–36 “Corps of Discovery” exploration, 3:25, 35 journal excerpts, 3:38–39 Sacajawea’s assistance, 3:34, 37–38 York Clark’s assistance, 3:33–35 Lexington and Concord, Battle of,, 2:30, 35, 124–125, 130, 131–132, 153, 159, 171, 172 The Liberator (First Edition) excerpt, 3:66–67, 72, 78, 83–84 Liberia, 3:65–66 Liberty Bonds, 4:32 Liberty Party, 3:65, 67, 75, 79, 81–82 Light Brigade, 3:57 Limerick, Patricia Nelson, 3:241 Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963), 4:156 Lincoln, Abraham, 1:77, 3:204–207 Acts of Confiscation, 3:193 Amnesty and Reconstruction Proclamation, 3:211 appointment of Johnson, 3:226 assassination of, 3:207, 211, 218 on cause of Civil War, 1:160 Democratic Party vs., 3:185, 206 1860 presidential election, 3:191 Emancipation Proclamation, 1:160, 3:194, 195, 196, 206, 216 Gettysburg Address, 2:167, 3:198, 207 inauguration (1861), 3:192

I-20

INDEX

Mexican-American War opposition, 3:205 Republican abolitionist support, 3:194 rivalry with Cartwright, 3:16 Ten Percent Plan, 3:211 thoughts on Declaration of Independence, 2:167 Lindbergh, Charles, 4:134 Linnaeus, Carl, 2:29 Linnet British warship, 3:56 Little Belt (American vessel), 3:44 Little Big Horn, Battle of, 3:234, 245 Livingston, Robert R. (1746–1813), 2:173, 3:22, 36–37, 104 Lloyd, Henry D., 3:163 Locke, Alain, 4:58 Locke, John, 2:59, 143, 162, 176–178 See also Declaration of Independence Lockwood, W. J., 4:139 Locofoco Party, 3:128–129 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 3:271, 279 Logan, James, 2:25 Long, Huey “Kingfish,” 4:79, 83–84 Long Island (NY) suburbanization, 4:132–134 Looking Backward (Bellamy), 3:163 Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation (document, 1776), 2:156–157 Lords of Trade (1675), 1:239 Lords of Trade and Plantations, 1:246 Los Alamos, New Mexico (Manhattan Project), 4:149 Los Angeles Riots (1992), 4:247, 256 Louis XIV (French King), 1:49, 249 Louis XV (French King), 2:256 Louis XVIII (French King), 2:257–258 Louisiana Purchase (1803), 2:266, 3:21–39, 233 Clark, York, 3:33–35 initial steps, 3:24 Journals of Lewis and Clark, 3:38–39 land acquisitions, 3:26 Lewis and Clark expedition, 3:35–36 Livingston, Robert R., 3:36–37 overview, 3:21–24 role of Jefferson, 3:21 Sacajawea, 3:37–38 Siry’s interpretive essay, 3:24–31 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904, St. Louis), 3:267 Louisiana Territory, 2:175, 251 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 2:266, 3:21–22, 261 Loyola, Ignatius, 1:52 Luna y Arellano, Tristán de, 1:80, 83 Lundy’s Lane, Battle of (1814), 3:154 Luther, Martin, 1:83–84, 167, 172, 2:22 Lutheranism, 1:83–84, 2:50 Lyon, Matthew, 2:242, 269

Mabila, Battle of (Florida), 1:94 MacArthur, Douglas, 4:81–82, 122–125 MacArthur, Gen. Arthur, 3:275 MacArthur, Gen. Douglas, 4:81–82 Mackey, Thomas A. Jacksonian Democracy, 3:113–121 Stamp Act, 2:96–105 surrender of New Amsterdam, 1:197–205 Macomb, Alexander, 3:55, 56 Macon’s Bill No. 2, 3:43 Madison, James Federalists opposed by, 2:267, 3:50 resolutions penned by, 2:247 role in War of 1812, 3:45 sanctions against Great Britain, 3:25–26 Treaty of Ghent accepted by, 3:51 view of federal government, 3:123 Virginia Resolution, 2:247, 269 Madison, James (1751–1836), 2:217, 218, 227, 229–232 Magazines, American Revolution era, 2:188–189 Magic Electric Button (Columbian Exposition), 3:259 Magnalia Christi Americana (Cotton Mather), 1:267 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 3:272, 280 Main-Travelled Roads (Garland), 3:29 Malcolm, Pulteney, 3:57 Malcolm X, 4:247 Malenkov, George, 4:175 Manhattan Project (atomic bomb), 4:149, 161 Manifest destiny (1840s), 3:46 Manila Bay, Battle of, 3:283 Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building (Columbian Exposition), 3:261 Manufacturing Acts, 2:3 Mao Zedong, 4:171, 182–183 Marbury v. Madison, (Supreme Court decision), 2:265–266 March to the Sea (Sherman, 1864), 3:207–208 Marcos de Niza, Fray. See Fray Marcos Marcy, William L., 3:117–118 Marital rape, criminalization of, 4:260–261 Markham, Sir Clements Robert, 1:18 See also Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492) Marquette, Jacques, 1:36, 51–53 Marshall, George, 4:170, 182–183 Marshall, John, 2:240, 250, 266, 3:25, 70 Marshall, Thurgood, 4:237, 242 Marshall Plan, 4:115, 170–171, 175, 181 Martha’s Vineyard (Massachusetts), 1:117, 125 Martial law, 3:214 Martin, Joseph Plumb, 2:196

INDEX

Martin, Susannah, 1:258, 264 Marx, Karl (Marxism), 3:169–170, 4:177, 180 Mary II (English monarch), 1:236, 241, 243, 247 Mary III (English monarch), 1:178 The Mary Tyler Moore Show (TV show), 4:202 Maryland Act of Toleration (Lord Baltimore, 1649), 1:189–192 M*A*S*H (TV show), 4:202, 204 Massachusetts Bay Colony Court of Oyer and Terminer, 1:257, 262 founding by Puritans, 1:113 Gorton’s expulsion from, 1:175 growth phase, 1:102 Hutchinson’s expulsion from, 1:183 Phips’ service to, 1:249, 257, 258, 263, 271 Plymouth Colony merge with, 1:235–236 Puritan founding of, 1:113, 238 ruling by self-proclaimed “saints,” 1:168 separation of church and state, 1:264 Stone’s expulsion from, 1:119 structure/purpose of, 1:107 Williams’s expulsion from, 1:173, 187 Massachusetts Bay Company, 1:10, 102–105, 130–131, 168, 2:50 Massachusetts Government Act, 2:118 Massachusetts Justice Act, 2:123 Massasoit Peace Treaty (document), 1:230–231 Matanzas (Place of Killing), in Florida, 1:81 Mateo Sagasta, Praxedes, 3:276 Mather, Cotton (son of Increase), 1:123, 217, 260, 265, 266–268, 2:50 Mather, Increase (father of Cotton), 1:258, 268– 269 Mattox, Henry E., 2:119–126 Maximilian I (Spanish Emperor), 1:83, 95 Mayhew, Thomas, 1:117, 124–126 McCain, John, 4:229 McCall’s women’s magazines, 4:258 McCarthy, Eugene, 4:234 McCarthy, Joseph, 1:259, 262, 4:150, 160, 171, 182, 202 McCarthyism, 4:150, 171, 258 McCauley, Mary Ludwig Hays, 2:196 McClellan, Gen. George B., 3:156, 194, 201, 206, 229 McDougall, Alexander, 2:108 McFarlane, Robert, 4:276 McGinniss, Joe, 4:210 McGovern, George, 4:226 McGready, James, 3:8, 18–19 McHenry, James, 2:229, 244, 250 McKay, Claude, 4:54, 57, 59, 72–73 McKinley, William, 3:96, 274, 276–277, 279, 285–287, 4:1

I-21

McLaurin v. Oklahoma (Supreme Court decision), 4:243 McLuhan, Marshall, 4:207 McNamara, Robert, 4:220 Measles epidemic, 1:4 Meat Inspection Act (1906), 4:2, 18 Meat packing plants, 3:160 The Medium, or A Happy Teaparty play (Murray), 2:206 Megapolensis, Johannes, 1:208 Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions (Cotton Mather), 1:267 A Memorial Relating to the Kennebeck Indians (Sewall), 1:272 Mendoza, Antonio de, 1:57 Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro, 1:81, 85 colony maintained by, 1:87–88 defeat of French in St. Augustine, 1:86 expedition to Florida, 1:81, 85 post-death succession of, 1:90 St. Augustine christened by, 1:83, 85 Mennonites, 2:50 Mercantilism, 2:14 Acts of Trade (1660), 2:7 colonies development of, 2:1–2 described, 2:14 Great Britain’s policies, 2:3 Hat Act (1732), 2:3 Iron Act (1750), 2:3 Molasses Act (1733), 2:4, 5 Sugar Act (1764), 2:5 Woolens Act (1699), 2:3 See also Navigation Acts Meredith, James, 4:245 Metacom (ca. 1638–1676), 1:217, 224–226 attack of camp of, 1:219 English humiliation of, 1:216 murder of, 1:219 poisoning of brother of, 1:124 war with Puritans, 1:126, 217 Methodism, 2:47, 53, 56, 65, 150, 3:1, 2 See also Wesley, John Mexican-American War, 3:132, 137–158 Buena Vista, Battle of, 3:138, 140–141, 144, 152, 157, 203 Confederate involvement, 3:143 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 3:141, 143, 149, 154, 190 overview, 3:137–141 Polk, James, 3:152–154 Rakestraw’s interpretive essay, 3:141–149 Scott, Winfield, 3:154–156 Taylor, Zachary, 3:132, 133, 156–158 Wilmot Proviso (document), 3:158

I-22

INDEX

Mexico Aztec Empire, 1:98 gold and silver resources, 1:140 independence won from Spain, 3:137 “Middle Ground” legacy (French colonialism), 1:41 Middle Passage (of slave trade journey), 1:149– 150, 158 Middle Plantation Treaty (1677), 1:248 Middlekauff, Robert, 2:165 Midway, Battle of, 4:106 Military Affairs Committee, 4:42 Military Reconstruction Act of March 1867, 3:214 Miller, Perry, 1:260 Mining phase of Western settlement, 3:233–234 Minor, Elizabeth Montague, 2:203–204 Minuit, Peter, 1:193, 210–211 New Netherland Colony service, 1:193, 199, 200 purchase of Manhattan Island, 1:209 Swedish South Company service, 1:195 Mississippi Rifles Unit (Civil War), 3:203 Mississippi River Valley exploration, 1:50–52 Mississippian culture, 1:17–18 Missouri Compromise (1820), 1:160, 3:27–28, 148, 191–192 Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 4:242 “Model of Christian Charity” essay (Winthrop), 1:103, 104, 106, 108, 109 Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (Farnham), 4:257 Mogollon culture, 1:14 Mohawk Indians, 1:118, 215 Mohawk tribe (of Iroquois nation), 1:42 Mohegan tribe, 1:227 Moki (Moqui) Indians. See Hopi Indians (“Peaceful People”) Molasses Act document (1733), 2:4, 5, 8, 18–20, 94 Monmouth, Battle of, 2:196, 202 Monroe, James, 2:278, 3:22, 26, 36, 103–105, 126 Monroe Doctrine (1823), 3:87–107 Adams, John Quincy, 3:99–101 basic points, 3:89–90 Bolívar, Simón, 3:101–103 Felten’s interpretive essay, 3:90–97 Monroe, James, 3:103–105 Monroe Doctrine document, 3:105–107 overview, 3:87–90, 171 Roosevelt, Theodore, 3:96–97 Roosevelt Corollary, 3:96 Montcalm-Gozon, Louis-Joseph de, 2:72, 77, 84–85 Montesquieu, Baron de, 2:215 Montgomery, Richard, 2:152–153 Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956), 4:238, 251

Moore, James, 1:92 Moral Majority (Falwell), 4:279 Moravians, 2:50, 189 More Wonders of the Invisible World (Calef ), 1:260 Morgan, Edmund S., 1:121 Morgan, J. P., 3:163–164, 4:2, 6 Mormonism, 3:13–14 Morrill Land-Grant College Act, 3:196–197 Morris, Gouvernor (NY State), 3:36 Morse, Jedediah, 2:149 Môrtefontaine, Treaty of (1800), 2:252 Morton, Levi, 3:259 Moseley, Capt. Samuel, 1:218 Motherhood in the colonial era, 2:203–205 Mott, Lucretia, 3:78 Moyne, Pierre le, 1:36 Mr. Cotton’s Letter Lately Printed, Examined, and Answered (Williams), 1:186 MTV TV show, 4:207 Muckrakers, 4:1 Munford, Robert, 2:148 Murray, Donald Gaines, 4:242 Murray, Judith Sargent, 2:189, 198, 205–206 Murray, William Vans, 2:249 Murray v. Maryland (Supreme Court decision), 4:237, 242 Murrow, Edward R., 4:206 Mutiny Act, 1:235 Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), 4:155–156 My Lai massacre (Vietnam War), 4:227 The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction (Trend), 4:209 Nader, Ralph, 4:142, 144–146 Napoleon III, 3:95 Napoleonic Wars (1803–1805), 1:152, 3:41, 87 Narragansett tribe/group of tribes, 1:213–214, 226–227 Narváez, Pánfilo de, 1:56–57, 75 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 4:172 Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831), 1:152, 158–159, 3:72 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 2:169, 4:13, 52, 58–60, 59, 71–72, 237, 242 National Association Opposed to Women Suffrage (1911), 4:2 National Banking Acts (1863, 1864), 3:197 National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 4:201 National Educational Television (NET), 4:201 National Intelligencer Offices, 3:58 National Labor Relations (or Wagner) Act (1935), 4:78 National Organization for Women (NOW), 4:259–260, 269

INDEX

National Park Service (1916), 4:13 National People’s Party (1892), 3:30 National Recovery Administration (NRA), 4:78, 82, 84, 87 National Right to Life Committee, 4:261 National Security Council (NSC), 4:276 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 4:135, 142 National Urban League (NUL), 4:58, 59 Native Americans Algonquins, 1:12–13, 40, 42, 47, 117, 217–218, 220–221 Anasazi culture, 1:13–15 Battle of Pavonia, 1:202 Cabeza de Vaca’s interactions with, 1:67 Cartier’s interactions with, 1:45–46 CCC programs for, 4:77 Christianity and, 1:10–11 Connecticut Indians, 1:218 conversion to Roman Catholicism, 1:41–42 Coronado’s interactions with, 1:58, 62, 63 decapitation of women prisoners, 1:218 displacement threats, 2:11 Dreamer Religion, 3:244 English thoughts about, 1:216 epidemic diseases of, 1:4, 6–7, 11, 40, 128–129 Five Nations of the Iroquois, 1:216–217 Florida tribes, 1:79 French interaction with, 1:35, 38, 39–40 Ghost Dance religion, 3:29, 235, 243–245, 248, 250, 251 Hopi Indians, 1:68, 71–73 Huron nation, 1:38, 47 impact of gold prospecting on, 3:29 impact of War of 1812, 3:45 Indian War (1675–1676), 1:247 Iroquois nations, 1:38, 42 Jesuit missionaries and, 1:36, 40, 42–43 Louisiana Purchase era, 3:27 Mohawk tribe, 1:42, 118, 215 new animals incorporated by, 1:9–10 Pawnee Indians, 1:58, 63 Peoria Indians, 1:51 Prophet Dances, 3:244 Pueblo Revolt, 1:72–73, 76 religious traditions, 1:5–6 Rowlandson captured by, 1:228 Seminole Indians, 3:47 Seminole Wars, 1:95 slash-and-burn agriculture, 1:5 tribal intermarriages, 1:10 tribal-restructuring, 1:7–8 Wampanoag Indians, 1:126, 214, 217, 223, 228–230

I-23

Wichita Indians, 1:64 Wounded Knee massacre, 3:245 Zuni Indians, 1:68–69, 76–78 See also French and Indian War Native Americans, European encounters with, 1:117–134 Naturalization Act, 2:241, 246 Naval War College (U.S.), 3:272 Navigation Act (1651), 1:203, 234, 2:2 Navigation Act (1660), 2:2, 14 Navigation Act (1696), 1:237, 243–244, 2:2, 7 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (1939), 4:86, 179 “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (Hughes), 4:55 Nelson, Horatio, 3:41 Neutrality Acts, 4:86, 105 Neutrality theories, 3:45–46 New Amsterdam, surrender of (1664), 1:193–212 Anglo-Dutch Wars, 1:206 Dutch East India Company, 1:206–207 Dutch Reformed Church, 1:207–208, 212 Dutch West India Company, 1:118, 136, 208–210 Mackey’s interpretive essay, 1:197–205 Minuit, Peter, 1:210–211 overview, 1:193–197 Stuyvesant, Peter, 1:195–196, 200–205, 211–212 New Deal (1930s, FDR), 4:12, 77, 93–98 Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 4:82–83, 84 Civilian Conservation Corps, 4:77, 87 National Recovery Administration, 4:78, 82, 84, 87 opposition to, 4:79 programs created by, 4:77–78, 82–85 Social Security Act, 4:84 suburban housing boom, 4:132 weakening policies of, 4:83 Works Progress Administration, 4:78, 79, 84, 87 New England centrality of religion in, 1:82, 101 Champlain’s voyages, 1:47 conversions of Native Americans, 1:10–11 Dominion of, creation of, 1:239 Indian-white distrust, 1:118 King Philip’s War and, 1:186, 213–231 Narragansett tribe/group of tribes, 1:213–214, 226–227 Native American tribes, 1:5, 8–9, 118–119 Pequot Indians-white battles, 1:120 Pilgrim settlements, 1:102, 113 Puritan colonies in, 1:103, 113 Quakers, 1:106

I-24

INDEX

Salem witch trials, 1:82 slavery population, 1:138 smallpox epidemic, 1:120 New England Anti-Slavery Society (1832), 3:67 New France, 1:35–36, 38–44, 2:69, 72, 80 See also Buade, Louis de; Champlain, Samuel de New Freedom program (Wilson), 4:3 “New Frontier” slogan (JFK), 3:242 New Harmony community, 3:5 New Jersey Plan (document), 2:220, 234–236 New Jewel Movement (Grenada), 4:281 New Left activism, 4:141 New Light Party, 2:54–55, 57 New Light Presbyterians, 2:38, 55, 56–57, 3:7, 15 The New Negro (Locke), 4:54 New Negro Movement. See Harlem Renaissance New Netherland Colony, 1:7, 118 Dutch vs. English in, 1:196–197, 201, 203–205 Dutch West India Company and, 1:193–194, 200, 208–209 English takeover of, 1:197 establishment of, 1:199 Kieft’s service in, 1:201–202 Minuit’s service in, 1:199, 200, 210–211 patroonships in, 1:210 relations with Native Americans, 1:118, 202 slavery in, 1:137 Stuyvesant’s service in, 1:211–212 Van Twiller’s service in, 1:195, 200–201 Verhurst’s service in, 1:199 New Netherland Company, 1:198 New Orleans, Battle of (1815), 3:51–52, 54–55, 60, 110–111, 125, 145 New Orleans, settlement of, 1:36 New Sweden Colony, 1:194, 195, 197, 211–212 New World Cartier’s voyages to, 1:37, 45–46 Champlain’s voyages to, 1:47 Christianity in, 1:10 Columbian exchange and, 1:8–10 Columbus’s voyages to, 1:3, 4 Cortez’s plundering of, 1:59–60 epidemic diseases in, 1:11, 40 French colonization, 1:33, 37, 39–41 Italian expeditions to, 1:99 Marquette’s voyages to, 1:52 plantation economy, 1:149 Spanish colonization, 1:73–76, 83, 87–90 See also Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492) New York Gazette article (1764), 2:94 New York Stock Exchange, 4:80 Newton, Sir Isaac, 1:268, 2:22–23, 59 Niagara Movement (1905), 4:13

Niantic Indians, 1:131, 1:227 Nicholson, Francis, 1:236, 240–241, 250–251 Nicolls, Colonel Richard, 1:204 Nielsen, A. C. (1897–1980), 4:217–218 Nielsen (TV rating) Company, 4:203–204, 207 Niña (ship of Columbus), 1:4, 16 Nineteenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:4, 34, 263 Nixon, Richard, 4:209–211, 239 Consumer Product Safety Act, 4:135 “detente” policy, 4:173 Moscow mission, 4:140 SALT I treaty, 4:176 Nixon Doctrine, 4:183 No Child Left Behind Act (2001), 4:284 Norse people, 1:2 North, Col. Oliver, 4:276 See also Iran-Contra Scandal North, Lord Frederick, 2:108, 115, 128, 142 See also East India Company North America archaeological evidence, 1:2 Cabeza de Vaca’s crossing of, 1:67 England’s colonization efforts, 1:99–116 English NA, religious toleration, 1:167–192 English resettlement in, 1:35 French resettlement in, 1:37 indigenous peoples of, 1:1 introduction of slavery, 1:135–165 smallpox epidemic, 1:4, 40, 128–129 See also Enlightenment in North America; Religious toleration, English North America North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 4:284 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 4:115, 171, 177, 180 North Caucus Club (political group), 2:130 North Star periodical (Douglass), 3:67 Northern Securities Company railroad trust, 4:2 Northwest Indians, 3:49 Northwest Passage, 1:207 Notes on the State of Virginia (Jefferson), 2:174, 3:169 Noyes, John Humphrey, 3:5 Nuclear freeze movement, 4:164 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968), 4:151, 158 Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), 4:150 Nullification Document (document, 1832), 3:134–135 Nurse, Rebecca, 1:258, 1:259, 264–265 Oberlin College, 3:73 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 4:262, 275, 280, 288–290

INDEX

Office of Price Administration (OPA, WW II), 4:108 Office of War Information (WW II), 4:113 Office of War Mobilization (OWN, WW II), 4:107–108 O’Higgins, Bernardo, 3:87 Okeechobee, Battle of, 3:156 Old Fuss and Feathers. See Scott, Winfield Old Light Party, 2:54–55, 57, 63 Old Northwest Territory, 3:2 Old Rough and Ready. See Taylor, Zachary Oldham, John, 1:119 Olive Branch Petition (1775), 2:125, 160, 171, 179–181 Oliver, Andrew, 2:96–97, 127 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 3:253, 259–260, 267–269 Olney, Richard, 3:96 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1987), 4:279 “On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry” sermon (Tennent), 2:53, 55 “On the Equality of the Sexes” essay (Murray), 2:189, 198 Opechancanough, 1:121, 122, 129–130, 216 Open Door note (1900), 3:278–279 Open Door Policy (Eastern Europe), 4:177 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 4:160, 165–166 Orange County Revolutionary Committee of Safety, 2:230 Orders-in-Council decrees, 3:41 Ordinance of Secession (South Carolina, 1860), 3:208–209 Oregon Territory, 3:44, 94, 148 Oregon Trail, 3:143 Oregon Treaty (1864), 3:233 Origin of Species (Darwin), 3:273 The Origins of American Politics (Bailyn), 2:11 O’Sullivan, John L., 3:137, 142, 237 Oswald, Richard, 2:147 Otis, James, 2:107 Our Country: It’s Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (Strong), 3:273 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 2:266, 3:21–22, 261 Owen, Robert, 2:166, 167 Owens, Robert Dale, 3:128 See also Locofoco Party Pacific Railroad Act, 3:197 Packard, Vance, 4:138, 140 Paine, Thomas, 2:125, 161, 226, 3:99, 103 See also Common Sense pamphlet Pakenham, Sir Edward, 3:54, 55 Palmer, Bertha, 3:256, 260 Pan-Americanism, 3:255

I-25

Panama Canal, 3:279, 280, 4:18 Paris, Treaty of (1763), 1:44, 2:12, 72, 79, 87, 140, 171, 239, 253, 3:36 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 3:274, 278 Paris Peace Agreement, 4:222 Parker, Alice, 1:264 Parks, Rosa, 4:258 Parris, Betty, 1:255, 262 Parris, Reverend Samuel, 1:255–256, 262, 265 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 4:151 Pate, John, 1:233 Paths of Glory (war movie), 4:224 Patterson, Daniel Todd, 3:55 Pavonia, Battle of (1643), 1:202 Pawnee Indians, 1:58, 63 PAYGO system (Bush, G.H.W.), 4:283–284 Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909), 4:3 Peace Democrats, 3:218 Peace of Amboise (1563), 1:84 Pearl Harbor attack, 4:106, 107, 110–111, 126–127 Pelham-Holles, Thomas, 2:6, 14–16 Penn, William adoption of Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, 1:191 founding of Pennsylvania, 1:178 landownership rights and, 1:106, 170–171, 179, 239 slavery views of, 1:138 See also Quakers (Society of Friends) Pennsylvania emancipation statute, 2:145–146 Ladies Association (Philadelphia), 2:145 Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges (1701), 1:191 Pennsylvania Railroad, 3:175 Pennsylvania Society for Abolition, 2:194 Pentecostal Protestants, 2:56 People’s Party (Populist Party), 1:95 Peoria Indians, 1:51 Pequot Indian tribe (Connecticut), 1:118–119, 120 Pequot War (1636–1637), 1:118, 130–131, 156, 213, 218 Perdisatt, Kathleen, 1:120–127 Perry, Oliver Hazard (1785–1819), 3:60–62 Pershing, Gen. John J. (1860–1948), 4:26, 40–43 See also American Expeditionary Force Peterson, Merrill, 3:31 Philadelphia Young Ladies’ Academy, 2:190 Philip II (Spanish King), 1:80–81, 83–85 Philippine-American War (1899–1902), 3:287–288 Philippines. See Spanish-American War (1898–1910)

I-26

INDEX

Philips vs. Martin Marietta (Supreme Court decision), 4:261 Phillips, Wendell, 3:78 Phips, Sir William, 1:249, 257, 258, 263, 265, 271 Pickering, Timothy, 2:229, 244, 249–250, 250 Pierce, Franklin, 3:155, 203 Pietism, 2:46–47, 49, 50 Pike, Zebulon, 3:25 “Pikes Beak or Bust!” slogan, 3:233 Pilgrims, 1:112–113 break with Church of England, 1:112 New England settlements, 1:102 Plymouth Rock landing, 1:82, 113 Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 2:240, 243, 244, 263, 271, 280–281 Pinckney’s Treaty (1795), 3:22 Pinta (ship of Columbus), 1:4, 16 Pitcher, Molly. See McCauley, Mary Ludwig Hays Pitt, William, 2:5, 18, 72, 73, 78, 80, 85–87, 103 Pizarro, Francisco, 1:74 Plains Indians, 1:6 Plan for Improving Female Education (Clinton), 2:208 “Plan of Chicago” (Burnham), 3:265 Planned Parenthood of Southern Pennsylvania v. Casey (Supreme Court decision), 4:261–262 Plantation economy (New World), 1:149 Platt Amendment, 3:96 Plattsburgh, Battle of (1814), 3:55–57 Plessy v. Ferguson (Supreme Court decision), 4:12, 237, 241 Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts), 1:82, 102, 117, 120, 123–124, 134, 223, 235–236 Pochahontas, 1:82, 121–122, 131–132 See also Rolfe, John; Smith, Capt. John Poetry, of Phillis Wheatley, 2:193–194 Poindexter, John, 4:276 See also Iran-Contra Scandal Polk, Gen. Leonidas, 3:192 Polk, James K., 3:117 biographical information, 3:152–154 Buena Vista, Battle of, 3:153 Davis’ support of, 3:203 expansionist ideas, 3:139 Independent Treasury Act, 3:154 Mexican-American War association, 3:143–149 Monroe Doctrine association, 3:90, 96, 144–149 presidency, 3:67, 81, 94–95, 131, 139 protection of Texas, 3:140 See also Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of Ponce de Léon, Juan, 1:97–98 arrival in West Indies, 1:55 financial ruin of, 1:83

Gulf Coast Florida discovery, 1:74, 79, 83 indigenous people confrontations, 1:75 naming of Florida, 1:94 Pontiac (Indian Chief ), 2:93, 97 Poor Richard’s Almanack (Franklin), 2:34 Populist Party (1892), 3:30, 239 Port Bill (Boston), 2:123 Port Huron Statement, 4:140, 141 Portuguese slave trade, 1:70, 149–150 Post, George B., 3:255 Posterior Analytics (Aristotle), 2:168 Postman, Neil, 4:207 Potsdam Conference, 4:178 Powhatan Confederacy, 1:131, 143, 215–216 Powhatan Indians, 1:121–122, 129, 130–133 See also Opechancanough Powhatan War, 1:248 Prasch, Thomas A., 2:5–12 Pratt, Julius W., 3:280 Preble warship, 3:56 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52–53, 53, 3:1 Prescott, Col. William, 2:153 The Presidency of Andrew Jackson (Cole), 3:117 President (American vessel), 3:44 President’s Commission on the Status of Women, 4:269–271 Prevost, Sir George, 3:55 Price-Anderson Act (1957), 4:152 Priestley, Joseph (1733–1804), 2:37–40 Princeton, Battle of, 2:148 Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) issue, 4:228 Privy Council, 1:239, 242 Proclamation of 1763, 2:93–94, 97 Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (Lincoln), 3:211 Proclamation of Neutrality (Washington, 1793), 2:258–259 Proclamation of Rebellion (1775, George III), 2:155–156 Proctor, John and Elizabeth, 1:258, 264 Progress and Poverty (George), 3:162 Progressive Party, 4:3, 16, 44 Progressivism (1901–1914), 3:170, 4:1–21 anti-corruption mayors, 4:1 anti-suffrage movement, 4:2 Credit Mobilier scandal, 4:5 education’s importance, 4:8–9 growth of national wealth, 4:8 Hague’s interpretive essay, 4:5–13 La Follette, Robert “Fighting Bob,” 4:15–16 overview, 4:1–5 Payne-Aldrich Tariff, 4:3 political reforms, 4:4, 10–11, 11–12

INDEX

Progressive Party, 4:3, 16, 44 Roosevelt, Theodore, 4:3, 13, 16–18 Settlement House movement, 4:11, 18–19 Sinclair, Upton, 4:1–2, 19–21 Social Gospel movement, 4:7, 9 Underwood Tariff, 4:3 Prohibition legislation, 4:34 Project C (confrontation), 4:246 Prophet Dances (Native Americans), 3:244 Prosser, Gabriel, 1:152 Protestant-Catholic War (1593–1598), 1:47 Protestant Reformation, 1:100 Protestantism, 1:34, 140, 169, 235, 239, 243, 2:67, 3:5, 7, 17 Protests, by women, 2:187, 191 Prussia, Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:87 Public Broadcasting System (PBS), 4:201 Public Interest Research Group (Nader), 4:145 Pueblo Revolt (1680), 1:72–73, 76 Pulitzer, Joseph, 3:274, 276 Pullman Strike (1894, Chicago suburbs), 4:7 Pure Food and Drug Act, 4:18 Puritan Revolution, 2:50 Puritans Act of Toleration accepted by, 1:183 Andros’ leadership of, 1:240 Calvinist Puritans, 1:168–169 campaign against Indians, 1:220 conflict with Catholicism, 1:102 dissatisfaction with Elizabethan Compromise, 1:168 education valued by, 1:107–108 “experimental” Puritanism, 2:52 King Philip’s War and, 1:221 Massachusetts Bay Colony founded by, 1:113, 238 Massachusetts covenants, 1:107 Metacom’s war with, 1:126 New England colonies, 1:103, 113 non-Puritans vs., 2:45 “praying towns” established by, 1:10 Rogers’ ideas rejected by, 1:169 Salem witch trials and, 1:260, 269–271 slavery justified by, 1:138 See also Cromwell, Oliver; Edwards, Jonathan; Winthrop, John Putnam, Ann, Jr., 1:262 Putnam, Frederick War, 3:256 Quadruple Alliance (in Europe), 3:87 Quakers (Society of Friends), 1:170, 184–185 anti-slavery stance, 1:138, 3:69 beliefs of, 1:138, 178–180 emergence of, 1:178

I-27

Fox’s founding of, 1:184–185 friendship with Indians, 1:106 girls schools, 2:189 opposition to Penn, 1:171 Stuyvesant’s opposition to, 1:212 Williams’ defense of, 1:187 See also Penn, William Quartering Act (1765), 2:102, 118 Quasi-War (1798–1800), 2:241, 248, 250–251, 256, 263, 3:60 Quebec Act, 2:118 Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713), 1:224, 2:9, 73 Quivira (golden city), 1:58, 63–64, 65, 69 Race riots, 4:53 Radical Republicans, 3:213–214, 218, 228–230 The Radicalism of the American Revolution (Wood), 2:166 Radio Corporation of American (RCA), 4:200 Railroad Administration, 4:25 Railroads, 3:165, 175, 196, 197, 221, 237 Rain-in-the-Face (Native American chief ), 3:29 Rainey, Ma, 4:55 Rakestraw, Donald A., 3:141–149 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1:101, 113–114 Ramsay, David, 2:149 Randolph, A. Philip, 4:58 Randolph, Gov. Edmund, 2:218 Rawls, John, 2:169 Reagan, Ronald, 3:242, 4:143, 146, 152, 155, 227, 240, 288–290 Reagan Revolution (1981–1989), 4:273–293 attacks on communism, 4:275 criticism of Carter, 4:275 INF treaty, 4:152, 174, 277 Iran-Contra Scandal, 4:276, 288 legislation, 4:279 meeting with Gorbachev, 4:277 myth vs. fact basis, 4:283 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 4:262, 275, 280, 288–290 overview, 4:273–277 Staten’s interpretive essay, 4:277–284 Strategic Defense Initiative, 4:152, 155, 174, 276, 282 See also Bush, George H. W.; Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) “Reaganomics” (economics), 4:274 The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures (Locke), 2:178 “Reconcentrado” camps (Spanish-American War), 3:275 Reconstruction era (1863–1876), 3:211–231 Black Codes, 3:213, 218, 220

I-28

INDEX

Civil Rights Act (1866), 3:198, 219 Committee on the Conduct of the War, 3:229 election of 1876, 3:225 Freedman’s Bureau, 3:212, 219, 220 Hayes, Rutherford, 3:211, 215, 223, 225 Johnson, Andrew, 3:226–228 Ku Klux Klan, 3:213, 221 overview, 3:216–224 Peace Democrats, 3:218 Radical Republicans, 3:213–214, 218, 228–230 Redemption Democrats, 3:215 “Rehearsal for Reconstruction,” 3:217 Stevens, Thaddeus, 3:230–231 term derivation, 3:216 Tilden, Samuel J., 3:25, 215, 223 Wade-Davis Bill, 3:211, 227 Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), 4:76–77 Red Fox of Kinderhook. See Van Buren, Martin Red Scare (communist scare), 1:262 Reed, Ester DeBert, 2:196 Reform Act (1832), 2:10 Rehnquist, William, 4:275 Relación de la Jornada de Cíbola (Castañeda), 1:70 Religion Calvinism, 1:34, 172, 2:27, 49, 66, 3:1 Deism, 3:7 Jewish people, 1:170, 175 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52–53, 3:1 Protestantism, 1:34, 140, 169, 235, 239, 2:67, 3:5, 7, 17 Unitarianism, 3:3 See also Christianity; Religious revivalism; Roman Catholic Church Religious History of the American People (Ahlstrom), 3:1 Religious revivalism, 2:46–47, 66, 3:3, 4 appeal of, 3:10–13 consequences of, 3:13–14 Finney’s writings on, 3:18 origins/spread of, 3:6–10, 71 women and, 3:12 See also Cartwright, Peter; Edwards, Jonathan; Finney, Charles Grandison Religious Right politics (U.S.), 4:263, 279 Religious toleration, English North America (1636–1701), 1:167–192 Bloudy Tenet of Persecution excerpt, 1:187–189 Calvert, Cecil, 1:181–183 Hutchinson, Anne, 1:183–184 Maryland Act of Toleration (document), 1:189–192 overview, 1:167–171

Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges excerpt, 1:192 Rhode Island colony, 1:169, 171–173, 175–176 Society of Friends (Quakers), 1:184–185 Woods’ interpretive essay, 1:171–180 See also Williams, Roger Religious traditions Anglican Church, 1:234–235, 244, 2:27, 47, 51, 55 Baptist Church, 2:48 Calvinism, 1:34, 172, 2:27, 49 Congregationalists (“Old Lights”), 2:48 Dutch Reformed Church, 1:207–208, 212, 2:49, 61 early Native Americans, 1:5–6 Halfway Covenant, 2:45, 51, 55 Methodism, 2:47, 53, 56, 65 New Light Presbyterians, 2:38, 55, 56–57 Pentecostal Protestants, 2:56 pietism, 2:46–47 Presbyterianism, 2:48–49, 52, 53 Protestantism, 1:34, 140, 169, 235, 239, 2:67 revivalism, 2:46–47 of slaves, Great Awakening era, 2:62–63 Remarkable Providences (Increase Mather), 1:268 “Remember the Ladies” letter (Adams), 2:209 Remini, Robert V., 3:120 Renaissance (Europe), 1:135, 2:22–23 Report of Government for the Western Territory (Jefferson), 2:174 Report on Manufactures (Hamilton, 1791), 2:228 Republican Motherhood (1780–1820), 2:187–209 Adams, Abigail, 2:200–202, 209 Hays, Mary Ludwig, 2:202–203 motherhood in the colonial era, 2:203–205 Murray, Judith Sargent, 2:205–206 name derivation, 2:187 overview, 2:187–191 religious links, 2:190–191 “Remember the Ladies” letter (Adams), 2:209 Ryan’s interpretive essay, 2:191–198 Sampson, Deborah, 2:206–207 Willard, Emma, 2:207–209 Resolution Proposing a Declaration of Independence (Richard Henry Lee), 2:182 Resolutions of Stamp Act Congress (document, 1765), 2:110–112 Revenue Act (1762), 2:5 Revenue Act (1942), 4:108 Revere, Paul, 2:119, 130–132 Revivalism. See Religious revivalism Revolution of 1800, 2:263–282 Burr, Aaron, role, 2:275–277 Democratic-Republican Party, 2:277–278

INDEX

Federalist Party, 2:278–280 Felten’s interpretive essay, 2:266–274 Jefferson’s viewpoint, 2:266–267 name derivation, 2:264 overview, 2:263–266 Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 2:280–281 Twelfth Amendment (document), 2:281–282 Revolving Old Age Pension Plan (Townsend), 4:79 Rhode Island colony, 1:169 Council of War/Town Council, 1:218 founding of, 1:171–173 governing difficulties, 1:175–176 Ribault, Jean, 1:34, 81, 84 Rights of Man (Paine), 3:99 The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (Davis), 3:204 The Rise of the New West (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:250 Rittenhouse, David, 2:25, 29 Roanoke (Virginia) Colonies (1585, 1587), 1:114–115 “Robber barons.” See Carnegie, Andrew; Morgan, J. P.; Rockefeller, John D. Roberval, Jean-François de La Rocque de, 1:46 Robeson, Paul, 4:55 Robespierre, Maximilien, 2:257 Robinson, Bill “Bojangles,” 4:55 Rockefeller, John D., 4:6 Rockingham, Marquis of, 2:103–104 Roe v. Wade (Supreme Court decision), 4:261 Rogers, Robert (1731–1795), 1:223, 2:87–89 Rolfe, John, 1:132, 139, 156 See also Pochahontas Rolling Stone magazine, 4:141 Roman Catholic Church, 1:34, 36 encumbrances of, 2:51 England, 16th century, 1:167–168, 170, 172 James’ conversion to, 1:239 Native American’s conversions, 1:41–42 Protestant Church vs., 1:47 Spanish colonization and, 1:74 Roosevelt, Franklin D. (FDR, 1882–1945), 3:241, 275, 98–102 Atlantic Charter, 4:110 “bank holiday” declared by, 4:77 Executive Order 9066 (1942), 4:109 federal judge appointments, 4:84–85 initial view on WW II, 4:110 Lend-Lease bill, 4:105–106 Manhattan Project authorization, 4:149 Neutrality Acts, 4:86, 105 presidential victory, 4:79, 82 Victory Program (WW II), 4:112 See also New Deal

I-29

Roosevelt, Theodore, 3:96–97, 145, 240, 279, 283, 4:3, 13, 16–18 See also Rough Riders Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, 3:96 Roosevelt Field Shopping Center (LI, NY), 4:134 Root, John Welborn, 3:254 Rosenberg, Ethel and Julius, 4:171 Roth, Philip, 4:138 Rough Riders, 3:288–289, 4:42 See also Roosevelt, Theodore Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778), 2:40–42 Rowlandson, Mary, 1:220, 227–228 Royal Society of London, 2:25, 28, 33 Rudiments of English Grammar (Priestley), 2:38 Runaway servants, 1:154–156 Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 2:187, 190 Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 3:44 Russia defeat by Napoleon, 2:257 Holy Alliance membership, 3:92 Monroe’s warnings to, 3:93–94 Pitt’s aid to, 2:72 Quadruple Alliance membership, 3:88 U.S. tensions with, 3:91 Russian Revolution (1917), 4:39 Russo-Japanese War, 4:18, 42 Ryan, Kelly A., 2:191–198 Ryswick Treaty, 1:250 Sacajawea (d. 1812), 3:34, 37–38 Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572), 1:34 Salem witch trials (1692), 1:82, 255–275 Death Warrant of Five Women Convicted of Witchcraft, 1:274–275 Mather, Cotton, 1:266–268 Mather, Increase, 1:268–269 overview, 1:255–259 Puritan family, 1:269–271 Sewall, Samuel, 1:271–272 Stowell’s interpretive essay, 1:259–265 women tries as witches, 1:257–258, 264 Wonders of the Invisible World (Mather), 1:272–274 Salem Witchcraft (Upham), 1:260 Salons, establishment of, 2:28 SALT (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks), 4:151–152, 156 SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks), 4:151–152, 156 SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks), 4:151–152, 156, 173 Salutary Neglect, Era of (1720s-1750), 2:1–20 Board of Trade and Plantations, 2:13–14 Burke’s speech, 2:5–6

I-30

INDEX

mercantilism, 2:14 Molasses Act document, 2:18–20 overview, 2:1–5 Pelham-Holles, Thomas, 2:14–16 Prasch’s interpretive essay, 2:5–12 Walpole, Robert, 2:16–18 Sampson, Deborah, 2:206–207 Sampson, William T., 3:277 San Jacinto, Battle of, 3:138 San Martín, José de, 3:87, 102 Sand Creek Massacre, 3:234 Sands of Iwo Jima (war movie), 4:224 Sanitary Commission (U.S.), 3:198, 268 Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 3:138 Santa Domingo (Haiti) naval base, 3:21–22 Santa Maria, 1:3, 16 Saratoga, Battle of (1777), 2:36, 146, 147, 148 Saratoga warship, 3:56 Sassacus (Pequot chief ), 1:119 Savage, Capt. Thomas, 1:214 Scalia, Antonin, 4:275, 280 Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (Bradford), 3:82–83 Schechter v. U.S. (Supreme Court decision), 4:78, 84 Schlafly, Phyllis, 4:262, 264 Schley, Winfield Scott, 3:277 Schuyler, Gen. Philip John, 2:152 Schwenkfelders, 2:50 Scientific Revolution, 2:22–23, 28–30 See also Priestley, Joseph; Royal Society of London Scott, Thomas A., 3:175–176 Scott, Winfield, 3:134, 144, 152 See also Whig Party Searles, Robert, 1:92 Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667), 1:205 Second Bank of the United States, 3:124–125 Second Continental Congress (1775), 2:125, 128, 144, 146, 155, 159, 160, 163, 172–173, 178–179, 182, 211, 230, 239, 253, 255, 285 See also Declaration of Independence Second Continental Congress (1776), 2:35, 88, 3:36 Second Great Awakening, 2:54–55, 191, 3:1–19 Backus, Isaac, 3:15–16 Cartwright, Peter, 3:16–17 Crothers’ interpretive essay, 3:5–14 Finney, Charles Grandison, 3:17–18 McGready, James, 3:18–19 Old Northwest Territory, 3:2 origins, 3:1–2 overview, 3:1–5 revivalism during, 3:3, 4 upstate New York, 3:2, 5, 13

Second Seminole War, 1:95 Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), 4:78 Sedgewick, Theodore, 2:198 Sedition Act, 2:242, 246 Sedition Act (from Alien and Sedition Acts), 2:260–261 Sedition Slammers (vigilante group), 4:33 Selective Service Act (1917), 4:25–26 The Selling of Joseph (Sewall), 1:163–165, 272 The Selling of the President (McGinniss), 4:210 Seminole Indians, 3:47, 156 Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention (1848), 4:263 Settlement House movement, 4:11, 18–19 Settlement houses, 4:11 Seven Cities of Antillia, 1:59 Seven Cities of Cíbola, 1:57, 59–61, 68, 75–76 Seven Year’s War. See French and Indian War (1756–1763) Seventeenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:2–3 Sewall, Samuel, 1:163–165, 271–272 Seward, William Henry, 2:167, 3:95, 194 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Kinsey), 4:257 Shafter, Gen. William, 3:272, 277 “Share the Wealth” program (Long), 4:79 Shay’s Rebellion, 2:216, 227 Shelley v. Kraemer (Supreme Court decision), 4:139 Sherman, Gen. William T., 3:201 capture of Atlanta, 3:206 March to the Sea (1864), 3:207–208 Special Field Order No. 15, 3:217 Sherman, Roger, 2:173 Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890), 3:163, 4:2, 4 Shirley, Gov. William, 2:75, 77, 88 Shopping center development, 4:134 The Significance of Sections in American History (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:240 The Significance of the Frontier in American History (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:240, 248–249 Sigur, Hannah, 3:257–263 Silent Spring (Carson), 4:142 Sinclair, Upton, 4:1–2, 2, 19–21 “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” speech (Edwards), 2:46, 59–60 Sioux Indian War (1876–1877), 3:235, 245–246, 247 See also Sitting Bull (Native American chief ) Siry, Steven E. American Revolution essay, 2:143–150 King Philip’s War essay, 1:216–222 Lewis and Clark essay, 3:24–31

INDEX

Sitting Bull (Native American chief ), 3:29, 235, 246–248 See also Sioux Indian War Sixteenth Amendment (Constitution), 4:2–3, 11–12 Sixty Minutest (TV show), 4:203 Slash-and-burn agriculture, 1:5 Slaughter, Henry, 1:236 Slave religion, during the Great Awakening, 2:62–63 Slavery, North American introduction (1619), 1:135–165, 215 accidental introduction, 1:138–139 African slave trade, 1:140–141, 148–153 arrival in Jamestown, 1:136 colonial Virginia, mid-18th century, 1:161–163 end of, in America, 3:217 initial English resistance, 1:141 in Missouri, 3:26 in New Netherlands, 1:137 newspaper advertisements, 1:154 Puritan justification of slavery, 1:138 Quaker influence, 1:138 runaway servants, 1:154–156 The Selling of Joseph excerpt, 1:163–165 slavery, 1:156–161 Woods’ interpretive essay, 1:138–146 Slaves/slavery, 1:156–161 African slave trade, 1:148–153 Cartwright’s opposition to, 3:17 Christian conversion attempts, 2:62 Christian defense of, 3:3 effects of American Revolution on, 2:145 freeing of, 1:95 Ghana slave trading posts, 1:151 Haitian Revolution (1791), 1:152 historical background, 1:141–142, 145 indentured servitude vs., 1:144 Jefferson’s feelings about, 1:145–146, 2:221 of John Smith, 1:133 Middle Passage (of journey), 1:149–150, 158 Portuguese sale of, 1:70, 149 Portuguese slave trade, 1:70, 149–150 Quaker opposition to, 3:69 racism relation to, 1:141 rise of, 1:36 runaways, 1:154–156 Sewall’s opposition to, 1:272 Spanish capture/forcing of, 1:75 of Squanto, 1:134 Thirteenth Amendment and, 1:156, 160, 3:212, 219 See also Abolition; Bett, Mum; Civil War Sloughter, Col. Henry, 1:251

I-31

Smallpox epidemic, 1:4, 40, 128–129 Smith, Adam, 2:7 Smith, Bessie, 4:55 Smith, Capt. John, 1:133–134 Congressional Church guidance, 1:82 interactions with Indians, 1:121, 126, 129 opposition to Wingfield, 1:112 voyage to Cape Cod, 1:123 See also Pochahontas legend Smith, Gen. Jacob H. “Hell-Roarin,” 3:275 Smith, Gerrit, 3:78 Smith, Joseph, 3:13 Smith, William, 2:25 Smith, Willie “The Lion,” 4:55 Smohalla (Wanamum Prophet), 3:244 Smoot-Hartley tariff bill, 4:76 The Social Contract (Rousseau), 2:42 Social Darwinism, 3:168, 273 Social Gospel movement (Progressive era), 4:7, 9 Social Security Act (1935), 4:84 Social Security Reform Act (1983), 4:279 Socialism, 3:169–170 Socialist Labor Party, 4:38 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1:244 Society of Friends. See Quakers (Society of Friends) Solemn League and Covenant, 2:124 Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England (Edwards), 2:60 Sons of Liberty Movement, 2:95, 103, 108–109, 193 “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” (Kennan), 4:170 South Carolina, Ordinance of Secession (1860), 3:208–209 South Sea Bubble crisis (1720), 2:7, 8, 17 Southern States class warfare, 3:195 end of military rule, 3:214 pro-slavery stance, 3:68, 69, 73 Soviet Union Afghanistan invasion, 4:273 aid to Ho Chi Minh, 4:219 atom bomb detonation, 4:154 Baruch Plan rejection, 4:149–150 Chernobyl nuclear accident, 4:157 detente with, 4:173 European occupations, 4:169 as “evil empire,” 4:152, 227–228 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 4:152 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, 4:86, 179 response to Marshall Plan, 4:170–171 SALT I treaty, 4:176 Yalta Conference, 4:107

I-32

INDEX

Spain (Spanish) Charles of Habsburg, 1:83–84 colonization of the Americas, 1:73–76, 83, 87–90, 2:1–2 indigenous Indians enslaved by, 1:135–136 interactions with Native Americans, 1:117 Latin America and, 3:89, 91 Maximilian I, 1:83 Mexico’s independence from, 3:137 Philip II, 1:80–81, 83–85 Spanish-American War (1898–1910), 3:144, 198, 271–289 Cuban blockade, 3:277 Dewey, George, 3:277, 283 Hay, John, 3:275–276, 278 Hearst, William Randolph, 3:274, 276, 283–285 as historical turning point for U.S., 3:279 Manila Bay, Battle of, 3:283 Mattox’s interpretive essay, 3:275–281 McKinley, William, 3:274, 276–277, 279, 285–287 Open Door note (1900), 3:278–279 overview, 3:271–275 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 3:274, 278 Philippine-American War, 3:287–2888 “reconcentrado” camps, 3:275 Roosevelt, Theodore, 3:279, 283 Rough Riders, 3:288–289 USS Maine battleship, 3:274, 276, 280, 287, 289 Spanish Succession, War of, 2:16 Special Field Order No. 15 (Sherman), 3:217 Specie Circular (Jackson), 3:112 Speech on Conciliation with America speech (Burke), 2:5–6 Spencer, Herbert, 3:273 Spock, Dr. Benjamin, 4:257 Sporting events (on TV), 4:203, 204 Sprenger, Jacob, 1:259 Squanto (1580–1622), 1:118, 121, 123–124, 134 St. Augustine, founding of (1565), 1:79–98 attack by Searles, 1:92 attempts by Spain, 1:83 Beattie’s interpretive essay, 1:82–90 Castillo de San Marcos, 1:92–93 De Soto, Hernando, 1:93–94 demographics, 1:87 disease epidemics, 1:82 Florida, 1:94–97 Menéndez de Avilés and, 1:81, 83, 85–88, 90 overview, 1:79–82 Ponce de Léon, Juan, 1:97–98 Stalin, Joseph, 4:106–107, 170, 175, 177, 178 Stamp Act (1765), 2:93–113 description, 2:94–95, 101

Dulaney, Daniel, 2:105–107 Grenville, George, 2:73, 93, 98, 101 Hutchinson, Thomas, 4, 2:35, 97, 107–108 Mackey’s interpretive essay, 2:96–105 modification/repeal appeals, 2:95 Oliver, Andrew, 2:96–97 opposition of John Adams, 2:253 overview, 2:93–95 Resolutions of Stamp Act Congress, 2:110–112 Sons of Liberty Movement, 2:95, 108–109 Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions, 2:112–113 “virtual representation” discussions, 2:116 Stamp Act Congress (1765), 2:103, 109 Stamp Act Crisis (1765–1766), 2:86, 98, 104–105 Stamp Act Riots (1765), 2:96, 102, 109–110 “The Stand” newspaper (Hamilton), 2:245 Standard Oil Company (Rockefeller), 3:164, 181, 184, 4:1 Standish, Miles, 1:124 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 2:167, 3:257 Stanton, Theodore, 3:276 Staple Act (1663), 2:2 START (Strategic Arms Reductions Talks), 4:152 The Status Seekers (Packard), 4:138 Steamship invention, 3:36 Steel industry, 3:160–161, 163, 171, 176, 4:6 See also Carnegie, Andrew Steffens, Lincoln, 4:1 Stephens, Alexander, 3:193, 212 Stevens, Thaddeus (1792–1868), 3:214, 230–231 Stock market crash (1929), 4:75, 80, 102–103 See also Great Depression Stoddard, Solomon, 2:45, 51, 55, 59 Stone, Capt. John, 1:119, 133–134 Stone, Harlan, 4:84 Stone, Lucy, 3:257 Stono Rebellion (1739), 1:158 STOP ERA movement, 4:262 Stoughton, William, 1:262 Stowell, Frederick M., 1:259–265 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (1991), 4:282 Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), 4:152, 155, 174, 276, 282 Strayhorn, Billy, 4:55 Streetcare vs. automobile suburbs, 4:131–132 Strong, Josiah, 3:273 Stuart monarchy restoration (1660), 1:238, 2:50 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 4:225, 240, 245, 247 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 4:140–141, 225–226 Stuyvesant, Peter, 1:211–212 creation of Board of Nine Men, 1:211–212 Dutch West India Company employment, 1:196

INDEX

feuds with Dutch/English, 1:200–201 relations with Indians, 1:200 service in New Netherland Colony, 1:195, 200, 202–205, 211–212 surrender of power to Nicolls, 1:197 Suburbanization and consumerism (1945–1990), 4:131–147 American Dream, 4:5, 85, 132, 136, 141 automobile vs. streetcar suburbs, 4:131–132 credit cards, introduction of, 4:134 Dunak’s interpretive essay, 4:135–143 Federal Housing Authority, 4:132, 133, 139 government-forced segregation, 4:138 “hippie” movement, 4:141 Levittowns (NY, NJ, PA), 4:132–134, 136–137, 144 Nader, Ralph, 4:142, 144–146 overview, 4:131–135 post-WW II embrace of, 4:136 post-WW II onset of, 4:131 “Purchaser Citizens” (Cohen), 4:136 shopping center development, 4:134 Thompson, Joe, Jr., 4:146–147 Suez Canal crisis, 4:172, 175 Suffrage, for African Americans, 3:214 Sugar Act (1764), 2:5, 93–94, 99 Sullivan, Louis, 3:255, 260, 3:261 A Summary View of the Rights of British America (Jefferson), 2:164, 172 Sumner, Charles, 3:214, 231 Supreme Court, 4:42 Cherokee decision, 3:127, 132 creation discussions, 2:219, 221 justice opposition to New Deal, 4:84 Thomas, Clarence, 4:263 See also individual Supreme Court decisions Supreme Court creation discussions, 2:219, 221 Swartout, Samuel, 3:111 Sweatt v. Painter (Supreme Court decision), 4:243 Swedish South Company, 1:195 Swiney, P. D., 1:237–245 Taft, William Howard, 3:265, 4:2–3, 18 “Take the A Train” music (Strayhorn), 4:55 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de Adam’s interactions with, 2:242 burning of, in effigy, 2:246 committee rulership of France, 2:240 role in XYZ Affair, 2:249, 256–258 Tallmadge, James, Jr., 3:26 Talon, Intendant, 1:50 Taney, Roger B., 3:128 Tappan, Arthur, 3:73, 75–76 Tarbell, Ida, 3:181, 4:1

I-33

Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA), 4:279 Taylor, Nathaniel William, 3:2 Taylor, Zachary (1784–1850), 3:132, 133, 144, 148, 153–154, 156–158 Taylor-Rostow mission (to Vietnam), 4:220–221 Tea Act (1773), 2:120–121 Tea Act document (1773), 2:132–1135 Tecumseh (Indian leader), 3:42, 43–44, 48 Teheran Conference, 4:106 Tekesta Indians, 1:79 Telephone, invention of, 3:173, 4:204–205 Television, rise of (1948–2010), 4:199–218 Berle, Milton, 4:212–214 Clair’s interpretive essay, 4:203–211 Cronkite, Walter, 4:214–216 Federal Communications Commission, 4:199 overview, 4:199–203 post-WW II experimentation, 4:199 Teller, Henry M., 3:277 Ten Percent Plan (Lincoln), 3:211 Tennent, Gilbert (1703–1764), 2:63–65 Tennent, William, Sr., 2:52 Tenure of Office Act, 28, 3:214 Tet Offensive (Vietnam War), 4:221–222, 234–236 Texas admission to statehood, 3:138–139 independence from Mexico, 3:138 Textile manufacturing, 3:159 A Theory of Justice (Rawls), 2:169 Theory of Language and Universal Grammar (Priestley), 2:38 There is Confusion (Faust), 4:60 Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1674), 1:205 Third-wave consumerism, 4:135 Thirteenth Amendment (Constitution), 1:156, 160, 3:212, 219, 227, 4:51 Thirty-Nine Articles (England, 1563), 1:168 Thirty Years War, 1:49 Thomas, Clarence, 4:263, 265–266 Thompson, Joe, Jr. (1901–1961), 4:146–147 Thomson, Charles, 2:164 Thoreau, Henry David, 2:167, 168 Thornton, Larry, 4:109–117 Thornton, Matthew, 2:164 Thornton, Sir William, 3:55 Three-Fifths Compromise (Constitution), 2:274 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 4:153, 157, 167 Thurman, Wallace, 4:56–57, 58 Ticonderoga warship, 3:56 Tilden, Samuel J., 25, 3:215, 223

I-34

INDEX

Timber Culture Act (1873), 3:28, 236 Timucua indigenous culture, 1:79 Tingey, Thomas, 3:58 Tippecanoe, Battle of, 3:43–44 Tituba (Rev. Parris’s slave), 1:256–257, 262 Tobacco advertising (on TV), 4:202 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 3:239 Toleration Act, 1:235 Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 4:221, 224 Toomer, Jean, 4:59 Toral, Gen. Jose, 3:272 Town Council (Rhode Island), 1:218 Townsend, Francis E., 4:79 Townshend, Charles, 2:115 Townshend Acts (Duties) (1776), 2:104, 116, 120, 127, 194 Trafalgar, Battle of, 3:41 Trail of Tears, 3:127 The Traveller Returned play (Murray), 2:206 A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (Edwards), 2:60 Trend, David, 4:209 Trenton, Battle of, 2:139, 148 Trotsky, Leon, 4:176 Truman, Harry, 4:107, 121, 158, 169–170, 175, 178, 193–196 Truman Doctrine, 4:115, 181 Trumbull, John, 2:147–148, 149 Trumbull, Lyman, 3:231 Tubman, Harriet (ca. 1820–1913), 3:82–83 Tudor dynasty, 1:167 Turner, Frederick Jackson (1861–1932), 3:248–250, 256 Turner, Jackson, 3:240–241 Turner, Nat, 1:152, 68, 72 Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, 3:220, 4:52 TV Guide study, 4:208 Twain, Mark, 3:272, 279 Twelfth Amendment (U.S. Constitution), 2:175, 221, 264, 281–282 Twentieth Amendment (Constitution), 4:77 Twenty-First Amendment (Constitution), 4:5 Two Treatises of Government (Locke), 2:178 Tyler, John, 3:94, 138 Tyler, Royall, 2:148 U-2 incident (1960), 4:151, 172, 196–197 Ubeda Friar Luis de, 1:65–66 UHF (Ultra High Frequency) stations, 4:201 Underwood Tariff (1913), 4:3 Unitarianism, 3:3, 4, 7, 9 United Auto Workers (UAW), Women’s Bureau, 4:259

United Nations (UN) atomic energy control dispute, 4:169 Lebanon peacekeeping, 4:275–276 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 2:169–170 woman’s conferences, 4:265 United Nations (UN) Charter, 2:169 United Nations Security Council, 4:169 United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 4:55, 57 United States (U.S.) Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, 1:152 as “American Eden,” 3:239 American Independence Day, 3:143 anti-Catholic/anti-Semitic sentiment, 3:169 anti-Communist hysteria, 4:160 Atomic Energy Commission, 4:150 cities, Industrial Revolution era, 3:165–167 Civil Service Commission, 4:1 closing of the frontier (ca. 1890s), 3:233–251 Constitutional Convention, 1:150 early history, 1:1 Emancipation Proclamation, 1:160 France’s Revolutionary War aid, 2:239 Good Neighbor Policy, 4:85–86 Green Party USA, 4:146 introduction of slavery, 1:135–165 Jay’s Treaty, 2:239 Missouri Compromise, 1:160 Naval War College, 3:272 occupation of Oregon territory, 3:139 “Religious Right” politics, 4:263 Sanitary Commission, 3:198 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, 4:153, 157 Weber-Ashburton Treaty, 1:152–153 World War I costs, 4:25 XYZ Affair, 2:201, 239–261 Yalta Conference, 4:107 See also Industrial Revolution; MexicanAmerican War The United States 1830–1850 (Frederick Jackson Turner), 3:240 United States Magazine (American Revolution era), 2:188 United States Military Railroads (USMRR), 3:196 United States Telegraph Pro-Jackson newspaper, 3:117 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN), 2:169 Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 4:55 See also Garvey, Marcus Unsafe at Any Speed (Nader), 4:142, 145 Upham, Charles, 1:260

INDEX

U.S. Navy, 3:272, 277, 283 See also Dewey, George U.S. Shipping Board, 4:25 U.S. v. Butler (Supreme Court decision), 4:78 USS Constellation, 2:247–248 USS Maine battleship, 3:274, 276, 280, 287, 289 USS Nautilus nuclear submarine, 4:152 USS Olympia battleship, 3:277 Utopian communities, 2:166 Utrecht, Treaty of, 2:7, 9 Valley Forge, Battle of, 2:155 Van Buren, Martin, 3:112–113, 127, 129–132, 148, 153 Van Twiller, Wouter, 1:95, 200–201 Vance, Zebulon, 3:193 Vane, Governor Henry, 1:120 The Varieties of Religious Experiences (James), 2:60 Velásquez, Gov. Diego, 1:55–56 Vergennes, Count Charles, 2:140 Verhurst, Willem, 1:199 Verin, Joshua, 1:173–174 Verrazano, Giovanni de, 1:35 Versailles, Treaty of, 4:16, 26, 86 Victory Program (WW II, 1943), 4:112 Video cassette recorders (VCRs), 4:201 Video Home System (VHS) tapes, 4:201 Vietnam Veterans against the War, 4:229 Vietnam War (1960s), 3:280, 141, 176, 183, 219–236 Abbott’s interpretive essay, 4:223–229 antiwar movement, 4:231–232 Cambodian incursion, 4:232–233 Johnson, Lyndon, 4:221–222 Kissinger, Henry, 4:222 My Lai massacre, 4:227 overview, 4:219–223 POW/MIA issue, 4:228 Taylor-Rostow mission, 4:220–221 Tet Offensive, 4:221–222 Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 4:221 U.S. citizen skepticism about, 4:226–227 U.S. death figures, 4:224–225 war movies, 4:224, 227–228 Virginia Company (of London) formation (1606), 1:101 New World colonization plans, 1:112 Pilgrims’ relationship with, 1:102 relation to slavery, 1:139 Virginia Constitutional Convention, 3:105 “Virginia Dynasty” (presidents from Virginia), 2:278 Virginia Plan (document), 2:218–219, 222, 232–234

I-35

Virginia Resolution (Madison), 2:247, 269, 3:190 Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions (document, 1965), 2:112–113 Virginia State of Religious Freedom (Jefferson), 2:172 Voter literacy test (Mississippi), 4:241 Voting Rights Act (1965), 4:234, 239, 247 Wade-Davis Bill (1864), 3:211, 227 Wadsworth, Benjamin, 2:192 Wahunsonacock (Native American), 1:121–122 Walker, Alice, 4:265 Walker, Robert J., 3:147 Walker River Reservation (Native Americans), 3:244 Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England (Olmsted), 3:267 Waller, “Fats,” 4:55 Walpole, Robert, 2:1–2 financial management skills, 2:7 patronage system of, 2:3–4 political ascendancy of, 2:6 war avoidance efforts, 2:8, 9, 12 withdrawal of Excise Bill, 2:10 See also Salutary Neglect, Era of Wampanoag Indians (Martha’s Vineyard), 1:126, 214, 217, 223, 228–230 See also Metacom War Industries Board, 4:25, 31 War Labor Board (WW II), 4:108 War Manpower Board (WW II), 4:108 War movies, 4:224, 227–228 War of 1812, 1:95, 260, 2:264, 3:41–63 American Letter of Marque document, 3:62–63 British capture of Washington D.C., 3:57–58 as end of Federalist Party, 3:44–45 as “forgotten conflict,” 3:45 Hadden’s interpretive essay, 3:45–52 Hartford Convention, 3:44–45, 50, 52, 58–60 Jackson’s commission, 3:125 neutrality theories, 3:45–46 New Orleans, Battle of, 3:51–52, 54–55 overview, 3:41–45 Perry, Oliver Hazard, 3:60–62 Plattsburgh, Battle of, 3:55–57 role in Industrial Revolution, 3:159 U.S. expansionist dreams, 3:47–48 See also Jackson, Andrew War of Jenkin’s Ear, 2:9, 47 War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), 2:9, 12, 47, 84, 85 War of the League of Augsburg, 1:249 War of the Polish Succession (1733–1735), 2:9, 84 War of the Spanish Succession, 2:16

I-36

INDEX

Warren, Dr. Joseph, 2:131 Warren, Earl, 4:238, 244 Warren, Helen Frances, 4:42 Warren, Mary Otis, 2:189 Warren, Mercy Otis, 2:148, 149, 200 Warren Association, 3:16 Warsaw Pact, 4:171 Washington, Booker T., 3:220, 4:52, 53–54 Washington, George, 1:146, 2:72, 74, 76, 83, 125, 129 cabinet divisions, 2:267 comments on American Revolution, 2:166 commercial interests, 2:263 Constitutional Convention participation, 2:217–218 Continental Army leadership, 2:139, 159–160 Copley’s portrait of, 2:148 death of, 2:270 Declaration of Independence reading to troops, 2:164 Farewell Address, 3:93, 280 Federalist Party leadership, 2:279 Hamilton’s association with, 2:227 Jefferson’s association with, 2:174 positive opinions of women, 2:196 power transfer to John Adams, 2:243 Proclamation of Neutrality document, 2:258–259 second presidential term, 2:268 XYZ Affair role, 2:241 Watergate Scandal (Nixon administration), 4:223 Waterloo, Battle of, 2:257 Watson, Thomas, 3:174 Wealth against Commonwealth (Lloyd), 3:163 The Wealth of Nations (Smith), 2:7 The Weary Blues (Hughes), 4:60 Webster, Daniel, 1:152–153, 148–149, 3:112 Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), 1:152–153, 3:155 Weld, Theodore, 3:73, 78 “A Well Ordered Family” essay (Wadsworth), 2:192 Wells, Rachel, 2:196 Wesley, Charles, 2:53, 55–56, 65 Wesley, John, 1:11, 2:47, 53, 55, 65, 3:8 West Africa, slavery and, 1:137, 141, 153 Western Federation of Miners, 4:38 Westminster Confession, 2:52 Weyler, Gen. Valeriano, 3:274, 276 Wheatley, Phillis, 2:193 Whig Party, 2:278, 3:67, 81, 132–134, 144, 145 See also Antislavery Whigs Whiskey Rebellion, 2:228, 3:2 White, Richard, 3:241

White, Walter, 4:58 White City (Columbian Exposition), 3:254, 257, 259–262, 265 “White Man’s Burden” (Kipling), 3:273 White resistance, Reconstruction era, 3:215 See also Ku Klux Klan Whitefield, George (1714–1770), 2:46–47, 54, 55, 65–66, 3:6–7 Whitney, Eli, 1:150–151, 160 Wholesome Meat Act (1967), 4:145 Wichita Indians, 1:64 Wild West shows, 3:30 Wildes, Sarah, 1:258 Willard, Emma, 2:207–209 Willard, Frances, 3:170, 3:257 Willard, John, 1:258 Willard Association for the Mutual Improvement of Female Teachers, 2:208 William III (English monarch), 1:178, 235, 236– 237, 241, 243, 249, 2:13 William of Orange. See William III (English monarch) Williams, Abigail, 1:255, 262 Williams, Roger, 1:86, 185–187, 214 expulsion from Massachusetts colony, 1:173, 187 founding of Rhode Island, 1:172–173, 175, 2:49–50 governing attempts by, 1:176, 180 Pequot War and, 1:131, 227 Puritans challenged by, 1:168–169 writings of, 1:186, 187–189 Wilmot, David, 3:147–148 Wilmot Proviso document (1846), 3:147, 149, 158, 190, 203 Wilson, Governor Edward, 1:214–215 Wilson, James, 2:144–145 Wilson, Woodrow, 3:240, 4:23–27 biographical information, 4:43–46 Clayton Anti-Trust Act, 4:4 Committee on Public Information, 4:25, 32 Federal Reserve Act, 4:4 Federal Trade Commission Act, 4:4 Fourteen Points, 4:26 on German submarine attacks, 4:110 League of Nations, 4:16, 25–26 National Park Service, 4:13 Underwood Tariff, 4:3 winning presidential election, 4:29 World War I actions, 4:23–27, 43–46 See also Fourteen Points Wingfield, Edward Maria, 1:112 Winslow, Josiah, 1:225 Winthrop, John, 1:102–109

INDEX

“city on a hill” quote, 1:105 land giveaways to immigrants, 1:106 law delineations, 1:107 “Model of Christian Charity” essay, 1:103, 104, 106, 108, 109 Puritan friends membership, 1:104 Van Twiller’s correspondence with, 1:201 See also Massachusetts Bay Company; Puritans Witchcraft at Salem (Hansen), 1:261 Witchcraft hysteria. See Salem witch trials (1692) The Witches’ Hammer (Kramer & Sprenger), 1:259 Wolcott, Oliver, 2:229, 244 Wolfe, James (1727–1759), 2:72, 78, 84–85, 89–90 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 3:170–171 “Woman’s lib” movement, 4:263 Women AFL union workers, 4:39 African America, 2:192, 195 boycotts and protests by, 2:187, 191 caretaker roles, 2:195 colonial era motherhood, 2:203–205 education for, 2:190 in the Great Awakening, 2:66–67 poetry of Phillis Wheatley, 2:193–194 religious revivalism and, 3:12 Victorian vs. Progressive eras, 4:8–9 Washington’s positive opinion of, 2:196 “A Well Ordered Family” essay, 2:192 white, middle-/upper-class, 2:197 See also Republican Motherhood Women of the Republic (Kerber), 2:189 Women’s Building (Columbian Exposition), 3:256, 260 Women’s Rights Movement (1961–1991), 4:257–271 Equal Rights Amendment, 4:257, 262, 264, 271 Feminist Majority, 4:267 Fosl’s interpretive essay, 4:263–266 Friedan, Betty, 4:259, 264–265, 267–269 National Organization for Women, 4:259–260, 269 overview, 4:257–263 President’s Commission on the Status of Women, 4:269–271 Wonders of the Invisible World (Cotton Mather, 1693), 267, 1:272–274 Wood, Gordon, 2:166, 168 Wood, Timothy L., 1:171–180 Woods, Julia A., 1:138–146, 2:215–222, 3:163–171 Wool, Gen. John E., 3:152

I-37

Woolens Act (1699), 2:3 Woolman, John, 3:69 Working Class War (Appy), 4:225 The Working Man’s Advocate (Evans), 3:129 Workingman’s Party, 3:128 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 4:78, 79, 84, 87 World Court, 4:27 World Education Convention (London), 2:209 World Trade Organization, 4:284 World War I (1914–1918), 4:23–48 African American soldiers, 4:54, 58 Committee on Public Information, 4:25, 32, 37–38 costs to U.S., 4:25 Council for National Defense, 4:29, 30–31 Espionage Act, 4:33 Fourteen Points (Wilson), 4:26, 47–49 Industrial Workers of the World, 4:34, 38–39 influx of African-Americans (U.S.), 4:53 League of Nations, 4:16, 25–26, 39–40 Liberty Bonds, 4:32 obstacles to presidential policies, 4:28–29 overview, 4:23–27 Pershing, Gen. John J., 4:26, 40–43 post-war “bonus army,” 4:77 Russian Revolution, 4:39 Selective Service Act, 4:25–26 Treaty of Versailles ending, 4:16, 26, 86 U.S. unity building, 4:28 Vander Meulen’s interpretive essay, 4:27–35 vigilante groups, 4:33 War Industries Board, 4:25, 31 Wilson, Woodrow, 4:23–27 women union workers, 4:39 World Court, 4:27 Zimmerman Note, 4:23–24, 46–47 World War II (1939–1945), 4:105–129 atomic bombing of Japan, 4:107, 116, 149 Battle of Midway, 4:106 Bradley, Omar, 4:120–121 Bulge, Battle of the, 4: 119–120 economic impact, in U.S., of, 4:112 German’s surrender, 4:169 industrial component of, 4:111 Japanese internment order, 4:109, 114, 128–129 MacArthur, Douglas, 4:81–82, 122–125 Navajo Code Talkers, 4:125–126 Office of War Information, 4:113 overview, 4:105–109 Pearl Harbor attack, 4:106, 107, 110–111, 126–127 propaganda by entertainers, 4:113

I-38

Teheran Conference, 4:106 Thornton’s interpretive essay, 4:109–117 Truman Doctrine, 4:115 Victory Program (1943), 4:112 Yalta Conference, 4:106–107 Zoot Suit Riots, 4:127–128 World’s Columbian Exposition (1893), 3:253–269 architectural ideas, 3:253–254 Burnham, Daniel, 3:254–25, 259, 264–265 Ferris, George, 3:255, 265–267 global transformation effect, 3:262–263 Industrial Revolution’s inspiration, 3:257, 263 Japan’s contributions, 3:255–256 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 3:253, 259–260, 267–269 overview, 3:253–257 Sigur’s interpretive essay, 3:257–263 time spend building, 3:255 White City, 3:254, 257, 259–262, 265 women’s representation, 3:256–257 World’s Congress Auxiliary, 3:256 World’s Congress of Representative Women (1898), 3:256–257 Worster, Donald, 3:241 Wounded Knee Massacre, 3:245, 250–251 Wright, Francis, 3:128 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 3:255

INDEX

X, Malcolm, 4:247 XYZ Affair (France), 2:201, 239–261 Adams, John, role, 2:47, 252–255 Alien and Sedition Acts document, 2:259–261 Bonaparte, Napoleon, role, 2:242, 251 Elbridge, Gerry, role, 2:255–256 Federalist Party issues, 2:246, 249 name derivation, 2:241, 254 overview, 2:239–243 Proclamation of Neutrality document, 2:258–259 Quasi-War, 2:241, 248, 250–251, 256 Rakestraw’s interpretive essay, 2:243–252 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 2:256–258 Yale College, 2:24, 26, 51, 53, 241 Yalta Conference, 4:106–107 Yarmouth Stone (Nova Scotia), 1:2 Yeltsin, Boris, 4:174 Yorktown, Battle of (1781), 2:141, 154, 206, 226 Young Ladies Academy, 2:190 “Yuppies” movement, 4:143 Zapata, Emiliano, 4:54 Zenger, Peter, 1:244–245 Zimmerman Note (1917), 4:23–24, 46–47 Zoot Suit Riots (1943), 4:127–128 Zuni Indians, 1:68–69, 76–78

WHAT HAPPENED? AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EVENTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA FOREVER

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WHAT HAPPENED? An Encyclopedia of Events That Changed America Forever VOLUME IV: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY JOHN E. FINDLING AND FRANK W. THACKERAY, EDITORS

Copyright  by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data What happened? : an encyclopedia of events that changed America forever / John E. Findling and Frank W. Thackeray, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN ---- (set : alk. paper) — ISBN ---- (set ebook) . United States—History—Encyclopedias. I. Findling, John E. II. Thackeray, Frank W. E.W  .—dc  ISBN: ---- EISBN: ---- 

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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC  Cremona Drive, P.O. Box  Santa Barbara, California - This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Illustrations

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Preface and Acknowledgments

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1. PROGRESSIVISM, 1901–1914 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Laura Hague Robert La Follette (–) Progressive Party Theodore Roosevelt (–) Settlement House Movement Upton Sinclair (–)

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2. WORLD WAR I, 1914–1918 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Jacob Vander Meulen Committee on Public Information (CPI) Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) League of Nations John J. Pershing (–) Woodrow Wilson (–) Document: Zimmermann Note,  Document: President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points Speech, 

         

3. THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE, 1917–1935 Introduction Interpretive Essay by James M. Beeby Duke Ellington (–)

   

vi

CONTENTS

Harlem Langston Hughes (–) Zora Neale Hurston (ca. –) James Weldon Johnson (–) Claude McKay (–)

    

4. THE GREAT DEPRESSION, 1929–ca. 1939 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Anders Greenspan First Hundred Days Herbert Hoover (–) Huey Long (–) New Deal Franklin D. Roosevelt (–) Stock Market Crash of 

        

5. WORLD WAR II, 1939–1945 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Larry Thornton Battle of the Bulge () Omar Bradley (–) Douglas MacArthur (–) Navajo Code Talkers Pearl Harbor Attack () Zoot Suit Riots () Document: Executive Order  (Japanese Internment Order), 

         

6. SUBURBANIZATION AND CONSUMERISM, 1945–1990 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Karen Dunak Levittown Ralph Nader (–) Joe Thompson Jr. (–)

     

7. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ATOMIC ENERGY, 1945–1995 Introduction Interpretive Essay by James W. Kunetka Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Nuclear Freeze Movement J. Robert Oppenheimer (–) Three Mile Island Incident ()

      

CONTENTS

vii

8. THE COLD WAR, ca. 1946–1991 Introduction Interpretive Essay by David Mayers Cuban Missile Crisis () Dwight D. Eisenhower (–) Korean War (–) Harry Truman (–) U- Incident ()

       

9. THE RISE OF TELEVISION, ca. 1948–2010 Introduction Interpretive Essay by James E. St. Clair Milton Berle (–) Walter Cronkite (–) A. C. Nielsen (–)

     

10. THE VIETNAM WAR, ca. 1950–1975 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Alan Abbott Antiwar Movement Cambodian Incursion () Lyndon B. Johnson (–) Tet Offensive ()

      

11. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, ca. 1954–PRESENT Introduction Interpretive Essay by Thomas Clarkin Montgomery Bus Boycott (–) Greensboro (North Carolina) Sit-Ins () Freedom Summer () Martin Luther King Jr. (–) Los Angeles Riots of 

       

12. THE WOMEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1961–1991 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Catherine A. Fosl Feminist Majority Betty Friedan (–) President’s Commission on the Status of Women Document: Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

      

CONTENTS

viii

13. THE REAGAN REVOLUTION, 1981–1989 Introduction Interpretive Essay by Cliff Staten George H. W. Bush (–) Iran-Contra Scandal () Sandra Day O’Connor (–) Ronald Reagan (–)

      

Appendix A: Glossary of Terms and People



Appendix B: Timeline



Appendix C: Presidents, Vice Presidents, and Secretaries of State, –



About the Editors and Contributors



Thematic Index



Index

I-

ILLUSTRATIONS

Not all Americans supported the woman suffrage campaign



Many Americans were killed or wounded during World War I



W. E. B. DuBois played a major role in the Harlem Renaissance



Breadline in New York City during the Great Depression



The surrender of Japan marked the end of World War II



Aerial view of Levittown, New York



The development of more powerful nuclear weapons



John F. Kennedy and Nikita S. Khrushchev at a summit meeting, June 



Television’s popularity skyrocketed during the s



Secretary Robert McNamara and General William Westmoreland in Vietnam



The Civil Rights Act of  put an end to segregated public accommodations



Women’s rights supporters take to the streets in protest marches, August 



President Ronald Reagan was known as the “Great Communicator”



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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This volume, which describes and evaluates the significance of  of the most important events in the United States during the th century, is the fourth in a multivolume series intended to acquaint readers with the seminal events of American history. Other volumes cover the most important events of earlier centuries. A companion series of volumes will address the global experience, “Events That Formed the Modern World.” Our collective classroom experience provided the inspiration for this project. Having encountered literally thousands of entry-level college students whose knowledge of the history of their country was sadly deficient, we determined to prepare a series of books that would concentrate on the most important events affecting those students (and advanced high school students as well) in the hope that they would better understand their country and how it came to be. Furthermore, we hope these books will stimulate the reader to delve further into the events covered in each volume and to take a greater interest in history in general. The current volume is designed to serve two purposes. First, the editors have provided for each chapter an introduction that presents factual material about a particular topic in a clear, concise, chronological order. Second, each introduction is followed by a longer, interpretive essay by a specialist exploring the ramifications of the event under consideration. Each essay includes an annotated bibliography of the most important works about the event. Following the bibliography are a number of shorter essays featuring people or events closely related to the chapter topic. In some cases, there are primary source documents related to the topic as well. The  chapters are followed by three appendices that provide additional information useful to the reader. Appendix A is a glossary of additional names, events, organizations, and terms mentioned but not fully explained in the introductions and essays that comprise each chapter. Appendix B is a timeline of th-century and early st-century events, and Appendix C is a listing of presidents, vice presidents, and secretaries of state between  and . The events covered in this volume were selected on the basis of our combined teaching and research activities. Colleagues and contributors made suggestions as well, and for this we thank them. Of course, another pair of editors might have arrived at a somewhat

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

different list than we did; but we believe that we have assembled a group of events that truly changed America in the th century.

As with all published works, numerous people behind the scenes deserve much of the credit for the final product. Barbara Rader, our editor at Greenwood Publishing Group, encouraged us as we prepared the first edition of this book in the late s. Others who gave assistance to that edition included the staff of the Photographic Division of the Library of Congress, and our student research assistant, Bob Marshall. Brigette Adams, Carol Findling and Jo Ann Waterbury all helped with word processing in the final stage of the project. For this edition, we are grateful to James Stewart, John Wagner, Jennifer Boelter, and several others at ABC-CLIO who have answered our questions and addressed our concerns in a positive and timely manner. Special thanks go to Glenn Crothers and John Hunt, who helped us find excellent authors for several of the interpretive essays. We are also grateful to the authors of the shorter essays at the end of each chapter. These historians, provided by ABC-CLIO, wrote fine essays that significantly increased the value of each chapter. Among others who helped us in one way or another to make both the first edition and this one better books are John Newman, Sam Sloss, Sheila Anderson, Kim Pelle, Brook Taylor, Andrew Trout, and Deborah Bulleit. And, most important, we thank our authors, whose essays were well conceived and thoughtful and whose patience when the project seemed to lag was much appreciated. Finally, we wish to express our appreciation to our spouses, Carol Findling and Kathy Thackeray, and to our children, Jamey and Jenny Findling and Alex, Max and Melanie Thackeray, whose patience with us and interest in our work made it all worthwhile. John E. Findling Frank W. Thackeray

1 Progressivism, 1901–1914

INTRODUCTION The political movement known as progressivism first entered national politics around  and remained a dominant force until the onset of World War I in Europe in . By , the Progressive platform generally stressed political reform to bring about a greater degree of democracy and citizen participation (including woman suffrage) in government. In addition, Progressives believed that government should control more closely the activities of big business and revise the tax structure by reducing the high tariff rates and imposing an income tax. Some Progressives adopted a social agenda, demanding measures that would improve the quality of life; abolition of child labor and prohibition of alcohol were important issues. Progressivism sprang from a variety of roots. Much of its ideology came from populism, a rural-dominated movement, which by  was no longer a factor in national politics. The leadership of the Progressive movement, however, came out of an urban reform drive that had flowered in a number of midwestern and eastern cities during the s. Progressive mayors, such as Tom Johnson of Cleveland and Sam “Golden Rule” Jones of Toledo, Ohio, won national acclaim for their successful efforts to divest city government of the corruption of political machines and special interests. Others achieved success at the state level, notably Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin, who later became a U.S. senator and the leader of a national Progressive movement. Much Progressive publicity came from the pens and typewriters of a group of writers who, by the early s, were publishing articles and books exposing the evils of everything from child labor abuses to corporate monopolism. These writers, whom Theodore Roosevelt came to call “muckrakers,” included Lincoln Steffens, whose articles stripped away the secret corruption of city governments; Ida Tarbell, who exposed the ruthless corporate tactics of Standard Oil; and Upton Sinclair, whose popular novels laid bare the horrors of American factory life. When Theodore Roosevelt became president in  upon the assassination of William McKinley, the nation had, for the first time, a president sympathetic to many of the reform impulses of the previous  years. Roosevelt’s record as a New York state legislator, member of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, superintendent of the New York City police, and, finally, governor of New York, reflected his reform-mindedness; and, while the loyal Republican never thought of himself as a Progressive while in the White House, he was responsive to the increasing public demand for reform.

2

WHAT HAPPENED?

Many progressives supported the woman suffrage campaign, but not all Americans shared their feelings. This image shows the headquarters of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage in 1911. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

In , Roosevelt surprised everyone by ordering his attorney general to enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by filing suit against the Northern Securities Company, a railroad trust by which the banker J. P. Morgan and others attempted to create a monopoly of all the railroads serving the American northwest. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court, which ruled Northern Securities to be in violation of the Sherman Act and ordered it dissolved. The decision had a great psychological effect on the country, led to the filing of other suits, and gave Roosevelt the nickname “trustbuster.” President Roosevelt extended government regulation over business in other ways as well. For the first time, labor fell under government protection when Roosevelt intervened in the anthracite coal strike () after management refused to negotiate. The president’s threat to take over the mines brought both sides to the arbitration table. In , the Elkins Act was passed, strengthening the Interstate Commerce Act (), which had ineffectually tried to regulate railroads. The Elkins Act prohibited railroads from charging anything other than their published rates, and the Hepburn Act () significantly increased the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission, created in the original act, to investigate railroad practices and bring action against those in violation of the law. In , Congress passed two acts that further increased the government’s role in the economy. The Pure Food and Drug Act, a product of public concern with patent medicines of dubious quality, banned the interstate sale of any misbranded or adulterated food or medicine, although it did not deal with the frequently outrageous advertising of these goods. The Meat Inspection Act, a direct result of Upton Sinclair’s muckraking novel, The Jungle, prohibited the interstate sale of unhealthful meat or meat products and set up a system for inspecting meat and meat-packing plants. William Howard Taft, Roosevelt’s secretary of war and his handpicked choice to carry on his reform program, easily won the presidential election of . Although lacking Roosevelt’s immense energy and public appeal, Taft was successful in continuing Roosevelt’s policies in some areas. Taft’s attorney general filed twice as many antitrust suits against American businesses as had Roosevelt’s. Under Taft, Congress further strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission and passed the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, legalizing an income tax, and the Seventeenth Amendment,

PROGRESSIVISM, 1901–1914

3

calling for the direct election of U.S. senators (who previously had been chosen by state legislatures). By , both these amendments had been ratified by the necessary number of states. In other areas, however, Taft sorely disappointed Roosevelt. Although most Progressives favored a lower tariff, Taft’s effort in this area, the Payne-Aldrich Tariff (), was manipulated by probusiness forces in Congress, so that, in the end, tariff rates were actually raised. A nasty dispute in the Department of the Interior between Richard Ballinger, the secretary of the interior and a Taft appointee, and Gifford Pinchot, the chief forester and a Roosevelt man, ended with Taft’s siding with Ballinger and firing Pinchot, a move that Roosevelt interpreted as a sellout to the large timber and mining interests, who, with Ballinger’s support, wanted to exploit the resources of protected national forest reserves. By , Roosevelt was openly criticizing Taft and his policies, which contributed to a deepening rift in the Republican Party between Taft and the conservatives on one side, and the Progressives, led initially by LaFollette, on the other. In early , Roosevelt announced that he would seek the Republican nomination for president that year, directly challenging Taft, the incumbent. When the Republican convention, controlled by forces loyal to Taft, renominated him, Roosevelt left the party and formed his own, which he formally called the Progressive Party. (More popularly it was known as the Bull Moose Party, after the animal Roosevelt chose as its symbol.) The Democrats, having no nationally prominent individual to nominate, waited until the th convention ballot to choose Woodrow Wilson, the progressive but little-known governor of New Jersey. The campaign of  revolved around which kind of progressivism should prevail in the United States. Taft, whose administration had been thoroughly discredited by Roosevelt and whose party was in disarray, campaigned on his conservative record, but few listened. Roosevelt espoused a program that he called the New Nationalism, in which the federal government would play a strong and dynamic role in national life through the continuous exercise of regulatory powers. Wilson’s program, termed the New Freedom, was more Jeffersonian in outlook. Under the New Freedom, the federal government would have the potential to exercise great power, but it would utilize that power only when needed to destroy inequities in the system or to restore free and open competition in the marketplace. Wilson and the Democrats won the election over Roosevelt (and Taft) due partly to the fact that the Democrats were unified and the Republicans were not, and also because party loyalty kept many Republicans from voting for Roosevelt, who personally was much more popular than either of the other two candidates. With this election, the mantle of progressivism passed from the Republican to the Democratic Party and the political career of Theodore Roosevelt came to an end. Wilson’s first year and a half in office marked the high point of progressivism. Before the onset of World War I took national attention away from domestic reform, Wilson persuaded Congress to pass four major pieces of legislation, which, to his way of thinking, completed the Progressive agenda. The first of these was the Underwood Tariff (), an effort to end the high protective tariff that had existed since the Civil War. Wilson urged passage of this act to convince business of the necessity of efficiency, and his careful cultivation of influential committee chairmen and calls for party loyalty overcame the lobbying efforts of the business community, which predicted an economic

4

WHAT HAPPENED?

disaster if the bill passed. It did pass, brought no significant long-term economic decline, and included the first U.S. income tax, which was seen as a means to replace the federal income lost through the lowering of tariff rates. The second of Wilson’s great Progressive measures was the Federal Reserve Act (). A short, but sharp, economic panic in  and a subsequent congressional investigation had revealed the need for major banking and currency reform, and the Federal Reserve Act provided just that. Passed after another round of diligent politicking on Wilson’s part, the act established a network of  district banks under the control of a new federal regulatory agency, the Federal Reserve Board. These banks were so-called “banker’s banks,” with which only other banks could do business. Since the Federal Reserve Board had substantial authority over the setting of interest rates and the issuance of currency, its control over the banking industry was significant. The third and fourth Progressive measures on Wilson’s agenda both dealt with the antitrust question. The Federal Trade Commission Act () established a regulatory agency, the Federal Trade Commission, to investigate and supervise the activities of business, much as the Interstate Commerce Commission could do for railroads, and the Federal Reserve Board for banks. The Clayton Anti-Trust Act () amended and strengthened the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and made more consistent the enforcement authority given to each of the three regulatory agencies. Significantly, too, it exempted labor and agricultural organizations from antitrust laws. Following the passage of these two acts in , Wilson felt that his mission of domestic reform was accomplished. He believed that business was now adequately checked under the umbrella of reform, and he stepped away from the issue by turning down a bill to allow banks to give long-term credit to farmers and another outlawing child labor. Only in , when his reelection was on the line and he needed the support of Progressive strongholds in the Midwest and West, did Wilson don the Progressive mantle again. He appointed Louis Brandeis, a liberal jurist (and the first Jew) to the Supreme Court, supported a rail worker’s bill providing for an eight-hour working day, an agricultural credit bill, and a measure limiting child labor. His rebirth as a Progressive in  probably helped him in his successful reelection bid, but with World War I dominating his second term, further efforts to advance Progressive causes did not come from the White House. The war itself did help propel a couple of Progressive social issues into reality. Although the suffrage movement had been very active in the years before the war, and many states had passed legislation allowing women to vote on state and local matters, Congress did not pass the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution until . Many historians point to the highly useful service women provided the country during the war as the crucial factor in the congressional vote. By the presidential election of , enough states had ratified the amendment to make it part of the Constitution, and women voted nationally for the first time. Anti-German agitation during the war helped bring about Prohibition, which found constitutional legitimacy as the Eighteenth Amendment upon ratification in . This measure set a limit of one-half of one percent on the alcoholic content of any beverage commercially produced and sold, although farmers could still legally make and drink their own liquor at home. Urban drinkers, however, were out of luck, and the “Noble Experiment,” as it has been called, led to widespread scoffing at the law by ordinary

PROGRESSIVISM, 1901–1914

5

Americans and large-scale racketeering and violence by organized mobsters in the s. Although it did reduce drinking in America by about one-third, few considered Prohibition a success, and it was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment in .

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY laura hague In the decades preceding the opening of the th century, rapid changes in the economy and demography of the United States challenged the American dream. The widespread and divergent responses to these changes mark the time historians call the Progressive era. Few periods in American history have provoked as many differences in interpretation. When did the Progressive era begin? When did it end? What were the origins of progressivism? Who were the Progressives? What did they believe? What is their legacy? Seemingly, every facet of the Progressive era is debated. Despite the diversity of interpretation, there is consensus that, especially after , what is called the Progressive era was an urban-based reform movement of unprecedented scope aimed primarily at making adjustments to the political, social, and economic by-products of industrialization. Three major trends stemming from industrialization provided the stimulus for Progressive reform. First, inept and corrupt governance became a pressing concern as government on all levels expanded its role from insuring public order to providing public services. Second, both economic expansion and centralization occurred simultaneously, in part from government action on behalf of business, but mostly because of new ways of organizing business. The increasing disruption of society, as a booming population fed the unregulated development of big business was the final incitement to this new age of reformism. After the Civil War, the United States turned away from reform to concentrate on economic expansion. The bloodiness of the conflict and the failure of abolitionists’ naive expectations of civil peace in the South prompted the disillusioned nation to indulge itself in what historians later called “the Great Barbecue.” Personal enrichment through government corruption, or what was then seen as business sleight-of-hand, gave a prosperous cast to a time of increasing social unrest. No single instance of misuse of government power and money stands out from the rest. At the federal level, the Credit Mobilier scandal, which involved fraud in the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, made the Grant administration the premier example of Washington corruption until the s. Machine politics so dominated state government that in many states, both North and South, the two-party system existed only in theory. And in city after city, as well as in many rural counties, the “boss system” controlled both local government and the dispensation of services until long after the turn of the th century. A good part of the rampant governmental corruption stemmed from the necessarily close relationship between business and politics. The Civil War had enlarged the federal government’s responsibility for meeting desirable public goals, such as an efficient and thorough transportation system linking the East and West coasts.

6

WHAT HAPPENED?

Accomplishing such a goal meant that the government needed either to build and operate railroads itself or to provide subsidies in the form of land, and routes to private enterprise. Government personnel were the first to know who would be the recipient of federal largesse, the size of the grant, and the location. Thus, businesses dependent on that information were willing to pay for prior knowledge of decisions, and knowledgeable government insiders were well-situated to make their own business deals. Similar relationships between business and government emerged on the local level when municipalities contracted with private enterprise for public works or the provision of basic services. New methods of doing business incited charges of corruption and unfairness. The late th century witnessed the birth of big business, which emerged in forms substantially different from prior business arrangements. Earlier, even a prosperous business, perhaps an iron furnace, did one thing only and operated with roughly the same profit margin as smaller businesses. After producing pig iron, the furnace would sell its product to another business, such as a forge, for processing into finished products, and that business would sell its inventory to a wholesaler for further distribution to retailers. When giant corporations, like U.S. Steel, emerged, they handled all elements of production up through wholesaling their own finished products. Because of this vertical integration of all aspects of production, the new corporations were able to operate at a substantially lower profit margin and offer lower wholesale prices. Unable to compete, thousands of small businesses were forced to close, with their skilled employees left to seek unskilled positions in the new big businesses. Understandably, the displaced owners and workers, as well as those who feared they might suffer the same fate, suspected the “robber barons,” like Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller, of unfair and corrupt business practices. Improved transportation and efficient business practices helped stimulate rapid industrialization. Production of manufactured goods soared. Already a world leader in the steel industry in , the United States saw its steel production soar from fewer than  million tons to over  million by . However, this industrialization would not have been possible without two important demographic changes in the American population. At the close of the Civil War, the American population stood at less than  million; by  the population was more than  million. Part of the surge in numbers can be found in a postwar baby boom. The other source was from immigration. The United States had always experienced high rates of immigration, but now contemporary observers noticed a troubling new trend that grew even stronger after . Native whites saw the newcomers as not only overwhelmingly poor but also different from earlier immigrants. The new immigrants tended to be Catholics and Jews from southern and eastern Europe with the “unwholesome” habit of settling in cities. Native-born Protestants fled to the suburbs and then looked back aghast at the urban spectacle: impoverished people with bizarre religious beliefs and customs, speaking odd languages, dancing and drinking, had replaced the sober, upright American citizen. The foreigners lived in tenements, wore rags, and died from disease and hunger. The sober, upright American citizen was shocked. All that drinking and dancing would simply have to go. Throughout the s and s, reformers sought to eliminate the corruption of the cities, first through exhorting the poor to adopt middle-class values, and then by

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attempting to legislate morality. In fact, the first of the major Progressive reform efforts, prohibition of alcohol, focused on making it impossible for the poor to engage in such an unhealthy habit. While the initial reaction of many middle-class Americans to poverty in the cities was to blame it on the customs of the foreign immigrants, closer observers realized that another demographic change belied such simplistic analysis. The employment opportunities of the cities attracted even larger numbers of native-born rural Americans than foreign immigrants. These native newcomers shared with the foreigners the same harsh living conditions, yet held the same values as the prosperous inhabitants of the suburbs. Reformers began to understand that if the teetotaling farmer’s son from Maine was as poor as the beer-drinking Slovak, personal habits were not necessarily the cause of poverty. Though industrialization generated overall increases in income and living standards, it also invoked a terrible cycle of economic boom and bust. Employing all available hands during good times, businesses thought little of firing many workers during lean times and reducing the wages of those remaining. Because few laborers, even during prosperity cycles, were paid enough to support a family, most families relied on the combined income of parents and children to survive. The prospect of an entire family being thrown onto the reduced wages of one or two family members for a year or more every decade contributed to the creation of an urban tinderbox that flamed repeatedly from the s to about . Incidents of civil unrest captured public attention throughout the last decades of the th century. Though much, if not most, of the violence was at the hands of police or an employer’s security force, the Haymarket Riot () in Chicago, the Homestead Strike () in Pennsylvania, and the Pullman Strike (), just outside of Chicago, were among the many protests that raised the prospect of imminent class warfare and inspired many middle-class activists and concerned employers to look for ways to change the situation. The fear of an insurrection by the laboring classes deepened when populism appeared on the national scene in the s. The Populists’ concrete proposals for restructuring the entire American financial system and their critique of the centralization of economic and political power in the United States affirmed the arguments of advocates for the urban poor. This time, the criticisms could not be shrugged off, as they had been before, as the un-American ravings of foreigners. The radical voice of the Populists was raised by native-born farmers in such unlikely locales as Texas, Georgia, and Kansas. Their political popularity throughout the South and Midwest forced the two major parties to reevaluate their response to the issues of the day. While the size of the problems in politics, economics, and society demanded a response, trends within the middle and upper classes fashioned the shape of that response. The same economy that created so much disruption also provided a prosperity that both expanded and changed the middle class. The impact of the philosophy of positivism on education led to a belief that all questions could be answered through the diligent application of scientific method. Large numbers of women were coming of age with an education but without prospects of employing their knowledge in the professions. Finally, the rise of the Social Gospel movement admonished prosperous Christians against ignoring the plight of their less fortunate neighbors.

8

WHAT HAPPENED?

From  to , national wealth grew from $ billion to $ billion. This economic expansion, driven by industrialization, fueled the growth of the middle class by increasing demand for the services of professionals and, more significantly, by adding a new component to the middle class. In the th century, the middle class was significantly different from what is presently considered middle class. The most important characteristic of its members was that they did not work with their hands. Doctors, lawyers, professors, clergymen, merchants, and owners of other small businesses comprised the occupational makeup of the middle class in the Victorian era. With the increase in overall national prosperity, an important change in the composition of the middle class was occurring—the addition of white collar workers. Whereas the older professions were at least nominally independent, the white-collar worker was an employee. Paid to manage some aspect of a large corporation, the white-collar worker was only slowly accepted by the older members of the middle class. Standing in the community was another defining aspect of the middle class, whether traditional or not. Throughout the country, middle-class households were not the average but the most prosperous in their local communities. Under stress from competition with big business and loss of status as an economically independent class, many middle-class men and women sought to retain community leadership by spearheading reform in a moderate direction. Education was extremely important to the middle class. Without it, there could be little hope of entering the professions. With parents ever more able to afford greater degrees of schooling for their children, the middle-class family was able to take advantage of the expansion of higher education. New colleges sprang up across the nation. With the encouragement of middle-class voters, government too undertook to expand higher education through land grants and direct appropriation. Many of the new colleges were public universities, dedicated to educating the widest possible sector of the public by keeping tuition reasonably low and locations central. In the colleges, increasing numbers of students learned to employ scientific method in their examinations of social questions. Concurrently, the philosophy of pragmatism was calling into question ancient verities. As put into practice by educator John Dewey, pragmatism emphasized the importance of the environment surrounding an individual on his or her behavior and values. These two understandings, pragmatism and scientific method, undergirded the Progressive reform spirit. Where once reformers had focused on changing individuals to solve social problems, now they worked to change the environmental conditions that caused problems for individuals. And, armed with the methodology of science, the Progressives were certain they could pinpoint exactly which environmental conditions were problems and how they could be efficiently solved. Educated and knowledgeable, the Progressives proceeded to professionalize the world of social reform. One unforeseen consequence of expanded education was the involvement of middleclass women in the public domain. The Victorian age had produced distinct spheres of activity based on gender. Men were to be responsible for public matters—government, business, and the like. Women were to be the nurturers of children and the moral support of men. Simply put, men took care of all things outside the home and women were restricted to domestic matters indoors. While the separate spheres model was never universally or perfectly practiced, its hold on the middle and upper classes was strong.

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Poor women of all races, especially while unmarried, often had to work outside of their homes, though generally in “feminine” occupations like spinning, domestic work, and canning; and they largely considered education past basic literacy to be an unmarketable frivolity. The uselessness of education for women seemed evident; the middle-class female college graduate promptly found that she had been overeducated for the one career really open to her, being a wife and mother. Rather than give in to this frustrating situation, however, the educated woman increasingly took advantage of two possibilities. She hired servants to take over the upkeep of the household, freeing her to contribute publicly through the reform activities of women’s clubs, or she chose to remain single and make a career of social reform. Whatever her choice, the middle-class woman of the Progressive era provided the bulk of talent and time at the grass-roots level of reform. While new trends in education and wider access to it provided the intellectual framework for progressivism, and college-educated young women provided much of its energetic workforce, the basis of Progressive reform was spiritual. The original reform response to the problems brought about through industrialization and economic expansion, as noted, was one of moral chastisement. Further, in many countries that have industrialized during the th century, the response to the resulting social problems has been an authoritarian crackdown on the poorest members of society. That the response in the United States became one of amelioration of social ills, instead of the institution of a police state, was to a great degree the result of the spread of the Social Gospel movement. Reform efforts in the United States had been connected to waves of Protestant revival since colonial days. However, the earlier reform efforts focused on the individual’s personal relationship to God. Even abolitionism merely expanded the older concept into a national relationship to God. The contribution of Social Gospel movement to reform was essentially a change in focus from relationships to God to relationships among people. Popular works like Progress and Poverty () and If Christ Came to Chicago () called attention to the impossibility of the poor changing the economic circumstances that so inequitably distributed the wealth of the nation. The lengthy depression of the s made urgent the need for prosperous Americans to accept the role of their brothers’ keepers. The middle-class reform movement launched a three-pronged attack on the problems of the day, starting at the grass-roots level. Decentralized, though often affiliated, groups in localities across the country grappled with political and social ills. The discovery that the problems were more complex than any private organization of wellmeaning citizens could address prompted the first demands that government become part of the solution. As adequate resolution of each issue required greater degrees of coordination and power, the reformers turned from the city to the state and then to the federal government. The earliest reforms were part of the campaign by political reformers known as mugwumps against local political corruption. In cities across America, political machines had learned to win and keep offices in municipal government by extending economic aid to the city’s poor. At a time before acceptance of a governmental role in provision of social services, the act of helping a widow find rent money or getting an orphan a job, even when done on a random and sporadic basis, won the good will of

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most of the electorate. That such good deeds were meagerly awarded and that the machine politicians used political office to enrich themselves mattered little to people who knew there was no other source of assistance. However, to the privileged sectors of society, the atrocious condition of city streets and utilities and the inequitable system of property taxation found in most cities nullified any good the machines did. Most mugwump reformers in the period between the end of Reconstruction and the depression of the s believed that political machines could be broken only if “unqualified” people were denied the franchise. Imposing literacy and lengthy residency requirements, the mugwump and, later, Progressive reformers of both the North and South continued well into the th century the process of politically marginalizing poor native whites, immigrants, and blacks. Important Progressive political reforms carried on the process of marginalization. Wherever the reformers took control, they altered the basis of city government from representation by ward or borough to city-wide election, effectively raising the cost of winning by distribution of assistance, while removing office holders from direct accountability to impoverished voters. Many analysts now believe that the American apathy surrounding local elections emerged during the waning years of the th century as reforms rendered large sectors of society impotent to gain effective representation. Of course, not all the reforms enacted by the Progressives, or even the mugwumps, were detrimental to democracy. Many reforms were directed at improving democratic practices. The institution of the secret ballot and the banning of campaigning from the polling place are but two of the reform efforts begun under mugwump auspices and continued by Progressives in an effort to end retribution by employers and politicians against voters. The campaign for the direct election of senators, rather than their appointment by state legislatures, ultimately successful with the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, is an excellent example of Progressive hopes that better popular representation would decrease corruption at the state and national levels. Many states and localities, especially in the West, added initiative and referendum for legislation and recall of public officials to the tools of representative democracy. Of all the Progressive political reforms, the one that has had the greatest impact on the ordinary citizen to this day was public ownership of public services. Private providers ran often dangerous public transportation at prices well in excess of value received. Others held city refuse collection contracts and dumped the refuse in the alleys and vacant lots of tenement districts. Whatever the service—transportation, sanitation, street maintenance, water and sewerage, gas and electricity—taxpayers came to associate private contracts with haphazard service, high prices, and political corruption. In exasperation, voters cast their fears about socialism aside to put public services directly under public control. Since then, municipal waste collection, city-owned utilities, and city and county road maintenance departments have been the norm throughout the United States. Building on the successful results of their foray into public ownership, the Progressives also pressed for public ownership of amenities such as parks, concert halls, libraries, and, in the South for the first time, grammar schools. Despite the flurry of political reforms at the local and state levels, poverty and social unrest continued unabated. While this may not seem surprising from our present point of view, many reformers initially had sincerely believed that social ills would be

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remedied simply through efficient and honest government. Now politically ready for government intervention in social matters, Progressives sought the underlying causes of the rebellious discontent so obvious in the Haymarket affair and Homestead Strike. From the mid-s on, much of the investigation took place in the neighborhoods of the poor, often directed by the men and, especially, women of the settlement house movement. Settlement houses developed first in England; they were started in the United States in the mid-s. The most famous, Hull House in Chicago, exemplified many of the characteristics of the Progressive era. It was founded by young women of the uppermiddle class who found an answer for a meaningful use of their education in the Social Gospel’s directive to reach out to the less fortunate. Both young men and women boarded within Hull House’s walls, in many ways acting as emissaries of the American middle class in the often alien realm of the working class. Settlement house residents not only offered educational programs to their neighbors, designed to introduce middle-class habits and rudimentary civics lessons, but also kept painstaking records of the living and working conditions of the poor. The records accumulated by the settlement houses provided ammunition in the battle for social legislation. Adding to the written record visual evidence made possible for the first time by flash photography, Progressive social workers showed how the poor lived in filthy, stifling quarters. The disease-ridden tenements presented to local reformers and municipal governments an immediately remediable situation. With a reputation as a breeding ground for epidemics, the slums provoked a concerned response from even the most self-concerned individuals. City planning commissions developed housing standards requiring at least minimal levels of light and fresh air and sanitary access to water supplies. Campaigns involving entire communities set out to remove filth and manure from the streets while instilling pride in the populace. Labor conditions proved more intractable than living conditions. Tradition insisted that the relationship between worker and employer was a private contract. Working families and labor unions were as adamant about maintaining that relationship as the employers themselves. While legislators were inclined to support the concept of contract where it concerned adult men, they were more open to regulation of the working conditions of women and children. At the state level, paternalistic legislators passed restrictions on the labor of women and children. Yet such laws were regularly declared unconstitutional until , when the U.S. Supreme Court finally upheld Oregon’s cap on women’s work hours. The federal government first entered the arena of regulation of businesses as an extension of its role in interstate commerce. Responding to farmers’ complaints about rebates to big businesses while small shippers’ charges appeared to subsidize the discounts, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act in . Expansion of the federal role in interstate commerce underlay subsequent federal Progressive reform of business practices, including areas of consumer protection. Thus, the Sherman and Clayton Acts forbade certain kinds of business combinations because they were in restraint of trade, while the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act, both passed in , regulated the quality of goods that passed across state borders. Sometimes the motivation for particular reforms may seem quaint to modern students. A good example of this is the background to the Sixteenth Amendment, which

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authorized an income tax. The politics of the th century had been concerned to a remarkable degree with one question: What was the proper level for the tariff? The tariff was the chief source of government income and an important means of protecting American industries from being undercut by foreign goods. Maintaining a high tariff kept the government solvent, benefited certain industries and farmers, but kept prices higher than many Americans could afford. Ratifying the income tax amendment in  separated the issue of government funding from protectionism, allowing Congress to risk foreign competition without undermining the financial security of the national government. At the national level, Progressive reform retained a mugwump character in that major reforms often focused on the character of the poor rather than the problems they faced. The simplest way to have the right kind of working class, many reformers thought, was to allow into the United States only the “right” kind of immigrants. In  and again in , Chinese immigration was forbidden outright, while efforts to restrict immigration from elsewhere were defeated only by the presidential vetoes of Taft and Wilson. In , Congress finally had the votes to override Wilson’s veto, marking the beginning of a new era of unrepentant xenophobia. Two years later, this time with Wilson’s blessing, the constitutional amendment prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcohol was ratified. Supporters, who tended to believe that alcohol, frequently manufactured by immigrant-run enterprises, was the root cause of poverty and crime, were wholly unprepared for the levels of lawlessness ushered in by Prohibition. The amendment granting women the right to vote may have drawn as much from growing nativism, or opposition to immigrants, as it did from the arguments of feminists. After over  years of agitation for female suffrage, women’s efforts on behalf of Progressive reform had clearly demonstrated both that women were capable of intelligent decision making and that office-holders were unresponsive to the petitions of voteless segments of society. Sadly, the most persuasive argument to many was that it was unfair and unwholesome that women from nice native-born prosperous households could not vote while immigrant and African American men could. The ratification in  of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the vote, thus stands as peculiar testimony to the convergence of reform and reaction. Little was done in the way of national legislation to improve the circumstances of life for the poor, whose distress had prompted the initial call to reform. While Theodore Roosevelt may have begun using the presidency as an ostensibly neutral mediator in disputes between labor and capital, striking workers during and after World War I found that the federal government would be impartial only when convenient. Antitrust legislation, one of the main victories of the Progressives, soon was used more to impede the development of labor unions than to stop predatory business practices. Real reform for workers had to wait until the New Deal’s response to the Great Depression in the s. African Americans benefited in the Progressive era more from the circumstantial prosperity of the two decades after  than from any activity pursued by governments at any level. In fact, the  Plessy v. Ferguson decision and the segregation of the federal workforce under Wilson reinforced black Americans’ conviction that they were on their own in the fight for civil rights. Taking advantage of the relatively tolerant mood prevailing in the North, African American leaders, with the financial and moral

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support of a few sympathetic whites, inaugurated the Niagara Movement () for civil rights and integration; and, five years later, they launched the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In this way, the seed of perhaps the most important reform in the th century—federally protected extension of civil rights—was planted  years before bearing fruit in the s. The Progressive era also inadvertently spawned another movement that came to fruition in midcentury. The  census had dramatically pointed out that there were territorial limits even in America by demonstrating the closing of the frontier. Aware as a nation for the first time that nature’s bounty was not bottomless, Progressive reformers, especially under Theodore Roosevelt, worked to apply theories of scientific management to the conservation of remaining public lands. Woodrow Wilson’s administration expanded the concept of conservation to recreational resources when it established the National Park Service in . After the end of the Progressive era, concern over pollution in the cities and maintenance of public lands fell dormant until the population and technological pressures of the s transformed the latent Progressive conservationism into modern environmentalism. If progressivism degenerated into a confused morass of half-starts and nativism at the federal level, the grass-roots origins of the movement remained alive. Local women’s clubs continued to fight for sanitation and education. State-appointed factory inspectors relentlessly gathered statistics on child labor and hazardous working conditions. African Americans painstakingly brought suit in court for equal access to the resources of American society. Individual chapters of wilderness clubs readily heard and supported the new professional ecologists. The Progressive era ended with World War I, but reform efforts continued. The experiments in governmental activism left a legacy of official willingness to regulate social interactions. Self-confident, educated, financially independent, and spiritually driven, the Progressives breached the traditional wall between the public and private sectors. Though unable to take full advantage themselves of the new responsiveness of government, the young middle-class adults of turn-of-the-th-century America opened a path that later generations were to pave. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Boyer, Paul. Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . Chronicles attempts to instill traditional rural moral values into the people of the new urban centers. Bryan, Mary Lynn McCree, and Allen F. Davis, eds. One Hundred Years at Hull House. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, . Essays celebrating the centennial of the first and most noteworthy settlement house. Buenker, John D. Urban Liberalism and Progressive Reform. New York: Scribner & Sons, . Study of the contribution of urban Democrats to Progressive reform through cooperation with other groups interested in reform. Cooper, John M. Jr. The Warrior and the Priest. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . A very readable dual biography of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Crunden, Robert. Ministers of Reform: The Progressives’ Achievement in American Civilization, –. New York: Basic Books, . An analysis of  Progressive-era figures demonstrating the cultural side of the movement.

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Frankel, Noralee, and Nancy S. Dye, eds. Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, . Collection of essays dealing with women in the Progressive era. Ginger, Ray. Altgeld’s America: The Lincoln Ideal Versus Changing Realities. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, . Study of Chicago’s liberal reformers in the s, centered around Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld. Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. New York: Oxford University Press, . History of the farmer-based movement that lent much to progressivism. Gould, Lewis L., ed. The Progressive Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, . A variety of essays analyzing the Progressive era from different perspectives. Harbaugh, William H. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Collier, . Balanced biography of the president most closely associated with progressivism. Hareven, Tamara K., and Randolph Langenbach. Amoskeag: Life and Work in an American Factory-City. New York: Pantheon Books, . A case study of management and labor in what was the world’s largest textile factory. Harrison, Robert. Congress, Progressive Reform, and the New American State. New York: Cambridge University Press, . Study of the role of Congress in legislating Progressive reform measures. Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. New York: Vintage Books, . Classic analysis of American politics in the early th century. Kolko, Gabriel. The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, – . New York: Free Press, . Argues that the Progressive-era reforms were really just what conservative forces wanted. Lamoreaux, Naomi R. The Great Merger Movement in American Business, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . A statistical analysis of the business combination movement at the turn of the th century and its impact on antitrust activity. Link, William A. The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, –. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Argues that Southern Progressives had only limited success because they tried to impose reform through coercion and control. McCormick, Richard L. From Realignment to Reform: Political Change in New York State, – . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . Study of the impact of progressivism on an important northeastern state. McCormick, Richard L. The Party Period and Public Policy: American Politics from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era. New York: Oxford University Press, . A study of the changes brought by Progressive politics on U.S. political parties. McGerr, Michael E. The Decline of Popular Politics: The American North, –. New York: Oxford University Press, . Argues that the partisan politics of the Gilded Age was replaced by the politics of personality, despite Progressives’ efforts to create an educated, issue-oriented electorate. Meltzer, Milton. Bread and Roses: The Struggle of American Labor, –. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . Survey of the development of organized labor. Painter, Nell Irvin. Standing at Armageddon: The United States, –. New York: W. W. Norton, . Survey text from a working-class point of view, with emphasis on political and labor history. Riis, Jacob A. How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. New York: Dover, . Originally published in , this was a pioneer photographic exposé of immigrant poverty in New York City. Weinstein, James. The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State, –. Boston: Beacon Press, . Radical interpretation asserting that progressivism developed under the banner of corporate capitalism and its financial institutions.

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ROBERT LA FOLLETTE (1855–1925) Over the course of a -year political career, “Fighting Bob” La Follette never let the lure of wealth or political power deter him from his successful efforts to champion Progressive reforms in Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. Although his passionate commitment to reform earned him the wrath of his opponents during his lifetime, admiration for his courage and appreciation for his accomplishments have greatly enhanced his reputation since his death. Robert Marion La Follette was voted one of the most outstanding senators of all time by the Senate in . La Follette was born on June , , in Primrose, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in  and established a law practice in Madison. He was elected district attorney of Dane County in , was reelected in , and two years later won election to the first of three successive (–) terms in Congress. After his reelection defeat in , La Follette resumed his law practice. In , a bitter dispute between him and Wisconsin senator and Republican Party leader Philetus Sawyer caused a split in the Wisconsin Republican Party between conservative Sawyer and Progressive La Follette supporters that lasted for decades. Stymied by the refusal of the Wisconsin Republican Party leadership to support his nomination for governor in  and , La Follette went directly to the people and established a power base among farmers, small businessmen, professionals, and intellectuals that was independent of party affiliation. Through this support and by joining forces with other reformers in the Republican Party in , La Follette won the party’s nomination for governor by acclamation and then triumphed in the general election. Because the state legislature was still controlled by his opponents, La Follette again took his message directly to the people and, in addition to his own reelection in , managed to secure the election of a reform-oriented majority in the new legislature. La Follette was able to introduce and secure the passage of legislation that made Wisconsin the first state to adopt the direct primary. This provides a way for the voters to choose the party’s candidates and is the most widely used method (as opposed to the caucus or convention) for nominating candidates in the United States today. He also introduced legislation to tax railroads on the basis of the true value of their property. In addition, under his administration, a commission was established to regulate railroad rates, corporation taxes were increased, a civil service law was adopted, and state funding for education was increased. La Follette was elected to the Senate in  but delayed taking his seat until , when he finished his third term as governor. In the Senate, he continued his efforts to initiate Progressive reforms designed to curb what he believed was the dangerous and excessive power of entrenched political leaders, wealthy businessmen, and corporations. He supported the need to regulate railroads and other industries and opposed high tariffs. He was a strong supporter of labor’s right to organize and of the government’s obligation to regulate working conditions. La Follette’s views on foreign policy hurt him politically. His refusal to support President Woodrow Wilson’s hostility toward Germany, which he suspected was motivated by the desire of American bankers and businessmen to protect their loans and earn war profits, was at first popular with his isolationist, largely German and Scandinavian constituency. However, his decision to vote against going to war and his continued criticism

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of the U.S. war effort in  and  made him so unpopular that an effort to expel him from the Senate for disloyalty was barely avoided. After the war, La Follette remained true to his convictions and opposed the Treaty of Versailles and U.S. membership in the League of Nations. Ironically, by the time he was up for reelection in , public disillusionment with American participation in the war had set in, and he was returned to office by an overwhelming majority. Disappointed by the lack of commitment of either of the major political parties to significant reform, La Follette concluded that a third party needed to be created. In , he accepted the nomination of the Progressive Party for president. He waged an exceptionally vigorous campaign and managed to win more than  million popular votes, or  percent of all the votes cast. The strain of the campaign he conducted, however, proved fatal, and he died on June , .

steven g. o’brien PROGRESSIVE PARTY Although some political parties that began as third parties (most notably the Republicans) have emerged to assume a position as one of the two major parties, only one third party has ever come in second in a U.S. presidential election. This situation occurred in , when former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt bolted from his party and ran as a Bull Moose, or Progressive, candidate after the Republicans renominated William Howard Taft, with whom Roosevelt had split politically. Roosevelt espoused many of the themes associated with the wider Progressive movement that advocated expanded suffrage, primary elections, the initiative, referendum, and recall, and opposition to huge monopolies and trusts. Roosevelt was shot during the campaign but continued to speak to his audience and survived the attempt on his life. His candidacy split the Republicans, enabling Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, to win. Roosevelt came in second. Roosevelt endorsed the Republican candidate in , and the Progressive Party ceased to function. In , Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin unsuccessfully ran for president under a Progressive label, as did former vice president Henry A. Wallace in .

THEODORE ROOSEVELT (1858–1919) Although largely opposed by the political establishment, Theodore Roosevelt fought to give the common citizen “a square deal.” Many of his ideas for reform, considered radical in their day, have become accepted by both political parties. An avowed nationalist with imperialist leanings, he also transformed the United States into a major international and military power. He brought both the presidency and the nation into the th century. Roosevelt was born on October , , into a prosperous family in New York City. His early education came from private tutors. Because he suffered from asthma and poor eyesight, he tried to build himself up physically through exercise and sport and

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practiced hard at horseback riding, boxing, and shooting. He also developed an early interest in nature and in military affairs. Later he attended Harvard University and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While at Harvard, he began writing The Naval War of , which was published two years after he graduated in . In , at the age of , he was elected to the New York State legislature, where he served three one-year terms and supported the Progressive reform wing of the Republican Party. Following the tragic death of his young wife, Roosevelt spent two years in the Dakota Territory, ranching and writing history. In , he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York City. He did not return to public office until President Benjamin Harrison appointed him to the Civil Service Commission in . Opposed to the spoils system, Roosevelt worked hard to revise civil service examinations and search out fraud. In , he became president of the police commission of New York City. His reforms brought opposition from both Democrats and Republicans in the city government. President William McKinley appointed Roosevelt assistant secretary of the navy in . Roosevelt used this post to ready the navy for war with Spain; he wanted to end Spanish rule of Cuba and the Philippines and expand U.S. influence in the Caribbean and the Pacific. When the Spanish-American War broke out in , Roosevelt joined the First Regiment of U.S. Cavalry Volunteers, the “Rough Riders,” as a colonel. He led the now famous charge up San Juan Hill near Santiago, returned to the United States a national hero, and was elected governor of New York in November . An active and popular governor, Roosevelt supported civil service reform, social reform, and the labor movement. He also passed a tax on corporate franchises, outlawed racial discrimination in the public schools, and urged the conservation of New York’s natural resources. Although a moderate reformer, his stand on many issues made him unpopular with business leaders and the Republican Party bosses in the state. To remove him from state politics, the bosses nominated him as President McKinley’s running mate in , a post considered largely ceremonial. The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket won easily. When McKinley was assassinated in September , the -year-old Roosevelt became the youngest person ever to be president. Although he promised to continue McKinley’s policies, including retaining a number of his Cabinet members, Roosevelt made it clear that he would be his own president. He would certainly be one of the most vigorous and well-liked presidents. He considered himself a man of all the people, and while he embraced the new reform movement that was sweeping the country (one that would become known as “progressivism”) and constantly preached morality and social change, he was not a radical in economics or in politics. In , Roosevelt ordered the Justice Department to bring suit against the Northern Securities Company under the provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The suit was successful, and the railroad monopoly, owned by some of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, was dissolved. This action earned Roosevelt a reputation as a “trust buster”; however, he believed that, in general, trusts should be regulated rather than dissolved. During his first term, Roosevelt intervened in the prolonged national coal strike to force a settlement, a move considered a victory for labor; he created the Bureau of Corporations to investigate the practices of any interstate corporation; and he supported the conservation of American forests, lakes, rivers, and coal reserves. In foreign policy,

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Roosevelt confronted problems that involved the United States in world diplomacy. Since the United States had acquired an overseas empire, he set out to protect it by strengthening the navy and the army. By his bullying methods of obtaining the land in Panama to build a canal and of threatening the rest of the world from interfering in Latin American and Western Hemisphere affairs—the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine—Roosevelt put the other nations on notice that the United States was becoming a world power. Roosevelt was reelected by a landslide in . During his second term, he continued to press for reforms at home—his so-called Square Deal—though Congress would eventually defy his stand against the abuses of the rich and powerful business community. He approved the Hepburn Act, giving the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate railroad rates and services, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Meat Inspection Act. He began construction of the Panama Canal and mediated the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in . He worked for the development of natural resources and assigned millions of acres of land to national parks and reserves. He was responsible for the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” curbing Japanese immigration to the United States and sent an American fleet around in the world to give meaning to his expression “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Roosevelt supported the candidacy of his secretary of war, William Howard Taft, in . By , however, he felt Taft had been won over by reactionary elements. When Taft won the Republican nomination, Roosevelt ran against him on the Progressive, or Bull Moose, Party ticket. This caused the votes to be split, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the election. Though this defeat ended Roosevelt’s career in national politics, many of the Progressive ideas he had championed lived on in the Wilson administration. Historians have not been able to reach consensus on a simple definition of progressivism. The Progressive movement, however, had been gaining momentum since about . It favored many of the reforms backed by the earlier agrarian Populists and struck out at the domination of the “Interests”—big business and the wealthy few. Many Progressives were middle-class and college-educated people who wanted to fight corruption and help the disadvantaged poor, as well as better their own condition. Often centered in large cities, they wrote exposés of poor working conditions in industry and of corruption in government, brought new ideas to education, and fostered reform in all areas of city life and administration. Progressivism also drew on the support of groups, such as workers and consumers, who either were interested in such specific issues as worker’s compensation and child labor or felt a more general commitment to tame the power of the “Interests.” Roosevelt backed Charles Evans Hughes for the presidency in  and was an ardent supporter of the military effort in World War I. Although he opposed Wilson’s Fourteen Points, he was, with reservations, in favor of the League of Nations. On January , , he died of malaria, contracted a few years earlier on an expedition to Brazil.

SETTLEMENT HOUSE MOVEMENT During the late th century, settlement houses, which provided education and help to the working class, spread rapidly throughout the United States. The settlement house

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movement began in England, when Anglican clergyman Samuel A. Barnett and several Oxford University students founded Toynbee Hall in an undesirable section of East London in . Their concept was to enable university men to establish themselves in a working-class neighborhood so they could experience poverty at close hand and then help to alleviate it. The settlement idea soon reached the United States. Stanton Coit was the first to establish a U.S. settlement house, with the  opening of the Neighborhood Guild on the Lower East Side of New York City. Three years later, Jane Addams and Ellen Starr began Hull House on the West Side of Chicago. The settlement house concept spread quickly, and by , there were more than  houses throughout the country. They began with the organization of clubs, lectures, or classes on various topics and then expanded their services to include boardinghouses, day nurseries, and dispensaries. Settlements aimed to preserve human values in a rapidly industrializing age. A common goal of the houses was to teach middle-class values to the poor. Settlement house workers also helped immigrants to adjust to their new country’s way of life. Moreover, the movement recognized the worth of the United States’ diverse cultural groups. With guidance, African American communities began neighborhood settlements, and Hull House played a key role in the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Settlement houses also provided their own workers an avenue for expanding their careers in politics and social leadership. Such Progressive women’s leaders as Florence Kelley, Julia Lathrop, and Grace Abbott were among the workers. The movement also led to the growth of social work as a profession for women, many of whom played a key role in the New Deal. Since their inception, settlements have gone through periods of change and reform. By , there were still  official settlements, many of them now called neighborhood centers. Though it is no longer traditional for workers to live at the centers, they continue to provide valuable services to senior citizens, troubled youths, and abused women and children.

elizabeth frost-knappman UPTON SINCLAIR (1878–1968) Upton Sinclair enjoyed a long career as a prolific author of novels and nonfiction works attacking the country’s economic and social ills in the name of social justice. Abroad, he was one of the best-known American authors of the time. His socialist politics repeatedly drew him into running for office, never with success. An only child, Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. was born on September , , in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, who came from a line of Virginia aristocrats ruined by the fall of the Confederacy, was at times a merchant and died of alcoholism. His mother’s background was one of gentility and piety. Sinclair grew up in New York City and entered the City College of New York at the age of . After graduating in , he spent three years as a special student at Columbia University, taking humanities courses and supporting himself by freelance writing. Using pseudonyms, he wrote numerous adventure stories for pulp magazines.

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Sinclair was deeply religious and idealistic as a youth; his idols were Jesus, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. At age , he wrote and published a sentimental novel, Springtime and Harvest, about a woman’s redemption. Not long after that, he entered a marriage that proved to be unhappy, and he and his wife divorced in . In the first year of the marriage, he wrote three more works of fiction notable for their painful subject matter: loneliness, poverty, suicide. Sinclair’s second marriage endured nearly  years, and he married a third time in his eighties. In , Sinclair was persuaded to join the Socialist Party by friends, particularly George D. Herron, a preacher in the Social Gospel movement. When Sinclair planned to write a novel about the Civil War, Herron advanced funds for a year’s support. Sinclair moved with his family to rented land near Princeton, New Jersey, where they lived in tents and later a shack while he did research at the university library. In , he published Manassas, a well-documented work that brought him public attention and sufficient royalties to buy the land and its farmhouse for his family. Sinclair decided to base his next novel on the conditions of work and of sanitation in the meat-processing industry. With a $ advance from a socialist weekly, Appeal to Reason, Sinclair spent two months researching the Chicago stockyards and wrote his most celebrated work, The Jungle, in . While Sinclair hoped his exposure of corruption and dreadful living conditions would create public sympathy for the stockyard workers and win them to socialism, his graphic account of filthy handling, spoiled meat, and generally unsanitary conditions attracted more attention, inspiring a public outcry and government reform of food inspection laws. In , with his earnings from The Jungle, Sinclair started a cooperative living venture, Helicon Hall, in Englewood, New Jersey, which attracted the interest of William James and John Dewey. When it burned down in March , Sinclair lost his life savings. With The Jungle, however, he had become a muckraker, and he went on to publish other works of that kind, including The Fasting Cure (), about dietary fads; King Coal (), on the working and living conditions of Colorado miners; The Brass Check (), on dishonest journalism; Oil! (), considered Sinclair’s best work as literature and inspired by the Teapot Dome scandal arising from corrupt handling of the government’s Teapot Dome oil reserves; Boston (), a two-volume novel about the controversial trial and execution of the anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti; and The Flivver King (), a hard-boiled critique of Henry Ford. Having moved to Pasadena, California, in , Sinclair had run unsuccessfully on the Socialist Party ticket for the House of Representatives in , the Senate in , and governor in  and . In , he had switched to the Democratic Party and ran for governor as the leader of the “End Poverty in California” (EPIC) movement. Coming at the height of the Great Depression, the EPIC platform, which included planks calling for such socialist remedies as government ownership of industry, attracted an immense following. Sinclair’s victory had appeared certain, but he was attacked bitterly by the big industrial interests, including the film companies and the influential newspapers, and he lost to the Republican candidate. The strength of Sinclair’s Democratic support encouraged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to swing leftward with his New Deal policies. The last quarter-century of Sinclair’s career was devoted to a celebrated literary accomplishment: the Lanny Budd series, comprising  historical novels that presented

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a panorama of the great events in world history from the beginning of World War I to the end of World War II. The hero, Lanny Budd, is an American journalist of socialist leanings who ends up working directly for Roosevelt. The third volume in the series, Dragon’s Teeth (), won a Pulitzer Prize. While Sinclair maintained a steadfast faith in socialism, he had a lifelong interest in psychic phenomena and religion, and in the s, he carried on a lengthy correspondence with the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, mainly about religious and social questions. Sinclair was opposed to communism and alcohol, favored a vegetarian diet, and was considered a Puritan in matters of morality. He published his autobiography in , bringing his total number of books to about . Translated into more than  languages, his works have had even more readers abroad than in the United States. When Sinclair died on November , , at the age of  in a New Jersey nursing home, The New York Times observed that his works “will be around as literary and political history long after many of today’s popular authors are forgotten.”

william mcguire and leslie wheeler

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2 World War I, 1914–1918

INTRODUCTION When World War I broke out in Europe in early August , President Woodrow Wilson asked the American people to be neutral in thought as well as in deed. While the vast majority of Americans had absolutely no interest in joining in the conflict—indeed, most thought Europe was decadent and corrupt—many of them, including the Wilson administration, were pro-British in sentiment. This was not surprising in view of the fact that many Americans traced their roots back to England, Scotland, or Wales. Moreover, the United States and Great Britain shared a common language, were major commercial partners, and had enjoyed a diplomatic rapprochement since the turn of the th century. Although Wilson proclaimed U.S. neutrality, both sides in the war violated it with impunity. Great Britain used its control of the seas to prevent American goods from reaching German-controlled areas of the mainland Europe; this was inconvenient but caused no loss of life. Germany, however, embarked on a campaign of submarine (or U-boat, for Linterwasser-Boot) warfare, declaring a war zone around the British isles and sinking ships that tried to sail through. The danger of the campaign was dramatized in May  with the sinking of the luxury liner Lusitania off the Irish coast, which incurred the loss of over , lives, including  Americans. Wilson strongly condemned the German action against a civilian ship; and Germany, not wanting the United States in the war, promised that in the future, warnings would be given and passengers and crew members would be provided for. Wilson presented Germany with a virtual ultimatum in March  after the sinking of the USS Sussex; and, once again, the Berlin government backed down. In January , however, with the land war on the Western Front stalemated and with resources running low, German leaders felt they had to force the issue. They declared a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare against Atlantic shipping, knowing that this would inevitably draw the United States into the war. Their calculated risk was that such a program would starve the British and French into submission in six months, while it would take the United States at least nine months to mobilize sufficiently to make a military difference in the war. By then, it would be too late. If Americans needed to be coaxed further toward entering the war, the Zimmermann Note did that. This diplomatic message from the German foreign ministry to Mexico, intercepted and publicized by the British, promised the Mexicans that if they joined Germany in war against

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Even though World War I left the United States stronger than ever, some 320,000 Americans were killed or wounded during the conflict. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

the United States, they would be given back the territory annexed by the United States following the war with Mexico in –. By early April , Wilson’s hand was forced. The president, who had made several earlier attempts to end the conflict through diplomacy, concluded that the submarine war, the security threat suggested by the Zimmermann Note, and his personal interest in participating in the postwar peace conference made American entry into the war necessary. On April , , at Wilson’s request, Congress declared war on Germany to “make the world safe for democracy.” Although Wilson’s successful reelection campaign of  had been based in part on the slogan “He kept us out of war,” the president had taken measures to prepare the country for possible future involvement. Part of the rationale for this was political: the ever-popular Theodore Roosevelt had emerged as the leader of a campaign urging national preparedness; and Wilson, a bitter political rival, could not permit Roosevelt to capitalize on this issue in an election year. Congress granted Wilson extraordinary powers to mobilize the country for a possible war, and the president wasted little time in carrying out measures that effectively concentrated authority in the executive branch through the creation of several important agencies. In August , Wilson established the Council for National Defense,

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a civilian board responsible for overseeing the entire war-preparedness effort. Other agencies were more specific. The U.S. Shipping Board mobilized shipyards in an intensive shipbuilding program that soon was providing twice the number of ships sunk by the Germans. The Food Administration, headed by future president Herbert Hoover, worked on ways to increase the amount of food available for soldiers and civilians in Europe. The Fuel Administration was primarily concerned with conserving coal so that it would be available to fuel naval vessels; one of its measures was the introduction of Daylight Savings Time. The Railroad Administration took over operation of the nation’s rail system to facilitate the rapid movement of military personnel and equipment. Of particular importance were the War Industries Board and the Committee on Public Information. The War Industries Board, created after the declaration of war and chaired by Bernard Baruch, a prominent financier, was given extensive powers over American industry to maximize production for war needs. Among other powers, the board could fix prices and schedule industrial priorities. As the government wanted to make certain needed supplies were available, prices were set at levels calculated to guarantee high profits; the aptly named Savage Arms Corporation reported profits of  percent in , and the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company saw its annual profit rise from $ million to $ million once the war got underway. The Committee on Public Information served as a propaganda agency to maintain unified public support for the war effort. Under the leadership of journalist George Creel, the committee, helped by many local patriotic organizations, inspired a highly emotional campaign designed to persuade all Americans to hate the enemy. The brunt of this effort fell on the German American community, the largest and best-organized foreign-language group in the country. Prior to the war, German Americans were generally thought of as hard-working, law-abiding people whose racial stock was only one small step removed from the superior Anglo-Saxon race. But when, in the early months of the war in Europe, German Americans argued for a strict adherence to the policy of neutrality, they were branded as suspicious and disloyal; and the hostility against them gradually increased as German submarines sank American ships or an alleged act of German sabotage was reported. By April , German Americans were scorned throughout the nation, and some were the victims of violent acts against their persons or property. The Wilson administration dusted off old acts or induced Congress to pass new ones that led to the arrest (and, in some cases, the deportation) of several thousand German Americans or their sympathizers on the grounds of disloyalty, espionage, or sedition. Fighting World War I cost the United States $. billion, including some $ billion loaned to American allies and spent in this country. The sale of war bonds through five public campaigns, using high-pressure sales techniques based on appeals to patriotism, raised about two-thirds of the war’s cost, while increased taxes accounted for the balance. Personal income taxes rose to a maximum of  percent on the wealthiest Americans, and a -percent excess profits tax and a -percent federal inheritance tax were both instituted. A federal excise tax was imposed on other items. From a military standpoint, the United States was unprepared for war in , when it began in Europe, and not much better prepared when Congress declared war in the spring of . After a long public debate, a Selective Service Act was passed in , providing for a draft. Through this means and through volunteer enlistments, the

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United States raised an army of over  million, of whom about half were eventually sent to France. An enlarged navy undertook important blockading, convoying, and antisubmarine warfare tasks. The American Expeditionary Force, or AEF, was headed by General John J. Pershing. After some inter-Allied conflict about the command structure, a good working relationship was established, and the AEF generally took responsibility for the southern sector of the Western Front. At the time American forces began to arrive in significant numbers, the Allied effort was weakening; and most historians believe that the contribution of the AEF was essential in bringing about an armistice on Allied terms, even if that contribution lasted less than a year. The AEF was instrumental in helping repel a series of German offensives in the spring and summer of  and then pushing through the front lines in the early fall of , as the German effort collapsed both at the front and within Germany itself. The armistice of November , , found the Allies in a highly advantageous military position from which they were able to dictate the terms of peace. One of Wilson’s principal motives for entering the war was his desire to play a major role at the peace conference, steering it toward his preconceived notions of what would make a lasting and fair peace. These notions, spelled out in a January  speech, came to be known as his “Fourteen Points.” Of these, five were general principles of diplomacy, including disarmament, which the president felt would avert future wars if implemented. Eight of the points dealt with specific European territorial settlements, based on the principle of national self-determination, whereby people could decide, by means of a special election called a plebiscite, under what government they wished to live. The fourteenth point, most important to Wilson, was the creation of a League of Nations, an international organization based on the concept of collective security, in which the organization’s members would work together to maintain a peaceful world. By the time of the armistice, the peace conference, to be held in Paris beginning in December, and the League of Nations had become so important to Wilson that he determined to lead the American delegation himself, even though this meant that he would be out of the United States for an extended period of time. Although there was general public approval of Wilson’s personal participation, the president, in his growing obsession with the peace process, failed to take into account the political necessities connected with ratifying the eventual treaty. The Senate was nearly equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, and, with a two-thirds vote needed for ratification, Wilson needed Republican support. But he complicated matters for himself by making peace a partisan issue in the November  midterm elections and then worsened his political prospects by failing to include any important Republicans among the top echelon of the delegation that accompanied him to Paris. Wilson spent all but six weeks of the period between December  and June  in Paris, working out the details of the enormously complex Treaty of Versailles. It was exhausting work, but, in the end, the president brought home a treaty that included his coveted League of Nations. Initial American reaction to the treaty was quite favorable, but as the summer of  wore on, opposition began to mount. Part of it came from returning troops, who told stories about the immoral and ungrateful Europeans whom they had tried to help; part came from journalists and others who revealed tales of the vengeful-minded diplomats fighting for nationalistic gain throughout the peacemaking

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process. Most of the opposition, however, developed among various factions of senators, who, as they studied the treaty, saw many aspects they considered unsatisfactory. By late summer, the Senate appeared to coalesce into three groups, with widely differing attitudes toward the treaty. First, there were the so-called irreconcilables, about  senators, mostly Republican, who, for one reason or another, were unalterably opposed to ratification. A larger group of perhaps  had reservations about certain parts of the covenant of the League of Nations, included within the treaty, and would not vote for ratification until Wilson satisfied their concerns by agreeing to modifications in the document. A final group of senators, some  Democrats, were internationalistminded followers of the president, who would do his bidding on the Senate floor. As Wilson saw opposition rising to ratification of the treaty, he decided to take his case directly to the people by means of a national speaking tour. This was a physically demanding effort, and the president, already weakened by his work in Paris, collapsed four weeks into the tour and had to be taken back to Washington. Shortly after his return to the White House, he suffered a crippling stroke that totally incapacitated him for several weeks. After Wilson’s recovery to a point where he could participate in the treaty debate again, he seemed to be much more inflexible in his demand that no changes be made to the treaty. Consequently, when the reservationists introduced their modifications on the floor of the Senate, the internationalists were instructed to vote against them; and when the internationalists called for a vote on the unsullied treaty, enough of the reservationists voted against it to block its ratification. In two key votes on the treaty, one in November  and the other in March , the supporters failed to attain the two-thirds majority they needed, and the treaty went unratified. The election of , a massive Republican victory, was seen as a repudiation of Wilsonian internationalism and ushered in a period of political isolationism characterized by a refusal to have anything to do with the League of Nations or its auxiliary bodies, such as the World Court. Although the United States remained an active player in global economic matters, even helping to bring a semblance of economic stability to Germany in the s, the political events that gathered momentum in the s and set the stage for World War II took place in the absence of American involvement.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY jacob vander meulen History students interested in American battlefield action or in America’s relations with other nations naturally give special attention to major wars like World War I. But so too do students interested in the nation’s history at home, because major wars mean just as many challenges for those who do not fight as they do for soldiers and diplomats. Times of major war pose unusually heavy demands and strains on a nation. How a nation handles such emergency challenges reveals much about its social, cultural, and political patterns over longer periods of time. The -month period from April  to November , when the United States was officially involved in World War I, offers a kind of laboratory for students interested in how America works at home and for the broader patterns of American life during the early th century.

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For a nation fighting a major war, success, or even just survival, requires a strong economy. That means steady supplies of farm products and raw materials, the best factory, energy, and transportation systems, and the latest technology. The United States was well-positioned here. It had these ingredients in abundance and boasted the world’s strongest economy during World War I. Also essential are plenty of skilled and hardworking men and women to bring these requirements together and turn out the supplies and weapons needed by the soldiers in the field and the sailors at sea. People are the key ingredient in a war economy, and here again the United States was very strong. At the time of the war, the U.S. population was about  million. Among the principal countries at war, only Russia had more people. But large numbers of people are just part of the story. Equally important are people’s attitudes. A strong war economy and national success in war depend on a people’s sense of unity and commitment to national goals. People must be willing to sacrifice personal interests and goals that they might pursue under normal peacetime conditions. And they must be willing to yield to the kind of new political power and authority over their day-to-day lives that a national government usually needs to assert during a war emergency. Building unity, national commitment, and a strong wartime federal government in Washington, D.C., proved to be the biggest challenges for Americans during World War I. Most Americans supported the war effort against Germany, but at different levels of commitment. Many other Americans opposed the war, while still others didn’t care one way or another. When the war started for Americans in , a large army and navy had to be built up, equipped with the best weapons and supplies, and sent to the battlefields across the Atlantic—all in time for the United States to have an impact on the war before its enemies won it. However, the government in Washington was in no position to take on the powerful central political role that the war economy required if it were to be managed and organized in a logical way. In , Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was president of the United States. As commander-in-chief of the army and navy, he set the nation’s basic military strategy. He was also responsible for making sure the war economy worked effectively. Here, the president was assisted and supported by his Cabinet, made up of top officials of the various departments of the federal government’s executive branch. But, as Wilson and his Cabinet tried to organize the country for war, they came up against four main obstacles to strong national government in the United States. The first two of these were obstacles that American presidents had always faced and always would face—the fact that America was a democracy and the fact that the government’s authority was divided between the president and Congress as required by the Constitution. Thus, President Wilson’s policies, even with a war on, had political limits; his policies and programs had to meet the concerns of representatives and senators who were elected by the people. Many of these individuals opposed the war on principle or opposed aspects of the president’s management of the war. Many were Republicans who opposed the president for simple partisan reasons. They wanted the Democratic president to falter so that people would vote Republican in the next election. The other two obstacles to the president’s policies were not built-in, constant factors limiting the government’s power; rather, these limits were unique to the times and experiences of Americans in the early th century. In the first place, the government

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was very weak in a bureaucratic, administrative sense, only a fraction of its size today. Experienced government officials and agencies were scarce, and the Wilson administration had to start from scratch as it organized itself to deal with the war economy’s many complicated problems. The fact that Americans had deeply mixed feelings about how powerful the federal government ought to be posed the fourth obstacle. It also helps explain why the federal government was so small. In American politics, there always had been strong opposition and resistance to powerful government in Washington. Most Americans believed in weak government, fearing that a strong federal government would threaten individual liberties, free enterprise, and the powers of the states. In terms of its impact on their day-to-day lives, most Americans now would barely recognize the government in Washington during the first decades of the th century. Indeed, most Americans today would find it hard to understand how Americans of that period thought of themselves as national citizens. Partly because the federal government’s reach into their lives was so limited, most Americans then had a much weaker sense of national identity, or nationalism, than they have today. The United States is a large country made up of many different regions. Then, the overall sense of Americans as parts of a single national entity was not nearly as strong as it is today. People often thought of themselves as Texans, Californians, New Yorkers, Georgians, or Kansans before they thought of themselves as U.S. citizens. The experience of World War I brought Americans a long way toward building a stronger sense of nationalism and national purpose, especially among those young men who were gathered up from across the land, trained as soldiers, and sent abroad to fight for their country. Still, deeply held old values and principles, along with the built-in weaknesses of the government, meant that the Wilson administration had to rely mainly on the willingness of workers, farmers, businessmen, politicians, and other Americans to cooperate voluntarily with its war policies. There were important exceptions to this rule, especially when Congress approved conscription, or the draft, of young men into the military. But, for the most part, the Wilson administration had to be careful not to violate popular attitudes toward the proper role of government, which most Americans thought should be as minimal as possible. The political problems faced by the government became clear even before the United States formally entered the war in April . President Wilson barely won the election of November . He would have lost if just , people in California had voted instead for his Republican opponent, Charles Evans Hughes. The voters also sent many Republicans to Capitol Hill, giving the Democrats an uncomfortably small majority in Congress. That closely fought election reflected deep divisions among Americans despite the fact that most of them were prospering, thanks to the economic stimulus of so many orders from the British and French for war supplies and food. Americans disagreed sharply about what position the United States ought to take toward the war in Europe, which had been raging for more than two years. The election also reflected the concerns, confusions, and frustrations Americans felt about the many ways their country had changed since the end of the th century. There was concern about the new influence of big business corporations and about how the government ought to control that power. There had been many major strikes by workers

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against their employers. There were loud campaigns to amend the Constitution so that women could vote, and to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Also unsettling were the various problems of America’s big cities, especially the very rapid growth in the numbers of people who had emigrated from countries and cultures that were unfamiliar and confusing to many Americans. President Wilson had to view the results of the  election as a voters’ backlash against the turbulence of recent political life, and as a warning of the sorts of limits there would be on his foreign policy and on his management of the war economy should the United States join the fighting. These limits help explain why he continued to stall into April  his request that Congress declare war on the Germans, even though they had sharply increased their U-boat attacks on technically neutral American ships delivering supplies to the Allies. After America’s declaration of war, Wilson announced that “politics is adjourned” for the war’s duration. It seemed essential that Americans and their representatives forget old controversies and political differences and pull together in the national emergency. As matters turned out, however, politics was not adjourned, and the way Americans went about organizing themselves for the war actually reproduced their old political differences. For example, many Americans agreed that a new government agency with broad powers to oversee the war economy was needed. It seemed that America’s unregulated, free-enterprise economy would never be able quickly to turn out everything that millions of soldiers required. Farmers would have to produce much more. Privately owned factories would have to be converted to military production. The flow of raw materials into the factories and the many new military construction projects had to be steady and reliable. The nation’s transportation systems would have to be able to carry the heavy extra loads and get material where it was needed when it was needed. And finished products would have to find their destinations on time. The economy would be stretched to the maximum because of so many new military orders adding to the usual demands on the economy from people in civilian life. Efforts to control price inflation would be needed. Decisions would have to be made on which industries and products were essential to the war effort and which should get priority claims on raw material supplies. Overall, the job seemed immense and very complicated. Careful planning and a powerful government agency seemed unavoidable. President Wilson recognized this as early as the summer of  when he appointed the Council of National Defense (CND) to oversee the buildup of the nation’s peacetime armed forces. The CND was the first of a stream of new federal agencies created to cope with the war’s economic and social problems. These agencies amounted to a very large extension in the role of government in the day-to-day lives of Americans. But the amount of actual power they had also reflected the deep suspicion Americans had about strong government. The CND, for example, had no formal or legal power, even after the nation formally entered the war. It comprised President Wilson’s cabinet members and representatives of the economy’s main economic functions, such as banking, industry, mining, labor, transportation, and health care. But all the CND could do in terms of overseeing the war economy was to give advice and encouragement to private businessmen and operators. The CND could point out problems, suggest solutions, and make appeals for everyone to work together, but it could not give orders.

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Congress would not give the CND any real authority. Representatives and senators worried about how new executive war agencies might disrupt the traditional checks and balances of the federal government. Most importantly, Congress insisted that the army and navy keep full control over how military contracts were given out to businesses. This was the government’s principal lever in the private economy, and Congress wanted this power to stay where it always had been, in the military services where the people’s representatives could easily keep their eyes on things. The CND was replaced by the War Industries Board in July , but this new agency was not much more effective. The lack of a central coordinating mechanism over America’s war economy led to many difficulties, delays, shortages, and bottlenecks as businessmen and industries competed with one another for the supplies and materials they needed to do their jobs. To deal with specific problems, other federal agencies were created, such as the Food Administration, the Fuel Administration, the Railroad Administration, and the Shipping Board. Each had roles of different degrees of importance and different levels of authority, but only rarely did they go much beyond encouraging voluntary cooperation. Legal regulations were avoided as much as possible. The fact that some five thousand new federal agencies were instituted during the war suggests the haphazard and often chaotic way Americans dealt with mobilization on the home front. The pattern continued even after loud complaints about bottlenecks, waste, and mismanagement during the winter of –, when American troops in Europe were using British and French equipment because suppliers at home had still not come through, almost a year after the United States entered the war. The Germans almost made the right bet. In early , they knew that their U-boat attacks on American ships supplying the British and French would probably lead to a U.S. declaration of war against them. They gambled on crushing the Allied armies in Europe, blockading Great Britain, and winning the war before the Americans could get organized and become an actual military threat. But by the summer of  the Germans had not won the war and the Americans were becoming much more powerful. Despite the long delays and the confusions in the management and planning of their war economy, Americans did turn out a steady stream of war supplies, weapons, and ships. And the army and National Guard grew from only , men in early  to about . million by the end of the war. About two million well-armed and well-trained U.S. soldiers gradually found their way onto the battlefields of Western Europe. A total of , U.S. servicemen died for their country in combat; some , others died from war-related disease. Americans eventually succeeded in mobilizing themselves for World War I without basic changes to their open and democratic system of government or to their national political values. Their successes point to the overall vitality of the national economy, which grew stronger day by day because of the war’s stimulus. For example, the output of the nation’s factories grew by a very large margin, about  percent, from  to . The huge American economy easily absorbed the costs of poor planning and coordination. America’s success also points to the fact that the United States was far removed from the actual fighting. For most Europeans the threat was much more immediate. The war devastated their homelands, and their resources were much more limited. European

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governments had little choice but to impose the kinds of controls and authoritarianism that Americans had the luxury of avoiding thanks to their country’s size, resources, and geographical protection. In areas of life apart from the war economy, however, Americans seemed much more tolerant of infringements on personal freedoms, individual expression, and radical ideas. The Wilson administration encouraged and led a national effort to foster patriotism, build popular support for the war, and stamp out opposition to it. In a sense, this campaign, with its many features of repressive intolerance, contradicted the government’s effort to mobilize the war economy by relying on voluntarism and cooperation. To get people to cooperate, the Wilson administration tried to make noncooperation socially unacceptable and offensive for Americans. The government heavily promoted the war effort and used aggressive advertisements to sell the nation’s war aims. Agencies like the Food Administration campaigned to get Americans to eat less of certain kinds of foods so that shortages might be avoided. The Treasury Department persuaded many Americans to help finance the war by buying Liberty Bonds. And the government launched a national publicity, or propaganda, campaign to shape public opinion and to discredit war opponents. Americans proved broadly responsive to and supportive of this campaign, which seems something of a paradox, given their values of individual freedom in economic matters. Support for this conformity campaign stemmed in part from anxieties among Americans about the way their society had changed in the years prior to the war, especially in its ethnic and cultural makeup. Americans who had been born in the United States, and whose family roots went back several generations, were disturbed by the large numbers of people who had recently come to America and had built up a significant presence, especially in the large cities. These immigrants seemed threatening, because they came from countries and cultures with which Americans had little experience. Many came from Italy, Greece, and central and eastern Europe and practiced the Catholic and Jewish religious faiths, which some Americans considered inferior, even dangerous, to mainstream U.S. culture and values. The effort to build conformity of opinion during the war drew much energy from prewar prejudices toward new Americans and from deep anxieties and confusions about what it now meant to be an American in a rapidly changing world. The government’s wartime campaign of intolerance also had roots in President Wilson’s efforts to win the election of  by countering criticisms of his pro-Britain and pro-France policies. The president played on the prejudices and anxieties of Americans and worked to foster divisions in the Republican Party by calling for “ percent Americanism” and dismissing his critics as “disloyal” Americans. He also spoke darkly about “hyphenated” Americans, referring to the hyphen in such expressions as German-American or Irish-American. Only eight days after America’s declaration of war in April , President Wilson created the Committee on Public Information, which became the government’s main agency for propaganda and opinion-molding. George Creel, a well-known journalist, oversaw the committee’s work, which included the production and distribution of antiGerman movies, with titles like The Kaiser, Beast of Berlin, and The Prussian Cur. The committee printed and distributed millions of prowar brochures and pamphlets.

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One of its major efforts involved an army of , volunteer speakers who roamed the nation appearing in any public forum they could find—churches, town squares, schools—to give spirited speeches intended to whip up support for the war. Audiences were encouraged to hate Germans and “slackers”—those who avoided what everyone assumed was their duty. Ethnic Americans were pressured to give up their old-country practices and to act like “ percent Americans.” These volunteers were known as the “four-minute men” because their speeches were always about the same length, carefully timed to raise the feelings of their audiences at just the right pace. The “four-minute men” often exaggerated, and even fabricated, stories of German atrocities and war crimes and enemy spies and saboteurs in the United States. The propaganda campaign went well beyond the efforts of federal government officials, extending to state and local officials and other Americans all across the country. The campaign soon took on aspects of a nationalist frenzy and snowballed into a witchhunt. Many states and local authorities, for example, passed laws banning the German language, German music by composers such as Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart, and German words like “pretzels,” and “hamburger” (which became “Liberty sandwich”), or “sauerkraut” (which became “Liberty cabbage”). In New Orleans, Berlin Street became General Pershing Street. Far more disturbing were the creation of citizen thought-control and vigilante groups, with names like the American Protective League, Sedition Slammers, and Boy Spies of America. These oversaw local “agents” who watched friends and neighbors, opening their mail and tapping their phone lines, trying to detect any sign of “disloyalty”—a term that could mean anything. All too frequently, these efforts evolved into mob violence and attacks on innocent or harmless people. Americans of German descent were especially victimized by the witch-hunts. Congress encouraged such intolerance by passing the Espionage Act in June . It gave the government new powers to fight spies and sabotage, which would seem to be reasonable in time of war. But it also provided new powers to curb dissent and opposition to the war. The Post Office, for example, was authorized to deny mail privileges to writers, magazines, and journals that it deemed responsible for “traitorous” writings. The Post Office’s guidelines on what was “traitorous” were vague, and disloyalty could mean just about anything, including honest debate. As the war went on, the Espionage Act was strengthened, most notably by the Sedition Act of May , which made the expression of opposition to the war a federal crime. These acts, combined with new restrictive immigration laws, were energetically enforced by federal officials. The overall effects were the quashing of free speech and civil liberties, even though America’s stated aim in the war was to make the world “safe for democracy.” In one case, a film director was given a -year jail sentence because he produced a movie about the American Revolution that a judge thought was too critical of America’s ally, Great Britain. These laws wrecked left-wing social and political movements in the United States, which voiced the opinions of Americans who thought their government and society were unfair to poor and working people. These radicals saw the war as the result of businessmen’s efforts to increase their markets and profits—even if that meant the loss of many soldiers’ lives. That was the position of the Socialist Party, and its leader,

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Eugene V. Debs, was sentenced to  years in prison when he gave an antiwar speech in Cleveland. Also heavily suppressed were radical labor unions, like the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which sponsored strikes in western lumber camps and mines, trying to win better pay and conditions for workers. Thousands of IWW members were jailed. And many newcomers to America were jailed or deported without trial when the government deemed them threats to the war effort and to prowar popular attitudes. The power, or perhaps the unnecessary excesses, of the government’s prowar and patriotic propaganda and its campaign to suppress dissenters is suggested by the fact that, of  million men drafted during the war, only about , tried to evade the draft. Another important aspect of wartime control over social behavior and of the effort to build a stronger sense of nationalism and patriotism was the success of the Prohibition campaign. For years, reformers had tried to eliminate alcoholic beverages in the United States. They acted on genuine concerns about the serious social problems and health risks connected with heavy drinking. But they were often also motivated by dark antiforeigner feelings, which the war intensified. Drinking was an important part of the social and religious practices of recent immigrant groups, and Prohibition was often aimed at suppressing differences and making immigrants more like mainstream Americans. The campaign was helped by the sense of wartime urgency. Beer and liquor used up scarce grains like barley, hops, and corn. Further, the major breweries like Pabst, Schlitz, and Anheuser-Busch, had been established by German Americans, putting them out of business seemed like another good way to strike out at “disloyal” Americans. In late , Congress passed Prohibition legislation, outlawing the sale of alcoholic beverages in America, and in , Americans ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution to reflect the new policy. In other areas of American life, World War I led to some very important steps toward greater tolerance, democracy, and opportunity. Wartime conditions helped push toward success the campaign for women’s right to vote and also created new opportunities for black people. Women’s groups had struggled for decades for this basic right, but their efforts to change the law suffered a major defeat in the senate as late as October . The contribution of women in America’s defense factories, on the farm, and in various support roles in the military, however, were changing old-fashioned perceptions on the proper place for women in society. To many, it now appeared two-faced for Americans to be fighting for democracy in Europe while denying it to women, who made up half the population. Further, it seemed that a world at war could use the caring, nurturing skills in which women were thought to be superior to men, a loving sense of mercy that could help avoid future wars if women were empowered. Thus, in June , Congress approved the vote for women, and a year later, Americans added the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Like women, African Americans also suffered from having few political rights before the war. They also had few social and economic rights, as these were denied them by the states of the American South, where the great majority of black Americans lived. Since the s, southern states had enforced white supremacist laws, called Jim Crow laws, that segregated people by race and excluded blacks from voting and from all but the lowest educational and job opportunities. The war, however, produced new

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opportunities for blacks outside the South, and hundreds of thousands moved to big northern industrial cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh to take up wartime jobs. By , some . million southern blacks had moved north in the “Great Migration,” taking on factory jobs or other city-based work. They also built strong urban neighborhoods, like Harlem in New York, which soon generated new political strength for black Americans. For American blacks and women, the struggle for real equality and justice was far from over and would require steady efforts through the years and decades ahead. Still, World War I created new opportunities and an atmosphere inspiring progress. The possibilities for blacks and women presented by the war, but also the old, ongoing limits and obstacles against them, are symbolic of the war’s overall effect on American life, especially on government and the sense of nationalism among Americans. The war forced major steps toward a modern federal government that could better deal with the kinds of complicated national problems that would develop in the decades ahead. And Americans more and more came to see themselves as members of a national community, with a more focused sense of their relation to the national government. Still, Americans took these steps forward without giving up their basic political values. And they came to view their future in terms of how they understood the past, but with a new sense of anxiety and uncertainty.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Ambrosius, Lloyd E. Wilsonian Statecraft: Theory and Practice of Liberal Internationalism during World War I. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, . A detailed analysis of the intellectual background of Wilson’s diplomacy. Arnet, Alex Mathews. Claude Kitchin and the Wilson War Policies. Boston: Little, Brown, . An old, but still very useful, study of national politics during the war. Beaver, Daniel R. Newton D. Baker and the American War Effort, –. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, . A history of efforts to mobilize the nation for war and of the role in these efforts played by the secretary of war. Blum, John Morton. Woodrow Wilson and the Politics of Morality. Boston: Little, Brown, . President Wilson and his view of the world are the topics of this study, written by a distinguished American historian. Capozzola, Christopher. Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen. New York: Oxford University Press, . Discusses how the war redefined the responsibility of the state in regulating American society. Coffman, Edward M. The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I. New York: Oxford University Press, . A vivid account of the war as experienced by American servicemen and women. Cohen, Stanley. A. Mitchell Palmer: Politician. New York: Columbia University Press, . Palmer became President Wilson’s attorney general, the nation’s top law enforcement official. Cornebise, Alfred E. War as Advertised: The Four Minute Men and America’s Crusade, – . Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, . An account of the public speakers who tried to persuade Americans to work harder and support the war effort and the government’s goals. Cuff, Robert D. The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations during World War I. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . This book carefully traces the policies and

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politics of one of the leading civilian government agencies for managing America’s wartime economy. Freidel, Frank. Over There. New York: McGraw-Hill, . An illustrated survey of America’s role in World War I. Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, . One of the best readers available for students of the war. Gilbert, Charles. American Financing of World War I. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, . An important study of economic relations among the Allies and of wartime taxes and revenues in the United States. Granatstein, J. L., and R. D. Cuff, eds. War and Society in North America. Toronto: Thomas Nelson, . A series of essays that compare the different approaches taken toward managing the war effort at home, in the United States and in Canada. Greenwald, Maurine W. Women, War and Work. New York: New York University Press, . A fine account of the war as experienced by American women. Grubbs, Frank L. The Struggle for Labor Loyalty: Gompers, the American Federation of Labor, and the Pacifists, –. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, . This book traces the policies and political struggles of organized labor’s main voice during the war. Hartmann, Edward George. The Movement to Americanize the Immigrant. New York: AMS Press, . A study of the American response to the “new immigration” of the late th and early th centuries. Hawley, Ellis. The Great War and the Search for a Modern Order: A History of the American People and Their Institutions, –. New York: St. Martin’s Press, . One of the most important interpretations of the war’s consequences for institutional life in America. Johnson, Donald. The Challenge to American Freedoms: World War I and the Rise of the American Civil Liberties Union. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, . A very useful study of the challenges to basic individual freedoms during the hysteria of World War I and the efforts of some Americans to defend them. Kennedy, David M. Over Here: The First World War and American Society. New York: Oxford University Press, . The author provides a broad overview of the results of the war for American society, economy, and culture. Kerr, K. Austin. American Railroad Politics, –. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, . This book focuses on the relations between the federal government and the railroad industry during the war, which posed some of the biggest problems for the government and the war economy. Lasswell, Harold D. Propaganda Technique in the World War. New York: Peter Smith, . A study of the government’s efforts to shape and control public opinion by a famous American political scientist. Leuchtenberg, William E. The Perils of Prosperity, –. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . An important overview of American history from the Wilson years through Herbert Hoover’s presidency. Link, Arthur S. Wilson: Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace. –. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . This is just one title among Link’s many important studies of Woodrow Wilson and his policies. Livermore, Seward. Politics Is Adjourned: Woodrow Wilson and the War Congress, –. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, . Essential reading on wartime national politics. Luebke, Frederick C. Bonds of Loyalty: German-Americans and World War I. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, . This study traces the experiences and outlook of Americans who immigrated from Germany or were of German ethnic descent.

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Maynard, W. Barksdale. Woodrow Wilson: Princeton to the Presidency. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . A study of Wilson’s  years at Princeton University and how it shaped his presidency. Mock, James R., and Cedric Larson. Words That Won the War: The Story of the Committee on Public Information, –. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . A history of the main government agency for information on the war and for shaping public opinion. Paxson, Fredrick L. American Democracy and the World War.  vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, –. A major study of the war’s impact on American life. Rudwick, Elliot M. Race Riot at East St. Louis, July , . Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, . This book focuses on one of the most violent domestic events of the war years and relates it to larger developments in race relations. Stooksbury, James L. A Short History of World War I. New York: William Morrow, . A good, comprehensive survey of the war, with emphasis on its military history. Tucker, Robert W. Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering American Neutrality, -. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, . Analysis of Wilson’s neutrality policy and its failure to keep the United States out of war. Walworth, Arthur. Wilson and His Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, . New York: W. W. Norton, . An excellent comprehensive treatment of the American diplomatic role during the long Paris Peace Conference.

COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION (CPI) The Committee on Public Information (CPI) was a government propaganda body whose purpose was to mobilize public support for U.S. participation in World War I. The generously funded organization served the purpose that radio and television would today. The basis for its creation was a study of the  census, which revealed that one-third of Americans were either born in another country or the child of a foreigner. The CPI’s goal was to make sure these citizens’ loyalty to the United States, which the organization assumed could waver at any moment, stayed strong. Created by the executive order of President Woodrow Wilson in  and approved by Congress, the CPI was in charge of staging a national campaign to encourage service in the military and the purchase of war bonds to fuel the massive military effort. The committee did this primarily through public rallies in big cities. The film stars Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford made frequent appearances at the meetings to help inspire patriotic fervor, but the CPI’s “four-minute men” performed the bulk of the work. These were , speakers who delivered patriotic encouragement at local churches, at cinemas during intermission, and at schools and other public buildings. The CPI also distributed about  million copies of pamphlets that outlined the U.S. stance on the war. Other methods used to rouse the American public were CPI war expositions in almost two dozen cities and its production of patriotic films like The Kaiser: Beast of Berlin. George Creel, a progressive journalist and publicist, led the CPI and was instrumental in engineering the image the American public came to have of Kaiser Wilhelm II and his countrymen as “barbaric Huns.” Many of the posters, films, and other propaganda Creel and the CPI released were based on exaggeration or outright fabrication, and the program eventually became a campaign of true political warfare against Germany and the other Axis powers.

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The group’s official leaders were the secretary of war, the secretary of state, and the secretary of the navy. Creel served as civilian chairperson. The group’s budget for  was $. million and for  was $. million.

INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD (IWW) The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies, was launched in  and remained a vital force in labor organizing through the s. The most radical union in U.S. history, the style and heroism of the Wobblies produced labor strategies that were eventually used by more mainstream trade unions. The legacies of the IWW are also important in the field of civil rights, not only because the union embraced all manner of people, but also because of the organization’s defense of the rights of dissenters. In the early th century, most trade unions were organized by craft (carpenters, machinists, and railroad brakemen, for example) and were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL). These skilled workers were able to win gains for themselves from their employers, but these gains often came at the expense of unskilled workers, whom employers could easily replace. The IWW came together in Chicago in , when more than  socialists and trade unionists launched an entirely new kind of union. The Wobblies believed in the principles of Marxist class conflict, but their contribution to U.S. labor was the idea of industrial unionism, which led the IWW to recruit all sorts of unskilled and exploited workers. Immigrants, people of color, women, and migrant farm workers (all of whom were excluded from the craft unions of the AFL) were embraced by the IWW. They wanted to create “one big union” through which the workers could come to control the means of production and distribution. The founding convention brought together such important labor leaders as Bill Haywood, then secretary of the Western Federation of Miners; Eugene V. Debs, leader of the American Socialist Party; Mary Harris Jones (Mother Jones), legendary fighter for miners’ and children’s rights; Daniel De Leon, leader of the Socialist Labor Party; and a host of writers and editors of labor periodicals. Many differences split the opinions of these strong personalities, and some splintering occurred. The IWW was able to reach agreement by , however, and draw up a constitution. The IWW adopted such direct action strategies as strikes rather than seeking labor contracts as the AFL skilled-worker unions did. The Wobblies saw labor–management contracts as interfering with labor’s right to strike, a position that remained controversial into the s. The Wobblies believed, however, that a general strike in the future would be crucial to the overthrow of the capitalist system, and that smaller strikes in the short term built experience and political perspective in the meantime. In the period before World War I, the IWW participated in at least  strikes in such industries as lumbering, construction, agriculture, dock work, marine transport, textiles, coal mining, and copper mining, and in the oil fields. Working to abolish the divisions between workers of different backgrounds, the IWW organized racially integrated unions and ignored traditional gender boundaries. Ben Fletcher was an African American who was the leader in Philadelphia and was also considered a national IWW leader. Such women as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn led women workers but also led men workers, traveling throughout the country as an organizer.

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Spanish-speaking workers in the East Coast ports formed the core of IWW mariners’ unions. The IWW devoted considerable effort to educational campaigns, through inspirational songs, revolutionary graphics, and the oratory of its dynamic leaders. The union believed it had the right not only to spread information among its members but also among those who were not employed. By handing out literature and educating workers in the hobo jungles and the sections of big cities where unemployed laborers gathered in hopes of landing temporary work, the IWW angered business leaders, who relied on these pools of cheap labor. The IWW, especially before World War I, engaged in many legal struggles that helped to establish First Amendment rights to assemble peacefully and distribute literature. During and after World War I, however, the Wobblies encountered intensified political opposition. Having retained their antimilitary stance during the war, they had continued to lead strikes even after the United States entered into the conflict. The U.S. Department of Justice redefined such strikes as treason, branded the IWW leadership as subversives, and imprisoned nearly  labor leaders for terms of  to  years. Community hysteria during the war and the Red Scare that followed it inspired vigilante groups to engage in violent acts against IWW members and buildings. Law enforcement agencies did little to protect the Wobblies. The legal battles in which the IWW engaged to protect the union began to take up much of the organization’s time and resources. Divisions within the union were also introduced by the Russian Revolution of . Many leaders were sympathetic to the revolution, and the party that had led it, the Bolsheviks, invited the Wobblies to join the Communist International in . Soviet communism did not appeal to all leaders, however. Moreover, the philosophy of the Bolsheviks insisted on a “vanguard party”—a group of middle-class intellectuals—to lead the workers, whereas the Wobblies adhered to a plan for bottom-up union organizing, in which workers would gradually gain control of industry through action on the job. The national IWW continued to decline in the s, though it remained an important force in mariners’ and farm workers’ unions. During the Great Depression of the s, it organized unions among the unemployed to provide housing and food for the jobless, and its leaders were important to the organizing efforts of many workers who did not end up joining the IWW. The IWW’s greatest legacy was to provide the ideas and organizing tactics that led to the mass unionization of the unskilled, foreign-born, nonwhite, and female workers of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and AFL unions of the s and s. Such techniques as the sit-down strike, chain picketing, and car caravans were pioneered by the IWW in the early decades of the century. Headquarters for the organization remain in Chicago. The membership has declined to less than ,, but the Wobblies still have a vigorous press. The union dedicated its historical materials to the archives of Wayne State University in Detroit.

LEAGUE OF NATIONS The League of Nations was an early experiment with the “international ideal” as it took shape in the aftermath of World War I. Horrified by the carnage that industrialization

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had made possible during the war, the delegates to the Paris Peace Conference of  sought to create an international association that could moderate the destructive impulses of competing nationalist ideals. The League of Nations was organized to pursue an international ideal, by preventing future conflicts among its member states through arbitration and promotion of disarmament and cooperation between nations. The Covenant of the League of Nations was part of the Treaty of Versailles, and the organization took shape in Geneva, Switzerland, in . One of the most eloquent visionaries of the international ideal was President Woodrow Wilson, whose famous “Fourteen Points” address had outlined as early as  his ideas about the ways to ensure a lasting peace. The League of Nations was one of his Fourteen Points, and Wilson chaired the committee that wrote the covenant. Neutral states were eligible to become original members, and defeated nations were eventually permitted to join. Sixty-three countries eventually joined; the United States was the glaring holdout. Though Wilson worked hard to promote the treaty in the United States, suffering a stroke in the process, the Senate never ratified the Treaty of Versailles as the nation headed toward isolationism. For his efforts, however, Wilson received the Nobel Peace Prize in . The League of Nations was organized with a council and assembly, prefiguring the Security Council and General Assembly that would later structure the United Nations (UN). Other bodies were created to assist the organization in reaching its goals of disarmament and economic and social welfare. The Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) were independent of the league but coordinated their actions with it. This peacekeeping system was designed with the idea that member states would accept the legal settlement of their disputes and that those that failed to do so would suffer the sanctions levied by the rest of the league community. In spite of some minor achievements, the League of Nations had no powers of enforcement strong enough to prevent the national aggressions committed during the s. Though the organization levied sanctions against Italy after its attack on Ethiopia in , for example, these measures did not deter the conquest. The Italian success encouraged other aggressions by Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union. The absence of the United States and the withdrawal of aggressor nations undermined the effectiveness of the League of Nations, which had virtually ceased to function by the outbreak of World War II. The organization was extremely important, however, as a forerunner of the UN, developing ideas and procedures that have aided the UN. The League of Nations was also designated to oversee the activities of the Allied nations in dividing up and administering the territories of the conquered Germany and Turkey. The organization thus brought some international oversight to the actions of Britain and France as the victors defined boundaries and authority in the Middle East and parts of Africa. In , the League of Nations officially voted itself out of existence and turned its assets over to the fledgling UN in Geneva. The ILO remains active, and the PCIJ continues to exist as the International Court of Justice.

JOHN J. PERSHING (1860–1948) The commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in World War I, Gen. John J. Pershing was the first great war hero of the th century. Pershing was born in

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Laclede, Missouri, on September , . He was the first of several children born to John Fletcher Pershing and Elizabeth Thompson Pershing, owners of a general store. During the s, the family enjoyed a fair degree of financial prosperity, but the Panic of  compelled them to sell the general store. Although John Fletcher and Elizabeth valued education and entertained great ambitions for their oldest son, the family’s economic situation dictated that Pershing would have to work rather than pursue academics beyond the high school level. Pershing helped his father farm what was left of their land. For additional income, Pershing worked as a janitor at two local schools in the wintertime (one school for white children and one for African Americans). When the principal at the African American school left his position, Pershing was offered the job and taught rudimentary reading, writing, and arithmetic in the small, run-down school. This teaching experience helped him get a job as an elementary school teacher in Prairie Mound, Missouri, in . The additional income allowed him to contribute to the support of his family and save enough money to enroll in a small normal school. By the spring of , he had completed a bachelor’s degree in elementary didactics (teaching). Pershing hoped to eventually study law. That same year, Pershing entered a competition for entrance to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and won. He excelled at West Point, and more than any other member of his class, displayed a talent for leadership. Ironically, Pershing did not intend to embark on a career as a soldier after graduating; he still wanted to be a lawyer, and West Point had offered the best free education he could find. Nevertheless, he was continually selected for positions of leadership, being elected class president every year and rising steadily through the student ranks (senior corporal of cadets, top sergeant, and first captain of the corps). He was a solid student, a competent horseman, and a good shot, all attributes that made his future as a soldier, if he chose that course, a promising one. All West Point graduates were required to serve a number of years in the military in return for their education. After graduation in , Pershing was assigned to a cavalry unit at Fort Bayard in New Mexico Territory. This stint of frontier duty involved Pershing in the U.S. Army’s campaign against the Sioux and Apache Indians. It is not clear when Pershing decided to become a professional soldier, but he remained in the military after completing his initial commitment. In , Pershing returned to his old profession when he was assigned as the commandant of cadets at the University of Nebraska, teaching a course on military science and running the military training program at the school. His men, although initially resistant to military training, came to love and greatly respect Pershing. In , he was promoted to first lieutenant. Concurrent with his teaching at the University of Nebraska, he also earned a law degree at the school. In , Pershing was assigned to Fort Assiniboine in Montana Territory to command African American troops in the th Cavalry. Throughout his career, and unusually for his time, Pershing never displayed the slightest degree of racism, commanding both whites and African Americans with fairness and consistency, once again earning him the reverence of his troops. In , Pershing received a far different assignment, as aide to Nelson E. Miles, commanding general of the U.S. Army. The assignment, although prestigious, was not

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to Pershing’s liking, and he successfully lobbied for the position of assistant instructor of tactics at West Point, beginning in the summer of . A stickler for academy regulations, Pershing was intensely disliked by the cadets at West Point. He often bragged to the cadets about the superiority of his African American cavalry troop, earning for himself the nickname “Black Jack.” After Pershing had been at the academy for  months, the United States went to war with Spain, and he clamored for active duty. Eventually, Pershing managed to secure a transfer back to the th Cavalry as the regimental quartermaster. Not a choice assignment, but it would at least get him near the fighting. He quickly and competently organized the th for fighting the Spanish in Cuba and embarked with them early in the summer of . In the ensuing battle, in which the th helped capture the famous San Juan Hill with Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, Pershing earned a Silver Star and distinguished himself for bravery and good judgment. After the war ended late in , Pershing was appointed the chief of the newly created Division of Customs and Insular Affairs and charged with governing the recently acquired territorial possessions in the Caribbean and the Pacific. In , Pershing traveled to the Philippines and became engaged in a series of battles between U.S. forces and the native Moros, who contested American sovereignty. Shortly thereafter, Pershing was promoted to captain. In , the Moros staged their most organized revolt, but Pershing and his men managed to quell the disturbance, most dramatically in an engagement later named the March around the Lake. Pershing returned to Washington, D.C., late in  and received a hero’s welcome. His next assignment was to the General Staff, responsible for the overall preparation and guidance of U.S. military forces. While serving on this important assignment, he met and married Helen Frances Warren, the young daughter of a senator (who also happened to be the chairman of the Military Affairs Committee). They were married in Washington, D.C., on January , . Their guests included such prestigious people as President Roosevelt, dozens of senators, and the entire U.S. Supreme Court. Pershing was shortly afterward transferred to Japan as a military attaché and observer of the RussoJapanese War; his wife accompanied him. The couple eventually had four children. Over the next  years, Pershing continued to rise through military ranks, with President Roosevelt promoting him from captain to brigadier general in . Tragedy, however, came to Pershing in . On the night of August , while Pershing was away on an extended assignment in El Paso, Texas, a fire consumed the home where Helen Pershing and the couple’s four children were living in San Francisco. Only Pershing’s son, Warren, survived the inferno. Devastated by the loss of his wife and three daughters, Pershing never fully recovered from the tragedy. As a general, Pershing played a pivotal role in the conflict between the United States and Mexico that had begun with the overthrow of democratic leader Francisco Madero in . He eventually led the campaign against Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa in  after Villa had attacked Columbus, New Mexico, killing  people. When the United States entered World War I in , Pershing was selected to command the AEF. Eventually commanding a force of  million men, he landed in France on June , . Pershing initially resisted attempts by Allied generals to disperse American forces along the front, instead insisting that the AEF remain a “distinct and separate component,” in compliance with his orders. Throughout the spring of , however,

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as the Allied line threatened to crumble, he reluctantly allowed some of his troops to be used as replacements for the weary British and French soldiers. The main body of the AEF was formed into the First Army and held a sector near Verdun. Most of the American troops were inexperienced, but the sheer weight of their numbers quickly overwhelmed the exhausted Germans in several offensives in . An armistice was declared at  a.m. on November , . For the United States, World War I represented its elevation to the rank of a world power, and many complimented Pershing on his ability to amass and control such a large force of men in such a brief period of time. Historians have attributed his success to his organizational and managerial talents, his iron will, and his ability to earn the respect and loyalty of good subordinate officers. Pershing returned to the United States in September  as a national hero. Congress promoted him to the rank of general of the armies, which had not been employed in the United States since the late th century. He contemplated running for president in , but he eventually rejected the idea after losing the Nebraska primary for the Republican Party. Instead, he served as army chief of staff from  to , when he retired from the army. In , he published his memoirs, My Experiences in the World War, which earned a Pulitzer Prize in history. Pershing died on July , , and was buried with full honors in Arlington National Cemetery on a small hill where many AEF soldiers were buried. It eventually became known as Pershing’s Hill.

WOODROW WILSON (1856–1924) Woodrow Wilson had already been brilliantly successful, as a distinguished professor of political science and the innovative president of Princeton University, before he began his remarkable political career as governor of New Jersey and then president of the United States. Born on December , , in Staunton, Virginia, Wilson grew up in Augusta, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina. In , he entered Davidson College, but he was forced to drop out due to illness. Two years later, he entered Princeton University and graduated in . He briefly attended the University of Virginia Law School, but once again illness intervened. He completed his law studies at home and was admitted to the Georgia bar in . Dissatisfied and unsuccessful as an attorney, in , Wilson decided to become a college professor like his father and enrolled in a doctoral program at Johns Hopkins University. He received his Ph.D. in political science in  and, after the publication of his thesis, Congressional Government, in , achieved scholarly recognition. Wilson taught at Bryn Mawr College from  to  and Wesleyan University from  to . While at Wesleyan, he wrote The State. In , Wilson accepted a teaching position at Princeton University. During his  years as a professor at Princeton, Wilson published nine scholarly books, including his largest work, History of the American People, and several dozen journal articles. The remarkable reputation he had acquired in academia was rewarded in  when he was named president of the university. As president from  to , Wilson succeeded in reorganizing Princeton’s course of studies and departmental structure and introduced the preceptoral system of education. He failed to achieve his goal of eliminating Princeton’s anti-intellectual, class-based

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eating clubs in . He also lost a much more important and bitterly fought campaign to control the location and management of the newly created Graduate College. These defeats played an important role in providing him with sufficient incentive to plunge into the race for governor of New Jersey in . Col. George Harvey, editor of Harper’s Weekly, had first proposed the idea of Wilson’s running for governor—and eventually for president—to Wilson in . With Harvey’s guidance, Wilson had shortly thereafter begun to use speaking engagements to identify himself carefully with the need for progressive political reforms, lower tariffs, and control of the trusts. When Wilson was offered the Democratic nomination for governor in , the party bosses assumed they were selecting a figurehead. Wilson surprised them by becoming an exceptionally vigorous and independent administrator. Before the Democratic convention in , Wilson had managed to push through the New Jersey legislature a comprehensive Progressive agenda instituting direct primaries and election reform, new state regulations of public utilities, workmen’s compensation, municipal reform, and reorganization of the school system. Although Wilson campaigned for president across the nation and entered several primaries, by the time the Democratic convention met in , his chances of securing the nomination seemed bleak against Speaker of the House Champ Clark. Then the convention deadlocked, and on the th ballot, Wilson was chosen. Two weeks later, at the Republican convention, former president Theodore Roosevelt refused to accept defeat in his bid to win another term in the White House when President William Howard Taft was renominated. Roosevelt instead decided to seek the presidency as the candidate of the Progressive Party. During the national campaign, Wilson promised prosperity and reform based on a “New Freedom” that consisted of reducing tariffs, breaking up the trusts, and creating a sound national banking and credit system. The split of the Republican vote enabled Wilson to win with ,, votes to Roosevelt’s ,, and Taft’s ,,. Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs won almost a million votes. Shortly after assuming office, Wilson called Congress into special session to emphasize the importance of obtaining new tariff legislation. Six months later, after a difficult battle in the Senate, Wilson finally obtained his goal. The Underwood Act increased the number of duty-free products, reduced tariff rates from  percent to  percent, and, as a rider to the bill made possible by the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, imposed the first income tax. While the effort to secure passage of the tariff was raging, Wilson was also working to secure the passage of legislation to reform the banking system. In an address to a joint session of Congress in June , he said, “It is absolutely imperative that we should give the businessmen of this country a banking and currency system. . . . We must not leave them without the [necessary] tools of action. . . .” On December , , after another hard-fought campaign in the Senate had been won, Wilson was able to sign the Federal Reserve Act () into law. The act created a national banking system composed of  regional banks, coordinated and regulated by a Federal Reserve Board appointed by the president. The system was also authorized to issue a new national currency, Federal Reserve notes. Wilson obtained the last piece of his three-pronged New Freedom program in  when he signed a bill establishing the Federal Trade Commission. The body was designed to prevent unfair business competition.

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The remarkable success of the first Wilson administration on the domestic front was not matched in the foreign policy arena. Frustrated efforts to control events in the Mexican Revolution led first to the brief occupation of Veracruz in  and then, during –, to the futile expedition of U.S. forces under Gen. John J. Pershing into Mexico to catch the revolutionary leader Pancho Villa. Equally unsuccessful efforts to control events in Haiti and the Dominican Republic led to their occupation by the U.S. Marines in  and . After the outbreak of World War I in Europe in , Wilson gradually became preoccupied with foreign policy issues. Initially, the position of the administration was to adopt a policy of strict neutrality. This became increasingly difficult in the face of German submarine attacks on merchant shipping. When the British passenger ship Lusitania was torpedoed in May  and more than  Americans died, Wilson warned Germany that such acts would provoke U.S. retaliation. After U.S. public opinion was again aroused when a second passenger liner, the Arabic, was sunk in August, the German government did finally promise Wilson that it would no longer authorize attacks on passenger ships. When Wilson protested the torpedoing of a merchant ship, the Sussex, in March , the German government’s promise was expanded to a pledge to obey international law in regard to attacks on merchant vessels on the high seas. Renominated in , Wilson won reelection by a narrow margin with the campaign slogan “He Kept Us Out of War.” Yet Wilson’s hopes of mediating an end to the war were dashed early in  when Germany issued a proclamation declaring its intent to pursue a policy of unrestricted submarine attacks. After the loss of more American lives with the sinking of several merchant ships, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war on April , . “The world,” he said, “must be made safe for democracy.” Perhaps Wilson’s most successful accomplishments during the war consisted of the appointment of Pershing to lead the American Expeditionary Force in Europe and insisting that U.S. troops fight as units independent of British and French control. Other accomplishments included obtaining passage of a new military draft law from a reluctant Congress, empowering Bernard Baruch to oversee economic mobilization as head of the War Industries Board, and taking control of the railroads. When Germany was forced to capitulate in , it was Wilson who negotiated the surrender terms and then obtained Allied approval based on his famous Fourteen Points. Eight pertained to territorial adjustments; others called for open treaty negotiations, freedom of the seas, removal of economic barriers and equality of trade, reduction of armaments, and impartial adjustment of colonial claims. The most important points to Wilson were his call for the creation of the League of Nations and the concept of self-determination. In the fight to make the league a reality, Wilson would sacrifice his health and many of his other points. Determined to be remembered as the man who established the framework for permanent peace, Wilson decided to lead the U.S. delegation to the peace conference in Paris in . His tumultuous greeting in Europe and description as the “apostle of peace” confirmed Wilson’s resolve to see to it that the league become an integral component of any proposed peace treaty. Considering the desire for revenge of the war-weary Allies, the intricate maze of complex political and economic issues, and the hidden agendas of the other principal negotiators representing Great Britain, France, and Italy, Wilson accomplished a great

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deal in Paris. Although Germany was forced to relinquish its colonies, virtually eliminate its armed forces, and accept a huge war reparations burden, Wilson prevented its dismemberment. He also played an important role in the creation of a new Poland and, most important of all, achieved his most cherished goal: the creation of the League of Nations. Wilson mistakenly assumed that once he won European endorsement for the treaty and support for the establishment of the league, the U.S. Senate would approve his actions. Even after he toured the nation in a dramatic appeal for popular support that so exhausted him he suffered a debilitating stroke, he could not secure the treaty’s ratification in the Senate. Opposition was based on the isolationist fear that participating in the League of Nations would compromise U.S. sovereignty in conducting foreign affairs and embroil the United States in future European conflicts. Unable to lead the debate for public support due to the paralysis caused by his stroke in October , Wilson nevertheless refused to compromise. He refused to discuss any plans to secure Senate votes by changing the language of the treaty to eliminate the commitment of the United States to collective security and participation in the league. The result was a stalemate that lasted until Wilson’s view was repudiated with the Republican landslide victory in the  elections. Wilson was awarded the  Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to establish the league. He retired from the White House a sick and crippled man in  and lived the life of a recluse in Washington until his death on February , . Wilson left a remarkable political legacy. More than any other president of the th century, Wilson defined the meaning of modern liberalism and made the Democratic Party its advocate. Labeled Progressivism at the time, this ideology called upon the government to take an active role in economic affairs, to control and regulate the economically powerful (banks, railroads, corporations—the “Interests”), and to protect the economically disadvantaged (the “People”). The Federal Reserve System, the Federal Trade Commission, the income tax amendment, support for laws supporting unions, workmen’s compensation, and limitations on child labor were the results of his actions.

steven g. o’brien DOCUMENT: ZIMMERMANN NOTE, 1917 On January , , German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann sent a telegram to the German minister to Mexico stating Germany’s intention to reinitiate unlimited submarine warfare on the world’s oceans in an attempt to bring World War I to a close. Such a policy was sure to infuriate the United States, which had maintained its neutrality in the conflict up until this point. Zimmermann also directed the minister to forge a German-Mexican alliance in case the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies. British intelligence decoded the telegram and handed its contents over to the U.S. State Department, which in turn announced it to the American press on March , . U.S. outrage over Germany’s dealings with Mexico served to heighten the calls for American entry into the war, which were answered when

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the United States declared war on Germany on April . (Zimmermann Telegram—Decoded Message. Record Group : General Records of the Department of State, –, National Archives and Records Administration.) On the first of February we intend to begin submarine warfare unrestricted. In spite of this, it is our intention to endeavor to keep neutral the United States of America. If this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and together make peace. We shall give general financial support, and it is understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement. . . . You are instructed to inform the President of Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States and suggest that the President of Mexico, on his own initiative, should communicate with Japan suggesting adherence at once to this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate between Germany and Japan. Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England to make peace in a few months. Zimmermann

DOCUMENT: PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON’S FOURTEEN POINTS SPEECH, 1918 On January , , President Woodrow Wilson explained to a special joint session of Congress his dream of maintaining world peace after the end of World War I in  points. Known now as simply the Fourteen Points, Wilson’s aims manifested themselves in the League of Nations, an international organization created to settle disputes between countries, which was founded during the Paris Peace Conference in the spring of . Ironically, the U.S. Senate failed to either ratify the Treaty of Versailles or join the League of Nations, hoping instead to remain isolated from world affairs. Below is an excerpt of Wilson’s speech. (President Wilson’s Message to Congress, January , ; Records of the United States Senate; Record Group ; Records of the United States Senate; National Archives.) . Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. . Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants. . The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

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. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. . A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined. . The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy. . Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired. . All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in  in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all. . A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality. . The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development. . Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into. . The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees. . An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and

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secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant. . A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

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3 The Harlem Renaissance, 1917–1935

INTRODUCTION Surprisingly, perhaps, it can be argued that the bloody and violent Civil War failed to change dramatically the status of African Americans. It is true that the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawed slavery and granted former slaves their freedom, and that the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote. Moreover, in theory at least they were now legally equal to white Americans. In practice, however, African Americans remained a generally despised, feared, and isolated segment of the American population. Regarded as inherently inferior because of their race, they were treated with contempt if not hatred and subjected to humiliations and violence at will. As had been the case before the Civil War, the vast majority of African Americans continued to live in the South. Southern blacks comprised more than  percent of the total black population of almost  million in  (out of a total national population of . million.) During and immediately after the war, there was very little black migration—either from the South to the North or from rural areas to urban areas within the South itself. In the decades after the Civil War, the condition of most blacks showed little or no improvement. The triumph of white racism in the South after the failure of radical Reconstruction robbed African Americans of both their political rights and their civil liberties. A plethora of restrictive laws prevented African Americans from freely exercising the suffrage, and the white community frequently resorted to intimidation and violence to keep blacks “in their place.” Moreover, the emancipated slaves remained economically subservient. Plans to give them land (“forty acres and a mule”) never materialized and they were forced to earn a living as either sharecroppers or tenant farmers. Under the former, the sharecropper worked land owned by someone else and shared the fruits of his labor with the owner, who was frequently absent. Tenant farmers rented land for a yearly fee and could dispose of the crops they raised as they saw fit. Under each system, the farmer usually borrowed money for essentials against the value of the crops that he would raise. Both systems virtually guaranteed that the farmer would be poverty-stricken and beholden in perpetuity to the landowner and the lender, who were sometimes one in the same.

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Northern concern for the welfare of the freed slave—always secondary to the grander and more abstract concepts of emancipation and national unity—faded with time as the North turned its attention to other interests, including westward expansion and rapid industrialization. One might have expected that the industrialization process, with its insatiable demand for labor, would have spurred black migration from the South to the North. At first, such was hardly the case. The U.S. population in  totaled  million. Of that number, . million were African American. Of the . million blacks, . million continued to live in the South. Thus, although absolute numbers of African Americans increased for both the North and the South, the proportional distribution of blacks (more than  percent of the total lived in the South) remained almost identical to the figures for . During this stagnant period, a few halting steps were taken to improve the lot of the black American. Perhaps the most important occurred in the field of education. In the aftermath of the Civil War, sympathetic whites and a few galvanized blacks established institutions of higher education such as Fisk (), Howard (), and Morehouse (), which evolved into “elite” universities for African Americans. At the same time, several schools, such as Hampton Institute (), were established to educate emancipated slaves in the “useful arts” such as carpentry or farming, or to train African American teachers. By far the most famous and important of these schools was Tuskegee Institute, founded in . Booker T. Washington, then  years old, was selected to head Tuskegee. Washington quickly emerged as black America’s most influential spokesman, a position he continued to hold into the th century. Setting the tone for African Americans, Washington advised blacks to work hard, gain an education, live soberly, and build their own community rather than actively and aggressively seeking integration into white society on equal terms. This “be all that you can be” approach did not explicitly condone white racism; however, it did subtly imply that for the foreseeable future the best that American blacks could hope for was a benign, second-class status. As inappropriate as Washington’s “accommodationist” views seem today, they appeared quite reasonable for the time. Moreover, Washington always held out hope that racial reconciliation could someday be achieved. Toward the start of the th century, other African Americans began to challenge Washington’s vision. The opposition to Washington soon coalesced around W. E. B. DuBois, an impressive writer and thinker. Unlike Washington, DuBois directly confronted American racism. From his perspective, African Americans were as American as anyone else and, consequently, deserved equal treatment. Furthermore, he firmly rejected any suggestions that black skin signaled inferiority. For DuBois, blacks had as much right to be proud of their racial heritage as any Caucasian. However, DuBois was no democrat. Rather, he was an elitist who believed that the future of black America should be turned over to a “talented tenth,” or the best and the brightest among African Americans. In , DuBois played the leading role in founding the Niagara Movement, which demanded an end to discriminatory practices and full enforcement of civil rights, including the suffrage, for blacks. Four years later, he was instrumental in establishing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and subsequently edited its influential journal The Crisis.

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W. E. B. DuBois, the first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard, played a major role in the Harlem Renaissance. Directly challenging American racism, Dubois demanded equal treatment for black Americans. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

World War I proved to be an important catalyst for African Americans. The industries of the North and Midwest demanded labor at unprecedented levels, and southern blacks responded by trekking north in what is known as the Great Migration. Between  and , this internal migration swelled the African American population in the North and Midwest by some , people, to a combined total of . million, almost all of whom lived in urban areas. During this decade, the black population of New York City grew from , to ,,and that of Chicago from , to ,, an increase of almost  percent. Nevertheless, in  more than  percent of the country’s total African American population of . million continued to live in the South. Economic opportunity was not the only reason for the northward migration. Life in the South had continued to deteriorate for African Americans. Not only was there little chance for betterment in their economic fortunes, but the burdens of racism had increased with time. In southern states, segregation was the law of the land, and to win elections, southern politicians habitually portrayed themselves as unbending in their hatred of blacks. Moreover, violence against blacks was on the rise. In the first decade of the th century, there were  reported lynchings of African Americans. The migration of southern blacks was not particularly welcomed in the North. Not only did the blacks compete with whites for jobs, thereby holding down wages for all, but their mere presence served to reveal an overlooked aspect of northern life; namely, white northerners were as racist in their attitudes as southern whites. The tension boiled over on several occasions, taking the form of urban race riots. Two of the worst took place in East St. Louis () and Chicago (), resulting in the deaths of more than . World War I also witnessed a huge influx of African Americans into the segregated U.S. Army, many of whom believed that service to their country would ameliorate conditions for blacks after the war and dispel racial hatred. Booker T. Washington had died, but W. E. B. DuBois endorsed this view and urged it on his fellow African Americans.

WHAT HAPPENED?

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Almost , blacks entered the army at this time and , served in France. While most black units were assigned menial duties, approximately , African Americans saw combat. Several combat units served with distinction, especially New York’s th Infantry Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters. Nevertheless, with war’s end, little had changed: racism remained the norm; Jim Crow laws reigned supreme in the South; and lynching, which had never disappeared, returned with the extrajudicial murder of  blacks in , the highest number in  years. No wonder that a disillusioned DuBois wrote in The Crisis: We return We return from fighting. We return fighting. Make way for democracy. . . . At first glance, Harlem seemed an unlikely setting for the unprecedented African American cultural flowering known as the Harlem Renaissance, or New Negro Movement. Located in far northern Manhattan, Harlem as a settlement dates back to the th century. In the early years of the th century, real estate interests intensely developed Harlem in anticipation of a housing boom. When the boom turned to bust, the value of the surplus housing stock declined precipitously, and blacks, who were willing to pay a premium for housing, moved in as whites moved out. Although African Americans had lived in Harlem since the s, the black population did not explode until the first decade of the th century. Aided immeasurably by the Great Migration, black Harlem grew by leaps and bounds, until , blacks resided there by . When the th Infantry Regiment—now returned from Europe—victoriously marched up New York City’s Fifth Avenue and filed into the heart of Harlem, it symbolically kicked off the Harlem Renaissance that had been in gestation for at least a decade. Not only was the Harlem Renaissance a great flowering of African American culture and creativity, it also helped to define the relationship of blacks to white America. Perhaps most importantly, it struggled to ascertain the essence of “blackness,” thereby laying the groundwork for James Brown’s proud yet defiant chant of  years later: “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” The crown jewel of the Harlem Renaissance was an outpouring of literary works that examined—sometimes sympathetically, sometimes searingly—the African American experience. Essays, poems, and short stories, frequently appearing in journals or periodicals such as DuBois’s The Crisis or Opportunity, edited by Charles S. Johnson, augmented a number of significant novels. A clarion call came from Claude McKay, a Jamaican immigrant who published “If We Must Die” in the July  issue of The Liberator. In this seminal poem, McKay urged blacks to stand up and confront their oppressors, echoing the words of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata that “it is better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees.” Another seminal moment occurred in  with the publication of Howard University professor Alain Locke’s The New Negro. In this work Locke trumpeted contemporary African American achievements and hinted that the best was yet to come. Among the Harlem Renaissance’s black literati, sweetness and light did not always prevail. Much of the discord resulted from extreme egotism, a condition not unknown

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to the general intellectual community. However, in the case of the Harlem Renaissance it also reflected a significant difference in cultural attitudes. At one end of the spectrum was Countee Cullen, the well-mannered, sensitive, one-time son-in-law of W. E. B. DuBois, who embraced “high culture.” For Cullen, it was much more important to be a poet than a Negro poet, and while he never ran from his race, his works were intended for the universal pantheon of literary greats. At the other end of the spectrum stood Langston Hughes, perhaps the most famous of the Harlem Renaissance writers. Hughes not only proclaimed his blackness, but he also embraced the common African American at the expense of the black elite. In his famous  essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Hughes praised black cultural achievements as something unique, neither beholden to nor integrated with the white norm. He also called attention to the rich cultural fabric woven by countless millions of nameless African Americans and criticized the “talented tenth” mentality, epitomized by Cullen, that seemed intent on conforming to white standards. In addition to the prodigious literary output, African American acting, dancing, and music proved exceptionally creative. The multitalented Paul Robeson provided the best example. He was joined by others, such as dancers Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Josephine Baker, and composers Eubie Blake and “Fats” Waller. Blues and jazz now entered the American mainstream. The unvarnished wailing of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey brought home both the breadth and depth of emotion that provided the foundation for the blues. Meanwhile, jazz greats such as trumpeter Louis Armstrong and pianist Willie “The Lion” Smith wowed audiences, both black and white. One of the most famous of these cultural icons was Duke Ellington, the debonair and sophisticated band leader whose signature tune, Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train,” referred to the express subway train from lower Manhattan to Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance was not limited to black Americans. As hundreds of thousands of African Americans migrated from the South to the North—and Harlem in particular—a large influx of blacks from the Caribbean also descended upon the northern end of Manhattan. Black immigrants from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Holland’s Caribbean colonies, and British outposts such as Jamaica gave Harlem a truly international flavor. In fact, one of the most famous figures of the Harlem Renaissance was an immigrant. Marcus Garvey, originally from Jamaica, arrived in Harlem in . Garvey, an inspirational speaker who was largely self-educated, never denied his African, or black, roots; rather, he embraced them with fervor as he launched his “back to Africa” movement. Concluding that integration for blacks was not only impossible but undesirable, Garvey espoused Pan-Africanism and black nationalism. Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) glorified Africa and all that was black. He called for unity among the blacks of the world, a return to African origins, and black economic self-sufficiency. Although Garvey was convicted of mail fraud in , jailed, and eventually deported, the Amsterdam News, Harlem’s newspaper of record, credited him with teaching blacks that “black is beautiful.” On the surface, Harlem in the s was a radiant jewel bursting with intellectual energy, creative juices, and a lush lifestyle. However, for most African Americans life remained something of a burden. Most continued to live in the South, where they faced unrelenting poverty, unyielding legal segregation, unremitting racial hatred, and the

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unending threat of violence. For those who migrated to the North, conditions were not much better. For most of these migrants their fate included menial labor for low pay, racial hostility, and ghetto-like living conditions. Harlem was no exception. Most African Americans who lived there did so in poverty, squalor, and black-on-black violence. With the coming of the Great Depression and the end of national prosperity, Harlem went into decline. There is no specific date marking the end of the Harlem Renaissance; however, by the mid-s it was rapidly fading away.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY james m. beeby The Harlem Renaissance was perhaps one of the most important cultural and political movements in the United States in the th century and is certainly a significant moment in African American history. Although the definitions of the Harlem Renaissance vary, most scholars agree that it was one of the most significant expressions of black culture in American history, that it heralded a new and sophisticated approach to race, and that it is one of the most important explorations of the black experience in America. It was also a time of great creativity and artistic growth in African American culture. The Harlem Renaissance’s reach extended far beyond New York City to other urban areas across the North, into Europe (especially Paris and London), down to the Caribbean, and also to the continent of Africa. Although the Harlem Renaissance was not a specific event as such, it was a cultural movement lasting from about  to . It was a movement fostered and nurtured by civil rights groups, but it took on a life of its own in what was called “The New Negro Movement.” It attempted, and in many cases succeeded, in transforming how African Americans saw themselves and how others saw black society; it was forward-looking and part of modernism, and it showed confidence and self-awareness in its call for full political and social equality for African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance changed America and had a major effect on how Americans thought about race and race relations, both in the short and long term, and its impact on American arts and letters is long-lasting and significant. One scholar has noted that the Harlem Renaissance was something of a forced phenomenon, that it was propelled by the civil rights leaders of the s and s, such as W. E. B. DuBois, as a way to both improve race relations in the United States and to end segregation and discrimination. DuBois and others believed that by showcasing black creativity and beauty and rejecting the racial stereotyping of African Americans, the arts and letters could break down the wall of racism. In short, the “talented tenth” (the name that DuBois gave to the small cadre of black leaders at the time who would serve as role models for all African Americans) would lead the charge for equality from the top down. The Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights leaders believed, would help to emancipate African Americans from the yoke of oppression and the negative images of black people. The role of the civil rights movement and the somewhat forced nature of the Harlem Renaissance is true, but only to a degree. Once the Harlem Renaissance was in full flow by the early to mid-s, it took on a life of its own and moved in ways that nobody expected, with writers and activists such as Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, and

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Zora Neale Hurston rejecting the prescribed “positive” images of African Americans enunciated by the civil rights leadership and seeking, instead, a more nuanced and realistic, perhaps even gritty, representation of black society and culture that reflected a more authentic expression of the black experience in the early th century. There were several causes of the Harlem Renaissance, though an artistic movement does not fit into neat historical categories; indeed, movements by writers and poets have a life of their own. A key component behind the Harlem Renaissance is the actual physical space of Harlem itself. Harlem was (and still is) a predominantly black neighborhood in Manhattan. In the s, its borders were about six blocks from east to west (from Lexington Avenue to St. Nicholas Avenue) and from north to south it stretched about one mile, from th Street down to th Street (the size of the area is disputed by historians, and in the s Harlem expanded north and south by about  blocks in each direction.) Thus, Harlem was quite a small area of New York City, and by , an estimated , residents squeezed into this overcrowded neighborhood (though the actual population may have been higher). Harlem was full of all classes of people: poor, middle class, immigrants, migrants, women, men, educated, uneducated, religious groups and leaders, civil rights organizations, the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and socialists and communists (to name but a few). Nightclubs, juke joints, dance halls, the Apollo Theater, and other great landmarks enticed white liberals and those fascinated with black culture into the streets of Harlem and into hangouts in the alleyways and darkened corners of city blocks. Although it was the time of Prohibition, liquor flowed freely. As the neighborhood grew and became more alluring, more people migrated to Harlem. Thus, the physical space, location, and demographics helped to cause the Harlem Renaissance, in large part because the intoxicating reputation drew in people of all ranks and stations in life. The attraction of Harlem was thus part of the cause of the Harlem Renaissance. Another key element, concomitant with the allure of the city, was the “Great Migration” of African Americans from the South to the North. From the s onward, predominantly rural African Americans left the South in record numbers, seeking new opportunities in urban centers of the North and an escape from the Jim Crow laws, disfranchisement, and racial violence that epitomized the old confederacy at this time. This migration transformed the black diaspora and ultimately created large black urban communities across the North. During the s, a new wave of black migrants traveled to the North, and in particular to New York City, and specifically to the black neighborhood of Harlem. But the Great Migration in and of itself did not cause the Harlem Renaissance; it was merely one of the ingredients that allowed for the complexity and vibrancy of the era. Another key cause of the Harlem Renaissance was the legacy of World War I. Returning black soldiers, who had served in segregated units, refused to accept the racist and segregated society of the United States; indeed, racial violence was on the rise again. The war had opened their eyes to new opportunities and ways of living, and it stoked new levels of black militancy. One of the greatest writers of the Renaissance, the radical Claude McKay, wrote the novel Home to Harlem (published in ), which centered upon a returning black veteran’s experiences in the United States. The old racial status quo was unacceptable to veterans and also to African Americans of all stripes, including key civil rights leaders. The returning veterans were met with violence from

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whites in the South, but also with racial pride from African Americans. In Harlem, the march up Fifth Avenue of Harlem’s th Infantry Regiment (known as the Hell fighters for their valor and courage), on February , , symbolically ushered in a new era in race relations and a steeled determination of a new generation of African Americans to break the shackles of oppression and violence. It was time to fight for democracy and equality at home. After World War I, Harlem became the destination for African Americans of all classes and occupations. In fact, Harlem became recognized as the “race capital” of the world. Black immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, and South America swarmed into the neighborhood and interacted with African Americans. There was a vibrancy and excitement there. Black artists, musicians, and those looking to make it big in the world flocked to the neighborhood. Some became famous; others had fleeting careers. Meanwhile, the vast majority lived in overcrowded houses, suffered from discrimination, and struggled in poor-paying jobs. But the streets were crowded with performers, religious leaders, political bosses, and street vendors. Black leaders extolled the virtues and opportunities in Harlem. Black radicals, such as the black nationalist Marcus Garvey, created excitement and passion in the black community. Within this mix, one can detect the growing radicalism of African Americans and black immigrants. Led in part by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League (NUL), African Americans rejected the racist stereotypes of black people (such as the mammy figure, the black rapist, the blackface minstrel, and others) and instead embraced a more political, visible, and self-conscious view of themselves that celebrated their history (particularly African history) and culture, coupled with demands for equal rights, better living conditions, and an end to racial violence. Black leaders earnestly believed that the arts, particularly high art (literature, painting, and poetry for the most part), could help to solve the racial problem in the United States, because it would showcase the quality and beauty of African American culture. Although the Harlem Renaissance was an expression of high art, one needs to remember that Harlem was a very diverse environment with a great deal of popular culture, such as music, dance, and theater. The sound of jazz at the Cotton Club, Connie’s Inn, rent parties, and in small hole-in-the-wall bars permeated throughout Harlem. There were the blues, provocative black dancing, night clubs, and opportunities galore for entertainment. Ironically, in a nation that still oppressed African Americans and witnessed increased levels of violence in the South and the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan with all its despicable actions and attitudes, middle- and upper-class whites flocked to Harlem to partake of and enjoy all that black culture had to offer. The Harlem Renaissance produced some of the most outstanding black writers, artists, and performers in American history. Indeed, those who were active in Harlem included Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston, Jessie Faust, Nella Larsen, Aaron Douglas, Duke Ellington, and others. Black intellectuals and political leaders such as DuBois, Alain Locke, Walter White, A. Philip Randolph, and James Weldon Johnson, played a pivotal role in nurturing black talent. Immigrants such as Claude McKay also helped to transform the African diaspora’s intellectual and literary world in the crucible of Harlem. Although the members of the Harlem Renaissance often disagreed with one another over the role and function of art, as well as the form that art would take, each of them played a pivotal role in the Harlem Renaissance.

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According to the leading scholar of the Harlem Renaissance, David Levering Lewis, the movement passed through three distinct phases. The first phase, in which black writers and performers looked to whites for inspiration, began in about  and ended in  after the publication of Jean Toomer’s highly influential novel-poem Cane. The second phase, which lasted from late  to about the middle of , was dominated by the civil rights leadership of the NAACP and NUL as they attempted to produce a positive and uplifting image of African Americans in art, literature, and performance. The third and final phase began in  and lasted until about March  (though scholars disagree on the ending date). This witnessed African American artists exploring themes of black identity and rejecting a merely positive and uplifting image of blackness in America. Although these three phases are distinct, there were crossovers and influences of each in the other phases. In the first phase of the Harlem Renaissance, black artists and writers sought to at least borrow from the work of leading white intellectuals and writers to produce African American cultural expressions. Many of the early writers and performers spent their time with white intellectuals in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, working and interacting with Bohemians and radicals, particularly during the Red Scare of  and the Palmer raids. This early period perhaps should be known as the proto–Harlem Renaissance. Scholars argue that it began with Claude McKay’s essay “The Harlem Dancer” (published in ) and later his collection of poetry entitled Harlem Shadows. Other key texts in the early period included James Weldon Johnson’s The Book of Negro Poetry (). The first phase is said to end with the publication of Jean Toomer’s spellbinding magnum opus Cane in . In this poem-novel, Toomer uses rhythms, repeated images, and sounds to evoke the nature of African American life in the South, the problems in the urban North, and the interracial unity of the soul through Karintha, a black beauty, and Fern, a woman of two races. Although Cane sold in small numbers, its effect on the black intelligentsia and white supporters was electrifying, in part because it illuminated the sophisticated nature of black writing, and also because it did not fit into any known literary genre—was it a poem or a novel? It was neither; it was something radically new, and it broke all the rules of the canon. In many respects, the first phase sowed the seeds for the great intellectual and creative energy of the Renaissance, because it helped to attract scores of talented individuals to the city and foster a vibrancy that was in itself contagious. The second phase of the Harlem Renaissance witnessed both the deliberate and conscious attempt by civil rights leaders to use art and literature in the war against segregation and discrimination, and to counteract the negative and pervasive stereotypes of African Americans. The leaders of the NAACP and NUL saw an opportunity to use the arts and letters to attack racism and discrimination. For example, Walter White, the assistant secretary of the NAACP, persuaded Paul Robeson to give up his law career and pursue an acting career, and he convinced Nella Larsen to become a novelist. Charles Johnson enticed the black painter, Aaron Douglas, to move to Harlem. Jessie Faust, working at The Crisis, published works by Wallace Thurman, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, George Schuyler, and Arna Bontemps in a deliberate and ultimately successful attempt to foster more creativity. Perhaps the work of Countee Cullen best exemplified the second phase of the Harlem Renaissance. With the publication of Color in  and Copper Sun in , Cullen, a native of New York, became the preeminent black poet in the United States. His work was in the tradition of John Keats and other English

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poets, and his poetry was very subtle, with no direct engagement with race and racism. The second phase did not begin on a certain date, but most scholars point to the Civic Club gathering of March , , as the launch (at least symbolically) of the second phase. The new editor of the NUL’s The Opportunity wanted to organize a celebration of black writing to showcase the black experience. Over  intellectuals and artists attended, including Jessie Faust, Countee Cullen, and Alain Locke. Out of this meeting, civil rights leaders such as Dubois wanted to celebrate black writing, art, and achievement, and support budding new intellectuals and writers who would constitute a vanguard for civil rights. This period witnessed some of the most famous publications in the Harlem Renaissance. For example, Jessie Faust published There Is Confusion (), a novel about the black middle class in Philadelphia as they struggled for respect and legitimacy against racism. Alain Locke edited the monumental The New Negro (), perhaps the key text in the Harlem Renaissance, that showcased the writings of dozens of black intellectuals and artists, including Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Claude McKay, Arna Bontemps, Helene Johnson, and Eric Walrond. In his famous introduction to the collection, Locke explicitly stated that the Harlem Renaissance was part of the national and international movement for freedom and expression. Another fine example from the second phase was Langston Hughes’ The Weary Blues (). Each of these works illustrated the beauty of black culture and celebrated the black experience. The civil-rights-dominated second phase cemented its power with patronage and subtle uses of the media, particularly the NAACP’s The Crisis, edited by DuBois, and the support of sympathetic white patrons such as Carl Van Vechten and Charlotte Osgood Mason. From  to , money flowed into the pockets of black artists, writers, and intellectuals, so that they could continue to produce works of high quality. Perhaps the most famous award was the Spingarn Award from the NAACP for outstanding achievement. As the output from the exponents of high art continued at a rapid pace, the fame of several members of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Eric Walrond, stretched far beyond Harlem and New York City. Indeed, the recognition and support elsewhere gladdened the heart of civil rights leaders, who earnestly believed that the arts could help dismantle discrimination. The approach to the second phase is perhaps best summed up by DuBois in his famous essay, “Criteria of Negro Art,” published in The Crisis in . Here DuBois argued that black art had an important role to play in race politics and that all art should promote civil rights. DuBois believed that all art was propaganda, and that it should promote beauty and a positive image of African Americans to themselves and to the rest of the world. If the second phase reached full flow by , the voices of discontent at the direction of the Harlem Renaissance and the leadership of the civil rights patriarchs grew louder within the black artistic community. The third phase of the movement witnessed some of the most intense writing and cultural expression, as well as some of the deepest divisions within the movement. Writers, poets, artists, and activists clashed with one another over the representation of African Americans, the role of the black artist and art in politics, and the image that African Americans wanted to portray to their own community and the rest of society. These tensions and outright divisions had a life of their own and helped to usher in a new period of creativity and expression. Although there is no formal date for the beginning of this third and final phase, most scholars

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agree that it began in  with two major publications: Langston Hughes’ article, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” and Wallace Thurman’s periodical Fire!! Hughes forcefully rejected the notion that art should be propaganda. Instead, Hughes argued, black artists should express themselves as they pleased and not worry about the reception from the audience or civil rights leaders (and, he implicitly meant, whites). Wallace Thurman took this opposition further. He argued that the leading journals, The Crisis and Opportunity, had stifled black creativity and pushed a limited and narrow set of ideas and images, designed to appeal to a white audience and white patrons. Thurman, in very strong language, exhorted black writers and performers to discuss heretofore taboo issues, such as unsavory figures in black society, color issues and discrimination within the black community, tensions between black men and black women, and a defiant attitude against integration. Thurman was joined in this endeavor by Aaron Douglas, Zora Neale Hurston, and others. However, the civil rights establishment did not surrender their agenda without a fight. Countee Cullen, Walter White, and James Weldon Johnson continued to produce work in the civil rights vein. As a result, the tensions and intellectual debates fueled an even greater period of creativity and complex discussion of the role of race in American society, the representations of black society (romantic or realistic), and the role of politics in art. However, the “rebels” against the second phase rose in ascendancy after . Perhaps the most famous and important novel that best represents the third phase of the Harlem Renaissance was Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem (). The protagonist (leading character) in the novel, Jake, is a war veteran, and the setting is distinctly working class. The novel describes in great detail the seedy side of black working-class life, including gambling, fighting, and prostitution, as Jake travels, both physically and emotionally, to Harlem. Although the novel outraged the civil rights leaders, the new generation of black intellectuals embraced the work. Another key novel from  was Nella Larsen’s superlative work, Quicksand. Here Larsen wrote about the tragic life of a biracial woman, Helga Crane, who leaves a suffocating life in a black college in the South and moves north to Harlem. She finds no release there and even vainly tries to seek acceptance in Europe, where she is viewed as an exotic “other.” Ultimately, she returns to the South a broken woman in a loveless marriage. Larsen thus wrote a subtle analysis of the problems that biracial women face in society, confronting not only rejection and scorn from whites, but suspicion and distrust from blacks. Not surprisingly, perhaps the most shocking novel came from Wallace Thurman in  with the scandalous The Blacker the Berry. Here Thurman wrote about a black woman, Emma Lou, who hates herself because she is too black and because black culture prefers lighter-skinned African Americans. The central issue in the book is the color prejudice within the black community. Such a direct and strong treatment of a taboo subject outraged the civil rights establishment and earned Thurman mixed reviews. Many critics quite rightly realized that Thurman was criticizing the Harlem Renaissance itself, because Thurman believed that it failed to allow for the total creativity of the black artist. Some scholars point out that the creative divisions and political differences undermined the Harlem Renaissance from within. However, other scholars correctly note that all intellectual movements have significant diversity, and strong cultural transformation needs creative sparring, political differentiation, and even disagreement. There is no one experience. By the late s, the Harlem Renaissance had

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reached a maturity and sophistication to rival any intellectual and cultural movement of the th century. If it was somewhat of a forced experience, by  it had a life of its own and a powerful effect on American culture, race relations, and arts and letters. By the late s, the Harlem Renaissance began a slow decline. The stock market crash of October  and the resulting Great Depression not only had a catastrophic effect on the country, it also devastated black communities all across the nation, as African Americans faced higher than average levels of unemployment, poverty, and business failures. The race capital of the world, Harlem, was not immune from the terrible turmoil of the s. Money and patronage began to dry up and tempers frayed. But the decline was not swift; in fact, for the first few years of the s, the Harlem Renaissance continued, with new publications and a desire to explicate the changing fortunes of the black community. For example, in  Nella Larsen published Passing and Jessie Faust published Plum Bun. Tensions still existed between the new generation and the civil rights establishment, but Harlem began to decline into poverty, and internal squabbles in the Harlem Renaissance proved difficult to resolve. The most famous falling out was between Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. DuBois grew increasingly frustrated and angry at the direction of the writers and focused on other issues. Wallace Thurman died in , and several leading lights, including Faust and McKay, lost their creative energy, so that by the end of  the Harlem Renaissance was in terminal decline. Personal misery, death, and socioeconomic hardships had taken their toll. The Harlem Riot of  was the final nail in the coffin of the Harlem Renaissance, even though some of the leading members, such as Zora Neale Hurston, continued to produce high-quality work (most notably Hurston’s superb novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in ). But for all intents and purposes, the Harlem Renaissance was over by . Although the Harlem Renaissance may indeed have ended about , its legacy endured. Many of the leading writers and advocates, such as Walter White and DuBois, continued to work in the civil rights movement, while others continued to explore African American culture and write about life in the black community. Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, and Aaron Douglas produced work of a high caliber. In addition, black writers, artists, and performers of the s and into the s were influenced by the creativity of the Harlem Renaissance. No cultural transformation occurs in a vacuum, and there are always antecedents; and this is certainly true of the Harlem Renaissance. If the Harlem Renaissance failed to end racism and bring about civil rights for African Americans, that does not mean it was a failure. The question of success or failure depends on what one means by success and failure. Most assuredly, the Harlem Renaissance was the most creative and perhaps most important period in the high arts for African Americans. It not only transformed the image and history of black culture, as well as embracing its African roots, but it also revolutionized the way that African Americans saw themselves. It, perhaps, signaled the end of “double consciousness” for many African Americans and the beginning of the end to seeing themselves through the eyes of their oppressors (something that DuBois wrote so eloquently about in his The Souls of Black Folk, published in .) African Americans now had true self-consciousness, a usable and worthy past, and a vibrant intellectual movement that carried on, albeit in a different light, for years to come.

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The Harlem Renaissance also had an impact on a new generation of writers, cultural activists, and civil rights organizers and leaders. For example, superb black writers such as Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Amiri Baraka (to name but a few), and even Toni Morrison, were clearly influenced by the Harlem Renaissance. It is true that many of the individuals of the Harlem Renaissance were forgotten for awhile and some died in poverty and obscurity; but by the s, a new generation of civil rights leaders, black performers, and artists—particularly those influenced by the Black Power Movement and the forces of decolonization and revolution in Africa and the Caribbean—revived the reputations and careers of the great writers, artists, and poets of the s and s. Indeed, black political leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Ella Baker, and others were quite cognizant of the contributions of the Harlem Renaissance. Moreover, running through the entire period from the s to the s, DuBois and A. Philip Randolph carried the torch from the Harlem Renaissance to the next generation of civil rights leaders that emerged after World War II. Black cultural critics and performers of this generation are keenly aware of the Harlem Renaissance and what it meant to the black community and the United States as a whole. The Harlem Renaissance had a profound effect on black art and culture, particularly high art such as literature, painting, sculpture, plays, and poetry. While the socalled Lost Generation of writers rejected American culture of the s (and many left the United States in disgust at the rampant consumerism, the rise of mass culture, and the legacy of World War I), the Harlem Renaissance writers, for the most part, toiled and prospered in their critique of America and their engagement with the issues and problems facing the United States, particularly race and racism. Even if the Harlem Renaissance was an expression of what DuBois called the “talented tenth” (in fact, it was probably the top tenth of one percent), that talented group influenced American society and culture for years to come. For example, Langston Hughes is regarded as the preeminent poet of the th century and one of the most important poets in American history. Alain Locke is still regarded as one of the most important intellectuals in the American academy of the th century, and several performers (such as Duke Ellington and Josephine Baker) are regarded as musical icons of the th century. But the Harlem Renaissance is more than the sum of its parts. It was truly a transformative social and cultural movement that had a broad impact on politics, race relations, and identity. As a result, the Harlem Renaissance was an event that changed America, ushered in a new era for black identity, and for a brief moment promised to transform black society and culture. Students of all races and in many nations know more today about the Harlem Renaissance than ever before. The legacy and significance of the movement is assured and widely accepted by scholars of all ethnicities and political persuasions. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Baker, Houston Jr. Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . The author places the Harlem Renaissance within the context of the modernist movement of the s and rejects the notion that it failed. Ferguson, Jeffrey B., ed. The Harlem Renaissance: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Bedford Books, . A brief collection of original sources from the period, with a stimulating introduction and overview of each author and major player in the Harlem Renaissance.

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Greenburg, Cheryl L. Or Does It Explode?: Black Harlem in the Great Depression. New York: Oxford University Press, . A detailed overview of black Harlem and the lives of African Americans and urban activism in the s and the s. Huggins, Nathan I. Harlem Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press, . A landmark study that places the Harlem Renaissance in political, economic, and social context. ———, ed. Voices from the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press, . A definitive collection of over  selections from the Harlem Renaissance. Hutchinson, George. The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Places the Harlem Renaissance within the context of modernism and highlights the relationships between white and black writers. Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue. New York: Penguin, . Detailed overview of the major players involved in the Harlem Renaissance and the most insightful criticism and interpretation by the dean of the study of the era. ———, ed. The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. New York: Penguin, . Excellent collection of the major poets, writers, intellectuals, and cultural critics from the period. Locke, Alain, ed. The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance. Reprint of  edition, New York: Simon Schuster, . The most important contemporary collection of the leading activists, writers, and intellectuals from the period, it includes Locke’s provocative and spellbinding introduction on the importance of black art and civil rights. Singh, Amritjit. The Novels of the Harlem Renaissance: Twelve Black Writers, –. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, . Interpretative analysis of significant black writers in the Harlem Renaissance, with a focus on class, color, and self-definition. Wall, Cheryl A. Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, . The focus is on Jessie Faust, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston and their centrality to the Harlem Renaissance, as well as lesser-known women writers and artists. Watson, Steven. The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African American Culture, –. New York: Pantheon, . This work also analyzes the music and club scene and the gay culture of the Harlem Renaissance.

DUKE ELLINGTON (1899–1974) One of America’s great composers, Edward Kennedy Ellington created such standards as “Mood Indigo” and “Sophisticated Lady” in addition to jazz and sacred works. He used vocal and instrumental timbres ingeniously to produce striking new textures, many of which became regular components of the immediately recognizable “Ellington sound.” Born in Washington, D.C., on April , , Ellington grew up in a stable, affectionate family. His father, a butler, provided a comfortable home life and steered his son toward a career as an artist. At seven, Ellington began to study piano. He continued with musical studies at school and with a private teacher, Henry Grant. At Armstrong High School (a Washington manual training school for African Americans), Ellington won a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People poster contest. Subsequently offered a scholarship to the Pratt Institute of Fine Arts in Brooklyn, New York, Ellington declined, already drawn by ragtime music and opportunities to play piano at dances and parties. By , he was making a good living painting commercial signs and performing in public. Ellington went to New York in  to try his musical wings. He failed miserably. He and his Washington sidemen, Otto “Toby” Hardwicke (bass and sax) and Sonny Greer (drums), had joined Wilbur Sweatman’s band, but after a few months, discouraged, they returned to Washington, D.C. Early in , pianist Fats Waller convinced Ellington

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that Manhattan was the place to be. Ellington and his Washingtonians, among them Elmer Snowden (banjo) and Arthur Whetsol (trumpet), headed there to work for Ada Smith and, under Snowden’s direction, at Barron Wilkins’ Club in Harlem. When the band was hired downtown by the Hollywood (later to become the Kentucky Club), Ellington took over as leader, and Fred Guy replaced Snowden on banjo. The small group played at the club between  and  and began to increase in size. Additions included two trumpets, one of them Bubber Miley, Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton (trombone), Harry Carney (baritone sax), Rudy Jackson (clarinet and tenor sax), and Wellman Braud (bass). Ellington, Guy, Greer, and Braud, the rhythm section, stayed together for a decade. In , the band moved to Harlem’s noted Cotton Club. Ellington’s star was rising. The orchestra expanded again, adding clarinetist Barney Bigard, saxophonist Johnny Hodges, and trumpeters Freddie Jenkins and Cootie Williams. Continuing at the club until , the band was often broadcast, appeared in Check and Double Check (), a film with Amos ’n’ Andy, and performed around the country. These years established Ellington’s lead in the jazz world and consolidated his reputation for high standards in improvisation and orchestral jazz. Recordings of this period included many “jungle style” numbers. The sound, original to Ellington and Miley, depends on special effects (plunger mutes, mutes on all the brasses, tom-toms, and unusual combinations of instruments). “Mood Indigo,” a hit in the popular market, made Ellington famous around the world. His growing success depended in part on his individual players, each with unique tone color and timbre. The special qualities each brought to the ensemble were blended by Ellington into a distinctive sound that defied replication. Ellington’s successes were accompanied by heightened creativity. In , he experimented with longer compositions. Creole Rhapsody was followed by Reminiscin’ in Tempo and Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue. Popular hits of the period included “Sophisticated Lady,” recorded in , “Solitude” (), and “In a Sentimental Mood” (). In other works, his orchestrations matched melody in importance, as in Daybreak Express and Blue Harlem. Between  and , Ellington’s most productive decade, the band toured the United States and Europe (in  and ). The group contained six brasses, four reeds, and four rhythm instruments. In , there were three major additions: Billy Strayhorn, arranger, composer, and second pianist; Jimmy Blanton, bass; and Ben Webster, tenor sax. Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train” became the band’s theme. From  to August , , the date a wartime recording ban began, Ellington’s work was, according to many, his most superb. During these years, he composed “Concerto for Cootie,” “Ko-Ko,” and “Cotton Tail.” New instrumentalists came on board during the s. By , there were  in the band, including Ray Nance, who played trumpet and violin. Unfortunately, as musicians came and went, the musical stability of the preceding years evaporated. Ellington’s compositions and performance reflected the uncertainty. A series of ambitious annual Carnegie Hall concerts began in January  and showcased Ellington works, such as Black, Brown and Beige, his first long composition. Though not recorded because of the ban, the piece was important because it created a major concert work from jazz elements. Other longer Ellington compositions were introduced in subsequent years, among them Liberian Suite and Night Creature. At the

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premiere of Night Creature, in March , the Ellington band joined forces with the Symphony of the Air. Despite a changing roster of musicians, Ellington continued to compose and to tour during the s. He created the film score for Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder () and recorded with John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and others. In his final years, Ellington turned to composing sacred music. He was honored with degrees from Howard University () and Yale University () and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in . He continued to direct the band until his death in New York on May , . His son, Mercer, took over the band. Ellington was a perpetual innovator. Today, many of his ideas are taken for granted: casting the voice as a jazz instrument, breaking and expanding the three-minute record time, using the concerto form to display jazz soloists. Most know Ellington through his songs, but critics and musicians admire the way he wrote for and led his orchestra. Billy Strayhorn commented, “Duke plays the piano, but his real instrument is his band.”

justin harmon, et al. HARLEM Harlem is the historically black community in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, where the African diaspora has come together in remarkable ways. Constantly rezoned over the years, the neighborhood ultimately frames Central Park north from th Street to th Street, between the East River and the Hudson River. Originally named “Nieuw Haarlem” in , after the Dutch city, Haarlem, the land was rebuilt by the Dutch West Indian Company’s slaves and renamed Harlem by the English settlers. At the turn of the th century, a mass migration of black peoples entered the neighborhood, and Harlem was essentially an entirely black community by . Known for its spacious sidewalks and streets, seductive Victorian-style brownstone townhouses, and boastful residents, Harlem, affectionately called “uptown,” became a synonym for elegant living and was a center of culture, intelligence, and fashion. Guided by W. E. B. DuBois, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People opened a New York office in . The Universal Negro Improvement Association, led by Marcus Garvey, began operating in Harlem in . With principles founded in economic independence and self-improvement, as well as political leaders of black consciousness, the Harlem chapters soon flourished as the largest in the country. The golden era of Harlem is indisputably the decades of the s and s during the Harlem Renaissance. The movement of artistic rebirth generated a wealth of literature, art, dance, theater, and music. The legendary Harlem resident James Baldwin used Harlem as the setting for his most famous novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (). Zora Neale Hurston wrote from her brownstone on st Street, and Langston Hughes was lauded “the Poet Laureate of Harlem.” Edgecombe Road, in the area dubbed Sugar Hill, was also a resident boulevard for many Harlem activists. Lenox Avenue and Seventh Avenue housed more than  entertainment stops, including lounges, dance halls, theaters, cafés, art galleries, supper clubs, bars, and grills. The Savoy Ballroom, closed in , was renowned for its improvised swing dancing, and such musical guests as Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington

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performing classic songs like “Take the A Train,” which immortalized the rapid mode of transportation. The Lafayette Theater, closed in , staged professional revues, where many of the theatrical roles portrayed realistic lifestyles and personas of African Americans. In , Orson Welles produced his famous black Macbeth at the Lafayette Theater. Other famed acts include Bessie Smith and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Inadequate housing contributed to racial unrest and health problems. Many grand theaters were torn down or converted to churches during the latter s through the s; however, the lack of building developments catering to modern renovations resulted in the preservation of some of the finest original architecture in New York City. Many historic Harlem landmarks are still functioning today, including the world-famous Apollo Theater, a staple of th Street and famed for introducing popular music; the Theresa Hotel, where Cuban president Fidel Castro stayed in his famous  snub to the U.S. government; the National Black Theater; the Lenox Lounge; the Harlem YMCA; the Cotton Club; the Classical Theater of Harlem; the Audubon ballroom, where Malcolm X was assassinated; the Harlem Hospital; and th Street itself. With Harlem’s history of marginalization and economic deprivation, towers of public housing projects are also scattered throughout Harlem. Landlords charged high rents to people who earned low wages, and overcrowding became rampant. Residents of Harlem rioted in , , , , and . While some riots were sparked by police brutality, the  riot followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the  riots were against white shop owners in th Street’s commercial strip. Dozens of black nationalist groups mobilized in Harlem in the s, fighting for better schools, jobs, and housing. The Nation of Islam’s Temple Number Seven was run by El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) from  to . The Black Panthers organized a branch in Harlem in . Harlem is also home to more than  Christian churches, most notably the Abyssinian Baptist Church. The churches often provided a home for cultural activities. For example, the Dance Theatre of Harlem began when Arthur Mitchell started giving ballet classes in a church basement in , and the Harlem Boys Choir, a famous touring choir and education program, was established in . In the s, the character of the community changed as middle-class African Americans left for the outer boroughs and suburbs. In the s, the introduction of heroin and crack cocaine became widespread, producing collateral crime and violence. By ,  percent of the buildings in Harlem had become empty shells, convenient shelter for drug dealing and other illegal activity. Harlem began to blossom again in the early s. Political and musical efforts promoted an antigang movement and drug-free lifestyles and raised standards of higher education. In , former U.S. President Bill Clinton rented office space on West th Street after completing his second term in the White House, a move seen locally as debatably the best or worst moment of gentrification, race versus class, in the community. In the neighborhood where Malcolm X (renamed from Lenox Avenue) and Martin Luther King Jr. (renamed from th Street) meet, contemporary Harlem hosts a unique mix of people. Here, residents of the neighborhood, including many well-known, legendary local characters, rub shoulders with visitors in front of the monument of Adam

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Clayton Powell Jr. under the state building named for him. And all can honor the community’s history at studies and lecture forums at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Others simply prefer to spend their money in uptown’s black-owned businesses, like Sylvia’s Soul Food restaurant, Carol’s Daughter beauty care shop, Magic Johnson’s AMC movie theater and Starbucks café, Pieces of Harlem clothing boutique, the Studio Museum of Harlem, the Harlem art gallery, and numerous quick stops for African hair braiding. Harlem has been the muse for an uncountable number of such movies as Harlem Nights and American Gangster, and such hip-hop anthems as Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power.”

LANGSTON HUGHES (1902–1967) For more than five decades, James Langston Hughes wrote poetry, fiction, and plays that were meant to capture the essence of the black experience in America. A prolific writer of rare versatility, he wrote for the men and women he saw struggling, first for survival and then for equality, from the s through the s. Born on February , , in Joplin, Missouri, Hughes was raised in Lawrence, Kansas, and Cleveland. After a year spent in Mexico with his father, he entered Columbia University in , though he withdrew the following year. For four years, Hughes worked at odd jobs on board ship and abroad, while his verse began to appear in magazines. In , he enrolled at Lincoln University near Philadelphia. By the time of his graduation in , he had published two volumes of verse, The Weary Blues () and Fine Clothes to the Jew (), which earned him a reputation among the writers and artists of the African American cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. He published his first novel, Not Without Laughter, in . Hughes’ interest in music is evident from his first book of poetry. He took the blues and blues musicians as his subjects and incorporated blues lyrics into the structure of The Weary Blues’ title poem. Over the course of his career, Hughes experimented with verse forms drawn from the lyric structures of the blues, bebop, progressive jazz, and gospel. He regarded music as the most representative element of black culture; the body of his poetry traces its evolution. Hughes was an important voice of racial protest, as well as black affirmation. His politics evolved as times changed, but he held fast to a belief in the black popular imagination, and he wrote for the broadest audience possible. Hughes graduated from college just as the Great Depression hit, and the suffering he witnessed radicalized him. Furthermore, visits to Haiti and Cuba convinced him that the United States had acted as an imperialistic power in the Caribbean. In , he left for a year in the Soviet Union, where he assisted with a film about race relations in America and wrote some of his most radical poetry. The short stories collected in The Ways of White Folks () reflect his growing anger. The late s saw the production of a host of Hughes’ plays, including most prominently Mulatto, a tragedy about interbreeding among races, which ran on Broadway in  (and was produced in a musical version called The Barrier in ). Other Hughes plays produced in these years were Little Ham (), Joy to My Soul (), and The Organizer (). His play Don’t You Want to Be Free? was the first production of the Harlem Suitcase Theatre, founded by Hughes in .

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Hughes’ politics eventually grew less strident, and he wrote radio scripts supporting the U.S. role in World War II. In , he began writing a column for the African American weekly newspaper Chicago Defender. He introduced the character of Jesse B. Semple (nicknamed Simple), a black, urban working man whose shrewd humor filled the column for  years. Hughes eventually filled five volumes with sketches based on these columns, beginning with Simple Speaks His Mind (). Street Scene, originally a play by Elmer Rice (), was turned into a musical, with lyrics by Hughes and music by the composer Kurt Weill. It opened on Broadway in  and became a great success. Hughes bought a house in Harlem and began producing the books for a number of musicals, including Simply Heavenly (), Esther (), and Port Town (). His plays Black Nativity () and Jerico-Jim Crow () incorporated gospel music. Hughes wrote several more volumes of verse, including Fields of Wonder () and One-Way Ticket (). His Montage of a Dream Deferred () and Ask Your Mama () took their forms from jazz; the latter was written for musical accompaniment. The Panther and the Lash () reflects Hughes’ growing support for the black militants active in the civil rights struggle in the United States in the late s. Hughes also produced two more collections of short stories, Laughing to Keep from Crying () and Something in Common (); another novel, Tambourines to Glory (); a history of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Fight for Freedom (); and several books of fiction and nonfiction for children. He died on May , .

ZORA NEALE HURSTON (ca. 1903–1960) Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, anthropologist, and prominent member of the circle of writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance of the s. Growing up poor in Florida, Hurston eventually studied at Howard University, Barnard, and Columbia and became a complex and vibrant writer. An individualist who disavowed frankly political art but whose work was suffused with themes of race and cultural expression, Hurston is best known for her  novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which drew on her Florida upbringing. Hurston was born in the African American town of Eatonville, Florida, on January , probably in , though other sources suggest that she might have been born in . One of eight children, Hurston wrote of her rich and varied experiences growing up in her  autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road. At the town’s general store, she recalled hearing the folk tales of a rich oral culture that would become one of her lifelong interests. A precocious child, Hurston read a wide variety of literature, ranging from adventure stories to Greek and Norse mythology. When Hurston was , her mother died, and she was forced to live with different relatives and work at the menial jobs usually available to African American women, namely as a maid and nanny. She escaped the life of a servant when she was hired as a wardrobe mistress by an itinerant acting troupe. Hurston’s subsequent travels landed her first in Baltimore, where she studied at the Morgan Academy from  to , and then at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she began to write stories. She was soon noticed by publisher Charles Johnson, who would introduce Hurston to literary fame when his magazine Opportunity

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published two of her stories, “Drenched in Light” () and “Spunk” (). Thereafter, Hurston became associated with the group of African American writers and artists in Harlem (a neighborhood above Central Park in New York City), who contributed to the creative outpouring that has been dubbed the Harlem Renaissance. In New York City, Hurston acquired a scholarship to study at Barnard College (the sister school to Columbia University) and continued to write, publishing a play titled Color Stuck in . At Barnard, her scholarly work was noticed by the great Columbia anthropologist Franz Boas, who invited her to study with him. Boas encouraged Hurston to return to her native town of Eatonville to study African American folklore as an anthropologist. A wealthy white benefactor (Hurston would attract several in her career) provided her with the means to travel south and collect folklore. Her efforts later resulted in two collections of folk tales entitled Mules and Men () and Tell My Horse (). In the s, Hurston embarked on the richest artistic period of her career when she began to write novels. Her first novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, came out in  and centered on the life of a Baptist preacher who wrestles with contradictory impulses as a religious leader and as a free spirit entangled in illicit affairs. Her second novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God (), drew on her own experiences growing up in Eatonville and is considered to be her masterpiece. She followed these works with Moses, Man of the Mountain (), about a slave leader, and Seraph on the Suwanee (), which focused on poor whites of the South. Criticized by such other prominent African American writers as W. E. B. DuBois, Richard Wright, and Alain Locke (who was among her teachers at Howard) for not being overtly critical of racial oppression in her work, Hurston maintained that African American art would best be served by striving to achieve expression free of the confines of political controversy. On the other hand, Hurston was unflaggingly committed to presenting and exploring the varied richness of African American folklife, and racial themes are the marrow of her writings. Hurston published no more novels after , when she was accused of molesting a landlady’s son. Though the accusation proved false, the scandal tarnished her reputation and she felt persecuted and humiliated by the African American press. Such hurt, coupled with her independent streak, led her to espouse conservative politics in the s; she even opposed the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education () decision that mandated the desegregation of public schools. In this final period of her life, Hurston held such varied jobs as reporter, teacher, librarian, and even maid when she found herself in financial trouble. In , she suffered a debilitating stroke and died on January , . Her grave remained unmarked until the writer Alice Walker rediscovered it in the s and marked it with an engraving naming Hurston as “A Genius of the South.” The marking of Hurston’s grave symbolized the revival of interest in her work, as she is now regularly read in college classes throughout the United States.

justin harmon, et al. JAMES WELDON JOHNSON (1871–1938) James Weldon Johnson left his mark in so many areas of African American culture during the early part of the th century that he is not easily categorized; he was a

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songwriter, poet, novelist, scholar, diplomat, and civil rights activist. Although he spent most of his adult life in New York City, his Florida origins were apparent in much of his work, which he peppered with the authentic dialogue of black Southerners. In , he founded the first African American daily newspaper in the United States, the shortlived Daily American. Johnson was born in the racially tolerant town of Jacksonville, Florida, on June , . His mother was a teacher and musician from Nassau, Bahamas, and his father worked as a headwaiter in an upscale hotel. His affluent, free-born parents provided Johnson with a comfortable home and a secure childhood. He learned Spanish from his father, picking up an appreciation for languages, while Johnson’s mother inspired his love of poetry and music. After he graduated from Atlanta University in , he took a position as a teacher at the same elementary school he had attended as a boy. Johnson studied law during his spare time and in  became the first black person admitted to the Florida state bar since the Civil War. Johnson also wrote poetry in his spare time, and when school was out he traveled to New York City, where he wrote songs with his brother. In , he made the move permanent, and the Johnson songwriting partnership became famous. Their songs included “Under the Bamboo Tree” and the hopeful “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which is sometimes referred to as the “Negro National Anthem.” By , Johnson had discovered Walt Whitman, whose work made Johnson think deeply about his use of the black voice in his own poetry. Subsequently, he became unhappy with the type of writing he was producing, which sometimes presented an oversimplified, stereotypical picture of rural black society that catered to a white audience. Johnson became involved with other black Republicans, helping to organize a club in Harlem. He was accepted to the federal government’s consular service in  and began a career as a diplomat, serving in Venezuela and Nicaragua and working on his only novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, which was published anonymously in . The book, about a light-skinned black man searching for an identity and a place for himself in a white world, would later be credited with imbuing black literature with a realism and imagery that had not been previously seen. Realizing that Republicans had no chance of a future under newly elected President Woodrow Wilson, Johnson quit working for the government in . (He would quit the Republican Party in the early s.) Four years later, the famous civil rights activist W. E. B. DuBois asked Johnson to help his cause as a field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He led investigations into racial conflicts, organized demonstrations, and helped set up new NAACP branches all over America. By , Johnson was running the entire organization as its chief executive officer. He served in that capacity until . Johnson’s years as NAACP chief were his most productive and creative years as a writer, and he became well known as a poet and social critic. In , he published his first book of verse, Fifty Years and Other Poems, which was greeted with mixed reviews. Johnson contributed articles to such newspapers and magazines as The New York Times, Harper’s, and the Jacksonville Times-Union, among others. His articles, which were generally conservative, maintained a sense of racial pride while discussing the need for self-reliance and self-education. He lectured on African American literature, music, and culture at many prestigious colleges, exposing mostly white universities to the black sensibilities expressed during the Harlem Renaissance of the s. Johnson

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also worked as an editor, and among other projects he organized a well-received collection of black poems called The Book of American Negro Poetry in . Black Manhattan () looks at blacks’ contributions to American culture as well as to the music and art of New York City. Johnson resigned from the NAACP in  to chair the creative literature department at Fisk University. In , he was honored with the W. E. B. DuBois Prize for Negro Literature. Johnson died in an automobile accident on June , , in Wiscasset, Maine.

CLAUDE MCKAY (1889–1948) Claude McKay was a leading writer of the Harlem Renaissance and one of a group of writers that includes Paule Marshall, Edwidge Danticat, and Olaudah Equiano, who are fully of the African diaspora. McKay was first identified as an associate/protégé of the British folklorist Walter Jekyll and had his first collections of poetry, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, published through Jekyll’s patronage in his native Jamaica in . McKay was born in Sunny Ville, Jamaica, on September , . During his childhood, McKay was exposed to his elder brother’s free-thinking literature and grew up without religious indoctrination, despite his family’s participation in the church. McKay left Jamaica for New York in  and became part of the literary and political activity known as the Harlem Renaissance. His migration to the United States also put him in touch with the Euro-American left wing, as well as with various Pan-Africanists of differing political persuasions. Although known mostly as a poet, McKay was also a novelist, essayist, journalist, social and political critic, and activist. His writings include Spring in New Hampshire (), Negroes in America (), Home to Harlem (), Banjo: A Story without Plot (), Gingertown (), Banana Bottom (), A Long Way from Home (), Harlem: A Negro Metropolis (), and My Green Hills of Jamaica (). McKay is also known, although to a lesser degree, for his leftist affiliations, such as his work with the two most powerful left-wing editors in New York—Max Eastman of The Liberator and the voluble Frank Harris of Pearson’s Magazine. McKay’s left-wing political works include his early publications in The Workers’ Dreadnought in June . Three poems, “The Barrier,” “After the Winters,” and “The Little Peoples” were reprinted from Eastman’s Liberator. “If We Must Die” (which became his most popular poem, recited by Winston Churchill over the wireless during World War II) appeared in September of the same year. McKay’s first article appeared in January , entitled “Socialism and the Negro,” and his career as journalist, although not placing him as a writer within the wider context of British literary life, certainly afforded him extensive opportunity to observe, report on, and understand British political life. When McKay arrived in England in  he frequented two clubs, the International Club, and another, situated in a basement in Drury Lane, which were the centers for Africans. McKay was banned from the latter by the manager because of his reference to her as being “maternal” in her treatment of Africans. McKay subsequently spent most of his spare time at the International Club, which had been founded by radical Germans

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in  and was the reputed center for pan-European radical thought. Marx and Engels had spoken there in the s, and it was a popular meeting place for leftists of the time. McKay followed all the leaders of the major workers’ groups and wrote features, reports, and book reviews of some of the leading radical writers of the s. McKay not only published articles under his own name, but he also used pseudonyms, including Hugh Hope or the initials of his name. One of the most interesting of McKay’s experiences came with his association with Sylvia Pankhurst, who he learned later was involved with the politburo of the Russian Communist Party after . When a member of her organization was arrested, it was revealed that he was a courier between Pankhurst and Lenin, Zinovyev, and members of the politboro. McKay himself cleverly escaped being arrested after the publication of a sensitive document about the navy. McKay had secured the original document on his person, after the police had thoroughly ransacked Pankhurst’s offices, and was descending from the building when he was questioned by the police. McKay not only circulated within the circles of the English and Europeans, but he also made important social contacts with Africans from the Caribbean and Africa. He did not function as a political organizer, either with the socialists or with the Pan-Africanists; that he saw himself as a socialist is without doubt, but that he felt a strong bond with the suffering and circumstances of Africans was indisputable. With this consciousness, he tried to expose the cracks in the armor of British imperialism and what he referred to as the “congenial” nature of British racism. McKay died of heart failure in Chicago, Illinois, on May , .

amon saba saakana

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4 The Great Depression, 1929–ca. 1939

INTRODUCTION Although the stock market crash of October  is usually cited as the end of the prosperous s and the beginning of the Great Depression, it may better be seen as a symptom of several serious economic problems that developed in the American economy during the late s. Among these was a large and uncontrolled speculative boom on Wall Street, with stock prices rising out of any reasonable relationship to the financial soundness of the corporations whose stock was being traded. No regulatory agency existed that could work to prevent excessive speculation and police other malpractices in the stock market. Another significant problem was an agricultural depression that had begun shortly after World War I and lasted throughout the decade. From this depression came a decline in farm income, in land values, and, ultimately, in the purchasing power of people living in rural areas. Many country banks failed during the s and, despite the efforts of sympathetic congressmen, the federal government provided little relief. The plight of the farmers contributed to an unequal distribution of income across America in the s, with high industrial profits and low taxes enabling the rich to get richer much faster than the poor got less poor. This meant that the economy was dependent on a small percentage of people for the investment necessary to maintain or expand industrial productivity; when these people were no longer investing, the economy was bound to suffer. Finally, there was an international dimension to the growing economic problems of the late s. The United States had emerged from the war with the strongest economy in the world, and most of Europe, because of the problems inherent in postwar reconstruction, was dependent on American loans and trade. Should the United States withdraw from involvement in the greater European economy, there would be dire consequences. The October  stock market crash was significant in the coming of the Depression because it struck at the fortunes of the wealthy and caused them to stop investing. The crash exploited the weakness of corporate structure in the United States, which also dampened investment. Perhaps most importantly, the crash had a major psychological impact, creating an attitude of hopelessness and the feeling that nothing could (and, some thought, should) be done.

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Hungry people line up in New York City to receive government-provided bread in 1932 during the Great Depression. Scenes like this were common in every American city. (Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.)

President Herbert Hoover, a Republican of conservative economic beliefs, knew that the Depression, as it worsened in  and , was a serious economic crisis; but he felt strongly that it was a consequence of the economy’s natural development and that the government had no role to play in bringing about recovery. He also felt that the mood of the country was important to recovery, and thus he spent a good deal of time trying to create a positive atmosphere through optimistic predictions and participating in upbeat activities, such as attending the  World Series. Privately, he urged business leaders to be socially cooperative in maintaining employment at reasonable wages, while cutting other expenses to lower production costs. But when in  conditions worsened and public hostility began to focus on the president, the administration decided that the Depression was a result of foreign causes. To counter that, Hoover urged Congress to pass the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, a measure designed to protect American commerce from foreign competition by raising customs duties to record high levels. Against the advice of most economists, the bill passed; it had a chilling effect on European economies, while doing little to help the economy in the United States. Conditions in the United States worsened each year in the early s. This was most clearly evident in the unemployment rate, which rose from  percent in  to  percent in  to  percent in . Many other Americans were underemployed, working only a few hours per week, or had had their wages severely cut. By late , there was real distress in some parts of the country. Hoover proposed the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), a government agency empowered to lend money to banks, railroads, and major industries as a way to hire back workers and stimulate the economy. But the RFC, run by conservative bankers, dispersed only a fraction of the money it was authorized to lend, and the suffering continued. In , much

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against his personal beliefs, Hoover allowed the RFC to lend money to states for relief purposes. Again, the agency was frugal with its money, and little relief was provided. The seriousness of the crisis was etched most sharply by the plight of the “bonus army,” a motley band of , unemployed World War I veterans who came to Washington in the summer of  to demand immediate payment of a bonus for their military service that had been promised for . Congress voted down a bill to that effect, and the unsympathetic administration used currently enlisted troops, led by General Douglas MacArthur, to drive the veterans out of the capital. In the presidential election of , the Republican incumbent, Hoover, was matched against the Democratic governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Unable to run on his record, Hoover could only try to persuade voters that the country would be doomed if the Democrats won. Although crippled by polio and unable to walk unaided, Roosevelt ran a vigorous campaign, based on a program called a “New Deal for Americans,” of capitalism modified by economic planning that would prevent the booms and panics of earlier times and create a more even distribution of national wealth. The real issue was the Depression and the hardships it had brought on, and voters, frustrated by Hoover’s inability to ease the problem, elected Roosevelt by a wide margin. The transition period between Roosevelt’s election in November  and his inauguration in March  saw conditions worsen still more. By inauguration day, the nation’s banking system was in danger of imminent collapse, and Roosevelt’s first action as president was to declare a “bank holiday,” closing all the banks for five days while teams of inspectors checked the books. Most banks were allowed to reopen, and the crisis passed. Later, the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted, shortening the “Lame Duck” transition period by moving inauguration day back from March  to January . In practice, the New Deal was an avalanche of legislation, much of it passed during the first hundred days of Roosevelt’s presidency. Although historians have discussed the New Deal in a variety of ways, it may be noted that nearly all the legislation was related to the three principal objectives of the program: () a pressing need to provide relief for the many thousands of Americans in genuine distress because they were out of work and out of savings; () a need to bring about recovery from the economic paralysis gripping the nation; and () a need to enact reform measures to prevent it all from happening again. Although many of the New Deal acts were hastily formulated and ineffective, and others were found to be unconstitutional, the very fact that Roosevelt and the Congress were doing something provided a real psychological boost. In May , Congress created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), which made money grants to states for welfare payments and supervised federal relief programs. One of the most popular of these programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which employed . million young men between  and . In the CCC, men between the ages of  and  were taken from the cities and put to work on reforestation, irrigation, and other conservation projects in national parks, forest reserves, and other federally owned land. Workers were given room and board in armylike encampments and were paid $ per month, of which $ was sent back to their families. They generally thrived on the outdoor work, and, in most places, a strong sense of camaraderie developed. Special CCC programs for Native Americans and Eskimos allowed them to work on useful projects in their own reservations or villages.

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By far the most important relief program was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which gave work to more than eight million Americans between  and . For the most part, WPA workers built or repaired public buildings, roads, and bridges. There were also special WPA programs for different professions: for example, artists painted murals in post offices; historians wrote state and city guide books; and playwrights produced dramas for civic entertainment. Because of its large bureaucracy, the WPA became one of the most politicized of the New Deal agencies. Republicans accused Democrats of appointing state and local administrators on the basis of their politics; and while Democrats refuted the allegations, the issue was a factor in the midterm election of , in which the Democrats suffered significant losses, and in the passage of the Hatch Act in , which forbade political activity by federal employees. The National Recovery Administration (NRA), created in June , was the New Deal’s principal effort to bring about economic recovery. Under the NRA, business, labor, and government representatives were to cooperate in drafting “codes of competition,” which utilized planning to divide up markets and in other ways reduce open competition in a particular industry. Each code also included protection for labor in the form of collective bargaining rights, a shorter work week, and a minimum wage of  cents per hour. Problems arose, however, as the codes were developed. In many sectors, large industries or businesses dominated and wrote the codes to their advantage. Labor and consumers had no voice in the code authorities, which administered the program. And everyone had trouble with General Hugh S. Johnson, the unstable and authoritarian head of the NRA. In , the Supreme Court, in the case of Schechter v. U.S., found the NRA to be unconstitutional. The Court ruled that Congress had improperly delegated to a voluntary association that was a part of the executive branch of the government powers that the constitution reserved for Congress itself. Later, in , Congress passed the National Labor Relations (or Wagner) Act, which resurrected the beneficial provisions for labor that had been part of the NRA. The administration attempted to bring about economic recovery for agriculture in the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), passed in May . This act authorized payments to farmers who took acreage out of production or killed off livestock. In either case, the purpose was to reduce the supply and thus increase prices to a point where they were in better balance with industrial prices. It worked; by , prices for major grains had doubled and total farm income was up  percent. But in , the Supreme Court, in U.S. v. Butler, declared the AAA unconstitutional on the grounds that the federal government was delegating powers reserved to the states. A second AAA, passed in , resumed aid to farmers by providing cash subsidies to them when commodity prices dropped below a certain level. A number of congressional acts contributed to the reform aspect of the New Deal. The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) was created to regulate the operations of the stock market and end the abuses that had contributed to the  crash. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a part of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of , provided federally funded insurance for bank accounts up to $,. The Social Security Act, passed in , coordinated state and federal old-age pensions and unemployment compensation, which varied widely among the states.

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Even though Roosevelt had campaigned in  on the importance of a balanced federal budget, it was clear by  that deficit spending (then called “pump-priming”) had been an important factor in stimulating the recovery. But the deficits, which ranged from $. billion to $. billion between  and , were unprecedented in peacetime and brought on some political opposition. After his reelection in , the president declared that the Depression was over and cut spending sharply to bring the budget back into balance. The result was a sharp recession, beginning in the summer of , and a renewed spurt of deficit spending in . The federal budget deficits between  and  totaled some $. billion and more than doubled the national debt. Although Roosevelt was reelected in a landslide in , there was opposition to the New Deal. Conservative Republicans decried the growth of the federal government and the annual deficit. On the left, socialists and communists argued for a more radical restructuring of the capitalist system. And Roosevelt himself created a good deal of opposition in  with his “Court-packing” plan. Upset with Supreme Court decisions invalidating various New Deal measures, the president urged Congress to approve legislation that would allow him to appoint one new justice to the Court for each sitting justice over  years of age. By expanding the size of the Court with his own appointees, Roosevelt hoped to win more favorable decisions. But Congress defeated the proposal, and the American public reacted with hostility to the president’s attempt to tamper with such a revered institution. The most vocal opponents of the New Deal were demagogues—charismatic politicians who were driven by a zeal for personal power and influence and whose messages were crafted to appeal to the desperate. Huey Long, a Louisiana politician, attracted many people with his “Share-the-Wealth” program before his assassination in . Father Charles E. Coughlin, the “Radio Priest,” spoke to large audiences over the radio, increasingly blaming America’s problems on an international Jewish conspiracy. And Dr. Francis E. Townsend claimed  million supporters of his Revolving Old Age Pension Plan, in which each American over the age of  would receive $ per month, with the condition that the money be spent within  days. By , the country was hearing more and more about the war clouds gathering in Europe, and a national debate between isolationists and internationalists was taking shape. The New Deal was now rather old, and the administration, damaged by political problems with the WPA, the reaction to the Court-packing plan, and the recession of , found its majorities in Congress sharply reduced in the midterm election of . Now an informal coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats could block passage of any significant social welfare legislation. Clearly, the years  and  were a time of transition for the United States. The New Deal was over and the country was gearing up for World War II.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY anders greenspan Herbert Hoover assumed the reins of government in March , confident of a successful presidency, but a weakening economy and unchecked speculation in the stock

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market prevented this from happening. In addition, the government remained contracted as spending was held down, and the gold standard prohibited the expansion of the currency. An unequal distribution of income gave the wealthiest  percent of the population  percent of the nation’s income. This concentration of wealth in the hands of so few lessened the spending power of the general population, which limited the amount of products that could be purchased. Black Thursday, October , , was a harbinger of impending disaster. Nearly  million shares of stock changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange that day, and prices dropped sharply, causing great alarm in the financial community. J. P. Morgan & Co. and other large banking interests did what they could to stem the day’s losses, which threatened their financial futures. The next day, Hoover reassured a troubled country that the economy was on sound footing and that there was no need for alarm. Yet the crash, which occurred on October , was only a weekend away. The loss of $ billion as a result of the stock market crash in the last third of  was horrendously damaging to the American economy. The dependence on business confidence was important, but that was now lost due to the economic tragedy that befell the nation. The stock market entered into every aspect of Americans’ lives, and its collapse dealt a disastrous blow. By the end of , industrial production was  percent below production in . By the summer of , the loss was approximately  percent below the  figure. Construction and automobile production declined sharply. This was bad news, as both were prime economic indicators and major areas of growth prior to the crash. Due to this massive drop in production, unemployment skyrocketed. Wages and incomes were down all across the board, with industrial wages declining precipitously from $ billion in  to $. billion in . In addition, the group hurt worst, the farmers, lost more than half of their income, from $. billion in  to $. billion in . The economic collapse, coming after so much optimism and dreams of wealth in the post–World War I era, was psychologically crushing for many Americans. Many families were forced to double up as people lost their homes, and families had to move in together. Many of the young people who were out of work married later and therefore had fewer children. A disaster of this magnitude demonstrated that private relief agencies were not going to be able to handle the great suffering. Traditionally, Americans had relied on private agencies to help the poor, but as time went on and the Depression worsened, it became evident that they were not going to be able to shoulder the burden all by themselves. As private charity was unable adequately to help those in need, the poor congregated in “Hoovervilles,” cardboard shanty towns across the country. Others traveled the country’s rails, sleeping in box cars, searching for work or trying to escape their troubles. Existence was difficult, and more and more Americans began to blame their troubles on President Hoover’s administration. For many Americans, the reality of a country of such great abundance caught in a depression was difficult to comprehend. This was a country that had been able to feed and clothe its people with ease; yet clothing factories shut down and farmers had such great surpluses that they poured milk out in the streets to lower supplies and raise its price. Meanwhile, some urban children were going without milk. Although many Americans felt Hoover did an inadequate job of handling the Depression, the reality is that he did do far more than the many presidents who had preceded him had done in

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similar situations. Many former presidents had faced economic collapses but had done virtually nothing to alter or correct their path. So when the Depression started, it did not seem logical that the government should step in quickly to fix the problems that, in the past, had been fixed by the business cycle. Many argued that any such governmental move would weaken the moral fiber of Americans and be detrimental to the country at large. With the  election looming, Hoover realized he needed to do something to strengthen the nation’s gloomy economic outlook. The result was the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), the boldest antidepression measure ever taken by the federal government. RFC payments tended to go to many of the country’s largest banks, insurance companies, and railroads, creating problems for many of their smaller competitors, who could easily be forced out of business. As the suffering of American families grew worse, Hoover was hard-pressed to explain why the federal government was able to help many large corporations, but not smaller ones, or families and individuals. The purpose of the RFC was not to give massive federal aid, but, rather, to help people through firming up employment opportunities in the private sector. This, to Hoover’s mind, would be enough of a stimulus to ease these businesses out of their temporary problems without huge amounts of government spending. In addition, the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of  was meant to avoid the specter of federal relief, yet help states provide some type of employment for those who were desperately in need of work. These measures were weak, but the Congress, as a whole, was not pushing for welfare relief. The two actions that sealed Hoover’s fate, however, were the breaking up of the Bonus Army’s march on Washington and the raising of federal income taxes during a depression. Due to larger federal outlays through these loans programs and declining tax receipts, the federal deficit rose to more than $ billion. With strong sentiment that the federal government should not run at a deficit, the obvious answer seemed to be an increase in income tax rates. On June , , Hoover signed into law the Revenue Act of . This proved to be a totally counterproductive bill, as it took money out of people’s hands and strengthened opposition to a president who was seen as being insensitive to the public’s concerns. A similar problem occurred with the Bonus Army. The Senate’s rejection of the demand of World War I veterans to advance by several years the payment of promised bonuses was based on the argument of fiscal responsibility. The veterans argued, however, that disbursement of the bonus money would have increased consumer spending and, therefore, would have boosted the economy. So entrenched was the philosophy against deficit spending that even this relatively modest attempt to placate the country’s veterans was turned down. To add insult to injury, Hoover refused to meet with the veterans or their representatives, a clear rebuff and an indication that Hoover did not take the Bonus Army seriously. Although the House supported the veterans, the Senate refused to do so, and Secretary of War Patrick Hurley and Secretary of Treasury Ogden Mills moved to tear down the veterans’ encampment in the Anacostia flats. Although the superintendent of the District of Columbia police was opposed to a confrontation, Hurley obviously wished to provoke one with the Bonus marchers. As the veterans refused to leave, a struggle broke out, and Hoover ordered federal troops under Douglas MacArthur to settle the streets. Heavily armed, MacArthur and his men attacked the camp in Anacostia, and

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the veterans fled into the countryside. This inept handling of a volatile situation, combined with the imposition of higher taxes, drove voters away from the Republicans in the election of . Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s victory in the fall of  signaled a turning point in American politics. For although Roosevelt (FDR) was basically a fiscal conservative, his administration altered the relationship of the people to the government. The depth and suffering of the Depression gave Roosevelt immense presidential powers. Congress was anxious for any plan or program to help soften the blow of the Depression, and Franklin Roosevelt was ready—along with his advisers, known as the “Brain Trust.” As president, FDR had to work to create a cohesive coalition to promote his platform. The Democrats were a diverse group ranging from northern union members to old-line southerners. Through wise moves and political craftsmanship, FDR was able to create a cohesive Democratic Party that would control the presidency for two full decades. When Roosevelt took office on March , , he had unprecedented power for a president in peacetime. On March , the president announced a five-day bank holiday and forbade gold payments and exports of the precious metal. On March , Congress quickly enacted the Emergency Banking Act. Roosevelt pushed for the maintenance of private control of the banking and finance sectors of the economy, seeking to preserve the market system with an eye toward government regulation rather than control. FDR informed the nation of his plans to improve the economy in his first “fireside chat” on March , . These radio broadcasts became an integral part of the New Deal, as FDR used them to keep in close communication with the American people and inform them of the changes being made in Washington. Never before had Americans felt so close to their government. Indeed, FDR’s greatest talent was his ability to communicate with Americans through the media: radio and newsreels. He was able to convey ideas in simple language and with a voice and style appealing to his vast audiences. As is often required of a successful politician in a democracy, he knew what Americans wanted and sought to give it to them. FDR also believed in the old Progressive notion that government has a positive role to play and that it can do much to better people’s lives and promote the growth of the country. The first policies of the New Deal relied heavily on cooperation among those who were the major partners in the country’s economy. Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard and initiated a policy of controlled inflation, which raised prices and increased incomes for business. This led to increased wages and the possibilities of employment. The most important of these cooperative programs were the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which changed the relationship between the government and the business community. Although both programs would eventually be declared unconstitutional, these acts demonstrated Roosevelt’s power and the innovations of the New Deal. The two programs expressed the philosophy of the first part of the New Deal. The idea behind them was to end the deflationary spiral that had brought farm prices and industrial wages down. They were aimed at getting the economy rolling again through emphasis on the private sector. Hard economic times had combined with the severe drought and “dustbowl” conditions of the plains states to create a great danger of foreclosure, as prices for farm products remained low and many farmers had trouble paying off their debts. Many states moved to halt the rush, passing legislation that placed a

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moratorium on farm foreclosures or forbade the forced sale of a bankrupt farmer’s land and equipment. When forced sales, usually auctions, were held, friends and neighbors intimidated outside buyers and purchased the foreclosed farmer’s property for pennies an acre. Then they returned the property to the original owner. This was a demonstration of local community action to prevent the loss of farms and people’s livelihoods. The AAA was a new approach to problems that had plagued farmers for half a century. The crux of the plan was to stabilize the production and the consumption of foodstuffs to preserve the nation’s farmers from bankruptcy. As many farmers were deeply in debt, there had to be enough of a profit to repay debts as well as allow for the sustenance of the family to keep them from going under. This would be achieved by placing production limits on major commodities to prevent flooding of the market, which would drive prices down. The NRA sought to handle and improve the lives of those who labored in the industrial sector of the economy by controlling cutthroat competition, raising prices, and providing decent working conditions. The basic structure of the NRA called for an intricate set of codes that would establish guidelines to ensure these practices. Here was direct evidence of government closely regulating labor and businesses to help improve the economy and people’s lives. Perhaps the most important element of NRA was Section a, which affirmed the right of labor to organize and bargain collectively. This aspect of the legislation was seized upon by labor leaders to help foster membership and promote the power of the unions. Symbolized by the blue eagle, the NRA set quickly to work signing up employers who would agree to abide by a general set of codes until more specific ones could be drawn up for the multitude of businesses involved in the plan. The NRA’s motto, “We do our part,” emphasized that everyone needed to chip in to make the system work. By , the policies of the early New Deal appeared to be weakening. Businesses resented the increasing power of the federal government, and other critics argued that the New Deal was not doing enough to help those who were really hurting. The economy was simply not growing at a pace quick enough to promote long-term recovery. The role of the politician is to be reelected, and for Roosevelt to do so he had to ensure that his policies were effective enough to capture the interest of large numbers of Americans. He had promised Americans a New Deal and needed to make good on his commitment. FDR engineered a shift to the left to bring about greater governmental responsibility to ensure a happier public. While the early New Deal had depended to a large extent on old-style Hooverian voluntary cooperation, the later New Deal placed more authority in the hands of government. The government now became more directly responsible for the welfare of its citizens and acted as an arbiter of conflict. Roosevelt faced his greatest opposition from Huey Long, a Louisiana senator, who reached national prominence in  with his “share the wealth” plan. Long’s critics pointed to several deficiencies in his program, but Long was clearly more interested in playing to the crowd for popular support than he was in making all of the numbers match. The “Kingfish,” as he was popularly known, was accused of promoting a communist or socialist plan, and was attacked as being inherently un-American. Roosevelt saw Long as a harbinger of American fascism, as the Kingfish seemed to want absolute political power. Long, however, ceased to be a threat when he was assassinated on September , , as he strolled through the halls of the Louisiana capitol building. How

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great a threat Long would have been in  is uncertain. He had substantial grassroots support, but that would not necessarily have translated into votes on election day. Long’s plans were also muted by important changes that Roosevelt made in the New Deal as it swung to the left in . The Congress supported Roosevelt’s move for greater reform and greater governmental action to soften the blow of the Depression. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), started in May  under the direction of Harry Hopkins, employed approximately  million Americans over a six-year period in a variety of jobs all across the country. Approximately  percent of WPA funds were allocated to construction projects, with the remainder going to employ artists, writers, photographers, and actors, who expanded the horizons of millions of Americans with their paintings, plays, and books. Of particular interest are the oral recollections of former slaves recorded by WPA researchers, which form an enduring resource for our understanding of slavery. The massive WPA expenditures were paid for through the application of Keynesian economics. Promoted by the British economist John Maynard Keynes, this policy was based on the government spending large sums of borrowed money to prime the pump of the economy and bring about recovery during hard economic times. It meant that the government engaged in deficit spending, which was politically unpopular, but the administration felt that the economic crisis necessitated this measure. It was hardly revolutionary; there was no real attempt to redistribute wealth, as Long was urging, although the wealthy were obliged to pay higher taxes. Another major new initiative, the Social Security Act, became law in August . The Social Security Act provided old-age insurance, which was compulsory for all but a small percentage of American workers. The government would share equally with states the cost of helping to care for people over the age of  who could not care for themselves. The act also offered care on a matching basis for the infirm. The most longlasting New Deal program, Social Security has become a major cornerstone of the modern welfare state. Roosevelt’s strong victory in the  election against Alf Landon, the governor of Kansas, gave him the sense that all he needed to do to promote the full power of the New Deal was to get the Supreme Court in line. The resultant scheme to pack the Supreme Court to steer decisions his way was Roosevelt’s most severe political blunder, as it undermined his credibility and reinforced claims that he sought absolute power. Roosevelt, however, saw the action as necessary for him to carry out his New Deal mandate to aid the people who had elected him. Four Supreme Court justices were the primary opponents of the Roosevelt administration and its attempt to expand the New Deal; three justices, Louis D. Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and Harlan Stone, were generally tolerant of many of the New Deal plans, although Roosevelt did not get their support during the battle over the Schecter case, through which the NRA had been declared unconstitutional. After the Court found both the NRA and the AAA unconstitutional, Roosevelt thought it important that he act. His plan would allow him to appoint a new federal judge when the incumbent failed to resign within six months of turning  years of age. Supposedly, this action was geared to clear the courts of a backlog of legislation, but it was obviously an attempt to get older, more conservative judges off the bench in favor of younger ones who Roosevelt felt would support his policies. Roosevelt assumed that

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he would be able to control the Democratic majorities in both houses and get the bill through Congress, but he faced strong opposition from both parties, and the bill was defeated. Nevertheless, with the retirement of one of the more conservative justices, Roosevelt was able to appoint a new, liberal justice and create a New Deal majority that supported his decisions. He could therefore proceed virtually unhindered in his actions in the last phase of the New Deal. Even though the New Deal had saved capitalism and kept Americans fairly wellsatisfied, by the time of Roosevelt’s second inauguration, in January , one-third of the nation still remained “ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished.” As FDR indicated in his inaugural address, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” This notion was very much the point of Roosevelt’s second term. Building on the framework that had already been established, Roosevelt wished to extend the chance of the American Dream to everybody—a dream that had been shattered by the harshness of the Depression. Across the country, the economy began to pick up under the New Deal, albeit rather slowly. Production, employment, and manufacturing payrolls increased from the spring of  through the spring of . Disposable income levels for households rebounded to their  level by , and there was increased speculation in the stock market as well. There was a bit of a shock in the fall of , however. Referred to as the Roosevelt Recession, this decline threatened to wipe out all the benefits of the second phase of the New Deal. Following a reduction in federal expenditures and increased credit restrictions, the economy went into a tailspin in September and October of . Clearly the patient was not yet well enough to be taken off treatment, so the doctor had to step in again. Roosevelt moved quickly to halt the decline that could send the country into a second depression. He recalled Congress, and, in an address to the nation, he moved to complete the New Deal by further promoting bills to end child labor, to establish minimum wages and maximum hours, and to attempt to root out monopolies, effectively including old Progressive ideas as part of the New Deal package. These measures did not halt the recession, however. Only with a further injection of federal borrowing, about $ billion to expand the WPA, did income levels return to  levels by the spring of . With the Depression in check in the United States, attention turned more to the international sphere and the dangers posed by the German response to the worldwide Depression: Adolf Hitler and fascism. Although the United States had failed to join the League of Nations, the country could not be completely isolated from events occurring around the globe. A major industrial power, and the creditor of the British and the French, the United States was inexorably forced into world affairs. In Europe, the Depression had severely aggravated the debt situation, so as to cause a major financial crisis in the early s. Germany ceased its payments after the Lausanne Conference in , and all American debtors, except Finland, defaulted on their payments to the United States by . When FDR assumed the presidency in , he built upon a policy begun by Herbert Hoover to create greater rapport between the United States and its Latin American neighbors. The Good Neighbor policy, as it was known, sought to decrease U.S. control

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over the internal affairs of Latin American countries and to renounce intervention. In addition, a series of reciprocity treaties negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull was designed to increase hemispheric trade. All in all, the Good Neighbor policy was not a complete success. Although trade did increase significantly with the reciprocity treaties, Latin Americans still remained wary of U.S. power and the possibility of intervention, especially in the Caribbean and Central America. The United States was less open about its influence in Latin American affairs, but its presence remained quite strong in many countries south of the border. During the s, the American public’s sentiment toward events abroad was very much one of political isolationism, and this hampered Roosevelt’s ability to alter events overseas. Many intellectuals argued that the United States could do the most good by staying out of Europe’s troubles and strengthening democracy at home. The results of this fervent isolationism were quite serious, as the Germans and Japanese were able to make territorial gains with the secure knowledge that the United States, the only country capable of stopping them, had buried its head in the sand. German military capacity had been contained by the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I, but Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany brought renewed militarism. Hitler ended the state of disarmament; and, in a move to assert German power, he remilitarized the Rhineland, the border area between France and Germany, in March . Reaching out for more territory in  under a policy called the Anschluss, Hitler took control of Austria and occupied the German-speaking Sudetenland, which was part of Czechoslovakia. He brought these territories into his conception of a greater Germany, enlarged to provide more “living room” for the German people. In an attempt to prevent the outbreak of war in Europe, the British and French agreed to the cession of the Sudetenland to the Germans. In return, Hitler promised no more territorial demands, and the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, felt certain that he had secured “peace in our time.” With the realization of impending international problems, Roosevelt moved to bolster American military spending late in the decade. Billions of dollars were allocated for naval and air buildups during  and . Although there was significantly increased military production, this did not necessarily signal American participation in a foreign war. In Europe, Hitler and the Soviets signed the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (), which protected Hitler’s eastern flank and allowed him to invade areas to the west of the Soviet Union. On September , , Hitler invaded Poland, easily defeating the outdated Polish military. By September , the great European powers were at war. The Roosevelt administration invoked the Neutrality Act, although the president wished to repeal the arms embargo feature of the act. In November, Congress passed a new neutrality act, allowing any nation to buy arms from the United States as long as it paid cash and carried the goods away in its own ships. In this way, the United States would not be drawn into the European war because of credit extended to belligerents or merchant ships sunk delivering supplies across the ocean. In the end, of course, the United States could not avoid entering World War II. The greatest conflict the world has ever known had its roots in the Great Depression, as hard economic times prompted a shift to strong leaders—some of whom embraced territorial gain as part of their political strategy. In the end, it was those countries that retained

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their democratic structure in turbulent times that were forced to restore some semblance of order in the world. Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency had strengthened Americans’ faith in their government and their economic system. In this way the New Deal served a dual purpose: it improved the nation’s domestic economy and enabled the country to maintain its tradition of democratic values and its commitment to individual freedom, allowing it to be a powerful foe of fascist aggression. In conclusion, the Great Depression had an undeniably lasting effect on virtually all sectors of American society. Most notably, it changed the relationship of the individual to his or her government. Previously, the traditional belief in society dictated that the government bore little or no responsibility for the economic welfare of its inhabitants. Before the New Deal era, if people were starving or homeless, the responsibility for these individuals lay with private relief organizations and local charities. The massive suffering of the Depression, combined with a desire by the public for greater government assistance, propelled the New Deal into being. With it came the transition of the United States to a limited welfare state, one in which Americans could count on some degree of assistance in time of need. The welfare state grew in the four decades following the New Deal. Under postwar Democratic and Republican administrations, Americans received greater assistance from federal agencies and programs. In this way, FDR’s legacy surpassed his  years in office. The New Deal itself was in many ways a temporary measure, as programs such as the CCC, WPA, and NRA did not survive into the postdepression era. But others, such as Social Security, farm subsidies, and stock market regulation, still exist today. Greater federal funding for education and the arts grew out of the New Deal, as did the Great Society programs of Medicaid and Medicare, which provide medical assistance to the poor and elderly. In recent years, many government-funded social programs have come under attack as being too costly and, in some cases, unnecessary. Mounting budget deficits in the s forced the United States to borrow heavily, requiring a greater amount of revenue to be spent paying off those loans. Increased defense spending also contributed to a lack of funds available for federal social programs. In addition, many states found it harder to meet their social welfare demands, leading them to seek assistance from the federal government. These financial factors, and a growing conservative political mood, have caused many Americans in the early st century to question the need for such a large government role in people’s lives.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Barber, William J. From New Era to New Deal: Herbert Hoover, The Economists, and American Economic Policy, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . A sympathetic look at an often maligned president and his economic views. Bennett, Edward Moore. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Search for Security: American-Soviet Relations, –. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, . A useful study of how the United States drew closer to this future world power during the Roosevelt administration. Blum, John Morton. Roosevelt and Morgenthau. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, . A compelling account of the relationship between the president and his secretary of the treasury.

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Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . An examination of two of Roosevelt’s most virulent opponents. Brock, William R. Welfare, Democracy and the New Deal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . A critical look at FDR’s welfare policies. Cashman, Sean Dennis. America in the Twenties and Thirties: The Olympian Age of Franklin Roosevelt. New York: New York University Press, . A well-written survey of two complex decades. Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . An important discussion of industrial workers and the growth of unionization. Conkin, Paul K. The New Deal. New York: Crowell, . A critical look at the accomplishments of the “Roosevelt Revolution.” Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, –. New York: Oxford University Press, . A comprehensive examination of FDR’s dealings overseas through the Depression and World War II. Freidel, Frank. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny. Boston: Little, Brown, . A compelling one-volume biography by an eminent historian. Hirsch, Jerrold. Portrait of America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers’ Project. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . A study of the s-era project that employed many writers, historians, and other scholars. Hoff-Wilson, Joan. Herbert Hoover, Forgotten Progressive. Boston: Little, Brown, . A sympathetic treatment of an often disparaged president. Kurzman, Paul A. Harry Hopkins and the New Deal. Fair Lawn, NJ: R. E. Burdick, . A short, readable biography of the WPA chief. Lash, Joseph P. Dealers and Dreamers: A New Look at the New Deal. New York: Doubleday, . A look back at the New Deal’s accomplishments, focusing on two of Roosevelt’s Brain Trusters. Leuchtenberg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, –. New York: Harper & Row, . A classic one-volume study of the New Deal, well written and easily understood. ———. The Perils of Prosperity, –. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . An important study of the era preceding Roosevelt’s presidency. Lindenmeyer, Kriste. The Greatest Generation Grows Up: American Childhood in the s. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . Experiences of children and youth during the Great Depression. Olson, James Stuart. Herbert Hoover and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, –. Ames: Iowa State University Press, . The early history of Hoover’s main vehicle for economic assistance. Olson, James Stuart. Saving Capitalism: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the New Deal, –. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . The corporation and its functions under the Roosevelt administration. Parrish, Michael E. Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression, –. New York: W. W. Norton, . A clear and useful survey of events during these two “anxious decades.” Romasco, Albert U. The Politics of Recovery: Roosevelt’s New Deal. New York: Oxford University Press, . An accessible tribute to Roosevelt and the New Deal. Rosen, Elliot A. Hoover, Roosevelt and the Brains Trust: From Depression to New Deal. New York: Columbia University Press, . A study of the leading minds assembled to help solve the country’s problems.

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———. Roosevelt, the Great Depression, and the Economics of Recovery. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, . Argues that despite the hardships of the Great Depression, new ideas on investment behavior and new developments in technology helped set the stage for the prosperity of the post-World war II years. Schlesinger, Arthur M. The Coming of the New Deal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, . This eminent historian’s middle book of the “Age of Roosevelt” series. ———. The Crisis of the Old Order, –. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, . The first book in the three-part “Age of Roosevelt” series examines the causes and effects of the Great Depression. ———. The Politics of Upheaval. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, . The third part of the “Age of Roosevelt” series. Smith, Jean Edward. FDR. New York: Random House, . A recent, comprehensive, and detailed biography. Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. New York: Pantheon Books, . A compilation of interviews with a wide variety of people who remember the Depression years. Ware, Susan. Beyond Suffrage: Women in the New Deal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . An examination of the important roles women played during the Depression. Watkins, T. H. Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, –. New York: Henry Holt, . A lengthy biography of FDR’s secretary of the interior. Williams, T. Harry. Huey Long. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . An extensive biography of the flamboyant Louisiana politician.

FIRST HUNDRED DAYS The First Hundred Days refers to the early part of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he initiated legislation to relieve economic pressures during the Great Depression. When Roosevelt was elected in , the United States was in an unprecedented economic depression. Five days after he was inaugurated in March , Roosevelt called Congress into a special session. In a period of just over  days, he proposed and received approval for more legislative programs than any previous president had done in a comparable time period. Programs included the Emergency Banking Act, the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, the National Industrial Recovery Act (), the GlassSteagall Banking Act, the Farm Credit Act (), and the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act. Roosevelt successfully exerted pressure on Congress with his adept use of the media and his direct contact with the American people through “fireside chats” and other public speeches. The Supreme Court later voided a number of the laws adopted during the First Hundred Days, including one of the keystone programs, the National Industrial Recovery Act. After he was reelected in , Roosevelt in turn proposed a plan to “pack” the Court with new justices, and although Congress did not approve the plan, the Court soon thereafter began issuing decisions more favorable to the exercise of federal powers in Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. The New Deal significantly reoriented America’s understanding of the responsibility of the national government for social welfare. The First Hundred Days remains an

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example of unparalleled exercise of presidential powers in a time of peace and has served as inspiration for later presidents as diverse as Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan.

john vile HERBERT HOOVER (1874–1964) Brilliantly successful as an engineer and humanitarian, Herbert Hoover failed as a president to lead the United States effectively during the Great Depression because, in the words of historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., he was “a man of high ideals whose intelligence froze into inflexibility and whose dedication was smitten by self-righteousness.” Born on August , , in West Branch, Iowa, to devout Quaker parents, Herbert Clark Hoover was orphaned at age nine. He worked his way through Stanford University, graduating in  with a degree in engineering. By , he was a well-known international engineer. He had discovered major gold and coal deposits in Australia and China and had accumulated a substantial fortune. He wrote, “To feel great works grow under one’s feet and to have more men constantly getting good jobs is to be the master of contentment.” During World War I, Hoover, living in London, headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which managed to save millions of people from starvation. When the United States entered the war, President Woodrow Wilson asked Hoover to return to the United States to serve as director of the Food Administration. While at the bureau, Hoover introduced the concept of standardized sizes for packages in order to prevent waste; to “Hooverize” meant to save food. At the end of the war, Hoover returned to Europe, first to head the Inter-Allied Food Council and then to become the director of the American Relief Administration. He also served as an adviser to Wilson at the peace conference that drafted the Versailles Treaty, which officially ended the war. His relief work significantly eased the threat of famine in war-torn Austria and Germany in . After his return to the United States in September , Hoover conducted an unofficial and unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination for president. When Warren Harding was nominated instead and elected in , Hoover accepted an appointment as secretary of commerce. At the Commerce Department, the frugal and energetic Hoover worked to reduce waste and eliminate bureaucratic inefficiencies. He counseled moderation in dealing with the new Communist government in the Soviet Union and secured the shipment of food to that country with no political strings attached. Hoover believed in a doctrine of “associationalism,” by which he meant the voluntary association of bankers with bankers, farmers with farmers, manufacturers with manufacturers, and so on, regardless of such factors as nationality or religion. Such economic associations, he was convinced, would spur economic growth, encourage a wholesome spirit of cooperation and commonwealth in economic activity, and preclude the need for direct government interference in economic affairs. These views, along with his international relief work and his good performance as commerce secretary, made him an attractive choice for president in . With peace and prosperity on his side, Hoover felt confident that he would defeat anti-Prohibition and Catholic Democratic candidate Alfred E. Smith. During the campaign, the stock market soared, and that August, Hoover said in a speech, “We are nearer

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to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us. We have not yet reached the goal, but we shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.” “The Great Engineer and Humanitarian” won  electoral votes to Smith’s . In October , less than a year after Hoover took office, the stock market crashed and killed Hoover’s dream of presiding over a period of increasing prosperity. At first, through a tax cut and in meetings with business leaders, Hoover tried to encourage the expansion of public and private construction—“the greatest tool which our economic system affords for the establishment of stability”—in order to deal with what he viewed as a temporary economic collapse. He was convinced that the cause of the depression lay not in domestic affairs but in the structure of international finance. With what appeared to be a ruthless disregard for human suffering, Hoover remarked, “The sole function of government is to bring about a condition of affairs favorable to the beneficial development of private enterprise.” When he vetoed a proposal to have the government build a huge electrical project in the Tennessee Valley at Muscle Shoals, he said, “I am firmly opposed to the Government entering into any business the major purpose of which is competition with our citizens.” Relief activities belonged, he believed, to state and local governments. To tamper with that principle would “have struck at the roots of self-government.” From the perspective of those in need of immediate relief, it appeared as though Hoover was helping the rich instead of the poor. Hoover’s name became associated with the misery of the Great Depression. Shantytowns of the homeless and unemployed were called Hoovervilles, while the newspapers people used to keep warm were known as Hoover blankets. As the economic depression deepened, however, the dynamic Hoover, who was genuinely interested in resolving economic tensions, actually started many of the innovative programs the New Deal later received credit for. In , for example, he supported the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), through which the government lent money directly to companies and banks. This innovation shifted the financial power from private institutions to the federal government. Still, as the election of  approached, Hoover appeared to cling to his worn-out, “meanspirited” convictions. He authorized the RFC to grant money to state governments for direct relief programs, but it was too late. The RFC had $ million available for local relief but had spent only $ million before the end of his term in office. Renominated in  by the Republican Party, Hoover, appalled at the dangers the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt portended, vigorously campaigned across the nation against “changes and so-called new deals which would destroy the very foundations of the American system.” The American people rejected his arguments and elected Roosevelt,  electoral votes to . A gloomy and depressed Hoover retired to Palo Alto, California, in  to work at the Hoover Institute for War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. After World War II, he returned to Europe at President Harry Truman’s request to help organize food relief programs. In , again at the request of Truman, and in  at the request of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Hoover headed commissions that studied ways to improve the efficiency of the executive branch of the federal government. Hoover lived an active and vital life until his death on October , , at age . By the time of his death, the image of Hoover as inflexible and out of touch with the

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feelings of the people had been modified by a growing appreciation of his more dynamic and innovative efforts to cope with the overwhelming economic problems of the Great Depression. Even New Dealer Rexford Tugwell conceded, “We didn’t admit it at the time, . . . but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs Hoover started.” A combination of Hoover’s deeply held principles and a crisis of unprecedented magnitude made it impossible for Hoover to carry his reform impulses far enough.

steven g. o’brien HUEY LONG (1893–1935) Huey (the Kingfish) Pierce Long rose from poverty to national prominence by ruthlessly building a powerful political organization in Louisiana and by shrewdly appealing to the populist sentiments of that state’s poor. Critics described his tactics as fascist, but no one denied his growing popularity prior to his assassination. He was the man Franklin D. Roosevelt feared the most in  as he planned his reelection. One fellow politician observed: “If he’s a lunatic, he’s the smartest lunatic I ever saw.” Long was born on August , , in Winnfield, Louisiana. After a dispute with his high school principal in his senior year, Long dropped out of school. He spent the next four years earning a living as a traveling salesman, then studied law at Tulane University for a year before being admitted to the bar in . Although he established a successful practice in Shreveport, Long had already decided that his true calling was politics. In , he was elected to the state railroad commission and three years later to the public service commission. His populist-inspired attacks against the Standard Oil Company and other large corporations while serving in these posts won him a large statewide following. An unsuccessful campaign as a Democrat for governor in  was followed by a victorious try in . Long’s platform stressed massive highway construction, free textbooks for all public school children, and new and improved public hospitals, all to be paid for by increased corporate taxes. His efforts to fulfill campaign promises incurred the wrath of powerful conservative interests and led to impeachment proceedings. Long escaped impeachment for the misuse of public funds, but the experience convinced him of the need to create a political power base strong enough to ensure that no one would ever challenge his authority again. Numerous new state agencies were created to provide patronage positions for Long supporters; his opponents were methodically eliminated from the legislature through a combination of overwhelming organization pressure, voting fraud, bribery, and intimidation. In , although only halfway through his term as governor, Long won election to the U.S. Senate. The next year he resigned from the governor’s office to begin his term in the Senate, but he did not relinquish control of the state government and continued to run Louisiana from Washington, D.C. Long supported the election of Roosevelt in , but in the Senate he quickly became convinced that Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation did not go far enough in redistributing the nation’s wealth and thus would not solve the problems of the Great Depression. In the Senate, on speaking tours, over the radio (which he, along with Roosevelt and Father

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Charles Coughlin, used to remarkable effect in establishing a national following), and in his book Every Man a King, Long savagely attacked Roosevelt and advocated his own “Share the Wealth” program. In a January  radio address, Long described his plan, which attracted millions of supporters: “The great wealth and abundance of this great land belongs to all of us . . . we propose laws [that use estate and income taxes to ensure that no family owns more than $ million in property or earns more than $ million in income]. By limiting the size of the fortunes and incomes of the big men, we will throw into the government treasury the money and property from which we will care for the millions of people who have nothing; and with this money we will provide a home and the comforts of home, with such common conveniences as radio and automobile, for every family in America, free of debt.” In addition, every family in America would be guaranteed a minimum yearly income, free education for every child through college, “a thirty-hour work week, maybe less, and eleven months per year, maybe less . . . , a pension to all persons over sixty years of age, [and] a debt moratorium on all debts which people owe that they cannot pay.” In attacking those who had too much wealth and in aligning himself with the average citizen, Long showed himself to be an heir of the Populist movement of the s. A measure of Long’s influence can be seen in the degree to which Roosevelt began attacking big business and defending ordinary Americans. As his national following grew, Long completed his efforts to gain total political control in Louisiana. His efforts to eliminate all organized opposition down to the local government level alarmed critics. He seemed on the way to becoming a virtual dictator in Louisiana, but this did not seem to inhibit Long in the state or hurt him nationally with the millions who were enthralled with his democratic rhetoric. Long made it clear that he hoped to run for the presidency at the head of the Democratic Party in  or , but that if he could not secure the nomination he would run as an independent. He never had the chance. He was shot and mortally wounded on September , , by the son-in-law of a political opponent he was attempting to destroy. He died two days later. Huey Long’s death did not end the Long family’s influence in Louisiana. His wife was appointed to complete his Senate term in ; one of his brothers served three terms as Louisiana’s governor; another was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives; and his son, Russell Long, first elected to the U.S. Senate in , became a powerful political figure as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

steven g. o’brien NEW DEAL The New Deal represents the response of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to the Great Depression that gripped the nation from  to . In accepting the Democratic nomination for president in , Roosevelt proposed a “new deal for the American people,” a promissory phrase that described a wide array of bold policies and programs. Roosevelt himself maintained that the New Deal would be an experiment that might indeed meet with failure, but that it was better for the country if the government tried to bring some relief and failed, than for it never to try at all. The New

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Deal bolstered the banking system, stabilized the stock market, put many unemployed people to work, assisted those unable to find work or incapable of working, fought poverty, and instituted an old-age insurance system. It brought tremendous controversy as well, particularly regarding the expansiveness of the federal government’s role in American society. While the avowed goal of ending the depression was not achieved (economic mobilization for World War II accomplished that end), the New Deal decisively determined the domestic economic and political contours of American society for the remainder of the th century. In the throes of the country’s worst economic depression, Roosevelt used the legislative leverage gained by the  electoral victories of Democrats, who captured both the White House and substantial majorities in Congress, to launch an astonishing number of bills during a specially convened session of Congress, termed the First Hundred Days, from March  to June , . The legislation passed during the Hundred Days revolved around three major issues that Roosevelt deemed crucial to stabilizing the country: shoring up the failing banking system, assisting ailing farmers across the country to produce more food and ensure it reached consumer markets, and getting as many Americans back to work as possible. Toward this end, Congress passed a series of innovative laws that extended federal influence into unprecedented areas of American life. To restore confidence in American banks and financial institutions, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act (March ), the Economy Act (March ), the Federal Securities Act (May ), the Gold Repeal Joint Resolution (June ), and the Banking Act (June ), the latter of which created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to insure depositors’ accounts, thereby lowering the risk of runs on individual banks and general bank panics. To aid farmers, Congress enacted the Agricultural Adjustment Act (May ), the Farm Credit Act (June ), and the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act (June ). The most important of these acts was the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which subsidized farmers who curtailed production toward increasing prices and decreasing the volatility of the market. Congress also undertook the massive Tennessee Valley Authority project (May ), which not only promised to create a huge power source for much of the Southeast, but also offered flood control for thousands of farmers in the Mississippi River Valley. In an effort to reduce the overwhelming unemployment rate in the country, Congress passed the Civilian Conservation Corps Reforestation Relief Act (March ), the Federal Emergency Relief Act (May ), the National Employment System Act (June ), and most important, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) (June ). The latter of these bills marked a monumental change in the federal government’s role in the economy. Its many provisions established both the National Recovery Administration, to set standards for production, prices, and wages, as well as provisions protecting labor that included specifications regarding maximum hours, minimum wages, safe working conditions, and the right of collective bargaining; and the Public Works Administration, the first national peacetime effort at job creation, employing workers to reconstruct the nation’s infrastructure of highways, dams, airports, low-cost housing, and so forth. While incomplete, this list reveals the breadth and depth of New Deal programs, many of which were from blueprints of the so-called Brain Trust that advised the president. This diverse group of academics often assumed leading roles in the agencies of their design. In tandem with Roosevelt’s pragmatic political temperament, these public

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intellectuals made certain the apparent hodgepodge of New Deal programs would not take on any one ideological hue. While any one group of constituents may have taken offense at a part of a program or policy, there was plenty in the New Deal that was sufficiently redolent of vision and purpose to mobilize the vast majority of Americans behind successive Roosevelt administrations. Although the most dramatic congressional action came during the First Hundred Days, New Deal policies continued to be enacted on a fairly continuous basis over the next several years. For example, the Securities Exchange Act of  supplemented legislation from the previous year, establishing the Securities Exchange Commission to further counter deception, manipulation, and fraud in the buying and selling of stocks, bonds, and other securities. While such measures significantly fortified the fragile financial system, progress on the broader front for the relief of suffering and improved economic welfare was far more uneven and sporadic. To be sure, Roosevelt did succeed in improving the general mood and modest expectations of the citizenry—no small achievement given the tenacity of the economic depression. However, the overall financial picture of both the country as a whole and individual citizens remained bleak. Nevertheless, despite some conservative criticism of the New Deal and its expanded vision of government involvement in American life, most of the public enthusiastically supported Roosevelt’s programs, particularly as his reassuring fireside chats, a series of radio broadcasts to the public beginning on March , , reinforced public support for his policies. However, the New Deal suffered a series of setbacks from within the federal government that threatened to dismantle much of Roosevelt’s program. The U.S. Supreme Court was deeply involved in determining the structure, limits, and fate of the New Deal agenda. At first, it appeared the Court would accept New Deal acts and policies, along with state regulatory actions in concert with the spirit of those initiatives, as seen in its ruling in Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell () and Nebbia v. New York () when it supported some New Deal legislation. However, the Court’s judicial philosophy had been shaped in a cultural milieu of laissezfaire economic doctrine as taught in the classical school of economics, which championed free-market ideology and employers’ rights over those of organized labor. On May , , a day that Roosevelt and his supporters later labeled Black Monday, the Supreme Court declared NIRA unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (). Furthermore, in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (), the Court denied the president the power to replace members of independent regulatory agencies, a crucial executive function to ensuring the success of New Deal programs as Roosevelt decreed. The following year, in United States v. Butler (), the Court voided the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and in Carter v. Carter Coal Co. (), the Court made clear its constricted view of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, rejecting Roosevelt’s contention that the clause justified such high levels of federal involvement, the constitutional thesis on which the entire New Deal program was based. The Court’s ruling on such essential components of the New Deal forced Roosevelt and his supporters to revise much of the legislation passed during the First Hundred Days during another flurry of congressional activity known as the Second New Deal, a period lasting approximately from the spring of  to the middle of . Once again, Congress passed an extraordinary number of laws in a fairly short period of time. Among the most important of the new legislation was the National Labor Relations Act

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(July , ), also known as the Wagner Act. Replacing the NIRA, this act established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which was empowered to oversee elections for prospective union representation and exercise oversight functions with respect to possible unfair labor practices, both of which did much to elevate the status of organized labor in the country. The same year saw the passage of the Social Security Act (August ), perhaps the most important achievement of the New Deal, as it established funding for old-age pensions (through taxes on employers and employees), unemployment compensation, and welfare benefits for dependent children and the handicapped. The most lasting achievement of the New Deal era, the Social Security Act not only provided relief to millions of people during the Depression, but it also served as the basis of the modern American welfare system. Finally,  witnessed the birth of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which created jobs for millions of unemployed Americans, largely on infrastructural public projects similar to those of the earlier PWA. Unprecedented in scale, the WPA also directed a small portion of its funds to support public works projects in the arts, marking the first time in American history that the federal government granted such subsidies. After his landslide reelection in , Roosevelt was determined not to let the Supreme Court obstruct his efforts to impose government control on America’s unregulated market economy. He thus proposed a judicial reorganization bill in early  in an attempt to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court, planning to appoint justices more sympathetic to his views who could then out-vote the justices on the existing Court. Soon known by friend and foe alike as the Court-packing plan, this attempt by the executive branch to expand the federal judiciary failed for a number of reasons, particularly as both Congress and the public looked askance at Roosevelt’s attempt to force a separate branch of the federal government to conform to his will. Yet while Roosevelt lost this battle, one that many understood as a threat to the independence and integrity of the Court, he may have inadvertently prodded the standing Court in a new direction, as at least two justices switched their stances in future decisions to give the Court a more pro-Roosevelt leaning. Several major pieces of New Deal legislation were soon upheld by the nation’s highest tribunal, including the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act. Just as Roosevelt was rejoicing in the Court’s compliance with his policies, another crisis emerged to heighten tensions and threaten financial disaster once again, prompting the final phase, or the Third New Deal. Beginning in , Roosevelt attempted to balance the federal budget, as he became increasingly concerned that the massive public expenditures were placing the federal government hopelessly in debt, thereby threatening the country’s financial stability. He hoped that the economy had recovered sufficiently so that private industry would reassume some of the responsibilities that the federal government had previously upheld. Therefore, he advocated a reduction of public expenditures and federal funding to various programs. The result was a major recession that lasted throughout , although other factors contributed to the recession as well. In response, Roosevelt renounced any intention to balance the budget and launched a massive new public campaign against the power of monopolies in the American economy, which many people blamed for the recession, by beefing up the antitrust division of the Justice Department. Congress passed several new pieces of legislation during this period, although far fewer than either of the previous two New Deal phases.

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Among the most important was the Agricultural Adjustment Act (February , ), the Fair Labor Standards Act (June ), and the Revenue Act (May ). After , public enthusiasm for New Deal programs waned, as Americans saw little improvement in their financial situations, despite the flurry of government activity in their behalf. Also, Roosevelt became increasing involved in foreign affairs when the outbreak of World War II in Europe on September , , plunged much of the world into a brutal war. As Roosevelt negotiated with the belligerent powers to keep the United States neutral, the war achieved what the New Deal did not: economic recovery. Industries and businesses throughout the United States began expanding production to meet the demands of war-ravaged Europe, initiating a wave of prosperity for America that lasted until the end of the century with few interruptions. Historians, politicians, and the public continue to debate the effect and impact of the New Deal, with all agreeing that it was a remarkable time in American history. Few can argue that organized labor made substantial gains during the New Deal, benefiting from the political and economic climate that recognized the rights of workers to bargain collectively for their labor. If unionization represented an attempt to loosen the concentration of economic power from below, so to speak, the antitrust division of the Justice Department represented a corresponding attempt from above, as a revival of antimonopoly sentiment was wedded to an aggressive enforcement of antitrust law. Roosevelt’s massive spending programs also put to the test an economic theory that came to play a major role in government behavior later in the century, known as Keynesian economics. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued that government intervention in the economy could moderate the boom-to-bust cycles that had become a permanent feature of the capitalist marketplace. Roosevelt’s uninhibited willingness to use the federal government to stimulate aggregate demand and thereby raise output and employment could be seen as an empirical and historical confirmation of a key Keynesian proposition—namely, with the tools of fiscal policy a government can influence aggregate demand in order to cut unemployment. Although few understood Keynesian economics during the New Deal, the theory had a tremendous influence on the policies of U.S. politicians in decades to come. Perhaps most significantly, the New Deal instituted a division in American welfare practice between public assistance and social insurance, the latter an entitlement program wherein eligibility is determined by fixed criteria (e.g., age, as is the case with Social Security). Because social insurance programs cut through class lines, they did not carry the historical stigma attached to public assistance to the poor. Furthermore, the New Deal sanctioned a grants-in-aid model, in which states receiving federal monies were responsible, within federal guidelines, for setting precise benefit levels, a practice that historically has resulted in an irrational disparity among states in their allocation of federal funds. A third feature of the contemporary welfare state bespeaks a troublesome development: the government’s increasing penchant for purchasing the delivery of welfare services from corporations or agencies in the private sector. This so-called franchising has muddled distinctions between “profit motive” and “social service,” rendering the task of public oversight and accountability less reliable and more onerous. Nevertheless, the very idea of providing basic social services to all Americans in need originated with the New Deal and found full expression in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society vision during the s.

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The New Deal culminated in a uniquely American patchwork version of the welfare state, and it greatly expanded the role of the federal government in American life, according it responsibilities that previously were the arbitrary prerogative of individual states and the private sector. The value and wisdom of this American welfare state remains one of the primary sources of political controversy in the United States to this day. While liberals highlight the great disparities in American society between the “haves” and the “have nots,” conservatives blame the American welfare system for fostering complacency and sapping the drive and ambition of the American public.

pat o’donnell FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (1882–1945) The only U.S. president ever to serve more than two terms, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to office in  and was reelected three more times before he died near the end of World War II. During the  years of his presidency, Roosevelt aroused both intense loyalty and opposition. His critics and supporters agree, however, that more than any other president, Roosevelt was the architect of the U.S. welfare state and established government responsibility for individual social welfare. Roosevelt’s impact upon the United States through his social and economic legislation was huge and lasting. No other president in the th century has enjoyed the adulation of the masses to the degree conferred on Roosevelt. He was the first president to use mass communication (the radio) to its full advantage. Through his speeches and famous “fireside chats,” Roosevelt sounded like a kind uncle or grandfather to millions of Americans who had never heard a president speak before. Hundreds of thousands sent him letters detailing their plight, asking for his assistance, and thanking him for his help. Born on January , , Roosevelt spent his early years at the family estate in Hyde Park, New York, and attended the exclusive Groton School before going on to Harvard University and Columbia University Law School. In , he married Eleanor Roosevelt, his distant cousin and the niece of Theodore Roosevelt. He ran for the New York Senate in . Although a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Republican district, Roosevelt won an impressive victory. He quickly made a name for himself by challenging the Tammany Hall political machine’s control over the Democratic Party. In , he was chosen by Josephus Daniels, President Woodrow Wilson’s new secretary of the navy, to be assistant secretary of the navy, the same post Theodore Roosevelt had once held. In , Roosevelt ran as the vice presidential candidate with James M. Cox. Although the Democratic Party lost the election, Roosevelt used the opportunity to establish a national reputation. His political future seemed assured, but in , he was stricken with polio (infantile paralysis) and almost completely paralyzed. For two years, Roosevelt struggled to teach himself how to cope with the disease and the loss of the use of his legs. Many people thought his paralysis would be an insurmountable obstacle to a political career, but instead of giving up, with the help of his wife Roosevelt developed a bold, active personal style that more than compensated for his inability to stand without assistance. Prior to his illness, Roosevelt had appeared to many of his contemporaries as a spoiled rich man dabbling in politics. Little of his liberalism or political seriousness was apparent before his bout with polio. Once, when asked

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how he could be so patient with a political opponent, he said, “If you had spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, after that anything else would seem easy.” In , with the encouragement of Alfred E. Smith, the outgoing governor, Roosevelt managed to win the race for governor of New York. With the onset of the Great Depression, Roosevelt became known for his willingness to use the state government to relieve widespread misery and established a reputation as a compassionate, reform-oriented chief executive. He was reelected in . In many respects, Roosevelt seemed the ideal candidate to recapture the White House for the Democrats in . Still, it wasn’t until after John Nance Garner withdrew from the race at the Democratic convention and instructed his Texas and California delegates to vote for Roosevelt that Roosevelt was able to win the nomination on the fourth ballot. Then he captured the attention of the nation by flying to Chicago to become the first candidate to directly address a convention immediately after nomination. He said, “You have nominated me and I know it, and I am here to thank you for the honor. Let it . . . be symbolic that in so doing I broke traditions. Let it be from now on the task of our Party to break foolish traditions. . . . I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.” During the campaign, Roosevelt promised to balance the federal budget and to provide direct aid to the needy. Although vague on exactly how he would accomplish this, he exuded tremendous confidence that he could do what was necessary to end the depression: “The country needs, and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” Roosevelt carried all but six states and defeated Herbert Hoover by more than  million votes: ,, to ,,. Roosevelt also stymied the efforts of the Socialist and Communist parties to capitalize on the economic turmoil gripping the nation. Socialist candidate Norman Thomas obtained less than a million votes, and the Communist Party’s representative, William Foster, managed to win only , votes. Roosevelt, confident of victory, had begun preparing for the presidency months before his campaign and election. Besides a core of loyal political assistants, he had enlisted the aid of a number of college professors, Rexford Tugwell, Adolph Berle Jr., and Raymond Moley—nicknamed the Brain Trust—to assist him so that once in office he could move swiftly to deal with the national crisis. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt announced that he would call Congress into an immediate special session to obtain the legislation necessary to deal with the banking crisis and the collapse of the economy. He told the nation that if Congress hesitated, he would ask it “for broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The special session of Congress Roosevelt called convened on March , , and adjourned on June . During that Hundred Days, more important legislation was passed than at any other comparable period in U.S. history. The three aims of the New Deal were recovery, relief, and reform. The first New Deal legislation concentrated on recovery and relief. To accomplish these goals, Roosevelt had to overcome deep-seated American prejudices against a strong federal government.

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Two days after assuming office, Roosevelt issued a proclamation closing all of the nation’s banks. The special session of Congress passed an emergency banking bill just three days later that gave the president broad powers over the nation’s banks, currency, and foreign exchange. Roosevelt went on radio to talk informally to the public about what he had authorized the Federal Reserve Board and Treasury Department to do and to promise: “I can assure you that it is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than under the mattress.” The combination of decisive action and personal persuasion worked. Public confidence in reopened banks was restored. Roosevelt also took the nation off the gold standard and devalued the currency by  percent to make American goods more competitive abroad, raise prices of goods at home, and reduce individual debt. As one would anticipate, those in debt applauded, but creditors, such as those holding bonds and long-term mortgages, were enraged. The most popular New Deal measures were those that tried to relieve the suffering of the approximately  percent of the labor force who were unemployed. Roosevelt knew local and state agencies had run out of funds, so he created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, headed by Harry Hopkins, to give money to local relief agencies. The Civil Works Administration (), the Civilian Conservation Corps (), the Public Works Administration (), and later the Works Progress Administration () were also created to provide temporary relief jobs. Among the other innovative programs were the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA, ), which attempted to buoy farm prices by limiting production; the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (), which worked to protect people from mortgage foreclosures; the National Recovery Administration (NRA, ), which was designed to regulate business competition; the National Labor Relations Board (), which was established to guarantee the right of labor to organize; the Social Security Act, which set up an old-age pension system; and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) project, which brought low-cost power and jobs to millions of people in the Tennessee River Valley area. Although these efforts failed to end the Great Depression, they did provide a sense of the government’s commitment to alleviating the suffering and led to Roosevelt’s landslide reelection in . They also marked the first extensive use of government’s fiscal powers—what would later be termed Keynesian (after English economist John Maynard Keynes) policies—to stimulate mass purchasing and thereby promote economic recovery. Then in , after the Supreme Court angered Roosevelt by declaring (in ) the NRA and AAA unconstitutional, he made a costly political blunder by launching a plan to increase the size of the Court by six more judges, to , so that he could appoint enough new justices to overcome the existing five-member conservative majority. Public reverence for the Court and Roosevelt’s miscalculation that he could orchestrate the election defeat of congressional opponents in  resulted in his first major congressional setback. This Court-packing plan, combined with the  recession and his apparent unwillingness to curb a wave of sit-down strikes, sharply limited his political power. The Republicans and conservative Democrats won enough seats in the  congressional elections to halt further substantial New Deal legislation, though Roosevelt did put through the Executive Reorganization Act in , which enlarged and strengthened the executive branch of the government. World War II, not innovative New Deal legislation, returned the nation to prosperity.

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By the time he won reelection in , it was clear to Roosevelt that ominous dictatorial regimes in Japan, Germany, and Italy were going to solve their economic problems through military expansion. Roosevelt hoped to keep the United States out of war, but as World War II began in , he worked to bring about the repeal of the Neutrality Act of  so that he could provide aid to Great Britain. In , he decided to run for an unprecedented third term. Promising to keep Americans out of any foreign wars, Roosevelt easily defeated his Republican rival, Wendell Willkie,  electoral votes to . After his reelection, Roosevelt obtained congressional approval to provide lendlease aid to Great Britain and, in , to the Soviet Union. The Lend-Lease Act, passed mainly to allow the British more credit to buy war supplies, provided for the sale, transfer, exchange, or lease of arms or equipment to any country whose defense was vital to the United States. (Total lend-lease aid by the end of the war would amount to nearly $ billion.) American ships and planes also began convoying supply ships far out into the North Atlantic and reporting German submarine locations to the British Navy. In the Far East, the United States attempted in  to halt Japan’s military expansion by announcing a potentially crippling embargo of vital war materiel and oil to Japan. Instead of backing down, Japan launched a surprise attack on December , , designed to wipe out the U.S. Pacific fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. In asking Congress for a declaration of war against Japan, the president declared December  as “a date which will live in infamy.” Germany and Italy then declared war, and the United States found itself fighting adversaries in both Asia and Europe. During the war, congressional conservatives managed to dismantle some of the New Deal’s innovative programs and forced Roosevelt to orchestrate economic mobilization in a manner that gave considerable authority and profit opportunities to corporate elites. Although severely criticized for various aspects of his direction of the war effort, Roosevelt behaved in his characteristically pragmatic fashion. His goal was to win the war with as few American casualties as possible. To do this, he needed to keep the wartime alliance of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States together until after Germany and Japan were defeated, and he did. At the same time, war-induced prosperity, in combination with a widespread belief among Americans that they were fighting “the Good War” sustained national unity and enough of Roosevelt’s popularity to gain him reelection to a fourth term in . Roosevelt did not live to see the end of World War II. At the Allied summit at Yalta in , he had been unable to secure a Poland free of Soviet domination, but he did manage to obtain a Soviet promise to join the war against Japan and to participate in the United Nations. Critics attack his refusal to challenge Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, but supporters point out that it was merely an acceptance of political reality— Soviet troops occupied the region. Ordered by his doctors to rest after his return from Yalta, Roosevelt traveled to his favorite retreat at Warm Springs, Georgia, where he suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died on April , . Perspectives on Roosevelt over the years have varied widely. In the s, his Republican opponents saw him as a virtual socialist. Liberal historians of the s and s lionized him for leading a popular crusade to restore prosperity and justice in America. The radical historians of the s viewed him as a servant of capital, seeking mainly to restore capitalism to health and not truly interested in helping the downtrodden. Still

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others have stressed the pragmatic, nonideological nature of his approach—his willingness to try policies that promised to work and that seemed feasible. None of these interpretations, however, has sought to deny the centrality of Roosevelt and his New Deal in the shaping of modern America.

steven g. o’brien STOCK MARKET CRASH OF 1929 The stock market crash in New York City on Black Tuesday, October , , devastated the U.S. economy and wiped out the fortunes and life savings of many investors. The event marked the end of the securities boom of the s and the beginning of the Great Depression. The United States had been riding high on the economic growth of the s. The economy remained strong after World War I, and a new financial arrangement called credit brought luxurious modern conveniences to average U.S. families. In , President Herbert Hoover was elected in the height of prosperity. A few wealthy, powerful investors dominated the stock market, and stock manipulation through insiders’ information was not uncommon. Successful stock speculators led rich and glamorous lives, and more and more ordinary people were trading securities. Brokerages allowed customers to speculate on mostly borrowed money: customers would pay cash for just a small fraction of the value of a security and borrow the balance from the brokerage. If the stock price fell, the broker would make a “margin call” on the investor, which would require the investor either to pay more cash or sell other securities to cover further losses. On September , , stock prices reached a -year high. After that, stock prices began a slow and steady decline, marked by tumbles followed by small rallies. That pattern continued through October, and fear, pessimism, apprehension, confusion, and uncertainty began to take hold among both big and small investors. Many investors scrambled to cover their losses as the market continued its decline and more and more margin calls went out. On October , stock prices fell precipitately, alarming many investors, although overall confidence in the market remained. On the morning of October , nervous investors began selling their stocks off quickly; the number of sales triggered a further fall in stock prices that sent the stock market heading for a crash. The day quickly became known as Black Thursday and marked the first day of real panic regarding the soundness of the market. A record ,, shares of stock were traded as many investors tried to unload their stock, regardless of the price, in an attempt to cut their losses. The stock market was saved from collapse, however, when many major banks and investment companies bought large blocks of stock and successfully stemmed the panic. When the market opened on Monday, October , prices again began to plummet, but the rich, powerful bankers did not extend their support this time. The panic continued through Black Tuesday, the day the great bull market completely collapsed. From the moment of the October  opening bell, stock prices dropped in a furious selling frenzy that ended with a record  million shares traded. That record stood for  years.

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Many investors lost their life savings, and many businesses and banks failed due to their losses. Very few people saw the crash coming. One economist, Roger W. Babson, was the first to predict the crash: he drew on evidence that consumers’ credit burdens were increasing, steel production was dropping, auto sales were falling, and some stocks were showing signs of price inflation. Other economists, like Irving Fisher, dismissed the market’s downward trend as a shaking-out of speculators that would ultimately bring stability. Ultimately, the crash triggered the reform of laws regulating the securities market and led to the establishment of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which acted to enforce new reporting and listing requirements and other laws that aimed to end manipulative practices in securities trading.

lisa mccallum

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5 World War II, 1939–1945

INTRODUCTION As war clouds gathered in Europe in the late s, most Americans felt confident that the disillusioning experience of World War I could be avoided this time. In , Congress had investigated the causes for America’s entry into World War I and had passed a series of Neutrality Acts in , , and , designed specifically to avoid the problems that had led the nation into the earlier conflict. The State Department pursued an irresolute course during these years, with some officials urging the sponsorship of an international conference to settle Europe’s problems and others preferring to maintain strict political isolationism. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was internationalist-minded but forced by the economic crisis and public opinion to concentrate on domestic policy in his first term, suggested in a  speech that the United States, along with other friendly nations, should somehow “quarantine” aggressor nations to block their ambitions. Although public reaction to the speech was generally favorable, the administration had no practical plan for doing what the president proposed. Not until the outbreak of the European war in September  did U.S. foreign policy begin to take official note. Late in , Congress passed a revised Neutrality Act that favored Britain and France by allowing arms sales on a “cash-and-carry” basis; the British Navy’s control of the sea ensured that the vast majority of sales would go to our two closest European friends. Following the fall of France in the summer of , the Roosevelt administration pursued a more open policy of aid to the British, the nation seen as the last bastion between Hitler and the United States. In September, Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain concluded a deal by which the United States would acquire leases on eight British military bases in the Atlantic and Caribbean in return for  of the oldest destroyers in the U.S. Navy. After his reelection in November , Roosevelt was freer to aid the British. He solidified his relationship with Churchill and allowed U.S. naval vessels to participate in convoying merchant ships farther and farther across the Atlantic. By November , U.S. ships were sailing all the way to Britain and were increasingly coming under German attack. Meanwhile, in March of that year, Congress passed Lend-Lease, a military aid bill that authorized the lending or leasing of military equipment to Britain with the understanding that it would be returned or paid for after the war. Roosevelt likened Lend-Lease to allowing one’s neighbor to use one’s garden hose if his house was on fire,

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and the measure was generally accepted by the public. Later, Lend-Lease was extended to the Soviet Union and other wartime allies. In the Pacific, U.S. relations with Japan had been deteriorating almost since the beginning of the century, when President Theodore Roosevelt had to settle racially oriented disputes in California. War between China and Japan began in  (and was the immediate cause of the quarantine speech), but the United States hardly took notice. By the summer of , however, the Roosevelt administration began to focus on Japan’s activities in the Far East. By this time, Japanese forces had occupied much of eastern China and were menacing French Indochina and other European colonies in the region; the United States responded by imposing limited economic sanctions on Tokyo. That fall, Japan signed the Tri-Partite Agreement with Germany and Italy, formally creating the Axis, as the alliance was popularly known in the United States. When Japan moved troops into southern Indochina in July , the Roosevelt administration cut off all trade with Japan and froze Japanese assets in the United States. Japan proposed a “summit” conference, an idea that Roosevelt personally liked, but regard for China, considered an American ally, forced him to abandon the idea unless Japan withdrew its troops from China. Japan was not at all willing to do that and, instead, continued planning a secret attack on the U.S. military installation at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. When the Japanese carried out that attack on December , , the United States was catapulted into a world war. Prior to the war, military planners had concluded that the United States should fight a holding action in the Pacific while putting forth most of its effort to defeat Hitler in Europe, the more important theater. But early naval successes at the battles of Midway and the Coral Sea weakened Japanese forces sufficiently to allow for a two-ocean war to be fought simultaneously. While American naval and marine forces gradually pushed the Japanese back toward their home islands in a two-pronged, island-hopping campaign across the Pacific, American land forces fought in North Africa and Europe, beginning with the invasion of Algeria and Morocco in November  and continuing with the Italian campaign in  and the D-Day invasion into northern France in June . While the fighting was going on, Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Soviet premier, Joseph Stalin, engineered the geopolitics of the war through a series of conferences. Many such conferences were held, planning military strategy, organizing the United Nations, and anticipating the economic costs of postwar reconstruction. But the “Big Three,” as Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin were popularly known, met together only twice: at Teheran (now Tehran), Iran, in November , and at the Soviet Black Sea resort of Yalta, in February . The Teheran Conference marked a turning point in the war from military considerations to postwar political issues. At this conference, the final strategy to defeat Hitler was confirmed, but whenever political questions were raised, signs of discord appeared. As a consequence, these matters were postponed until the military situation was clearly under control. The Yalta Conference, held just three months before the end of the war in Europe, was far more political in nature and far more controversial. By this time, it was clear that Allied victory was near, and each leader came to the conference with postwar objectives. For Roosevelt, now in visibly bad health, it was to smooth out plans for the United Nations. For Churchill, it was to do what was necessary to maintain British primacy in

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Europe. And for Stalin, it was to assure the Soviet Union of postwar control over the states of east-central Europe, which would serve as a buffer zone between the Soviet Union and the nations of Western Europe. In a rather narrow sense, both the United States and the Soviet Union won their objectives at Yalta, while Britain did not. The United States got its way on most of the sticky points regarding the charter of the United Nations, which, it felt, would ensure a peaceful postwar world. To the great dismay of many Americans, the Soviet Union managed to seize control of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria by leaving troops in those countries and making vague promises about interim governments and democratic postwar elections. When, after the war, these formerly independent countries appeared to be no more than Soviet “satellites,” many Americans felt that Yalta had been a diplomatic disaster of the first order. In a secret agreement made at Yalta, Stalin agreed to bring the Soviet Union into the war against Japan within three months after the end of the war in Europe. That came in early May , when Hitler committed suicide in a Berlin bunker, and remaining German resistance collapsed. In the Pacific, American forces continued to push the Japanese back, but intelligence estimates in early  held that final victory would not come until an invasion of the Japanese home islands had occurred. Soviet assistance would be helpful in speeding that process toward a successful end. What was not known in early  was that the atomic bomb, under development in the United States since , would be ready for use by that summer. After a successful test of the bomb in July, Harry S Truman, who had become president following Roosevelt’s death in April, decided to use the bomb to end the war. Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima on August  and on Nagasaki on August , with devastating effect, and at the emperor’s behest, the Japanese surrendered shortly thereafter. Ironically, the Soviets had formally entered the war on August . In terms of manpower and cost, World War II was by far the largest conflict in U.S. history. Between December  and August , . million men and women served in the military, of whom about , were killed in combat. Another , died of other causes, and about , were wounded. Estimates of the cost of the war range upwards of $ billion, nearly  times the cost of the Vietnam War and  to  times the cost of World War I. On the home front, World War II brought about the same sort of augmentation of power in Washington as had World War I. Even before Pearl Harbor, preparations for eventual entry into the war were underway. In , an Office of Production Management was created to speed up production of war-related materials, and Naval and Military Supply Acts provided for the enlargement of the military services. And Congress approved, for the first time ever, a peacetime draft. All of this activity took place against a backdrop of vocal criticism from an active isolationist group, America First, which opposed any kind of intervention in the global conflict. By the time of Pearl Harbor, the level of war production was still inadequate. In December , Congress replaced the Office of Production Management with the War Production Board, which centralized control even further, and then created the Office of War Mobilization (OWM) in May . Under the direction of James F. Byrnes, a former congressman and Supreme Court justice, this agency achieved maximum efficiency in wartime production. The OWM had sweeping powers to dictate production

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The surrender of Japan in August 1945 marked the end of World War II. Americans, here in New York, and all over the country, spontaneously celebrated the war’s conclusion. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

levels, remove items from the consumer market, and control domestic transportation. The automobile industry, for example, was diverted entirely to the manufacture of military vehicles. Other agencies, allied with the OWM, altered American society in highly visible ways. The Office of Price Administration (OPA) controlled prices and rents and, after , supervised a national rationing system, by which Americans were allowed to buy only limited amounts of important commodities, such as gasoline, tires, shoes, coffee, meat, sugar, and butter, with the remaining production going for military uses. The War Manpower Board froze people in their jobs unless they were needed for more important war work, and the War Labor Board handled labor–management disputes so that war production would not be slowed by strikes. As with World War I, this war was paid for by a combination of taxes and bond sales. In , Congress passed a Revenue Act, which increased both corporate and personal income taxes; rates rose to  percent for those in the highest income brackets, and many people with low incomes found themselves paying income taxes for the first time. One lasting feature of wartime taxation was the introduction of withholding taxes, wherein income taxes were taken out of each paycheck, enabling the government to get its money much sooner. In all, some  percent of the cost of the war was covered by taxes. This was not nearly enough, of course, and the remainder of the money was raised through a series of eight bond drives. Many Americans paid for bonds through payroll deductions, while others were subjected to high-pressure sales campaigns, often exploiting the looks and talents of show business personalities. In general, Americans at home fared substantially better than they had during the Depression. Although many goods were difficult or impossible to obtain, there was relatively little black-market

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activity. Unemployment fell from about  percent in  to less than  percent in ; and, although prices rose about  percent during the war, the average worker’s wages rose  percent, due, in many cases, to abundant overtime work. About  percent of the labor force was engaged in some kind of war-related work. One group of people who did not fare so well in the war was the , Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. Given the longstanding racial prejudice of whites toward the Japanese Americans, it was not surprising that after Pearl Harbor every person of Japanese descent was seen as a potential saboteur or spy. Consequently, in February , President Roosevelt issued Executive Order , mandating that all persons of Japanese descent, including those who had obtained American citizenship, be detained in internment camps, which were set up at isolated and inhospitable locations in the interior of the country. Most had little choice but to abandon their homes and businesses, often at great financial sacrifice, and follow the government’s orders. Postwar claims by the Japanese Americans for their lost property netted them only about  cents on the dollar. In , the federal government paid each of the , survivors $, as a belated gesture of apology. World War II brought unalterable changes to the world. With much of Western Europe devastated by the conflict, the United States, which had escaped physical destruction, and the Soviet Union, which had recovered from much of the damage caused by the German invasion early in the war, stood alone as global superpowers. Despite the hopefulness raised by the new United Nations, it would not be long before the widely differing political and economic systems of those two nations laid the groundwork for a very different kind of war.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY larry thornton World War II marked the emergence of the United States as the world’s most powerful nation. Although the war touched dozens of countries around the world, only the United States emerged virtually unscathed and unarguably stronger. American contributions were vital to the war effort and placed the nation in a position to shape much of the postwar world. World War II also fostered significant domestic social and political changes. By all measures, World War II unleashed developments that affected the identity and activity of the United States for the second half of the th century. Rooted in its geography and its republican experiment, the sense of American distinctiveness has been an enduring American myth: the United States is a unique, separate place looking out to the world. For most of its first century, while wary of the European powers, Americans focused their attention and energies on continental development and expansion. Europe, while important, remained beyond the scope of vital American interests; Asia was of even less concern. As the th century drew closer, however, American interests expanded beyond U.S. boundaries, where they jostled with the other imperial powers. When World War I erupted in , most Americans believed they could avoid the maelstrom, as Europe’s ills were not their concern. But these hopes were illusory. In

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, President Woodrow Wilson asserted that German submarine attacks presented a casus belli. The Americans played a brief, but decisive, role in World War I, breaking the stalemate on the Western Front, which led to an Allied victory. In the aftermath of the war, many Americans shared the widespread revulsion against its horrors and hoped that war would never again plague the world. During the late s, many Americans came to believe that the United States had been manipulated into belligerency against the nation’s better interests and judgment. The general consensus asserted that the true interests of the United States would be best served by a cautious and reserved foreign policy, which could keep Americans from further political involvement in the conflicts among the hopelessly corrupt European states. As events in Asia and in Europe became more and more unsettled in the s and war appeared imminent, Americans hoped once again to avoid it. To this end, the Congress enacted the Neutrality Acts to prevent entanglements similar to those believed to have drawn the country into World War I. For example, sales of American arms to belligerent states were restricted, American ships were not to carry goods to belligerent states, and the president could prohibit Americans from traveling on belligerent ships. The wars that came to Asia in  and to Europe in , however, did not mirror the conflicts of ; and the United States became increasingly embroiled, as more and more people concluded that the outcomes of the two separate but coterminous wars did matter to the interests of the United States. Japan had long been an economic rival in the Pacific, and unchecked success of Japanese forces promised the diminution or exclusion of American trade in Asia. American sentiment clearly backed Great Britain in the European war, especially after the  German victory over France and air assault on British cities. However, public opinion polls in  showed that only  percent of the respondents favored American military involvement; these were not yet America’s wars. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who did not believe that the country could avoid the war, suggested that aggression was, in essence, an attack on the United States. At the same time, Roosevelt, campaigning for his third term, pledged that no Americans would be sent to war unless the United States was attacked. In , the United States, which had maintained a peacetime army roughly equivalent in size to Sweden’s army, began to rearm and to aid those nations fighting the aggressors. Modified neutrality legislation allowed belligerent states to purchase American arms on “cash-and-carry” terms. In –, the United States shifted from neutrality with a profitable war-related business to nonbelligerency, doing everything short of war to aid the states fighting Germany and Japan. The British, the Chinese, and, later, the Soviets received loans and supplies through programs like Lend-Lease. In August , Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain and President Roosevelt signed the Atlantic Charter, which proclaimed Anglo-American war aims of freedom and justice. To help secure British convoys, the U.S. Navy increased its Atlantic patrols and reported German submarine positions to the British. In September , an order to “shoot-on-sight” placed the navy in an undeclared war with German submarines. Even so, the United States technically remained a nonbelligerent. On December , , in one of the most impressive military feats of the war, the Japanese struck a humiliating blow to the American Pacific fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, destroying or damaging  battleships and their auxiliaries, along with

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 aircraft, and inflicting more than , casualties, while suffering only  casualties and losing just  airplanes. On the same day, Japanese forces also launched successful attacks against American forces in the Philippines and British forces in Hong Kong and Malaya. Assuming the inevitability of war with the United States, the Japanese decided to launch this war sooner rather than later. Some Japanese policy makers were convinced that the Americans lacked the heart to rebound from such a crippling blow. Instead, the Japanese attack aroused the fury of the American people, and residual elements of that fury remain to this day. Like a match that flares brilliantly when struck, the Japanese war effort quickly sputtered in the face of its enemy’s might. Germany declared war on the United States on December , . The German hope that Japan could force Britain out of the war, while German forces focused their energies on a final assault on the Soviet Union, all before the United States became a serious factor in the war, was an illusion. The Germans did not recognize that Axis war efforts were doomed, because their invasion of the Soviet Union had failed to achieve a quick victory, their forces could not knock out Britain, and, now, the entry of the United States introduced a power that, alone, could contribute to every theater of the war. Both the Japanese and the Germans grossly underestimated the United States and overestimated their own abilities in the face of the coalition they had forced into existence. World War II was total war, a modern industrial war. With its enormous industrial base, large population, and efficient mobilization, the United States epitomized total war effort. Prior to the th century, wars were limited in scale, organization, and cost. During the s, the French revolutionary government proclaimed its authority to conscript all citizens, their labor, and their property in the people’s war against the kings of Europe. But preindustrial societies could only produce limited quantities of war supplies and spare so many people from food production without the risk of widespread starvation and social collapse. The French proclamation of total war represented a dramatic expansion of the authority claimed by governments, a claim that increasingly would be utilized in the industrial age. With industrial production and expanded food cultivation, the inherent limits on the scale of war were set loose: increasingly, more soldiers and more weapons became available. The American Civil War previewed industrial war, with its larger armies, unprecedented quantities of factory-produced supplies, and railroads delivering soldiers and supplies right to the front lines. By World War I, the expanded scale of war strained the strongest states and overwhelmed those states with weak industrial bases, Russia being the most obvious example. World War II was a war between enormous industrial establishments, and the side better able to organize its economy effectively and disrupt its opponents’ had a decided advantage. As the United States developed its wartime economy, the drive for efficiency or rationalization of production required a powerful authority to coordinate the efforts of so many different branches of society. The federal government assumed this role. One measure of its expanding authority was the enormous increase in federal spending. Annual finance acts raised income tax rates and increased the numbers of Americans required to pay income taxes, raised the corporate tax rates, and introduced various other taxes in an effort to keep pace with the rapidly expanding budget. Nevertheless, taxes could not keep up with spending, accounting for about  percent of expenditures during the war.

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In the name of efficiency, the federal government claimed more and more prerogatives that had been the province of the individual states or outside the purview of government altogether. War needs brushed aside traditional American suspicion of big government. For example, faced with an impending miners’ strike, the federal government nationalized the coal mines rather than allow a strike to disrupt essential war production. The government exerted unprecedented supervision over the economy. Initial planning efforts, based largely on cooperation, lacked sufficient enforcement capability, which rendered them ineffective; but, by , new agencies successfully extended federal authority throughout the economy. In January , President Roosevelt announced tank, aircraft, and merchant shipping tonnage production targets for  and , part of the Victory Program. A plethora of new agencies, like the Office of Economic Stabilization and the Office of Price Administration, fixed priorities, allocated orders, and controlled inflation through price, wage, and rent controls. The Americans and the British also formed joint allocation boards to coordinate their two economies for greater efficiency. The results were staggering. The United States built a military juggernaut second to none. More than  million men and women were mobilized for one or another of the services. These citizens in uniform were outfitted and armed. Over two million workers produced more than , airplanes for the war effort. Other workers built ships, tanks, landing craft, jeeps, and other items of war. American food, vehicles, medicine, clothing, and other aid to the Soviet Union exceeded $ billion, and additional billions in aid went to China, Great Britain, and other nations. World War II stimulated unprecedented growth in the American economy. The Gross National Product (GNP) nearly doubled, from $ billion to $ billion. In four years industrial production doubled and agricultural production increased by  percent. Entirely new industries, like synthetic rubber, nonexistent in , were fully productive before , and the war also dramatically boosted the electronics and other developing industries. The Manhattan Project, the program to produce the atomic bomb, may be the clearest example of the beneficial effect of the planned economy. Thousands of Americans worked in the three entirely new (and secret) cities, where laboratories, factories, workshops, homes, and stores were erected for the atomic program. Other scientists were mobilized to aid in the production of new weapons, the refinement of existing weapons, and the development of medicines, seeking any advantage that could be used against the enemy. Resources were directed to areas deemed vital to the war effort, accelerating research and development as well as expanding production. While expanded production and, ultimately, victory were the results, the war effort also produced an unintended, or unanticipated, impetus toward greater social equality. The demands of increased production forced social and racial prejudices to yield somewhat. Women went to work in increasing numbers, frequently to the consternation of those who were convinced that women were inherently incapable of such labor. As many African Americans moved to the industrial cities to claim war-related jobs or served in the military (albeit a segregated military with its upper ranks and skilled positions still closed to them), President Roosevelt pledged there would be no racial discrimination in war-related industry. The federal government established the Fair Employment Practices Commission to enforce mandatory nondiscrimination clauses in all

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federal war-related contracts. However, the legal stipulations were widely evaded and the commission had limited authority. The war also accelerated regional development. The South, for example, which had been predominantly rural and agrarian, underwent a spurt of urbanization and industrialization, as war-related industries offering good wages enticed people to move to cities like Atlanta, where they found jobs in factories. Propaganda bears consideration as another manifestation of the American war effort. The Office of War Information, a federal agency, oversaw official campaigns designed to weaken enemy morale or to stir Americans to greater exertion. “Rosie the Riveter,” the prototypical woman worker, appeared on posters encouraging (or cajoling) other women to join the work force. The military enlisted Hollywood in the propaganda effort. Frank Capra, noted for his prewar madcap romantic comedies, directed Why We Fight, a series of films shown to draftees; they so successfully explained the war that they were later released to civilian audiences as well. Not all military–Hollywood partnerships had such happy results, however. John Huston produced a film on the Aleutian Islands that was so grim that the military locked it away for years. Many prominent entertainers donned uniforms and served on active duty, appeared in army training films, or played in army bands. Entertainers also took up the war propaganda theme without government funding or even much prompting. Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, and other cartoon characters easily overwhelmed the Nazis or the Japanese in their animated films. Spike Jones and His City Slickers mocked the Nazis when they sang “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” which ended with a raspberry “right in der Fuehrer’s face.” Popular songs featured lyrics on the trials of separated lovers and other situations common to a nation at war. In addition, dozens of feature films also focused on the war theme. Casablanca (), a classic American romantic drama, epitomized unofficial propaganda. An allegory of America’s evolution from neutrality to belligerence, the film promised victory (“Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win”) when no victories were in sight and reinforced the American sense that there are only two sides to any question, the right side and the wrong side. Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, represented the United States. Early in the film, he voiced his cynical “I stick out my neck for no man” philosophy, which yielded to belligerency by the end of the film (Rick proclaimed, “The problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy, mixed up world. . . . I’ve got a job to do”). Encumbered by allies who were dismissible twits, the Nazis appeared as brutal and duplicitous villains, and, yet, hardly invincible. Casablanca suggested the existence of a continent-wide, well-organized, and active resistance, a fantasy in , and asserted that dozens of opponents to Nazi domination were ready to replace those killed. Rather optimistically, one character proclaimed that even the Nazis could not kill that quickly. Rick’s Cafe Americain served as a prototypical American union of peoples, a variation on the melting pot myth; Russians, French, English, Bulgarians, and assorted other unidentified characters roamed the sets, speaking nicely accented English, and upholding standards of civility, for the most part. Contemporary viewers enjoying the film’s timeless romantic storyline should not miss its propaganda component. As the economic, scientific, and entertainment communities were organized to serve the war effort, mobilization efforts were extended to communities across the country. Boy Scouts collected tin and scrap metal. Women’s clubs sponsored drives to gather

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other essential materials for the war effort. Civic groups sold war bonds. Whether these local efforts had any appreciable impact can be debated, but, once war was declared, national, state, and local campaigns sought to enlist the energies along with the hearts and minds of the citizenry. The result was that, by May  when Germany capitulated, and by mid-August, when the Japanese emperor announced surrender to his people by radio, America’s war economy was booming. The greater authority that coordinated these remarkable achievements also had its dark side. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, some , Japanese Americans from the Pacific coast states were subjected to forced removal to detention (or “relocation”) camps. Wartime fears of their disloyalty were so great that legal challenges to this indiscriminate violation of fundamental legal protection failed; and the Japanese Americans, in spite of the absence of espionage or sabotage, remained behind fences and barbed wire for the duration. In addition to the unjust incarceration, they lost their homes, businesses and farms, and other possessions. For decades after the war, officials responsible for this gross violation of the fundamental rights of citizenship defended their actions as necessary and prudent. Finally, in , the U.S. Congress issued a formal apology and authorized modest financial compensation. This tardy admission of error could not assuage the stain because, in spite of appeals from Japan and the fact of detention, these Americans had remained consistently loyal to their new homeland during the war. Pandora’s box had been opened; would the officials wisely wield their increased authority? In every society there is a tension between liberty and authority; expansion of one must come at the expense of the other. The possibility of abuse of authority in the pursuit of a noble cause remains real, as demonstrated by the case of the Japanese Americans. Obviously, the war did not transform the United States into a Nazi-style dictatorship, but diminished liberty—even when taken by a friendly authority—remains diminished liberty. The American experience was unlike the experience of any other people. The homeland remained safe. American goods and personnel went to war, but most Americans learned about the war through the newspapers, newsreels, or Life magazine. Enemy airplanes did not drop their loads upon American cities, parents did not send their children to safety in the countryside, and no one faced occupying authorities. The war was fought far from their towns, shores, and homes, which allowed Americans to view their fight as one for values like freedom and justice, while the Soviets and others fought for survival. These divergent types of war experiences left far different legacies. Near the end of the war, the journalist Walter Lippmann proclaimed the advent of the American Century, encapsulating the high expectations of Americans and their new sense of pride, place, and prosperity. With a reinforced conviction of their distinctiveness, Americans believed that all dilemmas could be resolved and, given sufficient will and resources, with dispatch. Nothing could hinder American desire, as the rightness or even righteousness of their cause was self-evident. With the American monopoly on the atomic bomb expected to last well into the foreseeable future, what power could deny American will or threaten its security? The impact of the war continued to be discernable long after the shooting ended. World War II was the good war, the clear-cut struggle between good and evil, almost like a western standoff, fostering the image of the American reluctant to fight but able

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to fight to the finish if necessary. World War II became even more popular in the light of the frustrating limited conflicts later in Korea and Vietnam. At a distance, the war, the good war, was easily romanticized in novels, films, and television series. For all the romanticizing, however, the memory of how this incredible conflagration began produced a sort of Munich-Pearl Harbor trauma affecting American foreign policy for decades. Fear of negotiation that might result in appeasement similar to that at Munich before World War II, along with the fear of sudden attack, played on the American mindset throughout the Cold War. The war clearly altered the American role in world politics. American economic and military power translated into unprecedented political power, which, in turn, led to the assumption of a range of responsibilities far beyond what could have been imagined in . American power and wealth stood in stark contrast to the poverty and destruction in the war zones. American largesse was counted upon to restore prosperity, and the Marshall Plan and other aid programs were extended to both allies and defeated enemies. After the war, the United States played leading roles in the newly formed United Nations organization, the International Monetary Fund, and a plethora of other forums. Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union—what came to be known as the Cold War—played a major role in the American assumption of commitments around the world. Fearful that the Red Army was poised to roll across Western Europe and then perhaps down Main Street, USA, American leaders offered the assurance of security through the Truman Doctrine, the general policy of containment, and, eventually, a wide range of regional organizations, like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and bilateral commitments. Soviet influence increased dramatically as the Red Army drove Hitler’s forces out of eastern Europe; but, for all their bluster and their determination to allow no other influences into their recently acquired sphere of influence, the Soviets lacked the will and the ability to engage in a military battle with the United States. The Soviets refused to knuckle under to American power, though, even in the face of the bomb, and they successfully tested their own atomic bomb in , touching off a fear approaching hysteria in the United States, based in part on the assumption that such an evil system could never have accomplished this feat on its own. Americans turned on other Americans with a fear of pervasive, but hidden, communist forces—a “Red Scare”—fighting the Cold War domestically as well as internationally, as communism appeared to be on the march everywhere in the late s. Other new and unforeseen constraints on American power also emerged in the postwar period. The United States had limited influence in the newly emerging nations around the world. The world war undermined Western authority throughout Africa and Asia. In the  years after the war, dozens of former colonies separated themselves from their Western masters, evincing a determination to secure their independence even in the face of overwhelming power. The newly independent states could risk American disapproval, because the disparity between their very limited power and the unlimited power of the United States frequently rendered many American weapons unusable. Several skilled statesmen adeptly played off the Americans against the Soviets and vice versa. Americans were quite frustrated, having power that could be used only sparingly, if at all. So the American Century turned out to be less idyllic than Lippmann and others had anticipated.

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As World War II becomes more and more the province of scholars, several controversies centering on the atomic bomb and the origins of the Cold War have emerged. Although the question of the use of the atomic bomb is not surprising, the relative silence over the broader issue of bombing of urban areas is. (In this total war the traditional distinction between soldiers and civilians, or noncombatants, had evaporated.) Every side in World War II engaged in the indiscriminate killing of thousands of noncombatants by dropping high explosives and incendiary bombs on urban areas; this provoked relatively little indignation or condemnation. The atomic bomb turned out to be a weapon of a different kind, rather than simply a bomb with a bigger blast. The atomic bomb controversy centers around questions of race, utility, and intention. Some have pondered whether the Americans would have dropped the bomb on the Germans if a working bomb had existed in early . This question reflects the development of the politics of race in the postwar world, where the long record of Western violence against peoples of color is vigorously decried. Although hypothetical questions cannot be definitively answered, it is difficult to believe that the same authorities who did not shrink from the  firebombing of Hamburg would have hesitated to use atomic bombs on any enemy. By the end of July , the deterioration of Japan’s war-making ability and the extension of tentative peace feelers indicated that the end was not far off. Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary? After the initial demonstration, did the second bomb have to be used? Could a less deadly demonstration have been arranged to impress Japanese authorities? The record indicates that the political and military authorities never considered not using the atomic bomb, which was seen as just a bigger and more lethal bomb than the ones that had rained down on Japanese cities for months. The qualitative distinction between conventional bombs and nuclear bombs did not exist in August . This distinction gradually developed as the long-term effects of radiation and other distinctive attributes of nuclear weaponry came to light. Even so, the American authorities were willing to sacrifice countless Japanese lives to avoid an invasion of Japan, which could have produced a million American casualties. From this point of view, the two bombs served their intended purpose: the hastening of the end of the war. But from another point of view, the controversy over nuclear weapons raises the fundamental question of the propriety of indiscriminate attacks on noncombatants, regardless of the type of weapon. If one can legitimately question the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then one should also question bombing Berlin, Tokyo, Dresden, London, and Warsaw. An offshoot to this controversy questions whom the detonation was intended to impress. This argument asserts that Japan was so clearly defeated that the bombs must have served another purpose, such as to warn the Soviet Union of the new American power. Some scholars have suggested that President Harry S Truman and his advisors engaged in a showdown mentality when they used the bomb to try to force the Soviets to be more receptive to American desires. Here the record is more murky, and adherents on all sides of the question can find evidence to support their viewpoints. There is also the attendant risk of allowing subsequent developments and knowledge to color one’s reading of earlier events. Whether or not the detonation of the two bombs was intended to intimidate the Soviets, American politicians did expect to have their way as the only nuclear power.

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Another controversy arising from the study of World War II asks who started the Cold War. For most of the Cold War era this was a very political question, as the answer devolved from where one stood in the political arena. Simplistically, the political answer on both sides was that the other side bore all of the responsibility. As time passes, passions cool, and archives open—especially now that researchers are gaining access to Soviet documents, which were unavailable until the s; the definitive account of the origins of the Cold War remains to be written. However, those who profess surprise that the Grand Alliance broke apart first fail to recognize that the coalition was a highly artificial creation drawn together only by a common enemy, an enemy that no longer existed by mid-, and second, they overlook the strains within the coalition from the very start. The record is replete with actions or postures taken by representatives of each side in the growing divide, taken wittingly or unwittingly, that cumulatively increased tensions. Actions taken by both the Soviet Union and the United States contributed to the other’s suspicions and insecurities, producing a rupture where each projected the worst onto the other, while loudly proclaiming its own virtues. More than likely, there will be few innocents when this account is written. Moreover, it should be recognized that something akin to the Cold War existed prior to World War II. A battle of ideologies came into existence when the Bolsheviks seized power in . The first American Red Scare came immediately after World War I, and the U.S. government refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new Soviet government until . Throughout the interwar era, few Western powers made any effort to disguise their hostility toward the Soviet Union, sparking Soviet fears that the capitalist states would pull their economies out of the Great Depression by assaulting the USSR. One could even suggest that the origins of the Cold War began with the publication of The Communist Manifesto () and the subsequent formation of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary organizations. Thus, the Cold War may be no more than a new term for a state of affairs that had existed in many parts of the West for close to a century. By , this dispute was being played in the center ring; the two superpowers, each with its own agenda, had replaced the traditional Great Powers of Europe. Into the vacuum of a devastated world these powers stepped to offer their distinct systems. How could there be any result other than tension and rivalry? In conclusion, World War II accelerated the emergence of the United States as a world power. The American political alternative and its geographical separation from Europe had fostered a sense of exceptionalism; and, by the middle of the th century, the United States, further distinguished from the rest of the world by its unprecedented wealth and power, had lost its reticence about using its power and wealth beyond the Western Hemisphere. The drive for efficiency and production also challenged, with limited success, widespread notions of the inherent superiorities or inferiorities of groups of people. The authorities unintentionally unleashed a rationality that eroded the social supports for discrimination on the basis of race or gender. Even without World War II, more than likely these developments would have materialized, but the war had a greenhouse effect: inside, flowers blossomed with remarkable intensity, while the harsh climate outside choked other blooms.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. New York: Simon and Shuster, . Argues that the atomic bombs were used more to impress the Soviets than to end the war with Japan. Altschuler, Glenn C., and Stuart M. Blumin. The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans. New York: Oxford University Press, . A careful study of the history of this important veterans’ benefit and its impact on postwar America. Borg, Dorothy, and Okamato Shumpei, eds. Pearl Harbor as History: Japanese-American Relations, –. New York: Columbia University Press, . This collection of essays focuses on the rivalry and growing strain between the United States and Japan in the decade before the war. Calcavoressi, Peter, and Guy Wint. Total War: The Story of World War II. New York: Pantheon Books, . Describes the military and political events in both the Asian and European theaters of war. Clausen, Henry C., and Bruce Lee. Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement. New York: Crown, . Clausen, who conducted a wartime secret study of the attack on Pearl Harbor, lays out a thorough account of responsibility for this debacle and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses in other accounts of Pearl Harbor. Dalfiume, Richard M. Desegregation of the Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, –. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, . A good account of the efforts to end the military policy of racial discrimination. Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, –. New York: Oxford University Press, . A sweeping survey of the foreign policy of President Roosevelt and the factors that influenced its formulation and execution. Daniels, Roger. Concentration Camps USA: Japanese Americans and World War II. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, . A full description of the Japanese relocation policy. Divine, Robert A. The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II. New York: Wiley, . One of the better accounts of the American entry into the war. Dower, John W. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon Books, . A very important book on the war, in which the author compares racist ideology employed by the Japanese and by the Americans and argues that these beliefs contributed to the particular brutality of the war in the Pacific. Effects of Strategic Bombing in the German War Economy. Washington, DC: U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, . An assessment of where and to what extent the American bombing effort effectively contributed to the war, which concludes that the disruption of the German transportation system was its most significant impact. Fussell, Paul. Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. New York: Oxford University Press, . In this follow-up to his highly acclaimed study on the First World War, Fussell continues his examination of the peculiar culture of war. Groueff, Stephanie. Manhattan Project: The Untold Story of the Making of the Atomic Bomb. Boston: Little, Brown, . The author relates the remarkable story of the development of the weapon that ended the war in the Pacific. Herken, Gregg. The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War –. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . After a brief section on the bomb’s development, Herken argues that the atomic powers sought to use their monopoly on the bomb as a tool in the Cold War. Laqueur, Walter. The Terrible Secret. Boston: Little, Brown, . Demonstrates that Allied leaders were well informed during the war about the extent of the Nazi efforts to exterminate the Jews.

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Malloy, Sean L. Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb against Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . An analysis of Secretary of War Stimson’s moral influence in the decision to use the atomic bomb to end the war with Japan. Miller, Edward S. Bankrupting the Enemy: The U.S. Financial Siege of Japan before Pearl Harbor. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute, . Describes the economic sanctions placed on Japan before  and the impact they had on Japan’s decision to attack Pearl Harbor. Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. New York: Random House, . An account of American indifference to the plight of European Jewry. Rosenberg, Emily S. A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, . A study of the way the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese military who carried it out have been regarded since the event. Ruchames, Louis. Race, Jobs, and Politics: The Story of the FEPC. New York: Columbia University Press, . The saga of the federal efforts to ensure fair employment practices. Schroeder, Paul W. The Axis Alliance and Japanese-American Relations, . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . This diplomatic study of the maneuverings prior to Pearl Harbor is also interesting for its observations on the Tokyo War Crimes trial. Terkel, Studs. “The Good War”: An Oral History of World War II. New York: Pantheon Books, . A variety of Americans tell stories of their experiences on the battlefront as well as the home fronts. Toland, John. The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, –. New York: Random House, . A fine popular history of the period. Willmott, H. P. The Great Crusade: A New Complete History of the Second World War. London: M. Joseph, . A very good single-volume survey of the war on all fronts, which offers considerable interpretation as well as narrative.

BATTLE OF THE BULGE (1944) Begun as a German counteroffensive and ended as a decisive Allied victory, the Battle of the Bulge is one of the best-known conflicts of World War II. German leader Adolf Hitler initiated the fight, knowing that an extraordinary attack would be necessary to turn the tide of the war, but he lost the gamble, as Allied forces used the opportunity to knock out German munitions and infantry. In October , Allied forces stormed into Aachen, the first German city to be captured during World War II. Although that invasion logically placed Nazi troops on the defensive, Hitler wanted to take control. A successful surprise attack on the thin Allied line holding the German-Belgian border would enable Germany to recapture the Allied supply port at Antwerp, and it would also separate the British forces from the American troops. Hitler recruited teenagers to increase the brute force of his army, waited for bad weather to hit the Western Front (to disable Allied air cover), and attacked the Allied offensive line on December . The German ambush caught the Allies off guard and temporarily drove them back, creating a deep bulge in their line. Allied supreme commander Dwight D. Eisenhower immediately called in reinforcements to hold the tenuous line and was able to send , bombers into German airspace when the weather cleared on Christmas Eve. The Allies had taken the offensive again by January , . After  days of fighting, the Allies had crushed the German offensive. The Battle of the Bulge was a major defeat for the German Army; it opened the door for Allied invasion of Germany itself, contributed to the loss of

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morale among German soldiers, and ultimately compelled Germany’s surrender on May , .

anne blaschke OMAR BRADLEY (1893–1981) Omar Bradley commanded the largest army deployed by the United States in World War II and directed the campaign that crushed Nazi Germany. He later became the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Modest and nondescript in appearance, Bradley earned the nickname “G.I. General” for the care he displayed toward common soldiers. Omar Nelson Bradley was born in Clark, Missouri, on February , , the son of impoverished farmers. In , he attended West Point to spare his parents the ordeal of financing a college education. Bradley graduated th in the class of , which came to be regarded as “the class the stars fell on,” owing to the large number of generals it produced. He remained stateside during World War I and over the next  years, alternating between troop duty and service as an instructor. Bradley handled himself capably, and after attending the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth in , he drew a second teaching assignment at the Fort Benning Infantry School. Fortunately, there he came under the eye of the assistant commandant, Lt. Col. George C. Marshall, the future chief of staff of the army. Marshall appreciated Bradley’s talents for command and, over the next decade, proved instrumental in securing his promotion and advancement. In February , he arranged for Bradley to head the Infantry School as brigadier general, the first of his class to achieve that rank. Shortly after American involvement began in World War II, Bradley became major general in charge of two infantry divisions, the first of his class to lead such formations. By the spring of , Marshall deemed Bradley ready for combat duty and assigned him to the staff of fellow classmate Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in North Africa. Bradley joined Eisenhower in the wake of the recent American defeat at Kasserine Pass and was posted as assistant commander of a corps under Lt. Gen. George S. Patton. The austere Bradley and flamboyant Patton were a contrast in personality and leadership styles, and they forged an uneasy alliance. When Patton departed to head the th Army, however, Bradley was promoted lieutenant general and succeeded him in charge of the corps. He orchestrated the closing phases of the Tunisian campaign with alacrity and, on May , , received the surrender of , German and Italian prisoners at Bizerte. Two months later, Bradley spearheaded Patton’s July  invasion of Sicily and, after five weeks of hard fighting, captured the strategic straits of Messina. When Patton was suddenly sidelined for his much-publicized slapping of private soldiers, Bradley was chosen to head the U.S. st Army in England in September . There, he begin planning for the long-awaited cross-channel invasion of Europe. Operation Overlord commenced on June , , when Bradley’s troops splashed ashore at Normandy, France, and clawed themselves a beachhead. German resistance was fierce, and for nearly two months, the Americans fought their way out of the Norman

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hedgerows yard by yard. In early July, Bradley launched Operation Cobra, which penetrated German defenses at St. Lo and released thousands of Allied troops into France. The race for the German homeland was on, spearheaded by the rd Army under Patton, now Bradley’s subordinate. On August , , Bradley was appointed commander of the th Army Group, . million men strong, which was the largest field command in American history. In advancing across northern France, however, Bradley clashed repeatedly with British general Bernard Montgomery over strategy and logistical priorities. Montgomery wanted the Allies to advance along a single, concentrated front that would penetrate Nazi defenses and invade the German heartland. Bradley also opposed Eisenhower’s broad front strategy, which engaged the Germans across a larger area and denied them any chance of concentrating for a counterattack. However, he wanted the Americans to spearhead the assault, as they had more men and would sustain greater casualties. Matters became further complicated in December , when Adolf Hitler launched his desperate counterattack in the Ardennes, the so-called Battle of the Bulge. This unexpected event was contained only after savage fighting and heavy casualties on both sides. In the spring of , American forces penetrated the Siegfried Line at Remagen, ahead of the British, and advanced into Germany. Bradley, a four-star general as of March , directed operations in the Ruhr Pocket, which netted , German prisoners. In April, his forces made contact with the Red Army along the Elbe River, and Germany capitulated  days later. After the war, President Harry Truman appointed Bradley to head the Bureau of Veterans’ Affairs. He remained there until February , , when he succeeded Eisenhower as chief of staff of the army. When the exigencies of the Cold War necessitated a reorganization of the highest levels of American strategic planning, Bradley became the first-ever chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in August . His immediate task was confronting the much-celebrated Admirals’ Revolt. Following the development of atomic weapons, U.S. military policy began placing greater emphasis on large strategic aircraft to deliver these weapons over enemy targets. The navy felt this was done at the expense of its battle fleets and aircraft carriers, and it complained publicly. When Bradley countered by appearing before Congress and delivering a muchpublicized call for interservice cooperation, navy leadership assumed a more cooperative stance. He also served two terms throughout the difficult Korean War period, rising to the rank of five-star general of the army in September . As Truman’s key adviser, Bradley opposed Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s proposals to expand the war into Communist China and viewed the Soviet Union as a greater threat to American security. When MacArthur publicly criticized Truman’s handling of the war, he was relieved with the tacit approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ; Bradley recommended Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway as his replacement. Bradley resigned from active duty on August , , although as a five-star general he could never officially retire. He continued dispensing military advice and served in a number of private-sector positions until his death in New York City on April , . The army honored his  years of service by christening its latest infantry fighting vehicle the M- Bradley.

john c. fredriksen

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DOUGLAS MACARTHUR (1880–1964) Douglas MacArthur was one of the most controversial soldiers in American military history. A decorated combat veteran, he also proved himself an able West Point superintendent and an energetic army chief of staff at a time when fiscal retrenchment was rampant. As a leader, MacArthur possessed a brilliant grasp of strategy and enjoyed greater success at coordinating massive land, sea, and air forces than any of his contemporaries. His World War II conquests were numerous, impressive, and achieved at relatively little cost. However, as a man, MacArthur was saddled with a towering ego and an arrogant, egotistical disposition that allowed little room for circumspection. Belief in his own invincibility cost him heavily in the Philippines and Korea, but it was his challenge to the cherished American principle of civilian control over the military that finally brought him down. MacArthur was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on January , , the son of Gen. Arthur MacArthur. As a child, MacArthur spent most of his time living at various army camps, and in , he entered his father’s profession by attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. A brilliant student, MacArthur graduated first in the class of , and he was appointed a second lieutenant in the engineers. For the next three years, he conducted routine duties in the Philippines, where he developed deep emotional bonds with the islands and their people. Returning home in , MacArthur became a special aide to President Theodore Roosevelt. Starting in , he assumed teaching positions in a number of army institutions. In  and again in , he served with the War Department general staff in Washington, D.C., rising to the rank of major. Between the two assignments, MacArthur participated in the landings at Vera Cruz, Mexico, in  and won the Congressional Medal of Honor for a daring intelligence mission. Prior to American entry into World War I, MacArthur helped organize and staff the nd Infantry (Rainbow) Division, consisting of National Guard units from various states. He then convinced the War Department to allow the nd Division to fight alongside regular army formations in the event of hostilities in Europe. After war was declared against Germany in , MacArthur accompanied the nd Division to France and served as chief of staff to Gen. Charles T. Menoher with a rank of temporary colonel. Rising again to temporary brigadier general, MacArthur next commanded the th Infantry Brigade during intense fighting at St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne. Brilliant and unorthodox, at one point, he went over the top with his men dressed in his West Point letter sweater, wearing his polished cavalry boots, and armed only with a riding crop. That November, he assumed control of the nd Division, becoming the youngest divisional commander in the army. By war’s end, MacArthur had been wounded twice and awarded two Distinguished Service Crosses and seven Silver Stars for heroism. Following a brief stint of occupation duty in Germany, he returned home in April . Thus far, MacArthur had accrued a reputation as an excellent officer and one of the rising stars of the army. This status was confirmed in July  when he gained appointment as the youngest superintendent of West Point. During his three-year tenure, he upgraded the curricula, placed greater emphasis on physical training, and instituted a strict moral code of behavior. Promoted to brigadier general in January , MacArthur

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then completed another tour of duty in the Philippines during –, at the conclusion of which he rose to major general. In the final months of , he also sat in on the court-martial of lifelong friend Gen. Billy Mitchell, who subsequently resigned his commission. MacArthur reported to Asia a third time to command the Department of the Philippines in , and following his return home in November , he became the youngest chief of staff of the army with the rank of general. He held this post until October , longer than any previous appointee. MacArthur’s tenure, which coincided with the Great Depression, was an unhappy time for both himself and the U.S. Army. Faced with deep budget cuts, he watched as his force dwindled to only , men, slightly smaller than Portugal’s. In the summer of , he was also called on to disperse the Bonus Army, an assembly of , unemployed veterans who had gathered in Washington, D.C., to demand the right to exchange their insurance policies for cash. MacArthur used troops to disperse them, but he then exceeded orders from President Herbert Hoover by attacking and burning the marchers’ camp in the so-called Battle of Anacostia Flats. Though criticized for brutality, MacArthur remained in office and went on to institute military reforms that merged the old corps system into four field armies, each with distinct responsibilities. When his appointment ended in , MacArthur reverted back to his permanent grade of major general and revisited the Philippines a fourth time to organize their national defenses. As an indication of their trust, the Philippine government appointed him field marshal of the army in August . MacArthur’s deep attachment to the islands became manifest in , when he resigned from the army rather than leave before the task was finished. He remained in the Philippines until July , when President Franklin D. Roosevelt, concerned over mounting prospects of war with Japan, recalled him as a temporary lieutenant general. MacArthur was functioning as commander of United States Armed Forces in the Far East when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December , . He was informed of the attack several hours later and increased his air patrols but scoffed at the notion of being attacked in force before April. Suddenly, on December , Japanese aircraft raided Clark and Iba airfields in the Philippines with devastating results, effectively eliminating American air power. On December , Gen. Masaharu Homma followed up the blow by landing , veteran troops on the northern island of Luzon. MacArthur rashly chose to meet the invaders on the beaches with , American soldiers, , elite Philippine scouts, and , poorly trained Filipino army regulars. The Japanese, enjoying a decided qualitative advantage on the ground, plus control of the land and sea, forced MacArthur to declare Manila an open city and withdraw to the semifortified Bataan peninsula. The Americans conducted a valiant stand, but supply shortages and lack of reinforcements foretold their defeat. The Roosevelt administration realized this as early as February , when it directed MacArthur and his staff to leave the Philippines for Australia. Regretfully, he complied and entrusted command of the doomed garrison to his friend Gen. Jonathan Wainwright. The defenders held out until May , upsetting the Japanese timetable for conquest by five months. On March , , MacArthur undertook a perilous -hour evacuation through enemy-controlled waters on a torpedo boat, and later by B-, to Adelaide, Australia, and safety. After arriving, he received his second Congressional Medal of Honor for

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defending the Philippines but publicly vowed, “I came through and I will return.” To millions of Filipinos, this became the most significant rallying cry of World War II. In August , MacArthur directed U.S. and Australian land forces in the defense of Port Moresby, New Guinea. A Japanese thrust over the Owen Stanley Mountains was stopped, and Allied forces began an immediate counteroffensive. MacArthur’s strategic brilliance became apparent when he adopted a policy of “island hopping,” that is, bypassing enemy strong points in favor of weaker targets and then isolating them with air and sea power. In this manner, large Japanese formations, such as the th Army, were cut off and left to starve on New Guinea for the rest of the war. Assisted by such able subordinates as Robert L. Eichelberger and George C. Kenney, MacArthur’s forces wound themselves toward the Philippines at relatively little cost to themselves, while at the same time inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese. In October , MacArthur found himself cooperating with Adm. Chester Nimitz during the reduction of the Philippines. Possession of these islands was not considered essential to the war effort, but MacArthur viewed their liberation as a moral imperative, given his prior association and the cruelty of Japanese occupation. Later that month, he successfully stormed ashore at Leyte and Mindoro, captured the islands, and won a promotion to general of the army. The following January, MacArthur effectively employed air power, sea power, paratroops, amphibious landings, and guerrillas in a successful invasion of Luzon, where the main Japanese army of  divisions was garrisoned. After a hard fight lasting several months, this force was defeated by  adroitly deployed American divisions. MacArthur fulfilled his promise; he had returned and, in April , was named commander of all army forces in the Pacific. On September , , MacArthur was functioning as supreme commander of the Allied Powers and sailed into Tokyo Bay on the battleship Missouri to accept the Japanese surrender. At his side throughout these proceedings was Wainwright, who had surrendered Corregidor in May . The two men embraced and wept at their first encounter since Wainwright’s  capture by the Japanese. MacArthur next gained appointment as commander of Allied occupation forces in Japan, a post he held for the next six years. It was in this capacity that he made his greatest contribution to future world stability, by transforming that country into a Western-style democracy. Enjoying near-dictatorial powers, he abolished militarism and ultranationalism, granted basic human rights such as freedom of speech and a free press, and allowed women to vote. The economy was also overhauled and a liberal constitution set in place. Curiously, MacArthur’s autocratic turn of mind, which so infuriated superiors and subordinates alike, uniquely appealed to the Japanese mentality. His reforms were widely embraced and acclaimed, although he was careful to cultivate a respectful relationship with Emperor Hirohito. In time, this matured into genuine friendship. The American occupation proved so benign and successful that Japan was quickly back into the community of nations. Its success is stark testimony to MacArthur’s understanding of Asian psychology and culture. The two nations, formerly bitter enemies, have enjoyed peaceful and prosperous relations to this day. In January , MacArthur also accepted responsibility as commander of the army’s Far East Command. Tranquility was shattered in June  when Communist forces under Kim Il Sung of North Korea invaded South Korea, precipitating the first armed engagement of the Cold War. On July , MacArthur was made supreme commander of United

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Nations (UN) forces and ordered into action. However, his Eighth Army, softened by years of occupation duty, was initially unable to slow the North Korean advance, and Gen. William F. Dean was captured. At length, UN forces under Gen. Walton Walker managed to consolidate a perimeter around the port of Pusan and stood their ground. MacArthur used the time they bought to mount a surprise amphibious strike at Inchon, well to the rear of Communist lines, in September . It was a dangerous ploy, as the harbor was poorly developed and subject to drastic tide variations. However, the operation succeeded brilliantly and became the crowning military achievement of MacArthur’s career. MacArthur forced the Communists to abandon Pusan, and they streamed north in disarray with Walker in hot pursuit. Seoul, the South Korean capital, was liberated a few days later, and in October, MacArthur received permission to pursue the fleeing enemy north of the th parallel into North Korea. Even to the most impartial observer, complete victory seemed close at hand. As UN forces approached the Yalu River, the boundary between Korea and China, the Chinese Communist government of Mao Zedong threatened to intervene and began secretly infiltrating troops. MacArthur, unfortunately, discounted intelligence of a Chinese buildup and kept his two forces, the Eighth Army and the th Corps, separated by a mountain range. On November , , , Chinese struck the unsuspecting Americans, who were poorly deployed to defend themselves. The ensuing retreat was a near debacle and the worst defeat ever suffered by American forces. Although MacArthur eventually stabilized the situation, his armies fell back below the th parallel, and Seoul was recaptured by the Communists. MacArthur then angrily demanded that the war be carried to China by bombing bases in Manchuria. President Harry Truman’s policy, however, was to prevent conflict from spreading beyond the peninsula, and he strongly stated this during a meeting with the general at Wake Island in December . Nonetheless, MacArthur would not curtail his criticism. When he began going over the head of the commander in chief by appealing directly to the public, Truman summarily relieved him of his command on April , , with the concurrence of Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Omar Bradley and Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall. The Korean command reverted to Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway. MacArthur returned home to a hero’s welcome and received a huge tickertape parade in New York City. Shortly after, he gave a stirring address to a joint session of Congress, in which he lambasted Truman’s Asia policy and also announced his retirement. “Old soldiers never die,” he observed, “they just fade away.” MacArthur then lived a life of seclusion, becoming in  the army’s senior officer. Shortly after the appearance of his memoirs, he died in Washington, D.C., on April , . MacArthur received a state funeral with honors befitting one of the greatest military minds in history.

john c. fredriksen NAVAJO CODE TALKERS Navajo Code Talkers was a special program of the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II, when Navajos were used to develop and implement one of the few unbroken codes in history. There was some historical precedent for the use of Native Americans speaking their language as a code in modern combat. Both the Canadian and U.S. armies had limited success with such efforts in World War I, most notably the U.S. experiment with

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the Choctaws of Company D, st Infantry. One dilemma was that Native American languages lacked such combat-specific words as machine gun or grenade. Philip Johnston, the son of missionaries, grew up speaking Navajo and conceived an unbreakable military code based upon it. Due to the tonal nature of Navajo speech, words changed meaning based upon pitch and inflection. The language was largely unwritten and not a subject of linguistic study. Johnston, a civil engineer in Los Angeles, approached Maj. Gen. Clayton B. Vogel of the Marine Corps with his idea and arranged a demonstration. Impressed, Vogel requested authorization to recruit  Navajos for code duty. Washington granted permission for  men to begin a pilot program. In April , the new  Platoon began regular basic training at Camp Elliot, California. Their training differed in one respect from that of other marines. They had to create a new military code. This was complicated by the fact that any code had to account for the different dialects on the Navajo reservation. Furthermore, the code had to be memorized, since nothing could be written down for fear of capture. Using the familiar, the Navajos based the code on nature as a reference. Birds indicated planes, a buzzard was a bomber, and fish denoted types of ships. Descriptive words particular to Navajo life described other military details. The commanding officer became war chief, and a fortification was a cliff dwelling. Countries and leaders were christened by physical characteristics. Africa was “Blackie,” the United States was “Our Mother,” Adolf Hitler became “Mustache Smeller,” and Benito Mussolini was “Big Gourd Chin.” The originators also made up their own expressions and played word games. “District” became “deer,” “ice” meant “strict,” and “potato” indicated “grenades.” If the enemy ever did begin to decipher the code, the Navajos could switch to an alphabetic cipher. In this case, the first letter of the English translation of a Navajo word corresponded to a letter. To add further confusion, any of three words, or later eight, could be used for each letter. For example, A could be represented by the Navajo words for ant, apple, or ax. Far from static, the code was reviewed before invasions and could be modified as necessary. When the code was completed, naval intelligence spent three weeks trying to break it and failed to decipher a single message. White recruits familiar with the formal Navajo language could not deal with everyday conversational Navajo, and even untrained Navajos, although they might pick up words, could not break the code. Code Talkers worked with all six marine divisions in the Pacific and served with distinction on the islands of Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Guadalcanal. The code was finally declassified in , and President Ronald Reagan declared August , , National Code Talkers Day to recognize the service of the  Code Talkers.

robert gardner PEARL HARBOR ATTACK (1941) Early on the morning of Sunday, December , —a day that President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed would “live in infamy”—Japanese fighter pilots attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This surprise attack, which Japan undertook without a declaration of war, provoked the United States to end its neutral stance on World War II and join the Allies (Great Britain and the Soviet Union).

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In early , the Japanese government began a two-pronged strategy. Japanese diplomats in Washington, D.C., entered into negotiations regarding Japan’s desire for expansion in Asia; at the same time, the Japanese Navy was directed to develop plans for an attack on the Americans should the negotiations fail (which they did). Under the direction of Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese outlined an attack on Pearl Harbor that would disable the U.S. fleet, while Japanese forces simultaneously launched invasions into Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. At dawn on December , a Japanese task force was positioned  miles north of Hawaii. The first wave of  dive bombers,  torpedo bombers, and  escorting fighters took off without incident. As they approached Hawaii, they were detected on U.S. radar screens, but because the technology was new and the technicians poorly trained, the technicians were unable to read the size of the approaching force. They assumed it was a flight of B- bombers arriving from the U.S. mainland. Therefore, the Japanese were able to launch their attack with no warning given at the target. Just before : a.m. local time, when flight leader Mitsuo Fuchida saw the U.S. ships completely open to attack, he signaled the code words for success: “tora, tora, tora” (“tiger, tiger, tiger”). Not until the bombs began to fall did the Americans respond. As “battle stations” sounded on the parked ships, the sailors operated whatever guns they could reach. There was little they could do as the attacking aircraft scored hits immediately. Four of the docked battleships were hit by torpedoes in the first five minutes, as the dive bombers and fighters attacked from above. Japanese fighter aircraft strafed U.S. aircraft parked at the half-dozen airfields on the island of Oahu. Only  U.S. aircraft were able to get airborne and engage the attackers, and  of those were shot down. The first attack went on for  minutes and was followed by a second wave at : a.m. The second wave was less successful, suffered more casualties, and did little more than add finishing touches to the already battered U.S. ships. In all, the Japanese lost only  planes and  aircrew; they had expected to lose half their force. It was as complete a surprise attack as possible. Pearl Harbor was the worst naval disaster in U.S. history, with more than , casualties, dozens of aircraft destroyed, and  ships damaged or destroyed (eight battleships, three destroyers, and three cruisers were disabled, and two battleships—the USS Oklahoma and the USS Arizona—were sunk). Moreover, the outrage of Americans was palpable after the attack. While Americans had previously been divided over whether to enter World War II or maintain a policy of isolationism, Japan’s surprise attack effectively ended the debate. On December , President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared before Congress, where he called December  “a date which will live in infamy” and asked for a declaration of war against Japan. Congress complied; Japan’s allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on the United States on December .

paul k. davis ZOOT SUIT RIOTS (1943) The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of racial confrontations incited by U.S. servicemen in wartime Los Angeles between June  and June , . The primary targets of this violence were Mexican American youths who wore the flamboyant “zoot suit” or “drape

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shape.” Such clothing was also worn by African American and Anglo teenagers who wished to express a certain teenage independence, but the tight-cuffed pleated pants, wide-shouldered long jackets, and flat-brimmed hats were particularly associated with pachucos, as groups of young Mexican Americans were called in the s. The violence of the riots and the miscarriage of justice that followed caused long-lasting resentment and hostility among the city’s Mexican Americans. The riots were initiated by navy recruits stationed at the Chavez Ravine Base and discharged veterans who claimed that Mexican Americans were avoiding military service. Those sailors cruised downtown Los Angeles in taxicabs; seized young men from the streets, movie theaters, and streetcars; beat them; and stripped them of the offending zoot suits. Los Angeles police reacted by penalizing the victims; officers carried out large-scale arrests of Mexican Americans and generally overpoliced their neighborhoods. The assaults continued until the U.S. State Department intervened and declared Los Angeles off-limits to military personnel. Local newspaper coverage was sensationalist in nature, and court proceedings were sporadic and virtually without convictions, which left a deep impression on the Latino community.

abc-clio DOCUMENT: EXECUTIVE ORDER 9066 (JAPANESE INTERNMENT ORDER), 1942 Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February , , Executive Order , or the Japanese Internment Order, authorized the secretary of war to prescribe military areas and was presented to the public as a necessary wartime measure to aid the United States in fighting World War II. The order was used to authorize the internment of more than , Japanese Americans during the war. Both the U.S. government and much of the public feared that Japanese Americans would commit acts of sabotage in the United States to undermine the U.S. war effort and assist the Japanese. Instead, the government forced Japanese Americans into camps throughout the West, where they suffered from deprivation, despair, and disease for much of the war, even as Japanese American units distinguished themselves in the U.S. military. (Executive Order , February , ; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group ; National Archives.)

WHEREAS the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section , Act of April , ,  Stat. , as amended by the Act of November , ,  Stat. , and the Act of August , ,  Stat.  (U.S.C. Title , Sec. ): NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to

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time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations or prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamations of December  and , , and shall supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas. I hereby further authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military Commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each Military area hereinabove authorized to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies. I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services. This order shall not be construed as modifying or limiting in any way the authority heretofore granted under Executive Order No. , dated December , , nor shall it be construed as limiting or modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with respect to the investigation of alleged acts of sabotage or the duty and responsibility of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice under the Proclamations of December , and , , prescribing regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is superseded by the designation of military areas hereunder. Franklin D. Roosevelt The White House

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6 Suburbanization and Consumerism, 1945–1990

INTRODUCTION The suburbanization that changed America after World War II was a continuation of a process that began with the growth of railroads in the mid-th century. The Industrial Revolution initiated the transition of the United States from a rural to an urban nation, and wealthy capitalists began building extravagant mansions on parcels of land outside the city but linked to it by train. Commuter railroads could easily whisk businessmen from their suburban homes to their offices in the central business district. Kenneth Jackson, in Crabgrass Frontier (), cites Bronxville, New York, as the archetypical railroad suburb of this period. Developed in the late s and early s by William Van Duzer Lawrence, Bronxville featured architecturally diverse homes on large lots along wooded, curving streets. The town was  miles north of Manhattan, an easy commute by train of half an hour. Visitors were attracted to Bronxville by a nice hotel and shops near the train station, and many liked the ambience well enough to buy a home there. Bronxville was incorporated in  and became known as “a suburb endlessly copied but never matched.” Suburban growth exploded after about  with the invention and rapid acceptance of the electric streetcar, or trolley. Street railways, as they were often called, soon criss-crossed most major American cities, and, as they moved farther from the center of the city, often connecting the center with a stadium, amusement park, or some other leisure spot, new suburbs were built along their routes. Because there were many more trolley routes than railroad lines, suburban housing along trolley lines was more abundant and significantly more modest than the homes of Bronxville. The next suburban boom came in the s, and the automobile was responsible, along with the general prosperity of the decade that allowed many families to build their own homes. Land was available on the outer fringes of cities, and congested city centers were increasingly regarded as unhealthy and dangerous. With an automobile, a family could escape the city and live in the clean air and safer environment of a suburban development. There were several important differences between the automobile suburbs of the s and the streetcar suburbs of the s. In particular, the pattern of suburban

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development changed from long, narrow towns with houses that had to be within easy walking distance of the trolley stop to broad residential areas that took advantage of the automobile’s ability to go virtually anywhere. The suburbs of the s also saw an increase in workplaces located outside the central business district. Workers with autos could get to the workplace, and trucks could carry the finished products away. Because land was plentiful and cheap, residential housing styles changed from tightly packed row houses or multifamily apartment blocks to single-family homes separated from each other and often including a garage. Houses lost much of their Gilded Age opulence and living space for servants, since few families still had them (and if they did, they seldom lived with the family). In general, homes were smaller and more efficient, a trend that continued in the Cape Cod and ranch-style homes of the post–World War II era. The onset of the Great Depression in  brought the suburban housing boom to an end. Construction of new residential dwellings declined by  percent between  and , and only New Deal measures to help families afford homes and the promise of a better future seen in popular world’s fairs in Chicago (–), San Diego (– ), and New York (–) kept this American dream alive. World War II ended the Great Depression and paved the way for a much larger suburban boom starting in . Popular culture convinced many Americans that the Depression and the war would be followed by an extended period of prosperity and creature comforts—“that’s what we’re fighting for.” At the center of this vision was the private home in the suburbs. Most people had found this to be an impossibility during the Depression and war, but after , the dream became reality. Veterans returning from the war married the girls they left behind and moved into single-family dwellings made more affordable by Depression-era measures that insured mortgage loans, which made banks and other institutions more confident about lending money to newlywed couples, and through veterans’ benefits that made low-interest loans available, and new tax laws that allowed mortgage payments to be deducted from income taxes. Many newly married veterans moved into houses that seemingly appeared overnight in entirely new towns, such as Levittown, the best-known new suburb, located on Long Island, east of New York City. The construction of private homes, which provided jobs for many thousands of workers who had built military base housing during the war, was promoted by the federal government as a way to jumpstart the civilian economy once the war ended, and by home builders and realtors, who stood to make a great deal of money. The suburban movement was well-publicized in magazines, movies, and radio programs, all of which worked to encourage the promise of a comfortable suburban life. William Levitt was one of the first to take advantage of New Deal financial reforms under the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), which allowed builders to borrow money to construct houses for which they had no buyers. Levitt believed that building large numbers of single-family dwellings would encourage the postwar economy and create a mass market for housing that would make the dreams of many young couples come true. To build large numbers of houses for middle-class Americans, William Levitt and his brother Alfred (who designed the prototype) had to change radically the way houses were built. Essentially, they applied the principles of mass production to homebuilding. By using a standard design and prefabricating sections of the house at a central location,

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An aerial view of Levittown, New York, in 1954. William J. Levitt created massproduced, low-cost, tract housing to meet the demand for housing on the part of returning servicemen and their new families after World War II. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

the cost of construction could be dramatically lowered. In practice, this meant that the prefabricated sections of the house were delivered to the site and assembled by a team of workers, almost as if it were an assembly line at a factory. There was no opportunity for customizing a house or altering the design. The houses all looked alike, but the key point was that they could be sold for less than $,, an affordable price for families in the late s. The Levitts, who had been among the country’s largest homebuilders in the years before World War II, bought large tracts of farmland during the war, built some wartime military housing, and, with FHA funds, began stockpiling building materials on Long Island. Much of this material came from companies that the Levitt family owned. Like Henry Ford, the Levitts paid their workers well and provided generous benefits to discourage them from joining unions and increasing the danger of strikes or other work stoppages. With their methods, the Levitts were able to erect  houses a day on their Long Island site. They were able to get around local building codes, such as one that required that single-family houses have basements. It was much cheaper to build a house on a concrete slab, and the Levitts had the political and economic clout to get the

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ordinance changed. By , Levittown consisted of , houses, initially rented for $ per month and then sold for $, (later raised to $,). The town had paved streets, a full range of utilities, commercial centers, public swimming pools, and baseball fields. By the time it was finished, Levittown numbered , houses and had a population of ,. When critics panned the Levitts’ first homes, built in an efficient but unattractive Cape Cod style, they went back to the drawing board and developed a new style that became known (and widely imitated) as the ranch house, built of brick and featuring an open floor plan. It became the dominant housing style for the next decade, and its popularity forever linked the name Levittown with suburbia. What could not be fixed by a return to the drawing board, however, was that the Levitts built racially segregated towns. By , Levittown on Long Island (there were other Levittowns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania by this time) was the largest all-white community in the United States. In this, they were abetted by real estate agents who “persuaded” African Americans to continue living in black neighborhoods and encouraging what came to be known as “white flight” from city centers to the suburbs. When black families did try to break the color line in many suburbs, they were often met with overt hostility. With suburbanization after World War II came the rise of consumerism as a dominant force in American life. Edward Filene, who owned a well-known department store in Boston in the s, was a pioneer of consumerism. He believed that the working class could be kept happy and peaceful if it had the ability to buy consumer goods, like automobiles, appliances, and other nice items. To do this, workers needed to be paid more and have more leisure time in which to enjoy their possessions. Indeed, Filene defined democracy as people’s freedom to consume. While these ideas had considerable traction in the s, the post-World War II years saw consumerism grow almost unchecked. The growth of suburbs allowed families to own their own home and an automobile, while shopping centers and credit cards provided the means to fill their homes with consumer goods that they were convinced to buy through ever more effective advertising. Before World War II, shopping centers (or malls) did not exist, because large residential suburbs did not exist. After , this changed, as shopping centers were built in the suburbs to serve the rapidly growing population of those areas. Typical of the early shopping center was Roosevelt Field, a large commercial center built on the site of the Long Island airfield where Charles Lindbergh had begun his famous trans-Atlantic solo flight in . Before long, many shopping centers became enclosed and became known as malls and took on more of a community center function, with restaurants, movie theaters, athletic clubs, and other amenities to draw people who lived in nearby subdivisions. The introduction of credit cards after World War II was a major factor in bringing about the growth of consumer buying. Diners Club first began issuing cards in , and within  years, consumers could choose from among American Express, Bank of America, and Chase Manhattan cards, as well as cards from the Hilton Hotel chain. The principal legacy of this has been the increase in consumer debt and the reduction of the amount of money people save, problems that have continued to have an impact on the economy to the present time.

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The explosion of consumer buying in the s led to what historian Lizabeth Cohen calls “third-wave consumerism,” an outpouring of legislation designed to protect consumers by regulating aspects of economic activity related to them. The movement was called “third-wave” because it followed similar efforts in the Progressive Era (–) and the New Deal, but the movement’s leaders were thwarted in their efforts to create a federal consumer agency or a cabinet-level department dedicated to consumer affairs. During the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, however, Congress did pass such measures as the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (), and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (), and, under President Richard Nixon, the Consumer Product Safety Act (). This period of consumerism ended in the s, with the accession of President Ronald Reagan and his administration’s belief in a free-market economy, less federal spending, and weaker federal regulatory agencies. In addition, the s also saw the pace of suburban growth begin to slow. A number of factors contributed to this trend, including rising energy costs that made both heating a home and commuting to work more expensive. Increasing land prices were another factor; the percentage of the cost of land for a new suburban residence rose from  percent in  to  percent in . Also, the economic crisis of the late s and early s drove up interest rates, including those for home loans, to a point where few could afford to buy a house. High interest rates remained a problem for a decade or more after . The increased cost of construction in the homebuilding industry was yet another factor, as was acceptance of racial integration in suburbs and the slowing of “white flight.” Indeed, some older suburbs have enjoyed growth and revitalization, as families have moved back toward the city center to cut commuting costs and experience a richer cultural diversity. Suburbanization has undoubtedly changed American society since World War II. By , more Americans lived in suburbs than in cities and rural areas combined, and two-thirds of all American families owned (or had a mortgage on) their homes. Newer developments in suburban living, such as the gated community, still had appeal to some but were not likely to bring about major demographic changes in housing patterns, as suburban growth between  and the s had done.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY karen dunak As early as , a marriage preparation text, Looking to Marriage, promoted the suburban lifestyle that would come to define the postwar decades: “It’s a fine thing if you can establish your home at some place in which you can be part of a real community instead of a city-block-dweller. A garden, a pup of your own, a doormat with ‘Welcome’ on it, a live interest in your community—these are the kinds of things which make people really happy” (Quoted in Johnson, Randolph, and Pixley, , pp. –). Anticipating peacetime prosperity even the in the midst of World War II, this text allowed for high expectations of postwar life. As veterans returned home after World War II, however, they were not confronted with a bevy of homes and neighborhoods to choose

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from. Rather, the United States was in the midst of a tremendous housing shortage. The postwar ideal involved not only marriage and a family, but also a single-family home in which the family could live and grow. No longer content to live with extended family or in crowded urban neighborhoods, young men and women looked beyond their home communities—rural or urban—and embraced a newly democratized version of the American suburb. Along with an adoption of suburban living, couples also eagerly embraced a new commitment to consumerism. In the immediate postwar years, marketplace participation, like marriage and family, became a hallmark of American citizenship and a central component of the postwar American Way of Life. The American in the postwar marketplace increasingly fit an ideal that historian Lizabeth Cohen termed the “Purchaser Citizen.” Replacing the consumer citizenship, which had originated during the Progressive Era and persevered through the Great Depression and World War II, purchaser citizenship was marked by marketplace participation rather than marketplace regulation. Americans of the late s and s embraced their responsibility to keep the economy going. Citizenship blended the individual and the communal and the personal and the political, as men and women realized that through their private expenditure, they served a public good. The creation of a citizenship style marked by consumer expenditure stemmed, in part, from the massive economic changes that followed World War II. The immediate postwar years saw not only a resurgence of young marriage but also a democratization of the middle class. The prosperity of wartime carried over into peacetime. Agreements between labor and management created a situation in which unions offered up control of the shop floor in exchange for higher wages and benefits. Even those with little training and education could enter into a new “blue-collar middle class.” Others benefited from the provisions of the GI Bill as they furthered their education or took governmentsubsidized loans to begin their own businesses. With an ability to earn and an eagerness to resume their prewar lives, men and women married at unprecedented rates and at a younger age than ever before in the th century. These newlyweds—and their soonto-be-growing families—needed a place to live. Recalling the propaganda of wartime, Americans expected the reward for their service and sacrifice would be the American dream they had fought so hard to preserve. While suburbs had existed since the mid-th century, they had been the preserve of the upper-middle-class and elite. Located within a short train or trolley ride of the city center, early suburbs were almost like an extension of the city proper. Towns may have developed just outside city limits, but the houses and neighborhoods bore the mark of talented architects and craftsmen. Homes might conform to a generally neoclassic (or Victorian) style, but each home had distinct features. Homeowners enjoyed autonomy when it came to house color, lawn care, and landscaping. The time and cost necessary to create suburbs of this kind proved too high in the face of demand for affordable and accessible housing. Housing demand and upwardly mobile working and middle classes necessitated a new kind of suburb. As veterans looked to settle down and begin families of their own, American business and the American government were only too glad to initiate the process of reacclimating temporary warriors to peacetime living. At the forefront were William and Alfred Levitt. The Levitt family had worked in real estate development since the late s, but in , the two brothers reinvented the suburb. At

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the same time, they revolutionized the process of homebuilding. During his service in World War II, Bill Levitt found that the typical soldier, when asked about his postwar plans, mentioned marriage, family, and a home of his own. Levitt was a savvy businessman and realized that someone could make a lot of money fulfilling the “home” part of the postwar dream. Seeing the imminent need for many homes, the Levitts developed a standardized method of home construction. Using assembly-line techniques, they began building on former potato farms in Hempstead, Long Island. The newly constructed town, to be named Levittown, would be the first of many mass-produced suburbs. The Levitts bought supplies in bulk, and their simple Cape Cod style homes required relatively little labor. Thus, they could sell homes at a rate even a young couple just starting out could afford. Benefits extended to veterans, such as the GI Bill and mortgages funded by the Veterans Administration and Federal Housing Administration allowed young men and their wives to buy homes at very low interest rates. No longer needing to save for years, World War II veterans could put $ down and obtain a mortgage with monthly payments of $ per month. The Levitts placed an advertisement in the New York Times that summed up Levittown’s appeal: “This is Levittown! All yours for $. You’re a lucky fellow, Mr. Veteran. Uncle Sam and the world’s largest builder have made it possible for you to live in a charming house with a delightful community without having to pay them with your eye teeth.” When the Levittown office opened in March , , contracts were signed on a single day. Before the first home was built, the entire Levittown community was sold out. With government aid to buyers and builders, the housing market boomed. The Levitts created other Levittowns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Inspired by the Levitt model, other builders across the United States created their own versions of the planned suburban community. Benefiting from the nation’s wartime production and continued postwar military-industrial build-up, locations such as Orange County, California, and Harris County, Texas, witnessed great suburban development. Those who relocated for a better job found that they could rely on the new suburbs to provide them with friends and a sense of community. Residents were predominantly young married couples with ever-expanding families. As the male breadwinner went off to work, women within the community could socialize and share child-raising duties and strategies for domestic upkeep. A  Time magazine article chronicled the rise of Levittown and remarked on the youthfulness of its inhabitants: “Few of its more than , residents are past ; of some , children, scarcely  are more than seven years old. In front of almost every house along Levittown’s  miles of winding streets sits a tricycle or a baby carriage. In Levittown, all activity stops from  to  in the afternoon; that is nap time. Said one Levittowner last week, ‘Everyone is so young that sometimes it’s hard to remember how to get along with older people’ ” (“Up From the Potato Fields,” Time, July , ). While they were designed for families just starting out, Levittown homes offered the possibility of upward mobility. These were homes families could grow in. The Cape Cods and later ranch-style homes allowed for the possibility of addition and expansion. And while the original Levittown offered the most basic homes, suburban communities ranged from those designed for the blue-collar, “new” middle class to those created with a middle-to-upper-class home buyer in mind. The more elite developments offered

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more options when it came to home design and often provided homeowners with larger lots. Making the transition from one suburban community to the next reflected an upgrade in status. Even in the “classless society” of s America, local communities came to regard neighborhoods as distinctly classed. Of course the suburbs had their critics. The mass-produced homes offered little variation in style. Appearing as “little boxes” on the horizon, critics attacked the suburbs for their conformity and unimaginative design. Community codes required that homeowners adhere to strict rules of upkeep and home presentation. Laundry could only be hung outdoors on certain days, and if a family allowed their lawn to become overgrown, it would be cut for them—at a fee. Others criticized the artificiality of the suburbs, claiming that they created an over-homogenized America where differences were erased and distinctiveness was viewed with suspicion. If critiques about the homogenization of the suburban population generally ignored the fact that a variation of suburban communities existed, they did not ignore the glorification of status among suburban dwellers. Vance Packard’s The Status Seekers () critiqued postwar America and the suburbs specifically, charging Americans with defining themselves through their possessions and standing within the crowd. Others lamented the breakdown of urban neighborhoods and ethnic communities. Philip Roth’s  novella, Good-bye Columbus, presented the contrasting realities of the Jewish neighborhoods in Newark, New Jersey, and the emerging North Jersey suburbs that were attracting Jewish families. The urban/suburban divide highlighted class differences within the Jewish community. To Roth’s hero, Neil Klugman, the difference in lifestyle was palpable. As Neil returned home after meeting Brenda Patimkin in her suburban neighborhood, he thought, the “summer nights are so much cooler in Short Hills than they are in Newark.” At least semiautobiographical in nature, Roth’s novella chronicled the changes happening to the Newark of his youth. His alma mater, Weequahic High School, had once been regarded as the best high school in the city. Nearly  percent of the predominantly Jewish student body went on to higher education. With the exodus from the city and into the suburbs, the school’s prestige slipped until, finally, in , it ranked th out of the state’s  high schools. The “white flight” of the s and s significantly reduced the white urban population. Cities were left to African Americans, other minorities, and the urban poor. As resources were allocated to the developing suburbs, American urban centers experienced tremendous decline. Suburbs were a key ingredient to the postwar American Way of Life. They offered better schools, better homes, and better municipal services. Cities were dying while suburbs were thriving. American families, dreaming of the good life, wanted to be part of the action. But relocation was not guaranteed to everyone. In the still largely segregated postwar United States, African Americans and other minorities enjoyed limited access to the new suburbs. While Bill Levitt insisted that he was not personally prejudiced, the market guided his business practices. He noted, “As a Jew, I have no room in my mind or heart for racial prejudice. But I have come to know that if we sell one house to a Negro family, then  or  percent of our white customers will not buy into the community.” The prospect of a mixed-race neighborhood, it was assumed, was enough to make confident homebuyers change their minds. Government-reinforced suburban segregation in its unwillingness to approve mortgages or construction within mixed-race communities.

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“The Federal Housing Administration has never insured a housing project of mixed occupancy,” reported Assistant FHA Commissioner W. J. Lockwood in . Efforts to prevent African American families from buying in new suburban neighborhoods were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the  case, Shelley v. Kraemer. This ruling declared racially based restrictive covenants to be illegal. And yet, a systematic process of preventing African Americans from moving into suburban neighborhoods remained. Subtle efforts by realtors, such as withholding listings, presenting marked-up prices, or hosting only selective home showings thwarted African American families’ efforts to integrate suburbs. If black families did succeed in purchasing a home in a predominantly white neighborhood, more explicit protest and harassment was not unusual. Neighborhood associations protested integration, neighbors vandalized African Americans’ homes, property, and possessions, and members of the community shunned or openly taunted their new neighbors. Of course suburban communities were not the only marker of status in postwar America. The consumer citizen found many opportunities for demonstrating his or her patriotism. As Detroit switched from wartime to peacetime production, the automobile industry began pumping out new models for the long-denied consumer population. Stronger, sleeker, bigger, and better than their predecessors, cars of the late s—and even more so, cars of the s—represented American commitment to luxury and excess. With newly designed models available each year, the auto industry committed to planned obsolescence and ensured that each new model held greater status than the previous year’s model. Even if the  model was in perfect condition, the changes incorporated into the  model marked the previous year’s machine as outdated. The United States had long been a nation dedicated to and fascinated by the open road. But it was the expansion of the nation’s roads under the Federal Highway Act of  that created an extensive interstate system. With new opportunities for travel, new necessity of commuting out of the relatively isolated suburbs, and new automobile models produced each year, American cars served multiple masters. They represented leisure as well as productivity, practicality as well as vanity. And after years of depression and war-induced sacrifice, they represented a celebration of consumer excess that would mark America’s return to prosperity. As men and women bought their homes and cars, they found that this was just the beginning. They would need items with which to fill those homes. Within  years of the original postwar suburban development, businessmen had created a new way of allowing their suburban customers to shop: the indoor mall. Southdale, the first indoor mall, debuted in Edina, Minnesota, in , and it was an instant success. Across the nation, department store owners focused on newly constructed shopping complexes rather than their old downtown locations. Providing customers with a variety of goods and services in one central location and free parking, the suburban mall became a shopping experience. Malls offered child care, food courts, “roomier” parking spaces for women drivers, and a variety of shops and services. Location was vital to a mall’s success. These shopping structures became new suburban “downtowns,” all located far away from the urban downtown that increasingly was marked as undesirable. The mall reoriented the American shopper. From kitchen appliances to living room furniture to linens and upholstery, every item communicated status. The exterior of a home was just the beginning. The rooms

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in the house had to fit a certain ideal—an ideal perpetrated by the emerging shopping centers, women’s magazines, television programs, and advertising directed at the new suburban communities. Advertising—and particularly television advertising—became a fundamental business practice of this age. Criticism of advertising and skepticism of the promised power of products marked public debate. Vance Packard, once again, was at the forefront of the critique. His Hidden Persuaders () continued critiques of early-th-century advertising, as he investigated how Americans were convinced of their newfound need for products that had formerly been nonessential. Social critics questioned the direction of modern consumer society, but the power of television advertising grew as the medium became more powerful. The American suburb and the consumer orientation of Lizabeth Cohen’s “Consumers’ Republic” existed within a very specific Cold War culture. While the United States and the Soviet Union competed over weapons and space and industrial output, they also competed over the more intimate details of their citizens’ lives. In , Richard Nixon traveled to Moscow to visit the American National Exhibition, which had traveled across the European continent. The exhibition featured a model supermarket, model homes, fashion shows, new home technologies, and a variety of typical American products. The exhibition intended to communicate American postwar plenty, as well as Americans’ freedom within the marketplace. By association, the exhibition communicated Americans’ political freedom. Response among the Soviet population was astounding. Soviet citizens mistook the goods within the reproduction of an American supermarket for free samples, and within hours, shelves were bare. Soviets consumed Pepsi samples at a rate of , per hour for the duration of the six-week show. While Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev argued that Soviet citizens enjoyed access to goods and a standard of living equal—and even superior—to that of Americans, the Soviet population’s frenzied response to everyday American products suggested otherwise. Consumerism played a key role in citizens’ standard of living, and, in this area, most believed, the United States clearly bested their Cold War nemesis. But while the generation coming out of the Great Depression and World War II believed in the American Way of Life and relished the chance to enjoy the fruits of American labor, future generations would feel differently. Most children born during the Baby Boom (–) were raised in an era of affluence and enjoyed a childhood shaped by the suburbs and American consumer life. Unlike their parents, who had done without, these children were rewarded at every turn. Told they were the best and the brightest, they were expected to perform at a high level, academically, physically, and socially. Having had all the opportunities one could desire, they would grow up to be happier and more successful than their parents and the generations before them. But, as these Baby Boomers came of age, some veered off course from their projected path. While they had grown up wanting for very little, they found the life they were expected to lead to be void of meaning. Having enjoyed a lifetime of material comforts, many young men and women wondered about other means of fulfillment—spiritual, intellectual, political. The prospect of early marriage, suburban home ownership, and nuclear family life held little appeal. Among the earliest critiques from the generation of the s was the Port Huron Statement. Admitting to having been “bred in at least modern comfort,” Tom Hayden and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS),

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who wrote the document, condemned the foundation upon which the American Dream had been built. The realities of the nuclear arms race, combined with the ongoing racism and discrimination within their own nation, led students to question what they had learned about the United States’ commitment to the values it continually espoused. Hayden and the SDS questioned the kind of work they were expected to do to follow in the footsteps of their parents’ American Dream. The New Left, as those who held these views came to be known, rejected mind-numbing employment done only for profit. They rejected the notion that material wealth should be the end goal. In so doing, they rejected the consumer economy and culture that marked the postwar decades. Prosperity was less important than self-fulfillment or activism that led to change. Certainly, many Americans continued to hold tight to the concept of the American Dream. While relatively affluent college students could afford to question the nature of American life and the shape of the American economy, just two years before the Port Huron Statement, four young African American men in Greensboro, North Carolina, staged a sit-in at the lunch counter of the local Woolworth’s. The men demanded to be served at the segregated counter. Protesting the injustice of having their money accepted at registers throughout the store but being denied the right to sit and eat lunch after shopping, their goal was very much inspired by the consumerism of modern America. Access to and equality within the marketplace served as an underlying goal of early civil rights activism. What the Greensboro Four and the emerging New Left had in common was the belief that consumerism and the marketplace were political locations and could be politicized in ways that went beyond the mere market participation of the purchaser citizen model. As the New Left’s central issue increasingly centered on protesting the war in Vietnam, the movement turned its attention to those corporations supplying the war effort. Campus activists protested when Dow Chemical Company came to their universities to recruit new employees. Dow’s crime, in New Leftists’ eyes, was the production of napalm, a mix of gas, acid, and palm oil that burned or suffocated the victim upon contact. Some activists went so far as to take recruiters prisoner. Between  and , over  campus protests were held in opposition to Dow. Carl Gerstacker, chairman of Dow Chemical, noted, “We’ve been hurt by these demonstrations. . . . The only question is how badly we’ve been hurt.” He revealed, to some extent, the power of the protest as he continued, “I wish I’d never heard of napalm.” By , Dow had allowed their napalm contract to expire. Consumer activism may have been less common than it was during the Progressive Era or Great Depression years, but it still served as a potent political force. Eventually, youth coming of age in the s and s discovered they might change the market not only through outside protest, but also through infiltration of American business and economic culture. “Hippies,” or young adults who had embraced the counterculture, recognized that existing businesses might not supply their needs, and a brand of hippie capitalism was born. Bookstores, smoke shops, coffeehouses, and boutiques sprang up in cities around the nation. Businesses such as Celestial Seasonings Tea and media such as Rolling Stone emerged as part of a new alternative business culture. For those who did enter mainstream enterprise, their influence was felt immediately. In , Forbes magazine declared the newly graduated businessmen and women to be “Rebels in Gray Flannel Suits.” Fortune noted that new trainees “reflect[ed]

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the passionate concerns of youth . . . individuality, openness, humanism, concern, and change.” Such qualities also appealed to young consumers, and advertising campaigns embraced countercultural values in their sales pitches. Likewise, “youth” became an effective means of pitching a product. Beyond the actual teen and young adult population, those dissatisfied with the realities of adulthood embraced the idea that a product could provide access to what had formerly been their lost youth. While the New Left and counterculture protested the value assigned to consumer goods or aimed to revise business values and ethics, other activists challenged the manufacturers of such goods. Rachel Carson researched the effects of DDT, a poisonous pesticide, and published Silent Spring () as a critique of manufacturers’ disregard for the natural environment and government’s unwillingness to take a more regulatory role. The automobile industry, continuing to pump out new models year after year, likewise prompted investigation. Consumer advocates such as Ralph Nader challenged the power of the automobile industry by exposing serious safety hazards of vehicle production in a best-selling book, Unsafe at Any Speed (). Charging the industry with focus on fashion over function, Nader linked the ever-increasing number of traffic deaths to faulty production. His primary target was General Motors’ Corvair model. To discredit Nader, GM launched a smear campaign against the young lawyer. The company’s unethical response and seeming disregard for the public’s safety provoked further censure and only served to validate criticism. Advocacy such as that of Ralph Nader highlighted the need for consumer reform, a practice that had been of particular interest during the Progressive Era and the Great Depression. Looking to expand the reform efforts of the Great Society, Congress began to consider consumer protection legislation. As a result of Nader’s activism, Congress passed the  National Traffic and Motor Safety Act, which made the automobile manufacturers directly responsible for motor safety. The legislation mandated new safety features such as stronger windshields and seatbelts. Other protective legislation dealt with environmental protection, truth in advertising, and warnings about potentially hazardous ingredients found in household products. While legislation such as the  Truth in Packaging Act protected consumers from producers, one might even look to the  Civil Rights Act as legislation that guaranteed a citizen’s right to consumer choice. But the consumer rights successes of the s and early s were fairly shortlived. Business influences on Congress during the later s allowed for deregulation of the marketplace and limited further protection of consumer rights. While the United States suffered through the economic downturn of the s, consumerism remained a key component of American life. Calls to limit personal consumption, particularly on increasingly scarce commodities, such as oil, were met with widespread resistance. The American population had become accustomed to living in a land of plenty, and the idea of sacrificing that plenty suggested a national fall from grace, which many citizens were unwilling to accept. Consumer limitation and environmentalism were embraced when they were convenient and inexpensive. When energy prices dropped in the s, many conservation efforts were dropped as well. While idealism had run high during the s, those coming of age during the s and s looked more seriously at the bottom line, as it became clear that affluence was no longer guaranteed.

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As Ronald Reagan came to power, political conservatives looked to limit undisciplined consumption, but not through protective legislation. Conservatives aimed to limit the consumer activity of those who had not proven themselves through a commitment to hard work—primarily those receiving government assistance. Limitation of federal aid programs, implementation of a less progressive income tax, and widespread tax cuts allowed for unfettered consumption among the richest members of the American population. Self-conscious displays of wealth returned to vogue, and the classless society of the s—a golden age memorialized by Reagan—was officially undone. Differences in class status became even more obvious as new suburbs were constructed as gated communities, preventing infiltration from nonresidents. Interestingly, the countercultural interpretation of consumerism had potentially its greatest influence on the mainstream as Americans renegotiated their relationship with the marketplace. The individualism of the s and s youth movement translated into the newly individualistic consumer ethos of the s. Lifestyle and values influenced advertising and marketing techniques as Americans increasingly failed to align as one mass market. Yuppies—young, urban professionals—embraced consumer spending as a means of achieving status, certainly, but also as a way of defining one’s self. Moving away from the family and the home, consumerism became more about the individual and self-fulfillment. While the shape of Americans’ relationship and response to consumer goods has evolved over time, the centrality of the marketplace has remained a constant in the years since World War II. As a strategy for economic growth, consumerism and the creation of a consumer society moved beyond mere economic significance and shaped the direction of American social, cultural, and political life. As much as the marketplace shaped demand, citizens likewise have exercised their power over the shape the consumer society has taken. Whether used as a tool designed to create national consensus or to reinforce visions of individualism, consumerism has fit the wants and needs of the population as much as it has shaped them. While the marketplace serves as a public location, Americans have long found personal significance in their participation. Even when not explicitly politicized, consumerism provided an avenue for political action and continues to do so. The American population may no longer accept a unified vision of the American Way of Life, but regardless of the varied interpretations, access to consumer goods, expectation of consumer participation, and consideration of consumer wants remain central tenets of American life. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Terry. The Movement and the Sixties. New York: Oxford University Press, . Traces the development of “the movement” over the course of the s, with some emphasis on the political left’s response to mass consumption and the marketplace. Baxandall, Rosalyn, and Elizabeth Ewen, Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened. New York: Basic Books, . Traces the growth of suburbs from the s to the end of the century, using Long Island as a model. Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Knopf, . Chronicles the variations of American consumerism from the Progressive Era through the beginning of the st century.

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Cross, Gary S. An All-Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in Modern America. New York: Columbia University Press, . A survey of consumerism in th-century America. Frank, Thomas. The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . Investigates the use of countercultural images and ideals in mainstream media. Glickman, Lawrence, ed. Consumer Society in American History: A Reader. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, . A collection of essays on consumer history and modern consumer critiques. Jackson, Kenneth. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, . Traces the rise of the suburb from its origins through the s. Johnson, Roswell H., Helen Randolph, and Erma Pixley. Looking to Marriage. New York: Allyn and Bacon, . Published during the war, this book anticipates the benefits of life in postwar America. Marling, Karal Ann. As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the s. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, . Examines the centrality of visual culture to our understanding of the s. Packard, Vance. The Hidden Persuaders. New York: D. McKay, . An early study, based on motivational research, of how advertisers manipulate consumers. ———. The Status Seekers. New York: D. McKay, . A popular sociological study of the roles of social class and status in contemporary American life. ———. The Waste Makers. New York: D. McKay, . A classic study of the concept of planned obsolescence. Sugrue, Thomas J. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, . Evaluates the importance of race and class in suburban development in post–World War II Detroit.

LEVITTOWN Levittown was a distinct community of , houses built between  and  by the construction and development firm of Levitt and Sons on about seven square miles of farmland on Long Island, about  miles east of New York City. Levitt’s innovative construction methods—using standardized components, buying directly from manufacturers, and turning the entire tract into an enormous assembly line—allowed the firm to construct  houses a week by the summer of . Besides houses, the veterans and young families who lined up to rent and buy the two-bedroom, one-bath, expandable Cape Cods and ranch houses were also buying a community, complete with sidewalks, schools, shops, and community centers. Levittown came to represent all of the suburbs built in the United States after World War II.

neil shumsky RALPH NADER (1934–) Lawyer and activist Ralph Nader founded and has led the consumer rights movement in the United States for nearly three decades. “Naderism” has become synonymous with the use of citizen action to combat business and government practices deemed detrimental to the public interest.

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Nader was born in Winsted, Connecticut, on February , , the son of Lebanese immigrants who instilled in him strong moral and democratic values. After attending Winsted’s Gilbert School, Nader enrolled at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, graduating magna cum laude with a major in government and economics in . He then entered Harvard Law School, where he became editor of the Harvard Law Record. As a student without a car who relied on hitchhiking for transportation, Nader had become concerned about the problem of automobile safety, and, while in law school, he published his first article on the subject, “American Cars: Designed for Death,” in the Harvard Law Record. Earning his law degree with distinction in , he spent six months in the army before starting a small law practice in Hartford, Connecticut, in which he handled a number of auto accident cases. Becoming convinced that he could accomplish little on the local level, Nader moved to Washington, D.C., in . As a staff consultant on highway safety to Daniel Moynihan (then assistant secretary of labor for policy planning), Nader compiled a massive report on the subject, which became the best-selling muckraking book, Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile (). In it, Nader charged that the automobile companies sacrificed safety for speed and appearance, citing the Chevrolet Corvair as especially unsafe. General Motors (GM) hired a detective to uncover damaging material on Nader’s private life. The effort not only failed to compromise Nader but also embarrassed GM president James M. Roche, who had to apologize before a Senate committee. Nader’s book led Congress to pass the Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of , which called on the federal government to set safety standards that must be met by all cars sold in the country. Directing his attention to other areas involving health and safety, Nader became involved in efforts that helped to bring about the Wholesome Meat Act of  and legislation providing for better safety standards in the construction of natural gas pipelines and underground mining. In , Nader helped establish in Washington, D.C., the Center for Study of Responsive Law, which conducted investigations of such federal commissions as the Federal Trade Commission, suspected of being unduly influenced by the very industries they were supposed to be regulating. In , Nader started the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) to work for consumer and political reform on the community and college campus level. In , he launched Public Citizen, Inc., a consumer lobbying group to counteract the influence of powerful corporate lobbies. Inspired by Nader’s idealism, many young people, who became known as Nader’s Raiders, joined his crusades through these and other organizations, like the Center for Auto Safety, the National Insurance Consumer Organization, and the Health Research Group. Relying on individual contributions, on foundation grants, and on Nader’s earnings as a writer and speaker for funds, these organizations conducted investigations of a wide range of consumer issues, including the environment, nuclear power, health care, freedom of information in government, and tax reform. They also pushed for legislative and judicial remedies for the abuses they uncovered, using class-action suits and other legal tools to achieve their goals. Nader and his various groups influenced the creation of several new government “watchdog” agencies, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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They were also largely responsible for at least eight federal consumer protection laws, among them laws regulating radiation dangers, the use of cyclamates in diet foods, and the use of DDT in the control of insect pests. On the local level, Nader and his associates sparked the establishment of consumer affairs commissions in most major cities and aroused public concern about product safety and value. Despite their accomplishments, Nader and his associates drew fire for being fanatics and for conducting superficial and slanted research. Moreover, in the conservative climate of the s, Nader’s brand of activism seemed doomed to extinction. Nevertheless, he and his associates kept up their crusades on a variety of fronts. In , Nader resigned as president of Public Citizen, Inc., so that he could devote more time to organizing citizens on the community level. With Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency in , Nader attacked the administration for offering a government that favored business and ignored consumer interests. The following year, a Nader group published a study of the Reagan Administration entitled Reagan’s Ruling Class: Portraits of the President’s Top One Hundred Officials. Continuing his critique of corporate influence, Nader in  coauthored The Big Boys: Power and Position in American Business, a study of nine powerful chief executive officers of corporations. Two years later, he helped bring about the passage of Proposition  in California, a law that lowered some auto insurance costs. The following year, GM announced that air bags would become standard equipment on many  models, something that Nader had fought for during the past decade. Also around this time, Nader used national radio talk shows to forestall a congressional pay hike. In the presidential election of , Nader, running as the candidate for Green Party USA, received some , votes, nearly  percent of the national total and about . percent of the total votes cast in California. He ran for president again in , this time garnering  percent of the nationwide vote, as well as considerable controversy for siphoning Democratic votes from Vice President Al Gore. Nader also ran for president as an independent in  and , receiving less than  percent of the popular vote each time. As the leader of the consumer movement for  years, he remains a living symbol of the importance of individual commitment to reform.

william mcguire and leslie wheeler JOE THOMPSON JR. (1901–1961) “Oh Thank Heaven for -Eleven!” went the commercial jingle in the s, and -Eleven convenience stores by that time had become a pervasive feature of the American landscape. Joe C. “Jodie” Thompson Jr. began -Eleven in the early part of the th century, and it was further expanded by his heirs to ultimately become an icon of popular culture. Although he grew up in Dallas, Thompson was born in  in Waxahachie, Texas. While attending Oak Cliff High School, he worked in the summer, loading ice onto wagons for the Consumers Ice Company. After graduating in  from the University of Texas with a degree in business administration, Thompson worked full-time at Consumers. He soon got the idea to sell chilled watermelons from the docks where

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customers picked up their ice, an idea that proved so successful it earned him a bonus— money he needed to marry Margaret Philip in . Thompson’s ambition led to a rapid rise up Consumers’ ladder. He became secretarytreasurer in . The following year, after the Southern Ice Company acquired Consumers and renamed the new firm the Southland Ice Company, he bought , shares at $ apiece and was elected a director at the inaugural meeting in . In the summer of , John Jefferson Green, an ice dock manager, began selling bread and milk to customers. He earned a profit that impressed Thompson and convinced him to develop the concept, thus giving birth to the first convenience stores. Under Thompson’s leadership, Southland expanded its ice plants—by , it had  in Dallas. More importantly, it renamed its ice docks Tote’m Stores, advertised with an Alaskan Indian totem as a symbol, and sold items people wanted in a hurry. Speed, in fact, emerged as the modus operandi for Thompson’s convenience stores—sell cigarettes, dairy products, and magazines that people did not want to wait in line for and provide quick service for which they would pay a high price. With the first Tote’m stores, customers remained in their cars while an attendant filled their order and handed it to them. Southland tied its growth to the rise of automobiles and grocery stores. Carhabituated customers liked the way they could pull up to a Tote’m front door. And as grocery stores grew larger and larger, customers went to Tote’m as a place where they could find items without having to search amid long aisles. In the early s, though, Southland suffered when the Great Depression worsened, and Thompson, by then president of the company, had to place it in receivership. A turnaround began in  when the federal government ended Prohibition, thus allowing Southland to sell beer in its stores. Two years later, Southland decided to control its own source of dairy products and founded Oak Farm Dairies. Thompson renamed the Southland Ice Company in  as the Southland Corporation, and as Americans moved to the suburbs after World War II, he deemphasized selling ice while he developed his convenience store concept. In expanding, he hired an advertising agency to create a new name for his stores. Since most of them would be open from  a.m. to  p.m., the agency suggested the name -Eleven, and Thompson agreed. Thus, in , Tote’m became -Eleven. Beginning in the early s, Thompson expanded -Eleven beyond north Texas and, in , went outside the state when he opened a store in Miami, Florida. Three years later, he took -Eleven into the North. Before Thompson died of cancer on June , , Southland operated more than  stores. The -Eleven stores expanded most rapidly under Thompson’s two sons, John Thompson and Jere Thompson.

neil hamilton

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7 The Development of Atomic Energy, 1945–1995

INTRODUCTION The ability to harness and utilize atomic energy for military and peaceful purposes was a by-product of World War II. In August , the eminent physicist Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that a bomb fueled by the energy released when the nucleus of a uranium atom was split—a process known as nuclear fission—was theoretically possible. Acting at least partly out of fear that German scientists might be working on the same theory, Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project, which began in  to develop such an atomic bomb. In December , at the University of Chicago, scientists built the first nuclear “pile,” an arrangement whereby the nuclear reaction brought on by fission could be controlled. Over the next two and a half years, some $ billion was spent to build plants and assemble the material needed to construct an actual bomb. Much of the work was done in a remote laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the guidance of Robert Oppenheimer and a team of brilliant scientists, some of whom had fled from Hitler’s Germany in the s. On July , , near Alamogordo, New Mexico, Oppenheimer’s team successfully detonated an atomic bomb, or A-bomb, as it came to be known. President Harry S Truman, in office only since April, after Roosevelt’s death, decided to use the atomic bomb against Japan to shorten the war in the Pacific. The best intelligence estimates suggested that to force Japan into an unconditional surrender, the war would have to be carried to Japan’s home islands and might last until  and cost another one million lives. Truman hoped that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August  and  would bring about a Japanese surrender; they did, and the United States entered the postwar world with an atomic monopoly. As the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union developed in the months following the Japanese surrender, there was much debate about the future of atomic weaponry. At the United Nations (UN), Bernard Baruch, an American delegate, introduced what became known as the “Baruch Plan” for the control of atomic energy. He urged the UN to create an international agency to control all atomic weapons. Member nations would pledge not to build atomic bombs, and the agency would be empowered to carry out inspections and impose sanctions on any nations violating their pledge. The United States would voluntarily give up its atomic weapons to the agency once it was established. The Soviet Union, however, rejected the Baruch Plan, calling it

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The development of more powerful nuclear weapons was an important element in the early years of the Cold War. Here U.S. Marines witness a 1952 atomic bomb test in Nevada. (Courtesy of the Marine Corps Historical Center.)

an American “trick” to maintain an atomic monopoly. Moreover, said the Soviets, the proposed inspections were designed to reveal Soviet military secrets. Their alternative was to demand that the United States destroy its atomic arsenal before an international agency was created. The United States refused to do this, and, knowing that the Soviets were working on their own atomic weapons, continued the research, development, and testing of more powerful atomic bombs. In the United States, atomic development was done under the authority of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which had been created in the McMahon Act (or Atomic Energy Act) of . The AEC, which came into existence in , in its early years was concerned about military uses of atomic energy. It was overseen by the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE). In , the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) replaced the AEC in the federal bureaucracy. A great deal of atomic testing was done in these years, but one U.S. test cycle, Operation Sandstone, paved the way for the mass production of atomic bombs. As a result, the American arsenal contained over one thousand such bombs by . By this time, atomic weapons had become the central element in U.S. defense policy. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union successfully tested an atomic bomb in September  and became the second member of the “nuclear club.” This event, combined with other Cold War conflicts, heightened tensions in the United States, contributed to the rise of the virulent anti-communist movement in the United States known as McCarthyism, and prompted the Truman administration to push forward the development of the hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, a weapon many times more powerful than an A-bomb. With the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who took office in , nuclear weapons became important not only because of their awesome power, which

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was seen as a deterrent to potential enemies, but also because of their relative economy, as it was clearly cheaper to kill thousands of people in one bomb blast than in traditional combat. Committed to economy in government, the administration continued atomic testing, and the army worked on small nuclear weapons that could be used in battlefield situations, often sending troops to observe tests at close range or to undertake maneuvers in areas where tests had recently occurred. As the Eisenhower administration increased its reliance on atomic weapons, however, it also remained active on the diplomatic front. In a speech at the United Nations in December , President Eisenhower laid out his “Atoms for Peace” proposal. This involved the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency, to which the United States and other nuclear powers would contribute fissionable materials, which the agency would then allocate to others having plans to use it for peaceful purposes. Cold War tensions, however, were still too high, and the Soviet Union was not trustful enough of the United States to concur. In , Eisenhower proposed an “Open Skies” agreement, which would involve a U.S.–Soviet exchange of military establishment site plans and aerial inspections of one nation by the other. Again, the Soviets were not interested. Later in the s, as medical research revealed more health risks associated with nuclear fallout (the residue remaining in the atmosphere following a nuclear test), the two atomic powers engaged in some discussion about banning atmospheric testing. But the U- incident (), in which an American surveillance plane was shot down over the Soviet Union, worsened relations and ended the negotiations. All that was accomplished was a  treaty banning military bases and nuclear waste disposal in Antarctica. The Cuban Missile Crisis () brought the world close to a nuclear war and stimulated renewed discussion about the dangers of atomic warfare. The most direct result of the crisis was the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (), in which the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to discontinue nuclear testing on the ground, under water, or in the atmosphere. Only underground tests were permitted. Later in the decade, treaties were signed banning testing in outer space and making Latin America a nuclearfree zone. In , the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty attempted to maintain nonnuclear status for as many countries as possible. Nuclear power signatories to the treaty pledged not to divulge their nuclear secrets to other countries; nonnuclear nations promised to refrain from developing military nuclear capability. By , some  nations had signed the treaty, but a number of nuclear powers and potential nuclear powers, including India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan had not. Beginning around , relations between the United States and the Soviet Union improved in a policy known as “detente,” in which each power informally sought to find areas of agreement and to minimize conflict in areas of disagreement. One consequence of detente was a new round of arms limitation negotiations known as SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks). The first treaty to result from these talks was SALT I (), which included an ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty, limiting to two the number of sites that could be protected by defensive missiles, and an interim agreement on the limitation of strategic offensive arms. Both nations ratified SALT I; and negotiations continued on SALT II, which was finally signed in , providing for overall ceilings on the number of different kinds of missile launchers and heavy bombers as well as limits

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on the testing of newly developed missiles. SALT II was a far more complex treaty than its predecessor, and the U.S. Senate never ratified it, because relations with Moscow deteriorated rapidly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December  and the election of Ronald Reagan the next year. Under Reagan, who once characterized the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” the United States underwent a significant military buildup, including the initiation of development work on the Strategic Defense Initiative, an ambitious space-based nuclear defense system. By , with the ability to negotiate from a position of greater strength, Reagan began serious discussions with the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, on START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks), based on the premise that reducing the number of nuclear weapons was preferable to limiting their growth. The first practical result of these talks was the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) treaty (), which eliminated American and Soviet medium-range ( to , miles) missiles from Europe, a total of about  percent of the nuclear capability of each side. The INF treaty was, however, significant for two other features. First, it legitimized the principle of asymmetrical reduction, in that the Soviet Union was obliged to destroy about four times the number of missiles as the United States. Second, the treaty called for unprecedentedly intrusive inspection procedures. Each side was permitted to send teams of experts to the nuclear sites of the other side to observe firsthand the dismantling or destruction of the medium-range missiles. But political turmoil in the Soviet Union and changes of administration in the United States precluded the signing of other arms reduction treaties. The diversion of nuclear power for peaceful purposes began in the United States in , with the passage of the Atomic Energy Act, which enabled private contractors to build reactors for the nuclear-fueled production of electricity, under license from the Atomic Energy Commission. The passage of this act represented a political victory for Lewis Strauss, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, over congressional Democrats who argued that the government should control the development of a civilian nuclear energy program. In , the Price-Anderson Act made nuclear power development economically feasible by limiting the liability of commercial utilities to $ million in case of a nuclear accident. The first nuclear generating station was opened in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, in , after Admiral Hyman Rickover, who in  had overseen the construction and launching of the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, supplied the plant with a reactor from a never-built nuclear aircraft carrier. Little further development took place during the s, however, because of the cheap cost of both domestic and imported oil and the abundant supplies of natural gas and coal in the United States. But the successful operation at Shippingport eventually opened the door for other utilities to build nuclear power plants. Between  and  alone, utilities ordered  plants from the four nuclear reactor manufacturers. The size of the reactors grew as well, from the  megawatts of the Rickover reactor to , megawatts by the s. In the s, the glow began to tarnish, despite the continued growth of the industry during the decade. Interest rates rose, increasing the cost of construction, while the cost of electricity declined, reducing income and ultimately squeezing profits. The question of nuclear waste disposal, inadequately anticipated, arose and became a political

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controversy at both the state and national level. And, in , a serious nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island station in Pennsylvania renewed fears about the safety of nuclear power. In March , a reactor overheated at Three Mile Island, causing a rise in steam pressure. A valve designed to relieve pressure opened, as it was supposed to, but then it did not close when the pressure dropped. As a consequence, thousands of gallons of radioactive water spilled out, exposing the nuclear core and almost bringing about a disastrous “meltdown.” Some , people were evacuated from nearby homes, and it was weeks before radiation levels fell enough for investigators to enter and assess the damage. The incident contributed to a growing antinuclear movement in the country, which caused plans for some plants to be shelved and construction on other plants to be halted. In , the United States had  operating nuclear reactors supplying about  percent of domestic energy needs; however, very few additional ones were being constructed or even planned.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY james w. kunetka Few events in modern history have shaped both a nation and a world as swiftly and profoundly as the discovery and exploration of atomic energy. While the first third of the th century was spent examining the nature of the atom and its structure, the key breakthrough was made in  by German scientists led by Werner Heisenberg. They discovered nuclear fission, the elemental process by which atoms split and release tremendous energy. The implications of fission were immediate: fissioning atoms, if moderated and controlled, could theoretically generate cheap and virtually inexhaustible energy. Such a force could generate electricity or propel ships; but the same fission process could also be made to run out of control deliberately and thereby produce a powerful explosion. It was the United States during World War II that applied the fission discovery to the development of a new and powerful weapon, the atomic bomb. This effort was conducted in secret and was code-named the Manhattan Project. The creation of these weapons not only left the United States the dominant world power at the end of the war, but also initiated profound social, political, and economic changes that helped shape the rest of the century. Perhaps the most immediate and dramatic result of atomic weapons was a change in the nature of warfare. Now it was possible for a single bomb to do the same damage to cities, industrial centers, and military installations that before had taken hundreds or even thousands of bombs to achieve. During the war, for example, Allied raids on Japan and Germany frequently utilized a thousand bombers; a few raids massed two thousand. But the one atomic bomb carried by a single bomber and dropped on Hiroshima destroyed almost  percent of the city and killed perhaps as many as , residents. Early atomic weapons were large and cumbersome, but scientists were already devising ways in which they could be made smaller and at the same time more powerful. And, as production in the huge plants that produced uranium and plutonium gained momentum, the actual cost of each atomic weapon declined. Very quickly, they

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became cost-effective in terms of damage versus cost to produce and deliver. It was also clear that different types of atomic bombs could be designed and built that would serve different purposes. Small bombs, for example, could be fired as artillery shells for limited, tactical purposes in the field, or attached to rockets and delivered great distances as strategic weapons. The German V- rocket, used at the end of World War II, had demonstrated that warfare by long distance was not only possible but also inevitable. More importantly, scientists already knew, in , that even more powerful atomic weapons were theoretically possible. While the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki utilized the “fission process,” future weapons might well utilize another nuclear process called “fusion.” By fusing light and heavy elements, scientists could duplicate the process that fuels the sun and thereby produce explosions of even more destructive power. Such weapons would come to be known as thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bombs. At the end of the war, the United States was the only nation to possess atomic bombs; this made it the world’s preeminent military power. The nations of Europe lay devastated from six years of war and, for the moment at least, possessed neither the resources nor the technology to produce atomic weapons. Great Britain was the exception in that it had worked closely with the United States during the war to develop the bomb and knew its secrets. The British, however, did not possess the economic resources to embark upon a vast rearmament program that included atomic bombs. The Soviet Union, although struggling to recover from its wartime losses, now occupied vast territories outside its own borders and had several million men under arms. It had pursued its own limited program to develop an atomic bomb throughout the war and was aided by information transmitted from the United States by spies placed deep within the Manhattan Project. The USSR, with its strategic position, wartime conquests, and substantial natural resources, quickly emerged as the second great superpower. Knowing that this position would be guaranteed by an arsenal of atomic bombs, soviet leader Joseph Stalin made development of the new weapon the highest national priority. There was little doubt among American scientists and some political leaders that the Soviets would eventually succeed, although few believed that they would do so before the middle or late s. The United States and the world were therefore surprised when the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb in September . The global balance of power was now clearly divided between East and West. The role of nuclear weapons in the diplomatic and strategic planning of the postwar world grew steadily. Both superpowers threw enormous resources behind the development of larger and more powerful weapons, both fission and fusion. Early atomic bombs were in the – kiloton range, which means that they produced explosions equivalent to , to , tons of conventional explosives like TNT. Very quickly, fission weapons were over  kilotons and fusion or hydrogen weapons were over one megaton, or equivalent to a thousand thousand tons of TNT. By , both nations possessed thermonuclear bombs that were thousands of times more powerful than those dropped on Japan. Scientists were also able to make these weapons smaller and adaptable to different kinds of delivery systems. At first, atomic bombs were developed for delivery by aircraft, but very quickly they were modified for use as warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles, known as ICBMs.

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Military strategy in both countries continued to evolve, largely because of changes in weaponry. Any major war directly between the United States and the Soviet Union would almost certainly mean the use of atomic weapons. The sheer power of such weapons, however, meant that both sides would suffer devastating destruction and loss of life. As both sides built weapons and increased their ability to deliver them accurately, the implications of any direct war between the two superpowers became even more frightening. The United States always maintained that its atomic arsenal was purely defensive and would never be used in a “first strike” against its enemies. The Soviet Union essentially maintained the same posture. Therefore, a strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, evolved, wherein the destructive power of both sides was considered so great that neither side would deliberately seek direct confrontation. One difficultly with MAD, however, lay in the possibility of a “preemptive” strike by either side. Such a move would be a sudden, massive attack with the single purpose of destroying as much of the enemy’s military capability as possible, but in full knowledge of having to absorb a limited retaliatory attack in the process. Such a possibility fueled the continuing arms race until well into the s, largely through the research and development of more effective weapons. Both sides also diversified their delivery systems. The use of missiles was significant, because a single rocket could carry multiple warheads and be fired great distances from silos or off-shore submarines. Consequently, both the United States and USSR evolved military strategies that relied on a “triad” of aircraft, ground-based missiles, and submarine-launched missiles. All these systems delivered nuclear warheads, and by the end of the Cold War both sides had amassed staggering arsenals: in , for example, the U.S. stockpile was approximately , warheads, and the former Soviet Union’s was ,. The total equivalent destructive megatonnage for the United States alone was ,, tons of TNT. In the early s, President Ronald Reagan proposed a defensive concept called the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” a nickname based on the popular film series. Star Wars called for a technologically advanced panoply of earth- and sky-borne devices that could detect and destroy incoming enemy missiles. Circling high above the United States in orbit would be a series of satellite detectors that would spot any unusual or unexpected objects, differentiating between a missile and space debris, for example. Having identified which were enemy warheads, a series of innovative weapons would be unleashed to destroy them. These weapons included, among others, electromagnetic rail guns, powerful lasers, and mines designed to destroy a warhead by releasing thousands of pieces of shrapnel. Even more exotic responses were imagined, such as using small nuclear explosions to generate high-energy X-rays. As imaginative as Star Wars was, it was plagued with both design problems and certain limitations imposed by the technology itself. The system would only work if it correctly identified enemy warheads with sufficient speed and accuracy. In addition, all elements depended upon precise coordination, including the development of a foolproof computer utilizing extremely complex programs. Although some components, like the rail gun, proved quite promising, most other weapons produced only mixed results. There were other problems as well. Theoretically, the Soviets could defeat the system in part by simply firing more and more missiles, many with dummy warheads designed to confuse the detectors. This seemed to insure that at least a small percentage

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of incoming missiles would hit their targets. Perhaps the greatest problem was the simple fact that any large system, with hundreds of complicated, interdependent components, could never be fully tested beforehand. That meant that the only sure test of the system would be during an actual enemy attack when problems or defects could not be corrected. After five or six years, the Star Wars effort began to flounder under disappointing results and increased criticism both from scientists and members of Congress. Opposition gained momentum, and Congress began to reduce funding. By the middle s, the United States had retreated from serious commitment to the program. Fortunately, a renewal of diplomatic efforts during the previous two decades began to pay off and led to a series of arms limitation and reduction treaties. One of the earliest diplomatic successes was the Limited Test Ban Treaty of , which forbade above-ground testing. In , a special telephone/telegraph “hot line” was created between the American president and the Soviet premier as a way of facilitating discussions and forestalling precipitous action. The  Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty required signees to withhold sharing nuclear technology and weapons with nonnuclear nations. The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT I and SALT II) of  and  limited antiballistic missile sites as well as the growth of strategic arms arsenals. The Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) treaty of  actually eliminated some medium-range missiles and introduced on-site inspections. The emergence of a rough parity between the United States and the Soviet Union, as reflected in the MAD doctrine, meant that aggressive actions between the superpowers were more likely to be played out through other nations and with conventional weapons. Historians of the Cold War period believe that the Korean and Vietnam wars were examples of war by proxy, that is, confrontations between East and West that avoided the use of nuclear weapons and involved third-party nations. Atomic energy’s peaceful potential, however, was just as real and far less threatening. Controlled fission, for example, is a source of low-cost energy. Scientists as early as  were able to control the fission process in an arrangement known as an atomic “pile,” or more simply, a reactor. The nature of fission is such that by controlling the process, it is possible to keep a chain reaction just below the level where it moves from “critical” to “supercritical.” This is done by absorbing or impeding neutrons, small uncharged particles that are part of every nucleus and responsible for the fission process. At this level, intense radioactivity and heat are produced. The heat is the key factor in generating power, however, as it is used to turn water into steam, which in turn propels a turbine that generates electricity. Over the years, a variety of reactors have been designed that have as their primary purpose the generation of electricity. Some of these designs have proven to be more efficient and safer than others. In the mid-s, there were over a hundred operating nuclear generating plants in the United States, although they provided less than  percent of the nation’s total electrical output. In contrast, France had embarked several decades earlier on the construction of a national array of reactors that may eventually provide almost  percent of the nation’s electrical needs. Almost all Western countries have one or more reactors, as do many less developed countries, such as North and South Korea, India, Pakistan, and Egypt. There is considerable controversy over the role and efficacy of nuclear power. Proponents point to the fact that once operational, plants generate enormous quantities of

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power at very little cost; in addition, they maintain that these plants operate with far less danger to the environment than conventional plants that use either petroleum or coal and generate sulfur dioxide and other air-borne pollutants. In addition, proponents argue that nuclear energy lessens a nation’s dependency on the importation of oil, gas, and coal. Opponents, however, have equally strong arguments, largely about the short- and long-term safety of nuclear plants. They point to the accidents at Three Mile Island in this country and to Chernobyl in the USSR as examples of what can go wrong. At Three Mile Island, radioactivity was accidentally released into the atmosphere, and although no one was hurt, the incident galvanized public awareness of reactor risks. At Chernobyl, a reactor suffered a disastrous “meltdown,” which caused a nonnuclear explosion that cracked the reactor’s protective steel and concrete casing. Radioactivity at dangerously high levels was suddenly released, which not only heavily contaminated hundreds of square miles in the immediate area but also was carried by winds into Europe and eventually through high-altitude jet streams all over the world. Hundreds have died from the short-term effects of this radiation, and many scientists believe that thousands of others will experience medical problems and shortened lives because of the exposure. Chernobyl remains the worst nuclear accident in history. In general, critics of nuclear energy fear that many, if not all, existing plants represent dangerous technologies, and that the potential for a catastrophic accident, especially in countries with questionable safeguards, is quite high. Another major problem concerns nuclear waste. All reactors, whether designed to generate electricity or to produce material for bombs, generate considerable byproducts. Uranium transmutes into plutonium and a variety of other elements, most of which have what scientists call long radioactive “half-lives.” This means that the radioactivity generated by these elements remains active for long periods, in some cases for hundreds or thousands of years. The problem becomes one of storage and disposal. Radioactive materials can be either solid or liquid; many are corrosive and can be stored only in special containers. At present, there is no fool-proof system for long-term storage, other than the destruction of the material itself. This difficulty has led the federal government to utilize a number of temporary storage measures, many of which pose increasing danger as they age and decay. One long-term plan calls for storage in deep underground vaults where seismic activity poses no earthquake threat. Some scientists have even suggested firing radioactive waste into the sun with rockets, where the material would burn up harmlessly. Critics also argue that nuclear plants are prime targets for terrorists, who could either destroy a reactor and thereby release radioactivity, or steal weapons-grade plutonium and uranium for use in an atomic bomb. This last concern appears to have more relevance today than ever before. There are several major designs for nuclear reactors, but most use uranium as their fuel. Uranium, specifically an isotope called uranium , is utilized because it is comparatively easy to refine from uranium ore. In the reactor, as the fission process continues, the uranium breaks down into several other elements, including plutonium , which is the key ingredient of atomic bombs. And while a rare form of uranium called  can be used in a weapon, plutonium is the inexpensive byproduct of reactor operation that is the most frequently used element in weapons. Indeed, reactor production is the primary means by which plutonium has been produced for this nation’s vast stockpile.

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Over the course of the last  years, a considerable amount of plutonium has been produced as a by-product of reactors. Inevitably, there exists the possibility for loss and theft unless considerable care is taken to safeguard all by-products. The Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty of  specifically calls for technologically advanced nations to withhold sharing both nuclear technology and materials. This agreement has worked to a large extent, but the world community is now faced with controlling ever-increasing quantities of materials like plutonium. Total, authenticated accounting is difficult at best and may ultimately prove impossible. Moreover, the recent breakup of the Soviet Union has raised new concerns that either weapons technology will be sold illegally or that nuclear materials, specifically plutonium, will find their way into the arms market. It is even possible that a weapon itself will become available. And it is also true that nations with existing reactors can turn to the production of weapons-grade plutonium. At various times, for example, both Iraq and North Korea have been suspected of using their reactors to produce plutonium. In the late s, Israel conducted an air strike against Iraq’s nuclear reactor because of the fear that it would be used to produce plutonium for this illegal purpose. Weapons technology is now sufficiently advanced that fission weapons can be broken down into several small components that can be easily transported in a suitcase. This makes them highly desirable as a weapon for terrorists. A small bomb, for example, utilizing less than  pounds of weapons-grade plutonium, would be sufficient to destroy the greater part of any major city. The threat posed by such a device is a real possibility unless all nations with the appropriate technology agree to scrupulous controls. Fortunately, not all the benefits of atomic energy are so dangerous. Many side products of fission, called isotopes, are critical elements in the treatment of human diseases and provide helpful aids to scientific researchers in many different fields, from agriculture to the manufacture of steel. X-rays are universally used in the diagnosis of medical conditions and diseases. Other forms of radiation treat cancers and are widely used in research, development, and manufacturing. Small reactors power satellites in space and propel submarines and aircraft carriers. The social implications of atomic energy are also diverse. The sudden announcement by President Harry S Truman of the atomic bombings of Japan was viewed at the time with almost universal acclaim. Public opinion surveys in  showed an  percent approval rating among Americans; Europeans responded similarly. And most people at the time credited use of the atomic bomb with the final collapse of Japan and the end of the war. There is general agreement today that the bomb saved both American and Japanese lives by forestalling a direct Allied attack on the Japanese home islands. Some critics at the time, however, believed that use of the bomb was unnecessary and immoral. Interestingly, this argument has resurfaced today. Opponents of the bomb argue that Japan was near collapse and point to diplomatic overtures by that nation to negotiate a surrender. Moreover, these critics maintain that the United States was aware of these circumstances but nonetheless insisted on total, unconditional surrender. They also suggest that there was an element of racism toward the Japanese that permeated American considerations. Most historians disagree, however, which suggests that one must study the decision to drop the bomb in the context of the times, not with information or hindsight gained since the war. They point to the massing of both armies and material in Japan itself in

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the spring and summer of  as evidence of that nation’s preparations for defending itself. They also suggest that the fierce fighting in Okinawa, an island close to Japan, is the best evidence of the Japanese will to resist. Over , Japanese were killed in the battle for Okinawa and thousands of others died in suicide “Kamikazi” attacks. And although the numbers vary, a variety of military studies in  predicted total losses for both sides in an assault on Japan to be high, perhaps as many as  million deaths, with an even greater number of wounded. In , however, atomic energy was widely viewed as one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in the history of humankind. Popular reaction was immediate and widespread. The scientists who developed the atomic bomb became overnight heroes. For example, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the laboratory that actually designed the bomb during the war, because a household name and was featured on the cover of Time magazine as the “Father of the Atomic Bomb.” Popular culture instantly absorbed the new weapon into its mainstream. Suddenly, there were Atomic Motels, children’s books on atomic energy, foods and games with atomic motifs, and even a nationwide craze to discover uranium that was reminiscent of the gold rushes of the last century. The famous toy maker, A. C. Gilbert, best known for trains and erector sets, even produced a child’s Geiger counter during the early s. In the United States, a curious cultural and social bifurcation resulted. On the one hand, individuals could clearly see the promise of atomic energy in their lives. It provided life-saving possibilities in medicine and supplied some cities with low-cost electricity. On the other hand, especially with the emergence of the Soviet Union as a nuclear power, people now had to live with the prospect of nuclear annihilation. And the tensions between East and West, which constituted the Cold War, seemed to have no end. No matter how many or what kind of weapons one side possessed, the other side always seemed to catch up. The arms race would continue for nearly half a century and consume perhaps  percent of total government spending on all activities on both sides. Popular culture now had to face the dark side of atomic energy as well. The United States had been spared physical destruction during World War II, and civil defense measures, except rudimentary ones on the East and West coasts, were nonexistent. With the Soviet atomic bomb, however, there was now the possibility of a direct attack. Every major population center and military installation was a potential target. Civilian defense suddenly grew as a serious enterprise. Until the late s, any major nuclear attack by the Soviets would likely be by airplane. This was thought to afford the country as much as  or  hours warning time, sufficient, it was believed, to order hasty exits of all major American cities and military targets. As the means of delivery changed from airplanes to missiles, and the window of warning narrowed from hours to minutes, however, the value of civilian defense lessened considerably. The government undertook to ensure its own survivability. Military command centers were placed deep underground or inside mountains; Congress and key government officials had a similar bunker outside Washington, D.C.; and the means of continuing war after an attack was assured through multiple command structures and elaborate communication systems. The public was left to its own devices. Ironically, it was believed for a while that some significant percentage of the population could survive a nuclear attack. Home and public basements were considered suitable as bomb shelters. The government undertook to store food, water, and medical

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provisions in many public buildings in all urban centers. Children were taught to “duck and cover” at the sound of an air-raid siren. A number of cities conducted annual mock evacuations. Increasing evidence suggested, however, that as weapons grew in number and destructive power, civilian defense activities like evacuations would be chaotic and ineffectual: Los Angeles would inevitably be jammed with escaping cars, and there was simply insufficient transportation available in New York City for all of its residents. The problem of survival is compounded by the radiation effects of a nuclear explosion. Surviving a bomb’s blast would be possible in shelters deep enough underground or in buildings far enough away from Ground Zero, the center of the explosion. But radiation would not only spread over a much larger area but also would linger for weeks, months, even years, affecting the human body, water and food supplies, clothing— essentially everything it touched. Concerns over nuclear war were not limited to the United States. The Soviet Union established its own civilian defense program, complete with the construction of large underground shelters for civilians. All Western European nations had some version of civilian defense, including the Swiss, who built enough protective shelters to accommodate their entire population. Novels and motion pictures of the time capitalized on public fears of nuclear war. Films like On the Beach and Fail Safe portrayed an “end of the world” scenario, as well as the consequences of an “accidental” attack on the Soviet Union. Similar themes were played out in novels like Alas Babylon and WarDay. Despite growing public concern, Americans nonetheless consistently supported government spending on defense. Politicians, in fact, were often able to win election by promising even stronger defense policies. Democrat John F. Kennedy received support in  by alleging, among other things, that the Republicans had permitted a missile “gap” to occur between U.S. and Soviet military arsenals. Twenty years later, Republican Ronald Reagan received strong public support for a renewed defense program, argued largely on the basis that the United States under the Democrats had fallen dangerously behind the Soviets. Support for defense spending became a “litmus test” of sorts for individuals, both public and private. Politicians rarely ran on platforms that encouraged reduced spending or, rarer still, that suggested a major reexamination of defense policy. Time and again, political candidates lost elections when their voting publics believed them to be weak on defense or soft on communism. This unhealthy condition reached its peak during the s when Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy became the most visible symbol of a nation gripped by anti-communist hysteria. He rose quickly to fame by promising to ferret out and reveal communists in all branches of the government, from the State Department to the U.S. Army. His attacks were unfounded, however, and he was eventually discredited and censured by the Senate. His name, however, is linked indelibly to a period of political persecution called McCarthyism. One victim of this time was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the wartime laboratory that had developed the first atomic bombs. Oppenheimer quickly rose to prominence as one of the most influential authorities on atomic energy. He served on a number of important government committees and frequently testified before Congress. During the late s and early s, he questioned whether this country really needed the thermonuclear weapons it appeared resolved to develop. He argued

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that conventional fission weapons could be made as large as required, but, more importantly, that pursuing thermonuclear weapons would only force the Soviets to do the same, thus perpetuating the arms race and bringing the world closer to nuclear confrontation. In , during the height of the McCarthy period, Oppenheimer was brought before a secret board that found him a “security risk.” They removed his access to all classified weapons work, even though he himself was largely responsible for much of their past success. The race for thermonuclear weapons was accelerated, and scientists tried to create an atmosphere of emergency akin to that underlying the original Manhattan Project. The Los Alamos, New Mexico, laboratory, which had developed the first atomic bombs and was working furiously on thermonuclear ones, was considered insufficient, so a second research center was created, Lawrence-Livermore, in California. Edward Teller, director of the new center, like Oppenheimer, had his portrait on the cover of Time. He was billed as the “Father of the H-Bomb.” It took the negotiation of arms reduction treaties between the United States and the USSR finally to slow down the arms race. The process was also helped by the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late s and by an evolution of public attitudes toward atomic energy. Certain aspects were now deeply ingrained in society. Radiation treatment for cancer and other diseases was commonplace; the use of reactors to generate electrical power was widespread. Many of America’s aircraft carriers and submarines were nuclear-powered. Nevertheless, the great promise of atomic energy was now known to be offset by its concomitant dangers. While society readily accepted the use of atomic energy in medicine and industry, it pulled back from building new nuclear power plants and slowly began to assess the legacy of the Cold War. There are still thousands of aging weapons, both in the United States and in the former Soviet Union, more than enough to destroy the world several times over. There are tons of nuclear waste materials waiting for proper disposal. There is a vast military and industrial complex that must somehow transfer its skills and experiences to peaceful purposes. And there is still the need for the nation to remain a strong military power. Perhaps only now, with the end of the Cold War and the emergence of new national priorities, can society more objectively assess what role atomic energy will play in its social, cultural, and economic lives.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam. New York: Simon and Shuster, . Controversial reevaluation of the conventional assumptions, hesitations, and decisions that determined the use of the first atomic bombs against Japan. Boyer, Paul. By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age. New York: Pantheon Books, . Multifaceted study of the role of the atomic bomb in shaping American culture and thought in the late s and early s. Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years. New York: Random House, . Political history of the atomic bomb, from the discovery of fission in  through the s. Campbell, Christopher. Nuclear Weapons Fact Book. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, . Popular illustrated description of nuclear weapons of all nations.

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Clark, Ronald W. The Greatest Power on Earth. New York: Harper & Row, . Narrative on the interplay of science, politics, and technology in the discovery and development of nuclear fission in the th century. Cochran, Thomas B., William M. Arkin, and Milton M. Hoenig. Nuclear Weapons Databook. Vol. . U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company, . Comprehensive study of U.S. nuclear weapons, and their history and diversity, with photographs and tables. Dyson, Freeman. Weapons and Hope. New York: Harper & Row, . Philosophical discussion of nuclear weapons and society. Ehrlich, Paul R., Carl Sagan, Donald Kennedy, and Walter Orr Roberts. The Cold and the Dark: The World after Nuclear War. New York: W. W. Norton, . Groundbreaking discussion of “nuclear winter,” the worldwide collapse of climate and life systems following a nuclear war. Freedman, Lawrence. The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, . History of nuclear strategy and the technological and strategic forces that shaped it. Grodzins, Morton, and Eugene Rabinowitch, eds. The Atomic Age: Articles from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, –. New York: Simon and Shuster, . Collection of articles on a wide variety of topics relating to atomic energy, including weapons, arms control, disarmament, peaceful developments, and international cooperation in nuclear science. Groves, Leslie R. Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project. New York: Harper & Row, . Personal account of the wartime Manhattan Project from the man who directed it. Halperin, Morton H. Nuclear Fallacy: Dispelling the Myth of Nuclear Strategy. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company, . Critical discussion of the role of nuclear weapons and military strategy. Hamblin, Jacob Darwin. Poison in the Well: Radioactive Waste in the Ocean at the Dawn of the Atomic Age. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, . A detailed account of the political and scientific decisions that led to the dumping of nuclear waste into the oceans before the s. Hansen, Chuck. U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History. New York: Orion Books, . Encyclopedic illustrated history of every nuclear warhead built by the United States since . Herken, Gregg. The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, –. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . History of the atomic bomb and postwar diplomacy. Hewlett, Richard G., and Oscar E. Anderson Jr. The New World, /. Vol. . A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, . Most comprehensive history of the government’s role in the development of nuclear weapons, written with access to classified documents. Hewlett, Richard G., and Francis Duncan. Atomic Shield, /. Vol. . A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, . See description above. Holloway, David. The Soviet Union and the Arms Race. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, . Discussion of the Soviet Union, its nuclear weapons program, and its role in the world arms race. Katz, Arthur M. Life after Nuclear War. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company, . Sobering analysis of the physical, economic, and social impacts of a nuclear attack on the United States. Kevles, Daniel J. The Physicists. New York: Vintage Books, . Broad history of prominent scientists in this century, particularly those involved with nuclear physics and weapons.

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Kunetka, James W. City of Fire: Los Alamos and the Atomic Age, –. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, . Readable history of the development of the first atomic bombs at Los Alamos during World War II. Kunetka, James W. Oppenheimer: The Years of Risk. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, . Biography of Robert Oppenheimer, focusing on his wartime directorship of Los Alamos and his subsequent rise and fall from public service. Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon and Shuster, . Popular comprehensive history of the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. Sherwin, Martin J. A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, . History of the diplomatic role of the atomic bomb in World War II. York, Herbert F. The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, . An insider’s history of the development of the first hydrogen bomb and the controversial roles played by Oppenheimer and Teller.

ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION (AEC) The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was the predecessor of today’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It was created in the wake of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, the effects of which demonstrated that nuclear energy needed not only to be developed, but controlled. The AEC legally had absolute control over both the development and use of atomic energy. The AEC was founded in  through the Atomic Energy Act, but it did not officially take control of the atomic energy program until January , . It succeeded the Manhattan Engineer District of the Army Corps of Engineers, which was better known as the Manhattan Project. The commission took over the role the district was assigned during World War II—to develop the atomic bomb for both peaceful and wartime purposes. After the Soviet Union’s first test detonation of an atomic weapon in , the AEC began to concentrate more and more on defense uses of nuclear energy. This continued throughout the years of the Eisenhower presidency in the s, although the AEC’s public image was colored by the agency’s “Atoms for Peace” campaign. This consisted of encouraging industrial partnerships to develop peaceful uses of nuclear energy. In addition, the commission spearheaded the establishment of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency. Under President John F. Kennedy, the commission initiated a plan to reconcentrate the nation’s resources on the most promising of the AEC’s work so far. There was also a limited test ban treaty imposed on nuclear power in . The commission’s last chairperson, James R. Schlesinger, reorganized the AEC and turned its attention to developing hardware, the fast-breeder reactor, and using nuclear materials as an economic resource. Overseen by five commissioners appointed by the president to five-year staggered terms, the AEC’s staff was led by a general manager, who was the group’s chief executive officer. The commission created a decentralized organization and mimicked the army’s traditional use of private research and industrial contractors for its jobs, although they worked in government facilities. The government owned all production facilities and

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reactors, and none of the AEC’s discoveries ever had to go through the national patent system. Abolished in , the AEC yielded its functions to the Energy Research and Development Administration and the NRC.

NUCLEAR FREEZE MOVEMENT In , the nuclear freeze movement began with Randall Forsberg, the director of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, who issued an appeal to both the United States and the Soviet Union calling for an immediate halt to all testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons. (Forsberg’s appeal had its origins in a similar proposal made some  years earlier by the U.S. representative to the Geneva Disarmament Convention, Adrian Fisher.) By , Forsberg’s appeal resulted in the establishment of a nuclear freeze campaign, central to which was the concept that war, in the age of nuclear weapons, could no longer be considered a viable instrument of foreign policy. In addition to the cessation of the production and testing of nuclear weapons, the freeze movement advocated a halt to military intervention in other countries by both the United States and the Soviet Union, a reduction of nuclear stockpiles, and a conversion of military-industry production to peaceful, civilian production projects. In  and , the movement succeeded in influencing the outcome of referendums in  states, whose voters approved the institution of a nuclear freeze. In , the U.S. House of Representatives also passed a resolution calling for a nuclear freeze. A similar Senate resolution was tabled in , but after that time, more than  state legislatures adopted nuclear freeze resolutions, as did hundreds of local councils. Although the nuclear freeze movement was criticized for promoting an overly simplistic solution, it nevertheless struck a chord in citizens throughout the country who embraced and supported the campaign. Nearly  million people demonstrated proof of that widespread support when they turned out in New York’s Central Park during a nuclear freeze campaign rally in . In addition, more than , individual nuclear freeze chapters were organized across the country, along with numerous rallies, workshops, and seminars. Activists made lobbying efforts, as well: the Freeze Voter, a political action committee, was organized to lend support to candidates who were in favor of a nuclear freeze. By , supporters of the nuclear freeze movement had called for legislation aimed at establishing a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, halting missile testing, and canceling the MX program and other weapons systems. Moreover, the campaign sponsored a conference entitled Common Sense Defense Budget, which concluded that real security depended not only on arms control but also on the development of a quality educational system, a productive civilian economy, and a program to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. The nuclear freeze movement has maintained close ties with a variety of other peace organizations and has conducted polls claiming support for the idea of nuclear freeze by more than  percent of the population. Undeniably, the movement has been one of the most successful grassroots organizations for peace in the United States.

christine lunardini

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J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER (1904–1967) Most famous for his close involvement with the development of the atomic bomb, Julius Robert Oppenheimer was also a major influence on the quantum physics of his day. He was director of the prestigious Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) for two decades. Oppenheimer’s brilliant career was marred by government allegations regarding his political affiliations and patriotic loyalty, although his name was later cleared. Oppenheimer was born to a wealthy Jewish family in New York City on April , . His father, an immigrant from Germany, was a successful textile importer, and his mother was a painter. For his early education, Oppenheimer attended New York’s private liberal Ethical Culture School. He did well in all his subjects, but he especially liked math and chemistry. By the time he was , he was the youngest member of the New York Mineralogical Society and had an impressive rock collection. As a freshman at Harvard University in , Oppenheimer took as many classes as he could and spent any free time reading on various subjects in the library. It took him only three years to earn his bachelor’s degree with high honors, by which time he had decided that atomic physics was the field he wanted to pursue. With this in mind, he traveled to England to study at the University of Cambridge in  and the University of Göttingen in Germany in . Oppenheimer received a PhD from the latter school in  after completing his thesis on the quantum theory, the modern theory of matter and electromagnetic radiation and interactions between them. Oppenheimer received a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship for  to , which he chose to use for research at Harvard, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Leiden, and the Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland. When he returned from Europe in , Oppenheimer was very much in demand. Finally he accepted offers from the University of California at Berkeley and Caltech, becoming a member of their teaching faculties. He became such a popular and highly regarded teacher that his students adopted his mannerisms and accompanied him back and forth between the schools. In , Oppenheimer made his first major contribution to physics when he proved that the proton was not the fabled “antielectron” that Paul Dirac had predicted. This opened the way for Carl Anderson to discover the true antielectron, the positron (whose existence Oppenheimer had predicted) in . Three years later, Oppenheimer explained another physics conundrum when he showed how a deuteron (the nucleus of a heavy hydrogen atom) can be accelerated to high energies, while a neutron, an uncharged particle, cannot. In the meantime, Oppenheimer was still studying other subjects that interested him—particularly languages. By , he could read eight of them, including Sanskrit. Also during this period, Oppenheimer helped scientists understand the cascade process, in which a cosmic ray particle makes secondary particles, which produce more secondary particles infinitely, thus creating a “shower” of cosmic rays. While studying the structure of stars in , he hypothesized that when a huge star’s thermonuclear energy runs out, the star will collapse on itself to form a black hole. This is an entity with such incredible gravitational pull that not even light can escape from it. At this point, Oppenheimer formed the center of the first intense study of physics outside Europe. He

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had assembled around him a group of students who would become some of the world’s finest theoretical physicists. Having made an international name for himself as one of the world’s top physicists, Oppenheimer was chosen to direct the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in . He left his teaching posts in California and moved to the lab (a former boys’ boarding school), where the government had assembled the country’s best scientists in a massive effort, known as the Manhattan Project, to make an atomic bomb as quickly as possible. The rush was because there were (erroneous) rumors that Adolf Hitler was on the verge of creating such a weapon and the Allies wanted to beat him to it. At : in the morning of July , , Oppenheimer and hundreds of others watched as the first nuclear bomb went off in White Sands, New Mexico. He was so awed and terrified by the sight of the huge mushroom cloud rising over the desert that a phrase from the ancient Hindu Bhagavad Gita came into his mind: “I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.” However, when senior Los Alamos scientists James Franck and Leo Szilard acted as spokespeople for a group of scientists at the project who wanted the public to see a demonstration of the bomb before it was used on a Japanese city, Oppenheimer rejected the idea. Less than a month later, Japan surrendered after two atomic bombs destroyed the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Meanwhile, despite the superb job he was doing as director of the Los Alamos lab, the government had been investigating Oppenheimer because of allegations that a Russian agent had approached him to try to buy secrets related to the bomb. The government knew that Oppenheimer had not responded but accused him anyway of not reporting the incident. Finally, in , Oppenheimer gave investigators the name of the man who was the alleged agent after the government threatened to fire him. This ruined the other man’s career in the United States, whether the charge was true or not, but Oppenheimer saved his own job for a time. After the war, in , Oppenheimer chose to remain in the government’s employ as chairperson of the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) general advisory committee. Also in , he began working as director of the IAS in Princeton, New Jersey. The following year, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine as the man of the year. Oppenheimer used his professional positions to try to influence the government against developing the hydrogen (fusion) bomb, which is even more powerful than the atomic (fission) bomb, but in , President Harry Truman overruled him. In , after fellow physicist and ardent hydrogen bomb proponent Edward Teller had testified against Oppenheimer to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Committee on House Un-American Activities Committee, the AEC labeled Oppenheimer “not a good security risk” and fired him. This brought an abrupt end to Oppenheimer’s classified access. However, there were officials who strongly opposed this judgment of the physicist, and their efforts to right the situation made Oppenheimer into something of a cause célèbre. As a result, in , the AEC awarded him the Enrico Fermi Award as an attempt to make amends, although the ensuing controversy over the award led Congress to reduce the prize’s cash value by half. Oppenheimer never regained his security clearance. Oppenheimer remained director of the IAS until , when he stepped down and assumed the post of professor there. He kept that position until he died of throat cancer on February , , in New York City. Oppenheimer married in  and had two children. He was known to friends as “Oppie.”

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THREE MILE ISLAND INCIDENT (1979) The near-meltdown at Three Mile Island, a nuclear power facility near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in , caused the American public to rethink the benefits and dangers of nuclear power. The accident began at : a.m. on March , . A complex series of human and mechanical errors caused a reactor at the Metropolitan Edison Company plant on Three Mile Island to begin to tear itself apart and release small whiffs of radioactivity into the air. Because a valve that was supposed to cool the reactor failed, fuel rods were exposed and began to crack open. Water from the stuck valve backed up into a container and overflowed onto the floor. Gases from the water rose to the airconditioning system, which pumped it out into the environment. The reactor fuel rods had come close to a full meltdown. Over the next several days, as pregnant women and children were evacuated, workers inside the plant dumped thousands of gallons of radioactive water into the Susquehanna River. President Jimmy Carter visited the plant, but the fuel rods were cooled, and the crisis essentially ended. Unfortunately, following the release of radioactivity into the air and water, there were reports of retardation in children and unusual numbers of cancers in the surrounding area. Later, these reports were shown to be unfounded, and a health registry established for the area was terminated in . As of April , there were more than , outstanding lawsuits against the company that owns Three Mile Island. It was not until August  that the last radioactive water was removed from the damaged reactor. Inside the reactor, a ton of spent fuel rods damaged in the initial accident remain too dangerous to be touched until at least the year .

mark grossman

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8 The Cold War, ca. 1946–1991

INTRODUCTION The Cold War may be defined as a period of tense, and occasionally hostile, relations between two heavily armed camps: the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies. It began shortly after the end of World War II and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in . Although the two rivals had not enjoyed a pleasant diplomatic relationship before the war, a series of events between  and  brought the reality of the Cold War to the forefront of international affairs. In East-Central Europe, the persistent occupation of the Soviet army, coupled with the blatant political control assumed by Moscow, brought a quick end to the promise of democratic elections agreed to in the Declaration of Liberated Europe (). By , U.S. leaders had to deal with subservient communist governments in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria; by , Czechoslovakia and the nominally independent East Germany were in the Communist bloc. In occupied Germany, squabbling and lack of cooperation among the commanders of the occupation zones developed within months after the end of the war. Those in the western zones came to realize that if the Soviets were allowed to remove an unlimited amount of industrial equipment from their zones, economic recovery would be impossible. Thus, barriers were set up, interzonal communication broke down, and the evolution of West Germany and East Germany as independent countries began. Another dispute arose in the United Nations (UN) over the question of the control of atomic energy. Bernard Baruch, an American delegate, proposed turning over U.S. atomic secrets to an international authority connected with the UN, but not until an arrangement had been made that would provide for the proper control of atomic energy, and not until the permanent members of the UN Security Council had waived their veto power on this issue. The USSR did not agree, asserting that the United States ought to surrender its atomic secrets before any kind of international agreement was signed. The United States found this unacceptable and resumed testing atomic bombs, while the Soviets continued their own development of an atomic weapon. In early , a controversy in Iran was another signal of the coming of the Cold War. The Soviets had stationed troops in Iran during the war to protect Iranian oil fields from the Germans. After the German surrender, the Soviets balked at withdrawing the troops, and it was not until considerable pressure from both the UN and a U.S.-backed Iranian government that Moscow finally removed its forces. President Harry S Truman later said that this incident convinced him and others in Washington that the USSR was not trustworthy.

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Meanwhile, the rhetoric of the Cold War was heating up. In February , Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier, gave a speech in Moscow in which he warned of the inevitability of war between capitalism and communism. This was followed a month later by Winston Churchill’s famous speech at the dedication of Westminster College in Missouri. There the former British prime minister painted a vivid verbal picture of millions of people trapped behind an “iron curtain” that had descended over East-Central Europe. A year after the end of the war, nearly all of the Western European nations were suffering from grave economic problems, which were having an impact on politics. France and Italy had strong indigenous Communist and Socialist parties, which threatened to increase even further their influence by exploiting the economic crisis; Britain, under the socialist policies of the Labour Party, was so beset by economic difficulties that it announced it could no longer lend financial support to Greece and Turkey. This announcement came at a particularly difficult time, as the Greek government was confronting an insurrection by Communist-led rebels, and Turkey was under great pressure from the Soviet Union for free access through Turkish waters to the Mediterranean. In March , a concerned President Truman responded to this crisis by asking Congress for $ million to prop up Greece and Turkey. In what has become known as the Truman Doctrine, he declared that the United States should be ready to support free people threatened by internal subversion or external aggression. Congress, in a fine show of bipartisanship, voted by wide margins to give the president what he wanted, marking the first time the United States had involved itself so deeply in European affairs in a time of official peace. At this time, the Truman Doctrine was limited to Greece and Turkey and to monetary assistance. This would soon change as the Cold War developed. In the summer of , the respected foreign policy journal Foreign Affairs published an article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” in which the author, George Kennan (identified as “Mr. X” in the journal), laid out what became the policy of “containment.” Kennan, a Soviet expert in the State Department, wrote that the United States should contain Soviet expansionism in the hope that eventually the Soviet system would collapse or evolve in such a way as to be more accommodating. As Kennan described it, containment was to be nonmilitary in nature and confined to Europe (and perhaps the Middle East). Although it would, in practice, be much altered from Kennan’s original idea, containment became the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for most of the Cold War era. The first practical application of containment was the Marshall Plan. Named for Secretary of State George Marshall, this was a massive economic aid program designed to spur European economic recovery and, in so doing, remove the threat of communist political ascendancy. Although the Soviet Union and its satellites (as the countries in East-Central Europe were often called) were invited to participate, they chose not to, and Marshall Plan aid went to Western Europe. Between  and , some $. billion was directed to Europe, with Great Britain, France, West Germany, and Italy receiving about $. billion of that amount. The program was remarkably successful and was a major influence in the growth of European economic integration, seen in the Common Market and, later, the European Community. The Soviet response to the Marshall Plan was unexpectedly hostile. In early , when Czechoslovakia indicated its interest in associating with the West, Soviet forces

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moved into Prague and brutally forced the Czechs into line. Western leaders were shocked by the suspicious death of Jan Masaryk, the pro-Western Czech leader. In June , the Soviets blocked land access to Berlin, the jointly occupied former capital of Germany, which lay within the Soviet zone. Rather than forcing a confrontation on land, Truman responded with the Berlin Airlift, in which food, fuel, and medicine needed by the Berliners was delivered by a flotilla of aircraft in a remarkable and inspiring feat of logistics. After  months, the blockade was lifted. The Czech takeover and the Berlin blockade convinced Western leaders that the situation was dangerous enough to warrant a military alliance, and, in April , the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed, consisting of  European nations, the United States, and Canada. Later, other nations joined NATO, and in , the Soviet bloc responded with the Warsaw Pact, a similar kind of alliance. In the fall of , the scene of the Cold War shifted to the Far East with the victory of the Chinese Communist forces under Mao Zedong in a civil war against the pro-Western Nationalist army of Chiang Kai-shek. Although the United States had sent large amounts of aid to the Nationalists, they were simply too corrupt and inefficient to prevail in their struggle with the disciplined Communists and were forced to flee to the island of Formosa. This “loss of China” to the Communists sent shock waves through the U.S. political arena and caused serious difficulties for the Truman administration, which had to take the blame. Less than a year later, the Korean War broke out with Communist North Korea’s invasion of pro-Western South Korea. The North Koreans seemed to represent another act of aggression by the monolithic forces of communism; their action provoked Truman to respond with military force (conveniently done under the UN flag, which was made possible by a Soviet boycott of the UN at that time). The Korean War showed that the military side of the Cold War could be fought in “limited” warfare that need not escalate into World War III; and, in that respect, it was a forerunner to the U.S. war in Vietnam and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The “loss” of China and, to a lesser extent, the Korean War helped fuel a kind of domestic Cold War, in which Americans became stridently patriotic and, at the same time, highly suspicious of the loyalty of their friends and neighbors. Initiated by a wellpublicized Congressional hearing about communist influence in Hollywood, and the investigation of Alger Hiss, a high-ranking State Department official accused of passing secret information to the communists, the nation’s anti-communist fears were exploited by Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, who sought to capitalize on the issue to assure his reelection. McCarthy’s followers believed his assertions that the State Department and much of the rest of the government were infested with communists. The conviction of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in  for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union served only to confirm the fear that McCarthy was exploiting, and their execution in  was generally approved. Popular culture reflected this fear in dozens of anti-communist movies, television shows, magazine articles, and books; and private vigilante groups enforced blacklists on prominent entertainers. By , however, McCarthy had fallen from favor, and the tide of McCarthyism, as the movement was called, began to ebb. One reason for that was the easing of global Cold War fears. The Korean War finally wound down in , the same year that Stalin died and Dwight D. Eisenhower was

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inaugurated as president. The confluence of these events brought a lull to Cold War tensions for a number of years, although Eisenhower’s secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, worked hard to globalize containment by forging military alliances and bilateral security treaties that, by the end of the decade, literally surrounded the Soviet Union and China. In , Cold War tensions rose again as separate events in Germany and the Middle East grabbed headlines. In the Middle East, Western powers had been badly discredited in the wake of the  Suez crisis, in which Britain and France joined with Israel to create a military situation whereby Britain and France could regain control of the Suez Canal. Their plans failed, and the waterway remained under the control of Egypt, whose independent-minded leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, had nationalized it. Nasser, who had steered his country in what was perceived to be a leftist direction since his accession to power in , was representative of a new brand of Middle East leadership that U.S. policy makers saw as a communist threat. Consequently, when Lebanon teetered on the brink of political chaos in , the Eisenhower administration dispatched , troops to show the flag and discourage a possible communist takeover. In Germany, trouble flared again over the status of Berlin. Nikita Khrushchev, who had emerged as the successor to Stalin, announced that he would sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany, which would give the East Germans control over access routes to West Berlin. The United States saw this as a test of Western support of Berlin, and Eisenhower tried to persuade the Soviets to negotiate the Berlin situation. A foreign ministers’ meeting in  deadlocked, and a proposed summit conference between Eisenhower and Khrushchev in  was scuttled when it was revealed that the United States had been regularly using U- planes to carry out surveillance on the USSR. The Berlin crisis simmered for several months until Khrushchev announced the end of  as a deadline for the treaty signing, as well as a major increase in Soviet military spending. The new U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, responded in kind, requesting $. billion more for the U.S. military, and the authority to call up military reserve forces. Frightened Americans built bomb shelters in their back yards and debated the question of whether they would shoot neighbors who tried to force their way in. After some rhetorical bluster on both sides, the crisis suddenly and unexpectedly ended with the building of the Berlin Wall, which physically divided the German city, in August . The Kennedy administration made no significant response to the wall, and tensions eased. In December, Khrushchev announced that there was no need to rush on the Soviet–East German treaty. Meanwhile, another, potentially more serious confrontation was brewing over Cuba. Fidel Castro, a charismatic nationalist leader, had taken control of the Cuban government in  and had quickly formed close relationships with nations in the Communist bloc. In April , a disastrous attempt by U.S.-trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro only served to drive the Cuban leader closer to Moscow. In the summer of , rumors surfaced that Soviet missiles were being placed in Cuba and aimed at targets in the United States. Aerial photographs from U- planes confirmed these rumors, and the administration imposed a naval quarantine, or blockade, on traffic to Cuba. President Kennedy demanded that the missiles in Cuba be removed, and after a few days of great tension, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in return for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba. Both sides recognized that this had, indeed,

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Pictured here at a summit meeting in Vienna, Austria, in June 1961, President John F. Kennedy (on the right) and Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev led their respective countries at the height of the Cold War. (Courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Library.)

been a serious crisis; and by the end of , a “hot line” telephone system linked Washington and Moscow, and a treaty banning the testing of nuclear devices everywhere except underground had been signed. Once again, the Cold War’s tensions abated somewhat, as the United States became embroiled in Vietnam in the s in another exercise of containment through the process of limited war. In the s, President Richard M. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, developed a policy known as “detente” with the Soviet Union, in which each side worked to find those areas (science, culture, trade) in which they could agree and left disputed areas alone. From this period came profitable grain sales for American farmers, joint space missions, and fruitful arms limitations talks. In December , however, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, a country on its southern border, in what appeared to Americans as a clear act of aggression. President Jimmy Carter, taken aback by this turn of events and fearful of growing Soviet influence in the Persian Gulf region, responded by withdrawing SALT II, an arms limitation agreement that had been signed in , from the Senate, which was considering its ratification, suspending grain sales to the Soviet Union, and announcing that the United States

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would boycott the  summer Olympics scheduled to be held in Moscow. None of these actions deterred the Soviet Union from its Afghan adventure, and the situation had not changed when Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in early . Reagan, whose conservative political principles were well-known, immediately took a hard line toward the Soviet Union and communism in general, terming the USSR an “evil empire” and organizing a Nicaraguan exile military force to try to overthrow a pro-Soviet regime that had come to power in Managua in . He increased U.S. military spending, deployed medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe, and continued to be harshly critical of Moscow in his speeches. While some limited progress on arms talks occurred, much of this was obscured by the president’s embrace of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a complex nuclear defense system designed to protect the United States against incoming nuclear missiles. Although most scientists pronounced SDI unworkable, and the press mocked it as “Star Wars,” the administration allocated a great deal of money to research and probably forced the Soviets to reallocate some of their resources. After several years of unstable leadership in Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev assumed power in  and set a new tone for U.S.–Soviet relations. Gorbachev, interested in trying to revive the failing Soviet economy, pulled back on a number of Soviet military initiatives and was much more open in his posture toward the West. Reagan, too, seemed to change his attitude toward the USSR following his reelection in , and, as a consequence, he and Gorbachev had annual summit meetings each year between  and . Out of these meetings evolved a new cordiality between the two superpowers, as well as some practical accomplishments, notably the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) treaty (), in which each side agreed to remove its medium-range missiles from Europe. In addition, Gorbachev terminated the Soviet war in Afghanistan and reduced support for friendly regimes in Cuba, Angola, and Nicaragua. By , Gorbachev’s efforts to restructure the Soviet economy had revealed the fatal weakness of the Soviet system. As the Soviet leader was forced to reduce the size of the Red Army, it became clear that dissident elements in the old satellite countries might at last be able to have their way. With the tacit encouragement of President George H. W. Bush’s administration, reform elements in Poland and Hungary brought about new constitutions. The Berlin Wall was dismantled, and the process of German reunification began; and, with more difficulty, Communist regimes were overturned in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria. In  and , the Soviet Union itself disintegrated into  states, Russia being far and away the largest. In the wake of that trauma, Gorbachev was replaced by Boris Yeltsin as the leader of Russia. Throughout all of this turmoil in the former Soviet bloc, the United States followed a policy that supported the notion of reform and the legitimacy of the new states, including Russia. Without a rival, the United States would no longer be engaged in a Cold War.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY david mayers The term Cold War is loosely applied to identify the era of intensive Soviet–U.S. rivalry. It began as the Anglo-Soviet-U.S. alliance, forged in war against Nazi Germany,

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fell apart between  and . The retreat of Soviet power from Eastern Europe in  and the political implosion of the USSR in  marked the end of the Cold War as popularly defined. In this span of  years, relations between the two great powers alternated between sharp tension and detente. In an analytical sense, three separate Cold Wars can be distinguished. The first began in earnest with the falling out of the victors over the spoils of defeated Germany and Japan, Churchill’s “iron curtain” speech, Stalin’s pronouncement that the world was divided into two irreconcilable camps, the Truman Doctrine, and the Marshall Plan. Following in rapid succession, events afterward strained Soviet– U.S. relations nearly to the point of rupture and war. These included the Berlin crisis in , when a Soviet-imposed blockade of the city threatened to deprive it of access and goods from the West. An Anglo-U.S. airlift and implied resort to war (should the Soviets disrupt the air bridge) successfully countered the Communist action—though Berlin remained for decades a flash point in the East–West contest. Also in , a coup by Czech radicals (with Soviet backing) brought communists to power in Prague. That same year, Yugoslavia bolted from the Soviet fold, sustaining its independence henceforth by economic and security arrangements with the West. A year later, NATO was founded with the express purpose of deterring Soviet aggression against non-communist Europe. In , the Soviets also exploded their first atomic bomb, thereby ending the U.S. monopoly on such weaponry. President Truman responded to Soviet acquisition of the bomb by approving plans that accelerated the arms race: an even more destructive weapon, namely the fusion, or hydrogen, bomb, should be developed. In the Far East, meanwhile, Mao’s triumph in China and alignment with the Soviet Union suggested to observers (on both sides of the ideological divide) that the Asian balance of power had shifted against the United States and its allies. Confirmation of this thesis was said to be evident in the North Korean invasion of South Korea in June . The idea was that Stalin and his Chinese comrades felt so emboldened that they inspired the North Koreans to unify their country on Communist terms; the West presumably was on the defensive and could not respond effectively. In , the first stage of the Cold War began to thaw. Joseph Stalin, who was held responsible by many Americans for causing postwar tensions, died in March. His successor, Georgi Malenkov, charted a “new course” and affirmed the need for Soviet– U.S. coexistence. He emphasized, too, the desirability of increased East–West trade and other types of economic cooperation. In  the Korean War ended in compromise and an armistice—which despite ups and downs since has nevertheless held. The next year, in Geneva, representatives from East and West negotiated a settlement to end the war between the French and nationalist forces in Vietnam. And in , Soviet and U.S. leaders convened the first postwar summit conference, aimed at resolving, or at least discussing, the main problems between them: the division of Germany, the strategic arms race, and Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. Notwithstanding crises in —Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution, and the Suez Crisis—relations between the two powers did not deteriorate appreciably. This condition obtained in part because of Nikita Khrushchev’s anti-Stalin campaign and his embracing of the idea of competitive, but peaceful, coexistence. The second stage of the Cold War started in , when Khrushchev delivered his ultimatum over Berlin. This revived Cold War culminated in , with the Cuban missile

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crisis and near brush with nuclear conflict. Signs of improvement were apparent as early as , when the limited test ban treaty was signed. Thereafter, despite differences between Moscow and Washington over the Vietnam War and the  Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, arms control was an object of Soviet and U.S. concentration. By , Soviet–U.S. detente was under way, its cornerstone being strategic arms control, exemplified by the signing of SALT I by Richard M. Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev. Detente started to fray in the mid-s as critics in both countries charged that the adversary was enjoying unilateral advantages—in Middle East diplomacy, arms production, and maneuvers for influence in Africa and Latin America. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in , the U.S. Senate suspended its deliberation on SALT II, and the treaty went unratified. Detente had become a dead letter and remained so throughout the first Reagan administration. A wheat embargo, the Olympics boycott, an accelerated arms race, and inflated rhetoric were symbols and substance of yet another round of the U.S. Cold War effort. Talk of an “evil empire” everywhere on the offensive, and research on a comprehensive defense shield (SDI) were aspects of U.S. policy in this third stage of the Cold War. Only as the USSR lurched to its demise—first under a reformist government headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, and then in accordance with the logic of a failed economy—did the competitive–cooperative cycle in Soviet– U.S. history cease. A standard question about the first (or classical) stage of the Cold War concerns its origins: Is it properly traced to , when the Americans (along with the French, British, and Japanese) intervened in the Russian civil war on the anti-Bolshevik side? This action was ineffective and feeble. Additionally, it was hobbled by an absence of clear goals or of coordination among the intervening powers—to say nothing of poor cooperation with sundry anti-Bolshevik Russian forces. Still, the Soviet regime concluded—understandably from its viewpoint—that the capitalist West, including the United States, had sought to kill the workers’ revolution in its infancy. In the aftermath of World War I, V. I. Lenin’s Comintern, an organization devoted to the revolutionary transformation of world politics, pitted itself against the liberalism of President Woodrow Wilson and U.S. attempts to reform world politics. In the United States, the postwar Red Scare widened the gulf between the two countries. Formal relations between them were not established until Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in . The Cold War is aptly characterized by Leon Trotsky’s phrase, originally used to describe relations between Bolshevik Russia and Imperial Germany in : “Neither war nor peace.” Beyond this, professional historians have produced three conflicting schools of interpretation. The one best known to American audiences might be labeled the “orthodox.” From this point of view, the USSR bore major responsibility for beginning the Cold War. Contrary to the joint declaration on liberated territories and in defiance of promises made at Yalta, Stalin pursued an aggressive policy in Europe. It started with Soviet domination of Poland and continued in attempts to stir trouble in Greece, Italy, and France through local Communist parties. The Soviets also waged unfriendly diplomacy against Turkey and Iran. By , the Soviets had, with the single exception of Yugoslavia, placed puppet regimes throughout East-Central Europe. Within this zone the liquidation of people who would not comply with Stalinist dictates proceeded apace with the imposition of

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the Soviet version of socialism. Overall, the Soviet Union was militant and aggressive. American policies against the Soviets were essentially reactive, or defensive, as implied in the word “containment.” According to the orthodox analysis, one key to Soviet conduct in the late s was Stalin’s personality, which was usually described as paranoid, willful, and cunning. The ravages of old age, together with the moral corrosiveness of absolute power—and a keen sense of his country’s vulnerability—made Stalin and his government more fearsome and suspicious than any other, at any time in Soviet history. Communist doctrine is also said to have animated Soviet foreign policy. It aimed at world revolution and conquest by Marxist-Leninism. And it was firmly planted under Soviet leadership: the Chinese (and others) could only play a supporting role to the USSR’s lead. Moscow was, and remained to the end, the source of revolutionary ideas and the undisputed head of the proletarian movement. Except for a forceful U.S. response in the late s, Soviet armies would have occupied all of Western Europe right up to the English Channel. Even though the Marshall Plan and the founding of NATO confined Soviet influence in Europe to the poorer areas, the United States was unable to reverse Stalin’s manipulation of so-called free elections in Eastern Europe. There he methodically enthroned his stooges. A Stalinist imperium replaced the Nazi empire in East-Central Europe, and the peoples therein continued to live under a brutal brand of foreign subjugation. A second interpretation of the Cold War, the “revisionist,” is a mirror image of the orthodox. It runs roughly like this: the United States, not the USSR, was mainly responsible for the disintegration of the Grand Alliance. The U.S. government acted on behalf of private capital—investment firms, heavy industry, agro-business conglomerates, and companies engaged in exploiting natural resources. In the war’s aftermath, capitalism’s ambition was to reestablish U.S.–European trade. A revived European economy could absorb surplus U.S. products and capital, thereby staving off in the United States a return to the prewar condition of depression. The U.S. government was also eager to promote an Open Door Policy in Eastern Europe. By penetrating that area economically and politically, the United States could force EastCentral Europe to revert to its earlier status as a zone of exploitation. In future years, in exchange for their raw materials and agricultural goods, the East Europeans could again purchase French, British, and (above all) American finished products. Unfortunately, U.S. preoccupation with avoiding economic dislocation at home— which drove this frantic effort to rehabilitate Europe economically and to make it a dependent partner—grated on Soviet sensibilities; Moscow balked as the United States tried to obtain a position of privilege in East-Central Europe. Such a position would have been extremely trying—geopolitically speaking—for the USSR. By way of analogy, one has only to imagine the uproar in the United States if the Soviet Union (or any other great state) had tried to establish for itself a zone of dominance in Canada or Mexico. Revisionist scholars also stress what can be termed as shabby U.S. treatment of the USSR during World War II. For example, they point out, work on the atomic bomb was strictly a British-U.S. affair. Soviet leaders were never told about this Anglo-American project until after it was an accomplished fact. Nor were the Soviets ever seriously consulted about the weapon’s deployment against the common foe. Not until after the

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experimental explosion at Alamogordo, New Mexico, during the Potsdam Conference (), did a confident Harry Truman inform Stalin of the bomb’s existence. Such remarkable unilateral conduct by the United States was contrary to diplomacy’s most elementary rule: allies, if they are going to remain as such, confer over issues of mutual concern. Were the Americans acting in bad faith by trying to keep the Soviets in the dark? Some revisionists contend that the United States used the atomic bombs against Japan in  for one basic reason: to remind Stalin of the odds facing him should he choose to defy American wishes in the postwar world. To phrase it bluntly, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted the first attempt to press Stalin for concessions in East-Central Europe and was a warning that, after the war, Soviet misconduct (as defined by the West) could be severely punished. Thus, the fateful events of August  are properly understood not as the final act in World War II but as the horrific opening of the Cold War. Another indication of America’s lack of good faith, according to revisionists, is Truman’s abrupt cancellation of Lend-Lease aid to the Soviets just after V-E Day. This event occurred at a time when the USSR was still reeling from the effects of a gruesome war against Germany and was dutifully preparing to join the campaign against Japan. There is also the revisionist slant on the slowness with which the Anglo-Americans opened a second front. While they dabbled about in secondary theaters—in North Africa and Italy—the Soviet Union was bled white and its economy savaged. Did Western leaders, with an eye to the future, ideologically suspicious of the Soviets and economically at odds with them, choose not to relieve German pressure on the Eastern Front until late in the war? To support this thesis, revisionists cite statements by Churchill and Truman suggesting that they were content to see Germany and Russia whack each other to pieces. By the time hostilities ended, the Soviet Union confronted daunting tasks of reconstruction. Drought and famine during  and  in the Ukraine, the disproportionately high number of old people and youngsters in the labor force, and the numerical imbalance between men and women of child-rearing age ( million women versus  million men) were the most visible signs of national plight. Expanses of western Russia and the Ukraine, fought over by German and Soviet armies, were denuded of habitation and agricultural life. Stalin made his subjects salvage these areas, while reestablishing industrial production and repairing the physical foundations of such cities as Leningrad, Kiev, and Stalingrad. This work of restoration had to be shouldered by a population simultaneously grieving for its war dead and improvising for millions more left maimed. Surely, these grim facts of Soviet life in  comforted U.S. policy planners as they contemplated future relations with Moscow. To what degree, and for what Machiavellian reasons, had the Americans delayed the invasion of Europe? To what degree were they satisfied to see the Soviet Union grievously wounded? From consequences— namely Soviet damage sustained and delays in opening the second front—some scholars have ascribed cynical motives to U.S. wartime policy. A third interpretation of the Cold War places postwar Soviet–U.S. rivalry within the context of traditional European power politics. This “postrevisionist” viewpoint attributes fault to both sides. But the allocating of blame and praise is not its primary concern. Most postrevisionists allow that the Cold War was not inevitable. But they also

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make the point that, given the nature of international relations, it is hard to see just how the Cold War might have been avoided. To begin with, say postrevisionists, it must be understood that the Soviet-American wartime partnership was based solely on the mutual desire to defeat Nazi Germany. As such, the alliance was a marriage of convenience. Suspicions rooted in ideological antipathy and historical conflict underlay Washington’s necessary cooperation with Moscow. It could not obviate for the Soviets, no matter how expedient or effective in wartime, instances of Western hostility (that is, Allied intervention during the Russian civil war). Nor could the alliance erase from Western memories examples of Soviet misconduct—be it Comintern meddling in labor organizations or Stalin’s cooperation with Hitler in the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (). Given this unhappy record of prewar relations, it was not surprising that the Grand Alliance collapsed with the end of its raison d’être: defeat of the Axis powers. Further, in the postwar period, the nature of Soviet–American antagonism, previously never a threat to global peace, had altered. Indeed, the international distribution of power had been transformed. The war had devastated Europe, and the local states could no longer maintain the traditional balance of forces. Germany was ruined and occupied. France was politically uncertain and demoralized after long years of Nazi occupation. An enfeebled Great Britain had begun to liquidate its empire. After the war, the Soviet regime, to avoid future disasters, sought assiduously to assure external security. For Stalin, idealistic principles of world peace put forth in the United Nations Charter could not substitute for friendly governments—that is to say Soviet-controlled governments—on Russia’s vulnerable western frontier. During the interwar period, all of the border states had been hostile toward the Soviet Union and some—Hungary and Romania, for example—had cooperated with Hitler in the  invasion. In addition, Stalin was suspicious of the American-designed, universally pretentious collective security system: the United Nations. He viewed it as a mere tool of U.S. diplomacy, in much the way that the League of Nations had previously functioned as an Anglo-French instrument. In the meantime, he forced subservient regimes upon those East-Central European states occupied by the Red Army. Perceived Soviet security needs, requiring specific regional arrangement, resulted hence in a new Communist cordon sanitaire. As for the United States, the Truman administration did not react as decisively or as adroitly to the Grand Alliance’s collapse as Churchill would have liked. Yet by early , the Americans had abandoned the chimera of Soviet–U.S. peacetime partnership and assumed the role traditionally played by Great Britain. Europe’s strategic balance, threatened by the Soviet Union, was maintained by U.S. counterweight. By , then, clashing concepts of security and national interest had displaced wartime hopes for a durable Allied concert. A historically unique, politically symmetrical division of Europe had taken root. The several lesser states on either side of the continental divide coalesced around a power center and adopted—or had imposed on them—its form of social-political organization. Militarization of the bipolar scheme ensued. Confrontation in Europe expanded into Soviet–U.S. rivalry over other parts of the world, notably China, Korea, and the Middle East. To summarize postrevisionism: World War II destroyed the traditional balance of power in Europe. The two extra-European powers, the United States and the Soviet

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Union, filled the resulting power vacuum. They established a new balance of power system marked by clearly delineated spheres of influence and rival alliance systems, NATO and (after ) the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet–U.S. contest, enduring from  to , ended on terms favorable to the West. Yet it would be rash to overlook the vexing problems that beset U.S. Cold War policy. How might they have been better handled? It is fair to say that the premises underlying policy between  and  were sound. The USSR did pose a threat—not an overwhelming one, but a grave one all the same—to U.S. strategic, economic, and political interests in Europe and, to a lesser degree, in Asia. American policy, mixing diplomatic and economic means (notably the Marshall Plan) with military means (such as NATO and the intervention in Korea) prevented the expansion of Soviet influence into vital areas. But U.S. policy also had its defects. Prominent among them was the tendency by Washington policy makers to overestimate the military capabilities of the Soviet Union: there was undue alarm about a potential Soviet march to the English Channel, for example. This concern was understandable, given the rapid demobilization of Western military forces and unpreparedness in the few U.S. units on the Continent in the years immediately after World War II. Nonetheless, as the U.S. embassy in Moscow reported and as common sense should have indicated, the extensive damage inflicted on the Soviet Union during the war had impaired its ability to pursue a militarily aggressive policy. During the German–Soviet war, upwards of  percent of the Soviet population had perished. Some  to  million people had died—to say nothing of those left underfed and inadequately sheltered. The damage done to Soviet agricultural production and industry was also vast. Consequently, Soviet reconstruction was a monumental effort. It and the consolidation of Communist power in East-Central Europe consumed Soviet attention and devoured scarce resources. To ease the manpower shortage in the factories and collective farms, Soviet armed forces were reduced from a wartime high of  million to less than  million by . The surviving force was itself thinly spread from the Soviet Far East to garrisons in Stalin’s recently acquired East-Central European empire. A deeper appreciation of the USSR’s actual strength and of Stalin’s fears about U.S. power—manifest in a superproductive, unscathed economy—could have resulted in more forceful U.S. responses to such issues as German reunification or the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia. Additional problems during this period included the misplaced emphasis by various people (such as Secretary of Defense James Forrestal) on Marxist ideology as a determinant of Soviet foreign policy. During Stalin’s waning years, the Soviet Union was a place of unrelieved terror, but it was not one in which the categories of Marxism mattered. Most true believers, such as Nikolai Bukharin, had perished in that earlier orgy of violence and party purge in the s. In their place stood Stalin, arguably the most ruthless realist in European history, but whatever he was, Stalin and his world view had little to do with Marx. In other words, communist ideology was no longer a source of inspiration for external policy, though it remained a powerful sanction to enforce conformity at home. But none of these items constituted the major flaw with U.S. Cold War policy. Indeed, the chief problem was not of a strategic or tactical nature. Rather, what was disturbing—in retrospect—was Washington’s method of waging the Cold War on the home front and in the popular mind as it listened from abroad.

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Policy was justified by an excessive, ideologically saturated rhetoric. The verbal overkill, as practiced by the executive branch and then adopted by legislators and pundits, gained an independent momentum. It helped create a domestic atmosphere that eventually hobbled policy makers as they sought to advance U.S. interests according to a realistic assessment of international power. In other words, Cold War mythology created political problems for the myth makers and hampered them in achieving their objectives, such as pursuing a policy to weaken Chinese and Soviet commitments to each other in the s. Furthermore, the long-term consequences of selling the Cold War at home helped damage American self-esteem during the Vietnam War disillusionment, thereby contributing to an unhealthy season of doubt in the United States about foreign policy purpose and raising doubts among allies about the steadfastness of people in Washington. Behind the rhetoric used in the period from  through  was the public’s propensity to have its foreign aspirations conform to a moralistic framework, peculiarly understood in the United States. Truman became convinced in the winter of – that a dispassionate analysis of Europe’s vulnerability to the Soviet Union was inadequate. Such an analysis could not persuade Congress (or the public) to support a policy reorientation as significant as that embodied by the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. A January  poll indicated that  percent of the U.S. public thought Stalin could still be trusted. Almost  percent believed the United States was as much to blame for global problems as the Soviet Union. Unless something drastic was done, popular support would lag behind policies aimed against the Soviets. Beginning in March , with the Truman Doctrine speech, the administration publicly equated the policy of checking Soviet power with preventing communist expansion in general. Synonymous as the Soviet Union and communism were in the American mindset, so also were they identified with benighted forces in conflict with the United States. Opposition to Soviet power was justified to the public as necessary if freedom and liberty were to prevail. In effect, U.S. interests were associated with enlightened forces everywhere struggling for democracy. In a world where the stakes were absolute and the enemy’s nefarious designs sharply contrasted with U.S. aims, the Soviet side was dogmatic and tyrannical, the American tolerant and democratic. Moreover, said Truman, U.S. policy should support peoples everywhere that resisted Communist subjugation. Thus was refuted by the earlier alternative wisdom of John Quincy Adams. Adams, who served as both secretary of state and president in the early th century, had warned Americans of his generation against policies of intervention that would subtly corrupt the democratic spirit of the United States or lead it to rely heavily upon the instruments of force. The sensibility of the Monroe Doctrine, which, in , had declared U.S. hegemony in Latin America, won out with Truman. It was writ large and now applied to the world. Similar analyses soon were forthcoming from other officials, who condemned the Soviet adversary as the successor evil to Hitlerite Germany. Meanwhile, they affirmed the American belief that, in Woodrow Wilson’s words, the United States is the “most unselfish nation in history.” In the ensuing debate, critics as diverse as Walter Lippmann, Hans J. Morgenthau, and Henry A. Wallace argued against policies likely either to weaken the United States by overextending its resources or to provoke war with the Soviet Union.

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Lippmann blasted “containment” as a “strategic monstrosity.” Even the influential theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, a staunch supporter of U.S. policy at the time, warned against the willfulness of national pride, blind to the dangers of imperial purpose. Some officials, including George Marshall, Charles E. Bohlen, and George Kennan, also feared difficulties related to Truman’s public explanation of international problems. After all, Marshall communicated to him, wasn’t there too much flamboyant anticommunism in the Truman Doctrine speech The reply came back from Truman that, from all his contacts with the Senate, it was clear that this was the only way (the way of the hard sell) in which enabling legislation could be passed. Thus still-prevalent isolationist sentiments were overcome, as were Congress’s fiscal conservatism and residual American sympathies for the Soviet Union. However, the concerns of the critics proved well-founded. The emotional portrayal of policy combined with three features in postwar America: namely, unfulfilled expectations for global harmony, unanticipated international setbacks, and electoral politics. Together, these elements led to exaggerated fears of internal subversion and betrayal. Primitive thought during the Cold War was not the exclusive province of the Joseph McCarthy wing of the Republican Party; but the Wisconsin senator and his associates were vivid examples of it. By , these members of the GOP, frustrated over years of Democratic rule, allied themselves with southern Democrats to exploit widespread fears and frustrations. America’s foreign setbacks, as exemplified in Berlin and elsewhere in Europe, were attributed by these people to an administration “soft on communism” and infiltrated by Soviet spies and “fellow travelers” (communist sympathizers). The House Committee on Un-American Activities proclaimed in  that all communists within U.S. borders must be rendered politically and economically impotent. In the attempt to purge government of subversive agents, few, if any, Soviet spies were exposed; but slander and innuendo were hurled against a number of public servants and private citizens by sanctimonious politicians, often motivated by personal ambition as much as by devotion to the common good. To a degree, Truman’s domestic policies were influenced by the prevalent anticommunism. The Loyalty Order in , which resulted in the processing of several hundred cases of purported betrayal and bad security risks, was promulgated partly with an eye to the upcoming presidential election and to demonstrate the president’s toughness. A number of competent and dedicated people in the State Department were dismissed—by Truman’s own later admission—“on the flimsiest charges.” These and similar episodes add poignancy to Kennan’s injunction: In the protracted struggle against the Soviet Union, Americans must have courage and self-confidence enough to cling to their own methods and conceptions of human society. Though Truman’s self-survival strategy compromised traditions of fairness and due legal process, his maneuvers did not blunt the fury of enemies eager to discredit his leadership. Unlike the administration’s successful European policy, which thwarted Communist expansion and provided the resources and incentives for recovery, the Far Eastern record was eminently open to criticism. Indeed, few U.S. misadventures have caused greater debate than the “loss of China.” Critics included respectable people like Senators Robert A. Taft and William Knowland, as well as McCarthy. They blamed China’s subjugation by Mao Zedong on the leftist orientation of the State Department and White House. By allegedly “selling out” China, “red” Dean Acheson and his presidential dupe

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had jeopardized U.S. security and peace. Even soldier-statesman George Marshall was vilified and implicated in the “conspiracy” of delivering China to Mao Zedong. Political pressures and popular doubts aroused by McCarthy forced Acheson to undertake a good-will tour of the United States in an attempt to convince his countrymen that he was not corrupt, opposed communism, and did not hire traitors. In large measure, Truman’s support of his secretary prevented his congressional opponents from forcing him to resign. Less prominent officials, though equally innocent, were not as fortunate. Charges of subversion and disloyalty were leveled against most of the China specialists in the Foreign Service. By , only two of more than  such persons possessing hard-earned knowledge of China remained in the government’s employ. At a time when events required sensitivity to Chinese matters, the division of Far Eastern Affairs had been purged of its experts. The people best able to design a wedge to split the Sino-Soviet alliance were simply missing from government councils. In fact, the overall impact of McCarthyism on the Foreign Service was devastating. During the Eisenhower administration (and to his anguish), the internal security system was expanded and became less restrained. Breathless anticommunism encouraged the country to ally itself with some authoritarian regimes whose only virtue was their noisy opposition to communism. The United States was criticized in Europe, among other places, for hypocrisy in supporting undemocratic regimes and was identified with and blamed for their successes. During the protest era of the s, many Americans used this contradiction to heap abuse on the government. In doing so, they obscured this austere truth: a country need not be a paragon of American democratic virtue to be an international partner for the United States. In other words, the philosophical weakness inherent in demonizing enemies and idealizing allies was allowed to work mischief. The truth is simpler: the United States, like any country, has neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies. It merely has interests. This understanding does not allow for the adolescent mentality that sees a world populated only by angels and devils, rather than one inhabited by imperfect, frightened people trying to preserve their security and that of their children. Much domestic controversy could have been avoided had American policy not been phrased in such excessive terms in . Not surprisingly, given the ideological cast of American foreign policy and its crusading impulse during the Cold War, the debate over Vietnam was impassioned. Many critics indulged in a national self-lacerating discussion. They concluded that American history and contemporary society were tainted with an original defect—be it racism or capitalism or sexism—that explained the perpetration of American “crimes” in Vietnam. However exaggerated this reaction to the Vietnam War and unsatisfactory the atonement of sins, there is no doubt that the war prompted widespread dissatisfaction with the scale, behavior, and thrust of U.S. global involvement. In effect, the war destroyed the consensus that had supported foreign policy since . During the s, the principles in the Nixon Doctrine and periodic congressional attempts to withdraw U.S. forces from Europe indicated Washington’s new perception of the public’s capacity to sustain a global involvement. Admittedly, it would not have been easy in  to instruct the public of the virtues of moderation and the necessity of counterbalancing Soviet power. To begin with,

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wartime propaganda depicting the Soviet Union as a heroic fellow democracy would have to be overcome. Yet despite what Acheson and others thought, the public is not so obtuse as to be incapable of appreciating the main lines of international politics. If the public had been coolly informed of the magnitude of the Soviet threat, very likely a general consensus would have emerged anyway to support the policy of containment. American policy, however, should not have been staked to an ideological-moral root susceptible to the vicissitudes of the public mood. This is not to say that the ideological aspect of Soviet–American rivalry could have been ignored, but neither should it have been overly dramatized. There did not, in other words, have to be a call to crusade, a tempting but irresponsible appeal to the religious revival aspects in American political culture. The likelihood that the public would have accepted a policy modestly stated, but one in which the sacrifices were potentially great—such as keeping a military force in Europe and possibly fighting limited wars for limited objectives—and the gains seemingly incremental, was at best problematic. Indeed, for the public to unburden itself of Wilsonian precepts would have been as significant a revolution in American policy thinking as was the decision to participate intimately in the postwar affairs of Europe. Clearly, though, in , Americans accepted a new direction in foreign policy. Perhaps, they could have accepted more. In any case, if a similarly phrased assessment of international problems had been accepted, some of the major difficulties in U.S. Cold War policy would have been avoided. At the minimum, a more serious effort should have been made to educate the public on the nature of international affairs. Generally, Americans have a sophisticated understanding of domestic politics and seek pragmatic solutions to problems. If the international dilemmas in  had been carefully explained and the policy options explored—namely, do nothing, attack the Soviet Union, or strike a balance between bellicosity and peace as the United States did—the public probably still would have supported its patent best interests. To conclude, a necessary contradiction does not exist between a democracy pursuing realistic-pragmatic politics abroad and maintaining its open institutions at home. If leaders are to remain faithful to their special responsibility—maintaining the democratic integrity of the United States—then they must honestly confront the nation with the broad policy choices (while letting people with specialized expertise sort through the complexities of any given policy). The official formulation of America’s international situation in the late s was exaggerated and a disservice to truth. Also, a foreign policy presented as indiscriminately anticommunist clouded the fact that the USSR was the real danger (not some th-century utopian idea) and paved the way for intervention against numerous national revolutions—themselves invariably cloaked by radical rhetoric and symbols, but hardly instruments of Soviet power. Both hostility toward a nationalist revolution and deception of the public culminated in the Vietnam War. By the end of that war, the public had been misled about various wartime activities and goals, thereby helping to bring about an unprecedented lack of popular confidence in U.S. institutions and purpose, which, in turn, meant that a war won on the field and in the air became politically a lost cause.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Acheson, Dean. Present at the Creation. New York: W. W. Norton, . The autobiography of one of the principal architects of early Cold War policy. Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam. New York: Vintage Books, . Argues that the atomic bomb was used on Hiroshima to intimidate the Soviet Union. Belmonte, Laura A. Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, . A study of the ways the Truman and Eisenhower administrations used propaganda idealizing the American family in the arena of the early Cold War. Bohlen, Charles. Witness to History, –. New York: W. W. Norton, . Bohlen, a State Department career officer, was one of the authors of the Marshall Plan and, later, ambassador to the Soviet Union. Carothers, Thomas. In the Name of Democracy: U.S. Policy toward Latin America in the Reagan Years. Berkeley: University of California Press, . A readable account of the Reagan administration’s efforts to fight the Cold War in Latin America. Dobbs, Michael. One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Knopf, . A recent comprehensive study of the Cuban missile crisis. Fischer, Louis. The Road to Yalta: Soviet Foreign Relations, –. New York: Harper & Row, . Blames the Cold War on desires for Soviet expansionism unchecked by Western powers. Gaddis, John Lewis. The United States and the End of the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, . A good survey of the latter years of the Cold War. ———. The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, –. New York: Columbia University Press, . A balanced account, tracing the roots of the Cold War back through World War II. Gardner, Lloyd. Architects of Illusion: Men and Ideas in American Foreign Policy. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, . Gardner concludes that the Cold War was shaped by American policy makers who misunderstood the Soviet Union. George, Alexander, and Richard Smoke. Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, . Important analysis of the impact of nuclear weaponry on foreign policy during the Cold War. Hartman, Andrew. Education and the Cold War. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, . Examines the impact of the Cold War on American education in the mid-th century. Hogan, Michael. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . A basic account of the U.S. economic program to restore Europe’s shattered economies. Hyland, William G. The Cold War Is Over. New York: Random House, . Early study of the end of the Cold War by the editor of Foreign Affairs. Isaacson, Walter, and Evan Thomas. The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. New York: Simon and Schuster, . A collective biographical study of six key Cold War figures: Dean Acheson, Charles Bohlen, Averell Harriman, George Kerman, Robert Lovett, and John McCloy. Kennan, George. Memoirs, –. Boston: Little, Brown, ; and Memoirs: –. New York: Pantheon Books, . Kennan, who formulated the policy of containment, was at the center of early Cold War policy making. LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, –. New York: McGraw-Hill, . Now in its tenth edition, this is a standard and succinct account.

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Leffler, Melvyn. For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War. New York: Hill & Wang, . Comprehensive analysis of the leaders and events of the entire Cold War. ———. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, . Another recent analysis of the origins of the Cold War. Mastny, Vojtech. Russia’s Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism, –. New York: Columbia University Press, . Study of Soviet objectives during both World War II and the postwar years. Mayers, David. George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, . A thorough study of Kennan’s career and thought. McMahon, Robert J. Dean Acheson and the Creation of an American World Order. Dulles, MD: Potomac, . A recent study of a major architect of the Cold War, with emphasis on his work in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in the Korean War. Richmond, Yale. Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, . Discusses the many cultural, educational, and scientific exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Szulc, Tad. The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years. New York: Viking, . Critical study of foreign policy making and policy makers in the Nixon administration. Ulam, Adam. Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, –. nd edition. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, . Basic study of Soviet policy from the Russian Revolution to the s. Williams, William A. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. New York: Dell, . The fundamental revisionist study, attributing most American foreign policy actions to economic motives. Zubek, Vladislav. A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Thorough history of the Cold War from the Soviet perspective.

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS (1962) The Cuban missile crisis is considered one of the most important events of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. The crisis, which occurred in , consisted of a standoff between U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev over the Soviet plan to install nuclear missiles on the island nation of Cuba, just  miles away from Florida. Though Khrushchev ultimately backed down on that aspect of his nuclear armament program, the crisis exposed the vulnerability of the United States to nuclear attack, an unsettling threat from a neighbor in the Americas. The United States and Cuba had grudgingly maintained rocky relations since the U.S. military forced Spain to surrender Cuba at the turn of the th century. Although Cuba was inaugurated as an independent nation, President William McKinley introduced the Platt Amendment, which allowed U.S. intervention in Cuban affairs, in . That legislation was valid until . Since that time, various dictators had run the Cuban government, and the national climate was ripe for revolution. In , Fidel Castro stepped forward to lead that revolution. Castro’s anti-American stance, admiration

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for the successes of Soviet communism, and close geographical proximity to the United States made Cuba under his leadership an able pawn for Khrushchev to wield in the Cold War. Since Cuba was heavily dependent on the U.S. purchase of its sugar to buy oil and other essentials, the Soviet Union began exchanging sugar for oil in . Freed economically of ties to the United States, Castro now saw a distinct advantage to Cuba’s Communist alignment with the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Khrushchev’s ambition to expand communism in the Western Hemisphere found a foothold in the small, revolutionary nation. Their symbiotic relationship progressed through : Castro gained resources to fund his revolution; Khrushchev gained power and a potential offensive battleground in the West. By that point, the Kennedy administration had committed itself to the overthrow of Castro by covert means. The Bay of Pigs invasion, one such attempt to oust Castro from power, was a disaster. On April , , U.S. forces transported about , Cuban dissidents to the island. Trained by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the dissidents’ mission was to instigate an uprising, gain national support, and overthrow Castro. However, the renegade force was quickly quelled by Castro’s military, which caused two crucial effects: Kennedy and the CIA were humiliated, and Cubans pulled together in the wake of the invasion to support Castro. In December , Castro formally declared his conversion to Marxist-Leninist ideology. The nationalization of Cuban communism opened a window of opportunity for the Soviet Union, which desired both the expansion of communist doctrine worldwide and the threat to the United States in its own backyard. The installation of Soviet nuclear warheads in Cuba was carefully considered by Khrushchev and his advisers, several of whom pointed out that U.S. warheads already installed in Turkey could destroy Moscow, Kiev, and other major Soviet cities at any moment. Although it was anticipated that the Kennedy administration would balk at Soviet nuclear arms in Cuba, Khrushchev thought that if the missiles were secretly installed, Kennedy would have no choice but to accept their presence. The Soviet Union began the transport of nuclear ballistic missiles in October . Kennedy received aerial photos of the missiles in transit on October , and after several heated EXCOMM (Executive Committee of the National Security Council) meetings, he imposed a naval quarantine of Cuba. The most dangerous point in the crisis occurred when an American U- reconnaissance plane was shot down over Cuba on October . Although the Kremlin had not ordered the firing, Kennedy weighed different proportional response scenarios in light of the incident. On October , Kennedy and Khrushchev defused the crisis with the following agreement: Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the nuclear arms from Cuba, while the United States declared publicly that it would not attack Cuba and privately withdrew its nuclear arsenal from Turkey. Castro was unaware of those negotiations, which reveals the degree to which Cuba was viewed as a minor player by the Soviet Union. Although the Cuban missile crisis lasted only  days, its repercussions were considerable. Having come closer to nuclear war than ever before, both the United States and the Soviet Union were more cautious about offensive deployment of nuclear arms during the remainder of the Cold War. The crisis also served to expose an American vulnerability to nuclear attack that had not been evident previously. Yet another consequence

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of the Cuban missile crisis was the economic embargo that the United States has imposed on Cuba since .

anne blaschke DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (1890–1969) For almost  years, Dwight D. Eisenhower, as supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces from  to , and president of the United States from  to , played a major role in the events that shaped the th century. Dwight David Eisenhower was born on October , , in Denison, Texas. He was the third born in a family of seven sons. Eisenhower grew up in Abilene, Kansas. After graduating from West Point in , he commanded a tank training school during World War I in Pennsylvania. In , he became army chief of staff Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s administrative assistant. Eisenhower accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines in  and assisted in building up the commonwealth’s defenses until . Lt. Col. Eisenhower attracted considerable public attention in  when the troops he commanded in huge war game maneuvers in Louisiana defeated their opponents through the careful coordination of infantry, tank, and airplane forces. Promoted to brigadier general, Eisenhower returned to Washington after the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor to be the assistant chief of staff to George C. Marshall. In this position, he helped draft the U.S. military’s World War II global strategy, outlined a plan for a cross-English Channel invasion of France, and designed the European theater of operations command that he was appointed to lead in June . As supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in World War II, Eisenhower directed the invasions of North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany. He was not a colorful figure like Gen. George S. Patton or Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. However, his style of firm, calm leadership proved to be ideally suited for welding the disparate forces of the Allies into an efficient military machine capable of accomplishing the largest amphibious invasion in history at Normandy in  and then crushing Nazi Germany. “He has the power of drawing the hearts of men towards him as a magnet attracts the bit of metal. He merely has to smile at you, and you trust him at once,” said General Montgomery in an attempt to explain Eisenhower’s leadership charisma. After Germany’s defeat, Eisenhower oversaw the demobilization of American troops before leaving the service to become president of Columbia University in . In , President Harry Truman appointed Eisenhower supreme commander of NATO, a position he held until his decision to seek the Republican nomination for president in . The immensely popular Eisenhower, nicknamed Ike by reporters, was viewed by the American public as the architect of a peaceful world order and the personification of traditional American goodness. Efforts to embroil Eisenhower in the controversy raging around McCarthyism failed, and he made a brilliant campaign promise to go to Korea and end the fighting there. Eisenhower, with the young, conservative Richard Nixon as his running mate, obtained  electoral votes to his Democratic challenger Adlai Stevenson’s , winning by a plurality of more than  million votes.

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Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in September  but returned to his duties within two months’ time. He ran for reelection in , once again against Stevenson, and won a landslide electoral vote of  to . Eisenhower’s administration is remembered chiefly for its lack of legislative initiatives and calm style of consensus management during a period of national prosperity. Eisenhower believed that most problems would be better solved at the local government level than through programs designed and managed, like those of the New Deal, from Washington. He had campaigned on the promise of cutting back on government—on the size of the budget, on taxes, and on regulation of the nation’s business. Once in office, however, Eisenhower, always a practical man, recognized how popular the New Deal programs were and instead of ending them actually expanded some, such as Social Security benefits. His efforts to eliminate the budget deficit and to end price supports for farm products failed. In Brown v. Board of Education (), the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that integration of the public schools must go forward “with all deliberate speed.” Eisenhower did not believe that a president should publicly approve or disapprove of Supreme Court decisions. Southerners, he said, should be given a chance to adjust to the great social changes integration would entail. The process would have to go ahead slowly. “We have got to have reason and sense and education, and a lot of other developments that go hand and hand in the process—if this process is going to have any real acceptance in the United States.” But mob violence occurred in Little Rock, Arkansas, in  when black children attempted to attend school, and the illegal opposition of the governor of the state to integrating the public schools drove the president to take action. Eisenhower sent more than a thousand paratroopers to Little Rock and federalized , Arkansas National Guardsmen. He also supported the establishment of the Civil Rights Commission. Neither of these actions, however, meant that Eisenhower was making civil rights a priority of his administration. In general, Eisenhower left the issue of civil rights up to the Supreme Court and local authorities. In foreign policy, the Eisenhower years stand out as a period of relative peace. One month after his election in , Eisenhower traveled to Korea and halted the fighting through an uneasy truce with North Korea. For much of his eight-year administration, he avoided stark confrontations with the Soviet Union; he even hoped to improve U.S.– Soviet relations to the point where the two superpowers might contemplate weapons reductions. Nevertheless, Eisenhower could not escape the realities of the Cold War. He relied upon the threatened use of American nuclear weapons to deter Soviet and Communist Chinese aggression. He involved the United States in the affairs of Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American nations in the pursuit of U.S. Cold War objectives. In , Eisenhower committed the United States to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization to protect Southeast Asian nations from Communist attack. This commitment helped to draw the United States ever deeper into the war between the Communists and nonCommunists in Vietnam. In , Eisenhower opposed the invasion of Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel for fear of driving Arab states into the Soviet camp. (This invasion was a response to the Egyptian president Gamal Abdal Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal.) In , having just promulgated the Eisenhower Doctrine, which pledged U.S. aid to any Middle

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Eastern country threatened by international communism, Eisenhower sent , marines to Lebanon to suppress an internal revolt against the U.S.-supported government. Also in , when the Soviet Union shocked America by launching Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, into space, a reluctant Eisenhower authorized America’s entry into the “space race.” Finally, on the island republic of Cuba, located only  miles from Key West, Florida, a corrupt pro-American dictatorship was overthrown by Fidel Castro in . Initial American approval of Castro turned to hostility as he began turning Cuba into a Communist dictatorship. Eisenhower broke diplomatic relations with Cuba just before leaving office in January . For those and other reasons, Eisenhower’s efforts to improve relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were unsuccessful. A hoped-for Paris summit in  was canceled when an American U- spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union and Eisenhower refused to apologize for the incident. The inability to achieve any weapons reductions agreements was Eisenhower’s greatest disappointment. He feared the danger posed by “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” in American life. Popular and beloved by Americans after leaving the White House, Eisenhower retired to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in . Following another serious heart attack in , he concentrated on writing his memoirs, playing golf, hunting, fishing, and painting until his death four years later on March , . The image of Eisenhower as an uninvolved, figurehead president has recently been reconsidered. Revisionist historians have come to view Eisenhower as a quietly activist and extraordinarily shrewd president who projected an air of simplicity, naivete, and simplemindedness in order to pursue his objectives more effectively behind the scenes.

steven g. o’brien KOREAN WAR (1950–1953) U.S. policy toward Korea before  was not a high priority for the State Department and was therefore characterized by misunderstanding and broken promises. After , U.S. policy toward Korea changed from limited defense below the th parallel to reactionary politics caused by fear of expanding communism in Asia. Not until World War II did the United States take a real interest in Korea. President Franklin D. Roosevelt favored a trusteeship in Korea, whereby the United States, Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union would temporarily govern the country until they decided that Korea could govern itself. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April , Korea became a pawn in a power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. Both countries agreed that the th parallel would be the demarcation line for the surrender of Japanese forces. The Soviets would take Korea north of that line, and the United States would do the same south of it. Efforts to reunify Korea diminished during the Cold War when the Communist northern government refused to allow a United Nations commission into its territory.

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In May , the commission held elections in the southern half of Korea, and Syngman Rhee was elected president of the Republic of Korea. The North responded by inaugurating the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea with Kim Il Sung, who had ties to China and the Soviet Union, as its premier. When President Harry Truman began his second term of office on January , , Mao Zedong and the Communists continued to dominate the civil war in China against Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists. Mao also appeared to be taking a more anti-American stance, and in October , Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. By June , the United States had withdrawn its remaining forces from South Korea and left behind the -man Korea Military Advisory Group to train Republic of Korea forces. On January , , Secretary of State Dean Acheson defined the U.S. strategic defense perimeter in Asia as excluding the Korean peninsula. On June , , the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea launched a well-executed surprise invasion of the Republic of Korea. This act initiated the Korean War and dramatically changed U.S. policy toward Korea and all of East Asia. President Truman and Secretary Acheson sought a more pragmatic policy and distanced the United States from China and Korea. Truman’s policy was in accordance with his assessment that the Nationalists in China would fail without massive U.S. military aid; therefore, he announced in January  that the United States would not seek bases on Taiwan, become involved in the Chinese Civil War, or provide further military aid or advice to the Nationalists. The controversial nature of U.S.–East Asia policy was further highlighted when Congress initially failed to pass an appropriations bill for continuing economic assistance to the Republic of Korea. This heightened the perception of an American retreat from Korea following the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces, which had occupied Korea south of the th parallel beginning in September . In early , Washington began to redeploy U.S. combat units, and by early , only the -man Korea Military Advisory Group remained to train and support the Republic of Korea armed forces. Soviet military units also withdrew from the North, but they also left administrative and training cadres. This minimal U.S. military and economic aid signaled diminished American commitment to the Republic of Korea. As Secretary of State Acheson later asserted, “the damage had been done. Without question, the government and the people of the United States wished to end their responsibility for the government and the future of Korea.” In a speech on January , , Acheson did further damage when he implied that Korea and Taiwan were outside the U.S. defensive perimeter in East Asia. Japan was the key regional state for U.S. Far East security. With the U.S. diplomatic and military retreat from Korea and the Sino-Soviet alliance, reunification by force of the Korean peninsula by the Kim Il Sung regime seemed inevitable. The attack by North Korea on June , , tested the U.S. policies toward the Nationalists on Taiwan and South Korea. President Truman authorized a limited commitment of U.S. air and naval units and military equipment to the Republic of Korea and ordered the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to deter a concurrent escalation of fighting between the two Chinas. In addition to its own unilateral actions, the United States forwarded the matter to the United Nations (UN), which condemned the North Korean invasion. The United

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States requested that member states provide military support to assist the South Korean defenders. Since the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council, the UN resolution condemning the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea passed unanimously. Washington then began the process of gaining UN agreement for direct military action by member states under U.S. command. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who conducted a personal reconnaissance to Korea on June –, appraised the situation and recommended direct U.S. military action to stem the invasion. Truman then authorized MacArthur to commit U.S. ground combat forces to defend South Korea. The initial U.S. policy was to stop the invasion and restore the territorial integrity of the Republic of Korea. On July , the UN passed a resolution that called for a multinational effort under General MacArthur’s direction. In September, MacArthur’s Inchon campaign (Operation Chromite) defeated the Korean People’s Army and put UN forces on the offensive. After two months of intense fighting in Korea, the Truman administration was now confronted with the policy issue of whether or not to allow MacArthur to cross the th parallel with ground forces. This action had the potential to trigger direct intervention by either China, Russia, or both. Thus, the decision was that U.S. ground forces would stay south of the th parallel, while South Korean forces could conduct limited operations north of that line. If either Chinese or Russian forces entered the war, MacArthur’s forces were to assume the defensive. The Korean People’s Army, clearly defeated in the South, retreated into North Korea but refused to surrender. On October , South Korean forces entered North Korea against minimal resistance. Gen. MacArthur reorganized the UN forces with the intent of destroying the People’s Army. In early October—avoiding the UN Security Council, as the Soviet Union had ended its boycott of that body—the United States pressed the General Assembly for a resolution to guide follow-up actions. With this new “guidance,” planning began for the occupation of North Korea and a phased program under UN auspices leading to a reunified and democratic Korea. Despite specific warnings from Beijing and growing evidence of a Chinese build-up in Manchuria, U.S. forces entered North Korea on October , . A United Nations Command military victory appeared to be within reach when the People’s Republic of China intervened. Chinese forces began to deploy into North Korea in October. While Washington ordered MacArthur to call for air strikes against Chinese targets for the destruction of the bridges over the Yalu River, President Truman reassessed the situation. Truman was determined not to widen the war, while MacArthur argued the military necessity of hitting targets in Manchuria that supported the Chinese deployment. The growing feud between Truman and MacArthur over how to deal with China culminated with the general’s removal from command in April . The size and initial success of the late-November Chinese intervention changed the complexion of the conflict. United Nations Command forces, after losing Seoul for a second time, finally stopped the Chinese, mounted a major offensive, and were able to restore a defensive line just north of the th parallel. By May , the war had settled into a costly stalemate. The unification by force of the Korean peninsula was no longer possible without expanding the conflict. The Truman administration now was willing to settle for a diplomatic solution and a return

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to the antebellum status quo, and the Soviets and the Chinese were also ready to negotiate. Meetings over a settlement began on July , . However, the negotiations were delayed over the next  months as disagreements over venues, meeting agendas, ceasefire agreements, the exchange of prisoners, withdrawal of foreign forces, the demarcation line, and the widening of the talks to include the Taiwan situation prolonged the complicated negotiations. In the meantime, both sides attempted to display their resolve by continuing limited military actions with significant additional casualties. In December , President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower visited Korea to make his own personal appraisal. Despite additional pressures exerted by the new administration, there was more than six months of bitter fighting before the difficult negotiations succeeded, and the armistice was signed on July , . Critical to the negotiations was Republic of Korea president Syngman Rhee, who opposed a settlement that would leave Korea divided and Chinese troops in North Korea. To secure his support, the Eisenhower administration had to promise substantial additional aid and a postconflict security pact. Rhee was placated, but the armistice that ended the fighting left Korea politically and geographically divided.

spencer c. tucker HARRY TRUMAN (1884–1972) Harry Truman, often referred to as “Give ’em hell Harry” because of his forthright manner, became president of the United States at the tail end of World War II and helped to shape the postwar world. Presiding over the opening events of the Cold War, Truman’s term in office was difficult, and many thought of him as a failure at the time. In retrospect, however, historians and political commentators agree that he may have been one of the nation’s greatest presidents. Born on May , , Truman grew up on a farm near Independence, Missouri. As a young man, he developed a passion for reading history books. He could not afford to attend college and worked at a series of clerical and farm jobs until his National Guard unit was mobilized in . During World War I, he served as an artillery officer in France, rising to the rank of captain. After failing in a clothing store venture in Kansas City in , an army friend, the nephew of political boss Tom Pendergast, persuaded Truman to run for district judge. He was elected but failed to win reelection in . However, with Pendergast’s help, Truman won the race for chief judge of Jackson County in . In , Pendergast, looking for a “man of unimpeachable character and integrity” to restore the image of his political machine, helped Truman win election to the U.S. Senate. Truman was never subservient to Pendergast and voted for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation, which Pendergast opposed. Truman was still viewed with suspicion by the Roosevelt administration, however. When Pendergast was arrested and imprisoned for income tax evasion in , Truman, financially unable to launch an expensive reelection campaign, considered retiring from the Senate. His pride was hurt, however, once it became clear that Roosevelt preferred to support Truman’s opponent, and he decided to wage an unconventional

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reelection campaign. With no money to buy advertising, Truman traveled around the state talking to people wherever he found them. The strategy worked, and he won a narrow reelection victory in . During the campaign, Truman had decided that the rapidly growing defense program the United States was developing was riddled with waste and inefficiency. Upon his return to the Senate, he succeeded in establishing and chairing the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. Throughout the massive spending of World War II, Truman and his committee made headlines by exposing corporations that padded military expense costs. By , when Roosevelt chose him to be his fourth-term running mate, Truman was a respected figure in the Senate. Changing political winds had convinced Roosevelt that he needed a vice presidential running mate in the  election with a far less liberal reputation than Henry A. Wallace, and Truman seemed safe. Truman assumed the office of president after the unexpected death of Roosevelt on April , . He became president during an extraordinarily difficult period, with very little preparation. Roosevelt had not included him in Cabinet or important policy meetings. During his first two years in office, Truman had to confront the immensely difficult tasks of rebuilding the nations ravaged by World War II and containing the powerful appeal of communism. He had to negotiate the future of the U.S. and Soviet presence in Europe and the Middle East with Joseph Stalin, decide whether to use the atomic bomb to end the war with Japan, confront Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, cope with massive labor unrest and postwar inflation in the United States, and deal with a hostile, newly elected Republican Congress. Truman was unable to persuade Congress to agree to wage and price controls after World War II ended, and, as he had predicted, prices soared. Organized labor responded by seeking wage increases. By the end of , millions of workers were on strike. Truman attempted to use the influence of the White House to help negotiate settlements in the railroad and coal-mining industries. When his efforts failed, he threatened to use the army to run the trains, pressuring the strikers back to work after only a few days, and obtained an injunction to prevent the coal miners from striking. Truman refused, however, to be labeled antiunion and vetoed the antilabor Case Bill in . When the Republicans won control of Congress in the  elections, they passed the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to curtail the power of organized labor, over Truman’s veto. Truman was in an awkward political position in . He was viewed as antilabor by unions and antibusiness by executives because of his support of wage and price controls. He was also unpopular in the South because he favored civil rights legislation and in the Northeast because of his unsophisticated demeanor. In addition, deteriorating conditions in the war-ravaged world seemed to be undoing all that Americans thought World War II had won. Western Europe was impoverished, Eastern Europe had fallen under the Soviet Union’s domination, the Communists were winning the civil war in China, and the conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine was outstripping the British ability to control it. Truman wrote, “Charlie Ross [Charles G. Ross, Truman’s press secretary] said I’d shown that I’d rather be right than President, and I told him I’d rather be anything than President.” Truman refused to accept the negative judgment of his critics. Stymied on the domestic front, he moved boldly in the international arena to contain communism. The

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Truman Doctrine of , precipitated by a civil war in Greece between communists and noncommunists, declared the determination of the United States to use its military might to contain communism and fight communist insurgencies in every corner of the world. Among the many programs Truman initiated through bipartisan foreign policy support in Congress were the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. U.S. forces also protected the defeated Nationalist Chinese forces on the island of Formosa (Taiwan). Unable to secure civil rights legislation in Congress, Truman used his office to publicize the issue and, through executive action, to order the integration of the armed forces. (It was only in the Korean War, however, that integration of the armed forces was achieved.) His actions caused a revolt in his own party. The southern wing refused to endorse his reelection in  and ran its own candidate, Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, for president as a states’ rights “Dixiecrat.” With his own party split and the Republicans united behind a confident moderate candidate, New York governor Thomas E. Dewey, Truman’s election defeat in  seemed certain to everyone but Truman. Running against what he labeled the “donothing” Republican Congress, Truman ran a vigorous campaign. He traveled across the nation and spoke to people from the back of his presidential campaign train. The result was a narrow election victory and a stunning political upset. He defeated Dewey  electoral votes to . Thurmond received  electoral votes. Truman’s second term was dominated by a period of mass hysteria over communist spies and infiltrators in America and by the Korean War. Truman did not support the questionable “witch hunt” activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee, or Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, but he was unable to prevent their excesses. He vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Act of , which required all communists to register with the Justice Department; provided for the deportation of any alien who had ever been a communist; and prohibited the employment of communists or their supporters in positions relating to national defense. Congress passed it anyway. When North Korean forces invaded South Korea in , Truman, without obtaining a declaration of war from Congress, ordered U.S. forces to the area before the United Nations (UN) voted to halt the aggression. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was placed in overall command of UN forces and succeeded in driving the North Koreans out of South Korea. Truman then authorized him to pursue North Korean forces up to the Yalu River border with China. MacArthur was sure Chinese troops would not intervene and that Korea would be liberated by Christmas. Instead, half a million Chinese troops entered North Korea, and UN troops were put on the defensive. MacArthur demanded the right to launch air strikes at enemy supply bases in China. Truman refused, fearful of provoking Soviet intervention and a third world war. MacArthur publicly criticized Truman’s decision in  and was ordered by Truman not to discuss the subject with reporters. When Republican minority leader Joseph W. Martin made public a letter from MacArthur in which he again criticized Truman in public, an infuriated Truman accepted the political consequences of his extremely unpopular action and relieved MacArthur of command. Truman was booed at the opening game of the  baseball season in Washington. Having a favorable job rating of only  percent in the polls and plagued by charges of

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corruption in government due to the actions of friends he had trusted, Truman decided not to run for reelection in . He subsequently was snubbed by the newly elected Dwight D. Eisenhower during his inauguration ceremony and judged a failure as president by contemporaries. The day Truman left Washington to return to his home in Independence, Missouri, he wrote to his daughter: “There is an epitaph in Boot Hill cemetery in Arizona which reads, ‘Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest! What more can a person do?’ Well, that’s all I could do. I did my damnedest, and that’s all there was to it!” Truman spent the last two decades of his life writing his memoirs, establishing the Truman Library, and traveling. He continued to offer his “plain talk” solutions to important issues until his death on December , . Truman’s reputation began to improve during the eight years of the boring and allegedly ineffectual Eisenhower administration. By  and the return of the Democrats to the White House, his reputation was intact. Truman has been subjected to a second round of criticism since then, however, largely over his handling of communism abroad and at home. Some scholars think that his limited understanding of international relations and his blunt, untutored style of diplomacy hurt U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and hastened the outbreak of the Cold War. Also, the Truman Doctrine is seen by some scholars as a misunderstanding and misapplication of George F. Kennan’s strategy of containment and the cause of many costly and ill-considered U.S. interventions overseas, culminating in the Vietnam War. Finally, historians of the anticommunist hysteria at home locate its roots not in the actions of Senator McCarthy but in those of Truman, with his containment doctrine and his demand that all government employees sign loyalty oaths. Historians continue to be impressed, however, with Truman’s success in consolidating the gains of the New Deal (protecting labor’s right to organize; guaranteeing welfare for the poor, the aged, and the disabled) and his efforts to extend the principles of the New Deal with his own proposal—the Fair Deal—for liberal reforms. Moreover, his combination of vast military expenditures abroad and significant outlays for social welfare at home (“guns and butter”) became the Keynesian (after English economist John Maynard Keynes) formula—government expenditures to stimulate consumer purchasing power—on which a generation of Democratic politicians and presidents (John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson) staked their political success.

steven g. o’brien U-2 INCIDENT (1960) On May , , a Lockheed U- American reconnaissance plane was shot down while flying over Soviet territory. The incident brought an end to plans for a summit meeting between U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and intensified Cold War tensions. The United States originally claimed that the plane was a weather plane. On May , however, officials conceded that the flight had been part of an espionage mission after the Soviets produced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers (who had miraculously survived), his confession of espionage, and the photographs he had taken of Soviet military installations.

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Eisenhower accepted responsibility for the flights but refused to apologize to Khrushchev at a summit meeting held in Paris in mid-May. Khrushchev stormed out of the meeting. The U.S. government suspended all future U- flights, and Powers was returned to the United States after serving  years of a -year sentence in a Soviet prison. The Soviet Union traded him for a high-ranking Soviet spy held by the United States.

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9 The Rise of Television, ca. 1948–2010

INTRODUCTION Experimentation with the wireless transmission of pictures began in both the United States and Great Britain in the s, shortly after radio, or the wireless transmission of sound, became commercially feasible. The development of television, as it was called from the beginning, was slowed by the economic depression of the s, but the British public was able to see the  coronation of King George VI on television and could enjoy regular commercial programming by . In the United States, the development of television was somewhat slower, perhaps because of the continuing success of radio and the fact that the producers of radio shows were also involved in the development of television. Television was promoted at the  New York World’s Fair, where the opening ceremonies were telecast; and the first sets were sold to the public that year. However, there was little to watch. A college baseball game was shown that summer; but with only one camera, situated along the third base line, viewers missed most of the action. Other programs included fashion shows, wrestling and boxing matches, and planes landing at the local airport. World War II virtually halted the further development of commercial television, but the late s saw a spectacular explosion of the business. Americans bought , sets in , and, as television stations were established in more cities, sales went up to , in  and  million in . By , some  million television sets were in use, and well over  percent of American families had become television viewers. By , there were more than  stations on the air, and transmission problems were occurring because of crowding on the Very High Frequency (VHF) band (channels  through ) allotted to television, which caused stations to interfere with one another’s signals. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency responsible for regulating broadcasting, put a four-year freeze on the issuance of new licenses for stations until the development of stations on the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band (channels  through ) could take place. However, stations that received licenses to broadcast on the UHF band were at a distinct disadvantage, as most receivers were not capable of tuning them in without a special attachment, and because the picture quality was generally inferior. As a consequence, the major networks dominated the VHF band, while smaller, independent stations and educational stations were relegated to the higher channel numbers.

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The popularity of television rocketed in the 1950s, and a family gathered around the TV set became a staple of American culture, as this 1958 photograph shows. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

Despite the fact that Technicolor had invaded Hollywood during the s, all commercial television before  was in black and white. The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), one of the large radio networks that had moved quickly into television, developed a method of broadcasting programs in color of excellent quality soon after the war, but its system was incompatible with existing television sets. Meanwhile, Radio Corporation of America (RCA), a major rival of CBS, developed its own version of color broadcasting that could be received by existing sets, but the quality of the image was poor. The FCC approved the RCA system, but it took more than a decade for the system to be improved enough to appeal to consumers. Initially, television promoters hoped that television, with its superior technology, could result in a great cultural uplifting of the American public. But they were crushingly disappointed; Americans were not much interested in watching culturally uplifting shows, and if they would not watch, sponsors would not be willing to underwrite the cost of the shows. It was not long before television adopted the programming format successfully used on radio, with -, -, or -minute blocks of time featuring drama, mystery, comedy, western, and variety shows. It was simply radio with pictures. Apart from a few shows presenting original dramatic productions of high quality, most

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programs appealed to popular taste and shied away from any material that was intellectually challenging or controversial. Alternative, public noncommercial television began as National Educational Television (NET) in , funded by a combination of government money, corporate grants, and private donations. In , Congress created the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), a national network of educational television stations, but only a tiny fraction of viewers— or  percent—regularly watch its programs. Cable television, sometimes called community antenna television (CATV), was created in the s to bring television reception to rural areas located far from cities. By the s, CATV began to be seen as an opportunity for additional stations to come on the air and give viewers more choices. The FCC was reluctant to sanction the use of CATV in this way, for fear of ruining UHF stations economically. In , however, the commission allowed satellites to serve cable television operators. Cable service to consumers began in  and proved very effective in delivering a wide range of stations and improved reception to those who had a satellite “dish.” Later, service became available in many locations by the installation of a cable to anyone with a television receiver. In , CATV served only . percent of sets; this figure steadily increased to  percent in . Another invention, the video cassette recorder (VCR), introduced in the late s, gave viewers new options of recording their favorite shows to see at a more convenient time or renting Video Home System (VHS) tapes of prerecorded movies or other features, such as aerobic exercise routines. Despite the fact that by , about  percent of television owners also had a VCR, there is no evidence that VCRs have made significant inroads into the popularity of regular television broadcasting, although the combination of cable television and VCRs has reduced the dominance of network television. In , the digital video recorder (DVR) was invented, and it was first available to American consumers in , playing a DVD (digital video disc) was the same size as a compact disc (CD), first introduced for audio use in . The advantage of the DVD was that it was smaller but had a far greater capacity and higher quality than the VHS tape it was designed to replace. Sales and rentals of DVDs first surpassed VHS tapes in . The film industry has had an uneasy relationship with television over the years. In the late s, television contributed to the decline in the frequency with which people attended the movies, although labor problems, the end of the studios’ dominance of theater chains, and revelations about communist influence in the industry were also factors. Many in Hollywood ignored television, thinking it to be little more than a cute toy showing nothing but bad comedians and dreadful films from the s. Moreover, the movies had survived radio. Some movie producers experimented with “theater television,” in which television shows were shown on movie screens in theaters—a kind of early “pay-TV.” But the costs were high, audiences were small, and the experiment was soon abandoned. Some studios attempted to buy television stations or even networks, such as ABC or Dumont, two smaller operations that were struggling to compete with CBS and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), owned by RCA. But none was able to work out a deal, and the FCC was unsympathetic, generally favoring those individuals with radio experience in its granting of licenses. Partly as a consequence of not being able to join the television industry, some major movie studios decided to fight television by refusing to sell the rights to better films, to use their facilities for television production, or to

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allow their stars to appear on television (unless it was to promote their latest films). By the s, however, the studios had relented, finding greater profit in selling, for everincreasing fees, the rights to broadcast recent movies on television. The s saw the high point of television’s dominance over American culture. Despite the ban on tobacco advertising in , revenues from television commercials reached all-time highs; increased advertising fees ended the practice, originated with radio, of a program having just one sponsor. The success of network television led to new departures in programming, with an emphasis on political and social relevancy. This was seen in shows such as All in the Family, featuring a bigoted white male as head of the family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, about an unmarried career woman, and M*A*S*H, a socially relevant comedy set in the Korean War. As Hollywood fi lms began to be more sexually explicit, television responded with shows such as Charlie’s Angels, ostensibly a detective show but clearly designed to reveal the physical attributes of its three attractive lead actresses. The sometimes controversial subject matter of shows like these caused the FCC to declare the first hour of the evening as “family viewing hour” in . In , however, the courts declared the FCC decision to be a violation of the networks’ First Amendment rights. Nevertheless, the networks moved their more explicit shows to later prime-time slots. By the early s, competition from independent stations and cable pushed the networks into a further programming shift, featuring harder, more realistic dramatic shows, such as Hill Street Blues, about daily life in an urban police precinct, and stronger comedies, such as The Cosby Show, starring the African American comedian, Bill Cosby, as the head of a middle-class family, and Cheers, set in a convivial Boston bar. These well-written, popular shows were accompanied in the s by a general relaxation of traditional taboos on sex and violence, both in series shows and in made-fortelevision movies. Since its inception, television has also been an important influence in the world of news and current events. In its earliest days, television producers filled up unsold air time with live broadcasts of news events, such as sessions of the United Nations. The congressional investigations of Estes Kefauver into organized crime in  and of Joseph McCarthy into communism in the army in  achieved much more notoriety for the two senators by virtue of being telecast. Coverage of national political conventions, campaigns, and elections began in ; a televised speech in  by Republican vice presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon, defending himself against allegations that he had misused campaign funds, saved his place on the ticket and, in all probability, his political career. In the s, with the advent of more portable cameras and satellite transmission, television began to witness historical events and bring them live to America’s viewers. Network television news departments covered the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in , the events of the civil rights movement of the s, and much of the tragedy of the Vietnam War. In , noted newscaster Walter Cronkite’s on-air declaration that the war was a terrible mistake had a significant effect on public opinion about the war. Similarly, revelations during the televised Watergate hearings in  about what President Richard M. Nixon and his chief aides knew about that scandal helped create the public attitudes that brought on Nixon’s resignation the following year.

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In , the news program  Minutes was launched, featuring the investigative reporting of Mike Wallace and a number of other notable CBS television journalists. A television “magazine,”  Minutes was given a prime-time slot following professional football on Sunday evenings; for more than  years, it has been among the most popular programs on the air. In recent years, it has spawned a number of imitators, further attesting to its appeal. Sport has long been an important element in American popular culture, and the th century has seen increasing emphasis on spectator sports—a phenomenon made for television. Virtually every sport has been televised at one time or another; indeed, there are cable television channels that are devoted entirely to sports programming. Some sports, in particular, have benefited greatly from television. Professional football is easier (and more comfortable) to watch on television than at a stadium, especially since the introduction of videotaped “instant replay” in ; and, as a consequence, football now rivals baseball as the most popular sport in the United States. The telecasting of tennis and golf greatly enhanced the popularity of those sports, not so much because they provide good television action, but, rather, because television has brought to the public some very appealing heroes from these sports, like Chris Evert and Arnold Palmer. Perhaps even more importantly, television has injected a massive financial input into sport through the fees paid by the networks for the rights to broadcast games, tournaments, or matches. The escalation of these fees has been staggering in the last  years and has led to huge increases in player salaries or prizes, depending on the sport, as well as substantial expansion of those sports where there is league play, such as professional baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. In return, the networks have demanded changes in the way games are played. For instance, important contests like baseball’s World Series are now played mostly at night, and “television time-out” has become standard in football and basketball games to increase the number of commercials that can be aired. All of this has pushed sport, both financially and artistically, in the direction of pure entertainment. Over the last  years, television has moved from the status of a toy with a flickering image to a powerful and influential communications medium that commands an important place in the lives of most Americans. As early as , surveys showed that the average American watched television  hours per week. Over the years, with the introduction of computers and other electronic devices, that figure has declined, but not by much. Although technology will continue to change the way television functions in our lives, moving most recently into interactive and -D modes, it is clear that the development and diffusion of television have been an event of great significance in the th century.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY james e. st. clair As the end of the first decade of the st century neared, it was apparent that television, although clearly facing challenges in the age of the Internet, still had a firm hold on the allegiance of Americans. According to the Nielsen Company, which has been

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has been tracking the TV viewing habits of the country since , watching television continues to be the nation’s premier preoccupation, aided in part by such innovations as the digital video recorder and the conversion to high-definition television, making possible sharper, clearer pictures delivered to -inch flat-panel TVs. Of course, digital delivery by either cable or satellite has resulted in more channels and more choices of program than ever before. In addition to the high-quality digital sound, interactivity, and other advanced digital features viewers now enjoy, the dawn of -D TV sets is fast approaching. These high-tech developments have helped keep Americans, who on average watch about  hours of television a week and  hours of timeshifting with DVRs, tuned in. Nielsen has also discovered that the Internet and mobile devices like smart phones, rather than diverting time and attention away from television, as originally thought, actually have helped in expanding TV’s reach and grip. In what has been called the water-cooler effect, the simultaneous viewing of television while sending text messages through blogs and social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to others watching the same things has opened the door to a virtual living room of cyber-chatter. According to Nielsen, nearly  percent of TV viewers use the Internet once a month while also watching TV. This enhancement of the television experience, in part, explains some recent eye-popping audience numbers for big TV events like the Super Bowl, Oscars, Grammys, and the  Vancouver Winter Olympics. The  Super Bowl, for example, drew an audience of . million, eclipsing the  final episode of M*A*S*H to become the most-watched program in U.S. history. The year’s Academy Awards telecast drew an estimated . million viewers, a  percent increase over the previous year, and its biggest TV audience in five years. The cross-pollination of the Internet and television has given rise, among other developments, to the Web site Hulu, a joint venture of NBC, Fox, and ABC that provides free online access to hit TV shows such as Glee, as well as vintage shows and movies, with only a few commercial interruptions. The next big blending of TV and the Web may be from Google, the search-engine sensation and the world’s largest Internet company. The plan is to provide PC-style access to television through a set-top box, which would allow users to easily switch from watching their favorite TV shows to surfing the Web on their gigantic plasma TVs. Google, which became a multibillion dollar colossus by perfecting the concept of keyword search advertising, is most likely out to stake out a claim in the fertile field of TV advertising. Whatever Google ultimately develops, it will be another link in the long chain of technological innovations that can be traced to a -year-old Idaho farm boy and math whiz named Philo T. Farnsworth, who, as legend has it, had been ruminating about how to send pictures through the airwaves. His eureka moment came when he was plowing a field and “realized an image could be scanned by electrons the same way: row by horizontal row” (reported in an article by Frazier Moore in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August , , C). By , Farnsworth, still just barely out of his teens, had developed his idea to the point where he was able to transmit his first image, a simple straight line, to a receiver. A year later, in a demonstration for his financial backers, who had been asking when they were going to see a return on their investments, Farnsworth transmitted a dollar sign. His selection of this graphic, while adding a bit of levity to the proceedings, could not have been more appropriate, because in the coming years the symbol of

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money best represented the television industry in the United States. Commercial television, since its beginnings in the mid-th century, proved to be such an extraordinary money-making machine that media magnate Lord Thomson once equated owning a television station with having a license to print money. Television’s mint-like status has long stemmed from its unmatched ability to attract and sustain audiences for advertisers, who spend upwards of $ billion annually on national and local TV to sell their goods and services. No other merchandising method is as efficient in reaching out and touching the more than  million U.S. homes every day. Television wins hands down compared to other media in terms of the advertising industry’s standard gauge of wise spending, known as CPM (cost per thousand), or how much money it takes to reach one thousand people. Because of television’s potential to influence the public’s buying habits, it changed the way mass consumer products such as cars, soap, chewing gum, toilet paper, bug spray, soft drinks, and beer are sold in this country. Of course, television changed much more. Practically overnight, television revolutionized the way Americans, starting in the late s, used their free time. As soon as a station signed on in a city, people spent less time going to movies, eating out, frequenting the corner bar, checking books out of the library, and listening to the radio. By demonstrating early in its history that it had the magnetic power to draw hordes of people to a flickering screen and the hypnotic power to keep them there for hours, television’s primary function as mass merchant was all but sealed. It took a tiny lipstick company named Hazel Bishop to show corporate American what could be done by exploiting such a captive audience. When it began using TV commercials in , Hazel Bishop had been generating only $, in annual sales. In two years, company sales rocketed to $. million a year and continued skyward. This happened at a time when television was available in only  percent of American households; in  its reach was nearly complete at  percent. The Hazel Bishop story caused a stampede to television, as other companies, hoping to duplicate such astonishing growth, clamored to buy TV commercials. As media critic Ben H. Bagdikian has observed, “Television was never the same thereafter” (Bagdikian, , p. ). TV networks, trying to coral all the business suddenly surging their way, ended the practice of single-sponsor programs. More money was to be made by carving up commercial time into shorter spots that could be sold to many advertisers. This change not only ushered in a golden age of profitability for the industry, it also profoundly affected what was shown on commercial television. According to Bagdikian, networks began developing new programs that created a “buying mood” for the -second, or shorter, commercials, which are laden with emotional appeal but contain little product information. Thus, most programs inconsistent with the happily-ever-after pitch of commercials—drama and documentaries, for example—were ditched. In their place came fantasy and lighthearted fare that blended in perfectly with the sponsors’ promises of brighter teeth, spotless commodes, no more ring around the collar, and sweet-smelling armpits. Naturally, not all serious programming disappeared from network television, but the race was on to develop and air shows that would draw the largest audiences for advertisers. Ratings, or how many viewers tune in, became the litmus test for most programs, even news and public affairs, because the bigger the audience the higher the charge to

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advertisers. For example, corporations were willing to pay CBS nearly $ million each for  seconds of commercial time during the  Super Bowl so they could get their messages before an audience of more than  million. Out of this obsession for ratings and wealth, the big three networks, NBC, CBS and ABC, engaged in a practice known as Least Objectionable Programming (LOP), meaning that what a broadcaster aired did not necessarily have to be good, just less objectionable than other shows on at the same time. LOP capitalized on the knowledge that Americans just watched television regardless of what was on, simplifying matters for the networks, which had no competition from cable or satellite at the time. Later, networks changed to a more nuanced approach to programming, realizing that they could charge higher rates for advertising by creating programs that targeted audiences who were more affluent and thus had the means to buy the products and services advertised. As the era of televised news and entertainment was just getting under way, the distinguished broadcast journalist, Edward R. Murrow, who had risen to fame for his reporting on CBS radio prior to and after America’s entry into World War II, had high hopes for this new medium of communication. When his news and public affairs program, See It Now, signed on in late , Murrow said he was impressed by the potential of the new medium and hoped that he and others would learn to use it and not abuse it. He believed television had the power to teach, illuminate, and even inspire its viewers. Less than ten years later, though, Murrow spoke to the Radio and Television Directors Association (a scene faithfully recreated in the award-winning film Good Night and Good Luck) and concluded that television had not lived up to its promise. He said if future historians reviewed surviving reproductions of one week of programming on all three networks, “they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live” (Good Night and Good Luck: The Screenplay and History behind the Landmark Movie by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, , p. ). Not long after Murrow’s indictment came one of the most widely reported and repeated critiques of early television programming. When Newton Minow in his position as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency charged with requiring broadcasters to use the public airwaves responsibly, surveyed what Farnsworth’s invention had wrought for the nation, he was dismayed. In his first public address as head of the FCC in , he declared television a “vast wasteland.” He made this famous pronouncement in a speech to TV executives, whom he blistered for squandering their public trust: “I believe in the people’s good sense and good taste, and I am not convinced that the people’s taste is as low as some of you assume” (Minow, , p. ). If TV officials watched a day’s worth of their own programming, they would see, Minow said, a procession of “game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western badmen, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials—many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom.” He then asked, “Is there one person in this room who claims that broadcasting can’t do better?” When he revisited the “vast wasteland”  years later, Minow was even more distraught. “In , I worried that my children would not benefit much from television, but in , I worry that my grandchildren will actually be harmed by it,” he said (reported in the Louisville Courier-Journal, December , ).

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In defending what they air, broadcasters usually counter such criticism by saying that television must be fulfilling its legal obligations to serve the public’s interests or else millions would be tuning out instead of tuning in everyday. TV executive Robert Sarnoff, son of legendary broadcasting pioneer David Sarnoff, once remarked that the “ultimate decisions on what the public sees can come only from the public itself, as long as it is free to watch or not to watch as it pleases” (MacDonald, , p. ). Clearly, the public chooses to watch. This indisputable fidelity to television may or may not be a validation of responsible broadcasting, but statistics on the viewing habits of Americans affirm that television, in the short span of  years or so, want their TV, not just their MTV. According to the Nielsen Company, televisions in American homes are on an average of seven hours a day, and with the explosion of programming through subscription services like cable and satellite, there are hundreds of choices of what to watch around the clock. All of this adds up to about , hours of TV watching a year for the average American; only sleeping takes up more time. Teenagers, by the time they have finished high school, will have spent more time in front of the television than in the classroom. As with any such powerful activity, especially among the young, scholars and researchers have for decades attempted to understand as best they can how this rapt devotion to the TV screen affects individuals, society, and culture in general. No mass medium has been studied to the extent that television has, and while there is still much to be learned about the effects of TV, some conclusions are undeniable. In his provocative book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman dissects the impact of television’s meteoric rise to its position as preeminent entertainer and prime news and information source. He echoes media scholar Marshall McLuhan’s notion that the “medium is the message”; that is, how we get our knowledge determines what we know. McLuhan described television as a cool medium because it requires little effort or intellectual involvement. The print media of books, magazines, and newspapers, on the other hand, are hot media, McLuhan said, because they involve their users so intimately and require a high degree of concentration and thought. America, Postman writes, was a far different place when hot media instead of cool dominated. During the th and th centuries, which Postman calls the Age of Exposition, the printed word held sway, creating a nation of readers who possessed a sophisticated literacy. Accordingly, most Americans who engaged in informed and intelligent discourse were active and purposeful participants in matters of public importance. They viewed the world, Postman writes, as a “serious, coherent place, capable of management by reason, and of improvement by logical and relevant criticism” (Postman, , p. ). By contrast, Postman argues, the Age of Television transformed American society into one vast arena for show business, where politics, religion, business, education, law, and other important social matters are offered as entertainment, which is television’s natural format for the way it represents all experiences. “The problem,” Postman writes, “is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining” (Postman, , p. ). Under this circumstance, Postman adds, Americans are the best entertained, but perhaps the least well-informed people in the Western world. He warns that when a society becomes “distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round

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of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk” (Postman, , p. ). Because of the Internet, there are far more ways to get news today than ever before. However, news on local TV stations and on network and cable channels continue to be prime sources for most Americans, a fact unsettling to veterans of the TV news business, including Bernard Shaw, the former top anchor for Cable News Network (CNN), who says to be informed people “must read newspapers, you must read magazines, you must read books. The essence of journalism is the printed word” (reported in the Louisville Courier-Journal, February , ). Similarly, Av Westin, a veteran broadcast journalist who has served in top positions at CBS News and ABC News, is disturbed that so many rely on television as a primary source of information. Unless people read, “they are going to be uninformed,” Westin says. “You can’t substitute a headline for a full account. We are always leaving things out” (Lowe, , p. ). TV news obviously is not without value and demonstrates its worth time and again, most vividly during national calamities such as the September , , terrorist attacks on the country. Longtime TV critic Tom Shales of the Washington Post, commenting on the wall-to-wall coverage by networks and cable news channels on the aftermath of that day, says, “Television united the nation in sorrow and horror as it had not done since  with the assassination of John F. Kennedy (reported in the Louisville CourierJournal, December , ). However, the constraints of trying to cram the events of most days into  minutes, actually  minutes after time out for commercials, ensure that on most days television’s version of reality will be greatly skewed. Completeness, complexities, and subtleties are impossible when the camera captures only those scenes from an event that have the greatest visual impact, and when stories must be pared to fill  or  seconds of air time. The limitations on presenting what approximates accurate accounts of the day’s developments are compounded by television’s never-ending search for profits, which means news shows tend to air the stories that draw the largest audiences for advertisers, not necessarily those that inform viewers about critical issues or developments. For years, the audience-generating and money-producing needs of local and network news producers seemed best served by filling the airwaves with reports on crime and violence, lurid sex, and celebrity scandals. While crime and violence may be good for television’s bottom line, there is a growing concern about what the daily doses of televised mayhem—through both news and entertainment programming—are doing to society, particularly to children. Few dispute that television is a violent place, but being able to link TV violence with real-life violence is more problematic, although there are research findings that indicate a strong relationship. A study commissioned by TV Guide examined the content of  channels—network affiliates, independents, and cable—for  hours during a typical television day. The cumulative  hours of programming, including news, fictional shows, cartoons, movies, and commercials, contained nearly , individual acts of violence, leading the study’s authors to conclude that violence is a major part of TV programming and is being presented in greater volume by an increasing number of sources. Another study, this one a five-year probe into the role of television in society by a task force of the American

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Psychological Association, estimated that children will see , murders and , other acts of violence on television before finishing elementary school. The task force report concluded that television can foster aggressive behavior and values favoring aggression in some children. Those especially susceptible to effects from televised violence are the youngest viewers, up to age , who have trouble distinguishing between what is real and what is not on television, and children whose home and community environments already are saturated with violence. After the deadly shootings in  at Columbine High School in Colorado, one researcher remarked that not every child who watches a lot of violence or plays a lot of violent games will grow up to be violent, but “just as every cigarette increases the chances that some day you will get lung cancer, every exposure to violence increases the chances that some day a child will behave more violently than they otherwise would” (Mass Media in a Changing World , no. , p. ). Offering another view is David Trend in his book The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction. After reviewing the numerous research studies into the effects of media violence, Trend writes that it is extremely difficult to make firm conclusions about this issue because human behavior is complex and can be influenced by many factors, including brain chemistry, the environment, upbringing, and culture (Trend, , p. ). Furthermore, Trend says another factor mitigating harmful effects is how people watch TV. He writes that viewers “rarely watch television with the type of rapt attention with which they view a movie in a theater. They switch channels, talk to each other, fall asleep, or walk in and out of the room” (Trend, , p. ). Television’s influence on children, of course, is by no means limited to the issue of violence, nor are these other effects restricted by age or socioeconomic status. Another major concern is the effect of too much TV and not enough exercise, both physical and mental. The combination of children sitting passively in front of a TV screen and being bombarded by a parade of commercials for high-sugar drinks and high-fat foods has resulted in an huge increase in the number of overweight American children and an alarming rise in children and adolescents with type  or adult-onset diabetes. The noted health columnist of the New York Times, Jane E. Brody, writing about television as a mentally passive activity, says that television, when watched in excess, “deprives children of hours that could be spent fostering creativity, self-reliance, learning and social interaction” (August , , F). The possible results are shorter attention spans and lower reading and social skills. It was perhaps inevitable that television, the most powerful communication instrument ever devised for selling images and ideas, would become a dominant force in how political candidates are elected and how public officials govern. This has been especially true in presidential politics since . That was the year General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon, the Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates, demonstrated how important televised commercials and news coverage were to national electioneering. The campaign for Eisenhower, the likable World War II hero whom everybody called “Ike,” was carefully crafted by an advertising agency to present him as the embodiment of a sincere, honest, and trustworthy public servant. His personal appearances of  minutes each were tightly scripted into three acts for maximum dramatic effect: the hero arrives, makes his remarks, and then departs, thunderous applause at each stage. The campaign was also notable for the numerous -second TV commercials, each of which began with an announcer saying, “Eisenhower answers

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the nation.” These spots, which cost $. million, saturated the airwaves during the last two weeks of the campaign. While these brief commercials scarcely could be informative, they served the purpose of reinforcing Ike’s image as the decent, caring, guynext-door. It was Nixon’s use of television in the campaign, however, that stole the show in . In danger of being dumped from the ticket after it was revealed that a group of wealthy California supporters had established an $, private fund for his use, Nixon went on the air and delivered his famous “Checkers” speech to a television audience of  million. To defend himself against the charges of corruption, he detailed every aspect of his financial history and claimed that money from the private fund had been used for political expenses, not personal. As part of accounting, Nixon mentioned that his daughters had been given a black-and-white spotted dog, which they named Checkers. Nixon’s performance, which had been stage-managed by an advertising agency, was a hit with viewers, who responded with calls, telegrams, and letters of support; and Eisenhower kept him as his running mate. When Nixon, after serving eight years as Eisenhower’s vice president, became his party’s presidential candidate in , television again played a major role in deciding his political future. But this time he was not so fortunate. The pivotal events of the  contest between Nixon and John F. Kennedy were the four televised debates, the first one in particular because it so convincingly illustrated television’s power in presidential campaigning. Many of those who heard the debate on radio thought the candidates were fairly equal in their effectiveness, or even that Nixon had the edge. But it was how the TV audience of  million responded that really mattered. Here, it was no contest: telegenic Kennedy had clearly “won.” This debate was not decided so much by what the candidates said, which was typical campaign rhetoric, but rather by how they looked. Just back from campaigning in California, Kennedy appeared tanned, robust, and athletic. He was confident and witty and answered questions with ease. Nixon, by contrast, recently had been hospitalized and was still suffering from a virus. He was pale and haggard and seemed tense in his responses. Kennedy, who was elected president by the slimmest of margins, left no doubt about the importance of television to his success: “We wouldn’t have had a prayer without that gadget” (quoted in Barnouw, , p. ). And neither would all future presidential aspirants, including, ironically, Richard Nixon. When he ran for the presidency again in , there was a “new” Nixon, this one much more schooled in how to use television to control his image and message. Nixon’s campaign strategy, which is detailed in Joe McGinniss’ best-selling book, The Selling of the President  (), was formulated by a team of media advisers experienced in advertising, public relations, and TV production. According to McGinniss, who was permitted by the Nixon camp to observe this group in action, it was as “if they were building not a President but an Astrodome, where the wind would never blow, the temperature never rise or fall, and the ball never bounce erratically on artificial grass” (McGinnis, , p. ). From this approach came the staged question-and-answer sessions with TV-studio audiences that appeared on television as spontaneous, but actually were tightly controlled. Only those partial to Nixon were in the audience; call-in questions were rewritten by Nixon staffers; Nixon read his answers from cards; and those in the audience were instructed to applaud Nixon’s answers enthusiastically. Commenting on this concept that he had helped create,

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Nixon adviser Roger Ailes, a former TV producer who went on to become the mastermind behind the Fox news channel, said, “This is it. This is the way they’ll be elected forevermore. The next guys up will have to be performers” (quoted in McGinnis, , p. ). Indeed, the  Nixon campaign did forever change the face of presidential politicking. The role of media advisers, especially those, like Ailes, who know how to manipulate television for maximum effect, now often eclipses that of political professionals and party organizations; the amount of money spent in presidential primaries and elections by the candidates and special interest groups, much of for TV commercials, is staggering. For example, it totaled a record $. billion in the  election cycle; candidate appearances are staged to get the most favorable TV coverage; and speeches are written in sound bites, the catch phrases that make the evening newscasts. Television and media advisers, likewise, have transformed how presidents govern once in office. Presidents need public support to carry out their policies, and one of the most effective ways of generating that support is by shaping the major source of information for many Americans—television. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, Steve. Vulgarians at the Gate. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, . A legendary TV entertainer scolds the industry for abandoning decent, family-safe programs for a parade of sex, violence, and sleaze. Auletta, Ken. Googled. New York: The Penguin Press, . The story of the meteoric rise of what has become the world’s largest Internet site and how it drastically altered the media landscape. Bagdikian, Ben H. The New Media Monopoly. th ed. Boston: Beacon Press, . Provides convincing evidence of the increased concentration of mass media ownership in the United States and the dangers that result when just a few large corporations control all major outlets of news and entertainment. Barnouw, Erik. Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television. nd rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, . A compact history of the emergence of television as a dominant force in American life and of the influence of American TV throughout the world. Carter, Bill. Desperate Networks. New York: Doubleday, . A behind-the-scenes exploration of network executives in a constant struggle to win the ratings war in the game-changing –  season. Comery, Douglas, Todd Gitlin, and Frank D. McConnell. “Television and American Culture.” The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn , –. Three critics analyze how television has forever changed American society and culture. Comstock, George. Television in America. nd. ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, . Describes the growth of television and analyzes how political, social, and economic forces have shaped the medium. Edgerton, Gary R. The Columbia History of American Television. New York: Columbia University Press, . Comprehensive history of American television that updates earlier works with information on cable systems and international aspects of the medium. Friendly, Fred W. Due to Circumstances beyond Our Control . . . New York: Random House, . A pioneering broadcast journalist’s account of the constant tension at CBS News between airing quality news programming and making as much money as possible.

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Goodman, Amy, with David Goodman. The Exception to the Rulers. New York: Hyperion, . Mainstream media are found to be sorely lacking in living up to their role as watchdogs over government. Harris, Jennifer, and Elwood Watson, eds. Updated edition. The Oprah Phenomenon. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, . The story of one of the most powerful and influential television personalities in history. Lowe, Carl, ed. Television and American Culture. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, . A collection of brief articles that examines such critical issues as television’s effect on children and education; how politicians and evangelists use the medium; and how TV news changes viewers’ perspectives on world events. MacDonald, J. Fred. One Nation under Television. New York: Pantheon Books, . A study of the development of television networks and how they maintained a stranglehold on the industry until the s, when technology helped usher in a new video order. McChesney, Robert W. The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the TwentyFirst Century. New York: Monthly Review Press, . Examines core problems of the corporate nature of media, including inadequate journalism and hypercommercialism. McGinnis, Joe. The Selling of the President . New York: Trident Press, . An insider chronicles how Richard Nixon and his team of young media-savvy advisers manipulated TV images and messages in winning the  presidential election. Minow, Newton N. Equal Time: The Private Broadcaster and the Public Interest. Edited by Lawrence Laurent. New York: Atheneum, . The speeches of the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under President Kennedy, including the famous “vast wasteland” address he made to the National Association of Broadcasters in . The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge. New York: St. Martin’s Press, , pp. – . A succinct and fact-based account of the rise and evolution of television in America. Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York: Penguin Books, . A provocative tale of how television has sapped the intellectual strength of American society. Sperber, A. M. Murrow: His Life and Times. New York: Bantam Books, . The definitive biography of America’s most revered broadcast journalist, Edward R. Murrow. Trend, David. The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, . Extends the debate over the effects of media violence beyond simplistic arguments.

MILTON BERLE (1908–2002) Milton Berlinger, known to his fans as Milton Berle, was one of the most popular comedians in the United States during the s and s. Although he appeared in movies and Broadway shows and on radio, his biggest success was as host of television’s Texaco Star Theater, which started in . He is credited with being the most important person in the popularization of television as a medium. Berle was born on July , , in New York City, New York. His parents were Moses Berlinger, a painter and decorator, and the former Sarah Glantz, a department store detective. They had big hopes that Berle, their fourth of five children, would become a lawyer, but by the age of five, he had begun to show the unmistakable characteristics of a born entertainer. Already, he was amusing groups of people in the streets of their neighborhood, and by age six, having earned a reputation as “a fresh kid,” he frequently won the Charlie Chaplin look-alike contests he and his friends staged. His mother was his biggest fan and took him to numerous auditions.

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As a young boy, Berle also discovered that he had some singing talent, and he performed regularly in local amateur shows. E. W. Wolf, a Philadelphia producer, eventually learned of Berle’s talent and signed the boy up to perform in his small traveling vaudeville act. Berle’s mother went along and, for several months, went from show to show with her son, sending home part of his salary to help out the family in New York. The traveling life soon became too demanding for her though, and she decided to take her son out of the show. However, when threatened with the departure of one of his stars, Wolf raised Berle’s salary and put Berle’s mother in charge of the company, convincing them to stay. Soon, Berle started improving so quickly that his mother decided to sign him up with the Packard Theatrical Agency back in New York. His talent was obvious to the agency’s staff, and within months, Berle was appearing in silent motion pictures shot at a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He made more than  films with that company before his family decided to send Berle back to school to finish the education he had started in New York’s public schools. In , he started attending the Professional Children’s School, but throughout that year, Berle also got to entertain American troops. The following year, Berle appeared on stage for the first time in the play Floradora at Atlantic City’s Globe Theater and, one month later, made his New York debut in the same play. His next break came when the Keith-Albee vaudeville circuit signed him to appear on stage with actress Elizabeth Kennedy—the show became an immediate smash hit and went on for several years. Berle’s mother is said to have helped out by sitting in the audience and leading the laughing and clapping at strategic moments. When Kennedy left the act, Berle organized his own vaudeville show, acting as master of ceremonies. It was there that he began developing what would become his trademark stage practice, which is based on his collection of other comedians’ jokes, expressions, and songs. Berle always espoused the belief that all jokes are in the public domain and not owned by any one person. His act was not wildly successful, but Berle was determined to become a comic success and would listen to no advice that said otherwise. Berle’s persistence paid off in , when he got an engagement at New York’s prestigious Palace Theater, where he became Broadway’s youngest master of ceremonies and set a new attendance record. The very fact that Berle kept the emcee job for two solid years (–) set a record in the tough business. After leaving the Palace, Berle played in nightclubs and theaters all over the country, gaining valuable experience as a comedian. He had a chance to show off his growing talent as the featured comedian in Earl Carroll’s stage show Vanities and, in , starred in the famous Ziegfeld Follies. Leading roles in other stage shows followed quickly, including Life Begins at : (), See My Lawyer (), Same Time Next Week (), and Spring in Brazil (). Soon after Berle began appearing in Hollywood films in , however, he realized that the medium was not for him. After playing in such movies as Sun Valley Serenade (), Tall, Dark and Handsome (), and Whispering Ghosts (), he complained: “They used me for everything but what I was suited for. I had to get out before they cast me as Fred Astaire’s dancing partner—with curls.” From  to , Berle also did what he loved most, performing live at all the best nightclubs in the country. In , the year he divorced his first wife after a six-year

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marriage, he ended a record-setting gig at the famous Carnival Club in New York, where he received the highest salary ever earned by a nightclub star. During that time, he was also featured regularly in a number of popular radio programs, including the Rudy Vallee Hour, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One, Follies of the Air, and The Milton Berle Show. Despite Berle’s popularity, many critics said his material seemed rather flat when heard over the radio, because the listener missed the tremendous physicality and energy Berle used in his routines. Starting in the summer of , however, Berle no longer had that problem when he was hired as the host for television’s new Texaco Star Theater. As emcee of the Texaco show, Berle quickly earned the nickname “Mr. Television,” although his fans called him “Uncle Miltie.” He was so popular that Variety blamed him for a sharp decline in the number of theatergoers and nightclubbers on Tuesday nights—the night of his show. Berle’s popularity was responsible for selling millions of television sets, and in , he became the highest-paid comedian in show business. During the – broadcast season, an average of . percent of all homes that had a television were tuned in to the Texaco Star Theater on Tuesday nights. Not content to bask in his success, Berle took to performing for charitable events, including telethons for cancer patients and children with heart problems, and established the Milton Berle Foundation in  to support various charities. Berle’s popularity in the Texaco show allowed him to write his own ticket in show business from then on. He made several more movies during his career, including Always Leave Them Laughing (), It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (), The Oscar (), The Muppet Movie (), Broadway Danny Rose (), Driving Me Crazy (), and Storybook (). He also appeared in numerous television shows, including the Kraft Music Hall (–), Jackpot Bowling (–), and an episode of Dick Powell Theatre entitled “Doyle against the House” (), for which he received an Emmy Award nomination and a new Milton Berle Show (). In , Berle received an honorary degree from McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois, to complete the education he never had time to finish, and in , he married his fourth wife, Lorna Adams. In , Berle published his fifth book, More of the Best of Milton Berle’s Private Joke File. Berle died on March , , at his home in Los Angeles at the age of .

justin harmon, et al. WALTER CRONKITE (1916–2009) Walter Cronkite was one of the finest journalists in the United States and among the first of his profession to use television as his primary broadcast medium. He was the anchor of the popular CBS Evening News from  until he retired in . Cronkite was a fervent advocate of free speech and, in the late s, led the fight against a campaign by the administration of President Richard Nixon to tame the press. Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. was born on November , , in St. Joseph, Missouri, a descendant of Dutch merchants. His father was a dentist and moved the family to Houston, Texas, in about  to take a new job there. In junior high, Cronkite read in an American Boy short story about the adventures of a foreign correspondent and

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decided he would eventually become one. As a student at Houston’s San Jacinto High School, Cronkite worked on the school yearbook and newspaper. When he enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin in , Cronkite took many classes in journalism, political science, and economics. Although he participated in track and theater, he spent most of his free time at a part-time job at the Houston Post. He dropped out of school in his junior year to work full-time for the paper since, as he put it in a  Look magazine interview, “Covering the state capitol was a lot more exciting than studying political science in school. Besides, I never went to classes, so I got awful grades.” Cronkite spent a year at the Post working as a general reporter, religion editor, and assistant to the amusements editor. After a year, he took a job at Kansas City’s KCMO radio as a sports and news editor but soon moved to Oklahoma City’s WKV as a football announcer. Not until  would Cronkite return to the field of journalism, accepting work as a correspondent for the United Press (UP). By , a year after marrying Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, he had become one of the first journalists accredited to U.S. troops after the United States entered World War II. As a UP war correspondent, Cronkite covered such major events as the Battle of the Atlantic in  and the Battle of the Bulge in . During this period, he developed a reputation for delivering eyewitness accounts of important developments in the war—a feat he accomplished by going wherever the troops went. To get his stories, Cronkite flew on the first bombing runs of the Flying Fortress over Germany, parachuted into the Netherlands with a U.S. airborne division, and waded onto the beaches with Allied troops at Normandy, France. Despite his actions, Cronkite later said he was “an overweening coward” during the war and did everything he could to keep from going into battle. When the war ended in , Cronkite stayed in Europe to oversee the reestablishment of UP news offices in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. At the war crimes trials in Nuremberg, Germany, he served as chief correspondent and then became bureau chief in Moscow. In , Cronkite finally went back to the United States and accepted a job as Washington reporter for a group of Midwestern radio stations, earning three times as much as he did at the UP. When the Korean War started in , Cronkite grew restless to cover the action and took an offer from CBS to report on the conflict. Cronkite never got to leave Washington. Instead, he was assigned to develop the news department of the new CBS television station in the capital. By , his was a regular face on the national public affairs programs It’s News to Me, Man of the Week, and Pick the Winner. In early , Cronkite was narrator for the first episode of You Are There, which later became a popular, long-running documentary series. He was also the network’s choice as host of the two-hour Morning Show, a daily news and entertainment program, but within several months, Cronkite resigned to get back to reporting the news. In , Cronkite led CBS’ coverage of the national nominating conventions that started the first televised presidential campaign. With one exception, he covered every national political election and nominating convention until . In , Cronkite began anchoring the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Although at first the show was only  minutes long, by , the network had extended the program to  minutes. Cronkite’s first -minute show featured an exclusive interview with

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President John F. Kennedy, and his ratings soon surpassed even NBC’s formidable Huntley-Brinkley Report. Critics attributed Cronkite’s success to his straightforward, objective reporting; confident delivery; and ability to make complex events easy for the average person to understand. As the Evening News gained in popularity, Cronkite became managing editor, with three dozen technicians and journalists working for him. In , he wrote Eye on the World, a compendium of the events of  as witnessed by CBS reporters. In , Cronkite went out on a limb several times by breaking the unspoken twominute limit on news items to report on topics he felt were particularly important. When these lengthier reports were praised rather than condemned by other news professionals, he continued them. One of his detailed reports, a piece about the Watergate break-in, was lauded as putting the whole complicated story into understandable terms for the first time. Cronkite always maintained that journalism’s sole purpose is to inform, not entertain, and he believed that his in-depth pieces accomplished that goal. Likewise, Cronkite was a strong advocate of the newsperson’s role as an objective reporter, not a commentator. He never broke that rule himself, with the exceptions of his emotional reports on the John F. Kennedy assassination, an assault on CBS reporters at the Democratic National Convention of , several manned missile launchings, and Washington’s suppression of the truth during the Vietnam War. Some historians attribute President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision not to run for a second term in  to Cronkite’s condemning report on the Vietnam War. While anchoring the CBS Evening News, Cronkite also worked as chief correspondent for numerous news specials called CBS Reports, including “Sabotage in South Africa” (), “Eisenhower” (), and “D-Day Plus  Years: Eisenhower Returns to Normandy” (). In addition, he hosted the award-winning history shows Twentieth Century and st Century, interviewing such world leaders as Willy Brandt, Golda Meir, Anwar Sadat, and Johnson. His You Are There program found new popularity as a Saturday morning children’s show in the early s. By , Cronkite’s popularity and recognition were such that he topped an opinion poll asking Americans to name the public figure they trusted most, beating the president and the vice president by a strong margin. During the s and into the next two decades, Cronkite continued to bring important events to the public’s attention in an objective, informative way. Some of the specials he anchored during this period were “Vietnam: A War That Is Finished” (), “Our Happiest Birthday” (), “Universe” (), and “The Holocaust: In Memory of Millions” () for the Discovery Channel. In , Cronkite retired as host of the CBS Evening News but continued to serve as special correspondent for the show. That year, he also received his second Peabody Award (the first was in ) and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. In , Cronkite released his autobiography, A Reporter’s Life, which resulted in greater recognition of his skills as a newscaster. A year later, he hosted a documentary series for the Discovery Channel, Cronkite Remembers, which detailed his celebrated journalism career spanning more than four decades. On July , , Cronkite died of complications from dementia at age  in New York.

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A. C. NIELSEN (1897–1980) When most Americans hear the name A. C. Nielsen, they immediately think “television ratings,” and rightly so, for Nielsen developed an evaluation system that could make or break shows. Newsweek magazine mentioned his “literal life-and-death power over network programming,” but Nielsen’s company actually made most of its money from other market surveys. Arthur Charles Nielsen was born on September , , in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were Rasmus Nielsen and Harriet Burr (Gunn) Nielsen. After graduating from Morton High School in nearby Cicero, Nielsen entered the University of Wisconsin. In , he received his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering with the highest grades ever achieved in the college’s engineering school. After serving in the navy during World War I, Nielsen returned to Chicago, married Gertrude Smith, worked as an engineer at a refrigerator machinery company, and was employed at a publishing firm. In , he organized the A. C. Nielsen Company to make performance surveys of industrial equipment. The business unraveled, however, when the Great Depression hit, and companies trying to reduce their budgets dropped Nielsen’s service. In , Nielsen launched the Nielsen Food and Drug Index, the nation’s first research service that measured the flow of retail goods. Nielsen gathered the necessary statistics by sending surveyors to carefully selected grocery and drug stores—sample stores chosen to accurately reflect a bigger market—and recording all sales, together with the sales price of each product. Once analyzed, the data let a manufacturing company know how its sales compared to competing products, the rapidity of stock turnover, the average order size, and the like. Nielsen—who worked -hour weeks and sent streams of memos to his employees—claimed that his index helped the economy by showing companies how they could better sell their products and thus stimulate sales, revenues, profits, and employment. He soon expanded his service and replaced the Food and Drug Index with the Retail Index, which measured a greater variety of products. In , he established a subsidiary in England and, over the next decade, additional subsidiaries in Canada and Australia. During the late s, Nielsen secured a patent from the inventors of a machine that could measure the number of people tuned to a radio program. The Nielsen Audimeter, as he called it, was plugged into a radio’s electric wire and received a signal every time someone changed the dial. In that way Nielsen determined which programs people were hearing. He began offering the results of his measurements, the Nielsen Radio Index, to subscribers in . By , he had attached the Audimeters to radios in , homes, again using a representative sample to reflect a much larger market. For income, however, Nielsen still relied on his Retail Index and other services that brought in  percent of his company’s revenue. Nielsen applied his ratings service to television in , and advertisers studied the ratings results to determine when to buy air time and thus decide which shows would survive. So much depended on Nielsen’s ratings that in , Congress investigated his service. Despite Nielsen’s denials, the committee hearings showed that the households

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in which Nielsen had placed measuring devices could be manipulated by advertisers or anyone else who wanted to influence results. Although the revelation damaged Nielsen, the company in quick order improved its system and maintained command of the ratings business. Nielsen died on June ,  but his two sons remained involved with the company for a number of years.

neil hamilton

10 The Vietnam War, ca. 1950–1975

INTRODUCTION Vietnam, which, along with Laos and Cambodia, comprised the colony of French Indochina, first came to the attention of U.S. policymakers in , after the focus of the Cold War had shifted to the Far East with the “loss” of China to the forces of Mao Zedong. Since , France had been trying to reestablish colonial dominance in Vietnam in a struggle with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, a nationalist movement led from the northern city of Hanoi by Ho Chi Minh, a charismatic leader who had spent many years in both Paris and Moscow. In the Cold War context of the day, this civil war was seen as yet another contest of the forces of freedom against communism; and, in early , the United States committed itself to the French cause by recognizing the government of Bao Dai, which the French had set up in the southern city of Saigon as a rival Vietnamese government to that of Ho Chi Minh. In June , after the Korean War broke out, the United States began to send military assistance to the French forces in Vietnam. Meanwhile, both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) recognized and were aiding the government of Ho Chi Minh. Although the United States provided some $. billion in aid to the French between  and  and sent several hundred technicians and advisers to Vietnam, the French were unable to win. In , Ho Chi Minh’s forces besieged the French army at the remote town of Dien Bien Phu for nearly two months, forcing its surrender on May . The Eisenhower administration fiercely debated the wisdom of intervening to try and save the French military, in the midst of which the president outlined the famous Domino Theory in support of intervention, asserting that if Vietnam fell to the Communists, it would be like the first in a row of dominoes: just as the whole row of dominoes would topple, so, too, would all the rest of the countries in Southeast Asia fall to communism. But the French surrender came before a decision about intervention could be reached in Washington. Meanwhile, between April and July , representatives from France, Great Britain, the United States, Laos, Cambodia, and the PRC, as well as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, met in Geneva, Switzerland, to negotiate an end to the problems of former French Indochina. In July, the Geneva Accords, as the two agreements were called, were signed. One simply ended the fighting in Vietnam, while the other attempted to bring about a political settlement there by temporarily dividing the country at the th

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Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (left) and General William C. Westmoreland confer with other officials in Vietnam in 1965. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

parallel until reunification elections could be held, sometime within two years. Ho Chi Minh was to control the territory north of the dividing line, while all French forces were to move south. The elections were never held, and this division became the border between the two ostensibly independent nations of North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Significantly, the United States chose not to sign the Geneva Accords, as doing so would create the appearance that the Communists had devoured yet another piece of the world, a situation that would cause domestic political problems for the Republican Eisenhower administration. Instead, the United States moved quickly to replace the French as the anti-Communist force in Vietnam. Shortly after the conclusion of the Geneva conference, Ngo Dinh Diem had, with Washington’s blessing, become the prime minister of South Vietnam; in October , he ousted Bao Dai in a national referendum to become president. One of his first acts was to announce that no national election would be held, as his government had not been a party to the accords. The Eisenhower administration, knowing that Ho Chi Minh would easily win such an election, supported Diem. The refusal of Diem to hold this election led to the beginnings of Viet Cong terrorism in South Vietnam. The Viet Cong, supporters of Ho Chi Minh who lived in the south, gradually increased the level of violence until a full-scale civil revolt was underway by the time John F. Kennedy entered the White House in . Efforts to persuade Diem to build up his popularity and political base so as to be able to resist the Viet Cong more effectively had proven futile; and by mid-, there was concern in Washington for the survival of South Vietnam. President Kennedy sent Vice President Lyndon Johnson to Vietnam in the summer of  to assay the situation; Johnson returned with a glowing public appraisal of Diem and an analysis of the situation based on the Domino Theory. Later in , a factfinding mission headed by national security adviser Walt W. Rostow and White House military adviser Maxwell Taylor went to Vietnam. Among other things, the Taylor-Rostow mission recommended the sending of up to , combat troops who could be

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rapidly deployed if the situation warranted; Kennedy, however, was not ready to escalate American involvement to that degree. In , the situation in Vietnam began to deteriorate. Viet Cong forces (now aided by infiltrating North Vietnamese) were making headway against Diem’s troops, and public opposition to the war was building in the south, highlighted by the public selfimmolations of protesting Buddhist monks. Kennedy sent Henry Cabot Lodge, a tough diplomat, to Saigon to tell Diem to shore up his political and military base, but this effort was to no avail. In early November, Diem was deposed and murdered in a coup d’état led by some of his generals. Three weeks later, President Kennedy was assassinated. The new American president, Lyndon Johnson, inherited a very unstable situation in South Vietnam. Frequent political changes in Saigon and the increasing likelihood of a Communist victory caused the president to begin planning for greater U.S. involvement. Contingency plans were drawn up for American action against North Vietnam, and lists of bombing targets for a future air war were compiled. McGeorge Bundy, the new national security adviser, wrote a resolution authorizing the president to intervene militarily in Vietnam; the resolution would be sent to Congress in the wake of a suitably hostile incident on the part of North Vietnam. In August , it was reported that on two separate occasions, North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked U.S. destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of Vietnam. Though no one was killed nor was any significant damage inflicted, the administration felt that the incident was dramatic enough to warrant sending the resolution to Congress. In the excitement of the moment, both houses of Congress approved it by nearly unanimous vote. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution, as it was called, authorized the president to repel any armed attack against the United States and to take any and all necessary measures to prevent further aggression. The election campaign of  prevented Johnson from escalating the war immediately; but in February , the Viet Cong attacked a military base near Pleiku, killing eight, wounding more than a hundred, and destroying several planes. Johnson seized on this incident to launch a bombing campaign against the north and to order , marines into combat. By the end of the year, American troop strength in Vietnam would reach ,. Despite the intensive and protracted bombing campaign and the steady increase in the number of troops in Vietnam, the military situation was stalemated throughout  and . What did change was the public attitude about the war in the United States. By , a divisive public debate over the war had spread to most areas of the country and was particularly heated on college campuses, where activist students and faculty held “teach-ins” and sponsored protest rallies. Those who opposed the war, called “doves,” were not effective in bringing about policy changes because they lacked unity; but they did incur the wrath of the “hawks,” who supported the war and felt that most doves were, at worst, traitors, and, at best, naive individuals who were by their actions lending support to the enemy. A complicating factor was television coverage of the war; many people began to sense by what they saw on television that the administration was not telling the public the truth about the course of the war. One of the most important events of the war was the Tet Offensive in January . This was a coordinated attack on  South Vietnamese cities during the Vietnamese New Year (Tet) by combined Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. Although U.S.

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and South Vietnamese troops recaptured control of all the cities within a few days, the American public was shocked when, after months of optimistic statements about the war, they saw what the enemy seemed capable of doing. Polls showed that a “credibility gap” existed; a majority of Americans no longer believed what the Johnson administration was saying about the war. President Johnson, shaken by the turn of events, found his political support waning and surprised the nation by announcing in March  that he would not seek reelection later that year but would instead seek an end to the war. War protests continued during the year; they were especially violent in Chicago at the time of the Democratic national convention, and it was clear that Richard M. Nixon, the Republican victor in November, would have to steer the nation on a different course in Vietnam. By the time of Nixon’s inauguration in January , some , U.S. troops were fighting in Vietnam, and over , combat deaths had been recorded. Nixon’s new direction, called Vietnamization, was a plan to withdraw American troops gradually while training South Vietnamese troops to take their place in combat zones and continuing to provide supplies and air support. By the end of , slightly over , Americans had been withdrawn, with a corresponding drop in the casualty rate, and the public debate over the war had lessened. In April , however, the president authorized an incursion, or limited invasion, into Cambodia, ostensibly to capture an enemy headquarters and supply depot. The incursion was launched without consulting Congress and sparked a firestorm of protest among Americans who felt that the administration was widening the war. Tragically, six college students, four at Kent State University and two at Jackson State University, were killed by National Guard troops during antiwar rallies. In February , another incursion was made into Laos, but this time, South Vietnamese troops were used, and there was considerably less public protest. Meanwhile, secret negotiations had begun in  between Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s national security adviser, and Le Duc Tho, a North Vietnamese diplomat. These talks became more frequent in , particularly after the president had gone to the PRC, North Vietnam’s principal ally, and initiated the process of normalizing diplomatic relations. A peace settlement appeared to be at hand in October , but new complications arose, and the final document was not signed until January . The terms of the Paris Peace Agreement included the withdrawal of the remaining U.S. troops from Vietnam, along with the dismantling of U.S. bases and the removal of U.S.-laid mines in North Vietnamese harbors. An international truce team was to supervise a cease-fire, and all U.S. prisoners of war were to be returned. The political future of Vietnam was to be decided by a council of representatives from the governments of both North and South Vietnam as well as the Viet Cong, which was to plan and conduct national elections. U.S. involvement in Vietnam continued after the  agreement in the form of substantial numbers of advisers, diplomatic officials, and technicians, all there to maximize the chances for success of the Saigon government and army. In addition, Congress appropriated, after much debate, millions of dollars of additional aid for South Vietnam. But the process of Vietnamization had not produced a very good Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), and its performance was further compromised by a mutual lack of cultural understanding between the American advisers and the Vietnamese soldiers.

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Moreover, the ARVN was mired deeply in a system that fostered corruption, low morale, and a high desertion rate. Many of these problems were largely hidden from Washington by the optimistic reports of the American ambassador, Graham Martin. Between  and , Vietnam attracted little attention in the United States because U.S. troops were no longer fighting and dying. The Nixon administration was disintegrating over the Watergate scandal, and the turmoil in the Middle East had led to the Arab oil embargo, which was creating serious economic repercussions for the United States. North Vietnamese leaders, aware of the distractions in the United States, escalated their military activity in South Vietnam, and, when there was no response from Washington, they moved their armies forward on several fronts. A congressional fact-finding delegation visited Vietnam in February, found Ambassador Martin as optimistic as ever, and recommended no change in American policy. In March, the North Vietnamese began their final offensive, moving toward Saigon with little resistance. The South Vietnamese government surrendered on April , as the remaining Americans and a few fortunate Vietnamese were airlifted to safety from the roof of the U.S. embassy. Since , Vietnam has been unified under a totalitarian government centered in Hanoi. The bloodbath of South Vietnamese loyal to the United States that many had predicted did not occur, although many were deprived of their property and sent to harsh “re-education” camps. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, and the country suffered extreme poverty, although in the s, a number of industrialized countries began to invest in development projects in Vietnam. But because many Americans believe that U.S. prisoners of war are still being held captive in Vietnam, it was not until February  that the United States lifted its trade embargo against Vietnam. In July , the United States and Vietnam established full diplomatic relations, marking a formal end to the war.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY alan abbott If you look back on the ’s and think there was more good than harm, you’re probably a Democrat. If you think there was more harm than good, you’re probably a Republican. —President Bill Clinton, 

America was so politically and economically divided during the Great Depression that some worried about civil war, or at the very least, massive unrest. But those divisions were bridged by World War II. For many, the Allied defeat of fascism proved that American isolationism was not in the world’s interests, and that Americans, despite differences in class, race, and politics, could unite for meaningful change. A Gallup poll in  found that  percent of Americans approved of the United States entering the war, and in June , President Truman had an -percent job approval rating. The American left and right were in a new consensus; American might was a force for good. This consensus endured during the early Cold War but weakened

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over time. The American left was now concerned with avoiding conflict with socialist nations but was quieted by a strong anticommunist backlash. After all, Americans were united in their belief in the Cold War. A  poll showed that almost  percent of Americans felt that the Soviet Union was seeking world domination. Moderate Democrats and Republicans all generally agreed on the importance of American intervention abroad and the strength of American values to counter the growing Soviet threat. Although the development of nuclear weapons caused anxiety and spawned a few new pacifist and humanist organizations, the narrative of American moral and military superiority was essentially unchallenged. Consequently, postwar culture reveled in the accomplishment of World War II, which was the greatest example of this moral and military superiority. War movies celebrated American machismo; in both Back to Bataan () and Sands of Iwo Jima (), John Wayne plays a soldier whose heroism and self-sacrifice inspire other men. If one were to take box office results as a sign, America was happy to relive World War II through Hollywood nostalgia during the s. Antiwar films were made but tended to avoid taking on World War II directly. Paths of Glory () took place among the French trenches of World War I, and The Day the Earth Stood Still () masked its antinuclear message in science fiction. Cold War movies became widespread only in the s, with the release of such films as Fail Safe (), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (), and The Manchurian Candidate (). Hollywood criticism of the postwar American narrative was limited. Dr Strangelove and Fail Safe were “prestige pictures” meant for an older and more sophisticated audience. More typical of the Cold War on screen were Korean War movies that were essentially remakes of World War II films, such as Fixed Bayonets! (). Outside of the folk market, the music industry was even more reluctant to address the government’s Cold War narrative. In  Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler’s song “Ballad of the Green Berets” spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard charts. The song, with echoes of Rudyard Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden,” celebrates the heroism of the Special Forces soldiers who were living off the land, fighting night and day, and, in the case of the main character, dying for the oppressed. The last verse says that the final request of the dead soldier is for his son to follow his footsteps into the Green Berets. Thematically, the song resembles most popular movies or songs about World War II: heroism, sacrifice, morality. This view of America would be challenged by U.S. experiences in Vietnam. Although the United States had been involved to varying degrees in Vietnam since  (the OSS worked closely with Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap), the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in  led to greater direct involvement in Southeast Asia, as years of limited involvement with a nebulous group of American “advisors” gave way to the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign and the landing of infantry with a free hand in attacking Viet Cong, and later, North Vietnamese forces. It was assumed to be a temporary and limited conflict, but when the Communists refused a “stand-up fight,” President Johnson precipitously escalated the war. The initial combat force was only a few thousand, but by the end of , almost , American troops were in Vietnam. By , it was half a million. The price was heavy. In , the United States suffered fewer than , deaths. In , the figure had risen to almost ,. What had started as a small adventure in

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an underdeveloped Asian country had turned into a real war. By the end of the war, the U.S. combat death toll was more than ,. Soldiers from  to  years old, a group that had no living memory of World War II, accounted for well over half of the deaths. And these soldiers were largely not volunteers. Defenders of the war at the time insisted that high voluntary enlistment numbers showed widespread support for the war. But as Christian G. Appy points out in Working Class War (), “voluntary” is a tricky concept. Many soldiers enlisted because they anticipated being drafted. The government’s own statistics indicated that over half of the American army were either drafted or enlisted because of the threat of the draft. As Appy makes clear, the Selective Service system in place at the height of the war tended to channel the young working class into the military, while much of the middle class, unless they chose to enlist, was exempted from military service through education-based deferments. By one estimate, about  percent of American servicemen during the Vietnam War were either working class or poor. This meant that Vietnam exacerbated existing class differences. Working-class soldiers who were fighting and dying disproportionately tended to feel betrayed by the middle and upper classes: many working-class soldiers felt that the older generation of elites had sent them off to fight and die for them while their privileged children betrayed them with fiery antiwar rhetoric that showed no respect for honest military service. The genesis of the antiwar movement and what came to be called the New Left came out of the civil rights movement of the s. The Free Speech Movement, which would have such an impact on the New Left, formed on the University of California campus at Berkeley in . At first, it was only marginally interested in Vietnam; its immediate concerns were the importance of student activism and free speech on campuses. Its approach to activism was strongly influenced by Martin Luther King Jr.’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) predated America’s involvement in Vietnam by four years. Its roots were also deeply entrenched in the civil rights movement; its calls for “participatory democracy” implied there was a responsibility to bring about change nonviolently when elected leaders pursued policies with which they disagreed. War in Vietnam outraged these idealists for many reasons, from the disproportionate use of American force on the Vietnamese people, to the unfairness of the draft, to the fundamental immorality of all war. And as the war dragged on, many activists came to view the conflict as an example of the corruption of the American system and the complacency of the American people. Demonstrations grew in scale and vehemence. A radical group known as the Weathermen, promising violent resistance to the war, broke off from SDS and fulfilled its promise with a rash of bombings and other acts of violence aimed against ROTC buildings on college campuses and the like. The anti–Vietnam War movement became a hallmark of popular culture; in only a few short years, Sgt. Barry Sadler had become hopelessly outdated. Sensing a working-class backlash to the antiwar movement, the administration of President Richard Nixon began to paint their enemies as defeatists, radicals, and snobs, using class and generational differences to rally conservative, middle-class, and working-class Americans behind the war, appealing to them as the “Silent Majority” in a  speech. That speech also intensified the rhetoric that demonstrators were an enemy of the American soldier; as the president put it, “North Vietnam cannot defeat

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or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.” Nixon’s strategy had some success. In , the so-called “hard hat riot” kicked off a series of prowar demonstrations supported by union leaders. On May , a number of construction workers “beat up anti-war protestors.” Although Nixon denounced the violence, he met with the union leaders and thanked them for their support. For many on the left, this meeting was a sign that the president implicitly supported violence against them. The administration popularized a new stereotype of its opponents; the liberal elite. Nixon’s first vice president, Spiro Agnew, warned that “a spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete core of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.” In another speech, he referred to a media that had become critical of the war as a “small unelected elite.” While the American working class tended to reject organizations like the SDS and events like Woodstock, the enormous rock concert held in the summer of , as either privileged or un-American, the Nixon Administration did not succeed in turning that class conflict into support for the war. Most bluecollar Americans still felt that quiet, respectful dissent could be tolerated; after all, it was their community that was fighting the war, and many of them went on to vote for the antiwar candidate, George McGovern, in the  election. For African Americans, the Vietnam War became a battleground within the larger civil rights struggle. The Gulf of Tonkin incident happened in , the same year as the Civil Rights Act was passed, but as the s progressed, it became obvious that race relations in the United States would not change overnight. Many black soldiers began to wonder why they were fighting for the U.S. government at all, since it was proving to be so ineffective at protecting the black community at home. In his criticism of Vietnam, Martin Luther King Jr. said, in , “We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem” (from Martin Luther King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” April , , http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreak silence.html). Even within the government, many felt that the war was ill-advised or even immoral. The most well-known dissenter was Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, the Harvard psychologist and former Marine, who, while working at the prestigious military think tank, the Rand Corporation, found that he could no longer support the war that he was supposed to help win. He leaked to the press the entire secret Pentagon history of the war—the socalled “Pentagon Papers”—which included damning evidence that the government had suspected that the war would be more difficult and more bloody than the public had been told. Years later, former secretary of defense Robert McNamara wrote In Retrospect (), a memoir in which he revealed that he had become a skeptic about the war late in his tenure under President Lyndon Johnson. After returning from a visit to Vietnam in , he advised the president that the existing strategy of heavy bombing and search and destroy missions was not working, and that the only solution was to stop escalating the war and pursue peace immediately. Johnson fired McNamara for these recommendations. By , according to a Pew Research Poll,  percent of Americans thought it had been a mistake to send troops to Vietnam. In , Gallup reported that more than twothirds of Americans thought the war was a mistake. Nixon had been elected in ,

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not on a platform of victory, but one of obtaining “peace with honor.” By this time, antiwar demonstrations were drawing many thousands, and many NATO allies had announced their opposition to continued American involvement in Vietnam. And yet the war continued. American ground troops were withdrawn relatively quickly after , but American involvement did not cease totally until the fall of Saigon in . The images of Americans rushing into helicopters from the embassy rooftop to avoid being captured by approaching National Liberation Army troops forced the United State to confront a hard truth—America had lost its first war. Some protestors maintained that they had stopped a war. But the reality was that the war continued despite the antiwar protests. Despite the mobilization of a sizeable portion of their generation against the war, dissent within the military, the establishment of the Vietnam Veterans against the War, and polls indicating that most Americans regretted the war, the conflict lasted for over a decade. While many in Nixon’s Silent Majority disliked the war, they never joined the antiwar movement. Culturally, as Tom Englehardt argues in The End of Victory Culture (), America had entered an “era of reversals.” Post–World War II American culture had been convinced of American triumphalism. But images of Americans burning down villages with Zippo lighters or standing trial for war crimes after the My Lai massacre challenged that culture. Americans were now aggressors and war became unfashionable. Much of the s saw a noticeable change in the American approach to war, and specifically to what Englehardt calls the childhood culture of “war-play.” GI Joe action figures were transformed into adventurers, and his enemies were not Nazis, Japanese, or Vietnamese, but sharks and mummies. For adults, American movies and television programs were, when they approached the topics of war and patriotism, noticeably more melancholic and conflicted than they had been in the s and s. The television show M*A*S*H provided one of the first safe venues for examining America’s wartime experiences in a popular medium. Although set during the Korean War, M*A*S*H’s countercultural and antiwar streak implied that it was really about Vietnam and war in general. The show’s star, Alan Alda, became a role model for postwar liberal humanists. The first significant Vietnam War movie of the postwar era was The Deer Hunter (), which won five Academy Awards for its depiction of the savagery of war and its prolonged and profound effects on a group of working-class soldiers. It was an important step in addressing the consequences of the Vietnam War. Sadly, it was also instrumental in popularizing the stereotype of the Vietnam veteran as damaged goods with little hope of rehabilitation. The next year, Apocalypse Now was released. Patterned after a classic Joseph Conrad novel, Heart of Darkness, the film follows a soldier’s attempt to assassinate a rogue colonel deep in Cambodian territory. Along the way, he witnesses the insanity of American involvement in Vietnam, where a highly trained military has lost all discipline and morale. The movie implicates the American public in failing to take responsibility for the actions of their government. At one point in Apocalypse Now, a soldier is asked who is in charge of a base that is blindly firing into the night. The soldier turns to the camera, as if addressing the audience, and says, “Ain’t you?” The election of Ronald Reagan in  was seen by many as a turning point in American politics and culture. Reagan revived the Cold War, challenged detente, and referred to the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire.” He attempted to remind people of

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that optimism and unity that existed after World War II. During the  campaign, Reagan stated, “It’s about time we start remembering Vietnam for what it really was, a noble adventure of a struggling democracy, fighting Godless communism.” A number of historians have commented on the change in popular culture under Reagan. Chris Jordan points to this period as the revival of the American “success myth,” a concept very close to Englehardt’s “victory culture.” In popular movies, the Alan Aldas made way for the Arnold Schwarzeneggers, whose job it was to save us from a sinister force made up of bureaucrats, liberals, and the media. The Rambo movies were powerful counter-narratives to Apocalypse Now. First Blood () follows a Vietnam veteran and drifter who is harassed by small-town police. Eventually he enacts revenge, using his special forces training. Rambo is an old-fashioned patriot, which makes him feel out of place in postwar America. And although the film seems to blame the United States for his shattered psyche, the antiwar movement does get singled out when the character of John Rambo says: “And I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting. Calling me baby killer and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me? Who are they?” (from Ted Kotcheff, First Blood, Orion Pictures, ). First Blood was a smash hit. Successive films catered to Reagan’s America more explicitly. Rambo: First Blood Part II () is a fantasy return to Southeast Asia to get revenge. Rambo ignores the corrupt and incompetent leadership and their limited rules of engagement, which allows him to bring down the Vietnamese force almost singlehandedly. The Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) issue, which rose to prominence in the s, became a way of celebrating the military values of the early Cold War years. Maintaining that the Vietnamese would for some reason hold onto soldiers long after the war had ended suggested that they were inherently evil, a mixture of antiAsian and anticommunist themes that would remind people that America had fought a just war. In , President Reagan stated that finding any remaining POW/MIAs was the highest national priority. However, when the government failed to find any live soldiers, it reinforced suspicion that we had lost the war not because of any military failing, but because of the weakness of our civilian leadership, which did not want to win as much as the soldiers did. This is echoed in the line from Rambo III, a film that deals with the Soviet–Afghanistan war, “Sir, do we get to win this time?” Reagan himself echoed Rambo’s comments in , when he spoke before the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial: “Perhaps at this late date we can all agree that we’ve learned one lesson: that young Americans must never again be sent to fight and die unless we are prepared to let them win” (from Ronald Reagan, “V-Day Ceremony Address at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial,” November , , http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronaldreganvietnammemorial.html). This view of the Vietnam War—that the war was just and our soldiers were heroic, but undone by the counterculture and weak civilian leadership—would continue to resonate during the lead-up to the first Gulf War. Although the Vietnam War had ended nearly  years before, the images of America’s defeat were still fresh, and many on the right worried that liberals and bureaucrats would again undermine our efforts abroad and attack the honor of our military. In The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam (), Jerry Lembcke makes the case that President George H. W. Bush

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and other leaders consciously used the political currency of the POW/MIA movement to buy support for the Gulf War. The Yellow Ribbon Campaign became a vocal support system for the American military through actions like “Operation Eagle,” a series of promilitary demonstrations by students. This gave conservatives a reason for opposing the antiwar movement. These preemptive attacks frequently asserted that it was the antiwar movement that had cost America victory in Vietnam and denied U.S. troops a supportive homecoming. The Gulf War in  was a quick and easy military victory, and one that seemed to reestablish America’s willingness to use military force on the world stage. It was in this atmosphere of comparatively high national self-esteem that America was able to put some of the largest issues of Vietnam to rest. The administration of President Bill Clinton normalized relations with Vietnam in , although it took considerable wrangling with Congress. A Senate committee headed by John McCain and John Kerry, both military veterans, first had to find that the Vietnamese were not still holding any prisoners from the war. Nonetheless, the POW/MIA movement continued to object to the closer trade and diplomatic relations that developed between the United States and Vietnam during the s. Oliver Stone’s  film Heaven and Earth heralded new American attitudes toward Vietnam. In this film, the central character is not an American soldier, but a Vietnamese woman. Brutalized by all sides during the war, she eventually finds a kind, but troubled American Marine and returns to the United States after the war. The two are drawn together by their similar, traumatic experiences, but her Marine husband’s postwar suffering is too great and he commits suicide. Indeed, Americans found themselves expressing much more complex views toward the Vietnamese during the s, and some even found moments of camaraderie. With travel restrictions to Vietnam lifted, images of Americans returning to Vietnam to mourn their fallen brethren became almost commonplace. What struck many Americans was the restraint of the Vietnamese people when confronted with the return of American soldiers. In , the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation helped found the organization that would become the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, since landmines are still a threat to civilians in war-torn areas of Southeast Asia. And in , a Vietnamese-American Peace Park was dedicated in My Lai. Of course, this is not to say that the memory of Vietnam had suddenly become uncontroversial or that the divisions of race, class, and politics have disappeared. In the  presidential election between incumbent George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry, many were shocked that Kerry was being attacked for Vietnam military service. He had served on a “swift boat,” an extremely dangerous assignment. But once he returned home, he joined the Vietnam Veterans against the War and, in , he testified before Congress that American soldiers were committing war crimes. This led many to associate him with the counterculture; a politically conservative organization called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth denied his military credentials and challenged his patriotism. Democrats responded by calling Bush a hypocrite in the classic “chickenhawk” mold; he had the opportunity to serve in Vietnam but chose not to, instead serving his time in the safety of the Texas Air National Guard. Amazingly, Americans have largely proved able to forgive the Vietnamese, but not each other.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, Michael J. Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Argues against the conventional wisdom that conservative politicians and groups used the POW/MIA issue for their own advantage, but rather that the political impetus of the issue came from organizations representing the families of the victims. Appy, Christian G. Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, . Berman, Larry. Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam. New York: W. W. Norton, . A good account of the Johnson administration’s escalation of the war. Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, . A critical account of the air war in Vietnam. Englehardt, Thomas. The End of Victory Culture. New York: Basic Books, . A cultural analysis concluding that the American narrative of triumph began to erode after World War II and was not solely a product of the Vietnam War. Franklin, H. Bruce. MIA, or Mythmaking in America. New York: Lawrence Hill, . Argues that the issue of more that , MIAs in Vietnam is a myth first perpetrated during the Nixon years and continued since that time by various prowar and conservative individuals and organizations. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, –. New York: Knopf, . Probably the best general treatment of the long American involvement in Vietnam. Hoopes, Townsend. The Limits of Intervention: An Inside Account of How the Johnson Policy of Escalation in Vietnam Was Reversed. New York: McKay, . Details the growing doubts within the Johnson administration about its war policy. Jordan, Chris. Movies and the Reagan Presidency: Success and Ethics. Westport, CT: Praeger, . Explores the influence of the Reagan presidency on the organization of Hollywood studios and the content of films during the s. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. nd. ed. New York: Viking, . A general and anecdotal account of the war that formed the basis for an excellent television documentary. Kearnes, Doris. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. New York: Signet, . An insightful analysis of the president who brought the United States all the way into the war, by a historian who was very close to him. Kissinger, Henry. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, . Kissinger’s memoirs provide insight into Nixon-era foreign policy and the author’s secret negotiations with Le Duc Tho. Lembke, Jerry. The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. New York: New York University Press, . A thorough examination of the experiences of Vietnam veterans, concluding that the notion that they were spit upon is an urban myth and that many veterans became involved in the antiwar movement. McNamara, Robert S. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Random House, . The belated admission that the war was a mistake, by the secretary of defense under Kennedy and Johnson. Oberdorfer, Don. Tet!: The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, . The best account of the event that was, as the title suggests, the turning point of the entire war. Olson, James S., and Randy Roberts. Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam,  to . New York: St. Martin’s Press, . General treatment of the war, with a good chapter on its influence on popular culture. The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam. The Senator [Mike] Gravel Edition,  vols. Boston: Beacon Press, . Generally considered to be the most detailed of the several editions of these documents.

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Porter, Gareth. A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam, and the Paris Agreements. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, . A detailed account of the  Paris Peace Agreement and its aftermath. Prados, John. Vietnam: The History of the Unwinnable War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, . A sweeping history of the Vietnam war, with a good deal of historiographical analysis. Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia. New York: Simon & Schuster, . A critical history of how U.S. policy led to civil war and genocide in Cambodia. Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End. New York: Random House, . The best account of the last two years of the Vietnam War; highly critical of U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin. Young, Marilyn. The Vietnam Wars, –. New York: HarperCollins, . Another good survey of the entire U.S. experience in Vietnam.

ANTIWAR MOVEMENT The antiwar movement of the s grew out of discontent with the government and the status quo, as well as an increasing feeling that war, especially the war in Vietnam, was unjust. The s were a decade of tumultuous change in the United States. The civil rights movement and the emerging counterculture attracted many young Americans, who began to have a vision of a world without violence, hatred, or prejudice. They questioned the establishment and its support of the Vietnam War, which to them seemed to symbolize the struggle between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” Those attitudes, along with widespread anger at the U.S. involvement in the war, led to a mass movement of people—students, writers, pacifists, clergy members, and even some disillusioned Vietnam veterans—who used demonstrations, parades, and sit-ins to force politicians to recognize that the war was unpopular. U.S. efforts to save South Vietnam from communism, the protesters claimed, was a dubious cause and not worth the loss of so many lives. On October , ,  antiwar demonstrators were arrested after a staged sit-in at the Oakland, California, draft induction center. Days later, on October , a massive demonstration against the war took place in Washington, D.C., when a spectrum of antiwar activists marched to the Pentagon. The March on the Pentagon was so large that troops of the nd Airborne Division were called in to protect the capital. By the final months of , polls showed that a majority of Americans felt that U.S. intervention in Vietnam was a mistake. At a time when the government was calling up , men a month to serve in the armed forces, draft resistance escalated, and people burned draft cards in open defiance. That same year, Martin Luther King Jr. incurred the ire of other civil rights leaders—who viewed President Lyndon B. Johnson as an ally—when he attacked the Vietnam War as a senseless drain on the United States’ scarce spiritual and economic resources. In May , student resistance to the war sparked a disaster on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. As young people had done on other campuses, students staged a protest at the Kent State reserve officers’ training building. Ohio governor James Rhodes ordered the National Guard to the campus to impose order, but a volley

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of shots fired into a crowd killed four youths. The Kent State massacre provoked protests across the nation. The campuses of more than  colleges and universities were shut down by strikes, and nearly , protesters marched on Washington. Members of the antiwar movement continued to condemn the war in Vietnam until the United States withdrew the last of its troops in .

margaret b. dicanio CAMBODIAN INCURSION (1970) The Cambodian incursion was a joint invasion of officially neutral Cambodia during May–June  by the U.S. Army and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, the army of South Vietnam). American leaders had been intent on keeping Cambodia neutral during the Vietnam War; however, when Communist forces seriously threatened the new Cambodian government, President Richard Nixon ordered both ARVN and U.S. ground forces into Cambodia to relieve pressure on the National Khmer Armed Forces (Forces Armées Nationales Khmer, FANK) to destroy Communist sanctuaries. Broader goals included demonstrating the progress of Vietnamization, buying time for additional U.S. troop withdrawals, and breaking the bargaining stalemate. Troops for the incursion were divided among three groups of operations: Toan Thang (Total Victory), Cuu Long (Mekong), and Binh Tay (Tame the West). In all, there were five phases in which Communist soldiers and supplies were captured, routes were cleared, and ethnic Vietnamese were rescued. Eventually, some of the missions became expeditions of seizing and destroying supply depots. Although American ground forces had left Cambodia by June , South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu considered the survival of pro–United States Cambodian prime minister Lon Nol’s regime, which had overthrown neutralist Prince Norodom Sihanouk on March , vital to Saigon and would not be bound by the deadline. ARVN units continued operating inside Cambodia into , supported by U.S. long-range artillery and air support. The incursion temporarily reduced the pressure on Lon Nol, lessened the dangers to withdrawing American troops, and showcased the improvement of the ARVN. Yet while enhancing Vietnamization, the operations also exposed critical tactical and organizational deficiencies in the ARVN and its complete dependence on U.S. air support. The facade of renewed ARVN strength became evident during the disastrous Laotian incursion in February . The effects of the Cambodian incursion were short-lived. Knowing American intervention would be limited, the Communists avoided open confrontation and quickly returned to reestablish control in eastern Cambodia after American withdrawal. The Communist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) compensated for its losses in Cambodia by seizing towns in southern Laos and expanding the Ho Chi Minh Trail, eventually enabling it to overrun the South with massive conventional assaults. Furthermore, the ARVN was forced to cover areas vacated by U.S. combat units, reducing its strength in the North where the Communist threat grew. In the long run, the Cambodian incursion posed only a temporary disruption of communism’s growing domination of all of Indochina. Despite Nixon’s boast in July , the prospects for a “just peace” were as dim as ever. Dissatisfaction over the incursion

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led to a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives that would severely limit the executive power of the president. The widening of the battlefield in  left Cambodia the most devastated nation in Indochina. To avoid massive U.S.-allied bombings, Communist forces spread deeper inside Cambodian territory, and, receiving only minimal U.S. assistance, Lon Nol’s army struggled futilely for five more years against both the Khmer Rouge and the PAVN. The departure of U.S. troops left a void too great for the ARVN or the FANK to fill.

spencer c. tucker LYNDON B. JOHNSON (1908–1973) Lyndon Baines Johnson, one of the most controversial U.S. presidents of modern times, fought more for African American equality than any president since Abraham Lincoln and sought to use the nation’s wealth to eradicate poverty. He also increased the U.S. commitment to one of the worst foreign policy disasters in the nation’s history. Raised in Johnson City, Texas, Johnson was born on August , , into a financially poor family with a rich political heritage—Johnson’s father and grandfather (for whom Johnson City was named) had served in the Texas legislature. Johnson graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in  and briefly taught school before embarking on his political career by helping Richard M. Kleberg win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Johnson accompanied Kleberg to Washington, D.C., where he served as his secretary for four years. In , Johnson returned to Texas as state director of the National Youth Administration, a New Deal post in which he helped young people secure part-time employment so that they could attend college. In , while campaigning as a fervent supporter of fellow Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, Johnson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Johnson joined the navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December  but served for only six months, until President Roosevelt ordered all congressmen on active duty to return to Washington. In , Johnson was elected to the Senate, and, in , he became minority leader. In , when he was reelected along with enough other Democrats for his party to regain control of the Senate, Johnson became majority leader. After recovering from a heart attack in , he continued his policy of working with President Dwight D. Eisenhower in formulating bipartisan policies. Johnson’s ability to search for the common ground upon which a compromise could be reached enabled him to become one of the most powerful men in Washington. His decision in  to personally direct the first civil rights bill through the Senate and in  to guide the passage of the second led political commentator James Reston to observe: “Johnson has, on the race problem, been the most effective mediator [in Congress] between the North and South.” Johnson’s hopes of winning the Democratic nomination for president in  were crushed by John F. Kennedy. After Kennedy defeated his opponents in the primaries, Johnson made an unsuccessful effort to discredit Kennedy as too young and inexperienced for the presidency. After Kennedy won the nomination on the first ballot, he offered the vice presidential position to Johnson. It was assumed the proud Johnson would decline the offer, but instead he accepted. Although Johnson participated in Cabinet

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meetings and chaired several important committees as vice president, he was clearly unhappy in the office. He felt restricted by the limited powers of the vice president, and he hated the personal style of the president and his brother Robert F. Kennedy. They, in turn, despised him. Then, on November , , Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, and Johnson assumed the office of president. Adroitly capitalizing on the somber mood of the nation, Johnson swiftly achieved enactment of civil rights legislation and a tax cut program—legislation Kennedy had sought before his death—as a living memorial to the murdered president. His success with the Congress and his promise that the United States would not become involved in another land war in Asia, this time in Vietnam, enabled him to easily win the nomination of his party for president in  and then to go on to overwhelm Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. The election also secured a large Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. Claiming that the election was a mandate to create his vision of a “Great Society,” Johnson began working to secure passage of a number of important programs and bills in . These included Medicare, a system of health insurance for the elderly under the Social Security program, and the Voting Rights Act of , which outlawed the illiteracy tests that had been used to prevent African Americans from voting. He established two new federal agencies, the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, and increased federal aid to public education. As part of Johnson’s War on Poverty program, Congress increased unemployment benefits, expanded the food-stamp program, created new youth employment opportunities, and provided legal services to the poor (Legal Services) and special preschool classes to underprivileged children (Head Start). These programs amounted to the most ambitious attempt at liberal reform since the New Deal. Johnson’s success in domestic affairs was not matched in the foreign policy arena. By , he had committed almost half a million U.S. troops to the defense of South Vietnam, and U.S. planes were bombing North Vietnam. As victory in Vietnam seemed to slip further away and casualties mounted, Johnson’s popularity weakened along with his political power. After the surprising primary election showing of Senator Eugene McCarthy in  and the entry into the race of Senator Kennedy, a demoralized Johnson stunned the nation with his televised announcement that he would not seek another term as president. Johnson retired to his ranch near Johnson City, Texas, to write his memoirs and died four years after leaving office, on January , .

steven g. o’brien TET OFFENSIVE (1968) The Tet Offensive of  was a decisive psychological turning point of the Vietnam War. Although U.S. and South Vietnamese forces emerged victorious from the countrywide Communist attacks, the offensive convinced many in the United States that increased American intervention would not break the will of the Communists. Militarily, the Vietnam War had not been going well for the Communist Viet Cong (VC) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), who were unable to compete with U.S. military firepower and mobility. Gen. Nguyen Chi Thanh had been in favor of scaling

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back operations in South Vietnam and conducting an even more protracted war to wear the Americans down. Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) defense minister Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, however, favored trying to end the war in one master stroke. In essence, he wanted to repeat his triumph over the French at Dien Bien Phu. Giap’s plan, borrowed from Chinese Communist doctrine, was based on the concept of the “General Offensive.” Following the General Offensive would come the “General Uprising,” during which the people of South Vietnam would rally to the Communist cause and overthrow the Saigon government. The General Offensive was set for Tet , the beginning of the lunar new year, the most important holiday for the Vietnamese. Giap’s build-up and staging for the Tet Offensive was a masterpiece of deception. Starting in the fall of , VC and PAVN forces staged a series of bloody but seemingly pointless battles in the border regions and the northern part of South Vietnam near the Demilitarized Zone. Giap designed that “peripheral campaign” to draw U.S. combat units out of the urban areas and toward the borders. From January , , until the point when country-wide attacks erupted at Tet, the attention of most of the U.S. military was riveted on PAVN attacks on Khe Sanh, an isolated U.S. Marine outpost. Meanwhile, the Communists used the Christmas  cease-fire to move their forces into position, while senior commanders gathered reconnaissance on their assigned objectives. In November , U.S. troops had captured a Communist document that anticipated the coming offensive, but U.S. intelligence analysts dismissed it as mere propaganda and did not believe the Communists had the capability. Nonetheless, noticing the increased Communist radio traffic and the strangely low number of contacts made by his units in the border regions, Lt. Gen. Frederick Weyand was not thrown off by the peripheral campaign. On January , , Weyand convinced Gen. William C. Westmoreland to let him pull more U.S. combat battalions back in around Saigon. As a result, there were  battalions (instead of the planned ) in the Saigon area when the attack came. Weyand’s foresight would be critical for the allies. The country-wide Communist attacks were set to commence on January , , but Giap’s secret build-up cost him in terms of coordination. The attack happened  hours prematurely, as VC commanders followed the lunar calendar in effect in South Vietnam rather than a new lunar calendar proclaimed by the North Vietnamese leadership for all of Vietnam. That resulted in the cancellation of the Tet holiday cease-fire; South Vietnamese troops were called back to their units, and U.S. forces went on alert. Giap had lost the element of surprise. In the early morning of January , the presidential palace in Saigon was attacked, and soon, the city of Hue was under attack. Before the day was over,  of  autonomous cities,  of  provincial capitals, and  of  district capitals were under attack. With the exception of Khe Sanh, the ancient capital of Hue, and the area around Saigon, the fighting was over in a few days. Militarily, the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the Communists. Giap was unable to exploit his element of surprise; by attacking everywhere, he had superior strength nowhere. The Tet Offensive was also a tremendous loss for the VC. Although a large portion of the PAVN conducted the feint at Khe Sanh, VC guerrilla forces had led the major attacks in the south, and they suffered the heaviest casualties. The guerrilla infrastructure developed over so many years was wiped out. After Tet , the war was

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run entirely by North Vietnam, and the VC were never again a significant force on the battlefield. When Saigon fell in , it was to four PAVN corps. The United States had delivered the Communists a crushing tactical defeat, but the U.S. public—doubtful that the Communists were as weak as the U.S. military had been claiming, as well as shocked by the brutality shown on television during the offensive— had begun to believe that the war was unwinnable. Thus, the Tet Offensive is one of the most paradoxical of history’s decisive battles.

spencer c. tucker

11 The Civil Rights Movement, ca. 1954–Present

INTRODUCTION The modern civil rights movement in the United States may be said to have begun in , when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began a concerted effort to end racial segregation, which had been made part of the American social fabric in the landmark case of Plessy v. Ferguson in . That case had sanctified racial segregation as long as “separate but equal” facilities were provided for blacks. Led by Charles Houston, a professor at Howard University, and Thurgood Marshall, a young lawyer, the NAACP decided to start its campaign with higher education and, specifically, law schools. In many states, there was only one law school, open to white students only, and black students seeking a law degree had to go elsewhere for their education. This put them at a significant disadvantage if they wanted to return to their home state to practice law. In Murray v. Maryland, a suit was brought against the University of Maryland law school, where a black applicant had been denied admission and where there was no black law school. Maryland offered financial aid to black students to help them go out of state for their education; but Houston and Marshall, arguing the case to a successful conclusion, said that this did not constitute equality. In , a similar case was won in Missouri; these victories suggested that segregation at other levels of schooling might also yield to legal decision. Although World War II slowed the legal struggle, the NAACP created the Legal Defense Fund in  to continue its campaign against segregation. Marshall, now legal counsel for the NAACP, filed suit against the University of Texas law school, which had offered to teach the plaintiff separately in three small rooms with part-time faculty. Although this clearly was not equal to the education white students received, the lower court ruled against the black student; however, in , the case reached the Supreme Court, where the decision was reversed. A similar case concerning the University of Oklahoma graduate school of education was also decided in favor of the black plaintiff, but in both cases the Court was careful to limit its ruling to graduate schools and not overturn the fundamental law of Plessy. During the early s, the NAACP developed the strategy that would prevail in the  landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. It was their contention that black children were irreparably damaged, psychologically, socially, and financially,

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 put an end to segregated public accommodations, such as “colored” entrances to movie theaters, as seen here. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

by having to attend segregated schools. After losing a case against the public school system in South Carolina, the NAACP prevailed in the Brown case, one of the first major decisions in which Earl Warren, the new chief justice, took part. During the  years that Warren headed the Court, civil rights advocates generally received a sympathetic hearing, and the Court was important in pushing forward the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement entered a more activist phase in December  with the Montgomery (Alabama) bus boycott. Under the inspirational leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., then a young divinity school graduate pastoring a church in the city, the boycott was intended to end segregation on the city buses. By walking to work or using car pools, Montgomery’s blacks avoided the buses for a year before the Supreme Court declared the segregated seating ordinance unconstitutional. This boycott, moreover, thrust King into a major leadership role in the civil rights movement, where he remained until his assassination in . Compliance with the Brown decision desegregating schools was remarkably slow throughout most of the South. School boards, supported by local public opinion, found ways to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and the Eisenhower administration did very little to speed the process. In , however, the president was stirred to action when the governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, refused to provide protection for nine black students who, by court order, were entering Little Rock Central High School. Threats of

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violence against the students forced the president to order , paratroopers to Little Rock to ensure their safety. Armed guards patrolled the school the entire year, and many southerners believed that a second Reconstruction, with federal occupation troops, was at hand. In the election of , neither Republican Richard M. Nixon nor Democrat John F. Kennedy was an ardent champion of civil rights, although Kennedy’s efforts to win Martin Luther King’s release from an Atlanta jail just days before the election was helpful in his quest for black votes. Once elected, however, Kennedy sent no civil rights legislation to Congress in  or , for fear that congressional resistance would lead to the defeat of other domestic programs. Kennedy’s cautious attitude was not shared by the movement’s leaders. In , busloads of white and black protestors attempted to integrate bus and train stations serving interstate travel. The “Freedom Riders,” as they were called, received no protection from local police and were often beaten by residents who resented the activities of the “outside agitators.” In September , the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered the desegregation of bus and train station facilities. In , a black student, James Meredith, attempted to gain admission to the University of Mississippi. The presence of federal marshals on campus, sent there to ensure Meredith’s peaceful enrollment, led to a two-day riot in which  died and nearly  were injured. Meredith eventually graduated from the university, and the Kennedy administration was persuaded that strong national leadership in civil rights was needed. The following year, the pace of the nonviolent civil rights movement accelerated with a series of marches in the South. Well-publicized, these marches often led to violent confrontations with local police, which, when shown on television, generated considerable sympathy for the protestors. The Kennedy administration, meanwhile, sent a major civil rights bill to Congress that included protection for voting rights, access for all to public accommodations, equal employment opportunity, and the creation of Community Relations Services to allow problems to be worked out on a local level. In August , a “march on Washington” brought over , people to the Lincoln Memorial to hear speeches by King and most of the other prominent civil rights leaders and their congressional supporters. Although many had predicted that the event would turn violent, it did not; and its success was helpful in moving the civil rights bill through Congress. After Kennedy’s assassination in November , Lyndon Johnson, the new president, used his political skills to overcome southern resistance to civil rights legislation; and the Civil Rights Act of  became law in July. This landmark act outlawed segregation in public accommodations, created an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and also contained a provision prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender. The following year, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which banned literacy tests as a qualification for voting and provided federal marshals to register voters in those counties, principally in the South, where fewer than half the adult population had voted in . Finally, the Civil Rights Act of  banned discrimination in the sale or rental of most housing in the United States. While President Johnson and Congress were creating a body of civil rights legislation in the mid-s, the movement itself turned ugly. Urban riots each summer between  and  left the black districts of many cities burned out and demoralized. Further, the growing dilemma of “white flight,” the movement of whites from the city to

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the more affluent suburbs, led to a sharp decline in city tax revenues and a consequent lessening of city services to those who remained. The frustration of blacks who lived in the “ghetto” often spilled over into violence, sometimes stemming from a relatively minor incident that was blown up out of all rational proportion. These were not “race riots” in the classic sense of the word, in which groups of blacks and whites would commit acts of violence against each other, often following a trivial incident; they were riots pitting blacks against police or national guardsmen, with the violence and destruction taking place in their own neighborhoods and business districts. The rhetoric of this new militancy was provided by new radical black organizations, such as the Black Muslims, the Black Panthers, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and their leaders, who often advocated racial separation rather than integration, radical economics, and, occasionally, revolutionary tactics. One effect of this was the so-called white backlash, a lessening of white sympathy for the black movement, seen in opposition to civil rights demonstrations, and increasing resistance to civil rights legislation in Congress. The passage of the  Civil Rights Act may have been due to the publication that year of the Kerner Commission Report, which concluded that conditions for urban blacks were deplorable, and to the assassination of Martin Luther King. The election of Richard M. Nixon, no friend of civil rights, in November , signaled the end of the most active phase of the civil rights movement. The Nixon administration, which had come to office with a great deal of support from southern whites, worked to delay school integration and to appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Despite the efforts of the administration, the Court left desegregation laws in place and ruled that “forced” busing was an acceptable technique to bring about school integration. Subsequent Republican administrations, headed by Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, similarly resisted new advances in civil rights but were unable to roll back the gains that had been won in the s and s. After years of relative inactivity, the women’s movement, or feminism, emerged in the s as a by-product of the larger civil rights movement. An increase in the number of working women, combined with the involvement of many women in the civil rights struggle, led to the awareness that women in American society were faced with many forms of legal, economic, social, and cultural discrimination. Chapter  in this volume traces the history of the women’s movement in detail. By the first decade of the st century, both blacks and women, as well as people of other ethnicities, or with alternative sexual preferences or physical or mental disabilities, could point to some significant gains as a result of the civil rights movement. More were serving in political offices, from the Congress down to the local level. Many discriminatory laws had been repealed, and public attitudes seemed to be more accepting of racial and sexual equality.

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY thomas clarkin The civil rights movement grew out of the struggle of black Americans to regain constitutional rights long denied them. Using the nation’s courts, political pressure, and

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active protest, blacks brought an end to decades of legal discrimination. Other Americans have since adopted the movement’s strategies to secure similar rights. Although the civil rights movement had many successes, it also raised questions about economic inequalities and racial identity that have not yet been resolved. Within  years after the end of Reconstruction in , the legislatures of the southern states began enacting laws designed to curtail the freedom that blacks had recently won. Known as Jim Crow laws, these regulations called for racially segregated facilities. In , the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld the doctrine of “separate but equal”: segregated facilities did not violate the constitutional rights of blacks as long as the separate facilities were equal to those used by whites. Southern states quickly enacted hundreds of Jim Crow laws, and separate restaurants, restrooms, and water fountains all became part of the southern way of life. While separate facilities became the norm, the notion of equality was discarded. Facilities provided for blacks generally were inferior to those for whites. Southern legislatures were unwilling to spend money on blacks, and their schools and neighborhoods received little funding. Black Americans lost ground in other areas, too. In , the Supreme Court upheld a Mississippi law requiring voters to pass a literacy test, which served to disenfranchise many blacks and poor whites. Other states required poll taxes, which most blacks could not afford. The number of black voters dropped dramatically in the South. As blacks lost their right to vote, the national political parties ignored their concerns. Violence against blacks often went unpunished, and lynchings were common throughout the South. With few educational or employment opportunities, most blacks were trapped in poverty from which they had little hope of escaping. Black leaders struggled to respond to the crisis. Booker T. Washington advocated a gradual approach to acquiring civil rights. He believed that blacks should avoid political battles and, instead, concentrate on improving themselves through education and hard work. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute offered blacks training in various trades. Other blacks spurned Washington’s advice, accusing him of accepting segregation and white domination. W.E.B. DuBois also recognized the value of education but called upon blacks to become doctors and lawyers. DuBois rejected Washington’s gradual approach and called for political agitation. Whatever means they espoused, most black leaders found that their cause generated little concern on the part of white America. Southerners were satisfied with their way of life, and many northerners considered race to be a southern problem. Many Americans, including presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, accepted “scientific” theories that proved blacks were naturally inferior to whites. National politicians saw no gain in assisting blacks who could not vote at the risk of alienating racist whites who could. Lacking financial resources and political power, civil rights leaders made little headway during the first three decades of the th century. At this time, hundreds of thousands of blacks were leaving the South. World War I had created a demand for laborers in northern industries, and southern blacks moved to cities such as New York, Detroit, and Chicago in hope of finding work. Called the “Great Migration” by historians, this trend continued for several decades. Although still victims of discrimination and racism, blacks in the North enjoyed greater prosperity. A new sense of cultural identity developed, and black music and literature flourished in

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the s. Most important, blacks in the North were able to vote, which allowed them over time to develop the political clout they needed to advance their cause. Black Americans had a difficult time during the Great Depression of the s. Whites were usually the first hired for the few jobs that were available. Several New Deal initiatives had the unintended effect of limiting opportunities for blacks. Unwilling to alienate southern congressmen whose support was crucial for New Deal programs, President Franklin Roosevelt offered no civil rights legislation. Many blacks complained that the New Deal was just the “old raw deal” they had been receiving for years. Despite its poor civil rights record, the Roosevelt administration was popular with black voters. They credited the president with providing them with some economic relief during the desperate times of the Depression. Harry Hopkins, director of the Works Progress Administration, maintained a color-blind hiring policy that provided over one million blacks with work. Blacks also appreciated several incidents of a more symbolic nature. While attending a conference in Birmingham, Alabama, in , First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt shocked southerners when she refused to comply with a Jim Crow law that segregated audiences. In addition, she and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes helped organize a free concert featuring black singer Marian Anderson that was held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which was attended by over , people. Black voters supported the Democratic Party because of the economic relief provided by the New Deal and the symbolic gestures that recognized the value of black Americans. While politicians in Washington did little to advance the cause of civil rights, attorneys for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began implementing a long-term legal strategy. Special Counsel Charles Houston believed that blacks could never achieve equality in the United States if they received an inferior education. The segregated school systems of the South were a permanent barrier to racial justice. Houston decided to attack the issue in the nation’s courts and establish a series of precedents that would eventually overturn Plessy v. Ferguson and end legal segregation. Attorney Thurgood Marshall discovered a case that fit the NAACP strategy perfectly. Donald Gaines Murray had been denied admission to the University of Maryland law school because he was black. The state of Maryland did not maintain a black law school, but did offer out-of-state scholarships to black students who wished to study law. Murray believed his rights had been violated and filed a lawsuit. The case of Murray v. Maryland was heard in June . Marshall argued that the university had an obligation to provide Murray with an education equal to that offered to white students. The scholarships were merely a means of avoiding that obligation. As there was no separate black school, Marshall continued, the only way Murray could receive an equal education was to attend the white school. The judge agreed and ordered the law school to admit Murray as a student. The Supreme Court heard a similar case, Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, in , and also ordered the black student admitted to the University of Missouri law school. Blacks celebrated the decisions, but Charles Houston realized that these victories were merely the beginning of a long battle to achieve equality. World War II signaled a change in the struggle for civil rights. Although Adolf Hitler’s virulent racism appalled Americans and ended “scientific” assertions of black inferiority, black Americans still suffered from prejudice. President Roosevelt refused to integrate the nation’s armed forces, and blacks who served their country in uniform

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were segregated from white soldiers. Blacks attempting to find work in wartime industries faced discrimination, and lynchings and beatings continued in the South. Racial tensions grew in the North too, as several cities experienced race riots. Several positive developments occurred during the war years. The NAACP continued its legal battles, attacking the segregated primary elections in Texas and poll taxes across the South. In Chicago, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) experimented with nonviolent protest to desegregate restaurants and movie theaters. Blacks also discovered that they could use political pressure to their advantage. In , labor leader A. Philip Randolph threatened a mass march on Washington if President Roosevelt did not end employment discrimination in companies holding government contracts. Worried that such a march would reflect poorly on the United States in the eyes of its wartime allies, Roosevelt created the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) to oversee hiring practices. Black civil rights leaders were beginning to use public opinion and political muscle to achieve their goals. Black veterans returning home at war’s end were no longer willing to comply with the South’s Jim Crow laws. They began to demand their right to vote, often at the risk of a beating or worse. Whites continued to thwart blacks who tried to register, so the number of actual black voters grew slowly in the South. Although the gains made at this time were limited, a new era in the struggle for civil rights had begun. Black Americans had turned to active protest, a method that would grow increasingly popular and eff ective in the coming years. After the war, civil rights became a national issue. Northerners could no longer consider race a “southern problem,” because millions of blacks lived in northern cities. Increasingly reliant upon the votes of northern blacks, the Democratic Party slowly responded to their concerns. President Harry S Truman, whose Senate record on civil rights was lukewarm, recognized the value of black votes. Truman was also horrified by the lynchings of black servicemen in the South. In  he established the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, and he included many of this committee’s recommendations in his  civil rights message to Congress. In that message, Truman asked for a federal antilynching law, the creation of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee, protection of voter rights, and an end to the poll tax. However, Congress was not responsive. A powerful coalition of Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats allied to block the civil rights legislation. Acting on his own, Truman issued an executive order that ended segregation in the nation’s armed forces. While the achievements of the Truman administration were limited, they signaled a commitment on the part of the Democratic Party to the cause of civil rights. Blacks continued to favor Democrats when they went to the polls, playing an important role in Truman’s election in . While black citizens turned to activism, and the federal government grappled with the issue of civil rights, Thurgood Marshall and the attorneys of the NAACP pursued the legal strategy they had developed in the s. Two important cases, Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma, appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court in . The law school at the University of Texas had denied Sweatt admission, instead opening a “law school” for blacks in a downtown basement. A court order had instructed the University of Oklahoma to admit George McLaurin as a graduate student. The university complied but forced McLaurin to sit in assigned classroom seats and use the cafeteria at odd hours, which in effect segregated him within the graduate school. Both

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men sued. Marshall argued that the act of segregation itself made the experiences of the students unequal to that of whites. The Court agreed that both students were receiving inferior educations and ordered Texas to admit Sweatt to the law school and Oklahoma to end its restrictions on McLaurin. Although the Court refused to acknowledge that segregation always resulted in unequal treatment, and segregation remained legal, these two cases established important precedents that undermined the Plessy ruling. In , the Supreme Court heard the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. In actuality five separate cases regarding school segregation, Brown remains one of the most important Supreme Court cases in American history. Marshall and the NAACP attorneys maintained that segregation psychologically damaged black schoolchildren. The attorneys presented as evidence sociological studies that proved black children in segregated schools believed that black skin color indicated inferiority. The doctrine of “separate but equal” was not only undesirable but unattainable—the very act of segregating children led to differences in self-esteem and education. Chief Justice Earl Warren spent several months trying to persuade his fellow justices to render a unanimous opinion on Brown. He presented the Court’s opinion in May . The Court ruled that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal and that, in the area of education, segregation laws violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The NAACP strategy of combating segregation through lawsuits had resulted in a major victory. Civil rights advocates across the nation cheered the Court’s decision. However, not all Americans lauded the ruling. The majority of white southerners viewed Brown as an attack on their way of life. President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to endorse the Court’s decision. He believed that gradual change through education was the best way to cure the nation’s racial problems. In the president’s mind, using the legal authority of the federal government to ensure racial equality would inevitably lead to conflict. Conflicts did occur because many white southerners defied the Brown ruling. In , the Court ordered integration to begin “with all deliberate speed,” a vague phrase that segregationists interpreted to mean “as slowly as possible.” Southern legislators passed laws intended to thwart school integration. Angry whites formed citizens’ groups to harass and intimidate blacks who demanded their rights. In , President Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce a court order demanding integration of Central High School. Troopers escorted nine black children past jeering mobs and up the schoolhouse steps. The soldiers remained at Central High for several months. Although the Brown ruling was a victory, the struggle for racial justice would be won, not by attorneys in the nation’s courthouses, but by brave men, women, and children who would risk their safety to win their rights. Activism became the most effective weapon in the battle for civil rights. In , Rosa Parks, a black seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her bus seat for a white passenger. When Parks was arrested for violating the city’s segregated bus laws, the city’s black leaders organized a boycott of the bus line. At a mass meeting held later that week, a young minister named Martin Luther King Jr. urged the boycotters to avoid violence. Montgomery’s black citizens endured the harassment of whites and the inconvenience of carpooling for over a year. The boycott, which made both national and international news, ended in  when the Supreme Court declared the segregated bus laws unconstitutional.

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Southern blacks found Reverend King’s nonviolent protest methods effective. In , four black students in Greensboro, North Carolina, ordered coffee at a whites-only lunch counter. When they were refused service because of their color, they remained at the counter. Students across the South adopted this “sit-in” strategy, while northern students organized support rallies. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was established in April  to coordinate protests and share information. Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy praised the students for their courage. While Kennedy offered only cautious support for civil rights during the campaign, his candidacy still held promise. Under President Eisenhower the federal government had moved too slowly. The passage of civil rights acts in  and  was symbolically important, but neither act led to significant changes in the lives of black Americans. Civil rights advocates lauded Kennedy’s promise to end housing segregation. When Kennedy personally assisted Martin Luther King in gaining release from an Atlanta jail, he gained the votes of blacks across the nation. Once in office, however, Kennedy worried that a strong civil rights stand might drive southern white voters away from the Democratic Party. He also feared alienating powerful southern senators whose support he needed on other issues. Kennedy offered no civil rights legislation to Congress. When pressed to end housing discrimination by executive order, the president stalled. However, Kennedy quickly learned that the activist nature of the civil rights movement would make it impossible to ignore. Within months of taking office he faced a crisis that demanded his attention. In , the Supreme Court had banned segregation in bus and train facilities that serviced interstate travel. James Farmer, national director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), wanted the federal government to enforce the Court’s decision. Volunteers known as Freedom Riders received training in nonviolent protest strategies and began traveling through the South. Mobs of angry whites attacked the Freedom Riders, both white and black, while local police merely watched. The violence made headlines and news broadcasts around the world. Dismayed by the tarnishing of America’s international prestige, President Kennedy wanted the Freedom Riders to abandon their campaign, but they refused. The Freedom Rides ended in late , when the Interstate Commerce Commission prohibited the segregated facilities. Civil rights advocates learned that the president would respond only in times of crisis. The strategy of nonviolent protest continued in the South. The hatred of white racists would provide the conditions requiring federal intervention. Kennedy hoped to channel the civil rights protestors into less confrontational activities. Administration officials made it clear that they would support and protect voter registration drives in the South. After vigorous debate, the members of SNCC began several registration projects. The idea was a failure. Volunteers were harassed, arrested, beaten, and, in several instances, murdered. The Justice Department failed to intercede and stop the violence. The student volunteers grew increasingly bitter toward the federal government, an attitude that would significantly alter the movement in coming years. The violence in the South continued. In , a federal judge ordered the all-white University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith. Kennedy had to send in federal marshals and the National Guard to enforce the court order. Mob violence left two dead and hundreds injured, but Meredith did enroll and later graduated. Since the president only reacted when violence threatened, Martin Luther King decided that a continued

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strategy of confrontation was the most effective means of pressuring Kennedy. King and other civil rights leaders planned a protest that they knew would provoke a violent response from whites. Known as “Project C,” with the “C” standing for confrontation, the plan would leave the president no option but to support the civil rights struggle. They chose the city of Birmingham, Alabama, notorious for its commitment to segregation and bloodletting. King’s plan included an economic boycott and active demonstrations. The protests began in early April , when blacks picketed local department stores. City police promptly arrested everyone involved. A protest march the following week also ended with mass arrests. Birmingham became the focus of national attention. On May , hundreds of schoolchildren joined the protest. Police arrested and jailed them. The following day, police used fire hoses and attack dogs on the demonstrators, many of whom were children. The violence escalated throughout the week. Americans saw it all on television and were horrified. Kennedy threatened the use of federal troops and urged the city to negotiate with the civil rights leaders. The protests ended with a settlement that desegregated lunch counters and promised blacks jobs in local industries. Project C was successful. The president feared that the nation was becoming racially divided and that the violence would soon become uncontrollable. He also worried that America’s image would become soiled, thus aiding the spread of communism. On the evening of June , Kennedy appeared on national television. He declared racial justice to be a moral issue that America had to face and announced that he would send a civil rights bill to Congress. The bill sent to Congress the following week included a ban on segregation in public facilities. To ensure that the bill would not disappear in Congress, civil rights leaders organized a march on Washington in August. The march would keep civil rights in the public eye and show the country that the struggle for justice could be peaceful and bring Americans together. President Kennedy feared that violence would mar the event and asked that it be cancelled, but the organizers refused. The president’s concerns were unfounded. The march on Washington was one of the high points of the civil rights movement, drawing over a quarter million Americans of all races together for a day of peaceful celebration. That afternoon King delivered his most famous speech, declaring to Americans, “I have a dream.” The march on Washington confirmed that King’s dream might one day become reality. President Kennedy did not live to see his civil rights bill become law. Many blacks feared that his successor, the Texan Lyndon Johnson, might not support their cause. In fact, Johnson included civil rights among his administration’s highest priorities. Johnson used his considerable legislative skills to push the bill through Congress. The Civil Rights Act of  outlawed discrimination in the use of public facilities. The courage of America’s civil rights activists had ended the long reign of Jim Crow in the South. These successes inspired other Americans to press for their rights. Increasingly discontented with their role as housewives, women began to question their place in American society. They faced limited employment opportunities and received less pay than men. Title VII of the newly passed Civil Rights Act included a provision banning discrimination on the basis of sex. This provision would prove to be important as women used the nation’s courts to end discrimination in the workplace. Southern blacks still faced discrimination when registering to vote. Students—both black and white—organized a registration drive in the summer of . Angry whites

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harassed the “Freedom Summer” volunteers. Three men working on the project were murdered in Mississippi, which again drew the nation’s attention toward the South. In , King began demonstrations protesting black disenfranchisement in Selma, Alabama. On March , police used whips, chains, and tear gas to end a protest march; the brutal attack on the peaceful demonstrators made national news. Eight days later President Johnson submitted a voting rights bill to Congress. Signed into law that August, the Voting Rights Act of  ended literacy tests and allowed the federal government to intervene in areas where voter registration was unusually low. At the moment of its greatest triumphs, however, the civil rights movement was fragmenting. Many volunteers never forgot the federal government’s failure to protect students who worked on voter registration projects. The strategy of nonviolent confrontation had been useful, but years of harassment and abuse had taken their toll. Moreover, the end to legal discrimination did little to raise blacks out of poverty. A more radical vision began to take root among many blacks seeking justice. Malcolm X rejected nonviolence and advocated black nationalism. Stokely Carmichael, a SNCC veteran, raised the cry of Black Power. The Black Power movement emphasized self-reliance and racial unity instead of integration. Some militant civil rights leaders questioned the viability of American democracy and capitalism. The call for civil rights took on an increasingly radical cast that alienated many white supporters. The situation worsened in the mid-s as riots swept through the nation’s urban centers. Inner-city blacks discovered that the end to discrimination did not ensure equality of economic opportunity. With rioting in Watts (Los Angeles) in , and Newark and Detroit in , the nation seemed gripped by violence that was tearing it apart. After the assassination of Martin Luther King in April , riots rocked over  cities, including the nation’s capital. Many American whites believed that the civil rights movement had gone far enough. President Johnson found limited congressional support for his civil rights initiatives. A bill banning housing discrimination failed in  and , finally passing in . Race became an important issue in the  presidential election. Republican nominee Richard M. Nixon correctly sensed that most Americans no longer supported the civil rights struggle. During the campaign, he ignored the black vote, hoping instead to capture the votes of white southern conservatives alienated from the Democratic Party. He opposed busing as a means to desegregate schools and called for “law and order,” a catch phrase with racist overtones in the South. In office, Nixon attempted to weaken the enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act and continued to oppose busing. He nominated several conservative southerners to serve on the Supreme Court. While Congress, the courts, and the federal bureaucracy often frustrated Nixon’s attempts to slow the civil rights struggle, the era of federal activism had clearly ended. During the s, advocates of racial justice tried to hold their ground. In , the Supreme Court heard the case of Alan Bakke. Bakke claimed that he had been denied admission to a California medical school because he was white and was, therefore, a victim of reverse discrimination. His suit was an attack on affirmative action programs, which had been instituted to give minorities employment and educational opportunities. The Court’s ruling in Bakke’s favor was a serious blow to affirmative action.