Colonial History Of The United States
The colonial history of the United States began shortly after the rediscovery of the New World by Europeans ( Christopher Columbus in 1492 ). The current American territory is fast becoming an international issue: the major Western colonial powers engage in the exploration and conquest of the New World.
Sixteenth century: exploration and first attempts at colonization
It was not until nearly half a century after the rediscovery of the continent by Christopher Columbus to the vessels of the European launch expeditions on the coast of New England , and several dozen more years before the founding of the first settlements.
In the first half of the sixteenth century , the Spaniards enter from Mexico in the present territory of the United States , but not implement a sustainable manner. Towards the east, Florida is sighted by the navigator Juan Ponce de Leon in 1513 and then, after spending several years of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca , is explored by Hernando de Soto who goes to the Appalachian region and the Mississippi. To the west, the myth of El Dorado attracts adventurers like Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in the Southwest United States today. Thus was discovered the Grand Canyon around 1540 and Cabrillo cross off a future Los Angeles.
Further north, the other European powers, Britain and France are also exploring the coast of America between 1520 and 1607, but fail to establish themselves despite attempts between 1560 and 1590. The Venetian explorer Giovanni Caboto ( John Cabot ) is sent on a mission by King Henry VII. It runs along the coasts of Labrador Current, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. However, it is not universally acknowledged by historians that he landed on the present site of Bonavista on the island of Newfoundland.
For France, Jacques Cartier landed on the east coast and named it " New France "for Francis I. The Italian Giovanni da Verrazano addresses the coast of Carolina and Florida The first British colonies (XVII century) Each colony has a special status which depends on its history, but beyond the institutional differences we can distinguish three categories: The Colonies at Charters whose status depends on charters granted by the sovereign to private shipping companies. The charter defines the political rules of the colony. In the 1770s, only the colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut and Maryland benefit from this status. These two colonies are undoubtedly those who enjoy greater autonomy because of the existence of functional constituencies. The governor and the principal officers (as Lieutenant-Governor) are elected by a colonial assembly. The Colonial Owners their political status have been identified at London's recognition of the founding of the colony. They are therefore based on the initiative of a great personage, known as the "owner" (Lord Proprietor). The best known example is that of Pennsylvania , when, in 1681, Charles II sells to William Penn the territory corresponding to the provinces of Pennsylvania and Delaware and grants in 1683, a Frame of Government. The original founder was acting governor. Over time, the governor is appointed by the heirs of the founder of the colony and their choice must be ratified by London. In 1776, John Penn (1729-1795), grand son of the owner, served as lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. Similarly Oglethorpe owner is a lord, but with a particularity: it is a colony administered according to a charter that has a term of twenty-one years. It is however the Governor as early as 1733. Provinces between the New England and Maryland had originally owner for the Duke of York, but became chartered colonies. The Colonies of the Crown : The New Hampshire , the Massachusetts , the province of New York , the New Jersey , the Virginia and both Carolinas and Georgia , in fact. They have a "Constitution" written by the crown. The term "constitution", a sum of the founding texts, instructions given to successive Governors, moderated by experience and tradition. These are colonies where the control of the city is by nature more closely: the governor appoints the directors and has a veto over the discussions of local assembly. A veto reinforced by the Council Policy which can reject the decisions of the governor. The latter may finally dissolve or adjourn the Colonial Assembly. In 1606, King I. Jacques founded the Virginia Company to colonize the territories claimed by the colony of Virginia , between the 34th and the 45th degree of north latitude. It further divides the colony by granting a charter to this company's two joint ventures: the Plymouth Company and London Company. The latter will therefore have a mission to colonize the land in the territory granted by their respective charters: the north in the company of Plymouth and south to the London company. However, both have the right to establish settlements in an area of overlap between the two territories. Thus, the London company is seen by the charter given the territory extending from Cape Fear to the Long Island Sound , while the Plymouth company owns the rights to the land between the Chesapeake Bay and near the border US-Canada today. These companies hope to find there as the Mexican mines of gold and silver. Their relations with the Indians are rapidly stretched. Fishing for cod in the North and the cultivation of tobacco in the south compensate those early settlers of disappointment. Soil fertility in attracting new ones, while political events in England promote emigration to other points. The oldest institution establishes English have persisted until today is the city of Jamestown in June 1607 , founded by the envoys of the company, on the grounds of a leader Potomac Powathan : she has a hundred people. Agriculture and living conditions are bad for the settlers because the land is unhealthy. In order not to starve, they take refuge in the village of Potomac Powathan, tying first relations with the Indians (History of Pocahontas ). During the summer of 1608 , the council of the settlement calls for their return, the Chief refuses Powathan. On 30 August 1608, Captain John Smith sent his troops to "liberate our people, slaves of the wild." It attacks an Amerindian village, killing 23 men, and leaves with the reservations and twenty women and children who serve as hostages and slaves. The children are then slaughtered and women drowned. This rapidly growing colony planting tobacco. The first landing of black slaves in 1619 will take place at the site of Jamestown by Dutch ships. A few months after the founding of Jamestown, the company founded the Plymouth Colony Popham on the territory of the present town of Phippsburg in the present state of Maine. However, it disappears a year after its founding, and the Plymouth company ceased operations in 1609. Thus, the overlap is given to the London company after a reorganization of the Royal Charter, and the territory was named "Virginia." The region exclusively granted to the defunct Plymouth company will in turn known as " New England "from 1620. The boundaries of these settlements are stretched in a straight line in the dark by the English Crown, and this, by claiming British sovereignty over the land unknown and unexplored by Britain, notably those of New France and New Spain. Further north, beyond the concession company, in 1620 , one hundred Puritans landed the Mayflower and founded Plymouth ( Massachusetts ). Their management of the colony is discussed on the boat, as each family has a boat share is a voting system based both democratic, capitalist and religious fact of the Pilgrim Fathers symbols future America. In 1620, the Plymouth company is reorganized to form the Council of Plymouth to colonize the territory of New England. This council will be removed, however in 1635 as a corporate entity, and the charter will be at the disposal of the Crown. The Plymouth Council grants letters patent for the colony in 1621 and 1630, but it will be administered independently of the board under the provisions of the pact. This legislation became the foundation of the Constitution of the United States, but not the first Constitution. That title goes right to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut in 1638 for writing the colony of Connecticut founded in 1636. Pilgrims forged close relations with the natives remote, allowing them to survive, giving them and learning to cultivate maize (Indian corn) and pumpkin turkey well: in 1621 is celebrated the first Thanksgiving. The religious strife in England reinforce the arrival of new puritans in this region. But there are also many German Protestants fleeing religious persecution and misery (there are 10,000 Germans and before independence). The Puritans of Boston and Providence are getting into the triangular trade. They buy slaves in Africa and sell them in Virginia , Maryland or West Indian markets. In the mid-seventeenth century, Boston has become with its 3000 inhabitants, the center of New England. Missionaries tried to evangelize the Indians. New groups of Protestants arrived in New England : Anabaptists and Quakers who were persecuted in Massachusetts and settling in the nearby settlements. And English colonization was focused mainly on the coast (from Virginia to New Brunswick ). This is an important settlement by the number of settlers involved and which responds to a commercial and religious: many people who go to England to establish in New England, a political system more in line with their views religious (well, the colony of Massachusetts Bay Colony is a puritan, the Maryland ... is Catholic). The settlers are pushing the Indians to the interior and become outnumbered. Around 1740 the British territories in North America have one million people. The first federal census of 1790 reported a population of 4 million. Besides immigration, the natural growth rate is particularly high . The birth rate ranges from 40 to 50% (In Europe the same time, the rate was lower, between 30 and 40%). Because age at marriage of men do not cease to descend: 27 years in the early seventeenth to 24.6 years in the late eighteenth century. For women, it stands for the last survey to 22.3 years. Interpretation is relatively straightforward. Age at marriage varies depending on available resources. However, land is plentiful in the colonies. It is not necessary to wait before getting married. Thus, it was found that only 15% of the families of New England have fewer than three children. North America has a mortality rate lower than Europe's below 25% (In Europe, it rises to 35 or 40%), New England doing better than Virginia. Historians, this time, struggling to explain the difference between the two sides of the Atlantic. Better nutrition in America? A more even heating thanks to the abundance of wood? The absence or the relative safety of epidemics, because of the geographic distribution of establishments? What makes the first settlers to live is the triangular trade and slave labor on plantations in the south, however, the northern colonies are turning increasingly to the manufacturing and agriculture without slave while maintaining strong southerly slavery. Southern society is also strongly mixed because whites did not hesitate to have mistresses, black or Indian. Nevertheless it remains strongly affected by racist ideas. The slaves were converted to Christianity renamed get the name of their masters. To deculturation blacks, slaves of the same ethnic group were separated. Traded in Africa cons gun, gunpowder, clothing, alcohol .. and decreased after ebony slaves were deported by British slavers but also French, Spanish, Danish or Dutch. In 1526 , Spaniard Vallez Lucas de Ayllon established a settlement in South Carolina , which was abandoned a few months later. The second permanent European settlement on the soil of the United States is the colony of St. Augustine , in Florida in 1565. From 1580 , King created the Florida (West Alabama today) and eastern ( Florida Current). Santa Fe is founded in the early seventeenth century ( 1610 ) in the current state of New Mexico. The current names of southwestern United States is heir to the Spanish colonization: Sierra Nevada , Los Angeles , founded in 1781 , San Francisco ... The missionary activity began in the sixteenth century and faces resistance from Native Americans. In the late eighteenth century , a mission was founded in San Francisco and the chapel still exists at that time, the insurgents on the east coast declared their independence. Around 1630 , French colonization is taking place along the St. Lawrence River. In 1663 , the Canadian is called " New France "and becomes a colony of king. The French were outnumbered by English settlers and control more hinterland: they sink into Canada today by the St. Lawrence in the U.S. today by the Mississippi , from its delta. In 1673 , the governor of New France (now Canada) sent an expedition led by Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet down the Mississippi. In 1679 La Salle explores the current Minnesota. Thus the French "encircle" the British possessions and want to create an empire as a counterweight to the Spanish Empire. But the king of France urges limited means to effectively control these territories it claims rather than own them. Colonization centers are created in the region: in 1699 , Biloxi ( Mississippi current) in 1701 , Detroit ( Michigan today) in 1702 , Mobile ( Ala. current). In 1718 , Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville founded New Orleans. The French also claim the valley of the Ohio , on the western side of the British colonies of the Atlantic. The Louisiana has never been a settlement and development of this vast territory was not sufficient. Voltaire described in the eighteenth century French North America as a "land covered with ice eight months of year, inhabited by barbarians, bears and beavers. " By the Treaty of Utrecht ( 1713 ), the French lost territories in Canada. The British drove the Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1755 , they find themselves scattered across America. Their houses are burned to discourage return. This episode is called " a href = "% C3% D A9portation_des_Acadiens" alt = "Deportation of the Acadians"> Great Upheaval. " Following a complaint from an American lawyer Lafayette , Queen Elizabeth II has recognized the responsibility of Great Britain in this deportation. Military conflicts between the French and British lead in 1763 in ousting the French in Canada (see Section Seven Years War ). The French are definitely the North American continent (except for Saint Pierre and Miquelon ) in 1803 , when Napoleon sold the United States Louisiana , that is to say in fact a vast area covering the whole the basin of the Mississippi , not only the state of Louisiana today. Language ( Cajun French ) and place names have kept the memory of the French presence: Detroit , New Orleans (increasingly known as New Orleans), Grand Teton , St. Louis ... Colonial rivalries are exacerbated and each side uses the support of India (Algonquin and Hurons by the French, the Iroquois by the British). The British colonies even think of a union, military cooperation between them to cope with French enmity. From 1756, U.S. tensions within the context of the troubled European relations. By the Treaty of Paris , France ceded all its American colonial empire. Wanting to spare their Indian allies, the British decided to fix the western limit of their colonies to the Appalachians. All territories are reported in the west Indian. The Quebec Act of 1774 extends this province in northern Ohio. These measures may annoy the American colonists. The ideas of European philosophers of the eighteenth century in America by entering the cities, which stand chat rooms and clubs. A relay of this Enlightenment is Benjamin Franklin and it should highlight the role of media in the dissemination of American ideas. The Seven Years War (1756-1763) that pitted European powers, has emptied the coffers of the British Crown. While the Thirteen Colonies were thriving economically, Britain was undergoing a crisis . London decided that part of the war costs would be borne by the American colonists. After the Treaty of Paris , the Great Britain acquired the French colonies in North America. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was intended to establish and organize the British colonial empire in the region. He was also a matter for the Crown to pacify relations with the Indians. The Proclamation was intended to allay Indian fears of an influx of white farmers on their land. Indeed, the Thirteen Colonies were much more populated than the New France , European migrants who arrived in large numbers, demanding more land for their livelihood. " Frontier "drew migrants like the Scots followed by the Germans . Depletion of soil east of the Appalachians and the population pressure accentuated the land hunger of settlers. The Proclamation prohibited the inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies to settle and buy land west of the Appalachians . The Crown also reserves the monopoly in the acquisition of Indian lands and the King guaranteed the protection of indigenous peoples , . London had planned construction of British forts along the boundary settlement, this device would allow compliance with the Proclamation but also promote the fur trade with the Indians . The British government believed that these outposts ensured the defense of the Thirteen Colonies and their funding was therefore up to the settlers . The Royal Proclamation of 1763 raised the discontent of the American colonists who had already settled in the Indian territories. They had to make land and return to the Thirteen Colonies. Some were convinced that the king wished to confine American settlement on the coastal strip in order to better control . The settlers refused to finance the construction and maintenance of royal outposts on the line defined by the Proclamation. The ousting of the French in Canada in 1763 ensured the security of the Thirteen Colonies who believed no longer needed British military protection . From 1764 the British Parliament , influenced by the finance minister George Grenville , decides to impose a series of taxes on the colonists. The Sugar Act ("Act on Sugar," 1764) is the first of these laws that will provoke the anger of American merchants. In 1765, Parliament passed the Quartering Act ("Act quartering") which provides for the requisitioning of housing and shelter for British soldiers stationed in North America. London then imposes the Stamp Act ("Stamp Act", 1765), the most unpopular of all the American colonies. It requires the purchase of a tax stamp that was placed on newspapers, books, official documents ... This policy aims to finance the maintenance of British troops in North America. In response, the settlers formed a convention against the "Stamp Act (Stamp Act Congress) who met in October 1765. This meeting sends a petition to the king and the British Parliament to demand the abolition of the law. Americans feel unfair to pay new taxes to Great Britain, then they are not represented in Parliament in London. They claim their participation in British politics and fall behind the slogan "No tax without representation" (No taxation without representation). To pressure the city, merchants organized a boycott of British goods. Riots broke out in New York near the offices selling stamps. In Boston, a club called the secret propaganda son of freedom (Sons of Liberty) led by Samuel Adams , destroyed the home of Governor Thomas Hutchinson. The British Parliament finally back in repealing the Stamp Act but voted the Declaratory Act which reaffirmed the right of Britain to raise taxes in America, but the settlers are represented in London. In 1767 were voted the Townshend Acts, taxing the goods imported by the 13 colonies. They focus on tea, glass, paint, lead and even paper. Americans are again threatening to boycott British products: Parliament cancels the taxes except on tea but still refuses to recognize a political representation of Americans. In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act ("Act on tea") that exempts the East India Company of any tax on tea originating from India. The British trading company therefore has a privilege that seems unbearable to the settlers. A group disguised as Indians then attacked the cargo of a British ship in December 1773: the Boston Tea Party ( Boston Tea Party ) is one of the most famous episodes of the American rebellion. Parliament's reaction is not expected: it passes the Coercive Acts ("Acts coercive") that the settlers renamed "Intolerable Acts ( Intolerable Acts ). The power of the legislature of Massachusetts is reduced and the Boston Harbor is closed authoritarian. The cantonment laws are extended to private homes. British officers were tried by a British jury and not colonial. The American population does not accept restrictions on trade. The settlers then feel victims of despotism UK: in 1770, five settlers were killed by the British after the riots. From 1773, they revolted and proclaimed their independence on 4 July 1776. Bibliography for the sixteenth , seventeenth and eighteenth centuries : Constitution of the English colonies
The Colonies Charters
The Colonial Owners
The Crown Colonies
The English colonies on the Atlantic coast
Spanish Foundations in the South
Arrival of the French
In Canada
In the region of Mississippi
The ousting of the French
Other Europeans ...
The situation on the eve of the Revolutionary War (late eighteenth century)
Colonies heterogeneous
The Anglo-French wars and the Franco-British (1689-1763)
The Enlightenment
Proclamation of 1763
Tax Laws
References
See also
Internal Links
External Links
Bibliography
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