Scarcely was this accomplished when the French Revolution. and the rise of Napoleon involved us in a struggle, first for our neutral rights, and then for our commercial independence, and finally in a second war with Great Britain. During this period of nearly five and twenty years, commerce and agriculture flourished exceedingly, but our internal resources were little developed. With the peace of 1815, however, the era of industrial development commences, and this has been treated with great-though it is believed not too great fullness of detail; for, beyond all question, the event of the world's history during the nineteenth century is the growth of the United States. Nothing like it has ever before taken place. To have loaded down the book with extended bibliographies would have been an easy matter, but quite unnecessary. The teacher will find in Channing and Hart's Guide to the Study of American History the best digested and arranged bibliography of the subject yet published, and cannot afford to be without it. If the student has time and disposition to read one half of the reference books cited in the footnotes of this history, he is most fortunate. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. JOHN BACH MCMASTER. VIII. THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND LOUISIANA IX. LIFE IN THE COLONIES IN 1763 "LIBERTY, PROPERTY, AND NO STAMPS " XXXII. POLITICS FROM 1868 TO 1880 XXXIII. GROWTH OF THE NORTHWEST, MECHANICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS A SCHOOL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS CHAPTER I EUROPE FINDS AMERICA 1. Nations that have owned our Soil. — Before the United States became a nation, six European powers owned, or claimed to own, various portions of the territory now contained within its boundary. England claimed the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. Spain once held Florida, Texas, California, and all the territory south and west of Colorado. France in days gone by ruled the Mississippi valley. Holland once owned New Jersey, Delaware, and the valley of the Hudson in New York, and claimed as far eastward as the Connecticut River. The Swedes had settlements on the Delaware. Alaska was a Russian possession. Before attempting to narrate the history of our country, it is necessary, therefore, to tell 1. How European nations came into possession of parts of it. 2. How these parts passed from them to us. 3. What effect the ownership of parts of our country by Europeans had on our history and institutions before 1776. 2. European Trade with the East; the Old Routes. For two hundred years before North and South America were known to exist, a splendid trade had been going on between Europe and the East Indies. Ships loaded with metals, woods, and pitch went from European seaports to Alexandria and Constantinople, and brought back silks and cashmeres, muslins, dyewoods, spices, perfumes, ivory, precious stones, and pearls. This trade in course of time had come to be controlled by the two Italian cities of Venice and Genoa. The merchants of Genoa sent their ships to Constantinople and the ports of the Black Sea, where they took on board the rich fabrics and spices which by boats and by caravans had come up the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris from the Persian Gulf. The men of Venice, on the other hand, sent their vessels Routes to India to Alexandria, and carried on their trade with the East through the Red Sea. 3. New Routes wanted. - Splendid as this trade was, however, it was doomed to destruction. Slowly, but surely, the Turks thrust themselves across the caravan routes, cutting off one by one the great feeders of the Oriental trade, till, with the capture of Constantinople in 1453, they destroyed the commercial career of Genoa. As their power was spreading rapidly over Syria and toward Egypt, the prosperity of Venice, in turn, was threatened. The day seemed near when all trade between the Indies and Europe would be ended, and men began to ask if it were not possible to find an ocean route to Asia. |