Learning about the past can give us insights into where we are going in the future. Studying history helps us understand ourselves better, and can inspire us to attain greater achievements. When we learn that Thomas Edison invented the phonograph (music player) even though he was mostly deaf, then we can strive to do more with the talents and abilities God gave us. Learning history is also an enjoyable and relaxing hobby for many people, just as playing sports or listening to music is for others.
A small boat which that sailed into unchartered waters brought the Pilgrims to America. Their group was not much bigger than our class, and their boat (the "Mayflower") was not much larger than an ordinary classroom. Just before arriving on shore, the Pilgrims agreed to a written agreement or "compact" to bind them after they arrived. The very first words of their "[[Mayflower Compact]]" were "In the name of God Amen."<ref>The Mayflower Compact is viewable here: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/amerdoc/mayflower.htm</ref>
Just as our Nation's founders started with a prayer, so do we. Prayer clears out the noise in our minds. We are looking for knowledge and inspiration here, and that comes from God. In most countries , families lack the freedom even to have a class like this. Yet America was established on prayer and liberty, from which prosperity results.
A tip before we begin: '''''the best way to master American History is to find something you enjoy about it, and then write about that topic and everything that relates to it'''''. Now let's learn some history.
* failing to recognize that American politics is always a struggle between two sides; politics mattered in the past as much as it does today
* memorizing dates without understanding the sequence of events (exams rarely ask about dates, but do ask about the sequence in which events ocurredoccurred)
* getting bogged down in detail and failing to see the big picture
* misunderstanding questions
The key to mastering history is to find what you like and understand, and then use it as your foundation to learn everything else. In other words, first find and learn what you like, and then learn everything else by connecting it to what you know. This is the same technique that we all use for directions: pick a landmark or a place that you know how to get to, and then figure out how to go from there to where you need to go.
For example, if you are most interested in religion, then learn about the 13 colonies based on their different attitudes towards religion. If you are most interested in one colony, then learn about it and how it related to other colonies. If you like military history, then use that as your starting point (although beware that almost no questions on the college board exams will be about military battles). Perhaps you enjoy mysteries; in that case, use our list of [[Essay:Greatest Mysteries of American History|Greatest Mysteries of American History]] to motivate you. If you like [[economics]], then much of history can be learned by viewing it through from an economic perspective. The [[American Revolution]] (or "Revolutionary War"), for example, happened during difficult economic times in the colonies. Even sports fans can learn history through their favorite sport: baseball, for example, began during the [[Civil War]].
Perhaps you like politics the most. In that case, you'll want to memorize the presidents and leaders of Congress, and relate historical events to their times in office. Or perhaps you enjoy legal issues, and reading about famous trials and court rulings. If so, then you may want to focus your attention on the major rulings of the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] throughout American history, and relate other historical events to those decisions.
Your common sense and imagination can help you master American history. Pause for a moment and imagine what would likely happen to a nice chunk of fertile land, possibly containing riches like gold, located between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Would some Europeans want to go there? Of course. Which ones would want to go there, and why?
One reason is to convert the natives to Christianity, just as people today often go on missionary trips to distant lands. Another reason is to search for gold and other riches. A third reason is to obtain freedom. An additional reason is for the same reason that people climb a mountain: simply because it is there! Some want to escape where they are. Others want to set up a new community, perhaps a new religious environment. Others hope to meet new people and , make new friends, and engage in the trade of goods with the people. Another motivation is to learn from the new people, or have adventures and then write about them.
What is likely to happen if a bunch of Europeans go to this land? There will be conflict: conflicts with the natives, conflicts with other European countries, and conflicts with the mother country that sent the settlers. But there will also be new opportunities for improvements, for new products, for new businesses, for new religions , and for new systems of government.
Who is going to pay for exploration and settlement? Kings. Investors. Churches. Many people were reluctant to risk their money on such a dangerous and uncertain project.
From 1789 until today, we have had 45 American Presidents. A president is not more important than other people. If I had to name the ten most significant Americans in history, I would include only one president in the list (the first president, [[George Washington]], and he was already important prior to becoming president). A few of the presidents, such as Thomas Jefferson, achieved more when they were not president (Jefferson's more important work was to write the key parts of the Declaration of Independence).
But However, memorizing the list of 45 presidents can help you organize all the other facts. When someone asks me what was happening in 1962, I think of who was president and then remember the issues of that time. The presidents become like drawers in a cabinet where you might put your clothes. In the "cabinet" of presidents, each drawer is filled with issues and events that happened during each presidency.
But before 1789 there was no president. How are we going to organize that? One way is to focus on the three most important colonies, [[Virginia]] (founded in 1607), [[Massachusetts]] (1620) and [[Pennsylvania]] (1681), and relate the other ten colonies and events to them. Another way is to look at the battles that occurred before the [[American Revolution]], such as the [[French and Indian War]] in 1754-1760.
The Mississippian culture thrived between about A.D. 800 and 1600, particularly along the Mississippi River but also in the general midwestern and southeastern region of the United States, whereby Native Americans built mounds having spiritual significance to them. Old mounds reflecting these Indian settlements still exist, such as the Adena burial mounds and Mississippian platform towns.<ref>Melissa L. Meyer, Dean R. Snow, Charles L. Cohen, Russell Thornton, Donald A. Grinde Jr., Leah Dilworth "Indian History and Culture" The Oxford Companion to United States History. Paul S. Boyer, ed. Oxford University Press 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. University of Tampa. 4 August 2008 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t119.e0758-s0002></ref> The [[Cahokia Mounds]] in Southern Illinois (just east of [[St. Louis]]) still exist from an Indian community dating back as early as A.D. 1000 or 1100.<ref>http://www.cahokiamounds.com/mystery_01.html</ref> That community practiced human sacrifice, as did the [[Aztecs]] and [[Mayans]] in [[Mesoamerica]] (Mexico and Central America) and the [[Incas]] in [[South America]] prior to the arrival of the Spanish conquerors.
When talking about Indian cultures, keep in mind that the Indians in what is now the United States were a diverse selection of cultures, which included nomads from the Great Plains in the Midwest, Indian settlements in the West, and many Indian tribes in the East. Among the Eastern tribes , there were quasi-governmental systems with formal treaties. Most tribes did not have a formal monetary systems, but the Cherokee and the Iroquois Nations did have business transactions. None of the tribes of the North American continent had any formal writing systems. The Indians did introduce [[tobacco]] and [[corn]] to Europeans, which became widely popular back in Europe. Europeans also brought new things to the Indians, such as horses and guns.
The Viking [[Leif Ericson]] may have established a "Vinland" colony around A.D. 1000 on the island now known as [[Newfoundland]], in eastern Canada. Historians think this Viking colony existed in Canada, but it did not last long and there is no sign of any Viking colony in what is now the United States.<ref>"People have been looking hard for hundreds of years and there is no archaeological evidence in [New England] — it's certainly possible, the Vikings were incredible boat handlers — '''but there is no evidence'''," observed one history professor.[http://farshores.org/a04viki.htm]</ref>
Indian Americans renowned for their achievements after the pre-Columbian period (and after 1600) include Squanto (a man who was an essential interpreter for Captain John Smith starting in 1614), Pocahontas (a woman who married the English settler John Rolfe in 1614 at the Jamestown settlement), Sacagawea (a female guide hired for the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804), Tecumseh (a man who organized an Indian confederacy in the Ohio territory in the early 1800s and fought on the losing side of the British in the War of 1812), Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse (male warriors defeated and massacred Colonel George Custer’s army at the Battle of Little Bighorn in what is now South Dakota), Geronimo (an Apache warrior in what is now Arizona), Jim Thorpe (a phenomenal Olympic and professional athlete in the early 1900s), and Maria Tallchief (a tremendous ballerina).
American Indians were considered to be citizens of their own tribes and not citizens of the United States, until Congress passed a law in 1924 extending American citizenship to all Native Americans here. To this day they have special sovereignty which that enables them, for example, to run gambling casinos which would otherwise be illegal. The State of Oklahoma (the birthplace of presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren) has the largest percentage of residents who are American Indians, and Arizona also has a large American Indian population.
'''Questions''': when do you think Native Americans first settled in North America? Do you think the Vikings really had a colony in Newfoundland as historians claim?
== Exploration (Columbian Period) ==
Columbus was both a devout Christian and an enterprising capitalist. The contract he signed with the Spanish Monarchy, known as the Capitulations of Santa Fe, named him Admiral of the Atlantic Ocean, Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands discovered, and gave him one-tenth of the profit from all of the discovered lands (Spain later refused to honor the agreement, and Columbus never became wealthy). Having secured his funding, Columbus assembled his ships and crew and set out in August of 1492 to reach the Orient.
Columbus set sail in three ships. On Christmas eveEve, December 24, 1492, one of Columbus's ships, the [[Santa Maria]], reached the island of [[Haiti]]. Columbus named the settlement "La Navidad," meaning "The Nativity," and dropped off 40 men with a promise to return to them the next year. Columbus then wrote for the King and Queen of Spain in his Journal: "In all the world there can be no better or gentler people. Your Highnesses should feel great joy, because presently they will be Christians, and instructed in the good manners of your realms."
But Columbus had grossly underestimated the size of the world, and when he reached San Salvador, Haiti (Hispaniola) and Cuba he thought he had reached the Far East. So he called the natives "Indians". He left some men there but they were eventually killed by the natives. Columbus reported back that new people had been found to evangelize.
There was no livestock – no horses or cattle, until the Spanish imported them. Florida was a swamp, and did not even have orange trees until the Spanish explorer [[Ponce de Leon]] planted them in 1515.
North America was a joke to many in England. Its Parliament passed a law in 1597 authorizing the deportations deportation of convicted criminals to America and other colonies. In 1605, a satirical book entitled “Eastward Ho!” was published that mocked attempts to settle in Virginia.
Think about it. Would your family uproot and move, at great risk to your lives, to a place that had no civilization or anything of value? Do we see families moving to the middle of the desert in Arizona, or to cheap land in the middle of Wyoming? Only very rarely.
The result was "New Spain" in the "New World," where settlements of about 200,000 migrants from Spain traveled to the south and west and intermarried with American Indians who lived there. There were strict layers of social classes, and Indian slaves were used to work on large estates called "encomiendas". African slaves were also imported by the Spaniard settlors. The highest class were the peninsulares (from Spain), and their direct descendants born in this New World were called creoles. The offspring of Spaniards and Indians were the Mestizo.
Spanish settlements tended to be like military posts, such as St. Augustine in Florida, rather than colonies having their own self-government as the English colonies did. Founded in 1565, St. Augustine is the oldest continuous European settlement in the United States, and exists to this day. Sante Fe (meaning "holy faith," is the oldest capitolcapital, established in 1610 in what is now New Mexico).
== New France ==
Indian strife was only one of many problems. Labor was in short supply for working the fields. Settlers began importing indentured servants, who received free travel to the colonies in exchange for a promise to work for seven years. Then the Virginia settlement turned to a cheaper form of labor: importing slaves from West Africa beginning in 1619 to work the crops. The importation of slaves to the New World was not new in 1619; many European countries had been importing a total of 40,000 slaves to the New World prior to the 1600's based on the Portuguese plantation system for working the land.
In 1624 King James (of the "King James Bible" fame) took back ownership and control of the Virginia colony and established it as a royal charter. The Virginia colony was a mess, and had become a problem as a colony that enslaved workers and grew tobacco. More trouble was in its future. In 1676, a young, arrogant Englishman Nathaniel Bacon from a wealthy family was a Virginia settler who decided to take the law into his own hands. He first massacred Indians in western Virginia, then took his small army of rebels to Jamestown, where he burned it down because the governor had refused to allow him to kill the Indians. This is known as [[Bacon's Rebellion]] and it resulted in less use of indentured servants and greater reliance on slaves, who could not rebel as easily. Bacon himself soon died unexpectedly at age 29 from a stomach disease due to a disease probably resulting from his failure to wash his hands. Once he was sure Bacon was really dead, the governor returned and hanged to death two dozen of his supporters.
The Virginia colony, despite all its troubles, later produced four of our first five presidents. Why? Because it was big and prosperous.
Some of the colonies were profitable. An [[economic]] system called '''[[mercantilism]]''' began to develop in the 1600s and 1700s, which would lay the foundation for capitalism in the 1800s.<ref>http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/mercantilism.html</ref>
The basic concept of mercantilism is to limit imports from foreign countries (not including colonies), and maximize exports to everyone (including other colonies), in order to maximize the "trade surplus" (the amount by which receipts exceeds exceed expenses). Colonies played an important role in this system by supplying raw materials (such as crops) at low cost to the mother country (e.g., England or France), which would then use the materials to produce food or other finished goods to sell to the world.<ref>http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Mercantilism.html</ref> By selling more than the country buys, it could accumulate a surplus in money (gold) and become wealthier. In other words, mercantilism was an economic system in which the colonies existed to give raw materials to mother country (England), and buy her finished products, so that England could export more than it imported and thereby increase its gold reserves from a surplus in the balance of trade.
But there's no free lunch, and these European nations were all-too-happy to use slavery to do the back-breaking work of gathering the raw materials, such as crops and minerals. A slave trade developed to bring blacks from Africa to the New World in order to work the plantations for the settlers from [[England]] and other European powers.
A "triangular trade" existed from 1640-1720. The three sides of the "triangle" were trade routes from West Africa to the New World (specifically, the West Indies or the colonies), from there to Europe (England or continental Europe), and from there the boats traveled back to West Africa to begin again. The harshest part of this route was the taking of slaves, bound in chains from West Africa to the New World. After the slaves disembarked in the New World, workers would load goods onto the ships (such as raw molasses if the West Indies, or tobacco if Virginia) for transport to and sale in Europe.
[[File:Triangular trade.jpg|250px|right|thumb|New England colonies' version of triangular trade]]
The Massachusetts and Rhode Island colonies profited immensely from the slave trade through their own version of "triangular trade." They sent surplus goods like flour and addictive rum (alcohol) to Africa to purchase slaves, but rather than the slaves being shipped back to the New England colonies where there were opponents of slavery, the slaves were instead shipped to the West Indies to be sold at the highest price possible. After disembarking and selling the slaves, the captains of the ships then took as their cargo raw sugar, molasses (refined sugar), and lots of money, which were then transported back to Massachusetts and Rhode Island at the profit of the businessmen running the slave trade. From there the ships were loaded up again with cheap goods for another trip across the Atlantic to North Africa (the African Gold Coast) to buy more slaves and put them on the ships. Over a 200-year period, opposition to this slave trade grew until it was prohibited in the 1800s.
Brown University in Rhode Island was founded in 1764 and named after an abolitionist (someone who wanted slavery abolished), Nicholas Brown, Jr., but his family profited from the slave trade.