History of the United States

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See also: Economic history of the United States and Timeline of the United States history

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The history of the United States, a country in North America, started with the arrival
of Indigenous people from Siberia before 15,000 BC. Numerous cultures formed, and many
disappeared before 1500. The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the year 1492 started
the European colonization of the Americas. Most colonies were formed after 1600, and the
early records and writings of John Winthrop make the United States the first nation whose
most distant origins are fully recorded.[1] By the 1760s, thirteen British colonies contained
2.5 million people along the Atlantic coast east of the Appalachian Mountains.
After defeating France, the British government imposed a series of taxes, including
the Stamp Act of 1765, rejecting the colonists' constitutional argument that new taxes
needed their approval. Tax resistance, especially the Boston Tea Party in 1773, led
to Parliament issuing punitive laws designed to end self-government in Massachusetts.

Armed conflict began in 1775. In 1776 in Philadelphia, the Second Continental

Congress declared the independence of the colonies as the United States. Led by
General George Washington, it won the Revolutionary War with large support from France.
The peace treaty of 1783 gave the land east of the Mississippi River (except Canada and
Florida) to the new nation. The Articles of Confederation established a central government,
but it was ineffectual at providing stability as it could not collect taxes and had no executive
officer. A convention in 1787 wrote a new Constitution that was adopted in 1789. In
1791, a Bill of Rights was added to guarantee inalienable rights. With Washington as the
first president and Alexander Hamilton his chief adviser, a strong central government was
created. Purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 doubled the size of the
United States. A second and final war with Britain was fought in 1812, which solidified
national pride.

Encouraged by the notion of manifest destiny, U.S. territory expanded all the way to
the Pacific coast. While the United States was large in terms of area, by 1790 its
population was only 4 million. It grew rapidly, however, reaching 7.2 million in 1810, 32
million in 1860, 76 million in 1900, 132 million in 1940, and 321 million in 2015.
Economic growth in terms of overall GDP was even greater. Compared to European powers,
though, the nation's military strength was relatively limited in peacetime before
1940. Westward expansion was driven by a quest for inexpensive land for yeoman farmers
and slave owners. The expansion of slavery was increasingly controversial and fueled
political and constitutional battles, which were resolved by compromises. Slavery was
abolished in all states north of the Mason–Dixon line by 1804, but the South continued to
profit from the institution, mostly from the production of cotton. Republican Abraham
Lincoln was elected president in 1860 on a platform of halting the expansion of slavery.

Seven Southern slave states rebelled and created the foundation of the Confederacy.
Its attack of Fort Sumter against the Union forces there in 1861 started the Civil War.
Defeat of the Confederates in 1865 led to the impoverishment of the South and
the abolition of slavery. In the Reconstruction era following the war, legal and voting rights
were extended to freed slaves. The national government emerged much stronger, and
because of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, it gained explicit duty to protect
individual rights. However, when white Democrats regained their power in the South in
1877, often by paramilitary suppression of voting, they passed Jim Crow laws to
maintain white supremacy, as well as new disenfranchising state constitutions that
prevented most African Americans and many poor whites from voting. This continued until
the gains of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and the passage of federal legislation to
enforce constitutional rights.

The United States became the world's leading industrial power at the turn of the 20th
century, due to an outburst of entrepreneurship and industrialization in
the Northeast and Midwest and the arrival of millions of immigrant workers and farmers
from Europe. The national railroad network was completed and large-scale mines and
factories were established. Mass dissatisfaction with corruption, inefficiency, and traditional
politics stimulated the Progressive movement, from the 1890s to 1920s. This era led to
many reforms, including the Sixteenth to Nineteenth constitutional amendments, which
brought the federal income tax, direct election of Senators, prohibition, and women's
suffrage. Initially neutral during World War I, the United States declared war on
Germany in 1917 and funded the Allied victory the following year. Women obtained
the right to vote in 1920, with Native Americans obtaining citizenship and the right to
vote in 1924.

After a prosperous decade in the 1920s, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the onset
of the decade-long worldwide Great Depression. Democratic President Franklin D.
Roosevelt ended the Republican dominance of the White House and implemented his New
Deal programs, which included relief for the unemployed, support for farmers, Social
Security and a minimum wage. The New Deal defined modern American liberalism. After
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States entered World War II and
financed the Allied war effort and helped defeat Nazi Germany in the European theater. Its
involvement culminated in using newly-invented nuclear weapons on two Japanese cities to
defeat Imperial Japan in the Pacific theater.

The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers in the aftermath of
World War II. During the Cold War, the two countries confronted each other indirectly in
 the arms race, the Space Race, proxy wars, and propaganda campaigns. The goal of the
United States in this was to stop the spread of communism. In the 1960s, in large part due
to the strength of the Civil Rights Movement, another wave of social reforms was enacted
which enforced the constitutional rights of voting and freedom of movement to African
Americans and other racial minorities. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union was
officially dissolved in 1991, leaving the United States as the world's only superpower.

After the Cold War, the United States has been focusing on modern conflicts in the Middle
East. The beginning of the 21st century saw the September 11 attacks carried out
by Al-Qaeda in 2001, which was later followed by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2007,
the United States entered its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, which was
followed by slower-than-usual rates of economic growth during the 2010s.

Contents

 1Early America

 1.1Paleo-Indians
 1.2Mound builders and pueblos
 1.3Northwest and Northeast
 1.4Native Hawaiians
 2European Colonization

 2.1The first settlements

 2.1.1Spanish discovery
 2.1.2Dutch Mid-Atlantic
 2.1.3French and Spanish conflict
 2.2British colonies

 2.2.1The first settlement: Jamestown

 2.2.2New England
 2.2.3Middle Colonies
 2.2.4Southern Colonies
 2.2.5Religion
 2.2.6Government
 2.2.7Servitude and slavery
 3Road to independence

 3.1Political integration and autonomy

 3.2Taxation without representation
 4American Revolution

 4.1George Washington
 4.2Loyalists and Britain
  4.3The Declaration of Independence
 5Early years of the republic

 5.1Confederation and Constitution

 5.2President George Washington

 5.2.1Two-party system
 5.2.2Challenges to the federal government
 5.3Increasing demand for slave labor
 5.4Louisiana and Republicanism under Jefferson
 5.5War of 1812
 5.6Second Great Awakening
 5.7Era of Good Feelings
 6Westward expansion

 6.1Indian removal
 6.2Second Party System
 6.3Westward expansion and Manifest Destiny
 7Sectional conflict and Civil War

 7.1Divisions between North and South

 7.2Compromise of 1850 and popular sovereignty
 7.3The plantation economy
 7.3.1Slave rebellions
 7.4Lincoln and secession
 7.5Civil War
 7.6Emancipation
 7.7Reconstruction Era
 7.7.1Radical Reconstruction
 7.7.2The KKK and the rise of Jim Crow
 8Growth and industrialization

 8.1The frontier and the railroad

 8.1.1Indian wars
 8.2The Gilded Age
 8.2.1Unions and strikes
 8.3Imperialism
 9Discontent and reform
 9.1Progressive Era
 9.2Women's suffrage
 10War, prosperity, and depression

 10.1World War I
 10.2Roaring Twenties
 10.3Great Depression and the New Deal
 10.4World War II
 11Postwar America

 11.1The Cold War

 11.1.1Climax of liberalism
 12Decades of change

 12.1Counterculture and civil rights

 12.1.1Civil Rights Movement
 12.1.2The Women's Movement
 12.1.3The Counterculture Revolution and Cold War Détente
 12.2Rise of conservatism and the end of the Cold War
 1321st century

 13.19/11 and the War on Terror

 13.2The Great Recession
 13.3Recent events
 14See also
 15References
 16Notes
 17Textbooks
 18Further reading

 18.1Primary sources
 19External links

Early America[edit]
Main articles: Prehistory of the United States, History of Native Americans in the United
States, and Pre-Columbian era

See also: Native Americans in the United States

This map shows the approximate location of the ice-free corridor and specific Paleoindian sites (Clovis theory).

It is not definitively known how or when Native Americans first settled the Americas and
the present-day United States. The prevailing theory proposes that people
from Eurasia followed game across Beringia, a land bridge that connected Siberia to
present-day Alaska during the Ice Age, and then spread southward throughout the
Americas. This migration may have begun as early as 30,000 years ago[2] and continued
through to about 10,000 years ago, when the land bridge became submerged by the rising
sea level caused by the melting glaciers.[3] These early inhabitants, called Paleo-Indians,
soon diversified into hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes.

This pre-Columbian era incorporates all periods in the history of the Americas before the
appearance of European influences on the American continents, spanning from the original
settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during the early
modern period. While the term technically refers to the era before Christopher Columbus'
voyage in 1492, in practice the term usually includes the history of American indigenous
cultures until they were conquered or significantly influenced by Europeans, even if this
happened decades or centuries after Columbus's initial landing.

The Cultural areas of pre-Columbian North America, according to Alfred Kroeber.

Paleo-Indians[edit]
By 10,000 BCE, humans were relatively well-established throughout North America.
Originally, Paleo-Indian hunted Ice Age megafauna like mammoths, but as they began to go
extinct, people turned instead to bison as a food source. As time went on, foraging for
berries and seeds became an important alternative to hunting. Paleo-Indians in central
Mexico were the first in the Americas to farm, starting to plant corn, beans, and squash
around 8,000 BCE. Eventually, the knowledge began to spread northward. By 3,000 BCE,
corn was being grown in the valleys of Arizona and New Mexico, followed by
primitive irrigation systems and early villages of the Hohokam.[4][5]

One of the earliest cultures in the present-day United States was the Clovis culture, who are
primarily identified by the use of fluted spear points called the Clovis point. From 9,100 to
8,850 BCE, the culture ranged over much of North America and also appeared in South
America. Artifacts from this culture were first excavated in 1932 near Clovis, New Mexico.
The Folsom culture was similar, but is marked by the use of the Folsom point.
A later migration identified by linguists, anthropologists, and archeologists occurred around
8,000 BCE. This included Na-Dene-speaking peoples, who reached the Pacific
Northwest by 5,000 BCE.[6] From there, they migrated along the Pacific Coast and into
the interior and constructed large multi-family dwellings in their villages, which were used
only seasonally in the summer to hunt and fish, and in the winter to gather food
supplies.[7] Another group, the Oshara Tradition people, who lived from 5,500 BCE to 600
CE, were part of the Archaic Southwest.

Grave Creek Mound, located in Moundsville, West Virginia, is one of the largest conical mounds in the United

States. It was built by the Adena culture.

Mound builders and pueblos[edit]

The Adena began constructing large earthwork mounds around 600 BCE. They are the
earliest known people to have been mound builders, however, there are mounds in the
United States that predate this culture. Watson Brake is an 11-mound complex
in Louisiana that dates to 3,500 BCE, and nearby Poverty Point, built by the Poverty
Point culture, is an earthwork complex that dates to 1,700 BCE. These mounds likely
served a religious purpose.

The Adenans were absorbed into the Hopewell tradition, a powerful people who traded tools
and goods across a wide territory. They continued the Adena tradition of mound building,
with remnants of several thousand still in existence across the core of their former territory
in southern Ohio. The Hopewell pioneered a trading system called the Hopewell Exchange
System, which at its greatest extent ran from the present-day Southeast up to the
Canadian side of Lake Ontario.[8] By 500 CE, the Hopewellians had too disappeared,
absorbed into the larger Mississippian culture.

The Mississippians were a broad group of tribes. Their most important city was Cahokia,
near modern-day St. Louis, Missouri. At its peak in the 12th century, the city had an
estimated population of 20,000, larger than the population of London at the time. The
entire city was centered around a mound that stood 100 feet (30 m) tall. Cahokia, like
many other cities and villages of the time, depended on hunting, foraging, trading, and
agriculture, and developed a class system with slaves and human sacrifice that was
influenced by societies to the south, like the Mayans.[4]

In the Southwest, the Anasazi began constructing stone and adobe pueblos around 900
BCE.[9] These apartment-like structures were often built into cliff faces, as seen in the Cliff
Palace at Mesa Verde. Some grew to be the size of cities, with Pueblo Bonito along
the Chaco River in New Mexico once consisting of 800 rooms.[4]

Northwest and Northeast[edit]

The K'alyaan Totem Pole of the Tlingit Kiks.ádi Clan, erected at Sitka National Historical Park to commemorate

the lives lost in the 1804 Battle of Sitka.

The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest were likely the most affluent Native
Americans. Many distinct cultural and political nations developed there, but they all shared
certain beliefs traditions, and practices, such as the centrality of salmon as a resource and
spiritual symbol. Permanent villages began to develop in this region as early as 1,000 BCE,
and these communities celebrated by the gift-giving feast of the potlatch. These gatherings
were usually organized to commemorate special events such as the raising of a Totem
pole of the celebration of a new chief.

In present-day upstate New York, the Iroquois formed a confederacy of tribal nations in
the mid-15th century, consisting of the Oneida, Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca.
Their system of affiliation was a kind of federation, different from the strong, centralized
European monarchies.[10][11][12] Each tribe had seats in a group of 50 sachem chiefs. It has
been suggested that their culture contributed to political thinking during the development
of the United States government. The Iroquois were powerful, waging war with many
neighboring tribes, and later, Europeans. As their territory expanded, smaller tribes were
forced further west, including the Osage, Kaw, Ponca, and Omaha peoples.[12][13]