DISCOVERY

- There were 2-18 million Native Americans living in the current U.S .areas at the beginning
of European colonization (devastating effect of European diseases / smallpox)
- diverse customs (farming, hunting, gathering + cultivation of maize + other food supplies:
close ties to the land)

- 1st Europeans to arrive in North America = Norse (Greenland, Erik the Red)
→ around the year 1000, Leif Ericson + Icelandic Vikings reached the Eastern coast of
North America - no permanent settlements

- 15th century Europe: need for increased trade (spices, textiles, dyes from the Far East) –
Christopher Columbus (Italian mariner) landed in the Caribbean looking for a Western
route to Asia – 1492

Further explorations John Cabot (1497; Venetian in service of the British king)
- Juan Ponce de Leon (1513; Spanish) - Florida coast
(1522 – conquest of Mexico)
- Amerigo Vespucci (Italian – account of his voyages to “The New
World” → 1529: first maps) → “America”
- Hernando de Soto - Florida + South-Eastern U.S., Mississippi (1539)
- Giovanni da Verrazano (Florentine) – North Carolina (1524) + North,
along Atlantic coast (past today’s New York harbor)
- Jacques Cartier (beginning of French claims to North America)
- 1578: Humphrey Gilbert – patent from Queen Elizabeth I to colonize
“heathen and barbarous” lands in the New World → brother Walter
Raleigh
- 1585: first British colony – Roanoke Island (North Carolina) –
abandoned

Reasons - search of wealth (stories of gold → European sovereigns claim as much territory as
possible)
- zeal of Spanish priests to convert indigenous inhabitants to Christianity
- European religious + political dissenters’ need for refuge from persecution in their
homelands;
- thirst for adventure

First (European) colonies/ Settlement

- 1607: 1st success -Jamestown, Virginia (King James I → Virginia Company →

hope to make a profit from the settlement)

- early hardships (2/3 of colonists died during first winter ← hunger + disease)
- Jamestown endured and became → America’s first permanent English colony
(tobacco trade and shipping begins in 1614)
- 16th century: the Puritans wanted to reform the Established Church of England (it had too
many practices from Roman Catholic church, while they needed simpler Protestant forms of
faith and worship)

- 1607 – the Dutch granted them asylum (BUT lower paid jobs, discrimination)

→ 1620: a group of Puritans (‘The Pilgrims’) crossed the Atlantic on board The Mayflower →
settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts
- The first American settlement based upon social contract (laws + own civil government) =
The Mayflower Compact

- 1630 – John Winthrop (with a grant from King Charles I) → larger Puritan colony
(Massachusetts Bay):

- BOSTON - “a city upon a hill” = the ideal community (in strict accordance with Puritan
beliefs – a model of intolerant moralism) – the center of American Puritanism

- Boston Latin = the nation’s oldest public school (1635)

- Harvard = the nation’s oldest college (Cambridge – 1636)
- first public library (1653);
- first newspaper in the colonies: Newsletter (1704)

- The largest, wealthiest + most influential American city until 1760s

- Roger Williams (clergyman) disagreed with the community’s decisions (he thought that the
state should not interfere with religion and had objections to the colony’s seizure of Indian
lands)
- → 1635 – Rhode Island colony (religious freedom, separation of church and state)

Other colonies

- Religious tolerance: Maryland (1634 – refuge for Roman Catholics), Pennsylvania (1681 –
Germans, Quakers; William Penn), Delaware (refuge for Swedes)

- Dutch settlers began settlement on the Island of Manhattan in the early 1620s (in 1624, the
island is reportedly purchased from the local Indians for $24) → renamed New Amsterdam
(1664= captured by English and its name changes to New YORK )

- 1619 – 1st African slaves arrived in Virginia → the system of slavery begins to develop
(North and South Carolina: large tobacco and rice plantations)

- 1634 – Massachusetts Bay + Plymouth + Connecticut + New Haven → form the New
England Confederation (the first attempt at regional unity – for defense purposes)

- A mixture of different cultures was already taking shape

- by 1770: growing urban centers – Philadelphia (‘The City of Brotherly Love’ – 28,000
inhabitants), New York, Boston, Charleston
- no feudal aristocracy, every free man had the opportunity to achieve economic
independence/prosperity
By 1733, English settlers had established 13 colonies along Atlantic coast
(Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.)

The SEVEN YEARS WAR

- the French controlled Canada + Louisiana (= the entire Mississippi watershed) → ceaseless
Wars between France and Britain (1689-1815)
- 1754/6-1763: The Seven Years War (The French and Indian War):
- William Pitt (the British Prime-Minister) invested → France lost its territories in America
(Canada, the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi Valley)
- 1763: Peace of Paris - Britain became entitled to Canada + all North America east of
Mississippi

CONFLICTS

→ conflicts between Britain and its colonies (they wanted more freedom + self-government)

→ The Royal Proclamation of 1763 reserved all Western territory (Allenghenies, Florida,
Mississippi River, Quebec) to use by Native Americans (to prevent the colonies’ westward
expansion and to avoid Indian wars)
- it was perceived as sheer disregard of the colonists’ rights

The new financial policy of the British Government (needed money to support the Empire)

1. The Sugar Act (1764) - increased duties on imported sugar + textiles, coffee, wines and indigo. It
doubled the duties on foreign goods reshipped from England to the colonies + forbade the import of
foreign rum and French wines;

2. The Currency Act (1764) - prohibiting colonists from issuing any legal tender paper money
threatened to destabilize entire colonial economy of both the industrial North and the agricultural
South, thus uniting the colonists against it;

3. The Quartering Act (1765) - required colonies to provide the royal troops with provisions and
barracks

4. The Stamp Act (1765) (all printed materials were going to be taxed, including: newspapers,
pamphlets, bills, legal documents, licenses, almanacs, dice and playing cards) - eventually nullified.
↓
- (groundless) fears that the new taxes would make trading difficult (the colonists wanted to
have their own control)
- The British troops might crush civil liberties (while the colonists went there to escape
political repression)
↓
1765 – The Stamp Act Congress (gathered representatives from 9 colonies) – in New York →
decided to send a resolution to King George II + English Parliament [slogan: “no taxation without
representation”]
↓
The Act was repealed BUT it was soon replaced by the Townshend Acts – 1767:
 - tax on tea + other goods
→ Customs officers + British soldiers were sent to Boston to collect
→ March 5, 1770: 5 Bostonians were killed (“The Boston Massacre”) → the taxes were
removed

- 1773: the East India Company – was granted monopoly on exported tea
→ The Boston Tea Party (disguised as Indians, patriots boarded a British merchant ship +
threw all the tea overboard)

→ Patriots (wanted to break free from the British Empire) ↔ Loyalists (were loyal to the
Crown)
↓
British Parliament condemned the acts (as vandalism)
→ passed The Intolerable/ Restraining/ Coercive Acts
(in order to restrain the independence of the Massachusetts colonial government, more British
soldiers were sent to Boston port – which was closed to shipping)
↓
September 1774: The First Continental Congress (Philadelphia)

– focused on the colonists’ rights (to life, liberty, property)

- intention to boycott British trade (all English imports) + place an embargo on exports to
Britain
- decision to discontinue slave trade
- plan to organize militias, collect and store weapons and ammunition

The AMERICAN REVOLUTION

April 19, 1775 – the battles of Lexington and Concord (British soldiers ↔ American
militiamen)
↓

The AMERICAN WAR of INDEPENDENCE

(the British easily captured Lexington and Concord but were harassed by volunteers:
In June – 10,000 American soldiers besieged Boston
(- the British were forced to evacuate the city in March 1776)

- in May 1775: The Second Continental Congress – Philadelphia

→ assumes the functions of a national government

→ establishes the Continental Army and Navy: colonel George Washington of
Virginia (planter) = commander-in-chief (high number of casualties and retreat in their
first attempts)
o prints paper money, opens diplomatic relations with foreign powers

Thomas Paine – Common Sense (pamphlet that played an important part in persuading the
colonists to take the path of revolution)

Main ideas/ claims:

 - governments, even good ones, are at best necessary evils: they are less desirable the farther
the government is from the governed
- ignoring the loyalty many Americans still felt for the King, he argued ardently for
independence; saw monarchy as an absurd form of government; George III = ‘a Royal Brute’
- it made no sense for a small country like Britain (island) to rule a continent like America
- independence would foster peace and prosperity: independent America would avoid senseless
European wars and grow rich by trading with all countries (not just the mother-country)
↓
May 10, 1776 – the resolution calling for separation is adopted (Richard Henry Lee of Virginia: the
United Colonies are and ought to be free and independent states!)

→ a committee of 5, headed by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia – is appointed to prepare the official

declaration
↓

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE - July 4th, 1976

(- marked the birth of a new nation

- based on the philosophy of human freedom – the French and English Enlightenment political
philosophy
- John Locke’s heritage: the natural rights of humankind, a government based on public
consent, the natural right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”)

- 5 parts (introduction, preamble, body – 2 parts, conclusion).

It resulted in WAR
– bad for Americans at first (the British captured NY – September 1776, Philadelphia – 1777)
- turning point: battle of Saratoga (1777) → Franco-American alliance → the British
surrendered (Yorktown, 1781)
↓
The Treaty of Paris (1783) – Benjamin Franklin: played an important part

The 13 colonies become the United States of America – independent;

- are granted all the territory North of Florida, South of Canada, East of the Mississippi River

↓
need for new state constitutions: critical period (1780s) – Articles of Confederation

May 1787, Federal Convention (Philadelphia) – representatives headed by George

Washington (+ Benjamin Franklin, + James Madison) → drafted Constitution

- 3 braches of government – to ensure the balance of power: the separate and distinct powers
of each are balanced by the other two ( = the checks and balances system: no dictatorial
authority)

- The Congress (legislative) – Senate + House of Representatives,

- The President (executive) and
- The Federal Judiciary (Supreme Court, federal courts)
 - The Constitution = above all laws and regulations
- All persons = equal before the law, and equally entitled to protection
- All states = equal (each must recognize and respect the laws of the others:
- state governments must be democratic in form, the final authority = the People
- The People: have the the right to change form of national government by legal means defined
in Constitution

- September 17, 1787 – the Constitution is signed by 39 of 42 delegates

→ ratified in 1788 (after a bitter debate)
→ March 4, 1789 – the new government came into existence

1791 – The Bill of Rights (10 amendments are added) – (less than 20 more up to now!)
- the freedom of speech, press, religion;
- the right to bear arms
- protection against illegal house searches, seizures of property and arrest
- the right to a fair trial by jury
- protection against ‘cruel and unusual punishments’
- the right to assembly peacefully, protest and demand changes
etc.

1st president of the United States = George Washington (Federalist)

First two political parties:

- Federalists - favored strong president and central government

- Democratic Republicans - defended rights of individual states