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“Before it became the New World,” Charles Mann writes, “the Western Hemisphere was vastly more populous and sophisticated than has been thought.” He surveys new research that indicates Indians lived in this hemisphere much longer than previously assumed, and that they had a larger impact on the environment.
For Europeans, 1992 marked the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s “discovery” of the New World. Columbus first explored islands in the Caribbean, then the coast of South America. The year 1997 saw the quincentennial of what is generally regarded as the first European expedition to land in North America, led by John Cabot. Author Alan Williams tells what is known of John Cabot’s explorations.
Beginning in the late sixteenth century, Spanish Franciscan friars established dozens of missions in what is now southern Georgia and northern Florida. By the time Spain ceded the area to Great Britain in 1763, only two missions remained. Although many of the friars acted from the highest motives, the net effect of the Spanish presence among native peoples was catastrophic.
Few names from American colonial history are as well known as Pocahontas, an Indian woman who allegedly saved Captain John Smith’s life in 1607. The little we actually know about her has become wrapped up in mythology, some of which is used to pursue agendas having little to do with the facts.
The killing of Franciscan priests in 1680 marked the beginning of a Pueblo Indian revolt against Spanish rule in New Mexico. The Spanish were forced to leave the province in defeat, and when they did reestablish control they treated Pueblo religious practices with far greater respect.
Puritan women were expected to view their husbands as “God’s representative in the family” and to defer to their authority. Martha Saxton describes how women attained moral and spiritual authority despite their subordination to men in secular matters.
In 1680, William Penn, who earlier had become a Quaker, petitioned King Charles II for a grant of land in what would become known as Pennsylvania. Penn created a constitution that provided for religious freedom, voting rights, and penal reform. He also addressed Native Americans in the region, asking them to permit colonists to live among them “with your love and consent.”
In 1691, the Virginia House of Burgesses sought to reduce the number of mixed-race children born in the colony by passing a law providing for the banishment of any white partner in an interracial marriage. Peter Wallenstein discusses the history of this and subsequent legislation designed to prevent racial mixing.
In April 1754, a French force travelled down the Allegheny River to what is now Pittsburgh where they established Fort Duquesne. The following year, when the British regulars and Virginia militia attempted to oust the French, they suffered a crushing defeat. This episode between the British and French provided a “baptism of fire” for the young George Washington.
Flora MacDonald was a Scottish heroine who had helped “Bonnie Prince Charlie” escape the British in 1746. She moved to North Carolina in 1774, where she was received with great fanfare. When the revolution came, however, she helped recruit men of Scottish descent to fight for the British.
The long-denied allegations that Thomas Jefferson fathered a number of children with a slave mistress appear to have been confirmed by DNA tests. Barbra Murray and Brian Duffy discuss what these tests show, and Joseph Ellis analyzes the probable impact of this revelation on the reputation of the author of the Declaration of Independence.
On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress resolved that “these United Colonies are, and, of right ought to be” independent of Great Britain. Two days later, the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. Celebrating the Fourth of July, Pauline Maier writes, “makes no sense at all”—unless we celebrate not just independence but the Declaration of Independence. She explains how the meaning and function of the Declaration have changed over time.
That George Washington was a towering figure during the American Revolution is common knowledge. Thomas Fleming, writing about a lesser known aspect of Washington’s career, claims that “without his brilliance at espionage the Revolution could not have been won.”
“It is hard to think of the Founders as revolutionaries,” Evan Thomas writes, “They seem too stuffy, too much the proper gentlemen in breeches and powdered wigs.” But, he argues, those who made the American revolution and consolidated it were extreme radicals at the time.
Though they later drifted apart, the collaboration between George Washington and James Madison during the critical years 1784 and 1787 had a profound impact on the Constitution and the government it produced.
Some people passionately believe that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees Americans the untrammeled right to bear arms. Others just as passionately believe that the amendment must be read within the context of membership in the various state militias. Daniel Lazare examines the changing interpretations of this vexing question.
Politicians of all persuasions have stated that in the United States, “the people rule.” Who exactly are the people? The inhabitants of the 50 different states, or the inhabitants of a single nation? Michael Lind analyzes this issue, with particular emphasis on the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the ratification process that followed.
A federal tax on distilled spirits led to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, which the author calls “our young nation’s greatest crisis.” The rebellion was put down without great bloodshed, but it signified important sectional and class rivalries. Among other things, it helped bring about the development of a two-party political system.
George Washington had faced no opposition for the presidency. When he refused to serve for a third term, however, the stage was set for the first two-party campaign. It was a hard-fought, bitter contest that resulted in America’s first orderly transfer of power.
By 1800 Americans knew little about what lay west of the Mississippi River. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark changed all that in 1804 when they led an expedition that eventually reached the Pacific Ocean. Gerald Kreyche describes the explorations of these two intrepid men and the group they led, designated the Corps of Discovery.
When the Constitution was ratified, no one quite knew what would result. Some predicted that there would be little more than a cluster of minirepublics. The fourth chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Marshall, contributed more than anyone to the creation of a nation in which federal law prevailed over states’ rights.
In 1835 Rebecca Lukens took over her late husband’s iron mill. Under her direction it became one of the leading manufacturers of boiler-plate. During the depression of 1837, she refused to lay off workers, and when there was no cash, she paid them off in produce from her farm.
As president, former Indian fighter Andrew Jackson in 1836 used his office to bring about the removal of the Cherokees from Georgia to west of the Mississippi. When the great removal began several years later, the tribe suffered grievously on what became known as “the trail of tears.”
One hundred fifty years ago, 300 women and men met in Seneca Falls, New York, for the first women’s rights convention. The resolution that called for equal pay for equal work passed handily, but the one that demanded voting rights for women proved hotly controversial. Press coverage of the event at times was downright nasty.
Slave women in the American South were worked as hard as men. They did the same field work, either with men or in segregated gangs. Deborah Gray White examines some of the social dynamics of Southern slave women.
William W. Brown escaped from slavery in 1834. In the following years he taught himself how to read and write, and he authored a number of books. He went on to become a prominent spokesman in the abolitionist cause.
John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 electrified a deeply divided nation. Was he a ruthless fanatic, as Southerners claimed, or was he a martyr to the cause of abolishing slavery, as his Northern supporters depicted him?
The nature of the Civil War changed in 1863 from a limited conflict to total war against Southern morale and resources as well as manpower. General U. S. Grant, of the Union army, realized that, at bottom, the dispute was about slavery.
Soon after the Civil War began, the Young Men’s Christian Association began raising funds and sending volunteers to help soldiers. Southern Y leaders at the time of secession believed there was no reason for the organization to split up over sectional lines. Northern officials disagreed. Both groups remained active throughout the war, but they reunited only after the conflict ended.
On July 18, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, consisting of 600 black men, launched an assault on the Southern stronghold of Fort Wagner, just outside Charleston, South Carolina. The attackers fought gallantly, but were repulsed with heavy losses. William Kashatus examines how black units came to be formed during the war and describes the battle itself.
Cyrena Bailey Stone was an ardent Unionist who lived in Atlanta, Georgia. The recent appearance of a secret diary that she kept before and during the battle of Atlanta sheds new light on conditions on the home front of the Confederacy as the Civil War neared its end.
This essay describes the last weeks of the war for the battered Army of Northern Virginia, led by Robert E. Lee. Despite gruelling marches to escape entrapment, it became clear to Lee that defeat was inevitable. Some, including the president of the Confederacy, urged that the units disband to fight on as guerillas. Lee refused. Jay Winik speculates on the horrors a protacted guerilla war probably would have produced and how it would have affected the nation.
Who was to blame for the South’s military and financial woes? Confederate congressman Henry S. Foote blamed the Jews in President Davis’s administration. “If the present state of things were to continue, Foote said in 1863, the end of the war would probably find nearly all the property of the Confederacy in the hands of Jewish Shylocks.”
Abraham Lincoln is commonly regarded as one of our greatest presidents. During his tenure of office, however, he was mercilessly lampooned by political commentators and cartoonists. Lincoln generally responded with good grace.
Legend has it that baseball was invented in 1839 by Abner Doubleday, who went on to become a major general in the Union Army. The truth is that the sport had evolved from a number of bat-and-ball games over the decades. George Kirsch shows that it was being widely played, especially in the North, during the Civil War. After the war, Kirsch writes, “Northern and Southern journalists believed the tours of the great Eastern ball clubs would help heal the bitter wounds of war.”
Prior to the 1960s, according to Eric Foner, Reconstruction was portrayed in history books as “just about the darkest page in the American saga.” He presents a balanced view of the era and suggests that, even though Reconstruction failed to achieve its objectives, its “animating vision” still has relevance.
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