An Outline of American History美国历史纲要.docx

1、An Outline of American History美国历史纲要An Outline of American HistoryChaper 1 Early AmericaThe First AmericansBeringiaThe First Europeans:The first Europeans to arrive in North America - at least the first for whom there is solid evidence - were Norse, traveling west from Greenland . In 1497, just five

2、 years after Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean looking for a western route to Asia, a Venetian sailor named John Cabot arrived in Newfoundland on a mission for the British king. Although fairly quickly forgotten, Cabots journey was later to provide the basis for British claims to North Am

3、erica. It also opened the way to the rich fishing grounds off Georges Banks, to which European fishermen, particularly the Portuguese, were soon making regular visits. Among the most significant early Spanish explorations was that of Hernando De Soto, a veteran conquistador who had accompanied Franc

4、isco Pizzaro during the conquest of Peru. While the Spanish were pushing up from the south, the northern portion of the present-day United States was slowly being revealed through the journeys of men such as Giovanni da Verrazano. A Florentine who sailed for the French, Verrazano made landfall in No

5、rth Carolina in 1524, then sailed north along the Atlantic coast past what is now New York harbor. A decade later, the Frenchman Jacques Cartier set sail with the hope - like the other Europeans before him - of finding a sea passage to Asia. Cartiers expeditions along the St. Lawrence River laid the

6、 foundations for the French claims to North America, which were to last until 1763. Following the collapse of their first Quebec colony in the 1540s, French Huguenots attempted to settle the northern coast of Florida two decades later. The Spanish, viewing the French as a threat to their trade route

7、 along the Gulf Stream, destroyed the colony in 1565. Ironically, the leader of the Spanish forces, Pedro Menendez, would soon establish a town not far away - St. Augustine. It was the first permanent European settlement in what would become the United States. In 1578 Humphrey Gilbert, the author of

8、 a treatise on the search for the Northwest Passage, received a patent from Queen Elizabeth to colonize the heathen and barbarous landes in the New World which other European nations had not yet claimed. It would be five years before his efforts could begin. When he was lost at sea, his half-brother

9、, Walter Raleigh, took up the mission. In 1585 Raleigh established the first British colony in North America, on Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina. It was later abandoned, and a second effort two years later also proved a failure. It would be 20 years before the British would try again.

10、 This time - at Jamestown in 1607 - the colony would succeed, and North America would enter a new era. Most European emigrants left their homelands to escape political oppression, to seek the freedom to practice their religion, or for adventure and opportunities denied them at home. Between 1620 and

11、 1635, economic difficulties swept England. Many people could not find work. Even skilled artisans could earn little more than a bare living. Poor crop yields added to the distress. In addition, the Industrial Revolution had created a burgeoning textile industry, which demanded an ever-increasing su

12、pply of wool to keep the looms running. Landlords enclosed farmlands and evicted the peasants in favor of sheep cultivation. Colonial expansion became an outlet for this displaced peasant population. Majestic rivers - the Kennebec, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac and numerous others - linked

13、lands between the coast and the Appalachian Mountains with the sea.Only one river, however, the St. Lawrence - dominated by the French in Canada - offered a water passage to the Great Lakes and into the heart of the continent. Dense forests, the resistance of some Indian tribes and the formidable ba

14、rrier of the Appalachian Mountains discouraged settlement beyond the coastal plain. Only trappers and traders ventured into the wilderness. For the first hundred years the colonists built their settlements compactly along the coast. Political considerations influenced many people to move to America.

15、 In the 1630s, arbitrary rule by Englands Charles I gave impetus to the migration to the New World. The subsequent revolt and triumph of Charles opponents under Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s led many cavaliers - kings men - to cast their lot in Virginia. In the German-speaking regions of Europe, the

16、oppressive policies of various petty princes - particularly with regard to religion - and the devastation caused by a long series of wars helped swell the movement to America in the late 17th and 18th centuries.In contrast to the colonization policies of other countries and other periods, the emigra

17、tion from England was not directly sponsored by the government but by private groups of individuals whose chief motive was profit. Jamestown:The first of the British colonies to take hold in North America was Jamestown. It was not long, however, before a development occurred that revolutionized Virg

18、inias economy. In 1612 John Rolfe began cross-breeding imported tobacco seed from the West Indies with native plants and produced a new variety that was pleasing to European taste. The first shipment of this tobacco reached London in 1614. Within a decade it had become Virginias chief source of reve

19、nue. MASSACHUSETTS During the religious upheavals of the 16th century, a body of men and women called Puritans sought to reform the Established Church of England from within. Essentially, they demanded that the rituals and structures associated with Roman Catholicism be replaced by simpler Protestan

20、t forms of faith and worship. Their reformist ideas, by destroying the unity of the state church, threatened to divide the people and to undermine royal authority. In 1620, a group of Leyden Puritans secured a land patent from the Virginia Company, and a group of 101 men, women and children set out

21、for Virginia on board the Mayflower. A storm sent them far north and they landed in New England on Cape Cod. Believing themselves outside the jurisdiction of any organized government, the men drafted a formal agreement to abide by just and equal laws drafted by leaders of their own choosing. This wa

22、s the Mayflower Compact. In December the Mayflower reached Plymouth harbor; the Pilgrims began to build their settlement during the winter. Nearly half the colonists died of exposure and disease, but neighboring Wampanoag Indians provided information that would sustain them: how to grow maize. By th

23、e next fall, the Pilgrims had a plentiful crop of corn, and a growing trade based on furs and lumber. Massachusetts Bay was not the only colony driven by religious motives. In 1681 William Penn, a wealthy Quaker and friend of Charles II, received a large tract of land west of the Delaware River, whi

24、ch became known as Pennsylvania. To help populate it, Penn actively recruited a host of religious dissenters from England and the continent - Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, Moravians and Baptists. When Penn arrived the following year, there were already Dutch, Swedish and English settlers living along

25、the Delaware River. It was there he founded Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. Georgia was settled in 1732, the last of the 13 colonies to be established. CHAPTER 2: The Colonial Period NEW ENGLAND New England shippers soon discovered, too, that rum and slaves were profitable commodities. One

26、 of the most enterprising - if unsavory - trading practices of the time was the so-called triangular trade. Merchants and shippers would purchase slaves off the coast of Africa for New England rum, then sell the slaves in the West Indies where they would buy molasses to bring home for sale to the lo

27、cal rum producers. THE MIDDLE COLONIES THE SOUTHERN COLONIESTHE SOUTHERN COLONIES SOCIETY, SCHOOLS AND CULTURE Of equal significance for the future were the foundations of American education and culture established during the colonial period. Harvard College was founded in 1636 in Cambridge, Massach

28、usetts. A few years later, the Collegiate School of Connecticut, later to become Yale College, was chartered. The first immigrants in New England brought their own little libraries and continued to import books from London. And as early as the 1680s, Boston booksellers were doing a thriving business

29、 in works of classical literature, history, politics, philosophy, science, theology and belles-lettres. In 1639 the first printing press in the English colonies and the second in North America was installed at Harvard College. In 1704 Cambridge, Massachusetts, launched the colonies first successful

30、newspaper. By 1745 there were 22 newspapers being published throughout the colonies EMERGENCE OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENT In all phases of colonial development, a striking feature was the lack of controlling influence by the English government. All colonies except Georgia emerged as companies of sharehol

31、ders, or as feudal proprietorships stemming from charters granted by the Crown. For their part, the colonies had never thought of themselves as subservient. The colonists - inheritors of the traditions of the Englishmans long struggle for political liberty - incorporated concepts of freedom into Vir

32、ginias first charter . It provided that English colonists were to exercise all liberties, franchises and immunities it was generally accepted that the colonists had a right to participate in their own government. in the mid-17th century, the English were too distracted by the Civil War (1642-1649) and Oliver Cromwells Puritan Commonwealth and Protectorate to pursue an effective colonial policy. The remoteness afforded by a vast ocean also made control of the colonies difficult. Added to this was the character o