North America

The history of the Americas needs be divided into pre and post 1492, the year Christopher Colombus and the crews on his fleet of three little ships reached 'The New World.' There is also the interesting sidebar of the Vikings reaching North America almost 500 years before Columbus, and a theory that the Phoenicians may have reached the Americas a thousand years before that.

Pre-Columbian Times

The first humans crossed from Asia during the last Ice Age via the 'Bering Land Bridge,' - MAYBE! - the sea level being considerably lower during the ice age that land was continuous from Siberia to Alaska where the shallow Bering Strait now exists. How long Homo Sapiens have been in the Americas is open to question. Current arguments range from 15 to 50 thousand years. As in sub-Saharan Africa and the Austro-pacific region, history prior to European exploration is primarily the domain of archaeology and related sciences. Until about 20 years ago, radiocarbon dating was the major tool of archaeologists for dating carbon based remains and artifacts, and other items found close by were assumed by association to be of similar vintage. The recent development of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is not only less intrusive on the items to be aged, but a lot more accurate. Ina classic example an item from the Yukon had been assessed at 27,000 years old. Subjected to AMS it proved to be just 1400 years old. Contamination from other carbon sources, such as leaching from coal seams, is apparently the reason between differences of that degree, but even without potential contamination, AMS is far more accurate.
What is not in dispute is that mankind did come to the Americas via Siberia and Alaska. During much of the last ice age (and for a shorter time about 10,000 years before that) sea levels were sufficiently lower than today, that there was dry land between today's Siberia and Alaska. However, a land bridge is not a prerequisite to human migration; in modern times the Inuit (Eskimo) have been known to cross the strait on sea ice during hunting expeditions. Also primitive boats could have been used for summertime crossings. Although from Siberia's East Cape to Prince of Wales Cape in Alaska is 85 km, thus to far to see across, but near both capes are hills over 500 metres high, and halfway across the strait are the Diomedes Islands. A man standing atop the Siberian hill would see the islands on any reasonably clear day, and perhaps wonder what the hunting might be like out there? Once on the islands, he would see the Alaskan hill and have the same thought? So, even without the landbridge in place, the crossing of Bering Strait by ancient man is not too hard to imagine.
Even at the height of the last ice age, much of western Alaska remained ice free; though the terrain would have been bleak, and the climate harsh, the conditions would be no different to what a tribal group had adapted to, whilst making its way slowly, over generations north-eastward across Siberia. So sea level / landbridge is not a major question mark, but the extent of the North American Icecap certainly is. The North American Icecap had two core parts; in the east the Laurentian, centered over what is now Hudson Bay, and the Cordilleran, which was centred over the mountains of northern British Colombia. From about 21,000 years ago until about 15,000 these two iecaps merged into one another. There would have been no ice-free passage down the coast either, as the mountains drop steeply to the sea and at the greatest extent of the ice age, the ice coast would been 3000 km long from Unimak Island in Alaska to south of Seattle, even the outer coastal islands were under the icesheet. So unless human remains older than about 20,000 years back are found in the North American heartland, then mankind did not progress beyond Alaska until the Athabaskan Corridor (between the two core parts of the icecap) re-opened about 15,000 years ago. Coastal progress would likely have been impeded for at least a thousand years more.
Once the corridor did re-open, all those Amerindian tribes queueing up in Alaska waiting for the green light, streamed south and spread out to all corners of the two continents, clear down to Tierra del Fuego. First thru the corridor racing south to claim the highly desirable real estate on Tierra Del Fuego? Anthropology tells us not, whilst in the narrows of Central America, there might certainly have been pressures from following tribes to move on southward, but within both northern and southern continents there was plenty of room for tribes to move sideways and settle down, whilst later arrivals on the Athabaskan Express passed them by.
The Inuit, who are in a totally separate racial grouping by linguistic analysis, spread across the high Arctic in at least four waves, earlier waves either dying out due back to back seasons of particularly severe conditions and/or poor hunting or various other possibilities. There certainly had been Inuit in S.W.Greenland before the Viking arrival, and Inuit arrived during the 400 years or so the Viking colony survived, but there were no Inuit in the region when the Vikings arrived. The first Inuit crossings from Siberia may well have occurred before the last of the Amerindians.
Estimates of Amerindian / Inuit populations at the time of Columbus vary tremendously, but a believable set of figures suggests ½million in Alaska Canada and Greenland, 4 million in the USA, 15 million in Mexico and Central America, and 8 million in South America. In the extreme north and south, in the Amazon and Orinoco basins and in the Caribbean Islands simple hunter / gatherer societies existed. In other areas more sophisticated societies had developed, in the Ohio valley, in the S.W. USA, and south of Santiago de Chile. But, the early Spanish explorers also found three civilsations that were the equal in sophistication and complexity to those in Europe. The Aztec in Mexico, whose capital city, Tenochtitlan with a population of around half a million would have been one of the largest cities on the planet at the time; the Maya, a little further south which had reached similar levels, but had been in decline for some centuries, and likely would have been absorbed into the Aztec Empire within another century without European interference; and the Inca, centred on Cuzco in southern Peru, which had expanded in less than 100 years prior to Spanish arrival from a very local affair to an empire 4000 km from north to south, and boasting a better road system than Europe had seen since Roman times.

The Phoenicians?

While no archaelogical proof has been found, there is a possibility the Phoenicians crossed the Atlantic. They were exceedingly secretive in their trading exploits, and they almost certainly did circumnavigate Africa 1500 years before Vasco de Gama. One 'fact' that supports the idea is the building of pyramids in Central America. It does seem hard to believe that the pyramid concept could have come about independently.

The Viking Explorations

The first Europeans to definitely reach the Americas were the Vikings who had spread out from Scandinavia. At first they were notorious for raiding and looting, but they became more involved in peaceful trading, and the combination of peaceful trade and population pressures in Scandinavia led to permanent settlements away from the homeland. The major settlement was Iceland, with the major part of the settlement process taking place in just 60 years from 860 to 920. By late in the 10th century, the Icelanders had discovered Greenland and were establishing daughter colonies in the south west.
The first Norse sighting of what is now Canada was most likely that of Bjarni Herjolfsson in 986. He and his crew were on their way from Iceland to join one of the Greenland colonies, when a bad storm blew them far south of their intended course and when the storm relented, found themselves off the north coast of what is now Newfoundland. The Vikings/Norsemen always had their eyes open for new trading possibilities, so rather than simply setting course northward for their intended destination, they explored north westward along the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts, and possibly as far north as the eastern tip of Baffin Island before turning east to get back to the Greenland coast. Their tales of the resources (particularly timber) in the lands to the south west, were probably the trigger for later Norse incursions into North America. To date, archeologists have found the remains of only one semi-permanent settlement, (at L'Anse aux Meadows near the northern tip of Newfoundland) so it appears there was no serious attempt at establishing a colony, or that they encountered hostility from the natives and decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Greenland

Canada

Canada is the second largest country in the world after the Russian Federation. From St. John's Newfoundland to Prince Rupert on the Pacific coast is almost an 8000 kilometre drive (compare Sydney to Perth about 4000km). From Niagara Falls on the American border to the northern tip of Ellesmere Island in the high Arctic about 5000km as the penguin flies.
Beyond the Vikings/Norsemen, the first Europeans to set eyes on Canada were likely Basque and Breton fishermen, who were highly secretive about the source of their rich catches, just as the Phoenicians had been secretive about their trade sources. Of the European explorers sent out under royal auspices, John Cabot, a Genoan/Venetian sailing under the English flag, was the first to sight Canada, in 1497. He landed on Cape Breton Island and claimed it and undefined nearby lands for England. The following year he returned and conducted more extensive coastal explorations from Labrador to Chesapeake Bay.
Next came the Spanish; in 1502, en route from Cuba back to Spain followed the North American coast all the way north to Cape Breton Island before turning eastward for the Atlantic crossing. The last of the initial explorers was a Frenchman, Jacques Cartier. He left St Malo in 1534 with two ships, also on a voyage of deliberate exploration. He touched on north western Newfoundland, then headed into the Gulf of St Lawrence. Like many to follow over the next two centuries, he hoped to find a N.W. passage to the Orient. Like Cabot before him, he returned the next year for more extensive explorations. With amazing seamanship, he and the crews of his ships penetrated up the St Lawrence River until finally stopped by rapids near where Montreal now stands. Retreating down river, they established a camp near present day Quebec City to winter-over. Cold, and even more so Scurvy, took a heavy toll, and with winter only half through, a third of the men were dead. The whole expedition would almost certainly have died had not friendly indians shown them how to make a vitamin C rich herbal tea from the bark of White Spruce.
The English had made no follow-up colonisation attempt after Cabot's voyages, but the King of France had dreams of a North American empire to rival New Spain and the other Spanish territories. He also recognised that though Cartier had not found gold, the furs brought back had some good profit potential. In 1541, The French king commissioned Jean François de la Roque to sail to the St Lawrence and build a fortified post to trade with the Indians for furs, Cartier was sent along as 2-I-C, but with his nose out of joint at not being in command, wasn't very forthcoming with his knowledge of the area. With crews from the Paris jails and gutters instead of craftsmen and farmers who could have been useful, the expedition was a disaster, and the survivors returned to France in 1543, de la Roque in disgrace.
Much of the early exploration of northern Canada was driven by the desire to find a N.W. passage to China. The early explorations were mainly by the English, who besides seeking a shorter route to the Orient, also wanted to avoid the Portuguese dominated sea-route around Africa. In 1576, Sir Martin Frobisher sailed from England with two small ships, and made his first landfall near Cape Farewell, the southern tip of Greenland. (not far from Eirik the Red's forst norse settlement nearly 600 years earlier) He claimed Greenland for the English Crown, naming it West England.
From there,sailing further west they came to Frobisher Bay in Baffin Island, and seeing Inuit people with their Mongol features, he was, like Columbus years earlier,convinced he was on the periphery of Asia. He also thought he'd found gold, the samples he took back to England interested Queen Elizabeth and the merchant bankers, and he was ordered to sail again the following year to further explore and bring back a larger sample of the 'gold ore.' He came back with 200 tons of it! In 1578 he sailed yet again this time with a fleet of 15 ships, and supplies and skilled personnel to establish a settlement and mining operation on Baffin Island. But approaching the entrance to Frobisher Bay, disaster struck, a serious storm drove icebergs down onto the fleet, and only four ships survived. With most of the necessities for establishing a colony in such a harsh environment destroyed, they abandoned the attempt and returned to England. On arrival, they were faced with the news that the 'gold' was in fact worthless iron pyrites. Frobisher was disgraced.
In 1585, John Davis was commissioned for the first of three exploratory voyages to the same region, to chart the coast of 'West England,' and continue the search for a N.W. passage. Ice thwarted the second aim, but his surveys provided more knowledge of the coasts of Newfoundland, S.E. Baffin Island, as well as the west coast of Greenland.
Next came Henry Hudson in 1610, An Englishman sailing on behalf of the Dutch penetrated further west, then south in to the bay that was to be named after him. He and his crew wintered over before returning to England in 1611, convinced they had found the N.W. passage. (The Hudson Bay Company established in 1670, and for 200 years the defacto govt of more remote parts of Canada, was named for Henry Hudson. The company still exists today, trading as 'The Bay'.) They hadn't of course.
Further south, European exploitation had also been very slow. European fisherman had been crossing the Atlantic for the rich harvest of the Grand Banks for a long time, and the English and French had ephemeral fur trading posts well into the St Lawrence, but the establishment of a French fort and trading post at Lachine Rapids, (Montreal) in 1608 was the first permanent settlement. After the 1541-43 fiasco of the de la Roque colonisation expedition, the French were wary of another attempt, and the English had 'enjoyed' their own fiasco on Baffin Island. The Spanish also, courtesy of Papal blessing and the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, had a claim on everthing beyond 50°W __ not that the English, French or Dutch ever had any respect for that treaty, which was simply a deal between Spain and Portugal to divi up the world between themselves, a deal dignified by a Pope who owed both money and favours to both countries. But the Spanish had shown little active interest in anything north of Florida, though weren't above using cannon to discourage anyone else!.
1608, after establishing the fort at Lachine Rapids, the French colonisation expedition (under the command of Samuel de Champlain) established a settlement at Quebec City,which by 1620 was heavily fortified and became the centre of French operations (Montreal, although established by the French in 1642 was later to become dominated by English speaking settlers).

A few years earlier in 1604, another French colony had also been established in what is now Nova Scotia; this privately organised colony called itself Arcadia,and was to have a sad and limited history. By 1713, when France lost the first of the Anglo-French wars of the 18th century, the Brits took control. By this time the Arcadians felt no loyalty to France, but bloody mindedly independent they also refused to sign any oath of allegiance to Britain.
For six years 1623-29, there was also a small privately organised English colony in S.E. Newfoundland. 'Avalon' was organised and financed by George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, whose son was to go on to establish Delaware Colony further south, . The colony had some degree of success but the harsh seven month long winters made for a very marginal operation. When they were attacked by three French ships in 1629, many of their buildings were destroyed, and a decision was made to abandon 'Avalon' and move to warmer climes. Lord Baltimore did go to Virginia, but quickly developed the idea to apply for a charter to establish his own colony somewhere along this warmer coast.
When war broke out between Britain and France for the third time in the 18th century (fighting started in Canada in 1754 and merged into a wider war in Europe and India in 1756) the Arcadians were again asked to sign an oath of allegiance. They again refused, and 14,000 were rounded up and shipped out of Canada. Most went to French speaking Louisiana (not that they received any great welcome), where their name was corrupted to 'Cajun', while others dispersed thru the Caribbean, the Thirteen Colonies, or even back to Europe. When fighting came to an end in 1763 and all French authority terminated, some found their way back, but not many.

From those first permanent bases at Montreal and Quebec, French fur traders and missionaries spread out into the Canadian hinterland and south into the Mississippi basin, but the number of immigrants from France was very small compared to their English speaking cousins. Even by 1750, when there were 1½ English speaking settlers in North America, there were only 80,000 French. French govt policy (like the Spanish and Portuguese) was that colonies were purely for the profit of the homeland, not an opportunity for the colonists themselves to become prosperous! So farmers and artisans had little incentive to emigrate to the French colonies. During the final Anglo-French fighting for dominance in Canada, 1754-1763, both sides supplemented their fighting forces by recruiting Indians, primarily the Huron and Iroquois.

Status : Confederated Democracy Total area: sq.km. Pop. 1972 : million Pop. 1998 : 30.3 million Recent annual increase 1.13% Major languages .. English, French Capital: Ottawa pop. 19 Largest city: Toronto pop. 1998 4m Colonial Powers ...Britain, France Independence 1867 Highest point ...Mt.Logan 5951m

The first major enterprise by the English in Canada was the establishment of the Hudson Bay Company, which set up trading posts thru much of the Arctic and later in the west in 1670, they were to remain the defacto governing authority in some wedstern areas as late as the 1890's. By 1713 informal but permanent British colonies were established in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, which was the beginning of active friction between the British and French in Canada for territory and resources. In 1745, a British force marching north from New England was challenged by a French fort, and the British refusing to retrace their steps, took out the fort,further straining relations.
By 1750, English and Scottish settler numbers in Canada were slowly rising, the English tending to congregate in the Montreal area, with the more adventurous moving westward along the shores of the Great Lakes, while the Scots settled mainly along the Atlantic coast in what are now referred to as the Maritime Provinces. Even today there is a touch of Celtic lilt to the Canadian accents of their descendents. Incidents developed between the two sides and blew out into full scale warfare in 1754, as mentioned earlier. This merged into the Anglo-French war in Europe and India of 1756-63.

During the American War of Independence (1773-1783), there were substantial numbers of American colonists who remained loyal to Britain, or at least had lesser objectives than total independence (Rhode Island voted to join the Union by a very slim majority after the war, and took till 1791 to reach that vote). Many of these loyalists fled north to Montreal or the Maritimes, which served to balance up the numbers between French and English speakers. In 1812 the Americans attacked Canada with the intention of absorbing it into the U.S.A. This was supposedly in retaliation for the British blockade of American trade with European ports under Napoleonic control (the French were trying to do the same to British ports!) But for many Americans, that was just a handy excuse, a few years earlier, their President Madison had declared that it was their 'Manifest Destiny' to rule the whole continent. Though grossly outnumbered, British forces in Canada fought off the attack(which lasted for over two years) with the assistance of militias from both English and French speaking communities (the French speakers fought very loyally alongside their English speaking cousins) and fighting took place as much on American soil as Canadian. That was to be the last fight between neighbours. Modern Canada and U.S.A. enjoy peaceful relations and their mutual border is the longest undefended frontier in the world.
With the British in full control of Canada, the modern country began to take shape, but very slowly. Immigration continued to move at a snails pace compared to the American colonies to the south, and there was a continuous leakage southward. The American Revolutionary War of Independence temporarily reversed that, and certainly brought the number of English speakers up to par with French, but even so, in 1850 the population was still only 3 million.

The island of Newfoundland and the mainland territory of Labrador are two components of the Canadian province of Newfoundland. Newfoundland did not join the Canadian Confederation until 1947, having chosen an independent path when the confederation was being put together, later got into financial dificulties and surrendered its independence to become a British colony once more.

The Maritime Provinces

Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were original members of the Confederation. Prince Edward Island, settled first by French Arcadians and later dominated by English speaking colonists had enjoyed self-government since 1769, and fearing a very small voice in any form of federalism, was reticent to join Canada. But on July 1, 1873 acceded.

The U.S.A

The Thirteen Colonies

By the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, the world west of 50°W 'belonged' to Spain, to colonise, trade with, plunder, enslave, and of course, spread the good words of Christianity. This treaty was between Spain and Portugal, and adjudicated by the Pope; excluded from this Papal blessing, there was never any chance that the English or other northern Europeans would respect this treaty. As it turned out, there was very little direct conflict of interest with the Spanish as far as the east coast of North America was concerned. Although the Spanish did chart the coast all the way north to Cape Breton as early as 1502, they took little active interest north of Florida.
The first English attempt to establish a foothold on the American continent was organised by Walter Raleigh (later Sir), although he never attempted to settle there himself. The place ...Roanoke, North Carolina ...it was 1585. The colonists found the environment too strange, and themselves ill-prepared. When one of Raleigh's ships called the next year, they asked to be evacuated back to England. In 1587, a second settlement expedition was mounted, better equipped and with more supplies in reserve. However, when another ship finally came in 1590, (war had broken out with Spain, and in 1588 the Spanish tried to invaded England) this party had disappeared entirely. No trace of any survivors was ever found, just some enigmatic paintings and a few words carved into a tree.

Virginia 1607

After the Roanoke tragedy in the Carolinas, no further English colonisation attempts were made until early in the next century, after peace (of sorts) had been achieved with the Spanish. In 1605 two associate companies, The Virginia Company of London and The Virginia Company of Bristol were created and chartered to undertake colonisation programs on the North American east coast. (Chartering was common practise throughout Europe from the 15th century to the 18th.) The Plymouth Company's operation proved a disaster and by 1608 was totally aborted. The London Company's expedition and colony development survived ,just, but at a horrendous cost in human lives.
Leaving England in December 1606 aboard a convoy of three ships were 144 all male colonists. The convoy followed a southerly route, risking the ire of the Spanish, but made it to Virginia four months later. 40 of the colonists died on the Atlantic crossing. The expedition entered Chesapeake Bay on April 26, 1607 and as no prior survey had been done to select a site, they spent four weeks deciding whereabouts to establish themselves. The landing party leaders ignored written instructions from King James I which (in part) directed them to select a high ground site, preferably on an island for health and defensive reasons. They chose a low swampy peninsula that was not far enough up the James River to avoid the salt water that came with every tide. They called the settlement Jamestown. Once ashore with their meagre supplies, their transport ships sailed off back to England.
By September only 46 were still alive, fever from swamp mosquitoes and drinking bad water, Indian attack, and the beginnings of starvation were quickly taking a toll. By New Year 1608, there were only 38. More ships carrying more colonists arrived, in total 500 more colonists by early 1610, but in May 1610 only 60 were still alive; on June 7, leader Sir Thomas Gates, having himself just arrived and seen the pitiful state of the survivors, made the decision to load all aboard his ship and sail for England. As they reached the mouth of the river, they met three incoming ships under the command of Lord Delaware with 150 men for the colony and adequate supplies. The survivors were persuaded to give it one more go. The colony survived __ just!
The mortality rate continued to be horrendous, from fever and Indian attack. In 1618 there had been about 1000 colonists, by early 1624 another 4000 had arrived, but a census later that year showed only 1275 alive. A Royal Court of Enquiry placed much blame on mis-management both locally and by the Charter Company principals in London. The Charter was revoked and Virginia became a Royal Colony.

New Netherland 1615

New York has its origins in a Dutch colony, not English. After centuries of domination by Spain, the Dutch had finally managed to throw off the Spanish yoke in 1581, and promptly set about creating a maritime trading empire.
They had employed an English adventurer/explorer, Henry Hudson to explore on their behalf in the early 1600's. In 1609, he had instructions to seek a N.W. passage to China. 'Accidently' he went exploring the east coast of North America instead. His report on the river valley that was to be named after him, suggested good profits to be made by trading with the Indians, primarily for furs. His report sparked such a rush of Dutch would-be fur traders, that by 1620 open warfare between themselves for the best of the trading ensued. To impose some order the Dutch government formally declared the area to be a colony, and named it New Netherland. In 1625 soldiers and administrators arrived, and a small fort and community built on Manhattan Island to guard the harbour. The settlement was called New Amsterdam, and the administrators had authority over all the outposts in or near the Hudson Valley. The chain of outposts reached 230 km north to Fort Orange (Albany). The Dutch had little interest in setting up farming communities, they were too focused on the fur trade. The Dutch government did make some effort to encourage potential farmers, they offered huge land grants to any entrepreneur willing to organise 50 settlers to cross the Atlantic and work the land, but only one man, Amsterdam diamond merchant Kilaen van Rensselaer successfully took up the offer in the whole brief history of the Dutch colony.
Only with the arrival in 1647 of new Governor Peter Stuyvesant and the imposition of some harsh rules, did reasonable stability develop, but the days of New Netherland were limited. Stuyvesant ignored rumours of likely English or English colonial attack, and did little to upgrade the small New Amsterdam fort.
Upon the restoration of monarchy in England, Charles II found that he personally, and his country had huge debts to repay. As part of his plan to do this, Charles granted his brother James, Duke of York, huge tracts of land in the Americas, but the deal included taking New Amsterdam and attached territory away from the Dutch. On August 18, 1664, James sailed into what is now called New York Harbour with four heavily armed warships. The Dutch fort was no match for such firepower, and Peter Stuyvesant was persuaded by his own people to surrender without a fight, all territory and settlements in what is now New York, New Jersey and Connecticut came under English control.
,Most of the original settlers and traders (which due to liberal Dutch attitudes included a fair spectrum of European peoples and variations on the Christian religion) stayed on, and lived in harmony with incoming English settlers, and intermarriage soon became quite common. The Dutch did recapture the city in July 1673 and held it fourteen months, but then returned it to English control, in return for an English promise not to meddle in dutch affairs in the Guianas. Introduced English style laws in the re-named colony made due allowance for the previous managements liberal policies, which contributed to New York quickly becoming one with considerably more racial mix in its ancestry than most of the other colonies.

New Jersey 1618

The first colonial settlements in what is now New Jersey were just across the Hudson River from Manhattan in 1618, and in 1623 just south of modern day Camden, both Dutch fur trading posts.
By the time the English took New Amsterdam in 1664, there was a thin scattering of Dutch and Huguenot (French Protestants) through most of the coastal areas, and Quakers inland. The successful ousting of the Dutch had brought the whole area under the proprietorship of James, Duke of York. He soon handed effective control of New Jersey to some close friends, Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. An ambiguity in the arrangement ended up in court, James lost. Now in total control, one of the partners, Lord Berkeley promptly sold out his interest to the Quakers. New Jersey became a Royal Colony in 1702, but right up to 1738 the Colonial government sat alternately in Perth Amboy on the coast and Burlington in Quaker country, a recognition of the rivalry between the two communities.
In 1655, seeing the Swedes as a potential rival in the future, the Dutch invaded the Swedish settlements. Many of the Swedish and Finnish settlers remained, but they were now under the jurisdiction of the Dutch in New Amsterdam . In 1664, the English captured New Amsterdam and all Dutch territory was forfeit to England. The Dutch did grab it all back in 1673, but made a deal with the English and withdrew the following year.

The Plymouth Colony 1621

Arguably the most famous English colony in the New World was Plymouth colony established by settlers whose first arrivals came on the 'Mayflower'
The origins of the colony were in the creation of the Anglican Church in the late 16th century. Not everyone in England was happy with the conformity of practise demanded by the Church. One small community, Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, decided to get aways from the strictures by moving to the Netherlands in 1609. The Netherland at this time had a very liberal attitude to differences of political or religious beliefs. Unfortunately, whilst the Dutch government had liberal attitdes, the langauge difference plus hostility from local people with whom they competed for work resulted in a none too pleasant situation.
In 1620, some men from the community returned to England and were delighted to be able to reach an agreement with the London based principals of the Virginia Company. In return for initially working somebody else's land, they would be allowed to establish their own community and worship as they saw fit. The rest of the group quickly returned to England, and in mid-September 1621, boarded the Mayflower for the Atlantic crossing. After 65 days, fast for the 17th century, they sighted land on November 21, but to their dismay discovered that a navigation error had brought them to the North American coast in what is now southern Massachusetts, over 600 km north of their intended Virginia destination and well outside of the Jurisdiction of the Virginia Colony. For some reason it was not a possibility to sail south. The settlers went ashore with their supplies in Plymouth Bay, and a representative returned to England with the Mayflower, who was able to negotiate a deal with the Council of New England, a private company who had become the successors to the defunct 1607 Plymouth Company. The little colony's inadvertent establishment was legalised. br> Though the first decades were a struggle(they wouldn't have survived the second winter without Indian help) against poor crop yields and other problems, the colony survived and grew to ten settlements in the area plus two outposts in what is now Maine. In 1691, Plymouth Colony was formally absorbed into the (by then) far larger Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Massachusetts Bay Colony 1627

Whilst the Mayflower colonists were struggling to survive through the first few winters in the New World, a far larger group of people were fighting the religious hierarchy in England for the freedom to worship in their own way. The Puritans were spread across England and included farmers and townsfolk alike, many of the townsfolk successful city businessmen. In 1627 some of them decided to set up a small commercial fishing enterprise at Dorchester on the New England coast. A small party crossed the Atlantic that year to set up the physical aspects of the operation, whilst their associates in England organised the New England Company to manage the operation. The following year those already in Dorchester, set about building a second village 30 km further north in anticipation of further arrivals. They called it Naumkeag, which was latet renamed Salem, the town that gained infamy in 1637 was the witchcraft trials.
Then came a change of plan, driven by the persecutions. They would organise a mass exodus of Puritans to the new lands and build a colony free of the Anglican orthodoxy. The Massachussetts Bay Company was formed in 1629 to replace the limited objective New England Company, and obtained a Royal Charter and a huge 'sea-to-sea' land grant (at this time the English still thought that the Pacific Ocean couldn't be too far from the North American east coast, hence the sea-to-sea!). By January 1630, a fleet of eleven ships was assembled in Southampton, and 700 hundred colonists boarded for the voyage. By 1642, 200 ships with 20,000 colonists had made the crossing to Massachusetts, the largest specifically organised exodus from England to the Americas prior to the American Revolutionary War of Independence.
The Massachutians organised themselves a democratic government in compliance with their Royal Charter, but soon found there were different ideas amongst themselvesw in both secular and religious matters. Despite having left England in the name of religious freedom, anyone who disagreed with the government and church in Massachusetts soon found themselves on the outer, and deprived of the vote and other democratic rights. The first of the major disagreements led to the establishment of Boston village in 1633 between the Dorchester and Naumkeag settlements. Further disagreements led to the beginnings of Rhode Island and New Hampshire and also spurred a diaspora of minor settlements across other areas of New England. In the 1640's Massachusetts gained control of New Hampshire for a while, and took control of the tiny seetlements up the Maine coast in the 1650's. New plymouth colony was absorbed into Massachusetts in 1691.

New Hampshire 1628

The earliest settlement in New Hampshire was established at Dover 30km in from the coast under the auspices of Capt. John Mason who in partnership with Sir Ferdinand Gorges had acquired a land grant from the Council for New England, successors to the defunct 1607 Plymouth Company. In the usual confusion that applied throughout much of the American colonies, their granted lands overlapped with lands defined in the Massachusetts Bay Company charter. In 1638 a second major settelment was set up at Exeter on the coast, this one by Puritans from Massachusetts, whose leader John Wheelwright had come to disagree with the edicts of the Massachusetts leaders.
John Mason had not done very much to establish his authority in New Hampshire, and envious of the timber resources, and using the dispute over granted lands as an excuse, the Massachuttians took control over New Hampshire in 1643. They remained the defacto authority until 1679 when King Charles II declared New Hampshire, which then included about half of modern day Vermont, a Royal Colony.
Massachussetts continued to argue the point from time to time, and to further complicate the issue, King Charles had also granted the Vermont territory to New York colony in 1674. That dispute simmered for almost 100 years until in 1770, the New York colonial government declared that any land acquisitions in the Vermont territory from New Hampshire authorities was invalid, and thus such landholders were squatters! They would have to rebuy the land from New York authorities. No way! the Vermontians formed a militia to protect their interests, built a string of forts to fight the New Yorkers if necessary. They harassed those who had acquired land via New York authority, and in 1777, with the War of Independence from the British well under way, Vermont declared itself an independendent republic, and remained in a virtual state of war with New York until 1790 when the New Yorkers finally dropped their claim.
In 1791, Vermont, including additional land acquired from a Canadian border adjustment, became the first state to join the original thirteen of the United States of America.

Maryland 1634

Cecil Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore, son of George Calvert who'd set up the Avalon colony in Newfoundland (abandoned 1629) was granted a Royal Charter in June 1632 to set up the Colony of Maryland. The first two ships, the 'Ark' and the 'Dove' left England in October 1633 and arrived at Cheasapeake Bay in February 1634. After exchanging courtesies with the Governor of Virginia, they sailed up the bay to their pre-surveyed settlement site, high on a bluff at the mouth of the Potomac River.
The territory had been part of the cancelled Virginia charter, and Virginian's were to prove rather hostile to this new colony on land that they still considered 'theirs.' From the start, Maryland was well planned and organised, Cecil's father who had applied for this charter before his death had drawn on his Newfoundland experiences to plan it well. The early settlers suffered little of the deprivations of the early Virginians. Calvert had set up the administrative structure on feudal manoral basis, but right from the start there were in-built democratic elements. Problems were more of a political nature; for one, the Virginians objected to the very existence of the rival colony, and right up until 1786 the border between the two was in dispute, a similar dispute with Pennsylvania also dragged on till 1767. The second delicate matter was religion. Calvert himself was Catholic, and included Catholics amongst his colonists, even though Catholicism was illegal in England and not popular amongst other colonists, he had even smuggled three Jesuit priests aboard one of his first ships.
Maryland was a proprietory colony. This meant that Calvert was responsible for development, settlement and defense, but he also had the right to define structure of colonial government, administration, and law, subject to the proviso that those laws did not conflict with English law. In 1649, he introduced The Toleration Act to reinforce his liberal religious views. In effect it said that any Christian was entitled to follow his beliefs by whatever means he chose. Puritans who'd moved down from Massachusetts Colony considered this heresy and for a while during th 12 years of the English Republic siezed control of the Maryland govt with the objective of enforcing their version on everbody else! Calvert regained control once the monarchy was restored in England. He eventually lost control permanently to officers of his own government in 1689. In response the English revoked the charter in 1691, and Maryland became a Royal Colony.

Rhode Island 1636

Some colonists had arrived in the area previously, but R.I. has its origins in 1636. In 1631, a clergyman and Cambridge scholar by the name of Roger williams arrived in Massachussetts Colony. From his very early days in the new land, he preached against the rigidity of spiritual and temporal life under the Puritan leadership. (The Puritans had left England for Massachusetts to escape persicution by the orthodoxy of the Anglican Church, but in setting up the Massachusetts Bay Colony refused to allow others those very freedoms they come to America for themselves! If your religious practise and lifestyle didn't conform, you lost your right to vote, and other constraints including arrest and expulsion from the colony could follow.)
In 1636, that is what was about to happen to Williams, but forewarned, he escaped to an area he believed was outside Massachusetts jurisdiction. Joined soon after by a number of his congregation, the settlement of Providence was born. Another of Williams 'outrageous' ideas was that the Indians had land rights, and used his own money to buy from them whatever lands they needed. As more people arrived, both Portsmouth and Newport also were quickly established. Soon his little colony found itself under land claim pressures from Massachusetts and Plymouth. Though personally hating the idea, Williams soon realised that obtaining a charter was the only way to retain independence, and in 1643 took ship from New Amsterdam for England. England was in a civil war at the time, but Williams successfully obtained a charter from the Republican (Puritan) controlled parliament, and returned to Rhode Island. By 1647, they had established a semi-democratic form of government.
In 1660 with the restoration of monarchy, Williams realised that King Charles II might not feel bound by a charter written by Cromwell's Republic, and that a further application would have to be made. The Royal Charter was acquired in 1663 and it defined Rhode Island's borders for the first time, promised royal protection, and underlined William's ideas on religious freedom.

Connecticut 1636

The area that was to become Conecticut was originally claimed by both Massachusetts Bay Company and the Plymouth Colony. In March 1636, agreement was reached that those wishing to remove themselves from the authority of the Massachusetts government should have the right to self-government on Connecticut, and in 1639 the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut spelled out the form of government for the daughter colony. A small colony of people who had come directly from London to New Haven received similar courtesy with a government separate again. This was absorbed into Connecticut in 1665. Concerned about the legality of their status, Governor Winthrop went to England once the monarchy had been restored there. He successfully obtained a Royal Charter from King Charles II in May 1662, but as often happened with the lands attached to charters, the Connecticut lands supposedly covered twice the area of the modern day state and overlapped with lands on other charters. It took the entire rest of the colonial period to sort out the mess!

Delaware 1638

There was a Dutch fur trading outpost in what was to become Delaware near modern day Lewes from 1631, but as a colony the area had its beginnings as New Sweden, the shortlived attempt by the Swedish government to gain a toehold in North America.
Swedish and Finn colonists arrived in 1638 and established Fort Christina near present day Wilmington. Both the Dutch and Swedes expanded their presences in the area, and each soon began to feel threatened by the other. When the Dutch built Fort Casimir, 1851, almost in sight of Fort Christina the situation worsened. In 1654, the Swedes attacked and captured Fort Casimir, but when the Dutch counter-attacked the following year, the Swedes didn't stand a chance, they just didn't have the numbers for a successful resistance. For the most part, the Swedish and Finnish farmers stayed on, but that was the end of Swedish authority in North America, permanently.
Nine years later, in 1664, the English captured New Amsterdam and all Dutch territory was forfeit to England. The Dutch did grab it all back in 1673, but made a deal with the English and withdrew the following year. The entire former Dutch area was now under the proprietorship of James, Duke of York, and brother to King Charles II. When William Penn jnr received a Royal Charter to develop Pennsylvania as a Quaker colony, he was keen for his colony to have a coastline (though the Delaware River was navigable to Philadelphia, the proposed capital.) James was a very good friend, and gave Penn Delaware. Initially the colonists in Delaware had an equal voice in the Phildelphia legislature, but as Pennsylvanian population rapidly grew, the Delawaran representation grew proportionately less. In 1704, after years of rancour, Delaware won the right to set up its own colonial government.

Pennsylvania 1681

One religious group even the open minded leader of Rhode Island found hard to get along with, the Religious Order of Friends __ the Quakers.
William Penn jnr had become a Quaker as a young man much to the disgust of his father, Admiral Sir william Penn. Penn jnr was good friends with James, Duke of York, the brother of King Charles II, but this didn't protect him from the displeasue of the authorities in England. His father sent him off on a Grand Tour of Europe, believing that might cure the madness, but meeting up with other Quakers in the German Rhineland only served to reinforce his beliefs. Next he went to the American colonies where he made himself unpopular by sermonising. Realising that the solution was a Quaker based colony, young William petitioned King Charles for a charter for as yet unallocated lands between New York and Virginia. The Charter was granted in 1681 and William had advance parties out the same year preparing the ground. The charter as it stood included no coastline , though the Delaware River was navigable into Pennsylvania territory. His very good friend James made a gift of his rights over Delaware, gained when the Dutch were thrown out of North America. His advance teams laid out the basic of the to-be capital of Philadelphia, and the adjacent seaport on the Delaware River. Parties went inland to advise the scattering of colonists who had drifted in from the north and Virginia that Penn was now Proprietor, and to make peaceful trading arrangements with the Indians. Penn prepared a manifesto that declared that Pennsylvania would be free of religious and political persecution, and offered generous terms for the purchase of land. Whilst Penn made sure that copies of the manifesto reached Quaker communities throughout England and Europe, he also ensured general distribution. Unlike the Puritans of Massachusetts who had fled England to avoid religious persecution, only to introduce repressive practises in their new land, Penn truly believed in religious freedom. The numbers that took up the offer of a new life astounded even Penn, in the first three years, 8000 crossed the ocean, and others moved in from other colonies, and they kept on coming. For quite a while it was the fastest growing colony in the Americas.
His Indian policies worked well too, there were no Indian troubles until well after his death; The first conflict with the Indians came in 1737 when leaders of the inland expanding colony, forgetting Penn's policies and methods, cheated the Leni Lenapi Indians out of their lands. Later they started to have trouble with the French as well, who were spreading out from the St. Lawrence Valley and encroaching into north western Pennsylvania. This led to the start in 1754 of the French and Indian War, which two years later melded into Europe's Seven Year War, which has been referred to as a dress rehearsal for World War One.
When peace returned in 1763, all French territory in North America except New Orleans was forfeit, and the way was open for further westward expansion. But not for long __ in 1767, the British banned all further migration across the Appalachians from the Thiorteen Colonies, declaring trans=Appalachian lands to be Indian Territory under direct British supervision. This edict joined the growing list of colonial resentments that led to the War of Independence.

Georgia and The Carolinas saw some European contact prior to the arrival of English colonists, but no permanent settelments were ever achieved. According to old Spanish records, in 1526 a settlement called San Miguel de Gualdape was established somewhere on the Georgia or Carolinas coast, but the record is vague as to where, and no traces have ever been found. Apparently, for whatever reason, it was abandoned after six months and the would-be settlers returned to Hispaniola. The Spanish also built at fort on St Catherines Island on the Georgia coast in 1566 and maintained it for a few years, and minor fortified posts at various other points up and down the coast. The French made incursions from the Mississippi Valley but their forts and settelments also proved rather temporary.

South Carolina 1670

In 1629 issued a charter for a colony in the Carolinas but the enterprise never got off the ground. Any further likely colonial developments were soon put on hold as England slipped into internal turmoil, civil war, and then the 12 years of the Puritan controlled English Republic. With the restoration of monarchy in 1660, the English again began to look outward, and with the country's and his personal finances in dire straits, King Charles II was keen to promote any venture to generate funds to satisfy creditors. To one group of eight English Lords to whom he owed a lot of money, he offered the Carolinas (which included what is now Georgia) as a colonisation project in return for cancellation of debt. The Proprietory Charter for the whole huge area was signed in 1663, but it was 1670 before the first ship carrying colonists arrived in the Carolinas. The colonists went ashore at Albemarle point and established themselves, the colony grew slowly, with more ships arriving very occasionally, and a few peopl drifting south from Virginia Colony and beyond. The main settlement was shifted in 1680 to nearby Oyster Point, and renamed Charles Town in honour of the King. (spelt Charleston from 1783), by 1677 the colonists began to become aware that their Lords Proprietors were none to interested in spending funds on development and defence as required by the Charter, they were on their own!
During Queen Anne's War, 1702-13 they fought off Spanish and French attacks, and from 1715-18 were under attack from Indians and pirates. In the middle of all this, in 1710, North Carolina was split off to be a separate colony but with its own government.
In 1719, the South Carolinans, totally sick of the lack of the support that they were entitled to, petitioned the Lords Proprietor in England for a few changes to the rules. When this request was refused, they appealed to King George I to become a Royal Colony. He paid out what little the Proprietors had spent on development and defence and the colonists request was granted. By 1750, settlement wasn't restricted mainly to the coast, there was also quite substantial numbers inland. A slow but steady stream of new arrivals came from England, but both Carolinas also received quite a few new people moving down from Pennsylvania and Virginia.

North Carolina 1705

The first English attempt to establish a foothold on the American continent was organised by Walter Raleigh (later Sir), although he never attempted to settle there himself. The place ...Roanoke, North Carolina ...it was 1585. The colonists found the environment too strange, and themselves ill-prepared. When one of Raleigh's ships called the next year, they asked to be evacuated back to England. In 1587, a second settlement expedition was mounted, better equipped and with more supplies in reserve. However, when another ship finally came in 1590, (war had broken out with Spain, and in 1588 the Spanish tried to invaded England) this party had disappeared entirely. No trace of any survivors was ever found, just some enigmatic paintings and a few words carved into a tree.
There had been some interest in another colonisation attempt in 1629, but plans fell through. In 1664, King Charles II issued a charter to a group of business men in return for cancellation of some of his debts. The Carolinas charter covered the Carolinas and Georgia down to the border with Spanish Florida and points westward. The first settlement in the Carolinas was at Albemarle Point (close by modern day Charleston) and for three decades that was the centre of activity. North Carolina's first town, and official seetlement, Bath, near the mouth of the Pamlico River was built in 1705. Settlements spread out along the coast and estuaries, and a second townm New Bern established on the Neuse River by German and Swiss settlers. The location enraged the local Tuscarora Indians. On September 22 1711 New Bern and nearby settlements were attacked and several hundred colonists massacred. The colonists finally subdued the Tuscarora in March 1713.
In the meantime, in 1710, North Carolina had been separated from the south, and declared a colony in its own right with a separate Governor.
Like the neighbours in South Carolina, the northerners suffered attack from pirates 1715-18 and had to contend with threats from the Spanish and French with very little defensive aid from the Lords Proprietor. In 1729 they followed the south's lead and requested royal protection. The proprietors were compensated for what little expense they had incurred re development and defense, N.C. became a Royal Colony, and from thereon developed much faster. In 1729 there were only 36,000 colonists, but by the outbreak of the War of Independence that number had grown to 750,000, thouroughly outstripping South Carolina which had started so much earlier.

Georgia 1733

The unpopulated area that is now Georgia, was for a long time a buffer zone between Spanish Florida and the English to the north. In 1629, King Charles I had issued a Royal Charter for the Carolinas which included Georgia, but the enterprise fell through. In 1663 King Charles II re-issued basically the same charter, and the first colonists arrived at what was to later become Charleston, S.C. in 1670. Northern Carolina received its first official colonists about 35 years later, though by then there were a few minor settlements scattered thru the area. But no-one it seemed to want to go the Georgia area!
The British did maintain a fort on the Altamaha River from 1721, but it was so far from anywhere that it was expensive to keep in supplies, and didn't actually seem to be defending anyone from anything. it was abandoned in 1727.
In 1732 a gentleman by the name of George Oglethorpe expressed an interest, so King George I detached what was to become Georgia from the South Carolina Charter, and issued a 21 year Charter to Oglethorpe, after which time the land would revert to Crown Authority. Part of this was strategic, having a presence there was necessary to prevent possible Spanish or French encroachment on the existing colonies. Oglethorpe was a philanthropist, his plan was to populate the colony with those poor souls languishing in English debtor prisons and redeemable minor criminals to allow them a second chance in life. That particular aspect of his plan never came to fruition, but priority was given to the poor, and Oglethorpe's organisation shipped more than half of its colonists at no cost. Because of the close location to the Spanish, and French not too far away inland, the colony settlements were tightly structured, and a yeoman system whereby each man trained as a part time soldier as well as being a farmer, the yeoman system also necessitated a ban on slavery, slaves just did not fit into the semi-military nature of the colony.
The first ship, with 120 colonists, arrived at Yamacraw Bluff (now Savannah) on February 12 1733, and were welcomed by Creek Indians who helped them get established. By 1752, and the colony reverting to the Crown, 4000 colonists had arrived. In the meantime, there was trouble with the Spanish. Disputes over the border occurred, and the Georgians established a profitable smuggling operation to and from Spanish colonies in Florida and the Caribbean. War broke out in 1739, and Oglethorpe and his militia invaded Florida, hoping to take it away from the Spanish entirely. They were driven back, but had shown their colours with honour. When a Spanish seaborne attack was mounted on Savannah, Oglethorpe's men successfully drove them off. That was the end of the war in the area, but the British and Spanish took it home with them to Europe.

There were an accumulation of grievances that led to the Colonies rebelling against British authority, but most of them can be traced to England's civil war and subsequent period as a republic. When the monarchy was restored, King Charles II found that both his personal and his country's finances were in a bad way, deep in debt in fact! Taxes and trade restrictions to boost the English coffers and the Kings led to the unpopular measures. Each of the Thirteen Colonies were established for their own individual combination of reasons, religious freedom and commercial gain were only two of those reasons. As colonies they didn't always see eye to eye, and when it did come to a fight for independence, it was only by a very slim margin that some of the colonies joined the fight. They had a variety of reasons and objectives for being in the fight, and for some of them full independence was not the intention. after the fighting was over, each colony had to decide for itself to ratify the Constitution of the United States. Rhode Island for one, very nearly rejected it and reverted to being a willing British Colony.

Revolutionary War of Independence 1775 - 1783

The kettle had been coming to the boil since 1763, arguably earlier. Two major incidents in the years approaching 1775 were the burning of the British ship 'Liberty' at Newport, Rhode Island in 1769; and the infamous Boston Tea Party in 1773, which was not only a protest against British trade & taxation policies, but a deliberate incitement by the colonists. Thru 1774 tensions rose, Boston Harbour closed, all territory beyond the Appalachians declared part of the Canada Colony, and access banned to anyone from the 'thirteen colonies.' In 1775, the British declared the Massachussetts Colony to be in a state of rebellion, and the local British Governor was ordered to take action. Shots were fired on both sides, and the fighting spread.
The colonial militias, united under the overall command of George Washington were illequipped and illdisciplined compared with the British forces and numerically fewer. Also the British had near total command of the sea. The colonials however had learned from the Indians the value of attack by ambush, and this went some ways to even the balance. Fighting ranged not only throughout the Thirteen Colonies, but into British Loyalist Canada, with the rebels capturing Montreal at one point. The British in turn at one time or other gained total control of New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, Charleston, and Newport (R.I.) some for quite some time.
The Americans today recognise July 4, 1776 as Independence Day, but at that point victory could still have gone either way. (Had the British subdued the rebels, their would have been a second round, breaking free was an inevitability). In December 1777, the French recognised the new American Republic, and in July 1778, declared war on Britain and sent land and sea forces to the American's assistance. Spain also joined in on the American side, in June 1779, but her involvement was almost purely naval.
By this time the tides of war were going the American way despite desertions and mutinies in the ranks. On October 19, 1781, British forces at Yorktown surrendered and four months later the British Parliament voted not to pursue the war. Some fighting continued, particularly in the south until on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, formally ending hostilities between Britain and her former colonies, formally recognising the United States of America.

The 1783 Expansion

As part of the 1783 expansion, Britain ceded those territories from the Appalachians to the Mississippi that she had confiscated from the French in 1763, and the U.S. - Canadian border was settled from the Atlantic to Lake of the Woods. This more than doubled the size of the area defined by the Thirteen Colonies and gave the new United States room to grow. By 1803, three trans-Appalachian states, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio had been created and Vermont carved out of territory on the previously ill-defined Canadian border and also squabbled over by New York and New Hampshire.
But they still had no access to the Gulf of Mexico, essential to the development of the interior of the continent.

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase

Until 1800, everything west of the Mississippi and north to roughly where the Canadian border now lies were theoretically Spanish; plus the Spanish controlled the entire Gulf coast to Florida. (The Spanish had acquired the French established city of New Orleans 1762 along with some nearby territory in a deal that brought Spain into the latest European war as an ally of France against the British. France lost that war and with it the rest of her North American possessions. In 1800, as a result of the fortunes of yet another war in Europe, France had forced Spain to cede a huge tract of territory from Louisiana north-westward to the Rockies. (Not that the Spanish were too heartsore about the deal, they had little use for the inland area, were finding it and New Orleans too troublesome and expensive to maintain, and they knew it was likely they'd have to fight the Americans for New Orleans sooner or later if they held on to it!)
Because the French had been in undeclared naval hostilities with the Americans for four years, they tried to keep this acquisition a secret. However in 1802 U.S. President Jefferson learnt of it, he was very suspicious of French intentions. He ordered the U.S. Ambassador to Paris to attempt to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans, or to at least achieve the right of access and transit to the hinterland. Way beyond any expectations, Napoleon offered to sell the entire territory that they had gained from the Spanish previously. Price ..$15 million. As they were signing the deal, the Ambassador queried certain details re the western border with territories still held by Spain. The response apparently was 'When you have been offered a great deal, why worry about minor details?'
On November 30, 1803 down came the Spanish flag over New Orleans (it had still been flying to try to keep the secret of the French re-acquisition), and up went the French; and on December 20, down came the French flag, and up went the American one.
The United States had more than doubled in size again!

The Anglo-American War

On June 18, 1812 the U.S.A. declared war on Britain. For six years American trans-Atlantic trade had been badly hurt as another spin-off of the Napoleonic Wars. The French were blockading shipping to Britain, and the British were blockading the ports of Napoleonic Europe. It was a great excuse to attack and annex Canada, and by this time had far more disciplined forces than during the War of Independence. They also outnumbered all British forces in both Canada and the Caribbean. The war dragged on for 2½ years, did a lot of damage on both sides, and ended up a stalemate. Though outnumbered by the Americans, the British regular forces were suppported by fiercely loyal militia of both British and French extraction, and by some Indian tribes. During the course of the war, the Americans burnt Toronto, so in retaliation the British burnt Buffalo and Washington. The Americans occupied Montreal for a while, and the British occupied New York, Detroit, and various other places. It was a war going nowhere. The Treaty of Ghent was signed on December 24, 1814 with no territorial gains or other concessions to either side.
Interestingly the arguably most famous battle of the war, the Battle of New Orleans took place two weeks after the treaty was signed. In those pre-telecommunication days, it took a while to get the message around!
In ongoing discussions after the war, another section of the U.S. Canadian border was fixed into todays position, westward from Lake of the Woods along the 49th parallel, but only as far as Montana. West of Montana and north of California clear thru to Alaska had for a while been claimed by the Russians, and was to become known as the Oregon country nominally under joint Anglo- American control.
By around this time the seeds of the civil war had been sown, with a growing division between the economies of the southern states which relied upon slave labour and the northern states' economies that didn't.

Florida

Florida had had a long and generally uneventful history as a backwater of the Spanish Empire. Between 1819 and 1821 the Americans took it over; first the extended panhandle (now the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi) then the rest of Florida.

Texas to California

In 1835 Texas had broken free of Mexico to become an independent country, and in 1837 requested to be annexed by the U.S.A. The Americans refused the request. When in 1845 that decision was reversed, the admission created tensions with Mexico which degenerated into war. Hostilities began in April 1846 and the U.S. formally declared war on May 13. By the end of the year they had occupied New Mexico. Meanwhile California, where settlers from the U.S. now outnumbered those whose origins were via Mexico, declared its independence from Mexico. 'California' at this time included what are now Arizona, Nevada and Utah, so Mexico at this point has lost the last of its territories north of the Rio Grande. In March 1847, the Americans made an amphibious invasion of Mexico, landing at Vera Cruz; ironically the same place where Cortez landed in 1519 on his way to destroy the Aztec Empire!
By treaty in 1848, Mexico ceded all claim on all territory north of the Rio Grande in perpetuity. In return the U.S. paid out $15 million to help Mexico get its battered economy back on its feet. A few years later, in 1853, the Americans bought another strip of border land from the Mexicans (Gadsden Purchase) that they needed for a transcontinental railway.

Oregon Country

Meanwhile back in 1846, the British and Americans had amicably resolved the Oregon question. The joint claimed Oregon Country covered (roughly) what is now Idaho, Oregon, and Washington State, and most of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The deal saw the 49th parallel frontier line extended thru to the mainland west coast, and a maritime border out thru the Juan de Fuca Strait.
The contiguous U.S.A. had finally reached today's physical dimensions and borders.

The Caribbean

The Caribbean Islands, or West Indies, enjoy a tropical climate often envied by Europeans and North Americans enduring cold miserable winters. Though the weather can be humid for much of the time in most of the places, refreshing sea breezes generally alleviate the problem, and warm temperatures year round can be very inviting. One problem throughout the islands is the potential for hurricanes, which over the centuries have wreaked havoc, and nowhere in the Caribbean is outside of the annual hurricane zone. The islands are also subject to earthquakes and volcanic activity, though not on the same scale as nearby Central America.
The West Indies have a colorful and sometimes horrific history, When the Spanish first arrived the islands were populated by native Indians, the gentle friendly Arawaks in the north, and the cannibalistic warrior Caribs in the south. Within fifty years most of the Arawaks were dead, mostly from European diseases, the Caribs lasted longer, a few even survive today, but they were decimated too. Slavery, slave revolts, bucanneering and outright piracy, all part of the Caribbean history; And national rivalries too, the Spanish 'discovered' the area, and claimed the lot for themselves, but other growing maritime powers soon wanted a piece of the action. The French, the British, and The Dutch fought the Spanish and each other in an ever changing kaleidoscope of changing alliances throughout the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries, and into the 19th, some islands changed hands up to ten times during this turbulent period!

The Bahamas

Turks and Caicos Islands

Cuba

Cuba is the largest of the Caribbean islands, over 1200 km east to west, and lies just to the south of the Tropic of Cancer. the result is a warm and humid climate characterised by two main seasons, the 'dry' from November to April, and the 'wet' May to October. Like other Caribbean islands and surrounding mainland coasts, Cuba is seasonally at risk from hurricanes, which over the years have inflicted heavy damage and casualties.
The Spanish occupation of Cuba and the subjugation of the native Taíno (Arawak) peoples began with a landing on October 27, 1492 by Columbus on his first voyage to the New World, and serious colonisation began in 1511. By that time probably half the native population were already dead from Spanish guns or European diseases, or enslaved. Slavery generally meant death within a year anyway, because of the harsh way that the Spanish treated thier slaves.
The 1511 arrival led by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, saw permanent Cuban outpost set up at Barancoa near the eastern tip of the island. The Spanish continued thier hunt for gold. With Taínumbers in rapid decline, the Spanish resorted to bringing in slaves from Africa. By the end of the 16th century, the Taíno were all but extinct. With sugar the main Cuban crop througho9ut colonial times and beyond, there was a huge need for labour, and slaves were cheapest!
After the initial settlement at Barancoa, the Spanish consolidated thier hold on the island, establishing a capital a Santiago in the the south east and developing Havana's excellent harbour facilities into a port for the Spanish navy and merchants. Havana also soon became Spain's major ship building facility in the Caribbean. The capital was transferred to Havana in -- . By 1774 the population of Havana had reached 170,000including 44,000 slaves, and received further boosts in 1801 with the Haitien uprisings, and in 1803 with the sale of Louisiana to the Americans. The Spanish were never particularly active in the slave trade as such, having licensed the delivery of slaves out to the Portuguese, who per the Tordesillas Treaty, controlled the African coast. In the 17th century, the Dutch usurped the Portuguese in the role of slave traders, then in the 18th, the French and British got the upper hand in the profitable business. It was the the British who developed the triangle trade; barter goods from Britain to Africa, slaves to the new world, and sugar, tobacco and other tropical produce back to Britain.
When after much debate the British decided in 1807 to ban slave trading throughout the empire, the country also had the most powerful navy in the world and was thus able to force her views on other nations. Although unable to intercept every slave trader on the high seas, enough were intercepted and their cargoes rescued to interfer with the ongoing slave needs of Cuba and other colonies in the New World.

Belize

Jamaica

Navassa Island

Haiti

Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, and Hispaniola was Spain's first colony in the Americas and forward base for further conquests.
The French interest in what is now Haiti began around 1625 with French (and English) buccaneers establishing a base on Tortuga Island, just off the north coast. They used the base to raid Spanish gold galleons in the Caribbean. In the early 1640's the base was moved to the mainland, Port Margot on the north western tip of the island, and told their English partners they were not welcome. The pirate base evolved over the years into a more respectable colony with farming gradually replacing piracy. The Spanish formally ceded the western third of the island in 1697, under the Treaty of Ryswick and the French called their new acquistion Saint Domingue.
Over the next 90 years, Saint-Domingue became one of the most prosperous colonies in the Americas, using large numbers of slaves to produce sugar cane for the European Market.
In 1789 there was a proclamation of the French Revolution 'Equality Among All Men' ...what the French had in mind was all white men, but the slaves of Saint Domingue saw it differently, and 1791 saw a massive and successful slave revolt. Though Saint Domingue remain under French control, slavery was abolished in the colony in 1793.

Total area: sq.km. Pop. 1972 : million Pop. 1998 : million Recent annual increase % Major language .. French Capital: Port-au-Prince Colonial/Occupying Powers, France, U.S.A. Independence 1804 1935 Highest point ...La Selle 2680m Special features ... Tortuga Island

There was general mayhem in the territory and in 1798 (for their own reasons) the British sent in a force to assist the French, to little effect. A year after coming to power, Napoleon sent a huge army/naval force to try to re-instate slavery. Not much of the land force survived, decimated by yellow fever as much as the fighting.
In 1803, the remnants of the French army surrendered to the Haitien General Dessalines. On January 1, 1804 Haiti declared itself independent, and General Dessalines proclaimed himself Emperor Jean-Jacques the First. He lasted two years, and dedicated himself to exterminating the few remaining whites in the country, then he was assassinated. The country plunged into civil war, which resulted in a black kingdom in the north, and a mulatto led republic in the south. The country was re-united in 1820 under President Boyer and enjoyed 23 years of relative stability. On his death, the country disolved into chaos again for 72 years. There were 22 presidents, and very few of them left office peacefully.
In 1915 the Americans invaded. They occupied the country until 1934 and maintained fiscal control until 1947. After the Americans left, mayhem ruled again until that was replaced in 1957 by the horrors of the Duvalier regime for nearly 30 years. Today, Haiti is a little more stable, but remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income not much better than the poorest of African nations.

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Hispaniola was 'discovered' by Colombus on his first voyage to the 'new world' in 1492, and became Spain's forward base for the establishment of theSpanish American Empire. The western third of the island had come under French control in 1697 and independent as Haiti in 1804. The eastern two thirds of the island came under French control in 1797, but was returned to Spain in 1809.
With Spain weakened by the Napoleonic Wars, previously thwarted independence movements in almost all her American colonies grabbed the opportunity. The Spanish Hispaniolans declared their independence in 1821. Feeling insecure with their Haitian neighbours, they appealed to Greater Colombia to become a Colombian Protectorate; before the Colombians could formulate a reply, the Haitians grabbed their opportunity , and invaded the fledgling Dominican Republic (1822). The Dominicans managed to throw off the

Total area: 48440 sq.km. Pop. 1972 : 4.4 million Pop. 1998 : 8.2 million 64% urban Recent annual increase 1.7% Major languages ...Spanish Capital: Santo Domingo pop. 2 million plus Colonial/Occupying Powers Spain, France, Haiti, U.S.A. Independence 1821 1844 1924 1966 Highest point ...Pico Duarte 3175m Special features ...Lago de Enriquillo 44m below sea level

Haitian overlordship in 1844, and became independent once more. Sporadic fighting continued with Haiti, and the Dominicans appealed to Washington to become part of the U.S.A., or at least to be a protectorate. The Americans ignored them. In 1861, the Spanish returned and re-established a colonial regime. The locals weren't too happy about this, and after two years of fighting, the Spanish withdrew in 1865. The next forty years were chaotic, with for most of that time, the country being run by whichever general commanded the most guns; and they ran up huge foreign debt. In 1905 the United States imposed a customs receivership to recoup monies owed (took control of all trade in or out and levied duties). From 1916 to 1924, the country was under full U.S. military occupation.
In the ensuing years, Rafael Trujillo Molena rose to power, becoming President-for-Life in 1930. His 'reign' lasted until 1961, and whilst he did significantly improve the Dominican economy, his personal fortune did a lot better still! During his early years he promoted his country's European and Catholic heritage, using that as justification for the massacre of thousands of black Haitians in the border areas. In later years, it seemed his foreign policies annoyed both Latin Americans and the U.S. His assassination 30/5/1961 is rumoured to have been a C.I.A 'black operation.
In 1965, fearing that the Dom.Rep. was about to follow Cuba into communism, the Americans invaded again. They withdrew the following year after U.S. style presidential elections, and to date in this fourth attempt at independence, peaceful economic progress has been made; however, in 1985, the IMF forced the government to adopt severe austerity measures to again save the economy. The trade balance for 1996 was imports US$4.27 billion in excess of exports.

Geography, climate & whatever

The Island Of Hispaniola is the second largest in the Caribbean, at 78460sq.km. about a third the size of Britain. The Dominican bit is 48440sq.km., somewhat smaller than Tasmania. The major features are:- A range of mountains running north eastward from near Santo Domingo, highest point Pico Duarte 3175m, another smaller rang of mountains along the north coast, extensive flatlands between and to the east, and interestingly for a smallish island, there is a below sea level depression in the south west of Dom.Rep near the Haitian border. A major tectonic convergence line runs east-west across the island, but the Greater Antilles are far more stable than the Lesser Antilles or nearby Central America. Gold, Nickel, Aluminium, and Silver are mined in commercial quantities, a result of the tectonic history. The climate is described as humid tropical, alleviated by N.E.tradewinds. Santo Domingo, the capital and the oldest 'European' city in the western hemisphere sits on the south coast, so misses out on the tradewinds, but in compensation, gets less rain than the north coast. Hurricanes are a risk throughout the Caribbean, and the Dominican Republic is no exception.

English is apparently a second language amongst the better educated, nearest place where English (sort of!) is the primary language - Grand Turk, 350km N.N.W. of Santo Domingo, still dirt poor and a Brit. dependency.

Puerto Rico

Am Virgin Islands

Brit Virgin Islands

Anguilla

St Martin

Sint Maarten

St. Kitts-Nevis

Antigua and Barbuda

Montserrat

Guadeloupe

Dominica

Martinique

St Lucia

St Vincent & the Grenadines

St.Vincent and the Grenadines(a chain of small islands south of St.Vincent itself) enjoy the generally beautiful climate of the West Indies, but every year with the risk of destructive hurricanes.

Grenada

Barbados

At the time of the first European incursions into the Caribbean area, Barbados was inhabited by the fierce Carib Indians, but when John Powell claimed the island for England in 1625, it was uninhabited. The Spanish had shown no interest in colonising th island, but in the early 16th century had made frequent slave raids for their needs in Hispaniola and elsewhere. The surviving Caribs had evacuated to the nearby and more defensible Windward Islands.
The English had become aware of the island via maps produced by the Portuguese explorer Pedro a Campos, who had visited in 1536 and given the island its' name. The first party of English settlers (80, plus 10 black slaves captured en route) were able to quickly establish themselves, having no local resistance to overcome. With a rapid influx of further settlers, the Barbadian economy quickly outstripped that of other English colonies in the West Indies. For many years there were only a minimal number of slaves, the early settlers had brought indentured servants from England, and thus had an adequate workforce for growing tobacco (and later cotton as well).
The end of the 1630's saw a sharp drop in the selling price of cotton, and this happened to coincide with the Dutch being thrown out of their colonies in northern Brazil by the Portuguese. Some of the Dutch came to Barbados, bringing with them ideas re growing sugarcane, and bringing techniques / technologies that they had developed. With sugarcane becoming the major cash crop by 1645, their was a massive increase in the need for slave labour on the island. Although the slaves were not treated as horrifically as their cousins in Spanish or Portuguese hands, they were still resentful. Their were abortive slave revolts in 1649, 1675, and 1692.
At the end of the 17th century, Barbados was arguably the most prosperous of any European colony in the Caribbean islands, but the 18th century brought one setback after another. In 1703, there was a severe yellow fever outbreak that killed 2000, competition in the sugar marketforced the price down sharply, hurricanes in 1731 and 1780 wreaked havoc, and Anglo-French war and the American War of Independence severely curtailed export opportunities, and caused serious problems with necessary imports.
The 1807 abolition of slave trading in the British Empire caused few immediate problems for Barbados, they had plenty of slaves / breeding stock and with the downturn in the sugar trade, no need for more slaves to be brought in from West Africa. However, the Emancipation Act of 1833, intended to allow the slaves to adjust to full freedom over a six year period, had the effect of making a slave's life worse not better. Even after the emanciation process was brought to completion two years earlier than planned because of the transition problems, the relationship between the rich (white) plantation owners and the black workers didn't change much, even into the early 20th century. The planters did everything they could to ensure that the workers' children didn't get enough education to get themselves off the plantations, and also managed to block most attempts by blacks to acquire freehold land to farm for themselves. The stranglehold only began to be broken with construction restarting on the Panama Canal in 1904, Several thousand Barbadians went as labourers and came back with money enough to acquire land despite opposition, or to set up small in-town businesses and shops. But the struggle continued right up until independence in 1966.

Trinidad & Tobago

The Guianas

Guyana

Suriname