UNITED STATES HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT



UNITED STATES HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT

American Beginnings

A. Three Worlds Meet

1. Peopling the Americas

The lands that _________________ explorers called a New World were in fact very old. During the Ice Ages much of the world's water was bound up in _________________. Sea level dropped by hundreds of feet, creating a land bridge between ________________ and Alaska.

_____________ walked across to become the first human inhabitants of the Americas. When the last glaciers receded about ______________ years ago ancestors of the _____________ Americans filled nearly all of the habitable parts of North and _____________ America. They lived in isolation from the history—and particularly from the _____________— of what became known as the Old World.

2. Native American Societies Around 1492

The Native Americans who greeted the first Europeans had become diverse peoples. The _____________ of Mexico and the ______________ of Peru built great empires. In what is now the United States, the ____________________ built cities surrounded by farmland between present–day _________________, Missouri, and Natchez, Mississippi. The Pueblo peoples of the __________________ lived in large towns, irrigated their dry land with river water, and ______________ with peoples as far away as Mexico and ______________. In the East, the peoples who eventually encountered ______________ settlers were varied, but they lived in similar ways. All of them ______________ much of their food. ______________ farmed and gathered food in the woods. Men ______________, fished and made war. None of these peoples kept herds of ______________ animals; they relied on abundant ___________ game for protein. All lived in family groups, but owed their principal loyalties to a wider network ___________. Some—the ________________ in upstate New York and the Powhatan confederacy in ______________ —formed alliances called _________________ for the purposes of keeping peace among neighbors and making ___________ on outsiders.

3. European Exploration

The Ottoman Turks captured ___________________ in 1453. These conquests gave them control over the overland ______________ routes to Asia as well as the sea route through the Persian Gulf. Western Europeans, on the other hand, were developing wealth and ______________ and a compelling need to ______________. The ______________ of Western European nations was growing, providing a tax base and a ______________ force for new classes of large landholders. These wealthy landowners provided ______________ for goods that were available only through ____________ with Asia. When the expansion of ______________ gave control of eastern trade routes to Arab middlemen, Western Europeans had strong incentives to find other ways to get to ______________.

They were also developing ______________ technology and knowledge of currents and winds to travel long distances on the open sea. The __________________ led the way. They copied and improved upon the designs of ______________ sailing ships and learned to mount ______________ on those ships. In the 15th century they began exploring the west coast of ______________ - bypassing ______________ merchants to trade directly for African gold and ______________. The European explorers were all looking for a ______________ route to Asia.

Christopher Columbus sailed for the monarchs of ______________ in 1492. He used the familiar prevailing winds to the Canary Islands, off the northwest coast of ______________, and then sailed on. In about two months he landed in the ______________ on an island in the Bahamas, thinking he had reached the East ______________. Columbus made three more voyages. He died in 1506, still believing that he had discovered a ______________ route to ______________.

The Spanish investigated further. Italian navigator Amerigo _____________ sailed to the northern coast of ___________ America in 1499 and pronounced the land a new ______________. European ______________ named it America in his honor.

Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de ______________ crossed the Isthmus of ______________ and in 1513 became the first of the European explorers of America to see the ______________ Ocean. That same year another Spaniard, Juan Ponce de ____________ explored the Bahamas and ______________ in search of the fountain of youth.

2 Conquest of the Native Americans

For Native Americans, American history began in ______________. Native Americans suffered heavily because of their ______________ from the rest of the world. Europe, Africa and Asia had been trading knowledge and ______________ for centuries. Societies on all three continents had learned to use ______________ and kept herds of ______________ animals. Europeans had acquired ______________, paper and navigational equipment from the ______________. Native Americans had none of these. They were often helpless against European conquerors with ______________, firearms and especially______________ and weapons.

Asians, Africans, and Europeans had been exposed to one another's ______________ for thousands of years. By 1500 they had developed an Old World ______________ system that partially protected them from most ______________. ______________ was the biggest killer of Native Americans, but illnesses such as ______________ and influenza also killed millions of people. Scholars estimate that on average the population of a Native American people dropped ____________ percent in the first century of contact. Europeans used the new lands vacated by dead Native Americans as sources of precious ______________ and plantation agricultural. Both were complex operations that required ___________ in large, closely supervised groups. Attempts to enslave ______________ peoples failed, and attempts to force them into other forms of bound labor were slightly more successful but also failed because workers died of ______________.

3 Importation of Africans

Europeans turned to the African slave trade as a source of ______________ for the Americas. During the colonial periods of the Americas, far more ______________ than Europeans came to the New World. These earliest enslaved Africans were ______________, war captives and people___________ by their relatives to settle debts.

New World demand increased the slave ____________ and changed it. Some of the coastal kingdoms of present–day Togo and Benin entered the trade as ___________________. They conducted raids into the _________________ and sold their captives to European slavers. Nearly all of the Africans enslaved and brought to America by this trade were natives of the ______________ coastal rain forests and the inland forests of the ______________ and Central Africa.

The slave trade brought ______________ to some Europeans and some Africans, but the growth of the slave trade ______________ African political systems, turned slave raiding into full–scale war, and robbed many African societies of their young __________. The European success story in the Americas was achieved at horrendous expense for the millions of Native Americans who ______________ and for the millions of Africans who were ______________.

4 Colonial Experiments

5 New Spain

Spain was the first European nation to ______________ America. Hernan Cortés invaded ______________ and with the help of disease and other Native Americans, he defeated the ___________ Empire between 1519 and 1521. By 1533 ______________ had conquered the Incas_of Peru. Both civilizations possessed artifacts made of precious ______________, and the Spanish searched for rumored piles of gold and ______________. They sent expeditions as far north as what is now Kansas and ______________. They were looking for cities made of ____________and did not find them. Shortly after the conquests, Catholic ______________ attempted to convert Native Americans to ______________. They established ______________ not only at the centers of the new empire, but also in New Mexico and ____________. Spanish______________ even built a short–lived mission outpost in Virginia.

4. New France

By the 1530s French explorers had scouted the coast of America from Newfoundland to the Carolinas. Samuel de _________________ built the foundations of what would become French ______________ (New France). From the beginning, New France concentrated on two activities: _________ trade and Catholic ____________. Missionaries and traders were often at odds, but both knew that the success of New France depended upon friendly relations with the native peoples. While ______________ converted thousands of Native Americans, French traders roamed the ______________.

5. Dutch Settlements

Sailing for the Dutch in 1609, Henry ______________ explored the river that now bears his name. The Dutch established a string of agricultural settlements between New Amsterdam (___________ ___________City) and Fort Orange (_______________, New York) after 1614. They became the chief European traders with the Iroquois, supplying them with ______________, blankets, metal tools, and other European trade goods in exchange for ___________. The Iroquois used those goods to nearly destroy the ______________ and to push the Algonquins into Illinois and Michigan. As a result, the Iroquois gained control of the Native American side of the ________ trade.

6 English Colonization

6. Why the English Came to the Americas

In the 1530’s King ___________ VIII broke with the Catholic Church. The new Church of England developed a ______________ theology, but it retained much of it’s Catholic practices and rituals. Within the Church of England radical Protestants later called ______________, wanted to get rid of the remaining Catholic practices and rituals. The success of the Puritans depended on the religious ______________ of English monarchs.

Queen _____________ I, who ruled from 1553 to 1558, was a committed ______________ who tried to roll back the tide of religious change; she ______________ hundreds of Protestants and chased many more into exile. Her successor, ________________ I, invited the exiles back and tried to resolve differences within the English church. The______________ kings who followed her, James I and Charles I, again ______________ Puritans. As a result, Puritans became willing to ______________ to America.

Another reason for English colonization was that land in England had become _____________. The population of England ______________ from 1530 to 1680. In the same years, many of England's largest landholders evicted tenants from their lands, ______________ the lands, and raised sheep for the expanding __________ trade. The result was a growing number of young, _______, underemployed, and often desperate English men and women. It was from their ranks that colonizers ______________ most of the English population of the mainland colonies.

7. English Colonies in the South

Permanent English settlement began in the Chesapeake Bay area in 1607. ______________ began as a misguided business venture and as a _________________ society of young men. Over time, however, Virginia was transformed into a slave-based ______________ colony where slaves were carefully disciplined.

8. Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in America, began as a _______________ venture that failed. The Virginia Company of ______________ sent 104 colonists to Chesapeake Bay in 1607. The colonists were to look for gold and ______________, for a passage to ___________, and for other discoveries that would quickly reward investors. If the work was heavy, the colonists were to force ______________ peoples to help them. The colonists included silversmiths, goldsmiths, and far too many _________________ who were unprepared for __________ colonial life. The colonists found a defensible spot on low ground and named it ________________ . None of their plans worked out, and the settlers began to die of dysentery and ______________fever. At the end of the first year, only about ______ remained alive. In 1619 the Virginia Company reorganized. The colony gave up the search for quick profits and turned to growing ______________. Under the new plan, colonists received ______ acres from the company for paying a person's ______________ to Virginia. The new settlers were ____________ servants who agreed to work off the ______________ of their passage. In 1624 King ______________ I of England made Virginia the first ____________ colony. He revoked the Virginia Company's charter and appointed a royal governor and established a House of __________________ elected by the settlers.

a. Mortality Rate

Chesapeake ______________ growers needed able–bodied servants. Most of those imported to Virginia and Maryland were young, poor, _____________men. Disease, bad water and ______________ native peoples produced a horrific death rate. Surviving planters continued to import servants. Some servants lived long enough to end their _________________, but many others died. In addition, there were too few ______________ in the Chesapeake to enable surviving men to build ______________ and produce new Virginians. More than two-thirds of men never ________________ and the white population of Virginia did not begin to sustain itself until at least the 1680’s. Before that, the colony survived only by ______________ new people to replace those who ______________.

b. Introduction of Slavery

______________ servants worked Chesapeake tobacco farms until the late 17th century. But earlier in the century, English tobacco and ______________ planters in the Caribbean had adopted African ______________, long the chief labor system in Portuguese and Spanish sugar colonies in the Caribbean. By 1700 the English islands were characterized by large ______________ and by populations that were overwhelmingly ______________.

These African slaves were victims of a particularly ______________ and unhealthy plantation system that ______________ most of them. Beginning around 1675, Virginia and Maryland began ______________ large numbers of African slaves. By 1690 black slaves _________________ white servants in the colonies.

7 English Colonies in the North

Colonization began in Massachusetts in 1620. Massachusetts settlers were ______________. They arrived as whole ______________ and sometimes as whole congregations and they lived by laws derived from the Old ______________. New England began as a refuge for religious ______________. The first English settlers were the _____________. They were Separatists or Protestants who, unlike the Puritans seceded from the Church of England rather than try to ______________ it. After difficult early years, they established a community of farms at ______________ that was ultimately absorbed by the Massachusetts Bay Company.

Mayflower Compact –

The Puritans left England because of religious persecution, but they, too, were ______________. In Massachusetts they established laws derived from the ______________, and they ______________ or expelled those who did not share their beliefs. Government officials were expected to enforce Godly authority, which often meant punishing religious ______________. In the 1650s they persecuted ______________, and in the 1690s they executed people accused of witchcraft. Massachusetts _____________ provided relatively safe ______________ water and New England's cold winters kept dangerous microbes to a minimum. Therefore disease and early ______________ were not the problems that they were farther south. The Puritans migrated in ______________, and there were about two women for every three men. Nearly all colonists married and then produced ______________ at two-year intervals. With both a higher ______________ and a longer life expectancy than in England, the Puritan population ______________ rapidly almost from the beginning.

8 The English and Their Empire

The English government had little interest in ______________ governing its colonies. The government was, however _________________: It wanted colonial ______________ activity to serve England. The Navigation Act of 1651 stipulated that ______________ into British harbors and colonies could be carried only in ______________ ships and that colonial trade could be carried only in English ships. For the most part the Navigation Act succeeded in making colonial trade ______________ England. The act also made the colonists accustomed to and ______________ upon imported English goods. But the act did not amount to a colonial administration. Private companies, wealthy ______________ and the settlers themselves did what they wanted without official English __________________.

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