U.S. History For Dummies

Steve Wiegand

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119550747
• Edition: 4
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

• Find FREE chapter quizzes online
• Discover important events that shaped the nation
• Get to know the superstars of the past

Don't miss a moment of U.S. history

The United States is undergoing a period of intense political and social change. From the rise of the Tea Party to social media's effect on American life and politics, this new edition fills in the gaps of this nation's story. This book guides you through the events that shaped the nation, from pre-Columbian civilizations to the 21st century. It's all here—you'll find all the wars, leaders, and eras that explain and demonstrate how the past influences the future.

Inside...

• Get an overview of U.S. history
• Learn about major movements
• Discover how the U.S. came of age
• Explore iconic cultural moments
• Find out how the country faced adversity
• Get to know historical U.S. documents

FREE 1-year access to chapter quizzes online!

Part 1

Getting Started with U.S. History

IN THIS PART …

The early settlers make their way in a new land.

The colonies establish themselves.

The American Revolution leads to the creation of a new country.

Chapter 1

America: A Short Biography

IN THIS CHAPTER

Tracing America’s roots

Establishing a national identity

Dealing with growing pains

Fighting wars of a different kind

Donning a new look for a new millennium

Long before it was a nation, America was an idea, a dream, a fanciful tale. For most of humankind’s history, it didn’t exist as anything but a blank slate, waiting to be filled. Eventually it was filled, with people who came for all sorts of reasons and with all sorts of ideas on how to assemble a country. Sometimes the ideas and the people clashed. But out of the clashes and struggles grew a country founded on a system of government that made it unique in the world.

America was lucky to have great leaders in bad times, when it most needed them. It had abundant natural resources, generally peaceable neighbors, and plenty of room to grow. And boy, did it grow. But before all this could happen, someone had to transform it from a fantasy to a very real place. This chapter gives you the lowdown on how that came about and directs you to the places in the book that give you the nitty-gritty in more detail.

They Came, They Saw, They Stayed

The first Americans probably wandered over from Asia about 14,000 years ago, which in geologic terms is an eye blink ago. Over the succeeding four or five millennia, they spread out over the North and South American continents.

There weren’t a whole lot of these first Americans, at least not in what became known as the United States of America, but they were wildly diverse in their customs and culture. Many of the differences had to do with the environment in which they settled. Around AD 985, Northern Europeans popularly known as Vikings showed up on the North American continent but stuck around only long enough to irritate the Native Americans.

But two things — greed and imagination — prodded other Europeans into taking their place. Looking for a new route to the riches of the East (particularly spices), explorers such as an Italian weaver’s son named Christopher Columbus thought they might sail west around the globe until they hit Asia. Of course, the Americas got in the way. Rather than reverse course, Columbus and his counterparts refocused their priorities to exploring and exploiting the New World.

The exploiting part of that plan included enslaving or killing off the native population. Sometimes the killing was deliberate; sometimes it was inadvertent, through the introduction of diseases for which the Native Americans had no defenses, for example. See Chapter 2 for more details on Native Americans and explorers.

Catching up to the Spanish

Spain got a head start in the Americas, mainly because it was the first to get enthusiastic about exploring the Americas. But other European countries eagerly sought to catch up. France split its efforts between colonizing and just carting off resources like fish and furs. But the English took steps to make their presence more permanent.

English settlements were founded for both economic and ecclesiastical reasons. In the South, colonists hoped to make money by growing tobacco, and later, cotton. To make their enterprises more profitable, they imported slaves from Africa. It was a practice that would prove far costlier in terms of human misery than the crops were ever worth.

In the North, settlers who had fled religious persecution established colonies based more on religious principles than making a buck (although they weren’t averse to the latter). Like the Spanish, English settlers often found the easiest way to deal with the Native Americans was to shove them aside or kill them. The English colonies grew rapidly. Chapter 3 has the stories of Pilgrims, Puritans, and entrepreneurs.

It’s revolutionary!

It was probably of small comfort to the Native Americans, but the French and British also spent an inordinate amount of time killing each other. Throughout much of the 18th century, the two nations squared off in a series of wars that were fought in both Europe and the New World. When the dust settled, Britain had cemented its position as top dog among the European powers in North America. But a new power — whose members increasingly called themselves Americans — was beginning to assert itself.

Stung by slights both real and imagined from the mother country, American colonists grew restless under British control. In 1776, after a series of provocations and misunderstandings, the colonies declared themselves independent. Details about the pre-Revolution period are in Chapter 4.

The American Revolution took seven years for the colonists to win. To do so took a brilliant leader in George Washington, a timely ally in France, and healthy helpings of tenacity and luck. Chapter 5 has the details.

Making a country out of the victorious colonies also took tenacity, luck, and genius. Over the summer of 1787, a remarkable group of men gathered in Philadelphia to draw up the rules for the new nation. The United States of America elected Washington as its first president, set up a reasonable financial system, and avoided war with European countries long enough to get itself established. All these events are in Chapter 6.

Putting America on the Map

Thomas Jefferson was a great example of America finding the right man at the right time. He helped the country make a smooth transition from one political party being in charge to another. Plus, he had the imagination to pull off a pretty big land deal — the Louisiana Purchase. That not only doubled the size of the country, it gave Lewis and Clark a good reason for an expedition. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court asserted itself as a co-equal branch of government. That’s all in Chapter 7, along with fighting pirates and getting into another war with Great Britain. (Spoiler alert: It ended in a draw.)

Nationalizing a nation

The end of the War of 1812 also marked the fading of the Revolution generation. People increasingly began to identify themselves as Americans rather than New Yorkers or Virginians. But it wasn’t the end of tensions among sections of the country when their interests diverged. Those divergent issues included fights over banking, tariffs — and especially slavery.

With the invention of the cotton gin, growing the fiber became quite profitable in the South, and along with a surge in sugar growing, made the region intensely dependent on slave labor. Many people in Northern states opposed slavery, for a variety of moral, political, and economic reasons. A fight over the question of allowing slavery to spread was avoided, at least temporarily, with a fragile compromise in 1820.

Beyond its borders, the United States was nervously watching European nations who were avariciously watching former Spanish colonies in Latin America gain their independence. In 1823, Pres. James Monroe formally warned Europe to keep its hands off the Americas.

Not all the political squabbling was international. In 1824, a crusty military-man-turned-politician named Andrew Jackson lost a hotly contested and controversial election to John Quincy Adams. In 1828, Jackson avenged the loss after one of the sleaziest campaigns (by both sides) in U.S. history.

As president, Jackson found himself confronted by a theory — most eloquently championed by South Carolina Sen. John C. Calhoun — called nullification. It held that states could decide for themselves which federal laws they did and did not have to obey. The theory served to deepen the divide between North and South.

Despite a national recession brought on by speculation and shady financial dealings, Americans were busy coming up with ways to make life better. Improvements in equipment triggered a boom in railroad building. The development of steel plows and rolling harvesters greatly enhanced grain production. And the invention of the telegraph signaled the start of a national communications medium.

Down in Texas, meanwhile, American expatriates led a successful revolt against Mexico and then waited for nine years to become part of the United States. The annexation of Texas, in turn, helped start another war. Chapter 8 has a lot of stuff in it.

Fighting with a neighbor

In 1844, America elected its first dark horse, or surprise, presidential candidate. He was James K. Polk. Polk was a hard worker with a yen to expand the country to the Pacific Ocean by acquiring territory from Mexico. Polk saw it as the nation’s Manifest Destiny.

Mexico saw it as intolerable bullying. After the Mexican government refused to sell, Polk sent U.S. troops to the border. A fight was quickly provoked and just as quickly escalated into war. The Americans’ quick and decisive victory resulted in their grabbing of about 500,000 square miles of Mexican territory, comprising much of what became the western United States.

These actions not only fulfilled Polk’s vision of Manifest Destiny but also gave California to America. That addition proved to be particularly fortuitous when gold was discovered there in early 1848. By the end of 1849, the California gold rush had sparked a human stampede and given America all the elbowroom it would need for decades.

That was a good thing because immigration was again booming, particularly from Ireland and the European states that would become Germany. But the acquisition of Mexican territory also renewed the struggle to balance the interests of slave states and free states.

In 1850, Congress worked out a five-bill compromise. California was added as a free state. The free-or-slave question was postponed in other areas of the former Mexican lands. And Congress enacted a law that made it easier for slave owners to recover fugitive slaves.

While a movement to give women rights and opportunities equal to men’s began to gather steam in the 1850s, the slavery issue overshadowed it. Violence broke out in Kansas and Virginia. An 1857 Supreme Court decision that held that slaves had no more rights than mules infuriated slavery opponents.

And in 1860, the badly divided country gave a plurality of its votes to a 51-year-old Illinois lawyer in a four-way race for the presidency. The election of Abraham Lincoln was the last straw for Southern states, which began leaving the Union. See Chapter 9 for accounts of the war with Mexico, the California gold rush, and America’s divorce from itself.

Fighting among ourselves

Talk about timing: America had its best president at the worst time in its history — the Civil War. Underestimating Lincoln was easy, and many did. But he had a knack for getting the best out of most of the people around him and a self-deprecating sense of humor that disarmed others.

Lincoln was no fan of slavery, but even more important to him was preserving the Union. The North seemed well-equipped to accomplish that. It had a larger population, better manufacturing and transportation systems, and an established navy and central government. The South had the home-field advantage and better military leaders, and it only had to fight to a draw.

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