American Revolution
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THE UNFINISHED NATION
A Concise History of the American People Eighth Edition
Alan Brinkley Columbia University
with Contributions from
John Giggie University of Alabama
Andrew Huebner University of Alabama
THE UNFINISHED NATION: A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, EIGHTH EDITION Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions © 2014, 2010, and 2008. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning. Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the United States. This book is printed on acid-free paper. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOC/DOC 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 ISBN 978-0-07-351333-1 MHID 0-07-351333-4
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brinkley, Alan. The unfinished nation: a concise history of the American people / Alan Brinkley, Columbia University; with contributions from John Giggie, University of Alabama; Andrew Huebner, University of Alabama. — Eighth edition. pages cm ISBN 978-0-07-351333-1 (alkaline paper) — ISBN 0-07-351333-4 (alkaline paper) 1. United States—History. I. Giggie, John Michael, 1965- II. Huebner, Andrew. III. Title. E178.1.B827 2016 973—dc23
2015025264
The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a website does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill Education, and McGraw-Hill Education does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites. mheducation.com/highered
• vii
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins Professor of History at Columbia University. He served as university provost at Columbia from 2003 to 2009. He is the author of Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression, which won the 1983 National Book Award; American History: Connecting with the Past; The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War; Liberalism and Its Discontents; Franklin D.
Roosevelt; and The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century. He is board chair of the National Humanities Center, board chair of the Century Foundation, and a trustee of Oxford University Press. He is also a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1998–1999, he was the Harmsworth Professor of History at Oxford University, and in 2011–2012, the Pitt Professor at the University of Cambridge. He won the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Award at Harvard and the Great Teacher Award at Columbia. He was educated at Princeton and Harvard.
John Giggie is associate professor of history and African American studies at the University of Alabama. He is the author of After Redemption: Jim Crow and the Transformation of African American Religion in the Delta, 1875–1917, editor of America Firsthand, and editor of Faith in the Market: Religion and the Rise of Commercial Culture. He is currently preparing a book on African American religion during the Civil War. He has been honored for his teaching, most recently with a Distinguished Fellow in Teaching award from the University of Alabama. He received his PhD from Princeton University.
Andrew Huebner is associate professor of history at the University of Alabama. He is the author of The Warrior Image: Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World War to the Vietnam Era and has written and spoken widely on the subject of war and society in the twentieth-century United States. He is currently working on a study of American fami- lies and public culture during the First World War. He received his PhD from Brown University.
BRIEF CONTENTS
viii •
PREFACE XXV
1 THE COLLISION OF CULTURES 1
2 TRANSPLANTATIONS AND BORDERLANDS 24
3 SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN PROVINCIAL AMERICA 54
4 THE EMPIRE IN TRANSITION 83
5 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 106
6 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE NEW REPUBLIC 133
7 THE JEFFERSONIAN ERA 154
8 VARIETIES OF AMERICAN NATIONALISM 184
9 JACKSONIAN AMERICA 201
10 AMERICA’S ECONOMIC REVOLUTION 225
11 COTTON, SLAVERY, AND THE OLD SOUTH 251
12 ANTEBELLUM CULTURE AND REFORM 272
13 THE IMPENDING CRISIS 296
14 THE CIVIL WAR 321
15 RECONSTRUCTION AND THE NEW SOUTH 351
16 THE CONQUEST OF THE FAR WEST 380
17 INDUSTRIAL SUPREMACY 404
18 THE AGE OF THE CITY 427
19 FROM CRISIS TO EMPIRE 454
20 THE PROGRESSIVES 487
21 AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR 518
22 THE NEW ERA 543
23 THE GREAT DEPRESSION 563
24 THE NEW DEAL 587
25 THE GLOBAL CRISIS, 1921–1941 611
26 AMERICA IN A WORLD AT WAR 628
27 THE COLD WAR 653
28 THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY 678
29 THE TURBULENT SIXTIES 707
30 THE CRISIS OF AUTHORITY 736
31 FROM “THE AGE OF LIMITS” TO THE AGE OF REAGAN 766
32 THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION 789 APPENDIX 823 GLOSSARY 851 INDEX 855
CONTENTS
AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS 2 The Peoples of the Precontact Americas 2 The Growth of Civilizations: The South 4 The Civilizations of the North 4
EUROPE LOOKS WESTWARD 6 Commerce and Sea Travel 6 Christopher Columbus 7 The Spanish Empire 9 Northern Outposts 12 Biological and Cultural Exchanges 12 Africa and America 13
THE ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH 18 Incentives for Colonization 18 The French and the Dutch in America 20 The First English Settlements 20
Consider the Source: Bartolomé de Las Casas, “Of the Island of Hispaniola” (1542) 10
Debating the Past: Why Do Historians So Often Differ? 14 America in the World: The Atlantic Context of Early American History 16 CONCLUSION 22 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 22 RECALL AND REFLECT 23
THE EARLY CHESAPEAKE 25 Colonists and Natives 25 Reorganization and Expansion 27 Maryland and the Calverts 29 Bacon’s Rebellion 30
THE GROWTH OF NEW ENGLAND 31 Plymouth Plantation 31 The Massachusetts Bay Experiment 32 The Expansion of New England 34 Settlers and Natives 37 King Philip’s War and the Technology of
Battle 38
THE RESTORATION COLONIES 39 The English Civil War 39 The Carolinas 40 New Netherland, New York, and New
Jersey 41 The Quaker Colonies 41
BORDERLANDS AND MIDDLE GROUNDS 42
The Caribbean Islands 43 Masters and Slaves in the Caribbean 43 The Southwest Borderlands 44
The Southeast Borderlands 45 The Founding of Georgia 46 Middle Grounds 47
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMPIRE 50 The Dominion of New England 50 The “Glorious Revolution” 51
Consider the Source: Cotton Mather on the Recent History of New England (1692) 36 Debating the Past: Native Americans and the Middle Ground 48 CONCLUSION 52 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 52 RECALL AND REFLECT 53
1 THE COLLISION OF CULTURES 1
2 TRANSPLANTATIONS AND BORDERLANDS 24
• ix
PREFACE XXV
x • CONTENTS
THE COLONIAL POPULATION 55 Indentured Servitude 55 Birth and Death 58 Medicine in the Colonies 58 Women and Families in the Colonies 59 The Beginnings of Slavery in English
America 60 Changing Sources of European
Immigration 65
THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES 65 The Southern Economy 65 Northern Economic and Technological
Life 66 The Extent and Limits of Technology 67 The Rise of Colonial Commerce 68 The Rise of Consumerism 69
PATTERNS OF SOCIETY 70 Masters and Slaves on the Plantation 70 The Puritan Community 72 Cities 73 Inequality 75
AWAKENINGS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS 76
The Pattern of Religions 76 The Great Awakening 77 The Enlightenment 77 Literacy and Technology 78 Education 79 The Spread of Science 80 Concepts of Law and Politics 80
Consider the Source: Gottlieb Mittelberger, the Passage of Indentured Servants (1750) 56 Debating the Past: The Origins of Slavery 62 Debating the Past: The Witchcraft Trials 74 CONCLUSION 81 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 82 RECALL AND REFLECT 82
LOOSENING TIES 83 A Decentralized Empire 84 The Colonies Divided 84
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CONTINENT 85
New France and the Iroquois Nation 85 Anglo-French Conflicts 86 The Great War for the Empire 86
THE NEW IMPERIALISM 90 Burdens of Empire 90 The British and the Tribes 92 Battles over Trade and Taxes 92
STIRRINGS OF REVOLT 93 The Stamp Act Crisis 93 Internal Rebellions 96 The Townshend Program 96 The Boston Massacre 97 The Philosophy of Revolt 98 Sites of Resistance 101 The Tea Excitement 101
COOPERATION AND WAR 102 New Sources of Authority 102 Lexington and Concord 103
America in the World: The First Global War 88 Consider the Source: Benjamin Franklin, Testimony against the Stamp Act (1766) 94 Patterns of Popular Culture: Taverns in Revolutionary Massachusetts 100
CONCLUSION 104 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 105 RECALL AND REFLECT 105
3 SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN PROVINCIAL AMERICA 54
4 THE EMPIRE IN TRANSITION 83
CONTENTS • xi
THE STATES UNITED 107 Defining American War Aims 107 The Declaration of Independence 110 Mobilizing for War 110
THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 111 The First Phase: New England 111 The Second Phase: The Mid-Atlantic
Region 112 Securing Aid from Abroad 114 The Final Phase: The South 115 Winning the Peace 119
WAR AND SOCIETY 119 Loyalists and Minorities 119 The War and Slavery 120 Native Americans and the Revolution 121 Women’s Rights and Roles 121 The War Economy 124
THE CREATION OF STATE GOVERNMENTS 124
The Assumptions of Republicanism 124 The First State Constitutions 124 Revising State Governments 125 Toleration and Slavery 126
THE SEARCH FOR A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 126
The Confederation 126
Diplomatic Failures 127 The Confederation and the Northwest 127 Indians and the Western Lands 129 Debts, Taxes, and Daniel Shays 129
Debating the Past: The American Revolution 108 America in the World: The Age of Revolutions 116 Consider the Source: The Correspondence of Abigail Adams on Women’s Rights (1776) 122 CONCLUSION 131 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 131 RECALL AND REFLECT 132
FRAMING A NEW GOVERNMENT 134 Advocates of Reform 134 A Divided Convention 135 Compromise 136 The Constitution of 1787 136
ADOPTION AND ADAPTATION 140 Federalists and Antifederalists 140 Completing the Structure 141
FEDERALISTS AND REPUBLICANS 142 Hamilton and the Federalists 142 Enacting the Federalist Program 143 The Republican Opposition 144
ESTABLISHING NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY 145
Securing the West 145 Maintaining Neutrality 148
THE DOWNFALL OF THE FEDERALISTS 149
The Election of 1796 149 The Quasi War with France 149
Repression and Protest 150 The “Revolution” of 1800 151
Debating the Past: The Meaning of the Constitution 138 Consider the Source: Washington’s Farewell Address, American Daily Advertiser, September 19, 1796 146 CONCLUSION 152 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 152 RECALL AND REFLECT 153
5 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 106
6 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE NEW REPUBLIC 133
THE RISE OF CULTURAL NATIONALISM 155
Educational and Literary Nationalism 155 Medicine and Science 156 Cultural Aspirations of the New Nation 157 Religion and Revivalism 157
STIRRINGS OF INDUSTRIALISM 159 Technology in America 161 Transportation Innovations 162 Country and City 163
JEFFERSON THE PRESIDENT 165 The Federal City and the “People’s
President” 165 Dollars and Ships 167 Conflict with the Courts 167
DOUBLING THE NATIONAL DOMAIN 168
Jefferson and Napoleon 168 The Louisiana Purchase 170 Exploring the West 170 The Burr Conspiracy 171
EXPANSION AND WAR 174 Conflict on the Seas 175 Impressment 175 “Peaceable Coercion” 176 The “Indian Problem” and the British 177 Tecumseh and the Prophet 178 Florida and War Fever 179
THE WAR OF 1812 179 Battles with the Tribes 179 Battles with the British 181 The Revolt of New England 181 The Peace Settlement 182
America In The World: The Global Industrial Revolution 160
Patterns of Popular Culture: Horse Racing 164 Consider the Source: Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis, June 20, 1803 172 CONCLUSION 182 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 183 RECALL AND REFLECT 183
STABILIZING ECONOMIC GROWTH 185
The Government and Economic Growth 185
Transportation 186
EXPANDING WESTWARD 187 The Great Migration 187 White Settlers in the Old Northwest 187 The Plantation System in the Old
Southwest 188 Trade and Trapping in the Far West 188 Eastern Images of the West 189
THE “ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS” 189 The End of the First Party System 190 John Quincy Adams and Florida 191 The Panic of 1819 191
SECTIONALISM AND NATIONALISM 192
The Missouri Compromise 192 Marshall and the Court 193
The Court and the Tribes 196 The Latin American Revolution and
the Monroe Doctrine 196
THE REVIVAL OF OPPOSITION 198 The “Corrupt Bargain” 198 The Second President Adams 199 Jackson Triumphant 199
Consider the Source: Thomas Jefferson Reacts to the Missouri Compromise, 1820 194 CONCLUSION 200 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 200 RECALL AND REFLECT 200
7 THE JEFFERSONIAN ERA 154
8 VARIETIES OF AMERICAN NATIONALISM 184
xii • CONTENTS
THE RISE OF MASS POLITICS 202 The Expanding Democracy 202 Tocqueville and Democracy in America 204 The Legitimization of Party 204 President of the Common People 205
“OUR FEDERAL UNION” 209 Calhoun and Nullification 209 The Rise of Van Buren 209 The Webster-Hayne Debate 210 The Nullification Crisis 210
THE REMOVAL OF THE INDIANS 211 White Attitudes toward the Tribes 211 The “Five Civilized Tribes” 211 Trail of Tears 212 The Meaning of Removal 214
JACKSON AND THE BANK WAR 214 Biddle’s Institution 214 The “Monster” Destroyed 215 The Taney Court 215
THE CHANGING FACE OF AMERICAN POLITICS 216
Democrats and Whigs 216
POLITICS AFTER JACKSON 218 Van Buren and the Panic of 1837 218
The Log Cabin Campaign 219 The Frustration of the Whigs 222 Whig Diplomacy 223
Consider the Source: Alexis de Tocqueville, Concerning the People’s Choices and the Instinctive Preferences of American Democracy 206 Debating the Past: Jacksonian Democracy 208 Patterns of Popular Culture: The Penny Press 220 CONCLUSION 224 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 224 RECALL AND REFLECT 224
THE CHANGING AMERICAN POPULATION 226
Population Trends 226 Immigration and Urban Growth,
1840–1860 227 The Rise of Nativism 227
TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS REVOLUTIONS 228
The Canal Age 229 The Early Railroads 230 The Triumph of the Rails 231 The Telegraph 232 New Technology and Journalism 234
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 234 The Expansion of Business, 1820–1840 234 The Emergence of the Factory 235 Advances in Technology 235 Rise of the Industrial Ruling Class 236
MEN AND WOMEN AT WORK 236 Recruiting a Native Workforce 236 The Immigrant Workforce 237
The Factory System and the Artisan Tradition 239
Fighting for Control 240
PATTERNS OF SOCIETY 240 The Rich and the Poor 240 Social and Geographical Mobility 242 Middle-Class Life 242 The Changing Family 243 The “Cult of Domesticity” 244 Leisure Activities 245
THE AGRICULTURAL NORTH 246 Northeastern Agriculture 246 The Old Northwest 247 Rural Life 249
Consider the Source: Handbook to Lowell, 1848 238 CONCLUSION 249 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 250 RECALL AND REFLECT 250
9 JACKSONIAN AMERICA 201
10 AMERICA’S ECONOMIC REVOLUTION 225
CONTENTS • xiii
THE COTTON ECONOMY 252 The Rise of King Cotton 252 Southern Trade and Industry 254 Sources of Southern Difference 255
SOUTHERN WHITE SOCIETY 256 The Planter Class 257 The “Southern Lady” 257 The Plain Folk 259
SLAVERY: THE “PECULIAR INSTITUTION” 260
Varieties of Slavery 261 Life under Slavery 261 Slavery in the Cities 264 Free African Americans 265 The Slave Trade 265 Slave Resistance 267
THE CULTURE OF SLAVERY 268 Slave Religion 268 Language and Music 269 The Slave Family 269
Consider the Source: Senator James Henry Hammond Declares, “Cotton Is King,” 1858 258 Debating the Past: The Character of Slavery 262 CONCLUSION 270 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 270 RECALL AND REFLECT 271
THE ROMANTIC IMPULSE 273 Nationalism and Romanticism in American
Painting 273 An American Literature 274 Literature in the Antebellum
South 274 The Transcendentalists 275 The Defense of Nature 276 Visions of Utopia 277 Redefining Gender Roles 277 The Mormons 278
REMAKING SOCIETY 279 Revivalism, Morality, and Order 279 Health, Science, and Phrenology 280 Medical Science 281 Education 281 Rehabilitation 282 The Rise of Feminism 283 Struggles of Radical Black
Women 285
THE CRUSADE AGAINST SLAVERY 286
Early Opposition to Slavery 286 Garrison and Abolitionism 287 Black Abolitionists 287
Anti-Abolitionism 291 Abolitionism Divided 291
Consider the Source: Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Seneca Falls, New York, 1848 284 America in the World: The Abolition of Slavery 288 Patterns of Popular Culture: Sentimental Novels 292 CONCLUSION 294 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 295 RECALL AND REFLECT 295
11 COTTON, SLAVERY, AND THE OLD SOUTH 251
12 ANTEBELLUM CULTURE AND REFORM 272
xiv • CONTENTS
LOOKING WESTWARD 297 Manifest Destiny 297 Americans in Texas 297 Oregon 299 The Westward Migration 299
EXPANSION AND WAR 301 The Democrats and Expansion 301 The Southwest and California 302 The Mexican War 303
THE SECTIONAL DEBATE 305 Slavery and the Territories 305 The California Gold Rush 307 Rising Sectional Tensions 308 The Compromise of 1850 308
THE CRISES OF THE 1850s 310 The Uneasy Truce 310 “Young America” 310
Slavery, Railroads, and the West 311 The Kansas–Nebraska Controversy 311 “Bleeding Kansas” 312 The Free-Soil Ideology 313 The Pro-Slavery Argument 314 Buchanan and Depression 315 The Dred Scott Decision 315 Deadlock over Kansas 316 The Emergence of Lincoln 317 John Brown’s Raid 317 The Election of Lincoln 318
Consider the Source: Wilmot Proviso, August 8, 1846 306 CONCLUSION 319 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 320 RECALL AND REFLECT 320
THE SECESSION CRISIS 322 The Withdrawal of the South 322 The Failure of Compromise 322 The Opposing Sides 323 Billy Yank and Johnny Reb 323
THE MOBILIZATION OF THE NORTH 326
Economic Nationalism 326 Raising the Union Armies 327 Wartime Politics 328 The Politics of Emancipation 329 African Americans and the Union Cause 330 Women, Nursing, and the War 331
THE MOBILIZATION OF THE SOUTH 331
The Confederate Government 331 Money and Manpower 332 Economic and Social Effects of the War 333
STRATEGY AND DIPLOMACY 333 The Commanders 333 The Role of Sea Power 336 Europe and the Disunited States 337
CAMPAIGNS AND BATTLES 338 The Technology of War 338 The Opening Clashes, 1861 339 The Western Theater 339 The Virginia Front, 1862 341 The Progress of the War 343
1863: Year of Decision 343 The Last Stage, 1864–1865 347
Debating the Past: The Causes of the Civil War 324 Patterns of Popular Culture: Baseball and the Civil War 334 Consider the Source: The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 346 CONCLUSION 349 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 350 RECALL AND REFLECT 350
13 THE IMPENDING CRISIS 296
14 THE CIVIL WAR 321
CONTENTS • xv
THE PROBLEMS OF PEACEMAKING 352
The Aftermath of War and Emancipation 352 Competing Notions of Freedom 352 Plans for Reconstruction 354 The Death of Lincoln 355 Johnson and “Restoration” 357
RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION 358 The Black Codes 358 The Fourteenth Amendment 358 The Congressional Plan 359 The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson 362
THE SOUTH IN RECONSTRUCTION 362
The Reconstruction Governments 362 Education 364 Landownership and Tenancy 364 Incomes and Credit 364 The African American Family in
Freedom 365
THE GRANT ADMINISTRATION 366 The Soldier President 366 The Grant Scandals 367 The Greenback Question 367 Republican Diplomacy 368
THE ABANDONMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION 368
The Southern States “Redeemed” 368 Waning Northern Commitment 369
The Compromise of 1877 369 The Legacy of Reconstruction 371
THE NEW SOUTH 371 The “Redeemers” 371 Industrialization and the New South 372 Tenants and Sharecroppers 373 African Americans and the
New South 373 The Birth of Jim Crow 374
Debating the Past: Reconstruction 356 Consider the Source: Southern Blacks Ask for Help, 1865 360 Patterns of Popular Culture: The Minstrel Show 376 CONCLUSION 378 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 379 RECALL AND REFLECT 379
THE SOCIETIES OF THE FAR WEST 381
The Western Tribes 381 Hispanic New Mexico 382 Hispanic California and Texas 382 The Chinese Migration 383 Anti-Chinese Sentiments 385 Migration from the East 386
THE CHANGING WESTERN ECONOMY 386
Labor in the West 387 The Arrival of the Miners 387 The Cattle Kingdom 388
THE ROMANCE OF THE WEST 390 The Western Landscape and the Cowboy 390 The Idea of the Frontier 391
THE DISPERSAL OF THE TRIBES 393 White Tribal Policies 394
The Indian Wars 395 The Dawes Act 397
THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE WESTERN FARMER 398
Farming on the Plains 398 Commercial Agriculture 399 The Farmers’ Grievances 401 The Agrarian Malaise 402
Debating the Past: The Frontier and the West 392 Consider the Source: Walter Baron Von Richthofen, Cattle Raising on the Plains in North America, 1885 400 CONCLUSION 402 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 403 RECALL AND REFLECT 403
15 RECONSTRUCTION AND THE NEW SOUTH 351
16 THE CONQUEST OF THE FAR WEST 380
xvi • CONTENTS
SOURCES OF INDUSTRIAL GROWTH 405
Industrial Technologies 405 The Technology of Iron and Steel
Production 406 The Automobile and the Airplane 407 Research and Development 408 The Science of Production 408 Railroad Expansion and the
Corporation 410
CAPITALIST CONSERVATISM AND ITS CRITICS 412
Survival of the Fittest 412 The Gospel of Wealth 413 Alternative Visions 417 The Problems of Monopoly 419
THE ORDEAL OF THE WORKER 419 The Immigrant Workforce 419 Wages and Working Conditions 420 Emerging Unionization 421 The Knights of Labor 422 The American Federation of Labor 422 The Homestead Strike 423 The Pullman Strike 424 Sources of Labor Weakness 424
Consider the Source: Andrew Carnegie Explains the Gospel of Wealth, 1889 414 Patterns of Popular Culture: The Novels of Horatio Alger 416 CONCLUSION 425 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 425 RECALL AND REFLECT 426
THE NEW URBAN GROWTH 428 The Migrations 428 The Ethnic City 429 Assimilation and Exclusion 431
THE URBAN LANDSCAPE 433 The Creation of Public Space 434 The Search for Housing 435 Urban Technologies: Transportation and
Construction 436
STRAINS OF URBAN LIFE 436 Fire and Disease 437 Environmental Degradation 437 Urban Poverty, Crime, and Violence 438 The Machine and the Boss 438
THE RISE OF MASS CONSUMPTION 440
Patterns of Income and Consumption 440 Chain Stores, Mail-Order Houses, and
Department Stores 441 Women as Consumers 441
LEISURE IN THE CONSUMER SOCIETY 443
Redefining Leisure 443 Spectator Sports 444 Music, Theater, and Movies 445 Patterns of Public and Private Leisure 446 The Technologies of Mass
Communication 447 The Telephone 447
HIGH CULTURE IN THE URBAN AGE 448
Literature and Art in Urban America 448 The Impact of Darwinism 449 Toward Universal Schooling 450 Universities and the Growth of Science and
Technology 450 Medical Science 451 Education for Women 452
America in the World: Global Migrations 432 Consider the Source: John Wanamaker, the Four Cardinal Points of the Department Store, 1874 442 CONCLUSION 452 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 453 RECALL AND REFLECT 453
17 INDUSTRIAL SUPREMACY 404
18 THE AGE OF THE CITY 427
CONTENTS • xvii
THE POLITICS OF EQUILIBRIUM 455 The Party System 455 The National Government 456 Presidents and Patronage 457 Cleveland, Harrison, and the Tariff 458 New Public Issues 459
THE AGRARIAN REVOLT 460 The Grangers 460 The Farmers’ Alliances 460 The Populist Constituency 462 Populist Ideas 462
THE CRISIS OF THE 1890s 462 The Panic of 1893 463 The Silver Question 464 “A Cross of Gold” 465 The Conservative Victory 466 McKinley and Recovery 466
STIRRINGS OF IMPERIALISM 468 The New Manifest Destiny 468 Hawaii and Samoa 468
WAR WITH SPAIN 472 Controversy over Cuba 472
“A Splendid Little War” 473 Seizing the Philippines 476 The Battle for Cuba 476 Puerto Rico and the United States 478 The Debate over the Philippines 478
THE REPUBLIC AS EMPIRE 481 Governing the Colonies 481 The Philippine War 482 The Open Door 484 A Modern Military System 485
America in the World: Imperialism 470 Patterns of Popular Culture: Yellow Journalism 474 Consider the Source: Platform of the American Anti-Imperialist League, 1899 480 CONCLUSION 485 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 486 RECALL AND REFLECT 486
THE PROGRESSIVE IMPULSE 488 The Muckrakers and the Social Gospel 489 The Settlement House Movement 491 The Allure of Expertise 492 The Professions 492 Women and the Professions 493
WOMEN AND REFORM 493 The “New Woman” 494 The Clubwomen 494 Woman Suffrage 495
THE ASSAULT ON THE PARTIES 496 Early Attacks 496 Municipal Reform 497 Statehouse Progressivism 497 Parties and Interest Groups 498
SOURCES OF PROGRESSIVE REFORM 498
Labor, the Machine, and Reform 499 Western Progressives 501 African Americans and Reform 501
CRUSADES FOR SOCIAL ORDER AND REFORM 503
The Temperance Crusade 503 Immigration Restriction 503 The Dream of Socialism 504 Decentralization and Regulation 504
THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE MODERN PRESIDENCY 505
The Accidental President 505 The “Square Deal” 506 Roosevelt and the Environment 507 Panic and Retirement 509
THE TROUBLED SUCCESSION 510 Taft and the Progressives 510 The Return of Roosevelt 510 Spreading Insurgency 511 Roosevelt versus Taft 512
WOODROW WILSON AND THE NEW FREEDOM 512
Woodrow Wilson 512 The Scholar as President 514 Retreat and Advance 515
America in the World: Social Democracy 490 Debating the Past: Progressivism 500 Consider the Source: John Muir on the Value of Wild Places, 1901 508 CONCLUSION 516 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 516 RECALL AND REFLECT 517
19 FROM CRISIS TO EMPIRE 454
20 THE PROGRESSIVES 487
xviii • CONTENTS
THE “BIG STICK”: AMERICA AND THE WORLD, 1901–1917 519
Roosevelt and “Civilization” 519 Protecting the “Open Door” in Asia 520 The Iron-Fisted Neighbor 520 The Panama Canal 521 Taft and “Dollar Diplomacy” 522 Diplomacy and Morality 522
THE ROAD TO WAR 524 The Collapse of the European Peace 524 Wilson’s Neutrality 524 Preparedness versus Pacifism 525 Intervention 525
“OVER THERE” 527 Mobilizing the Military 527 The Yanks Are Coming 529 The New Technology of Warfare 530 Organizing the Economy for War 532 The Search for Social Unity 533
THE SEARCH FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER 535
The Fourteen Points 535 The Paris Peace Conference 536 The Ratification Battle 536
A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 537 The Unstable Economy 537 The Demands of African Americans 538 The Red Scare 540 Refuting the Red Scare 540 The Retreat from Idealism 541
Consider the Source: Race, Gender, and World War I Posters 528 Patterns of Popular Culture: George M. Cohan, “Over There,” 1917 534
CONCLUSION 541 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 542 RECALL AND REFLECT 542
THE NEW ECONOMY 544 Technology, Organization, and Economic
Growth 544 Workers in an Age of Capital 545 Women and Minorities in the
Workforce 548 Agricultural Technology and the Plight
of the Farmer 551
THE NEW CULTURE 551 Consumerism and Communications 551 Women in the New Era 554 The Disenchanted 555
A CONFLICT OF CULTURES 556 Prohibition 556 Nativism and the Klan 557 Religious Fundamentalism 558 The Democrats’ Ordeal 558
REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 559 Harding and Coolidge 559 Government and Business 560
Consider the Source: America’s Early Telephone Network 546 America in the World: The Cinema 552 CONCLUSION 562 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 562 RECALL AND REFLECT 562
21 AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR 518
22 THE NEW ERA 543
CONTENTS • xix
THE COMING OF THE DEPRESSION 564
The Great Crash 564 Causes of the Depression 565 Progress of the Depression 567
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN HARD TIMES 568
Unemployment and Relief 569 African Americans and the Depression 570 Hispanics and Asians in Depression
America 570 Women and Families in the Great
Depression 573
THE DEPRESSION AND AMERICAN CULTURE 574
Depression Values 574 Radio 574 The Movies 575 Literature and Journalism 578 The Popular Front and the Left 579
THE ORDEAL OF HERBERT HOOVER 581
The Hoover Program 581 Popular Protest 582
The Election of 1932 584 The “Interregnum” 585
America in the World: The Global Depression 566 Consider the Source: Mr. Tarver Remembers the Great Depression 572 Patterns of Popular Culture: The Golden Age of Comic Books 576 CONCLUSION 586 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 586 RECALL AND REFLECT 586
LAUNCHING THE NEW DEAL 588 Restoring Confidence 588 Agricultural Adjustment 589 Industrial Recovery 590 Regional Planning 591 The Growth of Federal Relief 592
THE NEW DEAL IN TRANSITION 593 The Conservative Criticism of the
New Deal 593 The Populist Criticism of the New Deal 596 The “Second New Deal” 598 Labor Militancy 598 Organizing Battles 599 Social Security 600 New Directions in Relief 601 The 1936 “Referendum” 602
THE NEW DEAL IN DISARRAY 603 The Court Fight 603 Retrenchment and Recession 603
LIMITS AND LEGACIES OF THE NEW DEAL 606
African Americans and the New Deal 606
The New Deal and the “Indian Problem” 607
Women and the New Deal 607 The New Deal and the West 608 The New Deal, the Economy, and
Politics 608
Debating the Past: The New Deal 594 Consider the Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt Speaks on the Reorganization of the Judiciary 604 CONCLUSION 609 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 610 RECALL AND REFLECT 610
23 THE GREAT DEPRESSION 563
24 THE NEW DEAL 587
xx • CONTENTS
THE DIPLOMACY OF THE NEW ERA 612
Replacing the League 612 Debts and Diplomacy 613 Hoover and the World Crisis 613
ISOLATIONISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 616
Depression Diplomacy 616 The Rise of Isolationism 617 The Failure of Munich 618
FROM NEUTRALITY TO INTERVENTION 619
Neutrality Tested 619 The Campaign of 1940 623 Neutrality Abandoned 623 The Road to Pearl Harbor 625
America in the World: The Sino- Japanese War, 1931–1941 614
Patterns of Popular Culture: Orson Welles and the “War of the Worlds” 620 Consider the Source: Joint Statement by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill 624 CONCLUSION 626 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 627 RECALL AND REFLECT 627
WAR ON TWO FRONTS 629 Containing the Japanese 629 Holding Off the Germans 630 America and the Holocaust 631
THE AMERICAN ECONOMY IN WARTIME 633
Prosperity and the Rights of Labor 633 Stabilizing the Boom and Mobilizing
Production 634 Wartime Science and Technology 634
RACE AND ETHNICITY IN WARTIME AMERICA 635
African Americans and the War 635 Native Americans and the War 636 Mexican American War Workers 637 The Internment of Japanese
Americans 637 Chinese Americans and the War 639
ANXIETY AND AFFLUENCE IN WARTIME CULTURE 639
Home-Front Life and Culture 639 Love, Family, and Sexuality in
Wartime 640 The Growth of Wartime Conservatism 642
THE DEFEAT OF THE AXIS 643 The European Offensive 644 The Pacific Offensive 646 The Manhattan Project and Atomic
Warfare 649
Consider the Source: The Face of the Enemy 638 Debating the Past: The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb 648 CONCLUSION 651 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 652 RECALL AND REFLECT 652
25 THE GLOBAL CRISIS, 1921–1941 611
26 AMERICA IN A WORLD AT WAR 628
CONTENTS • xxi
ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR 654
Sources of Soviet–American Tension 654
Wartime Diplomacy 655 Yalta 655
THE COLLAPSE OF THE PEACE 658 The Failure of Potsdam 658 The China Problem and Japan 659 The Containment Doctrine 659 The Conservative Opposition to
Containment 659 The Marshall Plan 660 Mobilization at Home 661 The Road to NATO 661 Reevaluating Cold War Policy 663
AMERICA AFTER THE WAR 663 The Problems of Reconversion 663 The Fair Deal Rejected 665 The Election of 1948 666 The Fair Deal Revived 667
The Nuclear Age 668
THE KOREAN WAR 669 The Divided Peninsula 669 From Invasion to Stalemate 671 Limited Mobilization 671
THE CRUSADE AGAINST SUBVERSION 672
HUAC and Alger Hiss 672 The Federal Loyalty Program and the
Rosenberg Case 673 McCarthyism 673 The Republican Revival 676
Debating the Past: The Cold War 656
Consider the Source: National Security Council Paper No. 68 (NSC-68) 664
Debating the Past: McCarthyism 674 CONCLUSION 676 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 677 RECALL AND REFLECT 677
THE ECONOMIC “MIRACLE” 679 Economic Growth 679 The Rise of the Modern West 680 Capital and Labor 681
THE EXPLOSION OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 682
Medical Breakthroughs 682 Pesticides 683 Postwar Electronic Research 684 Postwar Computer Technology 684 Bombs, Rockets, and Missiles 684 The Space Program 685
PEOPLE OF PLENTY 686 The Consumer Culture 687 The Suburban Nation 687 The Suburban Family 687 The Birth of Television 688 Travel, Outdoor Recreation, and
Environmentalism 689 Organized Society and Its Detractors 692 The Beats and the Restless Culture of
Youth 692 Rock ’n’ Roll 693
THE OTHER AMERICA 694 On the Margins of the Affluent Society 694 Rural Poverty 695 The Inner Cities 695
THE RISE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 696
The Brown Decision and “Massive Resistance” 696
The Expanding Movement 697 Causes of the Civil Rights
Movement 698
EISENHOWER REPUBLICANISM 698 “What Was Good for . . . General
Motors” 699 The Survival of the Welfare State 699 The Decline of McCarthyism 699
EISENHOWER, DULLES, AND THE COLD WAR 700
Dulles and “Massive Retaliation” 700 France, America, and Vietnam 700 Cold War Crises 701 The U-2 Crisis 702
Patterns of Popular Culture: On the Road 690 Consider the Source: Eisenhower Warns of the Military–Industrial Complex 704 CONCLUSION 705 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 706 RECALL AND REFLECT 706
27 THE COLD WAR 653
28 THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY 678
xxii • CONTENTS
EXPANDING THE LIBERAL STATE 708
John Kennedy 708 Lyndon Johnson 710 The Assault on Poverty 711 Cities, Schools, and Immigration 712 Legacies of the Great Society 712
THE BATTLE FOR RACIAL EQUALITY 713
Expanding Protests 713 A National Commitment 716 The Battle for Voting Rights 717 The Changing Movement 717 Urban Violence 720 Black Power 720
“FLEXIBLE RESPONSE” AND THE COLD WAR 721
Diversifying Foreign Policy 721 Confrontations with the Soviet Union 722 Johnson and the World 723
THE AGONY OF VIETNAM 724 America and Diem 724
From Aid to Intervention 725 The Quagmire 725 The War at Home 727
THE TRAUMAS OF 1968 729 The Tet Offensive 731 The Political Challenge 731 Assassinations and Politics 732 The Conservative Response 733
Debating the Past: The Civil Rights Movement 714 Consider the Source: Fannie Lou Hamer on the Struggle for Voting Rights 718 Patterns of Popular Culture: The Folk-Music Revival 728 America in the World: 1968 730 CONCLUSION 734 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 734 RECALL AND REFLECT 735
THE YOUTH CULTURE 737 The New Left 737 The Counterculture 739
THE MOBILIZATION OF MINORITIES 740
Seeds of Indian Militancy 741 The Indian Civil Rights Movement 741 Latino Activism 742 Gay Liberation 744
THE NEW FEMINISM 745 The Rebirth 745 Women’s Liberation 746 Expanding Achievements 746 The Abortion Issue 747
ENVIRONMENTALISM IN A TURBULENT SOCIETY 747
The New Science of Ecology 748
Environmental Advocacy 748 Earth Day and Beyond 749
NIXON, KISSINGER, AND THE VIETNAM WAR 750
Vietnamization 750 Escalation 750 “Peace with Honor” 751 Defeat in Indochina 753
NIXON, KISSINGER, AND THE WORLD 753
The China Initiative and Soviet–American Détente 753
Dealing with the Third World 754
POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN THE NIXON YEARS 755
Domestic Initiatives 755 From the Warren Court to the
Nixon Court 758 The 1972 Landslide 759 The Troubled Economy 759 The Nixon Response 760
THE WATERGATE CRISIS 761 The Scandals 761 The Fall of Richard Nixon 763
Consider the Source: Demands of the New York High School Student Union 738 America in the World: The End of Colonialism 756 Debating the Past: Watergate 762 CONCLUSION 764 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 765 RECALL AND REFLECT 765
29 THE TURBULENT SIXTIES 707
30 THE CRISIS OF AUTHORITY 736
CONTENTS • xxiii
POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY AFTER WATERGATE 767
The Ford Custodianship 767 The Trials of Jimmy Carter 769 Human Rights and National Interests 769 The Year of the Hostages 770
THE RISE OF THE NEW CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT 771
The Sunbelt and Its Politics 771 Religious Revivalism 771 The Emergence of the New Right 773 The Tax Revolt 774 The Campaign of 1980 774
THE “REAGAN REVOLUTION” 775 The Reagan Coalition 777 Reagan in the White House 779
“Supply-Side” Economics 779 The Fiscal Crisis 780 Reagan and the World 781
AMERICA AND THE WANING OF THE COLD WAR 782
The Fall of the Soviet Union 782 The Fading of the Reagan
Revolution 783 The Presidency of George H. W. Bush 784 The Gulf War 785 The Election of 1992 786
Consider the Source: Ronald Reagan on the Role of Government 776 CONCLUSION 787 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 788 RECALL AND REFLECT 788
31 FROM “THE AGE OF LIMITS” TO THE AGE OF REAGAN 766
A RESURGENCE OF PARTISANSHIP 790
Launching the Clinton Presidency 790 The Republican Resurgence 791 Clinton Triumphant and Embattled 793 Impeachment, Acquittal, and
Resurgence 793 The Election of 2000 794 The Presidency of George W. Bush 795 The Election of 2008 796 Obama and His Opponents 800 Obama and the Challenge of Governing 801
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE NEW ECONOMY 802
The Digital Revolution 803 The Internet 803 Breakthroughs in Genetics 804
A CHANGING SOCIETY 805 A Shifting Population 805 African Americans in the Post–Civil
Rights Era 805 The Abortion Debate 807 AIDS and Modern America 808 Gay Americans and Same-Sex Marriage 809 The Contemporary Environmental
Movement 813
AMERICA IN THE WORLD 815 Opposing the “New World Order” 815 Defending Orthodoxy 816
The Rise of Terrorism 816 The War on Terror 818 The Iraq War 818 America after the Iraq War 820
Patterns of Popular Culture: Rap 798 Consider the Source: Same-Sex Marriage, 2015 810 America in the World: The Global Environmental Movement 812 CONCLUSION 821 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 822 RECALL AND REFLECT 822
APPENDIX 823 GLOSSARY 851 INDEX 855
32 THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION 789
xxiv • CONTENTS
PREFACE
THE title The Unfinished Nation is meant to suggest several things. It is a reminder of America’s exceptional diversity—of the degree to which, despite all the many efforts to build a single, uniform definition of the meaning of American nationhood, that meaning remains contested. It is a reference to the centrality of change in American history—to the ways in which the nation has continually transformed itself and continues to do so in our own time. And it is also a descrip- tion of the writing of American history itself—of the ways in which historians are engaged in a continuing, ever unfinished, process of asking new questions. Like any history, The Unfinished Nation is a product of its time and reflects the views of the past that historians of recent generations have developed. The writing of our nation’s history—like our nation itself—changes constantly. It is not, of course, the past that changes. Rather, historians adjust their perspectives and priorities, ask different kinds of questions, and uncover and incorporate new historical evidence. There are now, as there have always been, critics of changes in historical understanding who argue that history is a collection of facts and should not be subject to “interpre- tation” or “revision.” But historians insist that history is not simply a collection of facts. Names and dates and a record of events are only the beginning of historical understanding. Writers and readers of history interpret the evidence before them, and inevitably bring to the task their own questions, concerns, and experiences. Our history requires us to examine the many different peoples and ideas that have shaped American society. But it also requires us to understand that the United States is a nation whose people share many things: a common political system, a connection to an integrated national (and now international) economy, and a familiarity with a powerful mass culture. To understand the American past, it is necessary to understand both the forces that divide Americans and the forces that draw them together. It is a daunting task to attempt to convey the history of the United States in a single book, and the eighth edition of The Unfinished Nation has, as have all previous editions, been carefully writ- ten and edited to keep the book as concise and readable as possible. In addition to the content and scholarship updates that are detailed on pages xxxi–xxxii, we have strengthened the pedagogical features with an eye to the details. We added a glossary of his- torical terms and bolded those terms within the text where significantly discussed. These terms, along with key names, places, and events, are listed at the end of chapters to help students review. All of the Consider the Source features now include concise introductions that provide context for the documents. Every Consider the Source, Debating the Past, Patterns of Popular Culture, and America in the World feature is referenced within the narrative, for a clearer indication of how the different lines of inquiry work together to create a vivid and nuanced portrait of each period. Margin notes have been reinstated as well, at the request of reviewers who missed this feature from earlier editions. It is not only the writing of history that changes with time—the tools and technologies through which information is delivered change as well. New learning resources include:
∙ McGraw-Hill Connect®—an integrated educational platform that seamlessly joins superior content with enhanced digital tools (including SmartBook®) to deliver a personalized learning experience that provides precisely what students need—when and how they need it. New visual analytics, coupled with powerful reporting, provide immediate performance perspectives. Connect makes it easy to keep students on track.
• xxv
xxvi • PREFACE
∙ SmartBook®—an adaptive eBook that makes study time as productive and efficient as pos- sible. It identifies and closes knowledge gaps through a continually adapting reading expe- rience that provides personalized learning resources such as narrated map videos; key point summaries; time lines; and labeling activities at the precise moment of need. This ensures that every minute spent with SmartBook is returned to the student as the most value-added minute possible.
∙ Critical Missions—an activity within Connect History that immerses students in pivotal moments in history. As students study primary sources and maps, they advise a key historical figure on an issue of vital importance—for example, should President Truman drop the atomic bomb on Japan?
∙ Primary Source Primer—a video exercise in Connect History with multiple-choice questions. The primer teaches students the importance of primary sources and how to analyze them. This online “Introduction to Primary Sources” is designed for use at the beginning of the course, to save valuable class time.
∙ Create™—a service that allows professors to create a customized version of The Unfinished Nation by selecting the chapters and additional primary source documents that best fit their course, while adding their own materials if desired. Register at www.mcgrawhillcreate.com to build a complimentary review copy.
∙ McGraw-Hill Campus—a first-of-its-kind institutional service that provides faculty with true, single sign-on access to all of McGraw-Hill’s course content, digital tools, and other high-quality learning resources from any learning management system (LMS). This innovative offering allows secure, deep integration and seamless access to any of our course solutions, including McGraw-Hill Connect, McGraw-Hill LearnSmart, McGraw-Hill Create, and Tegrity. McGraw-Hill Campus covers our entire content library, including eBooks, assessment tools, presentation slides, and multimedia content, among other resources. This open and unlimited service allows faculty to quickly prepare for class, create tests or quizzes, develop lecture material, integrate interactive content, and much more.
Alan Brinkley
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Academic Reviewers Tramaine Anderson, Tarrant County College,
Northeast Darlene Antezana, Prince George’s Community
College Maj. Paul Belmont, U.S. Military Academy,
West Point Peter Belser, Ivy Tech Community College Robert Bender, Eastern New Mexico University,
Roswell Tiffany Bergman, Missouri Valley College Devan Bissonette, Excelsior College Blanche Brick, Blinn College Brian Cervantez, Tarrant County College,
Northwest Sharon Courmier, Lamar University Keith D. Dickson, Old Dominion University Kevin Eades, North Central Texas College Angela S. Edwards, Florence-Darlington
Technical College Ron Enders, Ashland Community College Amy Essington, California State University,
Long Beach Glen Findley, Odessa College Brandon Franke, Blinn College Mary E. Frederickson, Miami University of Ohio Joy Giguere, Ivy Tech Community College Howell H. Gwin Jr., Lamar University Donn Hall, Ivy Tech Community College Maj. Adrienne Harrison, U.S. Military Academy,
West Point Andrew Hollinger, Tarrant County College,
Northeast Volker Janssen, California State University,
Fullerton Brian Johnson, Tarrant County College, South Philbert Martin, San Jacinto College, South Linda McCabe, Tarrant County College,
Northeast Maureen A. McCormick, Florida State College
at Jacksonville Brian Craig Miller, Emporia State University Amanda Lea Miracle, Emporia State University
Josh Montandon, North Central Texas College Wesley Moody, Florida State College Rebekkah Morrow, Western Oklahoma State
College Simone de Santiago Ramos, North Central Texas
College Matt Schaffer, Florence-Darlington Technical
College Jason Scheller, Vernon College Rebecca Seaman, Elizabeth City State University Dennis Spillman, North Central Texas College Eddie Weller, San Jacinto College, South Ann K. Wentworth, Excelsior College Cody Whitaker, Drury University Christina A. Wilbur, Lamar University Geoffrey Willbanks, Tyler Junior College Martin W. Wilson, East Stroudsburg University Cary Wintz, Texas Southern University
Connect Board of Advisors Michael Downs, University of Texas–Arlington Jim Halverson, Judson University Reid Holland, Midlands Technical College Stephen Katz, Rider University David Komito, Eastern Oregon University Wendy Sarti, Oakton Community College Linda Scherr, Mercer County Community
College Eloy Zarate, Pasadena City College
Symposium and Digiposium Attendees Gisela Ables, Houston Community College Sal Anselmo, Delgado Community College Mario A. J. Bennekin, Georgia Perimeter
College C. J. Bibus, Wharton County Junior College Olwyn M. Blouet, Virginia State University Michael Botson, Houston Community College Cathy Briggs, Northwest Vista College Brad Cartwright, University of Texas–El Paso Roger Chan, Washington State University June Cheatham, Richland College Keith Chu, Bergen Community College Karl Clark, Coastal Bend College
WE are grateful to the many advisers and reviewers who generously offered comments, sug-gestions, and ideas at various stages in the development of this project. Our thanks go to:
• xxvii
xxviii • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Bernard Comeau, Tacoma Community College Kevin Davis, North Central Texas College Michael Downs, Tarrant County College Tim Draper, Waubonsee Community College Laura Dunn, Brevard Community College Arthur Durand, Metropolitan Community
College Amy Forss, Metropolitan Community College Jim Good, Lone Star College R. David Goodman, Pratt Institute Wendy Gunderson, Colin County Community
College Debbie Hargis, Odessa College Jim Harper, North Carolina Central University Matt Hinckley, Eastfield College John Hosler, Morgan State University James Jones, Prairie View A&M University Philip Kaplan, University of North Florida Carol A. Keller, San Antonio College Greg Kelm, Dallas Baptist University Michael Kinney, Calhoun Community College Jennifer Lang, Delgado Community College Meredith R. Martin, Collin College Thomas Massey, Cape Fear Community
College Linda McCabe, North Lake College Sandy Norman, Florida Atlantic University Michelle Novak, Houston Community College Jessica Patton, Tarrant County College Robert Risko, Trinity Valley Community College Gary Ritter, Central Piedmont Community
College Esther Robinson, Lone Star College Geri Ryder, Ocean County College Horacio Salinas, Laredo Community College Linda Scherr, Mercer County Community College
Jeffrey Smith, Lindenwood University Rachel Standish, San Joaquin Delta College Connie B. Thomason, Louisiana Delta
Community College Roger Ward, Colin County Community College Don Whatley, Blinn College David White, McHenry County College Geoffrey Willbanks, Tyler Junior College Scott M. Williams, Weatherford College Carlton Wilson, North Carolina Central
University Chad Wooley, Tarrant County College
Focus Group Participants Simon Baatz, John Jay College Manu Bhagavan, Hunter College David Dzurec, University of Scranton Mark Jones, Central Connecticut State
University Stephen Katz, Philadelphia University Jessica Kovler, John Jay College David Lansing, Ocean County College Benjamin Lapp, Montclair State University Julian Madison, Southern Connecticut State
University David Marshall, Suffolk Community College George Monahan, Suffolk Community College Tracy Musacchio, John Jay College Mikal Nash, Essex County College Veena Oldenburg, Baruch College Edward Paulino, John Jay College Craig Pilant, County College of Morris Susan Schmidt Horning, Saint John’s University Donna Scimeca, College of Staten Island Matthew Vaz, City College of New York Christian Warren, Brooklyn College
SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN PROVINCIAL AMERICA • xxix
A GUIDED TOUR OF THE UNFINISHED NATION
The Unfinished Nation makes history relevant to students through a series of engaging features:
CONSIDER THE SOURCE FEATURES
In every chapter, Consider the Source features guide students through careful analysis of historical documents and prompt them to closely examine the ideas expressed, as well as the historical circumstances. Among the classic sources included are Benjamin Franklin’s testimony against the Stamp Act, the Gettysburg Address, a radio address from FDR, and Ronald Reagan on the role of government. Concise introductions provide context, and concluding questions prompt students to understand, ana- lyze, and evaluate each source.
DEBATING THE PAST FEATURES 10 •
Source: Francis Augustus MacNutt, Bartholomew de Las Casas: His Life, His Apostolate, and His Writings (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1909), p. 14.
CONSIDER THE SOURCE
Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Dominican friar from Spain, was an early European settler of the West Indies. He devoted much of his life to describing the culture of native peoples and chronicling the many abuses they suf- fered at the hands of their colonizers. This excerpt is from a letter he addressed to Spain’s Prince Philip.
God has created all these numberless people to be quite the simplest, without malice or duplicity, most obedient, most faithful to their natural Lords, and to the Christians, whom they serve; the most humble, most patient, most peaceful and calm, without strife nor tumults; not wrangling, nor queru- lous, as free from uproar, hate and desire of revenge as any in the world . . . Among these gentle sheep, gifted by their Maker with the above qualities, the Spaniards entered as soon as they knew them, like wolves, tigers and lions which had been starving for many days, and since forty years they have done nothing else; nor do they afflict, torment, and destroy them with strange and new, and divers kinds of cruelty, never before seen, nor heard of, nor read of . . .
The Christians, with their horses and swords and lances, began to slaughter and practice strange cruelty among them. They penetrated into the country and spared nei- ther children nor the aged, nor pregnant women, nor those in child labour, all of whom they ran through the body and lacerated, as though they were assaulting so many lambs herded in their sheepfold. They made bets as to who would slit a man in two, or cut off his head at one blow: or they opened up his bow- els. They tore the babes from their mothers’ breast by the feet, and dashed their heads
against the rocks. Others they seized by the shoulders and threw into the rivers, laughing and joking, and when they fell into the water they exclaimed: “boil body of so and so!” They spitted the bodies of other babes, to- gether with their mothers and all who were before them, on their swords.
They made a gallows just high enough for the feet to nearly touch the ground, and by thirteens, in honor and reverence of our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles, they put wood underneath and, with fire, they burned the Indians alive.
They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it; and so they burned them. They cut off the hands of all they wished to take alive, made them carry them fastened on to them, and said: “Go and carry letters”: that is; take the news to those who have fled to the mountains.
They generally killed the lords and nobles in the following way. They made wooden gridirons of stakes, bound them upon them, and made a slow fire beneath; thus the victims gave up the spirit by degrees, emit- ting cries of despair in their torture.
UNDERSTAND, ANALYZE, & EVALUATE
1. How did Bartolomé de Las Casas characterize the natives? How do you think they would have responded to this description?
2. What metaphor did Las Casas use to describe the natives and where does this metaphor come from?
3. What role did Las Casas expect the Spaniards to play on Hispaniola? What did they do instead?
BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS, “OF THE ISLAND OF HISPANIOLA” (1542)
648 •
DEBATING THE PAST
The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb There has been continuing disagreement since 1945 among historians—and many others—about how to explain and evaluate President Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan.
Truman himself, both at the time and in his 1955 memoirs, insisted that the deci- sion was a simple and straightforward one. The alternative to using atomic weapons, he claimed, was an American invasion of
NAGASAKI SURVIVORS A Japanese woman and child look grimly at a photographer as they hold pieces of bread in the aftermath of the dropping of the second American atomic bomb—this one on Nagasaki. (© Bettmann/Corbis)
• 649
further weakened the Japanese will to resist. Moderate Japanese leaders, who had long since concluded the war was lost, were looking to end the fighting. But they continued to face powerful opposition from military leaders. Whether the moderates could ultimately have prevailed is a question historians continue to debate. In any case, their efforts became superfluous in August 1945, when the United States made use of a terrible new weapon it had been developing throughout the war.
The Manhattan Project and Atomic Warfare Reports had reached the United States in 1939 that Nazi scientists had taken the first step toward the creation of an atomic bomb, a weapon more powerful than any previously devised. The United States and Britain immediately began a race to develop the weapon before the Germans did.
mainland Japan that might have cost as many as a million American lives. That view has received considerable support from historians. Herbert Feis argued in The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (1966) that Truman made his decision on purely military grounds—to ensure a speedy American victory. David McCullough, the author of a popular biography of Truman published in 1992, also accepted Truman’s own account of his actions largely uncritically, as did Alonzo L. Hamby in Man of the People (1995), an important scholarly study of Truman. “One consideration weighed most heavily on Truman,” Hamby concluded. “The longer the war lasted, the more Americans killed.”
Others have strongly disagreed. As early as 1948, British physicist P. M. S. Blackett wrote in Fear, War, and the Bomb that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was “not so much the last military act of the second World War as the first major opera- tion of the cold diplomatic war with Russia.” The most important critic of Truman’s deci- sion is the historian Gar Alperovitz, the author of two influential books on the subject: Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (1965) and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (1995). Alperovitz dismissed the argument that the bomb was used to shorten the war and save lives. Japan was likely to have surrendered soon even if the bomb had not been used, he claimed. Instead, he argued, the United States used
the bomb less to influence Japan than to intimidate the Soviet Union, “to make Russia more manageable in Europe.”
John W. Dower’s War Without Mercy (1986) contributed, by implication at least, to another controversial explanation of the American de- cision: racism. The Japanese, many Americans came to believe during the war, were almost a subhuman species. Even many of Truman’s harshest critics, however, note that it is, as Alperovitz has written, “all but impossible to find specific evidence that racism was an important factor in the decision to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
The debate over the decision to drop the atomic bomb is an unusually emotional one, and it has inspired bitter professional and per- sonal attacks on advocates of almost every position. It illustrates clearly how history has often been, and remains, a powerful force in the way societies define themselves. • UNDERSTAND, ANALYZE, & EVALUATE
1. The United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, one on Hiroshima and the other on Nagasaki. Was dropping the bomb on Hiroshima necessary? Was it justifiable? Do the reasons for drop- ping the bomb on Hiroshima apply equally to the bombing of Nagasaki?
2. How might the war in the Pacific have been different if the United States had decided not to drop the bombs?
• xxix
Debating the Past essays introduce students to the contested quality of much of the American past, and they provide a sense of the evolving nature of historical scholarship. From examining specific differences in historical understandings of the Constitution, to exploring the causes of the Civil War and the significance of Watergate, these essays familiarize students with the interpretive character of historical understanding.
xxx • CHAPTER 3
AMERICA IN THE WORLD FEATURES
470 •
Empires were not, of course, new to the nineteenth century, when the United States acquired its first overseas colonies. They had existed since the early moments of recorded history, and they have continued into our own time.
But in the second half of the nineteenth century, the construction of empires took on a new form, and the word imperialism emerged for the first time to describe it. In many places, European powers now created colonies not by sending large numbers of migrants to settle and populate new lands, but instead by creat- ing military, political, and business structures that allowed them to dominate and profit from the existing populations. This new impe- rialism changed the character of the coloniz- ing nations, enriching them greatly and producing new classes of people whose lives were shaped by the demands of imperial busi- ness and administration. It changed the char- acter of colonized societies even more, drawing them into the vast nexus of global industrial capitalism and introducing Western customs, institutions, and technologies to the subject peoples.
As the popularity of empire grew in the West, efforts to justify it grew as well. Champions of imperialism argued that the ac- quisition of colonies was essential for the health, even the survival, of their own indus- trializing nations. Colonies were sources of raw materials vital to industrial production; they were markets for manufactured goods; and they were suppliers of cheap labor. Defenders of empire also argued that imperi- alism was good for the colonized people. Many saw colonization as an opportunity to export Christianity to “heathen” lands, and new missionary movements emerged in Europe and America in response. More secular apologists argued that imperialism
helped bring colonized people into the modern world.
The invention of steamships, railroads, tele- graphs, and other modern vehicles of transpor- tation and communication; the construction of canals (particularly the Suez Canal, completed in 1869, and the Panama Canal, completed in 1914); the creation of new military technolo- gies (repeating rifles, machine guns, and mod- ern artillery)—all contributed to the ability of Western nations to reach, conquer, and con- trol distant lands.
The greatest imperial power of the nine- teenth century was Great Britain. By 1800, despite its recent loss of the colonies that became the United States, it already pos- sessed vast territory in North America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Britain greatly expanded its empire. Its most important acqui- sition was India, one of the largest and most populous countries in the world and a nation in which Great Britain had long exerted infor- mal authority. In 1857, when native Indians revolted against British influence, British forces brutally crushed the rebellion and established formal colonial control over India. British officials, backed by substantial military power, now governed India through a large civil service staffed mostly by people from England and Scotland but with some Indians serving in minor positions. The British invested heavily in railroads, telegraphs, canals, harbors, and agricultural improvements, to enhance the economic opportunities available to them. They created schools for Indian children in an effort to draw them into British culture and make them supporters of the imperial system.
The British also extended their empire into Africa and other parts of Asia. The great imperial champion Cecil Rhodes expanded a small existing British colony at
Imperialism
AMERICA IN THE WORLD
• 471
Capetown into a substantial colony that in- cluded much of what is now South Africa. In 1895, he added new British territories to the north, which he named Rhodesia (and which today are Zimbabwe and Zambia). Others spread British authority into Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and much of Egypt. British imperialists also extended the empire into East Asia, with the acquisition of Singapore, Hong Kong, Burma, and Malaya; and they built a substantial presence—although not formal colonial rule—in China.
Other European states, watching the vast expansion of the British Empire, quickly jumped into the race for colonies. France created colonies in Indochina (Vietnam and Laos), Algeria, west Africa, and Madagascar. Belgium moved into the Congo in west Africa. Germany established colonies in the Cameroons, Tanganyika, and other parts of Africa, and in the Pacific islands north of Australia. Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, and Japanese imperialists created colonies as well in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific—driven both by a calculation of
their own commercial interests and by the frenzied competition that had developed among rival imperial powers. In 1898, the United States was drawn into the imperial race, in part inadvertently as an unanticipated result of the Spanish-American War. But the drive to acquire colonies resulted as well from the deliberate efforts of home-grown proponents of empire (among them Theodore Roosevelt), who believed that in the modern industrial-imperial world, a nation without colonies would have difficulty remaining, or becoming, a true great power. • UNDERSTAND, ANALYZE, & EVALUATE
1. What motivated the European nations’ drive for empire in the late nineteenth century?
2. Why was Great Britain so successful in acquiring its vast empire?
3. How do the imperial efforts and ambitions of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century compare with those of European powers?
SIEGE OF DELHI The Indian Mutiny, which lasted from 1857 to 1859, was a major uprising against the rule of the British East India Company, with Indians fighting on both sides. The uprising ended over a century of indirect rule by the Company and resulted in the British Crown taking direct control over India. Administration of the British Empire in India became known as the “raj,” from the Indian word for “rule.” (©Ingram Publishing)
bri13334_ch19_454-486.indd 471 12/8/17 6:59 PM
America in the World essays focus on specific parallels between American history and those of other nations and demonstrate the importance of the many global influences on the American story. Topics such as the global Industrial Revolution, the abolition of slavery, and the global depression of the 1920s provide concrete examples of the connec- tions between the history of the United States and the history of other nations.
PATTERNS OF POPULAR CULTURE FEATURES
376 •
The minstrel show was one of the most pop- ular forms of entertainment in America in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was also a testament to the high awareness of race (and the high level of racism) in American society both before and after the Civil War. Minstrel performers were mostly white, usually disguised as black. But African American performers also formed their own minstrel shows and transformed them into vehicles for training black entertainers and developing new forms of music and dance.
Before and during the Civil War, when minstrel shows consisted almost entirely of
white performers, performers blackened their faces with cork and presented gro- tesque stereotypes of the slave culture of the American South. Among the most popu- lar of the stumbling, ridiculously ignorant characters invented for these shows were such figures as “Zip Coon” and “Jim Crow” (whose name later resurfaced as a label for late-nineteenth-century segregation laws). A typical minstrel show presented a group of seventeen or more men seated in a semicir- cle facing the audience. The man in the cen- ter ran the show, played the straight man for the jokes of others, and led the music—lively
The Minstrel Show
PATTERNS OF POPULAR CULTURE
MINSTRELSY AT HIGH TIDE The Primrose & West minstrel troupe—a lavish and expensive entertainment that drew large crowds in the 1800s—was one of many companies to offer this brand of entertainment to eager audiences all over the country. Although minstrelsy began with white musicians performing in blackface, the popularity of real African American minstrels encouraged the impresarios of the troupe to include groups of white and black performers alike. (The Library of Congress)
• 377
dances and sentimental ballads played on banjos, castanets, and other instruments and sung by soloists or the entire group.
After the Civil War, white minstrels be- gan to expand their repertoire. Drawing from the famous and successful freak shows of P. T. Barnum and other entertainment entrepreneurs, some began to include Siamese twins, bearded ladies, and even a supposedly 8-foot 2-inch “Chinese giant” in their shows. They also incorporated sex, both by including women in some shows and, even more popularly, by recruiting female imper- sonators. One of the most successful min- strel performers of the 1870s was Francis Leon, who delighted crowds with his female portrayal of a flamboyant “prima donna.”
One reason white minstrels began to move in these new directions was that they were now facing competition from black performers, who could provide more- authentic versions of black music, dance, and humor. They usually brought more tal- ent to the task than white performers. The Georgia Minstrels, organized in 1865, was one of the first all-black minstrel troupes, and it had great success in attracting white audiences in the Northeast for several years. By the 1870s, touring African American minstrel groups were numerous. The black minstrels used many of the conventions of the white shows. There were dances, music, comic routines, and sentimental recitations. Some black performers even chalked their faces to make themselves look as dark as the white blackface performers with whom they were competing. Black min- strels sometimes denounced slavery (at least indirectly) and did not often speak demeaningly of the capacities of their race. But they could not entirely escape carica- turing African American life as they strug- gled to meet the expectations of their white audiences.
The black minstrel shows had few openly political aims. They did help develop some important forms of African American enter- tainment and transform them into a part of
the national culture. Black minstrels intro- duced new forms of dance, derived from the informal traditions of slavery and black community life. They showed the “buck and wing,” the “stop time,” and the “Virginia es- sence,” which established the foundations for the tap and jazz dancing of the early twentieth century. They also improvised musically and began experimenting with forms that over time contributed to the growth of ragtime, jazz, and rhythm and blues.
Eventually, black minstrelsy—like its white counterpart—evolved into other forms of theater, including the beginnings of serious black drama. At Ambrose Park in Brooklyn in the 1890s, for example, the celebrated black comedian Sam Lucas (a veteran of the min- strel circuit) starred in the play Darkest America, which one black newspaper later described as a “delineation of Negro life, car- rying the race through all their historical phases from the plantation, into reconstruc- tion days and finally painting our people as they are today, cultured and accomplished in the social graces, [holding] the mirror faith- fully up to nature.”
But interest in the minstrel show did not die altogether. In 1927, Hollywood released The Jazz Singer, the first feature film with sound. It was about the career of a white minstrel performer, and its star was one of the most popular singers of the twentieth century: Al Jolson, whose career had begun on the blackface minstrel circuit years before. • UNDERSTAND, ANALYZE, & EVALUATE
1. How did minstrel shows performed by white minstrels reinforce prevailing atti- tudes toward African Americans?
2. Minstrel shows performed by black min- strels often conformed to existing ste- reotypes of African Americans. Why?
3. Can you think of any popular entertain- ments today that carry remnants of the minstrel shows of the nineteenth century?
Patterns of Popular Culture essays bring fads, crazes, hangouts, hobbies, and entertainment into the story of American history, encouraging students to expand their definition of what consti- tutes history and gain a new understanding of what popular culture reveals about a society. xxx •
WHAT’S NEW TO THE UNFINISHED NATION, EIGHTH EDITION
We have revised the narrative and the features throughout this eighth edition for clarity and currency. On a chapter-by-chapter basis, major changes include:
Chapter 1, The Collision of Cultures ∙ New Debating the Past: “Why Do Historians
So Often Differ?”
Chapter 2, Transplantations and Borderlands ∙ New portrait and information about early
colonist Anne Pollard. ∙ New illustration of the early Savannah colony.
Chapter 3, Society and Culture in Provincial America
∙ New map of African population density in the colonies.
Chapter 6, The Constitution and the New Republic
∙ New illustration of the Jeffersonian vision of an agrarian republic.
Chapter 7, The Jeffersonian Era ∙ New political cartoon about the effects of the
Embargo Act.
Chapter 8, Varieties of American Nationalism ∙ New portrait and information about Sequoyah.
Chapter 9, Jacksonian America ∙ Additional text and chapter question on the
Native American response to U.S. expansion. ∙ New image satirizing financial policies associ-
ated with the depression of the late 1830s.
Chapter 10, America’s Economic Revolution ∙ New Consider the Source: “Handbook to
Lowell, 1848.”
Chapter 11, Cotton, Slavery, and the Old South ∙ New photograph and information about
Harriet Tubman.
Chapter 12, Antebellum Culture and Reform ∙ New Patterns of Popular Culture: “Sentimental
Novels,” including a discussion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
∙ New section—“Struggles of Radical Black Women”—on preachers Jarena Lee and Rebecca Cox Jackson.
∙ New text connecting Thoreau’s idea of civil disobedience with later abolitionist and civil rights protests.
∙ New text explaining why free blacks resisted the ACS’s plan for populating Liberia.
∙ New photograph and information about Margaret Fuller.
∙ New painting depicting the Mormon trek to Utah.
Chapter 13, The Impending Crisis ∙ Revised accounts of how the Compromise of
1850 and the Lincoln-Nebraska Act were achieved.
∙ New Lone Star flag picture and information on Texas’s years as an independent republic.
∙ New photograph of a multiethnic group of California gold miners.
∙ New cartoon illustrating a pro-slavery argument.
Chapter 14, The Civil War ∙ New section—“Billy Yank and Johnny Reb”—
describing the motivations and outfitting of Northern and Southern recruits at the start of the Civil War.
∙ Revised discussion of the North’s strategy for winning the war and Lincoln’s search for a commander.
Chapter 15, Reconstruction and the New South ∙ New Patterns of Popular Culture: “The
Minstrel Show.” ∙ Expanded discussion of plans to give land to
freed slaves as a first step in Reconstruction. ∙ New editorial cartoon on critics’ view of
Reconstruction.
Chapter 16, The Conquest of the Far West ∙ New painting, American Progress, illustrating
the American idea of the frontier. ∙ New painting of a Tejanos-run ranch in Texas. ∙ New painting of Little Bighorn, from a Native
American artist’s perspective.
Chapter 17, Industrial Supremacy ∙ New photograph of child laborers and
information about Lewis Hine’s investigative photography.
• xxxi
Chapter 19, From Crisis to Empire ∙ New Patterns of Popular Culture: “Yellow
Journalism.” ∙ Revised discussion of the factors motivating
American imperialism, introducing the con- cept of “jingoes” and the connection to ideas about the nation’s masculinity.
∙ Revised discussion of the range of American reactions to the Cuban rebellion and the Teller Amendment.
∙ New discussion of race in the context of the Philippine War.
∙ New editorial cartoon of Chester Arthur feel- ing heat of competing interest groups.
∙ New pro-imperialism editorial cartoon. ∙ New photograph and information about
Populist orator Mary Lease.
Chapter 20, The Progressives ∙ New Consider the Source: “John Muir on the
Value of Wild Places.” ∙ New photograph and information about the
suffrage pageant in Washington, D.C., on the eve of Wilson’s inauguration.
Chapter 21, America and the Great War ∙ New Consider the Source: “Race, Gender, and
World War I Posters.” ∙ Revised discussion of European alliances and
the start of World War I. ∙ New “Intervention” subsection with a revised
discussion of what compelled Wilson to enter the war.
∙ Revised discussion of the American contribu- tion to the Allies’ victory.
∙ New descriptions of American troops and how Progressive ideas were employed in basic training.
∙ Reorganized and revised discussion of war casualty numbers.
Chapter 22, The New Era ∙ New Consider the Source: “America’s Early
Telephone Network.”
Chapter 23, The Great Depression ∙ Revised discussion of Depression-era literature,
and addition of Richard Wright’s Native Son.
Chapter 24, The New Deal ∙ New editorial cartoon of an optimistic FDR
steering the nation toward recovery. ∙ New photo and information on the Memorial
Day Massacre. ∙ New photo and information on Eleanor
Roosevelt’s role in the New Deal.
Chapter 25, The Global Crisis, 1921–1941 ∙ New Patterns of Popular Culture: “Orson
Welles and the ‘War of the Worlds.’”
Chapter 26, America in a World at War ∙ New Consider the Source: “The Face of the
Enemy.” ∙ New scholarship on wartime culture, including
two new sections: “Home-Front Life and Culture” and “Love, Family, and Sexuality in Wartime.”
∙ Updated war casualty numbers.
Chapter 27, The Cold War ∙ New information on the Rosenberg case. ∙ Additional information on Ellen Schrecker’s
Many Are the Crimes. ∙ Revised discussion of Cold War attitudes.
Chapter 28, The Affluent Society ∙ New Patterns of Popular Culture: “On the Road.” ∙ Expanded explanations of postwar economic
growth as well as the decline in farm prices.
Chapter 29, retitled The Turbulent Sixties ∙ New Patterns of Popular Culture: “The Folk-
Music Revival.” ∙ New Consider the Source: “Fannie Lou
Hamer on the Struggle for Voting Rights.” ∙ Expanded discussions of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act; Malcolm X; the Cuban missile crisis.
Chapter 30, The Crisis of Authority ∙ Additional information on the extent of the
draft and resistance; the history of gay rights; the consequences of the 1973 OPEC embargo.
∙ New photos showing the Native American occupation of Alcatraz; Robert Kennedy with César Chávez; Nixon in China.
∙ New graph on the gender income gap.
Chapter 31, From the “Age of Limits” to the Age of Reagan
∙ New Consider the Source: “Ronald Reagan on the Role of Government.”
Chapter 32, The Age of Globalization ∙ Thoroughly updated and reorganized chapter and
illustrations to reflect events up to press time. In addition to content changes in every section:
∙ New Patterns of Popular Culture: “Rap.” ∙ New Consider the Source: “Same-Sex
Marriage, 2015.” ∙ New graph on immigration trends from 1850
to the present. ∙ Updated discussion of environmental catastro-
phes, including Deepwater Horizon.
• 1
1 THE COLLISION OF CULTURES AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS EUROPE LOOKS WESTWARD THE ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH
L O O K I N G A H E A D
1. How did the societies of native people in the South differ from those in the North in the precontact period (before the arrival of the Europeans)?
2. What effects did the arrival of Europeans have on the native peoples of the Americas? 3. How did patterns of settlement differ among the Spanish, English, French, and
Dutch immigrants to the Americas?
THE DISCOVERY OF THE AMERICAS did not begin with Christopher Columbus. It began many thousands of years earlier, when human beings first crossed into the new continents and began to people them. By the end of the fifteenth century a.d., when the first important contact with Europeans occurred, the Americas were home to millions of men and women.
These ancient civilizations had experienced many changes and many catastrophes during their long history. But it is likely that none of these experiences was as tragically transforming as the arrival of Europeans. In the first violent years of Spanish and Portuguese exploration and conquest, the impact of the new arrivals was profound. Europeans brought with them diseases (most notably smallpox) to which natives, unlike the invaders, had no immunity. The result was a great demographic catastrophe that killed millions of people, weakened existing societies, and greatly aided the Spanish and Portuguese in their rapid and devastating takeover of the existing American empires.
But the European immigrants were never able to eliminate the influence of the indigenous peoples (whom they came to call “Indians”). In their many interactions, whether beneficial or ruinous, these very different civilizations shaped one another, learned from one another, and changed one another permanently and profoundly.
11,000 years ago
Migrations into the Americas begin
1558
Elizabeth I becomes English Queen
1587
Second attempt to establish Roanoke
colony
1607
Jamestown founded
1609
Spanish found Santa Fe
1502
African slaves arrive in Spanish America
1519–1522
Magellan expedition circumnavigates
globe
1565
St. Augustine, Florida, founded
1603
James I becomes English King
1608
French establish Quebec
1492
Columbus’s first transatlantic voyage
1518–1530
Smallpox ravages Indians
1497
Cabot explores North America
TIME LINE
2 •
AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS
We know relatively little about the first peoples in the Americas, but archaeologists have uncovered new evidence from artifacts that have survived over many millennia. We continue to learn more about the earliest Americans.
The Peoples of the Precontact Americas For many decades, scholars believed that all early migrations into the Americas came from humans crossing an ancient land bridge over the Bering Strait into what is now Alaska, approximately 11,000 years ago. The migra- tions were probably a result of the develop- ment of new stone tools—spears and other hunting implements—used to pursue the large animals that crossed between Asia and North America. All of these land-based migrants are thought to have come from a Mongolian stock related to that of modern-day Siberia. Scholars refer to these migrants as the “Clovis” people, so named for a town in New Mexico where archaeologists first discovered evidence of their tools and weapons in the 1930s.
More recent archaeological evidence sug- gests that not all the early migrants to the Americas came across the Bering Strait. Some migrants from Asia appear to have settled as far south as Chile and Peru even before peo- ple began moving into North America by land. These first South Americans may have come not by land but by sea, using boats.
This new evidence suggests that the early population of the Americas was more diverse and more scattered than scholars used to believe. Recent DNA evidence has identified a possible early population group that does not seem to have Asian character- istics. This suggests that thousands of years before Columbus, there may have been some migration from Europe.
THE COLLISION OF CULTURES • 3
NORTH AMERICAN MIGRATIONS This map tracks some of the very early migrations into, and within, North America in the centuries preceding contact with Europe. The map shows the now-vanished land bridge between Siberia and Alaska over which thousands, perhaps millions, of migrating people passed into the Americas. It also shows the locations of some of the earliest settlements in North America. • What role did the extended glacial field in what is now Canada play in residential patterns in the ancient American world?
Canyon de Chelly Chaco Canyon
Poverty Point
Mesa Verde
HOHOKAM
MOGOLLON
ANASAZI
Mississippi R .
Ohi o
R.
Missouri R .
Bering land bridge
Extent of ice cap during most recent glaciation
Adena cultures
Hopewell cultures
Primary Mississippian cultures
Possible migration routes of early Indians
Adena/Hopewell site
Mississippian site
Mayan site
Olmec site
Southwestern site
B e r i n g
S t r
a i t
The Archaic period is a scholarly term for the early history of humans in America, beginning around 8000 b.c. In the first part of this period, most humans supported themselves through hunting and gathering, using the same stone tools that earlier Americans had brought with them from Asia.
Later in the Archaic period, population groups began to expand their activities and to develop new tools, such as nets and hooks for fishing, traps for smaller animals, and baskets for gathering berries, nuts, seeds, and other plants. Still later, some groups began to farm. Farming, of course, requires people to stay in one place. In agricultural areas, the first sedentary settlements slowly began to form, creating the basis for larger civilizations.
The Archaic Period
4 • CHAPTER 1
The Growth of Civilizations: The South The most elaborate early civilizations emerged in South and Central America and in Mexico. In Peru, the Incas created the largest empire in the Americas, stretching almost
2,000 miles along western South America. The Incas developed a complex administrative system and a large network of paved roads that welded together the popu- lations of many tribes under a single government.
Organized societies of Mesoamericans emerged around 10,000 b.c. They created a civilization in what is now Mexico and much of Central America.
They were known as the Olmec people. The first truly complex society in the region began in approximately 1000 b.c. A more sophisticated culture grew up around a.d. 800 in parts of Central America and in the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico, in an area known as Maya. Mayan civilization developed a written language, a numerical system similar to the Arabic, an accurate calendar, an advanced agricultural system, and important trade routes into other areas of the continents.
Gradually, the societies of the Maya region were superseded by other Mesoamerican tribes, who have become known collectively (and somewhat inaccurately) as the Aztec. They called themselves Mexica. In about a.d. 1300, the Mexica built the city of Tenochtitlán on a large island in a lake in central Mexico, the site of present-day Mexico City. With a population as high as 100,000 by 1500, Tenochtitlán featured large and impressive public buildings, schools that all male children attended, an organized military, a medical system, and a slave workforce drawn from conquered tribes. A warlike people, the Mexica gradually established their dominance over almost all of central Mexico.
Like other Mesoamerican societies, the Mexica developed a religion that included a belief that the gods could be satisfied only by being fed the living hearts of humans. The Mexica sacrificed people—largely prisoners captured in combat—on a scale unknown in other American civilizations. The Mesoamerican civilizations were for many centuries the center of civilized life in North and Central America—the hub of culture and trade.
The Civilizations of the North The peoples north of Mexico developed less elaborate but still substantial civilizations. Inhabitants of the northern regions of the continent subsisted on combinations of hunting,
gathering, and fishing. They included the Eskimo (or Inuit) of the Arctic Circle, who fished and hunted seals; big-game hunters of the northern forests, who led nomadic lives based on the pursuit of moose and caribou; tribes of the Pacific Northwest, whose principal occupation was salmon fishing and who created substantial permanent settlements along the coast; and a group of tribes spread through relatively arid regions of the Far West, who developed successful communities based on fishing, hunting small game, and gathering edible plants.
Other societies in North America were agricultural. Among the most developed were those in the Southwest. The people of that arid region built large irriga-
tion systems, and they constructed towns of stone and adobe. In the Great Plains region, too, most tribes were engaged in sedentary farming (corn and other grains). They lived in large permanent settlements.
The eastern third of what is now the United States—much of it covered with forests and inhabited by the Woodland Indians—had the greatest food resources of any area of the continent. Most of the many tribes of the region engaged in farming, hunting, gathering,
The Inca in Peru
Mesoamerican Civilizations
Hunting, Gathering, and Fishing
Agricultural Societies
THE COLLISION OF CULTURES • 5
and fishing simultaneously. In the South there were permanent settlements and large trad- ing networks based on the corn and other grains grown in the rich lands of the Mississippi River valley. Cahokia, a trading center located near present-day St. Louis, had a population of 40,000 at its peak in a.d. 1200.
The agricultural societies of the Northeast were more mobile. Farming techniques there were designed to exploit the land quickly rather than to develop permanent settlements. Many of the tribes living east of the Mississippi River were linked together loosely by common linguistic roots. The largest of these language groups consisted of the Algonquian tribes, who lived along the Atlantic seaboard from Canada to Virginia; the Iroquois Confederacy, which was centered in what is now upstate New York; and the Muskogean
Cahokia
HOW THE EARLY NORTH AMERICANS LIVED This map shows the various ways in which the native tribes of North America supported themselves before the arrival of European civilization. Like most precommercial peoples, the Native Americans survived largely on the resources available in their immediate surroundings. Note, for example, the reliance on the products of the sea of the tribes along the northern coastlines of the continent, and the way in which tribes in relatively inhospitable climates in the North—where agriculture was difficult—relied on hunting large game. Most Native Americans were farmers. • What different kinds of farming would have emerged in the very different climates of the agricultural regions shown on this map?
NATCHEZ
CHOCTAW
CHICKASAW
CHEROKEE TUSCARORA PAMLICO
APALACHEE
CALUSA
ARAWAK
TIMUCUA
YAMASEE
CREEK
SHAWNEE MOSOPELEA
LENNI LENAPE
SUSQUEHANNOCK NARRAGANSETT
IROQUOIS PEQUOT
ABENAKI
PENOBSCOT ALGONQUIN
HURON
NEUTRAL ERIE
POTAWATOMI
KICKAPOO ILLINOIS KASKASKIA
SAUK
FOX IOWA
PAWNEE
KIOWA
APACHEAN
APACHEAN
APACHEAN
SHOSHONE
SHOSHONE GOSHUTEMAIDU
COSTANO
CHUMASH CHEMEHUEVI
SERRANO CAHUILLA
DIEGUEÑO LUISEÑO
POMO MODOC
KLAMATH
CAYUSE NEZ
PERCÉ
WALLA WALLAUMATILLA
TILLAMOOK
CHINOOK PUYALLUP
COLVILLESALISH SKAGIT
KWAKIUTLS
TSHIMSHIAN
BLACKFEET
MANDAN HIDATSA
TLINGIT
MAKAH
NOOTKIN
SHUSWAP
KOOTENAY
NORTHERN PAIUTE
SOUTHERN PAIUTE
FLATHEAD
CROW
PUEBLO
ZUÑI
PIMA
HOPI
UTE
ARAPAHO
SIOUX
SIOUX
WINNEBAGO
MENOMINEE OTTAWA
CHIPPEWA
CHIPPEWA
CHEYENNE
CREE
MONTAGNAIS
INUIT
INUIT
ASSINIBOINE
MICMAC
MOHEGAN WAMPANOAG
CADDO
JANO
CONCHO
LAGUNERO
COAHUILTEC
KARANKAWA YAQUI
WICHITA
CALIFORNIA SOUTHWEST
CARIBBEAN
EASTERN WOODLAND
PRAIRIE
SUBARCTIC
ARCTIC
NORTHEAST MEXICO
GREAT BASIN
GREAT PLAINS
PLATEAU
NORTHWEST COAST
Agriculture
Hunting
Hunting and gathering
Fishing
Main Subsistence Mode
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
PACIFIC
OCEAN
6 • CHAPTER 1
tribes, which consisted of the tribes in the southernmost regions of the eastern seaboard.
Religion was usually closely linked with the natural world on which the tribes depended for sustenance. Native Americans worshiped many gods, whom they associated variously with crops, game, forests, rivers, and other elements of nature.
All tribes assigned women the jobs of caring for children, preparing meals, and gathering certain foods. But the allocation of other tasks varied from one society to
another. Some tribal groups reserved farming tasks almost entirely for men. Among other groups, women tended the fields, whereas men engaged in hunting, warfare, or
clearing land. Because women and children were often left alone for extended periods while men were away hunting or fighting, women in some tribes controlled the social and economic organization of the settlements.
EUROPE LOOKS WESTWARD
Europeans were almost entirely unaware of the existence of the Americas before the fifteenth century. A few early wanderers—Leif Eriksson, an eleventh-century Norse sea- man, and others—had glimpsed parts of the eastern Atlantic on their voyages. But even if their discoveries had become common knowledge (and they did not), there would have been little incentive for others to follow. Europe in the Middle Ages (roughly a.d. 500–1500) was too weak, divided, and decentralized to inspire many great ventures. By the end of the fifteenth century, however, conditions in Europe had changed and the incentive for overseas exploration had grown.
Commerce and Sea Travel Two important changes encouraged Europeans to look toward new lands. One was the significant growth in Europe’s population in the fifteenth century. The Black Death, a cata- strophic epidemic of the bubonic plague that began in Constantinople in 1347, had killed more than a third of the people on the Continent (according to some estimates). But a century and
a half later, the population had rebounded. With that growth came a reawakening of commerce. A new merchant class was emerging to meet the rising demand for goods from abroad. As trade increased, and as advances in navigation made long-distance sea travel more feasible, interest in expanding trade grew even more quickly.
The second change was the emergence of new governments that were more united and powerful than the feeble political entities of the feudal past. In the west-
ern areas of Europe in particular, strong new monarchs were eager to enhance the com- mercial development of their nations.
In the early fourteenth century, Marco Polo and other adventurers had returned from Asia bearing exotic spices, cloths, and dyes and even more exotic tales. Europeans who
Gender Relations
European Population Growth
Strong Monarchies
PUEBLO VILLAGE OF THE SOUTHWEST (© C. McIntyre/PhotoLink/Getty Images)
THE COLLISION OF CULTURES • 7
craved commercial glory had dreamed above all of trade with the East. For two centuries, that trade had been limited by the difficulties of the long overland journey to the Asian courts. But in the fourteenth century, talk of finding a faster, safer sea route to East Asia began.
The Portuguese were the preeminent maritime power in the fifteenth century, largely because of Prince Henry the Navigator, who devoted much of his life to the promotion of exploration. In 1486, after Henry’s death, the Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope). In 1497– 1498, Vasco da Gama proceeded all the way around the cape to India. But the Spanish, not the Portuguese, were the first to encounter the New World, the term Europeans applied to the ancient lands previously unknown to them.
Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus was born and reared in Genoa, Italy. He spent his early seafaring years in the service of the Portuguese. By the time he was a young man, he had developed great ambitions. He believed he could reach East Asia by sailing west, across the Atlantic, rather than east, around Africa. Columbus thought the world was far smaller than it actu- ally is. He also believed that the Asian continent extended farther eastward than it actually does. Most important, he did not realize that anything lay to the west between Europe and the lands of Asia.
Columbus failed to enlist the leaders of Portugal to back his plan, so he turned instead to Spain. The marriage of Spain’s two most powerful regional rulers, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, had produced the strongest and most ambitious monarchy in Europe. Columbus appealed to Queen Isabella for support for his proposed westward voyage, and in 1492, she agreed. Commanding ninety men and three ships—the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María—Columbus left Spain in August 1492 and sailed west into the Atlantic. Ten weeks later, he sighted land and assumed he had reached an island off Asia. In fact, he had landed in the Bahamas. When he pushed on and encountered Cuba, he assumed he had reached China. He returned to Spain, bringing with him several captured natives as evidence of his achievement. (He called the natives “Indians” because he believed they were from the East Indies in the Pacific.)
But Columbus did not, of course, bring back news of the great khan’s court in China or any samples of the fabled wealth of the Indies. And so a year later, he tried again, this time with a much larger expedition. As before, he headed into the Caribbean, discovering several other islands and leaving a small and short-lived colony on Hispaniola. On a third voyage, in 1498, he finally reached the mainland and cruised along the northern coast of South America. He then realized, for the first time, that he had encountered not a part of Asia but a separate continent.
Columbus ended his life in obscurity. Ultimately, he was even unable to give his name to the land he had revealed to the Europeans. That distinction went instead to a Florentine merchant, Amerigo Vespucci, who wrote a series of vivid descriptions of the lands he visited on a later expedition to the New World and helped popularize the idea that the Americas were new continents.
Partly as a result of Columbus’s initiative, Spain began to devote greater resources and energy to maritime exploration. In 1513, the Spaniard Vasco de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and became the first known European to gaze westward upon the great ocean that separated America from China. Seeking access to that ocean, Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese
Portuguese Exploration
Columbus’s First Voyage
8 • CHAPTER 1
in Spanish employ, found the strait that now bears his name at the southern end of South America, struggled through the stormy narrows and into the ocean (so calm by contrast that he christened it the Pacific), and then proceeded to the Philippines. There Magellan died in a
conflict with natives, but his expedition went on to complete the Circumnavigation of the Globe
EUROPEAN EXPLORATION AND CONQUEST, 1492–1583 This map shows the many voyages of exploration to and conquest of North America launched by Europeans in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Note how Columbus and the Spanish explorers who followed him tended to move quickly into the lands of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, while the English and French explored the northern territories of North America. • What factors might have led these various nations to explore and colonize different areas of the New World?
´
ISTHMUS OF PANAMA
YUCATAN PENINSULA
St . L
aw re
nc e R
iv er
M is
si ss
ip pi
R
.
Mississippi R .
Missouri R.
Oh io
R.
O ri
no co
R .
Arkansas R.
Co lo
ra do
R.
Rio G rande
Drake’s Bay
A T L A N T I C O C E A N
PA C I F I C O C E A N
Gulf of Mexico
Caribbean Sea
Hudson Bay
DRAKE 1577–80
PIZ AR
RO 1
53 1–
33
BA LB
OA 15
13
RAL EIG
H 15 95
PONCE DE LEÓN 1513
VER RAZ
ANO 152
4
HA W
KI NS
1 58
0
CA RT
IER 15
34– 35
CABO T 149
7
GILBERT 1583
DE SOTO 1539–42
CORT ES 1518–21
CO RO
NA DO
1 54
0– 42
1492
1498 1502
1493
149 3
1502
FROB ISHE
R
1576 –78
HUDSON 161
0
HAWKINS 1580
NORTH
AMERICA
SOUTH AMERICA
LABRADOR
NEWFOUNDLAND
AZTEC EMPIRE MAYA
INCA EMPIRE
Panama
Quito
Veracruz
Chichen Itza
Havana
Mayapan
Santiago de Cuba
Mexico City (Tenochtitlán)
Cibola
La Paz
Roanoke
Columbus (Spanish)
Other Spanish
Other European
Explorers’ Routes
French
English
Native American empires
0 250
1000 km0 500
500 mi
a
SOUTH AMERICA
PA C I F I C O C E A N
A T L A N T I C O C E A N
MAGELLAN 1519–22
THE COLLISION OF CULTURES • 9
first known circumnavigation of the globe (1519–1522). By 1550, Spaniards had explored the coasts of North America as far north as Oregon in the west and Labrador in the east.
The Spanish Empire In time, Spanish explorers in the New World stopped thinking of America simply as an obstacle to their search for a route to Asia and began instead to consider it a possible source of wealth in itself. The Spanish claimed for themselves the whole of the New World, except for a large part of the east coast of South America (today’s Brazil) that was reserved by a papal decree for the Portuguese.
In 1518, Hernando Cortés, who had been an unsuccessful Spanish government official in Cuba for fourteen years, led a small military expedition (about 600 men) against the Aztecs in Mexico and their powerful emperor, Montezuma, after hearing stories of great treasures there. His first assault on Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, failed. But Cortés and his army had unwittingly exposed the natives to smallpox, to which the natives, unlike the Europeans, had developed no immunity. The epidemic decimated the Aztec population and made it possible for the Spanish to triumph in their second attempt at conquest. Through his ruthless suppression of the surviving natives, Cortés established himself as one of the most brutal of the Spanish conquistadores (conquerors). Twenty years later, Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incas in Peru and opened the way for other Spanish advances into South America.
The first Spanish settlers in America were interested only in exploiting the American stores of gold and silver, and they were fabulously successful. For 300 years, beginning in the sixteenth century, the mines of Spanish America yielded more than ten times as much gold and silver as all the rest of the world’s mines combined. Before long, however, most Spanish settlers in America traveled to the New World for other reasons. Many went in hopes of profiting from agriculture. They helped establish elements of European
Conquistadores
THE MEXICANS STRIKE BACK In this vivid scene from the Durán Codex, Mexican artists illustrate a rare moment in which Mexican warriors gained the upper hand over the Spanish invaders. Driven back by native fighters, the Spanish have taken refuge in a room in the royal palace in Tenochtitlán while brightly attired Mexican warriors besiege them. Although the Mexicans gained a temporary advantage in this battle, the drawing illustrates one of the reasons for their inability to withstand the Spanish in the longer term. The Spanish soldiers are armed with rifles and crossbows, while the Indians carry only spears and shields. (© Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Spain/Bridgeman Images)
10 •
Source: Francis Augustus MacNutt, Bartholomew de Las Casas: His Life, His Apostolate, and His Writings (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1909), p. 14.
CONSIDER THE SOURCE
Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Dominican friar from Spain, was an early European settler of the West Indies. He devoted much of his life to describing the culture of native peoples and chronicling the many abuses they suf- fered at the hands of their colonizers. This excerpt is from a letter he addressed to Spain’s Prince Philip.
God has created all these numberless people to be quite the simplest, without malice or duplicity, most obedient, most faithful to their natural Lords, and to the Christians, whom they serve; the most humble, most patient, most peaceful and calm, without strife nor tumults; not wrangling, nor queru- lous, as free from uproar, hate and desire of revenge as any in the world . . . Among these gentle sheep, gifted by their Maker with the above qualities, the Spaniards entered as soon as they knew them, like wolves, tigers and lions which had been starving for many days, and since forty years they have done nothing else; nor do they afflict, torment, and destroy them with strange and new, and divers kinds of cruelty, never before seen, nor heard of, nor read of . . .
The Christians, with their horses and swords and lances, began to slaughter and practice strange cruelty among them. They penetrated into the country and spared nei- ther children nor the aged, nor pregnant women, nor those in child labour, all of whom they ran through the body and lacerated, as though they were assaulting so many lambs herded in their sheepfold. They made bets as to who would slit a man in two, or cut off his head at one blow: or they opened up his bow- els. They tore the babes from their mothers’ breast by the feet, and dashed their heads
against the rocks. Others they seized by the shoulders and threw into the rivers, laughing and joking, and when they fell into the water they exclaimed: “boil body of so and so!” They spitted the bodies of other babes, to- gether with their mothers and all who were before them, on their swords.
They made a gallows just high enough for the feet to nearly touch the ground, and by thirteens, in honor and reverence of our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles, they put wood underneath and, with fire, they burned the Indians alive.
They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it; and so they burned them. They cut off the hands of all they wished to take alive, made them carry them fastened on to them, and said: “Go and carry letters”: that is; take the news to those who have fled to the mountains.
They generally killed the lords and nobles in the following way. They made wooden gridirons of stakes, bound them upon them, and made a slow fire beneath; thus the victims gave up the spirit by degrees, emit- ting cries of despair in their torture.
UNDERSTAND, ANALYZE, & EVALUATE
1. How did Bartolomé de Las Casas characterize the natives? How do you think they would have responded to this description?
2. What metaphor did Las Casas use to describe the natives and where does this metaphor come from?
3. What role did Las Casas expect the Spaniards to play on Hispaniola? What did they do instead?
BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS, “OF THE ISLAND OF HISPANIOLA” (1542)
THE COLLISION OF CULTURES • 11
civilization permanently in America. Other Spaniards—priests, friars, and missionaries— went to America to spread the Christian religion; through their efforts, the influence of the Catholic Church ultimately extended throughout South and Central America and Mexico. One of the first friars to work in the colonies, Bartolomé de Las Casas fought for the fair treatment of native peoples by the Spanish as part of his ministry. (See “Consider the Source: Bartolomé de Las Casas, ‘Of the Island of Hispaniola’”).
Ama zon R.
M is
si ss
ip pi
R .
Rio Grande
O ri
no co
R.
Caribbean Sea
Gulf of Mexico
ATLANTIC OCEAN
PACIFIC OCEAN
P ar
an a
R.
Rio de la Plata
San Francisco (1776)
Monterey (1770)
San Luis Obispo (1772) Los Angeles (1781)
San Juan Capistrano (1776) San Diego de Alcala (1769)
Tucson (1709)
Taos (1609)
Santa Fe (1607)
St. Augustine (1565)
Tampico La Habana (1515)
Santiago (1514)
Espanola (1492)
Bahamas (to Britain 1646)
Cuba (1492)
Jamaica (to Britain
1655)
Veracruz (1519)
Mexico City (Tenochtitlán)
(1325)
Culiacán (1531)
Guatemala (1519)
Quito (1534)
Guayaquil (1535)
Trinidad (1498)
Cuzco (1535)
La Paz (1548)
Rio de Janeiro (1567)
São Paulo (1554)
Montevideo (1724)
Buenos Aires (1580)
Puerto Rico (1502)
Valparaiso (1544)
Santiago (1541)
Santo Domingo (1496)
Cuidad de los Reyes (Lima)
(1535)
Caracas (1567)
Santa Fe de Bogotá (1538)
Panama (1519)
VICEROYALTY OF
LA PLATA
FRENCH GUIANA (1626)
VICEROYALTY OF NEW SPAIN
Yucatán Peninsula
SURINAM (Dutch) (1625)
SPANISH FLORIDA
(to 1819)
VICEROYALTY OF NEW GRANADA
LOUISIANA (Spanish 1763-1800) UNITED
STATES (from 1783)
VICEROYALTY OF
NEW CASTILLA (Peru)
HAITI (French
after 1697)
P O R
T U
G U
E S
E B
R A
Z I L
Aztec Empire at the time of Spanish Conquest
Inca Empire at the time of Spanish Conquest
Missions
Forts (Sometimes with missions)
Settlements
Colonial boundaries and provincial names are for the late 18th century
OUTPOSTS ON THE NORTHERN FRONTIER OF NEW SPAIN (Not simultaneous; through the 18th century)
0 1000 mi
0 1000 2000 km
SPANISH AMERICA From the time of Columbus’s initial voyage in 1492 until the mid-nineteenth century, Spain was the dominant colonial power in the New World. From the southern regions of South America to the northern regions of the Pacific Northwest, Spain controlled one of the world’s vastest empires. Note how much of the Spanish Empire was simply grafted upon the earlier empires of native peoples—the Incas in what is today Chile and Peru and the Aztecs across much of the rest of South America, Mexico, and the Southwest of what is now the United States. • What characteristics of Spanish colonization would account for their preference for already settled regions?
12 • CHAPTER 1
By the end of the sixteenth century, the Spanish Empire included the Caribbean islands, Mexico, and southern North America. It also spread into South America and included what is now Chile, Argentina, and Peru. In 1580, when the Spanish and Portuguese mon- archies temporarily united, Brazil came under Spanish jurisdiction as well.
Northern Outposts In 1565, the Spanish established the fort of St. Augustine in Florida, their first permanent
settlement in what is now the United States. But it was little more than a small military outpost. A more substantial colonizing venture began in the Southwest in 1598, when Don Juan de Oñate traveled north from Mexico with a party of 500, claimed for Spain some of the lands of the Pueblo Indians in what is now New Mexico, and began to establish a colony. Oñate granted encomiendas (the right to exact tribute and labor from the natives on large tracts of land) to favored Spaniards. In 1609, Spanish colonists founded Santa Fe. By 1680, there were over 2,000 Spanish colonists living among about 30,000 Pueblos. The economic heart of the colony was cattle and sheep, raised on the ranchos that stretched out around the small towns Spanish settlers established.
Despite widespread conversions to Catholicism, most natives (including the converts) continued to practice their own traditional religious rituals. In 1680, Spanish priests and
the colonial government tried to suppress these rituals. In response, Popé, an Indian religious leader, led an uprising that killed hundreds of European settlers, captured Santa Fe, and drove the Spanish from the region. Twelve years later, the Spanish returned and crushed a last revolt in 1696.
After the revolts, many Spanish colonists realized that they could not hope to pros- per in New Mexico while in constant conflict with a native population that greatly outnumbered them. Although the Spanish intensified their efforts to assimilate the Indians, they also now permitted the Pueblos to own land. They stopped commandeer- ing Indian labor, and they tolerated the survival of tribal religious rituals. There was significant intermarriage between Europeans and Indians. By 1750, the Spanish popu- lation had grown to about 4,000. The Pueblo population had declined (through disease, war, and migration) to about 13,000—less than half what it had been in 1680. New Mexico had by then become a reasonably stable but still weak and isolated outpost of the Spanish Empire.
Biological and Cultural Exchanges European and native cultures never entirely merged in the Spanish Empire. Nevertheless, the arrival of whites launched a process of interaction between different peoples that left no one unchanged.
That Europeans were exploring the Americas at all was a result of early contacts with the natives, from whom they had learned of the rich deposits of gold and silver. From then on, the history of the Americas became one of increasing levels of exchanges—some
beneficial, others catastrophic—among different peoples and cultures. The first and perhaps most profound result of this exchange was the importation of European diseases to the New World. It would be difficult to exaggerate the conse- quences of the exposure of Native Americans to such illnesses as influenza, measles, typhus, and above all smallpox. Although historians have debated the question of how many people lived in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans, it is estimated that
St. Augustine and Santa Fe
Popé
Population Loss from Diseases
THE COLLISION OF CULTURES • 13
millions died. (See “Debating the Past: Why Do Historians So Often Differ?”). In some areas, native populations were virtually wiped out within a few decades of their first contact with whites. On Hispaniola, where Columbus had landed in the 1490s, the native population quickly declined from approximately 1 million to about 500. In the Maya area of Mexico, as much as 95 percent of the population perished within a few years of the natives’ first contact with the Spanish. Many (although not all) of the tribes north of Mexico were spared the worst of the epidemics. But for other areas of the New World, this was a disaster at least as grave as, and in some places far worse than, the Black Death that had killed over one-third of the population of Europe two centuries before. Some Europeans, watching this biological catastrophe, saw it as evidence of God’s will that they should dominate the New World—and its native population.
The decimation of native populations in the southern regions of the Americas was not only a result of exposure to infection. It was also a result of the conquistadores’ deliber- ate policy of subjugation and extermination. Their brutality was in part a reflection of the ruthlessness with which Europeans waged war in all parts of the world. It was also a result of their conviction that the natives were “savages”—uncivilized peoples who could be treated as somehow not fully human. By the 1540s, the combined effects of European diseases and European military brutality had all but destroyed the empires of Mexico and South America.
Not all aspects of the exchange were disastrous to the Indians. The Europeans intro- duced to the natives important new crops (among them sugar and bananas), domestic livestock (cattle, pigs, and sheep), and, perhaps most significant, the horse, which gradu- ally became central to the lives of many natives and transformed their societies.
The exchange was at least as important (and more beneficial) to the Europeans. In both North and South America, the arriving white peoples learned from the natives new agricultural techniques appropriate to the demands of the new land. They discovered new crops—above all maize (corn), which Columbus took back to Europe from his first trip to America. Such foods as squash, pumpkins, beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes all found their way into European diets.
In South America, Central America, and Mexico, Europeans and natives lived in inti- mate, if unequal, contact with one another. Many natives gradually came to speak Spanish or Portuguese, but they created a range of dialects fusing the European languages with elements of their own. European men outnumbered European women by at least ten to one. Intermarriage—often forcible—became frequent between Spanish immigrants and native women. Before long, the population of the colonies came to be dominated (numer- ically, at least) by people of mixed race, or mestizos.
Virtually all the enterprises of the Spanish and Portuguese colonists depended on Indian workforces. In some places, Indians were sold into slavery. More often, colonists used a coercive (or “indentured”) wage system, under which Indians worked in the mines and on the plantations under duress for fixed periods. That was not, in the end, enough to meet the labor needs of the colonists. As early as 1502, European settlers began importing slaves from Africa.
Africa and America Over one-half of all the immigrants to the New World between 1500 and 1800 were Africans, virtually all of them sent to the Americas against their will. Most came from a large region below the Sahara Desert, known as Guinea.
Population Loss from Military Brutality
New World Crops
Unfree Indian labor
14 •
DEBATING THE PAST
Why Do Historians So Often Differ? Early in the twentieth century, when the professional study of history was still relatively new, many historians believed that questions about the past could be answered with the same certainty and precision that questions in more-scientific fields could be answered. By sifting through available rec- ords, using precise methods of research and analysis, and producing careful, closely ar- gued accounts of the past, they believed they could create definitive histories that would survive without controversy. Scholars who adhered to this view believed that real knowledge can be derived only from direct, scientific observation of clear “fact.” They were known as “positivists.”
A vigorous debate continues to this day over whether historical research can or should be truly objective. Almost no histo- rian any longer accepts the positivist claim that history could ever be an exact science. Disagreement about the past is, in fact, at the heart of the effort to understand history. Critics of contemporary historical scholar- ship often denounce the way historians are constantly revising earlier interpretations. Some denounce the act of interpretation it- self. History, they claim, is “what happened,” and historians should “stick to the facts.”
Historians, however, continue to differ with one another both because the facts are seldom as straightforward as their critics claim and because facts by themselves mean almost nothing without an effort to assign meaning to them. Some historical facts, of course, are not in dispute. Everyone agrees, for example, that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and that
Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. But many other facts are much harder to determine—among them, for example, the question of how large the American pop- ulation was before the arrival of Columbus, or how many slaves resisted slavery. This sounds like a reasonably straightforward question, but it is almost impossible to an- swer with any certainty—because the rec- ords of slave resistance are spotty and the definition of “resistance” is a matter of con- siderable dispute.
Even when a set of facts is clear and straightforward, historians disagree— sometimes quite radically—over what they mean. Those disagreements can be the result of political and ideological disagreements. Some of the most vigorous debates in recent decades have been between scholars who be- lieve that economic interests and class divi- sions are the key to understanding the past, and those who believe that ideas and culture are at least as important as material inter- ests. Whites and people of color, men and women, people from the American South and people from the North, young people and older people: these and many other points of difference find their way into schol- arly disagreements. Debates can also occur over differences in methodology—between those who believe that quantitative studies can answer important historical questions and those who believe that other methods come closer to the truth.
Most of all, historical interpretation changes in response to the time in which it is written. Historians may strive to be objec- tive in their work, but no one can be entirely