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T h i r d E d i t i o n
G I V E M E L I B E R T Y ! A n A m e r i c a n H i s t o r y
B W . W . N O R T O N & C O M PA N Y . N E W Y O R K . L O N D O N
G I V E M E L I B E R T Y ! �� b y E R I C F O N E R
A N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y T h i r d E d i t i o n
W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William
Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered at the People’s
Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon
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transferred control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of 400 and
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W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly
by its employees.
Copyright © 2011, 2008, 2005 by Eric Foner
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Third Edition
Editor: Steve Forman
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Foner, Eric.
Give me liberty!: An American history / Eric Foner. — 3rd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-393-93430-4 (hardcover)
1. United States—History. 2. United States—Politics and government.
3. Democracy—United States—History. 4. Liberty—History. I. Title.
E178.F66 2010
973—dc22
2010015330
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
ISBN 978-0-393-11911-4 (pdf ebook)
www.wwnorton.com
For my mother, Liza Foner (1909–2005), an
accomplished artist who lived through most of the
twentieth century and into the twenty-first
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Contents � L I S T O F MA P S , TA B L E S , A N D F I G U R E S • xxix
A B O U T T H E AU T H O R • xxxiii
P R E FA C E • xxxv
P a r t 1 A m e r i c a n C o l o n i e s t o 1 7 6 3
1. A NEW WORLD • 4
THE FIRST AMERICANS • 8
The Settling of the Americas • 8 • Indian Societies of the
Americas • 9 • Mound Builders of the Mississippi River
Valley • 11 • Western Indians • 11 • Indians of Eastern
North America • 12 • Native American Religion • 14 •
Land and Property • 14 • Gender Relations • 15 •
European Views of the Indians • 16
INDIAN FREEDOM, EUROPEAN FREEDOM • 17
Indian Freedom • 17 • Christian Liberty • 18 • Freedom
and Authority • 19 • Liberty and Liberties • 19
THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE • 20
Chinese and Portuguese Navigation • 20 • Portugal and
West Africa • 21 • Freedom and Slavery in Africa • 22 •
The Voyages of Columbus • 23
CONTACT • 24
Columbus in the New World • 24 • Exploration and
Conquest • 24 • The Demographic Disaster • 26
THE SPANISH EMPIRE • 27
Governing Spanish America • 27 • Colonists in Spanish
America • 28 • Colonists and Indians • 29 •
Justifications for Conquest • 30 • Spreading the
Faith • 31 • Piety and Profit • 31 • Las Casas’s
Complaint • 32 • Reforming the Empire • 33 • Exploring North
America • 34 • Spanish Florida • 35 • Spain in the Southwest • 35
• The Pueblo Revolt • 37
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Bartolomé de Las Casas, History of the
Indies (1528), and From “Declaration of Josephe” (December 19,
1681) • 38
THE FRENCH AND DUTCH EMPIRES • 40
French Colonization • 40 • New France and the Indians • 41 •
VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 43 • The Dutch Empire • 45 • Dutch
Freedom • 45 • Freedom in New Netherland • 45 • Settling
New Netherland • 47 • New Netherland and the Indians • 47
2. BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH AMERICA, 1607–1660 • 52
ENGLAND AND THE NEW WORLD • 55
Unifying the English Nation • 55 • England and Ireland • 56 •
England and North America • 56 • Spreading Protestantism • 57 •
Motives for Colonization • 57 • The Social Crisis • 58 • Masterless
Men • 59
THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH • 59
English Emigrants • 59 • Indentured Servants • 60 • Land and
Liberty • 60 • Englishmen and Indians • 61 • The Transformation
of Indian Life • 62 • Changes in the Land • 62
SETTLING THE CHESAPEAKE • 63
The Jamestown Colony • 63 • From Company to Society • 64 •
Powhatan and Pocahontas • 64 • The Uprising of 1622 • 65 •
A Tobacco Colony • 66 • Women and the Family • 67 • The
Maryland Experiment • 68 • Religion in Maryland • 68
THE NEW ENGLAND WAY • 69
The Rise of Puritanism • 69 • Moral Liberty • 70 • The Pilgrims
at Plymouth • 70 • The Great Migration • 71 • VISIONS OF
FREEDOM • 72 • The Puritan Family • 73 • Government and
Society in Massachusetts • 74 • Puritan Liberties • 75
NEW ENGLANDERS DIVIDED • 76
Roger Williams • 76 • Rhode Island and Connecticut • 77
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From John Winthrop, Speech to the
Massachusetts General Court (July 3, 1645), and From Roger
Williams, Letter to the Town of Providence (1655) • 78
The Trials of Anne Hutchinson • 80 • Puritans and Indians • 81 •
The Pequot War • 81 • The New England Economy • 82 • The
Merchant Elite • 83 • The Half-Way Covenant • 84
RELIGION, POLITICS, AND FREEDOM • 84
The Rights of Englishmen • 84 • The English Civil War • 85 •
England’s Debate over Freedom • 86 • English Liberty • 87 •
v i i i C o n t e n t s
Content s i x
The Civil War and English America • 87 • The Crisis in Maryland •
88 • Cromwell and the Empire • 88
3. CREATING ANGLO-AMERICA, 1660–1750 • 92
GLOBAL COMPETITION AND THE EXPANSION OF
ENGLAND’S EMPIRE • 95
The Mercantilist System • 95 • The Conquest of New Netherland •
97 • New York and the Rights of Englishmen and Englishwomen • 97
• New York and the Indians • 98 • The Charter of Liberties • 98 •
The Founding of Carolina • 99 • The Holy Experiment • 100 •
Quaker Liberty • 100 • Land in Pennsylvania • 101
ORIGINS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY • 101
Englishmen and Africans • 102 • Slavery in History • 102 • Slavery
in the West Indies • 103 • Slavery and the Law • 105 • The Rise of
Chesapeake Slavery • 105 • Bacon’s Rebellion: Land and Labor in
Virginia • 106 • The End of the Rebellion, and Its Consequences •
107 • A Slave Society • 107 • Notions of Freedom • 108
COLONIES IN CRISIS • 108
The Glorious Revolution • 109 • The Glorious Revolution in America
• 110 • The Maryland Uprising • 110 • Leisler’s Rebellion • 111 •
Changes in New England • 111 • The Prosecution of Witches • 111
• The Salem Witch Trials • 112
THE GROWTH OF COLONIAL AMERICA • 113
A Diverse Population • 113 • Attracting Settlers • 114 • The
German Migration • 116 • Religious Diversity • 116
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Letter by a Female Indentured Servant
(September 22, 1756), and From Letter by a Swiss-German
Immigrant to Pennsylvania (August 23, 1769) • 118
Indian Life in Transition • 120 • Regional Diversity • 120 • The
Consumer Revolution • 121 • Colonial Cities • 122 • Colonial
Artisans • 122 • An Atlantic World • 123
SOCIAL CLASSES IN THE COLONIES • 124
The Colonial Elite • 124 • Anglicization • 125 • The South
Carolina Aristocracy • 126 • Poverty in the Colonies • 127 • The
Middle Ranks • 128 • Women and the Household Economy • 128 •
VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 129 • North America at Mid-Century • 130
4. SLAVERY, FREEDOM, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE TO 1763 • 134
SLAVERY AND EMPIRE • 137
Atlantic Trade • 138 • Africa and the Slave Trade • 139 • The
Middle Passage • 141 • Chesapeake Slavery • 141 • Freedom
and Slavery in the Chesapeake • 143 • Indian Slavery in Early
Carolina • 143 • The Rice Kingdom • 144 • The Georgia
Experiment • 144 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 145 • Slavery in the
North • 146
SLAVE CULTURES AND SLAVE RESISTANCE • 147
Becoming African-American • 147 • African-American Cultures
• 147 • Resistance to Slavery • 148 • The Crisis of 1739–1741 • 149
AN EMPIRE OF FREEDOM • 150
British Patriotism • 150 • The British Constitution • 150 • The
Language of Liberty • 151 • Republican Liberty • 152 • Liberal
Freedom • 152
THE PUBLIC SPHERE • 154
The Right to Vote • 154 • Political Cultures • 155 • Colonial
Government • 156 • The Rise of the Assemblies • 156 • Politics in
Public • 157 • The Colonial Press • 157 • Freedom of Expression
and Its Limits • 158 • The Trial of Zenger • 159 • The American
Enlightenment • 160
THE GREAT AWAKENING • 160
Religious Revivals • 161 • The Preaching of Whitefield • 161 • The
Awakening’s Impact • 162
IMPERIAL RIVALRIES • 163
Spanish North America • 163 • The Spanish in California • 164 •
The French Empire • 165
BATTLE FOR THE CONTINENT • 166
The Middle Ground • 166 • The Seven Years’ War • 168 • A World
Transformed • 169 • Pontiac’s Rebellion • 169 • The Proclamation
Line • 170 • Pennsylvania and the Indians • 170
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789), and
From Pontiac, Speeches (1762 and 1763) • 172
Colonial Identities • 174
P a r t 2 A N e w N a t i o n , 1 7 6 3 – 1 8 4 0
5. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1763–1783 • 182
THE CRISIS BEGINS • 185
Consolidating the Empire • 185 • Taxing the Colonies • 186 • The
Stamp Act Crisis • 187 • Taxation and Representation • 187 •
Liberty and Resistance • 188 • Politics in the Streets • 188 • The
Regulators • 190 • The Tenant Uprising • 190
x C o n t e n t s
THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION • 191
The Townshend Crisis • 191 • Homespun Virtue • 191 • The Boston
Massacre • 192 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 193 • Wilkes and Liberty •
194 • The Tea Act • 194 • The Intolerable Acts • 194
THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE • 195
The Continental Congress • 195 • The Continental Association •
196 • The Sweets of Liberty • 196 • The Outbreak of War • 197 •
Independence? • 198 • Common Sense • 199
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776), and
From James Chalmers, Plain Truth, Addressed to the Inhabitants
of America (1776) • 200
Paine’s Impact • 202 • The Declaration of Independence • 202 •
The Declaration and American Freedom • 203 • An Asylum for
Mankind • 204 • The Global Declaration of Independence • 204
SECURING INDEPENDENCE • 205
The Balance of Power • 205 • Blacks in the Revolution • 207 •
The First Years of the War • 208 • The Battle of Saratoga • 209 •
The War in the South • 210 • Victory at Last • 212
6. THE REVOLUTION WITHIN • 218
DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM • 221
The Dream of Equality • 221 • Expanding the Political Nation • 222
• The Revolution in Pennsylvania • 223 • The New Constitutions •
224 • The Right to Vote • 224 • Democratizing Government • 225
TOWARD RELIGIOUS TOLERATION • 226
Catholic Americans • 226 • The Founders and Religion • 227 •
Separating Church and State • 227 • Jefferson and Religious
Liberty • 228 • The Revolution and the Churches • 229 •
A Virtuous Citizenry • 230
DEFINING ECONOMIC FREEDOM • 230
Toward Free Labor • 230 • The Soul of a Republic • 231 • The
Politics of Inflation • 232 • The Debate over Free Trade • 232
THE LIMITS OF LIBERTY • 233
Colonial Loyalists • 233 • The Loyalists’ Plight • 234 • The Indians’
Revolution • 236 • White Freedom, Indian Freedom • 237
SLAVERY AND THE REVOLUTION • 238
The Language of Slavery and Freedom • 238 • Obstacles to
Abolition • 239 • The Cause of General Liberty • 240 • Petitions
for Freedom • 241 • British Emancipators • 242 • Voluntary
Emancipations • 243
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Abigail Adams to John Adams, Braintree,
Mass. (March 31, 1776), and From Petitions of Slaves to the
Massachusetts Legislature (1773 and 1777) • 244
Content s x i
Abolition in the North • 246 • Free Black Communities • 246 •
VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 247
DAUGHTERS OF LIBERTY • 248
Revolutionary Women • 248 • Gender and Politics • 249 •
Republican Motherhood • 250 • The Arduous Struggle for
Liberty • 251
7. FOUNDING A NATION, 1783–1789 • 256
AMERICA UNDER THE CONFEDERATION • 259
The Articles of Confederation • 259 • Congress and the West • 261
• Settlers and the West • 261 • The Land Ordinances • 262 • The
Confederation’s Weaknesses • 264 • Shays’s Rebellion • 265 •
Nationalists of the 1780s • 266
A NEW CONSTITUTION • 267
The Structure of Government • 267 • The Limits of Democracy • 268
• The Division and Separation of Powers • 269 • The Debate over
Slavery • 270 • Slavery in the Constitution • 271 • The Final
Document • 272
THE RATIFICATION DEBATE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE BILL
OF RIGHTS • 273
The Federalist • 273 • “Extend the Sphere” • 274 • The Anti-
Federalists • 275
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From David Ramsay, The History of the
American Revolution (1789), and From James Winthrop,
Anti-Federalist Essay Signed “Agrippa” (1787) • 276
The Bill of Rights • 278 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 279
“WE THE PEOPLE” • 282
National Identity • 282 • Indians in the New Nation • 283 • Blacks
and the Republic • 285 • Jefferson, Slavery, and Race • 287 •
Principles of Freedom • 288
8. SECURING THE REPUBLIC, 1790–1815 • 292
POLITICS IN AN AGE OF PASSION • 295
Hamilton’s Program • 295 • The Emergence of Opposition • 296 •
The Jefferson-Hamilton Bargain • 297 • The Impact of the
French Revolution • 297 • Political Parties • 299 • The Whiskey
Rebellion • 299 • The Republican Party • 300 • An Expanding
Public Sphere • 301 • The Democratic-Republican Societies • 301
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Address of the Democratic-Republican
Society of Pennsylvania (December 18, 1794), and From Judith
Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes” (1790) • 302
The Rights of Women • 304 • Women and the Republic • 305
x i i C o n t e n t s
THE ADAMS PRESIDENCY • 305
The Election of 1796 • 305 • The “Reign of Witches” • 306 • The
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions • 307 • The “Revolution of 1800”
• 308 • Slavery and Politics • 309 • The Haitian Revolution • 309 •
Gabriel’s Rebellion • 310
JEFFERSON IN POWER • 311
Judicial Review • 312 • The Louisiana Purchase • 312 • Lewis and
Clark • 314 • Incorporating Louisiana • 315 • The Barbary Wars •
315 • The Embargo • 317 • Madison and Pressure for War • 317
THE “SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE” • 318
The Indian Response • 318 • Tecumseh’s Vision • 319 • The War of
1812 • 319 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 320 • The War’s Aftermath • 323
• The End of the Federalist Party • 324
9. THE MARKET REVOLUTION, 1800–1840 • 328
A NEW ECONOMY • 331
Roads and Steamboats • 333 • The Erie Canal • 334 • Railroads
and the Telegraph • 335 • The Rise of the West • 336 • The Cotton
Kingdom • 339 • The Unfree Westward Movement • 340
MARKET SOCIETY • 340
Commercial Farmers • 342 • The Growth of Cities • 342 • The
Factory System • 343 • The Industrial Worker • 347 • The “Mill
Girls” • 347 • The Growth of Immigration • 348 • Irish and
German Newcomers • 348 • The Rise of Nativism • 350 • The
Transformation of Law • 351
THE FREE INDIVIDUAL • 351
The West and Freedom • 352 • The Transcendentalists • 353 •
Individualism • 353
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American
Scholar” (1837), and From ‘‘Factory Life as It Is, by an Operative’’
(1845) • 354
The Second Great Awakening • 357 • The Awakening’s Impact •
358 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 359
THE LIMITS OF PROSPERITY • 360
Liberty and Prosperity • 360 • Race and Opportunity • 361 • The
Cult of Domesticity • 362 • Women and Work • 363 • The Early
Labor Movement • 365 • The “Liberty of Living” • 366
10. DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, 1815–1840 • 370
THE TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY • 373
Property and Democracy • 373 • The Dorr War • 373 • Tocqueville
on Democracy • 374 • The Information Revolution • 375 • The
Content s x i i i
x i v C o n t e n t s
Limits of Democracy • 376 • A Racial Democracy • 377 • Race and
Class • 377
NATIONALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS • 378
The American System • 378 • Banks and Money • 379 • The Panic
of 1819 • 380 • The Politics of the Panic • 380 • The Missouri
Controversy • 381 • The Slavery Question • 382
NATION, SECTION, AND PARTY • 383
The United States and the Latin American Wars of
Independence • 383
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From James Monroe’s Annual Message to
Congress (1823), and From John C. Calhoun, “A Disquisition on
Government” (ca. 1845) • 384
The Monroe Doctrine • 386 • The Election of 1824 • 387 • The
Nationalism of John Quincy Adams • 388 • “Liberty Is Power” • 389
• Martin Van Buren and the Democratic Party • 389 • The Election
of 1828 • 390
THE AGE OF JACKSON • 391
The Party System • 391 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 392 • Democrats and
Whigs • 393 • Public and Private Freedom • 394 • Politics and
Morality • 395 • South Carolina and Nullification • 395 •
Calhoun’s Political Theory • 396 • The Nullification Crisis • 397 •
Indian Removal • 398 • The Supreme Court and the Indians • 398
THE BANK WAR AND AFTER • 401
Biddle’s Bank • 401 • The Pet Banks and the Economy • 403 • The
Panic of 1837 • 403 • Van Buren in Office • 404 • The Election of
1840 • 405 • His Accidency • 406
P a r t 3 S l a v e r y, F r e e d o m , a n d t h e C r i s i s o f t h e U n i o n , 1 8 4 0 – 1 8 7 7
11. THE PECULIAR INSTITUTION • 414
THE OLD SOUTH • 417
Cotton Is King • 417 • The Second Middle Passage • 419 • Slavery
and the Nation • 419 • The Southern Economy • 420 • Plain Folk of
the Old South • 421 • The Planter Class • 422 • The Paternalist
Ethos • 423 • The Code of Honor • 423 • The Proslavery Argument
• 424 • Abolition in the Americas • 425 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 426
• Slavery and Liberty • 427 • Slavery and Civilization • 428
LIFE UNDER SLAVERY • 429
Slaves and the Law • 429 • Conditions of Slave Life • 429
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Letter by Joseph Taber to Joseph
Long (1840), and From the Rules of Highland
Plantation (1838) • 430
Free Blacks in the Old South • 432 • The Upper and Lower South •
433 • Slave Labor • 434 • Gang Labor and Task Labor • 435 •
Slavery in the Cities • 437 • Maintaining Order • 437
SLAVE CULTURE • 438
The Slave Family • 438 • The Threat of Sale • 439 • Gender Roles
among Slaves • 440 • Slave Religion • 440 • The Gospel of
Freedom • 441 • The Desire for Liberty • 442
RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY • 443
Forms of Resistance • 443 • Fugitive Slaves • 443 • The Amistad •
445 • Slave Revolts • 445 • Nat Turner’s Rebellion • 447
12. AN AGE OF REFORM, 1820–1840 • 452
THE REFORM IMPULSE • 454
Utopian Communities • 456 • The Shakers • 457 • The Mormons’ Trek
• 458 • Oneida • 458 • Worldly Communities • 459 • The Owenites
• 459 • Religion and Reform • 461 • The Temperance Movement •
461 • Critics of Reform • 462 • Reformers and Freedom • 462 • The
Invention of the Asylum • 463 • The Common School • 464
THE CRUSADE AGAINST SLAVERY • 465
Colonization • 465 • Blacks and Colonization • 466 • Militant
Abolitionism • 466 • The Emergence of Garrison • 467 • Spreading
the Abolitionist Message • 467 • Slavery and Moral Suasion • 469 •
Abolitionists and the Idea of Freedom • 469 • A New Vision of
America • 470
BLACK AND WHITE ABOLITIONISM • 471
Black Abolitionists • 471 • Abolitionism and Race • 472 • Slavery
and American Freedom • 473 • Gentlemen of Property and Standing
• 474 • Slavery and Civil Liberties • 475
THE ORIGINS OF FEMINISM • 476
The Rise of the Public Woman • 476 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 477 •
Women and Free Speech • 478 • Women’s Rights • 479
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Angelina Grimké, Letter in The Liberator
(August 2, 1837), and From Frederick Douglass, Speech on July 5,
1852, Rochester, New York • 480
Feminism and Freedom • 482 • Women and Work • 482 • The
Slavery of Sex • 484 • “Social Freedom” • 484 • The Abolitionist
Schism • 485
Content s x v
13. A HOUSE DIVIDED, 1840–1861 • 490
FRUITS OF MANIFEST DESTINY • 493
Continental Expansion • 493 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 494 • The
Mexican Frontier: New Mexico and California • 495 • The Texas
Revolt • 496 • The Election of 1844 • 498 • The Road to War • 499
• The War and Its Critics • 499 • Combat in Mexico • 500 • Race
and Manifest Destiny • 502 • Redefining Race • 503 • Gold-Rush
California • 503 • California and the Boundaries of Freedom • 504
• The Other Gold Rush • 505 • Opening Japan • 505
A DOSE OF ARSENIC • 506
The Wilmot Proviso • 507 • The Free Soil Appeal • 507 • Crisis and
Compromise • 508 • The Great Debate • 509 • The Fugitive Slave
Issue • 510 • Douglas and Popular Sovereignty • 511 • The
Kansas-Nebraska Act • 511
THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY • 513
The Northern Economy • 513 • The Rise and Fall of the Know-
Nothings • 515 • The Free Labor Ideology • 516 • Bleeding Kansas
and the Election of 1856 • 517
THE EMERGENCE OF LINCOLN • 519
The Dred Scott Decision • 519 • The Decision’s Aftermath • 520 •
Lincoln and Slavery • 520 • The Lincoln-Douglas Campaign • 521
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) • 522
John Brown at Harpers Ferry • 524 • The Rise of Southern
Nationalism • 525 • The Democratic Split • 527 • The Nomination
of Lincoln • 527 • The Election of 1860 • 528
THE IMPENDING CRISIS • 528
The Secession Movement • 528 • The Secession Crisis • 529 • And
the War Came • 531
14. A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM: THE CIVIL WAR, 1861–1865 • 536
THE FIRST MODERN WAR • 539
The Two Combatants • 540 • The Technology of War • 541 • The
Public and the War • 542 • Mobilizing Resources • 543 • Military
Strategies • 544 • The War Begins • 544 • The War in the East, 1862
• 545 • The War in the West • 546
THE COMING OF EMANCIPATION • 548
Slavery and the War • 548 • The Unraveling of Slavery • 548 •
Steps toward Emancipation • 549 • Lincoln’s Decision • 550 • The
Emancipation Proclamation • 551 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 552 •
Enlisting Black Trops • 554 • The Black Soldier • 555
x v i C o n t e n t s
THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION • 556
Liberty and Union • 556 • Lincoln’s Vision • 557 • From Union to
Nation • 558 • The War and American Religion • 558 • Liberty in
Wartime • 559
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Speech of Alexander H. Stephens, Vice
President of the Confederacy (March 21, 1861), and From
Abraham Lincoln, Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore
(April 18, 1864) • 561
The North’s Transformation • 562 • Government and the Economy •
562 • Building the Transcontinental Railroad • 563 • The War and
Native Americans • 563 • A New Financial System • 564 • Women
and the War • 565 • The Divided North • 567
THE CONFEDERATE NATION • 568
Leadership and Government • 568 • The Inner Civil War • 569 •
Economic Problems • 569 • Southern Unionists • 570 • Women and
the Confederacy • 571 • Black Soldiers for the Confederacy • 571
TURNING POINTS • 572
Gettysburg and Vicksburg • 572 • 1864 • 573
REHEARSALS FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND THE END OF THE WAR • 574
The Sea Island Experiment • 574 • Wartime Reconstruction in the
West • 575 • The Politics of Wartime Reconstruction • 576 • Victory
at Last • 576 • The War and the World • 579 • The War in
American History • 580
15. “WHAT IS FREEDOM?”: RECONSTRUCTION, 1865–1877 • 584
THE MEANING OF FREEDOM • 587
Blacks and the Meaning of Freedom • 587 • Families in Freedom •
588 • Church and School • 588 • Political Freedom • 589 • Land,
Labor, and Freedom • 590 • Masters without Slaves • 591 • The
Free Labor Vision • 592 • The Freedmen’s Bureau • 592 • The
Failure of Land Reform • 593 • Toward a New South • 594 • The
White Farmer • 595
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Petition of Committee in Behalf of the
Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865), and From a Sharecropping
Contract (1866) • 596
The Urban South • 598 • Aftermaths of Slavery • 598
THE MAKING OF RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION • 600
Andrew Johnson • 600 • The Failure of Presidential Reconstruction
• 600 • The Black Codes • 601 • The Radical Republicans • 602 •
The Origins of Civil Rights • 602 • The Fourteenth Amendment • 603
• The Reconstruction Act • 604 • Impeachment and the Election of
Grant • 605 • The Fifteenth Amendment • 605 • The “Great
Content s x v i i
Constitutional Revolution” • 606 • Boundaries of Freedom • 607 •
The Rights of Women • 608 • Feminists and Radicals • 609
RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH • 610
“The Tocsin of Freedom” • 610 • The Black Officeholder • 611 •
VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 613 • Carpetbaggers and Scalawags • 614 •
Southern Republicans in Power • 614 • The Quest for Prosperity • 615
THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION • 616
Reconstruction’s Opponents • 616 • “A Reign of Terror” • 617 • The
Liberal Republicans • 618 • The North’s Retreat • 619 • The
Triumph of the Redeemers • 620 • The Disputed Election and
Bargain of 1877 • 621 • The End of Reconstruction • 622
P a r t 4 T o w a r d a G l o b a l P r e s e n c e , 1 8 7 0 – 1 9 2 0
16. AMERICA’S GILDED AGE, 1870–1890 • 630
THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION • 633
The Industrial Economy • 634 • Railroads and the National Market
• 635 • The Spirit of Innovation • 636 • Competition and
Consolidation • 638 • The Rise of Andrew Carnegie • 638 • The
Triumph of John D. Rockefeller • 639 • Workers’ Freedom in an
Industrial Age • 641 • Sunshine and Shadow: Increasing Wealth
and Poverty • 642
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WEST • 643
A Diverse Region • 644 • Farming on the Middle Border • 645 •
Bonanza Farms • 646 • Large-Scale Agriculture in California • 647
• The Cowboy and the Corporate West • 647 • The Subjugation of
the Plains Indians • 648 • “Let Me Be a Free Man” • 649
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé Indians,
Speech in Washington, D.C. (1879), and From “A Second
Declaration of Independence” (1879) • 650
Remaking Indian Life • 653 • The Dawes Act • 654 • Indian
Citizenship • 655 • The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee • 655 •
Settler Societies and Global Wests • 655
POLITICS IN A GILDED AGE • 656
The Corruption of Politics • 656 • The Politics of Dead Center • 658
• Government and the Economy • 659 • Reform Legislation • 659 •
Political Conflict in the States • 660
FREEDOM IN THE GILDED AGE • 661
The Social Problem • 661 • Freedom, Inequality, and Democracy • 661
• Social Darwinism in America • 662 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 663 •
Liberty of Contract • 664 • The Courts and Freedom • 664
x v i i i C o n t e n t s
LABOR AND THE REPUBLIC • 666
“The Overwhelming Labor Question” • 666 • The Knights of Labor
and the “Conditions Essential to Liberty” • 666 • Middle-Class
Reformers • 667 • Progress and Poverty • 668 • The Cooperative
Commonwealth • 669 • Bellamy’s Utopia • 669 • A Social Gospel
• 670 • The Haymarket Affair • 670 • Labor and Politics • 671
17. FREEDOM’S BOUNDARIES, AT HOME AND ABROAD, 1890–1900 • 676
THE POPULIST CHALLENGE • 679
The Farmers’ Revolt • 679 • The People’s Party • 680 • The Populist
Platform • 681 • The Populist Coalition • 682 • The Government
and Labor • 684 • Debs and the Pullman Strike • 685 • Population
and Labor • 685 • Bryan and Free Silver • 686 • The Campaign of
1896 • 687
THE SEGREGATED SOUTH • 688
The Redeemers in Power • 688 • The Failure of the New South Dream
• 689 • Black Life in the South • 689 • The Kansas Exodus • 690 •
The Decline of Black Politics • 691 • The Elimination of Black Voting
• 692 • The Law of Segregation • 693 • Segregation and White
Domination • 694 • The Rise of Lynching • 695 • The Politics of
Memory • 696
REDRAWING THE BOUNDARIES • 697
The New Immigration and the New Nativism • 698 • Chinese Exclusion
and Chinese Rights • 698 • The Emergence of Booker T. Washington •
700 • The Rise of the AFL • 701 • The Women’s Era • 701
BECOMING A WORLD POWER • 703
The New Imperialism • 703 • American Expansionism • 704 • The
Lure of Empire • 704 • The “Splendid Little War” • 705 • Roosevelt
at San Juan Hill • 706 • An American Empire • 707 • VISIONS OF
FREEDOM • 709 • The Philippine War • 710
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Interview with President McKinley
(1899), and From “Aguinaldo’s Case against the United States”
(1899) • 712
Citizens or Subjects? • 714 • Drawing the Global Color Line • 715 •
“Republic or Empire?” • 717
18. THE PROGRESSIVE ERA, 1900–1916 • 722
AN URBAN AGE AND A CONSUMER SOCIETY • 726
Farms and Cities • 726 • The Muckrakers • 728 • Immigration as a
Global Process • 728 • The Immigrant Quest for Freedom • 731 •
Consumer Freedom • 732 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 733 • The Working
Woman • 734 • The Rise of Fordism • 735 • The Promise of
Abundance • 736 • An American Standard of Living • 737
Content s x i x
VARIETIES OF PROGRESSIVISM • 738
Industrial Freedom • 738 • The Socialist Presence • 739
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and
Economics (1898), and From John Mitchell, “The Workingman’s
Conception of Industrial Liberty” (1910) • 741
The Gospel of Debs • 742 • AFL and IWW • 743 • The New
Immigrants on Strike • 743 • Labor and Civil Liberties • 745 •
The New Feminism • 746 • The Rise of Personal Freedom • 747 •
The Birth-Control Movement • 747 • Native-American
Progressivism • 748
THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVISM • 749
Effective Freedom • 749 • State and Local Reforms • 749 •
Progressive Democracy • 750 • Government by Expert • 751 • Jane
Addams and Hull House • 752 • “Spearheads for Reform” • 752 •
The Campaign for Women’s Suffrage • 753 • Maternalist Reform •
754 • The Idea of Economic Citizenship • 756
THE PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTS • 756
Theodore Roosevelt • 757 • Roosevelt and Economic Regulation •
757 • The Conservation Movement • 758 • Taft in Office • 759 •
The Election of 1912 • 760 • New Freedom and New Nationalism •
760 • Wilson’s First Term • 761 • The Expanding Role of
Government • 762
19. SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY: THE UNITED STATES AND WORLD WAR I, 1916–1920 • 766
AN ERA OF INTERVENTION • 770
“I Took the Canal Zone” • 771 • The Roosevelt Corollary • 772 •
Moral Imperialism • 773 • Wilson and Mexico • 774
AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR • 775
Neutrality and Preparedness • 776 • The Road to War • 777 • The
Fourteen Points • 778
THE WAR AT HOME • 779
The Progressives’ War • 779 • The Wartime State • 780 • The
Propaganda War • 781 • “The Great Cause of Freedom” • 782 •
The Coming of Woman Suffrage • 783 • Prohibition • 784 •
Liberty in Wartime • 785 • The Espionage Act • 786 • Coercive
Patriotism • 787
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Eugene V. Debs, Speech to the Jury before
Sentencing under the Espionage Act (1918), and From W. E. B.
Du Bois, “Returning Soldiers,” The Crisis (1919) • 788
WHO IS AN AMERICAN? • 790
The “Race Problem” • 790 • Americanization and Pluralism • 790 •
VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 791 • The Anti-German Crusade • 793 •
Toward Immigration Restriction • 794 • Groups Apart: Mexicans,
x x C o n t e n t s
Puerto Ricans, and Asian-Americans • 794 • The Color Line • 795 •
Roosevelt, Wilson, and Race • 796 • W. E. B. Du Bois and the Revival
of Black Protest • 796 • Closing Ranks • 798 • The Great Migration
and the “Promised Land” • 798 • Racial Violence, North and South •
799 • The Rise of Garveyism • 799
1919 • 800
A Worldwide Upsurge • 800 • Upheaval in America • 801 • The
Great Steel Strike • 802 • The Red Scare • 802 • Wilson at
Versailles • 803 • The Wilsonian Moment • 805 • The Seeds of
Wars to Come • 807 • The Treaty Debate • 807
P a r t 5 D e p r e s s i o n a n d W a r s , 1 9 2 0 – 1 9 5 3
20. FROM BUSINESS CULTURE TO GREAT DEPRESSION: THE TWENTIES, 1920–1932 • 816
THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA • 820
A Decade of Prosperity • 820 • A New Society • 821 • The Limit of
Prosperity • 822 • The Farmers’ Plight • 823 • The Image of
Business • 824 • The Decline of Labor • 825 • The Equal Rights
Amendment • 825 • Women’s Freedom • 826
BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT • 828
The Retreat from Progressivism • 828 • The Republican Era • 828 •
Corruption in Government • 829
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From André Siegfried, “The Gulf Between,”
Atlantic Monthly (March 1928), and From Majority Opinion,
Justice James C. McReynolds, in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) • 830
The Election of 1924 • 832 • Economic Diplomacy • 833
THE BIRTH OF CIVIL LIBERTIES • 833
The “Free Mob” • 834 • A “Clear and Present Danger” • 835 • The
Court and Civil Liberties • 835
THE CULTURE WARS • 836
The Fundamentalist Revolt • 836 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 837 • The
Scopes Trial • 839 • The Second Klan • 840 • Closing the Golden
Door • 841 • Race and the Law • 842 • Pluralism and Liberty •
844 • Promoting Tolerance • 844 • The Emergence of Harlem • 845
• The Harlem Renaissance • 846
THE GREAT DEPRESSION • 847
The Election of 1928 • 847 • The Coming of the Depression • 849 •
Americans and the Depression • 850 • Resignation and Protest •
851 • Hoover’s Response • 852 • The Worsening Economic Outlook
• 853 • Freedom in the Modern World • 854
Content s x x i
21. THE NEW DEAL, 1932–1940 • 858
THE FIRST NEW DEAL • 861
FDR and the Election of 1932 • 861 • The Coming of the New Deal •
863 • The Banking Crisis • 864 • The NRA • 865 • Government
Jobs • 866 • Public-Works Projects • 866 • The New Deal and
Agriculture • 867 • The New Deal and Housing • 869 • The Court
and the New Deal • 870
THE GRASSROOTS REVOLT • 871
Labor’s Great Upheaval • 871 • The Rise of the CIO • 872 • Labor
and Politics • 874 • Voices of Protest • 874
THE SECOND NEW DEAL • 875
The WPA and the Wagner Act • 876 • The American Welfare State •
877 • The Social Security System • 878
A RECKONING WITH LIBERTY • 878
FDR and the Idea of Freedom • 879
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat”
(1934), and From John Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies: On the
Road to the Grapes of Wrath (1938) • 880
The Election of 1936 • 882 • The Court Fight • 883 • The End of the
Second New Deal • 884
THE LIMITS OF CHANGE • 884
The New Deal and American Women • 885 • The Southern Veto •
886 • The Stigma of Welfare • 886 • The Indian New Deal • 887 •
The New Deal and Mexican-Americans • 887 • Last Hired, First Fired
• 888 • A New Deal for Blacks • 888 • Federal Discrimination • 889
A NEW CONCEPTION OF AMERICA • 890
The Heyday of American Communism • 890 • Redefining the People • 891
• Promoting Diversity • 892 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 893 • Challenging the
Color Line • 894 • Labor and Civil Liberties • 896 • The End of the New
Deal • 897 • The New Deal in American History • 897
22. FIGHTING FOR THE FOUR FREEDOMS: WORLD WAR II , 1941–1945 • 902
FIGHTING WORLD WAR II • 906
Good Neighbors • 906 • The Road to War • 907 • Isolationism • 908
• War in Europe • 908 • Toward Intervention • 909 • Pearl Harbor •
910 • The War in the Pacific • 911 • The War in Europe • 913
THE HOME FRONT • 915
Mobilizing for War • 915 • Business and the War • 916 • Labor in
Wartime • 917 • Fighting for the Four Freedoms • 918 • Freedom
from Want • 918 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 919 • The Office of War
Information • 920 • The Fifth Freedom • 920 • Women at
War • 921 • Women at Work • 922
x x i i C o n t e n t s
VISIONS OF POSTWAR FREEDOM • 923
Toward an American Century • 923 • “The Way of Life of Free
Men” • 924 • An Economic Bill of Rights • 924 • The Road to
Serfdom • 925
THE AMERICAN DILEMMA • 926
Patriotic Assimilation • 926 • The Bracero Program • 928 •
Mexican-American Rights • 928 • Indians during the War • 929 •
Asian-Americans in Wartime • 929 • Japanese-American
Internment • 930 • Blacks and the War • 932 • Blacks and
Military Service • 932 • Birth of the Civil Rights Movement • 933
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Henry R. Luce, The American Century
(1941), and From Charles H. Wesley, “The Negro Has always
Wanted the Four Freedoms,” in What the Negro Wants
(1944) • 934
The Double-V • 936 • What the Negro Wants • 936 • An American
Dilemma • 938 • Black Internationalism • 939
THE END OF THE WAR • 940
“The Most Terrible Weapon” • 940 • The Dawn of the Atomic Age •
941 • The Nature of the War • 941 • Planning the Postwar World •
942 • Yalta and Bretton Woods • 942 • The United Nations • 943 •
Peace, but Not Harmony • 944
23. THE UNITED STATES AND THE COLD WAR, 1945–1953 • 948
ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR • 951
The Two Powers • 951 • The Roots of Containment • 952 • The Iron
Curtain • 953 • The Truman Doctrine • 953 • The Marshall Plan •
954 • The Reconstruction of Japan • 955 • The Berlin Blockade and
NATO • 955 • The Growing Communist Challenge • 956 • The
Korean War • 958 • Cold War Critics • 960 • Imperialism and
Decolonization • 961
THE COLD WAR AND THE IDEA OF FREEDOM • 961
The Cultural Cold War • 962 • Freedom and Totalitarianism • 963 •
The Rise of Human Rights • 964 • Ambiguities of Human Rights •
964 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 965
THE TRUMAN PRESIDENCY • 966
The Fair Deal • 966 • The Postwar Strike Wave • 967 • The
Republican Resurgence • 967 • Postwar Civil Rights • 968 • To
Secure These Rights • 969 • The Dixiecrat and Wallace Revolts •
970 • The 1948 Campaign • 970
THE ANTICOMMUNIST CRUSADE • 971
Loyalty and Disloyalty • 972 • The Spy Trials • 973 • McCarthy
and McCarthyism • 974 • An Atmosphere of Fear • 975 • The Uses
of Anticommunism • 976 • Anticommunist Politics • 976 • The Cold
Content s x x i i i
War and Organized Labor • 977 • Cold War Civil Rights • 977
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From National Security Council, NSC-68 (1950),
and From Henry Steele Commager, “Who Is Loyal to America?”
Harper’s (September 1947) • 978
P a r t 6 W h a t K i n d o f N a t i o n ? 1 9 5 3 – 2 0 1 0
24. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY, 1953–1960 • 988
THE GOLDEN AGE • 991
A Changing Economy • 992 • A Suburban Nation • 993 • The Growth
of the West • 993 • A Consumer Culture • 994 • The TV World • 995
• A New Ford • 996 • Women at Work and at Home • 997 • A
Segregated Landscape • 999 • Public Housing and Urban Renewal •
1000 • The Divided Society • 1001 • The End of Ideology • 1002 •
Selling Free Enterprise • 1003 • People’s Capitalism • 1003 • The
Libertarian Conservatives • 1004 • The New Conservatism • 1005
THE EISENHOWER ERA • 1006
Ike and Nixon • 1006 • The 1952 Campaign • 1006 • Modern
Republicans • 1007 • The Social Contract • 1008 • Massive
Retaliation • 1009 • Ike and the Russians • 1009 • The Emergence
of the Third World • 1011 • The Cold War in the Third World • 1012
• Origins of the Vietnam War • 1013 • Mass Society and Its Critics •
1014 • Rebels without a Cause • 1015 • The Beats • 1015
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From The Southern Manifesto (1956), and From
Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at Montgomery, Alabama
(December 5, 1955) • 1016
THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT • 1018
Origins of the Movement • 1019 • The Legal Assault on Segregation
• 1019 • The Brown Case • 1020 • The Montgomery Bus Boycott •
1021 • The Daybreak of Freedom • 1022 • The Leadership of King
• 1023 • Massive Resistance • 1024 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 1025 •
Eisenhower and Civil Rights • 1026 • The World Views the United
States • 1027
THE ELECTION OF 1960 • 1027
Kennedy and Nixon • 1027 • The End of the 1950s • 1029
25. THE SIXTIES, 1960–1968 • 1034
THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT • 1037
The Rising Tide of Protest • 1037 • Birmingham • 1038 • The
March on Washington • 1039
x x i v C o n t e n t s
THE KENNEDY YEARS • 1040
Kennedy and the World • 1041 • The Missile Crisis • 1041 •
Kennedy and Civil Rights • 1042
LYNDON JOHNSON’S PRESIDENCY • 1043
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 • 1043 • Freedom Summer • 1044 • The
1964 Election • 1045 • The Conservative Sixties • 1046 • The Voting
Rights Act • 1047 • Immigration Reform • 1047 • The Great Society
• 1048 • The War on Poverty • 1048 • Freedom and Equality • 1049
THE CHANGING BLACK MOVEMENT • 1050
The Ghetto Uprisings • 1051 • Malcolm X • 1052 • The Rise of
Black Power • 1052
VIETNAM AND THE NEW LEFT • 1053
Old and New Lefts • 1053 • The Fading Consensus • 1054 • The
Rise of the SDS • 1055 • America and Vietnam • 1056 • Lyndon
Johnson’s War • 1057
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Young Americans for Freedom, The Sharon
Statement (September 1960), and From Tom Hayden and Others,
The Port Huron Statement (June 1962) • 1059
The Antiwar Movement • 1061 • The Counterculture • 1062 • VISIONS OF
FREEDOM • 1063 • Personal Liberation and the Free Individual • 1064
THE NEW MOVEMENTS AND THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION • 1065
The Feminine Mystique • 1065 • Women’s Liberation • 1066 •
Personal Freedom • 1067 • Gay Liberation • 1068 • Latino
Activism • 1068 • Red Power • 1069 • Silent Spring • 1069 • The
New Environmentalism • 1070 • The Rights Revolution • 1071 •
Policing the States • 1072 • The Right to Privacy • 1072
1968 • 1073
A Year of Turmoil • 1073 • The Global 1968 • 1074 • Nixon’s
Comeback • 1075 • The Legacy of the Sixties • 1076
26. THE TRIUMPH OF CONSERVATISM, 1969–1988 • 1080
PRESIDENT NIXON • 1082
Nixon’s Domestic Policies • 1083 • Nixon and Welfare • 1084 •
Nixon and Race • 1085 • The Burger Court • 1085 • The Court and
Affirmative Action • 1086 • The Continuing Sexual Revolution •
1087 • Nixon and Détente • 1088
VIETNAM AND WATERGATE • 1089
Nixon and Vietnam • 1089 • The End of the Vietnam War • 1091 •
Watergate • 1092 • Nixon’s Fall • 1092
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE • 1093
The Decline of Manufacturing • 1093 • Stagflation • 1094 • The
Beleaguered Social Compact • 1095 • Labor on the Defensive • 1096
• Ford as President • 1096 • The Carter Administration • 1097 •
Content s x x v
Carter and the Economic Crisis • 1097 • The Emergence of Human
Rights Politics • 1098 • The Iran Crisis and Afghanistan • 1100
THE RISING TIDE OF CONSERVATISM • 1101
The Religious Right • 1102 • The Battle over the Equal Rights
Amendment • 1102 • The Abortion Controversy • 1103 • The Tax
Revolt • 1104 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 1105 • The Election of 1980 • 1106
THE REAGAN REVOLUTION • 1107
Reagan and American Freedom • 1107
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Redstockings Manifesto (1969), and From
Jerry Falwell, Listen, America! (1980) • 1108
Reaganomics • 1110 • Reagan and Labor • 1111 • The Problem of
Inequality • 1111 • The Second Gilded Age • 1112 • Conservatives
and Reagan • 1113 • Reagan and the Cold War • 1114 • The Iran-
Contra Affair • 1115 • Reagan and Gorbachev • 1116 • Reagan’s
Legacy • 1117 • The Election of 1988 • 1117
27. GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS, 1989–2000 • 1122
THE POST–COLD WAR WORLD • 1126
The Crisis of Communism • 1126 • A New World Order? • 1127 •
The Gulf War • 1128 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 1129 • Visions of
America’s Role • 1130 • The Election of Clinton • 1130 • Clinton in
Office • 1131 • The “Freedom Revolution” • 1132 • Clinton’s
Political Strategy • 1133 • Clinton and World Affairs • 1134 • The
Balkan Crisis • 1134 • Human Rights • 1135
A NEW ECONOMY? • 1136
The Computer Revolution • 1137 • Global Economic Problems • 1138
• The Stock Market Boom and Bust • 1138 • The Enron Syndrome •
1139 • Fruits of Deregulation • 1140 • Rising Inequality • 1141
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From Bill Clinton, Speech on Signing of NAFTA
(1993), and From Global Exchange, Seattle, Declaration for
Global Democracy (December 1999) • 1142
CULTURE WARS • 1145
The Newest Immigrants • 1145 • The New Diversity • 1147 •
African-Americans in the 1990s • 1150 • The Role of the Courts •
1151 • The Spread of Imprisonment • 1152 • The Burden of
Imprisonment • 1152 • The Continuing Rights Revolution • 1154 •
Native Americans in 2000 • 1154 • Multiculturalism • 1155 • The
Identity Debate • 1155 • Cultural Conservatism • 1156 • “Family
Values” in Retreat • 1157 • The Antigovernment Extreme • 1158
IMPEACHMENT AND THE ELECTION OF 2000 • 1159
The Impeachment of Clinton • 1159 • The Disputed Election • 1160
• The 2000 Result • 1161 • A Challenged Democracy • 1161
x x v i C o n t e n t s
FREEDOM AND THE NEW CENTURY • 1162
Exceptional America • 1162 • Varieties of Freedom • 1164
28. SEPTEMBER 11 AND THE NEXT AMERICAN CENTURY • 1168
THE WAR ON TERRORISM • 1172
Bush before September 11 • 1172 • Bush and the World • 1173 •
“They Hate Freedom” • 1174 • The Bush Doctrine • 1175 • The “Axis
of Evil” • 1176 • The National Security Strategy • 1176
AN AMERICAN EMPIRE? • 1177
VOICES OF FREEDOM: From The National Security Strategy of the
United States (September 2002), and From Barack Obama, Speech
to the Islamic World (2009) • 1178
Confronting Iraq • 1180 • The Iraq War • 1180 • Another Vietnam?
• 1181 • The World and the War • 1183
THE AFTERMATH OF SEPTEMBER 11 AT HOME • 1184
Security and Liberty • 1184 • The Power of the President • 1185 •
The Torture Controversy • 1186 • VISIONS OF FREEDOM • 1187 • The
Economy under Bush • 1188 • The “Jobless” Recovery • 1188
THE WINDS OF CHANGE • 1189
The 2004 Election • 1189 • Bush’s Second Term • 1191 • Hurricane
Katrina • 1191 • The New Orleans Disaster • 1192 • The
Immigration Debate • 1194 • The Immigrant Rights Movement •
1195 • The Constitution and Liberty • 1195 • The Court and the
President • 1196 • The Midterm Elections of 2006 • 1198 • The
Housing Bubble • 1198 • The Great Recession • 1200 • “A
Conspiracy against the Public” • 1201 • The Collapse of Market
Fundamentalism • 1202 • Bush and the Crisis • 1202
THE RISE OF OBAMA • 1203
The 2008 Campaign • 1204 • The Age of Obama? • 1205 •
Obama’s Inauguration • 1205 • Obama’s First Months • 1206
LEARNING FROM HISTORY • 1207
Content s x x v i i
A p p e n d i x
DOCUMENTS
The Declaration of Independence (1776) • A-2
The Constitution of the United States (1787) • A-4
From George Washington’s Farewell Address (1796) • A-13
The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (1848) • A-17
From Frederick Douglass’s “What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?”
Speech (1852) • A-19
The Gettysburg Address (1863) • A-22
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865) • A-23
The Populist Platform of 1892 • A-24
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address (1933) • A-27
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech (1963) • A-29
Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address (1981) • A-31
Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address (2009) • A-34
TABLES AND FIGURES
Presidential Elections • A-37
Admission of States • A-45
Population of the United States • A-46
Historical Statistics of the United States:
Labor Force—Selected Characteristics Expressed as a Percentage
of the Labor Force: 1800–2000 • A-47
Immigration, by Origin • A-47
Unemployment Rate, 1880–2010 • A-48
Union Membership as a Percentage of Nonagricultural
Employment: 1800–2009 • A-48
Voter Participation in Presidential Elections: 1824–2008 • A-48
Birthrate, 1820–2009 • A-48
G LO S S A R Y • A - 4 9
C R E D I T S • A - 6 8
I N D E X • A - 7 4
x x v i i i C o n t e n t s
MAPS
CHAPTER 1
The First Americans • 9
Native Ways of Life, ca. 1500 • 13
The Old World on the Eve of American Colonization,
ca. 1500 • 21
Voyages of Discovery • 25
Spanish Conquests and Explorations in the New
World, 1500–1600 • 36
The New World—New France and New Netherland,
ca. 1650 • 42
CHAPTER 2
English Settlement in the Chesapeake, ca. 1650 • 63
English Settlement in New England, ca. 1640 • 77
CHAPTER 3
Eastern North America in the Seventeenth and Early
Eighteenth Centuries • 96
European Settlement and Ethnic Diversity on the
Atlantic Coast of North America, 1760 • 115
CHAPTER 4
Atlantic Trading Routes • 139
The Slave Trade in the Atlantic World,
1460–1770 • 140
European Empires in North America, ca. 1750 • 164
Eastern North America after the Peace of
Paris, 1763 • 171
CHAPTER 5
The Revolutionary War in the North, 1775–1781 • 209
The Revolutionary War in the South, 1775–1781 • 211
North America, 1783 • 213
CHAPTER 6
Loyalism in the American Revolution • 235
CHAPTER 7
Western Lands, 1782–1802 • 260
Western Ordinances, 1785–1787 • 263
Ratification of the Constitution • 281
Indian Tribes, 1790 • 284
CHAPTER 8
The Presidential Election of 1800 • 310
The Louisiana Purchase • 314
The War of 1812 • 322
CHAPTER 9
The Market Revolution: Roads and Canals, 1840 • 335
The Market Revolution: Western Settlement,
1800–1820 • 338
Travel Times from New York City in 1800
and 1830 • 339
The Market Revolution: The Spread of Cotton
Cultivation, 1820–1840 • 341
Major Cities, 1840 • 344
Cotton Mills, 1820s • 346
CHAPTER 10
The Missouri Compromise, 1820 • 382
The Americas, 1830 • 387
The Presidential Election of 1824 • 388
The Presidential Election of 1828 • 391
Indian Removals, 1830–1840 • 399
The Presidential Election of 1840 • 406
CHAPTER 11
Slave Population, 1860 • 418
Size of Slaveholdings, 1860 • 424
Distribution of Free Blacks, 1860 • 435
Major Crops of the South, 1860 • 436
Slave Resistance in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic
World • 444
L I ST O F MA P S , TA B L E S , A N D F I G U R E S
CHAPTER 12
Utopian Communities, Mid-Nineteenth
Century • 456
CHAPTER 13
The Trans-Mississippi West, 1830s–1840s • 496
The Mexican War, 1846–1848 • 501
Gold-Rush California • 503
Continental Expansion through 1853 • 506
The Compromise of 1850 • 509
The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854 • 512
The Railroad Network, 1850s • 514
The Presidential Election of 1856 • 519
The Presidential Election of 1860 • 528
CHAPTER 14
The Secession of Southern States, 1860–1861 • 539
The Civil War in the East, 1861–1862 • 545
The Civil War in the West, 1861–1862 • 547
The Emancipation Proclamation • 553
The Civil War, 1863 • 574
The Civil War, Late 1864–1865 • 577
CHAPTER 15
The Barrow Plantation • 589
Sharecropping in the South, 1880 • 594
The Presidential Election of 1868 • 605
Reconstruction in the South, 1867–1877 • 621
The Presidential Election of 1876 • 621
CHAPTER 16
The Railroad Network, 1880 • 636
U.S. Steel: A Vertically Integrated Corporation • 640
Indian Reservations, ca. 1890 • 653
Political Stalemate, 1876–1892 • 658
CHAPTER 17
Populist Strength, 1892 • 683
The Presidential Election of 1892 • 684
The Presidential Election of 1896 • 687
The Spanish-American War: The Pacific • 708
The Spanish-American War: The Caribbean • 708
American Empire, 1898 • 711
CHAPTER 18
The World on the Move, World Migration
1815–1914 • 729
Socialist Towns and Cities, 1900–1920 • 742
The Presidential Election of 1912 • 761
CHAPTER 19
The United States in the Caribbean,
1898–1934 • 771
The Panama Canal Zone • 772
Colonial Possessions, 1900 • 774
World War I: The Western Front • 779
Prohibition, 1915: Counties and States That
Banned Liquor before the Eighteenth
Amendment (Ratified 1919,
Repealed 1933) • 784
Europe in 1914 • 804
Europe in 1919 • 805
CHAPTER 20
The Presidential Election of 1928 • 848
CHAPTER 21
Columbia River Basin Project, 1949 • 862
The Presidential Election of 1932 • 863
The Dust Bowl, 1935–1940 • 868
CHAPTER 22
World War II in the Pacific, 1941–1945 • 912
World War II in Europe, 1942–1945 • 914
Wartime Army and Navy Bases and Airfields • 917
Japanese-American Internment, 1942–1945 • 931
CHAPTER 23
Cold War Europe, 1956 • 957
The Korean War, 1950–1953 • 959
The Presidential Election of 1948 • 971
CHAPTER 24
The Interstate Highway System • 997
The Presidential Election of 1952 • 1007
The Presidential Election of 1960 • 1028
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CHAPTER 25
The Presidential Election of 1964 • 1045
The Vietnam War, 1964–1975 • 1060
The Presidential Election of 1968 • 1075
CHAPTER 26
Center of Population, 1790–2000 • 1083
The Presidential Election of 1976 • 1097
The Presidential Election of 1980 • 1106
The United States in the Caribbean and Central
America, 1954–2004 • 1116
CHAPTER 27
Eastern Europe after the Cold War • 1128
The Presidential Election of 1992 • 1131
Maps of Diversity, 2000 • 1146
The Presidential Election of 2000 • 1161
CHAPTER 28
U.S. Presence in the Middle East,
1947–2010 • 1182
Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip • 1183
The Presidential Election of 2004 • 1190
The Presidential Election of 2008 • 1204
TABLES AND F IGURES
CHAPTER 1
Table 1.1 Estimated Regional Populations:
The Americas, ca. 1500 • 35
Table 1.2 Estimated Regional Populations:
The World, ca. 1500 • 35
CHAPTER 3
Table 3.1 Origins and Status of Migrants to British
North American Colonies, 1700–1775 • 114
CHAPTER 4
Table 4.1 Slave Population as Percentage of
Total Population of Original Thirteen Colonies,
1770 • 147
CHAPTER 7
Table 7.1 Total Population and Black Population of
the United States, 1790 • 286
CHAPTER 9
Table 9.1 Population Growth of Selected Western
States, 1800–1850 • 339
Table 9.2 Total Number of Immigrants by Five-Year
Period • 348
Figure 9.1 Sources of Immigration, 1850 • 350
CHAPTER 11
Table 11.1 Growth of the Slave Population • 417
Table 11.2 Slaveholding, 1850 • 423
Table 11.3 Free Black Population, 1860 • 433
CHAPTER 14
Figure 14.1 Resources for War: Union versus
Confederacy • 543
CHAPTER 16
Table 16.1 Indicators of Economic Change,
1870–1920 • 635
Figure 16.1 Railroad Mileage Built, 1830–1975 • 635
CHAPTER 17
Table 17.1 States with Over 200 Lynchings,
1889–1918 • 696
CHAPTER 18
Table 18.1 Rise of the City, 1880–1920 • 726
Table 18.2 Immigrants and Their Children as
Percentage of Population, Ten Major Cities,
1920 • 731
Table 18.3 Percentage of Women 14 Years and Older
in the Labor Force • 734
Table 18.4 Percentage of Women Workers in Various
Occupations • 735
Table 18.5 Sales of Passenger Cars • 736
CHAPTER 19
Table 19.1 The Great Migration • 799
Li s t o f Maps , Tab l e s , and F igures x x x i
CHAPTER 20
Figure 20.1 Household Appliances, 1900–1930 • 822
Figure 20.2 The Stock Market, 1919–1939 • 825
Table 20.1 Selected Annual Immigration Quotas
under the 1924 Immigration Act • 843
CHAPTER 21
Figure 21.1 The Building Boom and Its Collapse,
1919–1939 • 870
Figure 21.2 Unemployment, 1925–1945 • 884
CHAPTER 22
Table 22.1 Labor Union Membership • 918
CHAPTER 24
Figure 24.1 Real Gross Domestic Product per Capita,
1790–2000 • 992
Figure 24.2 Average Daily Television Viewing • 996
Figure 24.3 The Baby Boom and Its Decline • 998
CHAPTER 25
Figure 25.1 Percentage of Population below Poverty
Level, by Race, 1959–1969 • 1049
CHAPTER 26
Table 26.1 Rate of Divorce: Divorces of Existing
Marriages per 1,000 New Marriages,
1950–1980 • 1087
Figure 26.1 Median Age of First Marriage,
1947–1981 • 1088
Table 26.2 The Misery Index, 1970–1980 • 1095
Figure 26.2 Real Average Weekly Wages,
1955–1990 • 1096
Figure 26.3 Changes in Families’ Real Income,
1980–1990 • 1113
CHAPTER 27
Figure 27.1 U.S. Income Inequality, 1913–2003 • 1141
Table 27.1 Immigration to the United States,
1960–2000 • 1145
Figure 27.2 Birthplace of Immigrants,
1990–2000 • 1148
Figure 27.3 The Projected Non-White Majority: Racial
and Ethnic Breakdown • 1150
Figure 27.4 Unemployment Rate by Sex and Race,
1954–2000 • 1150
Table 27.2 Home Ownership Rates by Group,
1970–2000 • 1151
Figure 27.5 Institutional Inmates as a Percentage
of the Population by Sex and Race,
1850–1990 • 1152
Figure 27.6 Women in the Paid Workforce,
1940–2000 • 1157
Figure 27.7 Changes in Family Structure,
1970–2000 • 1158
CHAPTER 28
Figure 28.1 Portrait of a Recession • 1200
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ERIC FONER is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. In his teaching and scholar- ship, he focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth- century America. Professor Foner’s publications include Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War; Tom Paine and Revolutionary America; Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy; Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877; The Story of American Freedom; and Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. His history of Reconstruction won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Parkman Prize. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association. In 2006 he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching from Columbia University. His most recent book is The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Pre face � Give Me Liberty! An American History is a survey of American his- tory from the earliest days of European exploration and conquest of the New World to the first years of the twenty-first century. It offers students a clear, concise narrative whose central theme is the changing contours of American freedom.
I am extremely gratified by the response to the first two editions of Give Me Liberty!, which have been used in survey courses at many hundreds of two- and four-year colleges and universities throughout the country. The comments I have received from instructors and stu- dents encourage me to think that Give Me Liberty! has worked well in their classrooms. Their comments have also included many valuable suggestions for revisions, which I greatly appreciate. These have ranged from corrections of typographical and factual errors to thoughts about subjects that needed more extensive treatment. In making revisions for this Third Edition, I have tried to take these sug- gestions into account. I have also incorporated the findings and insights of new scholarship that has appeared since the original edi- tion was written.
The most significant changes in this Third Edition reflect my desire to place American history more fully in a global context. The book remains, of course, a survey of American, not world, history. But in the past few years, scholars writing about the American past have sought to delineate the connections and influences of the United States on the rest of the world as well as the global developments that have helped to shape the course of events here at home. They have also devoted greater attention to transnational processes—the expansion of empires, international labor migrations, the rise and fall of slavery, the globalization of economic enterprise—that cannot be understood solely within the confines of one country’s national boundaries. Without in any way seeking to homogenize the history of individual nations or neglect the domestic forces that have shaped American development, the Third Edition reflects this recent emphasis in American historical writing. Small changes relating to this theme may be found throughout the book. The major additions seeking to illuminate the global context of American history are as follows:
Chapter 4 includes a brief discussion of how the Great Awakening in the American colonies took place at a time of growing religious
fundamentalism in many parts of the world. Chapter 5 now devotes attention to the global impact of the American Declaration of Independence, including how both colonial peoples seeking national independence and groups who felt themselves deprived of equal rights seized upon the Declaration’s language to promote their own causes. Chapter 8 discusses how the slave revolution in Saint Domingue, which established the black republic of Haiti, affected the thinking of both black and white Americans in the early 1800s. The chapter also contains a new section on the Barbary Wars, the first armed encounter between the United States and Islamic states.
In Chapter 10, I have added a new section discussing the response in the United States to the Latin American wars of independence of the early nine- teenth century, and the similarities and differences between these struggles and our own War of Independence. Chapter 11 contains a new section dis- cussing the abolition of slavery elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere and how the aftermath of emancipation in other areas affected the debate over slavery in the United States. Chapter 13 compares the California gold rush with the consequences of the discovery of gold in Australia at the same time, and also adds a discussion of the “opening” of Japan to American commerce in the 1850s. And in Chapter 14, I added to the discussion of the Civil War a compar- ison of its destructiveness with that of other conflicts of the era, and also an examination of how the consolidation of national power in the United States reflected a worldwide process underway at the same time in other countries. In that chapter, too, reflecting the findings of recent scholarship, there are new discussions of the war’s impact on American religion and on Native Americans. Chapter 15, dealing with the era of Reconstruction, now compares the aftermath of slavery in the United States with the outcome in other places where the institution was abolished.
In Chapter 16, a new section places the westward movement in the United States in the context of the settlement of frontier regions of other countries, ranging from Argentina to Australia and South Africa, and discusses the conse- quences for native populations in these societies. Chapter 17 expands on the acquisition by the United States of an overseas empire as a result of the Spanish-American War, and includes a new section on the Global Color Line— the worldwide development of national policies intended to guarantee white supremacy. I have strengthened, in Chapter 19, the discussion of the aftermath of World War I by examining the impact around the world of President Woodrow Wilson’s rhetoric concerning national self-determination, and the disappointment felt when the principle was not applied to the Asian and African colonies of European empires. Chapter 22 now includes a section on black internationalism—how World War II led many black Americans to iden- tify their campaign for equal rights with the struggle for national independ- ence of colonial peoples in other parts of the world. In Chapter 23, I have expanded the discussion of the idea of human rights to indicate some of the ambiguities of the concept as it emerged as a major theme of international debate after World War II. There is a new section in Chapter 24 on the global reaction to American racial segregation and to the stirrings in the 1950s of the civil rights movement. I have strengthened the treatment of the 1960s by adding a discussion of the global 1968—how events in the United States in that volatile year occurred at the same time as uprisings of young people in many other parts of the world.
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And in Chapter 28, the book’s final chapter, I have significantly expanded coverage of the last few years of American history, including the election of Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, the continuing controversy over the relationship between liberty and security in the context of a global war on terror, and the global economic crisis that began in 2008.
As in the Second Edition, the Voices of Freedom sections in each chapter now include two documents; I have changed a number of them to reflect the new emphasis on the global context of American history. I have also revised the end-of-chapter bibliographies to reflect current scholarship. And I now include references to websites that contain digital images and documents relat- ing to the chapter themes.
This Third Edition also introduces some new features. Visions of Freedom, a parallel to the Voices of Freedom document excerpts that have proven useful to instructors and students, highlights in each chapter an image that illuminates an understanding of freedom. I believe that examining this theme through visual as well as written evidence helps students to appreciate how our con- cepts of freedom have changed over the course of American history. The Visions of Freedom feature includes a headnote and questions that encourage students to think critically about the images.
The pedagogy in the book has been revised and enhanced to give students more guidance as they move through chapters. The end-of-chapter review pages have been expanded with additional review questions, many more key terms with page references, and a new set of questions on the freedom theme. The aim of the pedagogy, as always, is to offer students guidance through the material without getting in the way of the presentation.
I have also added new images in each chapter to expand the visual represen- tation of key ideas and personalities in the text. Taken together, I believe these changes enhance the purpose of Give Me Liberty! : to offer students a clear, con- cise, and thematically enriched introduction to American history.
Americans have always had a divided attitude toward history. On the one hand, they tend to be remarkably future-oriented, dismissing events of even the recent past as “ancient history” and sometimes seeing history as a burden to be overcome, a prison from which to escape. On the other hand, like many other peoples, Americans have always looked to history for a sense of personal or group identity and of national cohesiveness. This is why so many Americans devote time and energy to tracing their family trees and why they visit histor- ical museums and National Park Service historical sites in ever-increasing numbers. My hope is that this book will convince readers with all degrees of interest that history does matter to them.
The novelist and essayist James Baldwin once observed that history “does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, . . . [that] history is literally present in all that we do.” As Baldwin recognized, the force of history is evident in our own world. Especially in a political democracy like the United States, whose government is designed to rest on the consent of informed citizens, knowledge of the past is essential—not only for those of us whose profession is the teaching and writing of history, but for everyone. History, to be sure, does not offer simple lessons or immediate answers to current ques- tions. Knowing the history of immigration to the United States, and all of the
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tensions, turmoil, and aspirations associated with it, for example, does not tell us what current immigration policy ought to be. But without that knowledge, we have no way of understanding which approaches have worked and which have not—essential information for the formulation of future public policy.
History, it has been said, is what the present chooses to remember about the past. Rather than a fixed collection of facts, or a group of interpretations that cannot be challenged, our understanding of history is constantly changing. There is nothing unusual in the fact that each generation rewrites history to meet its own needs, or that scholars disagree among themselves on basic ques- tions like the causes of the Civil War or the reasons for the Great Depression. Precisely because each generation asks different questions of the past, each generation formulates different answers. The past thirty years have witnessed a remarkable expansion of the scope of historical study. The experiences of groups neglected by earlier scholars, including women, African-Americans, working people, and others, have received unprecedented attention from his- torians. New subfields—social history, cultural history, and family history among them—have taken their place alongside traditional political and diplo- matic history.
Give Me Liberty! draws on this voluminous historical literature to present an up-to-date and inclusive account of the American past, paying due attention to the experience of diverse groups of Americans while in no way neglecting the events and processes Americans have experienced in common. It devotes seri- ous attention to political, social, cultural, and economic history, and to their interconnections. The narrative brings together major events and prominent leaders with the many groups of ordinary people who make up American soci- ety. Give Me Liberty! has a rich cast of characters, from Thomas Jefferson to campaigners for woman suffrage, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to former slaves seeking to breathe meaning into emancipation during and after the Civil War.
Aimed at an audience of undergraduate students with little or no detailed knowledge of American history, Give Me Liberty! guides readers through the complexities of the subject without overwhelming them with excessive detail. The unifying theme of freedom that runs through the text gives shape to the narrative and integrates the numerous strands that make up the American experience. This approach builds on that of my earlier book, The Story of American Freedom (1998), although Give Me Liberty! places events and personal- ities in the foreground and is more geared to the structure of the introductory survey course.
Freedom, and the battles to define its meaning, has long been central to my own scholarship and undergraduate teaching, which focuses on the nine- teenth century and especially the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction (1850–1877). This was a time when the future of slavery tore the nation apart and emancipation produced a national debate over what rights the former slaves, and all Americans, should enjoy as free citizens. I have found that atten- tion to clashing definitions of freedom and the struggles of different groups to achieve freedom as they understood it offers a way of making sense of the bit- ter battles and vast transformations of that pivotal era. I believe that the same is true for American history as a whole.
No idea is more fundamental to Americans’ sense of themselves as individu- als and as a nation than freedom. The central term in our political language, freedom—or liberty, with which it is almost always used interchangeably—is
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deeply embedded in the record of our history and the language of everyday life. The Declaration of Independence lists liberty among mankind’s inalienable rights; the Constitution announces its purpose as securing liberty’s blessings. The United States fought the Civil War to bring about a new birth of freedom, World War II for the Four Freedoms, and the Cold War to defend the Free World. Americans’ love of liberty has been represented by liberty poles, liberty caps, and statues of liberty, and acted out by burning stamps and burning draft cards, by running away from slavery, and by demonstrating for the right to vote. “Every man in the street, white, black, red, or yellow,” wrote the educator and statesman Ralph Bunche in 1940, “knows that this is ‘the land of the free’ . . . ‘the cradle of liberty.’”
The very universality of the idea of freedom, however, can be misleading. Freedom is not a fixed, timeless category with a single unchanging definition. Indeed, the history of the United States is, in part, a story of debates, disagree- ments, and struggles over freedom. Crises like the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Cold War have permanently transformed the idea of free- dom. So too have demands by various groups of Americans to enjoy greater freedom. The meaning of freedom has been constructed not only in congres- sional debates and political treatises, but on plantations and picket lines, in parlors and even bedrooms.
Over the course of our history, American freedom has been both a reality and a mythic ideal—a living truth for millions of Americans, a cruel mockery for others. For some, freedom has been what some scholars call a “habit of the heart,” an ideal so taken for granted that it is lived out but rarely analyzed. For others, freedom is not a birthright but a distant goal that has inspired great sacrifice.
Give Me Liberty! draws attention to three dimensions of freedom that have been critical in American history: (1) the meanings of freedom; (2) the social con- ditions that make freedom possible; and (3) the boundaries of freedom that deter- mine who is entitled to enjoy freedom and who is not. All have changed over time.
In the era of the American Revolution, for example, freedom was primarily a set of rights enjoyed in public activity—the right of a community to be gov- erned by laws to which its representatives had consented and of individuals to engage in religious worship without governmental interference. In the nine- teenth century, freedom came to be closely identified with each person’s oppor- tunity to develop to the fullest his or her innate talents. In the twentieth, the “ability to choose,” in both public and private life, became perhaps the domi- nant understanding of freedom. This development was encouraged by the explosive growth of the consumer marketplace (a development that receives considerable attention in Give Me Liberty!), which offered Americans an unprecedented array of goods with which to satisfy their needs and desires. During the 1960s, a crucial chapter in the history of American freedom, the idea of personal freedom was extended into virtually every realm, from attire and “lifestyle” to relations between the sexes. Thus, over time, more and more areas of life have been drawn into Americans’ debates about the meaning of freedom.
A second important dimension of freedom focuses on the social conditions necessary to allow freedom to flourish. What kinds of economic institutions and relationships best encourage individual freedom? In the colonial era and for more than a century after independence, the answer centered on economic
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autonomy, enshrined in the glorification of the independent small producer— the farmer, skilled craftsman, or shopkeeper—who did not have to depend on another person for his livelihood. As the industrial economy matured, new conceptions of economic freedom came to the fore: “liberty of contract” in the Gilded Age, “industrial freedom” (a say in corporate decision-making) in the Progressive era, economic security during the New Deal, and, more recently, the ability to enjoy mass consumption within a market economy.
The boundaries of freedom, the third dimension of this theme, have inspired some of the most intense struggles in American history. Although founded on the premise that liberty is an entitlement of all humanity, the United States for much of its history deprived many of its own people of freedom. Non-whites have rarely enjoyed the same access to freedom as white Americans. The belief in equal opportunity as the birthright of all Americans has coexisted with per- sistent efforts to limit freedom by race, gender, class, and in other ways.
Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that one person’s freedom has frequently been linked to another’s servitude. In the colonial era and nineteenth century, expanding freedom for many Americans rested on the lack of freedom— slavery, indentured servitude, the subordinate position of women—for others. By the same token, it has been through battles at the boundaries—the efforts of racial minorities, women, and others to secure greater freedom—that the meaning and experience of freedom have been deepened and the concept extended into new realms.
Time and again in American history, freedom has been transformed by the demands of excluded groups for inclusion. The idea of freedom as a universal birthright owes much both to abolitionists who sought to extend the blessings of liberty to blacks and to immigrant groups who insisted on full recognition as American citizens. The principle of equal protection of the law without regard to race, which became a central element of American freedom, arose from the antislavery struggle and the Civil War and was reinvigorated by the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, which called itself the “freedom move- ment.” The battle for the right of free speech by labor radicals and birth control advocates in the first part of the twentieth century helped to make civil liber- ties an essential element of freedom for all Americans.
Although concentrating on events within the United States, Give Me Liberty! also, as indicated above, situates American history in the context of develop- ments in other parts of the world. Many of the forces that shaped American his- tory, including the international migration of peoples, the development of slavery, the spread of democracy, and the expansion of capitalism, were world- wide processes not confined to the United States. Today, American ideas, cul- ture, and economic and military power exert unprecedented influence throughout the world. But beginning with the earliest days of settlement, when European empires competed to colonize North America and enrich themselves from its trade, American history cannot be understood in isolation from its global setting.
Freedom is the oldest of clichés and the most modern of aspirations. At var- ious times in our history, it has served as the rallying cry of the powerless and as a justification of the status quo. Freedom helps to bind our culture together and exposes the contradictions between what America claims to be and what it sometimes has been. American history is not a narrative of continual progress toward greater and greater freedom. As the abolitionist Thomas
Wentworth Higginson noted after the Civil War, “revolutions may go back- ward.” Though freedom can be achieved, it may also be taken away. This hap- pened, for example, when the equal rights granted to former slaves immediately after the Civil War were essentially nullified during the era of seg- regation. As was said in the eighteenth century, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
In the early twenty-first century, freedom continues to play a central role in American political and social life and thought. It is invoked by individuals and groups of all kinds, from critics of economic globalization to those who seek to secure American freedom at home and export it abroad. I hope that Give Me Liberty! will offer beginning students a clear account of the course of American history, and of its central theme, freedom, which today remains as varied, con- tentious, and ever-changing as America itself.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
All works of history are, to a considerable extent, collaborative books, in that every writer builds on the research and writing of previous scholars. This is especially true of a textbook that covers the entire American expe- rience, over more than five centuries. My greatest debt is to the innumer- able historians on whose work I have drawn in preparing this volume. The Suggested Reading list at the end of each chapter offers only a brief intro- duction to the vast body of historical scholarship that has influenced and informed this book. More specifically, however, I wish to thank the follow- ing scholars, who generously read portions of this work and offered valu- able comments, criticisms, and suggestions:
For the First Edition: Valerie Adams, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Terry Alford, Northern Virginia Community College Tyler Anbinder, George Washington University Eric Arnesen, University of Illinois, Chicago Ira Berlin, University of Maryland Nikki Brown, Kent State University Jon Butler, Yale University Diane S. Clemens, University of California, Berkeley Paul G. E. Clemens, Rutgers University Jane Dailey, Johns Hopkins University Douglas Deal, State University of New York, Oswego Ricky Dobbs, Texas A&M University, Commerce Thomas Dublin, State University of New York, Binghamton Joel Franks, San Jose State University Kirsten Gardner, University of Texas at San Antonio Lawrence B. Glickman, University of South Carolina Colin Gordon, University of Iowa Sam Haynes, University of Texas at Arlington Rebecca Hill, Borough of Manhattan Community College Jesse Hingson, Manatee Community College Wallace Hutcheon, Northern Virginia Community College
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Kevin Kenny, Boston College Peter Kolchin, University of Delaware Bruce Laurie, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Daniel Letwin, Pennsylvania State University Peter Mancall, University of Southern California Louis Masur, City College, City University of New York Alan McPherson, Howard University Don Palm, Sacramento City College Larry Peterson, North Dakota State University John Recchiuti, Mount Union College Scott Sandage, Carnegie-Mellon University Bryant Simon, University of Georgia Brooks Simpson, Arizona State University Judith Stein, City College, City University of New York George Stevens, Dutchess Community College Thomas Sugrue, University of Pennsylvania Alan Taylor, University of California, Davis Daniel B. Thorp, Virginia Polytechnic Institute Helena Wall, Pomona College Jon Wiener, University of California, Irvine
For the Second Edition: Marsha Ackermann, Eastern Michigan University Valerie Adams, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Omar Ali, Towson University Ellen Baker, Columbia University Ruth Bloch, University of California, Los Angeles Roger Bromert, Southern Oklahoma State University Charlotte Brooks, University at Albany, State University of New York Barbara Calluori, Montclair State University Robert Cassanello, University of Central Florida Thomas Clarkin, San Antonio College Gerard Clock, Pace University Ronald Dufour, Rhode Island College Mike Green, Community College of Southern Nevada Maurine Greenwald, University of Pittsburgh Evan Haefeli, Columbia University Sharon A. Roger Hepburn, Radford College Tam Hoskisson, Northern Arizona University David Hsiung, Juniata College Jeanette Keith, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Daniel Kotzin, Kutztown University Robert M. S. McDonald, U.S. Military Academy Stephen L. McIntyre, Missouri State University Cynthia Northrup, University of Texas at Arlington Kathleen Banks Nutter, Stony Brook University, State University
of New York John Paden, Rappahannock Community College Sarah Phillips, Columbia University Charles K. Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato Ann Plane, University of California, Santa Barbara
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Charles Postel, California State University, Sacramento John Recchiuti, Mount Union College Rob Risko, Trinity Valley Community College, Athens Wade Shaffer, West Texas A&M University Silvana R. Siddali, Saint Louis University Judith Stein, The City College of the City University of New York George Stevens, Dutchess Community College Matthew A. Sutton, Oakland University Timothy Thurber, Virginia Commonwealth University David Voelker, University of Wisconson—Green Bay Peter Way, Bowling Green State University Richard Weiner, Indiana University—Purdue University Fort Wayne Barbara Welke, University of Minnesota
For the Third Edition: Vicki Arnold, Northern Virginia Community College James Barrett, University of Illinois Stephen Branch, College of the Canyons Cynthia Clark, University of Texas at Arlington Sylvie Coulibaly, Kenyon College Ashley Cruseturner, McLennan Community College Kevin Davis, Central Texas College Jennifer Duffy, Western Connecticut State University Melody Flowers, McLennan Community College Lawrence Foster, Georgia Institute of Technology Monica Gisolfi, University of North Carolina, Wilmington Adam Goudsouzian, University of Memphis Katie Graham, Diablo Valley College Mike Green, Southern Nevada Community College Dan Greene, Baylor University Jennifer Gross, Jacksonville State University Sandra Harvey, Lone Star College–CyFair Toby Higbie, University of California, Los Angeles Ernest Ialongo, Hostos Community College Justin Jackson, Columbia University Norman Love, El Paso Community College James M. McCaffrey, University of Houston John McCusker, Trinity University, San Antonio Gil Montemayor, McLennan Community College David Orique, University of Oregon Michael Pebworth, Cabrillo College Ray Raphael, Humboldt State University Andrew Reiser, Dutchess Community College Esther Robinson, Lone Star College–CyFair Jerry Rodnitzky, University of Texas at Arlington Diane Sager, Maple Woods Community College Claudio Saunt, University of Georgia James Seymour, Lone Star College–CyFair Adam Simmons, Fayetteville State University Andrew Slap, East Tennessee State University Tim Solie, Minnesota State University
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David Stebenne, Ohio State University George Stevens, Dutchess Community College Robert Tinkler, California State University, Chico Kathleen Thomas, University of Wisconsin, Stout Elaine Thompson, Louisiana Tech University Doris Wagner, University of Louisville Greg Wilson, University of Akron William Young, Maple Woods Community College
I am particularly grateful to my colleagues in the Columbia University Department of History: Pablo Piccato, for his advice on Latin American history; Evan Haefeli and Ellen Baker, who read and made many suggestions for improvements in their areas of expertise (colonial America and the history of the West, respectively); and Sarah Phillips, who offered advice on treating the history of the environment.
I am also deeply indebted to the graduate students at Columbia University’s Department of History who helped with this project. Theresa Ventura offered invaluable assistance in gathering material for the new sections placing American history in a global context. James Delbourgo conducted research for the chapters on the colonial era. Beverly Gage did the same for the twentieth century. Daniel Freund provided all-round research assistance. Victoria Cain did a superb job of locating visual images. I also want to thank my colleagues Elizabeth Blackmar and Alan Brinkley for offering advice and encouragement throughout the writing of this book.
Many thanks to Joshua Brown, director of the American Social History Project, whose website, History Matters, lists innumerable online resources for the study of American history. Bill Young at Maple Woods Community College did a superb job revising and enhancing the in-book pedagogy. Monica Gisolfi (University of North Carolina, Wilmington) and Robert Tinkler (California State University, Chico) did excellent work on the Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank. Kathleen Thomas (University of Wisconsin, Stout) helped greatly in the revisions of the companion media packages.
At W. W. Norton & Company, Steve Forman was an ideal editor—patient, encouraging, always ready to offer sage advice, and quick to point out lapses in grammar and logic. I would also like to thank Steve’s assistant, Rebecca Charney, for her indispensable and always cheerful help on all aspects of the project; JoAnn Simony for her careful work as manuscript editor; Stephanie Romeo and Patricia Marx for their resourceful attention to the illustrations program; Rubina Yeh and the irreplaceable Antonina Krass for their refine- ments of the book design; Debra Morton-Hoyt for splendid work on the covers for the Third Edition; Kim Yi for keeping the many threads of the project aligned and then tying them together; Christine D’Antonio and Chris Granville for their efficiency and care in book production; Steve Hoge for orchestrating the rich media package that accompanies the textbook; Nicole Netherton, Tamara McNeill, Steve Dunn, and Mike Wright for their alert reads of the U.S. survey market and their hard work in helping establish Give Me Liberty! within it; and Drake McFeely, Roby Harrington, and Julia Reidhead for maintaining Norton as an independent, employee-owned publisher dedicated to excellence in its work.
Many students may have heard stories of how publishing companies alter the language and content of textbooks in an attempt to maximize sales and
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avoid alienating any potential reader. In this case, I can honestly say that W. W. Norton allowed me a free hand in writing the book and, apart from the usual editorial corrections, did not try to influence its content at all. For this I thank them, while I accept full responsibility for the interpretations pre- sented and for any errors the book may contain. Since no book of this length can be entirely free of mistakes, I welcome readers to send me corrections at ef17@columbia.edu.
My greatest debt, as always, is to my family—my wife, Lynn Garafola, for her good-natured support while I was preoccupied by a project that consumed more than its fair share of my time and energy, and my daughter, Daria, who while a ninth and tenth grader read every chapter as it was written and offered invaluable suggestions about improving the book’s clarity, logic, and grammar.
Eric Foner New York City July 2010
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T h i r d E d i t i o n
A n A m e r i c a n H i s t o r y
G I V E M E L I B E R T Y !
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he colonial period of American history was a time of enor- mous change, as the people of four continents—North America, South America, Europe, and Africa—were sud- denly and unexpectedly thrown into contact with one another. The period also initiated a new era in the history
of freedom. It was not, however, a desire for freedom that drove early European explorations of North and South America. Contact between Europe and the Americas began as a byproduct of the quest for a sea route for trade with Asia. But it quickly became a contest for power between rival empires, who moved to conquer, colonize, and exploit the resources of the New World.
At the time of European contact, the Western Hemisphere was home to tens of millions of people. Within the present border of the United States there existed Indian societies based on agricul- ture, hunting, or fishing, with their own languages, religious practices, and forms of government. All experienced wrenching changes after Europeans arrived, including incorporation into the world market and epidemics of disease that devastated many native groups.
The colonies that eventually came to form the United States originated in very different ways. Virginia, the first permanent colony to be established, was created by a private company that sought to earn profits through exploration for gold and the development of transatlantic trade. Individual proprietors—well- connected Englishmen given large grants of land by the king— established Maryland and Pennsylvania. New York, which had been founded by the Dutch, came into British hands as the result of a war. Religious groups seeking escape from persecution in England and hoping to establish communities rooted in their
A M E R I C A N C O L O N I E S T O 1 7 6 3
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understanding of the principles of the Bible founded colonies in New England.
In the seventeenth century, all the British colonies experienced wrench- ing social conflicts as groups within them battled for control. Relations with Indians remained tense and sometimes violent. Religious and politi- cal divisions in England, which experienced a civil war in the 1640s and the ouster of the king in 1688, reverberated in the colonies. So did wars between European powers, which spilled over into North America. Nonetheless, after difficult beginnings, Britain’s mainland colonies experienced years of remarkable growth in population and economic activity. By the eighteenth century, the non-Indian population of Britain’s North American colonies had far outstripped that of the colonies of France and Spain.
In every colony in British America, well-to-do landowners and mer- chants dominated economic and political life. Nonetheless, emigration to the colonies offered numerous settlers opportunities they had not enjoyed at home, including access to land, the freedom to worship as they pleased, and the right to vote. Every British colony had an elected assembly that shared power with a governor, who was usually appointed from London. Even this limited degree of self-government contrasted sharply with the lack of representative institutions in the Spanish and French empires. All these circumstances drew thousands of English emi- grants to North America in the seventeenth century, and thousands more from Ireland, Scotland, and the European continent in the eighteenth century.
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Yet the conditions that allowed colonists to enjoy such freedoms were made possible by lack of freedom for millions of others. For the native inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, European colonization brought the spread of devastating epidemics and either dispossession from the land or forced labor for the colonizers. Millions of Africans were uprooted from their homes and transported to the New World to labor on the plan- tations of Brazil, the Caribbean, and England’s North American colonies. Even among European immigrants, the majority arrived not as completely free individuals but as indentured servants who owed a prearranged number of years of labor to those who paid their passage.
In colonial America, many modern ideas of freedom did not exist, or existed in very different forms than today. Equality before the law was unknown—women, non-whites, and propertyless men enjoyed far fewer rights than landowning white male citizens. Economic freedom, today widely identified with participation in an unregulated market, meant independence—owning land or a shop and not relying on another person for a livelihood. Most colonies had official churches, and many colonists who sought religious liberty for themselves refused to extend it to others. Speaking or writing critically of public authorities could land a person in jail.
Nonetheless, ideas about freedom played a major role in justifying European colonization. The Spanish and French claimed to be liberating Native Americans by bringing them advanced civilization and Roman Catholicism. England insisted that true freedom for Indians meant adopt- ing English ways, including Protestantism. Moreover, the expansion of England’s empire occurred at a time when freedom came to be seen as the defining characteristic of the English nation. Slavery existed in every New
World colony. In many, it became the basis of economic life. Yet most Britons,
including colonists, prided them- selves on enjoying “British lib-
erty,” a common set of rights that included protection from the arbitrary exercise of gov- ernmental power.
Thus, freedom and lack of freedom expanded
together in the colonies of British North America that
would eventually form the United States.
9000 BC Agriculture developed in Mexico and Peru
5000 BC– Mound builders thrive 1000 AD in Mississippi Valley
900– Hopi and Zuni tribes 1200 establish towns
1000 Vikings sail to Newfoundland
1200 Cahokia city-empire along the Mississippi
1430– Chinese Admiral Zheng 1440 He explores coast of East
Africa
1430s Gutenberg invents printing press
1434 Portuguese explore African coast below the Sahara
1487 Bartholomeu Dias reaches the Cape of Good Hope
1492 Columbus’s first voyage to the New World
1497 John Cabot reaches Newfoundland
1498 Vasco da Gama sails to the Indian Ocean
1500 Pedro Cabral claims Brazil for Portugal
1502 First African slaves trans- ported to Caribbean islands
Nicolás de Ovando estab- lishes settlement on Hispaniola
1517 Martin Luther launches the Protestant Reformation with his Ninety-Five Theses
1519 Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico
1528 History of the Indies
1530s Pizarro’s conquest of Peru
1542 Spain promulgates the New Laws
1608– Champlain establishes 1609 Quebec; Hudson claims
New Netherland
1610 Santa Fe established
1680 Pueblo Revolt
C H A P T E R 1
A New World
The Village of Secoton, by John White, an English artist who spent a year on the Outer
Banks of North Carolina in 1585–1586 as part of an expedition sponsored by Sir Walter
Raleigh. A central street links houses surrounded by fields of corn. In the lower part,
dancing Indians take part in a religious ceremony.
THE FIRST AMERICANS
The Settling of the Americas Indian Societies of the Americas Mound Builders of the Mississippi River Valley
Western Indians Indians of Eastern North America
Native American Religion Land and Property Gender Relations European Views of the Indians
INDIAN FREEDOM, EUROPEAN FREEDOM
Indian Freedom Christian Liberty Freedom and Authority Liberty and Liberties
THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE
Chinese and Portuguese Navigation
Portugal and West Africa Freedom and Slavery in Africa The Voyages of Columbus
CONTACT
Columbus in the New World Exploration and Conquest The Demographic Disaster
THE SPANISH EMPIRE
Governing Spanish America Colonists in Spanish America Colonists and Indians Justifications for Conquest Spreading the Faith Piety and Profit Las Casas’s Complaint Reforming the Empire Exploring North America Spanish Florida Spain in the Southwest The Pueblo Revolt
THE FRENCH AND DUTCH EMPIRES
French Colonization New France and the Indians The Dutch Empire Dutch Freedom Freedom in New Netherland Settling New Netherland New Netherland and the Indians
he discovery of America,” the British writer Adam Smith announced in his celebrated work The Wealth of Nations (1776), was one of “the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind.” Historians no longer use the word “discovery” to describe the European exploration, conquest, and colonization of a hemisphere already home to millions of people. But there can
be no doubt that when Christopher Columbus made landfall in the West Indian islands in 1492, he set in motion some of the most pivotal developments in human history. Immense changes soon followed in both the Old and New Worlds; the consequences of these changes are still with us today.
The peoples of the American continents and Europe, previously unaware of each other’s existence, were thrown into continuous interaction. Crops new to each hemisphere crossed the Atlantic, reshaping diets and transforming the natural environment. Because of their long isolation, the inhabitants of North and South America had developed no immunity to the germs that also accompanied the colonizers. As a result, they suffered a series of devastating epidemics, the greatest population catastrophe in human history. Within a decade of Columbus’s voyage, a fourth continent—Africa—found itself drawn into the new Atlantic system of trade and population movement. In Africa, Europeans found a supply of unfree labor that enabled them to exploit the fertile lands of the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, of approximately 10 million men, women, and children who crossed from the Old World to the New between 1492 and 1820, the vast majority, about 7.7 million, were African slaves.
From the vantage point of 1776, the year the United States declared itself an independent nation, it seemed to Adam Smith that the “discovery” of America had produced both great “benefits” and great “misfortunes.” To the nations of western Europe, the development of American colonies brought an era of “splendor and glory.” The emergence of the Atlantic as the world’s major avenue for trade and population movement, Smith noted, enabled millions of Europeans to increase the “enjoyments” of life. To the “natives” of the Americas, however, Smith went on, the years since 1492 had been ones of “dreadful misfortunes” and “every sort of injustice.” And for millions of Africans, the settlement of America meant a descent into the abyss of slavery.
Long before Columbus sailed, Europeans had dreamed of a land of abundance, riches, and ease beyond the western horizon. Once the “discovery” of this New World had taken place, they invented an America of the imagination, projecting onto it their hopes for a better life. Here, many believed, would arise unparalleled opportunities for riches, or at least liberation from poverty. Europeans envisioned America as a religious refuge, a society of equals, a source of power
• What were the major pat- terns of Native American life in North America before Europeans arrived?
• How did Indian and European ideas of freedom differ on the eve of contact?
• What impelled European explorers to look west across the Atlantic?
• What happened when the peoples of the Ameri- cas came in contact with Europeans?
• What were the chief features of the Spanish empire in America?
• What were the chief features of the French and Dutch empires in North America?
FO C U S QU E ST I O N S ©lT“
What were the major pat t erns o f Nat ive Amer i can l i f e in North Amer i ca be fore Europeans arr ived? 7
and glory. They searched the New World for golden cities and fountains of eternal youth. Some sought to establish ideal communities based on the lives of the early Christian saints or other blueprints for social justice.
Some of these dreams of riches and opportunity would indeed be fulfilled. To many European settlers, America offered a far greater chance to own land and worship as they pleased than existed in Europe, with its rigid, unequal social order and official churches. Yet the conditions that enabled millions of settlers to take control of their own destinies were made possible by the debasement of millions of others. The New World
A 1544 engraving of the Western Hemisphere by Sebastian Cabot, the son of the Italian-born explorer John Cabot and, like his father, an accomplished mariner. In the early sixteenth century, sailing for England and then Spain, Sebastian Cabot led several expeditions to the New World. The ships depicted are caravels, the first European vessels capable of long-distance travel, and the map also shows stylized scenes of Native Americans, including a battle with Spanish conquistadores.
became the site of many forms of unfree labor, including indentured servitude, forced labor, and one of the most brutal and unjust systems ever devised by man, plantation slavery. The conquest and settlement of the Western Hemisphere opened new chapters in the long histories of both freedom and slavery.
There was a vast human diversity among the peoples thrown into con- tact with one another in the New World. Exploration and settlement took place in an era of almost constant warfare among European nations, each racked by internal religious, political, and regional conflicts. Native Americans and Africans consisted of numerous groups with their own languages and cultures. They were as likely to fight one another as to unite against the European newcomers. All these peoples were changed by their integration into the new Atlantic economy. The complex interac- tions of Europeans, American Indians, and Africans would shape American history during the colonial era.
THE F I R ST AMER ICANS
T H E S E T T L I N G O F T H E A M E R I C A S
The residents of the Americas were no more a single group than Europeans or Africans. They spoke hundreds of different languages and lived in numerous kinds of societies. Most, however, were descended from bands of hunters and fishers who had crossed the Bering Strait via a land bridge at various times between 15,000 and 60,000 years ago—the exact dates are hotly debated by archaeologists. Others may have arrived by sea from Asia or Pacific islands. Around 14,000 years ago, when glaciers began to melt at the end of the last Ice Age, the land link became submerged under water, once again separating the Western Hemisphere from Asia.
History in North and South America did not begin with the coming of Europeans. The New World was new to Europeans but an ancient home- land to those who already lived there. The hemisphere had witnessed many changes during its human history. First, the early inhabitants and their descendants spread across the two continents, reaching the tip of South America perhaps 11,000 years ago. As the climate warmed, they faced a food crisis as the immense animals they hunted, including woolly mam- moths and giant bison, became extinct. Around 9,000 years ago, at the same time that agriculture was being developed in the Near East, it also emerged in modern-day Mexico and the Andes, and then spread to other parts of the Americas, making settled civilizations possible. Throughout the hemisphere, maize (corn), squash, and beans formed the basis of agri- culture. The absence of livestock in the Western Hemisphere, however, limited farming by preventing the plowing of fields and the application of natural fertilizer.
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What were the major pat t erns o f Nat ive Amer i can l i f e in North Amer i ca be fore Europeans arr ived? 9
A map illustrating the probable routes by which the first Americans settled the Western Hemisphere at various times between 15,000 and 60,000 years ago.
I N D I A N S O C I E T I E S O F T H E A M E R I C A S
North and South America were hardly an empty wilderness when Europeans arrived. The hemisphere contained cities, roads, irrigation sys- tems, extensive trade networks, and large structures such as the pyramid- temples whose beauty still inspires wonder. With a population close to
Tenochtitlán
Monte Alban
Poverty Point
Chichen Itzá
Chaco Canyon
Cahokia
Palenque
NORTH AMERICA
SOUTH AMERICA
CENTRAL AMERICA
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Yucatán Pen insu la
Aleut ian I s lands INCAS
MAY ANS
MOHAWK ONEIDA
CAYUGA SENECA
ONONDAGA
CHEROKEE
HOPI ZUNI
PUEBLO CHICKASAW
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T H E F I R S T A M E R I C A N S
250,000, Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico, was one of the world’s largest cities. Its great temple, splendid royal palace, and a central market comparable to that of European capitals made the city seem “like an enchanted vision,” according to one of the first Europeans to encounter it. Further south lay the Inca kingdom, centered in modern-day Peru. Its population of perhaps 12 million was linked by a complex system of roads and bridges that extended 2,000 miles along the Andes mountain chain.
When Europeans arrived, a wide variety of native peoples lived within the present borders of the United States. Indian civilizations in North America had not developed the scale, grandeur, or centralized organization of the Aztec and Inca societies to their south. North American Indians lacked the technologies Europeans had mastered, such as metal tools and machines, gunpowder, and the scientific knowledge necessary for long- distance navigation. No society north of Mexico had achieved literacy (although some made maps on bark and animal hides). They also lacked wheeled vehicles, since they had no domestic animals like horses or oxen to pull them. Their “backwardness” became a central justification for European conquest. But, over time, Indian societies had perfected tech- niques of farming, hunting, and fishing, developed structures of political power and religious belief, and engaged in far-reaching networks of trade and communication.
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Map of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán and the Gulf of Mexico, probably produced by a Spanish conquistador and published in 1524 in an edition of the letters of Hernán Cortés. The map shows the city’s complex system of canals, bridges, and dams, with the Great Temple at the center. Gardens and a zoo are also visible.
What were the major pat t erns o f Nat ive Amer i can l i f e in North Amer i ca be fore Europeans arr ived? 1 1
M O U N D B U I L D E R S O F T H E
M I S S I S S I P P I R I V E R V A L L E Y
Remarkable physical remains still exist from some of the early civilizations in North America. Around 3,500 years ago, before Egyptians built the pyramids, Native Americans constructed a large community centered on a series of giant semicircular mounds on a bluff overlook- ing the Mississippi River in present-day Louisiana. Known today as Poverty Point, it was a commercial and governmental center whose residents established trade routes throughout the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys. Archaeologists have found there copper from present-day Minnesota and Canada, and flint mined in Indiana.
More than a thousand years before Columbus sailed, Indians of the Ohio River valley, called “mound builders” by eighteenth-century settlers who encountered the large earthen burial mounds they created, had traded across half the continent. After their decline, another culture flourished in the Mississippi River valley, centered on the city of Cahokia near present- day St. Louis, a fortified community with between 10,000 and 30,000 inhab- itants in the year 1200. Its residents, too, built giant mounds, the largest of which stood 100 feet high and was topped by a temple. Little is known of Cahokia’s political and economic structure. But it stood as the largest set- tled community in what is now the United States until surpassed in popu- lation by New York and Philadelphia around 1800.
W E S T E R N I N D I A N S
In the arid northeastern area of present-day Arizona, the Hopi and Zuni and their ancestors engaged in settled village life for over 3,000 years. During the peak of the region’s culture, between the years 900 and 1200, these peoples built great planned towns with large multiple-family dwellings in local canyons, constructed dams and canals to gather and distribute water, and conducted trade with groups as far away as central Mexico and the Mississippi River valley. The largest of their structures, Pueblo Bonita, in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, stood five stories high and had over 600 rooms. Not until the 1880s was a dwelling of comparable size constructed in the United States.
After the decline of these communities, probably because of drought, survivors moved to the south and east, where they established villages and perfected the techniques of desert farming, complete with irrigation sys- tems to provide water for crops of corn, beans, and cotton. These were the people Spanish explorers called the Pueblo Indians (because they lived in small villages, or pueblos, when the Spanish first encountered them in the sixteenth century).
A modern aerial photograph of the ruins of Pueblo Bonita, in Chaco Canyon in present-day New Mexico. The rectangular structures are the foundations of dwellings, and the circular ones are kivas, or places of religious worship.
Cliff dwellings in Cañon de Chelly, in the area of modern-day Arizona, built sometime between 300 and 1300 and photographed in 1873.
On the Pacific coast, another densely populated region, hundreds of dis- tinct groups resided in independent villages and lived primarily by fishing, hunting sea mammals, and gathering wild plants and nuts. As many as 25 million salmon swam up the Columbia River each year, providing Indians with abundant food. On the Great Plains, with its herds of buffalo—descendants of the prehistoric giant bison—many Indians were hunters (who tracked animals on foot before the arrival of horses with the Spanish), but others lived in agricultural communities.
I N D I A N S O F E A S T E R N N O R T H A M E R I C A
In eastern North America, hundreds of tribes inhabited towns and villages scattered from the Gulf of Mexico to present-day Canada. They lived on corn, squash, and beans, supplemented by fishing and hunting deer, turkeys, and other animals. Indian trade routes crisscrossed the eastern part of the con- tinent. Tribes frequently warred with one another to obtain goods, seize captives, or take revenge for the killing of relatives. They conducted diplo- macy and made peace. Little in the way of centralized authority existed until, in the fifteenth century, various leagues or confederations emerged in an effort to bring order to local regions. In the Southeast, the Choctaw, Cherokee, and Chickasaw each united dozens of towns in loose alliances. In present-day New York and Pennsylvania, five Iroquois peoples—the Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and Onondaga—formed a Great League of Peace, bringing a period of stability to the area. Each year a Great Council, with representatives from the five groupings, met to coordinate behavior toward outsiders.
The most striking feature of Native American society at the time Europeans arrived was its sheer diversity. Each group had its own political system and set of religious beliefs, and North America was home to literally hundreds of mutually unintelligible languages. Indians had no sense of
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Another drawing by the artist John White shows ten male and seven female Native Americans dancing around a circle of posts in a religious ritual. White was a careful observer of their clothing, body markings, and objects used in the ceremony.
“America” as a continent or hemisphere. They did not think of themselves as a single unified people, an idea invented by Europeans and only many years later adopted by Indians themselves. Indian identity centered on the immediate social group—a tribe, village, chiefdom, or confederacy. When Europeans first arrived, many Indians saw them as simply one group among many. Their first thought was how to use the newcomers to
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