Why was the jamestown colony unstable and its survival questionable

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 r i e f F o u r t h E d i t i o n



B W . W . N O R T O N & C O M P A N Y

N E W Y O R K . L O N D O N

E R I C F O N E R

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 r i e f F o u r t h 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 expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid-century, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program— trade books and college texts—were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of 400 and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year— W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.

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For my mother, Liza Foner (1909–2005), an accomplished artist who lived

through most of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first

E R I C F O N E R is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. In his teaching and scholarship, he focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth-century America. Professor Foner’s publi- cations 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 Free- dom; and Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. His history of Recon- struction 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, winner of the Lincoln Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize.



A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

C O N T E N T S

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Contents

vi i

1 . A N E W W O R L D . . . 1

THE FIRST AMERICANS . . . 3

The Settling of the Americas ... 3  Indian Societies of the Americas ... 3

 Mound Builders of the Mississippi River Valley ... 5  Western Indians ... 6

 Indians of Eastern North America ... 6  Native American Religion ... 7

 Land and Property ... 9  Gender Relations ... 10  European Views

of the Indians ... 10

INDIAN FREEDOM, EUROPEAN FREEDOM .. . 11

Indian Freedom ... 11  Christian Liberty ... 12  Freedom and

Authority ... 12  Liberty and Liberties ... 13

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE . . . 13

Chinese and Portuguese Navigation ... 14  Freedom and Slavery in

Africa ... 14  The Voyages of Columbus ... 16

CONTACT . . . 16

Columbus in the New World ... 16  Exploration and Conquest ... 17

 The Demographic Disaster ... 19

THE SPANISH EMPIRE . . . 20

Governing Spanish America ... 21  Colonists and Indians in Spanish

America ... 21  Justifications for Conquest ... 22  Piety and Profit ... 23

 Reforming the Empire ... 24  Exploring North America ... 25

 Spanish in Florida and the Southwest ... 25  The Pueblo Revolt ... 27

Voices of Freedom: From Bartolomé de las Casas, History of the Indies

(1528), and From “Declaration of Josephe” (December 19, 1681) ... 28

THE FRENCH AND DUTCH EMPIRES . . . 30

French Colonization ... 32  New France and the Indians ... 32  The

Dutch Empire ... 34  Dutch Freedom ... 34  The Dutch and Religious

Toleration ... 35  Settling New Netherland ... 36  Features of European

Settlement ... 36

REVIEW .. . 37

2 . B E G I N N I N G S O F E N G L I S H A M E R I C A , 1 6 0 7 – 1 6 6 0 . . . 3 8

ENGLAND AND THE NEW WORLD . . . 40

Unifying the English Nation ... 40  England and Ireland ... 40  England

and North America ... 40  Motives for Colonization ... 41  The Social

Crisis ... 42  Masterless Men ... 43

A b o u t t h e A u t h o r . . . v

L i s t o f M a p s , T a b l e s , a n d F i g u r e s . . . x v i i i

P r e f a c e . . . x x

vii i

Contents

THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH .. . 43

English Emigrants ... 43  Indentured Servants ... 44  Land and

Liberty ... 44  Englishmen and Indians ... 45  The Transformation

of Indian Life ... 46

SETTLING THE CHESAPEAKE .. . 47

The Jamestown Colony ... 47  Powhatan and Pocahontas ... 48  The

Uprising of 1622 ... 49  A Tobacco Colony ... 50  Women and the

Family ... 50  The Maryland Experiment ... 52  Religion in

Maryland ... 52

THE NEW ENGLAND WAY .. . 53

The Rise of Puritanism ... 53  Moral Liberty ... 53  The Pilgrims at

Plymouth ... 54  The Great Migration ... 55  The Puritan Family ... 55 

Government and Society in Massachusetts ... 56  Church and State in

Puritan Massachusetts ... 58

NEW ENGLANDERS DIVIDED .. . 59

Roger Williams ... 60  Rhode Island and Connecticut ... 60  The Trials

of Anne Hutchinson ... 61  Puritans and Indians ... 61

Voices of Freedom: From “The Trial of Anne Hutchinson” (1637),

and From John Winthrop, Speech to the Massachusetts General Court

(July 3, 1645) ... 62

The Pequot War ... 64  The New England Economy ... 65  A Growing

Commercial Society ... 66

RELIGION, POLITICS, AND FREEDOM ... 67

The Rights of Englishmen ... 67  The English Civil War ... 68 

England’s Debate over Freedom ... 68  The Civil War and English

America ... 69  Cromwell and the Empire ... 70

REVIEW .. . 71

3 . C R E A T I N G A N G L O - A M E R I C A , 1 6 6 0 – 1 7 5 0 . . . 7 2

GLOBAL COMPETITION AND THE EXPANSION OF

ENGLAND’S EMPIRE . . . 74

The Mercantilist System ... 74  The Conquest of New Netherland ... 74 

New York and the Indians ... 75  The Charter of Liberties ... 77  The

Founding of Carolina ... 77  The Holy Experiment ... 78  Land in

Pennsylvania ... 79

ORIGINS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY .. . 80

Englishmen and Africans ... 80  Slavery in History ... 81  Slavery

in the West Indies ... 81  Slavery and the Law ... 82  The Rise of

Chesapeake Slavery ... 83  Bacon’s Rebellion: Land and Labor in

Virginia ... 83  A Slave Society ... 85

Contents

ix

COLONIES IN CRISIS . . . 86

The Glorious Revolution ... 86  The Glorious Revolution in America ... 87 

The Salem Witch Trials ... 89

THE GROWTH OF COLONIAL AMERICA .. . 90

A Diverse Population ... 90  The German Migration ... 91

Voices of Freedom: From Memorial against Non-English Immigration

(December 1727), and From Letter by a Swiss-German Immigrant

to Pennsylvania (August 23, 1769) ... 92

Religious Diversity ... 95  Indian Life in Transition ... 95  Regional

Diversity ... 96  The Consumer Revolution ... 97  Colonial Cities ... 97 

An Atlantic World ... 98

SOCIAL CLASSES IN THE COLONIES . . . 99

The Colonial Elite ... 99  Anglicization ... 100  Poverty in the

Colonies ... 100  The Middle Ranks ... 101  Women and the

Household Economy ... 101  North America at Mid-Century ... 102

REVIEW .. . 103

4 . S L A V E R Y , F R E E D O M , A N D T H E S T R U G G L E F O R E M P I R E , T O 1 7 6 3 . . . 1 0 4

SLAVERY AND EMPIRE . . . 106

Atlantic Trade ... 106  Africa and the Slave Trade ... 107  The Middle

Passage ... 109  Chesapeake Slavery ... 109  The Rice Kingdom ... 110

 The Georgia Experiment ... 111  Slavery in the North ... 112

SLAVE CULTURES AND SLAVE RESISTANCE .. . 113

Becoming African-American ... 113  African Religion in Colonial America

... 113  African-American Cultures ... 114  Resistance to Slavery ... 115

AN EMPIRE OF FREEDOM .. . 116

British Patriotism ... 116  The British Constitution ... 117  Republican

Liberty ... 117  Liberal Freedom ... 118

THE PUBLIC SPHERE . . . 119

The Right to Vote ... 119  Political Cultures ... 120  The Rise of the

Assemblies ... 121  Politics in Public ... 121  The Colonial Press ... 122

 Freedom of Expression and Its Limits ... 122  The Trial of Zenger ... 123

 The American Enlightenment ... 124

THE GREAT AWAKENING .. . 125

Religious Revivals ... 125  The Preaching of Whitefield ... 126  The

Awakening’s Impact ... 126

IMPERIAL RIVALRIES . . . 127

Spanish North America ... 127  The Spanish in California ... 127  The

French Empire ... 129

x

Contents

BATTLE FOR THE CONTINENT .. . 130

The Middle Ground ... 130  The Seven Years’ War ... 130  A World

Transformed ... 131  Pontiac’s Rebellion ... 132  The Proclamation

Line ... 132

Voices of Freedom: From Pontiac, Speeches (1762 and 1763), and

From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or

Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789) ... 134

Pennsylvania and the Indians ... 136  Colonial Identities ... 137

REVIEW .. . 138

5 . T H E A M E R I C A N R E V O L U T I O N , 1 7 6 3 – 1 7 8 3 . . . 1 3 9

THE CRISIS BEGINS . . . 140

Consolidating the Empire ... 140  Taxing the Colonies ... 142 

Taxation and Representation ... 143  Liberty and Resistance ... 144 

The Regulators ... 145

THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION .. . 145

The Townshend Crisis ... 145  The Boston Massacre ... 146  Wilkes

and Liberty ... 147  The Tea Act ... 148  The Intolerable Acts ... 148

THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE .. . 149

The Continental Congress ... 149  The Continental Association ... 150

 The Sweets of Liberty ... 150  The Outbreak of War ... 151 

Independence? ... 151  Paine’s Common Sense ... 152  The Declaration

of Independence ... 153  An Asylum for Mankind ... 154  The Global

Declaration of Independence ... 155

Voices of Freedom: From Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776), and

From Jonathan Boucher, A View of the Causes and Consequences of

the American Revolution (1775) ... 156

SECURING INDEPENDENCE .. . 158

The Balance of Power ... 158  Blacks in the Revolution ... 158  The

First Years of the War ... 159  The Battle of Saratoga ... 161  The War

in the South ... 162  Victory at Last ... 162

REVIEW .. . 166

6 . T H E R E V O L U T I O N W I T H I N . . . 1 6 7

DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM .. . 169

The Dream of Equality ... 169  Expanding the Political Nation ... 169

 The Revolution in Pennsylvania ... 170  The New Constitutions ... 171

 The Right to Vote ... 171

TOWARD RELIGIOUS TOLERATION .. . 172

Catholic Americans ... 173  Separating Church and State ... 173

 Jefferson and Religious Liberty ... 174  Christian Republicanism ... 175

 A Virtuous Citizenry ... 175

Contents

xi

DEFINING ECONOMIC FREEDOM .. . 176

Toward Free Labor ... 176  The Soul of a Republic ... 176  The Politics

of Inflation ... 177  The Debate over Free Trade ... 178

THE LIMITS OF LIBERTY .. . 178

Colonial Loyalists ... 178  The Loyalists’ Plight ... 179  The Indians’

Revolution ... 181

SLAVERY AND THE REVOLUTION .. . 182

The Language of Slavery and Freedom ... 182  Obstacles to Abolition ... 183

 The Cause of General Liberty ... 183  Petitions for Freedom ... 184

 British Emancipators ... 185  Voluntary Emancipations ... 185

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) ... 186

Abolition in the North ... 188  Free Black Communities ... 188

DAUGHTERS OF LIBERTY .. . 189

Revolutionary Women ... 189  Republican Motherhood ... 190  The

Arduous Struggle for Liberty ... 190

REVIEW .. . 192

7 . F O U N D I N G A N A T I O N , 1 7 8 3 – 1 7 9 1 . . . 1 9 3

AMERICA UNDER THE CONFEDERATION .. . 195

The Articles of Confederation ... 195  Congress, Settlers, and the West ...

196  The Land Ordinances ... 198  The Confederation’s Weaknesses ...

200  Shays’s Rebellion ... 200  Nationalists of the 1780s ... 201

A NEW CONSTITUTION .. . 202

The Structure of Government ... 202  The Limits of Democracy ... 203

 The Division and Separation of Powers ... 204  The Debate over Slavery

... 205  Slavery in the Constitution ... 205  The Final Document ... 207

THE RATIFICATION DEBATE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE BILL

OF RIGHTS . . . 208

The Federalist ... 208  “Extend the Sphere” ... 208  The Anti-

Federalists ... 209

Voices of Freedom: From David Ramsay, The History of the American

Revolution (1789), and From James Winthrop, Anti-Federalist Essay

Signed “Agrippa” (1787) ... 210

The Bill of Rights ... 214

“WE THE PEOPLE” . . . 215

National Identity ... 215  Indians in the New Nation ... 215  Blacks and

the Republic ... 217  Jefferson, Slavery, and Race ... 218  Principles of

Freedom ... 219

REVIEW .. . 220

xii

Contents

8 . S E C U R I N G T H E R E P U B L I C , 1 7 9 1 – 1 8 1 5 . . . 2 2 1

POLITICS IN AN AGE OF PASSION .. . 222

Hamilton’s Program ... 223  The Emergence of Opposition ... 223  The

Jefferson-Hamilton Bargain ... 224  The Impact of the French Revolution

... 225  Political Parties ... 226  The Whiskey Rebellion ... 226  The

Republican Party ... 226  An Expanding Public Sphere ... 227

Voices of Freedom: From Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of

the Sexes” (1790), and From Address of the Democratic-Republican

Society of Pennsylvania (December 18, 1794) ... 228

The Rights of Women ... 230

THE ADAMS PRESIDENCY .. . 231

The Election of 1796 ... 231  The “Reign of Witches” ... 232  The

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions ... 233  The “Revolution of

1800” ... 233  Slavery and Politics ... 234  The Haitian

Revolution ... 235  Gabriel’s Rebellion ... 235

JEFFERSON IN POWER .. . 236

Judicial Review ... 237  The Louisiana Purchase ... 237  Lewis and

Clark ... 239  Incorporating Louisiana ... 240  The Barbary Wars ... 241

 The Embargo ... 241  Madison and Pressure for War ... 242

THE “SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE” . . . 243

The Indian Response ... 243  The War of 1812 ... 244  The War’s

Aftermath ... 246  The End of the Federalist Party ... 247

REVIEW .. . 248

9 . T H E M A R K E T R E V O L U T I O N , 1 8 0 0 – 1 8 4 0 . . . 2 4 9

A NEW ECONOMY .. . 251

Roads and Steamboats ... 251  The Erie Canal ... 252  Railroads

and the Telegraph ... 254  The Rise of the West ... 255  The Cotton

Kingdom ... 257

MARKET SOCIETY .. . 259

Commercial Farmers ... 260  The Growth of Cities ... 260  The Factory

System ... 261  The “Mill Girls” ... 262  The Growth of Immigration ...

263  The Rise of Nativism ... 265  The Transformation of Law ... 266

THE FREE INDIVIDUAL .. . 267

The West and Freedom ... 267  The Transcendentalists ... 267  The

Second Great Awakening ... 268  The Awakening’s Impact ... 269

Voices of Freedom: From Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American

Scholar” (1837), and From “Factory Life as It Is, by an Operative”

(1845) ... 270

The Emergence of Mormonism ... 272

Contents

xi i i

THE LIMITS OF PROSPERITY . . . 273

Liberty and Prosperity ... 273  Race and Opportunity ... 274  The Cult

of Domesticity ... 275  Women and Work ... 276  The Early Labor

Movement ... 277  The “Liberty of Living” ... 277

REVIEW .. . 279

1 0 . D E M O C R A C Y I N A M E R I C A , 1 8 1 5 – 1 8 4 0 . . . 2 8 0

THE TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY .. . 281

Property and Democracy ... 281  The Dorr War ... 282  Tocqueville on

Democracy ... 282  The Information Revolution ... 283  The Limits of

Democracy ... 284  A Racial Democracy ... 284

NATIONALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS . . . 285

The American System ... 285  Banks and Money ... 287  The Panic

of 1819 ... 287  The Missouri Controversy ... 288

NATION, SECTION, AND PARTY .. . 289

The United States and the Latin American Wars of Independence ... 289

 The Monroe Doctrine ... 290  The Election of 1824 ... 291

Voices of Freedom: From President James Monroe, Annual Message

to Congress (1823), and From John C. Calhoun, “A Disquisition on

Government” (ca. 1845) ... 292

The Nationalism of John Quincy Adams ... 294  “Liberty Is Power” ... 294

 Martin Van Buren and the Democratic Party ... 294  The Election

of 1828 ... 295

THE AGE OF JACKSON .. . 296

The Party System ... 296  Democrats and Whigs ... 297  Public and

Private Freedom ... 298  South Carolina and Nullification ... 299

 Calhoun’s Political Theory ... 299  The Nullification Crisis ... 301

 Indian Removal ... 301  The Supreme Court and the Indians ... 302

THE BANK WAR AND AFTER .. . 304

Biddle’s Bank ... 304  Pet Banks, the Economy, and the Panic

of 1837 ... 306  Van Buren in Office ... 307  The Election of 1840 ... 307

REVIEW .. . 310

1 1 . T H E P E C U L I A R I N S T I T U T I O N . . . 3 1 1

THE OLD SOUTH .. . 312

Cotton Is King ... 313  The Second Middle Passage ... 314  Slavery

and the Nation ... 314  The Southern Economy ... 314  Plain Folk

of the Old South ... 316  The Planter Class ... 317  The Paternalist

Ethos ... 318  The Proslavery Argument ... 318  Abolition in the

Americas ... 320  Slavery and Liberty ... 320

xiv

Contents

LIFE UNDER SLAVERY .. . 321

Slaves and the Law ... 321  Conditions of Slave Life ... 322  Free

Blacks in the Old South ... 322  Slave Labor ... 323  Slavery in the

Cities ... 324  Maintaining Order ... 325

SLAVE CULTURE .. . 326

The Slave Family ... 326  The Threat of Sale ... 327  Gender Roles

among Slaves ... 327  Slave Religion ... 328  The Desire for Liberty ... 329

RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY .. . 330

Forms of Resistance ... 330

Voices of Freedom: From Letter by Joseph Taper to Joseph Long

(1840), and From “Slavery and the Bible” (1850) ... 332

The Amistad ... 334  Slave Revolts ... 335  Nat Turner’s Rebellion ... 336

REVIEW .. . 338

1 2 . A N A G E O F R E F O R M , 1 8 2 0 – 1 8 4 0 . . . 3 3 9

THE REFORM IMPULSE .. . 340

Utopian Communities ... 341  The Shakers ... 343  Oneida ... 343 

Worldly Communities ... 344  Religion and Reform ... 345  Critics of

Reform ... 346  Reformers and Freedom ... 346  The Invention of the

Asylum ... 347  The Common School ... 347

THE CRUSADE AGAINST SLAVERY .. . 348

Colonization ... 348  Militant Abolitionism ... 349  Spreading the

Abolitionist Message ... 350  Slavery and Moral Suasion ... 351  A

New Vision of America ... 352

BLACK AND WHITE ABOLITIONISM .. . 353

Black Abolitionists ... 353  Gentlemen of Property and Standing ... 354

THE ORIGINS OF FEMINISM .. . 356

The Rise of the Public Woman ... 356  Women and Free Speech ... 356 

Women’s Rights ... 357  Feminism and Freedom ... 358  Women and

Work ... 358  The Slavery of Sex ... 359

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 ... 360

“Social Freedom” ... 362  The Abolitionist Schism ... 363

REVIEW .. . 365

1 3 . A H O U S E D I V I D E D , 1 8 4 0 – 1 8 6 1 . . . 3 6 6

FRUITS OF MANIFEST DESTINY .. . 368

Continental Expansion ... 368  The Mexican Frontier: New Mexico and

California ... 368  The Texas Revolt ... 370  The Election of 1844 ... 370

 The Road to War ... 372  The War and Its Critics ... 372  Combat

Contents

xv

in Mexico ... 373  Race and Manifest Destiny ... 374  Gold-Rush

California ... 376  Opening Japan ... 377

A DOSE OF ARSENIC . . . 378

The Wilmot Proviso ... 378  The Free Soil Appeal ... 379  Crisis and

Compromise ... 380  The Great Debate ... 380  The Fugitive Slave

Issue ... 381  Douglas and Popular Sovereignty ... 382  The Kansas-

Nebraska Act ... 382

THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY .. . 383

The Northern Economy ... 383  The Rise and Fall of the Know-

Nothings ... 385  The Free Labor Ideology ... 386  “Bleeding Kansas”

and the Election of 1856 ... 387

THE EMERGENCE OF LINCOLN .. . 388

The Dred Scott Decision ... 389  Lincoln and Slavery ... 390  The

Lincoln-Douglas Campaign ... 390  John Brown at Harpers Ferry ... 391

Voices of Freedom: From The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) ... 392

The Rise of Southern Nationalism ... 394  The Election of 1860 ... 395

THE IMPENDING CRISIS . . . 397

The Secession Movement ... 397  The Secession Crisis ... 398  And

the War Came ... 399

REVIEW .. . 401

1 4 . A N E W B I R T H O F F R E E D O M : T H E C I V I L W A R , 1 8 6 1 – 1 8 6 5 . . . 4 0 2

THE FIRST MODERN WAR .. . 403

The Two Combatants ... 404  The Technology of War ... 405  The

Public and the War ... 406  Mobilizing Resources ... 407  Military

Strategies ... 407  The War Begins ... 408  The War in the East,

1862 ... 409  The War in the West ... 410

THE COMING OF EMANCIPATION .. . 410

Slavery and the War ... 410  Steps toward Emancipation ... 413 

Lincoln’s Decision ... 413  The Emancipation Proclamation ... 414 

Enlisting Black Troops ... 416  The Black Soldier ... 416

THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION .. . 417

Liberty, Union, and Nation ... 418  The War and American Religion ... 419

Voices of Freedom: From Letter of Thomas F. Drayton (April 17,

1861), and From Abraham Lincoln, Address at Sanitary Fair,

Baltimore (April 18, 1864) ... 420

Liberty in Wartime ... 422  The North’s Transformation ... 422 

Government and the Economy ... 423  The War and Native

Americans ... 423  A New Financial System ... 425  Women and

the War ... 425  The Divided North ... 426

xvi

Contents

THE CONFEDERATE NATION .. . 428

Leadership and Government ... 428  The Inner Civil War ... 428 

Economic Problems ... 429  Women and the Confederacy ... 430 

Black Soldiers for the Confederacy ... 431

TURNING POINTS . . . 431

Gettysburg and Vicksburg ... 431  1864 ... 433

REHEARSALS FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND THE END

OF THE WAR .. . 434

The Sea Islands Experiment ... 434  Wartime Reconstruction in the West

... 435  The Politics of Wartime Reconstruction ... 435  Victory at Last ...

436  The War and the World ... 438  The War in American History ... 438

REVIEW .. . 440

1 5 . “ W H A T I S F R E E D O M ? ” : R E C O N S T R U C T I O N , 1 8 6 5 – 1 8 7 7 . . . 4 4 1

THE MEANING OF FREEDOM .. . 443

Families in Freedom ... 443  Church and School ... 444  Political

Freedom ... 444  Land, Labor, and Freedom ... 445  Masters without

Slaves ... 445  The Free Labor Vision ... 447  The Freedmen’s Bureau

... 447  The Failure of Land Reform ... 448  The White Farmer ... 449

Voices of Freedom: From Petition of Committee in Behalf of the

Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865), and From A Sharecropping

Contract (1866) ... 450

Aftermath of Slavery ... 453

THE MAKING OF RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION .. . 454

Andrew Johnson ... 454  The Failure of Presidential Reconstruction ...

454  The Black Codes ... 455  The Radical Republicans ... 456  The

Origins of Civil Rights ... 456  The Fourteenth Amendment ... 457

 The Reconstruction Act ... 458  Impeachment and the Election

of Grant ... 458  The Fifteenth Amendment ... 460  The “Great

Constitutional Revolution” ... 461  The Rights of Women ... 461

RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH .. . 462

“The Tocsin of Freedom” ... 462  The Black Officeholder ... 464

 Carpetbaggers and Scalawags ... 464  Southern Republicans in

Power ... 465  The Quest for Prosperity ... 465

THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION .. . 466

Reconstruction’s Opponents ... 466  “A Reign of Terror” ... 467

 The Liberal Republicans ... 469  The North’s Retreat ... 470  The

Triumph of the Redeemers ... 471  The Disputed Election and Bargain

of 1877 ... 472  The End of Reconstruction ... 473

REVIEW .. . 474

Contents

xvii

A P P E N D I X

DOCUMENTS

The Declaration of Independence (1776) ... A-2

The Constitution of The United States (1787) ... A-5

From George Washington’s Farewell Address (1796) ... A-17

The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments And Resolutions (1848) ... A-22

From Frederick Douglass’s “What, To the Slave, Is The Fourth Of July?”

Speech (1852) ... A-25 The Gettysburg Address (1863) ... A-29

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865) ... A-30

The Populist Platform of 1892 ... A-31

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address (1933) ... A-34

From The Program For The March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom

(1963) ... A-37 Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address (1981) ... A-38

Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address (2009) ... A-42

TABLES AND FIGURES

Presidential Elections ... A-46

Admission of States ... A-54

Population of the United States ... A-55

Historical Statistics of The United States:

Labor Force—Selected Characteristics Expressed As A Percentage

of The Labor Force, 1800–2010 ... A-56

Immigration, By Origin ... A-56

Unemployment Rate, 1890–2013 ... A-57

Union Membership As A Percentage Of Nonagricultural Employment,

1880–2012 ... A-57

Voter Participation in Presidential Elections 1824–2012 ... A-57

Birthrate, 1820–2011 ... A-57

S U G G E S T E D R E A D I N G S ... A - 5 9

G L O S S A R Y ... A - 6 7

C R E D I T S ... A - 9 5

I N D E X ... A - 9 9

xvii i

List of Maps, Tables, and Figures

M A P S

CHAPTER 1

The First Americans ... 4

Native Ways of Life, ca. 1500 ... 8

The Old World on the Eve of American

Colonization, ca. 1500 ... 15

Voyages of Discovery ... 18

Early Spanish Conquests and Explorations in the

New World ... 26

The New World—New France and New

Netherland, ca. 1650 ... 31

CHAPTER 2

English Settlement in the Chesapeake,

ca. 1650 ... 48

English Settlement in New England,

ca. 1640 ... 59

CHAPTER 3

Eastern North America in the Seventeenth and

Early Eighteenth Centuries ... 76

European Settlement and Ethnic Diversity on the

Atlantic Coast of North America, 1760 ... 94

CHAPTER 4

Atlantic Trading Routes ... 107

The Slave Trade in the Atlantic World,

1460–1770 ... 108

European Empires in North America,

ca. 1750 ... 128

Eastern North America after the Peace of

Paris, 1763 ... 133

CHAPTER 5

The Revolutionary War in the North,

1775–1781 ... 160

The Revolutionary War in the South,

1775–1781 ... 163

North America, 1783 ... 164

CHAPTER 6

Loyalism in the American Revolution ... 180

CHAPTER 7

Western Lands, 1782–1802 ... 197

Western Ordinances, 1785–1787 ... 199

Ratification of the Constitution ... 213

CHAPTER 8

The Presidential Election of 1800 ... 234

The Louisiana Purchase ... 239

The War of 1812 ... 245

CHAPTER 9

The Market Revolution: Roads and Canals,

1840 ... 253

Travel Times from New York City in 1800

and 1830 ... 256

The Market Revolution: The Spread of

Cotton Cultivation, 1820–1840 ... 258

Cotton Mills, 1820s ... 263

CHAPTER 10

The Missouri Compromise, 1820 ... 289

The Presidential Election of 1824 ... 291

The Presidential Election of 1828 ... 296

Indian Removals, 1830–1840 ... 302

The Presidential Election of 1840 ... 308

CHAPTER 11

Slave Population, 1860 ... 315

Size of Slaveholdings, 1860 ... 319

Major Crops of the South, 1860 ... 325

Slave Resistance in the Nineteenth-Century

Atlantic World ... 331

CHAPTER 12

Utopian Communities, Mid-Nineteenth

Century ... 342

CHAPTER 13

The Trans-Mississippi West, 1830s–1840s ... 369

The Mexican War, 1846–1848 ... 374

Continental Expansion through 1853 ... 375

The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854 ... 383

Lists of Maps, Tables, and Figures

xix

The Railroad Network, 1850s ... 384

The Presidential Election of 1856 ... 389

The Presidential Election of 1860 ... 396

CHAPTER 14

The Secession of Southern States, 1860–1861 ...

404

The Civil War in the East, 1861–1862 ... 409

The Civil War in the West, 1861–1862 ... 411

The Emancipation Proclamation ... 414

The Civil War, 1863 ... 432

The Civil War, Late 1864–1865 ... 437

CHAPTER 15

The Barrow Plantation ... 446

Sharecropping in the South,

1880 ... 452

The Presidential Election of 1868 ... 460

Reconstruction in the South,

1867–1877 ... 471

The Presidential Election of 1876 ... 472

T A B L E S A N D F I G U R E S

CHAPTER 1

Table 1.1 Estimated Regional Populations:

The Americas, ca. 1500 ... 24

Table 1.2 Estimated Regional Populations:

The World, ca. 1500 ... 25

CHAPTER 3

Table 3.1 Origins and Status of Migrants

to British North American Colonies,

1700–1775 ... 91

CHAPTER 4

Table 4.1 Slave Population as Percentage of

Total Population of Original Thirteen

Colonies, 1770 ... 112

CHAPTER 7

Table 7.1 Total Population and Black Population

of the United States, 1790 ... 217

CHAPTER 9

Table 9.1 Population Growth of Selected Western

States, 1800–1850 (Excluding Indians)... 257

Table 9.2 Total Number of Immigrants by

Five-Year Period ... 264

Figure 9.1 Sources of Immigration, 1850 ... 265

CHAPTER 11

Table 11.1 Growth of the Slave Population ... 314

Table 11.2 Slaveholding, 1850 (in Round

Numbers) ... 318

CHAPTER 14

Figure 14.1 Resources for War: Union versus

Confederacy ... 407

xx

Preface

P R E FA C E

Since it originally appeared late in 2004, Give Me Liberty! An American History has gone through three editions and been adopted for use in survey courses at close to one thousand two- and four-year colleges in the United States, as well as a good number overseas. Of course, I am extremely gratified by this response. The book offers students a clear narra- tive of American history from the earliest days of European exploration and conquest of the New World to the first decade of the twenty-first century. Its central theme is the changing contours of American freedom.

The comments I have received from instructors and students encour- age me to think that Give Me Liberty! has worked well in the classroom. These comments have also included many valuable suggestions, ranging from corrections of typographical and factual errors to thoughts about subjects that need more extensive treatment. In preparing new editions of the book I have tried to take these suggestions into account, as well as incorporating the insights of recent historical scholarship.

Since the original edition was written, I have frequently been asked to produce a more succinct version of the textbook, which now runs to some 1,200 pages. This Brief Edition is a response to these requests. The text of the current volume is about one-third shorter than the full version. The result, I believe, is a book more suited to use in one-semester survey courses, classes

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xxi

where the instructor wishes to supplement the text with additional read- ings, and in other situations where a briefer volume is desirable.

Since some publishers have been known to assign the task of reduction in cases like this to editors rather than the actual author, I wish to empha- size that I did all the cutting and necessary rewriting for this Brief Edition myself. My guiding principle was to preserve the coverage, structure, and emphases of the regular edition and to compress the book by eliminating details of secondary importance, streamlining the narrative of events, and avoiding unnecessary repetition. While the book is significantly shorter, no subject treated in the full edition has been eliminated entirely and noth- ing essential, I believe, has been sacrificed. The sequence of chapters and subjects remains the same, and the freedom theme is present and operative throughout.

In abridging the textbook I have retained the original interpretive framework as well as the new emphases added when the second and third editions of the book were published. The second edition incorporated new material about the history of Native Americans, an area of American his- tory that has been the subject of significant new scholarship in the past few years. It also devoted greater attention to the history of immigration and the controversies surrounding it—issues of considerable relevance to Amer- ican social and political life today.

The most significant change in the third edition reflected my desire to place American history more fully in a global context. In the past few years, scholars writing about the American past have sought to delineate the influ- ences of the United States on the rest of the world as well as the global devel- opments that have helped to shape the course of events here at home. They have also devoted greater attention to transnational processes—the expan- sion 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 seek- ing in any way to homogenize the history of individual nations or neglect the domestic forces that have shaped American development, this edition retains this emphasis.

The most significant changes in this Fourth Edition reflect my desire to integrate more fully into the narrative the history of American religion. Today, this is a thriving subfield of American historical writing, partly because of the increased prominence in our own time of debates over the relations between government and religion and over the definition of reli- gious liberty—issues that are deeply rooted in the American experience. The Brief Edition also employs a bright new design for the text and its vari- ous elements. The popular Voices of Freedom feature—a pair of excerpts from primary source documents in each chapter that illuminate divergent interpretations of freedom—is present here. So too are the useful chapter

xxii

Preface

opening focus questions, which appear in the running heads of the relevant text pages as well. There are chapter opening chronologies and end-of- chapter review pages with questions and key terms. As a new feature in the Brief Edition there are marginal glosses in the text pages that are meant to highlight key points and indicate the chapter structure for students. They are also useful means for review. The Brief Edition features more than 400 illustrations and over 100 captioned maps in easy to read four-color renditions. The Further Readings sections appear in the Appendix along with the Glossary and the collection of key documents. The Brief Edition is fully supported by the same array of print and electronic supplements that support the other editions of Give Me Liberty! These materials have been revised to match the content of the Brief Edition.

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 bur- den 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 historical museums and National Park Service historical sites in ever-increasing numbers. My hope is that this book will help to con- vince 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 power 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 imme- diate answers to current questions. Knowing the history of immigration to the United States, and all of the 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 inter- pretations that cannot be challenged, our understanding of history is con- stantly changing. There is nothing unusual in the fact that each generation rewrites history to meet its own needs, or that scholars disagree among

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themselves on basic questions like the causes of the Civil War or the rea- sons for the Great Depression. Precisely because each generation asks dif- ferent 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 historians. New subfields—social history, cultural history, and family history among them—have taken their place alongside traditional political and diplomatic history.

Give Me Liberty! draws on this voluminous historical literature to pres- ent 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 serious attention to political, social, cultural, and eco- nomic history, and to their interconnections. The narrative brings together major events and prominent leaders with the many groups of ordinary peo- ple who make up American society. Give Me Liberty! has a rich cast of char- acters, 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.

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 personalities in the foreground and is more geared to the structure of the introductory survey course.

Freedom, and battles to define its meaning, has long been central to my own scholarship and undergraduate teaching, which focuses on the nineteenth century and especially the era of 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 attention to clashing definitions of freedom and the struggles of differ- ent groups to achieve freedom as they understood it offers a way of mak- ing sense of the bitter 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 individuals and as a nation than freedom. The central term in our politi- cal language, freedom—or liberty, with which it is almost always used interchangeably—is 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

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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 mislead- ing. Freedom is not a fixed, timeless category with a single unchanging defi- nition. Indeed, the history of the United States is, in part, a story of debates, disagreements, and struggles over freedom. Crises like the American Revo- lution, the Civil War, and the Cold War have permanently transformed the idea of freedom. So too have demands by various groups of Americans to enjoy greater freedom. The meaning of freedom has been constructed not only in congressional 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 real- ity 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 conditions that make freedom possible; and (3) the boundaries of free- dom that determine 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 pri- marily a set of rights enjoyed in public activity—including the right of a com- munity to be governed by laws to which its representatives had consented and of individuals to engage in religious worship without governmental interference. In the nineteenth century, freedom came to be closely identi- fied with each person’s opportunity 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 dominant understanding of freedom. This develop- ment was encouraged by the explosive growth of the consumer marketplace 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

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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 con- ditions 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 autonomy, enshrined in the glorification of the inde- pendent 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 consump- tion 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 free- dom. Non-whites have rarely enjoyed the same access to freedom as white Americans. The belief in equal opportunity as the birthright of all Ameri- cans has coexisted with persistent efforts to limit freedom by race, gender, class, and in other ways.

Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that one person’s freedom has fre- quently been linked to another’s servitude. In the colonial era and nine- teenth 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 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 Civil War and was rein- vigorated by the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, which called itself the “freedom movement.” 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 liberties an essential element of freedom for all Americans.

Freedom is the oldest of clichés and the most modern of aspirations. At various times in our history, it has served as the rallying cry of the

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powerless and as a justification of the status quo. Freedom helps to bind our culture together and exposes the contradictions between what Amer- ica 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 backward.” While freedom can be achieved, it may also be taken away. This happened, for example, when the equal rights granted to former slaves immediately after the Civil War were essentially nullified during the era of segregation. 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 our 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 export American freedom overseas. As with the longer version of the book, I hope that this Brief Edition of Give Me Liberty! will offer begin- ning students a clear account of the course of American history, and of its central theme, freedom, which today remains as varied, contentious, and ever-changing as America itself.

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

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 experience, over more than five centuries. My greatest debt is to the innumerable histo- rians on whose work I have drawn in preparing this volume. The Suggested Reading list in the Appendix offers only a brief introduction to the vast body of historical scholarship that has influenced and informed this book. More specifically, however, I wish to thank the following scholars, who gener- ously read portions of this work and offered valuable comments, criticisms, and suggestions:

Wayne Ackerson, Salisbury University Mary E. Adams, City College of San Francisco Jeff Adler, University of Florida David Anderson, Louisiana Tech University John Barr, Lone Star College, Kingwood Lauren Braun-Strumfels, Raritan Valley Community College James Broussard, Lebanon Valley College Michael Bryan, Greenville Technical College Stephanie Cole, The University of Texas at Arlington Ashley Cruseturner, McLennan Community College Jim Dudlo, Brookhaven College Beverly Gage, Yale University Monica Gisolfi, University of North Carolina, Wilmington Adam Goudsouzian, University of Memphis Mike Green, Community College of Southern Nevada Vanessa Gunther, California State University, Fullerton David E. Hamilton, University of Kentucky Brian Harding, Mott Community College Sandra Harvey, Lone Star College–Cy Fair April Holm, University of Mississippi David Hsiung, Juniata College James Karmel, Harford Community College Kelly Knight, Penn State University Marianne Leeper, Trinity Valley Community College Jeffrey K. Lucas, University of North Carolina at Pembroke Tina Margolis, Westchester Community College Kent McGaughy, HCC Northwest College James Mills, University of Texas, Brownsville Gil Montemayor, McLennan Community College Jonathan Noyalas, Lord Fairfax Community College Robert M. O’Brien, Lone Star College–Cy Fair

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Joseph Palermo, California State University, Sacramento Ann Plane, University of California, Santa Barbara Nancy Marie Robertson, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Esther Robinson, Lone Star College–Cy Fair Richard Samuelson, California State University, San Bernadino Diane Sager, Maple Woods Community College John Shaw, Portland Community College Mark Spencer, Brock University David Stebenne, Ohio State University Judith Stein, City College, City University of New York George Stevens, Duchess Community College Robert Tinkler, California State University, Chico Elaine Thompson, Louisiana Tech University David Weiman, Barnard College 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 his- tory; 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 Univer- sity’s Department of History who helped with this project. Theresa Ventura offered invaluable assistance in gathering material for the new sections plac- ing American history in a global context. April Holm provided similar assis- tance for new coverage in this edition of the history of American religion and debates over religious freedom. James Delbourgo conducted research for the chapters on the colonial era. Beverly Gage did the same for the twenti- eth century. Daniel Freund provided all-round research assistance. Victoria Cain did a superb job of locating images. I also want to thank my colleagues Elizabeth Blackmar and Alan Brinkley for offering advice and encourage- ment 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. Nancy Robertson at IUIPUI did a superb job revising and enhancing the in-book pedagogy. Monica Gisolfi (Univer- sity 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.

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At W. W. Norton & Company, Steve Forman was an ideal editor— patient, encouraging, and always ready to offer sage advice. I would also like to thank Steve’s assistants, Justin Cahill and Penelope Lin, for their indispensable and always cheerful help on all aspects of the project; Ellen Lohman and Debbie Nichols for their careful copyediting and proof read- ing work. Stephanie Romeo and Donna Ranieri for their resourceful atten- tion to the illustrations program; Hope Miller Goodell and Chin-Yee Lai for their refinements of the book design; Mike Fodera and Debra Morton-Hoyt for splendid work on the covers for the Fourth Edition; Kim Yi for keep- ing the many threads of the project aligned and then tying them together; Sean Mintus for his efficiency and care in book production; Steve Hoge for orchestrating the rich media package that accompanies the textbook; Jessica Brannon-Wranosky, Texas A&M University–Commerce, our digital media author for the terrific new web quizzes and outlines; Volker Janssen, Cali- fornia State University, Fullerton, for the helpful new online reading exer- cises; Nicole Netherton, 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 ded- icated 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 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 con- sumed 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 writ- ten and offered invaluable suggestions about improving the book’s clarity, logic, and grammar.

Eric Foner New York City

July 2013

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 r i e f F o u r t h E d i t i o n





C H A P T E R 1

A

N E W W O R L D

7000 BC Agriculture developed in Mexico and Andes

900– Hopi and Zuni tribes build 1200 AD planned towns

1200 Cahokia city-empire along the Mississippi

1400s Iroquois League established

1434 Portuguese explore sub- Saharan African Coast

1487 Bartolomeu Dias reaches the Cape of Good Hope

1492 Reconquista of Spain

Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas

1498 Vasco da Gama sails to the Indian Ocean

1500 Pedro Cabral claims Brazil for Portugal

1502 First African slaves trans- ported to the Caribbean islands

1517 Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses

1519 Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico

1528 Las Casas’s History of the Indies

1530s Pizarro’s conquest of Peru

1542 Spain promulgates the New Laws

1608 Champlain establishes Quebec

1609 Hudson claims New Netherland

1610 Santa Fe established

1680 Pueblo Revolt

A

N E W W O R L D

C H A P T E R 1

France Bringing the Faith to the Indians

of New France. European nations

justified colonization with the argument

that they were bringing Christianity—

without which freedom was impossible—

to Native Americans. In this painting

from the 1670s, an Indian kneels before

a female representation of France. Both

hold a painting of the Trinity.

Chapter 1  A New World2

What were the major pat-

terns of Native American

life in North America

before Europeans arrived?

How did Indian and Euro-

pean ideas of freedom dif-

fer on the eve of contact?

What impelled European

explorers to look west

across the Atlantic?

What happened when the

peoples of the Americas

came in contact with

Europeans?

What were the chief

features of the Spanish

empire in America?

What were the chief fea-

tures of the French and

Dutch empires in North

America?

F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S

T 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.” Smith also noted, however, that to the “natives” of the Americas 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. Europeans envisioned America as a religious refuge, a society of equals, a source of power and glory. They searched the New World for golden cities and fountains of eternal youth. Some of these dreams 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 New World also became

3T H E F I R S T A M E R I C A N S

What were the major patterns of Native American life in North America before Europeans arrived?

the site of many forms of unfree labor, including indentured servitude, forced labor, and one of the most brutal and unjust systems, plantation slavery. The conquest and settlement of the Western Hemisphere opened new chapters in the long histories of both freedom and slavery.

T H E F I R S T A M E R I C A N S

The Settling of the Americas

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.

The New World was new to Europeans but an ancient homeland 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.

Indian Societies of the Americas

North and South America were hardly an empty wilderness when Europeans arrived. The hemisphere contained cities, roads, irrigation systems, extensive trade networks, and large structures such as the pyramid-temples whose beauty still inspires wonder. With a population close to 250,000, Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico, was one of the world’s largest cities. Farther 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.

Indian civilizations in North America had not developed the scale, gran- deur, or centralized organization of the Aztec and Inca societies to their south.

Emergence of agriculture

Roads, trade networks, and irrigation systems

Chapter 1  A New World4

Tenochtitlán

Monte Alban

Poverty Point

Chichen Itzá

Chaco Canyon

Cahokia

Palenque

NORTH AMERICA

SOUTH AMERICA

CENTRAL AMERICA

Chukc h i Pe n insu la

Yucatán Pen ins u la

Aleut ian I s lands INCAS

MAY ANS

MOHAWK ONEIDA

CAYUGA SENECA

ONONDAGA

CHEROKEE

HOPI ZUNI

PUEBLO CHICKASAW

CHOCTAW

AZTECS

Be rin

g St rait

Gulf of Mexico

Caribbean Sea

Atlantic Ocean

Paci f ic Ocean

0

0

500

500

1,000 miles

1,000 kilometers

Possible migration routes

Oh io Ri

ve r

M ississippi R.

T H E F I R S T A M E R I C A N S

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.

5T H E F I R S T A M E R I C A N S

What were the major patterns of Native American life in North America before Europeans arrived?

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). Their “backwardness” became a central justification for European conquest. But, over time, Indian societies had perfected techniques of farming, hunt- ing, and fishing, developed structures of political power and religious belief, and engaged in far-reaching networks of trade and communication.

Mound Builders of the Mississippi River Valley

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 overlooking 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.

More than a thousand years before Columbus sailed, Indians of the Ohio River valley, called “mound builders” by eighteenth-century set- tlers who encountered the large earthen burial mounds they created, had traded across half the continent. After their decline, another culture flour- ished in the Mississippi River valley, centered on the city of Cahokia near present-day St. Louis, a fortified community with between 10,000 and

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.

“Mound builders”

Justification for conquest

Chapter 1  A New World6

30,000 inhabitants in the year 1200. It stood as the largest settled com- munity in what is now the United States until surpassed in population by New York and Philadelphia around 1800.

Western Indians

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 dwell- ings 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.