Settlement and immigration
Statue of Liberty
New York almost designed for immigration
Never such a thing as one single national culture
Native culture 10 mil native people living there when the Europeans arrived
Huge confrontation and conflict
3 issues: Health, land & trade, religion
Health: made each other sick with unknown diseases on both sides lot of deaths
Land & trade: had extremely different ideas on how to use land and how to trade
Europeans: making money and working on the land
Natives: land was sacred (The Great Mother), respect for mother nature
Religion: Natives had communal life
Founders
Started to import African people to work or serve and to be set free afterwards
Earliest form of slavery in the world
The Mayflower 1620 – Pilgrims
Restriction on immigration
Banned groups 1875
Ellis Island 1892
The Melting Pot: different groups would merge and become a new people
The war of independence
All about money
England gained a lot of new land really far from home and didn’t know how to protect it
George Grenville discovered that the colonial custom service cost more than it brought
in
Decided to bring in Acts that would fund England
Taxes on products met with outrage from day 1
Sugar Act 1764
Stamp Act 1765: all mail had to be marked with a specific stamp
Colonists were not represented in English parliament wanted to beat taxes: not
taxation without representation
English troops were sent to control the Bostonians, to teach them a lesson Bostonians
started acting like model citizens to fool the troops
5 March 1770 Boston Massacre locals started teasing the guard mentally, started
throwing snowballs and the soldiers started shooting
May 1773 Tea Act benefitted the East India Company
16 December 1773 Boston Tea Part local workers refused to unload the tea and
unloaded it in the harbor instead
1774 Coercive Acts port was closed, King appointed a leader for the colonies
September 1774 first continental congress
, First 13 states decided to discontinue slavery means they didn’t import any new slaves
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (story that gets told to kids)
Minute man citizen that could become a soldier in less than a minute (full equipment at
home)
Paul Revere rode to Lexington from Boston to warn the Minute men that “the British are
coming”
4 July 1776 Declaration of Independence
US is an accidental country
Only 8% of American manufacturing was in the South
Lot of slavery “The South’s peculiar institution”
South vs North South was suspicious of why the North stopped slavery
Fugitive Slave Acts if a slave escaped and was caught in the North, they had to be
returned to the rightful owner in the South (slave = property) North was outraged and
the Acts had the opposite effect
1803 Louisiana Purchase middle part was French but now became part of US
Will these new states be free states or slave states?
Missouri compromise 1820: any state north of the southern border of Missouri
would be free states, all the other ones would be slave states
Dred Scott
Slave
Went to a free state with his master for 4 years and then went back to the slave
state they originally came from
He was basically a free man so how could he become a slave again
Fought for his freedom in supreme court
Case became catalyst for Civil War
Judge told him he couldn’t sue because he was black said that the Missouri
Compromise was unconstitutional because it took property away from men
northern people highly outraged by this
1850 drop in cotton prices
Political protagonists
Abraham Lincoln: The Union
Republican party
Wanted to unite the country
Nov 1860 Lincoln wins by minority vote
11 out of 15 slave states decided to leave the Union because they knew
Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery (left even before Lincoln took office)
The central paradox of the civil war
= The southern had majority in both houses
Northern had to make a constitutional amendment in order to abolish slavery
could never happen because of the southern majority
By leaving the Union they made a majority vote on the amendment possible
(STUPID!)
Statue of Liberty
New York almost designed for immigration
Never such a thing as one single national culture
Native culture 10 mil native people living there when the Europeans arrived
Huge confrontation and conflict
3 issues: Health, land & trade, religion
Health: made each other sick with unknown diseases on both sides lot of deaths
Land & trade: had extremely different ideas on how to use land and how to trade
Europeans: making money and working on the land
Natives: land was sacred (The Great Mother), respect for mother nature
Religion: Natives had communal life
Founders
Started to import African people to work or serve and to be set free afterwards
Earliest form of slavery in the world
The Mayflower 1620 – Pilgrims
Restriction on immigration
Banned groups 1875
Ellis Island 1892
The Melting Pot: different groups would merge and become a new people
The war of independence
All about money
England gained a lot of new land really far from home and didn’t know how to protect it
George Grenville discovered that the colonial custom service cost more than it brought
in
Decided to bring in Acts that would fund England
Taxes on products met with outrage from day 1
Sugar Act 1764
Stamp Act 1765: all mail had to be marked with a specific stamp
Colonists were not represented in English parliament wanted to beat taxes: not
taxation without representation
English troops were sent to control the Bostonians, to teach them a lesson Bostonians
started acting like model citizens to fool the troops
5 March 1770 Boston Massacre locals started teasing the guard mentally, started
throwing snowballs and the soldiers started shooting
May 1773 Tea Act benefitted the East India Company
16 December 1773 Boston Tea Part local workers refused to unload the tea and
unloaded it in the harbor instead
1774 Coercive Acts port was closed, King appointed a leader for the colonies
September 1774 first continental congress
, First 13 states decided to discontinue slavery means they didn’t import any new slaves
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (story that gets told to kids)
Minute man citizen that could become a soldier in less than a minute (full equipment at
home)
Paul Revere rode to Lexington from Boston to warn the Minute men that “the British are
coming”
4 July 1776 Declaration of Independence
US is an accidental country
Only 8% of American manufacturing was in the South
Lot of slavery “The South’s peculiar institution”
South vs North South was suspicious of why the North stopped slavery
Fugitive Slave Acts if a slave escaped and was caught in the North, they had to be
returned to the rightful owner in the South (slave = property) North was outraged and
the Acts had the opposite effect
1803 Louisiana Purchase middle part was French but now became part of US
Will these new states be free states or slave states?
Missouri compromise 1820: any state north of the southern border of Missouri
would be free states, all the other ones would be slave states
Dred Scott
Slave
Went to a free state with his master for 4 years and then went back to the slave
state they originally came from
He was basically a free man so how could he become a slave again
Fought for his freedom in supreme court
Case became catalyst for Civil War
Judge told him he couldn’t sue because he was black said that the Missouri
Compromise was unconstitutional because it took property away from men
northern people highly outraged by this
1850 drop in cotton prices
Political protagonists
Abraham Lincoln: The Union
Republican party
Wanted to unite the country
Nov 1860 Lincoln wins by minority vote
11 out of 15 slave states decided to leave the Union because they knew
Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery (left even before Lincoln took office)
The central paradox of the civil war
= The southern had majority in both houses
Northern had to make a constitutional amendment in order to abolish slavery
could never happen because of the southern majority
By leaving the Union they made a majority vote on the amendment possible
(STUPID!)
