I. Ancient America
II. The Columbian Exchange
III. The Colonial Period (to 1763)
IV. American Revolution (1763-1789)
V. The Early Republic (1789-1801)
VI. The New Republic (1801-1829)
VII. The New Democracy (1829-1861)
VIII. Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
IX. The Trans-Mississippi West
X. The Gilded Age
XI. The Progressive Era
XII. The Great War
XIII. Roaring Twenties
XIV. The Great Depression
XV. World War II
XVI. Post-War World
XVII. Civil Rights Movement
XVIII. The Cold War
XIX. The Great Society
XX. Morning In America
INTRODUCTION
This endeavor is an attempt to begin to build a set of online textbooks for both secondary and post secondary education students. The initial such 'text' is to be one that is available to all students and others on the world wide web at no cost. It will be followed by texts in World History, Economics, American Government, and Introductory Political Science, as well as one in political theory.
The texts thus constructed will never be 'completed,' but will
have to continuously be addended. In addition, it is anticipated
that every instructor or institution making use of them will
augment them with links to items of their own construction or
augmentation to fit their particular needs and priorities. It is
also hoped that the effort will help to stir similar projects by
others. The ejps is hopeful that others will want to contribute
to the project it is undertaking as well, as solicits suggestions
and contributions to this project by others.
The text approach to teaching has its assets, of course, but it
also has a great many liabilities, and to overcome some of these,
the project will entail as much by links as by textual commentary.
To the extent possible this will open the horizons of educational
exploration for teachers and students to more primary and
secondary sources. Due to the extent of this which will be involved,the e texts will reach beyond the limitations of texts of the pastto provide for different levels of challenge to students dependentupon their preparation and academic level.
CHAPTER I -- ANCIENT AMERICA
The Arrival of the First Americans
The human race did not originate in the western hemisphere as far
as we know. Evidence indicates that human beings first developed in Africa and moved out from that area to occupy the other continents. This probably took place as the glaciers began to retreat as the last ice age was ending.
While the earliest humans were first testing the waters of
advancement perhaps little more than a million years ago, the
first of the species to come to dwell in the Americas probably
came here between 10000 and 30000 years ago. It is thought that
they came to North America and spread out through the entire land
mass of the two continents from central Asia. By approximately
10000 years ago, they had spread throughout the western hemisphere,although it is likely that these nomadic people came to the north-eastern part of what is now the United States and Canada only about 5000 years ago or later.
Because the ice that was in the glaciers covering much of the
northern extremities of the land masses of the earth caused the
levels of the oceans to be considerably lower than they are at
present, and because of the positioning of the glaciers on the
North American continent, the area of Alaska was connected by a
land and ice bridge with Siberia, across what is now called the
Bering Straits. The people were hunnters and gatherers and simply
followed the prey they hunted and moved slowly across the area and further into the continents of the Americas. It was a migration that was undertaken probably without conscious design other than to pursue dinner.
As the glaciers retreated and the people dispersed throughout the
land area of the Americas, the ocean levels rose and the land
bridge ceased to exist, cutting these emigres off from their
relatives in Siberia. Subsequently, their development took on
unique turns as they fitted themselves to their new and changing
surroundings, and causing them to become rather distint from theirAsian relatives culturally and socially, although they undoubtedlymaintained certain aspects of their earlier identities. Even within those dispersing across the huge area, the relative isolationof the various groups allowed for substantive differences to evolve among them.
There has been some speculation that some such arrivals came by
alternative means to the new homelands. It is suggested that some
came in boats, across large expanses of the Pacific Ocean. Many
of the human groups that occupy areas of the Pacific region are
similar to the inhabitants we have come to refer to as Indians.
More likely is that those who came in boats came along what is
now the Aleutian chain, hopskipping their way to this new world.
Descendants of those arriving had apparently reached as far as the tip of South America at Tierra del Fuego by about 15000 years ago, and the story of the diaspora of these people is a complex one.The variety of civilizations organized by these people is wide, and the common rather stereotypical image of the pre-Columbian Indian as the Sioux buffalo hunter with his tipi is more inaccurate than even strained imagery.
Indeed, most of the Indians of what we refer to as antiquity lived in cities in rather well-organized and populated settings. It is to these societies that we must turn to look at the first American history.
The First Americans
There are many varied ways of classifying the various groups of
Indian societies which occupied the landmass of the Americas before the white man arrived. Among these would be the Plains cultures, but there were also the hunters and gatherers of the west coast -- in two varied subgroups, those of California and those of the Pacific Northwest -- the Woodlands societies east of the Mississippi River, and the Pueblo and other cultures of the Southwest. To this should be added the highly urban trading civilizations of Mexico and South America.
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When you have finished with that the Ancient America portion of
that text (the first three chapters only -- about the early Indians), click on "Back" above to return to this sight.
Among the better sources of information about Native America
would be the many books by Francis Jenkins, which are widely
available.
An abundance of internet sites provide much information about
Native American history:
Maya and Inca Indians
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Aztec
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Ancient Mexico
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The Conquest of Mexico
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Quetzacoatl
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Mayan Studies
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Maya Glyphs
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Maya Books
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Meso American Bibliography
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Lost City of the Maya
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Aztec
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Latin America Ancient Links
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Olmec
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Ancient American West
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Iroquois
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Ojibway
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Iroquois League
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Delaware
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Song of Hiawatha
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Little Big Horn: A Saga of Sitting Bull
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Cherokee
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The Columbian Exchange
The rest of the world, and, indeed, subsequent generations, have
benefited tremendously from what was learned from the inhabitants
of North America. That knowledge played a large role in the ability of the world to sustain the levels of population at higher standards of living which have developed since then. Such food staples as corn, the potato, and the tomato were new to the non-'American' inhabitants of the world, providing the sustainence for increasing population. That represents only the most obvious contributions of early American civilization on world.
What the Indian got from the 'invasion' was quite different. They did reap benefits, without question, of course, but those pale in relation to what was lost. What the Indian got from this exchange, begun on a large scale after Columbus, was, fundamentally, dead. Prior to 1492, it is estimated that there were on the order of some several tens of millions of Indians living in the western hemisphere. By 1700, that population had declined to perhaps one million. And the death was not so much by design, although that clearly occured, but rather through the spread of such diseases 'unfamiliar' to Indians as smallpox.
And since the 'trade' began after the arrival of Columbus, it is often referred to as the 'Columbian Exchange.'
Both parties to the exchange got more than that, of course. For the Indian there was the horse, weaponry, and other technologies.
The non-Indian world also reaped the benefits of medicinal knowledge and even tobacco, to say nothing of the land and resources it garnered, by many described as having been expropriated from the Americans. 'Ex-propriated' is probably not the best term, since it was really rather a matter of default 'inheritence' as the numbers of original Americans fell precipitously.
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When you have completed the section relevant to the Columbian
Exchange (chapters 4-6), click on "Back" above to return to this location.
This discussion should also include consideration of the 'discovery' of the New World as part of that exchange. Columbus certainly had not been the first from the Old World to arrive on these shores.
