American History: A Quick Flashback

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Atul Sharma

An extrovert by nature, Atul has been sharing his opinions and views on various social network platforms. He always had been thinking about having his own platform and here it is. Creative and tech-savvy Atul has a good sense of humor and when he is not programming or writing blogs or traveling, you can find him cooking, Netflixing or sleeping.

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4^th July is the date when the US celebrates its Independence Day but if you think who ruled the world’s most powerful country and how did it get freedom, let us have a peek into American history.

Some say, all that started after Columbus arrived American Continent in 1492 AD and the whole world knew about this new world. Unfortunately, this not correct, this continent had been inhabitant long before that. No historical evidence but some say – they had been there since ice age or may have migrated from some other continents. So, let us talk about what we know and we have historical proof.

Based on the available documents and my significant time spent during the study of the topic, I have divided the complete American history into 3 parts, so that it is easy to understand and follow –

1. Start of Colonization
2. Independence war and Birth of the USA
3. The USA: Post Independence Era

1. Start of Colonization –

Upset with the increasing effect of the Ottoman Empire, Europeans wanted an alternate route to the Indian subcontinent to continue trade. Christopher Columbus, an Italian by birth, started his voyage which was sponsored by Monarchy. In 1492, he found the land after sailing in Atlantic for very long.  He thought this was India and never accepted his mistake even after 4 voyages (as shown in this image) to this newly discovered continent.

After that, first Spanish then French and British started coming here and making respective settlements.

But before that, let us see how this new world got its new name America. In 1507, a map depicted by Martin Waldseemüller, based on the details of Amerigo Vespucci (an Italian explorer and Merchant) named this region the first time as America (a Latinized version of Amerigo). Later this region became famous as America, later it was divided into the North and South American continent and wait… Today’s United States of America was still not there.  

People from different parts of Europe started coming to America. In 1607, the first British colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia.

In 1620, a group of roughly 100 people later known as the Pilgrims fled religious persecution in Europe and arrived at present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they established a colony.

Few records say – 20,000 Puritans migrated to the region between 1630 and 1640.

Many arrived in America for better economic opportunity while many were abducted from many European countries. Thousands of English convicts were shipped to America as indentured servants.

Another group that was brought to America against their will, were slaves from West Africa. By 1680 approximately 7000 African slaves were in America which grew to 700,000 till 1790.

This is brief overview how demography of America was set up.

Now let us see the map of America from 1750.

You can see French and British Colonies and they had a big war, also known as the Seven-Year War, which was from 1756 to 1763. This map from 1775, shows the elimination of French dominance from the region.

Now our focus will be British colonies only.  

2. Independence war and Birth of the USA

British had these 13 colonies

These 13 colonies were ruled independently. That means every colony had their legislatures and executives elected from their American colony but the Governor and many judges were appointed by British Crown. British parliament would pass laws, add new taxes for colonies but there was no representation of Americans in the British Parliament.

The seven-year war between the French and British was won by the British but they had to face a huge financial crisis because of that. The British thought they secured Americans from French and hence Americans should compensate for this. As a result of that, they started imposing new taxes on Americans.

Most of the Americans protested this.

The reasons behind this protest lie in the background of migrants. As we saw, most of the migrants came to America because of religious persecution in their home countries or for economic opportunity, and hence they wanted to make it a liberal and free country.

Til this time, two new terms were coined –

• Patriots – Americans, who were fighting against British Colony
• Loyalists – Americans, who took the side of British Monarch.

Colonial resistance turned violent in 1770 when British soldiers opened fire on colonists (i.e. patriots) and killed 5 men, this incident is known as the Boston Massacre.

After this, many patriotic and revolutionary incidents happened and the Boston Tea party, on 16 Dec 1773, is most famous and significant among them. After the Boston Tea Party, the British banned all town hall meetings, closed Boston Port, and asked the compensation of 10000 pounds from colonies.

All these events lead to the First Continental Congress in September 1774. No, still the United States of America is not formed, they didn’t get independence from British rule. In this congress, they decided to Boycott trade with Britain.

They also started preparing for probable war with British.

And this most anticipated war started in April 1775. Continental army was led by General George Washington.  

Meanwhile, one booklet with 49 pages, named Common Sense (published anonymously on 10 Jan 1776) written by Thomas Paine was broadly distributed, it had persuasive arguments for Independence. It became an immediate sensation and open-heartedly accepted by everyone.

After all that, the 2^nd continental congress took place on 4^th July 1776. Now the declaration of Independence was adopted in Philadelphia. It was written by Thomas Jefferson and one part of this reads this

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The Declaration of Independence

In the Congressional declaration dated September 9, 1776, the delegates wrote, “That in all continental commissions, and other instruments, where, heretofore, the words ‘United Colonies’ have been used, the stile be altered for the future to the “United States.” Now the United States of America name came into practice but still, the British monarch didn’t approve the independence of the country.

After this, a full-fledged war started between Americans and the British. France fully supported Americans and Spain and Netherland also joined hands with Americans against the British.

On September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris is signed between US and British representatives and it officially marked the end of the American War of Independence and the United States of America became a free country.

And we can see as another coincidence that American Independence war lasted for 7 years from 1776 to 1783 but it is not recognized as Seven Year War.

3. The USA: Post Independence Era

George Washington became the first President of the USA.

From 1783 to 1853, this maps shows how the USA expanded its territory. In Addition to this, On October 18, 1867, Alaska became the new state of the USA when it was bought from Russia for $7.2 Million.

In this article, I have tried to consolidate necessary information needed to understand the American History. Suggestions are welcome.

References –

• https://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/declaration
• https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/declaration-of-independence
• https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/american-revolution-history