 |
Subjects | Fact sheet | Samples
United States and Canada: Sample history articles
Black Power
Movement towards black separatism in the USA during the 1960s, embodied in the Black Panther Party founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Its declared aim was the creation of a separate black state in the USA to be established by a black plebiscite under the aegis of the United Nations. Following a National Black Political Convention in 1972, a National Black Assembly was established to exercise pressure on the Democratic and Republican parties.
The Black Power concept arose when existing civil-rights organizations, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, were perceived to be ineffective in producing significant change in the status of black people. Stokely Carmichael then advocated the exploitation of political and economic power and abandonment of nonviolence, with a move towards the type of separatism first developed by the Black Muslims. Such leaders as Martin Luther King rejected this approach, but the Black Panther Party (so named because the panther, though not generally aggressive, will fight to the death under attack) adopted it fully and, for a time, achieved nationwide influence.
The Black Panthers tried to involve and care for the black community with health clinics, free breakfasts for poor children, and
classes in political education. The movement disintegrated when targeted by Federal Bureau of Investigations undercover operations. These included a disinformation campaign and arrests of activists on false charges.
Cherokee
Member of an American Indian people who moved from the Great Lakes region to the southern Appalachian Mountains (Virginia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and possibly Kentucky); by the 16th century they occupied some 64,000 sq km/40,000 sq mi. Their language belonged to the Iroquoian family. They lived in log cabins in permanent farming settlements. Known as one of the Five Civilized Tribes, they assimilated many white customs. In 1838 they were ousted to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in a bloody removal known as the Trail of Tears. They are now the largest American Indian group, numbering 281,000 (2000); many live in Oklahoma and North Carolina.
Lifestyle
The Cherokee grew maize (corn), beans, sunflowers, squash (pumpkin), and tobacco. They hunted deer and bear with bows and arrows, and used reed blowguns to kill smaller game. They also ate freshwater fish, roots, nuts, berries, and other wild plants. Their clothes and shoes (moccasins) were made of buckskin. Their crafts included pottery, basketry, and woodcarving. The Cherokee built more than 60 villages, many along riverbanks. The settlements were usually comprised of 30 to 60 log cabins. The cabins were
roofed with thatch and windowless. Each village had a large meeting house where the sacred fire was kept burning and where council meetings were held. Most Cherokee, especially the Eastern Band, are now Christian.
Language
The Cherokee language is Iroquoian, and it is still spoken by about half of the Cherokee population. In 1821, a Cherokee scholar, Sequoya, wrote down each sound or syllable in the language in the form of a character, creating 85 characters in the Cherokee syllabary. Most of the Cherokee learned how to read, and by 1828 they were producing their own newspaper, the bilingual (Cherokee-English) Cherokee Phoenix.
Loss of land
The expansion of white settlement threatened the Cherokee population and their land. Many died from smallpox and other diseases introduced by Europeans. In 1783, under the Treaty of Augusta, the Cherokee relinquished over 800,000 ha/2 million acres in Georgia. Further intrusions led the Cherokee to side with the British in the American Revolution. The Cherokee mounted a series of attacks against the colonists, but the failure of the British forces led to punitive action by the USA and the loss of large tracts of land in the Carolinas under a series of treaties. After 1800 relations with the US government were peaceful. The Cherokee legal code was laid down in 1808 by Chief Charles Hicks, and at the same time Sequoyah was developing his alphabet for the Cherokee language. However, with a population of some 13,000 the Cherokee retained a significant presence in the state. In 1828 Georgia placed the Cherokee Nation, led by Chief John Ross, under state jurisdiction. The Cherokee protested through the Supreme Court, but
lost.
Removal to Indian Territory
In the early 1830s, gold was discovered on Cherokee land in Georgia and settlers pressed for the relocation of the Cherokees. In 1835, a minority of Cherokee ceded all their land east of the Mississippi to the USA under the Treaty of New Echota; the treaty was ratified by the Senate in 1836, and was to become effective in 1838. Although a majority group won an appeal against this action in the US Supreme Court, President Jackson chose to ignore the decision and ordered the removal of the Cherokee under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. In the winter of 1838–39, more than 16,000 Cherokee were forced to march more than 1,600 km/1,000 mi to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. More than 4,000 Cherokee died en route, and the journey became known as the Trail of Tears.
Indian Territory
In Indian Territory the Cherokee were given an allotment of land where they maintained a constitutional government from 1839, consisting of an elected chief, a senate, and a house of representatives. Until 1907 their capital was at Tahlequah. They established a public school system in 1841 and by 1851 had two seminaries of higher education. During the Civil War, Chief John Ross allied with the Confederates. Under pressure to sell land to US settlers, in 1902 the Cherokee voted to each take 44 ha/110 acres of land from the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Nation was disbanded in 1907; the Cherokee became US citizens and their land was allotted to individuals and homesteaders. The Cherokee government officially ceased to exist in 1914. In 1984, the Eastern Band of Cherokees were permitted to re-establish a tribal centre in North Carolina where the descendants of a few hundred Cherokee who escaped the removal of 1838 now live.
Gettysburg
Site of one of the decisive battles of the American Civil War: a Confederate defeat by Union forces 1–3 July 1863, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 80 km/50 mi northwest of Baltimore. The site is now a national cemetery, at the dedication of which President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on 19 November 1863, a speech in which he reiterated the principles of freedom, equality, and democracy embodied in the US Constitution. The site is part of Gettysburg National Military Park (1895).
The South's heavy losses at Gettysburg came in the same week as their defeat at Vicksburg, and the Confederacy remained on the defensive for the rest of the war. The battle ended Robert E Lee's invasion of the North.
The address begins with 'Fourscore and seven years ago', and ends with an assertion of 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people'.
Confederate advance
After his victory at Chancellorsville, Lee decided to advance north into Union territory. He marched up the western side of the Blue Ridge mountains and sent General J E B (Jeb) Stuart's cavalry to the east to act as scouts. Unfortunately, Stuart instead set off to find a Union force to defeat, and failed to carry out any scouting. When the Confederates reached Chambersburg, they found that two Union corps were a few kilometres away and that General Joseph Hooker had been replaced as commander of the Union Army of the Potomac by the more dangerous General George Meade.
First clash at Gettysburg
Lee sent General Ambrose P Hill's corps over the mountains to report on the Union forces' strength, but a Union cavalry patrol discovered them and Meade began moving his army toward Gettysburg. The two forces met close to the town and fighting broke out more or less immediately. The Union forces eventually passed through the town and took up a strong position on Cemetery Hill; Lee moved his troops on to a ridge across the valley, and ordered an attack the following morning.
Confederate attacks
This attack was a shambles, owing to the Confederate general James Longstreet's failure to support General Richard Ewell during the morning attack. By the time Lee got him moving, the Union lines had outflanked his corps. The following day Lee planned another concerted attack. Longstreet again failed to move, allowing Ewell to make his attack and be beaten back.
Confederate defeat
Ammunition began to run low, and General George A Pickett, waiting to make a frontal attack when Ewell and Longstreet had done their part, was warned that unless he made his assault now, there would be no covering fire available. Longstreet ordered him to advance. Pickett's division poured from a ravine and was blown to shreds by concentrated Union artillery fire. At the same time Hill made an attack on the Union lines, which was driven off by the appearance of a strong Union reserve. Lee saw that there was no hope of victory, and set off back to Virginia.
Irangate
US political scandal in 1987 involving senior members of the Reagan administration (the name echoes the Nixon administration's Watergate). Congressional hearings 1986–87 revealed that the US government had secretly sold weapons to Iran in 1985 and traded them for hostages held in Lebanon by pro-Iranian militias, and used the profits to supply right-wing Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua with arms. The attempt to get around the law (Boland amendment) specifically prohibiting military assistance to the Contras also broke other laws in the process.
Arms, including Hawk missiles, were sold to Iran via Israel (at a time when the USA was publicly calling for a worldwide ban on sending arms to Iran), violating the law prohibiting the sale of US weapons for resale to a third country listed as a 'terrorist nation', as well as the law requiring sales above $14 million to be reported to Congress. The negotiator in the field was Lt Col Oliver North, a military aide to the National Security Council, reporting in the White House to the national-security adviser (first Robert McFarlane, then John Poindexter). North and his associates were also channelling donations to the Contras from individuals and from other countries, including $2 million from Taiwan, $10 million from the sultan of Brunei, and $32 million from Saudi Arabia. The Congressional Joint Investigative Committee reported in November 1987 that the president bore 'ultimate responsibility' for allowing a 'cabal of zealots' to seize control of the administration's policy, but found no firm evidence that President Reagan had actually been aware of the Contra diversion. Reagan persistently claimed to have no recall of events, and some evidence was withheld on grounds of 'national security'. The hearings were criticized for finding that the president was not responsible for the actions of his subordinates. North was tried and convicted in May 1989 on charges of obstructing Congress and unlawfully destroying government documents. Poindexter was found guilty on all counts in 1990. Former defence secretary Caspar Weinberger was pardoned in 1992 by President George Bush to prevent further disclosures. In December 1993 the independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh published his final report. It asserted that Reagan and Bush were fully aware of attempts to free US hostages in Lebanon in 1985–86 by means of unsanctioned arms sales to Iran. The total cost of the Irangate enquiries came to $35 million.
Mexican War
or Mexican–American War
War between the USA and Mexico 1846–48. The war was ostensibly over disputed boundaries between the two nations, but it was also an excuse for the USA to pursue its 'manifest destiny' to expand westwards. US forces defeated the Mexican army in a series of battles in the disputed regions and Mexico itself, and occupied Mexico City in 1847. Under the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo that ended the war, the USA acquired what are now California, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming, all in exchange for $15 million.
Tensions were high between the USA and Mexico as a result of continuing border disputes and the annexation of Texas in 1845. President James Polk determined to pursue his notion of manifest destiny for the USA and dispatched General Zachary Taylor to add the disputed territories, by force if necessary. After repeated defeats and invasion of its home territory, a Mexican government was formed that was willing to negotiate a settlement. Presidential envoy Nicholas Trist was ordered home, but he ignored his orders and negotiated the pact ceding vast Mexican territories to the USA. Polk was enraged but had little choice but to submit the exceptionally favourable treaty to the Senate, which ratified it.
Prequel to the war
Following the annexation of Texas, President Polk sent US minister John Slidell to Mexico to reach an agreement whereby Mexico would accept the boundary of Texas as the Rio Grande and sell New Mexico and California to the USA for $25 million. The Mexican government refused. Meanwhile, Polk sent General Taylor with an army of occupation into the disputed Texas territory, and ordered them to advance to the Rio Grande. On 25 April, just north of the river, a small Mexican force attacked and defeated US soldiers. On 8 and 9 May 1846, Taylor and his soldiers defeated Mexican army units at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, enabling him to cross the Rio Grande. On 13 May 1846 US Congress formally declared war on Mexico.
Outcome
US forces took control of New Mexico in 1846 and California in 1847. In Mexico US forces defeated the Mexican army, led by President Antonio López de Santa Anna, in a series of battles culminating in the occupation of Mexico City in May 1847. Despite repeated defeats and invasion of his country, Santa Anna refused to negotiate a peace treaty with the USA. US envoy Nicholas Trist, who had been sent by Polk to negotiate the agreement, was ordered home, but Santa Anna resigned and Mexico formed a new government willing to accept a treaty. Trist ignored his orders to return home and negotiated a pact that ceded more than 1,360,000 sq km/525,000 sq mi of Mexican territory to the USA for the sum of $15 million. Although Polk was furious he was forced to submit Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo to the Senate, which ratified it on 2 February 1848.
The acquisition of new territories focused the USA on the issue of slavery. California was admitted to the union in 1850 under a constitution banning slavery, but under the Compromise of 1850 the other territories were organized without any regulation in respect of slavery, leaving it up to their settlers to vote on whether or not there should be ownership of slaves.
New Deal
In US history, the programme introduced by President Franklin D Roosevelt in 1933 to tackle the Great Depression, including employment on public works, farm loans at low rates, and social reforms such as old-age and unemployment insurance, prevention of child labour, protection of employees against unfair practices by employers, and loans to local authorities for slum clearance.
The centrepiece of the New Deal was the Social Security Act of 1935, which introduced a comprehensive federal system of insurance for the elderly and unemployed. The Public Works Administration was given $3.3 billion to spend on roads, public buildings, and similar developments (the Tennessee Valley Authority was a separate project). The Agricultural Adjustment Administration raised agricultural prices by restriction of output. In 1935 Harry L Hopkins was put in charge of a new agency, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which in addition to taking over the public works created something of a cultural revolution with its federal theatre, writers', and arts projects. When the WPA was disbanded in 1943 it had found employment for 8.5 million people.
Some of the provisions of the New Deal were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (1935–36). The New Deal encouraged the growth of trade-union membership, brought previously unregulated areas of the US economy under federal control, and revitalized cultural life and community spirit. Although full employment did not come until the military-industrial needs of World War II, the New Deal did bring political stability to the industrial-capitalist system. It also transformed the political landscape, making the Democratic Party the natural majority party and breaking Republican dominance since 1806.
The New Deal programme was largely designed by a body of professors and other expert advisers (nicknamed the Brain Trust) in 1932. Its aims were helped by a devaluation of the dollar by 40%, by the revitalization of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation set up by Roosevelt's predecessor, Herbert Hoover, which granted the necessary loans, and by the abandonment of the gold standard.
Reconstruction
In US history, the period 1865–77 after the Civil War during which the nation was reunited under the federal government after the defeat of the Southern Confederacy and Union troops were stationed in Southern states.
Much of the industry and infrastructure of the South lay in ruins after the Civil War. President Andrew Johnson devised a plan for Reconstruction that offered pardons to most Southern whites and the opportunity for Southern states to form their own governments, provided that they abolish slavery and pledge loyalty to the Union. Many northerners, especially those moderates called Radical Republicans, however, disagreed with his conciliatory policy. This feud culminated in Johnson's impeachment in 1868 before the Senate, who failed to convict him by one vote.
During Reconstruction, industrial and commercial projects began to restore the economy of the South, and new programmes were developed such as public school systems. These improvements, however, failed to ensure racial equality, and former slaves remained, in most cases, landless labourers, although emancipated slaves were assisted in finding work, shelter, and lost relatives through federal agencies. Reconstruction also resulted in an influx of Northern profiteers known as carpetbaggers. Both the imposition of outside military authority and the equal status conferred on former slaves combined to make Southerners bitterly resentful. As they began to take control of their own state governments they also began to defy the terms of their re-entry into the Union by disenfranchising blacks.
President Abraham Lincoln had been ready to accord the eleven rebel states generous treatment, but he had been opposed by Radicals in Congress. His successor Andrew Johnson, who maintained his policy of reconciliation, issued a formal pardon for the entire South on 29 May 1865. He also secured the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, forbidding slavery in the USA.
However, Congress was not satisfied by these moderate measures and on 4 December 1865 passed a bill for the appointment of a committee to inquire into the question of the Southern states. A further bill was passed in 1866, over Johnson's veto, giving black people full rights as citizens, which was later embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment to the constitution.
Johnson's failure to work with moderate Republicans in guaranteeing basic rights and protection for the freed slaves caused a
Radical triumph in the elections of 1866, ushering in a period of 'Radical Reconstruction', and opened the way for military reconstruction. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 began this process, dividing the Southern states (except Tennessee, which had been readmitted to the Union in 1866) into five military districts. Civilian rule and full state rights were to be restored only after the states had adopted constitutions based upon universal male suffrage and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. By 1868 all but three states were readmitted under these conditions, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia finally acquiescing in 1870. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in March 1870, aimed to guarantee black suffrage in the South. The new state governments in the South were usually Republican and governed by blacks, carpetbaggers, and scalawags (white Southerners who supported the Union during the Civil War).
Despite the legislation, many Southern states still practised discrimination and segregation. Jim Crow laws disenfranchised blacks in every Southern state, making them powerless to prevent these segregation laws and codes. During this time white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were founded to oppose Reconstruction and to deny political rights to the black population. The lack of an independent economic base, moreover, meant that blacks were not able to advance significantly in the decades after the war.
Radical Reconstruction was short-lived as one by one the Southern states were 'redeemed' by conservative political groups and the Republican Party dwindled below the Mason–Dixon Line, the boundary line between Maryland and Pennsylvania seen as the line dividing the North from the South. Corruption and incompetence had certainly been a part of Radical Reconstruction, but its defeat marked the end of attempts towards giving all citizens social equality. The period of Reconstruction ended with the withdrawal of troops from the South in 1877, during the presidency of Rutherford B Hayes.
Thirteen Colonies
Original North American colonies that signed the Declaration of Independence from Britain in 1776. After the Continental Army (the first regular US fighting force, organized in 1775 to supplement local militias) defeated the British army in the American Revolution 1776–81, the 13 colonies became the original 13 United States of America: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia. They were united first under the Articles of Confederation and from 1789, the US Constitution.
English adventurer Walter Raleigh founded the first English colony in 1585, in the territory he named Virginia, after the 'Virgin Queen', Elizabeth I. The colony failed, but in 1607 a second Virginian colony was established at Jamestown, by John Smith. By 1649 Virginia had a royal charter and considerable self-government. Royalist exiles from the English Civil War began to settle in the colony around this time.
Religious persecution in England led to the foundation of the New England colonies. The first of these was established in 1620 when the Pilgrims sailed to the New World in the Mayflower and landed at Plymouth Rock, in what is now Massachusetts. The Pilgrims went on to found the colony of Connecticut in 1635. The foundation in 1634 of Maryland, for the settlement of English Catholics, marked a new kind of colony, one practically owned and ruled by a lord-proprietor holding a royal charter. William Penn founded Pennsylvania as a refuge for Quakers in 1862. Georgia, founded in 1733 by English philanthropist James Oglethorpe as a colony for the industrious poor, was the last of the 13 original colonies to be chartered.
|
