***I INTRODUCTION I***

hen I was nine years old, my folks took

me to the famous battlefield at Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania. It was the place where, one hundred
years earlier, thousands of Americans died fighting
one another in the bloodiest three days of the long
Civil War. Standing among the rocks at Little
Round Top, where young soldiers took cover from bullets and
cannonballs, I knew that something special had happened in
this place, even if I didn't really understand the Civil War.

View of Little Round Top from Devil's Den

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DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT AMERICAN HISTORY
Like most kids back in those days, my friends and I liked to
play war games or cowboys and Indians. But that day I
understood that this field at Gettysburg was about something
real. This was not about make-believe war, but about real
people in real places who did real things.

Looking toward Cemetery Hill from Little Round Top

Over the years, as I have spoken to people around the country

on talk radio and in bookstores, lecture halls, and classrooms,
the one word I usually hear when it comes to history is
"boring!" To me, history is anything but boring. The stories of
what life was actually like for the people who sailed on the
Mayflower and the Indians they met, or the true stories of
pioneers who headed west-these stories are a vital part of
what made America the nation it is today.

This book asks a lot of questions about more than five

hundred years of history. The answers lie in the remarkable
true stories of the men and women, boys and girls who created
a country. Sometimes funny, and sometimes sad, I hope you
agree that the stories of American history are never boring.

INTRODUCTION 7
 Brave New World
E P!urihus Unum ("Out cfMa'?Y, One J
-Motto for the Great Seal of the United States

SETTING IT STRAIGHT

Who discovered America?

a) Christopher Columbus d) the Pilgrims
b) Leif Eriksson e) none of the above
c) Amerigo Vespucci

The answer is letter e. It's true that all the people above came
to the Americas. But these Europeans didn't discover what
they came to call the "New World" any more than bears
discovered honey. The land was just new to them because they
hadn't known it existed.

Thousands of years before any European set foot in North

America, groups of hunter-gatherers followed bison or woolly
mammoths over a land bridge from Asia to present-day
Alaska. (Today that land is underwater, but America and Asia
are still only fifty-two miles apart near the Arctic Circle.) These
people might have arrived as many as thirty thousand or forty

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thousand years ago. They were certainly here fifteen thousand
years ago. Their descendants are called Native Americans or
American Indians.

Over thousands of years, American Indians spread through

North and South America. Each group adapted to its
surroundings and climate. In North America, Indians in the
East, upper Midwest, and Northwest hunted in the forests and
mountains and fished in the lakes, streams, and oceans. Some
farmed the land. They lived in wigwams or wood houses. On
the plains many Indian tribes hunted the bison that roamed
the open prairies. They lived in teepees or thatched grass
houses. And in the Southwest some farmed and carved houses
and cities into the sides of cliffs. There may have been between
50 million and 100 million Indians and more than two
thousand distinct cultures in North and South America.

Was Christopher Columbus the first European in the

Americas?

Nope. As far as historians know, that title goes to the

Norseman Erik the Red, who beat Columbus by a good five
hundred years. Erik the Red sailed west from Scandinavia and
came upon Greenland in the year 982. He started a small
colony there. Then around the year 1000, his son Leif Eriksson
(get it-son of Erik?) sailed even farther west to what is now
Canada. Leif and his men spent the winter before returning to
Greenland. Other Norse colonists stayed for three years or so
but, finding the native people none too friendly, eventually
returned as well. The remains of what was probably their
settlement-some houses, workshops, and a forge-can be
seen today at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Though
this was the first known European settlement in the New
World, the Norse didn't leave a lasting impression. That was
left to an enterprising sailor named Christopher Columbus.

Why don't all Americans celebrate Columbus Day?

Columbus landed in the islands of the Caribbean in 1492,
hundreds of years after the Norsemen came to North America
CHAPTER 1 9
 and thousands of years after
American Indians reached the
continent. So what's Columbus Day
all about, aside from getting a day
' off from school?
Columbus's "discovery" of a land
previously unknown to most
Europeans changed the world
forever. His arrival in the New
Italian explorer Christopher Columbus World marked the beginning of an
extraordinary era of European
discovery, conquest, and colonization in the Americas. What's
been called the "Columbian exchange" brought together people
who'd been separated for fifteen thousand years. These people
began sharing ideas, foods, crops, animals, languages, cultures,
and religions, enriching both the Old and New Worlds.

Yet not everyone thinks this is something to celebrate. What

was good for Europeans was devastating to American Indians.
Europeans brought deadly diseases to the Americas that the
natives couldn't fight off. Within 150 years, an estimated 85
percent of the American population had died-perhaps 64
million to 85 million Indians. Nor did Africans benefit from
Columbus's discovery, since many were later taken from their
homelands to work as slaves in the New World. So Columbus
Day marks a meeting of cultures that had both good and bad
effects on the people of the world.

Why isn't America called Columbia?

Because a mapmaker didn't think of him in time. Columbus
died thinking he'd reached the East Indies. (That's why he
named the native people "Indians.") But explorers who came
after him soon realized the land across the Atlantic was
entirely new to them. The first person to put this into writing
was an Italian businessman named Amerigo Vespucci, who
sailed to South America in 1499, 1501, and 1503. In a letter
Vespucci claimed to have found a "Mundus Novus," or New

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World. The idea of a New World was exciting, and Vespucci's
travels became more famous in his day than Columbus's.

When a mapmaker named Martin Waldseemiiller

created an updated map of
the world in 1507, he
named South America in
honor of Vespucci.
Afterward Waldseemiiller
felt he'd made a mistake in
doing so and removed the
name from a later map. But it was too
late. The name ''America" was already
being used all over Europe, and it
became attached to the North American
continent as well.

Who followed Columbus to America?

Several European countries sent sailors on the heels of
Columbus. Some of these sailors began to search for a
"Northwest Passage," or an all-water route through the
Americas to the East. (The only practical Northwest Passage
that exists is so far north that its waters are frozen most of the
year, but Europeans didn't know that yet.) The search led them
into the interior of North and South America, where they
realized that the land was not a roadblock to Asia but a major
opportunity. There were riches to plunder, land to claim, and
natives to convert to Christianity.
The key players in the exploration of the Americas were the
Spanish, French, and English; the Portuguese, Dutch, and
Swedes had minor roles.
• The Spanish explored, claimed land, or started settlements in
present-day California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Florida,
Mexico, and much of South and Central America in the 1500s.
• The Portuguese began to settle Brazil in 1532.

CHAPTER 1 11
• The English made a claim in the 1580s. Within seventy-five
years, thirteen British colonies would line the east coast of
what would become the United States.
• The French laid claim to Canada with the explorations of
Jacques Cartier in the 1530s. Father Jacques Marquette and
Louis Joliet traveled down the Mississippi River in 1673,
stretching French holdings in North America from Canada and
the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. (This territory was
named Louisiana, after the French king Louis XIV.)
• The Dutch established New Amsterdam on the Hudson River
in 1625. Before long the Dutch took over a small colony of
Swedes, who had settled in what is now Delaware in 1638. New
Amsterdam was, in turn, captured by the English in 1664 and
became New York.

Because of the gold and silver they found in central Mexico, the
Spaniards believed many legends about the riches of the New World.
Explorers went looking for the famed city of El Dorado (Spanish for uthe
golden one"), the Seven Cities of Cibola, and the magical Fountain of
Youth. None of these was ever found (because they don't exist), though
the thirst for riches was so great that many Europeans died trying. Still,
the Spaniards' searches led them to travel across-and lay claim to­
about one third of the land that would eventually become the
southwestern United States.

LAND H □! EUROPEANS C ME TO NORTH □

AMERICA, 1492-1 62 □
1492 Sailing for the Spanish crown, Italian navigator
Christopher Columbus crosses the ocean blue (and
lands in the Bahamas).
1497 Italian navigator Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), sailing
for England, lands in Newfoundland and claims it for
England.
1s1s Juan Ponce de Leon, the first European to set foot in
what is now the United States, lands in Florida.
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AMERICAN HISTORY
1534 Jacques Cartier sails up the St. Lawrence River and
claims the territory for France.

1540 Spain's Francisco de Coronado explores New Mexico and

the American Southwest.

1565 Spaniards settle St. Augustine, Florida.

1585 The English establish a colony in Roanoke, Virginia

(present-day North Carolina).

1607 The first permanent English settlement in the New

World is founded in Jamestown, Virginia.

1608 French explorer Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec,

Canada.

1609 Henry Hudson, sailing for the Dutch, explores what is

now New York's Hudson River.

1614 After leaving the Jamestown settlement, John Smith

explores the New England coast.

1620 The Pilgrims settle at Plymouth, Massachusetts.

If the Spanish got here first, why don't Americans

speak Spanish?
Americans don't speak Spanish because the Spanish didn't
control the northern colonies that became the first states. The
Spanish had the most influence in South and Central America,
as well as in the lands that are now Florida, Texas, New
Mexico, Arizona, and California. The French, English, and Dutch
settled in the northeast, with the English gradually taking
control. When the United States became independent, it was
made up of former English colonies. Yet history is continuously
being written. During your lifetime, people of Hispanic heritage
will probably replace blacks as the largest ethnic group in the
United States-which means more and more Americans will
be speaking Spanish as well as English.

CHAPTER 1 13
 In 1587 about120 Engltsh·settlers orga�ized by Queen Elizabeth's
friend Sir Watter Ralegh started an 1,msuccessfl:Jl colony on the island of
Roanoke, near the Outer.,Bankspf present-day.North Carolina. A supply
ship arrived in 1591 to help the struggling settlers, but all the colonists
had mysteriously vanished. All th�t remained of what became known as
the L.ost Colony were sortie rusted debris aru;I the word Croa(oan, tl:ie name
of a nearby island,, carved on a tree. No one knows ff the colonists starved
to d th, were killed or adopte� by lndians, or moved . somewhere else.

What do a river in New York and a bay in Canada

have in common?
Their name. Both the Hudson River and Hudson Bay were
named after English explorer Henry Hudson. While searching
for the Northwest Passage to Asia in 1609, Hudson sailed up
and down the east coast of North America, including a brief
trip part of the way up the river now called the Hudson. He
didn't find the Northwest Passage on that trip, and two years
later in 1611 he had even worse luck. Looking for the passage
farther north in Canada, Hudson and his crew became trapped
in ice. The starving crew mutinied and forced Hudson, his son,
and six crew members into a small boat, which was cast adrift.
The castaways were never heard from again.

,!I-� The Pilgrims established the first successful

.,FA'-"' English settlement in North America.
False. In 1607, thirteen years before the Pilgrims arrived at
Plymouth, a group of Englishmen sailed to Virginia. They hoped
to find gold, silver, and copper that would make them-and
the owners of the Virginia Company of London, which funded
their trip-rich. The 105 men (there were no women or
children at first) landed at a place they named Jamestown,
after England's King James.
Like the settlers at Roanoke, the Jamestown colonists struggled
for survival. Within a few months of their landing, about half
the colonists had died. There was little to eat because the sea
voyage had taken longer than they expected, and the rations

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that remained were full of worms. Few of the first colonists
knew how to farm or were very interested in working. Most of
the colonists were English gentlemen unaccustomed to hard
labor, and many preferred to search for gold. On top of all that,
Jamestown could hardly have been in a worse location. The
land was swampy, the drinking water bad, and the climate
extremely hot in summer and cold in winter.
The colony stumbled along for several years, as new settlers,
including women and children, arrived. Jamestown ultimately
survived, partly because of the strict leadership of a short, red­
bearded man named Captain John Smith; partly because of the
food the local Indians provided; and mostly because of the
tobacco plant. The settlers never found gold, but they did grow
tobacco, which they discovered was just as valuable. They sold
it to England by the ton, even though King James said smoking
was "a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose,
harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs."

CHAPTER 1 15
--------AMERICAN * ST □ RIES--------

Did Pocahontas save John Smith's life?

Pocahontas saves Smith from the Algonquins.

As the third leader of Jamestown, John Smith was not always

popular. But he was fair, hardworking, and brave, and he did more
than anyone else to make sure the struggling colony survived. His
policy was "He who does not work, will not eat." He traded with
the Indians for food and learned their language and hunting and
fishing methods. Yet relations with the Indians remained
unpredictable, so he also strengthened defenses against them.

In one famous story, Smith was captured and brought before the
great Chief Powhatan. During a ceremony, in which Captain Smith
was unsure of his fate, the young Indian princess Pocahontas laid
her head across Smith's and pleaded with her father, Powhatan, to
let the Englishman live. Smith wrote down this story years later,
which made many people think he made it up or embellished it.
(He was known to be a boastful man.) Pocahontas's act may have
been a customary or planned part of the ceremony. Either way, the
Indians made Smith an honorary chief of their tribe.

The life of the real Pocahontas was quite different from the story
you might have seen in the movies. She was only twelve when
the settlers first arrived. Years later, after Smith left Jamestown,
Pocahontas met and married an English settler named John Rolfe.
Traveling with him to England, she adopted English clothing and
became well known in her adopted land as Rebecca. Sadly, she
eventually fell sick with smallpox, dying at age twenty-two.

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AMERICAN HISTORY
Who lived at the House of Burgesses?

No one, because the House wasn't a place but a group of

lawmakers. The House of Burgesses, patterned after British
local government (whose representatives were called
burgesses), was a group of lawmakers made up of Jamestown
colonists. The Virginia Company of London created the group
in 1619 to give the colonists a say in their own government.
Instead of obeying laws made by appointed colonial governors
or by the British Parliament in faraway England, the colonists
would make their own laws. The House of Burgesses wasn't
the first representative government in America-some Indian
tribes had them-but it was a first step toward self-government
for English colonists.

Did all people come to the New World to get rich?

No, though many came in hopes of making a better life. Some

came to start religious communities. Some came for land.
Others came as indentured servants, who hired themselves out
to work for someone else for four to seven years to pay for
their voyage. Many who came as servants were poor, unskilled
laborers who wanted to escape poverty and crowding in
Europe. Most were young, single men about sixteen to twenty­
seven years of age, but women and children crossed the ocean
as servants, too. Servants had almost no legal rights and could
be treated as badly as slaves-it all depended on the master.

Still others came to America against their will: Black Africans

were first brought to Jamestown in 1619. Though these black
immigrants were listed as servants, it wasn't long before they
were treated as slaves. Europeans soon realized that Africans
would make better slaves than Indians would. They didn't
catch as many European diseases, and there were plenty of
them with nowhere to run to, unlike the local Indians. An
awful institution-slavery-had begun in what would later
become the United States.

CHAPTER 1 17
Almost every European nation and African empire made huge
profits from the slave trade. Slavery was common in Africa
before Europeans arrived, but when the European slave trade
began, African rulers began raiding other villages specifically to
capture slaves to sell to European traders. Africans of any rank
might be ripped from their homelands and families and
marched to the coast to be sold and loaded onto overcrowded
ships. There they were chained together belowdecks and
forced to sit or lie in their own waste with barely enough room
to move. The dehumanizing journey to America could take
from five weeks to three months. Historians estimate that one
in six Africans died along the way.
Between about 1500 and 1800, about 12 million African slaves
were brought to the New World in a system called the
"triangular trade." On the first leg of this triangle, ships filled
with trade goods such as textiles and guns left England and
landed on the West African coast. Africans who had been
kidnapped were exchanged for these goods and taken on the
second leg of the journey, the "Middle Passage" to the
Americas. There slave traders sold them for sugar, tobacco,
cotton, grain, and rice, and the ships headed back to England.
About 5 million slaves went to the Caribbean and more than
6 million to Central and South America. Only about a half
million came to the. English colonies that would become the
United States.

AMERICAN VOICES

,, ONE DAY, WHEN ALL OUR PEOPLE WERE GONE OUT TO THEIR

WORKS AS USUAL, AND ONLY I AND MY DEAR SISTER WERE LEFT TO

MIND THE HOUSE, TWO MEN AND A WOMAN GOT OVER OUR WALLS,
AND IN A MOMENT SEIZED US BOTH, AND, WITHOUT GIVING US
TIME TO CRY OUT, OR MAKE RESISTANCE, THEY STOPPED OUR
MOUTHS, AND RAN OFF WITH US INTO THE NEAREST WOOD. HERE
THEY TIED OUR HANDS.... MY CRIES HAD NO OTHER EFFECT
THAN TO MAKE THEM TIE ME FASTER AND STOP MY MOUTH, AND

THEN THEY PUT ME INTO A LARGE SACK .... THE NEXT DAY

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AMERICAN HISTORY
 PROVED A DAY OF GREATER SORROW THAN I HAD YET EXPERIENCED;

FOR MY SISTER AND I WERE THEN SEPARATED, WHILE WE LAY

CLASPED IN EACH OTHER'S ARMS. IT WAS IN VAIN THAT WE

BESOUGHT THEM NOT TO PART US; SHE WAS TORN FROM ME, AND

IMMEDIATELY CARRIED AWAY. . . . ff

-OLAUDAH EQUIAN0, an Afican born to a noMefami°fy, taken into

s!ave,:y when he was1ust a boy

After eleven years as a slave, Equiano was freed. He published

his autobiography in 1789, in hopes that his description of the
evils of slavery would help end the dreadful institution.

Who were the Pilgrims?

The Pilgrims were part of a
religious group of English
men and women called
Puritans. Puritans disagreed
with some of the ideas of
the Church of England,
especially its elaborate
ceremonies and
decorations. They wanted
to purify the Church. The
The Mayflower arrives in Plymouth Harbor. Pilgrims were a group of
Puritans who didn't just
want to purify the Church, they wanted to break away from it
altogether. But in the Puritans' day, all English people had to
belong to the Church of England and none other. So King
James told the Pilgrims to shape up or ship out. You know
what they chose.
The name "Pilgrim" comes from a book one of the Pilgrims,
William Bradford, wrote many years after the Mayflower-the
ship that brought the settlers to the New World-landed. He
called his fellow settlers "pilgrims" because a pilgrim is
someone who takes a pilgrimage, or a long journey to a holy
land. Fewer than half of the 102 passengers on board the
CHAPTER 1 19
Mayflower were Puritans. The others were Englishmen seeking
adventure or a better life in America. Yet even though not
everyone aboard the Mayflower was a religious pilgrim, William
Bradford's word seemed to capture the spirit of the new
settlers best, and the whole group of settlers has become
known as Pilgrims.

�� An Indian walked into Plymouth and said,

�,A..,.., "Welcome, Englishmen."

True! The Indian was an Algonquian chief named Samoset,

from what is now Maine. Samoset had traveled to Plymouth
with an English explorer and had learned to speak English
from British fishermen. He introduced the Pilgrims to his
friend Tisquantum, or Squanto, who also spoke English.
Squanto was the Pilgrims' greatest friend. He showed them
how to hunt and catch fish, which herbs were safe to eat, and
how to grow corn. Many Pilgrims died the first winter, but all
of them might have perished if it hadn't been for Squanto's
help.

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AMERICAN HISTORY
Squanto lived with the Pilgrims for the rest of his life. He
helped them negotiate a peace treaty with Chief Massasoit of
the Wampanoag Indians. It was these Indians with whom the
Pilgrims celebrated their first harvest in October 1621. The
Pilgrims and Indians spent three days playing games and
feasting on wild turkey, duck, deer, seafood, corn, carrots,
cabbages, turnips, beets, onions, and cornmeal pies. The
Pilgrims didn't have pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce, but they
did have pumpkins and cranberries.

--------AMERICAN * STORIES--------.

Roger Williams was a Puritan minister, but he didn't share the

strict attitudes of some of his fellow ministers. In fact, he said
that "forced worship stinks in God's nostrils."
Williams helped settle the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which
Puritans-inspired by the Pilgrims' success-started in Boston in
1631. He soon found that his strict, idealistic fellow Puritans
wanted religious freedom, but only for themselves. They were
quick to whip, jail, banish, or even hang non-Puritans. Williams,
charming and well liked in person, angered other ministers when
he wrote books criticizing this intolerance. Unsure what to do
with him at first, the Puritans decided to put Williams on a boat
back to England. Before they could do that, Roger Williams ran
away and founded the city of Providence, Rhode Island. In Rhode
Island Williams said each person could choose his or her own
religion. And because Roger Williams believed in the separation of
church and state ("state" meaning government}, men of any
religion could vote. Though other colonies would practice
religious toleration, Rhode Island was the only one founded for
this purpose.

CHAPTER 1 21
 The Puritans have a reputation for being\trict, religious, and not �
tl>tof fun. Puritans did spend"all day �unday in church, They had all
inds of rules and laws that were meant to'keep people good and holy., ...
But let's cut the Puritans some slack, They were also independent,
inventive, proud, hone�t, and hardworkin.g.:._all tratts that �elped the
.�ucc�ed . n the harsh new land .�nd opes we'ye come to treasure as
American values.

Did the Dutch really buy all of Manhattan Island

for $24?
Yes and no. They actually bought it with beads, cloth, and
hatchets.

Manhattan Island is the main part of present-day New York

City. But before Manhattan was the nation's bustling center of
banking, book publishing, art, and fashion, it was part of the
Dl,ltch city of New Amsterdam. In one of the most famous real­
estate deals in American history, Peter Minuit, the leader of
New Amsterdam, bought all of Manhattan Island from the
local Indians for about 60 Dutch guilders' worth of beads,
cloth, and hatchets. That 1626 sum was converted about 250
years later to 2,400 English cents, or $24. (Today $24 will buy
you a parking space in Manhattan for about an hour!)

New Netherland, the colony that included New Amsterdam,

grew as the Dutch settled on surrounding land. In 1664 the
British took over all of New Netherland and renamed it New
York, in honor of the Duke of York, Britain's future king.

��"' All colonial leaders bought their land from the

'FA'- Indians.
Sadly, the answer is false; many ust took the land without
paying. However, a few leaders did buy their land. The Dutch
purchased Manhattan, and Roger Williams bought land to start
Providence. Another man who believed in religious freedom,
William Penn, paid the Indians for land that is now part of
Pennsylvania.

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AMERICAN HISTORY
William Penn was among
the few Europeans to treat
Indians as equals. Penn
was a member of a
religious group called the
Society of Friends,
commonly known as
Quakers. Quakers believe
that everyone is equal and
has inner light that leads
him or her to God. (The
strength of their feeling
sometimes caused people
to shake, or quake, hence
the term "Quaker.")
William Penn founded Pennsylvania, meaning
Quakers don't believe in "Penn's woods."
swearing allegiance to any
authority but God-a view that was threatening to people in
power. Quakers had been imprisoned in England and chased
out of every colony but Rhode Island.

William Penn's Pennsylvania was founded as a colony for

Quakers, but it was open to everyone. (The name of its major
city, Philadelphia, comes from two Greek words that mean
"brotherly love.") The Quakers were among the first colonists
to oppose slavery, and later in American history they would be
at the forefront of other nonviolent movements for justice and
equal rights.

Can you name the thirteen original British colonies?

It's not as easy as you might think! Most, but not all, of the
states that run along the east coast of the United States today
were among the thirteen original colonies. (Some hints to get
you started: Don't include Maine, which was part of
Massachusetts, nor Florida, which belonged to Spain.) Turn the
page to check your answers.

CHAPTER 1 23
 YEAR
COLONY FOUNDED FOUNDERS

Virginia 1607 Settlers of the Virginia Company of

London

Massachusetts 1620 Pilgrims and Puritans, for their own

religious freedom

New Hampshire 1623 English colonists who had a land

grant from Britain

New York 1626 Dutch, for trading purposes; the

British took over in 1664

Maryland 1632 Lord Baltimore, as a safe place for

Catholics

Rhode Island 1636 Roger Williams, who was banished

from Massachusetts for religious
reasons

Connecticut 1636 Thomas Hooker, who led a group

from Massachusetts
Delaware 1638 Swedish, then Dutch; the British
were given the land in 1664

North Carolina 1653 Settlers from Virginia, many of

whom wanted more religious
freedom
South Carolina 1663 British, and French for religious
freedom
New Jersey 1664 Dutch and Swedish; Englishmen
were granted land by the Duke of
York
Pennsylvania 1682 William Penn, as a haven for Quakers
Georgia 1732 James Oglethorpe, who brought
debtors released from English
prisons to give them a new life, and
built a Utopian, or ideal, society

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�� Life in Connecticut was just like life in South
.,F,....,.., Carolina.
False. Colonists, like the Indians before them, had to make do
with the climate and resources available where they settled.
These factors, combined with the settlers' backgrounds and
religions, shaped regional ways of life in New England
(Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island),
the Middle Colonies (Delaware, New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania), and the Southern Colonies (Georgia, Maryland,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia):
• In New England most people lived in towns or on small
farms nearby. Towns were often founded by groups of people
who knew one another in England, many of whom were
members of the Congregational Church. (Congregationalism
grew out of the Puritan movement.) Boys often went to school
for a few weeks in the winter, when they weren't needed on
the farm, while girls were usually taught by their parents at
home. If your father wasn't a farmer, he might be a fisherman,
a lumberman, or a shipbuilder.

CHAPTER 1 25
• The Middle Colonies had more diverse populations. Even
though the colonies were British, not all the colonists were.
Much of the area had been settled by the Dutch and Swedish
before the British took over, and were joined by German and
Scottish immigrants. In the
Middle Colonies many people
AMERICAN ENGLISH
were Quakers. Each church
English-speaking settlers in America had a school that was funded
encountered many things they'd
by the government, and most
never seen in Europe, and all those
things needed names. Some children attended. The
descriptive Americanisms include economy of the Middle
eggplant, popcorn, bullfrog, and Colonies combined farming
bluebird. and the manufacture of glass,
leather goods, barrels, guns,
and tools.

• The Southern Colonies were settled by a mix of British

immigrants and other Europeans who practiced several
religions, mostly Protestant. In the South the land and climate
were especially good for farming. Most families lived on small
farms that produced tobacco, rice, or indigo (a plant grown for
its blue dye), but some lived on large plantations where slaves
did most of the work. Since families generally lived far apart
from one another, there were few schools in the Southern
Colonies. Wealthy parents often hired teachers or sent their
children to school in England.

AMERICAN VOICES

''FIX'D GOWN FOR PRUDE,-MEND MOTHER'S RIDING·HOOD,­

SPUN SHORT THREAD,-FIX'D TWO GOWNS FOR WELSH's GIRLS,­

CARDED TOW,-SPUN LINEN,-WORKED ON CHEESE·BASKET,­

HATCHEL'D FLAX WITH HANNAH, WE DID 51 LBS. APIECE,­

PLEASTED AND IRONED,-READ A SERMON OF DODRIDGE'S­

SPOOLED A PIECE,-MILKED THE cows,-SPUN LINEN, DID 50

KNOTS,-MADE A BROOM OF GUINEA WHEAT STRAW,-SPUN

2/D DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT ® AMERICAN HISTORY

THREAD TO WHITEN,-SET A RED DYE,-HAD TWO SCHOLARS

FROM MRS. TAYLOR'S,-! CARDED TWO POUNDS OF WHOLE WOOL

AND FELT NATIONLY,-SPUN HARNESS TWINE,-SCOURED THE

PEWTER.ft

- ABIGAIL FOOTE, a young Connecfrcut f!/rf who listed these chores in

her diary in 1115

Which of the following might you

have played as· a colonial kid?

a) basketoali c) Frisbee
b) hopscotch d) miniature golf
Tne answer is letter q. There wasn't much time to play in
colonial days, but kids squeezed'·'in games of tag,
blindman's bluff, London bridge, hopscotch (then called
scotch hopping), or hid�-and-seek. If you were very,lucky,
you might have a spinning top, cornhusk or rag doll, or a
set of checkers (called checks), dominoes, jacks, marbles, or
cards .. Favorite sumrriertime activities included kite flying,
b�:rry picking, swimming, and fishing. In the winter there
were sledding and ice skating:
In quieter times you might read a book. There were no
books written especially for kids' entertainment, so
c}).ildren read their parents' :Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's
n-auels, and Aesop's ·Fables. The most popular title in .the
colonies is still America's top seller toaay. Can you guess
what h is? (The answer is below.)

CHAPTER 1 27