In October of 1794, in response to a popular uprising against the federal government, President Washington sent an army of nearly 13,000 men across the Allegheny Mountains into the frontier regions of Western Pennsylvania. This event marked the greatest internal crisis of Washington's administration and was probably the most divisive event that occurred in the United States prior to the Civil War. The significance of this event has often been overlooked and forgotten in popular historical accounts. Thomas Slaughter's thirteen-chapter chronicle of this event in American history takes great steps toward correcting that oversight.…
The demise of struggling Indian tribes and the ripening of the railroads caused the seeds of the mining frontier to blossom. The lust for the precious, yet rare, gold was still going strong in California when another grand discovery in Colorado was found. Hundreds of thousands of “fifty-niners” and “Pikes Peakers” swarmed the area all in attempts to strip the land of its gold and silver. The fact that there were more miners than gold didn’t really seem to slow the swarm down. Alas many returned back east with no money or gold at all. The ones that did strike it rich stayed and continued to real in hauls of golden dust and silver. More gold discoveries in Nevada, Montana, and Idaho brought many to the west with a goal and a dream. Eventually, all the surface gold was swallowed up by the greedy plunderers and the only way to get more was by importing machinery, created thanks to the industrial revolution, to dig deep and extract the gold out from quartz. This is when mining met large corporations for poor miners who gave up everything to come to west, couldn’t afford huge machines like that. Those poor farmers eventually just shifted occupations to day laborers as they were in the east, working the machines. Despite this sad news the mining industry was important to American society because it drew people (men and women) and wealth over to the barren west.…
In the article, "If Lincoln Had Not Freed The Slaves" Tom Wicker, the author, answers the question what if Lincoln had not freed the slaves. He seeks to give a detailed and historically accurate response to this intriguing question: What if Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, had not freed the slaves? After doing a considerable amount of research on Lincoln and his presidency, the author displays multiple scenarios for what would have happened if slavery had not been abolished. He then shows everything that was done during this time period was in fact a domino effect. For example, in the article it states the following sentence: "Had eleven undefeated Southern states returned to the Union, to Congress, and to American politics, neither the thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, the fourteenth, guaranteeing equal protection of the laws, nor the fifteenth, establishing the right to vote to persons of color and to former slaves, would have been…
This is an article written (Prologue Magazine Spring 2011, Vol. 43, No. 1) by: Paul Finkelman, in his article he describes the life and actions of John Brown, an anti-slave rights activist. He questions whether John Brown was “America’s First Terrorist” with the use of arguments presented by other historians and authors. John Brown led a few men and his sons on a murderous journey in Kansas and then a group of men to a raid in Harpers Ferry Va.…
Land was an important part of early America. When America was under England’s control, the Britain’s put a proclamation line forbidding Americans to cross westward of the Appalachian mountains, but when the colonist gained their independence the area to the west was available for the states to expand. Areas of the west were ceded by the larger states, which were unfair to the smaller states with no western claims (Doc. E), but the Land Ordinance of 1785 changed that. The Land Ordinance sold the western land to the government who sold it back to the people so they would be able to pay back the government’s national debt. The land ordinance divided areas into 6 square miles with and area in each devoted to public schools, since education was important. Eventually it showed that the ordinance wasn’t as organized, so The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 came into play. It stated that an area would be under federal rule until it reaches a population of…
Throughout the history of the United States, America had a burning desire to expand its boundaries. The United States acquired most its land during the nineteenth and early twentieth century with a brief hiatus during the Civil War and Reconstruction. However, the means by which America grained new lands drastically changed from anon-aggressive fashion in the beginning to an extremely aggressive one towards the end.…
The admittance of California as a territory to the United States of America had a tremendous effect on the aborignals bands living in the newly claimed land. Already suffering from the strife caused by the two previous colonizing nations which held control over them for the previous seventy-two years, the natives of California were subjected to disease, stravation and violent campaigns by American settlers intent on exterminating entire native populations through the use of fire and steel. The gold rush in 1848 was the impetus which propelled this narrative into reality. With the thousands upon thousands of new immigrants coming from all over the world looking for gold the destruction of California's natural resources was inevitiable. Salmon…
Leaders of the economy said that expanding the country would increase the nations wealth. William Seward purchased Alaska from Russia. Everyone criticized him for it. They would call Alaska "Seward's Icebox", or they would call it, "Polar Bear Garden". As it turns out, the purchase of Alaska turned out to be a bargain for the country. After the purchase of Alaska, Seward looked for more territories to gain.…
“I declare this to be gold,” announced John Augustus Sutter one random day in the early months of the year 1848. During the construction of a sawmill in 1848, James Marshall the carpenter in-charge of the construction made a major discovery of gold. While Sutter wanted to keep this discovery a secret, the news eventually got out, leading to what is now known as the California Gold Rush. Of course, once the news of gold spread, men swarmed to California to get a grab at the expensive metal. Soon western settlements started to pop up everywhere around the US. While all this seemed like an amazing thing to happen, it still had its negative effects. There were many pros and cons of the gold rush and western settlement, on the US as a whole, such…
The California gold rush drastically changed America in numerous ways. It facilitated economic growth and prosperity in the west. In addition, it “inspired perhaps the largest mass movement of people in world history. ‘Neither the Crusades nor Alexander’s expeditions to India (all things considered) can equal this emigration to California,’ wrote one forty-niner.” (Gillon, n.d.) Despite dramatic changes that occurred due to the Gold Rush, one outcome of the Gold Rush –California’s constitution– significantly instigated even more remarkable change, especially when considering how long each actually took to complete.…
What if the American Revolution never happened? In history classrooms all over the country, there lays an abundant amount of "what if" questions that pop into one's mind when one learns. But has anybody really fully answered this question that so many people think about? In hindsight, a revolution seemed inevitable because of the way the British treated the Americans. But if the American Revolution never happened, obviously, America would not exist. But most importantly, the world as a whole would have suffered if America did not exist, economically, politically, and socially speaking.…
Throughout the years there have been many turning points within the history of America. Although many of the events that lead to a change in the course of history were planned, many were brought upon by sheer accident. Many events such as the Moon Landing of 1969 or the gaining of Independence from Britain in 1776 are revered to as the most influential turning points in American history. However, this paper will focus on the ten different, but also crucial, events discussed in “10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America” by Steven M. Gillon.…
Have you heard of the Lewis and Clark expedition? Through hard times and good times the journey was still a success. Without the exploration of Lewis and Clark the United States would not be what it is today. America would not be virtually as big as it is now. We have 50 states in the US today, with the expedition we would only have 45 states. The expedition has changed US history quite a bit. Even though the Lewis and Clark expedition turned out to be a success, it wasn’t like that through the entire journey, there were still many hardships and dangerous situations to be aware…
In 1863 the US made the peace Treaty of Ruby Valley with the Western Shoshone, which was to permit US nationals safe section through their region and license digging for gold on their territory. It characterized their domain as what is presently an expansive bit of Nevada and four different states, and also the basic mineral rights, and said the Shoshone could never need to surrender their territory. The Shoshone individuals trusted it an obligation as a human on earth to see the area exceptional. The most vital part is to deal with the area, air, sun, water every part speak to life, on the off chance that you don't have all parts there is no life by any means. Over the following decades, the US gained a great part of the Western Shoshone land, to a great extent by Congressional enactment. The vast majority of the…
The readings will be posted on Blackboard and each student will be responsible for their completion.…