The Story of American History for Elementary Schools. Blaisdell Albert Franklin

The Story of American History for Elementary Schools

      PREFACE

      Some sort of a first book on American history is now quite generally used in schools as a preparation for the more intelligent study of a larger and more formal text-book in the higher grammar grades.

      For beginners, a mere compilation of facts is dry and unsatisfactory. Such books have now given place, for the most part, to those prepared on a more attractive and judicious plan. The real aim in a first book should be to interest boys and girls in the history of their country, and to encourage them to cultivate a taste for further study and reading.

      This book is intended for use in the earlier grammar grades and to be preliminary to the study of a more advanced work in the higher grades. The author has also kept in mind the fact that the school life of many children is brief, and that all their instruction in American history must come from a text-book of this kind.

      The author has not aimed to cover the whole range of our country's history. Of many noted men and important affairs no mention is made. Only the leading events of certain periods and the personal achievements of a few representative "makers of our country" are treated in any detail. The subject is approached through biographical sketches of a few of the more illustrious actors in our nation's history. Some prominence is given to exceptional deeds of valor, details of everyday living in olden times, dramatic episodes, and personal incident.

      The schoolroom test demonstrates the fact that such a treatment of the subject is more attractive and profitable to children of the lower grades than the mere recital of minor matters and petty details of public events.

      The author would acknowledge his indebtedness to Dr. Homer B. Sprague of New York City for editorial help in reading and revising the manuscript. Thanks are also due to Dr. John E. Sanborn of Melrose, Mass., for editorial assistance.

A. F. BLAISDELL.

      November, 1900.

      Note. – The attention of teachers and pupils is especially directed to the practical usefulness of the subject of "Reference Books and Supplementary Reading for Successive Periods in American History," as treated on pages 424-435 in the Appendix.

      CHAPTER I.

      AMERICA IN THE OLD DAYS

      1. The Story of our Country.– We are sure that every intelligent and patriotic American youth must like to read the story of our country's life. To a boy or girl of good sense no work of fiction can surpass it in interest or power.

      How delightful to let the imagination summon up the forms and the deeds of the fearless Norse sailors who dared to cross the unknown seas in their frail and tiny vessels without compass and without charts! How interesting the oft-told but ever-fresh narrative of the intrepid Columbus and his memorable first voyage into and across the "Sea of Darkness"! What romance was ever more exciting than the stories of the fierce struggles between the white men and the Indians for existence and supremacy on this continent?

      How deep the pathos of the simple tales that tell of the patient sufferings, the severe toils, the ever-present dangers, and the heroic self-denials of the early colonists in making for themselves homes in the New World! How richly suggestive are those pages that record the glorious events of our American Revolution – the splendid and immortal deeds of Washington and his illustrious associates!

      Then there is the thrilling account of the most tremendous civil war in all history, with its four million soldiers, its two thousand battles, and its preservation of the Union.

      And to come down to a time within the memory of every schoolboy, the echoes of the Spanish-American conflict have hardly yet died away. The story of this short war in the summer of 1898 still rings in our ears – with its astounding naval victories at Manila and Santiago, the freedom of Cuba, and the destruction of the last vestige of the once mighty Spanish supremacy on this western continent!

       2. Lessons of Wisdom and Inspiration to be learned.– But beyond and above all mere gratification and pleasure to be derived from the study of our country's history, there are in it lessons of wisdom to be learned, there is inspiration to noble living, there is an uplifting of the soul to a higher plane of thought and sentiment, there is constant aid in the development and upbuilding of manly and womanly character.

      And when we think of the marvelous growth of less than three centuries which, beginning with the infant colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth, has made us a nation of more than seventy millions; when we think of the wonderful record of trial and triumph and unceasing progress, and of the great and good and wise men that have laid the foundations and reared the superstructure of this mighty temple of liberty, – we must be blind indeed and ungrateful beyond expression not to recognize with devout thankfulness the guiding hand of a beneficent Providence.

      America, under God, stood at Plymouth for religious freedom; in the Revolution, for independence; in our civil war, for the preservation of the Union. She now stands for humanity, civilization, and the uplifting of the whole race.

       3. The People of Ancient America.– Wise men who have made a special study of the subject tell us that this country has been continuously inhabited by generations of men for many thousands of years. Rude tools, and human skulls, intermingled with bones of animals of species long extinct, have been found in caves or dug out of deep layers of earth; and they indicate that in the Mississippi valley and on the Atlantic and Pacific slopes there lived, perhaps hundreds of ages ago, men of a low grade of culture.

      In the great museums – as the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, the Peabody Museums at Cambridge and New Haven, and the natural history rooms at New York and elsewhere – may be seen thousands of the relics of vanished races of men and animals that once inhabited this continent.

      4. The Red Men or Indians.– The Indians constitute a race by themselves. Whether they are descended from some of those prehistoric inhabitants of whom we have just spoken no one can say; but they make up an American type with marks as clearly recognized as those that distinguish the Mongolians and the Malays. For long ages the red men had spread themselves over the two continents, from Hudson Bay to Cape Horn. With few or no exceptions, all had the same copperish or cinnamon color, deep-set and intensely black eyes, high cheek-bones, straight black hair, with little or no beard; but the long lapse of time, the great varieties of environment, and perhaps other causes, brought about striking differences of appearance, of manners, customs, dialects, and the like.

      5. Three Principal Divisions of the Indians.– The eminent historian, Dr. John Fiske, groups the Indians in three leading divisions, – as savage, barbarous, and half-civilized.

      The savage Indians ranged to the west of Hudson Bay, and southward between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, to the northern part of Mexico. They lived by catching fish or game. They knew little or nothing of tilling the soil. They did not dwell in permanent villages, but roamed from place to place like Bedouin Arabs.

      The barbarous Indians inhabited the country east of the Rocky Mountains. They did not depend wholly upon hunting or fishing, but knew how to upturn the soil slightly with rude tools, and raise squashes, beans, tomatoes, and, most important of all, Indian corn. They lived in villages, and made houses that would last several years. They had dogs of an inferior breed, but no other domestic animals. Some tribes were able to weave coarse cloth and make weapons of polished stones. They had strange social customs and singular religious beliefs. Fighting was their principal occupation.

      The half-civilized Indians once lived in New Mexico and the adjoining region. They have had almost nothing to do with the history of the United States. They are the Pueblo Indians, so called from the pueblos or strongholds, dwellings which they built of stones or of sun-dried brick. Some of these strongholds, story above story, would accommodate at least three thousand inhabitants! They were built oftentimes in situations almost inaccessible, like eagles' nests on cliffs, apparently that they might be defended more easily against the attack of an enemy.

      6. The Northmen and their Discoveries.– The real contact between the eastern and western halves of the world practically began in 1492, the