ORATIONS, 1650
FRENCH CLAIMS, ETC., IN 1700
BRITISH COLONIES, 1733
EUROPEAN POSSESSIONS, 1763
THE BRITISH COLONIES IN 1764
BRITISH COLONIES, 1776
RESULTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
THE UNITED STATES, 1783
THE UNITED STATES, 1789
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1790
SLAVE AND FREE SOIL IN 1790
THE UNITED STATES, 1801
THE UNITED STATES, 1810
NORTH AMERICA AFTER 1824
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1820
FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN 1820
THE UNITED STATES, 1826
TERRITORY CLAIMED BY TEXAS IN 1845
THE OREGON COUNTRY
ROUTES OF THE EARLY EXPLORERS
TERRITORY CEDED BY MEXICO, 1848 AND 1853
RESULTS OF THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
THE UNITED STATES IN 1851
EXPANSION OF SLAVE SOIL, 1790-1860
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1850
THE UNITED STATES, 1861
WAR FOR THE UNION
INDUSTRIAL AND RAILROAD MAP OF THE UNITED STATES

A SCHOOL HISTORY OF THE
UNITED STATES

* * * * *

_DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS_

CHAPTER I

EUROPE FINDS AMERICA

%1. Nations that have owned our Soil.%--Before the United States
became a nation, six European powers owned, or claimed to own, various
portions of the territory now contained within its boundary. England
claimed the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. Spain once held
Florida, Texas, California, and all the territory south and west of
Colorado. France in days gone by ruled the Mississippi valley. Holland
once owned New Jersey, Delaware, and the valley of the Hudson in New
York, and claimed as far eastward as the Connecticut river. The Swedes
had settlements on the Delaware. Alaska was a Russian possession.

Before attempting to narrate the history of our country, it is
necessary, therefore, to tell

1. How European nations came into possession of parts of it.

2. How these parts passed from them to us.

3. What effect the ownership of parts of our country by Europeans had on
our history and institutions before 1776.

%2. European Trade with the East; the Old Routes.%--For two hundred
years before North and South America were known to exist, a splendid
trade had been going on between Europe and the East Indies. Ships loaded
with metals, woods, and pitch went from European seaports to Alexandria
and Constantinople, and brought back silks and cashmeres, muslins,
dyewoods, spices, perfumes, ivory, precious stones, and pearls. This
trade in course of time had come to be controlled by the two Italian
cities of Venice and Genoa. The merchants of Genoa sent their ship