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Colonial and Early National Literature
It was the first naturally colonial literary period, by English authors who thought and wrote as such, some of the first were John Smith and Daniel Denton. Their works generally described colonizing opportunities to the English and praised America as a land of economic promise, they also discussed government and the relationship between church and state. The writings included biographies, travel accounts and some bad but popular poetry. -
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were established in the eastern United States. The main component of the population were immigrants from Great Britain and continental Europe, who saw the colonies as a land of promise, economic opportunity and religious freedom. The second largest group were of African descent, sent to America against their will, usually ending up enslaved. The Netherlands, Germany, Scotland, and France made other contributions to the colonial ethnic mix. -
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Colonial American Literature
Characterized by the narrative, composed of letters, journals and biographies. Religion is prominent on it too, found in Puritan writings where they spread the constant theme that God should be worshiped.
In the 18th century, the Enlightenment showed a great shift from a religious foundation to scientific reasoning. Rational thought and science were the new themes, mainly explored by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. -
Slavery in America
European settlers in America turned to African slaves as a cheaper and more plentiful labor source than hired servants. They made them completely dependent on them, forbidding them to learn to read and write and restricting their behavior and movement. They worked mainly in the tobacco, rice and indigo plantations.
After the American Revolution, many settlers began to link the oppression of enslaved Africans to their own oppression by the British and to call for slavery’s abolition. -
Antebellum Literature
African American writers sought to demonstrate that the proposition all men are created equal required black Americans having the same human rights as white Americans. Phillis Wheatley, who wrote the first African American book was determined to show that a black poet was as capable of artistic expression as a white one.
In the 19th century, the standard bearers of African American literature spoke through essays, poetry and fiction of the need for whites to address the terrible sin of slavery. -
Boston Tea Party
It was a protest against British taxation. In 1773 the British Parliament granted the British East India Company a monopoly on the American tea trade, the colonials did public protests over this interference because they wanted to be taxed by American representatives. On December 16th the Sons of Liberty led by Samuel Adams, boarded the British ships in Boston Harbor and threw 342 chests of tea into the water. -
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American Revolution
The war followed more than a decade of growing estrangement between the British crown and its North American colonies that was caused by British attempts to assert greater control over colonial affairs after having long adhered to a policy of salutary neglect. Until early 1778 the conflict was a civil war within the British Empire, but then it turned into an international war when France and Spain joined the colonies against Britain. -
Declaration of Independence
The Thirteen American Colonies severed their political connections with Great Britain. The Declaration summarized the motivations of the settlers to seek independence. -
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Abolitionism
Movement responsible for creating the emotional climate necessary for ending the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery.
The slave system increased its protests when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment began to criticize it for its violation of the rights of man.
By the late 18th century, moral disapproval of slavery was widespread, and antislavery reformers won a number of deceptively easy victories during this period. -
Prohibition of Slaves Importations
The slave trade to the British colonies was abolished, and the United States prohibited the importation of slaves. -
Slave Narratives and Oral Tradition
An antislavery movement in America sponsored firsthand autobiographical accounts of slavery by fugitives from the South to make abolitionists of a white Northern audience. Until the end of the slavery era, the fugitive slave narrative dominated the literary landscape of America.
Behind the achievements of individual African American writers lies the communal consciousness of millions of slaves whose oral tradition in story has shaped and substance much of later African American literature. -
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The Romantic Period
Romanticism is a way of thinking that values the individual and a person’s emotional experience over reason. It took hold in western Europe and in the 19th century several groups of American writers and thinkers emerged, some of them depicted everyday life, others wrote emotionally intense stories, novels and poetry. During the civil war stories by and about enslaved and free African Americans were written too.
Most of them became some of the most-enduring works of American literature. -
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Years of Growth
In 1848 the population was 15.000 people, by 1852 the population was more than 250.000.
Transcontinental railroads reduced the time that it took to travel across the United States from weeks to days which made it possible for the farmers to sell their produce in far-away places.
Thanks to a law which offered free farms, any head of each family could claim one. -
Abraham Lincoln Presidency
The South became convinced that its entire way of life, based on cheap labor provided by slaves, was hopelessly threatened by the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed the expansion of slavery in the western territories. -
American Civil War
Confederate guns opened fire on a fortress in the harbor of Charleston that was occupied by United Slates troops, this marked the beginning of the war.
Southerners denied that they were fighting mainly to preserve slavery, most were poor farmers who owned no slaves. The South was fighting for its independence from the North.
The Civil War gave final answers to two questions, it put an end to slavery and it decided finally that the United States was one nation whose parts could not be separated. -
Emancipation Proclamation
The ensuing secession of the southern states led to the American Civil War, which led Abraham Lincoln to emancipate slaves in the rebellion areas. -
Lincoln's Assassination
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by stage actor John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford's Theatre. Shot in the head as he watched the play, he died the following day.
Andrew Johnson succeeded him. The biggest problem the new president faced was how to deal with the defeated South, so he began to present plans to reunite them with the rest of the nation. -
The 13th Amendment
It officially abolished slavery, previously enslaved people received the rights of citizenship and the equal protection of the Constitution and the right to vote, but these provisions of Constitution were often ignored or violated.
Almost a century later, resistance to the lingering racism and discrimination in America that began during the slavery era would lead to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, which would achieve the greatest political and social gains for blacks. -
Reconstruction
Despite opposition from the President, Congress passed a Civil Rights Act that gave blacks full rights of citizenship, including the right to vote.
By 1870 all the southern states had new Reconstruction govemments, but they were determined to prevent that. They organized terrorist groups whose aim was to threaten and frighten black people, all the southern states passed laws to enforce strict racial separation, in this way regained control of the state. Reconstruction was over. -
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Inventors and Industries
The main American inventions were typewriter, telephone as well as machines for sewing, printing.
In the years that followed American industries grew quickly. The production of coal and iron grew especially fast, these were the most important materials in the 19th century.
Railroads were very important in this growth of manufacturing they linked together buyers and sellers all over the country.
By 1890, the industries of the United States were earning the country more than its farmlands. -
The Amerindians
They had been roaming across for hundreds of years, they lived by hunting buffalo which provided them with everything.
In December, 1890 they left their reservation but soldiers stopped them on the way. Within minutes, most of them were dead or badly wounded.
In 1924, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act. This recognized Amerindians as full citizens of the
United States and gave them the right to vote. -
The Golden Door
The immigrants found work in busy cities where they worked hard because they wanted to make a success of their new life. Yet bad as conditions were, they often seemed preferable to those they had left behind because in America they were free from religious and political persecution.
In the 1920s, Congress passed laws to limit all kinds of immigration. This restriction was the end of one of the most relevant population movement in the history of the world.