American History: The Colonial Period & Independence
The Colonists
During the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans (colonists) came to America. These colonists came to America for a variety of reasons including political and religious freedom, economic opportunity and escape from persecution. When they arrived in the “New World” they met the first inhabitants (people) of America: the Native Americans or American Indians. Without the help of the American Indians, and one in particular, Squanto, many of the colonists would not have survived; the Indians taught the colonists (pilgrims) how to catch fish and plant corn and live off the land.
The first English colony was founded in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 and because the colonists needed laborers to work on their plantations and farms, groups of Africans were brought by ship to America and sold as slaves to the colonists.
The Thirteen Colonies
The relationship between the colonists and their mother country, Great Britain, had been declining. The British had been imposing heavy taxes and unfair laws on the colonies during the 1760s and the colonists had no say –they could not vote for or against them.
By 1773, there were 13 colonies (later to become the 13 states). The thirteen original colonies were: Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. These colonies argued that the British Parliament had no right to impose taxes or have a say in how they were being governed since they were not directly represented in Parliament.
The First Continental Congress
The relationship between the colonists and their mother country, Great Britain, continued to decline further after Parliament passed more tax acts in 1774 that punished the colonists for the Boston Tea Party, where colonists destroyed shipments of tea belonging to the British East India Company by dumping them into the Boston Harbor.
In September 1774, The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, organized a boycott of British goods and asked the king to overturn the tax acts. King George III and Parliament, however, would not to do that.
Colonial Separation from Great Britain
Because of all the taxation and no representation and because neither Parliament nor the King would overturn any of the tax acts, the colonists went to war against Great Britain to seek their independence.
The American Revolutionary War, also known as the American War of Independence, began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. The Continental Army was led by George Washington, the first Commander-In-Chief, who would also go on to become the First President of the United States.
George Washington, because he was the leader of the war for America’s independence, is also known as "The Father of Our Country". The colonists won the war and a new nation was born.Birth of a Nation-The Declaration of Independence
On June 11th 1776, Congress appointed a "Committee of Five", consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman, to draft a declaration announcing the colonies' independence from Great Britain. Thomas Jefferson wrote this first draft of the document that went on to be known as "The Declaration of Independence”.
On July 4th 1776, the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved and a new nation, the United States of America, was born.
The Constitutional Convention
After the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed, the Articles of Confederation were written and used to govern the 13 new states. This document protected the basic rights of Americans and outlined how the states would be governed.
In 1787, eleven years after the Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia, with the hope of improving on the Articles of Confederation. Once again, as with the writing of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were there. Benjamin Franklin, though, was the oldest delegate at the Constitutional Convention, besides being a diplomat and the first Postmaster General. It was at this Convention, that the Constitution was written and it created a completely new national government.
The Federalist Papers
How was the proposed Constitution going to get passed by the 13 states?
In order to get the support and approval needed from the states for the Constitution to pass, the Federalist Papers were written. These papers were a series of 85 articles written to promote the passage and to support ratification of the U.S. Constitution by the individual states. These articles were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay and appeared in various journals and newspapers in 1787 and 1788.
In part because of these articles, the Constitution was passed by the numbers needed and adopted in 1789, making the U.S. Constitution “The Supreme Law of the Land.”
