American history 1

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The history of the United States

• How did the United States originate? 

How did the US
originate?

Before Columbus

• Native Americans 

Native Americans

Indigenous people of the North America. Arrived from Asia at least 15,000 years ago. Many different tribes, such as Cherokee, Chickasaw, Apalachee and Navajo. Millions of Native Americans lived in America before Europeans came over.
Nowadays, Native Americans only make up around 2% of the United States' population.

Cliff Palace (1190-1260)

European expeditions

• Conquistadores
• Christopher Columbus

Conquistadores

Spanish "conquerors." They were the first to explore the Americas. They conquered areas such as contemporary Florida and New Mexico. They were also very present in the South American continent. 

St. Augustine, Florida

Christopher Columbus

Italian explorer that worked for
the Spanish monarchs. He was
looking for a western route to India,
hoping to profit from spice trade. He
thought he reached India when he first
arrived in 1492 (that is why he and many
others called its indigenous inhabitants Indians). 

Fun fact

Horses were extinct in America. Christopher Columbus and Spanish conquistadores were the first to bring horses to the continent again.

European settlements

• British settlements
• French settlements
• Spanish settlements
• Dutch settlements
• What happened
    next?

British settlements

Founded the first permanent settlement in 1607, called Jamestown. They called the surrounding area Virginia, after the British queen. They shared the area with a Native American tribe called Powhatan. 

Jamestown

Fun fact

Pocahontas was actually a real
 person. She was the daughter
 of the Powhatan chief. She
 eventually married an Englishman
 and travelled with him to England.
f there was ever a true romance between Pocahontas and John Smith, like in the Disney movie, is still undecided.

French settlements

Made different attempts at buiding
settlements, but often failed because of
 food or weather issues. Eventually they
did settle throughout the west,
 including Louisiana and big parts of
 contemporary Canada, such as Quebec.

Spanish settlements

Spain settled in the South West, in areas we now call Florida and New Mexico. They also settled in parts of South America.

Dutch settlements

New Netherland was founded
in the 1600s. A lot of the area the
Dutch had then, is now part of
New York City. We can see a lot
of Dutch influence in street or
 borough names.

Harlem

Brooklyn

Flushing

Broadway

Bushwick

Haarlem

Breukelen

Vlissingen

Breede Wegh

Boswijk

What happened next?

Native Americans and Europeans fought wars, as well as traded goods. A huge number of Native Americans died because of the arrival of the Europeans, through war and Europeans brought with them many "new" diseases such as measles.

What happened next?

Europeans brought African slaves to the Americas, to work on plantations for products such as sugar and cotton. These plantations were mostly located in
the Caribbean and the South of
North America, because of the
weather.

What happened next?

There were a lot of wars between the European colonies. Eventually the British took over most of the areas. The Thirteen Colonies were born and wanted independence from the British crown.

American independence

• Why did they want independence? 
• Declaration of Independence
• Independence War

Why did America
want independence?

Why did American want independence?

The British raised taxes tremendously on products such as sugar and paper in the 1760s. American also thought that the Brits couldn't represent them properly, because of their differences: for example, the Americans thought it was unfair for them to pay for wars that British were waging in Europe.

Declaration of Independence

Written by representatives of the Thirteen Colonies in 1776. It stated that they want independence from the British monarchs. They explained that they wanted independence by stating that they have the right to have independence, because "all men are created equal."

Independence War

The British didn't want to give
America up, so a war began.
European countries such as France,
 Spain and the Netherlands supported
 the Americans. In 1781, the British
surrendered. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris
was signed and America was officially independent. 

And thus, the United States was born