In the 1730s and 1740s, the Great Awakening swept through the colonies. Itinerant preachers spoke to large outdoor crowds, stressing personal conversion over established hierarchy. The movement divided congregations but crossed colonial boundaries, encouraged new […]
Distance from Britain required colonists to manage much of their daily public life. Royal governors represented imperial authority, but elected assemblies controlled local taxation and spending in many colonies. County courts, town meetings, juries and […]
NEW ENGLAND Rocky soil and a short growing season encouraged small farms, fishing, shipbuilding, lumbering and maritime trade. Compact towns gathered around meetinghouses. Congregational traditions shaped Massachusetts and Connecticut, though Rhode Island became an important […]
From Settlements to a New Society, 1620-1763 “Separate colonies became neighboring societiesand slowly discovered what they shared.” THIRTEEN COLONIES, MANY BEGINNINGS The thirteen colonies did not begin as a single national project. They were established […]
Thirteen years after Jamestown, the Mayflower arrived in present-day Massachusetts. Its passengers included religious Separatists seeking the freedom to build a community according to their beliefs, as well as other migrants pursuing opportunity. Before going […]
In 1607, an English expedition established Jamestown in Virginia, the first enduring English settlement in what became the United States. The site offered defensive advantages but poor drinking water, disease and difficult farming conditions. Many […]
Europeans Arrive, New Worlds Collide “What one people called discovery, another experienced as arrival-and soon as upheaval.” AN OCEAN BECOMES A ROAD For thousands of years, the Atlantic Ocean separated societies that knew nothing of […]
Apersistent misconception holds that early Indigenous Americans lived only in small, scattered bands. Communities varied greatly, but some created substantial towns and regional centers. Cahokia, near the Mississippi River across from modern St. Louis, contained […]
There was no single Indigenous culture in North America. The continent contained hundreds of nations, languages, political traditions and ways of life. Arctic peoples developed extraordinary knowledge of ice, sea, weather and animal migration. Along […]
“America did not begin with independence. It began with people.” A CONTINENT BEFORE A COUNTRY Long before there was a United States, before the thirteen colonies, before the Mayflower, and before Europeans called these lands […]
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