1.
Congress of the Confederation
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A unicameral body with legislative and executive function, it comprised delegates appointed by the legislatures of the several states. Each state delegation had one vote, the membership of the Second Continental Congress automatically carried over to the Congress of the Confederation when the latter was created by the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. It had the secretary as the Second Continental Congress, namely Charles Thomson. The Congress of the Confederation opened in the last stages of the American Revolution, combat ended in October 1781, with the surrender of the British after the Siege and Battle of Yorktown. The British, however, continued to occupy New York City, while the American delegates in Paris, named by the Congress and this formally ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain and the thirteen former colonies, which on July 4,1776, had declared independence. On March 1,1781, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were signed by delegates of Maryland at a meeting of the Second Continental Congress, as historian Edmund Burnett wrote, There was no new organization of any kind, not even the election of a new President. The Congress still called itself the Continental Congress, some modern historians would later refer to the Continental Congress after the ratification of the Articles as the Congress of the Confederation or the Confederation Congress. The Congress had little power and without the threat of a war against the British. Nonetheless the Congress still managed to pass important laws, most notably the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the War of Independence saddled the country with an enormous debt. In 1784, the total Confederation debt was nearly $40 million, of that sum, $8 million was owed to the French and Dutch. Of the domestic debt, government bonds, known as loan-office certificates, composed $11.5 million, certificates on interest indebtedness $3.1 million, the certificates were non-interest bearing notes issued for supplies purchased or impressed, and to pay soldiers and officers. Rhode Island and Virginia rejected the 1781 impost plan while New York rejected the 1783 revised plan, without revenue, except for meager voluntary state requisitions, Congress could not even pay the interest on its outstanding debt. Meanwhile, the states failed, or refused, to meet the requisitions requested of them by Congress. The Confederation Congress itself endorsed the Call and issued one on its own further inviting the states to send delegates. After meeting in secret all summer in the Old Pennsylvania State House now having acquired the nickname and new title of Independence Hall, from the famous action here eleven years earlier. The Confederation Congress received and submitted the new Constitution document to the states, the Congress of the Confederation continued to conduct business for another month after setting the various dates. Pell oversaw the meeting and adjourned the Congress sine die, rather than having a fixed capital, the Congress of the Confederation met in numerous locations which may be considered United States capitals. The Congress of the Confederation initially met at the Old Pennsylvania State House, party Politics in the Continental Congress
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Northwest Territory
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In the 18th century, Great Britain and the France disputed for control of this region. The French had claimed it in the 17th century as part of New France and this activity stimulated the development of the eastern parts of the eventual National Road by private investors. Most of the territory and its successors was settled by emigrants passing through the Cumberland Narrows, the Congress of the Confederation enacted the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 to provide for the administration of the territories and set rules for admission of jurisdictions as states. On August 7,1789, the new U. S. Congress affirmed the Ordinance with slight modifications under the Constitution, the territory included all the land of the United States west of Pennsylvania and northwest of the Ohio River. It covered all of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan. The area covered more than 260,000 square miles, European exploration of the region began with French-Canadian voyageurs in the 17th century, followed by French missionaries and French fur traders. French-Canadian explorer Jean Nicolet was the first recorded European entrant into the region, landing in 1634 at the current site of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The French exercised control from widely separate posts in the region, France ceded the territory to the Kingdom of Great Britain as part of the Indian Reserve in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, after being defeated in the French and Indian War. A new colony, named Charlotina, was proposed for the southern Great Lakes region, however, facing armed opposition by Native Americans, the British issued the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited white colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. This action angered American colonists interested in expansion, as well as those who had settled in the area. In 1774, by the Quebec Act, Britain annexed the region to the Province of Quebec in order to provide a civil government, the prohibition of settlement west of the Appalachians remained, contributing to the American Revolution. In February 1779, George Rogers Clark of the Virginia Militia captured Kaskaskia, the Old Northwest Territory included all the then-owned land of the United States west of Pennsylvania, east of the Mississippi River, and northwest of the Ohio River. It covered all of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan. The area covered more than 260,000 square miles and was a significant addition to the United States, several states then had competing claims on the territory. As a concession in order to obtain ratification, these states ceded their claims on the territory to the government, New York in 1780, Virginia in 1784, Massachusetts. So the majority of the territory became public land owned by the U. S. government, Virginia and Connecticut reserved the land of two areas to use as compensation to military veterans, The Virginia Military District and the Connecticut Western Reserve. In this way, the United States included territory and people outside any of the states, Thomas Jeffersons Land Ordinance of 1784 was the first organization of the territory by the United States. Some older French communities property claims based on systems of long
4.
Territories of the United States
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Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions directly overseen by the United States federal government. These territories are classified by whether they are incorporated and whether they have a government through an Organic Act passed by the U. S. Congress. Currently, the United States has sixteen territories, five of which are inhabited, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, the U. S. Virgin Islands. They are classified as unincorporated territories and they are organized, self-governing territories with locally elected governors and territorial legislatures. Each also elects a member to the U. S. House of Representatives. Eleven territories are small islands, atolls and reefs, spread across the Caribbean and Pacific, the status of some are disputed by Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, and the Marshall Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the territory currently incorporated. Historically, territories were created to govern newly acquired land while the borders of the United States were still evolving, other territories administered by the United States went on to become independent countries, such as the Philippines, Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau. Many organized incorporated territories of the United States existed from 1789 to 1959, currently, the United States has sixteen territories, five of which are permanently inhabited, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, United States Virgin Islands and American Samoa. The 11 uninhabited territories administered by the Interior Department are Palmyra Atoll, Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, while claimed by the US, Navassa Island, Wake Island, Serranilla Bank and Bajo Nuevo Bank are disputed. Territories have always been a part of the United States, by Act of Congress, the term United States, when used in a geographical sense, means the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands of the United States. Since political union with the Northern Mariana Islands in 1986, they too are treated as a part of the U. S, an Executive Order in 2007 includes American Samoa as U. S. geographical extent duly reflected in U. S. State Department documents. Approximately 4 million islanders are U. S. citizens, about 32,000 U. S. non-citizen nationals live in American Samoa, under current law among the territories, only persons born in American Samoa and Swains Island are non-citizen U. S. nationals. American Samoans are under the protection of the U. S. with freedom of U. S. travel without visas. The five inhabited U. S. territories have local voting rights and protections under U. S. courts, pay some U. S. taxes, depending on the congress, they may also vote on the floor in the House Committee of the Whole. S. Every four years, the Democratic and Republican political parties nominate their candidates at conventions which include delegates from the five major territories. The citizens there, however, do not vote in the election for U. S. President. S. Incorporated territories are considered a part of the United States
5.
Appalachian Mountains
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The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period and it once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before naturally occurring erosion. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east-west travel, as it forms a series of alternating ridgelines, definitions vary on the precise boundaries of the Appalachians. A common variant definition does not include the Adirondack Mountains, which belong to the Grenville Orogeny and have a different geological history from the rest of the Appalachians. The range covers parts of the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the system is divided into a series of ranges, with the individual mountains averaging around 3,000 ft. The highest of the group is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684 feet, the term Appalachian refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range. Most broadly, it refers to the mountain range with its surrounding hills. The Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas and Oklahoma were originally part of the Appalachians as well, the name was soon altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe and region spreading well inland to the north. Pánfilo de Narváezs expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15,1528, now spelled Appalachian, it is the fourth-oldest surviving European place-name in the US. After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutierrezs map of 1562, the name was not commonly used for the whole mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the Allegheny Mountains, Alleghenies, in the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania. In U. S. dialects in the regions of the Appalachians. In northern parts of the range, it is pronounced /ˌæpəˈleɪtʃᵻnz/ or /ˌæpəˈleɪʃᵻnz/, the third syllable is like lay. There is often debate between the residents of the regions as to which pronunciation is the more correct one. Elsewhere, a commonly accepted pronunciation for the adjective Appalachian is /ˌæpəˈlætʃiən/, the whole system may be divided into three great sections, Northern, The northern section runs from the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador to the Hudson River. The Monteregian Hills, which cross the Green Mountains in Quebec, are also unassociated with the Appalachians, Central, The central section goes from the Hudson Valley to the New River running through Virginia and West Virginia. Southern, The southern section runs from the New River onwards and it consists of the prolongation of the Blue Ridge, which is divided into the Western Blue Ridge Front and the Eastern Blue Ridge Front, the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and the Cumberland Plateau
6.
British North America
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British North America refers to the former territories of the British Empire in mainland North America. The term was first used informally in 1783, but it was uncommon before the Report on the Affairs of British North America and these territories today form modern-day Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. British colonization of North America, began in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1775, on the eve of the American Revolution, the British Empire included 20 territories in the Western Hemisphere northeast of New Spain. Nova Scotia was split into modern-day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1784, the part of Quebec retained after 1783 was split into the primarily French-speaking Lower Canada and the primarily English-speaking Upper Canada in 1791. After the War of 1812, the Treaty of 1818 established the 49th parallel as the United States–British North America border from Ruperts Land west to the Rocky Mountains. Britain gave up Oregon south of the 49th parallel, which was part of the Hudsons Bay Companys Columbia District, the boundary of British North America with Maine was clarified by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. The Canadas were united into the Province of Canada in 1841, the former Province of Canada was split back into its pre-1841 parts, with Canada East renamed Quebec, and Canada West renamed Ontario. These were the four provinces of Canada. In 1870, Ruperts Land was annexed to Canada as the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, the British colony on the west coast north of the 49th parallel, joined as Canadas sixth province in 1871, and Prince Edward Island joined in 1873. The boundary of British Columbia with Washington Territory was settled by arbitration in 1872, the Arctic Archipelago was ceded by Britain to Canada in 1880 and added to the Northwest Territories. Subsequently, large sections of the NWT were split off as new territories or provinces, in 1949 the island of Newfoundland, and its associated mainland territory of Labrador, joined Canada as the tenth province. This agreement was implemented when the British Parliament passed the Constitution Act of 1982 at the request of Parliament of Canada. From 1783 to 1801 it was administered by the Home Office and by the Home Secretary, then from 1801 to 1854 under the War Office and Secretary of State for War, when the Colonial Office was re-established it was under the responsibility of the Colonial Secretary. Prince Edward Island Terms of Union, the Peopling of British North America, An Introduction excerpt and text search Cooke, Jacob E. Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies Foster, Stephen, ed. British North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries excerpt and text search,11 essays by scholars Garner, the franchise and politics in British North America, 1755–1867 Gipson, Lawrence Henry. The British Empire Before the American Revolution, extremely comprehensive study, Pulitzer Prize Morton, the Kingdom of Canada, A General History from Earliest Times Savelle, Max. Empires To Nations, Expansion In America 1713-1824 online
7.
Great Lakes
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Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, containing 21% of the worlds surface fresh water by volume. The total surface is 94,250 square miles, and the volume is 5,439 cubic miles. Due to their sea-like characteristics the five Great Lakes have also long been referred to as inland seas, Lake Superior is the second largest lake in the world by area, and Lake Michigan is the largest lake that is entirely within one country. The southern half of the Great Lakes is bordered by the Great Lakes Megalopolis, the lakes have been a major highway for transportation, migration and trade, and they are home to a large number of aquatic species. Many invasive species have been introduced due to trade, and some threaten the regions biodiversity, though the five lakes reside in separate basins, they form a single, naturally interconnected body of fresh water, within the Great Lakes Basin. The lakes form a chain connecting the interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. From the interior to the outlet at the Saint Lawrence River, water flows from Superior to Huron and Michigan, southward to Erie, the lakes drain a large watershed via many rivers, and are studded with approximately 35,000 islands. There are also several smaller lakes, often called inland lakes. The surface area of the five primary lakes combined is roughly equal to the size of the United Kingdom, while the area of the entire basin is about the size of the UK. Lake Michigan is the one of the Great Lakes that is located entirely within the United States. The lakes are divided among the jurisdictions of the Canadian province of Ontario and the U. S. states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Both Ontario and Michigan include in their boundaries portions of four of the lakes, Ontario does not border Lake Michigan, New York and Wisconsins jurisdictions extend into two lakes, and the remaining states into one of the lakes. This designation, however, is not universal and those living on the shore of Lake Superior often refer to all the other lakes as the lower lakes, because they are farther south. This corresponds to thinking of Lakes Erie and Ontario as down south, vessels sailing north on Lake Michigan are considered upbound even though they are sailing toward its effluent current. The Chicago River and Calumet River systems connect the Great Lakes Basin to the Mississippi River System through man-made alterations, the St. Marys River, including the Soo Locks, connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron. The Straits of Mackinac connect Lake Michigan to Lake Huron, the St. Clair River connects Lake Huron to Lake St. Clair. The Detroit River connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie, the Niagara River, including Niagara Falls, connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The Welland Canal, bypassing the Falls, connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, the Saint Lawrence River connects Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which connects to the Atlantic Ocean
8.
Ohio River
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The Ohio River, which streams westward from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois, is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River in the United States. The 981-mile river flows through or along the border of six states, through its largest tributary, the Tennessee River, the basin includes many of the states of the southeastern U. S. It is the source of drinking water for three million people and it is named in Iroquoian or Seneca, Ohi, yó, lit. Good River or Shawnee, Pelewathiipi and Spelewathiipi, the river had great significance in the history of the Native Americans, as numerous civilizations formed along its valley. For thousands of years, Native Americans used the river as a major transportation, in 1669, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle led a French expedition to the Ohio River, becoming the first Europeans to see it. After European-American settlement, the served as a border between present-day Kentucky and Indian Territories. It was a transportation route for pioneers during the westward expansion of the early U. S. In his Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1781–82, Thomas Jefferson stated and its current gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a single instance only excepted. During the 19th century, the river was the boundary of the Northwest Territory. Where the river was narrow, it was the way to freedom for thousands of slaves escaping to the North, many helped by free blacks and whites of the Underground Railroad resistance movement. The Ohio River is a transition area, as its water runs along the periphery of the humid subtropical. It is inhabited by fauna and flora of both climates, in winter, it regularly freezes over at Pittsburgh but rarely further south toward Cincinnati and Louisville. At Paducah, Kentucky, in the south, near the Ohios confluence with the Mississippi, Paducah was founded there because it is the northernmost ice-free reach of the Ohio. The Ohio River is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Point State Park in Pittsburgh, from there, it flows northwest through Allegheny and Beaver counties, before making an abrupt turn to the south-southwest at the West Virginia–Ohio–Pennsylvania triple-state line. From there, it forms the border between West Virginia and Ohio, upstream of Wheeling, West Virginia, the river then follows a roughly southwest and then west-northwest course until Cincinnati, before bending to a west-southwest course for most of its length. The course forms the borders of West Virginia and Kentucky. The Ohio drains parts of 15 states in four regions, northeast New York, a small area of the southern border along the headwaters of the Allegheny. Pennsylvania, a corridor from the corner to north central border
9.
Mississippi River
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The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, then settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link. Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is also noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, however, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river
10.
Articles of Confederation
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Its drafting by a committee appointed by the Second Continental Congress began on July 12,1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification on November 15,1777. The Articles of Confederation came into force on March 1,1781, a guiding principle of the Articles was to preserve the independence and sovereignty of the states. The federal government received only those powers which the colonies had recognized as belonging to king, the Articles formed a war-time confederation of states, with an extremely limited central government. Actually the adoption of the Articles made no change in the federal government. That body was now taken over as the Congress of the Confederation, as the governments weaknesses became apparent, especially after Shays Rebellion, individuals began asking for changes to the Articles. Their hope was to create a national government. Initially, some states met to deal with their trade and economic problems, however, as more states became interested in meeting to change the Articles, a meeting was set in Philadelphia on May 25,1787. It was quickly realized that changes would not work, and instead the entire Articles needed to be replaced, on March 4,1789, the general government under the Articles was replaced with the federal government under the Constitution. The new Constitution provided for a stronger federal government by establishing a chief executive, courts. The Articles of Confederation would bear some resemblance to it, over the next two decades, some of the basic concepts it addressed would strengthen and others would weaken, particularly the degree of deserved loyalty to the crown. It was an era of constitution writing—most states were busy at the task—and leaders felt the new nation must have a written constitution, during the war, Congress exercised an unprecedented level of political, diplomatic, military and economic authority. It adopted trade restrictions, established and maintained an army, issued fiat money, created a military code, to transform themselves from outlaws into a legitimate nation, the colonists needed international recognition for their cause and foreign allies to support it. The monarchies of France and Spain in particular could not be expected to aid those they considered rebels against another legitimate monarch, foreign courts needed to have American grievances laid before them persuasively in a “manifesto” which could also reassure them that the Americans would be reliable trading partners. Without such a declaration, Paine concluded, “he custom of all courts is against us, Congress then created three overlapping committees to draft the Declaration, a Model Treaty, and the Articles of Confederation. The committee met repeatedly, and chairman John Dickinson presented their results to the Congress on July 12,1776, there were long debates on such issues as sovereignty, the exact powers to be given the confederate government, whether to have a judiciary, and voting procedures. Under the Articles, the states retained sovereignty over all governmental functions not specifically relinquished to the national government, the individual articles set the rules for current and future operations of the United States government. Article XIII stipulated that their provisions shall be observed by every state. John Dickinsons and Benjamin Franklins handwritten drafts of the Articles of Confederation are housed at the National Archives in Washington, after the war, nationalists, especially those who had been active in the Continental Army, complained that the Articles were too weak for an effective government
11.
Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Previously, he was elected the second Vice President of the United States, Jefferson was primarily of English ancestry, born and educated in colonial Virginia. He graduated from the College of William & Mary and briefly practiced law and he became the United States Minister to France in May 1785, and subsequently the nations first Secretary of State in 1790–1793 under President George Washington. Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the First Party System, as President, Jefferson pursued the nations shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies. He also organized the Louisiana Purchase, almost doubling the countrys territory, as a result of peace negotiations with France, his administration reduced military forces. Jeffersons second term was beset with difficulties at home, including the trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr, American foreign trade was diminished when Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act of 1807, responding to British threats to U. S. shipping. In 1803, Jefferson began a process of Indian tribe removal to the newly organized Louisiana Territory. Jefferson mastered many disciplines, which ranged from surveying and mathematics to horticulture and he was a proven architect in the classical tradition. Jeffersons keen interest in religion and philosophy earned him the presidency of the American Philosophical Society and he shunned organized religion, but was influenced by both Christianity and deism. He was well versed in linguistics and spoke several languages and he founded the University of Virginia after retiring from public office. He was a letter writer and corresponded with many prominent and important people throughout his adult life. His only full-length book is Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson owned several plantations which were worked by hundreds of slaves. Most historians now believe that, after the death of his wife in 1782, he had a relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and fathered at least one of her children. Various modern scholars are more critical of Jeffersons private life, pointing out the discrepancy between his ownership of slaves and his political principles, for example. Presidential scholars, however, consistently rank Jefferson among the greatest presidents, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13,1743, at the family home in Shadwell in the Colony of Virginia, the third of ten children. He was of English and possibly Welsh descent and was born a British subject and his father Peter Jefferson was a planter and surveyor who died when Jefferson was fourteen, his mother was Jane Randolph. Peter Jefferson moved his family to Tuckahoe Plantation in 1745 upon the death of a friend who had named him guardian of his children, the Jeffersons returned to Shadwell in 1752, where Peter died in 1757, his estate was divided between his sons Thomas and Randolph. Thomas inherited approximately 5,000 acres of land, including Monticello and he assumed full authority over his property at age 21
12.
United States Constitution
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The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government, Articles Four, Five and Six entrench concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relationship to the federal government. Article Seven establishes the procedure used by the thirteen States to ratify it. In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty, the majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections. Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures, Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document. All four pages of the original U. S, according to the United States Senate, The Constitutions first three words—We the People—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. From September 5,1774 to March 1,1781, the Continental Congress functioned as the government of the United States. The process of selecting the delegates for the First and Second Continental Congresses underscores the revolutionary role of the people of the colonies in establishing a governing body. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the first constitution of the United States and it was drafted by the Second Continental Congress from mid-1776 through late-1777, and ratification by all 13 states was completed by early 1781. Under the Articles of Confederation, the governments power was quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions, but lacked enforcement powers, implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures. The Continental Congress could print money but the currency was worthless, Congress could borrow money, but couldnt pay it back. No state paid all their U. S. taxes, some paid nothing, some few paid an amount equal to interest on the national debt owed to their citizens, but no more. No interest was paid on debt owed foreign governments, by 1786, the United States would default on outstanding debts as their dates came due. Internationally, the Articles of Confederation did little to enhance the United States ability to defend its sovereignty, most of the troops in the 625-man United States Army were deployed facing – but not threatening – British forts on American soil. They had not been paid, some were deserting and others threatening mutiny, spain closed New Orleans to American commerce, U. S. officials protested, but to no effect. Barbary pirates began seizing American ships of commerce, the Treasury had no funds to pay their ransom, if any military crisis required action, the Congress had no credit or taxing power to finance a response. Domestically, the Articles of Confederation was failing to bring unity to the sentiments and interests of the various states
13.
United States Congress
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The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D. C, both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment. Members are usually affiliated to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party, Congress has 535 voting members,435 Representatives and 100 Senators. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members in addition to its 435 voting members and these members can, however, sit on congressional committees and introduce legislation. Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms representing the people of a single constituency, known as a district. Congressional districts are apportioned to states by using the United States Census results. Each state, regardless of population or size, has two senators, currently, there are 100 senators representing the 50 states. Each senator is elected at-large in their state for a term, with terms staggered. The House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process—legislation cannot be enacted without the consent of both chambers, however, the Constitution grants each chamber some unique powers. The Senate ratifies treaties and approves presidential appointments while the House initiates revenue-raising bills, the House initiates impeachment cases, while the Senate decides impeachment cases. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is required before a person can be forcibly removed from office. The term Congress can also refer to a meeting of the legislature. A Congress covers two years, the current one, the 115th Congress, began on January 3,2017, the Congress starts and ends on the third day of January of every odd-numbered year. Members of the Senate are referred to as senators, members of the House of Representatives are referred to as representatives, congressmen, or congresswomen. One analyst argues that it is not a solely reactive institution but has played a role in shaping government policy and is extraordinarily sensitive to public pressure. Several academics described Congress, Congress reflects us in all our strengths, Congress is the governments most representative body. Congress is essentially charged with reconciling our many points of view on the public policy issues of the day. —Smith, Roberts, and Wielen Congress is constantly changing and is constantly in flux, most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90 percent
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Public domain (land)
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Public domain lands are those that cannot be sold since they are considered to belong to the whole community. Public domain land is managed by an entity like, in different countries, the State, a region. It is referred to as dominio público, domínio público, domaine public or demanio pubblico, the authority for this came under laws such as the Homestead Act, the Timber and Stone Act, and the Morrill Act. The creation of the first public domain of the United States and it was decided early that new states would be created from it, to be added to the union in full equality to the original 13 states. During the American Revolutionary War, Congress spent all of its money and was in debt and it promised soldiers land instead of money salaries. After the revolution, the new government owned all the public land except that within the 13 original colonies. The land owned by the government was called The Public Domain, the Land Act of 1785 gave land warrants to the soldiers to fulfill the promise. The Act also allowed the Treasury Department to sell land in auctions to the highest bidders, a new surveying system was created. The first auction was held in D. C. but the land sold was in Ohio, soldiers could not afford to travel to Ohio to see the land, and then back to D. C. for the auction. Soldiers sold their warrants, often too cheaply, the government sold 640 acres at a time, minimum. Small farmers could not afford the prices, speculators bought the warrants, purchased land, and sold the land in smaller lots to small farmers, at a huge profit. Later, the government lowered the minimum acres, and sold land on credit, the government made more money this way by copying the speculators method. The government gained other land in time, States were then carved out of the public domain. The government has sold or given away over one billion acres of land,5 million land patents were granted. The Bureau of Land Management grew from the older General Land Office, Public land Eminent domain General Mining Act of 1872 Acquired lands
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Supreme Court of the United States
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The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote
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Slave states and free states
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Historically, slavery had been practiced in all the British colonies. The division between slave and free states began during the American Revolution, slavery was a divisive issue and was the primary cause of the American Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States, slavery was legal and practiced in each of the Thirteen Colonies that became the US. During British colonization, the population expanded, primarily drawn from the Atlantic slave trade. Organized political and social movements to end slavery began in the mid-18th century, the sentiments of the American Revolution and the equality evoked by the Declaration of Independence stood in contrast to the status of most black Americans. Despite this, thousands of black Americans fought against the British in hopes of a new order, thousands also joined the British army, encouraged by British offers of freedom in exchange for military service. In the 1770s, blacks throughout New England began sending petitions to northern legislatures demanding freedom, five of the Northern self-declared states adopted policies to at least gradually abolish slavery, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Vermont abolished slavery in 1777, while it was independent. These state jurisdictions enacted the first abolition laws in the Americas. By 1804, all of the states had abolished slavery or set measures in place to gradually reduce it. In the south, Kentucky was created a state from Virginia. By 1804, before the creation of new states from the western territories. In popular usage, the divide between the slave and free states was called the Mason–Dixon line. The 1787, United States Constitutional Convention debated slavery and for a time slavery was an impediment to passage of the new constitution. As a compromise the institution was acknowledged though never mentioned directly in the constitution, in 1808, the United States outlawed the international slave import trade but the domestic trade in half the states continued. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed just before the U. S, Constitution was ratified, prohibited slavery in the federal Northwest Territory. The southern boundary of the territory was the Ohio River, which was regarded as a extension of the Mason–Dixon line. The territory was settled by New Englanders and American Revolutionary War veterans granted land there
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American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
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Great Britain
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Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island in the north Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, Great Britain is the largest European island, in 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the worlds third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of it, the island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island. The term Great Britain often extends to surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales. A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England, the archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years, the term British Isles derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, the oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle, or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, There are two large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne. The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten, Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. It is derived from the writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι. The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland. The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans, the Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. The name Albion appears to have out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain. After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a term only. It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself King of Great Brittaine, France, Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination
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France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
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Seven Years' War
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The Seven Years War was a war fought between 1754 and 1763, the main conflict occurring in the seven-year period from 1756 to 1763. It involved every European great power of the time except the Ottoman Empire and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. The conflict split Europe into two coalitions, led by the Kingdom of Great Britain on one side and the Kingdom of France on the other. Meanwhile, in India, the Mughal Empire, with the support of the French, faced with this sudden turn of events, Britain aligned herself with Prussia, in a series of political manoeuvres known as the Diplomatic Revolution. Conflict between Great Britain and France broke out in 1754–1756 when the British attacked disputed French positions in North America, meanwhile, rising power Prussia was struggling with Austria for dominance within and outside the Holy Roman Empire in central Europe. In 1756, the major powers switched partners, realizing that war was imminent, Prussia preemptively struck Saxony and quickly overran it. The result caused uproar across Europe, because of Austrias alliance with France to recapture Silesia, which had been lost in a previous war, Prussia formed an alliance with Britain. Reluctantly, by following the diet, most of the states of the empire joined Austrias cause. The Anglo-Prussian alliance was joined by smaller German states, Sweden, seeking to re-gain Pomerania joined the coalition, seeing its chance when virtually all of Europe opposed Prussia. Spain, bound by the Pacte de Famille, intervened on behalf of France, the Russian Empire was originally aligned with Austria, fearing Prussias ambition on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but switched sides upon the succession of Tsar Peter III in 1762. Naples, Sicily, and Savoy, although sided with the Franco-Spanish alliance, like Sweden, Russia concluded a separate peace with Prussia. The war ended with the Treaty of Paris between France, Spain and Great Britain and the Treaty of Hubertusburg between Saxony, Austria and Prussia, in 1763. The Native American tribes were excluded from the settlement, a subsequent conflict, Prussia emerged as a new European great power. Although Austria failed to retrieve the territory of Silesia from Prussia its military prowess was noted by the other powers. The involvement of Portugal, Spain and Sweden did not return them to their status as great powers. France was deprived of many of its colonies and had saddled itself with heavy war debts that its inefficient financial system could barely handle. Spain lost Florida but gained French Louisiana and regained control of its colonies, e. g. Cuba and the Philippines, France and Spain avenged their defeat in 1778 when the American Revolutionary War broke out, with hopes of destroying Britains dominance once and for all. The Seven Years War was perhaps the first true world war, having taken place almost 160 years before World War I and it was characterized in Europe by sieges and the arson of towns as well as open battles with heavy losses
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Treaty of Paris (1763)
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The signing of the treaty formally ended the Seven Years War, known as the French and Indian War in the North American theatre, and marked the beginning of an era of British dominance outside Europe. Great Britain and France each returned much of the territory that they had captured during the war, additionally, Great Britain agreed to protect Roman Catholicism in the New World. The treaty did not involve Prussia and Austria as they signed a separate agreement, France had captured Minorca and British trading posts in Sumatra, while Spain had captured the border fortress of Almeida in Portugal, and Colonia del Sacramento in South America. In the treaty, most of territories were restored to their original owners. France and Spain restored all their conquests to Britain and Portugal, Britain restored Manila and Havana to Spain, and Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Gorée, and the Indian factories to France. In return, France ceded Canada, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, France also ceded the eastern half of French Louisiana to Britain, that is, the area from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains. France had already secretly given Louisiana to Spain in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, in addition, while France regained its factories in India, France recognized British clients as the rulers of key Indian native states, and pledged not to send troops to Bengal. Britain agreed to demolish its fortifications in British Honduras, but retained a logwood-cutting colony there, Britain confirmed the right of its new subjects to practise Catholicism. In turn France gained the return of its colony, Guadeloupe. Voltaire had notoriously dismissed Canada as Quelques arpents de neige, A few acres of snow, the Treaty of Paris is frequently noted as the point at which France gave Louisiana to Spain. The transfer, however, occurred with the Treaty of Fontainebleau but was not publicly announced until 1764, the Treaty of Paris was to give Britain the east side of the Mississippi. New Orleans on the east side remained in French hands, the Mississippi River corridor in what is modern day Louisiana was to be reunited following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the Adams–Onís Treaty in 1819. The 1763 treaty states in Article VII, While the war was all over the world. While the war had weakened France, it was still a European power, British Prime Minister Lord Bute wanted a peace that would not aggravate France towards a second war. This explains why Great Britain agreed to return so much while being in such a strong position, though the Protestant British feared Roman Catholics, Great Britain did not want to antagonize France through expulsion or forced conversion. Also, it did not want French settlers to leave Canada to strengthen other French settlements in North America and this explains Great Britains willingness to protect Roman Catholics living in Canada. Unlike Lord Bute, the French Foreign Minister the Duke of Choiseul expected a return to war, however, France needed peace to rebuild. French diplomats believed that without France to keep the Americans in check, in Canada, France wanted open emigration for those, such as nobility, who would not swear allegiance to the British Crown
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Ohio Country
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The Ohio Country was the name used in the 18th century for the regions of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and in the region of the upper Ohio River south of Lake Erie. This area was disputed in the century by France and Great Britain. One of the first frontier regions of the United States, the area encompassed roughly all of present-day Ohio, northwestern West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and eastern Indiana. After the Revolution and resolution of claims to the territory, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established the boundaries of the Northwest Territory. The territory included all the land of the United States west of Pennsylvania and it covered all of the modern states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the northeastern part of Minnesota. The area covered more than 260,000 square miles, in the 17th century, the area north of the Ohio River had been occupied by the Algonquian-speaking Shawnee and some Siouan language-speaking tribes. The Iroquois conquered and absorbed the Erie tribe, who were one of the Iroquoian language family, the Ohio Country remained largely uninhabited for decades, and was used primarily as a hunting ground by the Iroquois. In the 1720s, a number of Native American groups began to migrate to the Ohio Country from the East, by 1724, Delaware Indians had established the village of Kittanning on the Allegheny River in present-day western Pennsylvania. With them came those Shawnee who had settled in the east. Other bands of the scattered Shawnee tribe began to return to the Ohio Country in the decades that followed, a number of Seneca and other Iroquois also migrated to the Ohio Country, moving away from the French and British imperial rivalries south of Lake Ontario. The Seneca were the westernmost of the Iroquois nations based in New York, in the late 1740s and the second half of the 18th century, the British angled for control of the territory. In 1749, the British Crown, via the colonial government of Virginia, with the arrival of the Europeans, both Great Britain and France claimed the area and both sent fur traders into the area to do business with the Ohio Country Indians. The Iroquois League claimed the region by right of conquest, the rivalry between the two European nations, the Iroquois, and the Ohio natives for control of the region played an important part in the French and Indian War from 1754 through 1760. After initially remaining neutral, the Ohio Country Indians largely sided with the French, armed with supplies and guns from the French, they raided via the Kittanning Path against British settlers east of the Alleghenies. After they destroyed Fort Granville in the summer of 1756, the colonial governor John Penn ordered Lt. Colonel John Armstrong to destroy the Shawnee villages west of the Alleghenies, the British defeated the French and their allies. Meanwhile, other British and colonial forces drove the French from Fort Duquesne and building Fort Pitt, in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, France ceded control of the entire Ohio region to Great Britain, without consulting its native allies, who still believed they had territorial claims. Colonies such as Pennsylvania and Virginia claimed some of the lands by their original charters. The British ordered the settlers to leave or get special permission to stay
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Royal Proclamation of 1763
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It rendered worthless land grants given by the British government to Americans who fought for the crown against France. The Proclamation angered American colonists who wanted to continue their expansion into new farm lands. The Royal Proclamation continues to be of importance to First Nations in Canada. Lawrence Divide from there northwards through New England, the Treaty of Paris was the official conclusion of the Seven Years War, of which the French and Indian War was the North American theater. Under this treaty, France ceded ownership to Britain all of continental North America east of the Mississippi River, including Quebec, Spain received all French territory west of the Mississippi. Both Spain and Britain received some French islands in the Caribbean, France kept a few small islands used by fishermen, modern-day Haiti and the rich sugar island of Guadeloupe. Besides regulating colonial expansion, the Proclamation of 1763 dealt with the management of inherited French colonies from the French and it established government for four areas, Quebec, West Florida, East Florida, and Grenada. Some Native American peoples—primarily in the Great Lakes region—had a long and close relationship with France and they missed the gifts the French bestowed and the amicable relationship with the French, neither of which they had with the British. Pontiacs Rebellion, a war launched by a group of natives around the Great Lakes, however tribes were able to take over a large number of the forts which commanded the waterways involved in trade within the region and export to Great Britain. The Proclamation of 1763 had been in the works before Pontiacs Rebellion, British officials hoped the proclamation would reconcile American Indians to British rule and help to prevent future hostilities. At the outset, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 defined the limits of the conquered territory. Out of what had been the Canada colony of New France, a new colony. The territory northeast of the St. John River on the Labrador coast was placed under the Newfoundland Colony, the proclamation created a boundary line between the British colonies on the Atlantic coast and American Indian lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. It was also not designed as a boundary, people could cross the line. Its contour was defined by the headwaters that formed the watershed along the Appalachians, the proclamation outlawed the private purchase of Native American land, which had often created problems in the past. Instead, all future land purchases were to be made by Crown officials at some public Meeting or Assembly of the said Indians, furthermore, British colonials were forbidden to settle on native lands, and colonial officials were forbidden to grant ground or lands without royal approval. The proclamation gave the Crown a monopoly on all future land purchases from American Indians, British colonists and land speculators objected to the proclamation boundary since the British government had already assigned land grants to them. Many settlements already existed beyond the line, some of which had been temporarily evacuated during Pontiacs War
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American Revolutionary War
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From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
25.
Treaty of Paris (1783)
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The treaty set the boundaries between the British Empire and the United States, on lines exceedingly generous to the latter. Details included fishing rights and restoration of property and prisoners of war, only Article 1 of the treaty, which is the legal underpinning of United States existence as a sovereign country, remains in force. Peace negotiations began in April 1782, and continued through the summer, representing the United States were Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and John Adams. David Hartley and Richard Oswald represented Great Britain, the treaty was signed at the Hotel dYork in Paris on September 3,1783, by Adams, Franklin, Jay, and Hartley. Regarding the American Treaty, the key episodes came in September,1782, France was exhausted by the war, and everyone wanted peace except Spain, which insisted on continuing the war until it could capture Gibraltar from the British. Vergennes came up with the deal that Spain would accept instead of Gibraltar, the United States would gain its independence but be confined to the area east of the Appalachian Mountains. Britain would take the north of the Ohio River. In the area south of that would be set up an independent Indian state under Spanish control and it would be an Indian barrier state. However, the Americans realized that they could get a deal directly from London. John Jay promptly told the British that he was willing to negotiate directly with them, cutting off France, the British Prime Minister Lord Shelburne agreed. He was in charge of the British negotiations and he now saw a chance to split the United States away from France. The western terms were that the United States would gain all of the area east of the Mississippi River, north of Florida, the northern boundary would be almost the same as today. The United States would gain fishing rights off Canadian coasts, and it was a highly favorable treaty for the United States, and deliberately so from the British point of view. Prime Minister Shelburne foresaw highly profitable trade between Britain and the rapidly growing United States, as indeed came to pass. Great Britain also signed agreements with France and Spain. In the treaty with Spain, the territories of East and West Florida were ceded to Spain, Spain also received the island of Minorca, the Bahama Islands, Grenada, and Montserrat, captured by the French and Spanish, were returned to Britain. The treaty with France was mostly about exchanges of captured territory, the United States Congress of the Confederation ratified the Treaty of Paris on January 14,1784. Copies were sent back to Europe for ratification by the parties involved
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State cessions
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The state cessions are those areas of the United States that the separate states ceded to the federal government in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The cession of lands, which for the most part lay between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, was key to establishing a harmonious union among the former British colonies. The areas ceded comprise 236,825,600 acres, or 10.4 percent of current United States territory and this does not include the areas later ceded by Texas to the federal government, which make up parts of five more states. Most of the British colonies on the east coast of North America were established in the 17th and early 18th century, when geographical knowledge of North America was incomplete. Many of these colonies were established by proclamation or charter that defined their boundaries as stretching from sea to sea. These colonies thus ended up with theoretical extents that overlapped each other, the proclamation was largely ignored on the ground, however, and various frontier settlement enterprises, owing allegiance to conflicting colonial governments, continued. The claims of the colonies corresponded in varying degrees to the reality on the ground in the west at the eve of the Revolution. Kentucky, for instance, was organized into a county of Virginia in 1776, Massachusetts claims to land in modern-day Michigan and Wisconsin, by contrast, amounted to little more than lines drawn on a map. The potential for trouble arising from these claims was twofold, one problem was obvious, in many cases more than one state laid claim to the same piece of territory, but clearly only one would be ultimately recognized as the sovereign. The other conflict also threatened the peace of the new union, only seven of the thirteen states had western land claims, and the other, landless states were fearful of being overwhelmed by states that controlled vast stretches of the new frontier. The cessions also set the stage for the settlement of the Upper Midwest, Georgia held on to its claims over trans-Appalachian land for another decade, and this claim was complicated by the fact that much of the land was also disputed between the United States and Spain. When Georgia finally sold the land west of its current boundaries to the United States for cash in 1802, Date ceded, 1780-02-19 Date accepted, 1782-10-29 Claims, cessions and dispute resolutions, Ceded claims west of Lake Ontario, sold Erie Triangle to Pennsylvania. Date ceded, 1781-01-02 Date completed, 1784-03-01 Claims and cessions, Ceded its territory north and west of the Ohio River, the land south and east of the Ohio, known as Kentucky, was retained by Virginia and organized into counties, Fayette, Jefferson and Lincoln counties. Kentucky was finally admitted in 1792, after the adoption of the U. S, constitution and multiple attempts to agree upon a state constitution that was acceptable to both Virginia and the U. S. Congress. South Carolina ceded this land to the Federal Government and adjusted the boundary with Georgia in a separate agreement, note that the claim by South Carolina had been for land between the headwaters of the Savannah River and the southern boundary of North Carolina, and thence westward. In fact, however, later and more accurate surveying showed that the headwaters of the Savannah River actually extended into North Carolina and this meant that this strip of land for South Carolina had actually been illusory. Date ceded, 1789-12-22 Date effective, 1790-02-25 Claims and cessions and this became the Southwest Territory, which just six years later was admitted to the Union as the State of Tennessee in 1796. Georgia ceded this land on 1802-04-24,12 years after all other western land cessions had been completed, ratified by the Georgia Legislature on 1802-06-16 This land consisted of the Yazoo lands, lying between the 35th parallel and the 31st parallel of latitude westward through the Mississippi River
27.
Massachusetts
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It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state is named for the Massachusett tribe, which inhabited the area. The capital of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England is Boston, over 80% of Massachusetts population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history, academia, and industry. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution, during the 20th century, Massachusetts economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance. Plymouth was the site of the first colony in New England, founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, in 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of Americas most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, in 1786, Shays Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, in the late 18th century, Boston became known as the Cradle of Liberty for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution. The entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, in the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams, both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world. Massachusetts public school students place among the top nations in the world in academic performance, the official name of the state is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While this designation is part of the official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has the position and powers within the United States as other states. Massachusetts was originally inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mahican, and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, and tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed approximately 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans, the first English settlers in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, arrived via the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620, and developed friendly relations with the native Wampanoag people. This was the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, the event known as the First Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World which lasted for three days
28.
Connecticut
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Connecticut is the southernmost state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Connecticut is also often grouped along with New York and New Jersey as the Tri-State Area and it is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capital city is Hartford, and its most populous city is Bridgeport, the state is named for the Connecticut River, a major U. S. river that approximately bisects the state. The word Connecticut is derived from various anglicized spellings of an Algonquian word for long tidal river, Connecticut is the third smallest state by area, the 29th most populous, and the fourth most densely populated of the 50 United States. It is known as the Constitution State, the Nutmeg State, the Provisions State, and it was influential in the development of the federal government of the United States. Connecticuts center of population is in Cheshire, New Haven County, Connecticuts first European settlers were Dutch. They established a small, short-lived settlement in present-day Hartford at the confluence of the Park, initially, half of Connecticut was a part of the Dutch colony New Netherland, which included much of the land between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers. The first major settlements were established in the 1630s by England, the Connecticut and New Haven Colonies established documents of Fundamental Orders, considered the first constitutions in North America. In 1662, the three colonies were merged under a charter, making Connecticut a crown colony. This colony was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution, the Connecticut River, Thames River, and ports along the Long Island Sound have given Connecticut a strong maritime tradition which continues today. The state also has a history of hosting the financial services industry, including insurance companies in Hartford. As of the 2010 Census, Connecticut features the highest per-capita income, Human Development Index, and median household income in the United States. Landmarks and Cities of Connecticut Connecticut is bordered on the south by Long Island Sound, on the west by New York, on the north by Massachusetts, and on the east by Rhode Island. The state capital and third largest city is Hartford, and other cities and towns include Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford, Waterbury, Norwalk, Danbury, New Britain, Greenwich. Connecticut is slightly larger than the country of Montenegro, there are 169 incorporated towns in Connecticut. The highest peak in Connecticut is Bear Mountain in Salisbury in the northwest corner of the state, the highest point is just east of where Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York meet, on the southern slope of Mount Frissell, whose peak lies nearby in Massachusetts. At the opposite extreme, many of the towns have areas that are less than 20 feet above sea level. Connecticut has a maritime history and a reputation based on that history—yet the state has no direct oceanfront
29.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
30.
Virginia
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Virginia is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, as well as in the historic Southeast. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, the capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond, Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealths estimated population as of 2014 is over 8.3 million, the areas history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony, slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colonys early politics and plantation economy. Although the Commonwealth was under one-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, the Virginia General Assembly is the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World. The state government was ranked most effective by the Pew Center on the States in both 2005 and 2008 and it is unique in how it treats cities and counties equally, manages local roads, and prohibits its governors from serving consecutive terms. Virginias economy changed from agricultural to industrial during the 1960s and 1970s. Virginia has an area of 42,774.2 square miles, including 3,180.13 square miles of water. Virginias boundary with Maryland and Washington, D. C. extends to the mark of the south shore of the Potomac River. The southern border is defined as the 36° 30′ parallel north, the border with Tennessee was not settled until 1893, when their dispute was brought to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Chesapeake Bay separates the portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginias Eastern Shore. The bay was formed from the river valleys of the Susquehanna River. Many of Virginias rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, the Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line. It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay, the Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock-based foothills east of the mountains which were formed in the Mesozoic era. The region, known for its clay soil, includes the Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a province of the Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the state. The Ridge and Valley region is west of the mountains and includes the Great Appalachian Valley, the region is carbonate rock based and includes Massanutten Mountain. The Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, in this region, rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin
31.
Louisiana Purchase
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The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the Louisiana territory by the United States from France in 1803. The U. S. paid fifty million francs and a cancellation of debts worth eighteen million francs for a total of sixty-eight million francs, the Louisiana territory included land from fifteen present U. S. states and two Canadian provinces. Its non-native population was around 60,000 inhabitants, of whom half were African slaves, the Kingdom of France controlled the Louisiana territory from 1699 until it was ceded to Spain in 1762. Napoleon in 1800, hoping to re-establish an empire in North America, however, Frances failure to put down the revolt in Saint-Domingue, coupled with the prospect of renewed warfare with the United Kingdom, prompted Napoleon to sell Louisiana to the United States. The Americans originally sought to purchase only the city of New Orleans and its adjacent coastal lands. The Louisiana Purchase occurred during the term of the third President of the United States, before the purchase was finalized, the decision faced Federalist Party opposition, they argued that it was unconstitutional to acquire any territory. Constitution did not contain provisions for acquiring territory, but he asserted that his constitutional power to negotiate treaties was sufficient. Throughout the second half of the 18th century, Louisiana was a pawn on the chessboard of European politics and it was controlled by the French, who had a few small settlements along the Mississippi and other main rivers. Following French defeat in the Seven Years War, Spain gained control of the territory west of the Mississippi, the United States controlled the area east of the Mississippi and north of New Orleans. The main issue for the Americans was free transit of the Mississippi to the sea, as the lands were being gradually settled by a few American migrants, many Americans, including Jefferson, assumed that the territory would be acquired piece by piece. The risk of power taking it from a weakened Spain made a profound reconsideration of this policy necessary. New Orleans was already important for shipping goods to and from the areas of the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains. Pinckneys Treaty, signed with Spain on October 27,1795, gave American merchants right of deposit in New Orleans, Americans used this right to transport products such as flour, tobacco, pork, bacon, lard, feathers, cider, butter, and cheese. The treaty also recognized American rights to navigate the entire Mississippi, in 1798 Spain revoked this treaty, prohibiting American use of New Orleans, and greatly upsetting the Americans. In 1801, Spanish Governor Don Juan Manuel de Salcedo took over from the Marquess of Casa Calvo, Napoleon Bonaparte had gained Louisiana for French ownership from Spain in 1800 under the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, but the treaty was kept secret. Louisiana remained nominally under Spanish control, until a transfer of power to France on November 30,1803, another ceremony was held in St. Louis a few months later, in part because during winter conditions the news of the New Orleans formalities did not reach Upper Louisiana. The March 9–10,1804, event is remembered as Three Flags Day, James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston had traveled to Paris to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans in January 1803. Their instructions were to negotiate or purchase control of New Orleans and its environs, the Louisiana Purchase was by far the largest territorial gain in U. S. history
32.
War of 1812
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Historians in the United States and Canada see it as a war in its own right, but the British often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. By the wars end in early 1815, the key issues had been resolved, the view was shared in much of New England and for that reason the war was widely referred to there as Mr. Madison’s War. As a result, the primary British war goal was to defend their North American colonies, the war was fought in three theatres. Second, land and naval battles were fought on the U. S. –Canadian frontier, Third, large-scale battles were fought in the Southern United States and Gulf Coast. With the majority of its land and naval forces tied down in Europe fighting the Napoleonic Wars, early victories over poorly-led U. S. armies demonstrated that the conquest of the Canadas would prove more difficult than anticipated. Despite this, the U. S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britains Native American allies, both governments were eager for a return to normality and peace negotiations began in Ghent in August 1814. This brought an Era of Good Feelings in which partisan animosity nearly vanished in the face of strengthened American nationalism, the war was also a major turning point in the development of the U. S. military, with militia being increasingly replaced by a more professional force. The U. S. also acquired permanent ownership of Spains Mobile District, the government of Canada declared a three-year commemoration of the War of 1812 in 2012, intended to offer historical lessons and celebrate 200 years of peace across the border. At the conclusion of the commemorations in 2014, a new national War of 1812 Monument was unveiled in Ottawa. The war is remembered in Britain primarily as a footnote in the much larger Napoleonic Wars occurring in Europe, historians have long debated the relative weight of the multiple reasons underlying the origins of the War of 1812. This section summarizes several contributing factors which resulted in the declaration of war by the United States, as Risjord notes, a powerful motivation for the Americans was the desire to uphold national honour in the face of what they considered to be British insults such as the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair. The approaching conflict was about violations of American rights, but it was also vindication of American identity. Americans at the time and historians since often called it the United States Second War of Independence, in 1807, Britain introduced a series of trade restrictions via a series of Orders in Council to impede neutral trade with France, with which Britain was at war. The United States contested these restrictions as illegal under international law, the American merchant marine had come close to doubling between 1802 and 1810, making it by far the largest neutral fleet. Britain was the largest trading partner, receiving 80% of U. S. cotton, the British public and press were resentful of the growing mercantile and commercial competition. The United States view was that Britains restrictions violated its right to trade with others, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy expanded to 176 ships of the line and 600 ships overall, requiring 140,000 sailors to man. The United States believed that British deserters had a right to become U. S. citizens and this meant that in addition to recovering naval deserters, it considered any United States citizens who were born British liable for impressment. Aggravating the situation was the reluctance of the United States to issue formal naturalization papers and it was estimated by the Admiralty that there were 11,000 naturalized sailors on United States ships in 1805
33.
George Washington
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George Washington was an American politician and soldier who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and he is popularly considered the driving force behind the nations establishment and came to be known as the father of the country, both during his lifetime and to this day. Washington was widely admired for his leadership qualities and was unanimously elected president by the Electoral College in the first two national elections. Washingtons incumbency established many precedents still in use today, such as the system, the inaugural address. His retirement from office two terms established a tradition that lasted until 1940 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term. The 22nd Amendment now limits the president to two elected terms and he was born into the provincial gentry of Colonial Virginia to a family of wealthy planters who owned tobacco plantations and slaves, which he inherited. In his youth, he became an officer in the colonial militia during the first stages of the French. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress commissioned him as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, in that command, Washington forced the British out of Boston in 1776 but was defeated and nearly captured later that year when he lost New York City. After crossing the Delaware River in the middle of winter, he defeated the British in two battles, retook New Jersey, and restored momentum to the Patriot cause and his strategy enabled Continental forces to capture two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. In battle, however, Washington was repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies, after victory had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief rather than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to American republicanism. Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which devised a new form of government for the United States. Following his election as president in 1789, he worked to unify rival factions in the fledgling nation and he supported Alexander Hamiltons programs to satisfy all debts, federal and state, established a permanent seat of government, implemented an effective tax system, and created a national bank. In avoiding war with Great Britain, he guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade by securing the Jay Treaty in 1795 and he remained non-partisan, never joining the Federalist Party, although he largely supported its policies. Washingtons Farewell Address was a primer on civic virtue, warning against partisanship, sectionalism. He retired from the presidency in 1797, returning to his home, upon his death, Washington was eulogized as first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen by Representative Henry Lee III of Virginia. He was revered in life and in death, scholarly and public polling consistently ranks him among the top three presidents in American history and he has been depicted and remembered in monuments, public works, currency, and other dedications to the present day. He was born on February 11,1731, according to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar was adopted within the British Empire in 1752, and it renders a birth date of February 22,1732. Washington was of primarily English gentry descent, especially from Sulgrave and his great-grandfather John Washington emigrated to Virginia in 1656 and began accumulating land and slaves, as did his son Lawrence and his grandson, Georges father Augustine
34.
James Monroe
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James Monroe was an American statesman who served from 1817 to 1825 as the fifth President of the United States. Monroe was the last president among the Founding Fathers of the United States as well as the Virginian dynasty, born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, Monroe was of the planter class and fought in the American Revolutionary War. He was wounded in the Battle of Trenton with a ball to his shoulder. After studying law under Thomas Jefferson from 1780 to 1783, he served as a delegate in the Continental Congress. He took a part in the new government, and in 1790 he was elected to the Senate of the first United States Congress. He gained experience as an executive as the Governor of Virginia and rose to prominence as a diplomat in France. During the War of 1812, Monroe served in roles as Secretary of State. As president, he sought to ease tensions, embarking on a tour of the country that was well received. As nationalism surged, partisan fury subsided, and the Era of Good Feelings ensued, until the Panic of 1819 struck, and a dispute over the admission of Missouri embroiled the country in 1820. Monroe supported the founding of colonies in Africa for freed slaves that would form the nation of Liberia, whose capital. His presidency concluded the first period of American presidential history before the beginning of Jacksonian democracy, following his retirement in 1825, Monroe was plagued by financial difficulties. He died in New York City on July 4,1831 and he has been ranked in the aggregate by scholars as the 16th most successful president. James Monroe was born on April 28,1758, in his parents house located in a area of Westmoreland County. The marked site is one mile from the community known today as Monroe Hall. The James Monroe Family Home Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and his father Spence Monroe was a moderately prosperous planter who also practiced carpentry. His mother Elizabeth Jones married Spence Monroe in 1752 and they had several children and his paternal great-grandfather Patrick Andrew Monroe emigrated to America from Scotland in the mid-17th century. In 1650 he patented a large tract of land in Washington Parish, Westmoreland County, also among James Monroes ancestors were French Huguenot immigrants, who came to Virginia in 1700. First tutored at home by his mother Elizabeth, between the ages of 11 and 16, the young Monroe studied at Campbelltown Academy, a run by Reverend Archibald Campbell of Washington Parish
35.
Southwest Territory
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The Southwest Territory was created by the Southwest Ordinance from lands of the Washington District that had been ceded to the U. S. federal government by North Carolina. The territorys lone governor was William Blount, North Carolina ceded these lands in April 1790 as payment of obligations owed to the federal government. The territorys residents welcomed the cession, believing the government would provide better protection from Indian hostilities. The federal government paid little attention to the territory, however. Along with Blount, a number of individuals who played prominent roles in early Tennessee history served in the Southwest Territorys administration and these included John Sevier, James Robertson, Griffith Rutherford, James Winchester, Archibald Roane, John McNairy, Joseph McMinn and Andrew Jackson. During the colonial period, land that would become the Southwest Territory was part of North Carolinas land patent, the Blue Ridge Mountains, which rise along the modern Tennessee-North Carolina border, hindered North Carolina from pursuing any lasting interest in the territory. Initially trade, political interest, and settlement came mostly from Virginia and South Carolina, the Watauga Association was a semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is present day Elizabethton, Tennessee. The colony was established on Cherokee-owned land in which the Watauga, Fort Watauga was established on the Watauga River at Sycamore Shoals as a trade center of the settlements. In March 1775, land speculator and North Carolina judge Richard Henderson met with more than 1,200 Cherokees at Sycamore Shoals, included at the gathering were Cherokee leaders such as Attacullaculla, Oconostota, and Dragging Canoe. This land, which encompassed roughly 20 million acres, became known as the Transylvania Purchase. Hendersons land deal was found to be in violation of North Carolina and Virginia law, as well as the Royal Proclamation of 1763, both North Carolina and Virginia considered the trans-Appalachian settlements illegal, and refused to annex them. After the settlers thwarted the attacks, North Carolina agreed to annex the settlements as the Washington District. Known as the Overmountain Men, the settlers marched across the mountains to South Carolina, Overmountain Men would also take part in the Battle of Musgrove Mill and the Battle of Cowpens. In 1784, North Carolina ceded control of the Overmountain settlements following a contested vote. The cession was rescinded later that year, but not before some of the settlers had organized the State of Franklin, John Sevier was named governor and the area began operating as an independent state not recognized by the Congress of the Confederation. Many Overmountain settlers, led by John Tipton, remained loyal to North Carolina, following Tiptons defeat of Sevier at the Battle of Franklin in early 1788, the State of Franklin movement declined. The Franklinites had agreed to rejoin North Carolina by early 1789, North Carolina ratified the United States Constitution on November 23,1789. On December 22, the legislature voted to cede the Overmountain settlements as payment of its obligations to the new federal government
36.
Ohio
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Ohio /oʊˈhaɪ. oʊ/ is a Midwestern state in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Ohio is the 34th largest by area, the 7th most populous, the states capital and largest city is Columbus. The state takes its name from the Ohio River, the name originated from the Iroquois word ohi-yo’, meaning great river or large creek. Partitioned from the Northwest Territory, the state was admitted to the Union as the 17th state on March 1,1803, Ohio is historically known as the Buckeye State after its Ohio buckeye trees, and Ohioans are also known as Buckeyes. Ohio occupies 16 seats in the United States House of Representatives, Ohio is known for its status as both a swing state and a bellwether in national elections. Six Presidents of the United States have been elected who had Ohio as their home state, Ohios geographic location has proven to be an asset for economic growth and expansion. Because Ohio links the Northeast to the Midwest, much cargo, Ohio has the nations 10th largest highway network, and is within a one-day drive of 50% of North Americas population and 70% of North Americas manufacturing capacity. To the north, Lake Erie gives Ohio 312 miles of coastline, Ohios southern border is defined by the Ohio River, and much of the northern border is defined by Lake Erie. Ohios neighbors are Pennsylvania to the east, Michigan to the northwest, Ontario Canada, to the north, Indiana to the west, Kentucky on the south, Ohio is bounded by the Ohio River, but nearly all of the river itself belongs to Kentucky and West Virginia. Ohio has only that portion of the river between the rivers 1792 low-water mark and the present high-water mark, the border with Michigan has also changed, as a result of the Toledo War, to angle slightly northeast to the north shore of the mouth of the Maumee River. Much of Ohio features glaciated plains, with a flat area in the northwest being known as the Great Black Swamp. Most of Ohio is of low relief, but the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau features rugged hills, in 1965 the United States Congress passed the Appalachian Regional Development Act, at attempt to address the persistent poverty and growing economic despair of the Appalachian Region. This act defines 29 Ohio counties as part of Appalachia, the worst weather disaster in Ohio history occurred along the Great Miami River in 1913. Known as the Great Dayton Flood, the entire Miami River watershed flooded, as a result, the Miami Conservancy District was created as the first major flood plain engineering project in Ohio and the United States. Grand Lake St. Marys in the west central part of the state was constructed as a supply of water for canals in the era of 1820–1850. For many years this body of water, over 20 square miles, was the largest artificial lake in the world and it should be noted that Ohios canal-building projects were not the economic fiasco that similar efforts were in other states. Some cities, such as Dayton, owe their emergence to location on canals. Summers are typically hot and humid throughout the state, while winters generally range from cool to cold, precipitation in Ohio is moderate year-round
37.
Manasseh Cutler (representative)
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Manasseh Cutler was an American clergyman involved in the American Revolutionary War. Cutler was also a member of the United States House of Representatives, Cutler is “rightly entitled to be called ‘The Father of Ohio University. ’” Cutler was born in Killingly, Connecticut. In 1765, he graduated from Yale College and after being a teacher in Dedham, Massachusetts. From 1771 until his death, he was pastor of the Congregational church in what was the parish of Ipswich, Massachusetts until 1793, now Hamilton. For a few months in 1776, he was chaplain to the 11th Massachusetts Regiment commanded by Colonel Ebenezer Francis, in 1778, he became chaplain to General Jonathan Titcombs brigade and took part in General John Sullivans expedition to Rhode Island. Soon after his return from this expedition he trained in medicine to supplement the scanty income of a minister, in 1782, he established a private boarding school, directing it for nearly a quarter of a century. In 1786, Cutler became interested in the settlement of lands by American pioneers to the Northwest Territory. Cutler also took a part in drafting the famous Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory. In order to smooth passage of the Northwest Ordinance, Cutler bribed key congressmen by making them partners in his land company. By changing the office of governor from an elected to an appointed position, Cutler was able to offer the position to the president of Congress. From 1801 to 1805, Cutler was a Federalist representative in Congress, Cutler was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1781. He is considered a founder of Ohio University and the National Historic Landmark Cutler Hall on that campus is named in his honor and he received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Yale University in 1789. Manasseh was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1813, Cutler died in 1823 at Hamilton, Massachusetts. Ephraim Cutler William P. Cutler This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Manasseh Cutler at Ohio History Central Cutler, W. P. Life Journals and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler 2 vols, potts, Louis W. Manasseh Cutler, Lobbyist
38.
American pioneers to the Northwest Territory
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American pioneers to the Northwest Territory included soldiers of the Revolution and members of the Ohio Company of Associates. General George Washington commented about these pioneers, “I know many of the settlers personally, the first group of these early American pioneers to the Northwest Territory is sometimes referred to as “the forty-eight” or the “first forty-eight”, and also as the “founders of Ohio”. During 1852 the president of the Ohio Historical Society described these pioneers, “So various and these men not only lived in remarkable times, but were themselves remarkable men. Energetic, industrious, persevering, honest, bold, and free — they were limited in their achievements only by the limits of possibility. Successful alike in field and forest, —they have, at length, gone to their rest, —leaving names which are a part of the fame and the history of their country”. One party departed from the towns of Ipswich, Massachusetts and Danvers, Massachusetts on December 3,1787, the pioneers crossed the mountains and met at Sumrill’s Ferry on the Youghiogheny River. During the bitterly cold winter, the men built two flatboats, the forty-five ton ‘Adventure Galley’ also known as the ‘Mayflower’ in honor of their Pilgrim ancestors, and they also built three log canoes. This small fleet of boats carried the pioneers down the Youghiogheny River to the Monongahela River, and then to the Ohio River, and onward to the Ohio Country and the Northwest Territory. They arrived at their destination, the mouth of the Muskingum River at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers. “Can too much be said in praise of the heroes who opened to settlement the Great Northwest Territory. These men had trained in army life and discipline and were anxious to take this country as the payment due them for military service. They were men who had fought valiantly to preserve the principles of their government and were ready for great achievements. They were men who had assisted in making this territory a part of the United States and had, in great measure, assisted in the formation and adoption of the Ordinance of 1787 which was to govern it. Indeed, a company of men could scarcely have been selected than those who were directed by General Putnam. ”The first forty-eight pioneers included the following men. They were certainly the progenitors of the builders of the great Northwest. ”These early American pioneers to the Northwest Territory have been memorialized in verse. The poem, Landing of the Pioneers, was sixty years after the landing by Frances Dana Gage. The poem, The Founders of Ohio, was written in 1888 during the centennial of the event by William Henry Venable, many of these early pioneers are buried in Marietta at Mound Cemetery. In 1888, the Adventure Galley III recreated the journey of the original pioneer Adventure Galley, in 1984 this journey was again recreated aboard the Adventure Galley II, captained by Vaughn P. Wendland
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Ohio Company of Associates
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In 1788 they established Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent settlement of the new United States in the newly organized Northwest Territory. The company was formed on March 1,1786, by Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Tupper, Samuel Holden Parsons and Manasseh Cutler in Boston and they had met at The Bunch-of-Grapes tavern, located on King Street, to discuss the settlement of the territory around the Ohio River. On March 8,1787, Parsons, Putnam, and Cutler were chosen as directors, on August 30,1787, James Mitchell Varnum was elected as a director, and Richard Platt as treasurer. Later directors included Griffin Greene upon the death of Varnum, Cutler was sent to New York to negotiate with the Congress of the Confederation to help the company secure a claim on a portion of the land. While there, Cutler aligned himself with William Duer, secretary of the U. S. Treasury Board, Duer and his associates formed a group of New York speculators who were determined to see settlement of the area west of the Appalachians. At this time, Congress desperately needed revenue, after the creation of the Northwest Territory, Cutler suggested that the governor of the territory be General Arthur St. Clair, who was then serving as the President of Congress. Once the President had appointed St. Clair to his new position, Cutler and Major Winthrop Sargent, both parties were to be equally interested in the sale of the land, and were to share equally any profit or loss. But, the Scioto Company interest was speculative, and their contract lapsed before they purchased any land, in contrast, the Ohio Company had a genuine plan of settlement. The company made its first installment of $500,000, but was unable to raise the second $500,000. The lands were surveyed, but on the same plan of townships, ranges. In 1788, General Rufus Putnam laid out the plans for Marietta, the Ohio Company sent pioneers from New England to the Northwest Territory. Their first purchase was in Washington, Meigs, Gallia, Lawrence, the Donation Tract incorporated much of present-day Washington and Morgan counties. Many associates of the company held army bounty warrants, which they could exchange for federal land, totaling 142,900 acres. Later in 1792, the Ohio Company purchased another 214,285 acres in Morgan, Hocking, Vinton and Athens counties, using these bounties, with the 1/3 discount for bad lands, the Second Purchase had no sections set aside for schools or ministry. The Second Purchase is also known as the Purchase on the Muskingum, in 1796, the Ohio Company divided its shares and ceased to be a genuine land company. Hildreth, Samuel Prescott - pioneer historian Historic regions of the United States Ohio Company Land Office Ohio Lands Hildreth, biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio, H. W. Derby and Co. Pioneer History, Being an Account of the First Examinations of the Ohio Valley, the Records of the Original Proceedings of the Ohio Company, Volume I. The Records of the Original Proceedings of the Ohio Company, Volume II, attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed
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Muskingum River
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The Muskingum River is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 111 miles long, in southeastern Ohio in the United States. An important commercial route in the 19th century, it flows southward through the eastern hill country of Ohio. Via the Ohio, it is part of the Mississippi River watershed, the river is navigable for much of its length through a series of locks and dams. The Muskingum is formed at Coshocton in east-central Ohio by the confluence of the Walhonding and it joins the Ohio at Marietta. Along its course the Muskingum collects Wills Creek near Conesville, Wakatomika Creek at Dresden, the Licking River at Zanesville, Moxahala Creek at South Zanesville, the name Muskingum derives from the Shawnee word mshkikwam swampy ground, taken to mean elks eye in Lenape by folk etymology. Historically, it was also the name of a large Wyandot town along the river, noted frontier explorer, Christopher Gist, reached the Big Sandy Creek tributary of the river on December 4,1751. Traveling downriver, he recorded arriving on December 14 at the western Wyandot town of Muskingum, there he remained for the following month. Marietta was founded in 1788 as the first permanent American settlement in the Northwest Territory, the Big Bottom Massacre occurred along its banks in 1791. Zanesville was settled by European Americans in 1799 at the site where Zanes Trace crossed the Muskingum at the mouth of the Licking River. In the mid-19th century the Muskingum was an important commercial shipping route, with dams and locks controlling the level to allow boats to travel up. With the decrease in use of water-based transportation in Ohio by the 1920s, since the 1960s, the locks have been repaired to enable pleasure craft to travel the entire navigable length of the river. The Muskingum waterway is one of the few remaining systems in the US to use hand-operated river locks, the navigation system has been designated a national Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. In 2006, it was designated An Ohio Water Trail, this provides for increased canoe access on the river. The Friends of the Lower Muskingum River is a 501 nonprofit land trust based in Marietta, Ohio, concerned with protection of the Muskingum River, in addition, the Muskingum River Conservation District is a quasi-governmental entity concerned with flood control on the river
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Nathan Dane
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Nathan Dane was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the Continental Congress from 1785 through 1788. Dane helped formulate the Northwest Ordinance while in Congress, and introduced an amendment to the ordinance prohibiting slavery in the Northwest Territory, Dane was born at Ipswich in Essex County, Massachusetts. His father Daniel Dane was a farmer, and his mothers name was Abigail, ancestor John Dane Sr. had immigrated to Massachusetts from England in 1636. Dane worked on the farm in Ipswich until he turned twenty. Moving on to college at Harvard, his major interest was in mathematics, then he taught school and read for the law. In 1779 he married Mary Brown, Dane was admitted to the bar and set up a legal practice in Beverly in 1782. That same year, he entered office in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Danes hearing was poor throughout his career, and steadily got worse, in 1785, Dane became a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress, where he helped draft the Northwest Ordinance, which was enacted on July 13,1787. The Ordinance encouraged American settlers into the Northwest Territory and formed the basis of the constitutions of the five states there, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, the Ordinance also banned slavery in the Northwest Territory. In February 1787, Dane proposed a resolution authorizing the Philadelphia Convention to amend the Articles of Confederation, out of that Philadelphia Convention came the proposed United States Constitution. But Dane had reservations about supporting its ratification, Dane was elected to the Massachusetts State Senate from 1790 to 1791 and again from 1794 to 1797. In 1794 he served on a commission that reviewed and codified the laws of Massachusetts, later, while practicing law, he remained an active reformer, on behalf of vocational education and humane treatment of prisoners. He also helped establish the American Temperance Society to discourage use and abuse of alcoholic beverages and he was a member of the Federalist Party and its Essex Junto. Dane was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1816, by 1820, Dane was almost totally deaf, but he continued working long hours in his library, writing two major legal treatises. The first of these was published in 1823, titled A General Abridgement and its eight volumes were supplemented by a ninth in 1829. The Abridgment was very successful, and was the first systematic treatise covering the field of American law. It became a work, and every lawyer of distinction bought a copy. For a while, Harvard Law School was called Dane Law School, Danes other treatise was titled a Moral and Political Survey of America
42.
Marietta, Ohio
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Marietta is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Ohio, United States. It was a station on the Underground Railroad before the Civil War and is the home of the longest-running ferromanganese refinery in North America, the private, nonsectarian liberal arts Marietta College is located here. Marietta is located at 39°25′15″N 81°27′2″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 8.75 square miles, of which 8.43 square miles is land and 0.32 square miles is water. The Muskingum River and Duck Creek flow into the Ohio River at Marietta, the area is part of the Appalachian Plateau which covers the eastern half of Ohio. The Appalachian Plateau consists of hills and valleys and is the most rugged area in the state. The area is within the ecoregion of the Western Allegheny Plateau and this portion of the state is blessed with beautiful scenery and Ohios most abundant mineral deposits. The climate in this area is characterized by humid summers, cold winters, according to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Marietta has a Humid continental climate, abbreviated Dfa on climate maps. Succeeding Indian cultures lived along the Ohio River and its tributaries for thousands of years, among them were more than one culture who built earthwork mounds, monuments which generally expressed their cosmology, often with links to astronomical events. Between 100 BC and AD500, the Hopewell culture built the complex on the terrace east of the Muskingum River near its mouth with the Ohio. It is now known as the Marietta Earthworks, a walled, graded path led to the rivers edge. By the time of the tribes, such as the Shawnee. Two of their plates were discovered in the Marietta area in 1798, in 1770, the future U. S. president George Washington, then a surveyor, began exploring large tracts of land west of his native Virginia. During the Revolutionary War, Washington told his friend General Rufus Putnam of the beauty he had seen in his travels through the Ohio Valley, after the American Revolutionary War, the United States sold or granted large tracts of land to stimulate development in this area. Marietta was founded by settlers from New England who were investors in the Ohio Company of Associates and it was the first of numerous New England settlements in what was then the Northwest Territory. These New Englanders, or Yankees as they were called, were descended from the Puritan English colonists who had settled New England in the 1600s and were primarily Congregationalists, the first church constructed in Marietta was a Congregationalist church, founded around 1786. Before the mid-1790s services were held at the fort or in Munsells Hall at nearby Point Harmar, in 1798 the Muskingum Academy was built on the site of the 19th century Marietta Congregationalist Church. The academy building served for both educational and religious purposes, after the war, the newly formed United States had little cash but plenty of land. Competing states had agreed to end their claims to the lands, Arthur St. Clair was appointed by the president as governor of the new territory
43.
Hocking River
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The Hocking River is a tributary of the Ohio River in southeastern Ohio in the United States. The Hocking flows mostly on the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau, but its headwaters are in a glaciated region and it joins the Ohio River at Hockingport. The Hockings tributaries also drain parts of Perry, Morgan, the river begins as a small stream, then immediately goes over a water fall into a wide gorge. When viewed from above this feature looks like a bottle, which led to its name, the river was known as the Hockhocking River until the late 19th century. The Hocking Canal once linked Athens to Lancaster and the Ohio and Erie Canal, due to frequent flooding of Ohio Universitys campus, the Army Corps of Engineers re-channelized a section of the Hocking River in Athens during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Between Nelsonville and Athens, the Hocking today is roughly paralleled by a rail trail, the path serves as a major source of recreation for the residents of the area, especially the students of Ohio University and Hocking College. Major tributaries to the Hocking include Federal Creek, Margaret Creek, Sunday Creek, Monday Creek, Scott Creek, Oldtown Creek, Clear Creek, Rush Creek, Pleasant Run, Baldwin Run, many of these tributaries are affected by acid mine drainage. Canoeing, kayaking, rafting, and tubing are very popular activities on the Hocking River, Hocking Hills Adventures and Hocking Hills Canoe Livery each operate trips suitable for all skill levels on the mid and upper sections of the river. The mid and upper portions of the Hocking River serve as an above-average smallmouth bass fishery, typical species of midwestern warmwater streams are generally found throughout the river. The Hocking River Water Trail is now under development, friends of the Hocking River in conjunction with Hocking Hills Adventures sponsor an annual river cleanup. The event is held during the second Saturday in June and it concludes with a BBQ. The Shawnee language name is Withakakkwathiipi, flooding on the Hocking used to be a yearly occurrence for the residents of Athens, Ohio. The floods determined many aspects of the lives, for example where to build a house. Most of the houses in Athens are built up on the hills and it wasn’t until the university needed to expand, due to an influx of students during the 1950s that anything was even built into the flood plain. Some mentionable floods were the 1907 flood, in seven people died. Another notable flood took place in 1968 which was labeled The worst flood in fifty five years, the 1968 flood is also of interest due to the fact that the re-routing of the Hocking River project began in 1969. The re-routing of the Hocking was undertaken by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the project was completed by 1971 and reverted five miles of the river along the West Green. This flood took place on March 14,1907 and caused damage throughout Athens
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Athens, Ohio
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Athens is a city in and the county seat of Athens County, Ohio, United States. It is located along the Hocking River in the part of Ohio. A historic college town, Athens is home to Ohio University and is the city of the Athens. The official population of Athens in the 2010 U. S. Census was 23,832, Athens is a qualified Tree City USA as recognized by the National Arbor Day Foundation. By the middle of the century, the Shawnee, an Algonquian tribe, were the primary tribe of Native Americans living in what would become Athens County. According to a 1794 map by Thomas Kitchin, no settlement existed in the Athens area during the immediately prior to the founding of the city. The first permanent European settlers arrived in Athens in 1797, more than a decade after the United States victory in the American Revolutionary War, in 1800, the town site was first surveyed and plotted, but it was not incorporated as a village until 1811. In the meantime, Ohio had become a state in 1803, Ohio University was chartered in 1804, the first public institution of higher learning in the Northwest Territory. Previously part of Washington County, Ohio, Athens County was formed in 1805, named for the ancient center of learning, Athens, Ohio University in Athens was established with the first federal endowment of an educational institution in the United States. In July 1787, the Congress of the Confederation gave to the Ohio Company of Associates two townships of land for the support of a literary institution in the newly created Northwest Territory. The act was approved by Arthur St. Clair, Governor of the Northwest Territory on January 9,1802, however, no university with the name of American Western University would be established. Ohio became a state in 1803 and on February 18,1804, Athens received city status in 1912, following the 1910 census showing the population had passed 5,000 residents, the requirement for city status in Ohio. These lands were given to Ohio University by the Federal government and this was the first federal land grant for a university, pre-dating the Morrill Act by more than 70 years. At first, lands were leased out, but the failure of many lessors to pay their rents resulted in most of the land being sold. The sale of these lands funded the growth of Ohio University, today it is one of the largest institutions of higher learning in Ohio, with an enrollment of over 19,000 on the Athens campus and over 28,000 for all campuses. The earliest industry in the area was salt production, followed by iron production, today, the largest employer in the county is Ohio University. In 1843, the Hocking Canal opened, enabling shipping from the Ohio River up the Hocking River, which passes through Athens, to Nelsonville, Ohio, however, the canal was closed during cold winters when it froze over. The first railroad reached Athens in 1857, in the late 19th century, an interurban line opened between Athens and Nelsonville and operated for some years
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Chillicothe, Ohio
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Chillicothe is a city in and the county seat of Ross County, Ohio, United States. The population was 21,901 at the 2010 census and it is the only city in Ross County and the center of the Chillicothe Micropolitan Statistical Area. Chillicothe is a designated Tree City USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation, Chillicothe was the first and third capital of Ohio and is located in southern Ohio along the Scioto River. The towns name comes from the Shawnee Chala·ka·tha, named one of the five major divisions of the Shawnee people. The Shawnee and their ancestors inhabited the territory for thousands of years prior to European contact, at the time of European-American settlement, the community was plotted by General Nathaniel Massie on his land grant. Modern Chillicothe was the center of the ancient Hopewell tradition, which flourished from 200 BC until 500 AD and this Amerindian culture had trade routes extending to the Rocky Mountains. They built earthen mounds for ceremonial and burial purposes throughout the Scioto, later Native Americans who inhabited the area through the time of European contact included Shawnees. Present-day Chillicothe is the most recent of seven locations in Ohio that bore the name, according to historian Charles Augustus Hanna, a Shawnee village was founded at the site of modern-day Chillicothe in late 1758, following the destruction of Lower Shawneetown by floods. It was after the American Revolution that most European settlement came to this area, migrants from Virginia and Kentucky moved west along the Ohio River in search of land. Chillicothe served as the capital of Ohio from the beginning of statehood in 1803 until 1810 when Zanesville became the capital for two years, the capital was moved to Zanesville as part of a state legislative compromise to get a bill passed. In 1812 the legislature moved the back to Chillicothe. In 1816 the state voted to move the capital again, to Columbus to have it near the geographic center of the state. Migrants to Chillicothe included free blacks, who came to a place with fewer restrictions than in the slave states and they created a vibrant community and aided runaway slaves coming north. As tensions increased prior to the breakout of the American Civil War, slaves escaping from the South traveled across the Ohio River to freedom, and then up the Scioto River to get more distance from their former homes and slave hunters. White abolitionists aided the Underground Railroad as well, Chillicothe is located at 39°20′11″N 82°59′2″W. It lies within the ecoregion of the Western Allegheny Plateau and it lies between the Scioto River and Paint Creek near their confluence. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 10.60 square miles. The city is surrounded by farming communities, and Chillicothe residents describe the area as the foothills of the Appalachians, as of the census of 2010, there were 21,901 people,9,420 households, and 5,559 families residing in the city
