North
America

North America also includes the region of Mesoamerica that is now central and southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador as well as the remainder of the continent to the north. Mayan civilization prospered as early as 2600 BC in the Yucatan with the Mound civilizations of the Mississippi Valley evident by 1700 BC in the Poverty Point, Louisiana region and further north. The Olmec peoples of Mexico thrived by 1500 BC (image above is Olmec-style mask temple, Belize).

Circa 600 BC, the Zapotec culture of southern Mexico shows evidence of a writing system of communication. By 300 BC construction had begun on Tlachihualtepetl, the Great Pyramid of Cholula (Mexico) which when completed would be the largest by volume in the world and remaining to modern times. The population of Cholula exceeded 100,000 for much of the next thousand years.

AD or CE (common era)

The Mayan city of Tikal becomes prominent by 500 in Guatemala.

During the Age of Exploration, in 1492 Christopher Columbus, an explorer and navigator of Genoa (Italy) but sailing under the sponsorship of the Spanish monarchy, reaches the Bahamas, then Cuba and Haiti before returning to Spain having claimed these lands for the Spanish monarchy.

Following this first voyage, Spain and Portugal in 1494 with the Treaty of Tordesillas agree to divide the World beyond Europe between themselves. By 1513, Vasco de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and claims the Pacific Ocean basin for Spain.

Circa 1519 – 1521, The Aztec Empire of southern North America collides with the Spanish Empire’s effort to subjugate the New World. The Spanish conquerors under Cortes eventually seize Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) and take the region for their own purposes. Cortes returns to Spain with the cacao bean.

1524, Verrazzano is the first Italian (Florence) explorer of the Atlantic coast of North America whose later explorations were in the service of France. His explorations were focused on finding the short route to the Far East and searched from Florida to Newfoundland and while he visited New York Bay and the mouth of the Hudson River, Long Island and then Cape Cod Bay, he never found the shortcut. Folklore has it that during one of the later voyages, he went ashore on one of the larger islands east of Florida and was killed and eaten by the natives.

At the same time (1565) Spain establishes a colony in the Philippines, another Spanish group from New Spain (Mexico) founds St. Augustine (Florida) which remains the oldest continually inhabited city in North America populated as European. In 1571, Spanish missionaries in the region that would become Jamestown, Virginia are killed by an indigenous tribe who already lives in that region. The English colony founded by Sir Walter Raleigh at Roanoke (Virginia) in 1585 becomes the Lost Colony when English ships return five years later and no sign is left of the colonists.

In 1598 the Province of Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico is established in northern New Spain (Mexico). For several decades, Mexicans had lived in the region but the Spanish expeditions were aggressive in their seeking of the rumored Seven Cities of Gold and established the Spanish presence.

The English settle their first permanent colony at Jamestown, Virginia 1607. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain establishes Quebec City, New France (Quebec, Canada). Following would be the arrival of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower in 1620 at Cape Cod (Massachusetts) after the ten week voyage from England. Two years later, one-third (347 died) of the settlers near Jamestown were killed by the indigenous Algonquians.

New Amsterdam is founded by the Dutch West India Company 1625 and in thirty years its population has reached 1,500 and it is the capital of New Netherlands with its 9,000 Dutch residents. It was the anchor of the Dutch fur-trading in the Hudson River valley until the English seized it in 1664 and renamed the colony New York and the village became Manhattan.

New France is delineated by France as primarily everything north or west of the original English colonies – regions drained by the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi Rivers. This formal claim begins in 1663 but ends with the Treaty of Paris in 1763 which concludes the Seven Years’ War (also known as French and Indian War) between France and England. Signatories were England, France, Spain and Portugal. The War ended when Great Britain and Prussia defeated France and Spain. This redrew the map of the Americas and recognized a new era of English dominance beyond Europe. England’s right to Canada led to their founding of the Hudson Bay Company in 1670.

New Orleans (Louisiana) is founded by the French in 1718.

In both English North America as well as back in Great Britain, the First Great Awakening, a revival of spiritual Protestantism arises in the 1730s and lasts beyond the 1760s and moves across denominational lines.

During the French and Indian War (Canada: Seven Years’ War), the British suspected the settlers of the Maritime region of Acadia to be French sympathizers as their origins were in France and they spoke a French dialect. In the territories that came under the British during the conflict, the British officers determined to deport this population from the region and forced them south. Of the 11,500 expelled between 1755 and 1764, at least one-third died in the process. They were “guilty” of not signing an oath of allegiance to the King of England and while many had no other allegiance, the oath also was a denial of their Catholic heritage and faith and submission to the King as head of the Church of England. The British deportation spread the Acadians along the Atlantic seaboard as far south as Georgia, many as forced labor. When the Spanish government welcomed the Acadians into their regions, thousands made the journey either directly or back through Catholic France. The Spanish invited them with open arms to become settlers in their Louisiana region. The Acadians brought much of their culture with them and became one of the distinct peoples groups in North America where their name morphed into Cajun.

In 1769 Spanish missionaries establish the first of twenty-one missions in California.

The American Revolutionary War begins in 1775 and lasts for eight years and involves the English and the North American colonies as primaries with other supporting parties. In 1776, the U.S. Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. As the conflict continues, the Franco-America Alliance is signed with France supplying support against the war with Britain. It is 1783 before the Treaty of Paris ends this War and the united colonies are no longer part of the British Empire.

The Northwest Indian War follows in the United States as the conflict with Britain ends. From 1785-1795, the former colonies struggle for control over the Northwest Territory which had been ceded to the States under the Treaty of Paris. This was the region west of the Appalachians, south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi. While the British “gave” it to the U.S. by treaty, the native tribes which had lived in this and the regions to the east did not agree. The Confederacy of Native Peoples did not recognize the “gift” Britain gave and opposed the settlement of their homelands. Some of the tribes had already been pushed westward and now stood their ground. George Washington tasked the Army with establishing sovereignty over this territory claimed under treaty with Britain. The Army of the Republic was ill-prepared and suffered several significant defeats at the hands of the native forces (it was eventually revealed that some of the “native” warriors were British soldiers from Canada in native disguises). The U.S. government had developed the practice of selling rights to land in this territory and was using the resultant income to pay the expenses of earlier war and governing. Over the years of the War, both sides used massacre of enemy villages as a tactic which pressed the legitimacy into the character of both. In the end, the States were able to recruit and prepare an invasion force that was able to march through objectives and force the final treaty which clearly drew boundaries for settlement by each side. For a while. President Jefferson believed that the natives could be assimilated into the country by peace while the territorial governor, William Henry Harrison, used a more aggressive plan of buying the lands from the natives. Unfortunately, the new settlers didn’t always “assimilate” the native residents of lands they wanted.

Following the replacement of the Articles of Confederation (1781-1789) by the Constitution of the United States on March 4, 1789, George Washington is elected President and serves until 1797.

Napoleon reduces his holdings in the Americas by selling the Louisiana Purchase to the U.S. The further westward expansion toward the west coast of the continent is encouraged under the belief of Manifest Destiny which agrees with the annexing through purchase or conquest of lands from Britain, Mexico and the indigenous occupants.

The territorial disputes of the American War of Rebellion (Revolutionary War) between Britain and U.S. erupt with the U.S. war declaration of 1812. Britain maintained claims in the Northwest Territory and had encouraged the Confederacy of Tecumseh and the Iroquois (First Nations) against the States. In 1814 the English took Washington D.C. and razed the White House and Capitol. Moving on, the British Navy seiged Fort McHenry which guarded the mouth of the harbor at Baltimore, Maryland and it was the bombardment by the fleet that prompted Francis Scott Key to pen his poem, “Defence of Fort M’Henry” which when put to music became the National Anthem, “Star-Spangled Banner”. While the War moved on into the South and across Georgia, Florida and into Louisiana with the Brits having the upper hand because they were manning a standing army while the States were still largely a militia, the British eventually recognized that all they could maintain would be the buffer region along the Great Lakes. The Treaty of Ghent was an agreement which allowed Britain to again turn its energies and attention back toward the European continent and the vacuum being left there following conflicts of France, Prussia and Russia. The territories went back to the Treaty of Paris limits, the First Nations were to be returned their territory claims (didn’t get honored by States) and Britain was to provide compensation for all the monetary losses incurred by the States. The biggest losers in the conflict were the indigenous nations who progressively lost territorial claims, hunting rights and personal properties.

By 1821 much of the Americas had become independent nations with that year seeing Mexico independence from Spain provided in the Treaty of Cordoba.

In 1826, Samuel Morey receives a patent for the early internal combustion engine. He eventually holds 20 patents for his inventions and enhancements.

The Texas Revolution is a rebellion by settlers from the U.S. and local Hispanic residents against the authority of Mexico’s central government. October 1835 saw the residents forming a provisional government (called the Consultation) but was reluctant to claim independence from Mexico. The looseness of this Consultation resulted in a second consult six month later which declared independence and formalized leadership for the Republic of Texas. The President of Mexico took the challenge personally and President Santa Anna set out to retake Texas. In battles against the ill-prepared Texas settlers, Mexico initially won easy victories including the Battle of the Alamo but within a couple months, Texas’s Sam Houston formed and trained an effective army which was able to out-maneuver the Mexicans. At one point Santa Anna was captured and forced to order the Mexican forces to retreat back south of the Rio Grande. While Mexico refused to recognize the Republic of Texas as independent and sovereign, the 1845 annexation of Texas into the United States prompted the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) with the U.S. incursion into Mexican territories across the Southwest and eventually driving as far as Mexico City. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended Mexico’s claims to Texas, California and up into the heart of the Intermountain West.

Samuel Colt perfects the revolver as a six shot firearm that doesn’t need reloading between shots (1836).

In 1844, the first single-wire electric telegraph system was operational between Baltimore and Washington D.C.. By 1861 this same type of system connected the east and west coasts. The system was an improvement by Morse & Vail and used Morse Code which became a standard for long-distance communication.

By the mid-1840s, the westward movement of settlers across the United States and into the west coast was over the Santa Fe, Oregon, Mormon Trails and the Platte Road using horseback, wagon and foot traffic. Journey was often longer than a year and many dropped out before intended destination. Small towns sprung up along the routes and, No, there were no motels or fast food stops. Wagon trains first set out from St Louis, Missouri in 1843.

While the first use of general anesthesia for surgery was by Seishu in Japan 1804 the use of inhaled anesthesia occurred at Massachusetts General in Boston 1845 but was only partially painless. The following year the use of ether was demonstrated at the same facility and quickly was accepted for medical purposes.

To resolve claims over control of the Pacific Northwest between U.S. and the United Kingdom, in 1846 the Oregon Treaty ceded that region to the U.S. from Canadian claims.

July 1848: the Seneca Falls Convention (New York) was the first recognized women’s rights convention and birthed numerous following conventions centering on law, changing the law and produced series of resolutions urging rights for women in all areas of society and business including politics. These early conventions spawned the Declaration of Sentiments which became the core tenet of the U.S. women’s rights movement by 1851. What had started as women addressing temperance in 1841 took on great urgency within ten years.

Express mail in the United States between Missouri and California was an operation of the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company more informally known as the Pony Express. Mail from the east could travel to the west in ten days using a series of young horse-mounted riders traveling between stations. While the desire for communication faster than the stagecoach lines was great, the venture proved to be too expensive and ended within eighteen months of its start in the winter of 1860.

The American Civil War pits the Union against the Confederacy from 1861-1865. President Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. It would not be until December 18, 1865 and the implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution that slavery and involuntary servitude were abolished by law. The U.S. Civil War ends with the surrender of the Confederacy to the Union at Appomattox (Virginia) April 9, 1865; on April 14^th, President Lincoln is shot in an assassination attempt and dies the next morning.

The Dominion of Canada was the expression of Canadian nationalism that recognized on July 1, 1867 an outflow of the British Empire Queen’s assent to the British North American Act in March of that year. “… the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shall form One Dominion…” which replaced the earlier designation as Provinces of Canada and moved the nation into a confederation still part of the British Empire but also with a form of self-government under Parliament and the Queen.

The first transcontinental railroad is completed across what will become the United States in 1869 which happens to be the same year the Suez Canal opens between the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

The Panic of 1873 was the beginning of the Long Depression which was already impacting Europe and soon the rest of the world. From October that year until March 1879 the U.S. economy was depressed due to recession as lack of market (or too much product) caused wide-scale unemployment (or underemployment for those who worked for less). What had been booming, didn’t. Eighteen thousand businesses failed and an unheard of 8.25% of the workforce was unemployed (one million workers). Wage decreases of a quarter to a half in some regions were not unknown. Those failed businesses defaulted on a billion dollars in debt (when a dollar was uninflated!).

In the U.S. Montana Territory, the combined forces of the indigenous Lakota Sioux, Arapaho and Northern Cheyenne tribes met the U.S. Cavalry under General George Custer in the Battle of the Little Bighorn and win a decisive victory over the 700 troops led by Custer. Over a third of the Cavalry died, mostly those under Custer’s direct command. While the native alliance was victorious and had a season of peace and security, in following years the tribes would suffer loss of there lands through several “exchanges” arranged by the Government.

The end of the American Indian Wars and the American Old West Era comes late in 1890 with the Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota. The U.S. Army was tasked with disarming an encampment of Lakota Sioux in what was meant to be a peaceful encounter but which turned deadly when a stray gunshot sent both sides into attack mode with ten times as many Lakotas dying as U.S. soldiers.

Eighteen ninety-two has the earliest model of the self-propelled, petroleum-powered tractor when John Froelich cannot secure coal for his steam-powered threshing machines and works with a blacksmith to mount a single-cylinder engine to a chassis with his own design of drive gearing. While his tractor was not a successful venture for him, he eventually created an improved washing machine for clothes which was a grand success.