*American history has always been connected with geography, as America has always been a place that was explored, expanded, and settled in recent historical memory.

*One of the most influential American historians was Frederick Jackson Turner, who, in 1893, posited his famous Frontier Thesis in ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History.’

*According to Turner, the Frontier was what made America different and special.  Turner said that, in America, the frontier was where democracy was created, and where it was born anew every time the frontier advanced.  As the edge of settlement moved westward, people were obliged to start anew, but without the trappings and conveniences of the settled world, they had to work side by side and discovered equality.  These newly democratised men, in turn, came back to the old seats of power and renewed and invigorated them with democratic ideals all over again.  Above all else, American history up to 1900 would be a history of continuous westward expansion.

*In the colonial period both the French and British sent colonists, the British to the east coast, the French to the interior, but the English built many large settlements, whereas the French built only a few fur-trading posts.  By the mid-1700s, the English outnumbered the French about 1,500,000 to 50,000, but their colonies only stretched to the Appalachian Mountains.

*Many Americans, especially Virginians, wanted more land in the Ohio River Valley.  This started the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years War, which lasted from 1754-1763 in the New World, and a little less everywhere else (ending with the Peace of Paris).  It was arguably the first world-wide war, and it was fought over land in America. 

*The English eventually won the war, signing the Peace of Paris in 1763, and laid claim to almost everything east of the Mississippi River, including Canada.  This should have been a great victory for the British Empire, but instead it was the start of one of its greatest losses.

*After the War, the British government, which had largely ignored the colonies in the past, raised taxes to pay for the war and for soldiers sent to protect the new lands.  Furthermore, the Proclamation Line of 1763 cut most of the new land off from colonial settlement. 

*These actions, plus a general sense of resentment at British interference in local government (which they felt violated their traditional rights as Englishmen), led to the American Revolution (1775-1783, ending in the Peace of Paris). 

*The American Revolution (which also inspired wars in Europe similar to the Seven Years’ War) inspired ideas of liberty, equality, and independence throughout Europe and Latin America (although it did not have much immediate impact outside France).

*After America’s independence, the USA were governed by the Articles of Confederation and then the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, meant to guarantee the same rights as the English Bill of Rights (signed after the Glorious Revolution almost a century before).

*After the Revolution, the USA went to the Mississippi River, but the Spanish would not let the USA trade through New Orleans, nor would the French.

*One of America’s first accomplishments as a nation was the purchase, in 1803, of Louisiana for $15 million.  Mr Jefferson immediately dispatched Lewis and Clark to explore the newly purchased territory in 1804-1806.

*Less than 30 years after the Revolution ended, however, the United States and Britain were back at war.  There were several reasons for this.  First, the British still maintained forts in the Northwest.  Second, they still encouraged the Indians to attack American settlers, hoping to keep the west unsettled.  Third, the Royal Navy was impressing sailors on American ships to use against France in the Napoleonic Wars.  Finally, many Americans simply wanted more land in Canada.  Although some fighting took place in 1811 between Governor Harrison and Tecumseh, the war did not really begin until 1812.

*Overall, the war was a disaster.  Despite some surprising victories at sea that protected America’s boundaries, all the American invasions of Canada failed and the British actually burnt Washington, D.C.  They also bombarded Baltimore harbour, and in the process inspired ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’

*America’s partial success at sea convinced Britain to make peace in 1815 largely on the terms of returning to the status quo ante bellum, and this actually stuck after Andrew Jackson defeated a major British army at New Orleans after the Treaty of Ghent was signed (but before news had gotten to America).

*Throughout the 1800s, the United States would expand westward (and, in a slower way, so would the Canadas).  However, there was a major area of controversy in American expansion.

*By the time the US Constitution was ratified, it looked as if slavery might slowly die out in the United States.  Many people were opposed to it on moral grounds, and it was increasingly seen as economically inefficient, especially without the British market to sell lots and lots of exported crops through.  However, in 1793, Eli Whitney made it profitable with the invention of the cotton gin.

*Slavery was slowly made illegal throughout the northern United States in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and the Northwest Ordinance (theoretically) outlawed slavery in the states formed out of the Northwest Territory.  As the years passed, more northerners became opposed to slavery, and also found that they were generally opposed to Southern economic interests as well, as the North industrialised (and wanted high tariffs to protect their economics interests) and the South remained an exporting agricultural society (who wanted low tariffs to promote free trade).

*Eventually the Missouri Compromise (1820) guaranteed that no future slave states would be created north of the southern boundary of Missouri (but that those south of it would allow slavery) and that equal numbers of slave and free states would be created in the future.

*Many Americans desired Florida, still controlled by Spain.  In 1817, Andrew Jackson led part of the US Army into the state, supposedly chasing Seminole Indians who had attacked settlements in Georgia.  On the way, he happened to capture St. Mark’s and Pensacola, and to hang a couple of Englishmen who had supposedly stirred up the Seminole.  In 1821 Spain agreed to sell Florida to the USA.

*Sadly, another place where people wanted to live and work was the Cherokee country of northern Georgia and surrounding areas.  In 1829, gold was discovered there, and Georgians wanted to move in to mine it.  Despite winning their case in the Supreme Court, the Cherokee were removed in the 1830s, with the largest group going on the Trail of Tears in 1838 (2,000-8,000 deaths; 4,000 most likely).  A few Cherokee escaped; to-day they are the Eastern Band, live in North Carolina, and don’t always get along with the Western Band.

*Another attractive place was Texas, but it was still part of Mexico.  Some Americans settled there anyway, although to do so they had to swear loyalty to Mexico and promise to free their slaves and convert to Roman Catholicism.  Most did not, and did not plan to.

*Early in 1836 Texas declared its independence, and Santa Anna invaded.  He first laid siege to the Texan defenders of the Alamo, led by Colonels William Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett.  Knowing it was a poor position, Samuel Houston, recently made commander of Texan forces, told them to withdraw, but they refused.  Travis, according to legend, drew a line in the sand with his sword, and told all those who were willing to die defending Texas to cross over it and stand with him.  All but one did, leaving 189 men to fend of 3,000 Mexicans. 

*The defenders of the Alamo were slaughtered, but it bought the other Texans time to organise an army and gave them something to fight for.  After the Battle of San Jacinto, the Treaty of San Jacinto gave Texas its independence as Republic of Texas.  The USA would not take Texas in at first, because it might throw of the balance between free and slave states.

*Americans still wanted more land, believing it was their Manifest Destiny to go from Sea to Shining Sea.  It was on this platform that James K. Polk was elected president in 1844.  He promised to annex Oregon and California (where many Americans had settled) and to accept Texas into the Union.  This led to the Mexican-American war (1846-48), a tremendous victory for the USA that won all the territory Polk hoped for (although opposed by some who felt it was unjust).  Polk also reached an agreement with Britain to share Oregon.

*As the war was ending, gold was discovered in California in 1848, leading to the California Gold Rush (1849-1852), which expanded the population from 14,000 in 1848 to 223,856 by 1852.  This led to Californian desire to become a state, but a free state, despite part of California lying below the Missouri Compromise Line.  Eventually it was allowed in, but this unbalanced the Senate. 

*To make up for this, people of Kansas and Nebraska were allowed to vote on whether or not to allow slavery if they became states.  Immediately pro- and anti-slavery people rushed to Bleeding Kansas and fought for years over the question.

*All these disagreements culminating in the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 with only 40% of the popular vote and no Southern votes.  This led eleven Southern states to secede and create the Confederate States of America. 

*The Civil War (1861-1865) was a war over whether the state or the national government would be more powerful—Southerners felt the states should be (partly in order to protect slavery), whereas the North, once the War had begun, developed a strong attachment to the idea of the Union, which eventually created a very strong national government—for a short time in 1865, the US Army had over 900,000 soldiers, making it the largest in the world.

*The South lost the war, despite having more brilliant generals, because the North had over twice as many men, more money, more railroads, more factories, and (after the Emancipation Proclamation), the support of many foreign peoples (even though many European governments hoped the South would win).  Furthermore, Southern states often would not co-operate with the Confederate government, due to the doctrine of states’ rights.

*After the War, the South was occupied by the US Army, which meant to protect the freedom (XIII Amendment) and civil rights (XIV Amendment) of former slaves, particularly the right to vote (XV).  This period was known as Reconstruction.  Eventually, though, the US Army withdrew from the South, and the rights of Black were often infringed upon—the Supreme Court even declared that segregation was legal (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896).

*With the National Government powerful, it completed the last step in filling up the interior of the US:  the Transcontinental Railroad.  It ran from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California, and, for the first time, connected the east to the west by rail.  It was completed in 1869, and others like it followed.  Canada built her transcontinental railroad in 1885.

*This wave of settlement, fuelled in large part by immigration from Europe, began to fill up the west, despite opposition from the Indians.  By 1890, the frontier had been eliminated, or at least so broken up by pockets of settlement that it could no longer be said to exist.

*Americans were still energetic, though, and, in 1898, found an excuse to expand beyond the sea.  Spain still owned a few colonies, notably Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, and, particularly in Cuba, were known to be cruel masters.  The Cubans were attempting to rebel against Spain, and the US decided to help them.

*The Spanish-American War was quick and fairly harmless to America—Theodore Roosevelt made a name for himself leading the Rough Riders, and he called it a splendid little war.

*The US gained Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and some other minor islands during the war.  Cuba was also placed under US protection, and the US had the right to build a naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

*The problem was the occupation of the Philippines.  There, the US had also supposedly aided local freedom fighters, but once the war was over, they wanted their freedom, and ended up fighting the Americans instead for several years, in which over 4,000 US soldiers were killed (compared to a few hundred during the war).  Eventually peace was made, thanks in part to Governor William H. Taft.

*In 1898, the US also acquired Hawaii, where local American settlers had overthrown the native queen.

*By 1900, the USA was a major world power.

*Canada had a history much like that of the USA, but also defined in opposition to the US.

*Canada was first a French colony, and then a British one after the French and Indian War, which it would remain throughout the 1800s.  To this day, the Province of Quebec is still primarily French-speaking while the rest of the country speaks English, and Canada is officially bi-lingual.

*Canada defended itself during the War of 1812, and again during and after the Civil War.  Between 1866 and 1871, a group of Irish-Americans called the Fenian Brotherhood invaded Canada to show their power.  The Canadians suffered some defeats, but ultimately ran the Fenians out every time.

*In 1867, Canadian leaders, worried by the Fenian Raids and the power of the United States, produced a plan of confederation, which would join not just Quebec and Ontario, but also Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (Newfoundland was invited, but chose not to join until 1945).  Under this confederation, French would be a legal language, and would be protected—until that was guaranteed, the French-speakers refused to participate in any united government.

*On 1 July 1867 the British Parliament agreed to the plan of Confederation, and that day is still celebrated as Canada Day.  John MacDonald, one of the leaders of the confederation movement, became the first Prime Minister of Canada.  Despite the power that being a united country gave them, the Canadians were still largely governed by Great Britain, especially in foreign affairs.  Such business was managed by the governor-general, appointed by the Queen.

*By 1905, thanks in part to the transcontinental railroad in 1885, almost all the rest of Canada’s provinces and territories (except Nunavut and Newfoundland) had been created. 

*Britain also had two other major colonies primarily settled by Europeans, but they were on the other side of the world.

*Australia was first sighted in 1606 by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, who landed on the Cape York Peninsula.  In time the continent came to be called ‘New Holland,’ but it was never settled.

*Captain Cook, the great British explorer of the Pacific, claimed Australia in 1770, and in 1788 the first English settlers arrived.  These were mostly criminals who in earlier decades would have been transported to America.  They were landed in New South Wales, the oldest state in Australia.

*Between 1803 and 1859 the colonies of Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland were created, each as a separate colony administered from Britain.

*Most of Australia’s states were never penal colonies, although some took prisoners from New South Wales to serve as labourers.

*Australia also had a large native population, the Aborigines, but they were cruelly mistreated.  They suffered terribly from European diseases, but were also killed by settlers who wanted their land.  It is thought that about 90% of the Aboriginal population was killed between 1788 and 1900.  The Aborigines also killed white settlers, with the last known spearing in 1939.

*Australia had two major gold rushes, one in the 1850s and one in the 1890s.  During the first of these, miners who felt they were mistreated by a government that demanded huge fees for mining licenses revolted and demanded better treatment and recognition of their rights in 1854.

*This revolt was known as the Eureka Stockade, after a stockade, or small fort, built by the miners.  Government soldiers surrounded the stockade on 3 December, a shot was fired, and a battle began.  It was short and bloody, and the miners lost.  However, it was seen as a moral victory, or at least a rallying point, and the embarrassed government afterwards granted the miners some of the reforms they wanted.  It was also seen as the beginning of Australian efforts at self-government.

*In the years that followed, the Australian colonies were given more and more local power, and in 1901 they were united as one dominion under a governor-general.

*In 1911, the Northern Territory was officially separated from South Australia as a home for the remaining Aborigines, and in 1913 construction of Canberra began in the Australian Capital Territory, a site chosen as a compromise between the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne.

*New Zealand was first settled between 1800 and 1810, and formally added to the British Empire in 1840 by the Treaty of Waitangi, made by the British and certain Maori chiefs.

*As in Australia, the European immigrants made war on the Maori, but in 1867 also gave them the right to a certain number of reserved seats in the colonial parliament.

*In 1901 New Zealand was offered a chance to become part of the Dominion of Australia, but declined.  In 1907 however, it became a dominion of its own, equal with Canada, Australia, and (later) South Africa.