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See Pre-Colonial America article.
Native Americans arrived on the North American continent in about the 9th millennium BC, give or take 5,000 years, and dominated the area until the influx of European settlers began in the early 17th century.For details, see the main Colonial America article.
Colonial America was defined by ongoing battles with Native Americans, a severe labor shortage which gave birth to forms of unfree labor such as slavery and indentured servitude, and a British policy of benign neglect which permitted the development of an American spirit and culture which was distinct from that of its European founders.
For details, see the main History of the United States (1776-1789) article.
During this period the United States won its independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War and established itself as the United States of America with 13 States.
For details, see the main History of the United States (1789-1861) article.
The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave Western farmers use of the important Mississippi River waterway, removed the French presence from the western border of the United States, and provided U.S. farmers with vast expanses of land.
A few weeks afterwards, war broke out between Britain and Napoleonic France. The United States, dependent on European revenues from the export of agricultural goods, tried to export food and raw materials to both warring great powers and to profit off transporting goods between their home markets and Caribbean colonies. Both sides permitted this trade when it benefited them, but opposed it when it did not.
Following the 1805 destruction of the French navy at the Battle of Trafalgar, Britain sought to impose a stranglehold over French overseas trade ties. Thus, in retaliation against U.S. trade practices, Britain imposed a loose blockade of the American coast.
Believing that Britain could not rely on other sources of food than the United States, Congress and President Jefferson suspended all U.S. trade with foreign nations in 1807, hoping to get the British to end their blockade of the American coast. The embargo, however, devastated American agricultural exports while Britain found other sources of food.
Under the pretext of opposing British interference with American shipping, and British aid to Native Americans in CanadaCanada historically the Dominion of Canada is the second-largest, and northernmost, country in the world. It is a decentralized federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories, governed as a constitutional monarchy, and formed in 1867 through an act of Confe and west of the Mississippi, Congress - led by Southern and Western Jeffersonians - declared war on Britain in 1812. Westerners and Southerners were the most ardent supporters of the war, given their concerns about expanding settlement in Native American lands beyond the Mississippi and access to world markets for their agricultural exports. The New England Federalists opposed the war. Their reputation would suffer in the aftermath of the war.
The War of 1812The North American War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom is one of several wars associated with that year. It is more normally known in British texts as the British-American War to distinguish it from Napoleon's war against Russia w essentially resulted in the maintainance of the 'status quo ante'after bitter fighting, which lasted until January 8, 1815 (ironically after the peace treaty) on many fronts but, crucially, the Treaty of GhentThe Treaty of Ghent signed on December 24, 1814, in Ghent, Belgium, ended the War of 1812 between the United States and United Kingdom. Fighting continued for several weeks after signing the treaty, including the Battle of New Orleans, because news of the which officially ended the war saw the end of the British alliance with the Native Americans.
After Napoleon's defeat and the Congress of ViennaThe Congress of Vienna ( October 1, 1814 June 9, 1815) was a conference between ambassadors from the major powers in Europe that was chaired by the Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and held in Vienna, Austria. Its purpose was to redraw the in 1815, an era of relative stability began in Europe. U.S. leaders paid less attention to European trade and conflict, and more to the internal development in North America. With the end of the wartime British alliance with Native Americans east of the Mississippi RiverThis page is about the river in the United States; for other uses, see Mississippi River (disambiguation). The Mississippi River is the second-longest river in the United States; the longest is the Missouri River, which flows into the Mississippi. Taken t, white settlers were determined to colonize indigenous lands beyond the Mississippi. In the 1830s the federal government forcibly deported the Southeastern tribes to less fertile territories to the west. It should be noted, however, that the Supreme Court had actually ruled in support of native claims to land. Andrew Jackson, president at the time of the rulings, simply ignored the Supreme Court in favor of his own agenda.
Americans did not question their right to colonize vast expanses of North America beyond their country's borders, especially into Oregon, California, and Texas. By the mid-1840s U.S. expansionism was articulated in terms of the ideology of " manifest destiny."
In May 1846 Congress declared war on MexicoThis article is about the country Mexico. For other meanings, see Mexico (disambiguation The United Mexican States or Mexico ( Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos or Mexico regarding the use of the variant spelling Mejico see section The name below) is a co. The U.S. defeated Mexico, unable to withstand the assault of the American artillery, short on resources, and plagued by a divided command. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 ceded Texas (with the Rio Grande boundary), California, and New Mexico to the United States. In the next thirteen years, the territories ceded by Mexico became the focal point of sectional tensions over the expansion of slavery.
In 1854 the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act abrogated the Missouri Compromise by providing that each new state of the Union would decide its stance on slavery. The settlement of Kansas by pro- and anti- slavery factions, and eventual victory of the anti-slavery camp, was fuelled by convictions signalled by the birth of the Republican party. By 1861, the admission of Kansas to the Union signalled a break in the balance of power.