The history of the Americas is the collective history of North and South America, including Central America and the Caribbean. It begins with people migrating to these areas from Asia and possibly Oceania during the height of an Ice Age. These groups are generally believed to have had little or no contact with peoples of the "Old World" until the coming the Europeans in the 15th Century.

The ancestors of today's Native Americans were hunter-gatherers migrating into North America. The most popular theory asserts that migrants came to the America's via the Bering Land Bridge. Small Paleo Indian groups probably followed the mammoth and other prey animals. It is possible that groups of people may also have wandered into North America on shelf or sheet ice along the northern Pacific coast.

Cultural traits brought by the first immigrants later evolved and spawned such cultures as Iroquois on North America and Pirahã of South America. Later during the continents history, these cultures developed into civilizations, just as in the Old World. In many cases, these cultures expanded at a later date than the Old World counterparts. Cultures considered advanced or civilized may include: Cahokia, Zapotec, Toltecs, Olmec, Aztecs, and the Inca. Migration into the continentsExactly when the first group of people migrated into the America's is subject to much debate. Recent archaeological finds suggest multiple waves of migration, some of which may have taken place as early as 40,000 BC. All theories agree that the Inuit and related peoples arrived separately and at a much later date, probably around the 6th century, moving across the glaciers from Siberia into Canada.

It is generally believed that the North American continent received the first people, Asian nomads who crossed the Bering Land Bridge. For many years, scientists accepted that the earliest people were of the Clovis culture, with sites dating from some 13,500 years ago. Older sites occupied up to 20,000 years ago are still not widely accepted, although they are supported by recent DNA evidence. By 10,000 BC, humans are thought to have reached Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America. Artifacts have been found in both North and South America which have been dated to about 10,000 BC. [1] [2]

Other groups have additional beliefs about ancient visitors to the Americas. For example, the Book of Mormon, a religious text used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement, follows a family of Israelites who set out for the "promised land" about 600 BC. This text records their arrival in the Americas and information on resulting cultures and civilizations. Before advanced civilizationsAfter the migration or migrations, it was several thousand years before the first complex civilizations arose, emerging at earliest 5000 BC. They were hunter-gatherers and even with the emergence of advanced civilizations, most of the continent's area was still inhabited by such societies until the 18th century. Hunter gatherer societies were quickly displaced with only a few in South America surviving into the 21st century. Numerous archaeological cultures can be identified with some of the classifications including Early Paleo-Indian Period, Late Paleo-Indian Period, Archaic Period, Early Woodland Period, Middle Woodland Period and Late Woodland Period. CivilizationsCivilizations were started long after migration. Several large, centralized civilizations developed in the Western Hemisphere (e.g., the Chavń in the Andes, the Aztecs and the Maya in Central America). The capital of the Cahokians, Cahokia - located near modern East St. Louis, Illinois may have reached a population of over 20,000. At its peak, between the 12th and 13th centuries Cahokia was the most populous city in North America. Monk's Mound, the major ceremonial center of Cahokia, remains the largest earthen construction of the prehistoric New World. Far larger cities where built by the Maya and Aztecs. Cities of the Aztecs and Incas were as large as the largest in the Old World, with estimates of 300,000 in Tenochtitlan. The market established there was the largest ever seen by the conquistadors when they arrived.

These civilizations developed agriculture as well, breeding maize (corn) from having ears 2-5 cm in length to perhaps 10-15 cm in length. Potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins and avocados are other plants grown by Natives. They did not develop extensive livestock as there were few suitable species; however the guinea pig was raised for meat in the Andes. By the 15th century AD, maize had been transmitted from Mexico and was being farmed in the Mississippi River Valley, but further developments were cut short by the arrival of Europeans. Potatoes were utilized by the Inca and chocolate by the Aztec. North AmericaMain article: History of North America
Pueblo Indians
Living conditions were that of large stone apartment like adobe structures. They live in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and possibly surrounding areas.
Cahokia
MesoamericaMain articles: History of Central America and History of the Caribbean
Zapotec
The Zapotec emerged around 1500 years BC. Their writing system influenced the later Olmec. They left behind the great city Monte Alban.
Olmec
The Olmec civilization emerged around 1200 BC in Mesoamerica and ended 400 BC but left enough art and concepts to surrounding neighbours for them to build civilizations of their own. This civilization was the first in America to develop a writing system. After the Olmecs abandoned their cities for unknown reasons, the Maya, Zapotec and Teotihuacan took over.
Maya
The Maya supplanted the Olmecs and their history spanned 3000 years, Their civilization may have collapsed due to changing climate in the end of the 10th century.
Toltec
The Toltec were a militaristic nomadic people, dating from the 10th - 12th century, whose language was spoken by the Aztecs as well.
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan (4th century BC - 7/8th century) was both a city, and an empire of the same name, which, at its zenith between 150 AD and the 5th century, covered most of Mesoamerica.
Aztec
The Aztec having started to build their empire around 14th century found their civilization abruptly ended by the Spanish conquistadors. They lived in central America, and surrounding lands. South AmericaMain article: History of South America
Chavín
The Chavín established a trade network and developed agriculture by as early as (or late compared to the Old World) 900 BC according to some estimates and archaeological finds. Artifacts were found at a site called Chavín in modern Peru at an elevation of 3177 meters. Chavín civilization spanned from 900 BC to 300 BC.
Inca
Holding their capital at the great city of Cusco, the Inca civilization dominated the Andes region from 1438 to 1533. Known as Tahuantinsuyu, or "the land of the four regions," in Quechua, the Inca culture was highly distinct and developed. Cities were built with precise, unmatched stonework, constructed over many levels of mountain terrain. Terrace farming was a useful form of agriculture. There is evidence of excellent metalwork and even successful brain surgery in Inca civilization. European discovery and following colonizationThousands of years after the Indians arrived, the continent was rediscovered by Europeans. Initially the Vikings established a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland. Theories exist about other Old World discoveries of the east coast (or of the west coast by the Chinese), but none of these are considered proven. It was the later voyage of Christopher Columbus that led to extensive European colonization of the Americas and the marginalization of its inhabitants.

The mass death of the Native Americans from slavery, disease and war led to severe changes in the population and ethnic identity of America's inhabitants. The slave labor of Americans killed by European incursions was replaced by that of sub - Saharan African peoples through the slave trade. Native populations became increasingly minor as the European and African slave populations grew rapidly. The dominance of white peoples continued through the period of widespread independence from European rule, begun in the late 18th century by the United States

There is a substantial difference though, between the English and Spanish areas and models of colonisation. While Native Americans suffered death, slavery and exploitation throughout the Americas and were virtually exterminated almost everywhere, Native Americans, along with Mestizos, now make up the majority of the population in many Central and South American countries due to the lower rates of European immigration there and the lack of the black - white racial classification system found in the United States.

The number of Native Americans is increasing now in the U.S. by actual population growth, changing enrollment laws, and from the immigration from Spanish America, especially from Mexico, though the definition being applied to them is Hispanic.
regards

Woww,what a great job done comprehensively.keep it up.
looking forward to other topics be touched upon by u on US history like presidency of Thomas Jefforson,Westward Expansion,Issue of slavery and it fall out in the form of Civil War,presidency of Woodrow Wilson and First World War,Progressivism in USA,Great Depression and New Deal,second World War etc...if u have knowledge,plz share it.

@saira

Good points mentioned by spiritless conquest, i'd also like to have your valuable part with reference to the issue of slavery and Lincon's strategies. Kindly enlighten us with your valuable say.



Regards,

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@ Qurattulain and spiritless quest
Thanks for appreciating my work.Here is the information on slavery in america:
The history of slavery in the United States began soon after Europeans first settled in what in 1776 became the United States. It ended with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. IntroductionSlavery, the practice of keeping people in servitude and buying and selling them as chattel (movable) property, was a worldwide phenomenon, especially in areas where there was plenty of land but a shortage of labor. Slavery in Colonial AmericaMain article: Slavery in Colonial America
Twenty blacks are recorded as being brought by a Dutch man of war and sold to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 as indentured servants. Three are believed to have been named Isabella, Antoney and Pedro. There is evidence that Isabella and Antoney later gave birth to a son named William. This "William Tucker" is now considered the first African American born in the English colonies in North America.

The transformation from indentured servitude (servants contracted to work for a set amount of time) to racial slavery happened gradually. There are no laws regarding slavery early in Virginia's history. By 1640, the Virginia courts had sentenced at least one black servant to slavery.

Three servants working for a farmer named Hugh Gwyn ran away to Maryland. Two were white; one was black. They were captured in Maryland and returned to Jamestown, where the court sentenced all three to thirty lashes -- a severe punishment even by the standards of 17th-century Virginia. The two white men were sentenced to an additional four years of servitude -- one more year for Gwyn followed by three more for the colony. But, in addition to the whipping, the black man, a man named John Punch, was ordered to "serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere."

It wasn't until 1661 that a reference to slavery entered into Virginia law, and this law was directed at white servants -- at those who ran away with a black servant. The following year, the colony went one step further by stating that children born would be bonded or free according to the status of the mother.

The transformation had begun, but it wouldn't be until the Slave Codes of 1705 that the status of African Americans would be sealed.

Originally in the American colonies, 1600 to 1800, American Indians (Native Americans) and other groups, mostly white Europeans such as captured soldiers, minor criminals, etc., were used as slaves (indentured servants, see Bound Over by John Van Der Zee), but by the 19th century almost all slaves were blacks. During the British colonial period, slaves were used mostly in the Southern colonies and to a lesser degree in the Northern colonies as well. Early on, slaves (indentured servants) were most useful in the growing of indigo, rice, and tobacco; cotton was only a side crop. Nevertheless, it was clear that slaves were most economically viable in plantation-style agriculture. Many landowners began to grow increasingly dependent on slave labor for their livelihood, and legislatures responded accordingly by increasingly stricter regulations on forced labor practices, known as the Slave codes.
Some of the British colonies attempted to abolish the slave trade. Virginia's Acts to that effect were vetoed by the British Privy Council; Rhode Island forbade the importation of slaves completely in 1774. All of the states but Georgia had banned or limited it by 1786; Georgia did so in 1798 - although some of these laws were later repealed.[1]

Beginning in the 1750's in Pennsylvania, the various colonial Quaker meetings attempted to persuade their members that they should not own slaves; some who resisted were expelled from Meeting. Some attempted to persuade others to do the same. There was widespread sentiment during the Revolution that slavery was injurious, and would eventually be abolished. The Northern states passed emancipation acts between 1780 and 1804; most of these arranged for gradual emancipation and a special status for freedmen, so there were still a dozen "permanent apprentices" in New Jersey in 1860. [2]

The Constitution of the Vermont Republic expressly abolished slavery (at least for adults) in 1777. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 declares all men "born free and equal"; the slave Quork Walker sued for his freedom on this basis and won his freedom, thus abolishing slavery in Massachusetts.

The economic value of plantation slavery was reinforced in 1793 with the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, a device designed to separate cotton fibers from seedpods and the sometimes sticky seeds. The invention revolutionized the cotton-growing industry by increasing the quantity of cotton that could be processed in a day by fiftyfold. The result was explosive growth in the cotton industry, and a proportionate increase in the demand for slave labor in the South.

At the same time, the Northern states banned slavery though as Alexis De Toqueville pointed out in Democracy in America (1835), this wasn't always done with the best of motives. As the northern states abolished slavery, it didn't always mean that the slaves were freed. In many cases it simply encouraged slave owners to move their slaves to states which still allowed slavery. This resulted in a population movement of black Americans to the South. The southern states didn't have this option of removing their black population, as slaves were already a much higher proportion of the total population and the international slave trade had been abolished. This led to a hardening of opinions in favor of slavery in the southern states out of fear of what the slaves would do if they were freed.

Just as demand for slaves was increasing, supply was restricted. The United States Constitution, adopted in 1787, prevented Congress from banning the importation of slaves before 1808. On January 1 that year, Congress acted to ban further imports. Any new slaves would have to be descendants of ones that were currently in the US. However, the internal U.S. slave trade, and the involvement in the international slave trade or the outfitting of ships for that trade by U.S. citizens were not banned. Though there were certainly violations of this law, slavery in America became more or less self-sustaining; the overland 'slave trade' from Tidewater Virginia and the Carolinas to Georgia, Alabama, and Texas continued for another half-century.

Several slave rebellions took place during the 1700s and 1800s including the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831.

Historical records indicate that some slaveowners were more cruel to slaves than others. Some slaveowners raped and whipped slaves, and even cut off limbs of slaves who tried to escape, while other slaveowners provided materially for their slaves and were less physically abusive. In many households, treatment of slaves varied with the slave's skin color. Darker-skinned slaves worked in the fields, while lighter-skinned slaves or "house negroes" were made to work in the house and had better provisions. The United States slave population was the only slave population in history that increased through birth rather than importation. The interpretation of this fact has been a topic of much debate.

Because the Midwestern states decided in the 1820s not to allow slavery and because most Northeastern states became free states through local emancipation, a Northern bloc of free states solidified into one contiguous geographic area. The dividing line was the Ohio River and the Mason-Dixon line (between slave-state Maryland and free-state Pennsylvania).
Anti-Slavery
Throughout the first half of the 19th century, a movement to end slavery, called abolitionism, grew in strength throughout the United States. This reform took place amidst strong support of slavery among white Southerners, who began to refer to it as the "peculiar institution" in a defensive attempt to differentiate it from other examples of forced labor. There were several strains of aformentioned reform movements. Some wanted to ship the slaves back to Africa, and settle them in a new homeland there (some also wanted to deport any free blacks in the country); a movement of this type led to the foundation of the modern-day nation of Liberia. Others wanted to simply end the practice of slavery, leaving free blacks in the United States. Another divide was over whether or not slave-owners would be compensated for the value of their lost "property". There was further disagreement over the degree of militancy to use. Some abolitionists, such as John Brown, favored the use of armed force to foment uprisings amongst the slaves, while others preferred to use the legal system.


Peter, a slave from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863. The scars are a result of a whipping by his overseer, who was subsequently discharged. It took two months to recover from the beating.

Influential leaders of the abolition movement (1810-60) included:
William Lloyd Garrison - Published The Liberator newspaper
Harriet Beecher Stowe - Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
Frederick Douglass - Nation's most powerful anti-slavery speaker, a former slave
Harriet Tubman - Helped 350 slaves escape from the South, became known as a "conductor" on the "Underground Railroad".
Slave uprisings that used armed force ( 1700 - 1859 ) include:
New York Revolt of 1712
The Stono Rebellion(1739)
New York Slave Insurrection of 1741
Gabriel's Rebellion (1800)
Louisiana Territory Slave Rebellion, led by Charles Deslandes (1811)
George Boxley Rebellion (1815)
Fort Blount Revolt (1816)
Denmark Vesey Uprising (1822)
Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831)
Amistad Seizure (1839)
Due to the three-fifths compromise in the United States Constitution, slaveholders exerted their power through the Federal Government and the Federal Fugitive slave laws. Refugees from slavery fled the South across the Ohio River to the North via the Underground Railroad, and their physical presence in Cincinnati, Oberlin, and other Northern towns agitated Northerners. After 1854 Republicans fumed that the Slave Power, especially the pro-slavery Democratic Party controlled two or three branches of the Federal government.

North and South grew further apart in 1845 with the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention on the premise that the Bible sanctions slavery and that it was acceptable for Christians to own slaves (the Southern Baptist Convention has long since renounced this interpretation). This split was triggered by the opposition of northern Baptists to slavery, and in particular by the 1844 statement of the Home Mission Society declaring that a person could not be a missionary and still keep slaves as property. The Methodist and Presbyterian churches likewise divided north and south, so that by the late 1850s only the Democratic Party was a national institution, and it split in the 1860 election. 1850s to the Civil WarAfter the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, border wars broke out in Kansas Territory, where the question of whether it would be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state was left to the inhabitants. The radical abolitionist John Brown was active in the mayhem and killing in "Bleeding Kansas." At the same time, fears that the Slave Power was seizing full control of the national government swept anti-slavery Republicans into office.

The Supreme Court tried to resolve the issue, but its 1857 Dred Scott decision only inflamed tempers. The deciding opinion proclaimed that slavery's presence in the Midwest was lawful (when owners crossed into free states)--further proof for Republicans like Abraham Lincoln that the Slave Power had seized control of the Supreme Court.

The divisions became fully exposed with the 1860 presidential election. The electorate split four ways. One party (the Southern Democrats) endorsed slavery. One (the Republicans) denounced it. One (the Northern Democrats) said democracy required the people themselves to decide on slavery locally. The fourth (Constitutional Union party) said the survival of the Union was at stake and everything else should be compromised. Lincoln, the Republican, won with a plurality of popular votes and a majority of electoral votes. Lincoln however, did not appear on the ballots of ten southern states: thus his election necessarily split the nation along sectional lines. Many slave owners in the South feared that the real intent of the Republicans was the abolition of slavery in states where it already existed, and that the sudden emancipation of 4 million slaves would be problematic for the slaver owners and for the economy that drew its greatest profits from the labor of people who were not paid. They also argued that banning slavery in new states would upset what they saw as a delicate balance of free states and slave states. They feared that ending this balance could lead to the domination of the industrial North with its preference for high tariffs on imported goods. The combination of these factors led the South to secede from the Union and thus began the American Civil War. Northern leaders like Lincoln and Chase had viewed the slavery interests as a threat politically, and with secession, they viewed the prospect of a new southern nation, the Confederate States of America, with control over the Mississippi River and the West, as politically and militarily unacceptable.

The consequent United States Civil War, beginning in 1861, led to the end of chattel slavery in America. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 was a powerful move that promised freedom for slaves in the Confederacy as soon as the Union armies reached them. The proclamation made the abolition of slavery an official war goal that was implemented as the Union took territory from the Confederacy. According to the Census of 1860, this policy would free nearly four million slaves, or over 12% of the total population of the United States.


Simon Legree and Uncle Tom: A scene from Uncle Tom's Cabin, history's most famous abolitionist novel.

The Arizona Organic Act abolished slavery on February 24, 1863 in the newly formed Arizona Territory. Tennessee and all of the border states (except Kentucky) abolished slavery by early 1865. Legally, the last 40,000 or so slaves were freed in Kentucky[3] by the final ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in December of 1865. Other slaves were freed by the operation of the Emancipation proclamation as Union armies marched across the South. Many joined the Union Army as workers or troops, and others went to refugee camps or fled to cities. Emancipation as a reality came to the remaining slaves after the surrender of all Confederate troops in spring 1865. There still were over 250,000 slaves in Texas. They were freed as soon as word arrived of the collapse of the Confederacy, with the decisive day being (June 19, 1865). As Juneteenth it is celebrated in Texas, Oklahoma, and some other areas, and commemorates the date when the news finally reached the last slaves at Galveston, Texas.

During Reconstruction it was a serious question whether slavery had been permanently abolished or whether some form of semi-slavery would appear after the Union armies left.

An 1867 federal law prohibited debt bondage or peonage, which still existed in the New Mexico Territory as a legacy of Spanish imperial rule. Between 1903 and 1944 the Supreme Court ruled on several cases involving debt bondage of black Americans, declaring these arrangements unconstitutional.

@saira

it's a good post on the history of slavery in US, but i'd appreciate your opinion on Lincon strategies with reference to the slavery issue.


Regards,

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The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which expressly repealed the limits on slavery's spread that had been part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, drew Lincoln back into politics. Illinois Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the most powerful man in the Senate, proposed popular sovereignty as the solution to the slavery impasse, and he incorporated it into the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Douglas argued that in a democracy the people of a territory should decide whether to allow slavery and not have a decision imposed on them by Congress.

It was a speech against the act, on October 16 1854 in Peoria, that caused Lincoln to stand out among the other free soil orators of the day. He helped form the new Republican Party, drawing on remnants of the old Whig, Free Soil, Liberty and Democratic parties. In a stirring campaign, the Republicans carried Illinois in 1854 and elected a senator. Lincoln was the obvious choice, but to keep the new party balanced he allowed the election to go to an ex-Democrat Lyman Trumbull.

In 1857-58, Douglas broke with President Buchanan, leading to a fight for control of the Democratic Party. Some eastern Republicans even favored the reelection of Douglas in 1858, since he led the opposition to the administration's push for the Lecompton Constitution which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state. Accepting the Republican nomination for the Senate in 1858, Lincoln delivered a famous speech [4] in which he stated, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." The speech created a lasting image of the danger of disunion because of slavery, and rallied Republicans across the north.

The 1858 campaign featured the Lincoln-Douglas debates, a nationally famous contest on slavery. Lincoln warned that the Slave Power was threatening the values of republicanism, while Douglas emphasized democracy, as in his Freeport Doctrine, which said that local settlers should be free to choose slavery or not. Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature reelected Douglas to the Senate. Nevertheless, Lincoln's eloquence transformed him into a national political star.

During the debates of 1858, the issue of race was often discussed. During a time period when racial egalitarianism was considered politically incorrect, Stephen Douglas would inform the crowds, “If you desire negro citizenship… if you desire them to vote on an equality with yourselves… then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship of the negro.” (Official records of debate) On the defensive, Lincoln countered that he was “not in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.” (Official records of debate) Lincoln's opposition to slavery was opposition to the Slave Power, and he was not an abolitionist in 1858. But the Civil War changed many things, including Lincoln's beliefs in race relations
Lincoln did much during the election of 1860.Lincoln had a belief in race relations.He had completely opposed slavery.Between the slave power and states' rights there was no necessary connection. The slave power, when in control, was a centralizing influence, and all the most considerable encroachments on states' rights were its acts. The acquisition and admission of Louisiana; the Embargo; the War of 1812; the annexation of Texas "by joint resolution" [rather than treaty]; the war with Mexico, declared by the mere announcement of President Polk; the Fugitive Slave Law; the Dred Scott decision — all triumphs of the slave power — did far more than either tariffs or internal improvements, which in their origin were also southern measures, to destroy the very memory of states' rights as they existed in 1789. Whenever a question arose of extending or protecting slavery, the slaveholders became friends of centralized power, and used that dangerous weapon with a kind of frenzy. Slavery in fact required centralization in order to maintain and protect itself, but it required to control the centralized machine; it needed despotic principles of government, but it needed them exclusively for its own use. Thus, in truth, states' rights were the protection of the free states, and as a matter of fact, during the domination of the slave power, Massachusetts appealed to this protecting principle as often and almost as loudly as South Carolina.Actually Lincoln had overthrown slave power despite hard efforts of Salmon Chase's policies of freedom.
regards

Was this strategy for south only or for north only or for both of them??????????????


If he was not an abolitionist till 1858, why did he go for Civil War??????????????


Regards,

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The political parties in the late 1850s came to represent only sectional interests – Democrats in the South, Republicans in the North. In the presidential campaign of 1860, the Democrats divided among themselves, while the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln on an antislavery platform that denied the right of Congress to give legality to slavery in any territory. Lincoln swept the North, but the threats of secession made by southern orators for 40 years were soon realized. The breakdown of an underlying national political consensus (which had previously sustained national parties) led to the outbreak of hostilities, only a few weeks after Lincoln's inauguration.

So you mean the abolition of slavery was a tool used by Lincon to have the presidency?????? If so, please mention some authentic reference (rather than the web source).



Regards,

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It could be.American sources are on positive side and international sources are on the negative