Category: A History of the United States and its People
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The Coming of the Quakers and Others to the Jerseys and Pennsylvania

Before the Dutch colony of New Netherland was conquered by the English, in 1664, it was given by Charles II to his brother, the Duke of York, who afterward became King of England as James II. James kept that portion of it that is now called New York to himself. What we call New Jersey…
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The Settlement of Maryland and the Carolinas

The Settlement of Maryland and the Carolinas By the second charter given for planting the “First colony of Virginia,” as it was called, its breadth was cut down to four hundred miles along the seacoast. Virginia had formerly included all that the English claimed in America. Part of the four hundred miles was occupied by…
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The Coming of the Dutch

The Coming of the Dutch While Captain John Smith was in Virginia, he had a notion that there was a passage into the Pacific Ocean somewhere to the north of the Virginia Colony. He may have got this opinion from some old maps, or from misunderstanding something that the American Indians told him while he…
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Other Discoveries in America

Americus Vespucius was born in Florence in 1451. He went into mercantile life at Florence, and afterward removed to Spain a little before Columbus sailed on his first voyage. Vespucius claimed to have made four voyages to the New World, the first in 1497. But it is now believed that this first date is not…
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How Columbus Discovered America

Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, in Italy. The date of his birth is uncertain. His father was a humble wool comber, but Columbus received a fair education. He knew Latin, wrote a good hand, and drew maps exceedingly well. He sometimes supported himself by making maps and charts. He was well informed in geography…
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The Great Charter of Virginia

The Great Charter of Virginia During all the early years of the Virginia colony the people were fed and clothed out of a common stock of provisions. They were also obliged to work for this stock. No division was made of the land, nor could the industrious man get any profit by his hard work.…
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The Spanish in Florida and the French in Canada

The English were not the only people who had colonies in North America. The Spaniards, who claimed the whole continent, had planted a colony at Saint Au’-gus-tine, in Florida, in 1565, forty-two years before the first English colony Jamestown. Saint Augustine is thus the oldest city in the United States. But the Spaniards were too…
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Life in the Colonial Time

When people first came to this country, they had to take up with such houses as they could get. In Virginia and New England, as in New York and Philadelphia, holes were dug in the ground for dwelling places by some of the first settlers. In some places bark wigwams were made, like those of…
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The Coming of the Puritans

Before the Pilgrims had become comfortably settled in their new home, other English people came to various parts of the New England coast to the northward of Plymouth. About 1623, a few scattering immigrants, mostly fishermen, traders with the American Indians, and timber-cutters, began to settle here and there along the sea about Massachusetts Bay,…
