1. Early American History

2. The Beginnings The United States was originally colonised by many European countries in the 17 th Century, but by the middle of the 18 th, the three dominant countries were Great Britain, France and Spain.

3. The English colonies along the eastern seaboard were typically established for one of two reasons: economics or religion. America had vast areas of open land with many natural resources that made her attractive to the industrialised English. It also provided a place where religious dissidents could live their religion without the interference of the king.

4. After about a hundred years, England began taxing the colonies to help pay for their expensive war with France. Having gotten used to being left pretty much alone, the colonists felt as though the British were treating them unfairly and revolutionary rumblings began.

5. Finally on July 4 th 1776, the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain and what became known as the Revolutionary War officially began.

6. Under the brilliant leadership of General George Washington and with miraculous luck, the rebel colonists defeated the heavily favoured British who finally surrendered in 1781.

7. The difficulty then facing the new country was how to combine their very different colonies into one unified country that met everyone’s needs. Representatives of each colony were sent to a convention in Philadelphia to participate in the creation of the new government.

8. What they came up with, The Articles of Confederation, failed and so in 1789, they met again and drafted the Constitution of the United States of America, which established the government that has existed in the US ever since.

9. The United States continued to grow by acquiring land west of the original colonies. This provided further opportunity for economic development, but also created problems for the new government in relation to the questions of Native Americans and slavery.

10. In 1812, the US had its freedom challenged once again by the British and in the resulting War of 1812, proved their viability as a nation by defeating the British again. This was the last challenge to American freedom from a foreign invading force.

11. That brings us to 1815 and the beginnings of our course. We will be looking at the next hundred years of United States history and the changing levels of unity caused by social, economic, and political factors.