Showing titles in Colonial Period

This is a brief highly digestable history of the Catholic experience in British America, which shaped the development of the colonies and the nascent republic in the 17th and 18th centuries. Historian Robert Emmett Curran begins his account with the English reformation, which helps us to understand the Catholic exodus from England, Ireland, and Scotland that took place over the nearly two centuries that constitute the colonial period.

The story of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys is one of those delightful tales that American schoolchildren hear about in school, but it is also one that is much more interesting to listen to in older age. Unlike revered founding fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who came from Virginian plantations, Allen was a rough and tumble frontiersman, more likely to fight than talk. And yet, he was in no way a dullard, but instead as well-read as many of his contemporaries and more so than the average man of his day.

Northeast Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley was truly a dark and bloody ground, the site of murders, massacres, and pitched battles. The valley's turbulent history was the product of a bitter contest over property and power known as the Wyoming controversy.

Have you ever wondered, "Who really was Thomas Jefferson?" History tells us he was a brilliant scholar, violinist, surveyor, astronomer, lawyer, planter, bibliophile, architect, founding father, statesman, governor of Virginia, ambassador to France, Secretary of State under George Washington, vice-president under John Adams, the third US president, scientist, natural philosopher, family man, and sage.

At a time when surveys reveal that Americans know less and less about our past, Tony Williams provides entertaining and informative descriptions of 50 of the most important and dramatic events from the colonial and Revolutionary period - some known and some forgotten - from the Mayflower Compact to the Annapolis Convention.

Even as the young United States successfully secured its independence, the new nation was beset by problems. The drafters of the Articles of Confederation had deliberately avoided giving the national legislature the power to tax, because Parliament had so abused that authority against the colonies, but this proved to be a severe limitation on the national government.

From the Trail of Tears to Wounded Knee and Little Bighorn, the narrative of American history is incomplete without the inclusion of the Native Americans who lived on the continent before European settlers arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the first contact between natives and settlers, tribes like the Sioux, Cherokee, and Navajo have both fascinated and perplexed outsiders with their history, language, and culture.

The American Revolution is replete with seminal moments that every American learns in school, from the "shot heard 'round the world" to the Declaration of Independence, but the events that led up to the fighting at Lexington and Concord were borne out of 10 years of division between the British and their American colonies over everything from colonial representation in governments to taxation, the nature of searches, and the quartering of British regulars in private houses.

Though Americans would be able to look back in hindsight at 1777 as the year the American Revolution reached a turning point in favor of the colonists, the winter of 1777 was still considered a miserable point for the cause at the time. Although Benedict Arnold and Horatio Gates were victorious at Saratoga, George Washington and his Continental army had been less successful.

Fort de Chartres, built in 1719-1720 in the heart of what would become the American Midwest, embodied French colonial power for half a century. Lives of Fort de Chartres, by David MacDonald, details the French colonial experience in Illinois from 1720 to 1770 through vivid depictions of the places, people, and events around the fort and its neighboring villages.

New England has always had a special place in the national memory. Its rich folklore and colorful history is woven into the national identity, and destinations such as Plymouth Rock, the lighthouses of Maine, and Vermont's autumn leaves are quintessential symbols of the United States. But New England has always had a dark side, a strange side. Monsters and ghosts lurk in its woods and old houses, and strange monuments that may be from a forgotten civilization puzzle local investigators.

Denial of Sadduceism in Salem: Caught in a Devil's Cloyster for Witches explores what it might have been like to live in Salem Village in the years between 1689 and 1693. Sadduceism was the belief that no such thing as ghosts, demons, witches, and other supernatural beings existed. To the minds of many who lived in that era that indicated a disbelief in God and in the teachings of the Bible. The King James translation of the Bible had been published in 1611, so educated people would have been able to read it.

In 1631, when the Dutch tried to develop plantation agriculture in the Delaware Valley, the Lenape Indians destroyed the colony of Swanendael and killed its residents. The natives and Dutch quickly negotiated peace, avoiding an extended war through diplomacy and trade. The Lenapes preserved their political sovereignty for the next 50 years as Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, and English colonists settled the Delaware Valley.

In the heart of North America, the Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers come together, uniting waters from west, north, and east on a journey to the south. This is the region that Stephen Aron calls the American Confluence. Aron's innovative book examines the history of that region - a home to the Osage, a colony exploited by the French, a new frontier explored by Lewis and Clark - and focuses on the region's transition from a place of overlapping borderlands to one of oppositional border states.

American Legends: The Continental Congress chronicles the history that led up to the formation of the First and Second Continental Congress, analyzes what each Continental Congress accomplished while meeting, and analyzes their legacy. You will learn about the Continental Congress like you never have before, in no time at all.

Painted lavishly in oils in historic, genre-melding, technical virtuosity, and using custom-made costumes and local craftsman, the six-foot wide panoramic scene features an actual descendant of John Harris posing as John Harris himself, and a former Broadway Dancer as the heroic rescuing chief. Secret ancient historical information, celestial symbolism, and fantastic artistic technique are delivered within the compositional arrangements and careful selection of colors and elements.

John Smith is one of the most common names in the English language, but every Briton and American is familiar with the explorer and mercenary Captain John Smith, who helped found the first permanent British colony in the New World, at Jamestown, in 1607. He wrote several accounts of his exploration and his time spent in the New World, but in America, Smith is better known for his association with Pocahontas, a Native American princess. Smith credited her with saving him from being killed by the Native Americans. Retellings of the story fictitiously cast the two as lovers.

This book surveys the colonial and revolutionary history of the Pennsylvania colony from the day William Penn founded the colony, through decades of political disagreement among members of the Penn family, and between the Pennsylvania government and its citizens. Those disputes resulted in groundbreaking political principles, many of which became the foundation of the new federal government when the US became independent.

Nearly 20 years before Jamestown was settled, the English established one of the earliest colonies in North America around the Chesapeake Bay region, until the colony had over 100 inhabitants. Like other early settlements, Roanoke struggled to survive in its infancy, to the extent that the colony's leader, John White, sailed back to England in 1587 in an effort to bring more supplies and help. However, the attempts to bring back supplies were thwarted by the Spanish in the midst of the Anglo-Spanish War going on at the time.

After the siege of Boston forced the British to evacuate that city in March 1776, Continental Army commander George Washington suspected that the British would move by sea to New York City, the next logical target in an attempt to end a colonial insurrection. He thus rushed his army south to defend the city. Washington guessed correctly, but it would be to no avail. Unlike Boston, New York City's terrain featured few defensible positions. The city lacked a high point from which to launch a siege, as the peninsula of Boston was fortunate to have.