The Linguistic Culture-5 (USA-1) (1157932)
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PART 2INTRODUCINGTHEUSAIt is common to say that the USA is the country with a short history but vast,abundant geography and diverse population. Only five hundred years ago the USAwas a wilderness, inhabited by Indian tribes. After the discovery of America byEuropeans the immigrants from Europe and then almost all over the worldstreamed to the new continent seeking happier life and so-called “AmericanDream.” As a result of the mass immigration, the struggle of the young nation forindependence from former motherland Britain, formation of the new country withdemocratic rights and great opportunities, the acquisition of the new territories, fastdevelopment of industry and agriculture, the USA turned into a superpower withthe strong economy, the most advanced and innovative technologies, diversenational culture and arts, influencing the other countries of the globe.
The life ofthe USA is so complex, controversial and dynamic that it would be impossible topresent all its aspects in every detail. However, we hope that the materialscollected from many different sources may help the students see the Americanhistorical formation and political structure, education and science, cultural andlifestyle peculiarities with better understanding.Lecture I Some First Significant Stages of the USA HistoryPart I. The First Explorers and Settlers of America.How did American history begin? For thousands of years America layunknown to Europeans beyond the Atlantic Ocean.
The very first discovery of thecontinent is supposed to have been made by Norsemen from Greenland whoreached the New World and encamped there. The actual material on the voyages isvery small and covered with mystery. But the voyage of Thor Heyerdahl’s papyruscraft, Ra 11, did demonstrate that ancient sailors could have crossed the AtlanticOcean even before the Christian era. Both archeological evidence and ancientsagas do reveal the activities of courageous Norsemen who reached North Americaaround year 1100. An old Scandinavian saga tells that the Norsemen found there alot of grapes and grape vines. They filled their ships with grapes and a cargo oftimber and sailed away, naming the country Vinland.
Another saga tells about agroup of the Vikings who spent a winter in Vinland but failed to establish peacewith the natives and returned to Greenland.It is well known that the Italian navigatorChristopher Columbus (1451-1506) rediscovered the“New World” in 1492 by accident while looking for ashorter route to the spice places in Asia. An all-waterroute to the Indies might reduce the cost of Orientalproducts, inflated by various middlemen along thetraditional land-sea way. Finally the queen of SpainIsabella of Castile sponsored Columbus to sail westwardwith the fleet of three small ships.
A navigational genius, Columbus made foursuccessful voyages from Spain to the islands now called West Indies and claimedthe land in the New World for Spain.The continent America however was named for another Italian explorer – AmerigoVespucci (1454-1512) who completed many voyages to South America and wasthe first to understand that he had reached not India but a new continent – the NewWorld. After Vespucci’s accounts, published in Europe, geographer MartinWaldseemuller produced a world map (kept in the Library of Congress) on whichhe depicted the new continent and named it America after Vespucci’s first name.After Columbus’ voyages, Italian, Spanish, French and English explorerscontinued European expansion of the continent looking for riches and land to claimfor their countries.
Italian explorer John Cabot commanded the first European shipto reach the shores of North America. Like Columbus, Cabot hoped to reach Asiaby sailing west. Like Columbus, Cabot had unsuccessfully offered his service toseveral countries before finding financial support from England’s port Bristol andformal authorization of King Henry Y11. In May 1497 Cabot sailed from Bristolwith two small ships and made a remarkably quick journey to the coast ofNewfoundland.
He spent a month there exploring American waters.A lot of other brave and skilled adventurers repeated the initial contacts withthe New World. Cabot’s attempt was followed in 1524 by another Italian seamanGiovanni Verrazano who sailed in the service of the king of France and reachedthe eastern coast of North America.. In 1528 five Spanish ships under the command of Panfilo Narvaezreached the west coast of Florida, staying on the continent in search of gold forseveral years.In 1539 Spanish legendary explorer Fray Marcos de Niza was sent toAmerica and described a “very beautiful city”in South America as one of the“Seven cities”.
His report stimulated further explorations into the area.In all areas of Spanish exploration, settlement and colonization soonfollowed and before long the Spanish Empire was spread from Florida toCalifornia to Central and South America. It was an Empire based on Spanishculture, the Catholic Church and exploration of the native tribes, but eventuallySpain found the task of mastering and controlling two continents too much for herresources. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada by England in 1588, Spain’spower started declining.The First Wave of North America ImmigrationThe English did not attempt to “share the American pie” and inhabit NorthAmerica until the 17PthP century settlements in North America.
English firstcolonization steps were stimulated by their hostility to Spain. The accession to thethrone in 1558 of a protestant, Elizabeth 1, turned English and Spanish nations intoreal enemies. Queen Elizabeth’s advisers Sir H. Gilbert, Walter Raleigh andFrancis Drake proposed a more aggressive policy toward Catholic Spain andpersuaded the Queen that New World colonies would serve as bases for attacks onSpain, which had already founded its colonies in the New World.
The first Englishattempts at colonization in Newfoundland and North Carolina however failed. SirH. Gilbert’s expedition in 1583 was destroyed by a storm. It was bound to beunsuccessful from the start as the boats were too light for the trans-Atlanticpassage. Walter Raleigh’s first expedition to America in 1587 brought backglorious reports of the coast of Virginia, but the. Outbreak of war between Englandand Spain in 1588 postponed the mission of England’s transatlantic ventures.Only two decades later King James I authorized the chartering of a joint stockcompany to colonize Virginia.
In 1607 Virginia Company landed 144 men nearthe mouth of the James River as a site for permanent settlement. The VirginiaCompany resembled English joint-stock companies of Africa and Asia, but thesmall Jamestown colony proved to be economic “white elephant” for investors anda nightmare for many of its earliest inhabitants. The location was low, swampy,covered with trees full of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. During the first six monthsfever and disease killed approximately half the settlers.The English pictured the new land of America as New England – a regionnot noticeably different from old England.
In 1609 the reorganized VirginiaCompany petitioned for a charter, fixing the limits of the colony at two hundredmiles north and south and including all islands within one hundred miles of thecoast.Over the years, the company established more liberal land grants,encouraged immigration of men and women, and slowly but steadily built strongpolitical and economic institutions. Finally the Crown recognized Virginia’selective assembly, and as the population increased the planter class createdeffective units of local government.
Tobacco eventually gave Virginia colony avaluable export .The next group of the immigrants to the New World consisted of theEnglish who disagreed with the teaching of the Church of England and fled frompersecution at home to Holland. Later in July 1620 a group of 102 so-calledpilgrims sailed on the ship “Mayflower” to North America with the hope to set upa colony and find there civil and religious freedom. After a long Trans - Atlanticcrossing the pilgrims landed in a place now called Province Town and startedbuilding one of the first permanent Massachusetts’s villages called New Plymouth.The group was ill prepared for the rugged existence of the New World. Althoughonly a few people perished in the trans-Atlantic crossing, many of them wereweakened by the journey, had little skill in hunting and fishing and survived through thefollowing winter only thanks to the help of the neighboring Indians.The first religious group was followed by a thousand so-called EnglishPuritans who came to Massachusetts Bay and founded in 1630 some communitiesin Boston.
Like the Pilgrims, the Puritans had been distressed by the policies of theEnglish crown, alarmed over growing immorality in English society and beset byeconomic anxiety. But unlike the Pilgrims, the Puritans claimed not separatingfrom the English church, but establishing a purer version of it. Puritans built thefirst small towns centered around churches and meeting houses.
The colony’spolitical leaders were also church leaders who tried to create the orders based upontrue and strict Christian rules and the family as the basic unit of society. Goodharbors, especially at the new town Boston, provided the foundation for a goodcommerce. The growth of trade and the development of shipping industry assistedthe colony’s prosperity.While the English settlers were adjusting to the new region, France and theNetherlands also tried to acquire the territories in America.
In 1609 an Englishadventurer Henry Hudson employed by Dutch East India Company in his smallvessel the “Half Moon” sailed up the river in North America, which now bears hisname. He changed little trifles and some firearms for the beautiful furs, given bythe Indians. In 1624 the Dutch ship “New Netherlands” brought thirty families tothe mouth of the Hudson River. In 1626 the governor of the Dutch Colony boughtfrom Indians Manhattan Island for the trinkets valued approximately $24, built atrading fort and a town, which he called New Amsterdam. The defenses of NewAmsterdam were poor and later when English warships appeared in the bay theDutch had to surrender the fort and the town to the English. In 1664 King CharlesII gave a large area of Manhattan Island to his brother Duke of York and NewAmsterdam was turned into New York in honor of the duke.
As English settlements spread to the north, west, and south, they grew intothirteen colonies, populating the gap between New England and other Britishsettlements.In 1681 William Penn, a son of the famous admiral of the English Navy, and afollower of religious group called Quakers made an agreement with the King,about the land in America. He called this land Pennsylvania (“Penn’s woods”). W.Penn did very much to build up Pennsylvania, writing advertisements, tellingpeople in Europe about the beauty of his colony, promising that it would be a placeopen to settlers of all faiths.One of the most striking characteristics of the mainland colonies in the 18thcentury was their rapid population growth.
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