The native Americans. The Civil war



Many thousands of years ago, late in the Ice Age, the Indians journeyed across the Bering land bridge, from Asia into Alaska. Their descendants explored along the west coast of North America. As early as 1000 BC, they had covered nearly the entire continent. It is not known when the first Americans arrived. Some archaeologists (scientists who study the remains of past human lives) believe it might have been about 12000 BC.

American Indians, like the peoples of Asia from whom they are descended, usually have dark hair, dark eyes, and light brown skin. However, over thousands of years, they have developed a wide range of characteristics, appearances, languages, and customs. There are as many different Indian nations, or communities, in the Americas as there are nations in Europe, Asia, or Africa, and there is as much variety among them.

Ten thousand years ago, when the Ice Age ended, changes in climate and increasing populations inspired the Indians to experiment with growing different crops. Some became highly skilled farmers. As early as about 5500 BC in Mexico, they cultivated corn and squash. They raised turkeys, llamas, and guinea pigs for food and they hunted deer and bison. They regularly burned off patches of land to keep it in pasture, so the animals would come to graze. On the coasts, they hunted sea mammals from boats and caught fish, using a variety of efficient methods.

After 2000 BC, the Indians developed states, each governing thousands of people. They established extensive trade routes across the continents. And they used cargo rafts and other boats to ship their goods from one trading point to another. In South America, llamas provided transportation on land.

From the present-day region of the mid-western United States to southern Peru in South America, centers of government were marked by enormous mounds of earth. Most of these mounds were flat on top, with palaces and temples built on them. Some were burial sites of honored leaders. American Indian cities were as big as the cities in Europe and Asia at that time. Their fine architecture is still greatly admired.

European invasions of the Americas began shortly after Columbus's discovery of the "New World" in 1492. The Europeans brought diseases with them, including smallpox and measles. These unfamiliar diseases spread quickly among the Indians. They wiped out the populations of many Indian cities before the Europeans even saw them.

The Europeans started colonizing the Americas in order to cultivate new farmlands and create new jobs for the growing populations of Europe. To do so, they often had to fight the Native Americans for the land. Several factors gave the Europeans the advantage in these conflicts. First, they had some immunities to their own diseases. Thus they were not as devastated by them as the Indians were. Second, the Europeans had horses and guns, which overpowered the Indians' hand weapons and arrows in battle. Third, European settlements in the Americas grew at such a rate that the Europeans' descendants eventually outnumbered the Indians.

One by one, the Indian nations were defeated. In the regions of present-day southern Canada, the United States, and southern South America, survivors were gathered up and moved to specific areas, called reservations. In Mexico, Central America, and northern South America, the Indians of former great empires and small kingdoms remained as peasants and laborers, under Spanish rule. In the last few decades, developments in transportation and earth-moving machinery have made it profitable for outsiders to colonize the tropical lowland forests. Now the way of life for those Indians, too, is threatened.

Today Indian populations across both continents are once again on the rise. Indian leaders are beginning to achieve greater political success in fighting for the rights of their peoples. In addition, recent widespread concern over human rights has prompted governments and others to respect Indian cultures and traditions when responding to their needs.

The civil war

 

The American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States, was one of the bloodiest wars in American history. It was fought between the northern and southern states of the US. The Civil War started in 1861 when the slave states of the south founded the Confederate States of America under President Jefferson Davis. The northern states, under, President Abraham Lincoln, were against slavery. Although the Confederates won some early battles the Union became stronger and defeated the southern states in 1865.

 

Causes of the war

The Civil War was fought mainly because the two sides had different opinions about slavery. The southern states depended on farming as a source of income. They grew tobacco and cotton on plantations. Between the 17th and 19th centuries millions of slaves were brought from Africa to America, where they worked on white farms. The southern states wanted to keep their slaves because they thought that without free workers they could not sell their products at a competitive price.

The North, on the other hand, was an industrial region, where slavery lost its importance during the 19th century. Farmers in the northern states had small farms that used paid workers

Although slavery was the main issue that led to the outbreak of the American Civil War there were other causes for the conflict. People in the north lived in big cities while southerners lived isolated on farms. European immigrants chose to live in the northern states where they could get better jobs and where the economy developed more quickly.

The southern states also demanded more rights from the federal government. There were also differing opinions on whether new states that joined the Union should allow slavery or not.

The course of the Civil War

After the Republican Abraham Lincoln became president the first states started to secede from the Union. In Lincoln they saw a fierceopponent who was against slavery. In February 1861 representatives of six southern states met and founded the Confederate States of America. War broke out when Lincoln ordered soldiers to reconquer one of the North’s forts in South Carolina.

11 states fought for the Confederacy. Some states were considered as border states. Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee believed in slavery and fought for the south while Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky took sides for the north.

About 2 million men fought for the Union while the Confederate Army had about 800,000 soldiers. When Abraham Lincoln freed slaves in 1863 they were allowed to fight side by side with white soldiers. In the South, however, slaves were not allowed in the army.

Most of the war was commanded by two great generals: Ulysses Grant was the commander of the Unionist army while Robert Lee was the military head of the Confederates.

The war was fought on two battlefronts. One was in the eastern states, mostly Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania while the other front was along the Mississippi River in the west. At the beginning of the Civil War the Union won some battles in the west and capturedNew Orleans. On the other side, Confederate forces scored important victories on the eastern front.

The war took a high toll among soldiers, mostly because they were inexperienced young men, who had not fought before. Often, more than a quarter of the forces were killed in a single battle. Many soldiers died because they lacked the proper medical care and food. Private organizations helped care for ill or wounded soldiers.


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