American Revolution

The American Revolution took place in the thirteen colonies, which were New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. All these colonies were controlled by King George III of the United Kingdom.

The American Revolution was the first revolution during modern times so it inspired many other people around the world to stand up to their bad governments. At the battle of Concord, “The Shot heard Round the World” was fired. The shot wasn’t actually heard round the world. It was the first shot fired in the revolution. No one knows who shot it. It is famous because it started America’s Revolution and lots of people worldwide wanted freedom too and it inspired many other revolutions.
          Many settlers had been coming to America since 1600, but in the 1760s the niceness of living there was changed. England recently had a war with France in which they spent most of their money on buying things for the war. They wanted to regain the money so they plastered some taxes on the colonists for goods like tea, playing cards, and sugar. The colonists thought this wasn’t fair.

          On a day in March 1770, some angry citizens were throwing snowballs at the British troops. Suddenly, one of the officers commanded the soldiers to fire their guns at the citizens. This event was called the Boston Massacre. Five of them died.

          One tax was the tea act. This tax put lots of extra charges on the cost of tea. Many colonists were dissatisfied at the sight of the cost. One night in December, 1773, a group of colonists disguised themselves as Indians. They boarded some British trading boats in the Boston Harbor and dumped the tea into the H2O. This was called the Boston Tea party.

           When it was announced, King George III was significantly angered. He demanded that the parliament make more and greater taxes on the Americans. He also sent more troops to Boston to keep guard so it wouldn’t happen again. The new taxes were called the Intolerable Acts by the Americans because they couldn’t do anything about them.

          In 1774, the first Continental Congress was presented. A Continental Congress was where a group of leaders came together to discuss how to deal with the British. Some spoke of cutting off all trade with the British and some even suggested war.

          In Concord the colonists had hidden supplies in case the British attacked. King George III heard about the supplies and ordered military governor Thomas Gage to find and destroy the supplies. Some people heard about the plan so they told the leaders of the patriots to be ready if they came.

On April 18^th, 1775, Dr. Warren called silver smith, Paul Revere, to warn John Hancock about the British. Revere set up a signal at Christ Church. If one lantern was up it meant that they were coming by land and two meant that they were crossing the river. Eventually, Revere spotted the British crossing thee river so he rode to Christ Church to hang the two lanterns. At about midnight, Revere, William Dawes and Prescott warned the minutemen that they were coming. Minutemen were patriots that would be ready to fight the British in a minute.

The men were supposed to warn everybody without being caught by the British, but they were caught. Dawes and Prescott escaped and Revere was let go but they took his horse.

Lieutenant Colonel Francis secretly led the British out of Boston and into Concord to destroy the supplies. The minute men were ready. It was a few dozen minute men against hundreds of British troops. The Patriots were holding old muskets, but the British had big and shiny muskets. John Pitcairn asked the patriots to drop their weapons and go away, but they refused. Then the shooting began. Nobody knows which side started it. The shooting lasted for five minutes. Eight patriots died and ten were injured. Only one British man was injured. This battle started the war.

After the battle, Colonel Smith led the British to Concord. Two hundred fifty patriots led by John Butrick began marching to Concord to defend the supplies, but when they saw the British they retreated because there were too many. The British couldn’t find the supplies because they were moved to the woods nearby. They just found some gunpowder and started a fire in town square with it. A small group of British met the Patriots at North Bridge. The British started destroying the bridge so the patriots wouldn’t cross, but when they started a shot was fired. Three British were killed and several were wounded. The British began running away to Concord.

British were looking for the supplies but they couldn’t find them. They began marching back to Boston but the Americans were waiting for them. They were hiding behind the trees, in the bushes etc. When the British came near the shooting began. The Americans could easily see them because of their red coats. Most of the British were dead and the survivors were relieved to make it back to Boston.

On July 4^th, 1776 the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and was signed. This officially decreed that the United States was independent from Britain. Finally in 1781, The war ended. America won and they were free from the rule of Great Britain.

 

Lewis and Clark Expedition

          Louisiana was the vast land of about 280,000 square miles to the west of the 13 U.S. states. It possesses parts of today’s states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.

 Before the 1800s, the Spanish owned the land. But in 1800, the French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of it hoping to establish a brand new, out of the package, empire.

          Americans were worried that Napoleon would take over. Napoleon’s empire was very strong and America had barely won their war against Great Britain. Finally, President Thomas Jefferson decided what to do. His decision was to buy the land.

          In 1803, the land was bought. The price was about 15 million dollars. This would be a very small price for that much land, but during that time one cent was worth 28 of today’s dollars. This purchase was known as the Louisiana Purchase. Thomas didn’t want to just quickly go ahead and make towns and cities in the land because of the hostile Indians. He decided on an expedition. Captain Meriwether Lewis volunteered and Tom chose him. Lewis agreed and brought along with him his companion, Lieutenant William Clark.

          On May 14th, 1804, the expedition began. On August 20^th, 1804, Charles Floyd a member of the expedition died from a sickness. Charles was the only man of the 33 men to die.

          During the whole expedition, Lewis and Clark befriended with 24 Indian tribes.

The expedition sometimes had trouble with the tribes that they met such as the Sioux tribe. The expedition was just trying to pass through their territory to get to a different place, but they wouldn’t let them. The Sioux were very warlike, aggressive, and powerful. Soon both sides were starting to come close to fighting.  Once one of Lewis’s and Clark’s horses were stolen and they believed that the Sioux did it. It stayed this way like for a while so Lewis and lark decided to move on.

In the winter of 1804 to 1805, the men built fort Mandan. At that fort they met Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife Sacagawea. They helped as Indian translators for when speaking to other tribes.    

          Before the men and woman passed through the Continental Divide, they split up into two teams because they both wanted to explore different places. Before they met again, one of the hunters thought that maybe that the moving thing in the woods was an elk so he shot. He was wrong. It was actually Lewis. Lewis was injured in the thigh.

          Finally on March 22^nd, they finished their goal by reaching the Pacific Ocean. They made all their maps and started to go home. Finally, in 1806, they reached St. Louis and the expedition ended.

The Purchaser of the Louisiana Purchase

On April 13^th, 1743, a boy’s name became Thomas Jefferson because his parents named him that.

His father’s name was Peter Jefferson. Peter was a very rich man, whose property was very vast. He named the property Shadwell. In 1739, Peter married Jane Randolph. 

Thomas had five sisters and four other brothers named from youngest to oldest: Randolph, Anna Scott, Lucy, an unnamed son, Peter Field, Martha, Thomas, Mary, and Jane.

Thomas was a very lively boy. He loved books, literature, and his fiddle¹. The property they lived on had many buildings on it such as cabins, stables, and barns. He would often hide in the cabins when he was playing hide and seek or when he wanted to be alone². On rainy days, he would have a duet with his sister, Jane. In the duet, Tom would play his fiddle while Jane was playing her harpsichord.

By the time Tom was 14, his father died. When he died, Tom became the head of the house.

Thomas studied and took his duties very seriously. Because of his seriously done school work, by the time he was 16 ,he was ready to go to college. His college was the William and Mary College, which was in Williamsburg, Virginia. Tom liked to read and study so he liked college very much. Jefferson was often invited to the governor’s palace because the governor liked people who were smart.

Tom was interested into politics, mainly because Mr. Wythe, a famous lawyer, often came to the governor’s palace to talk about it. Once he finally graduated in 1762, He asked Mr. Wythe to train him to become a lawyer. Tom spent the next five years with Mr. Wythe studying about martial law, Speaking and reading well, studying history, and listening in courts.

One day in 1765, when the revolution was starting to form, Tom was strolling down the street. He was heading to the capitol building and heard angry voices inside. A heavy tax was put on the Americans. Americans weren’t allowed to vote on laws so they were just ordered to pay them. Then Tom’s friend, Patrick Henry stood up and stated that the men in the colonies were free men and that they had the right to vote on laws. Thomas agreed with everything that Patrick said and he later wrote the quote, “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.”

Thomas wanted his own house. He chose the top of a hill where could see green pastures in every direction. He spent weeks on his drawing board making designs for his future home using ancient Greek and Roman models.

He after met Martha Skelton and got married. The happy family lived in a little cottage while their new home was being built. Later, the mansion was built and it was named it Monticello.

          The English parliament was starting send more taxes to America. Thomas and his friends wanted America to be free from Britain. So in 1774, the first Continental Congress took place in Philadelphia. The representatives decided to make the suggestion of not buying anything that came from England.

Soon, America was starting to prepare for war against England. In a special meeting at the House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry stood up and spoke the famous quote, “Give me liberty or give me death.”  

In 1776, the second Continental Congress took place in Philadelphia. Tom went but didn’t want to go because his wife was under the weather. The ride to Philadelphia took 10 days. When he got there, they were already quarreling about what to do. Finally, they decided to declare their independence against Britain.  

 

They decided on making a Declaration of independence. Thomas wanted John Adams to do it, but John replied that Tom’s handwriting was 10 times better than his.

Thomas rented a little room to write the declaration in. On July 4^th 1776, the 13 states finally declared their independence by signing the declaration. On the same day, Thomas went to a store and bought a doll³ for his daughter, Patsy Jefferson.

Finally in 1781, the Revolutionary war had ended and the Americans won. At Monticello, Martha was getting worse from her sickness. About a year after the war ended, Martha died.

Although Tom liked school, his daughter Patsy did not as much. Thomas had to go to Paris, France to do some ambassador work. Patsy was to go to a school in Annapolis. But soon, Patsy got a letter from her father saying that Patsy was going to Paris with him.

When they arrived, Patsy felt very happy until Tom told her that tomorrow was her first day in a French School.

Americans didn’t come to France that often, so many people were asking Thomas and Patsy questions about America. Those questions were mostly about weird rumors such as, “do monsters roam the streets?”

          In 1796, John Adams was elected as the second president of the U.S.

          In the election of 1800, Adams lost to Thomas Jefferson. Thomas moved into the White House because it is where the president is supposed to live.

          His daughter, Patsy, now with six children, thought that Tom was very lonely. She decided to move into the White House to live.

When Thomas was president, he was trying to decide on what to do with the land to the west of the U.S. The land was called Louisiana. It was ruled by the Spanish until in 1802; Emperor Napoleon of France then took Louisiana from Spain for France.

Thomas became paranoid that Napoleon was going to take the U.S. from him, so he asked an American Ambassador in France to buy Louisiana from him. Napoleon said “yes” for 15 million dollars, which would be about 140 million dollars in today’s dollars.

Thomas wanted some maps of Louisiana. He asked Captain Meriwether Lewis to make an expedition in Louisiana. Lewis went and took with him none other than Lieutenant William Clark. The expedition lasted about two years. When they got back they told Tom about everything that happened. They had visited many Indian tribes to convince them to become citizens of the U.S.

Most of them agreed. The ones that didn’t, Thomas invited to a feast to show that we would be friendly to them.

In 1809, Thomas Jefferson retired to Monticello. Later, he built The University of Virginia. After that in 1826, he died in Monticello.

 ¹ Cottler, Joseph. Thomas Jefferson. Evanston, Illinois:

          Row, Peterson and Company, 1950.

²Cottler, Joseph. Thomas Jefferson. Evanston, Illinois:

          Row, Peterson and Company, 1950.

³Cottler, Joseph. Thomas Jefferson. Evanston, Illinois:

          Row, Peterson and Company, 1950.

The Continental Navy

                Starting in 1775, during the American Revolution, John Adams decided to help establish a navy for the US. He decided to do it because Britain had the best navy in the world and America didn’t have a navy at all. They named it the Continental Navy.

          On December 22, 1775, Congress chose Esek Hopins to be commander in chief of the brand new Continental Navy. The Alfred, Columbus, Andrew Doria, and the Cabot were the first ships of the navy.

          Before the American flag was made, the Continental Navy’s flag was a flag that had red and white stripes. In front of the stripes was a rattlesnake and the words,” Don’t tread on me.”

The Continental Navy mainly sunk and captured British merchant ships and brought the items to the American army. In this way, the British army didn’t get the items they needed.

          The Continental Navy was a small navy. It only had about 27 ships against the 200 British ships. But it was a strong navy. Only 11 of the 27 ships were sunk or captured, but 200 British merchant ships were either sunk or captured.                                            

Mr. Sailor, John Paul Jones

          In the year of 1747, John Paul Jones was born in in Scotland. John had an older sister named Olag and had a younger sister and brother named Edmund and Emilia. His parents’ names were John Paul and Jean

          As a child he was fascinated with the ships that sail the sea and he wanted to become a sailor. At the age of 12, his father, who was a gardener, allowed him to sail on a merchant ship named Friendship.

          The captain’s name was John Younger. John Younger traded with Virginia, which at the time was owned by England.

          Jones was a ship’s boy, who is a young boy who works on the ship. He had many jobs that he didn’t like that much such as scrubbing the decks and helping the cook. He also cleaned the captain’s cabin and ran errands. He also had other jobs that he enjoyed, such as cleaning the guns and several time he steered the big wheel, which navigated the ship.

           When the ship docked, Jones visited his brother, who lived in America. In the next few years, Jones visited America more often because it was his favorite country.

          In a couple of years, John Younger quit the company so John Paul lost his job. He was then appointed as an officer of the British Navy. He then thought that he wouldn’t be successful and became an actor, but he didn’t like that either. He decided to work on a slave boat. He hated the job because he hated to see the suffering of the slaves.

           He then decided to go back to Scotland on a ship named John. He had a weird voyage. The captain died of fever so John Paul became the captain of the ship because he was most likely to bring them to Scotland. Once he got home, the crew was thankful.

          On one of his voyages, John noticed a man sleeping while he was supposed to be working. John ordered him to get whipped because at the time it was the thing that you’re supposed to do when sailors weren’t working. That sailor later joined a different crew and died of the same fever as the captain had.

The sailors on John’s ship heard what happened and made rumors that he died because of the whipping. The crew became mutinous. All the loyal people that John could trust were sick.

The leader of the rebellious crew held a big club and started charging at John. John drew his sword in defense ,although he didn’t want to kill him. John accidentally killed him. 

After this happened, he decided to give up his job and left to America.

America was beginning to rebel against England. America needed a navy because England had the best navy in the world. John was one of the first captains in the American Navy. He  suggested many good changes to the navy.

John’s ship was a little ship called the Alfred. It was not very good for open battles.

He was a great captain. He helped bring ammunition to the American army and sunk or captured many British merchant ships which were bringing helpful items to the British army. Later, he was given command of the Ranger.       

Later in 1778, he docked near the shore close to Britain in order to set fire to many ships. He planned to leave by midnight by rowboat but since the tides were rough, he didnt arrive until morning. When they landed, they first raided a fort and made the guns in the fort not work. Next, they burnt down the ships and came back to their escape boats and escaped.  When the war ended, Jones joined the Russian Navy. He died in Paris in 1791.

Johnny Adams

          In 1735, John Adams was born into the Adams family.  His parents’ names were Susanna and John Adams. He had two brothers named Peter and Elihu Adams.

          When he was 16 years old ,he started going to Harvard University. Four years later, he graduated from Harvard in 1755. He became a school teacher. He thought it was boring and so became a lawyer.

          When he was 28 years old, he got married to Abigail Adams.  

          John was sent to the first and second Continental Congress where he nominated George Washington to be Commander in Chief of the American army. From 1789 to 1807, he was President Washington’s vice president.

          From 1797 to 1801, John Adams was the second president of the United States. During his presidency, he made many hard decisions. In fact, thanks to John Adams, America stayed at peace with France.

          In the election of 1800, John lost to Thomas Jefferson. In 1801, John left the White House and went to live in Quincy, Massachusetts. On July 4^th, 1826, John Adams died at Quincy.

Abigail the Adams

In 1744, Abigale Adams was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts.  She had 3 siblings: two sisters named Elizabeth and Mary, and one brother named William. Abigail’s parents were named William and Elizabeth Smith.

Like most girls at the time, she didn’t go to school. Her dad was an owner of a library so she taught herself history, language arts and literature.

In 1764, she married John Adams, who later became the second president. She became known as “The First Lady”, because she was the first lady to live in the white house.  She knew much about politics so John Adams used Abigail as his advisor.

On July 14^th, 1765, Abigail Adams had her first child. It was a girl. They named her Abigail Adams, too. At the time, people would call their children after their own names more than today. She had five children. In order from oldest to youngest it was Abigail, John Quincy, who became the sixth president, Susana, who died in infancy, and Thomas Adams.

In the revolution, John helped govern America, so he couldn’t be at home. While John was helping govern, Abigail had to stay home to take care of the kids. John needed her help, so they would often write letters to each other about politics and such. 

In the election of 1800, John Adams lost to his rival, Thomas Jefferson. When they lost, they had to leave the White House. On October 28^th, 1818, Abigail Adams died in Quincy, Massachusetts.