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41 - Story Of The World- A Simple History For Boys And Girls by Elizabeth O'Neill · Story Of The World- A Simple History For Boys And Girls

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Speaker 1: Chapter forty one of the Story of the World A
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Speaker 1: Simple History for Boys and Girls. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read
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Speaker 1: by Wayne Cook. The Story of the World A Simple
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Speaker 1: History for Boys and Girls by Elizabeth O'Neill, chapter forty one.
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Speaker 1: American Independence. England had won Canada from the French, but
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Speaker 1: she was soon to lose her own great colonies to
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Speaker 1: the south of Canada. Ever since she had had colonies
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Speaker 1: at all, England had said that all their trade should
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Speaker 1: be hers. They were not allowed to trade with any
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Speaker 1: other country but the mother country. The colonies had never complained,
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Speaker 1: but there had been a great deal of smuggling and
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Speaker 1: trade with other countries, of which England had taken no notice.
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Speaker 1: Now Englandland, after all her fighting and her many victories,
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Speaker 1: was in need of money, and Grenville, the chief man
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Speaker 1: in the English Parliament at the time, passed his famous
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Speaker 1: Stamp Act. This act said that for all documents written
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Speaker 1: or printed in the American colonies, and for all newspapers,
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Speaker 1: papers should be used which had been first stamped by
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Speaker 1: the English government. The people who bought the paper had
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Speaker 1: to pay for the stamp. This was a new way
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Speaker 1: of taxing the colonies, and they were very angry. They
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Speaker 1: said that they would not use the paper, and in
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Speaker 1: the next year it was given up. But the English
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Speaker 1: Parliament passed the law saying that England had the right
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Speaker 1: to make any laws she pleased for her colonies. This
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Speaker 1: made the colonies still more angry. William Pitt, who had
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Speaker 1: now been made Earl of Chatham, said that England had
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Speaker 1: not any right to tax the colonies without their consent.
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Speaker 1: Although Pitt had done so much to win India and
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Speaker 1: Canada for England, he felt that the mother country ought
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Speaker 1: to leave for colonies free. He told Parliament that he
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Speaker 1: rejoiced that America had resisted. It was not long before
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Speaker 1: new duties or taxes were put upon certain things going
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Speaker 1: to the colonies from England. The colonists must pay the tax,
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Speaker 1: and the English have the money. The people of America
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Speaker 1: had offered to give money to the English government to
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Speaker 1: help it, but they were very angry at this new
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Speaker 1: attempt to tax them. The colonists began to hate every
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Speaker 1: Englishman they saw, and when a quarrel broke out in
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Speaker 1: Boston between some of the people in the street and
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Speaker 1: some English soldiers, in which three of the Americans were killed.
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Speaker 1: The colonists called it the Boston massacre. At last, all
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Speaker 1: the new taxes were taken off, except one on tea.
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Speaker 1: The East India Company brought a great deal of tea
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Speaker 1: from India, and generally they had to pay a tax
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Speaker 1: when it came into England. But the company was very
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Speaker 1: poor at this time, and so the government let it
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Speaker 1: off from paying the tax. This made the company able
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Speaker 1: to sell the tea much cheaper, and now a great
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Speaker 1: quantity of tea was sent over the sea in ships
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Speaker 1: to America. But the colonists were told that they must
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Speaker 1: pay just this one tax of threepence on every pound
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Speaker 1: of tea they bought. Even then they would have got
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Speaker 1: the tea at a very low price. But they were
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Speaker 1: very indignant. They thought that the English were playing a
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Speaker 1: trick and trying to tempt them to buy the cheap
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Speaker 1: tea and to pay a tax at the same time.
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Speaker 1: So no one would buy the tea, and ship after
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Speaker 1: ship sailed back to England without unloading. One ship lay
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Speaker 1: at anchor in Boston Harbor. It had been there nineteen days,
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Speaker 1: and yet looked as though it meant to stay there.
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Speaker 1: There was a law that any ship must unload its
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Speaker 1: cargo before twenty days had passed from its arrival. So
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Speaker 1: the men of Boston made up their minds to attack
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Speaker 1: this ship which had broken the law. Some of them
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Speaker 1: painted their faces and stuck feathers in their heads and
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Speaker 1: pretended to be Indians. They rushed on to the ship,
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Speaker 1: waving pistols and tomahawks. While the English captain and sailors
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Speaker 1: were staring in surprise. They cut open the boxes in
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Speaker 1: which the tea was and emptied it into the sea.
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Speaker 1: They emptied more than three hundred boxes altogether. Next morning
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Speaker 1: tea lay drifting along all the shore of Massachusetts. It
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Speaker 1: was now England's turn to be angry. Everyone felt that
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Speaker 1: the men of Boston had begun a real revolution. No
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Speaker 1: one would tell who the men were who had disguised
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Speaker 1: themselves as Indians and done this thing, And so an
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Speaker 1: order came from England that Boston was to be punished.
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Speaker 1: No ship was to go in or out of its harbor,
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Speaker 1: and its trade to be taken to the town of
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Speaker 1: Salem for the future. Anyone giving trouble by attacking the
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Speaker 1: English was to be brought over to England to be
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Speaker 1: tried before English judges and juries. Everyone felt that this
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Speaker 1: was unjust, but by this time the colonists had made
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Speaker 1: up their minds to fight for their liberties. Men from
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Speaker 1: all the colonies met at Philadelphia, and it was agreed
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Speaker 1: that they should join together and resist the English. There
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Speaker 1: was a struggle at a place called Lexington, which made
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Speaker 1: the two sides bitterer than ever against each other. Some
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Speaker 1: English soldiers had been sent from Boston to destroy some
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Speaker 1: gunpowder and other things which the American side had collected
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Speaker 1: it conquered. Eighteen miles away, they had to pass by Lexington,
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Speaker 1: and there they found sixty or seventy men ready to
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Speaker 1: try to stop them. The English fired twice on these men,
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Speaker 1: and then the Americans went away, but eight of them
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Speaker 1: had been killed. The English did their work at Conquered
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Speaker 1: and then set out again for Boston. On their way back,
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Speaker 1: Americans were continually shooting at them from behind the buildings
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Speaker 1: and trees and rocks, to take revenge for the Americans
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Speaker 1: they had killed on their way to Conquered. Many English
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Speaker 1: were killed, until at Lexington one thousand men from Boston
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Speaker 1: that came to their help. There was a fight in
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Speaker 1: which more than seventy English and about fifty Americans were killed.
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Speaker 1: The English really won and most of them got safely
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Speaker 1: back to Boston, but they had lost more men than
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Speaker 1: the Americans, who grew more hopeful when they saw that
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Speaker 1: their volunteers, who were not used to war, could fight
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Speaker 1: quite well against the English soldiers. The Battle of Bunker's Hill,
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Speaker 1: the first real fight was called the Battle of Bunker's Hill.
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Speaker 1: A few hundred volunteers, men with ordinary clothes and any
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Speaker 1: guns they could get, were placed on the hills outside
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Speaker 1: Boston to defend that city. Although the battle is called
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Speaker 1: after Bunker's Hill, it was really fought on Breed's Hill.
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Speaker 1: About four thousand soldiers attacked them three times. The volunteers
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Speaker 1: drove them down the hill, but at last the soldiers
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Speaker 1: won their way up, and more than one hundred of
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Speaker 1: the volunteers lay dead. Then another Congress met at Philadelphia
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Speaker 1: and named Colonel George Washington General of the American Army.
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Speaker 1: And so the man who had fought so well for
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Speaker 1: England at Fort Duquaine was now to fight against her.
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Speaker 1: He soon won Boston back and drove the English soldiers
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Speaker 1: to Halifax. On the fourth of July seventeen seventy six,
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Speaker 1: the Congress drew up the famous Declaration of Independence of
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Speaker 1: the United States of America, by which an end was
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Speaker 1: put to any connection of the colonies with the mother country.
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Speaker 1: But there was still fighting to be done, and Washington
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Speaker 1: had a very hard task before him. His soldiers were
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Speaker 1: badly clothed and fed. Neither side had very big armies,
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Speaker 1: but the English had the soldiers who knew already something
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Speaker 1: about fighting. Then, some of the colonists, who were called
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Speaker 1: the loyalists, were against the declaration and did not want
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Speaker 1: to break away from England. These were a hindrance. There
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Speaker 1: were many others who hated fighting, and most of the
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Speaker 1: volunteers only joined the army for a certain fixed time
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Speaker 1: and would then go home, often just when they might
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Speaker 1: have been useful. But the English on their side did
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Speaker 1: very foolish things. They seemed to think that it would
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Speaker 1: be an easy thing to conquy the Americans, or to
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Speaker 1: believe that they were not really in Earnest Pitt, who
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Speaker 1: had known so well how to choose the best men
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Speaker 1: as officers, was no longer in power, and most of
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Speaker 1: the officers on the English side were very poor commanders.
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Speaker 1: Sir William Howe, the brother of Lord Howe who had
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Speaker 1: been sent by Wolf to fight in Canada and had
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Speaker 1: died there, and of Admiral Lord Howe, was a very
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Speaker 1: different man from his brothers. He made up his mind
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Speaker 1: to take Philadelphia and took it, but his armies were
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Speaker 1: all far apart. Instead of keeping close and helping each other,
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Speaker 1: one of them, under General Bourgogne, surrendered to the Americans
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Speaker 1: at Saratogain seventeen seventy seven. Next year, the French, who
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Speaker 1: were still full of anger at the great victories England
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Speaker 1: and won over them in India and Canada, agreed to
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Speaker 1: the independence of the American colonies, and France and England
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Speaker 1: were once more at war. Pitt, now old and ill,
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Speaker 1: begged Parliament to try to win the good will of
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Speaker 1: the Americans again. You cannot conquer America, he told Parliament,
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Speaker 1: and begged them to show a spirit of friendship mercy
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Speaker 1: to the colonists. But the King, George the Third, did
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Speaker 1: not like Pitt and would not give him any power
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Speaker 1: in the country. George the Third, who had boasted that
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Speaker 1: he was born and bred of Britain and was not
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Speaker 1: at all German. Like his father and grandfather, could not
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Speaker 1: bear the idea of giving in. George had a great
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Speaker 1: deal of power over Parliament and chose men who governed
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Speaker 1: the country. It was greatly his fault that England had
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Speaker 1: been so foolish in her treatment of America. Pitt made
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Speaker 1: one last great speech in the House of Lords in
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Speaker 1: the April of seventeen seventy eight. He fell back in
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Speaker 1: a fit when his speech was over, for the excitement
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Speaker 1: had been too much for him, and he died a
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Speaker 1: few weeks after. After this, there was never any chance
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Speaker 1: of America being won back. England had to fight hard
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Speaker 1: against France and Spain at sea. The French ships helped
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Speaker 1: the Americans to take Yorktown in Virginia, where Lord Cornwallis
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Speaker 1: and a large army had to give in to them.
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Speaker 1: Lord Cornwallis was the cleverest of the English officers who
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Speaker 1: fought in the war. This was really the end of
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Speaker 1: the war, though New York, which had refused to join
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Speaker 1: in the Declaration of Independence, was still held by the English.
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Speaker 1: Peace was made in seventeen eighty three with both France
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Speaker 1: and America. Admiral Rodney had shown by his victories over
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Speaker 1: the French and Spanish fleets that England was still the
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Speaker 1: greatest sea power. But she now openly agreed to American independence,
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Speaker 1: and all the thirteen colonies were now joined as a
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Speaker 1: federal republic. That is, each state governed itself in its
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Speaker 1: own affairs and sent representatives to the Congress, which settled
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Speaker 1: the affairs in which they all had a part. The
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Speaker 1: new republic was called, and is still, the United States
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Speaker 1: of America. Its battle was New York. Its first president
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Speaker 1: was the hero George Washington, old and gray before his time,
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Speaker 1: through his labors and suffering for his country. So England
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Speaker 1: lost to first great group of colonies. A clever Frenchman
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Speaker 1: once said that a colony will always break away from
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Speaker 1: the mother country when it is old enough and strong
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Speaker 1: enough to look after itself. But we have no proof
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Speaker 1: of this. Indeed, England has many colonies today which are
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Speaker 1: proud of belonging to her. But she has learned her
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Speaker 1: lesson and gives them every liberty she can. Meanwhile, the
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Speaker 1: United States, which at first were the thirteen colonies on
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Speaker 1: the east coast of America, have now spread right across
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Speaker 1: the continent. New states were formed in the west people
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Speaker 1: from the Older States and from Europe went out into
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Speaker 1: these wild parts around the Ohio, where the new states
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Speaker 1: called Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennis grew up. Although these states
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Speaker 1: were called the West, they are of course in the
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Speaker 1: eastern part of the continent. They are west from the
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Speaker 1: Older States, but beyond them lies more than half the continent.
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Speaker 1: Before the middle of the nineteenth century, all this was
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Speaker 1: won by the United States. The great province of Louisiana,
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Speaker 1: which Napoleon took from Spain, was sold to the United
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Speaker 1: States for three million pounds. Further west still, some of
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Speaker 1: the land belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, and some
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Speaker 1: to Mexico, but the United States got it all in
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Speaker 1: the end, until the Republic stretched from coast to coast.
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Speaker 1: At first, these settlers in the wild West led a
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Speaker 1: very hard life. Indeed, there was plenty of rich land
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Speaker 1: which gave them food, but the only way of getting
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Speaker 1: things made in other countries was to have them carried
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Speaker 1: in ships along the rivers. This was a very slow
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Speaker 1: way where the distances were so great, and it was
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Speaker 1: not until railways were invented that the Western States were
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Speaker 1: able to send great quantities of the things they grew
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Speaker 1: to the Eastern States and to Europe, and so get
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Speaker 1: back the things manufactured there, and so lead more comfortable
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Speaker 1: and less rough lives. The end of slavery in the
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Speaker 1: New States, just as in the old Southern States, there
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Speaker 1: was a great deal of cotton grown, and slaves were
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Speaker 1: used on the plantations. But everywhere in the nineteenth centuries
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Speaker 1: we shall see there was a new love of freedom
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Speaker 1: growing up, and people began to think it a shameful
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Speaker 1: thing that men should own their fellow men as though
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Speaker 1: they were cattle. About the time that the war between
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Speaker 1: the American colonies and England broke out, a great English
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Speaker 1: judge had declared that any slaves setting foot on English
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Speaker 1: soil became free at that moment. In a few years,
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Speaker 1: Parliament did away with all the slave trade in englishap
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Speaker 1: and paid twenty million pounds to slave owners in her
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Speaker 1: colonies in the West Indies and South Africa to set
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Speaker 1: their slaves free. It was not long before other European
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Speaker 1: countries followed her example. It was in the Southern States
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Speaker 1: of America that the greatest number of slaves were. The
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Speaker 1: owners of the big plantations had dozens of them doing
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Speaker 1: the work of the house as well as the plantations.
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Speaker 1: The men would work on the plantations, and the women
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Speaker 1: would be cooks and nurses in the house. Their little
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Speaker 1: children grew up on the plantation and belonged to the master. Too.
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Speaker 1: Many slaves were happy, for they had good masters, but
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Speaker 1: they were never safe. Cruel masters might beat them, or
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Speaker 1: worse still, sell their wives and children to other people.
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Speaker 1: A family might be broken up and never see each
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Speaker 1: other again. This was very dreadful. At last, the men
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Speaker 1: of the Northern states said that all the slaves should
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Speaker 1: be set free. A lady wrote a story called Uncle
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Speaker 1: Tom's Cabin, which told all about the sufferings of the slaves.
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Speaker 1: And at last the men of the North could not
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Speaker 1: bear the idea that there should any longer be slaves
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Speaker 1: in their country. They wanted a law pass to free
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Speaker 1: all the slaves. They said that the government could give
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Speaker 1: money to the slave owners to make up to them
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Speaker 1: for losing their slaves. But the men of the South
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Speaker 1: were very angry. They said they would never agree to this,
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Speaker 1: and the North slavery was abolished, and the men of
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Speaker 1: the North were very angry against the South. John Brown
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Speaker 1: and Northerner went to Virginia and calling all the slaves
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Speaker 1: he could find to follow him. He told them to
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Speaker 1: fight for their freedom, but he was taken prisoner and hanged.
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Speaker 1: He had certainly been acting against the law, but the
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Speaker 1: Northerners were very indignant. At last, the Southern states said
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Speaker 1: they would have a republic of their own and elected
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Speaker 1: a president. But the Northerners said they had had no
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Speaker 1: right to do this, and Abraham Lincoln, the President, felt
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Speaker 1: that America would never be safe and strong. I would
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Speaker 1: were broken up like this. Abraham Lincoln was one of
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Speaker 1: the greatest presidents America ever had. He had been a
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Speaker 1: poor boy living in a log cabin in the wild
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Speaker 1: western state of Indiana, but he had read every book
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Speaker 1: he could get and had grown to be a very
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Speaker 1: wise man. He was determined to keep the states together,
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Speaker 1: even if slavery had to go on in the South,
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Speaker 1: but the Southerners would not listen to him. Now a
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Speaker 1: great civil war broke out. There were heroes on both sides,
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Speaker 1: and great victories and defeats. The men of the North
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Speaker 1: marched to a battle, singing in chorus. John Brown's body
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Speaker 1: lies a mouldern in the grave, but he so goes
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Speaker 1: marching on, For they could never forgive the Southerners for
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Speaker 1: killing John Brown. The greatest leader the South had was Jackson.
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Speaker 1: Was called by his men Stonewall Jackson, because they said,
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Speaker 1: when men were falling, wounded and dead around him, he
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Speaker 1: stood as steady as ever, like a stone wall. In
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Speaker 1: the middle of the war, Lincoln declared that all men
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Speaker 1: were free in North and South alike. Soon afterwards, Stonewall
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Speaker 1: Jackson was killed, shot by mistake by his own men.
18:20
Speaker 1: At last, after two more years of fighting, the Southern
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Speaker 1: army had to surrender. Almost every family in North and
18:28
Speaker 1: South alike had lost a father, or brother or son
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Speaker 1: in the war. But through much suffering, two great things
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Speaker 1: had been done. The States remained united, and the slaves
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Speaker 1: were free. But Abraham Lincoln, who had done so much
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Speaker 1: for his country and had suffered terribly when he thought
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Speaker 1: of all the unnecessary waste of men's lives, was himself
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Speaker 1: to die of martyr at last. He was in the
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Speaker 1: theater of Washington one evening, shortly after peace was made,
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Speaker 1: when a man from the South shot at him and
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Speaker 1: killed him, shouting, the South is avenged. Lincoln was taken
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Speaker 1: back to be buried near his old home in the
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Speaker 1: wild West. Today, the United States, whose history we have
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Speaker 1: been able to tell only in this short way, is
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Speaker 1: one of the most wonderful countries in the world. It
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Speaker 1: is covered with great cities, filled with people who are
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Speaker 1: among the cleverest in the world. The American love of
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Speaker 1: freedom has become a proverb even more than England. Perhaps
19:33
Speaker 1: people feel there that everyone should have equal chances, that
19:38
Speaker 1: it does not matter how poor a man may be,
19:41
Speaker 1: or how lowly his birth, if he has brains and character.
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Speaker 1: Nearly all the greatest inventions now come from America. New York,
19:51
Speaker 1: with its great, wide straight streets in its mansions of
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Speaker 1: white marble, where its rich men and millionaires live, is
19:58
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And
20:01
Speaker 1: every year millions of people pour from Europe into the
20:03
Speaker 1: United States. Russians who find that their own government does
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Speaker 1: not give them enough of freedom, Italians who seek riches
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Speaker 1: which their own land cannot give them, Norwegians, Swedes, Germans,
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Speaker 1: many of the most energetic people from all the countries
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Speaker 1: of Europe are going to seek their fortune in the States.
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Speaker 1: It is interesting to see how these all settle down
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Speaker 1: and mix together deform the American people. All speaking the
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Speaker 1: English language which the Pilgrim Fathers took to the land
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Speaker 1: three hundred years ago. One drawback to the good feeling
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Speaker 1: in America is that many of the white people cannot
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Speaker 1: yet believe that the colored people, the negro descendants of
20:48
Speaker 1: the slaves whom Lincoln freed, are their equals. There is
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Speaker 1: still a great deal of ill feeling, which we can
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Speaker 1: only hope will pass away in time and the Negroes
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Speaker 1: get their full share of the life of the Great
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Speaker 1: Republic and of Chapter forty one