Fighting for independence
How it started
For a long time, the colonists who lived in the British colonies were happy to be ruled by the British. One reason for this was the French, who also owned parts of North America. They felt like they needed the British army to protect them. Also, the British government never interfered in whatever the colonies did. Until the British government introduced new taxes on coffee, sugar, textiles and other goods. They also told the colonists that they had to give food and houses to the British soldiers who now lived there. British politicians thought these orders were fair because they had paid for all the wars against the French and the American Indians. But the colonists were angry! Life would get very expensive, and they were afraid that the British soldiers would control them. The colonists started to make their own demands. They had no one in the British parliament to vote about what the rules should be. Therefore they claimed: “No taxation without representation!”. This eventually led to an event called the ‘Boston Tea party’. Find out about it by watching the video!
The abolition of the slave trade
The first ship full of slaves arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. By the middle of the 18th century, it was accepted in all 13 colonies. At first, some Northern states passed acts to abolish slavery. In the South, they needed slaves for the growing cotton industry. In 1807, some Southern congressmen joined the North by voting for the abolishment. The act became active on January 1, 1808.
Even though bringing in slaves was forbidden from now on, the slave trade within the South continued. Also, when slaves had children, they automatically became slaves as well.
Manifest Destiny
Because, during the first half of the 19th century, American families were big and immigration became even more popular, the population exploded. Millions of Americans, therefore, went looking for new land in the west. That is when the phrase: ‘Manifest Destiny’ came in. The American settlers believed that it was their duty to spread across North America, because it was destined by God. They used ‘Manifest Destiny’ to justify all the Native Americans that they had forcefully driven from their homes.
The Civil War
This war is also known as ‘The War Between the States’. This war was between the United States and 11 Southern states and was the deadliest war ever fought on American grounds. It started because of the economic differences between the North and South. The northern states had invested in transportation systems, factories and the financial industry, while the southern states only lived from large farms. These large farms completely relied on slaves.
The North and the South started to argue over the new states in the west. Were they allowed to have slaves, or not? The tension between the two sides grew, and when Abraham Lincoln, who was very much against slavery, was elected president, the south decided to break up with the North. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas were now apart from the United States and called themselves: the Confederate states. Later, the states Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee joined them as well.
The fighting went on for four years. Eventually, the North defeated the Confederate states which meant that slavery was finally abolished in the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865.