References

•  Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America, by Jack Weatherford

•  Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, by Jack Weatherford

•  Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (Civilization of the American Indian), by Vine Deloria

•  Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations from Prophecy to the Present, 1492-2000, by Peter Nabokov

•  North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account (2nd ed.), by Alice B. Kehoe

•  Indians in American History, by Frederick Hoxie.

•  For Web Resources, consult Www. academicamerican. com.

Overview of Early American History, 1607-1865: A Beginning, a Middle and an End

One way to look at history—perhaps the easiest way—is to view it as a narrative. Rather than trying to learn history as a series of more or less unconnected events, if we see it as a story with a plot, much as a novel or a movie, we can grasp the big picture as a frame in which we can look at particular events.

Early American history is indeed a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. The plot of the story is full of interesting characters, conflict, resolution of conflict, successes and failures, more conflict and more resolution. Since we know the end of the story of early America, as it turned out in 1865, the dramatic tension may be slight. But while it was happening, the outcome was uncertain, and in no way inevitable.

In the beginning they came—in a trickle at first, and then a growing tide of humanity escaping from the frustrations of life in the old country.

They saw—they liked what they saw, and more came and spread inward and up and down the coasts, along rivers, into the valleys and over the mountains.

They conquered—they conquered their loneliness, they conquered the land, they conquered the rivers and the fields and the forests, and they conquered the natives. And within 150 years the first part of the American story was ending, and a new chapter was beginning