T h e F i r s t P e o p l e i n A m e r i c a

America was a place where during most of its history nature developed free from the influence of man. The first people appeared in the New World about 25000 years ago. The scientists have discovered about 750 prehistoric stone instruments at several places of northern Alaska and along the Arctic coast of Canada. Groups of instruments found near the Lake Baikal, Siberia, are about 20000 years old. The climate in the Far North at that time was warm and there was dry land between Asia and Alaska. The Bering land bridge was wide open from about 23 000 to 13 000 years ago. It seems possible that the first people and groups of animals travelled northward across the hills of the Siberian Arctic and then eastward across the land bridge and along the northern coast of Alaska. The migration of people from Asia to America went on for thousands of years. Later the oceans covered this natural bridge with water. Today this place is called the Bering Strait. By the time of the European discovery of North America, there were about 276 Indian tribes. The Indian population of North America in 1500 was 4,200,000.

The white colonizers came and began to destroy the Indians and drive them away from their lands. In 1970 the Indian population of the USA and Canada was only about 800,000.

Scientists have found out that early Americans were hunters and fishermen. In the West there were many buffaloes. Out of their skins the Indians made clothes and covered their houses – the wigwams – with them. The Indians made canoes which were used for hunting and fishing. Some canoes were very large; they could carry about one hundred people. They used animal skins for clothing and most of animals for food, ate fruit, roots, and berries. They knew how to make a fire too. They made stone instruments. Indians learned to make baskets and things from gold, silver, and other metals. They depended for their needs on the animals and plants. The Indians of North America did not keep any domestic animals except the dogs.

Some of the plants the early Indians grew for food were beans and tomatoes. Potatoes and tobacco were other plants they learned to grow. From the fruit of the cacao-tree they made a drink. Later, when Europeans came to America, they learned about these plants from the Indians. Many different cultures developed in North America long before men from Europe came to America. There were many different tribes of American Indians (the Apaches, the Hopi, the Navaho and others) and each spoke its own language. There are about two hundred Indian languages in North America, each with its own grammar and vocabulary.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. Where did the American Indians come from?

2. What was the cultural situation in North America before men from Europe came? 3. What plants did Europeans learn about from Indians?

T h e C i v i l W a r B e t w e e n t h e S t a t e s ( 1 8 6 1 – 1 8 6 5 )

In the 18^th and 19^th centuries the United States was divided into the North where labour was free, and the South where slaves worked.

From early times there had been Negro slaves in the South of the United States. Negro men, women and children were taken from Africa by force or by some trick and brought to America. Here in the South they worked as slaves on tobacco and cotton plantations.

The life of the slaves was very hard. They worked from morning till night and were beaten and starved. Sometimes their owners sold them, separating husbands and wives, mothers and children.

There were many revolts of the slaves and sometimes white men and women helped them in their struggle but the revolts came to nothing.

The Negro slaves were freed by President Lincoln in 1863.

The war broke out soon after Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. It was the war between the industrial North and the agricultural South, where slave labour was much used.

Lincoln, a progressive man, was against slavery. He wanted very much to free the Negro slaves. His ideas about freedom for the black slaves were good for the rich people of the industrial North. The planters of the South who exploited those slaves were against them. So the slave owners in the South were displeased that Lincoln was elected and very soon after that the Southern States left the Union and formed their own Confederation. Then the war broke out between the North and the South.

The population of the North was 22 million, and that of the South was 9 million, but the army of the South was well organized and ready for war. This could not be said of the army of the North. So in the first months of the war the South won several victories.

Only when General Grant became commander-in-chief of the Northern Army, the North began to win the war and in April 1865 it ended.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1. When did the Civil War begin?

2. Was Lincoln a progressive man? What did he want to do?

3. What did the Southern States do before the war broke out?

4. Why did the army of the South win the victories at the beginning of the war?

5. When did the army of North begin to win the war?