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Columbus discovers the Americas. Many Europeans followed searching for gold, land and a better life. The natives of the Americas, Native American Indians, had their lands stolen, were enslaved and a lot killed off from disease brought by the Europeans.
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The Spanish brought slaves from Africa to South America and eventually the Dutch would bring African slaves to North America. The Europeans used the slaves to work the fields of their plantations and do any other job they didn't want to do.
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Cortes looking for riches and conquest arrives in Tenochtitlan. Tenochtitlan was home to the Aztecs.
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Cortes overpowers and enslaves the Aztecs with his modern weapons. Cortes claims Tenochtitlan for Spain.
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Bartoleme de las Casas believed the Spanish should earn their own way and not use slaves. He used native people too but they were free and he paid them.
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The Spanish continued their conquest of the Americas by defeating the Incas and making more colonies under Spanish rule.
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John White was the governor of the settlement and had left for England to get more supplies 3 years before. When he returned everyone was gone, including his own family. No one knows what happened to the settlers, it is still a mystery today.
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In the beginning people were dying from disease and not doing well. John Smith organized the people of Jamestown to be self sufficient and grow their own crops.
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Champlain was on a quest to find the Northwest Passage. He founded Quebec and worked with the native Indians in the trapping, hunting and trading of furs. The French were very profitable in the fur trading business with the finding of this new colony.
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The English colonies needed to establish laws. The Virigina House of Burgesses was the first law-making assembly in the colonies.
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In search of religious freedom the pilgrims come to America. They did not do well in the beginning but got help from the Wampanoag tribe of Native American Indians. Then they caused a plauge among the Indians and many died.
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Mathias made a deal to work off the cost of coming to America by being an indentured servant. He eventually paid off his debt and was completely a free man.
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William Penn believed in diversity and wanted everyone to live together peacefully. He built the colony of Pennsylvania around his Quaker beliefs. Quakers are not Amish a mistake many people make.
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Creating Georgia was a order from the King of England. The King wanted a colony where he could send people from debtors prison to start a new life and to help create a barrior between the Spanish and the English. The Spanish were in Florida and the King thought they would try to expand South to where England had claimed land and built colonies.
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President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a National Holiday as a way to create unity in the US. The idea came from Sarah Hale in a letter she wrote to Lincoln trying to get a national holiday to give thanks.
