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Aug 13, 1492
Christopher Columbus
Columbus's adventures opened the door to centuries of spanish expeditions in Americas. Incapable of visualizing the historical significance of his travels, but he dide of disappointment, convinced that he had barely missed the cities of gold described by Marco Polo. -
Apr 21, 1560
The Puritans
Puritan writers had their own purposes for recording history. They believed writing should be useful, a tool to help readers understand the BIble and guide them in their saily lives. For these reasons, logic, clarity, and order were more prized in writing than beauty or adornment. -
Thomas Harriot
One of the most influential writings was A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, which faithfully captured the area's natural resources, the ways of life of the Native Americans, and the potential for building a successful colony. and was published in 1588 and was accompanied by illustrations the helped thousands upon thousands of english readers. -
Captain John Smith
Captain John Smith worte sometimes-embroidered accounts of the history of Virginia and New England. By force fo his vivd and engaging writing, he created an enduring record of life in th early colonies adn an intriguing self-portrait of a man proud of his deeds adn eager to gain recognition. His accounts were instrumental in attracting settlers to Virginia, and ensuring the eventual success of that colony. -
Jamestown
THe first permanent colony was established at Jamestown in 1607. By 1733, English colonies streched all along the Atlantic coast. One hundred and four settlers sailed from london to Virginia to find gold and to seek a water route to Orient. -
Puritan Beliefs
Puritans believed that they were chossen by God to create a new order in Amercia. John Winthrop, wrote "we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us." -
Anne Bradstreet
Bradstreet's poems reflect her wide learning, deep faith,and love for her husband and children. They provide insight into the position of women in the male-dominated Puritan society. Her book poetry, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America(1650), was the first work by a North American woman to be published. -
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment thinkers began to question the truth about who should control power over the governemnt. Their thinking lead to the people consenting to the limitations in excahnge for governmnts protectionfor their rights and liberties. -
The Great Awakening
The first great awakening, united colonists who were in other wy6as. Across the colonies, people began to feel joined in the belief that a higher power was helping Americans set a new standard for an ethical life. -
Jonathon Edwards
Jonathon Edwards wrote on a variety of subjects, including the flying(or ballooning) spiders he had observed as a boy. A spider makes another, very different kind of appearance in Edward's best-known work, his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." He warned his listeners the God "holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire." Melodramatic contrasts between good and evil,vivd imagery, powerful language, and strong moral lessons. -
Writers of the Revolution
Some of the most famous figures of the American Revolution lived at the same time as Puritans such as Jonathan Edwards. As products of the Enlightenment, revolutionary writers focused their energies on matters of government rather than religion. -
Writing that launched a nation
Thomas Jefferson wrote pamplets, but his great contribution to American government, literature, and the cause of freedom throught out the world is the Declaration of Independence, in which he eloquently articualted the naturel law that would govern America. Natural law is the idea that people are born with rights and freedom adn that it is the function of governemnt to preotect those freedoms. -
Break with England
In 1776, the colonails fought and defeated one of the greatest miliary forces on the earth to turn their declaration to be real. The minds of Benjamin Franklin, Thmoas Jefferson, and other colonail thinkers put timeless words to experiment the form of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United states. ANd wehn the Constitution was approved in 1788, the United States of America was born. -
Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley was a slave, that wrote of the "natural rights" of African-Americans and pointed out the discrepancy between the colonies' "cry for freedom" and their enslavement of fellow humna beings. Phillis was a poetry writer and she used couplets about how wrong being slaved is. -
The Native American Experience
More than 300 different Native American cultures in North America woith strongly differing customs and about 200 different languages spoken. But the Native North American cultures did not have a written language.Instead the legends and myths were entrusted to be passs on from generation to generationthrough oral tradition.
