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Aug 10, 1492
The Explorers
The first of these writtings, were the journals and letters of Christopher Columbus which recounted his four voyages to the Americas in 1492. Christopher's adventures opened the door to a century of Spanish Expeditions in the Americas. -
Sep 10, 1492
The Explorers
Just over 50 years later came La Relacion. This report by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, one of four survivors of the 600 man Narvaez expedition chronicled his eight years of wandering through Florida, Texas, and Mexico. He describes the landscape and the people he encounted with. -
Early Settlers
One of the most influential writtings was A Brief and True Report Of the New Found Land of Virginia, by Thomas Harriot, that captured the area's natural resources, the ways of the Native Americans lives, and the potential for building a sucessful colony. Published in 1588, and helped thousands of English readers form their picture of North America. -
Purtian Beliefs
Many of the settlers in the 1600s were the Purtians. Puritans were a group of English Protestants who had sought to "purify" the Church of England and return to simpler ways of worshiping. Their efforts had been most unwelcome in the England, but many people left the country for America to ecape persecution. -
From Colony to Country
The first permanent colony was established at Jamestown in 1607. By 1733, English colonies were stretched all along the Atlantic coast. -
Loyalty to England
The first colonists thought of themselves as english subjects even though they were not representives in the British parliament. -
The Meeting of Two Worlds
In 1643, William Wood of Masschuetts Bay Colony noted that the Native Americans took the first ship they saw for a walking island, the mast to be a tree, the sail white clouds. William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Plantation, in turn described North America as a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beast and wild men. -
Purtian Poetry
Purtian poetry was the means of expression for others. The first book issued in the North America colonies was the Bay Pslam Book in 1640, in which the Bibles pslams were re written to fit the rhythms of familiar Puritan hymns. -
Puritan Poets
Puritan poets such as Anne Bradstreet, and Edward Taylor viewed poetry as a relationship between the individual and God. Her book of poetry, The Tenth Muse Latley Sprung Up in America in 1650 was the first work by a North American to be published. -
The Enlightenment
In the 1700s, there was a burst of intellectual energy taking place in Europe that came to be known as the Enlightenment. -
Literary Style
The forms of Native American oral literature are rich and varied. Creation stories explain how the universe and humans came into being, other forms include legendary histories tracing the migration of people, or the dees of great leaders. However not much of this literature did surive due to the falling of Native Americans to the European diseases. -
The Great Awakening
Preachers such as Jonathan Edwards called for people to redicate themselves to the original Puritan vision, and a new wave of religous enthusiasm began to rise, -
The Native Experience
When the Europeans arrived, there were more than 300 different Native American cultures in North America with strongly differing customs and about 200 different languages spoken. The Native North American cultures did not have a written language. Instead, their legends, and myths were entrusted to memory and passed from generation to generation through oral tradition. -
Loyalty to England
They supported England by exporting raw materials to the homeland, and in turn protected its territory. It sent soldiers to fight during the French and Indian War in 1759-1763, when France allied with a percentage of the Native American groups to then run the British out of North America. -
Pamphlets and Propaganda
The most important outlet for the spread of these political writtings was the pamphlet. Between 1763 and 1783 about two thousand pamphlets were published. -
A Break With England
The Colonies declared themselves to be "free and independent" in 1766 and fought and defeated one of the greatest military powers on earth to turn their declaration into reality. -
Writting that launched a nation
Thomas Jefferson also wrote pamphelts, but his most important contribution to American Government, literature is when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, in which he eloquently articulated the natural law that would govern America. The law states that people are born wih rights and freedoms and that is the function of government to protect those freedoms. -
Writting that launched a nation
Four months later, they emerged with the country's most important piece of writting: the Constitution of the United States of America.