110. The United States Treasury 111. Statue of Wendell Phillips in Boston 112. An Anti-Fugitive-Slave-Law handbill of 1851 113. President Lincoln and General McClellan at Antietam 117. Winter quarters of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862 118. Headquarters of the Army of the Potomac at Brandy Station THE AMERICAN PEOPLE PART I THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA CHAPTER I WHAT THE ENGLISH FOUND 1. OUR early history has to do with the Appalachian coast only. That fringe of the continent was more like the European homes of the early colonists than is any other large district in America. The lives of the English settlers were far less changed than if they had colonized the Mississippi valley or the Pacific coast. 2. The Appalachian coast, however, does differ from the European coast of the Atlantic in two vital matters: (1) The summers are hotter and the winters colder than in Europe. Unexpected fevers in one season, and unforeseen freezing in the other, ruined more than one attempt at settlement. Captain Weymouth explored the region near the mouth of the Kennebec, in the spring of 1605, and brought back to England glowing reports of a balmy climate "like that of southern France"; but the colonists who tried to settle there two years later (§ 26) suffered cruelly from a winter like that of Norway. (2) As one goes from north to south, the climate changes more swiftly in America than in Europe. In their settlements, between Maine and Florida, English colonists encountered climates as different as they would have found in the Old World if they had spread out from Norway to the Sahara. This sharp difference between north and south was one reason why Virginian Englishman and New England Englishman grew apart in life and character. 3. The soil, too, and the natural products, varied from north to south. The rich lands of the south were suited to the cultivation of tobacco or rice or cotton, in large tracts, by slaves or bond servants. The middle district could raise foodstuffs on a large scale. The north was less fertile: farming was not profitable there except in small holdings, with trustworthy "help"; but the pine and oak forests of that region, its harbors, and the fish in its seas, invited to lumbering, fishing, ship-building, and commerce. Each section had its distinct set of industries, and so came to have its peculiar habits of living. 1 This map illustrates some of the points of § 2. The line marked 20° February is supposed to run through places that have an average temperature of 20° Fahrenheit for the month of February. The two dotted lines bound a zone of climate that is sometimes called "the true temperate zone." The heavy February lines bound a zone of climate that includes all the Appalachian district. Plainly, zones of climate are narrower in America than in Europe. |