&&000 Title: The Golden Book History of the United States v1
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=Leif the lucky sails to =NorthAmerica.
Bold Norsemen set out from =Greenland and explore the coast of an
unknown land, but their discovery of =NorthAmerica is forgotten.

A thousand years ago no voyager wanted to sail beyond the sight of land,
for dark mystery haunted the open sea. No matter how carefully a navigator
set his course, skies could blacken with an unexpected storm.  Then rain
fell, lightening flashed, thunder grumbled, and towering waves rose
like walls around ship and crew. Equally dangerous, a cold night might
be followed by a warm morning. At such times fog dropped like a curtain
over the water and the winds grew still. In the silence, the sailors pulled
on creaking oars. Cautiously their little ships edged ahead.


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=Columbus marveled at the boats in which the Indians came to visit the ships.
Built all in one piece from the trunks of trees, they sometimes carried as
many as forty paddlers. They were "wonderfully made" and skimmed through
the water with speed and grace.

A brisk trade developed between the sailors and the Indians, who came loaded
down with skeins of spun cotton, parrots, and darts. Everything the Indians
offered, =Columbus said, was given with "as much love as if their hearts went
with it." He could not watch these simple, generous people being cheated by
his crew and issued stern orders against offering them in trade "bits of
broken crockery" and other worthless items.

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New stories reached =Coronado of a place of untold wealth far to the northeast
called =Quivira. With spring he was off once more, crossing the plains of =Texas
and finding nothing. Still hopeful, he retraced his way and marched northward
into central Kansas.

At times on the prairies =Coronado seemed to be "swallowed up in the sea," for
there was "not a stone, nor a bit of rising ground, nor a tree, nor a shrub,
nor anything to go by." He passed vast herds of buffalo. The =Texas Indians
who guided the Spaniards lived on the raw flesh and blood of these animals.
Except when they stopped to hunt buffalo, the Indians traveled swiftly behind
the dogs they had trained as pack animals.

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Planting the tree of liberty.
After many hardships, the English establish a colony at =Jamestown and make a
start at governing themselves.

In =1603, with the death of =QueenElizabeth, =JamesI became the ruler of =England.
As he journeyed from his home in =Scotland to his court in =London, he saw few
things to make him cheerful. =England had paid dearly for her long years of war
with =Spain. Beggars filled the streets of the cities and vagabonds roamed country
roads. Prices were high and wages were low. Many people awoke each morning without work
or hope, and far too often they went to bed hungry. A new life in the New World became
their only chance of escaping from these miseries. =England decided to make a
success of building colonies in =NorthAmerica.

The voyages of =Gilbert to =Newfoundland and =Grenville to =Roanoke had taught the
English a hard lesson. Starting a new nation in the wilderness was too large an
undertaking for one man to run. Now trading companies were organized, with noblemen,
merchants, and private citizens investing in them for a share of the profits.
A trading company elected its own officers, made its own bylaws, and even coined its
own money. It could arm its own soldiers to defend its settlements.

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In the valley of the =HudsonRiver in =1609, no white man had yet appeared to meet
the copper-skinned people who lived there. =GiovannideVerrazano, who explored the coast
of =NorthAmerica under the flag of =France, may have glimpsed the =Hudson in =1524. If
so, his visit may well have been the basis of an Indian legend about a bird that
descended from heaven and then flew away -- a bird so large that it carried men on
its back. By =1609, however, almost a century had passed and no other bird from heaven
had been seen by the Indians who lived content beside "the stream that flows both ways."

The days of the Indians followed a pattern. Thus, there came for every Indian mother in
the valley a day when she went by herself into the woods. Here, alone, whether the season
was sweltering summer or snowy winter, she gave birth to her child. In time, she returned
home, carrying her new baby with pride, for a joyous welcome awaited her. Every Indian
loved a baby, for it was well known among these valley people that it an infant sensed
he was unwanted, he would vanish into the =LandOfLostSouls. And there was another danger.
A baby that wasn't loved and watched could be carried off by an evil spirit. To safeguard
the child from such deviltry, his ankles and wrists were tied to the ground for a time
with cornhusks.

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They chose to leave =England, and during =16071608 they went to =Holland. For ten long
years, as pilgrims in a strange land, they struggled to make a success of life among
the Dutch in the city of =Leyden. Farmers by training, they were forced to work hard at
such city jobs as they could find. This sacrifice they bore cheerfully as long as they
could worship =God as they pleased. Yet as the Separatists grew older they began to
wonder if they had any real future in =Holland. Would not their religion disappear as,
one by one, they went to their graves? Already their children were copying the ways
of the easygoing Dutch. Who would keep them true to the Separtist faith?

Only a few at first suggested going to =America and building a settlement in the wilderness
where they could bring up their children as they wished. Others argued that the dangers
of the New World were too great. But those who held out for making a new start in
=America spoke up forcefully. Why should they not run these risks? Were they afraid to
trust =God to protect them?

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Cheerful though home life in =NewAmsterdam appeared, the Dutch were in trouble. The traders
who organized the Dutch settlements in the New World simply could not bring themselves to
give away land even in the wilderness. The poor were no better off in the New World than
they had been in the Old. Then, too, the director-generals that were sent to run the colony
were quarrelsome and highhanded. =PeterMinuit, who had bargained his trinkets for =ManhattanIsland,
was such a tricky fellow that he was soon out of a job, although that was no the last the
New World would hear of him. =WouterVanTwiller, who replaced =Minuit, was a conceited chap
who lived like an oyster in a shell. =WilliamKiefft, who followed =VanTwiller, was an =Amsterdam
merchant who bungled in his dealings with the Indians and lost their friendship. But the greatest
weakness of the Dutch was their inability to give the people any share in government.

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Meanwhile Catholic and Protestant, living together in =Maryland, set an example of how well
religious tolerance could work. In =1649 the General Assembly passed an "Act Concerning
Religion" which imposed fines and even punishment by flogging if any Christian was disturbed
because of his religion. Earlier a Catholic member of the Governor's Council had taken away
the key of a Protestant chapel, but the authorities had moved quickly and fined him =500
pounds of tobacco. When the tobacco was sold, the money was to be used for the support of a
Protestant minister.

Life in a changing America.

Farms and villages grow and prosper as colonists from several lands settle in the New World.

Early in =1631, the Dutch founded a settlement in present-day =Delaware, new =Lewes (pronounced
Lewis). They called it =Zwannendael, or "Valley of Swans." The Dutch quickly managed to get
themselves killed. A tin coat of arms of =Holland, nailed to a post, started the trouble.
A young Indian chief took the tin plate, wishing to fashion it into a bowl for his pipe.
Both the Indians and the Dutch lost their tempers, and when the next Dutch ship arrived at
=Zwannendael, all that remained was the ruins of houses that had been burned to the ground.

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=WilliamPenn comes to =America.
Unable to practice their religion in =England, the Quakers cross the =Atlantic to taste
the freedom of the New World.

It was around =1647 that a new religious group, the Society of Friends, began to gain a
following in =England. They were also known as Quakers. The founder of the movement was
=GeorgeFox, the son of a weaver and a shoemaker by training. Young =Fox wandered through
=England, seeking a minister in whose preaching he could believe. Simply because a
clergyman had been educated at =Oxford or =CambridgeUniversity, =Fox decided, was no
guarantee that he had found =God. And simply because men erected a building with their
own hands and called it a church was no guarantee that the spirit of =God dwelt there.
Then one day =GeorgeFox was struck by a joyous thought. The true "temple of =God" was in
the heart of each man.

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Everything went wrong. The ships were far off course when finally they reached =MatagordaBay on
the coast of =Texas. Quarrels arose, and =LaSalle was ambushed and murdered by two members
of his party.

Yet if =France lost interest in her new possessions after that, no one was more at fault than
=LaSalle. He had told only his closest friends about his explorations. So little was known
in =France about the lands he had discovered that people began to doubt their existence.
Some said that =LaSalle had never actually reached the mouth of the =Mississippi. Others
said that the river simply disappeared into a hole in the ground.