On this question of principle, while actually suffering was yet afar off, they [Colonies] raised their flag against a power, to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared; a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England. Daniel Webster
Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may. Daniel Webster
I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American. Daniel Webster
The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force. Thomas Jefferson
In 1830 President Andrew Jackson’s administration passed the Indian Removal Act. It amounted to the ethnic cleansing of the eastern United States. Andrew Graham-Dixon, Art of America 1/3, BBC 2011
In 1781 General George Washington secured the decisive American victory at Georgetown. ibid.
You are not content with the damage you have already done. So long as there is a lake, a stream, a forest, a grassland, you must manage it, you must dam it, channel it, forest it, can you not leave one thing untouched? Can you not leave one people alone? Can you not honor one promise? Can you not even respect one stream? One nearly extinct breed of fish? And one natural lake? We have rights too. Rights to life that you cannot bestow because they were not yours to bestow. You would take even those from us. James Vidivitch, evidence to Pyramid Lake Water Rights Hearings
You have heard the sound of the white soldier’s axe upon the Little Piney. His presence here is … an insult to the spirits of our ancestors. Are we then to give up their sacred graves to be ploughed for corn? Dakotas, I am for war. Red Cloud, speech to council at Fort Laramie 1866
They mastered this tough environment to develop a culture that has lasted over ten thousand years. Jago Cooper, Masters of the Pacific Coast: The Tribes of the American Northwest I: Arrival, BBC 2016
They had developed a thriving, sophisticated and hierarchical society … There were hundreds of tribes living here, each with distinct identities and different languages, yet similar cultural traditions. ibid.
In 1774 a Spanish exploration vessel arrived on the uncharted Pacific coast of North America. Next morning dozens of war canoes approached the ship … Jago Cooper, Masters of the Pacific Coast II: Survival
Within a hundred years of contact with Europeans, they had suffered a near-extinction level catastrophe. Their lands were occupied; the population decimated. An entire culture faced extinction. ibid.
Entire civilisations like the Aztec and the Inca were destroyed … The people here were among the last indigenous American cultures they [Spanish & British 1770s] encountered. ibid.
Five million natives were murdered within three years. Leah Trabich
The population of the United States prior to European contact was greater than 12 million. Four centuries later the count was reduced by 95% to 237,000. Leah Trabich
Archaeologist Steve Lekson [University of Colorado] has been probing the mystery of Chaco’s astonishing rise and fall for more than twenty years. It sprang up from little more than dust to become a giant metropolis. These buildings once stood as some of the largest manmade structures in the world. One of the most majestic is the Pueblo Bonito – five storeys tall it features more than six hundred rooms. Doomsday 2210, National Geographic 2011
Within 15 years the Arawak tribe of 250,000 was almost completely wiped out. Howard Zinn
If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation – amicably if they can, violently if they must. Josiah Quincy, re admission of Orleans, 1811
Adventurers sail across an ocean in search of a new life. They forge a nation that will become the most powerful in the world. But the pursuit of freedom turns freedom into foes. The price of American independence is war. America: The Story of the US e1: Rebels, History 2010
Further west up to sixty million bison roam fourteen and a half million square kilometres of wilderness. ibid.
What [John] Rolfe finds at Jamestown is hell on Earth. Three years before, the colony was founded by five hundred settlers. When Rolfe arrives, barely sixty remain; they’ve been through a winter of starvation. ibid.
Within two years tobacco turns Jamestown from a starving hell-hole to America’s first boom town. ibid.
They come ashore on a deserted beach some seven hundred kilometres further up the coast. They name their new settlement Plymouth after the English port they sail from. These are a different breed of settler: a group of religious dissidents with faith at the centre of their lives. ibid.
Tens of thousands more Europeans follow them across the Atlantic in search of a better life. ibid.
Many still regard themselves as British subjects but the strains are beginning to show. Nowhere more so than in Boston. May 9th 1768: Seven generations after John Rolfe’s first tobacco harvest the British government has put up taxes. ibid.
When revolution comes, Revere will be at its centre. ibid.
The American colonies are critical to Britain’s economic prosperity. Boston is a gateway to a market that accounts for 40% of British exports. And American taxes are also taken by the British crown. ibid.
Britain has repealed all taxes except one: on tea. In one of the most famous acts of resistance in history, rebels dump over $1,000,000 worth of tea into Boston Harbor. The British respond by closing down Boston Harbor. ibid.
Every town across the colonies has its own militia. But by 1775 they are preparing to defend themselves against the British army. ibid.
No-one knows who fired the first shot at Lexington. ibid.
American rebels face the greatest military super-power of the day. A war against overwhelming odds. America: The Story of the US e2: Revolution
Fifty delegates from thirteen colonies hold an emergency session of their newly formed assembly – the Continental Congress. Delegates include radicals like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. They debate nothing less than high treason. Total independence from Britain. ibid.
Some delegates don’t believe the rebels stand a chance. But the doubters are outnumbered five to one. On July 4th 1776 the delegates ratify a document that will change the world – the American Declaration of Independence. ibid.
On July 12th two British warships open fire on New York City. ibid.
The French Navy will now force the British to fight a war on two fronts: land and sea. ibid.
October 1781: Six years into a war the British thought would last six months the American revolution comes to a head at Yorktown, Virginia. ibid.
On April 30th 1789 Washington is inaugurated first president of the United States of America under the new Constitution. But Liberty comes at a price: over twenty-five thousand men have lost their lives in the Battle for Independence. But a new nation is born. ibid.
The United States is pushing west into uncharted territory and danger. As they tame the wilderness the pioneers face incredible hardship. But their battles will build the new American nation. America: The Story of the US e3: Westward
Germans, Belgiums, French, Catholics, Presbyterians, Mormons: One of the world’s great mass migrations begins. ibid.
Gold fever is about to change the west and the people heading there. ibid.
At the Alamo the pioneers make their stand for independence. ibid.
After just six years the gold rush is over. Of the three hundred thousand who rush to find gold less than one out of a hundred strike it rich. The fortunes are made by the merchants and land owners who supply the miners. From dirt and dreams come the great cities of California, but the new nation’s hunger for goods triggers another kind of revolution. ibid.
1830: President Andrew Jackson declares a new policy, a policy that America will maintain for more than a hundred years – the forced relocation of American tribal people on to reservations. The Bill passes Congress by a single vote. ibid.
In just four generations America has grown from a five hundred kilometre strip of colonies on the Eastern seaboard to a continental powerhouse. ibid.