Historical Development of the USA (PDF)

# Historical Development of the United States of America: From the War of Independence to the Civil War. Novels of Reference: The Scarlet Letter and the Red Badge of Courage. ## Introduction This document will discuss the historical development of the United States from the War of Independence to...

# Historical Development of the United States of America: From the War of Independence to the Civil War. Novels of Reference: The Scarlet Letter and the Red Badge of Courage. ## Introduction This document will discuss the historical development of the United States from the War of Independence to the Civil War. It will also analyze the two novels *The Scarlet Letter* and *The Red Badge of Courage*, which represent important milestones in the consolidation of American literary tradition. ## Historical Development of the United States of America ### The War of Independence The American Revolution (1775-1783) was a result of growing tensions between the residents of Great Britain's 13 North American colonies and the colonial government, which represented the British crown. The conflict began with skirmishes between British troops and colonial militiamen in Lexington and Concord in April 1775. #### Causes of the Revolutionary War The Seven Years' War (1756-1763) brought new territories under the crown's power, but the expensive conflict led to new and unpopular taxes. Attempts by the British government to raise revenue by taxing the colonies (notably the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767, and the Tea Act of 1773) met with heated protests among many colonists. Colonial resistance led to violence in 1770 when British soldiers opened fire on a mob of colonists, killing five men in what was known as the Boston Massacre. After December 1773, a group of colonists altered their appearance to hide their identity and boarded British ships. During the Boston Tea Party, they dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. In response, a group of colonial delegates (including George Washington of Virginia, John and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, Patrick Henry of Virginia, and John Jay of New York) met in Philadelphia in September 1774 to express their grievances against the British crown. It was the First Continental Congress. On April 19, local militiamen clashed with British soldiers in the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, marking the “shot heard round the world" that signaled the start of the Revolutionary War. #### Declaring Independence By June 1776, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, a growing majority of the colonists had come to favor independence from Britain. On July 4, the Continental Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence, drafted by a five-person committee including Franklin and John Adams but written mainly by Jefferson. #### Saratoga: Revolutionary War Turning Point (1777-78) The American victory in Saratoga (1777-78) proved to be a turning point of the American Revolution, as it prompted France to enter the war openly on the American side. France had been secretly aiding the rebels since 1776. The American Revolution began as a civil conflict between Britain and its colonies and became a world war. #### Stalemate in the North, Battle in the South (1778-81) The Americans suffered several setbacks from 1779 to 1781, including General Benedict Arnold's defection to the British and the first serious mutinies within the Continental Army. In the South, the British occupied Georgia by early 1779 and captured Charleston, South Carolina, in May 1780. British forces under Lord Charles Cornwallis began an offensive in the region, crushing Gates' American troops at Camden in mid-August. However, the Americans won over Loyalist forces at King's Mountain in early October. #### Revolutionary War Draws to a Close (1781-83) Though the movement for American independence effectively triumphed at the Battle of Yorktown, contemporary observers have not yet seen that as a decisive victory. British and American negotiators in Paris signed preliminary peace terms late that November. On September 3, 1783, Great Britain formally recognized the independence of the United States in the Treaty of Paris, bringing the American Revolution to a close after eight long years. ### The Civil War The Civil War is the central event in America's historical consciousness. While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 determined what kind of nation it would be. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "A house divided against itself cannot stand.” #### Causes of the Civil War A common explanation is that the Civil War was fought over the moral issue of slavery. It was the economics of slavery and political control of that system that was central to the conflict. A key issue was states' rights. The Southern states wanted to assert their authority over the federal government so they could abolish federal laws they did not support. Another factor was territorial expansion. The South wished to take slavery into the western territories. Meanwhile, the newly formed Republican party, whose members were vehemently opposed to the westward expansion of slavery into new states, was gaining prominence. The election of a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, as President in 1860 sealed the deal. His victory without a single Southern electoral vote was a clear signal to the Southern states that they had lost all influence. Feeling excluded from the political system, they turned to the only alternative they believed was left to them: secession, a political decision that led directly to war. #### The Course of the Civil War After the Republican Abraham Lincoln became president, the first states started to secede from the Union. In Lincoln, they saw a fierce opponent against slavery. In February 1861, representatives of six southern states met and founded the Confederate States of America. War broke out when Lincoln ordered soldiers to reconquer one of the North's forts in South Carolina. Two great generals commanded most of the war: Ulysses Grant commanded the Unionist army, while Robert Lee was the military head of the Confederates. The war was fought on two battlefronts: one was in the eastern states (mostly Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania), while the other front was along the Mississippi River in the west. At the beginning of the Civil War, the Union won some battles in the west and captured New Orleans. Conversely, Confederate forces scored essential victories on the eastern front. The war took a high toll on soldiers, mainly because they were inexperienced young men who had not fought before. #### The Battle of Gettysburg and the End of the War The Battle of Gettysburg was one of the most significant battles in the war and its turning point. Robert Lee's Confederate army suffered its worst defeat. In 1863, the Union took control of the whole Mississippi Valley. In 1864, it became clear that the Union would win the war. The Southerners suffered many losses, and Northern soldiers occupied large areas of the Confederate States. The South did not get the supplies they needed because transportation stopped. Finally, Ulysses Grant, who commanded the northern armies, forced Lee's Confederate army to surrender in April 1865. Five days later, Lincoln was killed by a Southern sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth. #### Consequences of the Civil War In the middle of the Civil War, on January 1st, 1863, Abraham Lincoln freed all enslaved people in an order called the Emancipation Proclamation. The Civil War confirmed the single political entity of the United States, led to freedom for more than four million enslaved Americans, established a more robust and centralized federal government, and laid the foundation for America's emergence as a world power in the 20th century. Though freedom did not lead to equality for formerly enslaved people, the Civil War initiated immense constitutional changes (The 13th Amendment abolished slavery. The 14th Amendment gave citizenship to all people born in the U.S., and the 15th Amendment gave Black Americans the right to vote). It re-defined the nature of American society and acted as a point of departure in the struggle for equal civil and human rights. ## Novels of Reference ### Literary Scenario In its earliest days, during the 1600s, American literature mainly consisted of practical nonfiction written by British settlers who populated the colonies that would become the United States. * John Smith wrote histories of Virginia based on his experiences as an English explorer and a president of the Jamestown Colony. * Nathaniel Ward and John Winthrop wrote books on religion, a central concern in colonial America. * Washington Irving published the collection of short stories and essays, *The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.* (1819–20). It included “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle,” two of the earliest American short stories. * James Fenimore Cooper, the first American to achieve an international reputation as a professional novelist, gave American literature two mythic figures, Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook. With *The Last of the Mohicans*, he established the genre of the "Leatherstocking" tales. ### The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on 4 July 1804. He came from a Puritan background; one of his ancestors, William Hawthorne, a judge, was notorious for his persecution of the Quakers, and his son instigated witch-hunts. Nathaniel Hawthorne suffered such guilt and shame because of this background. This is reflected in his works in which he attacks the rigors of Puritanism, bearing in mind that he lived where the strictest Puritanism was established during the previous century. He uses his knowledge of history as a way of speaking to his contemporaries. *The Scarlet Letter* is considered Nathaniel Hawthorne's most famous novel--and the first quintessentially American novel in style, theme, and language. Set in seventeenth-century Puritan Massachusetts, the novel centers around the travails of Hester Prynne, who gives birth to a daughter, Pearl, after an adulterous affair. Hawthorne's novel is concerned with the effects of the affair rather than the affair itself, using Hester's public shaming as a springboard to explore the lingering taboos of Puritan New England in contemporary society. #### The Scarlet Letter Themes * **Public guilt vs. Private Guilt:** Perhaps the foremost purpose of *The Scarlet Letter* is to illustrate the difference between shaming someone in public and allowing them to suffer the consequences of an unjust act privately. * **Punishment vs. Forgiveness:** One of the novel's more compelling themes is embodied by Chillingworth, the arbiter of moral judgment in the story. * **Sin and Judgement:** Hawthorne's novel consistently questions the notion of sin and what is necessary for redemption. Is Hester's initial crime a sin? * **Civilization and Wilderness:** Pearl embodies the theme of wilderness against civilization. After all, she embodies the scarlet letter, wild, passionate, and utterly oblivious to the rules, mores, and legal statutes of the time. ### The Red Badge of Courage *The Red Badge of Courage* is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. #### The Red Badge of Courage Themes * **The Indifference of Nature:** When Henry stumbles away from the battle, afraid and ashamed, he retreats into the peaceful cathedral of Nature. He convinces himself that Nature is calm, motherly, and, most importantly, on his side. * **The Individual vs. the Group:** The novel has constant tension between the individual and the group. Though there is a third-party omniscient narrator, the story follows the thoughts and actions of one soldier. * **Courage and Cowardice:** This binary is what Henry obsesses over throughout the novel. He desires to be courageous like a classical Greek hero but wonders secretly if he is capable of such unquestioned bravery when confronted with battle. * **The Reality of War:** One of the most celebrated aspects of Crane's novel is how utterly realistic his depictions of war are, even though he had never seen battle. * **Coming of Age:** *The Red Badge of Courage* fits into many literary categories, including bildungsroman—a coming-of-age story of a boy’s journey to manhood. Unlike many of these stories, such as Dickens’s David Copperfield, Henry’s journey does not span his entire life but a few days as a recruit during the Civil War. * **Honor:** When he enlists, Henry’s mother does not tell him to seek glory above all else but instead offers him a more realistic goal—to do what he thinks is right and avoid actions that would shame her, even if it costs him his life. Honor is so crucial that Henry often wishes he were dead because death is the ultimate proof of sacrifice and heroism. * **Death:** As with any wartime novel, the theme of death permeates the text. However, there is no fixed meaning regarding death and its significance. Henry, the reader’s guide through the war, sometimes desires death and thinks it is preferable to wait around and be stuck in the hell of battle. For Henry, death is an escape, a place he thinks will be one of understanding and unconditional love, which he lacks at the novel’s beginning. ## Topic Implications Its literary aspects make this unit especially interesting, as it allows the students to read some of the works by the two primary authors included in this paper: Hawthorne and Crane. Furthermore, these two authors can raise specific topics of interest that would make the students conscious of specific historical moments, improving their education in values, equal rights, and equality between men and women. This topic's content connects especially with the legislation in force, LOMLOE 3/2020 and Royal Decrees 217 & 243/2022, the national decrees that regulate the curricula in the Spanish territory for Secondary Education and Bachillerato, and Decree 110/2022, which regulates the curriculum for foreign languages. *Content Block 3, 'Interculturality,' states that students must be familiar with the socio-cultural values of the foreign language.* This topic deals with Competence in Linguistic Communication. It touches on cultural awareness and expression and operative descriptors CAE 1 and CAE 2 because learning a language also involves understanding its culture, as stated in Annex 1 of Royal Decree 217/2022. ## Conclusion We will wrap up this paper by stating that this is arguably one of the most attractive topics in the set. It combines history and literature; the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Scarlet Letter are not unknown to the general public and even less to English teachers. Moreover, this topic has many connections with our teaching practice. It is an excellent opportunity to teach students about American history and have interdisciplinary connections with other curriculum areas, such as World History. We can resort to films to exploit the cultural and literary content too: *The Patriot* and *Revolution* for the War of Independence; *Glory*, *Lincoln* and *Gettysburg* for the Civil War. There are also film adaptations of *The Scarlet Letter* and *The Red Badge of Courage*. In short, it is a great topic that we have tried to cover from all angles, making it balanced, enjoyable, and informative for the readers. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did developing it. ## Bibliographical references * Britannica. (n.d.). *In Encyclopaedia Britannica*. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com * Ward, H. M. (2014). *The War of Independence and the transformation of American society*. Routledge. * Anderson, P. C. (2019). *A short history of the American Civil War*. Bloomsbury Publishing. * Oxford University Press. (2004). *The Oxford encyclopedia of American literature*. Oxford University Press.