These days the word strikes a sour note, arousing images of rough settlements, starving ‘piccaninies’, whips, shackles, thoughtless government from a distance of thousdands of miles etc. If…
Category: A History of North America
The Boston Massacre, Tea Party & the Intolerable Acts
By March, 1770 a strong sense of resentment and general feelings of unrest among American colonists, who came mainly from Britain but were intermixed with many citizens from…
The Métis & the Red River Rebellion
Among the first Canadians were the oddly named Métis – having a mixture of pure Native American blood with white, mostly French and Scottish. It was a robust…
After devastation, the Reconstruction of the United States
The American Civil War had left most states, especially in the South, in chaos and sad decline. American boys from North and South had killed each other, most…
The Battle of Leyte Gulf
This little-known sea battle was fought between American and Japanese fleets towards the end of October, 1944. Japanese forces were seeking to stop the US re-conquest of the…
George Washington
George Washington was born in the early part of the eighteenth century (1732), a son of a planter in Virginia, he was a Southerner. At 22 he was…
The Homestead Act & Strike
This Act was passed in the US government in 1862, at the very height of the ‘Wild West’ era – brave pioneers heading west, ‘Redskins’ whose land it…
Who were the Green Mountain Boys?
This wonderful and typically American appellative refers to a prosperous group of ranchers, landowners and speculators whose intention it was to create the US state of Vermont, arising…
The Republic of Texas & ‘Manifest Destiny’
Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821, the same year as Perú. Plenty of Mexicans had already settled in parts of northern Texas, but not enough to work…
(Thomas) Woodrow Wilson
The twenty-seventh President of the United States was born in 1856 in Virginia, son of a Presbyterian minister. The family were slave-owners. Thirty-four years later Woodrow was made…