US HISTORY: The Early Republic and the American Civil War
America has come a long way from the day it was founded to the current super power of the world. Before the colonization of the Americans by the British, America was occupied by the Indians who lived a completely different life from the British colonizers. Various cultures form part of the America’s early republic that include Europe and the Africans. The early republic and the American civil war form part of the wider American history. Two primary sources “a people and a nation” (Katzman et al, 1986) and “a people’s history of the United States (Zinn, 2016)” are analyzed in discussing the topic.
In a people and a nation: the history of United States (1986) written by Norton Katzman, Escort Chudacoft and Paterson Tuttle. According to the authors, the modern world America began with the colonization by England. England made colonies in the America and they began importing slaves from Africa to work in the plantations in the new colonies. The new America also created a new world where other people especially from the Europe and Asia migrated to forming the early republic of America. As the new country expanded after gaining independence from British, it was divided into the northern colonies and the southern colonies where the northerners opposed slavery and the southern colonies supported the slavery. This led to the American civil war where the then president Lincoln led the army of the North to defeat the Southerners and forming the new united union (Katzman et al, 1986).
In the people history of United States b Howard Zinn (2016), Zinn agrees that that New England played a significant role in shaping of the early United States. Zinn notes the beginning of the new republic began from the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Zinn also notes that there existed Indian occupants of the America who also had a culture that was later neutralized by the new European culture. Zinn notes that the British laid some of the nation’s modern infrastructure like railway line that connected the new plantations. The construction of the railroad brought man foreign settler in the new colonized colonies in that formed the United States majority from Europe. The African were Forcibly Brought to America as laborers for the plantations and other tribes migrated back later. According to Zinn, the American civil war began in the year 1865. The war broke out between the southern colonies and the northern colonies. Slaver was one of the reasons the led to the civil war and the need for the south to gain independence (pg. 219). The defeat of the southern states marked the end of the civil war and the unity of the new country, which is now United States (Zinn, 2016).
Both sources provide crucial information on the history and shaping of the new republic that is now the United States of America. In addition, the authors describe the role of England in forming of the republic as very crucial. They also identify the American civil as the turning point for the formation of the new America and the abolishment’s. The civil war united the Country the strong Union it is today and was the beginning for the abolishment of slavery when the northern colonies that opposed slavery defeated the southerners ending the war (Finkelman, 2011).
References
Zinn, H. (2016). A people’s history of the United States. Boxtree. Retrived from http://sharepoint.mvla.net/teachers/HectorP/SoPol/Documents/APHOTUS/A%20People’s%20History%20of%20the%20United%20States.pdf on 7th july 2016
Katzman, N., ChudacofT, E., & Tuttle, P. (1986). a People and a Nation A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES(1st ed.). U.S.A: Houghton Mifflin Company. Retrived from https://archive.org/stream/peopleandnationa00tunb/peopleandnationa00tunb_djvu.txt on 7th July 2016
Finkelman, P. (2011). Slavery, the Constitution, and the Origins of the Civil War. OAH Magazine of History, 25(2), 14-18. Retrieved from http://teachersites.schoolworld.com/webpages/EGlankler/files/oah%20-%20slavery,%20the%20constitution,%20and%20the%20origins%20of%20the%20civil%20war%20-%20finkelman.pdf on 7th July 2016