Browsing named entities in Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing). You can also browse the collection for North America or search for North America in all documents.

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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Adams, John Quincy, 1767- (search)
e Anglo-Saxons, and the Great Charter of Runnymede with all its numberless confirmations. But the actors of those times had never ascended to the first foundation of civil society among men, nor had any revolutionary system of government been rested upon them. The motive for the Declaration of Independence was on its face avowed to be a decent respect for the opinions of mankind ; its purpose, to declare the causes which impelled the people of the English colonies on the continent of North America to separate themselves from the political community of the British nation. They declare only the causes of their separation, but they announce at the same time their assumption of the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them among the powers of the earth. Thus their first movement is to recognize and appeal to the laws of nature and to nature's God, for their right to assume the attributes of sovereign power as an independent nation.
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Alaska, (search)
Alaska, An unorganized Territory of the United States, formerly known as Russian America ; occupying the region of the extreme northwestern portion of North America; lying north of the parallel of lat. 50° 40″ N., and west of the meridian of long. 140° W.: also including many islands lying off the coast: area, as far as determined in 1900, 531,000 square miles; population, according to revised census report of 1890, 32,052; estimated population in 1899, about 40,000: seat of administration, Sitka. The Russians acquired possession of this Territory by right of discovery by Vitus Bering, in 1741. He discovered the crowning peak of the Alaska mountains, Mount St. Elias, on July 18. That mountain rises to a height of 18,024 feet above the sea. Other notable altitudes, as ascertained by the United States Meteorological Survey and announced in 1900, are: Blackburn Mountain, 12,500 feet; Black Mountain, 12,500 feet; Cook Mountain, 13,750 feet; Crillon Mountain, 15,900 feet; Drum Moun
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Alexander vi., Pope. (search)
and Leon. To prevent the interference of this grant with one previously given to the Portuguese, he directed that a line supposed to be drawn from pole to pole, at a distance of 100 leagues westward of the Azores, should serve as a boundary. All the countries to the east of this imaginary line, not in possession of a Christian prince, he gave to the Portuguese, and all westward of it to the Spaniards. On account of the dissatisfaction with the Pope's partition. the line was fixed 270 leagues farther west. Other nations of Europe subsequently paid no attention to the Pope's gifts to Spain and Portugal, but planted colonies on the Western Continent without the leave of the sovereigns of Spain or the Pope. A little more than a century afterwards the English Parliament insisted that occupancy confers a good title, by the law of nations and nature. This remains a law of nations. Portugal soon disregarded the Pope's donation to Spain, and sent an expedition to North America in 1500.
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Algonquian, or Algonkian, Indians, (search)
Algonquian, or Algonkian, Indians, The most powerful of the eight distinct Indian nations found in North America by the Europeans in the seventeenth century. It was composed of several tribes, the most important of which were the Ottawas, Chippewas, Sacs and Foxes, Menomonees, Miamis, Pottawattomies, Kickapoos, Illinois, Shawnees, Powhatans, Corees, Nanticokes, Lenni-Lenapes or Delawares, Mohegans, the New England Indians, the Abenakes, and Miemaes. There were smaller independent tribes, the principal of which were the Susquehannas in Pennsylvania; the Mannahoacs in the hill-country between the York and Potomac rivers; and the Monacans, on the headwaters of the James River, Virginia. All of these tribes were divided into cantons or clans, sometimes so small as to afford a war-party of only forty men. The domain of the Algonkians covered a vast region, bounded on the north and northeast by the Eskimos; on the northwest by the Knistenaux and Athabascas; on the west by the Dakota
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), America, discoverers of. (search)
ng on the Gulf of Mexico, the former in 1528, and the latter in 1539-41. In the latter year De Soto discovered and crossed the Mississippi, and penetrated the country beyond. This was the last attempt of the Spaniards to make discoveries in North America before the English appeared upon the same field. It is claimed for Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine navigator, that he sailed from France with four ships, in 1524, on a voyage of discovery, and that he traversed the shores of America frape Cod, because of the great number of that fish found there. He also discovered Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands. In 1604 Martin Pring discovered the coast of Maine. Again the French had turned their attention to North America. M. de Chastes, governor of Dieppe, having received a charter from the King, of France to form a settlement in New France, he employed Samuel Champlain, an eminent navigator, to explore that region. He sailed from Honfleur in March, 1603, we
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), American Association, the. (search)
d article, the Congress struck a blow at slavery, in the name of their constituents, declaring that, after the 1st day of December next ensuing, they would neither import nor purchase any slave imported after that date, and they would in no way be concerned in or abet the slavetrade. Committees were to be appointed in every county, city, and town to enforce compliance with the terms of the association. They also resolved that they would hold no commercial intercourse with any colony in North America that did not accede to these terms, or that should thereafter violate them, but hold such recusants as enemies to their common country. The several articles of the association were adopted unanimously, except the one concerning exporations. The South Carolinians objected to it, because it would operate unequally, and insisted upon rice being exempted from the requirement concerning non-exportation. When the article was adopted, all but two of the South Carolina delegation seceded. Ga
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Americus Vespucius, 1451-1512 (search)
260 leagues, and, taking in a cargo of Brazil wood, returned to Lisbon in 1504. He entered the Spanish service again in 1505, was made chief pilot of the realm, and again voyaged to America. In 1504 Vespucius, in a letter to the Duke of Lorraine, gave an account of his four voyages to the New World, in which was given the date of May 29, 1497, as the time when he sailed on his first voyage. That was a year earlier than the discovery of the continent of South America by Columbus and of North America by Cabot, and made it appear that Vespucius was the first discoverer. After the death of Columbus, in 1506, a friend of Vespucius proposed to the Academy of Cosmography at Strasburg, upon the authority of the falsely dated letter, to give the name America to the Western Continent in compliment to its first discoverer. It was done, and so Columbus and Cabot were both deprived of the honor of having their names associated with the title of this continent by fraud. Vespucius died in Sevi
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Antiquities, American. (search)
origines who inhabited the continent before any of the present races appeared here and subjugated or displaced them; also the ruins occasioned by the Spanish conquest. These are chiefly, in Central and South America, ruined temples, and, in North America, rude earthworks, now overgrown with venerable forest trees which attest their antiquity. In connection with those in the more southern regions, there are remains of elaborate carvings and ornamental pottery. There are many features in commir structure. So, also, the ruins of the Temple of the Sun, at Cuzco, in Peru, tell of great advancement in the arts under the empire of the Incas. These remains occupy a living place on the borders of the historic period, but the mounds in North America, showing much mathematical skill in their construction and ingenuity in their contents, have hitherto eluded the keen skill of antiquaries, who have sought in vain among prehistoric mysteries for a clew to the origin of the people who fashion
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Bachman, John, 1790-1874 (search)
Bachman, John, 1790-1874 Naturalist; born in Dutchess county, N. Y., Feb. 4, 1790. He was pastor of a Lutheran church at Charleston, S. C., in 1815-74; but is best known from his association with Auduhbon in the preparation of his great work on ornithology. He contributed the most of the text on the quadrupeds of North America, which Audubon and his sons illustrated. He died in Charleston, S. C., Feb. 25, 1874.
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832- (search)
croft, Hubert Howe, 1832- Historian; born in Granville, O., May 5, 1832. He engaged in the book business in California, and, after retiring, continued to develop his large and valuable library. He made a specialty of the Pacific coast of North America. Books, manuscripts, maps, narratives personally related by Californian pioneers, all formed the sources of his vast series of histories of the Pacific regions. In the labor of indexing, collecting, and writing, Mr. Bancroft employed collabHe made a specialty of the Pacific coast of North America. Books, manuscripts, maps, narratives personally related by Californian pioneers, all formed the sources of his vast series of histories of the Pacific regions. In the labor of indexing, collecting, and writing, Mr. Bancroft employed collaborators to a greater extent than is usual. Up to 1900 he had published 39 volumes in his historical series, covering the western part of North America. His working library comprised 60,000 volumes.
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