hide Matching Documents

Your search returned 566 results in 200 document sections:

Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Benton, Thomas Hart, -1858 (search)
813 to 1815. Removing to St. Louis in 1813, he established the Missouri inquirer there, and practised his profession. He took an Thomas Hart Benton. active part in favoring the admission of Missouri as a State of the Union, and was one of its first representatives in the United States Senate, which post he held for thirty consecutive years, where he was ever the peculiar exponent and guardian of The West. He was an early and untiring advocate of a railway from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. He warmly opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise (q. v.) in 1854. His free-labor sentiments caused his defeat as a candidate for the Senate by the ultraslavery men of his party in 1850, and in 1852 he was elected to the House of Representatives. By a combination of his old opponents with the American party (q. v.), he was defeated in 1854, and failed of an election for governor in 1856. He had then begun to devote himself to literary pursuits; and he completed his Thirty year
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Bering sea. (search)
l was rendered Aug. 15, 1893. The findings of the arbitrators were: Russia never claimed exclusive rights; (Great Britain had not conceded any claim of Russia to exclusive jurisdiction; Bering Sea was included in the Pacific Ocean in the treaty of 1825: all Russian rights Passed to the United States; the United States have no rights when seals are outside the 3-mile limit. Restrictive regulations were also adopted: proclaiming a closed season from May 1 to July 31 in Bering Sea and the North Pacific; establishing a protected zone within 60 miles of the Pribyloff Islands; forbidding steam-vessels, use of nets, fire-arms, and explosives. The award was regarded as a compromise, in which the United States was technically defeated, but acquired substantial advantages in the regulations. The complaints came mainly from Can ada. See Bering sea arbitration. In 1894, the year following the signing of this treaty, more seals were slaughtered by poachers than ever before. The United Stat
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Boggs, Charles Stewart, 1811-1888 (search)
Boggs, Charles Stewart, 1811-1888 Naval officer; born in New Brunswick, N. J., Jan. 28, 1811; entered the navy in 1826; served on stations in the Mediterranean, West Indies, the coast of Africa, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific Ocean. He was made lieutenant in 1837; promoted to commander in 1855; and in 1858 was appointed Captain Charles Stewart Boggs. light-house inspector on the Pacific coast. Placed in command of the gunboat Varuna, when the Civil War broke cut, he was with Admiral Farragut in the desperate fight on the Mississippi, near Forts Jackson and St. Philip. In that contest his conduct was admirable for bravery and fortitude. He was subsequently in command of various vessels on American and European stations, and was promoted to rear-admiral in July, 1870. He died in New Brunswick, April 22, 1888.
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Caroline Islands (search)
Caroline Islands A group in the South Pacific, said to have been discovered by the Portuguese 1525; also by the Spaniard Lopez de Villalobos, 1545; and named after Charles II. of Spain, 1686. These islands were virtually given up to Spain in 1876. The Germans occupying some of the islands, Spain protested in August, 1885. Spanish vessels arrived at the island of Yop, Aug. 21; the Germans landed and set up their flag, Aug. 24; dispute referred to the Pope; the sovereignty awarded to Spain, with commercial concessions to Germany and Great Britain; agreement signed, Nov. 25; confirmed at Rome, Dec. 17, 1885; natives subdued, Spaniards in full possession, 1891. During the American-Spanish War there were frequent rumors that the United States was about to seize the islands; but the group was sold by Spain to Germany in 1899. The chief American interest in the Caroline Islands lies in the facts that American missionaries began work on the island of Ponape in 1852, the pioneer
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Central America, (search)
Central America, A large expanse of territory connecting North and South America, and comprising in 1901 the republics of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. The region was discovered by Columbus, in his fourth voyage, in 1502. He found the bay of Honduras, where he landed; then proceeded along the main shore to Cape Gracias a Dios; and thence to the Isthmus of Darien, hoping, but in vain, to obtain a passage to the Pacific Ocean. At the isthmus he found a harbor, and, on account of its beauty and security, he called it Porto Bello. At another place in that country, on the Dureka River, he began a settlement with sixty-eight men; but they were driven off by a warlike tribe of Indians—the first repulse the Spaniards had ever met with. But for this occurrence, caused by the rapacity and cruelty of the Spaniards, Columbus might have had the honor of planting the first European colony on the continent of America. In 1509 Alonzo de Ojeda, with 300 soldier
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Chatham Island, (search)
Chatham Island, One of the Galapagos Archipelago, in the Pacific Ocean, 600 miles west of Ecuador, to which it belongs. It is of volcanic origin, the fifth in size of the Galapagos, and abounds in turtles and a small species of cat. Chatham Island has been the subject of negotiation between the United States and Ecuador, the former desiring it as a coaling station. It would possess strategic importance in the event of the opening of an isthmian canal.
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Chinese-American reciprocity. (search)
l. The Chinese Empire embraces a continuous territory which stretches over sixty degrees of longitude and thirty-four degrees of latitude. Nature has endowed this immense region with every variety of soil and climate, but has, however, scattered her bounties over it with an uneven hand. That portion which comprises the eighteen provinces of China proper, extending from the Great Wall to Gates of Peking, showing the Chinese Wall. the China Sea, and from the Tibetan plateau to the Pacific Ocean, is more highly favored than the rest. Whenever China is mentioned, it is generally this particular portion of the empire that is meant. On this land hundreds of generations of men have lived and died without exhausting its richness and fertility. There remains for generations to come untold wealth of nature lying hidden within the bowels of the earth. The mines of Yunnan, though they have for centuries supplied the government mints with copper for the coining of those pieces of mone
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Connecticut (search)
rt, Earl of Warwick. and he transferred it to William, Viscount Say and Seal; Robert, Lord Brook, and their associates. This was the original grant of Connecticut, and the territory was defined as extending westward from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The Dutch, having purchased the valley from the Indians, the rightful owners, built a redoubt just below the site of Hartford, called Fort Good Hope, in 1633, and took possession. Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts, wrote to Van Twiller amed the popular constitution, and contained more liberal provisions than any that had yet been issued by royal hands. It defined the boundaries so as to include the New Haven colony and a part of Rhode Island on the east, and westward to the Pacific Ocean. The New Haven colony reluctantly gave its consent to the union in 1665, but Rhode island refused. A dispute concerning the boundary-line between Connecticut and Rhode Island lasted more than sixty years. The charter, engrossed on parchm
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Corwin, Thomas 1794-1865 (search)
undying renown of free, republican America! She has stormed a city—killed many of its inhabitants of both sexes— she has room! So it will read. Sir, if this were our only history, then may God of his mercy grant that its volume may speedily come to a close. Why is it, sir, that we of the United States, a people of yesterday compared with the older nations of the world, should be waging war for territory—for room ? Look at your country, extending from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, capable itself of sustaining in comfort a larger population than will be in the whole Union for 100 years to come. Over this vast expanse of territory your population is now so sparse that I believe we provided, at the last session, a regiment of mounted men to guard the mail from the frontier of Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia; and yet you persist in the ridiculous assertion, I want room. One would imagine, from the frequent reiteration of the complaint, that you had a bursting<
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), De Soto, Fernando, 1496- (search)
De Soto, Fernando, 1496- Discoverer; born in Xeres, Estremadura, Spain, about 1496,( of a noble but impoverished family. Davila, governor of Darien, was his kin patron, through whose generosity he received a good education, and who too him to Central America, where he engaged in exploring the coast of the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles in search of supposed strait connecting the two ocean When Pizarro went to Peru, De Soto a companied him, and was his chief lieutenant in achieving the conquest of that country. Brave and judicious, De Sot was the chief hero in the battle that resuited in the capture of Cuzco, the capital Fernando De Soto. of the Incas, and the destruction of their empire. Soon after that event he returned to Spain with large wealth, and was received by King Charles V. with great consideration. He married Isabella Bobadilla, a scion of one of the most renowned of the Castilian families, and his influence at Court was thereby strengthened. Longing to rival