UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



5976 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



(2) In the county or Virginia type, the local 

 unit is the county. Public business is transacted 

 by elected officers, usually called county commis- 

 sioners or supervisors. This type still predomi- 

 nates in the Southern states, where large estates 

 and relatively low density of population formerly 

 prevailed. 



( 3 ) In the mixed type the best elements of the 

 other types are found, both the county and town- 



ship existing, one within the other. The town- 

 ship officers have certain local functions, but the 

 more important duties fall on county officers. 

 This compromise system, which originated in 

 New York and Pennsylvania, has proved more 

 satisfactory than either of the others, and has 

 been generally used as a model in the newer 

 Western states. It is economical, and stimulates 

 local interest in government. 



Summary of United States History 



Discovery and Exploration. When Colum- 

 bus in 1492 first landed in the New World, he 

 found a native race of red men, whom he called 

 Indians, because he thought that this land was 

 India. Who these Indians were, whether they 

 were of mixed European and Asiatic origin, 

 whether they were descendants of the Mound 

 Builders or of some other race, is not certain. 

 It is also uncertain who among modern Euro- 

 peans was the first to reach America. Norse 

 tradition says that in the year 1000 Leif, the 

 son of Eric the Red, found a land in the west 

 which he called Vinland, and it is not unlikely 

 that the hardy fisherman of Northern Europe 

 crossed the Atlantic both before and after Leif 's 

 supposed voyage. 



The real discoverers of the New World were 

 the men who reached it, explored it, and re- 

 turned home to tell the tale. First of these 

 was Christopher Columbus, who discovered the 

 Bahamas and Cuba in 1492. The discovery of 

 the mainland of North America is credited to 

 John Cabot, who explored the Labrador coast 

 in 1497; his son Sebastian Cabot also made 

 several voyages to the same region. About 

 the same time Americus Vespucius was explor- 

 ing the coast of Brazil. Balboa discovered the 

 Pacific Ocean in 1513, and Ponce De Leon 

 searched for the fountain of youth in Florida 

 in the same year. In 1521 Cortez conquered 

 Mexico, Fernando De Soto discovered the 

 Mississippi River in 1541, while Coronado ex- 

 plored what is now the southern part of the 

 United States. Other early explorers were Nar- 

 vaez, Verrazano and Magellan. 



First Settlements. The earliest attempts at 

 permanent settlement were made by the French. 

 Jacques Cartier, who in 1534 sailed up the Saint 

 Lawrence as far as Montreal, established a set- 

 tlement there in 1540, but abandoned it three 

 years later. In Florida the French Huguenots, 

 under the leadership of Jean Ribault, estab- 

 lished a colony, but they were wiped out in 

 1565 by a Spanish force. On the site of the 

 French settlement the Spanish built a fort, 

 around which grew the town of Saint Augus- 



tine, the first permanent settlement in the 

 United States. 



While the Spaniards gradually established 

 their power in the southern part of North 

 America and in all of South America except 

 Brazil, the French were occupying the Saint 

 Lawrence Valley, whence trappers, traders and 

 priests penetrated the great interior valley of 

 the United States. In the work of seizing and 

 holding this great area for France were many 

 great leaders Champlain, Marquette, Joliet, 

 La Salle, Frontenac, Iberville. From Quebec to 

 Mobile their missions and trading posts dotted 

 the country. But the French, like the Span- 

 iards, were not great colonizers; they came as 

 conquerors, to acquire a new dominion for the 

 king and the Church. The English colonists, on 

 the other hand, came to establish new homes 

 for themselves. They brought their social in- 

 stitutions, their schools and churches and their 

 political beliefs. Many of them, too, came not 

 from love of adventure or in the search for 

 wealth, but because of political or religious per- 

 secution. These differences in character and 

 purposes of the people were largely responsible 

 for the fact that English influence prevailed in 

 the United States. 



The Thirteen Original Colonies. In the early 

 explorations the English had taken little part. 

 Not until Queen Elizabeth's reign, which began 

 in 1558, dicl England attempt to strengthen the 

 claims which the voyages of the two Cabots 

 had given her. Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis 

 Drake, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir John 

 Hawkins were leaders in exploration, but 

 Raleigh's attempts to found a colony in Vir- 

 ginia were failures. In 1606 King James I 

 granted to the London Company and the Plym- 

 outh Company charters by which they had the 

 right to colonize and trade in "Virginia." As 

 defined by these charters Virginia extended 

 from 34' to 45' N., or from Cape Fear to the 

 Bay of Fundy. In 1607 the London Company, 

 which had been granted "Southern Virginia," 

 founded Jamestown, the first English settlement 

 within the limits of the United States, and in 



