Transcriber's Note:
The front cover is the transcibers creation, not the original.It is in the public domain. More notes at the end of the book.
THE POPULAR SERIES
HISTORY
OF THE
UNITED STATES
NEW YORK 
CINCINNATI CHICAGO
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
1891
Copyright, 1891, by American Book Company.
PREFACE.
To the American youth the history of our country is moreimportant than any other branch of education. A fairdegree of knowledge respecting the progress of the Americanpeople from the discovery of the New World to thepresent is almost essential to that citizenship into which ouryouth are soon expected to enter. In a government of thepeople, for the people and by the people, a familiar acquaintancewith the course of events, with the movements of societyin peace and war, is the great prerequisite to the exercise ofthose rights and duties which the American citizen mustassume if he would hold his true place in the Nation.
Fortunately, the means for studying the history of ourcountry are abundant and easy. American boys and girlshave little cause any longer to complain that the writers andteachers have put beyond their reach the story of their nativeland. Great pains have been taken, on the contrary, togather out of our annals as a people and nation the most importantand romantic parts, and to recite in pleasing style,and with the aid of happy illustrations, the lessons of the past.
The author of the present volume has tried in every particularto put himself in the place of the student. He hasendeavored to bring to the pupils of our great CommonSchools a brief and easy narrative of all the better parts ofour country's history. It has been his aim to tell the story asa lover of his native land should recite for others that which isdearest and best to memory and affection. He has sought tobring the careful results of historical research into the schoolroomwithout any of the superfluous rubbish and scaffoldingof obtrusive scholarship and erudition.
Another aim in the present text-book for our youth has beento consider the events of our country's history somewhat from[Pg 4]our own point of view—not to despise the history of civilizationin the Mississippi Valley, or to seek wholly for examplesof heroism and greatness in the older States of the Union.Perhaps no part of our country is more favorably situated fortaking such a view of our progress as a nation than is thatmagnificent region, constituting as it does the most fertile andpopulous portion of the continent. In the present History ofthe United States the author has not hesitated to make emphaticthose paragraphs which relate to the development andprogress of this region.
For the rest the author has followed the usual channel ofnarration from the aboriginal times to the coloniza