Misplaced Pages

#739260

151-582: American literature is literature written or produced in the United States and in the colonies that preceded it . The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature but also includes literature produced in languages other than English . The American Revolutionary Period (1775–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin , Alexander Hamilton , Thomas Paine , and Thomas Jefferson . An early novel

302-462: A "Puritan utopia". Other religious writers included Increase Mather and William Bradford , author of the journal published as a History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47 . Others like Roger Williams and Nathaniel Ward more fiercely argued state and church separation. Others, such as Thomas Morton , cared little for the church; Morton's The New English Canaan mocked the Puritans and declared that

453-621: A 'fake' Chinese-American culture that is more palatable to the mainstream." Kingston commented on her critics' opinions in a 1990 interview in which she stated that men believe that minority women writers have "achieved success by collaborating with the white racist establishment," by "pander[ing] to the white taste for feminist writing... It's a one-sided argument because the women don't answer. We let them say those things because we don't want to be divisive." However, several female Asian scholars have also criticized Kingston's work. Shirley Geok-lin Lim ,

604-630: A French population of 2,500; it was located to the west of the Ohio Country and was concentrated around Kaskaskia , Cahokia , and Sainte Genevieve . Enrico Tonti was one of the first explorers to navigate and sail the upper Great Lakes. He also sailed the Illinois and the Mississippi , to its mouth and thereupon claimed the length of the Mississippi for Louis XIV of France . He is credited with founding

755-717: A Native American in English, A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian , by Samson Occom, from the Mohegan tribe, was published and went through 19 editions. The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta (1854) by John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee, 1827–67) was the first novel by a Native American, and O-gi-maw-kwe Mit-I-gwa-ki ( Queen of the Woods ) (1899) by Simon Pokagon (Potawatomi, 1830–99)

906-504: A continuous cycle of conquest and conflict: “We were always losers. We were always on the run.” At a young age, Kingston was drawn to writing and won a five-dollar prize from Girl Scout Magazine for an essay she wrote titled "I Am an American." She majored in engineering at The University of California, Berkeley , before switching to English . She met her husband, actor Earll Kingston, while they were both students at Berkeley , and they married in 1962. Kingston then began her career as

1057-485: A diary revealing the daily life of the late 17th century), and Sarah Kemble Knight (who likewise wrote a diary). New England was not the only area in the colonies with a literature: southern literature was also growing at this time. The diary of planter William Byrd and his The History of the Dividing Line (1728) described the expedition to survey the swamp between Virginia and North Carolina but also comments on

1208-462: A few people thought that all Chinese looked alike—inventing a different name for each arrest. Consequently, he never acquired a police record in his own name." Hong was able to bring his wife over in 1939 . During the fifteen years they were separated, Kingston's mother, Chew, had studied Western medicine and become a doctor . Yet in Stockton, she was just another immigrant. Shortly thereafter, Kingston

1359-510: A high school teacher . Their son, Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei, was born in 1963. From 1965 to 1967, Maxine taught English and mathematics at Sunset High School in Hayward, California . After relocating to Hawaii , her boredom in a lonely hotel 80 miles north of Oahu caused Maxine to begin writing extensively, finally completing and publishing her first book, The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts , in 1976. She began teaching English at

1510-602: A huge and distant territory. He therefore offered to sell all of Louisiana for $ 15 million. The United States completed the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, doubling the size of the nation. Nieuw-Nederland , or New Netherland, was a colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands chartered in 1614, in what became New York, New Jersey , and parts of other neighboring states. The peak population

1661-420: A hundred years ago he included women and he always used [those phrases], 'men and women,' 'male and female.' Kingston named the main character of Tripmaster Monkey (1989) Wittman Ah Sing, after Walt Whitman. Of Woolf, Kingston stated: I found that whenever I come to a low point in my life or in my work, when I read Virginia Woolf's Orlando , that always seems to get my life force moving again. I just love

SECTION 10

#1732845043740

1812-491: A large black slave population. New Jersey began as a division of New York, and was divided into the proprietary colonies of East and West Jersey for a time. Maxine Hong Kingston Kingston has contributed to the feminist movement with such works as her memoir The Woman Warrior , which discusses gender and ethnicity and how these concepts affect the lives of women. She has received several awards for her contributions to Chinese American literature , including

1963-434: A large degree of religious, political, economic, and ethnic diversity. The Dutch colony of New Netherland was taken over by the English and renamed New York. However, large numbers of Dutch remained in the colony, dominating the rural areas between New York City and Albany . Meanwhile, Yankees from New England started moving in, as did immigrants from Germany . New York City attracted a large polyglot population, including

2114-414: A million and a half readers over a century and a half, Charlotte Temple was the biggest seller of the 19th century before Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin . Although Rowson was extremely popular in her time and is often acknowledged in accounts of the development of the early American novel, Charlotte Temple often is criticized as a sentimental novel of seduction. Hannah Webster Foster 's The Coquette: Or,

2265-608: A nearby cabin by a wooded pond, Thoreau wrote Walden (1854), a memoir that urges resistance to the dictates of society. Other Transcendentalists included Amos Bronson Alcott , Margaret Fuller , George Ripley , Orestes Brownson , and Jones Very . As one of the great works of the Revolutionary period was written by a Frenchman, so too was a work about America from this generation. Alexis de Tocqueville 's two-volume Democracy in America (1835 and 1840) described his travels through

2416-467: A new life in a much richer environment. The consensus view among economic historians and economists is that the indentured servitude occurred largely as "an institutional response to a capital market imperfection," but that it "enabled prospective migrants to borrow against their future earnings in order to pay the high cost of passage to America." Between the late 1610s and the American Revolution,

2567-658: A new one was issued in 1691 that combined Massachusetts and Plymouth into the Province of Massachusetts Bay . King William III sought to unite the New England colonies militarily by appointing the Earl of Bellomont to three simultaneous governorships and military command over Connecticut and Rhode Island. However, these attempts at unified control failed. The Middle Colonies consisted of the present-day states of New York , New Jersey , Pennsylvania , and Delaware and were characterized by

2718-512: A professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara , stated that Kingston's "representations of patriarchal, abusive Chinese history were playing to a desire to look at Asians as an inferior spectacle". Writer Katheryn M. Fong took exception to Kingston's "distortion of the histories of China and Chinese America" and denounced Kingston for her "over-exaggerated" depiction of Chinese and Chinese American cultural misogyny. "The problem

2869-428: A royally appointed governor. On a more local level, governmental power was invested in county courts, which were self-perpetuating (the incumbents filled any vacancies and there never were popular elections). As cash crop producers, Chesapeake plantations were heavily dependent on trade with England. With easy navigation by river, there were few towns and no cities; planters shipped directly to Britain. High death rates and

3020-488: A second group including Anne Hutchinson established a second settlement on Aquidneck Island , also known as Rhode Island. Other colonists settled to the north, mingling with adventurers and profit-oriented settlers to establish more religiously diverse colonies in New Hampshire and Maine . These small settlements were absorbed by Massachusetts when it made significant land claims in the 1640s and 1650s, but New Hampshire

3171-631: A story depicting a protagonist based on the mythical Chinese character Sun Wu Kong . Subsequent books include To Be the Poet and The Fifth Book of Peace . A public television documentary produced by Joan Saffa, Stephen Talbot and Gayle K. Yamada, Maxine Hong Kingston: Talking Story, was released in 1990. Narrated by actor B.D. Wong and featuring notable Asian-American authors such as Amy Tan and David Henry Hwang , it explored Kingston's life, paying particular attention to her commentary on cultural heritage and both sexual and racial oppression. The production

SECTION 20

#1732845043740

3322-566: A third of the population in the 21st century is descended from the Spanish settlers. Spanish explorers sailed along the coast of present-day California starting with Cabrillo in 1542–43. From 1565 to 1815, Spanish galleons regularly arrived from Manila at Cape Mendocino , about 300 miles (480 km) north of San Francisco or farther south. Then they sailed south along the California coast to Acapulco, Mexico. Often they did not land, because of

3473-456: A unique voice in existing literary genre, and this tendency was reflected in novels. European styles were frequently imitated, but critics usually considered the imitations inferior. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the first American novels were published. These fictions were too lengthy to be printed for public reading. Publishers took a chance on these works in hopes they would become steady sellers and need to be reprinted. This scheme

3624-791: A very few from the aristocracy. Settlers included the Dutch of New Netherland , the Swedes and Finns of New Sweden , the English Quakers of the Province of Pennsylvania , the English Puritans of New England , the Virginian Cavaliers, the English Catholics and Protestant Nonconformists of the Province of Maryland , the " worthy poor " of the Province of Georgia , the Germans who settled

3775-478: A very young population profile characterized the colony during its first years. Randall Miller points out that "America had no titled aristocracy... although one aristocrat, Lord Thomas Fairfax, did take up residence in Virginia in 1734." Lord Fairfax (1693–1781) was a Scottish baron who came to America permanently to oversee his family's vast land holdings. Historian Arthur Schlesinger says that he "was unique among

3926-432: A well-educated Chinese immigrant. Hong had been a scholar in his home village of Sun Woi, near Canton . However, in America, Hong was limited to working menial jobs - washing windows and doing laundry . He saved his earnings and became the manager of an illegal gambling house, which led him to get arrested numerous times. Hong "was canny about his arrests, never giving his real name and—because he apparently sensed that quite

4077-463: Is William Hill Brown 's The Power of Sympathy , published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early- to mid-nineteenth century helped advance America toward a unique literature and culture, by criticizing predecessors, such as Washington Irving , for imitating their British counterparts and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe . Edgar Allan Poe took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson pioneered

4228-465: Is a drama, set in Puritan Massachusetts, about a woman cast out of her community for committing adultery with a minister who refuses to acknowledge his own sin. Herman Melville (1819–1891) made a name for himself with Typee and Omoo , adventure tales based loosely on his own life at sea and jumping ship to live among South Sea natives. Becoming a friend of Hawthorne's in 1850, Melville

4379-553: Is best known for her novel Charlotte: A Tale of Truth , published in London in 1791. In 1794 the novel was reissued in Philadelphia under the title, Charlotte Temple . Charlotte Temple is a seduction tale, written in the third person, which warns against listening to the voice of love and counsels resistance. She also wrote nine novels, six theatrical works, two collections of poetry, six textbooks, and countless songs. Reaching more than

4530-684: The Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), the Wonders of the Invisible World and The Biblia Americana . Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield represented the Great Awakening , a religious revival in the early 18th century that emphasized Calvinist thought . Other Puritan and religious writers include Thomas Hooker , Thomas Shepard , John Wise , and Samuel Willard . Less strict and serious writers included Samuel Sewall (who wrote

4681-568: The Mayflower . Upon their arrival, they drew up the Mayflower Compact , by which they bound themselves together as a united community, thus establishing the small Plymouth Colony . William Bradford was their main leader. After its founding, other settlers traveled from England to join the colony. The non-separatist Puritans constituted a much larger group than the Pilgrims, and they established

American literature - Misplaced Pages Continue

4832-651: The Ajacán Mission in Virginia (1570–71). The French failed at Parris Island, South Carolina (1562–63), Fort Caroline on Florida's Atlantic coast (1564–65), Saint Croix Island, Maine (1604–05), and Fort Saint Louis, Texas (1685–89). The most notable English failures were the " Lost Colony of Roanoke " (1583–90) in North Carolina and Popham Colony in Maine (1607–08). It was at the Roanoke Colony that Virginia Dare became

4983-474: The Chinese American community. Playwright and novelist Frank Chin has severely criticized Kingston's The Woman Warrior , stating that Kingston deliberately tarnished the authenticity of Chinese tradition by altering traditional stories and myths to appeal to white sensitivities. Chin has accused Kingston of "liberally adapting [traditional stories] to collude with white racist stereotypes and to invent

5134-596: The Declaration of Independence , his influence on the U.S. Constitution , his autobiography, his Notes on the State of Virginia , and his many letters. The Federalist essays by Alexander Hamilton , James Madison , and John Jay presented a significant historical discussion of American government organization and republican values. Fisher Ames , James Otis , and Patrick Henry are also valued for their political writings and orations. Early American literature struggled to find

5285-521: The Delaware River Valley from 1638 to 1655 and encompassed land in present-day Delaware , southern New Jersey , and southeastern Pennsylvania . The several hundred settlers were centered around the capital of Fort Christina , at the location of what is today the city of Wilmington, Delaware . The colony also had settlements near the present-day location of Salem, New Jersey ( Fort Nya Elfsborg ) and on Tinicum Island, Pennsylvania . The colony

5436-615: The Dutch Republic launched major colonization expeditions in North America. The death rate was very high among early immigrants, and some early attempts disappeared altogether, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke . Nevertheless, successful colonies were established within several decades. European settlers came from a variety of social and religious groups, including adventurers, farmers, indentured servants, tradesmen, and

5587-669: The Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629 with 400 settlers. They sought to reform the Church of England by creating a new, pure church in the New World. By 1640, 20,000 had arrived ; many died soon after arrival, but the others found a healthy climate and an ample food supply. The Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies together spawned other Puritan colonies in New England, including the New Haven , Saybrook , and Connecticut colonies. During

5738-798: The Mexican–American War (1846–1848), and the Spanish–American War (1898). There were also several Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest , but Spain gave the United States all claims to the Pacific Northwest in the Adams–Onís Treaty. There were several thousand families in New Mexico and California who became American citizens in 1848, plus small numbers in the other colonies. Spain established several small outposts in Florida in

5889-759: The Mississippi River were taken over and most of the inhabitants were assimilated. In Nova Scotia , however, the British expelled the French Acadians , and many relocated to Louisiana. The two chief armed rebellions were short-lived failures in Virginia in 1676 and in New York in 1689–1691 . Some of the colonies developed legalized systems of slavery, centered largely around the Atlantic slave trade . Wars were recurrent between

6040-477: The National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1981 for China Men . Kingston has received significant criticism for reinforcing racist stereotypes in her work and for fictionalizing traditional Chinese stories in order to appeal to Western perceptions of Chinese people. She has also garnered criticism from female Asian scholars for her "'over-exaggeration' of Asian American female oppression". Kingston

6191-586: The Northern Mariana Islands ). New Spain encompassed the territory of Louisiana after the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762) , though Louisiana reverted to France in the 1800 Third Treaty of San Ildefonso . Many territories that had been part of New Spain became part of the United States after 1776 through various wars and treaties, including the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the Adams–Onís Treaty (1819),

American literature - Misplaced Pages Continue

6342-809: The Province of Maryland was founded in part to be a haven for Roman Catholics . Several European countries attempted to found colonies in the Americas after 1500. Most of those attempts ended in failure. The colonists themselves faced high rates of death from disease, starvation, inefficient resupply, conflict with Native Americans, attacks by rival European powers, and other causes. Spain had numerous failed attempts, including San Miguel de Gualdape in South Carolina (1526), Pánfilo de Narváez 's expedition to Florida's Gulf coast (1528–36), Pensacola in West Florida (1559–61), Fort San Juan in North Carolina (1567–68), and

6493-731: The Salem witch trials as the basis for a novel) in 1828. Catherine Maria Sedgwick wrote A New England Tale in 1822, Redwood in 1824, Hope Leslie in 1827, and The Linwoods in 1835. James Kirke Paulding wrote The Lion of the West in 1830, The Dutchman's Fireside in 1831, and Westward Ho! in 1832. Omar ibn Said , a Muslim slave in the Carolinas, wrote an autobiography in Arabic in 1831, considered an early example of African-American literature . Robert Montgomery Bird wrote Calavar in 1834 and Nick of

6644-554: The Seven Years' War . Florida was home to about 3,000 Spaniards at the time, and nearly all quickly left. Britain occupied Florida but did not send many settlers to the area. Dr. Andrew Turnbull 's failed colony at New Smyrna , however, resulted in hundreds of Menorcans, Greeks, and Italians settling in St. Augustine in 1777. During the American Revolution, East and West Florida were Loyalist colonies. Spain regained control of Florida in 1783 by

6795-551: The University of Hawai'i at Mānoa that same year. By 1981 she had moved on to teach at Berkeley. Her writing often reflects on her cultural heritage and blends fiction with non-fiction. Among her works are The Woman Warrior (1976), awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, and China Men (1980), awarded the National Book Award. She has written one novel, Tripmaster Monkey ,

6946-423: The indigenous peoples of California , while protecting historic Spanish claims to the area. The missions introduced European technology, livestock, and crops. The Indian Reductions converted the native peoples into groups of Mission Indians ; they worked as laborers in the missions and the ranchos. In the 1830s the missions were disbanded and the lands sold to Californios. The indigenous Native American population

7097-449: The 1660s, which meant that the government became a partner with merchants based in England to increase political power and private wealth. This was done to the exclusion of other empires and even other merchants in its own colonies. The government protected its London-based merchants and kept out others by trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries to maximize exports from

7248-546: The 16th century, Spain explored the southwest from Mexico. The first expedition was the Niza expedition in 1538. Francisco Coronado followed with a larger expedition in 1539, throughout modern New Mexico and Arizona, arriving in New Mexico in 1540. The Spanish moved north from Mexico, settling villages in the upper valley of the Rio Grande, including much of the western half of the present-day state of New Mexico. The capital of Santa Fe

7399-531: The 1783 Treaty of Paris, and the U.S. would acquire another portion of French territory with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The remainder of New France became part of Canada, with the exception of the French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon . The first French colonial empire stretched to over 10,000,000 km (3,900,000 sq mi) at its peak in 1710, which was the second largest colonial empire in

7550-649: The 17th century, the New Haven and Saybrook colonies were absorbed by Connecticut. The Puritans created a deeply religious, socially tight-knit, and politically innovative culture that still influences the modern United States. They hoped that this new land would serve as a " redeemer nation ". They fled England and attempted to create a "nation of saints" or a " City upon a Hill " in America: an intensely religious, thoroughly righteous community designed to be an example for all of Europe. Economically, Puritan New England fulfilled

7701-547: The 18th century, writing shifted from the Puritanism of Winthrop and Bradford to Enlightenment ideas of reason. The belief that human and natural occurrences were messages from God no longer fit with the budding anthropocentric culture. Many intellectuals believed that the human mind could comprehend the universe through the laws of physics, as described by Isaac Newton . One of these was Cotton Mather . The first book published in North America that promoted Newton and natural theology

SECTION 50

#1732845043740

7852-568: The 1920s, but John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway , who became famous with The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms , and William Faulkner , adopted experimental forms. American modernist poets included diverse figures such as Wallace Stevens , T. S. Eliot , Robert Frost , Ezra Pound , and E. E. Cummings . Depression -era writers included John Steinbeck , author of The Grapes of Wrath (1939). America's involvement in World War II led to works such as Norman Mailer 's The Naked and

8003-427: The 19th century was marked by the Puerto Rican struggle for sovereignty . A census conducted in 1860 revealed a population of 583,308. Of these, 300,406 (51.5%) were white and 282,775 (48.5%) were persons of color, the latter including people of primarily African heritage, mulattos and mestizos . The majority of the population in Puerto Rico was illiterate (83.7%) and lived in poverty, and the agricultural industry—at

8154-429: The American frontier. In New England , a group of writers known as Boston Brahmins included James Russell Lowell , then in later years Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson , who had renounced his ministry, published his essay Nature , which argued that men should dispense with organized religion and reach a lofty spiritual state by studying and interacting with

8305-423: The Baptist . The first European colony, Caparra , was founded on August 8, 1508, by Juan Ponce de León , a lieutenant under Columbus, who was greeted by the Taíno Cacique Agüeybaná and who later became the first governor of the island. Ponce de Leon was actively involved in the Higuey massacre of 1503 in Puerto Rico. In 1508, Sir Ponce de Leon was chosen by the Spanish Crown to lead the conquest and enslavement of

8456-636: The British shipped an estimated 50,000 to 120,000 convicts to its American colonies. Alexander Hamilton (1712–1756) was a Scottish-born doctor and writer who lived and worked in Annapolis, Maryland . Leo Lemay says that his 1744 travel diary Gentleman's Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton is "the best single portrait of men and manners, of rural and urban life, of the wide range of society and scenery in colonial America." His diary has been widely used by scholars, and covers his travels from Maryland to Maine. Biographer Elaine Breslaw says that he encountered: The first successful English colony

8607-543: The British. By 1773, the population of Detroit was 1,400. At the end of the War for Independence in 1783, the region south of the Great Lakes formally became part of the United States. The Italian explorer Enrico Tonti , together with the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle , explored the Great Lakes region. Enrico Tonti founded the first European settlement in Illinois in 1679 and in Arkansas in 1683, known as Poste de Arkansea , making him "The Father of Arkansas". The Illinois Country by 1752 had

8758-433: The Daguao and Macao rivers in 1514 and again in 1521 but each time they were easily repelled by the superior Spanish firepower. However, these would not be the last attempts at control of Puerto Rico. The European powers quickly realized the potential of the lands not yet colonized by Europeans and attempted to gain control of them. Nonetheless, Puerto Rico remained a Spanish possession until the 19th century. The last half of

8909-795: The Dead (1948), Joseph Heller 's Catch-22 (1961) and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 's Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Prominent playwrights of these years include Eugene O'Neill , who won a Nobel Prize. In the mid-twentieth century, drama was dominated by Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller . Musical theater was also prominent. In late 20th century and early 21st century, there has been increased popular and academic acceptance of literature written by immigrant, ethnic, and LGBT writers, and of writings in languages other than English. Examples of pioneers in these areas include LGBT author Michael Cunningham , Asian American authors Maxine Hong Kingston and Ocean Vuong , and African Americans authors such as Ralph Ellison , James Baldwin , and Toni Morrison . In 2016,

9060-927: The East Coast – in the border state of Missouri . His regional masterpieces were the memoir Life on the Mississippi and the novels Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Twain's style – influenced by journalism, wedded to the vernacular, direct and unadorned but also highly evocative and irreverently humorous – changed the way Americans write their language. His characters speak like real people and sound distinctively American, using local dialects, newly invented words, and regional accents. Other writers interested in regional differences and dialect were George W. Cable , Thomas Nelson Page , Joel Chandler Harris , Mary Noailles Murfree ( Charles Egbert Craddock ), Sarah Orne Jewett , Mary E. Wilkins Freeman , Henry Cuyler Bunner , and William Sydney Porter ( O. Henry ). A version of local color regionalism that focused on minority experiences can be seen in

9211-407: The English renaming it New York and changing the administrative language from Dutch to English. From 1696 to 1700, only about 250 separate items were issued from the major printing presses in the American colonies. This is a small number, compared to the output of the printers in London at the time. London printers published materials written by New England authors, so, the body of American literature

SECTION 60

#1732845043740

9362-535: The Execution of Moses Paul and a popular hymnbook, Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs , "the first Indian best-seller". The Revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonists Samuel Adams , Josiah Quincy , John Dickinson , and Joseph Galloway , the last being a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine . Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works, with their wit and influence toward

9513-438: The French and the British during the French and Indian Wars . By 1760, France was defeated and its colonies were seized by Britain. On the eastern seaboard, the four distinct English regions were New England , the Middle Colonies , the Chesapeake Bay Colonies (Upper South), and the Southern Colonies (Lower South). Some historians add a fifth region of the "Frontier", which was never separately organized. The colonization of

9664-402: The French immigrant J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur , whose Letters from an American Farmer (1782) addresses the question "What is an American?", by moving between praise for the opportunities and peace offered in the new society and recognition that the solid life of the farmer must rest, uneasily, between the oppressive aspects of the urban life and the lawless aspects of the frontier, where

9815-463: The History of Eliza Wharton was published in 1797 and was extremely popular. Told from Foster's point of view and based on the real life of Eliza Whitman, the novel is about a woman who is seduced and abandoned. Eliza is a "coquette" who is courted by two very different men: a clergyman who offers her a comfortable domestic life and a noted libertine. Unable to choose between them, she finds herself single when both men get married. She eventually yields to

9966-642: The Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and Harriet Jacobs 's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). At this time, American Indian autobiography develops, most notably in William Apess 's A Son of the Forest (1829) and George Copway 's The Life, History and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh (1847). Moreover, minority authors were beginning to publish fiction, as in William Wells Brown 's Clotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853), Frank J. Webb 's The Garies and Their Friends , (1857) Martin Delany 's Blake; or, The Huts of America (1859–62) and Harriet E. Wilson 's Our Nig: Sketches from

10117-409: The Life of a Free Black (1859) as early African-American novels, and John Rollin Ridge 's The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1854), which is considered the first American Indian novel but is also an early story that talks about Mexican-American issues. Mark Twain (the pen name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens , 1835–1910) was among the first major American writers to be born away from

10268-515: The Mohicans , 1826) treated uniquely American material in ways that were popular both in the new country and Europe. John Neal as a critic played a key role in developing American literary nationalism . Neal criticized Irving and Cooper for relying on old British conventions of authorship to frame American phenomena, arguing that "to succeed ... [the American writer] must resemble nobody ... [he] must be unlike all that have gone before [him]" and issue "another Declaration of Independence, in

10419-479: The Old World-New World dilemma by writing directly about it. Although he was born in New York City, James spent most of his adult life in England. Many of his novels center on Americans who live in or travel to Europe. With its intricate, highly qualified sentences and dissection of emotional and psychological nuance, James's fiction can be daunting. Among his more accessible works are the novellas Daisy Miller (1878), about an American girl in Europe, and The Turn of

10570-430: The Peace of Paris which ended the Revolutionary War. Spain sent no more settlers or missionaries to Florida during the Second Spanish Period. The inhabitants of West Florida revolted against the Spanish in 1810 and formed the Republic of West Florida , which was quickly annexed by the United States. The United States took possession of East Florida in 1821 according to the terms of the Adams–Onís Treaty . Throughout

10721-607: The People of Morosofia, and Other Lunarians . After the war with Britain in 1812 , there was an increasing desire to produce a uniquely American literature and culture. Literary figures who took up the cause included Washington Irving , William Cullen Bryant , and James Fenimore Cooper . Irving wrote humorous works in Salmagundi and the satire A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809). Bryant wrote early romantic and nature-inspired poetry, which evolved away from their European origins. Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales about Natty Bumppo (which includes The Last of

10872-879: The Red Death ", " The Pit and the Pendulum ", and " The Fall of the House of Usher ", that explore hidden depths of human psychology and push the boundaries of fiction. Poe's " The Murders in the Rue Morgue ", is seen as the first detective story . Humorous writers were also popular and included Seba Smith and Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber in New England and Davy Crockett , Augustus Baldwin Longstreet , Johnson J. Hooper , Thomas Bangs Thorpe , and George Washington Harris writing about

11023-601: The Screw (1898), a ghost story. Stephen Crane (1871–1900), best known for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895), depicted the life of New York City prostitutes in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893). And in Sister Carrie (1900), Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) portrayed a country girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman. Frank Norris 's (1870–1902) fiction

11174-476: The Spanish government had begun to offer asylum to slaves from British colonies, and the Spanish Crown officially proclaimed in 1693 that runaway slaves would find freedom in Florida in return for converting to Catholicism and four years of military service to the Spanish Crown. In effect, Spaniards created a maroon settlement in Florida as a front-line defense against English attacks from the north. This settlement

11325-512: The Taíno Indians for gold mining operations. The following year, the colony was abandoned in favor of a nearby island on the coast, named Puerto Rico (Rich Port), which had a suitable harbor. In 1511, a second settlement, San Germán was established in the southwestern part of the island. During the 1520s, the island took the name of Puerto Rico while the port became San Juan . As part of the colonization process, African slaves were brought to

11476-489: The U.S. purchased Alaska , and nearly all Russians abandoned the area except a few missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church working among the natives. England made its first successful efforts at the start of the 17th century for several reasons. During this era, English proto-nationalism and national assertiveness blossomed under the threat of Spanish invasion, assisted by a degree of Protestant militarism and

11627-506: The United States in search of better prospects. However, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—a xenophobic response to the influx of Chinese workers in the nineteenth century—was still in effect, preventing Hong from legally entering the United States. He attempted to enter from Cuba twice before finally succeeding in 1927 . Furthermore, early-twentieth-century U.S. employment laws were rife with racism, leaving little interest in hiring

11778-568: The United States resulted in a large decline of the Native American population primarily because of newly introduced diseases . A significant percentage of the Native Americans living in the eastern region had been ravaged by disease before 1620, possibly introduced to them decades before by explorers and sailors (although no conclusive cause has been established). Mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies from

11929-622: The Western hemisphere; Stephen Daye printed 1,000 copies on the first printing press in the American colonies. Of the second generation of New England settlers, Cotton Mather stands out as a theologian and historian, who wrote the history of the colonies with a view to God's activity in their midst and to connecting the Puritan leaders with the great heroes of the Christian faith. His best-known works include

12080-579: The Woods in 1837. James Fenimore Cooper was a notable author best known for his novel The Last of the Mohicans written in 1826. George Tucker produced in 1824 the first fiction of Virginia colonial life with The Valley of Shenandoah . He followed in 1827 with one of the country's first science fictions: A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy, of

12231-424: The artful libertine and gives birth to an illegitimate stillborn child at an inn. The Coquette is praised for its demonstration of the era's contradictory ideas of womanhood. even as it has been criticized for delegitimizing protest against women's subordination. Both The Coquette and Charlotte Temple are novels that treat the right of women to live as equals as the new democratic experiment. These novels are of

12382-445: The battlefields with her beard and shawl. I find that so freeing, that we don't have to be constrained to being just one ethnic group or one gender – both [Woolf and Williams] make me feel that I can now write as a man, I can write as a black person, as a white person; I don't have to be restricted by time and physicality. Though Kingston's work is acclaimed by some, it has also received negative criticism, especially from some members of

12533-515: The coast from Lower California to Mendocino and some inland areas and recommended Monterey for settlement. The King agreed, but the settlement project was diverted to areas off Japan. No settlements were established until 1769. From 1769 until the independence of Mexico in 1820, Spain sent missionaries and soldiers to Alta California who created a series of missions operated by Franciscan priests. They also operated presidios (forts), pueblos (settlements), and ranchos (land grant ranches), along

12684-539: The colony in 1674 and renamed it New York . However the Dutch landholdings remained, and the Hudson River Valley maintained a traditional Dutch character until the 1820s. Traces of Dutch influence remain in present-day northern New Jersey and southeastern New York State, such as homes, family surnames, and the names of roads and whole towns. New Sweden ( Swedish : Nya Sverige ) was a Swedish colony that existed along

12835-490: The conflicting claims of duty and compassion on board a ship in time of war. His more profound books sold poorly, and he had been long forgotten by the time of his death. He was rediscovered in the 1920s. Anti-transcendental works from Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe all comprise the Dark romanticism sub-genre of popular literature at this time. Slave narrative autobiography from this period include Frederick Douglass 's Narrative of

12986-482: The continent among the numerous different Native American tribes. However, with the onset of English settlement of North America, the English language established a foothold in North America that would spread with the growth of England's political influence in the continent and the continued arrival of settlers from the British Isles. This included the English capture of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1664, with

13137-404: The continuation of the slave narrative autobiography. In 1837, the young Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) collected some of his stories as Twice-Told Tales , a volume rich in symbolism and occult incidents. Hawthorne went on to write full-length "romances", quasi-allegorical novels that explore the themes of guilt, pride, and emotional repression. His masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter (1850),

13288-704: The demonstration. Kingston's anti-war stance has significantly trickled into her work; she has stated that writing The Fifth Book of Peace was initiated and inspired by growing up during World War II . Kingston was honored as a 175th Speaker Series writer at Emma Willard School in September 2005. In April, 2007, Kingston was awarded the Northern California Book Award Special Award in Publishing for Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace (2006), an anthology which she edited. In July, 2014, Kingston

13439-614: The differences between American Indians and the white settlers in the area. In a similar book, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West , William Bartram described the Southern landscape and the Indian tribes he encountered; Bartram's book was popular in Europe, being translated into German, French and Dutch. As the colonies moved toward independence from Britain, an important discussion of American culture and identity came from

13590-562: The early 16th century. The most important of these was St. Augustine , founded alongside Mission Nombre de Dios in 1565 but repeatedly attacked and burned by pirates, privateers, and English forces, and nearly all the Spanish left after the Treaty of Paris (1763) ceded Florida to Great Britain. Certain First Spanish Period structures remain today, especially those made of coquina , a limestone quarried nearby. The British attacked Spanish Florida during numerous wars. As early as 1687,

13741-530: The energy of Queen Elizabeth . At this time, however, there was no official attempt by the English government to create a colonial empire. Rather the motivation behind the founding of colonies was piecemeal and variable. Practical considerations played their parts, such as commercial enterprise , over-crowding, and the desire for freedom of religion. The main waves of settlement came in the 17th century. After 1700, most immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants , young unmarried men and women seeking

13892-534: The expectations of its founders. The Puritan economy was based on the efforts of self-supporting farmsteads that traded only for goods which they could not produce themselves, unlike the cash crop-oriented plantations of the Chesapeake region. There was a generally higher economic standing and standard of living in New England than in the Chesapeake. New England became an important mercantile and shipbuilding center, along with agriculture, fishing, and logging, serving as

14043-588: The explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor . The U.S. defeated Spain by the end of the year, and won control of Puerto Rico in the ensuing peace treaty. In the Foraker Act of 1900, the U.S. Congress established Puerto Rico's status as an unincorporated territory . New France was the vast area centered on the Saint Lawrence River , Great Lakes , Mississippi River , and other major tributary rivers that

14194-478: The first English child born in America; her fate is unknown. Starting in the 16th century, Spain built a colonial empire in the Americas consisting of New Spain and other vice-royalties. New Spain included territories in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, much of the United States west of the Mississippi River , parts of Latin America (including Puerto Rico), and the Spanish East Indies (including Guam and

14345-524: The first European settlements in North America had been founded elsewhere, many years earlier. The first item printed in Pennsylvania was in German and was the largest book printed in any of the colonies before the American Revolution. Spanish and French had two of the strongest colonial literary traditions in the areas that now comprise the United States. Moreover, a wealth of oral literary traditions existed on

14496-507: The folk-rock songwriter Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Oral literature and storytelling has existed among the various Indigenous tribes , prior to the arrival of European colonists. The traditional territories of some tribes traverse national boundaries and such literature is not homogeneous but reflects the different cultures of these peoples . In 1771 the first work by

14647-567: The formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense and The American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the time. During the Revolutionary War , poems and songs such as " Nathan Hale " were popular. Major satirists included John Trumbull and Francis Hopkinson . Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the War. During

14798-516: The goal was to enrich the mother country. The prospect of religious persecution by authorities of the crown and the Church of England prompted a significant number of colonization efforts. The Pilgrims were separatist Puritans who fled persecution in England, first to the Netherlands and ultimately to Plymouth Plantation in 1620. Over the following 20 years, people fleeing persecution from King Charles I settled most of New England . Similarly,

14949-503: The great Republic of Letters." As a pioneer of the literary device he referred to "natural writing", Neal was "the first in America to be natural in his diction" and his work represents "the first deviation from ... Irvingesque graciousness." Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston but raised in Virginia and identified with the South. In 1832, he began writing short stories, such as " The Masque of

15100-723: The hub for trading between the southern colonies and Europe. Providence Plantation was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams on land provided by Narragansett sachem Canonicus . Williams was a Puritan who preached religious tolerance , separation of Church and State , and a complete break with the Church of England. He was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony over theological disagreements, and he and other settlers founded Providence Plantation based on an egalitarian constitution providing for majority rule "in civil things" and "liberty of conscience" in religious matters. In 1637,

15251-445: The influential Transcendentalism movement; Henry David Thoreau , author of Walden , was influenced by this movement. The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired writers, like Harriet Beecher Stowe , and authors of slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass . Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville 's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of

15402-510: The island in 1513. Following the decline of the Taíno population, more slaves were brought to Puerto Rico; however, the number of slaves on the island paled in comparison to those in neighboring islands. Also, early in the colonization of Puerto Rico, attempts were made to wrest control of Puerto Rico from Spain. The Caribs, a raiding tribe of the Caribbean, attacked Spanish settlements along the banks of

15553-455: The lack of social structures leads to the loss of civilized living. This same period saw the beginning of African-American literature , through the poet Phillis Wheatley and the slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano , The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). At this time, American Indian literature also began to flourish. Samson Occom published his A Sermon Preached at

15704-446: The late 17th century, Virginia's export economy was largely based on tobacco, and new, richer settlers came in to take up large portions of land, build large plantations and import indentured servants and slaves. In 1676, Bacon's Rebellion occurred, but was suppressed by royal officials. After Bacon's Rebellion, African slaves rapidly replaced indentured servants as Virginia's main labor force. The colonial assembly shared power with

15855-559: The local Native Americans were better people than them. Other late writings described conflicts and interaction with the Indians, as seen in writings by Daniel Gookin , Alexander Whitaker , John Mason , Benjamin Church , and Daniel J. Tan . John Eliot translated the Bible into the Algonquin language (1663) as Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God . It was the first complete Bible printed in

16006-548: The lower Delaware River Valley region derive their names from the Swedes. Russia explored the area that became Alaska, starting with the Second Kamchatka expedition in the 1730s and early 1740s. Their first settlement was founded in 1784 by Grigory Shelikhov . The Russian-American Company was formed in 1799 with the influence of Nikolay Rezanov , for the purpose of buying sea otters for their fur from native hunters. In 1867,

16157-582: The mid-Atlantic colonies, and the Ulster Scots of the Appalachian Mountains . These groups all became part of the United States when it gained its independence in 1776. Russian America and parts of New France and New Spain were also incorporated into the United States at later times. The diverse colonists from these various regions built colonies of distinctive social, religious, political, and economic style. Over time, non-British colonies East of

16308-557: The natural world. He expanded his influence with his lecture " The American Scholar ", delivered in Cambridge in 1837, which called upon Americans to create a uniquely American writing style. Both the nation and the individual should declare independence. Emerson's influence fostered the movement now known as Transcendentalism . Among the leaders was Emerson's friend, Henry David Thoreau , a nonconformist and critic of American commercial culture. After living mostly by himself for two years in

16459-605: The newly independent United States stretched to the Mississippi River. The United States reached an agreement with Spain for navigation rights on the river and was content to let the "feeble" colonial power stay in control of the area. The situation changed when Napoleon forced Spain to return Louisiana to France in 1802 and threatened to close the river to American vessels. Alarmed, the United States offered to buy New Orleans. Napoleon needed funds to wage another war with Great Britain, and he doubted that France could defend such

16610-401: The nineteenth century include Walt Whitman , Melville, and Emily Dickinson . Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881). Following World War I , modernist literature rejected nineteenth-century forms and values. F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the carefree mood of

16761-444: The permanent comers in bearing so high a rank as baron." He was a patron of George Washington and was not disturbed during the war. The Pilgrims were a small group of Puritan separatists who felt that they needed to physically distance themselves from the Church of England . They initially moved to the Netherlands, then decided to re-establish themselves in America. The initial Pilgrim settlers sailed to North America in 1620 on

16912-423: The population of the colonies numbered approximately 111,000. Thirty years later, it was more than 250,000. By 1760, it reached 1,600,000. The growth of communities, and therefore social life, led people to become more interested in the progress of individuals and their shared experience in the colonies. These new ideas can be seen in the popularity of Benjamin Franklin 's Autobiography . Even earlier than Franklin

17063-500: The population. The 1689 Boston revolt was inspired by England's Glorious Revolution against James II and led to the arrest of Andros, Boston Anglicans, and senior dominion officials by the Massachusetts militia. Andros was jailed for several months, then returned to England. The Dominion of New England was dissolved and governments resumed under their earlier charters. However, the Massachusetts charter had been revoked in 1684, and

17214-477: The realm and minimize imports. The government also fought smuggling, and this became a direct source of controversy with North American merchants when their normal business activities became reclassified as "smuggling" by the Navigation Acts . This included activities that had been ordinary business dealings previously, such as direct trade with the French, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese. The goal of mercantilism

17365-546: The religious foundations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony . Edward Winslow also recorded a diary of the first years after the Mayflower 's arrival. " A modell of Christian Charity " by John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, was a Sermon preached on the Arbella (the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet ) in 1630. This work outlined the ideal society that he and the other Separatists would build, in an attempt to realize

17516-468: The rhythm of his language and the freedom and the wildness of it. It's so American. And also his vision of a new kind of human being that was going to be formed in this country—although he never specifically said Chinese—ethnic Chinese also—I'd like to think he meant all kinds of people. And also I love that throughout Leaves of Grass he always says 'men and women,' 'male and female.' He's so different from other writers of his time, and even of this time. Even

17667-550: The rugged, foggy coast. Spain wanted a safe harbor for galleons. They did not find San Francisco Bay , perhaps because of fog hiding the entrance. In 1585 Gali charted the coast just south of San Francisco Bay, and in 1587 Unamuno explored Monterey Bay. In 1594 Soromenho explored and was shipwrecked in Drake's Bay just north of San Francisco Bay, then went south in a small boat past Half Moon Bay and Monterey Bay. They traded with Native Americans for food. In 1602 Vizcaino charted

17818-459: The sentimental genre, characterized by overindulgence in emotion, an invitation to listen to the voice of reason against misleading passions, as well as an optimistic overemphasis on the essential goodness of humanity. Sentimentalism is often thought to be a reaction against the Calvinistic belief in the depravity of human nature. While many of these novels were popular, the economic infrastructure of

17969-564: The settlement that would become Peoria, Illinois . French claims to French Louisiana stretched thousands of miles from modern Louisiana north to the largely unexplored Midwest , and west to the Rocky Mountains . It was generally divided into Upper and Lower Louisiana . This vast tract was first settled at Mobile and Biloxi around 1700, and continued to grow reaching 7,000 French immigrants. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Enrico Tonti founded New Orleans , and Enrico Tonti

18120-419: The southern and central coast of California. Father Junípero Serra , founded the first missions in Spanish upper Las Californias , starting with Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1769. Through the Spanish and Mexican eras they eventually comprised a series of 21 missions to spread Roman Catholicism among the local Native Americans, linked by El Camino Real ("The Royal Road"). They were established to convert

18271-922: The time consisted of pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonial audience. Captain John Smith could be considered the first American author with his works A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia ;... (1608) and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Other writers of this genre included Daniel Denton , Thomas Ashe , William Penn , George Percy , William Strachey , Daniel Coxe , Gabriel Thomas, and John Lawson . The religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were important topics of early American literature. A journal written by John Winthrop , The History of New England , discussed

18422-478: The time did not allow these writers to make a living through their writing alone. Charles Brockden Brown is the earliest American novelist whose works are still commonly read. He published Wieland in 1798, and in 1799 published Ormond , Edgar Huntly , and Arthur Mervyn . These novels are of the Gothic genre. The first writer to be able to support himself through the income generated by his publications alone

18573-412: The time, the main source of income—was hampered by lack of road infrastructure, adequate tools and equipment, and natural disasters, including hurricanes and droughts. The economy also suffered from increasing tariffs and taxes imposed by the Spanish Crown. Furthermore, Spain had begun to exile or jail any person who called for liberal reforms. The Spanish–American War broke out in 1898, in the aftermath of

18724-524: The way she can make one character live for four hundred years, and that Orlando can be a man. Orlando can be a woman. Virginia broke through constraints of time, of gender, of culture. Similarly, Kingston's praise of William Carlos Williams expresses her appreciation of his seemingly genderless work: I love In the American Grain because it does the same thing. Abraham Lincoln is a 'mother' of our country. He talks about this wonderful woman walking through

18875-495: The works of Charles W. Chesnutt (writing about African Americans), of María Ruiz de Burton , one of the earliest Mexican-American novelists to write in English, and in the Yiddish -inflected works of Abraham Cahan . William Dean Howells also represented the realist tradition through his novels, including The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) and his work as editor of The Atlantic Monthly . Henry James (1843–1916) confronted

19026-651: The world, after the Spanish Empire . By 1660, French fur trappers, missionaries, and military detachments based in Montreal pushed west along the Great Lakes upriver into the Pays d'en Haut and founded outposts at Green Bay , Fort de Buade and Saint Ignace (both at Michilimackinac ), Sault Sainte Marie , Vincennes , and Detroit in 1701. During the French and Indian War (1754–1763) many of these settlements became occupied by

19177-401: The young nation, making observations about the relations between American politics, individualism, and community. The political conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired the writings of William Lloyd Garrison and his paper The Liberator , along with poet John Greenleaf Whittier and Harriet Beecher Stowe in her world-famous Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). These efforts were supported by

19328-501: Was Cadwallader Colden (1689–1776), whose book The History of the Five Indian Nations , published in 1727 was one of the first texts published on Iroquois history. Colden also wrote a book on botany, which attracted the attention of Carl Linnaeus , and he maintained a long term correspondence with Benjamin Franklin. In the post-war period, Thomas Jefferson established his place in American literature through his authorship of

19479-476: Was Jamestown , established May 14, 1607, near Chesapeake Bay . The business venture was financed and coordinated by the London Virginia Company , a joint-stock company looking for gold. Its first years were extremely difficult, with very high death rates from disease and starvation, wars with local Amerindians, and little gold. The colony survived and flourished by turning to tobacco as a cash crop . By

19630-1160: Was Washington Irving . He completed his first major book in 1809 titled A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty . Of the picaresque genre, Hugh Henry Brackenridge published Modern Chivalry in 1792–1815; Tabitha Gilman Tenney wrote Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventure of Dorcasina Sheldon in 1801; Royall Tyler wrote The Algerine Captive in 1797. Other notable authors include William Gilmore Simms , who wrote Martin Faber in 1833, Guy Rivers in 1834, and The Yemassee in 1835. Lydia Maria Child wrote Hobomok in 1824 and The Rebels in 1825. John Neal wrote Keep Cool in 1817, Logan in 1822, Seventy-Six in 1823, Randolph in 1823, Errata in 1823, Brother Jonathan in 1825, and Rachel Dyer (earliest use of

19781-456: Was "the first Native American novel devoted to the subject of Indian life". A significant event in the development of Native American literature in English came with the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 to N. Scott Momaday ( Kiowa tribe) for his novel House Made of Dawn (1968). The Thirteen Colonies have often been regarded as the center of early American literature. However,

19932-472: Was Mather's The Christian Philosopher (1721). The enormous scientific, economic, social, and philosophical, changes of the 18th century, called the Enlightenment , impacted the authority of clergyman and scripture, making way for democratic principles. The increase in population helped account for the greater diversity of opinion in religious and political life, as seen in the literature of this time. In 1670,

20083-455: Was around 150,000; the Californios (Mexican era Californians) around 10,000; including immigrant Americans and other nationalities involved in trade and business in California. In September 1493, Christopher Columbus set sail on his second voyage with 17 ships from Cádiz . On November 19, 1493, he landed on the island of Puerto Rico, naming it San Juan Bautista in honor of Saint John

20234-477: Was arrested in Washington, D.C. while protesting against the impending Iraq War . The protest, which took place on International Women's Day (March 8), was coordinated by the women-initiated organization Code Pink . Kingston refused to leave the street after being instructed to do so by local police forces. She shared a jail cell with authors Alice Walker and Terry Tempest Williams , who were also participants in

20385-970: Was awarded the 2013 National Medal of Arts by President of the United States Barack Obama . In Spring 2023, Kingston was awarded the Emerson-Thoreau Medal for distinguished achievement in the field of literature by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences She currently resides in Oakland, California where she is retired and maintains her garden. In an interview published in American Literary History , Kingston disclosed her admiration for Walt Whitman , Virginia Woolf , and William Carlos Williams , who were inspirational influences for her work, shaping her analysis of gender studies . Kingston said of Walt Whitman's work, I like

20536-591: Was awarded the CINE Golden Eagle in 1990. Kingston also participated in the production of Bill Moyers ' PBS historical documentary, Becoming American: The Chinese Experience . Kingston was awarded the 1997 National Humanities Medal by President of the United States Bill Clinton . She was a member of the committee to choose the design for the California commemorative quarter. In 2003, Kingston

20687-427: Was born Maxine Ting Ting Hong on October 27, 1940, in Stockton, California , to first-generation Chinese immigrants parents: her father, Tom Hong (d. 1991) and her mother, Ying Lan Chew . She was the third of eight children and the oldest of the six born in the United States. In China , Tom Hong worked as a professional scholar and teacher in his home village of Sun Woi , near Canton . In 1925, Hong left China for

20838-493: Was born; she was named "Maxine" after a blonde patron at the gambling house who was always remarkably lucky. Kingston, a quiet child, didn’t learn English until age five. She recalls an I.Q. test once recording her score as zero . Asked to paint a picture for class, she presented a black sheet, representing stage curtains before a show. Her earliest memories are of World War II—cousins in uniform. Fascinated by war and soldiers, she grew up hearing her mother recount China's history as

20989-433: Was captured by the Dutch in 1655 and merged into New Netherland , with most of the colonists remaining. Years later, the entire New Netherland colony was incorporated into England's colonial holdings. The colony of New Sweden introduced Lutheranism to America in the form of some of the continent's oldest European churches. The colonists also introduced the log cabin to America, and numerous rivers, towns, and families in

21140-400: Was centered at Fort Mose . Spain also intended to destabilize the plantation economy of the British colonies by creating a free black community to attract slaves. Notable British raids on St. Augustine were James Moore's 1702 raid and James Oglethorpe 's 1740 siege. In 1763, Spain traded Florida to Great Britain in exchange for control of Havana, Cuba , which the British had captured during

21291-411: Was concerned with political and social issues. Colonial history of the United States The colonial history of the United States covers the period of European colonization of North America from the early 16th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States in 1776 during the Revolutionary War . In the late 16th century, England , France , Spain , and

21442-453: Was eventually given a separate charter in 1679. Maine remained a part of Massachusetts until achieving statehood in 1820. Under King James II of England , the New England colonies, New York, and the Jerseys were briefly united as the Dominion of New England (1686–1689). The administration was eventually led by Governor Sir Edmund Andros and seized colonial charters, revoked land titles, and ruled without local assemblies, causing anger among

21593-469: Was explored and claimed by France starting in the early 17th century. It was composed of several colonies: Acadia , Canada , Newfoundland , Louisiana , Île-Royale (present-day Cape Breton Island ), and Île Saint Jean (present-day Prince Edward Island ). These colonies came under British or Spanish control after the French and Indian War , though France briefly re-acquired a portion of Louisiana in 1800. The United States would gain much of New France in

21744-402: Was governor of the Louisiana Territory for the next 20 years. Settlement proceeded very slowly; New Orleans became an important port as the gateway to the Mississippi River, but there was little other economic development because the city lacked a prosperous hinterland. In 1763, Louisiana was ceded to Spain around New Orleans and west of the Mississippi River. In the 1780s, the western border of

21895-458: Was inspired by his work. Moby-Dick (1851) became not only an adventure tale about the pursuit of a white whale, but also an exploration of obsession, the nature of evil, and human struggle against the elements. It was a critical and commercial failure, as were his subsequent novels. He turned to poetry and did not return to fiction until the short novel Billy Budd , Sailor , which he left unfinished at his death in 1891. In it, Melville dramatizes

22046-463: Was larger than what was published in North America. However, printing was established in the American colonies before it was allowed in most of England. In England, restrictive laws had long confined printing to four locations, where the government could monitor what was published: London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge. Because of this, the colonies ventured into the modern world earlier than their provincial English counterparts. Some American literature of

22197-424: Was less than 10,000. The Dutch established a patroon system with feudal-like rights given to a few powerful landholders; they also established religious tolerance and free trade. The colony's capital of New Amsterdam was founded in 1625 and located at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan , which grew to become a major world city. The city was captured by the English in 1664; they took complete control of

22348-567: Was predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (1899), The Octopus: A Story of California (1901) and The Pit (1903). Norris along with Hamlin Garland (1860–1940) wrote about the problems of American farmers and other social issues from a naturalist perspective. Garland is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers. ( Main-Travelled Roads (1891), Prairie Folks (1892), Jason Edwards (1892).) Edward Bellamy 's utopian novel Looking Backward (1888)

22499-418: Was settled in 1610 and remains one of the oldest continually European-inhabited settlements in the United States. Local Indians expelled the Spanish for 12 years following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680; they returned in 1692 in the bloodless reoccupation of Santa Fe. Control was by Spain (223 years) and Mexico (25 years) until 1846, when the American Army of the West took over in the Mexican–American War . About

22650-489: Was to run trade surpluses so that gold and silver would pour into London. The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The government spent much of its revenue on the Royal Navy, which protected the British colonies and also threatened the colonies of the other empires, sometimes even seizing them. Thus, the British Navy captured New Amsterdam (New York) in 1664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and

22801-475: Was ultimately successful because male and female literacy rates were increasing at the time. Among the first American novels are Thomas Attwood Digges 's Adventures of Alonso , published in London in 1775 and William Hill Brown 's The Power of Sympathy published in 1789. Brown's novel depicts a tragic love story between siblings who fell in love without knowing they were related. In the next decade, important women writers also published novels. Susanna Rowson

#739260