LKF

Little Known Facts of the United States of America.

2). Who was the First to discover the North American Continent?
Now some might say that the Indians who were already here were actually the first, which they are in away right. However the first European man to Discover the North American Continent was a man by the name John Cobot another Italian explorer/navigator named Zuan Caboto, who is called in English John Cobot.

Nearly 5 years after Columbus had discovered the New World (which he had thought was a part of ASIA) John Cobot under the permission and funds England's Henry VII, he sailed on a small vessel to the North American Continent. He sailed as far north as Canada and as far south as North Carolina. However after failing to find the riches of ASIA which was the intent of the voyage, the English lost interest and a second voyage was never made.

1). How did we get the name America?
Apart of the glory of Columbus's great discovery was taken away from him by accident. First lets explain the fact that Christopher Columbus discovered first the smallest of the West India Islands (while searching for ASIA) which were inhabited by people entirely naked and living in the rudest manner. He than discovered a few larger Islands(which were also off the coast of the North American Continent) and then headed home. Which is how Christopher Columbus was given the credit of discovering the western hemisphere aka: America, the New World!

However America is named after another explorer named Amerigo Vespucci, better known to us as AmericusVespucius, the Latin form of his name. This also Italian explorer funded by Spain discoverd the continent of South America in 1499. However due to the false claim that he discoverd the Continent two years earlier, he was given the credit of the first discovery of America, which after the discovery of certain documents, that place Americus in Spain during the time he claimed to have discoverd
America. When North America came to be placed on the maps this name was applied to it and obviously it is the name of our Country Today.

4).Where was the first Capital of the United States of America?
Before Washington D.C. was our Nations Capital, New York City was the first Capital of the United States. When the Constitution was adopted, a new nation was formed of thirteen states, which before that time had been almost indpendent of one another. The old Confederation had no executive head, but by the provisions of the new Constitution a there was now to be chosen a President of this new nation.

The whole country turned its eyes on George Washington who had been living quietly on his plantation "Mount Vernon" for five years. He was elected President without a rival and John Adams was elected vice-President. Since there were no railroads at the time he had to be carried in his carriage up the Potomac to New York the Temporary Capital of the United States of America. From Elizabethtown Point, in New Jersey he was brought to New York in a Handsome Barge manned by thirteen master-pilots dressed in white. Six other barges with oarsmen dressed in white escorted him.

When he landed at the carpeted stairs at the Warf, he was received by the Governor and the whole city with every possible honor. On the 30th of April 1789, just where his statue now stands in Wall Street, the first of the Presidents took the solemn oath to support the constitution of the infant country.

The Capital was later moved to Philadelphia which it remained until it was at last along the shores of the Potomac, now known as the Washington D.C.

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All facts were gathered from a book titled "The HouseHold History of the United States and Its People" Written by Edward Eggleston and Published by New York D. Appleton and Company 1901.

3). Were there ever White Men in slavery in America aka: Bondage?
Yes there was! When the English first came they brought with them English ways. The lands of the rich men were cultivated by tenants who not only paid rent to their "lord" as they called the owner of their lands, but owed much respect and service. When rent was not paid faithfully they were punished. They were often whipped and cruelly treated in the hands of their hard-hearted masters and during the time of their service they could be bought and sold.

Aside from tenants of this sort, there were Virginia people of a poorer class called "Indentured Servants" those were poor boys and girls picked off the street and bond to serve until they were of age. Many were sent from England and many other European Countries. Some were kidnapped or "spirited away". In England at the time people called "spirits" or "crimps" by false stories persuaded poor men to go the colonies as servants. Some were entrapped aboard a ship, detained and carried off to the colonies against his will and sold into service.

Sometimes people who wished to inherit an estate sent away the true heir and had him sold in America. Bond servants were in some places called "redemptionioners" in which they were in bondage for years and decades before freed. At the time, African American slaves were small and most of the work in Maryland and Virginia (which was a much bigger portion of the east coast back then) were white bond servants until about the close of the seventeenth century. African Americans at the time who were considered heathens and it was thought right to makes slaves of them. But as we know now, such great mistakes as slavery were one of the major reasons of the division of our country which led to the Civil War and led to a great many bloody conflicts killing hundreds of thousand of the men, women and children of our great land.