Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS,

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

INTRODUCTION.

1. IT is the purpose of the author of this work to give to the Youth of the country, as well as general readers, a condensed History of the United States of America; embracing all important facts connected with the discovery and early occupation of the country, within their limits, by immigrants from other lands; together with the facts attending the formation of their Governments, and the establishment of those free institutions which have so

marked,

as well as distinguished them, among the nations

of the earth.

2. In the prosecution of this design, the first object will be, after a brief presentation of the facts attending the discovery of the continent of America, to trace, during their Colonial condition, the History of each one of the separate political Communities known as British Colonies thereon, which afterwards became united under the style of the United States of America, and then to trace the History of these States, so united under their existing Union, down to the present time.

3. The first part of the work will be the History of the the second part will be the

Colonies;

History of the States.

With this view, for proper system, the work will be divided into two Books.

1. What is stated to be the purpose of the Author in preparing this History? 2 In the prosecution of the design, what will be the first object? What the

second?

3. What will be the First Part of the work?

What the Second? How many

Parts will the work be divided into, and what wil they be called? What will Book I. treat of? What will Book II. treat of ?

Book I. will treat of the discovery, the early settlement, and colonization of the country by the ancestors of the present inhabitants, and the events which led to the assumption of sovereign or absolute self-governing powers by the respective Colonies.

Book II. will treat of the achievement and establishment of their independence as States, and their subsequent career under their present Federal Union.

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.

BOOK FIRST.

CHAPTER I.

THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.

1. AMERICA, including what is styled South and North America, and which is sometimes called the Western Continent, was not generally

known to the people of Europe until the year of our Lord 1492, when it was discovered by Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa, one of the cities of Italy. Some Norwegians and Icelanders, at an earlier period, had discovered Greenland and the northern portions of North America, as far south, it is supposed by some, as Massachusetts

Bay, to which region they gave the name of Vinland. 2. But their discoveries had been forgotten, and the knowledge of this Hemisphere had been lost to men of

1. What does the general name of America include? What is it sometimes called? In what year was it discovered? By whom? What is said of the Nor wegians and Icelanders?

2. To whom does the glory of the discovery properly belong?