Our Documents

Our Documents
Author: The National Archives
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2006-07-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198042272

Our Documents is a collection of 100 documents that the staff of the National Archives has judged most important to the development of the United States. The entry for each document includes a short introduction, a facsimile, and a transcript of the document. Backmatter includes further reading, credits, and index. The book is part of the much larger Our Documents initiative sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), National History Day, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the USA Freedom Corps.

New Orleans and the Texas Revolution

New Orleans and the Texas Revolution
Author: Edward L. Miller
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2004-08-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781585443581

In the fall of 1835, Creole mercantile houses that backed the Mexican Federalists in their opposition to Santa Anna essentially lost the fight for Texas to the Americans of the Faubourg St. Marie. As a result, New Orleans capital, some $250,000 in loans, and New Orleans men and arms—two companies known as the New Orleans Greys—went to support the upstart Texians in their battle against Santa Anna. Author Edward L. Miller has delved into previously unused or overlooked papers housed in New Orleans to reconstruct a chain of events that set the Crescent City in many ways at the center of the Texian fight for independence. Not only did New Orleans business interests send money and men to Texas in exchange for promises of land, but they also provided newspaper coverage that set the scene for later American annexation of the young republic. In New Orleans and the Texas Revolution, Miller follows other historians in arguing that Texian leaders recognized the importance of securing financial and popular support from New Orleans. He has gone beyond others, though, in exploring the details of the organizing efforts there and the motives of the pro-Texian forces. On October 13, 1835, a powerful group of financiers and businessmen met at Banks Arcade and formed the Committee on Texas Affairs. Miller deftly mines the long-ignored documentation of this meeting and the group that grew out of it, to raise significant questions. He also carefully documents the military efforts based in New Orleans, from the disastrous Tampico Expedition to the formation of two companies of New Orleans Greys and their tragic fates at the Alamo and Goliad. Whatever their motives, Miller argues, Texas became a life-long preoccupation for many who attended that crucial meeting at Banks Arcade. And the history of Texas was changed because of that preoccupation.

'Agrarians' and 'Aristocrats'

'Agrarians' and 'Aristocrats'
Author: John Ashworth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 1987-03-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521335676

Cover title: "Agrarians" & "aristocrats."Includes index. Bibliography: p. 280-312.

Native America, Discovered and Conquered

Native America, Discovered and Conquered
Author: Robert J. Miller
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2006-09-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0313071845

Manifest Destiny, as a term for westward expansion, was not used until the 1840s. Its predecessor was the Doctrine of Discovery, a legal tradition by which Europeans and Americans laid legal claim to the land of the indigenous people that they discovered. In the United States, the British colonists who had recently become Americans were competing with the English, French, and Spanish for control of lands west of the Mississippi. Who would be the discoverers of the Indians and their lands, the United States or the European countries? We know the answer, of course, but in this book, Miller explains for the first time exactly how the United States achieved victory, not only on the ground, but also in the developing legal thought of the day. The American effort began with Thomas Jefferson's authorization of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, which set out in 1803 to lay claim to the West. Lewis and Clark had several charges, among them the discovery of a Northwest Passage—a land route across the continent—in order to establish an American fur trade with China. In addition, the Corps of Northwestern Discovery, as the expedition was called, cataloged new plant and animal life, and performed detailed ethnographic research on the Indians they encountered. This fascinating book lays out how that ethnographic research became the legal basis for Indian removal practices implemented decades later, explaining how the Doctrine of Discovery became part of American law, as it still is today.

Learn about the United States

Learn about the United States
Author: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2009
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780160831188

"Learn About the United States" is intended to help permanent residents gain a deeper understanding of U.S. history and government as they prepare to become citizens. The product presents 96 short lessons, based on the sample questions from which the civics portion of the naturalization test is drawn. An audio CD that allows students to listen to the questions, answers, and civics lessons read aloud is also included. For immigrants preparing to naturalize, the chance to learn more about the history and government of the United States will make their journey toward citizenship a more meaningful one.

1844: Religious Movements: Religious movements

1844: Religious Movements: Religious movements
Author: Jerome Leslie Clark
Publisher: TEACH Services, Inc.
Total Pages: 399
Release: 1996
Genre: History
ISBN: 1572580674

These volumes are set forth in the hope that it will give the reader a deeper insight into the atmosphere of reform which permeated the time in which arose the Millerite Movement, the seedbed of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Such an atmosphere made people receptive to change and provided the attitude of mind which made the widespread dissemination of new ideas possible. Surely it was in the providence of God that the great Second Advent Movement arose at such a time.