Resources
Freedom Shrine Overview
Fig 1. A Native American village
Source: Currier & Ives. Scenery of the upper Mississippi: an Indian village. [New york: published by currier & ives, between 1856 and 1907] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2001705805/>.
America has a rich, complex history, beginning from its origin, cultures clashing and uniting to form our nation today. Indigenous tribes, later termed Native Americans, lived in the continental United States for thousands of years, spanning from the Navajo in the West to the Choctaw in the South. Starting in the sixteenth century, during the Age of Discovery, European settlers ventured across the Atlantic to immigrate to, explore, or conquer foreign lands. Some, like the Spaniards, claimed land for their countries, as Juan Ponce de Leon did upon seeing Florida in 1513. Some pursued economic freedom as the Pilgrims did in 1620 in Plymouth. Regardless of their reasons, many settlements arose across North America during this era. The first written document intended for self-government in America was created in Plymouth colony by the Pilgrims in 1620. The document, titled the Mayflower Compact, expressed the settlers’ desire to form the first self-governed colony in the area and proclaimed their intent to “enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices.”[1] The Mayflower Compact was the first of many actions that would create the United States as we know it today.
Relationships between the Europeans and Indigenous Americans differed vastly. Conquistadors forced Natives into slavery and demanded they convert to Christianity. Yet, as evidenced by the Pilgrims, these assumptions were largely, if not entirely, false when they entered an alliance with the Wampanoag tribe, beginning in 1620. The tribe helped the Pilgrims acclimate to the climate of what would later become the state of Massachusetts while the Wampanoag desired the English’s weapons to use in defense against attacks from neighboring tribes. Regardless of their relation to the Native Americans, one thing was for certain: the European settlers were not going away. From the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, European immigrants flooded the Eastern coastline of North America. The Dutch founded New Amsterdam (later New York) in 1624. The Quakers, seeking religious freedom and led by William Penn, founded the colony of Pennsylvania in 1681. By the mid-1700s, the region solidified into thirteen colonies, ranging from Massachusetts to Georgia, owned and governed by the British government.
Fig 2. A battle during the Seven Years’ War
Source: Rochiling, Carl. Frédéric le Grand à la bataille de Zorndorf. 1911. Print. Retrieved from WikiCommons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Friedrich_II_in_der_Schlacht_bei_Zorndorf_Copy_after_Carl_R%C3%B6chling.jpg.
The Seven Years War (1756-1763) was a global conflict with Great Britain, Prussia, and Hanover fighting against Saxony, Russia, Sweden, France, and Austria. While largely fought in Europe, several battles were waged in North America. The war ended in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris, causing Great Britain to return several islands and territories to France. The conflict was incredibly expensive and caused Britain to go into tremendous debt. To combat this, the nation imposed new regulations and restrictions on its thirteen colonies. The Stamp Act, for example, was passed in 1765 and required taxes on all colonial papers. The Quartering Acts of the decade allowed British soldiers to reside in colonists’ homes, making it mandatory for colonists to provide them with housing and food. Already heightened tensions grew tenfold, and colonists rebelled, inciting incidents such as the Boston Massacre of 1770, a skirmish between British soldiers and the citizens of Boston, and the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when colonists dumped tea in the Boston Harbor. All of this culminated with “the shot heard ‘round the world,” at the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. This was the first battle of the Revolutionary War and the colonists’ decision to fight for their freedom as a sovereign nation. They would vocalize this intent with the Declaration of Independence written on July 4, 1776, by Thomas Jefferson, one of the men leading the revolution. The document cements the former thirteen colonies’ break from Great Britain to forge their own country and protect their unalienable rights- “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”[2] This country would be called the United States of America.
The British government, headed by King George III, was not happy with this declaration. Losing the North American colonies would worsen Britain’s debt when their intention was to use them
to lessen it. So, they fought back. The Revolutionary War lasted for several years, and the Continental Army was led by General George Washington, a brilliant military strategist elected by the newly formed Congress for the purpose. Under Washington’s guidance, the soldiers would reach crucial victories including the Battle of Saratoga (1776) and the Battle of Cowpens (1781). Washington’s intelligence would ultimately showcase itself at the Battle of Yorktown on October 19, 1781. Yorktown was captured by the British army, led by Lord Charles Cornwallis, the previous year. Beginning in September of 1781, Washington ordered both American and French forces to block both land and sea entrances to the area before starting a siege. Eventually, after three weeks, the British waved the white flag of surrender. The United States of America had won the Revolutionary War and was, indisputably, a sovereign nation.
The next year, in 1782, General Washington received a letter from Lewis Nicola, a military officer during the war. In his letter, he suggested Washington become king of the new country. Washington responded to Nicola’s letter, urging him “to banish these thoughts from [his] Mind, & never communicate, as from [him]self, or anyone else, a sentiment of the like nature.”[3] The General’s response highlighted a key tenet of America: its citizens had just escaped from the rule of one king. They would never desire another. After Yorktown, negotiations took approximately two years before the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, officially recognizing the United States as a sovereign nation and that the King of Great Britain, “relinquished all claims to the Government, Propriety, and Territorial Rights” of the nation.[4]
After becoming a sovereign nation, the United States then sought to admit other states to the new country. In 1787, the Confederation Congress created the Northwest Ordinance, a law that established how new states would become part of America. Congress implemented a formal process which included a state constitution written and request to be admitted to Congress when the territory’s population hit 60,000[5]. The law’s title came from the first area intended to join the Union, the area North-West of the Ohio river. This procedure allowed the country to grow from thirteen states to, eventually, fifty.
The Alabama Angle:
Alabama’s history is as complex and multifaceted as the country it resides in. Moundville, Alabama served as the political and cultural center of the Mississippian chiefdom from 1000 to 1450 AD and is the second largest site in America. Platform mounds stretch across the area and were utilized as residences or places for burials. It is believed that the Moundville community was organized based on a hierarchy of clans and that the grounds were largely abandoned by the turn of the seventeenth century. Native American tribes including the Cherokee, Creek, and Chickasaw, also inhabited present day Alabama for decades before the Spanish conquistador Hernando De Soto set off on expeditions of the area. Chief Tuskalusa, the leader of the Mississippian chiefdom (and Tuscaloosa County’s namesake), was angry with the cruel treatment De Soto and his men perpetuated against the Indigenous people. On October 18, 1540, Tuskalusa’s tribe ambushed them in present day Montgomery, the battle resulting in the death of over 2,500 Native Americans and 20 Spaniards. Three years later, after finding no riches in the region, De Soto would leave the future American South for Mexico in 1543.
Fig. 3. Moundville Archaeological Park
Source: Highsmith, Carol M, photographer. The Moundville site, occupied from around A.D.until A.D. 1450, is a large settlement of Mississippian culture on the Black Warrior River in central Alabama. Moundville Alabama United States, 2010. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2010640004/.
The oldest city in Alabama, Mobile, was established in 1702 by the Le Moyne brothers. The city was the original capitol of the French Louisiana colony before it moved to New Orleans in 1722. Mobile’s French roots are still prevalent as evidenced by the city’s celebration of Mardi Gras, the oldest such celebration in the United States. A Catholic tradition, its hallmark began in 1703, evolving over the years with the first masked ball in 1704 and the first parade in 1711. Later that century, during the United States’ fight for independence, Mobile was captured by the Spanish in 1780 to circumvent the British’s attempts to wrestle land from the French. Fort Charlotte weathered two battles, one in March 1780 and one in January 1781, before the British retreated. After the Revolutionary War ended, hundreds of veterans retired in the future state and a large percentage of them are buried in Alabama. The American Village in Shelby County, a park with historical live reenactments, holds the National Veterans Shrine and Register of Honor which holds information about U.S. veterans.
[1] “Mayflower Compact (November 21, 1620),” The Exchange Club Freedom Shrine Historic American Document Collection, Freedom Shrine, https://freedomshrine.com/the-mayflower-compact-1620/.
[2] “The Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776).” The Exchange Club Freedom Shrine Historic American Document Collection, Freedom Shrine, https://freedomshrine.com/declaration-of-independence/.
[3] “Washington’s Letter to Col. Nicola (Newburgh May 22nd, 1782). The Exchange Club Freedom Shrine Historic American Document Collection, Freedom Shrine, https://freedomshrine.com/george-washingtons-letter-to-nicola-1782/.
[4] “The Paris Peace Treaty (September 3rd, 1783).” The Exchange Club Freedom Shrine Historic American Document Collection, Freedom Shrine, https://freedomshrine.com/the-treaty-of-paris-1783/.
[5] “Patrick Henry’s Instructions to George Rogers Clark (1778).” The Exchange Club Freedom Shrine Historic American Document Collection, Freedom Shrine, https://freedomshrine.com/the-northwest-ordinance-1787/.