Excerpt from A History of the American People The name America, which, by accident or mistake, was given to the Western World, fell, in the process of time, to the principal nation on the Continent, and for more than a century, the inhabitants of the United States have been known the world over as the American people. It is the history of this people that the present volume is interested with. The author desires to tell, in brief, how the country was first settled, what motives incited the adventurers who-left European civilization to plant colo nies on our Shores; how those colonies gradually learned that there was strength in union, and that it was to their credit before the world to be one nation; how the early fear that a Republican form of government was not adapted to a large country was dissipated, and how the whole land was gradually developed until its present position among the nations was reached. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.