ABSTRACT
The territory we now know as the forty-eight contiguous states of the United States was loosely divided among Great Britain, France, and Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The vast majority of this large expanse of land was unexplored and with the exception of European settlements on the Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific coast, the inhabitants were Native Americans. The American cartographer H. C. Robertson authored an extremely interesting atlas entitled Geographic-Historical Series Illustrating the History of America and the Unites States from 1492 to the Present Time Robertson’s work was published by R. O. Evans and Company of Chicago in early 1898. Figures 2.1 through 2.3 and 5.1 in this text are from Robertson’s atlas and are reproduced with permission from The Library of Congress. Figure 2.1 depicts the English, French, and Spanish possessions in today’s continental United States during the early 1600s. The borders were variable, and since the decisions on land ownership were taken in London, Paris, and Madrid, settlers did not bother to steak their land claims. The American Revolutionary War started in 1775 and ended in 1783, although American colonists were discontent with British rule long before 1775. The First Continental Congress met in 1774, and the thirteen self-governing colonies petitioned King George III to allow American representation in the British Parliament. The American petition was ignored. The Second Continental Congress, convened in Philadelphia in mid-May 1775, placed the colonies in a state of defense and appointed George Washington as general and commander-in-chief of the newly formed Continental Army. The British Parliament reacted by declaring that the members of Congress were traitors and the thirteen colonies to be in rebellion
