Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2015 i Cobblestone American History and Current Events for Kids and Children

Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was just 23 years old when he left France in 1667 to find adventure and opportunities in France’s colony of Canada. For the first couple of years after he arrived, he seemed content to be a thriving landholder and fur trader. He ventured out among the neighboring Native American tribes. He learned their languages and traded furs with them. La Salle could have lived the rest of his life as a prosperous trader. But his restless spirit and explorer’s curiosity tugged at him. He listened to the Native Americans’ stories of great rivers called the Ohio and the Misi-Sepe (Mississippi). One of the stories claimed that the river eventually emptied into a sea. La Salle wondered if that river was the water passage to…

Almost 30 years after losing the French and Indian War (1754–1763) and its vast holdings in North America, France changed radically. In 1789, revolutionaries overthrew the French monarchy. Chaos and confusion reigned in the new republic until a young officer named Napoleon Bonaparte took control. By 1800, Napoleon assumed leadership of the French government, and he had plans for Louisiana. That far-off land would provide food and timber for France to restore its position in North America. He instructed his ministers to begin secret negotiations with Spain for a retrocession, or return, of Louisiana to France. King Charles IV of Spain was willing to return the territory. France’s presence would provide a buffer zone between the Spanish possessions in the West and the new United States. Charles IV set only…

Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power during the French Revolution (1789–1799). After proclaiming himself emperor in 1804, he led a series of successful military campaigns that allowed France to dominate European affairs until 1815. Napoleon’s determination to reassert France’s presence in North America in the early 1800s resulted in an overextension of his forces and funds. In an effort to ensure that France’s historic enemy, Great Britain, could not seize New Orleans, Napoleon decided to sell Louisiana to the Americans. Robert R. Livingston had served in both the pre- and post-Revolutionary War governments of the Colonies and the United States. He was appointed U.S. minister to France in 1801. When American shippers’ access to the Mississippi River was threatened, U.S. president Thomas Jefferson instructed Livingston to see if France would sell…

Many cultures have mixed in New Orleans—French, Spanish, Irish, African, English, Italian, and Cuban. Yet New Orleans’s French roots remain strong. Louisiana’s Cajuns, descended from the original French Acadians of Nova Scotia, Canada, have introduced their Cajun food to the rest of the country. Try these pecan lace cookies, a traditional New Orleans sweet. Maybe they will help you to imagine the graceful architecture found in the iron railings of the French Quarter. YOU NEED 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) margarine or butter, softened 1/3 cup sugar 1 egg 1/4 cup flour 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans plus about a dozen whole pecans measuring cups, small bowl, electric mixer, large stirring spoon, rubber scraper, sifter, baking sheet, parchment paper, scissors, teaspoon, knife, spatula, wire rack 1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.…

Spanish explorers were the first to travel through present-day Louisiana and across the Mississippi River in the early 1500s, but French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was the first European to claim the area for his country in 1682. The Louisiana Purchase involved more than 827,000 square miles, or 530,000,000 acres of land. On June 4, 1812, the Louisiana Territory was renamed the Missouri Territory to avoid confusion after Louisiana was admitted to the Union as the 18th state on April 30, 1812. The original deal proposed by President Thomas Jefferson was $10 million for just New Orleans and all or parts of East and West Florida because the United States needed access to coastal areas for shipping and trading. French leader Napoleon Bonaparte offered to sell all…

Thomas Jefferson was a naturally curious man. He read books, tested ideas, and invented things. For many years, he had wondered about what lay in the vast country west of the Mississippi River. On three separate occasions between 1783 and 1793, he tried to organize or helped plan an exploratory party into the West. As a man of science, he wanted to know more about the geography, plants, animals, and Native American people who inhabited the area. As a political leader of the newly formed United States, he was interested in the West as a place for the young nation to expand its agricultural and trade interests. After Jefferson was elected to his first term as president (1801–1805), he tried again. This time, Congress authorized his request to fund an…

France and England had a history of conflict with each other. They had fought a series of wars in Europe, North America, Africa, India, and other parts of the world. By the mid-1700s, the two nations were locked in a winner-take-all struggle for control of the North American continent. Known as the French and Indian War (1754–1763), its outcome had far-reaching global consequences. Imagine the year 1750. Picture yourself as a Native American living around the Great Lakes. The French colonists who have settled in Canada generally have proven to be good friends and allies. You provide them with the pelts of the animals you trap, and the French offer you manufactured cloth and supplies. But you distrust the increasing numbers of British settlers who are trickling across the mountains…

1534  French explorer Jacques Cartier becomes the first European to travel on the St. Lawrence River. 1605  First permanent French settlement is established in Nova Scotia, Canada. 1682  French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is the first European to travel the length of the Mississippi River. In the name of King Louis XIV, he claims for France the territory along the river from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. 1718  New Orleans is founded as a French settlement. 1754–1763 A contest for global empire between France and Great Britain spills over into North America as the French and Indian War. 1762  France persuades its ally Spain to take control of New Orleans and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River. 1763  A defeated France cedes to Great Britain its…

In November 1805, a group of explorers reached the Pacific Ocean after a grueling trip of about 3,700 miles. They were the first Americans to travel overland from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast. Meanwhile, President Thomas Jefferson, the man who had authorized the purchase of French Louisiana and had wondered about what might be discovered in it, waited for news back in Washington, D.C. Not everything about the West was a mystery to Americans in the first decade of the 19th century. For more than 200 years, European explorers and adventurers had filled in pieces of the geographic puzzle. By 1792, maps of the Pacific Ocean showed where the Columbia River emptied into it and where large land features, such as Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and…

Creole” has been used broadly to refer to a racially mixed class of people who are descended from white European settlers. In the United States, the most common use of “creole” refers to people who are descendants of or are culturally related to the original colonial French settlers of Louisiana. Over years of settlement and colonization, the blending of Native American, European, and African people and cultures has led to a distinctly Louisiana Creole culture. Answers to Pleased to Meet You! from page 32 : 1. G; 2. O; 3. I; 4. D; 5. K; 6. B; 7. M; 8. F; 9. A; 10. H; 11. J; 12. C; 13. N; 14. L; 15. E. Answers to Parlez-Vous Francais? from page 37 : 1. J; 2. G; 3.…