Chapter 6 Section 2

Europeans began settling in North America in the 1500s and setting up colonies (a territory inhabited and controlled by people from a foreign land). New cities such as Boston and New York became major sea ports in the British colonies. Thousand of enslaved Africans were brought to the colonies and forced to work on plantations ( a large farm that grows mainly one crop).

In 1774, many British colonists were unhappy with British rule. As a result, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence in July 1776. To win independence, colonists fought the British in the Revolutionary War. The British were defeated in 1781.

After the war, the United States began to expand west. The first settlers were called pioneers.

The United States faced two world wars during the 1900s. After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became rivals in the Cold War, which lasted until the 1990s.

A cold war is when countries use threats and other measures but not open war.

For thousands of years, Native Americans were the only people living in the Americas. Descendants of enslaved Africans live throughout the country, with the highest population of African Americans living in the South. Other people migrated to the United States from different regions of the world. These include Asian countries, such as China, India, and the Philippines. Many Hispanic Americans originally migrated to the United States from Mexico, Cuba, and other Latin American countries.