Chapter 1 The 48 States and Beyond As the United States grew westward after the American Revolution it added new states following a given pattern Each new section of frontier land became a U S territory When 5,000 free men lived there they could form a local government As many as five states could be created out of a territory but 60,000 residents were required to qualify for statehood Citizens of every new state had the same rights and freedoms as all U S citizens including the right to a jury trial and to a public education This pattern was set by the Northwest Ordinance which Congress passed in 1787 Since the end of the nineteenth century however the country has acquired various territories that have not become states The United States now has more territories than any other country and governs the lives of more than 4 6 million people in these territories Jobos Beach near Isabela Puerto Rico is one of the best beaches to learn the sport of surfing due to the great waves on a low depth area 4
FLORIDA GULF OF MEXICO Andros Island THE BAHAMAS NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN CUBA Navassa Island HAITI DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Puerto Rico U S JAMAICA CARIBBEAN SEA St Croix U S Virgin Islands U S territories in the Caribbean Sea All of these entities are islands in the Caribbean Sea or the Pacific Ocean They include Puerto Rico the Virgin Islands Guam the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa The United States also has compacts of free association with the Federated States of Micronesia the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau In addition a number of tiny islands or groups of islands without permanent populations are called U S possessions Some former U S possessions are now independent countries For example Cuba and the Philippine Islands prizes from the Spanish American War became independent years ago Two other former territories Alaska and Hawaii ended a long statehood struggle by becoming the 49th and 50th states in 1959 5
The Panama Canal is the shipping channel that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean It is 48 miles 77 kilometers long The Spanish-American War made the United States a colonial power for the first time The war also served to unite the country and repair the enormous damage to national esteem resulting from the Civil War In the Spanish-American War President William McKinley was careful to give high-level commissions to former Confederate officers Officers and enlisted men from the South eagerly volunteered to show their patriotism and courage Although some Americans spoke out against what they viewed as an undemocratic tendency to expand into faraway places a general surge in nationalism occurred throughout the country The construction of the Panama Canal completed in 1914 also enhanced U S status abroad Although the people in some territories are U S citizens they cannot vote for the U S president and are limited in other respects In general territorial subjects live thousands of miles from American shores and are far poorer than citizens of any state Many of them rely upon U S military spending and tourism to keep their economies healthy 6
Chapter 2 The Addition of Two More States Alaska seemed to be a useless ice box to most Americans in the nineteenth century It was home to about 40,000 Native Americans including the Aleut in the Aleutian Islands the Inuit or Eskimo in the far north and the Tlingit in the southeast section About a quarter of the state lies north of the Arctic Circle where much of the soil is permanently The Tlingit were fishermen who lived off the fish and sea mammals that they caught frozen and daylight is not visible for months at a time Temperatures in the northern parts of Alaska can average 10 degrees Fahrenheit 12 degrees Celcius in the summer and colder than 60 degrees Fahrenheit 51 degrees Celcius in the winter Clothing made from caribou fur helped the Inuits survive the extreme cold 7
