1817
The United States entered upon the prosperous period known as the Era of Good Feeling. Government land rapidly taken up by settlers, and people began to push westward. Resumption of the trouble with the Seminoles on the border of Florida. Jackson took command of the troops after many white settlers had been massacred. First line of steamships between New York and Liverpool opened. On July 4 ground was broken for the Erie Canal. First school for deaf-mutes opened at Hartford. First insane asylum in America opened by the Friends in Philadelphia. Mississippi admitted to the Union.
Depression continued in England; several Luddites executed for smashing machinery; eighteen persons hanged for forging Bank of England notes; habeas corpus suspended. Pindaree and Mahratta wars in India; Lord Hastings, the English governor-general, won a series of victories and greatly extended the British power. The Prince Regent of England hooted by mobs because of his conduct to his wife.
Eleven persons in Philadelphia and seven in Norwich, England, killed by steamboat boiler explosions, resulting in violent public opposition to steam vessels. Cholera epidemic started in Bengal, spread over Asia and Europe, crossed the Atlantic, and caused a million deaths before it was checked some years later. Béranger, French poet, imprisoned for blasphemy.
Mme. de Staël, French writer, and Thaddeus Kosciusko, Polish patriot and soldier in the American Revolution, died.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that James Monroe became President of the United States on March 4.