For a hundred years, Europe was torn by conflict as England and France vied for supremacy, dyeing sea and sky with blood. Far across the western sea lay a vast continent, inhabited since ancient times by Indigenous tribes and known to no one else. Then Columbus arrived by accident, and the maps of the world were redrawn. Nations raced to its shores, each vying to claim it as their own. Portugal and Spain arrived first, followed by France and England. They seized land, established colonies, spread their faith, opened trading posts, and sent settlers to establish new provinces. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the English Crown had taken control of the thirteen colonies in North America and imposed taxes, squeezing the people's wealth from them. The common people suffered in silence, daring not even to look up at the sky. Though countless hearths burned at the time, the land had no clear system of government and no settled customs. It was, in truth, a land beyond civilization.
