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ion in the world, after surpassing the Soviet Union measured in net material product in 1990 and Germany in 1968. NB A number of supernational economies are larger, such as the European Union EU, the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA or APEC. This ended in 2010 when China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP was almost as large current exchange rate method as that of the rest of Asia combined. In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equaled that of the US as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 yenUS. Economic growth in Asia since World War II to the 1990s had been concentrated in Japan as well as the four regions of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore located in the Pacific Rim, known as the Asian tigers, which have now all received developed country status, having the highest GDP per capita in Asia.
It is forecasted that India will overtake Japan in terms of nomina |
l GDP by 2025. By 2027, according to Goldman Sachs, China will have the largest economy in the world. Several trade blocs exist, with the most developed being the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Asia is the largest continent in the world by a considerable margin, and it is rich in natural resources, such as petroleum, forests, fish, water, rice, copper and silver. Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Singapore. Japan and South Korea continue to dominate in the area of multinational corporations, but increasingly the PRC and India are making significant inroads. Many companies from Europe, North America, South Korea and Japan have operations in Asia's developing countries to take advantage of its abundant supply of cheap labour and relatively developed infrastructure.
According to Citigroup 9 of 11 Global Growth Generators countries came from Asia driven by population and incom |
e growth. They are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Asia has three main financial centers Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. Call centers and business process outsourcing BPOs are becoming major employers in India and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly skilled, Englishspeaking workers. The increased use of outsourcing has assisted the rise of India and the China as financial centers. Due to its large and extremely competitive information technology industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.
Trade between Asian countries and countries on other continents is largely carried out on the sea routes that are important for Asia. Individual main routes have emerged from this. The main route leads from the Chinese coast south via Hanoi to Jakarta, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur through the Strait of Malacca via the Sri Lankan Colombo to the southern tip of India via Mal to East Africa Mombasa, from there to Djibouti, then |
through the Red Sea over the Suez Canal into Mediterranean, there via Haifa, Istanbul and Athens to the upper Adriatic to the northern Italian hub of Trieste with its rail connections to Central and Eastern Europe or further to Barcelona and around Spain and France to the European northern ports. A far smaller part of the goods traffic runs via South Africa to Europe. A particularly significant part of the Asian goods traffic is carried out across the Pacific towards Los Angeles and Long Beach. In contrast to the sea routes, the Silk Road via the land route to Europe is on the one hand still under construction and on the other hand is much smaller in terms of scope. IntraAsian trade, including sea trade, is growing rapidly.
In 2010, Asia had 3.3 million millionaires people with net worth over US1 million excluding their homes, slightly below North America with 3.4 million millionaires. Last year Asia had toppled Europe.
Citigroup in The Wealth Report 2012 stated that Asian centamillionaire overtook North Am |
erica's wealth for the first time as the world's "economic center of gravity" continued moving east. At the end of 2011, there were 18,000 Asian people mainly in Southeast Asia, China and Japan who have at least 100 million in disposable assets, while North America with 17,000 people and Western Europe with 14,000 people.
Tourism
With growing Regional Tourism with domination of Chinese visitors, MasterCard has released Global Destination Cities Index 2013 with 10 of 20 are dominated by Asia and Pacific Region Cities and also for the first time a city of a country from Asia Bangkok set in the topranked with 15.98 international visitors.
Demographics
East Asia had by far the strongest overall Human Development Index HDI improvement of any region in the world, nearly doubling average HDI attainment over the past 40 years, according to the report's analysis of health, education and income data. China, the second highest achiever in the world in terms of HDI improvement since
1970, is the only country on the " |
Top 10 Movers" list due to income rather than health or education achievements. Its per capita income increased a stunning 21fold over the last four decades, also lifting hundreds of millions out of income poverty. Yet it was not among the region's top performers in improving school enrollment and life expectancy.
Nepal, a South Asian country, emerges as one of the world's fastest movers since 1970 mainly due to health and education achievements. Its present life expectancy is 25 years longer than in the 1970s. More than four of every five children of school age in Nepal now attend primary school, compared to just one in five 40 years ago.
Hong Kong ranked highest among the countries grouped on the HDI number 7 in the world, which is in the "very high human development" category, followed by Singapore 9, Japan 19 and South Korea 22. Afghanistan 155 ranked lowest amongst Asian countries out of the 169 countries assessed.
Languages
Asia is home to several language families and many language isolates. Most As |
ian countries have more than one language that is natively spoken. For instance, according to Ethnologue, more than 600 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 800 languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces.
Religions
Many of the world's major religions have their origins in Asia, including the five most practiced in the world excluding irreligion, which are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Chinese folk religion classified as Confucianism and Taoism, and Buddhism respectively. Asian mythology is complex and diverse. The story of the Great Flood for example, as presented to Jews in the Hebrew Bible in the narrative of Noahand later to Christians in the Old Testament, and to Muslims in the Quranis earliest found in Mesopotamian mythology, in the Enma Eli and Epic of Gilgamesh. Hindu mythology similarly tells about an avatar of Vishnu in the form of a fish who warned Manu of a terrible flood. Ancient Chinese mythol |
ogy also tells of a Great Flood spanning generations, one that required the combined efforts of emperors and divinities to control.
Abrahamic
The Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druze faith, and Bah Faith originated in West Asia.
Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in Israel, the indigenous homeland and historical birthplace of the Hebrew nation which today consists both of those Jews who remained in the Middle East and those who returned from diaspora in Europe, North America, and other regions; though various diaspora communities persist worldwide. Jews are the predominant ethnic group in Israel 75.6 numbering at about 6.1 million, although the levels of adherence to Jewish religion vary. Outside of Israel there are small ancient Jewish communities in Turkey 17,400, Azerbaijan 9,100, Iran 8,756, India 5,000 and Uzbekistan 4,000, among many other places. In total, there are 14.417.5 million 2016, est. Jews alive in the world today, making them on |
e of the smallest Asian minorities, at roughly 0.3 to 0.4 percent of the total population of the continent.
Christianity is a widespread religion in Asia with more than 286 million adherents according to Pew Research Center in 2010, and nearly 364 million according to Britannica Book of the Year 2014. Constituting around 12.6 of the total population of Asia. In the Philippines and East Timor, Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion; it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In Armenia and Georgia, Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion. In the Middle East, such as in the Levant, Anatolia and Fars, Syriac Christianity Church of the East and Oriental Orthodoxy are prevalent minority denominations, which are both Eastern Christian sects mainly adhered to Assyrian people or Syriac Christians. Vibrant indigenous minorities in Western Asia are adhering to the Eastern Catholic Churches and Eastern Orthodoxy. Saint Thomas Christians in India trace their origins to the evange |
listic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. Significant Christian communities also found in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia.
Islam, which originated in the Hejaz located in modernday Saudi Arabia, is the second largest and most widelyspread religion in Asia with at least 1 billion Muslims constituting around 23.8 of the total population of Asia. With 12.7 of the world Muslim population, the country currently with the largest Muslim population in the world is Indonesia, followed by Pakistan 11.5, India 10, Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey. Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are the three holiest cities for Islam in all the world. The Hajj and Umrah attract large numbers of Muslim devotees from all over the world to Mecca and Medina. Iran is the largest Shi'a country.
The Druze Faith or Druzism originated in Western Asia, is a monotheistic religion based on the teachings of figures like Hamza ibn'Ali ibnAhmad and AlHakim biAmr Allah, and Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. |
The number of Druze people worldwide is around one million, with about 45 to 50 live in Syria, 35 to 40 live in Lebanon, and less than 10 live in Israel, with recently there has been a growing Druze diaspora.
The Bah Faith originated in Asia, in Iran Persia, and spread from there to the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, India, and Burma during the lifetime of Bah'u'llh. Since the middle of the 20th century, growth has particularly occurred in other Asian countries, because Bah activities in many Muslim countries has been severely suppressed by authorities. Lotus Temple is a big Bah Temple in India.
Indian and East Asian religions
Almost all Asian religions have philosophical character and Asian philosophical traditions cover a large spectrum of philosophical thoughts and writings. Indian philosophy includes Hindu philosophy and Buddhist philosophy. They include elements of nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India, Crvka, preached the enjoyment of the material world. The religions of |
Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated in India, South Asia. In East Asia, particularly in China and Japan, Confucianism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism took shape.
, Hinduism has around 1.1 billion adherents. The faith represents around 25 of Asia's population and is the largest religion in Asia. However, it is mostly concentrated in South Asia. Over 80 of the populations of both India and Nepal adhere to Hinduism, alongside significant communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bali, Indonesia. Many overseas Indians in countries such as Burma, Singapore and Malaysia also adhere to Hinduism.
Buddhism has a great following in mainland Southeast Asia and East Asia. Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the populations of Cambodia 96, Thailand 95, Burma 8089, Japan 3696, Bhutan 7584, Sri Lanka 70, Laos 6067 and Mongolia 5393. Large Buddhist populations also exist in Singapore 3351, Taiwan 3593, South Korea 2350, Malaysia 1921, Nepal 911, Vietnam 1075, China 2050, North Korea 214, an |
d small communities in India and Bangladesh. The Communistgoverned countries of China, Vietnam and North Korea are officially atheist, thus the number of Buddhists and other religious adherents may be underreported.
Jainism is found mainly in India and in overseas Indian communities such as the United States and Malaysia. Sikhism is found in Northern India and amongst overseas Indian communities in other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia. Confucianism is found predominantly in Mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan and in overseas Chinese populations. Taoism is found mainly in Mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. In many Chinese communities, Taoism is easily syncretized with Mahayana Buddhism, thus exact religious statistics are difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated.
Modern conflicts
Some of the events pivotal in the Asia territory related to the relationship with the outside world in the postSecond World War were
The Partition of India
The Chinese Civil War
The Kashmir |
conflict
The Balochistan Conflict
The NaxaliteMaoist insurgency in India
The Korean War
The FrenchIndochina War
The Vietnam War
The IndonesiaMalaysia confrontation
The 1959 Tibetan uprising
The SinoVietnamese War
The Bangladesh Liberation War
The Yom Kippur War
The Xinjiang conflict
The Iranian Revolution
The SovietAfghan War
The IranIraq War
The Cambodian Killing Fields
The Insurgency in Laos
The Lebanese Civil War
The Sri Lankan Civil War
The 1988 Maldives coup d'tat
The Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The Gulf War
The Nepalese Civil War
The IndoPakistani wars and conflicts
The West Papua conflict
The First NagornoKarabakh War
The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests
The Indonesian occupation of East Timor
The 1999 Pakistani coup d'tat
The War in Afghanistan
The Iraq War
The South Thailand insurgency
The 2006 Thai coup d'tat
The Burmese Civil War
The Saffron Revolution
The KurdishTurkish conflict
The Arab Spring
The ArabIsraeli conflict
The Syrian Civil War
The SinoIndian W |
ar
The 2014 Thai coup d'tat
The Moro conflict in the Philippines
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
The Turkish invasion of Syria
The Rohingya crisis in Myanmar
The Saudi Arabianled intervention in Yemen
The Hong Kong protests
The 2020 ChinaIndia skirmishes
The 1969 interethnic violence in Kuala Lumpur
Culture
Nobel prizes
The polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, dramatist, and writer from Santiniketan, now in West Bengal, India, became in 1913 the first Asian Nobel laureate. He won his Nobel Prize in Literature for notable impact his prose works and poetic thought had on English, French, and other national literatures of Europe and the Americas. He is also the writer of the national anthems of Bangladesh and India.
Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prize for literature include Yasunari Kawabata Japan, 1968, Kenzabur e Japan, 1994, Gao Xingjian China, 2000, Orhan Pamuk Turkey, 2006, and Mo Yan China, 2012. Some may consider the American writer, Pearl S. Buck, an honorary Asian Nobe |
l laureate, having spent considerable time in China as the daughter of missionaries, and based many of her novels, namely The Good Earth 1931 and The Mother 1933, as well as the biographies of her parents for their time in China, The Exile and Fighting Angel, all of which earned her the Literature prize in 1938.
Also, Mother Teresa of India and Shirin Ebadi of Iran were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. Another Nobel Peace Prize winner is Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma for her peaceful and nonviolent struggle under a military dictatorship in Burma. She is a nonviolent prodemocracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma Myanmar and a noted prisoner of conscience. She is a Buddhist and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize fo |
r "his long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" on 8 October 2010. He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. In 2014, Kailash Satyarthi from India and Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".
Sir C.V. Raman is the first Asian to get a Nobel prize in Sciences. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him".
Japan has won the most Nobel Prizes of any Asian nation with 24 followed by India which has won 13.
Amartya Sen, born 3 November 1933 is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members.
Other Asian Nobel Prize winners include Su |
brahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Abdus Salam, Malala Yousafzai, Robert Aumann, Menachem Begin, Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Daniel Kahneman, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ada Yonath, Yasser Arafat, Jos RamosHorta and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of Timor Leste, Kim Daejung, and 13 Japanese scientists. Most of the said awardees are from Japan and Israel except for Chandrasekhar and Raman India, Abdus Salam and Malala Yousafzai, Pakistan, Arafat Palestinian Territories, Kim South Korea, and Horta and Belo Timor Leste.
In 2006, Dr. Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the establishment of Grameen Bank, a community development bank that lends money to poor people, especially women in Bangladesh. Dr. Yunus received his PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University, United States. He is internationally known for the concept of micro credit which allows poor and destitute people with little or no collateral to borrow money. The borrowers typically pay back money within the specified pe |
riod and the incidence of default is very low.
The Dalai Lama has received approximately eightyfour awards over his spiritual and political career. On 22 June 2006, he became one of only four people ever to be recognized with Honorary Citizenship by the Governor General of Canada. On 28 May 2005, he received the Christmas Humphreys Award from the Buddhist Society in the United Kingdom. Most notable was the Nobel Peace Prize, presented in Oslo, Norway on 10 December 1989.
Political geography
Within the abovementioned states are several partially recognized countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN
See also
References to articles
Subregions of Asia
Special topics
Asian Century
Asian cuisine
Asian furniture
Asian Games
AsiaPacific
Asian Para Games
Asian Monetary Unit
Asian people
Eastern world
Eurasia
Far East
East Asia
Southeast Asia
South Asia
Central Asia
Western Asia
North Asia
Fauna of Asia
Flags of Asia
Middle East
Eastern Mediter |
ranean
Levant
Near East
PanAsianism
Lists
List of cities in Asia
List of metropolitan areas in Asia by population
List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Asia
Projects
Asian Highway Network
TransAsian Railway
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Embree, Ainslie T., ed. Encyclopedia of Asian history 1988
vol. 1 online; vol 2 online; vol 3 online; vol 4 online
Higham, Charles. Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations. Facts on File library of world history. New York Facts On File, 2004.
Kamal, Niraj. "Arise Asia Respond to White Peril". New Delhi Wordsmith, 2002,
Kapadia, Feroz, and Mandira Mukherjee. Encyclopaedia of Asian Culture and Society. New Delhi Anmol Publications, 1999.
Levinson, David, and Karen Christensen, eds. Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. 6 vol. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002.
External links
Continents |
Aruba , , is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the midsouth of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguan and northwest of Curaao. It measures long from its northwestern to its southeastern end and across at its widest point. Together with Bonaire and Curaao, Aruba forms a group referred to as the ABC islands. Collectively, these and the other three Dutch substantial islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean, of which Aruba has about onethird of the population. In 1986, it became a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and acquired the formal name the Country of Aruba.
Aruba is one of the four countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands, Curaao, and Sint Maarten; the citizens of these countries are all Dutch nationals. Aruba has no administrative subdivisions, but, for census purposes, is divided into eight regions. Its capital is Oranjestad.
Unlike much |
of the Caribbean region, Aruba has a dry climate and an arid, cactusstrewn landscape. The climate has helped tourism, because visitors to the island can expect clear, sunny skies all year. Its area is and it is quite densely populated, with 101,484 inhabitants as at the 2010 Census. A January 2019 estimate of the population placed it at 116,600.
Etymology
The name Aruba most likely came from the Caquetio Oruba which means "Well situated island", seeing as it was the Caquetio who were present on the island when it was first colonised by Alonso de Ojeda. as of 1529 the name "Isla de Oruba" was used for the island by the Spanish until the Treaty of Westphalia, when the island was ceded to the Dutch and its name was changed to Aruba.
There were many different names for Aruba used by other Amerindian groups, all of which could have contributed to the presentday name Aruba. Another Caquetio name for the island was Oibubia which means "Guided island". The Taino name for the island was Arubeira. The Kalinago als |
o had two names for the island Ora Oubao which means "Shell island" and Oirubae which means "Companion of Curaao".
A common misconception is that the name Aruba came from the Spanish Oro hubo which means "There was gold". However the Spanish found no gold on Aruba during the time of their occupation, nicknaming Aruba and the rest of the ABC islands Islas Intiles, meaning "Useless islands" due to the lack of gold. It was not until much later in 1824 that gold was found on Aruba by Willem Rasmijn, staring the Aruban Gold Rush. Another early Spanish name for Aruba was Isla de Brasil, named as such because of the many Brazilwood trees that grew on the island.
History
Precolonial era
There has been a human presence on Aruba from as early as circa 2000 BC. The first identifiable group are the Arawak Caqueto Amerindians who migrated from South America about 1000 AD. Archaeological evidence suggests continuing links between these native Arubans and Amerindian peoples of mainland South America.
Spanish coloniza |
tion
The first Europeans to visit Aruba were Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Ojeda in 1499, who claimed the island for Spain. Both men described Aruba as an "island of giants", remarking on the comparatively large stature of the native Caquetos. Vespucci returned to Spain with stocks of cotton and brazilwood from the island and described houses built into the ocean. Vespucci and Ojeda's tales spurred interest in Aruba, and the Spanish began colonising the island. Alonso de Ojeda was appointed the island's first governor in 1508. From 1513 the Spanish began enslaving the Caquetos, sending many to a life of forced labour in the mines of Hispaniola. The island's low rainfall and arid landscape meant that it was not considered profitable for a slavebased plantation system, so the type of largescale slavery so common on other Caribbean islands never became established on Aruba.
Early Dutch period
The Netherlands seized Aruba from Spain in 1636 in the course of the Thirty Years' War. Peter Stuyvesant, later appoi |
nted to New Amsterdam New York, was the first Dutch governor. Those Arawak who had survived the depredations of the Spanish were allowed to farm and graze livestock, with the Dutch using the island as a source of meat for their other possessions in the Caribbean. Aruba's proximity to South America resulted in interactions with the cultures of the coastal areas; for example, architectural similarities can be seen between the 19thcentury parts of Oranjestad and the nearby Venezuelan city of Coro in Falcn State. Historically, Dutch was not widely spoken on the island outside of colonial administration; its use increased in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Students on Curaao, Aruba, and Bonaire were taught predominantly in Spanish until the late 18th century.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire took control of the island, occupying it between 1806 and 1816, before handing it back to the Dutch as per the terms of the AngloDutch Treaty of 1814. Aruba subsequently became part of the Colony of Cura |
ao and Dependencies along with Bonaire. During the 19th century, an economy based on gold mining, phosphate production and aloe vera plantations developed, but the island remained a relatively poor backwater.
20th and 21st centuries
The first oil refinery in Aruba was built in 1928 by Royal Dutch Shell. The facility was built just to the west of the capital city, Oranjestad, and was commonly called the Eagle. Immediately following that, another refinery was built by Lago Oil and Transport Company, in an area now known as San Nicolas on the east end of Aruba. The refineries processed crude oil from the vast Venezuelan oil fields, bringing greater prosperity to the island. The refinery on Aruba grew to become one of the largest in the world.
During World War II, the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany. In 1940, the oil facilities in Aruba came under the administration of the Dutch governmentinexile in London, causing them to be attacked by the German navy in 1942.
In August 1947, Aruba formulated its fi |
rst Staatsreglement constitution for Aruba's status aparte as an autonomous state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, prompted by the efforts of Henny Eman, a noted Aruban politician. By 1954, the Charter of the Kingdom of the Netherlands was established, providing a framework for relations between Aruba and the rest of the Kingdom. That created the Netherlands Antilles, which united all of the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean into one administrative structure. Many Arubans were unhappy with the arrangement, however, as the new polity was perceived as being dominated by Curaao.
In 1972, at a conference in Suriname, Betico Croes, a politician from Aruba, proposed the creation of a Dutch Commonwealth of four states Aruba, the Netherlands, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles, each to have its own nationality. Backed by his newly created party, the Movimiento Electoral di Pueblo, Croes sought greater autonomy for Aruba, with the longterm goal of independence, adopting the trappings of an independent state i |
n 1976 with the creation of a flag and national anthem. In March 1977, a referendum was held with the support of the United Nations. 82 of the participants voted for complete independence from the Netherlands. Tensions mounted as Croes stepped up the pressure on the Dutch government by organising a general strike in 1977. Croes later met with Dutch Prime Minister Joop den Uyl, with the two sides agreeing to assign the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague to prepare a study for independence, entitled Aruba en Onafhankelijkheid, achtergronden, modaliteiten, en mogelijkheden; een rapport in eerste aanleg Aruba and independence, backgrounds, modalities, and opportunities; a preliminary report 1978.
Autonomy
In March 1983, Aruba reached an official agreement within the Kingdom for its independence, to be developed in a series of steps as the Crown granted increasing autonomy. In August 1985, Aruba drafted a constitution that was unanimously approved. On 1 January 1986, after elections were held for its first |
parliament, Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles, officially becoming a country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with full independence planned for 1996. However, Croes was seriously injured in a traffic accident in 1985, slipping into a coma. He died in 1986, never seeing the enacting of status aparte for Aruba for which he had worked over many years.
After his death, Croes was proclaimed Libertador di Aruba. Croes' successor, Henny Eman, of the Aruban People's Party AVP, became the first Prime Minister of Aruba. In 1985, Aruba's oil refinery had closed. It had provided Aruba with 30 percent of its real income and 50 percent of government revenue. The significant blow to the economy led to a push for a dramatic increase in tourism, and that sector has expanded to become the island's largest industry. At a convention in The Hague in 1990, at the request of Aruba's Prime Minister Nelson Oduber, the governments of Aruba, the Netherlands, and the Netherlands Antilles postponed indefinitely Aruba's tra |
nsition to full independence. The article scheduling Aruba's complete independence was rescinded in 1995, although it was decided that the process could be revived after another referendum.
Geography
Aruba is a generally flat, riverless island in the Leeward Antilles island arc of the Lesser Antilles in the southern part of the Caribbean. It lies west of Curaao and north of Venezuela's Paraguan Peninsula. Aruba has white sandy beaches on the western and southern coasts of the island, relatively sheltered from fierce ocean currents. This is where the bulk of the population live and where most tourist development has occurred. The northern and eastern coasts, lacking this protection, are considerably more battered by the sea and have been left largely untouched.
The hinterland of the island features some rolling hills, such as Hooiberg at and Mount Jamanota, the highest on the island at above sea level. Oranjestad, the capital, is located at .
The Natural Bridge was a large, naturally formed limestone b |
ridge on the island's north shore. It was a popular tourist destination until its collapse in 2005.
Cities and towns
The island, with a population of about 116,600 people 1 January 2019 estimate does not have major cities. It is divided into six districts. Most of the island's population resides in or around the two major citylike districts of Oranjestad the capital and San Nicolaas. Oranjestad and San Nicolaas are both divided into two districts for census purposes only. The districts are as follows
Noord
Oranjestad East and West
Paradera
San Nicolaas North and South
Santa Cruz
Savaneta
Fauna
The isolation of Aruba from the mainland of South America has fostered the evolution of multiple endemic animals. The island provides a habitat for the endemic Aruban Whiptail and Aruba Rattlesnake, as well as an endemic subspecies of Burrowing Owl and Brownthroated Parakeet.
Flora
The flora of Aruba differs from the typical tropical island vegetation. Xeric scrublands are common, with various forms of cacti |
, thorny shrubs, and evergreens. Aloe vera is also present, its economic importance earning it a place on the coat of arms of Aruba.
Cacti like Melocactus and Opuntia are represented on Aruba by species like Opuntia stricta.
Trees like Caesalpinia coriaria and Vachellia tortuosa are drought tolerant.
Climate and natural hazards
By the Kppen climate classification, Aruba has a hot semiarid climate Kppen BSh. Rainfall is scarce, only 300 millimeters 12 inches per year; in particular, rainy season is drier than it normally is in tropical climates; during the dry season, it almost never rains. Owing to the scarcity of rainfall, the landscape of Aruba is arid. Mean monthly temperature in Oranjestad varies little from to , moderated by constant trade winds from the Atlantic Ocean, which come from the northeast. Yearly rainfall barely exceeds in Oranjestad, although it is extremely variable and can range from as little as during strong El Nio years e.g. 19111912, 19301931, 19821983, 19971998 to over in La N |
ia years like 19331934, 19701971 or 19881989.
Aruba is south of the typical latitudes of hurricanes but was affected by two in their early stages in late 2020.
Demographics
In terms of country of birth, the population is estimated to be 66 Aruban, 9.1 Colombian, 4.3 Dutch, 4.1 Dominican, 3.2 Venezuelan, 2.2 Curaaoan, 1.5 Haitian, 1.2 Surinamese, 1.1 Peruvian, 1.1 Chinese, 6.2 other.
In terms of ethnic composition, the population is estimated to be 75 mestizo, 15 black and 10 other ethnicities. Arawak heritage is stronger on Aruba than on most Caribbean islands; although no fullblooded Aboriginals remain, the features of the islanders clearly indicate their genetic Arawak heritage. Most of the population is descended from Caquetio Indians, African slaves, and Dutch settlers, and to a lesser extent the various other groups that have settled on the island over time, such as the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Sephardic Jews.
Recently, there has been substantial immigration to the island from neigh |
bouring South American and Caribbean nations, attracted by the higher paid jobs. In 2007, new immigration laws were introduced to help control the growth of the population by restricting foreign workers to a maximum of three years residency on the island. Most notable are those from Venezuela, which lies just to the south.
In 2019, recently arrived Venezuelan refugees were estimated to number around 17,000, accounting for some 15 of the island's population.
Language
Aruba's official languages are Dutch and Papiamento. While Dutch is the sole language for all administration and legal matters, Papiamento is the predominant language used on Aruba. Papiamento is a Portuguese and Spanishbased creole language, spoken on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaao, that also incorporates words from Dutch and various West African languages. English and Spanish are also spoken, their usage having grown due to tourism. Other common languages spoken, based on the size of their community, are Portuguese, Cantonese, French and German. |
In recent years, the government of Aruba has shown an increased interest in acknowledging the cultural and historical importance of Papiamento. Although spoken Papiamento is fairly similar among the several Papiamentospeaking islands, there is a big difference in written Papiamento. The orthography differs per island, with Aruba using etymological spelling, and Curaao and Bonaire a phonetic spelling. Some are more oriented towards Portuguese and use the equivalent spelling e.g. "y" instead of "j", where others are more oriented towards Dutch.
The book Buccaneers of America, first published in 1678, states through eyewitness account that the natives on Aruba spoke Spanish already. Spanish became an important language in the 18th century due to the close economic ties with Spanish colonies in what are now Venezuela and Colombia. Venezuelan TV networks are received on the island, and Aruba also has significant Venezuelan and Colombian communities. Around 13 of the population today speaks Spanish natively. Use |
of English dates to the early 19th century, when the British took Curaao, Aruba, and Bonaire. When Dutch rule resumed in 1815, officials already noted wide use of the language.
Aruba has newspapers published in Papiamento Diario, Bon Dia, Solo di Pueblo, and Awe Mainta, English Aruba Daily, Aruba Today, and The News, and Dutch Amigoe. Aruba has 18 radio stations two AM and 16 FM and two television stations Telearuba and Channel 22.
Religion
Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion, practiced by about 75 of the population. Various Protestant denominations are also present on the island.
Regions
Aruba is cartographically split into eight for censuses; these regions have no administrative function; some allude to parishes which include a few charitable community facilities
Government
Along with the Netherlands, Curaao, and Sint Maarten, Aruba is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with internal autonomy. Matters such as foreign affairs and defense are handled by the Netherlands. Ar |
uba's politics take place within a framework of a 21member Staten Parliament and an eightmember Cabinet; the Staten's 21 members are elected by direct, popular vote to serve a fouryear term. The governor of Aruba is appointed for a sixyear term by the monarch, and the prime minister and deputy prime minister are indirectly elected by the Staten for fouryear terms.
Aruba was formerly a part of the nowdefunct Netherlands Antilles; however, it separated from that entity in 1986, gaining its own constitution.
Aruba is designated as a member of the Overseas Countries and Territories OCT and is thus officially not a part of the European Union, though Aruba can and does receive support from the European Development Fund.
Politics
The Aruban legal system is based on the Dutch model. In Aruba, legal jurisdiction lies with the Gerecht in Eerste Aanleg Court of First Instance on Aruba, the Gemeenschappelijk Hof van Justitie van Aruba, Curaao, Sint Maarten, en van Bonaire, Sint Eustatius en Saba Joint Court of Justice |
of Aruba, Curaao, Sint Maarten, and of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba and the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden Supreme Court of Justice of the Netherlands. The Korps Politie Aruba Aruba Police Force is the island's law enforcement agency and operates district precincts in Oranjestad, Noord, San Nicolaas, and Santa Cruz, where it is headquartered.
Deficit spending has been a staple in Aruba's history, and modestly high inflation has been present as well. By 2006, the government's debt had grown to 1.883 billion Aruban florins. In 2006, the Aruban government changed several tax laws to reduce the deficit. Direct taxes have been converted to indirect taxes as proposed by the IMF.
Foreign relations
Aruba is one of the overseas countries and territories OCT of the European Union and maintains economic and cultural relations with the European Union and the United States of America. Aruba is also a member of several international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and Interpol.
Military
Defence on |
Aruba is the responsibility of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Dutch Armed Forces that protect the island include the Navy, Marine Corps, and the Coastguard including a platoon sized national guard.
All forces are stationed at Marines base in Savaneta. Furthermore, in 1999, the U.S. Department of Defense established a Forward Operating Location FOL at the airport.
Education
Aruba's educational system is patterned after the Dutch system of education. The government of Aruba finances the public national education system.
Schools are a mixture of public and private, including the International School of Aruba, the Schakel College and mostly the Colegio Arubano.
There are three medical schools, American University School of Medicine Aruba AUSOMA, Aureus University School of Medicine and Xavier University School of Medicine, as well as its own national university, the University of Aruba.
Economy
The island's economy is dominated by four main industries tourism, aloe export, petroleum refining, and off |
shore banking. Aruba has one of the highest standards of living in the Caribbean region. The GDP per capita PPP for Aruba was estimated to be 37,500 in 2017. Its main trading partners are Colombia, the United States, Venezuela, and the Netherlands.
The agriculture and manufacturing sectors are fairly minimal. Gold mining was important in the 19th century. Aloe was introduced to Aruba in 1840 but did not become a big export until 1890. Cornelius Eman founded Aruba Aloe Balm, and over time the industry became very important to the economy. At one point, twothirds of the island was covered in Aloe Vera fields, and Aruba became the largest exporter of aloe in the world. The industry continues today, though on a smaller scale.
Access to biocapacity in Aruba is much lower than world average. In 2016, Aruba had 0.57 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016, Aruba used 6.5 global hectares of biocapacity per person th |
eir ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use almost 12 times the biocapacity that Aruba contains. This is the extent of Aruba's biocapacity deficit.
The official exchange rate of the Aruban florin is pegged to the US dollar at 1.79 florins to US1. This fact, and the majority of tourists being US, means businesses of hotel and resort districts prefer to bank and trade with the consumer in US dollars.
Aruba is a prosperous country. Unemployment is low although the government has not published statistics since 2013 and per capita income is one of the highest in the Caribbean approximately 24,087. At the end of 2018, the labor force participation rate was 56.6 for women.
Until the mid1980s, Aruba's main industry was oil refining. Then the refinery was shut down and the island's economy shifted towards tourism. Currently, Aruba receives about 1,235,673 2007 guests per year, of which threequarters are Americans. Tourism is mainly focused on the beaches and the sea. The refinery has been closed an |
d restarted repeatedly during the last decades. In recent years a letter of intent was signed with CITGO the US subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA to explore the possibility of reopening the refinery again.
Until 2009, the Netherlands granted development aid to Aruba. This aid was mainly for law enforcement, education, administrative development, health care and sustainable economic development. This aid was discontinued at Aruba's request in 2009. Since 2015, however, a form of financial supervision has been reintroduced because Aruba's debt has risen sharply to over 80 of GDP.
Aruba also has two free trade zones Barcadera and Bushiri, where import and export and the movement of services are taxfree.
Tourism
Aruba has a large and welldeveloped tourism industry, receiving 1,082,000 tourists who stayed overnight in its territory in 2018. About of the Aruban gross national product is earned through tourism and related activities. Most tourists are from North America, with a marketshare of |
73.3, followed by Latin America with 15.2 and Europe with 8.3. In 2018, there were 40,231 visitors from the Netherlands.
For private aircraft passengers bound for the United States, the United States Department of Homeland Security DHS, U.S. Customs and Border Protection CBP has a full preclearance facility since 1 February 2001 when Queen Beatrix Airport expanded. Since 2008, Aruba has been the only island to have this service for private flights.
There are many luxury and lesser luxury hotels, concentrated mainly on the west coast beaches. In Palm Beach are the luxury hotels aimed at American tourists. This area is also called "Highrisearea", because most of the hotels are located in by Aruban standards highrise buildings. Eagle Beach, a short distance from Palm Beach in the direction of Oranjestad, offers hotels on a somewhat smaller and more intimate scale in lowrise buildings, hence the name "lowrisearea".
Oranjestad is the port for the many cruise ships that visit Aruba. The cruise industry is a ver |
y important pillar of tourism in Aruba, since during a cruise a large part of the passengers go ashore to visit the island. With 334 cruise calls, Aruba received 815,161 cruise tourists in 2018. The 20172018 cruise season brought 102.8 million to Aruba's economy. Oranjestad is also home to several luxury hotels, upscale shopping malls, touristoriented shopping streets, and hospitality facilities. The main street, called Caya G.F. Betico Croes, has been redesigned in recent years, including new paving, new palm trees and a streetcar line for tourists.
Culture
Aruba has a varied culture. According to the Bureau Burgelijke Stand en Bevolkingsregister BBSB, in 2005 there were ninetytwo different nationalities living on the island. Dutch influence can still be seen, as in the celebration of "Sinterklaas" on 5 and 6 December and other national holidays like 27 April, when in Aruba and the rest of the Kingdom of the Netherlands the King's birthday or "Dia di Rey" Koningsdag is celebrated.
On 18 March, Aruba celeb |
rates its National Day. Christmas and New Year's Eve are celebrated with the typical music and songs for gaitas for Christmas and the Dande for New Year, and ayaca, ponche crema, ham, and other typical foods and drinks. On 25 January, Betico Croes' birthday is celebrated. Dia di San Juan is celebrated on 24 June. Besides Christmas, the religious holy days of the Feast of the Ascension and Good Friday are also holidays on the island.
The festival of Carnaval is also an important one in Aruba, as it is in many Caribbean and Latin American countries. Its celebration in Aruba started in the 1950s, influenced by the inhabitants from Venezuela and the nearby islands Curaao, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Barbados, St. Maarten, and Anguilla who came to work for the oil refinery. Over the years, the Carnival Celebration has changed and now starts from the beginning of January until the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, with a large parade on the last Sunday of the festivities the Sunday before Ash Wednesday.
Tourism from the |
United States has recently increased the visibility of American culture on the island, with such celebrations as Halloween in October and Thanksgiving Day in November.
Architecture
From the beginning of the colonization of the Netherlands until the beginning of the 20th century, the architecture in the most inhabited areas of Aruba was influenced by the Dutch colonial style and also some Spanish elements from the Catholic missionaries present in Aruba who later settled in Venezuela as well. After the boom of the oil industry and the tourist sector in the 20th century the architectural style of the island incorporated a more American and international influence. In addition, elements of the Art Deco style can still be seen in several buildings in San Nicolas. Therefore, it can be said that the island's architecture is a mixture of Spanish, Dutch, American and Caribbean influences.
Infrastructure
Aruba's Queen Beatrix International Airport is near Oranjestad.
Aruba has four ports Barcadera, the main cargo |
port, Paardenbaai, the cruise ship terminal in OranjestadTaratata, Commandeurs Baai Commander's Bay in Savaneta, and Sint Nicolaas Baai in San Nicolaas. Paardenbaai services all the cruiseship lines such as Royal Caribbean, Carnival, NCL, Holland America, MSC Cruises, Costa Cruises, PO Cruises and Disney. Nearly one million tourists enter this port per year. Aruba Ports Authority, owned and operated by the Aruban government, runs these seaports.
Arubus is a governmentowned bus company. Its buses operate from 330 a.m. until 1230 a.m., 365 days a year. Private minibusespeople movers service zones such as the Hotel Area, San Nicolaas, Santa Cruz and Noord.
A streetcar service runs on rails on the Mainstreet of Oranjestad.
Utilities
Water en Energiebedrijf Aruba, N.V. W.E.B. produces potable water and power; its eponymous plant was one of the world's largest desalination plants as of 2007. Average daily consumption in Aruba is about . N.V. Elmar is the sole distributor of electricity on the island of Aruba. In |
2012, Aruba set a goal of 100 clean electricity by 2020, but no progress has been made toward this goal since, with most generation remaining heavy fuel oil and less than one fifth from wind power.
Communications
There are two telecommunications providers governmentbased Setar, and privately owned Digicel. Digicel is Setar's competitor in wireless technology using the GSM platform.
Places of interest
Beaches
Notable people
Dave Benton, ArubanEstonian musician
Alfonso Boekhoudt, 4th Governor of Aruba
Xander Bogaerts, shortstop in MLB
Betico Croes, political activist
Henny Eman, first Prime Minister of Aruba
Mike Eman, 3rd Prime Minister of Aruba
Bobby Farrell, musician
Frans Figaroa, Lieutenant Governor of Aruba 19791982
Henry Habibe, poet
Andrew Holleran, novelist
Maria IrausquinWajcberg, first elected female politician in Aruba
Olindo Koolman, 2nd Governor of Aruba
Macuarima, first Aruban Amerindian Chief killed by colonist
Hedwiges Maduro, footballer or soccer player in UEFA, La Liga an |
d FIFA World Cup
Jossy Mansur, editor of the Papiamento language newspaper, Diario
Diederick Charles Mathew, politician
John Merryweather 19322019, first Minister Plenipotentiary of Aruba
Nelson Oduber, 2nd Prime Minister of Aruba
Olga Orman, writer and poet
Calvin Maduro, pitcher in MLB
Sidney Ponson, pitcher in MLB
Fredis Refunjol, 3rd Governor of Aruba
Julia Renfro, newspaper editor and photographer
Jeannette RichardsonBaars, Director of the Police Academy of Aruba
Xiomara RuizMaduro, Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs Culture
Chadwick Tromp, catcher in MLB
Felipe Tromp, first Governor of Aruba
Laura WernetPaskel, first female political candidate in Aruba
Evelyn WeverCroes, 4th Prime Minister of Aruba, first female Prime Minister
See also
Central Bank of Aruba
Index of Arubarelated articles
List of monuments of Aruba
Military of Aruba
Outline of Aruba
Further reading
Aymer, Paula L. Uprooted Women Migrant Domestics in the Caribbean.
Brown, Enid Suriname and the Netherlands Ant |
illes An Annotated EnglishLanguage Bibliography.
Gerber, Stanford N. The Family in the Caribbean Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on the Family in the Caribbean, Aruba, 1969.
Green, Vera M. Migrants in Aruba Interethnic Integration.
Hartert, Ernst On the Birds of the Islands of Aruba, Curaao, and Bonaire.
Schoenhals, Kai, compiled Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.
References
External links
Official website of the government of Aruba
Aruba.com Official tourism website of Aruba
Island countries
10thcentury establishments in Aruba
1499 establishments in the Spanish Empire
1636 disestablishments in the Spanish Empire
1636 establishments in the Dutch Empire
1799 disestablishments in the Dutch Empire
1799 establishments in the British Empire
1802 disestablishments in the British Empire
1802 establishments in the Dutch Empire
1804 disestablishments in the Dutch Empire
1804 establishments in the British Empire
1816 disestablishments in the British Empire
1816 establishments in the Dutch Empire
1986 disest |
ablishments in the Netherlands Antilles
1986 establishments in Aruba
Caribbean countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Dutchspeaking countries and territories
Former Dutch colonies
Former Spanish colonies
Former British colonies and protectorates in the Americas
Islands of the Netherlands Antilles
Populated places established in the 10th century
Small Island Developing States
Special territories of the European Union
States and territories established in 1986
Dependent territories in the Caribbean |
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first frame of government. It was approved after much debate between July 1776 and November 1777 by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for ratification. The Articles of Confederation came into force on March 1, 1781, after ratification by all the states. A guiding principle of the Articles was to preserve the independence and sovereignty of the states. The weak central government established by the Articles received only those powers which the former colonies had recognized as belonging to king and parliament.
The document provided clearly written rules for how the states' "league of friendship" would be organized. During the ratification process, the Congress looked to the Articles for guidance as it conducted business, directing the war effort, conducting diplomacy with foreign states, addressing territorial issues and d |
ealing with Native American relations. Little changed politically once the Articles of Confederation went into effect, as ratification did little more than legalize what the Continental Congress had been doing. That body was renamed the Congress of the Confederation; but most Americans continued to call it the Continental Congress, since its organization remained the same.
As the Confederation Congress attempted to govern the continually growing American states, delegates discovered that the limitations placed upon the central government rendered it ineffective at doing so. As the government's weaknesses became apparent, especially after Shays' Rebellion, some prominent political thinkers in the fledgling union began asking for changes to the Articles. Their hope was to create a stronger government. Initially, some states met to deal with their trade and economic problems. However, as more states became interested in meeting to change the Articles, a meeting was set in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787. This beca |
me the Constitutional Convention. It was quickly agreed that changes would not work, and instead the entire Articles needed to be replaced. On March 4, 1789, the government under the Articles was replaced with the federal government under the Constitution. The new Constitution provided for a much stronger federal government by establishing a chief executive the President, courts, and taxing powers.
The Articles of Confederation is considered one of the United States' four major founding documents, along with the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.
Background and context
The political push to increase cooperation among the thenloyal colonies began with the Albany Congress in 1754 and Benjamin Franklin's proposed Albany Plan, an intercolonial collaboration to help solve mutual local problems. Over the next two decades, some of the basic concepts it addressed would strengthen; others would weaken, especially in the degree of loyalty or lack thereof owed the Crown. C |
ivil disobedience resulted in coercive and quelling measures, such as the passage of what the colonials referred to as the Intolerable Acts in the British Parliament, and armed skirmishes which resulted in dissidents being proclaimed rebels. These actions eroded the number of Crown Loyalists Tories among the colonials and, together with the highly effective propaganda campaign of the Patriot leaders, caused an increasing number of colonists to begin agitating for independence from the mother country. In 1775, with events outpacing communications, the Second Continental Congress began acting as the provisional government.
It was an era of constitution writingmost states were busy at the taskand leaders felt the new nation must have a written constitution; a "rulebook" for how the new nation should function. During the war, Congress exercised an unprecedented level of political, diplomatic, military and economic authority. It adopted trade restrictions, established and maintained an army, issued fiat money, cr |
eated a military code and negotiated with foreign governments.
To transform themselves from outlaws into a legitimate nation, the colonists needed international recognition for their cause and foreign allies to support it. In early 1776, Thomas Paine argued in the closing pages of the first edition of Common Sense that the "custom of nations" demanded a formal declaration of American independence if any European power were to mediate a peace between the Americans and Great Britain. The monarchies of France and Spain, in particular, could not be expected to aid those they considered rebels against another legitimate monarch. Foreign courts needed to have American grievances laid before them persuasively in a "manifesto" which could also reassure them that the Americans would be reliable trading partners. Without such a declaration, Paine concluded, "the custom of all courts is against us, and will be so, until, by an independence, we take rank with other nations."
Beyond improving their existing association, |
the records of the Second Continental Congress show that the need for a declaration of independence was intimately linked with the demands of international relations. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution before the Continental Congress declaring the colonies independent; at the same time, he also urged Congress to resolve "to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances" and to prepare a plan of confederation for the newly independent states. Congress then created three overlapping committees to draft the Declaration, a model treaty, and the Articles of Confederation. The Declaration announced the states' entry into the international system; the model treaty was designed to establish amity and commerce with other states; and the Articles of Confederation, which established "a firm league" among the thirteen free and independent states, constituted an international agreement to set up central institutions for the conduct of vital domestic and foreign affairs.
Drafting
|
On June 12, 1776, a day after appointing a committee to prepare a draft of the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress resolved to appoint a committee of 13 with one representative from each colony to prepare a draft of a constitution for a union of the states. The committee was made up of the following individuals
John Dickinson Pennsylvania, chairman of the committee
Samuel Adams Massachusetts
Josiah Bartlett New Hampshire
Button Gwinnett Georgia
Joseph Hewes North Carolina
Stephen Hopkins Rhode Island
Robert R. Livingston New York
Thomas McKean Delaware
Thomas Nelson Virginia
Edward Rutledge South Carolina
Roger Sherman Connecticut
Thomas Stone Maryland
Francis Hopkinson New Jersey, added to the committee last
The committee met frequently, and chairman John Dickinson presented their results to the Congress on July 12, 1776. Afterward, there were long debates on such issues as state sovereignty, the exact powers to be given to Congress, whether to have a judiciary, weste |
rn land claims, and voting procedures. To further complicate work on the constitution, Congress was forced to leave Philadelphia twice, for Baltimore, Maryland, in the winter of 1776, and later for Lancaster then York, Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1777, to evade advancing British troops. Even so, the committee continued with its work.
The final draft of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was completed on November 15, 1777. Consensus was achieved by including language guaranteeing that each state retained its sovereignty, leaving the matter of western land claims in the hands of the individual states, including language stating that votes in Congress would be en bloc by state, and establishing a unicameral legislature with limited and clearly delineated powers.
Ratification
The Articles of Confederation was submitted to the states for ratification in late November 1777. The first state to ratify was Virginia on December 16, 1777; 12 states had ratified the Articles by February 1779, 14 months |
into the process. The lone holdout, Maryland, refused to go along until the landed states, especially Virginia, had indicated they were prepared to cede their claims west of the Ohio River to the Union. It would be two years before the Maryland General Assembly became satisfied that the various states would follow through, and voted to ratify. During this time, Congress observed the Articles as its de facto frame of government. Maryland finally ratified the Articles on February 2, 1781. Congress was informed of Maryland's assent on March 1, and officially proclaimed the Articles of Confederation to be the law of the land.
The several states ratified the Articles of Confederation on the following dates
Article summaries
The Articles of Confederation contain a preamble, thirteen articles, a conclusion, and a signatory section. The individual articles set the rules for current and future operations of the confederation's central government. Under the Articles, the states retained sovereignty over all governmen |
tal functions not specifically relinquished to the national Congress, which was empowered to make war and peace, negotiate diplomatic and commercial agreements with foreign countries, and to resolve disputes between the states. The document also stipulates that its provisions "shall be inviolably observed by every state" and that "the Union shall be perpetual".
Summary of the purpose and content of each of the 13 articles
Establishes the name of the confederation with these words "The stile of this confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'"
Asserts the sovereignty of each state, except for the specific powers delegated to the confederation government "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated."
Declares the purpose of the confederation "The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberti |
es, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever."
Elaborates upon the intent "to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this union," and to establish equal treatment and freedom of movement for the free inhabitants of each state to pass unhindered between the states, excluding "paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice." All these people are entitled to equal rights established by the state into which they travel. If a crime is committed in one state and the perpetrator flees to another state, he will be extradited to and tried in the state in which the crime was committed.
Allocates one vote in the Congress of the Confederation the "United States in Congress Assembled" to each state, which is entitled to a delegation of between two and seven members. Members of |
Congress are to be appointed by state legislatures. No congressman may serve more than three out of any six years.
Only the central government may declare war, or conduct foreign political or commercial relations. No state or official may accept foreign gifts or titles, and granting any title of nobility is forbidden to all. No states may form any subnational groups. No state may tax or interfere with treaty stipulations already proposed. No state may wage war without permission of Congress, unless invaded or under imminent attack on the frontier; no state may maintain a peacetime standing army or navy, unless infested by pirates, but every State is required to keep ready, a welltrained, disciplined, and equipped militia.
Whenever an army is raised for common defense, the state legislatures shall assign military ranks of colonel and below.
Expenditures by the United States of America will be paid with funds raised by state legislatures, and apportioned to the states in proportion to the real property value |
s of each.
Powers and functions of the United States in Congress Assembled.
Grants to the United States in Congress assembled the sole and exclusive right and power to determine peace and war; to exchange ambassadors; to enter into treaties and alliances, with some provisos; to establish rules for deciding all cases of captures or prizes on land or water; to grant letters of marque and reprisal documents authorizing privateers in times of peace; to appoint courts for the trial of pirates and crimes committed on the high seas; to establish courts for appeals in all cases of captures, but no member of Congress may be appointed a judge; to set weights and measures including coins, and for Congress to serve as a final court for disputes between states.
The court will be composed of jointly appointed commissioners or Congress shall appoint them. Each commissioner is bound by oath to be impartial. The court's decision is final.
Congress shall regulate the post offices; appoint officers in the military; and regu |
late the armed forces.
The United States in Congress assembled may appoint a president who shall not serve longer than one year per threeyear term of the Congress.
Congress may request requisitions demands for payments or supplies from the states in proportion with their population, or take credit.
Congress may not declare war, enter into treaties and alliances, appropriate money, or appoint a commander in chief without nine states assenting. Congress shall keep a journal of proceedings and adjourn for periods not to exceed six months.
When Congress is in recess, any of the powers of Congress may be executed by "The committee of the states, or any nine of them", except for those powers of Congress which require nine states in Congress to execute.
If Canada referring to the British Province of Quebec accedes to this confederation, it will be admitted. No other colony could be admitted without the consent of nine states.
Affirms that the Confederation will honor all bills of credit incurred, monies borrowe |
d, and debts contracted by Congress before the existence of the Articles.
Declares that the Articles shall be perpetual, and may be altered only with the approval of Congress and the ratification of all the state legislatures.
Congress under the Articles
Army
Under the Articles, Congress had the authority to regulate and fund the Continental Army, but it lacked the power to compel the States to comply with requests for either troops or funding. This left the military vulnerable to inadequate funding, supplies, and even food. Further, although the Articles enabled the states to present a unified front when dealing with the European powers, as a tool to build a centralized warmaking government, they were largely a failure; Historian Bruce Chadwick wrote
Phelps wrote
The Continental Congress, before the Articles were approved, had promised soldiers a pension of half pay for life. However Congress had no power to compel the states to fund this obligation, and as the war wound down after the victory at Yorkto |
wn the sense of urgency to support the military was no longer a factor. No progress was made in Congress during the winter of 178384. General Henry Knox, who would later become the first Secretary of War under the Constitution, blamed the weaknesses of the Articles for the inability of the government to fund the army. The army had long been supportive of a strong union.
Knox wrote
As Congress failed to act on the petitions, Knox wrote to Gouverneur Morris, four years before the Philadelphia Convention was convened, "As the present Constitution is so defective, why do not you great men call the people together and tell them so; that is, to have a convention of the States to form a better Constitution."
Once the war had been won, the Continental Army was largely disbanded. A very small national force was maintained to man the frontier forts and to protect against Native American attacks. Meanwhile, each of the states had an army or militia, and 11 of them had navies. The wartime promises of bounties and land |
grants to be paid for service were not being met. In 1783, George Washington defused the Newburgh conspiracy, but riots by unpaid Pennsylvania veterans forced Congress to leave Philadelphia temporarily.
The Congress from time to time during the Revolutionary War requisitioned troops from the states. Any contributions were voluntary, and in the debates of 1788, the Federalists who supported the proposed new Constitution claimed that state politicians acted unilaterally, and contributed when the Continental army protected their state's interests. The AntiFederalists claimed that state politicians understood their duty to the Union and contributed to advance its needs. Dougherty 2009 concludes that generally the States' behavior validated the Federalist analysis. This helps explain why the Articles of Confederation needed reforms.
Foreign policy
The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended hostilities with Great Britain, languished in Congress for several months because too few delegates were present at any one tim |
e to constitute a quorum so that it could be ratified. Afterward, the problem only got worse as Congress had no power to enforce attendance. Rarely did more than half of the roughly sixty delegates attend a session of Congress at the time, causing difficulties in raising a quorum. The resulting paralysis embarrassed and frustrated many American nationalists, including George Washington. Many of the most prominent national leaders, such as Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin, retired from public life, served as foreign delegates, or held office in state governments; and for the general public, local government and selfrule seemed quite satisfactory. This served to exacerbate Congress's impotence.
Inherent weaknesses in the confederation's frame of government also frustrated the ability of the government to conduct foreign policy. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, concerned over the failure of Congress to fund an American naval force to confront the Barbary pirates, wrote in a diplomatic corre |
spondence to James Monroe that, "It will be said there is no money in the treasury. There never will be money in the treasury till the Confederacy shows its teeth."
Furthermore, the 1786 JayGardoqui Treaty with Spain also showed weakness in foreign policy. In this treaty, which was never ratified, the United States was to give up rights to use the Mississippi River for 25 years, which would have economically strangled the settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains. Finally, due to the Confederation's military weakness, it could not compel the British army to leave frontier forts which were on American soil forts which, in 1783, the British promised to leave, but which they delayed leaving pending U.S. implementation of other provisions such as ending action against Loyalists and allowing them to seek compensation. This incomplete British implementation of the Treaty of Paris would later be resolved by the implementation of Jay's Treaty in 1795 after the federal Constitution came into force.
Taxation and co |
mmerce
Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government's power was kept quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions but lacked enforcement powers. Implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures.
Congress was denied any powers of taxation it could only request money from the states. The states often failed to meet these requests in full, leaving both Congress and the Continental Army chronically short of money. As more money was printed by Congress, the continental dollars depreciated. In 1779, George Washington wrote to John Jay, who was serving as the president of the Continental Congress, "that a wagon load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon load of provisions." Mr. Jay and the Congress responded in May by requesting 45 million from the States. In an appeal to the States to comply, Jay wrote that the taxes were "the price of liberty, the peace, and the safety of yourselves and post |
erity." He argued that Americans should avoid having it said "that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent" or that "her infant glories and growing fame were obscured and tarnished by broken contracts and violated faith." The States did not respond with any of the money requested from them.
Congress had also been denied the power to regulate either foreign trade or interstate commerce and, as a result, all of the States maintained control over their own trade policies. The states and the Confederation Congress both incurred large debts during the Revolutionary War, and how to repay those debts became a major issue of debate following the War. Some States paid off their war debts and others did not. Federal assumption of the states' war debts became a major issue in the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.
Accomplishments
Nevertheless, the Confederation Congress did take two actions with longlasting impact. The Land Ordinance of 1785 and Northwest Ordinance created terr |
itorial government, set up protocols for the admission of new states and the division of land into useful units, and set aside land in each township for public use. This system represented a sharp break from imperial colonization, as in Europe, and it established the precedent by which the national later, federal government would be sovereign and expand westwardas opposed to the existing states doing so under their sovereignty.
The Land Ordinance of 1785 established both the general practices of land surveying in the west and northwest and the land ownership provisions used throughout the later westward expansion beyond the Mississippi River. Frontier lands were surveyed into the nowfamiliar squares of land called the township 36 square miles, the section one square mile, and the quarter section 160 acres. This system was carried forward to most of the States west of the Mississippi excluding areas of Texas and California that had already been surveyed and divided up by the Spanish Empire. Then, when the Hom |
estead Act was enacted in 1867, the quarter section became the basic unit of land that was granted to new settlerfarmers.
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 noted the agreement of the original states to give up northwestern land claims, organized the Northwest Territory and laid the groundwork for the eventual creation of new states. While it didn't happen under the articles, the land north of the Ohio River and west of the present western border of Pennsylvania ceded by Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, eventually became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and the part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi River. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 also made great advances in the abolition of slavery. New states admitted to the union in this territory would never be slave states.
No new states were admitted to the Union under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles provided for a blanket acceptance of the Province of Quebec referred to as "Canada" in |
the Articles into the United States if it chose to do so. It did not, and the subsequent Constitution carried no such special provision of admission. Additionally, ordinances to admit Frankland later modified to Franklin, Kentucky, and Vermont to the Union were considered, but none were approved.
Presidents of Congress
Under the Articles of Confederation, the presiding officer of Congressreferred to in many official records as President of the United States in Congress Assembledchaired the Committee of the States when Congress was in recess, and performed other administrative functions. He was not, however, an executive in the way the later President of the United States is a chief executive, since all of the functions he executed were under the direct control of Congress.
There were 10 presidents of Congress under the Articles. The first, Samuel Huntington, had been serving as president of the Continental Congress since September 28, 1779.
U.S. under the Articles
The peace treaty left the United States |
independent and at peace but with an unsettled governmental structure. The Articles envisioned a permanent confederation but granted to the Congressthe only federal institutionlittle power to finance itself or to ensure that its resolutions were enforced. There was no president, no executive agencies, no judiciary, and no tax base. The absence of a tax base meant that there was no way to pay off state and national debts from the war years except by requesting money from the states, which seldom arrived. Although historians generally agree that the Articles were too weak to hold the fastgrowing nation together, they do give credit to the settlement of the western issue, as the states voluntarily turned over their lands to national control.
By 1783, with the end of the British blockade, the new nation was regaining its prosperity. However, trade opportunities were restricted by the mercantilism of the British and French empires. The ports of the British West Indies were closed to all staple products which were |
not carried in British ships. France and Spain established similar policies. Simultaneously, new manufacturers faced sharp competition from British products which were suddenly available again. Political unrest in several states and efforts by debtors to use popular government to erase their debts increased the anxiety of the political and economic elites which had led the Revolution. The apparent inability of the Congress to redeem the public obligations debts incurred during the war, or to become a forum for productive cooperation among the states to encourage commerce and economic development, only aggravated a gloomy situation. In 178687, Shays' Rebellion, an uprising of dissidents in western Massachusetts against the state court system, threatened the stability of state government.
The Continental Congress printed paper money which was so depreciated that it ceased to pass as currency, spawning the expression "not worth a continental". Congress could not levy taxes and could only make requisitions upon |
the States. Less than a million and a half dollars came into the treasury between 1781 and 1784, although the governors had been asked for two million in 1783 alone.
When John Adams went to London in 1785 as the first representative of the United States, he found it impossible to secure a treaty for unrestricted commerce. Demands were made for favors and there was no assurance that individual states would agree to a treaty. Adams stated it was necessary for the States to confer the power of passing navigation laws to Congress, or that the States themselves pass retaliatory acts against Great Britain. Congress had already requested and failed to get power over navigation laws. Meanwhile, each State acted individually against Great Britain to little effect. When other New England states closed their ports to British shipping, Connecticut hastened to profit by opening its ports.
By 1787 Congress was unable to protect manufacturing and shipping. State legislatures were unable or unwilling to resist attacks upo |
n private contracts and public credit. Land speculators expected no rise in values when the government could not defend its borders nor protect its frontier population.
The idea of a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation grew in favor. Alexander Hamilton realized while serving as Washington's top aide that a strong central government was necessary to avoid foreign intervention and allay the frustrations due to an ineffectual Congress. Hamilton led a group of likeminded nationalists, won Washington's endorsement, and convened the Annapolis Convention in 1786 to petition Congress to call a constitutional convention to meet in Philadelphia to remedy the longterm crisis.
Signatures
The Second Continental Congress approved the Articles for distribution to the states on November 15, 1777. A copy was made for each state and one was kept by the Congress. On November 28, the copies sent to the states for ratification were unsigned, and the cover letter, dated November 17, had only the signatures of Henr |
y Laurens and Charles Thomson, who were the President and Secretary to the Congress.
The Articles, however, were unsigned, and the date was blank. Congress began the signing process by examining their copy of the Articles on June 27, 1778. They ordered a final copy prepared the one in the National Archives, and that delegates should inform the secretary of their authority for ratification.
On July 9, 1778, the prepared copy was ready. They dated it and began to sign. They also requested each of the remaining states to notify its delegation when ratification was completed. On that date, delegates present from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina signed the Articles to indicate that their states had ratified. New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland could not, since their states had not ratified. North Carolina and Georgia also were unable to sign that day, since their delegations were absent.
After the first signing, some delegates signed at t |
he next meeting they attended. For example, John Wentworth of New Hampshire added his name on August 8. John Penn was the first of North Carolina's delegates to arrive on July 10, and the delegation signed the Articles on July 21, 1778.
The other states had to wait until they ratified the Articles and notified their Congressional delegation. Georgia signed on July 24, New Jersey on November 26, and Delaware on February 12, 1779. Maryland refused to ratify the Articles until every state had ceded its western land claims. Chevalier de La Luzerne, French Minister to the United States, felt that the Articles would help strengthen the American government. In 1780, when Maryland requested France provide naval forces in the Chesapeake Bay for protection from the British who were conducting raids in the lower part of the bay, he indicated that French Admiral Destouches would do what he could but La Luzerne also "sharply pressed" Maryland to ratify the Articles, thus suggesting the two issues were related.
On Februa |
ry 2, 1781, the muchawaited decision was taken by the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis. As the last piece of business during the afternoon Session, "among engrossed Bills" was "signed and sealed by Governor Thomas Sim Lee in the Senate Chamber, in the presence of the members of both Houses... an Act to empower the delegates of this state in Congress to subscribe and ratify the articles of confederation" and perpetual union among the states. The Senate then adjourned "to the first Monday in August next." The decision of Maryland to ratify the Articles was reported to the Continental Congress on February 12. The confirmation signing of the Articles by the two Maryland delegates took place in Philadelphia at noon time on March 1, 1781, and was celebrated in the afternoon. With these events, the Articles were entered into force and the United States of America came into being as a sovereign federal state.
Congress had debated the Articles for over a year and a half, and the ratification process had taken n |
early three and a half years. Many participants in the original debates were no longer delegates, and some of the signers had only recently arrived. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were signed by a group of men who were never present in the Congress at the same time.
Signers
The signers and the states they represented were
Connecticut
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
Oliver Wolcott
Titus Hosmer
Andrew Adams
Delaware
Thomas McKean
John Dickinson
Nicholas Van Dyke
Georgia
John Walton
Edward Telfair
Edward Langworthy
Maryland
John Hanson
Daniel Carroll
Massachusetts Bay
John Hancock
Samuel Adams
Elbridge Gerry
Francis Dana
James Lovell
Samuel Holten
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett
John Wentworth Jr.
New Jersey
John Witherspoon
Nathaniel Scudder
New York
James Duane
Francis Lewis
William Duer
Gouverneur Morris
North Carolina
John Penn
Cornelius Harnett
John Williams
Pennsylvania
Robert Morris
Daniel Roberdeau
Jonathan Bayard Smith
William Clingan
Joseph |
Reed
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
William Ellery
Henry Marchant
John Collins
South Carolina
Henry Laurens
William Henry Drayton
John Mathews
Richard Hutson
Thomas Heyward Jr.
Virginia
Richard Henry Lee
John Banister
Thomas Adams
John Harvie
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Roger Sherman Connecticut was the only person to sign all four great state papers of the United States the Continental Association, the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.
Robert Morris Pennsylvania signed three of the great state papers of the United States the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.
John Dickinson Delaware, Daniel Carroll Maryland and Gouverneur Morris New York, along with Sherman and Robert Morris, were the only five people to sign both the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution Gouverneur Morris represented Pennsylvania when signing the Con |
stitution.
Parchment pages
Original parchment pages of the Articles of Confederation, National Archives and Records Administration.
Revision and replacement
In September 1786, delegates from five states met at what became known as the Annapolis Convention to discuss the need for reversing the protectionist interstate trade barriers that each state had erected. At its conclusion, delegates voted to invite all states to a larger convention to be held in Philadelphia in 1787. The Confederation Congress later endorsed this convention "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation". Although the states' representatives to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were only authorized to amend the Articles, delegates held secret, closeddoor sessions and wrote a new constitution. The new frame of government gave much more power to the central government, but characterization of the result is disputed. The general goal of the authors was to get close to a republic as defined by th |
e philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, while trying to address the many difficulties of the interstate relationships. Historian Forrest McDonald, using the ideas of James Madison from Federalist 39, described the change this way
In May 1786, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina proposed that Congress revise the Articles of Confederation. Recommended changes included granting Congress power over foreign and domestic commerce, and providing means for Congress to collect money from state treasuries. Unanimous approval was necessary to make the alterations, however, and Congress failed to reach a consensus. The weakness of the Articles in establishing an effective unifying government was underscored by the threat of internal conflict both within and between the states, especially after Shays' Rebellion threatened to topple the state government of Massachusetts.
Historian Ralph Ketcham commented on the opinions of Patrick Henry, George Mason, and other AntiFederalists who were not so eager to give up the loca |
l autonomy won by the revolution
Historians have given many reasons for the perceived need to replace the articles in 1787. Jillson and Wilson 1994 point to the financial weakness as well as the norms, rules and institutional structures of the Congress, and the propensity to divide along sectional lines.
Rakove identifies several factors that explain the collapse of the Confederation. The lack of compulsory direct taxation power was objectionable to those wanting a strong centralized state or expecting to benefit from such power. It could not collect customs after the war because tariffs were vetoed by Rhode Island. Rakove concludes that their failure to implement national measures "stemmed not from a heady sense of independence but rather from the enormous difficulties that all the states encountered in collecting taxes, mustering men, and gathering supplies from a warweary populace." The second group of factors Rakove identified derived from the substantive nature of the problems the Continental Congress |
confronted after 1783, especially the inability to create a strong foreign policy. Finally, the Confederation's lack of coercive power reduced the likelihood for profit to be made by political means, thus potential rulers were uninspired to seek power.
When the war ended in 1783, certain special interests had incentives to create a new "merchant state," much like the British state people had rebelled against. In particular, holders of war scrip and land speculators wanted a central government to pay off scrip at face value and to legalize western land holdings with disputed claims. Also, manufacturers wanted a high tariff as a barrier to foreign goods, but competition among states made this impossible without a central government.
Legitimacy of closing down
Two prominent political leaders in the Confederation, John Jay of New York and Thomas Burke of North Carolina believed that "the authority of the congress rested on the prior acts of the several states, to which the states gave their voluntary consent, a |
nd until those obligations were fulfilled, neither nullification of the authority of congress, exercising its due powers, nor secession from the compact itself was consistent with the terms of their original pledges."
According to Article XIII of the Confederation, any alteration had to be approved unanimously
The Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.
On the other hand, Article VII of the proposed Constitution stated that it would become effective after ratification by a mere nine states, without unanimity
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.
The apparent tension between these two provisions was addressed at the |
time, and remains a topic of scholarly discussion. In 1788, James Madison remarked in Federalist No. 40 that the issue had become moot "As this objection has been in a manner waived by those who have criticised the powers of the convention, I dismiss it without further observation." Nevertheless, it is a historical and legal question whether opponents of the Constitution could have plausibly attacked the Constitution on that ground. At the time, there were state legislators who argued that the Constitution was not an alteration of the Articles of Confederation, but rather would be a complete replacement so the unanimity rule did not apply. Moreover, the Confederation had proven woefully inadequate and therefore was supposedly no longer binding.
Modern scholars such as Francisco Forrest Martin agree that the Articles of Confederation had lost its binding force because many states had violated it, and thus "other statesparties did not have to comply with the Articles' unanimous consent rule". In contrast, law |
professor Akhil Amar suggests that there may not have really been any conflict between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution on this point; Article VI of the Confederation specifically allowed side deals among states, and the Constitution could be viewed as a side deal until all states ratified it.
Final months
On July 3, 1788, the Congress received New Hampshire's allimportant ninth ratification of the proposed Constitution, thus, according to its terms, establishing it as the new framework of governance for the ratifying states. The following day delegates considered a bill to admit Kentucky into the Union as a sovereign state. The discussion ended with Congress making the determination that, in light of this development, it would be "unadvisable" to admit Kentucky into the Union, as it could do so "under the Articles of Confederation" only, but not "under the Constitution".
By the end of July 1788, 11 of the 13 states had ratified the new Constitution. Congress continued to convene under the |
Articles with a quorum until October. On Saturday, September 13, 1788, the Confederation Congress voted the resolve to implement the new Constitution, and on Monday, September 15 published an announcement that the new Constitution had been ratified by the necessary nine states, set the first Wednesday in January 1789 for appointing electors, set the first Wednesday in February 1789 for the presidential electors to meet and vote for a new president, and set the first Wednesday of March 1789 as the day "for commencing proceedings" under the new Constitution. On that same September 13, it determined that New York would remain the national capital.
See also
Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture
Founding Fathers of the United States
History of the United States 17761789
Libertarianism
Perpetual Union
Vetocracy
References
Further reading
Collection published 1995.
External links
Text version of the Articles of Confederation
Articles of Co |
nfederation and Perpetual Union
Articles of Confederation and related resources, Library of Congress
Today in History November 15, Library of Congress
United States Constitution OnlineThe Articles of Confederation
Free Download of Articles of Confederation Audio
Mobile friendly version of the Articles of Confederation
1777 in the United States
1781 in law
1781 in the United States
Defunct constitutions
Documents of the American Revolution
Federalism in the United States
History of York County, Pennsylvania
Legal history of the United States
Ordinances of the Continental Congress
Pennsylvania in the American Revolution
Political charters
United States documents
York, Pennsylvania
1777 in Pennsylvania |
Asia Minor is an alternative name for Anatolia, the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey.
Asia Minor may also refer to
Asia Minor album, an album by Jamaicanborn jazz trumpeter Dizzy Reece
"Asia Minor" instrumental, a 1961 instrumental recording by Jimmy Wisner operating under the name Kokomo
See also
Asia Major disambiguation |
The Atlantic Ocean is the secondlargest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20 of Earth's surface and about 29 of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World.
The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, Sshaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. As one component of the interconnected World Ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica. The Atlantic Ocean is divided in two parts, by the Equatorial Counter Current, with the Northern Atlantic Ocean and the Southern Atlantic Ocean at about 8N.
Scientific explorations of the Atlantic include the Challenger expedition, the German Meteor expeditio |
n, Columbia University's LamontDoherty Earth Observatory and the United States Navy Hydrographic Office.
Etymology
The oldest known mentions of an "Atlantic" sea come from Stesichorus around midsixth century BC Sch. A. R. 1. 211 Greek ; English 'the Atlantic sea'; etym. 'Sea of Atlas' and in The Histories of Herodotus around 450 BC Hdt. 1.202.4 Greek ; English 'Sea of Atlas' or 'the Atlantic sea' where the name refers to "the sea beyond the pillars of Heracles" which is said to be part of the sea that surrounds all land. In these uses, the name refers to Atlas, the Titan in Greek mythology, who supported the heavens and who later appeared as a frontispiece in Medieval maps and also lent his name to modern atlases. On the other hand, to early Greek sailors and in Ancient Greek mythological literature such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, this allencompassing ocean was instead known as Oceanus, the gigantic river that encircled the world; in contrast to the enclosed seas well known to the Greeks the Mediterra |
nean and the Black Sea. In contrast, the term "Atlantic" originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of millions of years ago.
The term "Aethiopian Ocean", derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid19th century. During the Age of Discovery, the Atlantic was also known to English cartographers as the Great Western Ocean.
The pond is a term often used by British and American speakers in reference to the Northern Atlantic Ocean, as a form of meiosis, or ironic understatement. It is used mostly when referring to events or circumstances "on this side of the pond" or "on the other side of the pond", rather than to discuss the ocean itself. The term dates to 1640, first appearing in print in pamphlet released during the reign of Charles I, and reproduced |
in 1869 in Nehemiah Wallington's Historical Notices of Events Occurring Chiefly in The Reign of Charles I, where "great Pond" is used in reference to the Atlantic Ocean by Francis Windebank, Charles I's Secretary of State.
Extent and data
The International Hydrographic Organization IHO defined the limits of the oceans and seas in 1953, but some of these definitions have been revised since then and some are not used by various authorities, institutions, and countries, see for example the CIA World Factbook. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas vary.
The Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea. To the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe the Strait of Gibraltar where it connects with the Mediterranean Seaone of its marginal seasand, in turn, the Black Sea, both of which also touch upon Asia and Africa.
In the southeast, the Atlantic merges i |
nto the Indian Ocean. The 20 East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60 parallel by the Southern Ocean.
The Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs and seas. These include the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Caribbean Sea, Davis Strait, Denmark Strait, part of the Drake Passage, Gulf of Mexico, Labrador Sea, Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, Norwegian Sea, almost all of the Scotia Sea, and other tributary water bodies. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures compared to for the Pacific.
Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of or 23.5 of the global ocean and has a volume of or 23.3 of the total volume of the earth's oceans. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers and has a volume of . The North Atlantic covers 11.5 and the South Atlantic 11.1. The average depth is and the maximum depth, the Milwauk |
ee Deep in the Puerto Rico Trench, is .
Biggest seas in Atlantic Ocean
Top large seas
Sargasso Sea 3.5 million km2
Caribbean Sea 2.754 million km2
Mediterranean Sea 2.510 million km2
Gulf of Guinea 2.35 million km2
Gulf of Mexico 1.550 million km2
Norwegian Sea 1.383 million km2
Hudson Bay 1.23 million km2
Greenland Sea 1.205 million km2
Argentine Sea 1 million km2
Labrador Sea 841,000 km2
Irminger Sea 780,000 km2
Baffin Bay 689,000 km2
North Sea 575,000 km2
Black Sea 436,000 km2
Baltic Sea 377,000 km2
Libyan Sea 350,000 km2
Levantine Sea 320,000 km2
Celtic Sea 300,000 km2
Tyrrhenian Sea 275,000 km2
Gulf of Saint Lawrence 226,000 km2
Bay of Biscay 223,000 km2
Aegean Sea 214,000 km2
Ionian Sea 169,000 km2
Balearic Sea 150,000 km2
Adriatic Sea 138,000 km2
Gulf of Bothnia 116,300 km2
Sea of Crete 95,000 km2
Gulf of Maine 93,000 km2
Ligurian Sea 80,000 km2
English Channel 75,000 km2
James Bay 68,300 km2
Bothnian Sea 66,000 km2
Gulf of Sidra 57,00 |
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