George Bancroft (October 3, 1800 – January 17, 1891) was an American historian, statesman and Democratic politician who was prominent in promoting secondary education both in his home state of Massachusetts and at the national and international levels.

At Göttingen, he studied Plato with Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren, history with Heeren and Gottlieb Jakob Planck, and languages[b] and scripture interpretation with Albert Eichhorn, natural science with Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, German literature with Georg Friedrich Benecke, French and Italian literature with Artaud and Bunsen, and classics with Georg Ludolf Dissen.

While the young man delivered several sermons at his father's behest shortly after his return, his love of literature proved a stronger attachment.

Moreover, his personal affect of ardent Romanticism subjected him to ridicule among the formal society of New England and his political sympathies for Jacksonian democracy put him at odds with nearly all of the Boston elite.

Bancroft, having trained in the leading German universities, was an accomplished scholar, whose masterwork History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent covered the new nation in depth down to 1789.

[citation needed] Bancroft played on four recurring themes to explain the development of American values: providence, progress, patria, and pan-democracy.

The history of America, in Bancroft's view, exemplified the gradual unfolding of God's purpose for mankind – the development of religious and political liberty.

[9] George M. Frederickson argues that Bancroft's "universalist theory of national origins... made the American Revolution not only the fruit of a specific historical tradition, but also a creed of liberty for all mankind.

"[10] Bancroft's orotund romantic style and enthusiastic patriotism fell out of favor with later generations of scientific historians, who did not assign his books to students.

[12][13] Edmund Morgan compares Bancroft's history to that of the Liberal statesman Sir George Trevelyan in that both reject the Progressive view of the Revolution as a mere invocation of political philosophy as a means to keep and consolidate power.

[14] Inspired by Bancroft, Bernard Bailyn and a cohort of mid-twentieth-century historians challenged the dichotomy between "national self-awareness" and the study of history.

[15] Although they had found "limitations" in Bancroft's works, mid-twentieth-century "instrumentalist" historians wished to reexamine the "image of colonial origins" of the American Revolution.

By 1956, this subset of scholars had tentatively determined that, "toward the end of the seventeenth century there emerged an entire apparatus of local politics" that "came, gradually, to accommodate itself" within the imperial system and in various "forms...it is their collapse under the pressures of new circumstances after 1760 that alone made the Revolution 'irrepressible.'

"[16] In 1837, Bancroft entered active politics by accepting an appointment as Collector of Customs of the Port of Boston by President Martin Van Buren.

During his short period in the cabinet, Bancroft established the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, creating a legacy of education and leadership.

[17] He ordered naval action that resulted in the occupation of California and, as secretary of War, sent Zachary Taylor into the contested land between Texas and Mexico.

Bancroft introduced some new respected professors into the corps of instructors, and he suggested a system of promotion, related to experience and achievements as well as age.

Similarly, Bancroft studied so deeply the Oregon boundary dispute that in 1846, he was sent as minister plenipotentiary to London to work with the British government on the issue.

The final ruling was issued on October 21, 1872, and British troops withdrew from San Juan Island on November 22, 1872, after 26 years of maintaining an amicable, yet tense relationship.

In his later years Bancroft lived in Washington, D.C., summering at Rose Cliff, Newport, Rhode Island, the site where Rosecliff was later built.