The Colonial Period in the US

Introduction to Colonialism

The Colonization process of the United States was manifested from between the years 1607 to 1776 and it started in Florida when King James I of the United Kingdom sought to take the territory that had been assertively occupied by the Spanish. Within a very short period of time, three ships were dispatched to dock at Chesapeake Bay and the settlers endeavored to find productive and interesting places to stay within this new country. During the colonization process, the colonialists established thirteen colonies which they governed effectively (Stanley, 2005). The colonial regime at first disguised itself to be spreading the Christian religion when in real sense they were pursuing a settlement agenda. This pursuit turned out to have overarching effects to the native communities within the country. As a matter of fact, the English were extremely hostile to the Indians. They forced them to slavery on top of requiring them to adopt their ways and culture. This brutal approach had many ripple effects because the demands made by the settlers were extraordinary and the natives had to put up countervailing measures against this.  

Analysis of the state of colonization

Colonial America was a society which was marred by many unfortunate situations and adverse changes. The people who felt the detrimental effects of this change of lifestyle were the native communities which had lived in the country for a long time now without any encumbrance. The very first group of people to occupy Northern America is the Spanish who governed some portions of the country before the English came in (Grahame, 1846). The Spanish occupation was characterized with extremely brutal treatment of Native Americans and it was even harsher than what other colonial regimes had been practicing.  When England’s colonists took over the mantle, they did not show any leniency either. This is because it was imperative that in order for the colonies to be more productive, the Native Americans were to be forced out of their lands and coerced to work even harder for their colonial masters.

At first the relationship between these two factions was peaceful and promising of good coexistence. However, as time went by, in the year 1612, John Rolfe pioneered Tobacco growing in the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. This venture was productive enough because Tobacco growers’ commerce with the rest of Europe earned a lot of revenue for the farmers. Since Tobacco, degrades the lands in which it is grown, the colonialist started setting their eyes on land owned by Native Americans. These actions triggered pockets of civil resistance in various parts of the colonies. For instance, the Powhatan tribe killed one third of the settlement’s occupants in a bid to retaliate land grabbing within their community (Grahame, 1846). Such belligerent establishments were however silenced with time and English settlers proceeded to grow even more Tobacco on the natives’ land.

Additionally, the English also used religion properly as a guise to justify their use of force and bloodshed. For instance, in 1637, New England Puritans killed many Pequot Indians, women and children included. These actions were justified by the flimsy argument that Pequot Indians were heathens who had been sent by the devil to exterminate English generals who were essentially Christians. Thus, they washed away most of this minority and inferior grouping in the name of protecting their religion. The conditions of colonization at that point were immensely unbearable for the common native who neither had the muscle nor the bargaining power to go against the English’s brutish rule.

Social, Ideological, Economic and Political Ramifications of Colonialism

The colonial regime in North America had tremendous implications on the social fabric of that land. In the first place, the first settlers to dock at Jamestown had had a problem with communicable diseases. Most of them had contracted chicken pox and other rare diseases that the Native Americans had not been infected with before. Therefore, it was very frustrating for that society because these foreigners claiming to be settlers were the carriers of many predicaments in that region.

In addition to this, the colonialists imposed on the American society the Christianity religion and expected all persons to partake in the rights and prayers associated with this faith. Among the settlers, there were Christian purists who endeavored to ensure that everyone followed the edicts of their religion and they could punish Natives heavily if they defied this order. Even those that practiced the Hindu religion were coerced to accept Christianity and even though they tried to resist; their efforts could not match the resolve of the purists. The last social problem that was manifested at this point was the issue of segregation. The settlers and eventually colonialists established classes in the society (Bolton & Marshall, 1920). This practice had never existed before in this society. At all places, even in church, all persons were separated according to their classes. The English were superior than the rest, meaning that they could attend special schools sit in special places in church and take any land belonging to the Natives as they please.

Colonialism also had massive economic effects on the American society. When the settlers started to live in America, they instantly dominated the economic sectors of the land. They first ensured that they had enough land to grow Tobacco on. Since they had massive links with the outside world, especially Europe; it was easy for them to sell their finished products and further assert their authority over all other persons. The Native Americans on the other hand did not have any means of production. Also, they had not travelled to other parts of the world and it would be hard for them to land a good market for any goods. In fact after the Tobacco farms had been significantly degraded, colonialists forcefully grabbed land from Native Americans, leaving them with no economic activity at all other than working for them in their farms.

On the political front, it is after grabbing the Natives’ land that the Europeans resorted to converting them into servants and later slaves. Native Americans did not have any rights in this regime. All the colonies in North America were first left to govern themselves under the supervision of the Queen. But with time passing, this system was no longer tenable and thus the authority of governance was exclusively vested in the hands of the Queen. Having been condemned to slavery, the Natives could not at this point partake in any crucial decision making process. Also, the English colonialists were responsible for bringing in more slaves from Africa and other parts of the world. Most of these people were jail birds and convicts who were ideally had to cope with in their previous societies (Bolton & Marshall, 1920). But because there was a high demand of their labor, it was imperative that they are brought to America. This eventually created a huge struggle to break away from the shackles of slavery and become free again.

Policy that solved Colonialism

The brutal colonialist regime was put to an end by the Boston Tea Party of 1773. This party created a movement in which the people often assembled to protest the hefty taxes that had been imposed by the British Government. In fact, the protesters dumped British tea in the Boston harbor because of the hefty taxes that had been levied on that commodity. This simple protests mutated to a revolution that further coerced the colonial government to declare thirteen colonies as independent states.

Idea that defined program definition

The main driving agenda for the protest against imposition of taxes was that the natives complained that they were not familiar with the legal system of the United Kingdom and in that case, they could not ascertain the manner in which the law could change their lives in future, this is because the UK had an unwritten Constitution whose applicability was not known to the Americans. Therefore, they could not stand arbitrary actions like raising taxes whenever the colonial government pleased.

THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD AND AFTER

Slavery

After North America got independence from the British rule, the only massive problem that remained for the next generation to deal with was slavery. Slavery in North America is as old as colonialization because the first slaves to land in the country were the ones who came with the first settlers and landed at Jamestown, Virginia in the year 1619. Even though the vice was so old in the society, its abolition took so many years to be ripe because it had been deeply entrenched in the American society. At the time when the Declaration of Independence was made in 1776, slavery was legal in the 13 states that existed at that time. Ideally, a slave fell within a certain caste in the society which was associated with African Americans Berlin, I., & Rogers D. Spotswood Collection. (1998). When the Constitution of the United States was finally ratified in 1789, only a few free black people were allowed to vote and this condition persisted for many subsequent years.

Analysis of Slavery in the American Society

The 17^th Century saw British settlers in North America resort to bringing in African slaves so that they can get cheap labor and minimize the cost of production. With this benefit in mind, Slavery was rapidly spread across all the colonies of the region. It is estimated that about 7 million slaves were imported from Africa and this increased the population of the black race in North America. Even after the American Civil war, the Constitution that was enacted in 1789 acknowledged slavery as an institution and perceived slaves as 3/5 of a person for purposes of tax remittance (Smith, 2009).

Many slave owners endeavored to have their slaves absolutely dependent on them, and that is why they advocated for immense restrictions on the lives of these individuals. In that case, slaves were barred from learning how to read and write. Also, their free will, decision making freedom, and freedom of movement or association were greatly hampered. Female slaves were in most cases treated as sex objects and could be used at will by their masters and cohorts. Obedient slaves were duly rewarded by some masters while the rebellious ones were heavily punished. Even within the slaves domain, there were still ranks. The highest ranking slave was the house slave, then the artisan who had some skills and at the bottom was the field worker slave. A marriage between slaves had no legal validity. However, many slave owners allowed their slaves to go ahead and marry. Even after this union, their families could still be separated through sale or casual excommunication.

Social, Ideological, Economical, and Political Effects of Slavery

Slavery had overarching effects on the social standing of slaves in North America. In that society, slaves were regarded as chattels and they were capable of being sold, transferred or passed over by the master. They were the lowest ranked members of the society and were essentially denied basic amenities that any person would want to have. For instance, slaves could only marry at the mercy of their masters. Also, the aforementioned point that they once they founded a family, it could be separated by the master. This is disturbing because in most cases, children were separated from their parents regardless of the emotional attachment. Since they were basically property, they could not be involved in any decision making process in the society. They simply did not have a voice.

Slaves, being in themselves property; did not have the status to enable them own any asset. They therefore worked so hard under the instructions of the master without any pay. It took the good will of the master to have them at least change their clothing and bite some food. With all these maltreatment, slavery contributed enormously to the economy of North America. It is the hard work of these low class citizens that essentially led to the country improving its production and getting a bargaining voice in the international platform. Aside from house hold slaves, many regular slaves worked in large scale production entities where they single handedly elevated the country’s economic prowess (Smith, 2009).

From a political perspective, slaves were not allowed to make any political decision at all. They could not vote or even give their views about how things should be run because in the eyes of the law, they were merely property. Even after President Abraham Lincoln announced that all slaves were free forever in 1865, even though the freed slaves were eligible to vote in the 1870 elections; they faced numerous technicalities that barred them from taking part in the voting process (Rose, 1976). In addition to this, the fact that slaves had not been allowed to learn how to read and write; it was hard for them to have any proactive engagement in the politics of the day.

Policy that was Implemented to end Slavery

The road to abolition of slavery started in 1833 when many groupings came together to form the Anti-Slavery Society. This establishment was critical of the standard of living to which slaves had been subjected to for the whole servitude period. The society also condemned mistreatment of slaves by masters and lobbied with the government to have slavery abolished in the United States. This struggle was realized when Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. In 863, the president made a proclamation that all slaves were henceforth free forever but this directive did not free anyone because of technicalities of power struggles and secession threats by many states.

The idea that influenced the Program Response

Formation of the Anti-Slavery Society was on account of the many atrocities that had been committed against slaves. This was a collective effort that a concert of groups from all states of the country decided to partake in. That is why they gained recognition gradually and their voices came to be heard at last. The declaration by President Abraham Lincoln was however informed by many factors. The most outstanding rationale for his directive is that it was a good move to counter secessionist claims. This is because freeing the slaves would entitle them to join the army and this would thus help in repelling forces of states which want to detach themselves from the country (Rose, 1976).

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION

The pursuit for colonial independence and the fight for freedom from slavery are two analogous phenomena in the history of the United States. To start with, both struggles aimed at changing or abolishing practices of statuses that had existed for a very long period of time to the extent of being regarded as normal in the society. Both practices were originally introduced in the society by the colonial masters and thus it was hard to get a way of stopping them instantaneously. Another similarity is that in both instances, the vices complained of were highly beneficial to the predominant members of that society who enjoyed privileges in the country and benefitted from that bad system. Finally, it is noteworthy that both of this struggles ended in violent solutions which led to a smooth transition into a new regime.

The only major point of difference from these two struggles is the time difference between them because the fight against slavery came almost a century after America had gotten its independence. Thus, a lot of political considerations were in play when solving the slavery puzzle as opposed to the fight for independence which called for an all-out civil war.

REFERENCESTop of Form

Bottom of Form

Berlin, I., & Rogers D. Spotswood Collection. (1998). Many thousands gone: The first two            centuries of slavery in North America.

Bolton, H. E., & Marshall, T. M. (1920). The colonization of North America, 1492-1783. New       York: Macmillan Co.

DiNitto, D. M. (2010). Social welfare: Politics and public policy. Upper Saddle River, N.J:           Pearson Education.

Grahame, J. (1846). The history of the United States of North America: From the plantation of       the British colonies till their assumption of national independence. Philadelphia: Lea and           Blanchard.

Rose, W. L. (1976). A Documentary history of slavery in North America. New York: Oxford        University Press.

Smith, M. M. (2009). Slavery in North America: From the Colonial period to emancipation.          London: Pickering & Chatto.

Stanley, G. E. (2005). The European settlement of North America (1492-1763). Milwaukee:          World Almanac Library.