Civil War Summary of Part Essay

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The residents of what would become New York came for free land, free religion, and freedom from taxation and many seemed to care little who ruled, and what religion was dominant, as long as there was an opportunity to make money, although the city would gradually take on a more English cultural character.

Even the common conception that the one uniting factor amongst all the new settlements was hostility towards the native residents is not entirely true. It is true that some areas such as Virginia, which began as a colony devoted to economic rather than religious liberty, were characterized by a negative view of Native American culture as less developed than European culture and wars were frequent between settlers and natives throughout New England. However, at the beginning of their dealings with Europeans, Indians had cultural leverage due to their control of certain aspects of trade. "Along the eastern coast, England, France, the Netherlands, and Spain all competed over trade with the Indians. In the Northeast, the English, French, and Dutch struggled to control the fur trade and competed for trade with Native Americans" (Davis & Mintz 92). The Iroquois in particular emerged as canny negotiators with the new settlers, and the dominance of the colonialists was never a foregone conclusion.

Finally it must be remembered Native Americans themselves were pluralistic in nature, in their own right. Some tribes were dominated by farmers; some tribes made a cult of waging war like the Iroquois and still others were savvy traders and negotiators.

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According to one estimate, the native population of the Americas numbered almost twelve million strong at one point (Davis & Mintz 93). Native Americans were not primitive and culturally static individuals -- they too were culturally adaptive in their dealings with Europeans, even if they emerged the losers in the war for territory.

One aspect of American life that did become more fixed during this time was the role of race in the social dynamics of the colonies. In 1790, a fifth of the population was made up of African-Americans (Davis & Mintz 87). While indentured white servants could secure their freedom after a period of time, African-Americans could not. While slavery as a way of life was more economically entrenched in the South, African-Americans experienced bondage and inequality in almost every region where they were present. Slave insurrections were common and flouted the false image of African-Americans as 'docile,' perpetrated by slave owners. Even in the North, in "1741 New York City executed thirty-four people for conspiring to burn down the city. Thirteen African-American men were burned at the stake and another seventeen black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged" (Davis & Mintz 116). The desire for liberty united blacks across regional lines.

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