The American Revolution - Report Example

Introduction When the British colonialists inhabited American territories, the natives, mostly Indians who were hunters and gatherers did not know how to read and write. To be able to govern them without resistance, the colonialists came in as preachers and were able to win over the hearts of the natives, who willingly traded with them (Rev Jonathan, NHCRT 1). Consequently, many more colonialists came and settled in the land in large numbers; the colonialists were able to impose their rule on the people with initial land deals being legal acquisitions for large tracts of land. The colonialists were after fertile land for farming and they tricked the natives into selling the fertile while the natives moved to the interior. The colonialists later could use force to acquire more land for commercial use while subjecting the locals to unending suffering. Through revivals, the locals managed to get enlightened about their rights and privileges prompting them to stage rebellions and demonstrations that ended in the American Revolution (Rev Jonathan, NHCRT 3). This paper shall look at how the colonialists entered America through revivals and eventually colonized the natives. It shall document a few of the imperial acts that instigated the great revolution and the eventual freedom of the locals. The American Revolution New England had attracted a number of preachers due to its expansive size and proximity to the shore. The locals received the preaching well, and many people were converted from traditional ways of worship to Christianity (Rev Jonathan, NHCRT 2). Over time, many people started relaxing on their faith and went back to paganism prompting the evangelists to organize a great awakening to woo back these people. According to Valkenburgh (71), the great awakening successfully attracted many people who changed their morals as Christians in New England. Many churches were scrambling to have a large number of converts with each church providing its best understanding of the word of God, leading to conflicts among the church leaders, a thing that demoralized Christians from attending their regular services. These conflicts attracted the attention of the New England government that decided to regulate mainstream revival activities, sadly ending with government officials persecuting Christians. These persecutions among other challenges increased political and economic instability of the colonial government hence prompting locals to start questioning the colonial rule (Valkenburgh 71). On the other hand, the great awakening had a number of advantages in that it transformed manufacturing and trade between different parties owing to enhanced relations between the different races. According to (Valkenburgh 72), the colonial government started to isolate itself from evangelical activities in its bid to regain full administration power. Among other advantages, the great revival was responsible for the establishment of universities in the region including Princeton, Dartmouth among others that increased the level of enlightenment in the North (Valkenburgh86). As a result, local students did not have to travel overseas to get university education anymore, and the new local scholars played part in ending of the Holy Commonwealth. Churchgoers learned that the freedom to speak is a gift from the Holy Spirit, many people started speaking more openly, and this was the birth of democracy and dissent to the colonial government. As the colonialists saw that many people were enlightened, they did away with regulations that segregated people on racial lines. The first successful colonial settlement in North America took place in 1607 in Jamestown following a number of previous unsuccessful attempts that faced resistance from the indigenous settlers, who feared losing liberal rights to the government besides paying taxes (Road to Revolution 1). After this successful settlement, the Europeans were able to establish many more colonies with strong ties to the mother countries. To rule effectively, the colonialists selected wealthy men to act as point men between the colony and the mother countries and allowed children from these wealthy families to school in Great Britain (Road to Revolution 1). Colonial masters took this step to reduce resistance because they believed the wealthy people in the society could manage to control people in case of riots. They also knew that it was easy to introduce new regulations while under the company of a few locals as opposed to using only colonialists. In addition, these local point men assisted on the issue of language translation between the natives and the colonialists and informing the natives that the colonialists had good motives in their country (Road to Revolution 1). When King George III ascended to power, he wanted to become more powerful than his predecessor did; he instituted policies that regulated colonial trade making it harder for the wealthy natives and settlers to smuggle goods in and out of the colonies. He ordered searching of private homes and businesses to look for contrabands, something that did not go well with settler, as the search took place anytime with the main aim of getting participants unaware (Road to Revolution 1). At this time, Britain and France were at war over control of colonies in North America; Britain won the 7-year war ending the French rule but faced many challenges both financially and in administration. Britain had borrowed a lot of money from allies to finance this war resulting to high levels of debt (Road to Success 2). To be able to repay debts and hire more people to protect its new colonies from Indian uprisings, the government attempted to increase taxes but people objected. To make matters worse, the British invaded land held by Indians pushing them further inland in search of fertile farming land prompting the Indians to rebel against British settlers killing many soldiers, by that, sending shock waves among the colonial governments about the need to increase the number of soldiers. The government wanted to increase its financial resources, so parliament approved introducing the Stamp Act in the colonies and the currency Act that prevented American colonies from issuing bills of credit as money (Road to Revolution 3). The colonies opposed the stamp and currency Acts claiming that only the local General Assembly could levy such tax and not the mother country leading to widespread demonstrations against these Acts forcing the stamp collectors to resign from office (Road to Revolution 4). In addition, American colonies boycotted purchase and consumption of British goods, a big blow for the cash trapped colonial master, but Britain did not abolish the laws. Britain continued passing many Acts affecting all colonies including Townshend Acts making the colonized people protest violently. Through these Acts, Britain was trying to save some of its oldest companies from collapse. When the previous Acts failed to produce the desired results, Britain passed a number of Intolerable Acts, to which people detested with mass protestors calling for non-importation of British goods, end of slave trade and a petition for scrapping of the Intolerable Acts. Failure by the Colonial master to receive petitions from the people to do away with these many taxation and administration Acts led to many rebellions that culminated in the independence of the Americans (Road to Revolution 6). The Revolution had a major impact on slavery by inhibiting slavery work of planting and harvesting (Kolchin 70). The war destroyed many properties with slave masters losing their authority, an aspect that enabled the slaves to escape, while those people who did not run from slavery received good terms of employment and they worked for their employers under better conditions (Kolchin 71). The negative aspect of this rebellion is the complete decline of both imports and exports as market channels were disrupted resulting to death of thriving industries like tobacco trading and sugar industries. Those economies in the south that relied purely on slavery suffered the most compared with the north that had abolished the practice over time. The strong reliance on slavery never allowed most southerners to free their slaves; instead, the slaves continued working under the same deplorable conditions. This was in contrast with northern states like Ohio, Cincinnati that had all along abolished slavery, and their economies relied on free terms of negotiations (Kolchin 75). On a positive side, the revolution saw the growth of a large population of free blacks who were initially slaves, but now majority could secure jobs under negotiated terms. Each state made laws governing how people related to one another with most states limiting rights and privileges of freed slaves. In some states, the slaves were not allowed to take certain job positions or pupils from blacks intermingle with whites at schools. As the revolution ended, businessmen started rebuilding their businesses afresh with many discovering that paid laborers produced high quality and far too much produce compared to slaves who were in the business of doing bad work. Land in the Colonial America Indians are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of North America where they lived in millions as hunters and gathers as different ethnic groups speaking many different ethnic languages. From as early as 1707, the Indian population in America had increased so much that they were occupying large tracts of land. When colonialists came, they found too little useful land idle prompting them to look for ways of getting productive land from the many strong Indians (First Civilizations of North America 3). From the colonialist point of view, Indians were lazy people about land use who did not want to think of better ways of utilizing land to make it economically viable. The colonialists for this reason started settling in small numbers among the Indian-held land, learning the ways and language of Indians, an advantage that enabled them to discover that many of the Indians died out of natural diseases that wiped out people in large numbers owing to poor hygiene (First Civilizations of North America 4). According to colonialists, the habit of hunting was putting good land into wrong use (John NHCRT 2). The colonialists felt that God had given the Indians good land to till, but these people were busy multiplying without producing necessary foods to make them resistant to diseases exposing the people to succumb to drought. William (NHCRT 4) noted that 100 Lenape Indian families held very large tracts of land in Pennsylvania; the sad part was that they could not tell why they held that large tract of land. The colonialists offered to buy land from the Lenape Indians hence both parties signed a treaty saying the land sold is a portion a person could cover in walking for a day and a half. However, the colonial surveyors decided to cheat the illiterate Indians by running so fast for a day and a half hence taking far too much land than Indians expected. From this scenario, Indians lacked faith in the colonialists and tried to launch petitions to recover their land but they were unsuccessful. The primary reason for forcefully taking such large pieces of land was informed by the belief the colonialists held that letting land be idle was injustice (Rev Samuel NHCRT 2). As a result, the colonialists bought land through mischief by acquiring good land along the coastlines driving Indians into the interior, which is dry. In their minds, colonialists believed all the fine land should belong to them since they knew the value of land while the Indians should inhabit the dry interior land that is suitable for hunting and gathering. John (NHCRT 1) noted that the colonialists had an affinity for the land but feared being aggressive to Indians since Indians were too many and well accustomed to the terrain compared to the colonialists. As a result, the colonialists began approaching the Indians through trade then land deals then entered into treaties. On the contrary, these colonialists regarded Indians as savages who were not worth holding land. Unlike Africans, Indians had a comparative advantage in large populations and were organized with influential rulers, a fact that made the colonialists approach them with respect. This results from how Francis Daniels (NHCRT 1) describes the Indians as strong, agile, and supple people signifying the strong fighting power Indians held in this territory. He goes own saying that they are very sincere, loyal and shall not break their promise unless provoked. They were contented with that which they naturally had; they never bothered with owning expensive items like plates, spoons, tables, cooking fat among others. Their contentment spread over to those people they related with, but the colonialists took advantage of this generosity for a weakness and used communication failure as an undue advantage to possess what these Indians treasured most. While considering Indians as savages, the colonialists thought these were thick people without talent, and who could not learn anything. That is why they did and signed treaties in English while giving Indians a wrong translation. Francis Loise (NHCRT 2) points out how colonialists were astonished to hear an Indian speak English in 1702, changing their overall perception that these are people with a great talent, the only problem is that they lacked equal opportunities as the colonialists. John Lawson (NHCRT 3) was not happy with the way colonialists treated the Indians. He spoke of how Indians willingly sold too much food to the whites, who in turn paid very little cash given that they believed Indians had no need for money. In addition, the colonialists did not appreciate how Indians protected them against invasion from animals through giving them places to sleep. In return, the whites looked down on the Indians with disdain and scorn by comparing them to beasts. Christopher (NHCRT 3) notes that many people coexisted peacefully with the Indians as long as one did not harm them in any way and treat them in a good-hearted way. Male Indians could give game meat to the colonialists as females fetch water from the river and bring to the colonialists in case of drought but the Christians were cruel to them and abused them, resulting in ugly confrontations. William (NHCRT 5) believed that Indians had no self-drive to uplift their living conditions. They lived amongst Europeans, but they did not try to imitate the European lifestyle through buying machines and involving themselves in worthy businesses. Instead, the Indians believed in hunting, gathering and using clay tools. The missionaries took in Indian children and taught them how to read and write but when the kids went back to the villages, they went back to their traditional habits. He appreciated the fact that evangelists trained the Indian Kids but did not give them relevant opportunities hence their inability to embrace new culture. To counter this culture issue, he advocated for intermarriage between the Europeans and the Indians to bring about a generation that all parties could respect and offer equal opportunities for improvement. This is demonstrated by Chief Mico (NHCRT 6) when he said that God teaches humans and reveals himself at the point when humans stop being evil. The chief said this despite having no knowledge of the Bible prompting Tomachichi (NHCRT) to commend Indians as cleaver people who worshiped an all-powerful God. Through Mico, Indians regarded the colonialists as evil people who did not have respect to their God as reflected by their mischief and they blamed the colonialists for new diseases like small box that wiped out people in large numbers. His decision was informed by their ability to set up very huge mounds to use in observing the stars and predicting changes in climate and the same places were the burial sites for the noble among themselves. The Indians on the other hand regarded the colonialists as clever people who could read the word of God and relate directly with Him. They respected the Colonialists ability to use smart weapons like Guns in case of war and besides the ability to employ different kinds of utensils when cooking and eating a simple meal. In particular, they embraced colonial ways, foods and education by willingly participating in activities initiated and directed by the whites. Read More