Voices Of Freedom Chapter 1 Summary

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Paper #1: Chapters 1-3 of Voices of Freedom Looking back at the whole occurrence of the discovery of the New World it becomes evident the many hardships that the colonial settlers caused which justifies the egocentric intentions of the many Europeans. It seems that even though the settlers were fleeing from a country that forced views among themselves or caused unjust situations; the colonists were precisely acting on the foreign population, who they viewed as “lesser”, similarly to that of their homelands. Although at the time the occurrence was not obvious, looking at it from today’s standpoint, it is quit ironic. On more than one instance the settlers treated distinctive groups with an inhumane disrespect with no regard to their well-being. …show more content…
From the first landing of the Spanish, Natives were innocent to what would become of their nation. Their peaceful spirits ultimately mutilated their diverse, established existence. One of the very first settlers to describe the Indians and the unfamiliar land was Thomas Morton of New England; his writing was influential to the many curious and unaware population. He writes of the Native’s devil- worship religion but also expressed respect for theirgenerosity and their indifference of “superfluous commodities” (Foner). Prior to European contact there was approximately three to seven million Native Americans (Clarke). After the spread of alien diseases, conflicts, and poor treatment from the settlers, the Natives soon began to realize who were the true enemies. The settlers were blind to the Native’s complex society, and believed they were “godless savages”, only because they were not measured by materialistic items, like the Europeans. Soon the settlers forced their religious beliefs and culture among them or condemned the Natives to slavery. Most of the English settlers saw the Natives simply as an obstacle to obtain their dreams in this New World. The settlers were ruthless; they wiped out whole tribes to obtain more land for their indentured servants, personal prosperity, or entirely new colonies for the flowing immigration. The European settlers diminished the Native American’s villages, families, religion, and culture. …show more content…
Indentured servants were viewed as uneconomically fit for the landowners, the colonists soon turned to the Atlantic slave trade as a solution. The slaves transported to the southern colonies worked in hard laboring crops such as tobacco, sugar, and rice (Forner). This occurrence was also an odious one. In 1619 the first slaves arrived in the Jamestown colony for the production of tobacco, but in the 1750’s the Atlantic Slave Trade peaked. An estimated, ten to twelve million slaves were traded during this time, while one in five Africans died along the disturbing passage (Clarke). The slaves went through a terrific amount of hardships. The Africans were plucked from their villages, forced and abused on a confined ship, and dropped off in an unknown land with an unknown language, while looking forward to most likely to a long life of

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