Compared to their frail early years, by the mid-eighteenth century the colonies of North America had developed into thriving outposts of the British world. This process was no doubt gradual, but as wealth and power accumulated, these settlers were able to cast off the adaptations of their earlier years and began to recreate a “New England.” Although regional differences abounded, the colonists universally aimed to replicate the Old World in their social, political, and cultural lives. However, although the colonists were united in their common British identity, they also unknowingly came to be connected through their collective experiences in the New World – transforming Old World practices into a unique “American” identity.
Distinctive to …show more content…
The relationship between Native Americans and European-Americans had been one of mutual coexistence in the beginning of European settlement. Although natives and colonists often clashed, both sides had moved along “parallel paths” in the transatlantic world over the course of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. However, as colonial populations soared by mid-century and settlers began to expand west, this “middle ground” between the natives and the colonists collapsed. This expansion of the frontier would consequently come to be marked by extreme violence between Anglo-American and Native Americans and a uniquely American way of war. In contrast to their British counterparts, militiamen and citizens alike waged a war of petite guerre against native populations and incorporated methods of extirpative warfare, ranging, and scalp hunting. Therefore, for British officers arriving in the Ohio River Valley during the Seven Years War, the American soldier appeared inept, as they did not fit the model of the disciplined Western European regular. Nonetheless, by the conclusion of the war, the British Army came to …show more content…
Throughout the country, but particularly in the Chesapeake and coastal lowcountry, the rise of tobacco and rice plantations resulted in the institutionalization of slavery, the tightening of laws, and a rise in slave imports. This shift was striking considering that a generation prior “Atlantic creoles” in the New World had maintained relative autonomy over their lives – working alongside indentured servants in the fields, intermarrying, drinking together, and forming interracial communities. In fact, a few slaves in the seventeenth century were even able to purchase their freedom, as seen in the story of Anthony Johnson of Northampton County, Virginia. However, as these regions became “slave societies,” Africans and African Americans were no longer afforded these same liberties. Defined as a class apart, they had come to develop their own identity – often a mix of European and African cultural practices – but every bit as “American” as their New World counterparts. In Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America Ira Berlin argues that this cultural distinctiveness fundamentally changed the relationship between master and slave and subsequently the very definition of race. In essence, the creation of Anglo-American and African American identities contributed to a cultural rift that led masters to establish a “monopoly of power” over their
Distinctive to …show more content…
The relationship between Native Americans and European-Americans had been one of mutual coexistence in the beginning of European settlement. Although natives and colonists often clashed, both sides had moved along “parallel paths” in the transatlantic world over the course of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. However, as colonial populations soared by mid-century and settlers began to expand west, this “middle ground” between the natives and the colonists collapsed. This expansion of the frontier would consequently come to be marked by extreme violence between Anglo-American and Native Americans and a uniquely American way of war. In contrast to their British counterparts, militiamen and citizens alike waged a war of petite guerre against native populations and incorporated methods of extirpative warfare, ranging, and scalp hunting. Therefore, for British officers arriving in the Ohio River Valley during the Seven Years War, the American soldier appeared inept, as they did not fit the model of the disciplined Western European regular. Nonetheless, by the conclusion of the war, the British Army came to …show more content…
Throughout the country, but particularly in the Chesapeake and coastal lowcountry, the rise of tobacco and rice plantations resulted in the institutionalization of slavery, the tightening of laws, and a rise in slave imports. This shift was striking considering that a generation prior “Atlantic creoles” in the New World had maintained relative autonomy over their lives – working alongside indentured servants in the fields, intermarrying, drinking together, and forming interracial communities. In fact, a few slaves in the seventeenth century were even able to purchase their freedom, as seen in the story of Anthony Johnson of Northampton County, Virginia. However, as these regions became “slave societies,” Africans and African Americans were no longer afforded these same liberties. Defined as a class apart, they had come to develop their own identity – often a mix of European and African cultural practices – but every bit as “American” as their New World counterparts. In Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America Ira Berlin argues that this cultural distinctiveness fundamentally changed the relationship between master and slave and subsequently the very definition of race. In essence, the creation of Anglo-American and African American identities contributed to a cultural rift that led masters to establish a “monopoly of power” over their