American Cultural Identity From the beginning of colonial establishment in the east to current times with fights for equal and civil rights nationwide, freedom has been an imperative quality in America’s artistic and reform movement which all shaped the country’s cultural identity. America finds its beginnings when England set up colonies on the east coast of North America, mainly to bring in wealth by means mercantilism. Great Britain wanted to keep the colonies under their thumb. When the colonies were strained to the beginnings of revolt, the Mother Country pressed down harder with intolerable acts and taxes. When the land across the Atlantic had finally had enough, and after long lengths of political stagnation within the colonies, the
