Discontent in the American Colonies
The United States of America, it can be ar
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The United States of America, it can be argued, was founded by the discontented. Surely the American Revolution stands as the final expression of the colonials' discontent with Mother England. But it was not only towards England that the American peoples prior to the Revolution responded negatively: resistance to exploitation and oppression - from every sphere of influence - is a recurrent theme. Nor was discontent with the colonial situation limited to the white males who took up the gun in rebellion and thereafter reserved the mantle of "American" almost exclusively for themselves (at least in terms of political power and legal existence). Rather, several groups co-existed in the American colonies prior to 1800, divisions of race and sex as well as that of ethnic European groupings. Each group expressed its discontent, its resistance to the encroachments upon its rights, in varied forms corresponding to situation and cultural orientation.The original Americans, obviously, were the Native American peoples, misidentified in great cultural ignorance by Christopher Columbus as "Indians." Unlike the European settlers of the 1600s who, despite their differences of language and religion, shared some common historical connections left over from the only-recently challenged cultural dominance of the Roman Catholic Church, the Indians who inhabited North America at that time were exceedingly diverse. Perhaps this was only natural, the broad expanse of the Americas overwhel
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ery. From the American Revolution on, it became increasingly difficult for a moral white Christian to defend the enslavement of African-Americans in the face of their participation in the "brotherhood of Man through Christ" - particularly when the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution so clearly were based upon that same foundation of beliefs - and derivation of rights. Ultimately, in the 1800s, it was to be the moral argument of the Christian abolitionists - not violent revolt - that was to win for the slaves their freedom.
This should not take the observer by surprise: despite the violence of war accompanying the American Revolution, for the "mainstream" European peoples wresting control of the colonies away from their British overlords the main battlefield of resistance had always been in the minds of men (and the word "men" is used here in both its larger and more specific connotations). The Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock were "dissenters," unhappy with the ways of the Anglican Court in London - and unwilling to fight: their resistance to the Royal order was to found their own, Christian world order in the New World. The Quakers of William Penn's colony were even more committed to non-violence and radical reform,
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2829
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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