The process through which the English settlers became Americans was twofold: they claimed North America as their home and cut ties with the mother country. First, the Red Indian tribes that existed throughout the lands claimed North America as their home, albeit in separate units. For that reason, confrontations that closely resembled a tug of war ensued because two distinct groups were vying for the same resources. Now, the assimilation of one faction by the other was impossible as their traditions differed greatly. Hence, it is no wonder that David Edmunds’ Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership revolves around the subject’s attempt to preserve the Indian culture in the face of the Caucasians’ assault. In one particular incident, after the mysterious murder of an English settler, Tecumseh and other Indian leaders hasten to reassure the rest of the white community that “the tribesmen werenot hostile” (Edmunds 87). In other words, Tecumseh was not up for a confrontation with the whites and neither was the rest of the tribes. Hence, the English settlers became Americans as they defined the new territories as theirs to do with as they saw fit.
Now, as colonists, the people still retained ties with the mother country as they paid taxes to the English Monarch and recognized its powers in North America. The problems emerged when the King exerted his tyrannical rule on people who already viewed the thirteen colonies as their homes. Notably, the English Empire operated on absolute authority where the commands of the royal family went unopposed by their subjects. Nonetheless, the people who resided outside the borders of Britain were not the traditional kind of royal subjects as the distance from the mother country created ideologies of self-rule and independence for their lot. In the words of Rebecca Dickinson, and as an explanation of the tensions that ended with the American Revolutionary War, Americans recognized “[the] dark implications in England’s new revenue schemes” (Miller 5). In other words, with the theoretical claims of the lands were not enough and an official tactic proved necessary for the colonists to be truly independent. Therefore, the settlers fought the English forces in the War of Independence and became true Americans.
Accordingly, real Northerners understood democracy as concept applicable to all regardless of race while the Southerners believed every constitutional right, including freedom, was subject to the possession of white skin. Central to the given differences was the issue of enslaving persons of African descent and for that reason, the American Civil War happened because of black slavery.
Works Cited
Edmunds, David. Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership. New Jersey: Pearson, 2006. Print.
Miller, Marla. Rebecca Dickinson: Independence for a New England Woman. Lives of American Women. Colorado: Westview Press, 2013. Print.
Yetman, Norman R., ed. When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection. Dover Thrift Editions. New York: Dover Publications, 2002. Print.
