Part 1
- Race in Mexico and Peru
Native Americans were comprised of indigenous tribes such as Maya, Inca and Aztecs. They inhabited largely Mexico and Peru. Before the arrival of Spanish conquistadors, the ancient civilizations lived in peace and harmony and were able to establish local empires that were rich in culture and traditions. With the arrival of Spaniards in 15-16th century, the civilizations were deemed to suffer either from diseases brought externally or by bloody conquests. With the engagement of Europeans, the African slave trade was introduced to the American continent. The population was mixed by the availability of European nation and African slaves.
- Cultural Exchange
Cultural exchange in its very definition assumes exchange of language, traditions and religious beliefs among individuals that help them better understand each other. The cultural exchange between Native Americans and Europeans to a significant extent consisted of animals, plants, technology, manufactured products, and people. The exchange took the pattern of commerce and later turned into assimilation of European culture into Americans. For that particular reason it is fair to note the linguistic inclination of Native Americans followed by language preferences of colonizers.
- Columbian Exchange
The Columbian Exchange was the widespread exchange of animals, plants, culture, human populations, communicable diseases, technology and ideas between the American and Afro-Eurasian hemispheres following the voyage to the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492, colonization and trade by Europeans in the Americas, and institution of the slave trade in Africa and the Americas. The Columbian exchange was informal and unintentional in its form. With the aim to open new trading points on the map and diversify the economy in the American continent, Europeans tried to make America a recognizable and a profitable place. Columbian exchange brought technological innovations to Native Americans, and at the same time had a negative effect of assimilating American culture with European.
- Patterns of Settlement in the Americas
The Spaniards were the first to establish large settlements in the Latin Americas. By the 1570s, the Spaniards had established about 200 cities and towns in the “New World”. They had also built many cathedrals in Lima, Peru and Mexico City. The French colonized appeared in North America much later than the Spaniards. French settlement was based upon the fur and fishing. French and English colonizers hoped to find gold and silver reserves in their American colonies, following the experience of Spanish conquistadors. However, the initial goal later flowed into more complicated linkage that was bound by trade and culture, as well as soft power motives.
- The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment is the period in the history of western thought and culture, stretching roughly from the mid-decades of the seventeenth century through the eighteenth century, characterized by dramatic revolutions in science, philosophy, society and politics; these revolutions swept away the medieval world-view and ushered in our modern western world. The European Enlightenment had its effect upon Native Americans too. Nevertheless, it had completely different influence. In America the Enlightenment ideas of figures such as Locke, Hobbes, Voltaire and Kant flowed into the development of political thought. It has led to the appearance of the figures such as Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.
- Modern
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism (or agrarianism) toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance. The modernistic pattern in America was closely related to shaping the ideas that were contrary to mainstream thinking. The modernity was followed by rise in religious beliefs, evolution of political thought as a result of enlightenment and effects of industrial revolution.
- Postmodern
Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical direction which is critical of the foundational assumptions and universalizing tendency of Western philosophy. It emphasizes the importance of power relationships, personalization and discourse in the "construction" of truth and world views. Postmodern movements result in post-structural critique of changes of thought, which form a basis for development.
- Atlantic Slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 16th through to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of slaves transported to the New World were Africans from the central and western parts of the continent, sold by Africans to European slave traders who then transported them to North and South America. African migration overcame the European migration and contributed to the American culture in the form of culture, cuisine, religion and many other aspects of social life. According to the estimates the number of slaves between 15th and 19th century during Atlantic Slave trade was approximately 9 million people.
- Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation is the unique document that was finally issued on 1st January 1863 by President of the United States Abraham Lincoln. The distinction of this document lies on the ground of historical significance. Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to slaves and committed Executive Governments of States to recognize and maintain freedom of those people. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states that were still in rebellion, thus applying to 3.1 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at the time. The Emancipation Proclamation was not supported by the Congress, however, it was declared by Lincoln by the authority and power of Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States he possessed.
- Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
The Act for Establishing Religious Freedom was introduced by Thomas Jefferson in Virginia in 1779. The basis for that was the idea that religion was the personal choice and no government has the right to impose people in what to believe. Act for Establishing Religious Freedom was adopted after being amended in the General Assembly. It opens with an eloquent vindication of religious and intellectual freedom and closes with specific guarantees of religious liberty and belief. The Virginia law was one of the sources that Congress drew on when drafting the Bill of Rights in 1789, which granted the free exercise of religion and prohibited Congress from abridging the freedom of religion. Its guarantees became part of the second Virginia Constitution that was adopted in 1830.
Part 2
- Four things that were caused by the Columbian Exchange
- Spread of diseases: As soon as English arrived to the United States they had unintentionally brought infectious diseases that immediately resulted in epidemics. For example natives in New England and Canada suffered from a disastrous epidemic in 1616-1617. The diseases were common at all the places where Europeans were present and they were spreading very fast across the continent.
- Europeans brought new plant species. Plants from Europe included daisies, dandelions, white clover, thistle, stinging nettles.
- Manufactured goods became available to the Indians that completely changed their lifestyle. Metals were introduced and Indians could use guns and metallic instruments instead of their plain tools used for various purposes from household to protection. Innovations resulted in technological progress and led to further industrialization of the economy.
- Before Europeans came there was no cattle stock in the Americas. With the European settlement cows, pigs and horses were bred in large quantities, especially pigs. Horses, donkeys, mules, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, large dogs, cats and bees were rapidly adopted by native peoples for transport, food, and other uses. One of the first European exports to the Americas, the horse, changed the lives of many Native American tribes in the mountains. They shifted to a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting bison on horseback and moved down to the Great Plains. The existing tribes were able to extend their territories with horses, and herds became desirable to accumulate.
- The three different patterns of settlement in the Americas between the French, Spanish and British settlers.
- Economic opportunities presented to the Native Americans: French settlement was based upon the fur and fishing. England established family-farm model of settlements alongside with plantations. Spaniards build sugar plantations and gold mines.
- The type of rule established: Spanish established bureaucratic government, with authoritarian control. English settlements obeyed to King rule in England. English settlers and Native Americans were constantly at war. Only French settlers were able to provide equal rights for their settlers, despite the direct rule of French monarchy.
- Territorial preferences: Spaniards originated mainly in Mexico and Latin America. The French colonized North America, and Canada. English settled in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, New England and Carolinas.
- Who provided Lincoln with the idea for the “Emancipation Proclamation” and the legal basis was for it.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States whose core interest was to prevent black slavery from spreading across Western states. It goes without saying that his anti-slavery advocacy was accepted with negative critique in those states where black slavery was legal. With the advice coming from Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, the very idea of emancipation proclamation was to suppress the rebellion that took place following firing of Fort Sumter in 186. As Abraham Lincoln was a senior practitioner of law, the legal context of Emancipation Proclamation was to prove that slaves are not property, and this was merely the hardest part. Nevertheless, the issuing of Emancipation Proclamation was postponed until the point when Lincoln was supported by the majority of American population. By Emancipation Proclamation the slaves of the enemy were granted freedom as well, and the law was mainly used as a weapon of war. For purposes of the Fifth Amendment—which states that, “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”—slaves were understood as property. Although abolitionists used the Fifth Amendment to argue against slavery, it became part of the legal basis for treating slaves as property with Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857.
- The three stages in the move from modern to postmodern:
- Increased movement of goods, capital, people, and information among formerly separate areas, and increased influence that reaches beyond a local area.
- Increased formalization of those mobile elements, development of 'circuits' on which those elements and influences travel, and standardization of many aspects of the society in general that is conducive to the mobility.
- Increased specialization of different segments of society, such as the division of labor, and interdependency among areas.
Works Cited
Wikimedia Foundation. “Atlantic slave trade.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade (accessed March 13, 2014).
Ball, Jeremy. “The Atlantic Slave Trade.” http://www.learner.org. http://www.learner.org/courses/amerhistory/pdf/AtlanticSlaveTrade_LOne.pdf (accessed March 10, 2014).
Bristow, William. “Enlightenment.” Stanford University. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/ (accessed March 10, 2014).
Carnahan, Burrus M. Act of justice Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the law of war. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007.
Wikimedia Foundation. “Columbian Exchange.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange (accessed March 14, 2014).
Wikimedia Foundation. “Emancipation.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation (accessed March 13, 2014).
Guelzo, Allen. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: the end of slavery in America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.
Inglehart, Ronald. Modernization and postmodernization: cultural, economic, and political change in 43 societies. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997.
“Lincoln Papers: Emancipation Proclamation: Introduction.” Lincoln Papers: Emancipation Proclamation: Introduction. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/almintr.html (accessed March 14, 2014).
Wikimedia Foundation. “Modernity.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernity (accessed March 11, 2014).
“ModernityCharacteristics.” ModernityCharacteristics. http://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/modernit.htm (accessed March 12, 2014).
Peskin, Lawrence A., and Edmund F. Wehrle. America and the world: culture, commerce, conflict. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.
Wikimedia Foundation. “Postmodern philosophy.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_philosophy (accessed March 12, 2014).
“Religious Freedom.” Thomas Jefferson. https://tjefferson.wikispaces.com/Religious+Freedom (accessed March 14, 2014).
Sage, Henry J. . “The Enlightenment in America.” http://www.sageamericanhistory.net/. http://resources.saylor.org.s3.amazonaws.com/HIST/HIST211/HIST211-1.4.1-The%20Enlightenment%20in%20America-CCBYNCSA_files/HIST211-1.4.1-The%20Enlightenment%20in%20America-CCBYNCSA.html (accessed March 11, 2014).
Saylor.org. “Comparing Settlement Patterns: New Spain, New France, and British North America.” The Saylor Foundation. http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/HIST103-1.1.3-ComparingSettlementPatterns-FINAL.pdf (accessed March 13, 2014).
“The Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863 – 1864).” HistoryofInformation.com. http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=3707 (accessed March 14, 2014).
“Virginia Memory: Act for Establishing Religious Freedom.” Virginia Memory: Act for Establishing Religious Freedom. http://www.virginiamemory.com/online_classroom/shaping_the_constitution/doc/religious_freedom (accessed March 15, 2014).
