After the American Civil War of between 1861 and 1865, and the ensuing Reconstruction Era that apparently failed, the United States witnessed the beginning of new social orders based on old ideologies. Persons of African descent remained inferior to their white counterparts and were it not for the federal government’s abolition of the slavery system black enslavement would have most likely returned to its former glory as the economic backbone of the South. To that end, while the understanding of 1877 as a year revolves around the end of reconstruction efforts as Union troops left the South, it also highlights the birth of America as a country (Zinn 172). In other words, for the first time in the history of the United States, the country measured up to the terms of the Declaration of Independence. The Indian Wars also paved the way for the federal government to claim the lands that had previously belonged to Native tribes. Thus said, this paper explores the year 1877 based on American politics, societies, and economy to determine the factors that warrant the assertion: “America did not exist until 1877.”
Foremost, at the foundation of the American Revolutionary War that declared the thirteen colonies as sovereign States devoid of Britain’s influence was the Declaration of Independence. Authored by Thomas Jefferson and endorsed by Congress in 1776, perhaps the most relevant clause in the document was the preamble that “all men are created equal” (Foner GML, 203). Apparently, the tyrannical rule of the British Monarch did not sit well with the American colonists and for that reasons, by affirming that all men were naturally equal the Americans ensured there were no grounds on which colonial rule could survive. Extensively, since the white males dominated all spheres of society, the “men” in the document strictly encompassed the Caucasian males of the territories (Zinn 72). In other words, the terms of independence excluded blacks by upholding white supremacist perceptions that made Caucasian men predominantly superior to all other races and allowed the sustenance of the institution of slavery.
Now, in 1877, the abolition of slavery gave blacks the rights and privileges that had previously been restricted to whites only. Before the federal law, all persons were equal, and the American societies were theoretically egalitarian. In that sense, the emancipation of slaves and the government’s protection of their rights allowed the United States to meet the mentioned clause of the Declaration of Independence. Notably, one might argue that the year of the Fourteenth Amendment to the American Constitution makes a better choice of the birth of America, but that is not son simply because the union was still in control of the South. The secession antics of the Southerners placed them at pods with their Northern counterparts and for that reason until 1877 Union troops and politicians closely monitored the affairs of the South. Hence, once the North left the South and slavery remained illegal, the terms of the Declaration of Independence were finally active as they signaled the existence of true America.
The obvious problem through it all was the fact that Native tribes already possessed the much coveted territories of the North America continent. From the time the first English settlers landed on the shores of the lands, as colonists of the English Monarch, Red Indians existed in the same territories and the anxiety that came with such living conditions remain evident in the forcible removals of the Indian tribes through the Trail of Tears and even the Cherokee Removal efforts. Now, in 1877, the last of the Indian resistance died with the last of the Indian Wars in Texas. More than “150,000 Indians” occupied the territories in the West but by 1877, most of them were already in reserves as they paved the way for white settlement in the Texas regions (Foner GML, 502). In that sense, Texas finally became truly American in 1877 and completed the Union beyond the theoretical context of annexation.
In conclusion, freedom and land possession defined the American way of life, and it was not until 1877 that the country realized the true meaning of the two words. Black slavery hindered equality by deeming persons of African descent as the human chattels of the whites and Indian resistance made settlement impossible in some areas. To that end, the abolition of slavery and defeat of the Native tribes worked to the white peoples’ advantage.
Works Cited
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. 3rd. Vol. I. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. Print.
—. Voices of Freedom. 3rd. Vol. I. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. Print.
Nash, Gary B., Jeffrey Julie Roy, Howe John R., Frederick Peter J., Davis Allen F., Winkler Allan M., Mires Charlene, and Pestana Carla Gardina. The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society. 7th. Vol. Combined Volume. New Jersey: Pearson, 2010.
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States . New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005. Print.
