American History
The book, American Past and Present, which recounts U.S. history up to 1877, begins with nine pages (xxv-xxxiii) of very succinct summary material, taking 50 years at a time and offering, at a glance, American history from post Ice Age to 1995. This is good information to digest prior to reading through the book itself, as it offers a glimpse and taste of what is to come, and important points to look for and focus upon.
As one should expect, the peoples (Native Americans) who lived on the continent prior to the arrival of the Europeans are described in some specific detail. Also of interest to readers of this U.S. history book is the fact that (page 7) "Ethnocentric Europeans tried repeatedly to 'civilize' the Indians" by insisting they dress like the colonists, that they go to colonists' schools and "accept Christianity." In hindsight, the fact that the colonists thought they could "civilize" natives by forcing Christianity on them -- teaching them that they will go to "hell" unless they accept the fact that they have sinned, and repent for their sins -- seems outrageously arrogant in 2005. On page 7 a Huron Indian is quoted as saying, "It would be useless for me to repent having sinned, seeing that I never have sinned."
It would be a mistake though to take these historical incidents out of context and pass judgment on the early American settlers, based on values and morality today; the best way to understand history and why people acted the way they did, is to read widely, carefully, and put it into perspective as what was happening back then and why we believe the way we do today.
National Mentality as Background Leading up to the Civil War
As the book progresses forward in history through the colonial period -- public executions, the Puritans, Indian interactions (both helpful and war-like), witchcraft, disease, the building of an economy -- and the Revolutionary...
"Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, slave traders carried almost eleven million blacks to the Americas." The majority of those African slaves never got to North America, though, because they were sold in Brazil and in the Caribbean, the authors explain.
The slaves that were brought into North America were brought mainly for economic reasons; they worked the cotton fields in the south, as well as the rice, sugar cane, and tobacco fields, and in other agricultural work. The book reports (73) that the practice of buying and selling humans as slaves was not only justified on the basis of economic needs; "English writers associated blacks in Africa with heathen religion, barbarous behavior, sexual promiscuity -- in fact, with evil itself."
Given that racist attitude, "the enslavement of Africans seemed unobjectionable," the authors write. And on page 99, the "estimated population" in 1760 of black people in New England Colonies was 12,717 (compared with 436,917 white people); black people in the Middle Colonies numbered 29,049 (compared with 398,855 white people); and black people in the Southern Colonies numbered 284,040 -- compared with 432,047 white people.
So it is clear there from the fact that there were far more blacks (slaves) in the south, than in the north, that as time went by a culture of slavery was firmly established, with its strongest roots in the south. The fact that slavery was not only tolerated but fought over in the Civil War should not come as a great surprise to those looking into history, since in many respects the culture of America at that time was, by today's standards, inhumane. For example, in prisons (329), "solitary confinement was viewed as a humanitarian and therapeutic policy because it gave inmates a chance to reflect on their sins, free from the corrupting influence of other convicts."
And in the 1820s and 1830s, to continue…
