Despite certain famous incidents from this period of history, such as the friendship established between Powhatan and Pocahontas with Captain William Smith, settlements like Jamestown floundered (Davis & Mintz 52). The Puritans, for all of the criticism leveled upon them, fared better, perhaps because they brought a form of government and a structured ideology to sustain them as a people, although the struggles that beset this community (not the least of which was the Salem 'witch scare') in terms of tilling unfamiliar soil and surviving a harsh climate cannot be underestimated. Eventually, all of the colonies began prosper. But to raise tobacco took a great deal of manpower, giving rise to another lie regarding the great land of new liberty. The new prosperity was based on slavery (Davis & Mintz 37). It is important to note, that the exploitation of native peoples did not go entirely unrecognized as an evil at first in the history of colonization. At first, the Spaniards because of their actions in Central America were condemned by their European rivals for stealing native gold, spreading disease, and killing native peoples without mercy (Davis & Mintz 39). The slave trade was also critiqued as early as the...

Critiques such as these belie the commonly-cited idea that the early conquerors were men of their time who could not possibly understand the individuals they encountered and enslaved were human beings.
But by the 16th and 17th centuries the Spaniard's early English critics were enthusiastically participating in the trade of human beings. Also, whole villages of Indians were being decimated by epidemics -- an estimated 90% of New England costal Indian tribes were killed by disease alone (Davis & Mintz 61). Militarily, it was also more difficult for Northeastern Indians to resist European encroachment because of the densely populated nature of the region. Slavery and native warfare -- and deaths of native peoples by diseases -- were rife. Military victories steeled European determination to remain, and their ability to enslave others, as well as the deaths of natives by diseases, convinced them that providence was on their side.

It is true that during the early years of their formation, in the North American colonies, indentured servants assumed at least some of the labor needs of the new civilization. These individuals were freed after a particular period of time, after being contracted to a 'master.' Africans, however, soon began to form a "permanently unfree," racially marked class (Davis & Mintz 55). Thus a demarcation between individuals of different inherent worth as human beings marked early American civilization, even while Europeans sought religious and economic liberty in the new land.

Works Cited

Davis, David Brion & Steven Mintz. The Boisterous Sea of Liberty: A Documentary History of America from Discovery Through the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press,