While this right applied to American settlers, who engaged in a variety of religions, from Puritanism to Deism, and spoke freely about them in publications and public forums. Native Americans, on the other hand, were denied their freedom of religion. American settlers saw Native American religions as uncivilized, so they encouraged missionaries to convert the tribes. Missionaries can be both beneficial and harmful to a culture. Some come excited to help the people through manpower and certain forms of scientific, academic, or medical knowledge, presenting their religion with love, and allowing the people to choose whether or not that religion is acceptable. Most of the American settlers, however, did not treat the Native Americans this way. Instead, they forced them to assimilate into European culture, even taking children away from parents, assigning missionaries to the reservations where the Native Americans had been forced, and often punished those who wavered from the teachings of Christianity ("History of Missions" n.d.). Although many Native Americans did eventually convert to Christianity, and some say that their religions were able to coincide with Christianity, the fact remains that freedom of religion was not extended to this group. Instead, they were forced to assimilate to the American settlers' ideas of religion. While freedom of religion was given to American settlers, then, it was denied to Native Americans, sometimes to the point of physically forcing this group to testify a change in beliefs. Finally, the American settlers proceeded to deny Native Americans not only their rights to life and religion, but also to property. The right to property was grunted to the "inhabitants of the English Colonies in North America" in the Declaration of Colonial Rights (1774). The declaration came complete with a statement that the right could not be revoked by a "sovereign power" (Declaration of Colonial Rights 1774). But this is exactly what the American settlers did to the Native Americans. Claming themselves sovereign, the American settlers claimed their right to property in spite of the Native Americans, who...
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now