America: A New World for All

The European discovery of the American continent in 1492 changed the lives of millions of Africans, Indians, and Europeans. Whatever cultural practices, customs, or ways of living that were held dear by these civilizations previous to 1492 would be either slightly or massively altered by the ripples of change brought forth by the “discovery” of what historians have named “The New World”. The three groups that coincided in the Americas were very different compared to each other; each of them had developed their distinct forms of language, culture, and custom. However their previous ways of living would be altered as they mixed together in the melting pot that became of the American continent. This clash affected every one of these ethnic groups, although some of the changes were more radical and intense for some cultures than for others. Europeans got to dominate this continent and therefore retain most of their practices. However, African slaves who found themselves separated from their families and involuntarily working in an unknown land lost most of their customs. Lastly, even for those who had lived in the vast American Continent for more than 12,000 years, the effects of the melting pot determinedly changed their way of living forever. After 1492 the Americas truly became a new world for all.

The Native American Indians had roamed the American lands since they began to migrate from Far East Asia as early as the year 12,000 B.C.E (Liberty, Equality Power, Page 3.) Throughout these years, the Indians developed their individual ways of living in society that included religious customs, and methods of production. As a famous historian points out, “Indigenous North Americans exhibited a remarkable range of languages, economies, political systems, beliefs, and material cultures” (Major Problems, page 25.) The Indians had developed their own form of religion in which they explained the existence of Gods who lived in the skies and were responsible for the creation of the earth. (Major Problems, Page 3.) Also, they developed a sedimentary way of living that involved using their land to develop their crops (Liberty, Equality, Power, Page 17.) This sedimentary way of living and the development of agriculture through farming resulted in a huge population boost among American Indians. It is believed that perhaps as many as 70 million lived in the Americas by 1492, which represented one-seventh of the world’s population at the time (Liberty, Equality, Power, Page 18.) These skills and cultural practices would be severely affected by the arrival of colonists in 1492, and they would live “in a world every bit as new as that confronting Africans or Europeans” (Major Problems, Page 16.)

The huge wave of colonists that set forth to the new world after Colón’s maiden voyage reached nearly every corner of the American Continent. Although one might think of European colonists as a whole, they were very distinct and thus came for different reasons and motivations. In these groups of Europeans came mainly the Dutch, Spanish, French, and the English. For colonists such as the Dutch, “profit was the dominant motive in expansion overseas” (Liberty, Equality, Power, Page 47.) Others came for purely religious reasons such as the English, as their “quarrel with England was over religion, not economics” (Liberty, Equality, Power, Page 65.) They came to freely practice the protestant religions of which they were deprived of practicing in the English mainland; “they hoped to worship freely” (Liberty, Equality, Power, Page 65.) Some, like the Spanish, came for a mixture of economic and religious reasons as their main motives were often abbreviated as those of “God and Glory” (Lecture 2: New Spain, New France, and the Age of Exploration.) In others word, they came to serve in God in converting all the Indians into Christians but also to make a profitable gain out of the American continent and become a more powerful nation economically.

Most of the English colonists who settled North Americas were middle class men. They often “came from the broad middle range of English Society– few rich, few very poor” (Liberty, Equality, Power, Page 65.) Most of them resented some of the practices that were in effect in England. For example, the rich landowners controlled the country, only 25% of the male population could vote, and the practice of “primogeniture” assured that all of a family’s riches would go to the first born son. However, the new colonists praised their mother country for a variety of other reasons. England had an envious economic system that was resulting profitable for the British crown (Lecture 3: The Catastrophe of Colonial Virginia.) Other than this, the system of government in Great Britain, although not fully democratic, was considered one that most protected the rights of its citizens (Lecture 12: Independence and its limits.) The way these British colonists thought of their way of life back home caused them to rethink about how they would rebuild their lives in their new beginnings in the Americas.

When these colonists arrived to the Americas and set up budding civilizations they kept most of the culture they practiced back home. Nonetheless, they did bring minor but significant changes to their new civilizations in the Americas. For example, they introduced the practice of freedom to worship any religion (other than Catholic) unlike in Britain, where the King required every subject to be a worshipper of the Church of England (Lecture 3: The Catastrophe of Colonial Virginia.) Other than this, the British colonists eliminated the practice of primogeniture, in which the first-born son would be the heir of all a family’s riches. (Lecture 3: The Catastrophe of Colonial Virginia.) On the other hand, the British faced changes in the new world that they didn’t expect. For example, the change in environment began to endanger the lives of colonists who weren’t used to the swampy settings (Major Problems, Page 17.) These colonists took advantage of the opportunity of a good world and changed the aspects of their old culture which were not to there liking.

However, in the general sense, the British colonies in America retained most of their old customs. In fact, the colonies were beginning to become not more and more American but rather more and more British (Lecture 7: Diversity of Colonial Regions.) Historian James Merrell even said, “Many settlers in New England recreated familiar forms with such success that they did not really face an alien environment” (Major Problems, Page 16.) For example, they recreated the same mixed economy system they practiced in old England (Liberty, Equality, Power, Page 65.) This system implied that both the private and government sectors incentivized the economy to produce general profits. As a result, the colonists, through private investment, began establishing large plantations in the fertile lands that now surrounded them to produce much-demanded products such as tobacco. However, their biggest problem when establishing these plantations was finding a stable work force that could work their fields at a profitable price.

It was this demand for labor that caused most of the changes in the lives of Indians and Africans alike. The first source for labor they used were the Native American Indians that already resided in the Americas. These people, however, had already suffered due to European intervention. In fact, even though the Indians were the ones who had lived there for thousands of years, they were one of the population sectors that most suffered the challenges of adapting into a new world. The Europeans often imposed their own beliefs in the Indian population. For example, colonists such as the Spanish and the French aimed to convert them to Christianity. They were very successful in converting them as French Jesuits managed to convert 10,000 Indians in 40 years (Liberty, Equality, Power, Page 45.) Other than this, much of their culture had been lost for one simple reason: disease. The Indian culture was kept alive by the knowledge of the village elders, who orally passed on this information to the younger citizens. However, when Europeans arrived into the new world, they brought with themselves many diseases which proved to be very contagious and deadly. The spread of these caused the near depletion of the Indian population, bringing them down from 70 million in 1492 to 700,000 in the 1620’s. This massive loss in population caused the Indians to lose most of their culture; “The collected wisdom of generations could vanish in a matter of days if sickness struck older members of a community” (Major Problems, Page 18.) The depletion of Native American Indians not only affected their culture but also that of the European colonists. This loss in population meant that the English could no longer use them for labor, causing a demand for people who would work the plantations.

This labor gap came to be filled by the practice of indentured servitude. Many Englishmen that came to the Americas arrived as servants hoping to benefit from the “Headright System”. This system assured that people who agreed to a 4-7 year contract to work for landowners in America, would get a piece of land and their liberty after completing their sentence (Lecture 3: The Catastrophe of Colonial Virginia.) This process degraded many Europeans as they were treated in the cruelest of fashions. However, as years passed, fewer indentured servants were being used for labor in the colonies. One of the reasons for this change was that the colonies were running out of fertile land to give them at the end of their tenure (Lecture 3: The Catastrophe of Colonial Virginia.) Another reason was the fact that white servants were gaining more equality in colonial civilization, and thus were being more protected by the government from labor abuse. Virginia statutes even forbade “the whipping of a white servant without a court’s permission” (Liberty, Equality, Power, Page 65.) This caused a huge problem for plantation workers as their production was being affected. Consequently, plantation owners began to look for yet another source of workers that would satisfy their demands. Their solution came by means of a Portuguese ship that docked in the Americas carrying a group of African Slaves (Lecture 4: The Origins and Spread of Slavery.) In the Americas, there was European motive and economic incentive for slave labor. 

Europeans preferred slaves as they could use them for life and treat the slaves crueler than how you could treat a European (Liberty, Equality, Power, Page 65.) Before life in the Americas, Africans developed a life with their own houses, their own society, and their own way of living (Lecture 4: The Origins & Spread of Slavery.) The world for Africans was especially new since they were being brought to the Americas without their consented will; everything seemed different to them. Slaves like Olaudah Equiano described how “Everything I saw filled me up with surprise… Even houses were built different from those in Africa” (Major Problems, Page 48.) The African experience definitely took a turn for the worse as their voyage to the new world began.

The Africans’ world began to change from the moment they were stripped out of their houses; they would be captured like animals. Equiano explained that when he and his sister were alone in their house, two men and a woman “got over our walls, and seized us both, and they stopped our mouths, and ran off with us into the nearest woods” (Major Problems, Page 46.) When they got to the Americas, their families and thus, their cultures, were split up around the continent among places such as Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America. In this new world, they lost their rights to vote, inter-marry, own property, and even intervene in the economy; all things they once had in their old world (Lecture 4: The Origins & Spread of Slavery.) The African slaves were the ethnic group that most suffered in adapting to the new world. Unlike Indians and Europeans, they arrived involuntarily as slaves to the continent, leaving behind their customs, their culture, and their very homeland.

The period of colonization that occurred after the discovery of the American continent was definitely one that changed the lives of millions of peoples. Some few lives were changed for the better, such as that of the landowners who benefitted greatly from the colonization. Nearly everybody else, however, suffered the consequences horribly, especially those in the Americas and Africa (Liberty, Equality, Power pp. 39-40.) The colonists, for being the driving force in colonization, did not suffer as much as other peoples as they could continue practicing their old customs, although various new elements were introduced into their culture. Even though Indians continued to live in the land they called home, they suffered some of the most difficult changes during this period and truly had to adapt and give up their cultural ways to survive in the new civilization. African Slaves suffered most of all as they lost their homeland and were the only ones forcibly living in the American Continent rather than by choice. However distinct these multiple cultures seemed to be, they all shared an experience that unified them into one society; overcoming the challenges of living in a world that was new for all.