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Native Americans and Slave Trade in America: The Story of Us” by Kevin Baker

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From the reading of chapter 1 and chapter 2 in “America: The Story of Us” by Kevin Baker, I highlighted three points of interest for my discussion assignment. The first is of the impressions the Native Americans had of the European’s explorers in the New World. The second point of interest is about the slave trade in America. The last point of interest is about the Prussian-born military officer Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben.

The Native American believe the early settlers to be harmless and capable of easily manipulated. As was the case when the English’s settlers established a Jamestown settlement in the Chesapeake Bay. The Native Americans saw the European’s explorers as “physically weak, sexually…show more content…
Another factor enabling the slave trade was a better nautical knowledge. An “understanding of the wind and ocean currents of the North and South Atlantics” (Eltis, 2007). Not having enough indenture servants from Europe and a dying Amerindian population made trading for African’s slaves the best choose. The “agency” that supplied the slaves were the ruling tribe of the African’s region. Slaves were either former prisoner of war or a person of criminal tendencies (Eltis, 2007).

Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben or Baron von Steuben was a name every U.S. soldier must learn when studying to be a noncommissioned officer. It is a name associated with the answer to the study question “The Army received it's first real training from what former Prussian Officer at Valley Forge in the winter of 1778?” I am intrigued to learned of his discharge from the Prussian Army and his improvidence (Baker, 2010). Shortly after gaining the confidence of George Washington, he was entrusted with retraining the Continental Army. A task he relished because he loved caring for soldiers. “Steuben insisted that officers should put the needs of their men ahead of their own and that they should temper discipline with loving concern” (Lockhart, 2008). That mantra would eventually lead to the first official regulation of the U.S. Army. Imparted with the tactical proficiency of a modern army, the Continental Army fought
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