The American Imperial Frontier Coley Analysis

How does Turner explain the recurring need for communication and transportation along the American frontier?

Brinkley’s contradiction exists because throughout the early 18th Century nearly all colonist considered themselves to be loyal English subjects. Despite this, the American colonist simultaneously, and inadvertently began to develop their own unique identity. One that wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision to be different from England, but one that was largely shaped by, as Brinkley states, “the nature of the New World” (53). American colonist tried hard to maintain their cultural Englishness, but were being shaped by environmental factors in the areas where they now lived. This led to unique differences between the colonies and England in terms of population, economics, and society and religion, and political ideas.

Anderson, Fred. 2000. Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1756. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Pp. 746

This section highlights that history has created a false narrative depicting the natives as a victimized people, which they were to some extent but only in the fashion that they did not possess the same technology for warfare, immunity of communal diseases transmitted, and they were not anticipating combat. All other factors considered, the natives stood to be a potential threat. In regards to knowledge obtained by Spaniards prior to arrival and knowledge gained from observation, it would be remiss had they not prepared for battle. This argument is not to be misconstrued in approving their actions; I do recognize colonization as an evil for both the reasons employed and its damaging effects, but rather to change the narrative surrounding that of the native people. While they did experience a tragedy, I feel that it is erroneous to write them into history as being incompetent resulting from their

While they had no official ally, they accepted bribes from both sides and profited. Additionally, in this first section of the chapter, the author informs the reader that Patriots took utilized Indian raids as propaganda opportunities to urge colonial unity. Even if the raids were carried out without British assistance, clever authors spun the stories to blame the mother country for the deaths of innocent Americans. By 1777, the British recognized that allying with the Natives was in their best interests and encouraged all tribes to raid Patriot settlements. The southern Indian nations hesitated, due to the recent defeat of the Cherokee in Georgia, but most of the northern nations agreed. Most Native American leaders thought the British would win the war and maintain trade relations with them. Additionally, the Indians wanted to regain the land they had lost to the colonists. Other Indians, however, saw the British as “the lesser of two evils”. Taylor writes that some saw the manipulative tendencies of the British and the fact that their strategies endangered Natives more than their own

In contrast, some divisions of the colonial population supported Britain whole-heartedly with their lives. They delighted in the short-lived emboldened ties. A New England minister proclaimed “…the Children of New England may be glad and triumph, in Reflection on Events past, and Prospects for the future…” (Document E). Comprehensibly, he felt that Britain gave them a future, that they owed their lives to their mother country. “…Mother, who has most generously rescued and protected us, [must] be served and honored…” (Document E). This is a deep contrast to the ways of thinking possessed by the soldiers and Native Americans, and it would not last long.

The British enrolled about fifty thousand American Loyalists and enlisted the services of many Indians, who though unreliable, who fair-weather fighters, inflamed long stretches of the frontier”(135). This extra help from colonists, Loyalist, hessians, and the Indians only add to the army creating a bigger advantage towards the colonists. Even though they did not win it can said that the British seemed to have a bigger lead on the colonists. Colonists presented themselves as weak and disorganized, where one would presume that they wouldn’t win at all, “Yet the American rebels were badly organized for war. From the earliest days, they had been almost fatally lacking in unity, and a new nation lurched forward uncertainly like an uncoordinated centipede”(136). Organization is important for the colonists because they are competing against a well-developed and trained army.

The crown depicted the Indians as intractable, only to find that settlers resorted to violence against the Indians precisely because of their supposed intractability. Indigenous peoples, for their part, fought among themselves and against advancing settlers. All groups sought to “territorialize” their societies to secure themselves against competitors. In the final chapters, Langfur extends and qualifies this complicated story. In the later eighteenth century, settler pressures grew, stressing crown policies and threatening indigenous social orders, until all-out war broke out after 1808. For Langfur this was no Manichean battle between European invaders and indigenous victims. To a dominant narrative of violence he juxtaposes a “parallel history of cooperation” among Europeans, Africans, and Indians, and he concludes that war itself must be understood in terms of “the relationship of cooperative enemies.”

a. The British people are referred to as “our British brethren.” They and the colonists share a “common kindred”. But they, like King George, “have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.” Thus, the British people must be held, like the rest of the world is help, as “enemies in war, in peace, friends.” The king and Parliament bear the brunt of the colonist “wrath.” It is the king who is charged with all their grievances. His history is one “of repeated injuries and usurpations.”

Rebellions have played a pivotal role throughout the creation of civilization, impacting the eventual outcomes of cultures. While analyzing significant rebellions within the American colonies, one aspect persists throughout: one culture’s assumption that it is superior to another, prompting an attempt to impose that group’s culture and way of life over the other. In Metacom’s War, the Stono Rebellion, and the Salem Witch Trials, that common theme is evident and corresponds to Bailyn’s quote, “It was the intermingling of [barbarity] and developing civilization that is the central characteristic of the world that was emerging in America.” However, the question remains: who are the barbarians and who are the civilized? In each of the rebellions there is a clear historical tendency to label groups; indeed, it must be noted that viewpoint is of utmost importance when evaluating such events, if one is to truly understand the plight of the “barbarian” and the “civilized.” That said, by dissecting the quote, and analyzing these three events, it is clear that each rebellion was the result of cultural ignorance and, as a consequence, a sort of death occurred in each culture for Metacom’s war, culture and tradition, for Stono, African freedom, and for Salem, the Puritan utopia.

When examining early American history it is commonplace, besides in higher academia, to avoid the nuances of native and colonizer relations. The narrative becomes one of defeat wherein the only interaction to occur is one of native American’s constant loss to white colonizers. It is not to say that the European colonizers didn’t commit genocide, destroy the land and fabric of countless cultures, but rather when looking at history it is important to take a bottom’s up approach to storytelling. We must examine in what ways the native Americans fought English colonization, not just through war, but also through the legal system that was established after the area was colonized.

In the article, “Colonial America Depended on the Enslavement of Indigenous People” by Marissa Fessenden, Fessenden uncovers the truth about how the colonist lied at the fact that they did actually enslave indigenous people. According to “Brethren” by Nature, it states that “Colonists living in New England relied on the labor of thousands of Native Americans to build their new lives” (1). This demonstrates that the book Nature wrote is an overlooked story that informs how back then colonist did have slaves. In order to learn that the colonist did rely on Native

During the time of 1763-1775, one of the occurrences that happened to affect the colonists’ perception of the British was the French and Indian War. The war itself was not the main reason the colonists’ had trouble with the British, but the time after the war was the actual cause of eventual trouble. During the war, the British fought with France around the Ohio valley for the control of land. The Ohio valley was very important to both of the empires, because of the land value and the strategic location it held in the years to come. Both had their struggles especially with the Native Americans that called this area their home. Most of the Native Americans sided with either the British or the French because they thought that if they had sided with

Ever since the first English colonists arrived in Jamestown and Plymouth, the colonists and eventually Americans have always considered expanding west, whether the land was previously inhabited or not: And like most things, many people had different opinions if and how it should be done. Before the 1800s, this issue already had opinions on the best solution. One example of this can be observed by King George III in The Royal Proclamation of 1763, in which he forbade all English settlement past a line in the Appalachian Mountains. Contrarily, Daniel Boone carved out the Wilderness Road and built the settlement of Boonesborough in the late 1700s. These sharp contrasts in ideas led to future debates. From 1800-1855, territorial expansion ignited nationwide debates: The supporters of territorial expansion rallied behind the term “manifest destiny,” while the opposition argued the unconstitutionality of the acquisition of territory, and the future negative consequences expansion may cause.

During American colonial times, the native peoples of the new world clashed often with the English settlers who encroached upon their lifestyle. Many horror stories and clichés arose about the natives from the settlers. As one might read in Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative, often these disputes would turn to violence. To maintain the process of the extermination of the natives alongside Christian moral beliefs, one of the main tenets of colonial life was the belief that the natives were “savages”; that they were morally and mentally inferior to the English that settled there. As is the case with many societies, certain voices of dissent began to spin. These voices questioned the assertions