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The Impacts Of The European Collonization Of Slaves In North America

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Karl Marx once wrote “Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.” Life and the economy in North America (and the rest of the world) during the 17th century was almost utterly dependent on the production and sale of commodities; Europeans colonized “the New World” directly because of needing commodities such as beaver pelts and tobacco. Eventually, the colonists developed their own identity as Americans, influenced by the commodities they produced and desired. Native Americans, who were increasingly closer and closer contact with the Europeans as they colonized, began to collect and produce commodities for them, in addition to creating commodities of their own, like European livestock or weapons. Slaves were brought to North America as cheap labor for producing the commodities that facilitated the colonies’ birth and growth, and became themselves commodities for the Europeans. When things are turned into commodities, there are far-reaching effects not only on the culture of the people who made it a commodity but also the culture of those who associate with them.
As is illustrated in King Philip’s Herds: Indians, Colonists, and the Problem of Livestock in Early New England by Virginia DeJohn Anderson, the culture of the Native Americans was heavily influenced by their interactions with the European colonists, in more ways

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