A few of the major themes of US History between the beginning throughout the Reconstruction era are Settling, Slavery, and Taxation.
Before both English and Spanish settlers began their expeditions and discovery of America, the original people that lived Indians that lived in the North America. According to Lewis Hanke, Spanish settlers had the right to take over the barbarian people of the “New World” and adjacent islands (Bailey 1). Hanke referred to the “New World” because of the difference between Spanish settlers and Native Americans was drastic, it was known to be so extreme it could be compared similarly to apes and humans.
Spanish settlers came from the deep south and explored forward throughout the land of the Native Americans. Hernán Cortés had set sail from Spain to find the New World, he landed in Mexico, and defeated the Aztecs, which were Indian-American people, that were powerful and had dominated the surrounding people in central Mexican highlands. He had set sail to find the New World at just the age of 19, was a Spanish conquistador from Medellin Spain, he was a solider that helped Spain take Mexico, he and his fellow soldiers and crewmen are the reason why the Spaniards could wipe out the Indian American people upon arrival and on expansion (Bailey 1). Indian American people are different than Native Americans because of the location of the people. Indian American people were in and around the Mexico parts of North America while the Native American people and tribes were for the most part inside the U.S. lines, although back then the countries had not yet been divided by borders, people had to travel and conquer the large land gapes and coming across people and villages.
Settling is essentially why we live the lives we live today. Without the curious expeditions of the explorers whom decided to set sail into an unknown sea, unsure just exactly where they were going and what they were going to encounter, we probably would not be here today. Although it is commonly known that settlers did kill millions of Native American’s, by genocide while conquering and settling in North and South America, many people do not know that Europeans carried diseases such as Smallpox that thrived in dense populations and it killed an estimated 90% of Native Americans (The Story Of… Smallpox).
Shortly after the settlers had conquered the land, the African Slave trade began, which was the beginning of slavery. It began in the 16th century, a ship had set sail by commander Thomas Phillips from England to Africa, and here is where he began buying slaves near the islands of Barbados. The transpiration of the slaves would happen on longboards on the sea. They would shackle the slaves and brand them like cattle, with the ship’s name on either their chest or shoulders. Many of the African people would jump off of the boats and would stay under water until they drowned to avoid being picked up my the boats that would try and chase them down. For the people that made it off of the boat into the sea, if they did not drown themselves, they were often eaten by sharks that would stay lurking beneath and around the boats for food. Some of the African people did survive to make it on the boat after being shackled and branded, some of the people would starve themselves to death. They thought of suicide because they believed it was the answer to freedom, they thought they would be set free and return to their homes, family, and friends.
Slaves were then transported from Barbados all the way up to the North-east side of America, in Jamestown, Virginia, where they were resold to farmers and plantation owners. Of course they were set to work for free, day in and day out, but some would say that becoming a slave and having to live a slave lifestyle was better than the lifestyles they had back at home. Though, slaves were not treated well, the living conditions were be considered beyond poverty level today, and they were not fed to feast they were given the minimum to survive in exchange of their extreme work. U.S. Slavery started in 1620 and last for 245 years until 1865. African American people did not begin having rights until 1964 when the Civil Rights Act had passed and allowed African Americans the Right to vote. Segregation separated African Americans from white Americans in almost every way, from having to attend different schools and receive different knowledge, ride different busses, eating in separate restaurants, and even drinking water out of fountains.
Slavery can be thought to be the a most important theme in U.S. History because of several major outcomes of slavery. Industrialization is one of biggest outcomes of the Union victory, the Union side was large enough to support everyone in the Northern states, when the economy began to fail and fall into a crisis, Businessmen stepped in and helped. By doing so, they found out “what was patriotic could also be highly profitable” (Hollitz 12), which lead to success by producing and selling goods to the public. After the Union’s victory, there began to be an unstable “Dual economy” in the Southern states. Their strongest profit came from producing and exporting cotton. The Southern states experienced a hole in their economy system since after the war one would not have slaves, so the cheap and easy way of making money became slowing down and slowed down the economy from it’s booming stage.
Taxation was first implemented under the Stamp Act in 1765, it was repealed until 1773 because the American people believed already paid their taxes amongst themselves and created protests and riots. The taxation was placed on the American colonies by British Government because they had a scary large debt and always being on defense did not help it any. The implementation caused such an outrage that the people began destroying cargoes carrying tea by throwing them into the Boston harbor (Bailey 7). A group of British people who were elected to make a country’s laws and discuss important national affairs referred to as Parliament, had placed these taxes on American colonies to be paid about one-third of the expenses of the military staying. By attempting to do so, the act was challenged with rebellion of the American colonists and they had began boycotting commercialization because they believed they had paid their taxes by their own assemblies and external duty taxes. Even Benjamin Franklin was against the Stamp Act, he essentially said “The American people already paid their taxes amongst themselves” (Bailey 7). Shortly after the Act had passed, Connecticut had denounced the Boston Port Act and revoked taxation which helped fuel American people’s anger and caused them to destroy crates of tea, this caused Boston to close the port until the tea was paid for. Supporting colonies began raising money to help them bail out the closing of the port. Philadelphia gave a thousand barrels of flower and Virginia raised money and gave food to Connecticut as resolving the protest.
Settling, Slavery, and Taxation each had an outcome in the U.S. Reconstruction. Settling lead to Slavery, which lead to Taxation, and began forming a industrialized country. It is hard to say we have not expanded industrialization today, but it is safe to say we are a country built by capitalism, for capitalism, and then freedom.