Clash of Cultures Sample Essay.
University of Phoenix Material
Clash of Cultures
HST/155
Part A
Complete the grid by describing the characteristics listed in the left-side column for the five groups listed on top.
| Native Americans | Northern Colonists | Mid-Atlantic Colonists | Southern Colonists | West Africans | |
| Economic Structure | They mainly traded on jewelry, villages, food, and the lands that were owned by different families and villages. | These people were farmers and also concentrated on the manufacture of different machinery and ships. They traded with the natives for cloths, cooking tools, beads, and hunting tools too, (Murrin et al., 2011). | These colonists were farmers as they owned large lands of wheat and livestock. They also conducted fishing. | They carried out agriculture as they had plantations and farms. They dealt in cash crops like rice, and tobacco. | The West Africans were traders of rubber, oil, spices, cotton, human resources, and diamonds. |
| Political Structure | These natives had tribal councils and one chief. | They had similar political structures as those of their countries of origin. They were settled by particular leaders. | They had democratic political structures. However, there was also the republican political structure in some areas. | The southern region was under the control of England. As such, the governors of every nation was under the control of the queen. | The West Africans were organized in tribes that were ruled by chiefs and kings depending on the location, (Monroe and Ogundiran, 2012). |
| Social System | Men were mainly hunters and cowboys while the women took care of children and did cooking and other house chores. | These people has systems based in their wealth and classes. They were against slavery unlike the people from south. | People primarily interacted through trading activities as the area consisted of people from varying social backgrounds. | There were several plantations in the region which limited social interactions to the plantations and town centers. | They were organized in tribes with different social structures. For example, the men were hunters and took care of their territories while the women did the house chores and stayed at home. |
| Cultural Values | These people valued their families and embraced their diverse nature regarding religion, color, and gender among others, (Murrin et al., 2011). | They practiced arts and valued recreations. | They had a culture of farming and shipbuilding and also practiced music and literature. | Music and literature dominated the culture of people of the south. | The West Africans practiced music, various forms of arts, believed in religion, and followed their traditions, (Monroe and Ogundiran, 2012). |
| Religion | They had different religions ranging from Christianity, Ghost Dance, Waashat Religion, and Longhouse Religion among others, (Fulop and Raboteau, 2013). | They were mainly Catholics. | They were Christians and had diversity for religion. | They were primarily Protestants, Puritans, Buddhists, Jewish, and Hindus, (Fulop and Raboteau, 2013). | The West Africans are mainly Muslims and also believe in their indigenous religions, (Monroe and Ogundiran, 2012). |
Part B
The differences between indentured servants and slaves
There exist a variation between the indentured servants and slaves. The indentured servants had to sign some agreements that they needed to obey when working for their masters. These agreements were primarily the terms and conditions of the masters regarding what they needed from the servants. The sponsors or the masters had great powers in the society and owned a lot of property like plantations and manufacturing plants within America. For example, the Pilgrims went to America when their masters paid for them to go there. As such, they had to work for the sponsors as their servants for quite a long period, for example, more than five years. The sponsors cared for their rights and provided them with some requirements like food and shelter. However, it is critical to understand
that despite the hard nature of the work and the harsh rules, this form of working for the masters was not still considered as slavery. In case an individual survived the work that was assigned to him or her during contract signing, he/she would be free. Different indentured servants entered the United States in different time periods. Specifically, the rise of trade activities and other economic activities like farming in plantations raised the demand for indentured servants and eventually their prices grew large, (Rayback, 2008). Mostly, it was the Africans from West Africa who went to the United States via their sponsors. Since there were no slave laws in the region, the Africans were treated as indentured servants till the passing of the slave laws.
On the other side, the slaves were taken to America against their will to go there. Nearly all the slaves were African American people primarily from the West African States. They were primarily taken to Virginia to provide labor in the plantations of different cash crops like tobacco, (Horton and Horton, 2011). These slaves were heavily forced to carry out the activities, discriminated, and denied most the fundamental human rights. Different masters and slaveholders owned the slaves. Unlike the inured servants, the slaves could not earn their freedom whatsoever. Interestingly, a few slaves who obeyed their masters were provided with rewards like food, unlike the rebellious ones who received brutal punishments. They were segmented into various groups. For example, there were skilled workers, house slaves, and the field slaves. As such, they could not interact with one another thereby denying them the capacity to join hands and fight their masters. Even though the slaves had large families, their holders could still separate their families
and even sanction the sale of some members of their families. Notably, it was the people with power in the society who practiced slavery.
References
Fulop, T. E., & Raboteau, A. J. (2013). The central themes of American religious history: Pluralism, puritanism, and the encounter of black and white. In African-American Religion (pp. 16-29).
Horton, J. O., & Horton, L. E. (Eds.). (2011). Slavery and public history: The tough stuff of American memory. New York: The New Press.
Monroe, J. C., & Ogundiran, A. (2012). Power and landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Archaeological perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Murrin, J. M., Johnson, P. E., McPherson, J. M., Fahs, A., & Gerstle, G. (2011). Liberty, equality, power: a history of the American people. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Rayback, J. G. (2008). History of American Labor. New York: Simon and Schuster.