In a letter dated December 19, 1765, Samuel Adams wrote a personal letter to his English friend, John Smith, voicing his opinions on the Stamp Act. In An American View of the Stamp Act Samuel Adams refutes the claims of the British ministers justification of the Stamp Act.
Samuel Adams identifies the rights of free subjects of Britain to be the right to representation and trial by jury. Adams claims that both of these rights have been denied by passing the Stamp Act. Colonists could be put on trial without a jury which infringed on the rights of the colonists as British subjects. The major argument that Adams presents in his letter is that if the colonists are viewed as free British subjects then Parliament does not have the right to tax them without proper representation in Parliament.
Adams objections over the Stamp Act would be characteristic of the American colonists from 1765-1776 when the list of violations against the American colonists grew and eventually led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Adams letter reflected two of the most significant grievances that were present in the Declaration of Independence. As opposition grew in the colonies over issues like taxation without representation and being denied a trial by jury, a revolutionary spirit spread across the colonies and led to the American Revolution.
One of the first industries to flourish in America was the textile industry. Many textile factory jobs were held by women. Some textile mills were fully staffed by women. One such mill was in Lowell, MA and was known as treating the workers at the factory in a very restrictive atmosphere in the factories and in their personal lives. In Early Days of Lowell Lucy Larcom discusses her experiences in the Lowell textile mills.
Lucy Larcom describes her fellow workers at the Lowell textile mill as being active, interesting girls who were not solely defined by the role they played in the mill. The girls are described as being principled, earnest, and capable of doing anything and gave Lucy a stronger ideal of womanhood. While the women were confined to the work inside the mill and lived under many restrictions like a prison, the independence that came with working in the mill and being exposed to other admirable girls was a liberating feeling to Lucy.
Larcom metaphorically discusses the waterwheel and how its power is used to move the mechanisms that run the universe. This statement can be viewed as a perception of the impact that industrialization has on a nation. The Lowell textile mills employed girls that were free but had few rights and privileges while the mill owners prospered from their hard work. Industry in the 19th century dominated the United States.
Larcoms recollection of her time at the Lowell textile mill is characteristic of factory life in the sense that it consumed the lives of the workers and the atmosphere was loud and unpleasant. Before women were working in the mills they typically were housewives who did not have much contact outside the domestic sphere. The social sphere was for men until mills necessitated women to enter the workforce.
When the United States started to expand into the West, white people were coming into contact with Native Americans. The relations between the United States government and the Native Americans were characterized by the establishment of treaties that were agreed upon to legally transfer some Native American territory to the United States government. As time progressed, the treaties were commonly broken and Native were forced off their land. In A Sacred Reverence for Our Lands, Black Hawk discusses how he was removed from the land that had been taken over white people.
According to Black Hawk, the principal chief, Ke-o-kuck , made a treaty with the white men and agreed to move to the west of the Mississippi River. The white people were not met with resistance when they moved onto the land because when they moved in and fenced in the area and the Natives were permitted to still plant small patches of the land. In addition, the white people brought whiskey with them and used it to get the Native Americans drunk and cheat them out of their homes, guns, and beaver traps.
When Black hawk was told that the land was to be sold and the treaty that allowed them to use part of the land would be null and void Black Hawk claimed that the ground was sacred because he was born on the land and his friends and relatives were buried there. Black Hawk and the rest of his friends and relatives were forced off their land despite their sacred reverence for the land. In the eyes of the United States government it was their manifest destiny to expand their borders to the west coast. The Native Americans who had ties to the land were removed from the land after white people saw that they may be able to benefit from it economically. As the 19th century progressed more and more land was ripped away from the Native Americans and they were forced onto reservations.
During the Civil War, the North and South fought over the Norths attempt to bring the Confederacy back into the Union. The Union had seceded, in large part, over issues like slavery and sectional differences between the North and South. The Norths Anaconda Plan was a strategy to suffocate the South into submission by surrounding the South on the Eastern and Western fronts and having a naval blockade on the Southern coast. General Shermans march to the sea was an integral piece of the plan to defeat the South.
In Shermans March Through Georgia Dolly Sumner Lunt recalls the havoc Sherman reaped across Georgia. Lunt describes how Shermans troops came in plundered the land and took all the food and resources they could mange to take during his march to the sea and wantonly desolated the land. Lunts description highlights the destructive nature of modern warfare. Sherman destroyed everything in his path to assure that his opponent would be defeated. Sherman destroyed the foodstuffs and other things deemed necessary for survival so the South would be forced to surrender. The same tactic is used by bombings and blockades today destroy everything that could be useful to the opponent so they did not have the resources to fight back.
By looking at the date of the document, it was written November 17, 1864. The South surrendered at Appomattox courthouse approximately 5 months later. With the North controlling the East as well as the Mississippi River and the Southern Coast, the Anaconda Plan had been executed and the North successfully suffocated the South by blockading any supply lines into the Confederacy. With General Shermans march to the sea, the South was dealt a terrible blow that they would not be able to recover from and were forced to surrender and the Confederacy was brought back into the Union.
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