freedom paper

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Another factor that played a major role in the Revolution was how to deal with slavery and whether pushing for their freedom was helping to shape the nation. “As a metaphor for their mistreatment under English policy, slavery was everything that the Americans were fighting to avoid. The Revolution’s impact on African-American slavery, however, was deeply contradictory”. American slaveholders wanted to fight for their freedom to own slaves, because they believed that the British were trying to undermine their mastery. Many revolutionaries saw the war as the British trying to control the colonist right to own their slaves. To most colonial slaveholders the Revolution was not fighting for their independence from British rule but rather was fighting to protect the liberty to securely hold onto their slaves. “American freedom had been defined in racially exclusive terms that cast African slaves outside the boundary of humanity supposedly endowed with the natural rights to liberty” . After the Revolutionary era freedom played a large role in how Native Americans were going to be treated. In the early 19th century Native American culture was greatly shattered when westward bound Americans and the American government pushed to rid the land of Native Americans. “New found economic opportunity for westward bound Americans would come at the expense of Native American societies ”. Eastern tribes such as the Creeks and the Cherokee were relocated to reservations in the west, while government officials pressured them to abandon their cultural practices and assimilate into American culture. Through this struggle the Cherokee nation tried to retain its freedom by complying with the American government by adopting many white cultural practices.... ... middle of paper ... ...ssed laws, known as Black Codes, in 1865-66 that placed numerous restrictions of African Americans. Designed to restrict the free movement and political participation of the former slaves” Throughout Reconstruction the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment all had passed that made slavery illegal, gave African Americans equal protection, and gave them the right to vote. It seemed African Americans had gained their freedom, but not without the balance of power fluctuating throughout the years from the Black Codes, rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and United States V. Cruikshank. The nation continued to trample on the positive trend of African American freedom and their civil rights. Throughout all of this hypocrisy freedom clearly was one of the most significant factor that gave rise to the Civil War, Reconstruction as well as the Revolution, and has broadly shaped our nation.

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