The Importance Of The Declaration Of Independence

792 Words2 Pages

The “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” was only well known to the common white men when the Declaration of Independence was made. To everyone else they did not have the privilege to be included. When the United States was formed in 1776 and they made the Declaration of Independence, the founders made it very clear that it mostly gave the privilege’s to rich white men. To all the other people, the Declaration of Independence was a joke because they were not part of it. The people who did not get the freedom and rights were, African-Americans, women and American Indians. When African-Americans first came to America throughout the 18th and 19th century, they were slaves to white people. They had no rights and were not even considered a person, …show more content…

When Europeans started to colonize America, they thought of the Indians as savages. As the years went by and more colonies arrived, the Native Americans population declined due to epidemic diseases brought from Europe, violence and warfare from explorers and colonists. The Indians fought back and attacked Americans that were in their territory. The Americans tried to help socialize the Indians into their culture but it did not work all that well. For the longest time the Native Americans did not have the same right as your typical white men. Then in 1817 some Cherokee tribes became the first Native Americans to be recognized as U.S. citizen. Some of the factors that were included were citizenship at birth, marriage to a U.S. citizen, adopting habits of civilized life and etc. A few more years went by and in 1830’s President Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This made all Indians vacate their homeland and move into Indian Territory and reservations, this was called the Trail of Tears. For many years after the Trail of Tears the Indians had little right to what the common white man

Open Document