Us humans would like to believe our own culture is unique. In reality, basic human methods interacting with our environment and sheer survival techniques tell us otherwise. Human civilization or the development of a culture of people is shaped by its surroundings and basic beliefs from which they were brought up. The settlers of Jamestown and Plymouth were both descendants of the British Crown, and were brought up under the same Protestant theology. Under such conditions, it is only natural for historians to find similarities, both qualitative and quantitative, between the two early American Colonies. .
Although the two colonies find themselves very similar at the later stages of their settlement, the reason for their colonization, the grounds from which motivated them to leave their homeland and venture into the unknown waters of the Atlantic remains different. Europe was a very religiously volatile place in the 16th Century, especially in England. After the Church of England was reconstituted and the rise of the Calvinist doctrine and theology, an extreme Protestant group called the "Separatists" demanded fuller reformation and when they failed to achieve their objectives, these "Puritans" simply moved to the Netherlands between 1607 and 1609 (Murrin, 54-55). After tens years of religious freedom in Holland, these Puritans suddenly realized that their descendants will grow up as Dutch, not English. For fear of discrimination, the group negotiating rather harsh terms with the London Company, and sailed off to the Americas on the Mayflower (Murrin, 69). Unlike the religious freedom sought by the Puritans, the founders of the Jamestown colony we motivated by pure greed. With hopes of discovering rich gold and silver mines, a northwest passage to the continent to Asia, a cure for syphilis and other valuable products for sale in Europe they sailed into the Atlantic (Murrin, 59).
Early culture There are many accomplishments that I find remarkable from earlier cultures. ... The woven baskets for gathering, all were technological advances and advantages for earlier peoples. ... In 1200 BC, The Olmec's built the first American civilization. Other emerging civilizations included the Maya's, Aztecs, and Inca's. ... Along with the creation of architecture was the first American language. ...
Huntington states the "most important conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines separating" (Huntington, 1993) what he identified as eight specific civilizations: "Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and African" (Huntington, 1993). ... Apart from the demise of the political ideologies described earlier, Huntington gives six specific reasons for civilizational identity. ... This occurs especially when people become impotent in the face of overwhelming military might, as in the case of when the Middle East co...
In the late 1400's and early 1500's, Europeans began spreading their influence and interacting with communities in the New World. In the New World, Native Americans had long been developing society and tools at their own pace. ... The methods of food collection and production also varied between the Europeans and the Native Americans, due to the underdeveloped material culture in the Americas. ... A surplus can lead to a larger population and eventually the safety net for civilizations to take risks, Europeans having this advantage led to even more advances in tool development that t...
She also describes the devastation that was brought upon the Indian populations by the early European settlers of American and Mexico. ... Although current historical references and works now seem to give a fairly accurate portrayal of the injustices done to the Indians, I remember earlier school texts referring to the Indians as primitive savages who were eventually educated and brought the benefits of civilization. I remember reading of the massacres perpetrated by the Indians against the early western settlers, and of how Indians attacked and burned villages during the early colonization ...
Artifacts that my be crude stone scrapers and choppers found at Lewisville, Texas, and other scattered sites throughout North and South America have been dated by their surroundings as early as 25000 to 35000 years ago. ... But of course this environmental influence was affected by the gradually developing sophistication of these early Americans. ... In hunting practices, and most living habits, the very early Americans had little reason to change from the ways of their northern forebears. ... Amid such plenty, the early Americans prospered and spread over the continent. ... The shift in the e...
During the early years of colonization and exploration in North America and Africa, many New World "collided" and brought to each other many new things, both good and bad. ... Another impact on both the Native Americans and the Europeans was the sharing of native crops to each other. ... The horse highly effected the lives of the Native Americans by improving their hunting abilities. ... Europeans unknowingly brought with them many diseases that eventually plagues the Native Americans. ... Also, the ill treatment of the Native Americans by the land hungry Europeans virtually wiped out their ci...
The expansionism of the late nineteenth-century and the early twentieth-century is simply a continuation of past expansionism. ... Part of this novel explains that "The largest liberty, the purest Christianity, the highest civilization... will spread itself over the earth." ... G) Like early Americans, Americans of the late nineteenth-century also expanded for economic reasons. ... America wanted Texas as a state. ... F) Expansionism was clearly a driving factor throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ...
Early Latin American writers, such as Jorge Borges and Octavio Paz, set the precedent for the writers of the "Boom."7 The novels of the "Boom" tend to have complex narrative structures, linguistic experimentation, and a rejection of typical, moral upper middle class values and social traditions. ... Most importantly, with the emergence of the "Boom" writers of the 60s to the early 80s, three common conflicts developed in Latin American literature: good vs. evil, nature vs. urban progress, and civilization vs. barbarism. ... Early in the twentieth century, U.S. leaders urged the expansion of...
The idea that the historical mounds were produced by early Native Americans was met with much criticism for hundreds of years. ... Accepting the theory of the mounds would reveal that the Native Americans had the standard for a civilization. ... Instead, the European settlers would have seized the land from of a flourishing civilization. ... The Native Americans would no longer appear as primitive as first believed and they would not look far behind the European civilizations. Americans of the nineteenth century intensely resisted the idea the early American Indians were the creative geni...
