In a multiple part series, Madison365 columnist Matthew Braunginn will be analyzing the history of the United States to explore ideas of change, from the European invasion of what became the Americas, to the enslavement of Africans, racial oppression, the Civil Rights Movement, to the current day changing demographics in a shrinking world facing a new crisis of climate change and what the United States, and, in turn, the world are facing today.
You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here. (-Ed.)
As enslavement was coming into full bloom in the colonies, as well as being used in mainland Europe, empires were being built. Britain, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and France were early leaders in the rise of a new age of empires in Europe. These growing empires saw many transitions internally, were jockeying for position internationally, and fought wars directly.
This was the time period of the “enlightenment” (1685-1815), ideas of scientific reasoning and process started to develop in Europe. Looking back and re imagining ideas of Democracy, freedom, and more. Fights against Religious orthodoxy and dogmatism were abound. There were many parts of the enlightenment, it was a different experience depending on the when and where, but common themes of a human hierarchy were abound through Europe.
“Researchers” such as Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who wrote “On the Natural Variety of Mankind” were exploring divisions in humanity, ideas that grew out of tribalism. Ideas of white, caucasian, beauty standards, levels of humanity and animality, and superiority of one “race” over another.
Many of these ideas were originally based in differences in culture, but quickly evolved into physical differences of skulls and then skin color. Many of the thought leaders in Europe assigned different classifications of European lineage at the top of the human food chain. Many ideologizing more Germanic Roman Empire populations, as well as British, and some more Latin based French lineages.
These Empires warred with one another. There was the French-Dutch War, from 1672-78, it included the Austrian Habsburgs, the Prussians, Spain, and England. Louis XIV of France wanted to expand into the Spanish Netherlands, but the Dutch Republic opposed this and the Dutch Navy was seen as a threat to England. Lines were drawn and war erupted. At the end of the war, France came out as a strong military force in Europe, the Dutch, Spain and others lost power. The lines for British and a French conflict were drawn as well.
This war kicked off over a century of almost non-stop conflict in and between European powers. The next major conflict was the Nine Years War (1688–97), a conflict that reached across the globe, and one that some consider the first global war as it saw fighting in India and North America. This kicked off the War of Spanish Succession (1702–1714), which included the English, Dutch, Austria, France, Spain and more. The short lived Anglo-Spanish War (1727–1729), wars in Eastern Europe concerning Russia, Northern and other Eastern European nations, War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48), and many other smaller conflicts leading up to the French Revolution.
In many of these conflicts, there were proxy wars going on across the globe, with wars in colonial Africa, where European powers would take advantage of internal conflicts, allied with a side, and worked to colonize and carve up the continent. European powers used divide and conquer to great effect in Africa.
There was, of course, the The French and Indian War (1754–63) in North America, which in essence was the American theater of the Seven Years War. This war helped set the stage for the American Revolution. After some early failures, Britain was willing to put more resources into fighting the French and Indigenous forces in North America, while France was focused on the European front. In doing so Britain was able to secure territory in what became Canada, French territories east of the Mississippi, and many of France’s territories in the Caribbean. Due to the loss of Spain’s Florida territory to Britain, France also gave its territories west of the Mississippi to their ally in the Seven Years War, Spain.
The claimed territory was far from a wild, unsettled frontier and had many Indigenous Nations populating the “frontier.” The results of this conflict and the Seven Year War brought about great changes in the British colonies. The Crown decided to give rights to the lands west of Appalachian Mountains to their Indigenous allies in the war and also declared a halt to the westward expansion of its colonies. But many indigenous tribes were still forced to migrate westward. The war also brought the British Empire deep into debt, in doing so the Crown instituted a round of taxes upon their colonies. The combination of taxes, inability to further settle the West, fears of slave revolts, worries of changing attitudes towards slavery in Britain, and rising economic inequality in the American colonies, combined together for the American Revolution.
Ideas of whiteness and what it meant to be an American, the idea of “the American” were starting to form in the Americas. At times, Christianity became synonymous with whiteness, there was also an idea of a “new man” in what became the United States. The blending of different European lineages, to create something new. In it, you can see something of the mythical American idea, based in whiteness.
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur wrote a letter and asks “What then is the American, this new man?” with an answer that includes “Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.” In it, he talks about the mix marriages of Dutch, French, and Englishmen to create something new. But this “new man” was European in nature, and one that broke the chains of old Europe. “The American” was white, and usually land-owning whites. Lower-class whites, indigenous populations, and enslaved Africans were not American. It’s interesting to note that Thomas Jefferson saw “The American” as something English in its root.
Ideas that became Manifest Destiny, growing racial hierarchies, the idea of America and “The American” were forming, merchant classes, landowners, and more formed together.
The wealthy or land-owning individuals, many of which became founding fathers, were not only upset at a round of taxes, but also the inability to settle western lands they took claim over, as the British Crown decided to respect their treaties made with Indigenous populations. Many also saw owning humans as a right in various different ways.
There was also a growing economic divide between merchants, landowners, and everyone else. So many of the elite class in the colonies that were turning against the crown used this economic divide to create energy and anger towards England.
The American Revolution served as sort of a proxy war between France and Britain – France ended up coming to the aid of the United States and helped secure the nation’s independence from Britain. It also helped that in combination of the French Indian War and the constant fear of slave revolts, there was a large population of gun owners within the United States.
Howard Zinn writes about the Constitution – how it was not only a document to create a functional government, but one to maintain a certain order. He states:
“When economic interest is seen behind the political clauses of the Constitution, then the document becomes not simply the work of wise men trying to establish a decent and orderly society,but the work of certain groups trying to maintain their privileges, while giving just enough rights and liberties to enough of the people to ensure popular support.”
A key idea behind the constitution was its capability to quell popular uprisings, to maintain an order, prevent a unifying spirit of those the order didn’t benefit, and to stop any uprisings before they got out of hand.
For all the hypocrisy of the Declaration of Independence, it, at least, presented a nation with high-minded ideals of human progress. While the Constitution substituted those ideals for one of property. Changing “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to “life, liberty, or property.” The Constitution itself was a document preserving a racial and economic order, at times explicit with the 3/5th clause, but most of the time implicit. The Constitution placed land and property owners as the key component of the United States, just as it denied rights to most everyone else. If the Declaration was a document of change, the Constitution was a conservative one, one to prevent or slow the pace of change. It created a nation where slavery in the south fueled industrialization and the market economy in the north.
Even then, there wasn’t one idea for what whiteness is and this is a theme ever present in United States history. It was an ever evolving thing to fit what it needed. “The History of White People” explores this in depth. While some might have seen white as only those of English descent, others saw something more cultural about it. They saw poor whites as not true Americans or not fully “white” with a capital ‘W’. Their behavior and culture is what prevented them from being “white.”
Make no mistake about it though, even as the Irish potato famine pushed Irish immigrants to the United States, and as these immigrants faced brutal repression, as well as dehumanization, comparing them to negroes, they were still “white” even if they were not “white.” Irish Americans rejected this comparison and because of this, eventually full “whiteness” was extended.
There was also an interesting distinction between immigrants that still holds true. A theory by Sam Houston who was president of the Republic of Texas, pushed forward the idea that “new immigrants of the 1850’s, people ‘spewed loathingly from the prisons of England, and from the pauper houses of Europe.” Mixed in with the evolution of whiteness, and growing fear of black and brown skin, this idea of immigrants of criminal and degenerate backgrounds pouring into the United States is held onto this day.
This was an interesting time period that had an interesting mix of embracing and resisting change, ideas of race were swirling, ideas of what was “white” or “American.” Pushing cultural change on others, while resisting it themselves, pushing violent change on enslaved blacks and the murder of the nation’s indigenous folks
The Constitution and its failings set up pretty much all internal conflicts within the United States since then. Even though it was designed to be amended, to change and evolve, it was one to conserve the power holders of the nation, one to prevent sweeping large scale changes. It’s inflexibility in the face of crisis, and its interpretations, impact the nation to this day. The inability of this nation’s government and its people to embrace change is its second and self-destructive sin.
Part five will explore the cause and effects of the United States Civil War and how conservative agents quickly closed in on the changes the war brought. As well as how a series of conflicts in Europe set the stage for an industrial expansion of their attempt to colonize the world.
