No topic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 14

No topic - Essay Example They are all similarly Caucasian in appearance, but they have different cultural traditions, and it is this social difference that is called ethnicity. These ethnic differences have been a part of American history from the beginning, because people from many different countries came over as immigrants and formed communities which carried on these original traditions. The bigger American culture is made up of elements from all those other cultures. The English view of race was very positive about white people, seeing them as conquering heroes, who had taken over lands as rulers, just as English companies took over India and other colonies. They saw other races as inferior, however, and this was very extreme in the case of Africa. African people were viewed as savages and they were exploited because the British had superior weapons. This treatment shows that the British thought of Africans as something less than human and this kind of attitude was brought over to America in the early days, and transferred also to the view that white Americans had of other groups, including all the native tribes and nations who were on the land before the Europeans arrived. The system of slavery began with the establishment of various kinds of colonies in the American territories. There were not enough white people to tend the fields and so a system of plantations was created, bringing African Americans as slaves to work in them. These people were brought by force. There were also many poor white people who voluntarily became slaves for a fixed period of time, because this gave them a chance to make a new life in America when they had failed to prosper in their home country. White people saw themselves as superior, and this is a social cause of slavery. Slaves were not allowed to decide about family matters like getting married, and having children, and they could not own property, or invest in their own education, making this a