History Essays: Voices of Freedom
QUESTION:
Chapter 1-2: Since the beginning of recorded history, there has been differences in opinion regarding the rights of conquest through exploration and colonization. When Christopher Columbus landed on the islands off North America in 1492, it marked the beginning of centuries of argument over the rights of Europeans versus those whose communities pre-dated European contact with the Americas (sometimes called “natives” “Native Americans” “American Indians” or “Indians”). Write an essay that gives two examples from the primary sources in Voices of Freedom chapter 1 that examines different views discussing the rights of European explorers and colonists versus those whose communities pre-dated European contact with the Americas. Your “how-conclusion” should compare or contrast the authors, audiences, and the purposes of your two chosen documents.
QUESTION:
Chapter 2-2: As Eric Foner writes, “Seventeenth-century (1600s) North America was an unstable and dangerous environment. Diseases decimated Indian and settler populations alike. Colonies were racked by religious, political, and economic tensions and drawn into imperial wars and conflict with Indians.” Write an essay that gives two examples from the primary sources in Voices of Freedom chapter 2 that explains why people would chose to emigrate, often risking their lives, to the colonies in English America. Your “how-conclusion” should compare or contrast the authors, audiences, and the purposes of your two chosen documents.
QUESTION:
Chapter 3-2. As Eric Foner writes, “In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, a series of crises rocked the European colonies of North America. Social and political tensions boiled over in sometimes ruthless conflicts between rich and poor, free and slave, settler and Indian, and members of difference religious groups.” Write an essay discussing two examples from the primary sources in Voices of Freedom chapter 3 that explains different reasons for the “tensions” in North America (AKA: what are the grievances of the two authors and why?). Your “how-conclusion” should compare or contrast the authors, audiences, and the purposes of your two chosen documents.
QUESTION:
Chapter 4-2. Slavery was not unique to North America; human bondage existed in some form since pre-history (before historical record). In chapter 4 of Give Me Liberty, Eric Foner describes the eighteenth century (1700s) as the era in which slavery became common in many forms in North America. At the same time, the western world witnessed the development of the period usually called the Enlightenment. Central to much of the debate during that period among intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic were theories regarding ‘the natural rights of man’—in Lockean terms “life, liberty and property” (also see chapter 4 of Give Me Liberty). Write an essay discussing two examples from the primary sources in Voices of Freedom chapter 4 that explores specific examples of the denial of natural rights.—Note: Make sure you include in your “what” which natural rights the author discussed as denied AND whose rights those were. Your “how-conclusion” should compare or contrast the authors, audiences, and the purposes of your two chosen documents.