Instructor: Enrique Luna
History 1, T 8:10-9:30pm
10/12/15
Chapter 2
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. 20th Anniversary Ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Print.
Topic- Virginia in the Early 1600s
Virginia during the early 1600 was not the most ideal place to live out of the rest of the colonies. It was a desperate time for food, and labor for who was left of the Virginians. Among them were survivors of the winter of 1609-1610, the “starving time,” when crazed for want of off, they roamed the woods for nuts and berries, dug up graves to eat the corpses and died in batches until five hundred colonists were reduced to sixty (24). As more and more people came to settle, the amount of food dropped …show more content…
The African civilizations featured hierarchical privileges, as well they were cruel and ready to sacrifice its people. The African civilization was made of millions of people who had skills with farming. Africa had a kind of feudalism, like Europe based on agriculture, and with hierarchies of lords and vassals (27). Tribal life was still strong in Africa during these times, which featured a communal spirit. But in the Congo, communal life persisted, the idea of private property was a strange one, and thefts were punished with fines or various degrees of servitude (27). Also, slavery was present in the African states, however slaves in Africa were similar to indentured servants found in Europe. It was a harsh servitude, but they had rights which slaves brought to America did not have and they were “altogether different from the human cattle of the slave ships and the American plantations” (27). African slavery lacked two elements that made American slavery the most cruel form of slavery in history: the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master and black was slave