My names are Stanford Williams an African American who is trying to recall the happenings of the 1970s in America. I am in my twenty’s when war between the thirteen colonies and the British soldiers breaks out. This makes me remember my roots as I am here because of slave trade having being forcibly removed from my ancestral home by the Britons. Due to increased farming activities among the European settlers, there was an increased need for labor in tobacco and sugar plantations. For this demand to be met, more people, especially the Africans, were subjected to slave labor. I’m from West Africa and there I used to be a farmer and a family man before the British abducted me from my native home to America as a slave. My strength forces the British to recruit me in their army to help fight the American but my conscience can not allow me as I have hated the Britons since I was old. My loyalty remains to the Americans who are fighting for their rights.
Slavery
Slavery was the legal and social arrangement that is made to allow for Europeans to eat off the sweat of Africans on the land that later comes to be known as the USA. By the 1760s, most Americans have become impatient with the colonial rule. Their fight for freedom from the British colonialists becomes synonymous with the fight of slaves for their own freedom from their ruthless masters. In 1776, the representatives of the 13 rebellious American colonies vote against slave trade in the Continental Congress. This journal is set to explore the history of the United States. Specifically it’s focused on the history of the American revolutionary war.
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"My Experience As An African American Loyalist".
This racial slavery mainly targets Africans and Native Americans, such as American Indians. By 1700, slavery is a common phenomenon in American states such as Virginia, Maryland and Carolina. By 1750, the number of slaves has outnumbered that of indentured servants. African slaves are preferred to the American Indian slaves. The latter are much familiar with the local territory. Therefore, they normally succeed in escaping.
The revolution
The revolution is meant for both the Americans and the African who are both being oppressed by the British masters but the African are being cheated by the British that it is meant to kill them. Some fall under the trap but people like me with independent mind remain loyal to the Americans. The American need to be free and liberated from the colonial rule after which they will enjoy their freedoms.
The period between the 1760s and the 1770s is marked with more independent thinking among the colonists and the efforts by the British to bring them back to the fold are met with dire protests. The conflicts lead to revolutionary wars between the British Empire and the Americans began just slight disagreements between the Americans and the British. The disagreements turned into tensions that brought rifts between them. The Americans struck at the British in the first fight with little finance and arms. This is the beginning of the wars. They then belt to the second and subsequent fights with more focus on winning. They increase the machinery and firearms in order to win the battles. The intervention of the foreign nations, France, Spain, Netherlands and Mysore increases their skills, machines, tactics and knowledge on how to attack the British. The government in the North America becomes stronger as the support was massive from the other nations which are fighting for the Americans’ deliberation.
The declaration of independence has justified the American right to revolt against the British government which no longer cares for their rights. The successive resistance for freedom by the colonists results in a revolutionary war at Lexington and Concord in 1775. The fights that ensued make the British government to declare colonies under rebellion.
Events
The colonists form the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 to protest. The British government responds by repealing the Stamp Act in 1766 after violent protests and boycotting of British goods. The ensued passage of the Townsend Acts in 1767 brings about more unrest prompting the British government to increase troops in Boston to protect the custom officials which results to the Boston Massacre. The colonists react by setting up Committees of Correspondence to chat way forward regarding the loss of rights. The grievances by the colonists are legitimate since they required a government of their consent that was conscious of their rights.
The American troops call the Continental army. Under the brilliant battlefield tactician General George Washington they use the Indian technique of guerilla warfare coupled with the assistance of France, Spain and the Netherlands army officers, who have cold blood with Britain to fight the revolutionary war.
Justification of the war
The Americans have tried to gain independence by using various ways ranging from peaceful demonstrations to war. The period between 1740- 1770 has been marked with tension between England and the 13 colonies which grows to war. The Americans have suffered unjust taxation from British government which uses the rule of tyranny to govern. After peaceful protest by the colonists which has been going to deaf ears, the only alternative is war meaning that the colonists are justified to revolt against England. The revolutionary war of the Americans compares to other liberation movements of the world in that both strive to seek to achieve the human rights accorded to the British. The Americans want to change the kind of leadership that seems to oppress them. They are fighting for deliberation and ease of freedoms. The world liberation movements and the American revolutionary war both endeavor to gain equal rights and reduce favoritism. In the years following the fighting, the oppression and dictatorship amongst the people reduces and the US gains their core objective in the fight.
I believe that the Americans are right to engage in war with the British since they had protested peacefully in vain. The war is justified since America needs a government established based on self evident truths and unalienable rights that is; equality, life, liberty and happiness, and is the conduct of the British government that justifies waging a revolutionary war for independence. Coupled with the publication of the Common sense political pamphlet by Thomas Paine in 1776 and the approval of the Virginia motion pushing for declaration for independence coupled with the French intervention; will compel the British government to declare United States a free and independent nation by 1783.
- Aptheker, Herbert. 1977. A history of the American people [2.] [2.]. New York, NY: International Publ.
- Bailyn, Bernard. 1992. The ideological origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
- Buell, Tonya. 2004. Slavery in America: a primary source history of the intolerable practice of slavery. New York: Rosen Central Primary Source.
- Griffin, Larry J., and Don Harrison Doyle. 1995. The South as an American problem. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
- Griffith, Samuel B. 2002. The War for American Independence: from 1760 to the surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
