Freedom of Oppression

The General course of American culture that prevailed in the years that started with the American colonization, and led to the Revolution would be freedom of oppression, intertwined on the fronts of religion, politics and economy: The liberties included not only religious freedom, but civil as well. The desire for upward mobility, power, and economic independence would help to define views of equality based on the beliefs and behaviors of particular peoples, and their patterns of belief based on their racial, religious and social attitudes.  

            For the founding fathers equality meant for white men, so the equality did not transcend region and class. “When the declaration of independence declared that all men are created equal, the writers…really did mean men, their lights: not females, not some black- or yellow-skinned “savage,” but civilized white males.”¹ The founding fathers believed in what  is referred to as a “natural aristocracy” ² and the men of this order were the best to rule the new democracy. They thought that particular men exuded a certain type of intellect, power, strength and moral excellence, which made them more qualified in being leaders. The definition of equality surely was in the eye of the beholder.

            While the founding fathers were seeking an end to the British oppressiveness, they at the same time showed little empathy for the equality of women, slaves or Native Americans. Much of the “freedom of religion” was based on American exceptionalism of the Puritans who felt that they their ideas were unique and extraordinary. So while they wanted freedom from the Crown, they would not tolerate Antinomianism. “What to some might seem like an American Dream of religious freedom was to others a nightmarish prescription for anarchy.” ³

The Puritans felt that the natives were outside the law of moral obligation; the differences in cultures caused misunderstanding, fear and conflict. The Native Americans were new to the ideas of territorial or material acquisition as a reason to engage in battle. The Puritans felt little regard for the heathen souls of the “savages”.

Not only were Native Americans left out of this ideology of liberty, but women and slaves were as well. “Woman were marginalized from the public sphere that was the natural home of upward mobility and the existence of slavery both limited the arena of upward mobility and gave whites and economic and psychological gauge by which to measure themselves.” ⁴. The same Puritans who had fled from England to be free to live a good life free from the restraints of the corrupt church, were the ones restraining and enslaving Africans for their own material gain. The Puritans wanted a utopia, which was free from evil, but was definitely capitalist in its approach. They would take away the freedoms of these African slaves to achieve this.

Even up through the Revolution it was the poor who were targeted for enlistment. A stable job would keep the poor class man enlisted. Washington recognized men with reward money to stay enlisted for at least three years. These men of the Continental Army knew that if they didn’t win, there would be no financial gain. This role of Economic gain/ upward mobility was definitely an influence. Soldier, tobacco and tea growers, cod fisherman, slave trader all had a desire for capital, and didn’t want The Crown and her taxes interfering with their desire for economic power.

The Declaration of Independence gave the freedom from the oppression of England that they had longed for.

            “That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain

inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot

by any compact, deprive of divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life

 and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing

 and obtaining happiness and safety.” ⁵

 

            1. Jim Cullen, The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 51.

 2. A letter from Jefferson to Adams, Quoted in Jim Cullen The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 51

3. Cullen, 27.

4. Cullen, 70.

5. Virginia Assembly, Virginia Declaration of Rights. June 12, 1776

 http://www.constitution.org/bcp/virg_dor.htm (accessed August 30, 2012).

 

 

 http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/trumbull.htm