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In 1700 only 250,000 people resided in the colonies, but from the meagerbeginnings the population began to double every 25 years, sprawling along the Atlantic coast.By 1760 the colonies already had contained over a million inhabitants – rich and poor, white andblack, rural and urban, commercial and agricultural, Protestant and Catholic.17 -century settlerscame largely from Britain, bringing with them the English language, institutions and cultures.But in the 18th century other groups of immigrants began to arrive. The largest of them werethe Scots and Irish who fled from economic distress, failure of crops and religiousdiscrimination.
Many Europeans, mostly from Germany, came to America through so-called“redemption”. Under that form of indentured servitude, so-called redemptioners paid as much asthey could of their passage before sailing from Europe to America. After they landed in thecolonies, they were indentured for a term of service proportional to the amount of their debt. Theterm of service lasted from one year to four or longer. According to American historians onlytwo of every ten indentured servants became successful farmers or artisans.
The remaining 80%either died during servitude, became drifters or caught the land belonging to native tribes.The development of American colonization was dramatically influenced by two mostimportant aspects: the relationships of Europeans and Native Americans and the importation ofmore than two hundred thousand Africans into North America.Native AmericansIt is well known that when Christopher Columbus arrived in the “New World” andthought that he was in India, he called the native people as Indians.
When Columbus discoveredthe New World there seemed to be approximately from 1 to 10 million different Indian tribeswho lived within the present limits of the United States and spoke about 450 distinct dialects. Itis well known now that the American Indians who demand now to be called Native Americansor by their tribal names like Navajo or Lakota developed great civilizations in Pre-ColumbianAmerica( the Incas and the Aztecs and others), and contributed much to world culture and thewelfare of the human race.
They domesticated corn, potatoes, tobacco and many vegetables andfruits which we like so much now. They made discoveries of very many drugs that are usedtoday in chemistry and medical science.At the time of European settlement in the 17 th century the New England coastal areaPPwas densely populated with Indian tribes who mostly hunted buffalo for food, shelter, clothing,and articles of warfare. At that time Indian – white contacts in the New World favored the whitesettlers. It was the Indians who taught European newcomers how to adjust to the new nature andclimate, how to hunt in the wilderness and fish. Christopher Columbus described the AmericanIndians as “a loving, unobvious people, so docile in all things that there are no better people orbetter country… They loved their neighbors as themselves and they had the sweetest and gentlestway of speaking in the world, and always with a smile”.
It was the Indians who kept the Virginiacolony originally alive by trading corn and other foodstuffs to the settlers.But in return for their friendship the Europeans took their lands, destroyed their way oflife, and turned them into refugees and beggars in their own country. The story of the AmericanIndians is one of the most brutal stories of violence and cruelty in human history.
The settlersneeded land, Indians occupied it. Only when the white men began pushing the Indians off theirland did they started viewing them as enemies and tried to strike back. The year of 1622 markedthe beginning of 200 long conflicts between the Native Americans and the white settlers. TheIndians were doomed to be defeated. The colonists had guns, the Indians fought with bows andarrows.Overall, the treatment of North American Indians by Europeans stands as the mostbloody acts of genocide. In books and later in Westerns the Indians were always portrayed as“the hair-raising baddies” (villains). The phrase “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” wasgenerally used.
The means of violence were varied and included not only outright massextermination, but also bounty-hunting (scalping for profit), massacre of women and children,the assassination of Indian kings and leaders, the forced relocation of peoples. By the end of the18-th century some Indian tribes had been exterminated. The others had been forced to accept“the peace terms” according to which they ceded a substantial part of their territory to the whitesand moved to reservations, not suitable for farming and that’s why not needed by white settlers.Afro-Americans.To work the new lands, to produce large-scale products of tobacco, rice, cotton andindigo black slaves were captured in Africa and brought to America. In August 1619 the firstcargo of twenty blacks was brought by a Dutch ship to Virginia.
In 1661 the Virginia legislatureenacted the law that assumed African Negroes as “inferior” and “servants for life”. After thatslaves were brought into other colonies. Although while crossing the Atlantic many Africanslaves died from terrible conditions on the ships but their number had grown to six thousand bythe end of the 17 th century. The difference in skin and culture of Africans was viewed by mostPPwhite settlers as their inferiority, creating the basis for a system of racial slaveryBlack slaves were considered to be the property of their masters and were bought and soldlike farm animals. In 1800, there were almost 900,000 black slaves, most of them in the southernstates of the New World. America proved for many of them a hideous prison, and death providedthe only escape from life-long sufferings and degradation.
They often came from different tribesand did not even speak the same languages. Enslaved into a hostile and strange culture, they hadto fully obey their masters or else they would be beaten, tortured, or killed. Most of them workedin the fields on tobacco or cotton plantations, others worked as domestic servants, cooking,cleaning, and caring for the master’s family. It was illegal to teach a slave reading and writing. Ifslaves wanted to marry, they had to ask their master’s permission. The children of the slavesautomatically became the property of the master.
Sometimes family members were sold todifferent owners and never saw each other again.Scattered references to attempted suicides and occasional slave mutinies indicate thatAfricans did not accept their fate passively, and the sadness of their songs - their most powerfullegacy of expression - provides insight into their personal tragedies.
Outright resistance wasimpossible, but. some slaves tried to escape. Although a few northern states, including NewYork, New Jersey, and Vermont, abolished slavery at that time, escaped slaves from the Southcould be legally recaptured there and returned to their masters. Many slaves tried to escape toCanada, the only place that slaves could become free legally.
The escape route, called theUnderground Railroad, was a network of hiding places and people called “conductors” who ledslaves north to freedom. The journey was long and extremely difficult. During the day, slaveshid in caves or in barns belonging to anti-slavery white farmers. At night, they were taken to thenext hiding place. The “conductors” risked their lives, because people could be executed forhelping slaves to escape.
Only a few fugitive slaves ever reached the promised land of Canada.1. Answer the questions.1. Why did the English settlers of the Virginia Company call their first permanent location asNew England?2. Who were the very first colonists in North America?3. What were the major events of the first period of the English colonization of North America?4. Why were some immigrants indentured for a term of service?5. How did New Amsterdam turn into New York?6.
What was the colonists’ policy towards the Indians?7. How did Africans get into America?8. Why did the colonists need Black slaves?9. What happened to the Black slaves, if they escaped but later were recaptured?10. Who were so-called “conductors”?2. Render the texts in English:А). Виргиния.В мае 1607 г. поселенцы Лондонской компании основали на восточном побережьеАмерики форт Джеймстаун.
Положение жителей было трудным. Освоение девственнойстраны шло медленно. Многие поселенцы не выдерживали и умирали.Шло время. В колонии постепенно складывалась определенная общественнаяструктура. Высший слой общества составляли члены администрации и губернатор.Cсредний слой – поселенцы, которые сами оплатили свой проезд.
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