从黑人问题看美国民主的发展The Development of American Democracy in Terms of the Black [2]
论文作者:佚名论文属性:短文 essay登出时间:2009-04-14编辑:刘宝玲点击率:18518
论文字数:10000论文编号:org200904141554198639语种:中文 Chinese地区:中国价格:免费论文
关键词:African American problemdemocracy developmentcivil rights黑人问题民主发展民权
es the development of American democracy.
Ⅰ. The Black American Problem Pre 1950’s
Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s did not happen accidentally. It is an unavoidable event. The conflict between the whites and the blacks is a historical descended problem. From the origin of slavery to the Civil War (from 1861 to 1865, also called the first Abolition Movement), African American had undergone a long difficult time. Thanks to the Abolition Movement, the serf system was eliminated. But it did not let the blacks own their citizen rights equal to the whites. Such a social phenomenon goes against with the democracy principle, since democracy not only asks the widespread participation of the people, but also required the equality of citizen. From this point, it can be said that democracy was needed to be improved. After the World War II, the blacks awakened to the importance of owning civil rights. Thus, they began to pursue their equal position in the social affair through the Civil Rights Movement.
A. The Origin of Black American Problem
The blacks’ historical disadvantageous position in the American Continent had been mentioned in the introduction. What is the cause for it? Why did the blacks become slaves but not the Native American or the poor whites?
In the year of 1619, a Dutch ship taken over twenty Negroes arrived here, and these Negroes were brought to be held as servants for a term of years. This brief episode was the African American’s first appearance on this New World. Thus a start had been made toward the enslavement of Africans within what was to be the American republic. Dramatically, it happened adjacent to the arrival of the Mayflower ship’s arrival. These two events influenced the shaping of American culture a great deal. These twenty Negroes were not called slaver at that time, since slavery had not been established on this Great Britain’s colony. “So these first Africans were probably incorporated into colonial society as indentured servants, contract laborers who are obligated to serve a master for a specific number of years.” (Healey, 73) That means, if they end the contract with their employer, they will become free citizen. It was not until the 1660s that the first laws defining slavery were enacted in the colonies. In the following century, the status of Africans in colonial America was clarified gradually.
What caused the enslavement of the African? The achievement on the navigation between the 14th and 16th century stimulated the western countries colonial expansion. The Portugal and the Spanish were the first active countries to expand their sphere of influence on the new found land. Under such world background, both Africa and America continents became the colony of western countries. In the following years, British and Dutch developed their own naval force and became the largest colonialist’s countries instead of Portugal. The first group of Africans was taken to the Northern America by the Dutch West India Company in 1619. The British also established the Royal African Company correspondingly to occupy the African trade. In the first period, the colonialist power carried out mercantilism. Their aim was plundering the resources of the colony, especially precious metal. But, when the British took their steps on the Northern America Continent, things began to change. Any precious metal did not be found on the east side, so they began to care about the settlement affairs on the colony for the first
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