White America

White America?

I am a white male in living in modern America. I am unsure of my ethnic background as there are pieces of my family history I still have yet to research. My Great-Grandfather was a full-blooded Cherokee, and my biological father had an Indian bloodline as well, although I cannot locate him to question the bloodline. I was born in Arkansas and moved to Illinois when I was five. Living in Illinois, approximately 80 miles southwest of Chicago, I was exposed to quite a few different ethnic groups. Since I know so little about my Indian heritage, I will focus this essay on English immigration, and how racial tensions between black and white America, continue to this day.

The English are recognized with colonizing America when the first township of Jamestown, in what is present day Virginia, was created in 1607. Life was difficult at first for the newly settled Jamestown. Thinkquest states on their website: “The village was often attacked by Native Americans. In 1622, 350 colonists were killed; 500 in 1644. Colonists rebelling against the rule of Governor William Berkeley burned Jamestown in the seat of government was moved to the Middle Plantation (now Williamsburg) in 1699, and Jamestown was deserted” (2006). Many of the English left England in hopes to flee the religious prosecutions occurring at the time. They hoped to start a brand new life with the immigration of the Pilgrims to (what would be called Plymouth Colony) Massachusetts Bay in 1620. The period between 1630-1640 would be known as The Great Migration. Massachusetts’ population boomed to 21, 000 people, a third of which were Britons (Thinkquest, 2006).

After the American Revolution, mostly white Europeans were settling the newly formed United States of America. Plantation owners had a problem on their handsвЂ"plenty of work, but no one to work. According to an article on about.com, the majority of the slaves from Africa were shipped to Brazil, Caribbean, and Spanish Empire. Only 5% of African slaves were shipped to America. They were needed more in the Caribbean and Brazil for the gold mines and sugar plantations (Boddy-Evans, A. 2008). Seeing as how the African government sold, or traded its people for goods, I have yet to understand how modern African Americans can try to hold modern white Americans accountable for slavery. I do NOT back slavery or support it, however, more Africans were shipped to the Southern Americas than were shipped to the U.S. Nonetheless, I believe it is the source for most racism in America today. Even after 100 years, African Americans still struggle for the same rights and opportunities that white Americans often take for granted.

Having a different skin color would not be the only reason for whites to discriminate against other people. Whites will just as easily discriminate against other whites from different countries or different religions. When the Irish started migrating to America they were treated just as poorly by the English immigrants. The Irish came to America after the great potato famine of the 1840’s. The Irish had no other choice but to leave their country or stave to death leaving them at the mercy of whites in America in order to survive. When people are forced to make decisions like emigrate or die they put themselves at the mercy of the people of the new land. “Their only mode of escape was emigration, starving families that could not pay landlords faced no alternative but to leave the country in hopes of a better future. And thus the steadily scaling number of Irish who entered the U.S. between 1820 and 1830 skyrocketed in the 1840’s, nearly 2 million came in that decade.” (Thinkquest, 2006)

It seems to me as if white Americans have been the root cause of much of the discrimination in modern America. Although most of this took place hundreds of years ago,