Cultural Perspectives On American Expansionist, Colonial...

As Yehuda Berg said, â€Å"words have energy and power with the ability to help†¦[and] to harm.† Expanding upon his reflection to see varying social perspectives on American expansionist, colonial and slave society contexts, one notes that officials of European descent including Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and John Eliot converted white words and ideas into literal and figurative terms that they believed Native Americans mutually understood to persuade tribal leaders to adopt white mores. Accordingly, some Native Americans responded to these jabs of white coercion through outright resistance while others re-enacted white behaviors to receive preferential treatment from white leaders and gain social influence that had the potential to undermine white hegemony. Building off of these indigenous efforts to reclaim lost territory, many Southern black slaves adapted to the ongoing tolerance of church ministries and loopholes in slave masters’ restrictions to slightly advance African beliefs atop Christianity and syncretically empower black rituals. While white expansionists engaged in brief, unbalanced negotiations to judge and then exploit Native Americans, certain indigenous people broke out of the ongoing Eurocentric decorum of noble savagery with colonial authorities to pursue sociopolitical agency and many black slaves interbred Christian and African beliefs to fashion their own religious subculture over time. Thus, throughout these cases, both white and non white figures ofShow MoreRelatedAmerican Imperialism Essay examples2429 Words   |  10 Pagesworld’s leading imperial powers. Historians have proposed various reasons for this change in the American psyche. Historians from the progressive school of thought argue that economic interests dictated American foreign policy; while academics of the Conservative or older patriotic tradition advocate that the nations brief foray into imperialism represented a â€Å"great aberrationâ €  from typical American isolationism. A third school led by Julius Pratt, applied Social Darwinism to the country – statingRead More Race and Intercultural Relations in the United States Essay2237 Words   |  9 Pagesfootfalls of Europeans upon the American continent’s shores. Each group of settlers and immigrants have brought their own unique perspectives and underlying values to the table. Many of these perspectives have been incorporated into the mainstream way of life, many others however, have been dismissed and discarded as either foreign or outright dangerous. The patterns that have emerged from this interaction of cultures and peoples define who we are today as Americans, not a homogenous amalgam of thoseRead MoreEssay on American Imperialism in the Philippines3614 Words   |  15 PagesSpanish colonizers, America captured the Philippines. This brought about questions of what America should do with the Philippines. Soon, controversy ensued both in the American political arena as well as among its citizens. Throughout its history, America had always been expansionistic, but it had always limited itself to the North American continent. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, however, there emerged a drive to expand outside of the continent. When America expanded to the Philippines, theRead MoreNotes on American Interventionism3498 Words   |  14 Pagesï » ¿Introduction Before World War II, American interventionism was often overt and direct, simply landing troops on the shores of some prospective banana republic and installing a friendly government there. This is exactly what happened in Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, in some cases more than once. Theodore Roosevelt was hardly shy about admitting that he sent troops to Puerto Rico and the Philippines, taking Panama from ColumbiaRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. 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He then embarked on an expansionist policy that resulted in the creation of a vast Mutapa empire which stretched from the Zambezi valley into the Mozambique lowlands and towards the fringes of the Kalahari Desert. The Mutapa’s control in these far away lands was probably peripheral