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Example research essay topic: Captain John Smith Colonial Period - 1,865 words

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Early Colonial Period Introduction to Early Colonial Period The early colonial period can be framed from 1000 AD onwards as at that period of time, Leif Ericson, a Viking Seaman arrived on the east coast of North American and founded a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland. The end years of the Colonial period can be considered up to 1787, when the Black American poet Jupiter Hammon (1720 - 1800), who as a slave on Long Island, New York, is still remembered for his address to the Negroes of the New York State. In his address he had advocated the freeing of slaves children instead of being condemned to further hereditary slavery. Jupiter Hammon is also remembered for the religious poems he wrote including his An Evening Thought, which was the first poem ever to be published in America by a Black male.

The Puritan concept is one of the most important one in the early colonial period which blossomed from 1620 until 1691. Although it withered away and self-destructed by the 1700 s because its zeal had worn off and its leaders had lost control over religious experimentation that eventually failed. (Early Colonial Era, Beginnings to 1700) Background to Early Colonial Period If history had taken a somewhat different turn, the United States would perhaps have been a part of the Spanish or French empire with its inhabitants speaking either Spanish and be in formation with Mexico or be French speaking and united with the Canadian Francophone of Quebec and Montreal. However, the first recorded exploration of America had been by the Scandinavian Leif Eriksson and his band of wandering Norsemen who briefly settled in the northeastern coast of American and in all probability in Nova Scotia in Canada in 1000 AD. This settlement was almost 400 years before Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. (Early American and Colonial Period to 1776) Since the background to early colonial period can not be briefly mentioned, we shall skip over the detailed background part and instead straight away present the important events in date-wise chronicle order that contributed towards the laying down of the foundation upon which the United States is presently based. Christopher Columbus Columbus had set sail on August 3, 1492 with his three ships, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria and on the October 12 sighted the new land, which is present day America.

Together with his crew he set his foot on an island and named it as San Salvador. However, a thing of great interest is that the present island of San Salvador may necessarily not be the same island where Columbus first landed as it is unknown which island he had originally discovered. Since Columbus assumed that he had discovered Asia, he named the natives as Indians and returned back to his country Spain with the misconception that he had found Asia. This historical error was in later years corrected by the Italian explorer, America Vespucci, after whom the new land of America was named. (US History, Early Colonial Years) Roanoke Island and the Lost Colony After the defeat of the Spanish Armada in July, 1588 at Calais, the channel port under the control of the English in Northern France, the English gained recognition as being a great naval power. But prior to this major event in world history, the English had already begun the exploration of the New World in 1584. Sir Walter Raleigh was granted a charter by Queen Elizabeth to lead an expedition to explore the island of Roanoke, which is presently a part of North Caroline.

This expedition was to determine if the conditions were suitable for settlement or not and about one hundred men were left on the island in 1586 to assess the situation. These men had to struggle for survival and were soon reduced to eating dogs, however, they were later rescued but with fifteen men missing. During another expedition on the same island where one hundred men, women and children were left on the island, it was discovered from a member of a friendly tribe that the fifteen missing men had been killed by one of their rival Native American tribes. In the attempt to avenge the killings of the fifteen men, the English settlers had instead killed a large number of the friendly tribe members and thus the strained relations with the natives made it impossible for them to survive on the island. The English decided to return back to England and return with more men and supplies later. However, due to the involvement of the England in the war with Spain, their return back to Roanoke Island was delayed until 1590 when it was discovered that the island had been abandoned. (US History, Early Colonial Years) Jamestown The second colony of Jamestown was established by the English in 1607 and was more permanent in nature but it had to endure starvation, brutality and misrule.

Captain John Smith, an incurable romantic at heart, wrote and maintained the colony's records. It is to Captain John Smith that the world owes the Indian maiden Pocahontas famous story where he writes how Pocahontas saved his life when he was a prisoner of her Chieftain father. And he also mentions how the English had persuaded Chief Powhatan to give Pocahontas as a hostage, who had impressed the English with her beauty and intelligence and eventually married John Rolfe, an English gentleman in 1614. Pocahontas marriage according to Captain John Smith had initiated peace between the Indians and the colonists for eight years and ensured the survival of the struggling colony. (Early American and Colonial Period to 1776) The Puritan Factor In all probability, at no time in the history of the world were colonists as intellectually advanced as the puritans.

During the 1630 s and the 1690 s, the number of university graduates in New England, which is in the northeastern side of the United States were just as many as they were in England. This is a surprising fact because most of the educated people of those times were aristocrats who would have been unwilling to live in uncharted wild condition in the New World. The puritans on the other had had come to establish colonies throughout New England and they were self-made persons and self-educated and strongly believed in executing all of Gods will. The definition of education and good writing to puritans was to attain full awareness and importance of God worship and of the related spiritual dangers on earth that the soul faced.

The puritan styles differed enormously from complex poetry of metaphysical nature to home journals with strict adherence to pedantic religious history. Even when the styles and genres differed, certain beliefs and themes remained unchanged and life was viewed as a test and failure to live it correctly meant eternal hellfire and damnation while success led to heavenly bliss. The world to them was a constant battle in an arena between the forces of God and Satan and where formidable enemies wore many disguises. Most of the puritans also awaited with excitement the millennium when they expected Jesus to come back to earth and end human misery and to inaugurate a thousand years of peace and prosperity.

While puritans would not have known in theological terms if they amongst the elected ones who would go to heaven, they believed success on earth was a sign of being elected. Wealth and status were therefore sought as reassurances for their spiritual wellbeing and the promise of eternal life. The puritans who first settled in New England exemplified the Reformation of Christianity with utmost seriousness and were known as the Pilgrims. They had migrated from England to Holland and were a small group of believers and interpreted the bible in its literal form. The puritans despaired for the purifying of the Church of England from within and the "Separatists" among them had also established underground "covenanted" churches, which swore loyalty to the puritan group instead of the king. They were hence perceived as traitors to the king and as heretics who would be damned to hell and were often persecuted.

Their separation from the main stream societies therefore brought them to the New World. (Early American and Colonial Period to 1776) The Withering and Destruction of the Puritans The puritan beliefs caused tension and others rebelled against them because of the paradox factor that was ingrained it their theology. The puritan way of a disciplined life had a lot of constrained liberties and if these liberties were breached, severe punishment was advocated. While they were open minded they also had to live with the dilemma of not knowing is God had selected them for eternal salvation or not, thus tensions must have been high on the puritans who worked hard to succeed but dared not spend their wealth on worldly pleasures fully. As they strongly believed in the existence of Satan, witchcraft, black arts, demonic possessions and the supernatural, these proved to be amongst the main reasons for their gradually declining economies and they feared that the special convent they had with God was failing. The other reason for the decline of the puritans was their demanding way of life, which became unsustainable for successive generations to maintain their religious experiment with the same vigor. The later generations were not as much influenced by this holy society and eventually the puritan movement began to lose its tight grip on society.

Conclusion It was ironical that it was the puritans' own initial success contributed to their fall within a hundred years. The core ethic of the puritans was to achieve economic success and build a society where it would be easy for their way of religion to prosper. Businesses therefore on the longer term became more importance than religion and economic achievements replaced the need for holy experimentation. However, it became difficult for the puritans to maintain the high pitched fervor that the first generations brought. The concept of continued living under the shadow of the original sin proved to be more than what the puritans could handle as modernization began to set in with the changing times.

The intolerant attitude of the puritans was also a telling factor, as it did not comply with rational and standard ways of thinking. The puritans contribution to the American society exists even today for example with the continued requirement and desire for economic success and emphasis on work ethic and social reforms. And in some ways the modern societies in America are just as intolerant and paranoid as the early puritans, with televangelists preying today on similar fears and insecurities as those of the 1600 s. Another similarity is the superiority complex that present day America has, which perhaps is founded on the puritan movement of the 1600 s. References to this essay have been made prior to 1500 so that the facts made mentioned are better explained in their correct context. Cited from: Early American and Colonial Period to 1776, International US Programs (Accessed: June 4, 2007) web Early Colonial Era, Beginnings to 1700 (Accessed: June 4, 2007) web US History, Early Colonial Years, The History Place, American Revolution (Accessed: June 4, 2007) web


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Research essay sample on Captain John Smith Colonial Period

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