Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to So what you're saying...

What I'm saying is that this country was never the lily-white place of white supremicist legend.
Mary Anne — (archived)

I realize that this must be difficult to take, since so much of your self-image is tied to the legend. Americans with northwest European roots had a lot to do with the founding of this country, but they were not the only ones.

Population density as a colonization policy has a lot to do with the pattern of ethnicity and power in the US. The English tended to colonize in force, to secure their property. The Spanish had a lot more territory, less of which was in North America, so what is now our west was fairly sparsely populated, with the notable exceptions of Texas and California. The French exploited their possessions, but didn't send many people over to live here. Their influence is mostly in urban centers and the Caribbean. Later on, the pattern of immigration brought more people from Europe along well-traveled routes, following waves of political and economic troubles in Europe. The end of the slave trade in the early 1800s guaranteed that the black population only grew internally. The Chinese arrived as contract workers for the railroads, but the Pacific was still a mighty obstacle. The Native Americans were continually driven out, marginalized and killed outright. And as we have seen, when other waves of southern and eastern Europeans started to arrive, the moneyed WASPs made sure to limit their access to the country.

Much of our history has written out the contributions of people who don't match the profile. A lot of the documents still exist, however, and this is gradually being corrected.

Banneker was not an architect, but a surveyor and astronomer. He didn't design the buildings, but he did do the survey work and laid out the city street plan for DC.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (56 posts)