ASOC Exam 2

Population estimates for Indigenous Americans in North America before European contact

Estimates for Indigenous population above the Rio Grande River range from 2 to 20 million, though most estimates are in the middle.

Early European views of indigenous Americans

The English described their earliest interactions with Native Americans relatively positively

• Once Native Americans objected to expansion/land grabs, however, descriptions became very negative

English: 1) stereotyped Native Americans as “savages” rather than as “noble savages” (in other
words, as irredeemable); and 2) viewed Native Americans as one homogenous group

Justifications for English land grabs

Secular justifications:
-Land belongs to the victor (“the right of conquest”)
-Native Americans did not divide land into private
property or practice intensive agriculture

-Native Americans were “wasting”
land that could be better used by the English

-Native Americans lacked “civil
rights,” which overruled “natural rights”

-Native Americans were so “savage” as to be
uncivilized

justification for English land grabs (religious)

Religious justifications:
- “God’s will”
- Spreading Christianity across the globe
- For Puritans, opposition between sinners and the
redeemed

The creation of Native American reservations

Earliest official Native American reservations created on a state-by-state basis
o The first (the Brotherton Reservation) was established in 1758 in New Jersey

The Trail of Tears

 Directed at Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw (who had been known as the “Five Civilized Nations”), among
others

 Preceded by some voluntary relocations; later completed by force

 A variety of routes from FL, AL, GA, TN, and NC to OK

 Anywhere from 700-1,000 miles overland, Often in chains, without supplies, and without medical care

 Estimates vary widely, but up to 50% of people died en route during specific trips; losses especially severe among children and
seniors; overall, at least 25% of people died

What led to the trail of tears

1830 Indian Removal Act federalized reservation policy
o Gave legal authority to the U.S. government to relocate Native Americans east of the Mississippi River to areas west of the
Mississippi

The 1887 Dawes Severalty Act

-Divided reservation land into 160-acre plots that were given to individual Native American families
- Land was to be farmed
-Land could not be sold for 25 years
- After 25 years of farming, Native Americans were to become citizens (though that was not federally
guaranteed for all Native Americans until the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act and state guaranteed for all Native Americans until 1940s-1950s)
- The remaining, non-distributed land sold off to white settlers, railroad companies, and mining companies

Native Boardin Schools (Dawes Act)

-Proceeds from land sales were used to establish schools (usually boarding schools located some distance away from families)
-Boarding schools were:
- Regimented like the military
- Chronically under-resourced; financially dependent on enrollments
- Truancy officers/police officers ensured that Native American children attended

Required students to speak in English and learn U.S. history from the dominant perspective; required students to dress “American” and cut hair; forbade the use of Native American language and the practice of Native American religion, dance,
and song
 Required classes/lessons on Christianity
 Required agricultural and animal husbandry education for boys, domestic education for women
 Suffered from frequent abuse (physical, sexual, and psychological)

Goals of the Dawes Act

- To “civilize” Native Americans
- To “Americanize” Native Americans
- To reduce Native American “dependency” on federal government
- To minimize conflicts between Native Americans and white settlers

What were the actual effects of the Dawes Act

-The amount of land under Native American control
cut in half by 1900
- Internal conflicts between those who assimilated and those who did not
- Intergenerational conflict between parents and
children
-Loss of native culture and language
- Little reduction of disputes between Native
Americans and white settlers and companies

Endentured servitude (early U.S )

-Consisted of many Irish as well as English and Irish convicts, vagabonds, orphans, the homeless, and the poor
- Required 5-7 years of labor to pay off passage
- Consisted of hard physical labor, with workers often pushed to the point of death (mortality estimates reach 50%)
- Included more rights than under slavery
- Coerced labor ran the gamut of crops and industries, but eventually focused on indigo, sugar, tobacco, and, especially later, cotton

Bacons Rebellion

Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion held by Virginia settlers that took place from 1676 to 1677. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon against Colonial Governor William Berkeley after Berkeley refused Bacon's request to drive Native American Indians out of Virginia.

When Berkeley refused to give Bacon commission Bacon buoyed up support to overthrow Berkeley
• He was especially successful at recruiting indentured servants and enslaved blacks by casting the conflict as one between the
wealthy ruling class and an oppressed working class as well as by promising them allowances

• The ruling class came to fear the combined power of poor whites and blacks and afterward differentiated between white
indentured servants and enslaved blacks in policies and practices

The enslavement of Africans developed gradually over the 1600s

- In 1619, first recorded sale/purchase of enslaved Africans in the United States (in Jamestown, VA)

- In 1660/1662, Virginia passed an act making a white servant who ran away with an enslaved black person responsible for serving the time of
the escaped black person

- In 1662, Virginia passed an act stating that black children take on status of their mothers

- The 1676 Bacon’s Rebellion helped lead to differentiation between enslavement and indentured servitude as well as preference of the
former over the latter

- By early 1700s, enslaved Africans were the main source of coerced labor in the United States; by mid-1700s, most of the Slave Codes were
in force, especially in the South

black enslavemnt (1808)

In 1808, the importation of enslaved people was outlawed (the earliest date allowed by Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S.Constitution); the domestic slave trade continued until the Civil War

- By 1808, ~400,000 enslaved Africans had been forced into the United States; by 1860, nearly 4 million people of African descent were enslaved (comprising more than 90% of the total U.S. black population)

-The domestic slave trade resulted in the relocation of more than 1 million enslaved people in the South (this is now sometimes referred to
as the “Second Middle Passage”)

- In the South, only a minority of white people held enslaved people and usually in small numbers; consequently, most enslaved
blacks were held in bondage on the medium-sized and large plantations of the wealthiest

why not the Irish

What facilitated enslavement:
-Did not know area
-Were immune to Old World diseases

• What hampered enslavement:
o Looked similar to English/could blend in
o Largely shared language/culture
o Did not practice intensive agriculture
o Christian (albeit Catholic)
o Could be assisted by outsiders
o Small population available
o Bad reputation as workers

why not natives

What facilitated enslavement :
- Looked different/could not blend in
- Spoke different languages/had different
cultures
- Non-Christian

• What hampered enslavement :
- Knew area
- Not immune to Old Word diseases
- Did not practice intensive agriculture
- Could be assisted by tribes
- Small population available
- Needed in other areas (fur trapping, etc.)

why africans

What facilitated enslavement :
- Did not know area
o Looked different/could not blend in
o Spoke different languages/had different
cultures
o Practiced intensive agriculture
o Non-Christian
o Were immune to Old World diseases
o Could not be assisted by outsiders
o Large population available
o Known to be productive (from Spanish)

resistance to enslavement

pre-landing

o Hiding
o Negotiating
o Capturing others for one’s own
relative safety, etc

o Physically resisting
o Refusing to eat
o Refusing to cooperate/work
o Suicide

post landing

-revolting, stealing, suicide, protection, community, murder, fighting back, arson, abortions etc.

slaves codes

- Laws that restricted the rights of the enslaved and strengthened the rights of owners, overseers, and whites interacting with the enslaved that were largely passed in the 1660s and 1700s
- Severely restricted the rights of enslaved people
- Limited the rights of free blacks
- Also put restrictions on the interactions between enslaved blacks and free whites (limiting the abilities of the latter to help the former)
- Instituted on a state-by-state basis from early colonial times
- Influenced by and sometimes modeled after slave statutes in the Caribbean and elsewhere

what couldnt black people do under slave codes?

It was usually illegal for enslaved blacks to:
Own property; learn how to read or write; own or bear weapons, especially firearms; assemble in groups; leave plantations without white accompaniment or the written permission of their masters; enter into contracts, including the marriage contract; sell crops; run away; pose as a free person; wear non-slave clothes or cloth; hit
or otherwise hurt a white person, testify in court against a white person, etc.

• It was often illegal for free people, white or black, to:
o Teach enslaved people how to read or write, hire them into specific positions (i.e. ones dealing with money like clerk), conceal them, etc

limitations of the emancipation proclamation?

Emancipation Proclamation announced in September 1862 but did not go into effect until January 1, 1863. It also had other
limitations:
o Did not apply to border states
o Did not apply to Confederate areas already under control (i.e. parts of VA, parts of TN, New Orleans)
o Applied to Confederate areas only as they were taken over by the Union

the general strike (w.eb. du bois)

In Black Reconstruction in America: 1860-1880 (1935), Du Bois argued that the enslaved were key to Southern and Northern efforts in the Civil War. In other words, he argued that the enslaved were key to Confederate defeat and Union victory
• Put another way, Lincoln did not free enslaved African Americans; they freed themselves

The General Strike
- Abandonment of Southern plantations
- Accompanying and assisting the Union army
- Being confiscated and/or impressed by Union army
- Joining the Union Army as soldiers
- Total involvement in strike upwards of 500,000

General and political black achievement and progress during Reconstruction

Because of the pioneering work of W.E.B. Du Bois, Reconstruction is now recognized as a period of notable black (and general) progress. Successes included:
- The continuing occupation of the South by the federal army
- The temporary limitation of high-ranking Confederates in governmental participation
-The creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau
- The passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (and enforcement-building laws)
-The rise of progressive Republicans
- The re-writing of Southern state constitutions (to strike them of Slave Codes)
- The establishment of public school systems in the South
- Some black economic progress (as measured in landowning, wealth, etc.)
- The election of African-American men to office

Approximately 2,000 elected and appointed African-American officeholders
• Most served in local capacities, but some were high-ranking state and federal officeholders

Jim Crow

-Jim Crow eventually used to describe the Southern system of near-complete segregation between whites and blacks as well as the particular laws and practices authorizing, specifying, and enforcing the segregation
-Records show it being used this way as early as the 1890s

black codes

-Largely influenced by Slave Codes, the Black Codes were a series of anti-black policies and laws
instituted in the South that severely restricted the rights of recently emancipated African Americans
-Mississippi first state to enact postbellum Black Codes (1865)
- Included codes barring blacks from renting rural land, buying arms, and buying alcohol
-Other codes required blacks to sign annual work contracts, have proof of employment, and provide for minors or lose them to “apprenticeship

Jim Crow (formal)

Formal side included:
- Expansion and intensification of Black Codes (and Slave Codes)
- Disenfranchisement
- Grandfather clauses, soldier clauses, poll taxes, property requirements, literacy tests, multiple ballot boxes, white primaries
- Segregation of public and semi-public spaces (schools, hospitals, parks, beaches, cemeteries, public transport, etc.)
- With pro-Jim Crow Democrats in power throughout the South, Jim Crow laws were upheld locally
-Federally, Jim Crow was overlooked and, at times, directly sanctioned (e.g. Plessy v. Ferguson [1896] “separate but equal”

Jim crow (informal: racial etiquette)

Always saying “Sir” or “Ma’am” to
white adults, Removing hat, Being served last
o Not being sold certain items
o Not being allowed to try on items
o Not being allowed to linger

o Avoiding eye contact with white
women
o Not being alone with a white
woman
Tolerating inferior conditions
o Being the target of violence
 Lynchings
 Sexual assault
 Threats/intimidation
 Arson/firebombings/dynamitings
 KKK
 Race riots/“white riots”

BLACK STRATEGIES & TACTICS FOR
NAVIGATING AND SURVIVING JIM CROW

• Following racial etiquette
• Always being on guard
• Passing along knowledge regarding racial etiquette
• Passing along warnings
• Passing along advice etc

• Escaping
• Not reporting to white authorities
• Not trusting white people
• Obsequiousness/silence in interactions
• Withholding complaints
• Mutual support
• Community
• Collective actionck-white conversations

The one-drop rule and its importance to Jim Crow

• The idea that any amount of African/black ancestry (i.e. even one drop of African/black blood) made a person legally and socially black
o Developed in the South over the 1800s (though elements of it existed from the earliest years of U.S. history)
o Eclipsed other types of racial categorization, especially other types of mixed and multi-race categorization (e.g.
mulatto, quadroon, etc.)
o Institutionalized into legislation and in court decisions during the early 1900s

Unique – it was never applied to any other U.S. ethnic or racial group, and it was not present in any
other country in the world

migration push factors

- Push factors are what drives one to leave a particular location (i.e. to emigrate from a place)
- They run the entire gamut – social, economic, political (e.g. the potato famine in Ireland pushing people to leave Ireland)

migration pull factors

- Pull factors are what attracts one to a particular location (i.e. to immigrate to a place)
- They also run the entire gamut – social, economic, political (e.g. labor shortages in the United States pulling
Irish migrants to the United States)
- There are also pull factors that are not draws in and of themselves, but that facilitate migration, such as technological innovations (e.g. steam ships reducing the time and cost to cross the Atlantic Ocean

Trends in European migration to the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s

Prior to the 1880s, most European immigrants to the United States hailed from Britain, Germany, and, to a lesser degree,Scandinavia. These groups were considered “desirable” and “assimilable.” While they often immigrated to cities, many also
settled in rural areas. The Irish also comprised a large immigrant population, but they were more urban and seen as much less
“desirable” and “assimilable.”

• In the 1880s-1920s, however, there was:
- A large absolute increase in the number of European immigrants to the United States (from 2 million per decade to 4-8 million per decade)
- A change in the demographics of European immigrants to the United States
- A smaller number and proportion of “desirable” “old stock” Europeans (the British, German, Scandinavian)
- A larger number and proportion of “undesirable” “new stock” Europeans (the Italians, Greek, Slavs, Russian Jews) as well as continued
relatively high Irish immigration

Immigration’s connection to nativism, xenophobia, and ethnocentrism

- An increase in nativism (prioritizing the interests of natives over immigrants), xenophobia (fear of the foreign), and ethnocentrism (belief in
the superiority of one’s ethnic group over others), often directed toward specific groups, such as the Irish, Jews, etc

Ac
1921 Emergency Quota Act (i.e. Johnson Act

o Established total annual limit of ~350,000
o Established the National Origins Formula (maximum of 3% from each nation based on the number of foreign-born from that
nation present in the United States during the 1910 Census) (but not for Western Hemisphere)

1924 Immigration Act (i.e. Johnson-Reed Act)

o Established total annual limit of ~150,000
o Revised the National Origins Formula (maximum of 2% using the1890 Census) (but again not for Western Hemisphere)
o Banned entry for those unable to gain citizenship because of race/nationality (namely the Chinese, Japanese, other Asians)
o Also established preference system for family members

The goals of the Johnson acts

The overriding purpose of the Johnson and Johnson-Reed Acts were to reduce the number of “undesirable” new stock Europeans and increase the number of “desirable” old stock Europeans entering the United States. It also maintained a ban against Asian immigrants

CONSEQUENCES OF THE JOHNSON
AND JOHNSON-REED ACTS

it:
- Kept the proportion/percentage of old stock European ancestry high
- Expedited the assimilation of Southern and Eastern Europeans
- Resulted in smaller immigrant communities
- Reduced inflow of migrants that might “replenish” homeland culture and language
- Put pressure on migrants to enter mainstream
- In yet other words, it helped push Southern and Eastern European immigrants into the category of whiteness

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Ended the Mexican-American War
• Terms included:
- Mexican Cession (transfer of northern half of Mexican territory to the United States)
- The United States expanded into Mexico again in 1853 via the Gadsden Purchase
- U.S. payment of $15 million
-Mexicans remaining on the land newly acquired by the United States were to:
- Retain ownership rights to their land; rights were to be “inviolably respected”
- Become U.S. citizens and gain the full rights thereof

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and U.S. failures to comply with it

-Mexican-American rights guaranteed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were increasingly violated by white settlers and state governments via:
o Confiscation of land and other property (through both force and deception)
o De jure and de facto segregation (think Mendez v.Westminster [1947])
o Lynching and other violence
o Disenfranchisement and loss of other rights

Ways the United States exerted colonial and imperial power (Go; Edwards and Go)

Julian Go (2007) argues that U.S. empire developed largely in four waves

Spanish American War:
Ended with the Treaty of Paris
- Cuba was put under temporary American military supervision
- Spain ceded Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States
- United States paid Spain $20 million
- After the war, the United States put down native forces that attempted to gain complete independence (e.g. Philippine-American War1899-1902, which resulted in 250,000+ Filipino deaths), thus making the United States a full-fledged colonial power

U.S Imperialism

- The United States also directly controlled other areas for shorter periods (colonialism)
- Some martial (e.g. Mexico, Cuba with the Platt Amendment)
- Some economic (though it always included a military presence as well) (e.g. Dominican Republic and Haiti)
- Some largely done by private U.S. companies (e.g. Ford in Brazil, United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit
Company/Dole in Honduras) or private-public partnerships (e.g. Guatemala, Panama)

- Indirect control ran the gamut from social and economic to political and martial (imperialism). The
United States was particularly active in:
o Supporting pro-U.S. candidates/parties/factions
o Arms sales to pro-U.S. candidates/parties/factions
o Assassinations of anti-U.S. candidates/parties/factions

Monroe Doctrine

o Stated that Central and South America should not be colonized by Europe (the implication being that the Western Hemisphere should be under the purview of the United States)

Reinforced by the Roosevelt Corollary (1904), which announced a U.S. duty to intervene in Central and South America

WHY COLONIALISM & IMPERIALISM?

Internalist explanations “focus on factors internal to the imperial metropole,” such as cultural changes (e.g. rising nationalism, militarism, and jingoism), economic needs, or state capacity (i.e. militaristic or administrative)

Global explanations focus on the “wider global arena or context in which states operate,” such as competition between states. Central to these are Worlds Systems theories focusing on hegemonic competition (unicentric vs. multicentric), trade regimes (free trade vs. mercantilist), and economic growth, etc

The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

o Banned entry of all Chinese laborers, both “skilled and unskilled”

o Built upon, expanded, and hardened earlier legislation,such as the 1875 Page Act

o Was refined and added to by later legislation, such as the 1888 Scott Act

1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement

o The United States agreed not to restrict Japanese
immigration to U.S. if Japan agreed not to give
passports to Japanese laborers wanting to emigrate to the United States

1917 Immigration Act

o Created the Asiatic Barred Zone (a ban on immigrants from nearly all Asian countries)
o Instituted a literacy test
o Expanded the list of banned groups (criminals,
homosexuals, polygamists, those with mental
disabilities, alcoholics, the homeless, anarchists, illiterate adults, etc.)
o Superseded by the 1924 Immigration Act/Johnson-Reed Act, which barred anyone unable to naturalize

1790 Naturalization Act

limited naturalization to “free white persons” of “good character”

The Bracero Program

o Initiated by United States (i.e. the United States approached Mexico) to relieve the U.S. labor shortage caused by WWII

The program put Mexicans on short contracts to work in agriculture and the railroad industry
o Employers were to pay for round trip transportation, provide livable housing, food, and basic necessities, and pay certain minimum wages; conditions, however, were usually dismal, and many workers were cheated out of their
earnings

o Migrants worked across the country but were concentrated in the West and Midwest
o The program continued after WWII under different legislation until 1964, but it was increasingly limited to agriculture
o In total, more than 4.5 million Mexican laborers were admitted under the program

The deportation of Mexicans

Operation Wetback (official name given to program)
o Instituted in 1954 to deport undocumented Mexicans
o In first year, helped pushed deportation numbers to over 1 million
o Deportations were not back to one’s hometown or even one’s home state, meaning that
many people ended up in unfamiliar places
o Sweeps focused on Texas and California, although they also happened elsewhere (e.g. Chicago)
o Importantly, sweeps were indiscriminate, resulting in Mexicans and Mexican Americans, that is, citizens of the United States, being deported
o Also, importantly, the operation popularized the derogatory slur “wetback”

The 1965 Hart-Cellar Act

1965 Immigration & Nationality Act (i.e. Hart-Cellar Act) Created hemispheric total annual limits: 170,000 for Eastern Hemisphere with 20,000 per country caps, 120,000 for Western Hemisphere with no country caps

o Abolished the National Origins Formula (NOF)

o Replaced the NOF with a 7-category preference system (the top category was for family reunification, the second for those with
the education and skills to contribute to high-need areas of the economy)

o ¾ of admissions were reserved for the family reunification category
o Immediate family members were not to be counted against limitations

Additions to Hart Cellar Act

Overall, rather than hemispheric, annual cap of 290,000 (now 675,000 with 480,000 reserved for family reunification and 140,000 for employment)

o Per country limit of 7% for the family and employment categories

o “Diversity Lotteries,” primarily for European immigrants (now 55,000 annually)

o Temporary enlargement of refugee category for specific nations, usually as a result of U.S. foreign policy (e.g. Cuba, Dominican
Republic, Vietnam, Cambodia, El Salvador)

CONSEQUENCES OF HART-CELLAR ACT

• Overall increase in authorized immigration numbers because of the immediate family exception put another way, the overall numbers went well above and beyond stated annual limitations because of the immediate family exception
• Because of the decline of European interest in immigrating to the United States, increasing interest in immigrating to the United States from the rest of the world especially in the Global South, there was an increasing proportion of immigrants
to the United States hailing from Latin America and Asia
• Because of per-country caps in the family and employment categories, backlogs of applications from several countries with wait times in the years (and sometimes decades) arose

• Combined with the end of the Bracero Program, the short-lived Western Hemisphere limit, and current per-country caps, an increase of unauthorized immigration to the United States occurred, especially from Mexico and Central America