Introduction
The United States of America has been a symbol of diversity and freedom since the colonial period. Since that time, Americans’ freedom has been affiliated with the mixed beliefs of ethnicity and religiousness. Between 1603 and 1733, the United Kingdom established the New World by creating thirteen colonies (Evan, 2018). These colonies included New Hampshire, Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Carolina, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Georgia. Although these colonies were ranked as New England, the people living in those colonies were developing a unifying culture. With the emergence of the American culture in the colonies, the colonists started thinking differently from their English partners. Colonial America displayed characteristics of a democratic society, and thus, it drifted from the royal culture of England and was acclaimed as a democratic society.
Discussion
American colonies started to agitate as they were feeling unrest under the tyranny of England and were preparing to form a government and declare independence. Americans advocated that all men are equal and the government is responsible for all of them, but the colonial Americans were far behind from being democratic. If we analyze how democratic Americans were at that time, we have to take into consideration many variables. Principles like equality, rights, power of people, revolution, etc, are the basics of finding whether a society is democratic or not. The first topic that comes to mind while talking about colonial American land is equality.
Equality means that all the people in society have equal rights and that all of them will be treated equally by society and the government. By looking at the data available about colonial history, we will find out that all the citizens were not treated equally. Colonial America was considered to be a place of only whites (Mira, 2013). People from any other ethnicity were considered inferior.
Another way to analyze the level of equality in a society is to look at the power balance. It might be possible that all people have equal rights, but a person who has power in society and can bring about changes in society really matters. At that time, 80% of the total public offices were held by the people who had the top 20% of the total assessed value of property in the US (Turner, 1893). The wealthier you are, the more power you have. Does it seem democratic?
It is easy for everyone to look at American colonial history and say that the wealthier people had most of the power, so it was not democratic. People having more resources will have more power in society. This does not mean that there is no democracy in the society. The truth is that all the people at that time (white males) had equal chances to earn, voice their opinions, had their own opinions about the world and how they can change the system of their society. This means that there was equality in the democracy.
Conclusions
Although all the people in the society were not considered equal by the society nor by the government, still at that time, everyone (white male) had equal rights and equal opportunities, and thus, we can say that there was democracy at that time. Today, there is much more equality and democracy in the US than in the colonial era. Today, not only whites but all ethnicities are considered equal and are given equal rights and opportunities.
References
How Democratic was Colonial American Society in 1775?. (2013). Mira’s US History Blog. Retrieved 6 April 2018, from https://mira1217.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/how-democratic-was-colonial-american-society-in-1775/
Liberty, Diversity, and Slavery: The Beginnings of American Freedom. (2018). Digitalhistory.hsp.org. Retrieved 6 April 2018, from http://digitalhistory.hsp.org/pafrm/essay/liberty-diversity-and-slavery-beginnings-american-freedom
Turner, F. J. (1893). The significance of the frontier in American history.
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