Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future

America: Colonial History – Introduction December 11, 2024

History has a reputation of being “BORING!”   Back in the Dream Times before the dawn of the Internet, YouTube, and Facebook Early American History was almost exclusively the History of English-speaking man.  The geographic area was restricted to the Atlantic coast of North America, and that was about it.  Sure, everyone assumed there were women around someplace, but they were merely supporting actors (or actresses as they were once quaintly called). Other European colonists, the Norse, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch, the Swedish, and the Russians were treated as minor actors waiting in the wings to be discarded as soon as it was convenient to get back to the main story about the British. The Native Americans were impediments constantly moved and moved and moved again. And of course, there were African slaves but they were unfortunate victims behind the scenes of what was essentially a walk in the sunshine as the American colonies quickly rose from outposts in the wilderness to gleaming cities on a hill.  

Some have called this the Imperial History.  Some have called it the Accepted History. Some say it gave birth to a belief in American Exceptionalism.  It had certain aspects that were almost interchangeable from author to author.  The American colonists were working to improve the wilderness, to establish freedom and develop limited government, free enterprise, and religious toleration.  From the earliest beginnings to the culmination of the continental American empire it was one long story of progress and victory.  We never started a war, and we never lost one.  It wasn’t America right or wrong. It was America never wrong.

From our politically correct, highly sensitized vantage point here in the 21st Century it is easy to say the prior presentations of American History were simplistic, or racist, or filled with gender bias, ethnic bias, and Eurocentric.  However, this critique could in itself be accused of being an exercise in Presentism, or the judgment of previous times through the distorting lens of the present.  Instead, we need to realize that every society must present a coherent story of why their independent and continued existence is justified and why it is important.  Every society must teach their youth that there is a valid reason why their society must continue, or it will soon break apart into its component parts.  Multicultural societies will break apart along cultural lines, and multi-racial societies will fracture along racial lines, whatever the social tectonic plates are unless the members of that society are taught to believe in its relevance it will become irrelevant and soon cease to matter.  

However, when all the actors and all their stories are added in while the History may not be as consistently uplifting or as universally consistent it is much more interesting, and it is much closer to the facts.  Keeping our eyes upon the past let us begin our study seeking to present an honest, interesting, readable and brief representation of our History we will seek guideposts that will help us navigate the future.

In this study we will work to include all the voices while at the same time expressing the uniqueness of America, its history, and its destiny.

First of all, we must accept that the wilderness that has long been the stage for our understanding of European colonization in the Americas was not wilderness to the Native Americans. It was home.  Many of these cultures had lived in the same areas for thousands of years.  Others were newer arrivals.  Whichever they were they had established nations and territories that were unmistakably developed and sovereign.  They had established towns and cities, many of which were permanent and extensive.  They’d developed some of the most important food crops in the world today.  They had extensive trade networks, worship centers, and all the other components of an advanced culture made up of varied societies.

Secondly, the narrative cannot exclude the less savory side if it is to be in any way complete.  Therefore, in out text we will encounter the development of racially tinged philosophy, white solidarity, and the oppression and exploitation of others that became an abiding feature of English colonization.  We will also watch the transplanted national rivalries that plagued European civilization wherever they planted their flags anywhere in the world.  The text will also take notice of the fact that fifty percent of the population was excluded from political and social equality through the gender bias inherited from the past and transplanted to the new world.

In addition, the text attempts to portray a feature of American History which is often neglected or ignored: the proposition that in the colonial period there really wasn’t an “America.”  The boundaries which we see as firm and fixed were then nonexistent.  Each colony was a separate entity and unless they were surrounded by other colonies such as Delaware or Rhode Island they all thought of themselves as having a growing frontier in the West. They all dealt with sovereign Indian nations as well as with the colonies of other nations.  The Atlantic Sea lanes were an open door to the commerce and navies of the world binding America and Americans in the triangle trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas a trade which bound together the growing community of Western Civilization.

The unimaginably immense impact of the colonials upon the environment of North America is not ignored.  The cross-pollination of disease, technology, flora, and fauna, and the political variations of European power strategies outline the Columbian Exchange which has had a massive influence on the subsequent development of the world.  Not that pre-Columbian America was static. There had always been the same shifting patterns of life among the tribes and nations of America before the Europeans arrived, but they had always been indigenous except for the fleeting foray of the Norse.  After the arrival of the later Europeans in the fifteenth century the Americas would forever be subsumed into the shifting alliances and other variables of European politics.

The larger populations of the colonists, aided by the technological, organizational, and economical developments of the Europeans, possessed the power to gain an overbearing influence in the development of North America once they had established themselves along the East coast.  Once the bridgehead was secure the Europeans began an almost continuous advance to the West. Using trade, alliance, and war the sphere of European power grew and grew always bringing environmental, social, and political change as they displaced the native cultures.  One thing that is important to remember is that the size and scope of the European movement to North America was not merely a wave or two of immigration.  It was so large and so sustained it can only be understood as migration not immigration.

This work is written for non-Historians and is a handy easy to read condensed look at Early American History.  It is composed of short chapters, each of which is designed to be a stand-alone treatment of a segment of time.  It is my hope that this book will help fill the void that is exposed by the general lack of historical perspective which I believe is a major contributor to America’s current lack of self-awareness of and appreciation for the uniqueness which is the United States.