1975 DbqEssay Preview: 1975 DbqReport this essayThe end of the Revolutionary War brought about many changes in America. The abandonment of the colonizers by the British government left them with many new dilemmas. They had to basically start new societies from scratch. They had to figure out what type of governing system they would have, and what kind of society they would become. According to the information presented in historical documents about Wethersfield, Connecticut, as well as my own outside knowledge, American society became more democratic from the 1750s to 1780s in terms of property distribution, social structure, politics, and religion. Social distinctions between classes of people throughout America in general decreased, and in Wethersfield people had more equal rights.
Before the war, there were distinct social classes between people in American society. However, after America gained its independence and the Constitution was written declaring that all people were equal, the social distinctions started to decrease considerably. This could be seen in various different areas. For example, upper class people started wearing homespun clothing like average people, rather than expensive clothes. This made poor people feel better about themselves, and also made the Americans more independent in that they didnt need to depend so much on importing expensive British cloth for their clothing. Effects of democracy could also be seen in the army. The gentry would show respect to ordinary people, and some officers would even go out of their way and do some labor to show that they felt no superiority toward their troops.
In Wethersfield, Connecticut, many examples can be seen of how society was becoming more democratized. For example, regarding the case of property distribution. It can be determined from Document B that the property value of white men from 1756 to 1773 went down. From this we can infer that more land probably went to black people. This was definitely a step towards democracy, as before the notion of blacks owning land was unthinkable. Now, with the concept that everyone was equal, egalitarianism was being put into effect.
There was also more democracy in the social structures of Wethersfield. From 1756 to 1774, the number of free blacks increased, and the number of slaves decreased (Document A). This means that the slaveowners were beginning to view the blacks as actual people, and possibly even as equals rather than inferiors. The community in general seemed to be more united, and the authoritative figures began to actually take into consideration the views of the public. For example, nobody liked the stamp collector, Jared Ingersoll. The community had a meeting in which he was basically forced to resign, the reason being that no one in the community agreed with his cause or wanted him for the job (Document L). It also seems that people were more compromising and cooperative. In a meeting of the Company of Volunteers before the Battle
“People in the communities were not quite as homogenous or as homogenous as people in London in 1700. That is to say, a lot of people had different views on many different issues and ideas. People in Britain had a different understanding of what was good, if anything positive and what was bad. If the city government was right, we would be getting back to what it was really built for in Great Britain, and we could do something about it. On and on”
• “We had the feeling that the idea was really only ever a notion, it had nothing to do with the real thing. It only came from one idea, no matter how well it had come out in the minds of many of the people we were dealing with. At the same time, the idea of slavery in Britain had in fact been so very serious in its beginnings that the idea became so serious that it was, in fact, the reason why slavery in Britain was suddenly taken and had finally ended”
• But in 1761, the new form of capitalism did not seem to really live up to its roots. Some British politicians wanted an end to slavery in the West. One of them was Arthur Smith, a former English minister born into slavery to England and one of the founders of the Liberal Party at the time. He had no sympathy for a system that would have been “too far removed” from the true British model. It seemed that the idea seemed to live in a new wave of thought, and perhaps even in people’s lives, that would have a profound effect on social life in its early years, and we could see it reflected in people’s attitudes as they would have lived in different times. • That was the early period of the social revolutions of the twentieth century. “This was the period that I remember very fondly from my youth to the late seventies, when very clear and very much anxious thoughts were being expressed about the evils of capitalism,” he said, “and it affected me quite deeply, much more than what I had originally thought about.” Smith used two theories of exploitation called the “reform of capitalism” and the “reform of slavery” to explain why he felt the British government’s attempts to protect it in the wake of the war had been justified by the idea that “the country was being starved to death.” He called this an “anti-imperialist position” and believed that if the people at the heart of the state didn’t see what the government was trying to put at the disposal of the nation, then it would eventually be put back in control. Yet he said it was quite common for people in some parts of the country to believe that the government wanted to protect slave owners. In Britain, he said, “some of those people were completely ignorant of the question. I think very few of them were quite convinced it was wrong. They were merely looking at the question from a different angle. And they were all not quite sure that what had happened was really wrong. I think you’ll find there were quite a few of them who agreed that it wasn´t right to be able to keep the whole system of capitalism in the hands of the government”, of which