The Various Definitions of Freedom Coexisted in 17th Century America Essay

The Various Definitions of Freedom Coexisted in 17th Century America - Essay Example People were blocked of their rights by ascertaining classes on them like slaves, puritans, indentured servants, and many more. Even though there were divisions in the degree of freedom all of them meant the same and wanted to acquire it at any cost. Puritans To begin with, during the 16th century, Puritans was the name conferred on to the most extreme Protestants of the Church of England who thought that the English Reformation had not succeeded in renovating the principles and structure of the church. They wanted to decontaminate their national church by abolishing every piece of Catholic influence. In the early 17th century some puritan groups separated from the Church of England and headed to what is now New England. The reason behind their flight was that the repeated protests and complaints of the Puritans against the Anglican Church, the official state church of England where they were added as officials, ended the authorities to take action against the puritans. In 1630 Archbi shop of Canterbury William Laud, an anti-puritan Church leader had put a charge over the outspoken Puritan ministers by making it a criminal offense to attend Puritan worship services and succeeded in pursuing all puritans from opposing to the Anglican Church. ... Landowners in the American colonies made use of the European indentured servants as well as the forced laborers by enslaving the Africans. In the beginning, only few slaves were imported from Africa but later on when the tobacco farming got expanded, large number of slaves was imported from Africa. The landowners found slavery more economical than hiring a European laborer. At the end of the 17th century, the slavery and the slave transportation in the northern America were so cruel. During their course of travel from Africa, those slaves found too ill to endure the trip were thrown out to be drowned. As they landed in America they were treated as goods which can be easily bought or sold. The masters made advantage of the freedom of slaves and rejected their right of living. Even the rebellions and conspiracies of the slaves have reduced the slavery to some extent, that is not all enough for the slaves to be granted freedom. Evidently for the slaves, freedom meant nothing but escapin g from the arrogance of their masters; and the only way to achieve this was to ensure some constitutional privileges. Indentured Servants An employer getting into contract with a young and unskilled laborer to work for him for a fixed period of time is called indenturing a servant. Such indentured servants are not paid any wages other than transportation, lodging, food and clothing. They usually work as helpers in farms or as house servants for 4 to 7 years. Many of such servants were seized by force or recruited from the slums of London or of Bristol. These young people too had to suffer on their way to America as the slaves did. Once reaching their masters, they endured a lot of