Racism in Americal

Around 12,000 B.C., human beings in Asia moved north in search wooly mammoths and made their way across the Bering Straight to Alaska. Over the next several hundred years, they made their way to the Great Plains where they hunted huge mammals to the point of extinction. During the Archaic Period (9000 B.C. - 1000 B.C.), bands of hunters moved constantly from one area to another in constant search of a suitable food supply. By 1000 B.C. the first sedentary communities were developed near rich fishing areas along the coasts and large rivers. Sedentary people created complex mound communities along the Mississippi River and in the Ohio Valley. When improvements in corn reached the land north of the Mexican desert, there was a marked boom in sedentary city development. Corn cultivation influenced peoples' religions and improved their health, helping to spawn a population growth after 800 A.D. These urban centers declined in the 13th and 14th centuries because of warfare, soil exhaustion and the disruption of inter-regional trade. In Europe, forces of social change were creating unrest; unrest which would prompt hundreds of people to explore the Atlantic Ocean and reshape the relationship between peoples of the world.

Although England and the American colonies intended their relationship to be mutually beneficial, they increasingly worked at cross purposes over time. Founded by a number of independent groups, the colonists and England regarded the colonies as separate. But by the middle of the seventeenth century, Parliament attempted to impose order with various laws. A more unified American character and identity began to emerge in the colonies. The Enlightenment's political thought influenced Americans and its followers' scientific inquiries created a sense of America as a place profoundly different from Europe. Colonists did not begin to grow apart from Britain until they participated in England's North American wars with the French and Spanish--especially the French and Indian War. The colonists suffered heavy losses and incurred deep war debts just as Parliament decided that the colonies should contribute more toward their own administrative and defense costs. The conflict over Parliament's attempts to exact this due and assert its power, along with the prohibiting of settlement beyond the Appalachians, convinced colonists that Parliament wanted to deprive them of their rights as English subjects. Tensions came to a head with British and American actions leading to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and to revolution the following year. (Image: Scott Foresman Addison Wesley, Picture Research Dept.)

After the Revolution, the United States under the Articles of Confederation found itself unable to address serious challenges as the state and federal governments struggled unsuccessfully with a host of issues, often in conflict with one another. To deal with this problem, delegates met in Philadelphia in 1787 and drafted a Constitution which created a new federal system that balanced political power between an executive branch, the legislature, and the states. Although support for the Constitution was not unanimous, the states ratified it. In its early sessions, Congress added the Bill of