Society: 1600-1770 The Colonial Experience

From 1689 to 1763, England and France waged a war in Europe that extended to their respective colonies across the Atlantic. Known as the French and Indian Wars, these battles were largely fought by Indian allies of each country. Although the British prevailed, they quickly came to view their Indian allies as "savages." The English already had a well-developed sense of "savagery" from their long history with the Irish. They simply transferred their cultural attitudes and beliefs about the Irish to the Indians. At the time, "captivity narratives" were popular among the colonists. The storyline usually involved an English woman, representing Puritan virtue, being captured by Indians. Faced with the choice of marriage to a “savage” or becoming an Indian sacrifice, the captive was ultimately saved and returned to “civilization,” providing a metaphor for Puritan beliefs about temptation, redemption and salvation. Among the more popular captivity novels of the time were: Cotton Mather's Humiliations Follow'd with Deliverances (1697); The Redeemed Captive (1704) by John Williams; and Jesuit Relations, a serial published by Jesuit missionaries from 1632-1673. Captivity narratives were a means of religious expression, reinforced Indian stereotypes, reflected cultural bias and justified the exploitation of Indians to satisfy European westward expansion. The first recorded arrival of Africans in the Virginia colony was in 1619, when a Dutch warship brought 20 blacks captured from a Spanish slave ship, including three women, to Jamestown. Though not much is known about them, many of these early African arrivals had already been assimilated into European cultures. Some had Spanish or Portuguese names and spoke those languages. They came as agricultural laborers, but some of them may have been servants and easily fit into the system of indentured labor that was devised for poor Europeans. During the 17th century, English workers came to Virginia in the thousands to work for at least six years as servants and laborers in return for passage to the New World. Black slaves and white indentured laborers worked along side each other on Virginia’s farms and tobacco plantations during the first 30 years of the colony’s history. African slaves and indentured Europeans were even known to marry and have children. More than a few slaves earned their freedom, acquired land or worked as skilled laborers for themselves. Indeed, the line between slavery and freedom was not always clearly defined in the early years. For the first 60 or 70 years after Jamestown was settled, the English used the terms "servant" and "slave" interchangeably. But by the 1660s, black captives were typically treated as slaves. They were assigned different work than whites and were no longer listed in ledger books or population counts with surnames, unlike white indentured servants. More importantly, a number of slave codes, or laws aimed at defining in detail the lives of enslaved persons, were enacted. READ MORE

ALASKA GOLD

FRONTLINE probes the fault lines of a growing battle in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska, home to the world’s last great wild sockeye salmon fishery – and enormous mineral deposits.

 

Watch Alaska Gold on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

The Sequester-The Ultimate Betrayal Of The GOP Base

 (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

By all historic accounts, the actual idea for the sequester—the massive front-loaded cuts to the federal budget designed to rip a hole in spending programs near and dear to both Republicans and Democrats—originated in the Obama White House.

By creating a mechanism that would result in huge cuts to a defense budget that has long been sacrosanct to modern day Republicans, along with equally large cuts to the entitlements that Democrats feel duty bound to protect, the Obama Administration believed that it had created a tool that would force a negotiated solution in the effort to get a grip on our debt situation through the balancing of spending cuts with revenue increases.

As a weapon to drive compromise—a concept that has become a four letter word in today’s extreme environment— the sequester wasn’t such a bad idea. Surely, any rational legislator in Congress would understand that reaching a negotiated deal was far preferable to the unacceptably painful results of allowing the sequester to take hold.
Or would they?  READ MORE

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Who Just Made a Billion Dollars?

Our Real-Time Billionaires scoreboard tracks the biggest holdings for 50 of the world’s wealthiest people. See who's up & who's down right now »

 

 

 

No thank you, Karl Rove

David Goldman/AP
Karl Rove failed to deliver during the 2012 elections,
despite the millions poured into his Super PAC.

The Republican establishment must give way to new leadership

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, February 6, 2013, 4:11 AM

 Republicans were sent to the woodshed in 2012. And when you’re sent to the woodshed, you sit there quietly and think about what you’ve done.

But somehow, Karl Rove doesn’t think he played a part in all that. Despite more than $170 million spent through his American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS super PACs, and nearly nothing to show for it, Rove believes the simple solution is to slap a new label on his outfit and go rake in some more dough.

“The Conservative Victory Project, which is backed by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest Republican super PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by intensely vetting prospective contenders for congressional races to try to weed out candidates who are seen as too flawed to win general elections,” reported The New York Times over the weekend.

But there are plenty of Republican donors who are furious at Crossroads for wasting their money and aren’t going to be fooled by Rove’s rebranding strategy — or his promises that he will get better results the next time around.
READ MORE

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Hillary Clinton is not just sleeping in as new website indicates desire to stay in the spotlight

If she’s planning on a presidential run there are few clues to be gleaned from Clinton’s freshly launched website HillaryClintonOffice.com.

www.HillaryClintonOffice.com
Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign website now redirects
visitors to her new site: HillaryClintonOffice.com.

 By Celeste Katz AND Jonathan Lemire / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Tuesday, February 5, 2013, 10:53 AM
Updated: Wednesday, February 6, 2013, 5:03 AM

 She's the picture of presidential ambition.

Just days after becoming a private citizen, Hillary Clinton is stoking speculation about running for President in 2016 by launching a mysterious new website that boldly features her in an attention-grabbing photo....

 A mass e-mail sent Tuesday by her husband Bill Clinton and their daughter Chelsea is adding to the speculation: It urges recipients to “thank Hillary for making our country and our world, stronger, safer and better.”

PHOTOS: HILLARY CLINTON'S BEST MOMENTS

“She inspires us every day — and we hope she inspires you, too. Please take a moment to send Hillary your personal note of thanks,” it adds, providing a link for fans to do just that.

When Hillary Clinton stepped down Friday after four grueling years as secretary of state, it was assumed that she would relax and recharge while contemplating her next move. READ MORE

Bill Maher And Eliot Spitzer Take On Fox News

The War of the Words - Glenn Beck vs Eliot Spitzer

How the Deficit Got This Big

Editorial | Deconstruction

By TERESA TRITCH

Published: July 23, 2011

With President Obama and Republican leaders calling for cutting the budget by trillions over the next 10 years, it is worth asking how we got here — from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era, and the promise of future surpluses, to nine straight years of deficits, including the $1.3 trillion shortfall in 2010. The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions.

 Despite what antigovernment conservatives say, non-
defense discretionary spending on areas like foreign aid, education and food safety was not a driving factor in creating the deficits. In fact, such spending, accounting for only 15 percent of the budget, has been basically flat as a share of the economy for decades. Cutting it simply will not fill the deficit hole.

The first graph shows the difference between budget projections and budget reality. In 2001, President George W. Bush inherited a surplus, with projections by the Congressional Budget Office for ever-increasing surpluses, assuming continuation of the good economy and President Bill Clinton’s policies. But every year starting in 2002, the budget fell into deficit. In January 2009, just before President Obama took office, the budget office projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009 and deficits in subsequent years, based on continuing Mr. Bush’s policies and the effects of recession. Mr. Obama’s policies in 2009 and 2010, including the stimulus package, added to the deficits in those years but are largely temporary. READ MORE