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What Is Freedom

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Submitted By tjkrass
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Freedom, to many people does not necessarily mean they are free. There are many degrees and definitions of freedom throughout the history of America many different races, genders, and ethnicities experienced. The varieties of freedom come from multiple groups of people such as slaves, indentured servants, Native Americans, property owners, and Puritans. All of these groups had their own definition of freedom they experienced, ranging from little to no freedom, freedom from the land they possessed, and the freedom to worship any God they so choose. However, some of these freedoms conflicted with the freedoms of others. First and foremost, there were many groups of people who had little to no freedom in seventeenth – century North America. Among these people, there were the slaves who were forced upon their will to come over to America from Africa and work for the masters who claimed them. Slaves by far had the least amount of freedom given to them when they came to America. In slave work on the plantations is described in the words of Eric Foner as “far more demanding than in the household slavery common to in Africa, and death rate among slaves much higher” (p. 98). This shows how slaves had little to no freedom to choose how much or how long they wanted to work and the lifestyle the slaves lived was dictated by their masters. Another group of settlers that came to America to try and start a new life for were the indentured servants. These indentured servants, being about 2/3 of the Englishmen that immigrated, could not pay their way to come to the New World. As indentured servants, those who were indentured servants were required to voluntarily give up their freedom for a certain number of years, usually five to seven years, and pay it back to the masters or person who claimed them of the boat. However, unlike the slaves who were brought to America from Africa,

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