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Cultural Perspectives On American Expansionist, Colonial And Slave Society

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As Yehuda Berg said, “words have energy and power with the ability to help…[and] to harm.” Expanding upon his reflection to see varying social perspectives on American expansionist, colonial and slave society contexts, one notes that officials of European descent including Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and John Eliot converted white words and ideas into literal and figurative terms that they believed Native Americans mutually understood to persuade tribal leaders to adopt white mores. Accordingly, some Native Americans responded to these jabs of white coercion through outright resistance while others re-enacted white behaviors to receive preferential treatment from white leaders and gain social influence that had the potential to undermine white hegemony. Building off of these indigenous efforts to reclaim lost territory, many Southern black slaves adapted to the ongoing tolerance of church ministries and loopholes in slave masters’ restrictions to slightly advance African beliefs atop Christianity and syncretically empower black rituals. While white expansionists engaged in brief, unbalanced negotiations to judge and then exploit Native Americans, certain indigenous people broke out of the ongoing Eurocentric decorum of noble savagery with colonial authorities to pursue sociopolitical agency and many black slaves interbred Christian and African beliefs to fashion their own religious subculture over time. Thus, throughout these cases, both white and non white figures of

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