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Declaration Of Independence Dbq

Decent Essays

I believe the United States Declaration of Independence did not fulfill or acknowledge the rights of Native Americans and African Americans at all, as both racial parties didn’t have the right to freedom and equality.

African Americans and Native Americans didn't have the right to equality in society during 1815 to 1850. According to Document 2, (Highland, 1843) “Brothers, your oppressors try to make you as much like animals as possible.” This quote demonstrates the status African Americans had in society from 1815 to 1850. There were oppressors in society that brought down the African American people to the status of an unequal. This document demonstrates that due to circumstances like slavery and oppression, African Americans were still looked at as unequals even after they were released slaves. Even though slavery was becoming unlawful, there wasn’t much change to equality. According to Document 1,(President Andrew Jackson, 1835) “Many of your people have bought little or no land and you have no personal property, so how then can you live in the …show more content…

According to Document 5, (Anti-Slavery Almanac,1839) ¨Peter John Lee, a free colored man of Westchester Co., N.Y, was kidnapped by Tobias Boudinot, E. K. Waddy, John Lyon, and Daniel D. Nash of N.Y.,city, and hurried away from his wife and children into slavery.¨.This quote demonstrates that African Americans were not treated as free men, but still being kidnapped and forced back into slavery. As stated in the Preamble of the United States Declaration of Independence, ´´We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.´´¨This shows that the Declaration of Independence fulfills the Ideals of freedom not for every man, but for white males.

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