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servants. Around 1%)0, the slave population in /anada was a!out 1,200, and in ew nglandaround 2,000.

 The massive forced migration of Africans to orth America created a uni3ue AfricanCAmerican culture !ased on a common African heritage, the e:perience of slavery, and theteachings of /hristianity. As a result of the patterns of the slave trade, it was impossi!le formost slaves to identify the e:act tri!e or ethnic group from which they came. African musicand foltales continued to !e told and were adapted to changing circumstances. Although

African religious practices were occasionally maintained, most often the slaves’ !elief inspirits was com!ined with /hristian teaching and the slave e:perience to produce a faithemphasi5ing the >ld Testament themes of salvation from !ondage and 9od’s protection of achosen people. The maDority of slaves la!ored on plantations in a community of 20 or moreslaves, su!Dect to !eatings, rape, and even death, without the protection of the law andusually denied any access to education. 8espite the fact that slaves were not allowed tomarry, the family was the principal !ulwar against life’s harshness, and marriage and family!onds usually remained strong. 'trong ties of inship e:tended across several generationsand even to the plantation community at large.

 The 600,000 free African Americans in 1+)0 were so generally discriminated against thatthey have !een referred to as Eslaves without masters,F !ut their li!erty and greater accessto learning ena!led them to openly Doin the a!olitionist movement, which e:panded rapidlyafter 1+(0, and to !ring greater nowledge of world events and technological developmentsto the AfricanCAmerican community after the /ivil ;ar. 'ome, lie the former slave

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In response to the nlightenment ideals of natural rights and political li!erty and the

evangelical concern for humanitarianism and /hristian Dustice, !etween 1%%% and 1+0 the

northern states gradually a!olished slavery. The slave trade was !anned !y ritain in 1+0%,

and slavery a!olished throughout the empire in 1+((. The slave trade was prohi!ited in the

&nited 'tates in 1+0+, !ut the invention of the cotton gin in 1%( and the rise of the shortC

staple cotton industry reinvigorated 'outhern reliance on slave la!or at the same time that

the antislavery movement was growing in strength. It is estimated that after the a!olition of

the slave trade, more than 600,000 slaves were sold from farms and plantations in 4irginia,-aryland, entucy, and other states to the cotton plantations of the 8eep 'outh, with little

regard for the preservation of slave families. As a result, when 7resident A!raham =incoln

freed slaves under 'outhern control in 1+)( and slavery was a!olished in 1+)6, many African

Americans not only came from a legacy of forced enslavement !ut had also !een uprooted

themselves.

Native Americans

 Though we do not usually thin of Native Americans and The ew ;orld as part ofmedieval times, it must !e remem!ered people have !een living in the Americas for 16000years.

ative Americans #American Indians, Amerindians, Amerins, Indyans, InDuns, or ed Indians$are indigenous peoples, who lived in the Americas prior to the uropean coloni5ationK someof these ethnic groups still e:ist. The name Indians was !estowed !y /hristopher/olum!us, who mistaenly !elieved that the places he found them were among the islandsto the southeast of Asia nown to uropeans as the Indies. #'ee further discussion !elow$.

/anadians now generally use the term

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 The descendants of the third wave are so ethnically distinct from the remainder of theindigenous inha!itants of the Americas that they are not usually included in the termsAmerican Indian or

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 January (1, 1+%) the &nited 'tates government ordered all ative Americans to move intoreservations or reserves. This spelled the end of the 7rairie /ulture that developed aroundthe use of the horse for hunting, travel and trading.

American policy toward ative Americans has !een an evolving process. In the latenineteenth century reformers in eMorts to civili5e Indians adapted the practice of educatingnative children in !oarding schools. The e:perience in the !oarding schools which e:istedfrom 1+%6 to 12+ was diBcult for Indian children who were for!idden to spea their native

languages and in numerous other ways forced to adopt white cultural practices.

-ilitary defeat, cultural pressure, con?nement on reservations, forced cultural assimilation,the outlawing of native languages and culture, forced sterili5ations, termination policies ofthe 60Ns and )0Ns, and #especially$ slavery have had deleterious eMects on ative AmericansNmental and ultimately physical health. /ontemporary pro!lems include poverty, alcoholism,heart disease, and dia!etes.

What name best identies this group of people

 The term ative American originated with anthropologists who preferred it to the formerappellations of Indian or American Indian, which they considered inaccurate, as theseterms !ear no relationship to the actual origins of A!original Americans #or AmericanA!origines$, and were !orn of the misapprehension on the part of /hristopher /olum!us,arriving at islands oM the east coast of the orth American continent, that he had reachedthe ast Indies. The words Indian and American Indian continue in widespread use inorth America, even amongst ative Americans themselves, many of whom do not feeloMended !y the terms.O1P ut the appropriateness of this usage has !ecome controversialsince the late 20th centuryK many feel the Indian term undesira!le as sym!olic of thedomination of these peoples !y the uropean colonists. >thers, in turn, resent criticism oftheir traditional way of speaing. ed Indian is a common ritish term, useful indiMerentiating this group from a distinct group of people referred to as ast Indians.

>ne minority view has advocated the name Asiatic Americans as a more accurate term!ecause of the popular theory that such peoples migrated to the Americas from Asia acrossan ice !ridge covering the ering 'traits some 20,000 years ago. /ompetent fossil evidencesupports the case for such a migration. "owever, this term is considered oMensive !y manyAmerican Indians !ecause most native religions state that American Indians have !een inthe ;estern "emisphere since the dawn of time. ne diBculty with the term ative American as a su!stitute for American Indian lies inthe fact that there e:ist several groups of people indisputa!ly indigenous to the Americas,

!ut who fall outside the classi?cation of American Indians, for e:ample the Innu people ofthe =a!rador*Que!ec peninsula and the Inuit, Hupi, and Aleut peoples of the far north of thecontinent. Another argument is that any person !orn in America is native to it.

Another diBculty is that many ative American groups migrated #or were displaced$ to theircurrent locations after the start of uropean coloni5ation, and therefore it can !e argued thatthey have no more native ties to their current locations than do the uropeans. "owever,as they were moving within America, they remained native to the America.

 The term ative American is woefully inade3uate from a scienti?c viewpoint, as "omosapiens is an invasive species in the Americas.