Settlers, Settlements Quotes



Although Jefferson was a strong immigration enthusiast, he and others were concerned about the ghettoization. The early German immigrants did not universally adopt English, just as today’s immigrants do not all. This was a concern of Americans since the first immigrations. Yet it has always occurred despite concerns about it. However, the second and third generations all become fluent and literate in English.


Most people are very surprised that the great Benjamin Franklin was so narrow-minded at one point in his life. The German immigration almost halted during the Seven Years War, and the influx of Germans to Pennsylvania did not resume at the same rate.


This quotation illustrates the racist view of Native Americans that prevailed at the time. The Mexican government invited settlers and would give then the Indian lands. In addition to Mexicans who came to Texas, many Americans also went to Texas, changing their citizenship to Mexico. Later, they banded together and broke from Mexico and Joined the United States. The Indians lost most of their lands.


Because of the classic historical anti-Semitism and discrimination, Jews were barred from land ownership and as a result few were farmers or had agricultural experience in their families. They were tradesmen, artisans, professionals in Europe. So amongst Jews and non Jews alike the notion of Jews settling the land of Palestine and farming it or trapping, the way the Boers had in South Africa or the French in Canada, was not a very credible image. The Zionists, realizing this potential weakness, placed strong emphasis on agriculture, developed the agricultural kibbutz concept and encouraged Jews to become farmers. The effort was so successful that almost all the leading early Zionist immigrants to Palestine became farmers. When independence came to Israel, the Jewish agriculture was more productive than most of that in Europe and almost on a par with small farms in the United States. The Israelis were known for “making the desert bloom.


The first Black American colonists founding Liberia, like many early settlers in a new land, had many early difficulties and many of the settlers wanted to abandon the effort and return to America. This famous statement turned the attitudes around and Liberia was founded


Most American Jews had have grown up with an Israel governed by Jews who came from Europe and were culturally and politically very similar to Americans and shared similar values. Almost all Israeli policies were comfortable and understandable t American Jews. However, in the 15 years prior to this quotation, a major political shift took place in Israel and the dominant political faction shifted to first and second generation Jews who were forced out of various Muslim counties of the Middle East. These Jews were much closer to Arabs and the Muslims of the Middle East culturally and actually shared many values like vengeance, intimidation, and group and family guilt to keep enemies in check. They also understand the Arabs at a deeper level that their European culture countrymen do and were much more pessimistic about any solution whereby the Arabs would accept a Jewish State’s existence. Their political approach to suppression of the Palestinians and maintaining security for the citizens of Israel and their disrespect for Arab humanity made many American Jews estranged from the Israeli leadership just as they have been estranged from the Arab leadership and culture.


The “radicals” refer to the extremely conservative, religiously-oriented Israelis. To them the only real and important element is the land that God gave to the Jewish people. They see the State as artificial and whose only legitimate role is to protect and defend the land of Israel. God has ordained the laws in the Talmud—the first 5 Books of the Old Testament. They do not believe in democracy but seek a Hebrew Theocracy of the Ancient Jews before they made the error of having kings. Some of them opposed the civil government of Israel when the country was founded via a UN resolution and a few would not even defend the new country under a civil government. The relative moderates see Israel as a nation state where the land of Israel can be changed, negotiated, traded as other nations do with their borders. One irony is no one knows exactly the borders of the land which God gave to the Jews and this is why archeology is so politically important in Israel compared to other countries.


“Transported” meant they were convicted criminals in England who were sold into indentured servitude for a number of years. When their sentence was up, they became free but had no assets or land, so they went to the frontier and settled on land there which sometimes was Indian occupied land, but was more often Indian hunting land. This often caused friction between the new Americans and the Indians. The original criminal origin of these Americans was constantly views in a negative light by the upper class English (See {605546}.). He was the de facto Governor of the colony as there was no one senior to him on the American side of the Atlantic.