Compare And Contrast Olaudah Equiano And Of Plymouth Plantation

The question, “What is an American?”, can be defined differently by different people. What makes up an American can be looked at in different ways. However, an American in my opinion comes from textual evidence, defined through many different readings, such as the “Letters from Columbus”, the story of “Olaudah Equiano”, and from “Of Plymouth Plantation”. As it is defined, Americans come from slavery, but at the same time, they also come from freedom. With points from Equiano and Columbus, and also William Bradford, a Puritan, as well as with the constant changes between exploitative colonialism, violence, and the strive for freedom, America is based around both forms of Slavery and the determination for Freedom.

To begin, Americans have been widely identified by slavery. Slavery had been around in America for hundreds of years. People were constantly scared of being taken into the slave trade by those in America. This can be seen in the following quote from “Olaudah Equiano”, in which he states:

While much of America was based around the idea of slavery for money, there were still some groups that came to America for safety, security, and the right to practice religions as they pleased. The story, “Of Plymouth Plantation”, provides great examples on how this is so. The Pilgrims that came over to America from Plymouth wanted to escape their lands to be able to have the right to religious freedom, becoming one of the first groups to come to America for a great cause. The Puritan Pilgrims were also one of the first to actually make peace with the Native Americans and create the very first Thanksgiving, noted from the following quote: “...after friendly entertainment, and some gifts given him, they made a peace with him...” (“Plantation” 64) This means that they were one of the first to actually show kindness to those of a different ethnicity than the Puritans, which was a major