Patriot's History: Market Freedom (Chapter 1-2-3)
Music: Drum Sequences
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Summary The settlers thought the Indians bizarre for holding land in common. From afar they brought this lesson: life and liberty derive from ownership of property. Chapter Rebelliousness defined the colonists. They felt that any legislator who insists, as England did, on laws and taxes from afar, should be rejected. Settlers thought bizarre the Indian approach to sharing land, endeavoring to make them understand the modern system -- individual free market rights, instead of ritual appeals to sacred ground, since liberty derived from ownership of property. The rich got richer, true, but less a class society existed, and the mass of new Americans was gaining ground. Our fortunes, said de Tocqueville, would abound. Some groups (the Regulators were a prime example) demonstrated for a time against the local governments, but still this best revealed their independent will. |