The Mergence of Two Cultures?
Can two completely different cultures come together and live as one diverse culture? Today it seems possible comparing it to the world we live in but back then it was a hard goal to achieve. The Native Americans and the Americans, each having their own culture, had to overcome many obstacles and tragedy for this to happen. Their religion, social customs, and viewpoint on slavery were some of the conflicting aspects. Religion is different among cultures. In the story "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", by Jonathan Edwards, the American perceptive of religion was strongly portrayed. They believed that people should live accordingly to the puritan ways. He wanted them to not just read the bible, but feel it and experience it. They would have to believe in Jesus, suffer as he did, and deny any pleasure given to them. Edwards says "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God." (P 499) This quote shows that they believe in a heaven and hell and God is the only one that can control your destiny. If you are sinful, you will go to hell and if you live a good life, then you will go to heaven. They would attend church every Sabbath day, pray, and hope God would forgive them for th
The conflict of cultures is present and is expressed. Different aspects of religion, social customs, and viewpoints on slavery were just a few parts of a culture. Native Americans, had more of a respect to life and nature and lived freely as they were more bound to their land and nature, whereas the American's had a life based on rules and strictness and were more towards the belief of having possessions. The Americans seemed to live in fear of the unknown and the Native Americans accepted the unknown and had an appreciation towards most things. Their viewpoint on slavery would also be a conflict in the two cultures. The Americans saw slaves as property, something they owned. Where the Native Americans took in a person into their own tribe. This is strongly perceived in the Mary Rowlandson's Captivity. They did not treat her as something they owned or made her do all the hard laboring work; they just made her do just as much as any of their own women would do. There is a respect to nature in some degree in the way they don't own a human being. She may have thought of herself being a slave but comparing how she was treated to the way the Americans treated their slaves is totally different. The Americans would give the as much work to the slaves as the possible could. In most cases they don't perceive slaves as human beings, but more of a machine that has to do work whenever they have to. eir sins. Almost everything was considered a sin. The evil portrayed to the Americans were devi
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Approximate Word count = 1009
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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