Agency In African Americans

During the 1600 and 1700s, as European-Americans started to relocate and settle in the New World many Native Americans and Salves suffered from bullying, dehumanization, and violence. The Natives and Slaves did not just sit there and let the Europeans run all over them; they displayed many forms of Agency. Agency is a way to express your own opinions and act upon them. It is a way to stand up for what you believe in and can be expressed in many ways. Agency can be expressed through violence, protesting, letters and many other ways. It can be one person or a group of people. This essay is going to talk about how with all that Natives and Slaves endured with the Europeans how they responded, and how they demonstrated agency throughout that time.
There were two acts of agency happening during the time of King Philip’s War. Looking at the Document Wampanoag Grievances at the Outset of King Philip’s War, the first act of agency is a letter. The Wampanoag tribe wanted the colonist to let the English know how they were feeling and what they wanted from them to maintain the peace. Complaints that were made in this letter was the Tribe did not want violence, the English were taking too much land that they were not paying for, and the animals were destroying the tribes land (66-69). The Indians were trying to maintain peace with the Colonist in a calm way and just wanted the English to stop trying to push them out and taking their land. The English did not take this form of agency seriously and because of that King Philip’s War broke out. The tribe used warfare tactic to destroy colonist homes, land, and to kill and injure colonist. War is the second act of agency this resulted in 16 towns damaged or destroyed before the tribe surrenders due to the death of King Philip. With these two acts of slavery, the Colonist realized that the Indians had the ability to attack and hurt the Colonies and as a result, many people like Roger William wanted to make peace with the Indians and have them as alliances and wanted to learn some warfare
With the Natives being pushed out of their homeland, and Slaves getting forced to do many things or being punished, both groups figured out ways to act and show how they felt. Looking at both how slaves and natives were treated by the English, and how they responded and how they used agency gives historians more information of how people really lived and interacted during this time. In history, if people just looked at one perspective during the time they would not get the full sense of what we going on, and it would be hard to see causes and effects of big events that happened in history. By looking at documents from Natives and Slaves, and from Colonist we get to see the big picture of what was really going on between these groups. Also, it helps to see that the Natives and Slave did not just sit around but actually tried to get freedom and land that they deserved. Natives and Slaves used many forms of agency to try to defeat the Colonist. By doing so they changed the perspective of some Colonist and they found ways to hurt colonist to put them in debt and made it hard to live in the New