Textbook: Mba Mbulu's Introduction to White History: The History of White America. Click here for purchase information.

Click Here and read the extract from Mba Mbulu's Introduction to White History: The History of White Americafor this class. Also read 78 through 80 of the textbook, Mba Mbulu's An Introduction to White History. Think about what you read and be able to respond to the following questions.

(1) What did merchants and other businessmen have in mind when they thought about investing in the new land?
(2) What did laborers have in mind when they thought about working in the new land?
(3) What did malcontents have in mind when they thought about traveling to the new land?
(4) How did the thoughts of businessmen, laborers and malcontents conflict with each other?
(5) How did the conflicting thoughts of businessmen, laborers and malcontents impact on the development of the United States of America?
(6) What does the following statement mean: "Those who could have made the United States great were not equipped to resist those who were bent on making the United States rich."

The early Englishmen who were interested in the new land can be split into two essential types: (1) those who had managed to thrive to a larger or smaller degree at home and had no intention of leaving Europe and (2) those who had failed miserably. The type that had failed miserably can be split into two general groups: (1) those who saw the new land as a new chance for them to make something worthwhile of their lives and (2) those malcontents and dregs of society who were either fed up with English political, social and "religious" restraints or forced to go to the new land because the English crown and "elite" wanted to be free of their presence. The first type, the merchants, looked at the new land as they would have looked at any business opportunity. The second type, the failures and malcontents, looked at the new land as unemployed individuals looked at new employment opportunities, as prison inmates looked at an impending transfer, and as ideological activists looked at the opportunity to establish and live in a socio-political environment that is more to their liking. The two types had little or no genuine interest in each other as human beings. They were simply parties to a risky business venture that promised little of known quality or quantity. They were employers and employees, owners and workers, methodical businessmen and random laborers; and all that that implied. They ventured into the same arena of economic possibilities, but from different doors that opened to different possibilities and introduced different risks. They were not enemies, at least not in the traditional understanding of the term, but they very well could have been. In fact they should have been, would have been-- if the laborers and malcontents had been organized and as methodical, systematic and calculating as their merchant counterparts.

If the laborers and malcontents had been organized and as methodical, systematic and calculating as their merchant counterparts, the gains made by the unknown patriots during the American Revolutionary War period could have been sustained, and the United States could have been a greater nation for humankind. But, when one introduces the term "if" in a historical context, it indicates that a failure occurred. Those who could have made the United States great were not equipped to resist those who were bent on making the United States rich. The rest, as has been said so often by so many, is history.