America – A Country for One Another and Othering; Immigration and the Erie Canal

America – A Country for One Another and Othering

By Jeanne Gostling

Editors Note: This is part one of a multi-part series exploring immigration in America and the Erie Canal.

Throughout history people have been on the move. The Clovis people began arriving on the North American continent over thirteen thousand years ago when they crossed a land bridge from Asia and Siberia. Every global population shift, each migration, can be traced to a specific cause. For example, the Clovis were hunters and gatherers who moved in accordance with the availability of resources – food, water, and shelter. These relatively straightforward explanations for migrating became more complicated as societies transitioned from hunter-gatherers to agrarian cultures throughout the world.

When nomadic societies began to farm, particularly when they started to grow grain, they created a surplus of food that could be stored. This surplus released them from the demand of roaming and foraging every day. Instead, they turned their attention to erecting permanent structures - buildings to protect their animals and their equipment - houses that served their lives as farmers. Trading posts and grist mills followed as did an assortment of skilled crafts shops for the people who filled roles as blacksmiths, millers, coopers, and carpenters. Every settlement would become responsive to a local church and under the rule of the regional monarch. 

Rendering of a typical Medieval Settlement

Along with the benefits of agrarian living, however, came unintended negative consequences. According to the World Economic Forum, in an article entitled:

Can Inequality be Blamed on the Agricultural Revolution?

“……In comparison to hunter-gatherer societies, agrarian societies exhibit significantly more social stratification, meaning a greater disparity in wealth, power, and social status due to the development of a surplus food supply which allows for specialization of labor, leading to the emergence of social classes with some individuals having greater access to resources and higher social standing than others; while hunter-gatherer societies tend to be more egalitarian, with relatively equal access to resources and minimal social hierarchy.” 

Assigning a different status or value to someone is a cornerstone to the phenomenon called, “othering.” The Oxford dictionary tells us that “Othering is a process whereby individuals and groups are treated and marked as different and inferior from the dominant social group.”  Investigating the nature and origins of othering will help us better understand and evaluate our history as it relates to the settlement of America and our different eras of immigration. 

Europe on the Move - The Age of Exploration  

During the 15th and 16th centuries, as explorers set forth for the new world, their agrarian societies in Europe had grown in size and complexity. The establishment of specialized institutions was required to meet the expanding needs of the growing populations. 

The monarchy and the Church served as the preeminent institutions with the royals controlling military protection, enforcement of laws and governance for all subjects living within the earthly kingdom. 

Pope Alexander VI and Queen Isabella 15th century

The Church had separate yet related duties. It acted in concert with the crown by teaching a belief system that claimed God chose the royal rulers to be at the top of society via ordained authority and that the clergy, interpreters and purveyors of God’s word, were stationed alongside royalty, to protect and guide them. The clergy held dominion over the rites and rituals that preserved the structure of society such as marriage, baptism, and salvation of the soul.                                                   

Church and crown work jointly to standardize language, currency, and determined the content of formal education. They oversaw the laws that were created to collect large sums of money from the subjects they ruled, through systems of taxation, land leases, tithing, fees for indulgences and religious services. Subjects of a kingdom were expected to accept and practice the moral values and religious doctrines promoted by the Church. They were also forced to abide by a system of feudal governance that benefitted both the clergy and aristocratic class. In time, this overly oppressive and demonstrably unjust form of control, kindled uprisings and revolts, spawning movements such as the Protestant Reformation and Puritanical immigration. The schisms were not limited to breaks between the ruling class and commoners. King Henry VIII’s desire for a divorce brought about his split from the Catholic Church. He formed a new church, the Church of England, and declared himself its supreme head, but whenever these two institutions remained united in power it was nearly impossible to challenge the authority of the monarchy or the Church.

“This land may be profitable for those who would adventure it.” Henry Hudson

Motivated by God, glory, and gold the powerful members of the Church and the crown saw in exploration an opportunity to increase their wealth and power beyond their continent. European rulers, and the explorers they funded, operated under the presumption that there was a “doctrine of discovery”, a divine right bestowed by God, authorizing them to claim and colonize non-Christian lands and their people. Explorers were expected to seize these lands in the name of their benefactors, procure its riches and establish new trade routes. Additionally, they were expected to subjugate the people they encountered.

Columbus 1492

As explorers began to interact with the indigenous people in North America, they did so using an authority bestowed upon them by the European rulers who sent them. The native tribes were still living as hunter-gatherers, people who continued to move their settlements, follow the migration of wild animals, and live in relative harmony with the natural environment. Their spiritual beliefs were polytheistic, steeped in animism. Unsurprisingly, the Europeans viewed the natives through a lens of wealth and power they had adopted in Europe. Through that filter they saw natives as lowly, inferior, and, in some cases, less than human. This perspective, along with a sense of implied permission, justified the subjugation that ensued. 

By bringing a mindset of ordained authority to the New World these early explorers set in motion generations of atrocities. The belief that a royal ruler, along with the god who appointed him, could grant permission to amass someone else’s wealth, take their land and rule over them has shaped the history of our country. It has left a footprint on every aspect of American settlement and immigration. 

De Soto massacres natives in Alabama, 1540

In the next installment of this series, we’ll examine how wealth sought wealth through colonization and we’ll discuss how othering grew to affect not only the indigenous in North America, but waves of migrants to follow.