1. English migrants in Virginia had good reason not to feel grateful.

Most came
unfree, pushed out of England by economic forces that privatized shared pastures and
farmlands and pushed up the prices of basic necessities. By the 17th century, more
than half of the English peasantry was landless. The price of food shot up 600
percent, and firewood by 1,500 percent.

2. Slavery in the colonial history of the United States, from 1526 to 1776, developed
from complex factors, and researchers have proposed several theories to explain the
development of the institution of slavery and of the slave trade. Slavery strongly
correlated with Europe's American colonies' demand for labor, especially for the
labor-intensive plantation economies of the sugar colonies in the Caribbean, operated
by Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic. Slave-ships of the Atlantic
slave trade transported captives for slavery from Africa to the Americas

3. There are certain ideals and values, rooted in the country's history, which many
Americans share. These are: FREEDOM, INDIVIDUALISM, PRAGMATISM,
VOLUNTEERISM, MOBILITY, PATRIOTISM, PROGRESS, AMERICAN
DREAM.

4. The traditional family structure in the United States is considered a family support
system involving two married individuals, 1 male 1 female, providing care and
stability for their biological offspring. However, this two-parent nuclear family has
become less prevalent, and alternative family forms have become more common.[1]
The family is created at birth and establishes ties across generations.[2] Those
generations, the extended family of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, can
hold significant emotional and economic roles for the nuclear family. Over time, the
structure has had to adapt to very influential changes, including divorce and the
introduction of single-parent families, teenage pregnancy and unwed mothers, and
same-sex marriage, and increased interest in adoption. Social movements such as the
feminist movement and the stay-at-home father have contributed to the creation of
alternative family forms, generating new versions of the American family.

5. When colonists came to the New World, they found a land that did not need
“discovering” since it was already occupied. While the first wave of immigrants
came from Western Europe, eventually the bulk of people entering North America
were from Northern Europe, then Eastern Europe, then Latin America and Asia. And
let us not forget the forced immigration of African slaves. Most of these groups
underwent a period of disenfranchisement in which they were relegated to the bottom
of the social hierarchy before they managed (for those who could) to achieve social
mobility. Today, our society is multicultural, although the extent to which this
multiculturality is embraced varies, and the many manifestations of multiculturalism
carry significant political repercussions. The sections below will describe how
several groups became part of U.S. society, discuss the history of intergroup relations
for each faction, and assess each group’s status today.

6. The United States is a federal union of 50 states, with the District of Columbia as
the seat of the federal government. The Constitution outlines the structure of the
national government and specifies its powers and activities, and defines the
relationship between the national government and individual state governments.
Power is shared between the national and state (local) governments. Within each
state are counties, townships, cities and villages, each of which has its own elective
government.