WASP | Historical Context

WASP Historical Context

White Anglo Saxon Protestants

The acronym W.A.S.P. (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) in the United States refers to a descendent of the Caucasian Protestant Christians from England who began immigrating to the Americas in the seventeenth century. This was one the first foreign-born ethnic groups to gain a secure foothold in U.S. territory, displacing the Native American populations. At first, in the seventeenth century, W.A.S.P.s lived in the United States as British citizens, because the Northeastern areas in which they settled were colonies of England's growing world empire. Later, the colonies became independent of England, in the War of Independence in the late-eighteenth century. Another sizable foreign, population was Africans, who came involuntarily, bought and sold as slaves to work as laborers on U.S. farms. Since these laborers were not given the same opportunities and rights as W.A.S.P.s, W.A.S.P.s became the dominant ethnicity in the United States, with their values shaping the institutions of the new...
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