The American experiment has shown the world that freedom, and above all the pursuit of happiness have not always been pristine roads, rather ones of turbulence and immense complexity. From the Colonial period, up to the so called "Gilded Age" the American people suffered through the persecutions of the Indigenous, slavery of African-Americans, war, poverty, and severe class distinctions. Regardless of these infallibilities, the history of the United States is one where men and women have gone through immense drudgery to achieve their own individual happiness. Out of all the nations, it is the one which has come to the closest manifestation of liberty, yet also one which had to tread on a long and painful path to achieve it. This compendium of essays deals with the narratives of people, and their struggle to find their place in the great American story. They discuss the power dynamics of the republic up until the end of the 19th century.