Right or Wrong?

In our second to last week of school in honors history we learned about western expansion in the United States. The main focus of our studies was on Native Americans and Buffalo Soldiers. Similar to last week we started off by watching a series of ABC Clio videos, and then analyzed and took notes on several documents, most importantly the Dawes Act of 1887. After all the notes we circled up as a class to chose an essential question for the unit. After several minutes of discussion we decided upon  the question; “"Were the federal government's policies on Indians and Buffalo soldiers intentionally discriminatory or well-intentioned?" Personally I believe that their policies were well intentioned.

Buffalo Soldiers

Buffalo Soldiers were African American men who left the south after the system of sharecropping was put into place. They served as cavalry soldiers. The soldiers moved west and fought for the government against the Native Americans. Buffalo soldiers were given a job that was better than sharecropping, which was essentially slavery, and they were given uniforms and even had the chance of winning military awards. These were all positives about the Buffalo Soldiers. There were some negatives however. The main one being that many white soldiers often made terribly racist remarks that resulted in fights. The Buffalo Soldier idea was well intentioned by the government.

When it came to Native Americans there were some instances where the federal government's actions were discriminatory and some where they were well intentioned. I feel that the well intentioned actions outweigh the bad. First, because of westward expansion Native Americans were being forced to abandon their land which they had been on for many years. This was a rather discriminatory act by the federal government, because they figured that the land would be better off in the hands of white people. Second, there was “Colonel Custard’s Last Stand”, where United States citizens were far too cruel to Native Americans and forever changed the lives of many in a negative way.

Not all actions by the government towards the Native Americans were negative. For example the Dawes act, passed in 1887, gave the right to land and American citizenship to any Native American, who was willing to conform to American culture, and working a farm as any average white man would. Those who agreed to the terms were given areas of land. Many Native Americans agreed and their culture began to fade away as many became Americanized. The government felt that they were doing the natives a favor by offering them this deal. They felt that they were giving Native Americans a free escape from a uncivilized society. In reality they tore apart a culture and drove people from their land. This was done with good intentions however.  

Wealth Corrupts

When one individual person has total control over a group of people or a single industry, people will suffer. This past week in Honors History 10 we studied two different monopolies in the United States during the late 19th century. The two monopolies we covered were those of, Andrew Carnegie, and John Rockefeller. Carnegie dominated in the steel business with his company, Carnegie Steel. Rockefeller was an oil mogul with his company Standard Oil. To learn more information about these two moguls, we started off by watching a series of ABC Clio videos, and then went on to read and analyze biographies on both men. After having analyzed the given information, the teacher asked the class to come up with an essential question for the lesson, which we decided was: “How did the actions of monopolistic leaders, such as Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, affect the common worker?” Personally, I believe that the actions of monopolistic leaders, like Rockefeller and Carnegie had negative effects on the common workers. Both men had such immense power and a great drive to make money that they lost track of their lower level employees, and ended up hurting them. Also they hurt employees of other companies that they put out of business.

Andrew Carnegie

First, we have Andrew Carnegie, who as previously stated was a very powerful individual in the steel business. Carnegie did not come from an overly wealthy background yet he constantly seemed to have zero care for the common workers he had power over. When he partnered with a well known man in the coal business, H.C Frick, they decided to lower the wages of many factory workers. This lead to extreme struggle for these workers, and they struggled to buy the necessities. Also, the duo implemented “yellow dog contracts” which made it impossible for one to join the labor union. Both of these actions made life very difficult for the common worker, but they both helped make Carnegie more money so he did not necessarily care. The workers began to strike to try and help their cause, but Frick had the government called into to take out the strikes. This lead to making both the new wages and the “yellow dog contracts” permanent. This is an example of a monopoly using their power to take advantage of the common worker.

Rockefeller

Second, there is John Rockefeller, who was the owner of Standard Oil. Rockefeller came from humble beginnings and grew up in a family centered around agriculture. After High School he wanted to attend college, but his father insisted on him going into business. Rockefeller’s first major move in the business world was to partner with Maurice Clark and act as suppliers of grain, meat and hay. Business began booming for these two men during the civil war. When things started going well for Rockefeller he was chosen to enlist in the war but he paid the necessary 300 dollars to hire a substitute for himself.  During the Civil War Rockefeller noticed an increase in the oil business. He decided to hop ship from the merchant business and test the waters in the oil industry. He proceeded to buy out all of his business partners, which was a controversial move and affected the lives of many common workers.  Rockefeller had great success in the business, but he had several questionable tactics. First, he was known for slashes prices and then buying out other companies. This move frequently left people out of jobs. Secondly, he was known for bribing government officials. Finally, he took part in a trust system which essentially stretched the laws as far as they could be stretched in order for him to make more money. These tactics lead to Rockefeller being considered a mean, greedy, monopolistic leader. His actions lead to the suffering of many common workers but he was just concerned about making money like most wealthy men are.

ABC Clio

Who Caused Change

On the first day of our most recent unit in Honors History Ten our teacher introduced the phrase; “Freedom from above  or below.” Our teacher explained to us that freedom from above results from actions taken by people in positions of power. Freedom from below is the result of actions by common people who have minimal power. The essential question for this Civil War unit was: “Who gave freedom to the enslaved Americans? Was it primarily freedom from Above or Below?” To help answer this question our class looked over several documents about Abraham Lincoln and taking notes on a couple of Civil war video clips.

The Lincoln documents we analyzed were an Open Letter to Horace Greely, The Emancipation Proclamation, The Gettysburg Address, and An Excerpt from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. In the Emancipation proclamation Lincoln states, “and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons.” This quote shows that Lincoln felt that Freedom came from above because he is using people in power like the military and navy to help make sure that the slaves are freed. In the excerpt from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address Lincoln states, “All knew that  this interest (Slavery) was somehow the cause of the war.” This quote was a big deal because it was the first time that Lincoln said that the Civil War was the cause of slavery. Lincoln went on to make freeing the slaves his main goal for the rest of his life.

Abe Lincoln in Freedom to the Slaves

The First piece of History we viewed which supported the idea that freedom came from below was an engraving titled, “Slaves from the Plantation of Confederate President Jefferson Davis arrive at Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi.” The descriptive titles says it all. Many slaves who belonged to this Confederate President left the plantation to go to an army camp set up by the Union. This was not ordered by the Union and the slaves did it by themselves. Slaves began to frequently abandon their plantations and go to Union army camps. Members of the Union army were caught off guard by the amount of slaves leaving their plantations. These slaves were flooding cities and causing complaints around the south. These complaints had to be dealt with by people of power and they made people aware of the issue of slavery.

Engraving of Slaves Leaving Plantation

With evidence from both above and below on display. I believe that freedom of the slaves came from below. Changes began to happen when the slaves took charge and started outrage. When the slaves raised commotion people of power took action. This is comparable to the issue of police brutality. This has been an issue for as long as policeman have been around, but has recently gained attention because many people have expressed outrage on the excessive use of force. When large numbers of people stand up for what they believe in, changes are made.

Search for Facts

            This week in our Honors History 10 class, we learned about many different Civil War battles. While studying these battles, we observed the tactics of the Confederacy and the Union. Every battle took place in one of the three “theaters.” These theaters were east, west or naval. We observed who won more battles in each theater. Our goal was to figure out who the ultimate victor, the north or south, was in all of the three theaters. To help gather information to find the answer to this question our class created and went on a scavenger hunt. Each person in the class was assigned a battle and they had to find general information on that battle. We had to find the date, theater, location, winner, and reasons for victory. Each person had to create a Google doc for his or her battle and then create a QR code for the sharable link. Everyone printed out the code and typed his or her battle name above the code. Once these sheets were printed everyone hid them around the school for everyone else to find and scan into to get information on the battles. This was a very enjoyable and entertaining way to gain knowledge about civil war battles. At the end of our findings we created a Padlet and voiced our opinions on who we though won in each theater.

            Through our findings in the scavenger hunt our class concluded that the Union dominated the western and naval theaters. The Union capitalized on the fact that the Confederates had minimal supplies. This was the case in the Siege of Vicksburg. In the battle of Shiloh the Union outnumbered the Confederates by a lot and that was a key factor in their victory. In the naval theater the Union prevailed in battles like the battle of Hampton Roads. In this battle the Confederate ship exploded. The Union had a much better naval system than the Confederates.

            When it came to the eastern theater, the result was not quite as obvious. Both sides had victories in the east. As the war progressed it was evident that the Union was more skilled in the east than the Confederates. Many Union victories had to do with the unpreparedness of the Confederates. Through this fun activity we learned that the Union dominated pretty much every theater there was.  

Created with Padlet

Civil war

It has Begun

The election of 1860 was the start of a series of conflicts between the north and south in the United States. Abraham Lincoln was the winner of the election.  Lincoln was a republican and was against slavery. The fact  that Lincoln was against slavery lead to him winning all of the northern states who were also against slavery. Lincolns strongest competitor was Breckinridge. He was a southern democrat who was all for slavery. This lead to him receiving almost all of the votes from southern, pro-slavery states. The other two candidates were Bell and Douglas and they both did not win many states. Douglas only won two states and he believed that people should be able to vote for slavery. Bell believed that no changes should be made to the constitution. so he felt that slavery should stay. The groups we split into in class analyzed five pieces of civil war art. Each piece of art helped show how the election affected the war.

Election Map

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1779925/United-States-presidential-election-of-1860

Link to Educreations video

Advantages of the North and South

Recently in Honors History 10 we have been learning about the Civil War and the number behind it. For this particular unit we had to make an infographic to answer the essential question of: how did the differences between the North and the South affect each region’s strategies and success in the war? Each student in my class created their own infographic. We were allowed to choose which facts we put into our infographics.

            For my infographic I started out with the stats behind what percent of slave owners held certain numbers of slaves. I lead off with these particular statistics because they help show why the south was fighting. They were fighting for their way of life. Many slave owners invested tons of money on slaves and without them they would not be able to run their buisnesses. Next, I had a chart, which shows the populations in the north and south. This was included because the north outnumbered the south by such a large amount. Finally, I included a chart of the percent of resources for the north and the percent of resources for the south. This process of creating an infographic helped further by understanding of why the union was able to defeat the confederacy in the Civil War. My personal belief is that numbers don’t lie and the numbers included in my infographic certainly help explain why the north was able to defeat the south.  

            

Was Slavery an Elephant in the Room

            This past week in honors history 10 we learned about how slavery was the “elephant in the room” in the early 19^th century. Dictionary.com defines the phrase “elephant in the room” as, “A difficult situation that is very obvious, but not discussed or addressed.” This definition applies to slavery in the 19^th century because frequently during this time period politicians would come up with new acts and compromises to dance around the topic of slavery. These included the Compromise of 1850, the Gasden Purchase, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott Decision, and the John Brown Raid. We created a timeline with all of these listed events. 

Timeline

Timeline descriptions

           

Politicians for several reasons ignored slavery, but the main reason could have been because slavery was a major factor in the United States economy. Slaves helped produce cotton and cotton was necessary for the textiles in the north. Also, politicians danced around the topic of slavery because they knew it would result in a war, which it eventually did.

Before all of the previously listed events was the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This compromise was created to ensure that slave states and non slave states have equal representation in the senate. Missouri wanted to be a slave state so Maine was listed as a non slave state to maintain equality in senate. Also, the government decided that there could be no slave states above the 36 degree 30 minute latitude line. This compromise shows that the politicians were ignoring the real problem because they just made sure that there was an equal number of slave states and non slave states instead of getting rid of slavery all together.

Bleeding Kansas was the result of the Kansas-Nebraska act. The Kansas-Nebraska act was the act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This act went essentially repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 because the government decided that the people who occupied these states would be able to vote if they wanted slaves or not. This led to a large amount of anti slavery and pro slavery activists both fighting for their cause in Kansas. Of course fighting erupted between both parties. In his speech “Crime Against Kansas” Hon. Charles Sumner states, “Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a Crime has been committed which is without example in the records of the Past.” Charles Sumner believed that a crime had been committed against the state of Kansas because the decision to allow a vote for slavery resulted in major bloodshed. This Kansas-Nebraska act shows that slavery was the elephant in the room because politicians decided that instead of getting rid of the problem of slavery they were better off letting the people decide their fate.

Crime Against Kansas Speech

Dred Scott was a man, who was a slave in Missouri, and then his master brought him to Illinois, and Dred was still treated as a slave there. He was unhappy with this because he was being treated as a slave in a state where slavery was not supposed to exist. He took his argument to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Dred Scott’s slave owner. This outraged many people because it essentially meant that slavery could be legal anywhere. This event shows that slavery was the elephant in the room because people knew slavery was wrong but they ignored it to make certain people happy. This quote from the Dred Scott SCOTUS Decision states, “So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that charcter, his staus, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois....” This quote shows that the State of Illinois was afraid to make a verdict about slavery so they handed it off to Missouri, which was a slave state.

SCOTUS Decisions

          

  Finally, John Brown was a man who organized a group of 18 men to raid a room of artillery in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. His goal was to capture the guns and arm slaves so they could revolt. Brown was unsuccessful in his attempt and was hanged. People worshipped Brown after this attempt and Marc R. Weston even created a song for him. Brown’s acts show help answer the essential question because if the government just took care of slavery people like John Brown would not have to make wild attempts to stop slavery like this one.

John Brown Song

Disgusting Slavery

            Slavery was a very dark time in the history of The United States. Great amounts of people were tortured, seriously harmed, or killed throughout the history of slavery. Slavery tore apart families and truly was a terrible period of time. In our most recent unit in Honors History we learned a lot about slavery and how it became entrenched in American Society. In class we read three parts from The Founders Constitution. An interesting quote from this was, “No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.” This quote states that if slaves escape from their state and get to a new state they are not free. Even if the state they escape to is in the north. In all three of these articles the words slave, slave labor, or slavery are never mentioned. This is intriguing because it means that the writers were afraid to use worlds like slave. Sooner or later slavery soon took over life in the southern part of the United States. This started when the textile business began to boom in the north, which lead to an increased need for cotton, which the south had to fulfill.  As the need for cotton rose so did the need for slaves to harvest the cotton. One major problem with some cotton was the small sticky green seeds, which were tangled in a lot of the cotton. These seeds were a major pain to remove. Eli Whitney was a smart young man who saw this problem and engineered a solution. He was the creator of the cotton gin, which made the task of removing the seeds a lot easier. Whitney thought his invention would lessen the need for slaves because there would be less work. Unfortunately his invention did quite the opposite. After the invention of the Cotton Gin the number of slaves in the United States grew by 33%. 70 years after the invention there were four million slaves in the United States. Before Whitney’s invention there were 700,000 slaves in the United States.

Cotton and Slavery 1800

Cotton and Slavery 1860

Link to interactive map

            Slavery may have had a good affect on the United States Economy, however it had a terrible affect on human dignity. For this section of the lesson we watched a movie called Prince Among Slaves. . My group was assigned Abdul Rahman. Abdul Rahman was a prince while he lived in Africa, but once he was kidnapped and brought to the United States he was just another slave. He wasn’t even a person anymore. Abdul’s owner, Tomas Foster, ordered Abdul to cut his hair and had him chained to a tree. This was a man who used to help lead large groups of people and now he doesn’t even have the power to decide what he wants his hair to look like. Abdul Rahman had a lot of talent because of his background as a prince, but it didn’t matter because he was black so to the eyes of Tomas Foster he was only good in the fields. Abdul had no dignity. He had no control over his life, all because of the color of his skin. There was an African American abolitionist named Fredrick Douglass who once said, “What, to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in a year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is constantly the victim.” Douglass was a former slave and through this quote he is showing how disrespectful it is for the white American to just flaunt their freedom on this day when they themselves have slaves.

           

            Another activity we did in class was; we split into groups and each group was assigned a pro or anti slavery advocate. Our group was assigned George Fitzhugh. He was a disgusting man with very poor views on slavery. Fitzhugh believed that slaves were some of the happiest and in a way some of the most freest people on earth.  This is an insane statement because it was so obvious that slaves lived terrible lives and had zero freedom. 

George Fitzhugh

Slavery did not just ignore a couple of human characteristics; it ignored a ton of human characteristics. Slaves could rarely make decisions for themselves. They worked when told to work. They had sex with whom they were told to have sex with. And they ate what they were told to eat. The food these slaves to eat were often in very small portions and were very crudely made. Slaves were tortured and whipped very often. Slaves who were pregnant or sick still had to work their butts off in the fields. Slave owners did not care about their slaves as long as they were still making money. This reasoning caused slave owners to ignore many human rights.

Mapping Pics-http://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/US/US18-03.html

George Fitzhugh Pic -http://thewallmachine.com/files/1351745114.jpg