Buffaalo Soldiers

For the second week of finals prep, we focused on the buffalo soldiers and native Americans. Just as last week, we were given ABC Clio videos to learn the important facts about the topics. After watching the videos and taking notes as a class, we began reading over resources such as Helen Hunt Jackson’s Century of Dishonor 1881, as well as Excerpts of the Dawes Act, which both provided the points of view of one side, whether it be the Natives or the government. By the end of the second day of class, we had already developed an essential question as a class, which we thing hits all the important points to be made throughout this lesson while also being broad enough for us to give it our own individual spin. Our essential question is, "During westward expansion, did the impact of federal policy towards buffalo soldiers and native Americans match the intent?”.

Timeline of the American frontier.

This essential question is basically asking whether or not the government actually lived up to their promises of helping the Native Americans, which the way I see it, they did not. In the perspective of the government, they went to the Great Plains to take land belonging to the Native Americans and for all to remain peaceful. However, they did not anticipate that the Natives would put up a fight. As a way to fight for their own cause, the government took away some of the Natives’ already limited rights and freedom, all the while saying they were “helping them” and “making their lives easier”, as well as brought the Buffalo warriors into the mix, giving them orders to get their land. To steer back to the essential question, the impact and the intent of federal policy towards Buffalo soldiers were not matched.

Captains of Industry

Since it’s the end of the year, that means it’s time to prep for finals. However, rather than the painfully boring and difficult multiple choice, fill in the blank, true or false or matching that, to be honest, nobody’s ever really totally prepared for, Mrs. Gallagher is letting us develop our own questions and answers so we not only know what to study, but also so that we will be 100% prepared to answer each question correctly. To begin the process, we are given one topic a week for the last 3 weeks and are given the task to make our own essential question as a class, and then make multiple choice questions to answer it. This week, week 1, we studied the captains of industry during the age of industry. In particular, we talked about Carnegie and Rockefeller and how they and their companies impacted the country. The essential question we developed as a class was: Were the captains of industry a positive or negative impact to the public?

One of the most important and famous captains of industry was John D Rockefeller, who was known as "The Greatest Business leader in U.S. history". Starting in his father's business, since he had told Rockefeller to skip college and go straight into the business world, and then moving on to found his own oil company, he began to make his way to the top. Using the extensive amounts of

Political cartoon of J.D. Rockefeller pushing
a disgusting amount of money in a
wheelbarrow shows how the people thought
of him despite his philanthropy.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/36b.asp 

money he had obtained by supporting the Union army during the civil war, he bought out all of his partners and used cutthroat tactics to buy out rival companies so he alone was on top, and at a certain point he even began to bribe politicians to give him good publicity. Though he was a shark in the world of industry, he also had the best interest of his customers at heart. He did his best to keep costs down, even bringing them so low that other companies couldn't compete without going bankrupt, and obtained favorable shipping rates. Even when he couldn't control the prices on his prices low enough, he was smart enough to work with other companies to control the prices of the rivals. John D Rockefeller believed it was man's responsibility to drill and refine oil, and wanted to be the richest man in the world which is an opinion that may have caused all the negative political cartoons against him, even though during his lifetime he donated about $500 million to charity.

Portrait of Andrew Carnegie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie, successful steel manufacturer, was another famous captain industry of the time, though his ride to the top took a lot more effort than Rockefeller’s. Starting as an Irish immigrant working as a bobbin boy in a textile mill, Carnegie never would’ve imagined that he’d end up being a business mogul and philanthropist. One way he built up his business was by travelling through Europe to further his business and management skills. In particular, he took note of a system set in place in Great Britain steel industry and adapted their method of production. When he realized he could use help building his empire, he teamed up with Bessemer, who had introduced a process named after himself which produced steel for a lower price, which led to him being able to produce higher quality steel for less money than any American competitor. As of 1900, he was the second richest man in the world, which could have been what built up his confidence enough to plan on destroying the Iron and Steelmakers union, which of course stirred up trouble in the nation. However, his legacy goes much farther than that. He was one of the first operators in the country to take messages by sound, and was promoted to superintendent of eastern telegraph lines. Also, he is known for being one of the few business men to expand their companies during the great depression, rather than downsize as many of his competitors were. After years of business and philanthropy, Carnegie sold his steel company to J.P. Morgan in 1901.

Freedom from above, or below?

In class before beginning our lesson we were given the essential questions, "Who 'gave' the freedom to enslaved Americans? Did freedom come from above or below? To what extent were Abraham Lincoln's actions influenced by the actions of enslaved Americans?". To fully understand the questions, you should know that "above" is the group of higher class Americans, mainly politicians, and "below", is the slaves and the other lower class Americans who were directly impacted by slavery.

In class, we were given a set of documents which all went along with the argument of where freedom came from. In one document, Lincoln's Open Letter , President Abraham Lincoln states that, " If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union…I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.". This article shows that freedom comes from above, because though he didn't say he was planning on abolishing slavery during his term, President Lincoln said that he believed all men should be free, and if saving the Union could only be achieved by abolishing slavery then he would have no problem with it.

In a Letter from General Ambrose E. Burnside toSecretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, which our class had called Document X, we read about how when the union army takes over an abandoned southern city, slaves begin to come out of the swamps, some claiming to have lived there for 5 years, and start taking residence in the city. This shows that freedom came from below, because the fugitive slaves who took refuge in the swamps are now taking the opportunity for a better life, though it is causing anxiety for their new neighbors.

To end the lesson, we made a graph showing which documents argued that freedom came from above and which showed that it came from below. In my opinion, it came from below, because the actions taken above were set in motion not by their own humanity, but the actions coming from below.

My group's graph of the documents.

Civil War Scavenger Hunt

In class this past week, we were given the question, " Who was the ultimate victor in each theater of each of the theaters of war: East, West, and Naval?", as well as "What are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles.". In order to get the information to answer these questions, either in a pair or on our own we were given a battle that took place in one of the theaters. We were then instructed to make 2 bullets with the important details of the battle, a picture involving the battle with a citation,  and put them on a google doc. Also, we had to link the google doc onto a QR Code and hang it up somewhere in the school. After giving our location to the person with the number after ours and getting the location from the person before us, we were ready to walk throughout the school, scanning the posters and gathering the information.

To find the ultimate victor of each theater, was a class we all contributed to a padlet , and under each theater we had to write who we thought dominated it and give examples of why. For the most part, the class thought the Union dominated all three theaters, however there were a few students who argued otherwise for the Eastern and Naval theater. However, for many of their arguments they chose battles that were a very close score. This activity helped answer the first essential question.

After the scavenger hunt we went through all of the battle as a class and talked about the way the battles all turned out and about the outcomes and similarities of the battles, which helped to answer the second essential question. Some commonalities between the battles were the way they were won, such as the battle of Cold Harbor and the Siege of Vicksburg, both of which the Union took advantage of the Confederate's short comings to get the upper hand and lead themselves to victory. Another Commonality is that in most cases the Union won, and mostly for the same reason such as tactics the Confederates wouldn't expect and having superior troops.

A depiction of my battle, Baton Rouge
http://www.knowla.org/entry/560/view=image-gallery

Elephant in the Room

In class, we were given the essential question: "How do we know the debate over slavery was the "elephant in the room" for American politics in the early 19th century?", and to understand the question you need to know that by elephant in the room, we mean that it was a topic that was avoided in conversation as it was very controversial at the time. To answer the question, my group and I decided that the way to prove this is by pointing out that the Northerners developed a very passive approach towards slavery and didn't ever really directly address slavery as a problem which would have been because in every situation where they did, such as the Caning of Sumner (which will later be addressed), the southerners responded with violence or something of the sort.  In class, we went over some events that took place throughout the 19th century regarding slavery, and then put them in chronological order on a timeline, that being the images below. On the timeline, you'll find the Missouri Compromise which happened in 1820 and  made it so there were 11 free states and 11 slave states because the south didn't want to be outnumbered by votes in the senate because Maine was coming out as a free state, and also made it so nothing above Missouri could be declared slave territory. There is also the Compromise of 1850, which was that as states in the west such as Nevada, Utah, etc;, gained a larger population, they decided to let the people vote on whether they wanted to be a free or slave state. Not long after that is the Gadsden Purchase, in which the US paid $10 million for a small piece of land in present day South Arizona so they could build a transcontinental railroad. Later on the timeline is the caning of Sumner. In this, Andrew Butler hit Charles Sumner with his cane after his two day speech, which at a point directly targeted Butler's nephew, Preston Brooks, which was held against southerners as a whole and was used to prove a point that they were all uncivilized. Throughout the Elephant in the Room lesson, it was made clear that slavery really was avoided in conversation for a good reason, because whenever it was mentioned bad things happened. 

In these pictures, you see the timeline made in class, as well as the description for each event on the timeline.

The Election of 1860

In class, we were told to answer the question: " How were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions  over slavery?", and show how we got that answer in an educreations video made in small groups. After watching the John Green Crash Course Video about the Election of 1860 and what issues were going on at the time such as the Fugitive Slave law, (which meant that no matter where you were in the country if you found a fugitive slave you had to turn them in), and Bleeding Kansas (which is the nickname for a period of violence over the Kansas- Nebraska act of 1854, because it went against the Missouri Compromise). As seen in the photo below, the election split the country into groups depending on which of the candidates they agreed with. Abraham Lincoln was strictly against slavery, where his opponent Stephen Douglas tried to hide his bias by suggesting that they let it be the peoples' choice, then John Bell and John Beckenridge were both opposed to getting rid of slavery. As shown in the photo, since the anti-slavery states were some of the largest Lincoln was almost guaranteed a spot behind the desk in the Oval Office, which he did eventually obtain. Next, we got our information and photos to analyze from Civil War and Art, among our own sources.

The Power of Numbers

In class we were asked to answer the essential question :How did the differences between the North  and South affect each region's strategy and  success in the Civil War?. To answer this we were given documents and articles showing the advantages and disadvantages of both the union and the confederacy during the civil war. To show the answer and how we got it, we were asked to use a presentation making tool. I chose Infogr.am. In my presentation, I share the population as well as the slave population of the north and south since the side with the most troops is almost guaranteed to win, briefly refer to the railroad mileage of both territories which would've been essential in transporting the troops along with their supplies, the most famous war tactics used on both sides, as well as refer to the South's control over the nations cotton supply. With my presentation, I hope you'll agree that the North did in fact have the advantage in the Civil War.

The power of numbers | Create infographics

Antebellum Slavery

Slavery today is known as the worst thing to ever happen in the history of the United States, but not many people look beyond the common knowledge aspect of it to see the big picture. In other words, not many people really know just how it got to be such a solid part of the country not just economically, but politically. In class, we were given 3 essential questions, the first being: "How did slavery become economically entrenched in American society by the early 19th century? . To answer this question, we were given excerpts of  The Founder's Constitution, which contain detailed information about slavery. In Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3, it says "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., which we interpreted as a class to say that any slave who runs away from their owner in a state allowing slavery is still lawfully their property, even if they run to a state prohibiting slavery, and will be forced to return and work for them, which really highlights the strictness and seriousness of the way treated and thought of their "property". Also, in another article titled, Cotton is King: Slavery is Entrenched in American Society Antebellum Slavery, we read that at the time the people of the U.S. were under the impression that slavery was declining and were even beginning to help free slaves, as some slaves were taking matters into their own hands and running away or revolting. Many slave owners were inspired to emancipate their slaves by the ideals of equality and liberty, and after 10 years since this started roughly 10,000 slaves were released. Just as things were looking up for the slaves, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. The cotton gin was a machine that made the production of cotton remarkably easier, and they were a hit throughout the country. This meant for the slaves that rather than being emancipated they'd now be manning the new machines. Since these machines were so widely used throughout the country, the slave population doubled and eventually tripled, and as did their price. Where one slave had once cost $500, by 1825 were worth $1,500. In only 17 years, by 1860, the yearly amount of cotton produced in the South made a drastic jump from 1.5 million to 2.28 billion, which shows how greatly the demand of cotton had grown, along with the slaves needed to produce so much of it.

In this picture, you see that in just 70 years the cotton frenzy spread quickly through the country, dragging slavery rates along with it. 

Shown in the picture above, we know that as the demand for cotton grew so did the price.

The orange words were those from our source from him, Canniballs All
or Slaves without Masters, that we found to stand out and
support our answers to the essential questions.

In another section of the lesson we focused more on the morality of slavery, and were asked to answer the questions: "How does a system of slavery based on race affect human dignity?" and "What human characteristics does such a system tend to ignore?". To answer these questions we were broken into groups and were all assigned an important person from this time, who was either pro or against slavery. The period before the civil war was called the Antebellum Period, and we were trying to figure out how people looked at the issue from both sides. We were each given a primary source document from edline My group was assigned George Fitzhugh,shown in the picture to the right,  who was pro-slavery. His argument that the slaves in America were the happiest in the world since only the well and able were put to work, but every one was provided room, board, and protection. He even said that slaves are freer than people being paid too work in fields, because they were free from worrying about money or food. Then, on the other side there were people like Frederick Douglas, who had been born a slave and then went on to be the most important black man of the 19th century by being an avid slavery activist and author of slave based books. 

Then in class, we read an article  which compared the slavery in Natchez, Mississippi to Futa Jallon, Africa, which we had just watched a video tying the two worlds together and were now reading it in article form. Both the movie and the article are titled Prince Among Slaves, which is in reference to Abdull Rahman, who was taken from his father (the king of Futa Jallon), and sold as a slave in America. This article really shed light on the lives of slaves, in particular their treatment. For example, if a slave woman and free father were to have a child, that child could achieve political greatness. However, only non-muslims were to be enslaved, and Muslims were to be free regardless of any circumstance. While watching the movie in class, we gathered on a live feed at TodaysMeet.com to share details and insights with one another that we picked up on. Some of the things on the live feed were that Rahman was captured in his own country while he was on a mission with his men in the woods, and they were then ambushed and forced to walk 100 miles to the coast where there was a ship waiting to sell them. Once they got to America, he was sold in Natchez, Missouri to a man named Thomas Foster who, after a time began to refer to Rahman as "Prince" since he had tried so hard to convince him of his social ranking back in Futa Jallon. After losing his long hair which is an African sign of nobility, running away from his master only to return in defeat weeks later, and then finally getting used to his new life, Prince gained a role of authority on the plantation, and was in charge of making sure the slaves were working efficiently, which ended up making it one of the most successful plantations around. Prince was freed after a man named Marshak printed his story in a news paper, and then Prince and his wife who he had bought with borrowed money toured the country trying to get the funds to free the rest of their family, though they failed. However, he had given the people supporting him false information about himself and once they had all withdrawn their support he had no other choice but to return home to Futa Jallon with only his wife. The main point of this class was that though many important figures in history such as George Fitzhugh and others like him tried to hide it, slaves were not thought of or treated as human beings and didn't even have the luxuries of basic human rights.

Women in the 19th Century

Roles:

In the 19th century (an even today), women were expected to be the caretaker of her home an family, and keep things calm an put together as her husband worked. In the photo to the right, you see a woman behind drapery, which was to hide them from the rest of the people in the house, and with her is a young boy and girl, who she is teaching to read, a dog which is the artists way of showing that even though the husband was the man of the house, when he was away the wife was the one everyone answered to. She is also holding a baby while she was tending to the other children, which shows how good she's become at what she does. Also, you'd think that since her husband leaves her alone to care for the children that the house would bee a mess an the kids would be out of control, but if you look at the picture you'll see how neat and organized she keeps the home, and how tame and put together the children are which shows her hold on everything within the home. Since women had so many responsibilities, an were so good at doing what they did within the home, the men in charge were taken aback by their demands and didn't take them seriously.

Seneca Falls Convention:

http://evanhistory10.blogspot.com/

During this time, the rights of women needed to change. The Laws and Practices included some of the conditions and laws for women, some of which were almost painful to read as someone who would have been directly influenced by them had I lived during that time. These include the law stating it legal for a man to beat his wife, for a woman's children to be taken from her upon the death of her husband, and the practice of silence among women in public, as it was seen as improper for them to speak. At the Seneca Falls Convention in upstate New York, the idea/ demand of women gaining the right to vote was publicly expressed for the first time. Resolutions to the harsher laws in Laws and Practices were addressed in the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, which included the retraction of the restriction of women being able to attend colleges/ gain a worthy education for themselves in the United States.

Reactions:

In class we were asked to answer the question: How did the mid-19th century society react to the women's demand of equality? Well, there really is no simple answer. Like any movement, there were people for and against the cause. A lot of the publicity for the movement was through newspaper, such as the Oneida Whig, which was strongly and clearly against the women's rights movement and their demands which is shown in one of their publishings of August 1, 1848, which said "They should recollect however, the illustrious member of their bolting sisterhood who had not long worn the nether garments before she found it in her heart to disgrace her man's apparel and to cry like a woman." which shows that much like another newspaper called The Recorder, who posted a similar article, they didn't take the movement seriously. However, there were also newspapers who were all for equal rights, such as the National Reformer, which wrote on August 10, 1848, “We think it the duty of every candid person to hear every proposal for the elevation of our race...", which shows their respect towards the women and their cause. All in all, people were finally beginning to acknowledge that women were treated unfairly compared to men, and rather than ignoring it they were helping to fix it.

Women vs. Men:








Another question we were asked to answer was very similar to the first, but hit a little closer to home. It was: Does 21st century society still react differently to men and women? Well, the answer is simply yes. However, contrary to the video embedded above, which is clearly stating that a woman is shunned for doing the same thing a man is praised for, I say women are not always the victims. In no attempt to belittle the daily struggle of women trying to break free from the social boundaries made for us hundreds of years ago, I'm not afraid to say that men are also struggling. For example, if a boy so much as wears a pink shirt to school, he's going to be called "gay" or "soft", because everyone else is too afraid to break free from the boy's uniform consisting of all Nike everything, with the occasional college football sweatshirt. In short, yes, 21st century still does react differently to men and women.

Temperance Movement- Reform Sourcing Blog Post

Claypoole Johnston, David. "The Victim of the Ardent Spirits". 1837-1841. Teachushistory.org

During the time period in which this political cartoon was made (early-mid 19th century), the general public began to notice the affects of excessive drinking not only to the relationships between drinkers and their families, friends, neighbors, etc., but also their health. These realizations lead to the start of the Temperance movement, which consisted of either moderation or full abstinence from alcohol. The spirits depicted in this cartoon are each saying different things regarding the man's health, for instance the spirit at the bottom left is saying, "Just as I expected, the fellow's stomach has set my wheelbarrow on fire.", and another is shown scooping out the victim's brains warns his companion, "Be careful how you dig or you'll startle the fellow's soul, which must not be disturbed until we get the body cleaned out.". At the time, Amelia Bloomer was sharing her opinion that people had the ability to change themselves for the better regarding their use/dependence on alcohol by publishing articles in her newspaper, "The Lily", and activist Neal Dow was the man to turn Maine into the first dry state. As more and more of these types of images and newspaper articles were published, the better the circumstances became for drinkers and the people around them.

Andrew Jackson

In this lesson, the class was split into 6 groups to discuss the essential question, "Is Andrew Jackson's long-standing reputation as "the people's president" deserved? ". To find educated answers to this question, the groups were each assigned one of the 3 major decisions or achievements of Jackson's career; the Bank War, the Spoils System, and my topic, the Indian Removal Act which is more commonly known as the Trail of Tears. The Indian Removal Act was Jackson's decision to move an estimated 100,000 Native Americans off of their native land to present day Oklahoma to make room for white settlers. To make the idea seem less cruel, he claimed they would leave upon their own decision, and that he was doing the Natives a favor by giving them land with resources, and claimed that if they didn't they faced the chances of dying out as other tribes in that area had, and even said that if they left they wouldn't have to abide by American laws. Though they didn't want to be burdened by American Laws, there were even more reasons for them to stay. The land they were being pressed to leave was the land where their ancestors had lived for generations, and they didn't know what the new territory would offer them regarding resources and the customs of their neighbors.

The other two topics, the Spoils System and the Bank War were covered by other groups and discussed in class. The Spoils System was a system in which political parties gave jobs to their supporters, and Jackson believed in it. The Bank War was the result of Jackson disapproving of the way the American bank system worked, and trying to make it more beneficial to the poor. All of these topics give evidence of how he was a peoples' president, though he showed more apprehension towards the poor. Also, regarding the Indian Removal Act, he does show characteristics of a peoples' president, however he only cared about the settlers and not the Indians. 

Though embedding wouldn't work, here is a link to  my group's Google Doc on the Indian Removal Act. It covers all the information referred to in this post and more, in depth.  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1950_cxEBOPB6tK4svRfiv5WiwX25Qslrz84W8lw3pz8/edit#slide=id.p

Democracy in 1800's US

During this lesson, our class was divided into large groups to find our own answers to the questions: "How should we define democracy?", and "How democratic was the U.S. in the early 1800s?". As an answer to the first question, my group and I decided that democracy should be defined as a system of government by whole population or all eligible members of a state, typically through elective representatives. To find the answer to the second question, we looked over a series of documents showing what the United States population had the ability to give their say in, and how big decisions were made in the government. By the end of the activity, it was clear that in the early 1800's, the US was not very democratic at all.

In this poster made by my group and I to back
up our answers to the essential
questions, you can find the documents
 I referred to earlier in the post.