The Fight For Equality Continues

          Discrimination and equality will most likely forever be an issue in this world. During the late nineteenth century, things along the lines of equality and acceptance seemed to  be headed in the right direction. However, taking a closer look into the events involving the buffalo soldiers and native Americans can prove otherwise.

          Our class followed the same routine as last lesson to learn about this topic. We watched a series of abc clio videos to introduce us to the topics while also providing us with key information. We then broke off and looked into the documents we had been given through our class edline and finished the lesson off by coming up with an essential question that was appropriate for the lesson.

          After the Civil War, The Indian Removal Act, initiated by Andrew Johnson, is initiated in order to move the Native Americans in the South to West of the Mississippi River.  As time passes, white Americans continue to move westward in search for gold. This leaves the Natives upset and they decide to fight back against the U.S. citizens starting years of wars described as the Indian Wars. In order to fight off the Natives, congress approves to create six regiments of black troops. The ninth and tenth cavalry have become well known as the buffalo soldiers. These two groups, the buffalo soldiers and the Native Americans, sparked our idea for the essential question. We came up with the question : Were federal policies against the Native Americans and Buffalo Soldiers intentionally discriminatory or well intentioned?

          Toward the 1870s, the U.S. government decided it would be best to give the natives an area as a reservation where they could live so the fighting would end. The U.S. thought that they were being reasonable by giving them land however I don't think they realized that they just forced them out of their own land where they had been living for no good reason other than to expand the nation. A lot of the natives still didn't like this and decided not to follow what the government said. From this you get the Battle of Little Bighorn.

          Following the Battle of Little Bighorn, the Dawes Act is created and in which gives citizenship to the natives as well as a specified amount of land. The U.S. thought that in doing so they were protecting the natives and helping the become civilized Americans. They also gave them each a good portion of land to farm with. However, the natives did not want to become U.S. citizens. They wanted to keep living their own culture. They also weren't used to having specific organized lands and such because it wasn't part of their culture. To add, the Native Americans were not farmers. They were hunters and gatherers for the most part. In 1879, the Carlisle Schools are created by the government to provide an education for the Native Americans. These schools I believe were created with good intentions and the thought that the country was doing something good for these native peoples. Although they were organized with well intentions from the U.S., they Americanized the Natives and broke apart their family units. 

          In my opinion, the U.S. and their federal policies started out as being intentionally discriminatory toward the Native Americans, but once they found that the natives weren't going to give in so easily, they tried their best to do what they thought was helping and protecting the native peoples  even though they were really doing significant damage to them.  They were discriminating them with somewhat well intentions if that makes sense.

         Then we have the buffalo soldiers. A job in the military was appealing to many freed slaves after the Civil War because it was a steady occupation that allowed them to move westward instead of sharecropping in the South. They were given uniforms, horses, supplies etc. However they weren't given quite the best supplies. They also were discriminated by their white commissioners because whites still weren't accepting and fair to the blacks. At the same time you have to realize that the government was providing them with occupations, supplies even if the weren't the best, and they recognized them for their successes in the future. I do not think that the federal policies and actions of the government toward the buffalo soldiers was intentionally discriminatory.  

A timeline from ABC clio of the events discussed above.

 

Things Aren't Always as They Seem

                   Our class took on the lesson this week different from the usual set up. To begin our lesson on Rockefeller and Carnegie, we watched a series of videos as a class while taking notes on a google doc that was shared with everyone. We split the notes into key people, key terms, main ideas, key events as topics and were assigned a topic in groups. We then continued to learn about the lesson through documents that were provided for us on our edline page. After we felt like we knew a lot about the lesson. We gathered as a class to come up with the essential question for this lesson that we thought would fit. We came up with a question that asked how Carnegie and Rockefeller monopolies had affected the common worker.
                 To answer this question, first you have to know what a monopoly is. A monopoly is when someone or one group of people have control of a certain commodity or service. When talking about Rockefeller, this was oil, and when talking about Carnegie, the commodity is steel.

This image shows Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company as a powerful Octopus crushing his competitors.

                Rockefeller and Carnegie can be seen to affect the common worker negatively in some aspects while also be seen as positively impacting the common worker. They each dominated in their individual industries, shutting out most of their competitors. Rockefeller would do this by reducing his costs until the competitor was run out of business, then boosting his prices to gain a profit. Carnegie took the lessons he learned from Sir Henry Bessemer back to America. These lessons helped keep the quality of steel high , while keeping the cost low. In doing so Carnegie took control of the steel industry. As both Carnegie and Rockefeller were dominating their separate industries, many workers were faced with unemployment as their company was shut down. Both individuals gained a sense of hatred from the public.
                   However, despite their public views and individual wealth, they continued to better the nation. They largely contributed to helping the economy in America. Carnegie helped the country become the country with the largest steel production in the world, surpassing Great Britain. Rockefeller started exporting his oil to other countries, also helping the American economy. In addition both men donated extremely large portions of their wealth to universities, charities and much more. Many of Rockefeller's donations went unnoticed by the public. Rockefeller once said in an interview with William Hoster, " I believe the power to make money is a gift of God ... to be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind. Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience." I think it's safe to say Rockefeller stuck to his words when it has been said that he gave away 500 million  of his 900 million dollar fortune. He gave a sum of money to Spelman College in Georgia which educated African- American women, founded the University of Chicago, helped provide relief after World War I, and like Carnegie put his money toward philanthropic institutions one of which helped cure yellow fever. Carnegie put his money toward libraries, church organs, benefits and funds for his former employees, and much more. The Carnegie Corporation of New York was created in 1911 in order to distribute his money for educational and research purposes. "Rags to riches" is a concept proven true by the one and only Carnegie who rose to being one of the wealthiest men in America from living his earlier years in poverty.  The duo demonstrated to others how to become a successful business man and how to distribute one's fortune respectively even though being negatively perceived by the public.
                  In the end, I think that Rockefeller and Carnegie positively impacted the society and common workers, more than they negatively impacted them. I believe that the negative public opinion was out of envy and jealousy of their wealth and successful business tactics. Society should consider both the positive and negative actions of an individual before coming to a conclusion about them. This concept isn't as easy as it sounds, but it is always important to at least give it a try.

Picture and quote document here.

Freedom from Where?

This lesson, we were presented with the essential question " Who 'gave' 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 begin, we needed to know the difference between freedom from above and freedom from below. Freedom from above is when someone of a higher class or someone with power is giving the freedom to the people or someone from a lower social status. Freedom from below is the people in the lower class gaining their own freedom without the help of a greater power. Next, we looked at two images and decided if they were freedom from above or below. The images are shown below. 


The first picture looks like Abraham Lincoln is lifting up and freeing the person. Since Abraham. Lincoln has a social status that is above the slaves, and he is doing the freeing, it is considered freedom from above. The second image is the opposite. It looks as if the slave has picked himself up and given himself freedom without any help from someone who has more power in which case it would be freedom from below. 

Next, we analyzed documents from Abraham Lincoln and tried to figure out if they were examples of freedom from above or freedom from below. The documents we looked at were excerpts The Emancipation Proclamation, The Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, and his reply to an open letter from Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune. The excerpts can be found here. The quote that really capture Lincoln's opinions toward slavery at the time is as follows, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or to destroy slavery." . Lincoln wasn't so much as concerned about slavery as he was the Union staying in tact. We also took a look at two other documents. Document Y showed how the South was outraged and didn't acknowledge Lincoln as their President. Document x shows an example of freedom from below because the slaves are pouring into cities and towns to make their cause known which is upsetting the people in the cities.  Lastly, we took a look at the Thirteenth Amendment which is created to abolish slavery.

I think that in the end, freedom came from above just as much as it came from below. Even though it was formally abolished by the man who had the most power in the nation at the time, without the slaves making it known what they wanted, Lincoln may have never thought to end slavery considering he was a slave owner himself!

Two years ago Jason Collins became the first player of a US mainstream sport to announce that he was homosexual. The NBA player was taking a big chance by coming out because he knew he was going to be all the media was talking about, and he didn't know how his teammates and coaches would now think of him. There is a lot of debate on equality and marriage for gay individuals over the last couple of years and I think this is an example of freedom from above because you now have this well known sports figure who can help other sports players and individuals everywhere make the decision to come out, live the way they want to, and fight for their equality. To view more see the video below. 
 

Battles Everywhere!

Recently, my class learned about the battles at different theaters of the Civil War in a unique way. Theaters referred to where the battles were and the naval theater involves bodies of water. However I was absent and could not participate in the main parts of the activity, but I did learn about it from my classmates. What I heard was that in order to answer the essential questions , " Who was the ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war; East, West. or Naval?" and "What are some commonalities you can identify in the reason for the result of battles?", a scavenger hunt was out together by the class. Each member of the class was responsible for making a google doc with information they found about their assigned battle. The google docs had to include the title of the battle, the victor, the theater, and two bullet points describing the battle. After the google docs were complete, everyone created their own QR code with a QR generator that linked to their google doc when it was scanned. This way, everyone could access their google doc. The QR codes were all printed and put up in various spots around our school. Our class then got to walk around and scan into each others google docs and put the information about the battle in our Evernotes. At the bottom of each google doc there was a clue that lead you to the next QR code's location.

After the scavenger hunt was completed (and I was back in school) , we took a closer look at just who won each of the battles and where they were located to try and find patterns. We made a Padlet as a class to display what we found. My classes Padlet is below.

Created with Padlet

From the padlet, you can conclude that the Union dominated most of the Western and Naval theater. Battles that took place in the Western theater like the battle of Vicksburg and battle of Shiloh show that the Union was able to be victorious because they outnumbered the Confederacy. The Union had more troops and could suppress the the confederate forces during these battles. To add, the Union had more manufacturing plants to supply them with ammunition and other supplies they needed, and they had a stable transportation service. The Union won most battles in the Naval theater because they had a better and well trained navy. The battles of Fort Henry and Donelson help prove this becasue they were ready with more ships on near by rivers and were ready to attack. Also from the padlet, you can conclude the Eastern theater was primarily dominated by the Confederacy. The Confederates won the battle of Fprt Sumter and the battle of Bull Run in the eastern theater by remaining composed and well supplied. The Confederates had more supplies available to them in the East where the Union had their plans for supplies mostly in the West. 

I wish I wasn't absent for the scavenger hunt because from what I heard it was many people's favorite lesson this year. I think its always refreshing when when you get the chance to get up and walk around while learning instead of sitting at a small desk the whole time. It also keeps the lesson interesting when you don't know where something is located and have to go out and find it.The padlet really helped me to grasp a lot of this information since I was out while it was all being collected during the scavenger hunt. My friends were really helpful with getting me all of the information I needed and making sure I knew what happened!  

Let's Vote!

How were the results of the  Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions  over slavery?

The above question was our essential question for this lesson. It is asking us if the opposing opinions on slavery affected the results of the Election of 1860. To start off this lesson, our class watched the John Green video below. 

The John Green video showed us how the divisions in slavery caused Bleeding Kansas, affected the opinions on railroads, caused controversy with John Brown, made debate topics for Dred Scott and Sanford, etc. Then we took as look at theme map below. This map clearly shows how depending on where people lived there were different views on slavery in that area which influenced who the people in the area voted for in the election of 1860. Next we made an Educreations to tell the story in pictures. Our Educreation can be found here. 

A Nation Divided

       The Civil War caused one nation to divide into two sides with two different opinions on slavery. The North was against it while the South was for it. At the time, the North and the South functioned very differently and that is what brings us to the essential question for this unit, The question is as follows: How did the differences between the North and South affect each region's strategy and success in the war? To try and answer this question, everyone in my class made their own infographic displaying the advantages of each region. From creating this infographic, I think that the most important advantage the North had which helped their success, was their population.Take a closer look at my infographic to see more.

A Big Issue with Little Resolution

The controversial topic of slavery continued to be a topic of constant debate and change through the nineteenth century.  You have the antislavery North against pro slavery South. Both have strong feelings for what the believe in and both can't seem to permanently compromise on the matter. Some may say that slavery was an "elephant in the room". This phrase is used to describe something that is known but being ignored. So how do we know that slavery was an elephant in the room? That was our job to find out.

As a class, we looked at many events leading up to the civil war. In groups, we made a timeline using the RWT timeline application. We started with the Compromise of 1850. This compromise was a temporary solution to a never ending problem. The Gadsden Purchase that followed in 1853 worried Northern antislavery advocates because they couldn't get to this new territory as fast as the southerners could to settle it and vote it as either a free or slave state. As a result, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed which allowed Northerners to get to these new territories and settle them by railroad easier than the South could. They wanted to settle and get enough people there to vote them as salve states. The result, "Bleeding Kansas" The Missouri Compromise no longer is relevant considering it isn't being put into affect. The solutions still didn't do the trick.  To follow, Dred Scott thinks he should be free because he and his wife live in a free state, but court rules he is a slave and slaves aren't free or citizens. There was still so much controversy and no solution. This is shown when Charles Sumner makes a fiery anti slavery speech and is later attacked with a cane by Preston Brooks. This proves that slavery is still an ongoing unsolved issue that cause civilized men to resort to violence to show what they believe.

My timeline of events that I created is below.

The information used to create this timeline has been linked above in the text and from the class notes slides I linked to word "class". The images are from Wikipedia, ushistory.org, causesofthecivilwar.wikispaces.com, gadsdenpurchase.com, pbs.org, and licoln.lib.niu.edu  .Also used was the "America: Pathways to Present" textbook.  

Just A System

Slavery was a much debated issue in American during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. People began to think that slavery was declining in the eighteenth century, but they would soon find out that they were very wrong. To begin our discussing slavery before the civil war, our class took a look at slavery in the  Founder's Constitution. We found that in the constitution, there was a ten dollar maximum tax on each imported slave. Also in article 4 section 2 clause 3, it states that any enslaved person should not be permitted to escape into another state and if they do, they have to be returned to their work place. The final clause we read says that for every five slaves, three would be counted in the House of Representatives. This document is evidence of slavery being entrenched because people during the time would know this constitution and respect it and take it as slavery being established in the country when it was founded.

Next, we took a look at the cotton gin by reading Cotton is King: Slavery is Entrenched in American Society 

Cotton is King: Slavery is Entrenched in American Society.and watching a  video on the cotton gin.  The cotton gin was invented in 1792 by Eli Whitney to increase the profit margin for cotton by cleaning the sticky seeds from it. Little did he know, this invention would have a huge impact on American history. By looking at a module showing the relationship between the cotton production and slavery after the cotton gin was invented. The spread of cotton and slavery over the course of almost 100 years shows a demarcation in slavery. In 1790, the entire south produced only 1.5 million pounds of cotton. That number rises to 331 million pounds in 1830. Then, it goes onto to rise to 2.28 billion pounds of cotton that was being produced in 1860. Obviously, there is a clear demand and rise in production of cotton. While the amount of cotton that is being produced keeps rising, so does the slave population. In 1790, the slave population is at 690,000. It increases to 2,010,000 slaves in 1830 and to 3,954,000 in 1860. Take a look at these pictures from the module below. 

Then, we started to take a closer look at the morality of slavery. First, we analyzed three documents on Frederick Douglass, George Fitzhugh, and John Brown. John Brown was against slavery. He wanted to lead his men into Harper's Ferry Virginia to gather weapons and create an uprising against slavery. He was stopped and most of his men were killed and captured. Smith didn't believe in peaceful protest. His stride to abolish slavery took him to extreme lengths and his actions cause mixed reactions from the north and harsh reactions in the south. George Douglass was for slavery and thought that it was beneficial to society and protected the poor. He says that slaves are being treated better than the free people of the north. Also, his sates, "negro slaves are the happiest and freest people in the whole world". That is a quite shocking statement to hear today because we know that that is definitely not the case. Frederick Douglas was the first black citizen to hold a high ranking position in society. He was asked to speak at a Fourth of July celebration years prior to the civil war and he made it clear that he didn't feel like celebrating the Fourth of July and liberty was right because there were so many people enslaved.

In groups we were asked to read about one of the three men I described above and create an image surrounded by words form the documents we analyzed about them. My group did John Brown and the image is below.

To further look into slavery, we watched the docudrama Prince Among Slaves. This video told us the story of Abdhul Rhaman. Abdhul was a prince from Futa Jallon until he was sold into slavery. Once he was sold into slavery, his hair which represented his nobility from Futa Jallon was forced cut. He was mocked and given the nickname "prince" when trying to explain his high ranking position from his home. Because of his race, Abdhul Rhaman was forced into slavery and forced to adapt to a new life where he was part of the lowest ranking class. His identity was stripped form his and his life was taken up by unhappiness and working. When a system of slavery is based upon race, it makes people feel as if they are better and worse the others which is no way to think. The system of slavery  ignored everything about their slaves except the fact that they were owned and used to work and make profit. It ignored the fact that these slaves had identities and were all individual people, and instead they were seen as just a system. 

The Women Work Wonders

For many years women have been seen as less than men. However, the opportunities given to women and the role of women in our society has become greater as the years go on. The Women's Reform movement in the mid 19th century was able to give this issue a jump start. Take a look at this image below.

This image is the Sphere of Women. I marked this image up in class on the app to skitch to highlight the parts of the image that gave us an insight on the role of women in the 19th century. As you can see the obvious jobs that of women from that time and still today is cleaning and taking care of the children which includes educating them. Also, the curtain in the background suggests that the women's job is done "behind the scenes" and in the comfort of their own homes. 

The document The Rights of Women: Laws and Practices, gives us an idea of just what restrictions were put specifically on women during this time. For example, it is stated that is is unacceptable for women to speak in public. They also cannot own land once they are married and men beating their wives was not seen as such an awful thing like it would be seen as today. Women were something that a man could own and control. 

Finally, something was done about this issue. The Seneca Falls Convention was held in New York and The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was created. This was resolutions to some of the restrictions I mentioned earlier from the Laws and Practices document. Reactions to this sudden demand for women's rights created mixed reactions from the public. This was the first time that the women's right to vote was publicly demanded. One newspaper, The Mechanics Advocate, Female Department, was speaking out to all the women saying that if they really were a true women they would know that demanding rights and promoting equality was  not womanly and not right. This newspaper even apologizes for the womens' actions. However, The North Star published an article saying that since the rights of colored people are now being recognized than women's should as well. 

Obviously, the way women are looked at and treated has drastically changed today since this time. I as a women do not feel like I have any less power than a male. Some people do still find inequality between sexes as an issue today. For example, women are sometimes still payed less then man for the same jobs. Women have gained a better reputation and been given more rights as the years have passed and I think a lot of this was a result of the women who organized the Seneca Falls Convention and finally spoke out about equality.

For a quick clip with additional information and quotes from the convention, watch the video below:

   

Let's Hear the Women!

 The Temperance Movement was a reform movement that wanted to reduce alcohol consumption. Many women got involved in this movement who were witnessing the negative effects of alcohol by their husbands who would return to them drunk.  Amelia Bloomer was one reformer from the Temperance movement who published her own newspaper titled "The Lily" is the mid 19th century in order to express her opinions on this matter (as well as other subjects) and get people to join her efforts in temperance. This newspaper is from someone who is involved very much in this movement during the time period.I recently found a copy of one of her papers and selected a few excerpts below. During this time period, you could see many liquor selling places on every block. Alcohol was extremely popular. By this time, people were now starting to drink hard liquor and a lot more of it. This caused men to come home and act wrongly to their wives. Divorce wasn't so popular at this time, so many women were left feeling scared and trapped with their husbands.

The excerpts below are just very small parts to the whole newspaper. The full newspaper can be found  here and gives the reader a complete picture of the event because it has so much good detail and it is coming from Amelia Bloomer from the specific time period. 

In the excerpt above, Amelia Bloomer is trying to engage everyone into this movement. She refers to alcohol as evil and wants to "rid" the land of it. She shows her emotional involvement with this quote. She also shows how she the issues keep growing and becoming more consistent and worse as the time is going on and people are discovering hard liquor. 

I think this excerpt above is evidence to what I mentioned before about how men would come home and abuse their wife. Men had a sense of power of women during this time and Amelia Bloomer wants to let people know that women should not accept being treated harshly when their husbands are under the influence of alcohol. 

This last excerpt really shows how strongly she believes that the issue is mostly men who don't have empathy for their wives or who don't respect or understand their wives. All in all, I think it was the people like Amelia Bloomer who was able to gather people form all walks of society into this movement by her meaningful publications of "The Lily".

Primary Source Citation:
Bloomer, Amelia. The Lily, May 01, 1854. Accessed January 21, 2015.     http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/ref/collection/p267401coll36/id/619

What Do You Think?

      

Is Andrew Jackson's long-standing reputation as "the people's president" deserved? Why? Why not?         Andrew Jackson was one of the presidents of the United States. He did many things in order to try and make his country better including putting the spoils system into place, completing the indian removal, and his involvement with the bank war. Taking a closer look at these three events, his reputation as "the people's president" may be questioned. My group in class was given the job to learn about the spoils system. Our project we put together is below.

We learned that the spoils system was put into place by Andrew Jackson that let the people in his campaign have government positions. He did this to bribe people into joining his party. If his friends and followers are getting these high ranking positions just because they support Jackson, then how do we know if they are qualified and fit for the position? Thinking back to the essential question if this makes Jackson the people's president, I would have to say no so much. He is pleasing the people who he is giving positions, but he isn't concerned about what is best for the country and everyone else in it. If he was, then people deserving of their positions would be put into the government jobs.

After sharing our own presentation, it was time to listen to the two other topics. First, the bank war. Andrew Jackson fought against the wealthy because he wanted equal class/ He also wanted to keep small businesses because he feared the big corporations would gain too much power since he saw them as having nothing to lose. He also didn't want the bank to become too powerful because these not elected people were running it and could essentially take control. However, he was warned that failing to agree to the new bank charter would threaten his re election and cause an economic collapse which it did. Does this make Jackson the people's president? I think this is a tough one to choose because Andrew Jackson had the best intentions for his people and wanted to help the middle and lower classes, but in the end people still suffered as a result.

Next, the Indian removal. Basically, Andrew Jackson made five different tribes move out west in order to expand the country by gaining more land. He claimed that the removal of the Indians should be voluntary although they felt like they were being forced. The Indians couldn't leave peacefully, so war and law was used to move them out as peacefully as they could. I think that in this case, his is only being the people's president to the Americans because he was doing good by trying to expand, but he wasn't so nice to the Indians in doing so.

All in all I think this question doesn't have a clear right answer. I believe that Andrew Jackson wanted the best for his people and tried to give them what they wanted. However, he may have not gone about everything the right way. What do you think?

To learn more about Andrew Jackson you can watch this Crash Course video below!

Defining Democracy

 How should we define democracy? How democratic was the US in the early 1800s?

To find the answers to the questions above, my class divided into groups and we analyzed the documents given to us. We looked at the images and charts and noticed how the requirements (mostly of property) for voting right decreased over the years and that instead of legislature being the method of voting, the people were the ones voting. Also the painting we looked at below shows people of different ages and occupations all coming together and all voting. This shows how voting was becoming a right that more people had.  We also read quotes and an article on the Dorr War. We learned form the quotes that even if a man is poor, he could be wiser than a man of wealth in which case he should be allowed to vote. Also, the Dorr War article shows how little violence was involved while trying to become a more democratic country.


 The image above is a picture of the poster my group put together with images of the documents we analyzed with captions we created. We came up with our own definition of democracy which is that democracy is a system of government where the power in vested in the people and through freely elected representatives. Also, we came to the conclusion that in the early 1800s, the US was not very democratic, but as the years progressed, it became a more and more democratic country.