Angel Barney History 1700

History 1700

Chapter 1-16

2014 October 1, 2014

Chapter 1 "The First Civilization of North America"

Section: "Landscapers"

Three things I learned from this section:

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  It now seems that much of the Amazon was made by people
  
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  Farmers of the Amazon cut down less useful species and replaced them with ones that filled their needs.
  
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  Anasazis cut down and transported more than 200,000 trees to build the monumental buildings in Chaco Canyon.
  

This section interested me because; I remember seeing pictures of the Amazon River, and admiring how beautiful and lush it is, so I always imagined that much of the world would be that plentiful if we “miserable humans” didn’t exist (or at least not in a overpopulated way we do now). After reading that the one marvelous, and formally known as being “untouched” place in the world has for the most part been created by humans, gives me hope that maybe we can create lasting beauty.

2014 August 21

Chapter 2 "Old Worlds, New Worlds"

Sub-Chapter: "Eurasia and Africa in the Fifteenth Century"

Section: "Sugar and the Origins of the Atlantic Slave Trade"

Things I learned from this section:

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  Men, women, and children have been held as slaves before recorded history to the present.
  
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  It is estimated that there are 27 million people held in some form of labor bondage.
  
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  The word "slave" was originally "slav" as in Slavic. Slavic girls and women from the coasts of the Black Sea were targets of slave raids.
  
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  Sugar required intense work during planting and closes tending during the growing season.
  
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  Sugar also quickly depletes the soil.
  

It surprises me that before record time the humane race has been in slaving people. I find this unsettling, I don’t understand why we would ever think it to be ok to keep someone captive who has done nothing wrong. I am also shock that the word "slave" comes from an abbreviation of Slavic. I never thought of Slavic people as being slaves (not to say that they couldn't be slaves, it's just not what comes to my mind when I hear the word). I am curious to know if the sugar plant is still very labor intensive, if so then why do we have so much of it in our food?

2014 August 27

Chapter 3 "Colonization and Conflict in the South"

Sub-Chapter: "Chesapeake Society in Crisis"

Section: "Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade"

Things I learned from this section:

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  From 1492 to 1820 enslaved African migrants outnumbered European migrants to the new world by nearly five to one.
  
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  Slavery was indispensable to the British North America economy, however North America played a relatively small role in the Atlantic slave trade.
  
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  By the late seventeenth century Africans being sold into slavery were no longer only those who had put themselves at risk by committing crimes, running into debt, or voicing unpopular views. Instead a large portion of people how were sold into slavery were captives that were taken by soldiers or kidnappers in raids launched specifically to acquire prisoners for slave trade, even refugees could not escape the slave trade.
  

I use to think that slavery was based on racism, but now I am staring to think of it as greed. The word "slave" originally "slav" as in Slavic means that not just Africans or blacks were sold as slaves, and when the European population started to grow in America they wanted more land, so they started to push the Natives out to obtain their land. In order to do this and still feel good about them self they had to dehumanize the Natives, by calling them savages.

2014 August 28

Chapter 4 "Colonization and Conflict in the North"

Sub-Chapter: "The Mid-Atlantic Colonies"

Section: "Quaker Odysseys"

Things I learned from this section:

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  Quakers refused to swear oaths or to make war.
  
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  They allowed women public roles of religious leadership.
  
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  They deliberately wear plain clothes.
  

For the longest time I thought of Quakers as being a race, or some kind of Amish group (I was not sure which one) not a religion back in the 17-century. After reading a little about them I think I would have been a Quaker if I were a live back then.

2014 September 3

Chapter 5 "The Mosaic of Eighteenth Century"

Sub-Chapter: "Slave Societies in the Eighteenth Century"

Section: "The Slave Family and Community"

Thing I learned from this section:

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  The Africans who were brought to America had a large number of diverse cultures and different languages, in effect they often had little in common with others Africans and even less with the American born blacks.
  
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  When an owner died, black spouses, parents and children would be divided among the heirs
  
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  The height percentage of native Africans among the American blacks made it easier to retain the ways of their homelands.
  

I didn’t think of how divers Africa's cultures are. It makes since even today an African person on average can speak three languages. Many of the Africans brought here in captivity died, yet the ones who survived endured a much harsher life. Not being able to speak to others, the African blacks had a much harder time then those who were born here and accustom to dealing with the white man.

2014 September 4

Chapter 6 "Toward the War for American Independence"

Sub-Chapter: "The Imperial Crisis"

Section: “The Boston Massacre"

Things I learned from this section:

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  British troops were regularly assaulted, by civilians who threw stones, dirt and sometimes even human facies at them.
  
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  Off- duty British regulars (soldiers) would often get a job as a maritime worker, and would ask for a much lower rate than the wages paid to locals.
  
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  By 1769 brawls between British regulars and waterfront workers broke out frequently.
  

When I think of the Boston massacre I would see it as the British soldiers shooting at innocent but frustrated civilians, but now I can see that they were not so innocent. I can understand why the soldiers panicked. Being a British regulator or soldier at the time you would have had to endure constant assaults and threats, which slowly became more aggressive and violent.

2014 September 10

Chapter 7 "The America People the American Revolution"

Sub-Chapter: "The Fighting in the North"

Section: "DAILY LIVES Radical Chic and Revolutionary Women"

Things I learned from this section:

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  Clothes sewn from domestic textiles identified the men and women who wore them as friends of liberty, freed from the vanity of British fashion.
  
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  Wives and daughters from some of the wealthiest and most prominent families were the featured players in this new form of political theater.
  
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  "Dressing down" in homespun clothing contributed to the solidarity of the resistance by narrowing the visible distance between rich and poor Americans.
  

I love that Americans were determined to break away from the British that they stopped consuming British good and even starred to spin their clothes. This chapter mentions that the main players in making the domestic textiles were wives and daughter of wealthy families, who earlier were trying to out dress one another by acquiring the latest English finery. I admirer that they would see past their egos and join together and fight in their own way against oppression.

2014 September 11

Chapter 8 "Crisis and Constitution"

Sub-Chapter: "The Temptations of Peace"

Section: "Slavery and Sectionalism"

Things I learned from this section:

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  African Americans constituted for nearly 20% of the population of the colonies in 1775, and 90% of them lived in the South.
  
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  Republicans believed at the time that people without property were dangerous, because they could not be politically independent.
  
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  There were a few antislavery societies in the Upper South, and some planters in the Upper South freed their slaves.
  
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  In the North, antislavery was the norm.
  
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  The Quakers were the first to form an antislavery society in 1775.
  

I knew there were more blacks in the south, but I didn’t realize 90% of the black population was in the south. The north did not have a problem with antislavery because it did not depend on slave labor. This belief makes sense but I wonder how true it is. The texted book also states that the reason why some plantation owners released their slaves was because at the time there were other crops in demand that need less maintenances. I would like to point out, that yes a plantation own would probably not want to take care of slaves he does not need, however, because slavery is legal a plantation owner at the time could have solid the slaves rather than give them freedom.

Chapter 9 "The Early Republic"

Sub-Chapter: "The Emergence of Political Parties"

Section: "African-American Celebrations"

Things I learned from this section:

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  Black men and women were often driven out of the Fourth of July celebrations by white people.
  
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  African Americans established annual holidays to celebrate the abolition of the slave trade in Britain and the United States.
  
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  African Americans persuaded sympathetic white printers to publish poetry, slave narratives, and pamphlets composed by black authors.
  

It upsets me that racism was so strong back then that whites would make threats and assault black people in order to get them to leave the Fourth of July celebrations. I am glade that the African American fought back by making their own holidays and pushing for narratives of the black community to be publish.

2014 September 22

Chapter 10 "The Opening of America"

Sub-Chapter: "Social Structures of the Market Society"

Section: "Household Production and Consumption"

Things I learned from this section:

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  As factories grew household manufacturing all but disappeared.
  
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  Farm wives and daughters still stitched shoes and converted buttons even solid their butter, eggs and chickens, but for the most part women were not selling their manufactured goods.
  
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  The new ideal for middle-class women was to restrict their labor to perform unpaid duties known as "housework"
  
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  Europeans who visited the United States during those years remarked on how they were preoccupied with obtaining material goods.
  

This is interesting because this was the start of the busy America that we know of today. And I never thought of the household as being a place of production, only consumption.

2014 September 24

Chapter 11 "The Rise of Democracy"

Sub-Chapter: "Democracy and Race"

Section: "Racism Strikes a Deeper Root"

Things I learned from this section:

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  Back in the Jacksonian era the most popular form of entertainment was minstrel shows, which featured white actors performing as black people(the actors would paint their faces black)
  
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  The minstrel shows would depicted enslaved blacks as happy and content whereas the free blacks were shown as helpless and ignorant.
  
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  It was the unsettling economic, social, and political changes that heightened racism.
  
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  Alexis de Tocqueville noted that, "The prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where is still exists."
  

I am surprised to read that there was more racism in states that abolished slavery, yet I can't help but draw parallel lines with the Nazis. It seems to me that when a country is faced with uncertainty they seem to pick a group of people to blame. I think the same thing happened after the crash of 2008, for I remember a lot of people talking bad about Mexicans. They would blame the Mexicans for making the job market terrible by working for less than minimum wage and taking the jobs away from Americans.

2014 September 27, 2014

Chapter 12 “Afire with Faith”

Sub-Chapter: “Radical Reform”

Section: “The Beginnings of the Abolitionist Movement”

Things I learned from this section:

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  Abolitions saw that slavery contradicted the principles of the American Revolution, that all men are created equal.
  
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  Abolitions realized it that slavery goes against Christian teachings and there for is a sin.
  
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  Churches having to face this issue split in 1840 into northern and southern organizations.
  

2014 September 29

Chapter 13 “The Old South”

Sub-Chapter: “Slave Culture”

Section: “The Slave Community”

Things I learned from this section:

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  Against all odds slaves were able to gain a sense of self-worth in a religion and culture of their own.
  
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  Skilled slaves and house servants often felt superior to other slaves who worked in the fields.
  
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  Light skinned slaves sometimes deemed their color as a badge of superiority.
  
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  Slavery and white racism inevitably drove black people closer together.
  

2014 September 29, 2014

Chapter 14 “Western Expansion and the Rise of the Slavery Issue”

Sub-Chapter: “New Societies in the West”

Section: “The Mormons in Utah”

Things I learned from this section:

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  The church officials held government positions.
  
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  Brigham Young had supreme power in legislative, executive, and judicial matters, also Young was the first governor.
  
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  One third of plural marriages included at least two sisters.
  
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  The first Mormons to settle in Utah had to build an irrigated system, something that had never been done before.
  
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  Church leaders insisted that the water belonged to the community not individuals, which was a big departure from American ideals.
  

October 1, 2014

Chapter 15 “The Union Broken”

Sub-Chapter: “The Road to War”

Section: “Dueling Documents, Slavery and Secession”

Things I learned from this section:

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  In Alexander Stephens speech Slavery Is the Cornerstone, he states that Jefferson was right in thinking that the issue of slavery would split the Union, but he believes that Jefferson’s views on slavery was wrong.
  
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  Stephen believes that slavery is not an unnatural act, but rather natural, and moral. Stephen wanted to create a constitution that’s base is built around racism.
  
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  In Jefferson Davis’s article Slavery Did Not Cause the Civil War, he states that the civil war had nothing to do with slavery, but instead sectional rivalry and political ambition.
  
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  Davis blames the civil war on unjust and unequal operation of a protected tariff.
  

October 1, 2014

Chapter 16 “Total War and the Republic”

Sub-Chapter: “Emancipation”

Section: “Black Soldiers”

Things I learned from this section:

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  It was a big deal to allow blacks into the army but not the navy, because the navy already allowed blacks do to the navy’s lack of recruits.
  
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  Black soldiers were paid $10 a month with a $3 deduction for clothing, yet the white soldiers, or simply none blacks, were paid $13 a month and received $3.50 allowance for clothes.
  
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  African American soldiers had a 40% death rate higher than white soldiers.