Soon we will be studying the Civil War. As we've discussed in class, there were a number of issues that contributed to the sectional conflict between the North and the South, such as the fact that the northern states felt the need for high protective tariffs while the southern states believed that free trade was in their best interests. When causes of the Civil War are discussed nowadays, however, there is one issue that dominates the rest. That is, of course, the issue of slavery.
African slaves came to America with the first white settlers. Slavery was common in each of the colonies, as it was in most west European countries. Over the years, however, many began to question the morality of slavery. In the north, where the amount of agricultural work gradually decreased and was replaced by factory work in the Industrial Revolution, the need for slaves disappeared first. Revivals in Europe led directly to the prohibition of slavery in the early nineteenth century (1800s) and many northeners began to call for an end to slavery in the US.
In the South, however, many believed that raising cash crops was impossible without the cheap labor that slaves provided, and they stubbornly refused to acknowledge the immorality of owning other human beings. Abolitionists in the North believed that the power of the federal government ought to be used to free the slaves, and soon the issue was the most hotly debated topic of the day. Soon the South, feeling that its best interests were no longer being served by remaining a part of the United States, chose to secede (leave the Union), and a war broke out when the North determined to not allow that to happen.
In history class we often have to focus on "political history" - the big names, big issues, and big events of the past. It's important to remember, though, that history is the story of human beings that were just like people today. They lived their lives just as you do, with your individual dreams and problems and familiar surroundings. This week we will study the lives of slaves in America. Follow the link http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/subjects/slavery.htm and choose one of the topics then select an essay to read and review.
As usual, your essay must be 200 words long and followed by at least two responses to the essays of your classmates (total 150 words). Thus far your work has been excellent, so I encourage you to keep up the good work. God bless!
Honestly it is hard to believe that someone would have the heart to put poor innocent people through the kind of things that they did especially for people to make other people be their slaves for life or until they decide their finished with them. I feel people must have been very prideful and full of hate if they had the guts to do that kind of stuff to others. Frederick Douglass, was a former slave who had spent basically his entire life as a slave was finally released when America’s independence came around. I can only image what kind of life that would be; better yet I couldn’t even imagine that, I would be miserable. I think that everyone should be able to have a life. God put us on earth to have “life” and I think any chance the slaves had were ruined and just gone...
ReplyDeleteI think that America needed to “open their eyes” during that time and I feel they may have just cracked it open not very significant change. America still needs change and I think or at least I hope that it may happen soon in the very near future
~ Amanda Michelle Wiggington
Harriet Tubman:
ReplyDeleteHarriet Tubman was born in the year 1820 as a slave. She was the sixth of eleven children, and was separated from her family at a very young age. She began to work as a slave at the young age of seven. She suffered sleeping spells most of her life due to stepping between a slave and his master who was beating him where she received a fractured skull while in her teenage years. She married a free man and remained a slave. She escaped to Philadelphia in 1849 where she got her freedom. Harriet returned to free her fellow slaves and was one of most well-known conductors of the Underground Railroad. At one point, a bounty for her capture was worth forty-thousand dollars. She led so many slaves into freedom that she was called the “Black Moses”. Her other roles included a nurse, a scout, and a spy during the Civil War for the Union army. After the Civil War, she lived with her husband who was a soldier for many years. She attempted to build homes for poor Blacks, but the funds were difficult to get. She died in 1913 as a famous Black American woman.
Booker T. Washington was probably born on April 5, 1856 in Hale's Ford. Even with nine years he had to work in coal mines, because his parents were very poor. Because he absolutely wanted a good education, he could stop working at age 16 and attending school. The problem was that his parents had no money for school. Therefore, he went 200 miles to Hampton Institute, where he work as a janitor and his education board funded.
ReplyDeleteAfter he had finished school, he became a teacher because of his opinion, the equality of human would be raise. In 1881 he founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. Because he collected money, he was a famous orator. In 1895 he gave a speech at the opening of the Cotton States Exposition. In his Atlanta Compromise speech, he said that blacks their constitutional rights could by their own economic and moral advancement rather than through legal and policy changes to secure. Some African Americans were angry, but the whites were in his view.
After the election of President William McKinley in 1898, some people wanted that he gets a cabinet post. But Booker T. Washington refused, because he only wanted to work outside of politics. On 14 November 1915, he died.
Honestly I think the link you gave us did not have alot of information, or maybe it was just me and I didn't understand the page so Im just going to talk about slavery in general and i already talked about this in one past assignment and hope that does not decrease my grade.
ReplyDeleteI think slavery was an awful thing, just thinking that you can use someone just because it's different than you doesn't mean you can own him/her.
And if I knew someone that have slaves I would think that person is lazy stupid and ignorant becasue is not cool at all. Now, Im not trying to make controversy or something but I think that kinda help us today, I explain...Without slavery everybody would still in their native countries for instance, black people in africa and not in Europe or North America, Indians from South America in South America and not in Europe. I think it help humanity to share culture, share and mix races and now everybody is together, and i guess that if slavery would not happened there would be even more racism than there is now. That's what i think and everybody is welcome to respect my thoughts. I still thinking that slavery is super awful and nobody deserve to live that.
This week I will write my essay on the former slave Frederick Douglass. On July 4, 1852 Douglass was in New York, already a former slave, celebrating America’s independence when he noticed something. Douglass was celebrating freedom in a sea of white people, he remembered that his brothers and sisters were in bondage while he was free. Douglass was a speaker at the celebration as an abolitionist (at this point Frederick Douglass was an United States ambassador to Haiti). When he began his speech Douglass asked the Northerners what did he have to celebrate? He knew that human beings were being bought, sold, and forced to work against their will during the celebration of freedom. Douglass said it like it was, hypocrisy. Some interesting facts about Frederick Douglass: after escaping from slavery in 1838 he fled to England and wrote The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, in 1847 he came back from England and purchased his freedom from his owners, the Douglass became an United States ambassador to Haiti, and also wrote The North Star. I believe that Fredrick Douglass was a great influence in the fight against slavery. Slavery was not the only cause for the Civil War, but it was a great contributor.
ReplyDeleteSojourner Truth:
ReplyDeleteSojourner Truth was born in the year 1797, she was born into slavery never really standing a chance.Sojourner was actually given a different name at birth, Isabella Baumfree , she had a totally of thirteen brothers and sisters and but sad as it is she never got to meet them because they were sold before she really got the chance to. All of her smarts come thanks to a Quaker family that she lived with, through them she gained an appreciation for politics, religion, and public speaking. Which were the door opener to the rest of her life. Sojourner's passion in life was to voice her opinion on the rights of slaves and women... Her voice is one that we women can all give thanks to, because she started the tidal wave that gave us our rights today... now we are as opposed to only half of what the man is. Throughout all her years of life she never learned to read or write, that goes to show her intelligence and knowledge came souly from within. Sojourner died in 1883 at her home in battle creek... her life had more of an impact on us than we will ever truly comprehend.
K.Sellmaier,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your essay it was so good!
Booker T. Washington had to have been a very determined man to spend his whole life perusing his dreams in order to accomplish his goals. I can honestly say I don't believe I'd be that determined in getting an education. Maybe it's just because I'm so used to having it that I just take it for granite... who knows. But anyways great job on your essay!
Lydia,
So after reading your essay I discovered that I'm pretty sure my person knew your person which I find to be pretty cool. It also seems that Frederick Douglass was a pretty big contributor to African-American history. It does my heart good to know that he fled slavery and actually made a life for himself that takes great courage. Great job (:
Amanda,
I couldn't agree with your essay more. I think it is absolutely terrible what happened to all those poor slaves. Like seriously how cold hearted does a person have to be to put a someone through such torture and pain. Great job on your essay you made a very good point.
Frederick Douglass:
ReplyDeleteThis week I decided to write my essay about Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey or Frederick Douglass. He was born on February 14,1818.He's one of the most important Black-American of United States. Since he was little he was a slave. One day he decide to escape because he was tired to be beaten. In New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1838, He married Anna Murray. After a bit they met Nathan Johnson, a black man that offer them to stay at his house. In this period he was reading Sir Walter Scott's book The Lady of the Lake; he didn't want to take his old identity so he changed his last name as Douglass that was a character of that book.He found difficult to looking for work in New York City, despite doing very good in all manuality stuff. He dead on February 20, 1895.
Marta Civettini:)
Josiah Henson is one of the most famous abolitionists in American history. Henson was born as a slave in Maryland. He definitely had been through a lot, by the time he was eighteen years old he had already been sold three times. While living in Kentucky, he became a Methodist minister and was strongly opposed to slavery. Even though he had raised the money to be set free, his master refused to let him go, so he fled to Canada by using the underground railroad (which wasn’t a railroad, but was a system of roads and secret places to say). While living in Canada Henson opened an institution for slaves who had escaped.
ReplyDeleteHenson wrote an autobiography called Life of Josiah Henson; it was this book that inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write her famous book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This book was used to expose the evils of slavery. It was this that made Henson famous, so famous that he would travel around giving speeches.
Slavery was a great evil in America. There is a lot of stuff in American history that’s pretty embarrassing on our part. We must move on and learn from our mistakes
Slavery is a terrible and awful thing that people saw more often in back in the day. Slavery binds people’s attitudes and ideas of people and pretty much everything in general. I think of not only the people who own the slaves but how the slaves view it. The slaves would have to feel awful and majorly compressed. They may have freedom as a country, but really they don’t have that much freedom because of the slave’s owner who is mostly a low down person who doesn’t care about anybody but him or herself. Frederick Douglass is a man who realized and understood that slavery was a common thing. Slavery back then was mostly black people doing the work, which I think it is racist and uncalled for. If you have a condition where you can’t work you should treat the people who work for you like regular people not as slaves. Douglass was correct, slavery is hypocritical and a very wrong thing. I feel so bad, for those people that got treated like dogs. Sometimes I wonder if the people even wonder a stop and think how the treat those slaves that they own, they are still people. God doesn’t judge anyone.
ReplyDeleteHarriet Tubman was born in 1819 or 1820 in Maryland. At 12 years old she was beat so hard that she suffered a skull fracture for not helping tie a man that tried to escape recently. This really showed her that she needed to escape. At age 25 she married a free African-American slave named John Tubman which gave her freedom. Afraid of becoming a slave again she fled to Canada at age 30. On the way she stopped in Philadelphia where she learned about the organization called “The Underground Railroad”. She helped out everywhere she could alongside John Brown and Frederick Douglas. She was suppose to go on Browns Raid on Harpers Ferry but was sick and didn’t go. This raid led to Browns capture and death. Afterwards she moved her family to Canada and returned to Maryland many times to help free over 300 slaves. She also worked as a nurse and spy during the Civil War. When the Civil War was over she moved to Auburn, New York, where she married Nelson Davis. Later she became involved with women’s voting rights. In 1908 she built a house for the elderly where she worked until she died in 1913.
ReplyDeleteSlavery was very common in the history. On July 4th, 1852; Douglass went to the celebration. He was a speaker on the celebration in Rochester, New York. He asked what there was for him to celebrate. Douglass said of the anniversary of American independence: "I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine." His strong speech told that he hated slave and he against that without afraid. He was a very strong man; he went out there and against the slave, against the unfair world, and tried his best to help the slave problem. And it really did work some. Douglass said this at the end of his speech: "Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival." This told the honest and fiery, he wanted to tell America what they did to their own country. He wanted people to realize what they had done. He was a very brave man.
ReplyDeleteMarta,
ReplyDeleteYour essay was pretty nice, it told very clearly about what he life was. Very good, I like it a lot. And by the way, we talked about the same person, but main on different things, that is very nice actually. I learned stuff from yours. Good job.
Catelyn,
Great job to you and your essay ☺. I learned a lot of stuff from your essay. She is a very strong woman, she led to against slavery and she is a woman. She did that, it just hurt my heart. Your essay is really nice. Great one.
Bethany,
I always like your essay, especially about slavery, so does this one too. Because I feel the way just like the way you feel about slavery. It was terrible and couldn’t imagine. And Douglass, a very strong man. He was so brave to tell the world that it was a wrong thing and how terrible it was. He was so brave to stand out and tell the world what we did. He was a great man. Your essay was great. Good job.
Catelyn:
ReplyDeleteWow Harriet Tubman was quite a person. I cannot imagine being a slave, and I really cannot imagine being a slave at only seven years old. At seven you should be playing with your dolls. Hearing or reading about how the lives of slaves were (and are still in other countries) makes you understand why so many risked their lives to stop it. Great job on your essay! Full of useful information.
Jessi:
It's cool to learn about the effective women who were the founders of our rights today. Sojourner Truth is an inspiration not only for women or blacks, but I believe also for all people. Great job on your essay :)
Bethany:
I did mine also on Frederick Douglass. It is awful to think how people have been treated, but God will have justice. Great job!
Patricia,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your essay it was very detailed and informative. It had a lot of good information in it and it was just overall very good. People back then, obviously, wanted to escape slavery and in her time it that tunnel was a lot of peoples “freedom ticket.”
Lydia,
I have to agree with your essay, because I wrote mine on the same person…. One thing that stuck out to my mind, was that statement that he said slavery was like hypocrisy. For some reason that really stuck In my mind and made me think about things. Slavery is and bad thing and I understand what he was saying when he said that it was like hypocrisy.
Daniel,
It’s good to have your own opinions and I agree that the slave owner is lazy and stupid. He or she needs to think about what they are doing and rethink it.
For my essay this week I choose to talk about slavery. Slavery was very common a while ago but very very awful. I cant imagine owning someone and treating them that bad. It’s a very sad thing and now is rarely talked about. In the early thirty’s and forty’s they started to interview old slaves that survived they had video clips, it was broadcasted on the radio. And many more things. They were trying to get the word out about slavery. Harriet Smith was a slave and so was her husband when she was interviewed she was ninety-one. A quote from her interview is “He’d been to church. I think he went to gin that night to carry a bale of cotton. An’ this Walter Byers sat down on a seat an’ a whole passel of them was settin down talkin. An’ when the time come to his cotton, they killed him an’ , an’ they killed my brother - - my husban’ on the was from the cedear break.” Clearly slavery was a brutal and harsh thing. Her husband sadly died in slavery but she got to see freedom and realize not everyone is bad and there is freedom after all.
ReplyDeleteAmanda I really enjoyed reading your essay and I completely agree with it. Yeah it is very very hard to believe that someone could put someone threw such things. Slavery was an awful thing and will never be forgotten. Your right it would be a miserable life to have to be in slavery most of your life. It is very sad and very pitiful. My heart goes out for all of those people that were put threw that.
ReplyDeletePat I really enjoyed reading your essay as well. Harriet Tubman was a brave woman she always had it rough, but yet was never selfish. She always had others on her mind as well. She was so brave to help free three- hundred slaves. I can not imagine being that brave and helping that much. All in all your essay was very well written and I enjoyed it very much good job pat!
ReplyDeleteHarriet Tubman & The Underground Railroad
ReplyDeleteHarriet Tubman was a very honorable woman and almost like the Moses of her time. She risked her life countless times for the sake of other slaves. Harriet was born in either 1819 or 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland. Mrs. Tubman suffered too many years before she escaped and married her husband, John Tubman, who was a free African-American. In the fear of being capture a slave once more, Harriet escaped to Canada. She met William Still at one of her stops in Philadelphia; William was the Stationmaster of the Underground Railroad of which she would help with. As she snuck family members to Canada, she helped other slaves escape as well. It is believed that Harriet Tubman helped free more than three hundred people. During the Civil War, Harriet was a nurse and, wildly enough, a spy. After the war, she moved to New York where was extremely involved in movements for the rights of women. She married Nelson Davis in New York and also built a house for the elderly: a nursing home, basically. She worked there from its opening in 1908 until her death in 1913. Harriet was buried with military honors.