Buffalo Soliders & Native Americans: Post-Civil War Discrimination

For one of our final units in Honors History 10, our essential question was: During westward expansion, did the impact of federal policy towards buffalo soldiers and native americans match the intent?

To answer the essential question, we first watched a PBS Learning-Media video on the topic. We also looked at this chart that gives a general overview of the situation: 

Despite being after the Civil War, blacks were still being discriminated against, and so were Native Americans. So the natives of the nearly untouched western land, and its protectors, the Buffalo Soldiers, were being treated unfairly, and pushed out of their homeland. The ‘Dawes Act’ was basically a selling off of all Native American land to whites looking to move farther out into the territory, which certainly didn’t help the Native Americans. It also took land from the Buffalo Soldiers living in the area at the time, too. Here’s an ad from around that time:

In the end, I would say that the impact of newly enforced federal policy on both Natives and the Buffalo Soldiers didn’t match up with the supposed intent of these policies. The government just didn’t care enough about the Native Americans and the Buffalo Soldiers enough to keep their best interests in mind.

More Reading:

• Dawes Act (OUP)

Freedom: Above? Or Below?

The fourth lesson in our Civil war Unit was ‘Freedom from Above or Below.’ The essential question was: “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?”

‘Freedom from above’ is when those with political power, like politicians, or just rich people changed their ways to give freedom to those below them. ‘Freedom from below’ is when the people in a lower social class, using their sheer volume, overthrows the fewer people in higher social classes to gain equality. In class, we analyzed two documents, each displaying freedom from either above or below. Using these documents, we then tried to figure out who "gave" freedom to enslaved Americans, whether this freedom came from above or below, and how much Abraham Lincoln's actions were influenced by the actions of enslaved Americans.

“Freedom to the Slaves” by Currier and Ives

One of the documents (seen above) that we analyzed was a painting depicting Abraham Lincoln apparently granting freedom to a slave who is kissing his hand and kneeling on the ground. This image depicts freedom from above, as Lincoln was of a higher social class and was seemingly freeing the slave. Freedom primarily came from above in the Civil War for the slaves because they were quite really the lowest class in society. Those powerful nobles in the upper class were really the ones who turned America into the free place it is today.

Civil War Scavenger Hunt

The essential question for this lesson was: Who was the ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war: East, West, Naval? And what are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles?

To answer this question, the class went on a civil war battle scavenger hunt. In groups of 1 or 2, little google docs were created, each representing a certain battle. Here's an example, my poster on the Siege of Vicksburg.

Battle of Vicksburg by Kurz and Allison

As you can see, it has a simple title, an image representing the battle, a shortened bit.ly link and a QR code, which both lead to a slightly longer document, with some info on the battle and a source for the information.

So, each group put their poster up around the school, with instructions on where the next one was. The class then dispersed, walking around the school, going through by the scavenger hunt, taking notes on each battle.

After we finished the physical part of the scavenger hunt, we came back to the classroom, where a Padlet was started by our teacher, where we could voice our opinions about who we thought dominated each theater. Seen below is the chart our class made:

Created with Padlet

The Captains of Industry - Heroes?

Nearing the end of school, the class is finishing up some final lessons- one of them was on Carnegie and Rockefeller, and people like them. The Essential Question posed to us in class was: Were the captains of industry a positive or a negative impact to the public? Or, to phrase it differently; Did the captains of industry have a positive or negative impact on the public?

An illustration from ‘Puck’ (an early political satire magazine) depicting robber barons relaxing on their ‘throne’ of the general popiulace

These 'captains' of industry were the bigwigs of the steel and oil industries, known as robber barons. Two prime examples of these barons are Andrew Carnegie and John Davidson Rockefeller. Carnegie held a successful monopoly on the steel industry, buying out all opposing companies and jacking up prices to profit greatly. Rockefeller started an oil company in his youth, and worked his way up the economic ladder, buying other companies, merging them with his own, and just having a general monopoly on the oil industry. These monopolies proved to greatly benefit Carnegie and Rockefeller themselves, but the general public wasn’t happy with the inflated prices due to one person having all the power, and the those struggling to stay in business alongside these tycoons despised their overpowered competition. The term ‘robber baron’ was coined as a result of this unhappiness, a derogatory term applied to wealthy and influential 19th century businessmen - basically, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and the likes. Though the public viewed these men as greedy and only in it for themselves, they did contribute a lot to society.

Carnegie donated innumerable amounts to education, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching still lives on today. Despite this generosity, Carnegie’s image was further tarnished by The Homestead Strike This strike unveiled a plan made by Carnegie to destroy the steel worker’s union - the general public was not happy about this.

Rockefeller controlled an oil company called Standard Oil, which sold most of the oil in the United States in the late 19th going into the early 20th century. This made him a lot of money. He was considered the first billionaire in the history of the world. He is also thought to be the richest man in American history. Today, the money he made would be worth more than half a trillion dollars. Rockefeller used his money to do various charitable things, including starting the University of Chicago, and also funding important medical research. Despite this charity, however, he was only recognized as a hero after his time.

For an interesting video about the robber barons and their actions, try checking out ‘The Players’ from ABC-Clio here. (An account is needed, sorry!)

The Election of 1860

The Essential Question posed to our class this week was: ‘How were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions over slavery?’ As an intro to the lesson, our class watched one of John Green’s Crash Course videos on the Election of 1860 (a link can be found at the bottom of this post). This video explained that the growing issue of slavery caused problems like Bleeding Kansas. The country was divided into many sections: Stephen A. Douglas believed that people should be able to vote on whether slavery should exist or not (popular sovereignty), John C. Breckenridge believed that slavery was the priority and all blacks were inferior to whites, Abraham Lincoln was wholly against slavery, and John Bell wanted to keep the Union as is and not change any rules, including those about slavery. Despite all of these candidates, Lincoln ended up winning this huge election, who campaigned for anti-slavery and started the Civil War. As a way to tie this all up, our class went onto the Civil War in Art website and looked at & analyzed five photographs. Our group then made a mini-documentary with Educreations to answer the essential question about the events encompassing the Election of 1860 and. My group's Educreations video is below.

Sources:

• Election of 1860 Edline Documents
• Crash Course on the Election of 1860 & the Road to Disunion
• Civil War in Art
• EduCreations

Statistics and Strategies - An Informative View of the Precursor to the Civil War

Sources:

• The Library of Congress/American Memory
• Edline Documents here

An Elephant In The Room: Slavery in America

The Essential Question for the Elephant in the Room unit was this: How do we know that the debate over slavery was the 'elephant in the room' for American politics in the early 19th century? A prime example of proving this is The Compromise of 1820 - there were now 11 of both slave and free states, as Missouri was added to the slave states to even out the addition of Maine to the free states. Missouri was going to be over the 'slave line", but the imbalance didn't seem fair to the South- they wanted the same amount of slave states as free states. However, one should note that the south didn't straight out say that this was about slavery, but everyone knew it was. Another reason slavery was the elephant in the room was because of the Compromise of 1850 - California had requested to be a free state, and a 5 part compromise was proposed by Henry Clay, which can be read about here. Another event that indicated slavery was the elephant in the room was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The North wanted to build a transcontinental railroad to make Chicago a huge trading and transportation hub (it'd be the start of the railroad) - Not only would this be a big trading opportunity, it would also make it easier to transport northerner abolitionists to the western frontiers, offsetting the imbalance in pro-slavers and anti-slavers - this in turn negated the Missouri Compromise line. One final point to reinforce slavery as the elephant in the room was Kansas’ bloody civil mini-war. A collection of outbursts so violent, the Kansas territory earned the nickname ‘Bleeding Kansas’ (1856) These bloody spats were started when some pro-slavery looters' actions raised a response from John Brown (the same man who was put to death for leading a raid on Harpers Ferry Federal Armory. He attempted to steal weapons and give them to slaves - for this was martyrized) - he killed some pro-slavery people, resulting in retaliation, and this went back and forth for a while. This fighting was publicly viewed and talked about as territorial disputes, not directly related to slavery. I've included a timeline of major events around this period, which can be seen here:

The Entrenchment of Slavery in America - The Antebellum Era

In class, we were asked:

• How did slavery become economically entrenched  in American society by the early 19th century?
• How does a system of slavery based on race affect  human dignity?
• What human characteristics does such a system tend  to ignore?

Slavery was (and still is) a huge part of America’s history. Even though it’s morally unjust, it was ingrained in society for a very long time. It was written into laws, made part of normal life. Slaves weren’t treated as free beings; they were the lowest class possible. A massive portion of the US economy was dominated by slave-produced crops, such as cotton. Here is a map that shows the spread of cotton production and slavery (and their correlation) over time. These slaves were treated as a means of boosting the economy, not as people. To further serve as a way to answer these questions, we were shown the documentary Prince Among Slaves in class. Here’s a trailer for it:

It’s about a man named Abdulrahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori, a former African Prince who was abducted, enslaved, and sent to America. This movie really gave a good perspective of the time period from someone who was enslaved.

Women's Reform: Progress Towards Equality

In class, we were asked the question of how did mid-­19th century American society react to women's demands for equality? Does 21st century society still react differently to men and women?


Throughout history, women have been viewed as gentle stay-at-home types who are classy and work for the family. Here’s some media showing women’s life at home, and some of society’s perceived expectations for them:

Expectations

In the mid-19th century, women in American society made the first major push towards equality among

genders. They were fed up with being treated as second class citizens. Women were supposed to be held in high esteem (and treated as such), though apparently that wasn’t how things actually were: “That man over there says that woman needs to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches. .. . Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles or gives me any best place. And a'nt I a woman? Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And a'nt I a woman? I would work as much and eat as much as a man, when I could get it, and bear the lash as well. And a'nt I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen em most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And a'nt I a woman?” - Sojourner Truth (1)


This was a quote from the Seneca Falls Convention (in ‘History is a Weapon’1), one of the first major big pushes in women’s rights. Here’s a list of problems (to be formed into demands) that they made: Link

This Convention sparked many a different view, with some newspapers passing it off as a joke, others strongly disagreeing, but with a few that supported the movement. You can view the reactions here The movement slowly took hold, though, as we can see nowadays.


Today, men and women are treated more equally, though there is still a wage gap, and a huge feminist movement. There’s also a large ‘varigender’ movement for those who don’t conform to male or female, and push for themselves to be recognized and treated just the same. A lot of progress has been made since the 19th century, but we’re not quite there yet.




(1) Zinn, Howard, and Sojourner Truth. History Is A Weapon. 1830.




Other Media:

Reformation of Social Constructs: Prison

http://www.ushistory.org/us/26d.asp

This source comes from ushistory.org, a site that seems pretty reputable, due to its sheer

size and precise organization. There is a list of historian contributors (http://www.ushistory.org/us/index.asp) that one can browse, too. The author(s?) are trying to bring this information to the masses, encouraging learning.

The document is rather short, but it definitely points out some key names, such as Dorothea Dix:

among others. The document doesn’t really set a past stage; it kind of assumes that one already knows a bit about the topic and is just looking for a quick summary. The author’s point of view is unbiased

except for the obvious point that life in prisons were brutal.

"Prison and Asylum Reform." Ushistory.org. June 19, 2006. Accessed January 10, 2015. http://www.ushistory.org/us/26d.asp.