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!)