Buffalo soilders and Native Americains

The class started a new lesson called "buffalo soldiers". To prepare for this lesson the class watched videos on ABC-CLIO. We then came up with the essential question which was, " Did the government have good intentions when enacting policies for westward expansion? In what ways did the policies impact the natives and buffalo soldiers?". To answer these questions, we analyzed documents the created multiple choice questions that not only were for our exam, but to help better comprehend the essential question.
 

When enacting the policies for the westward expansions, the government had good intentions. The goal of the westward expansion was so that the government had more control over America and to accomplish that, they created policies to wipe out the Native Americans. An example was the Dawes act. Stated in the Dawes act reading, it was "an act to provide for the allotment of lands in severally to Indians on various reservations". This policy specifically focused on trying to wipe out the Native culture although it was said to help reserve land for Native . Another example was the Carlisle school system. This system was created to Americanize the Indian youth. Henry Pratt, founder of this school system, thought this would be good for the native children. It stated " kill the Indian in them and save the man." This shows that Pratt had good intention because he believed that the better way was to take way the native culture.

http://mtviewmirror.com/western-expansion-leads-to-imperialism/

 With all these policies created it caused a rise up in which was when the Buffalo soldiers were created. Buffalo soldiers were African American soldiers that were ordered to fight against the Natives. The government provided the Buffalo soldiers with handed down weapons and a low supply of horses. The war gave African Americans opportunities to jobs in the military. At that point, the African Americans were seen higher than the Natives since they were doing the government a favor.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/18/news/la-yosemite-buffalo-soldiers-national-recognition-20130618 

 

I don't think that the government had good intentions when enacting these policies for the Westward expansion. I think they were just thinking about themselves and becoming successful so they did anything to achieve their goal. They tried to make it seem like they wanted to better the Native Americans lives by creating all these policies when really, they just wanted gold and to rule more land and find gold. They also used the African American troops to fight for them in the war so they did not have to lose men.

Robber Baron or Capitian of Industry?

The class started a new lesson called Carnegie and Rockefeller. For this lesson the teacher assigned the students to come up with an essential question. As a class, students watched a series of short video clips on The business of America.  As students watched the videos, they took notes in small I digital group google docs. Students then chose to read primary documents and take notes in those groups. As a class they came together and decided on the essential question, "Should Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller be classified as robber barons or captains of industry".

Robber Barons was a term used in the 19th century to describe the industrialist that would  describe a leader who had a personal fortune the positively contributed to the country. Robber barons were seen as corrupt, cruel, and sportsmanship-like. They bribed government officials, hired personal army's, treated workers poorly, and destroyed rival business. Although they had many bad characteristics they advanced the U.S. by moving forward American output but not by modern day standards. Captains of industry appeared during the time of intense economic and industrial growth after the American Civil War during the 19th century. They were very successful who created successful American companies. They were compassionate and serious about their job and their job usually had an important impact on the country.

Andrew Carnegie was considered captains of industry because he donated towards the New York Public library. He also was a steel tycoon. He published an article in 1889 called "Gospel of Wealth"  to exhaustive philosophy of social Darwinism. However, he was also considered a robber barons because he was influential on starting employees working up to 72 hours a week in harsh conditions and paying them low wages.

http://www.slideshare.net/bright9977/life-of-andrew-Carnegie

John D. Rockefeller was also considered both captains of industry and robber barons. Rockefeller was a prime leader of the Standard Oil Company which was the first great U.S. business trust. He was a notable philanthropist who donated millions of dollars to help education and found public library. He was considered robber barons because he paid his workers very low wages. He demanded rebates from the railroads. These methods were used to to reduce the price to his consumers. He also compelled  smaller companies to acquiescence their stock to his control.

http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=37986#.VYHwYX8o6Uk

In today's world robber barons and captains of industry still exist. A current example of Robber baron company is the iphone company. Although is very helpful and has positively contributed back to society, they run sweatshops that are in terrible conditions. The workers in the sweatshops work long hours and do not pay them on fair wages. On the other hand, the apple company could be considered captains of industry because it often gives back to the community. Just recently, they donated 50 million dollars to Stanford University hospitals. I think that all company founders can be considered both robber barons and captains of industry because sometime they have bad techniques that could achieve great things.

http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/01/apple-inc-aapls-india-strategy/

Freedom from above or below?

The class started a new lesson called "freedom from above or freedom from below". The essential questions of the lesson were, "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?"The questions were asking;How did the slaves become free? Did their freedom come from the help of a higher authority or did it come from taking action to be noticed? To what point did Lincoln's action affected by the slaves actions? To answer these questions, we did several class activities. Some of the activities included the class analyzing documents, drawing a social pyramid, and watching several Ken Burns video clips.

Enslaved Americans got their freedom from above that was influenced by acts of freedom from below. An example of freedom from above was when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation stated, "all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free". It allowed for only slaves in the rebelling states to be free. It influenced slaves to leave their plantations. Another example was during the Gettysburg address. Lincoln based this speech on the equality of people. He stated, "that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." He emphasized the equivalent amount of freedom each human deserves. This was a beginning act to freeing slaves and it came from above.

On the other hand, slaves got freedom from below to attain attention from higher authority. In a letter from General Ambrose E. Burnside to Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton mentions  how slaves were flooding into the cities that the Union army had taken over. The slaves were able to bring attention to the general and take action.

The image presents slaves walking into Chickasaw Bayou where the troops are. They are there to be noticed and so others can take action.

Finally, on April 8, 1864 senate passed the 13th amendment that presented, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." The 13th amendment formally abolished slavery in the U.S. It took Lincoln awhile to official lay abolish slavery but the slaves were able to fight for their right and get their freedom.

I think that the slaves got their freedom from below because if they did not take action to be noticed, they would have never got the help from higher powers such as Lincoln, the senate and others in order to be free. The freedom from above made it so that people with higher power could help abolish slavery but with the acts of freedom from below.

An example from modern day "freedom from above" are the acts of police brutality. Police have been taking advantage of their authority. Recently, 25 year old Freddie Gray was taken into custody for possession of a switchblade. While being transported, Gray fell into a coma and later was pronounced dead. Witnesses believe that the cause of his death was to the excessive use of violence when arresting Gray. There have been many other events of police brutality. An order for change there have been ongoing protest on the injustice in the "justice" system. People are taking actions from below to get changes from above.

Scavenger hunt

In class, the teacher started a new lesson called Civil war battle scavenger hunts. The essential questions were, "Who was the Ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war: East,West,Naval? What are some common tail you can identity in the reasons for the results of the battles?" To help understand and answer these questions each student  looked at a description of many battles. Each student then chose the battle description they were interested and found information on the battle such as the name,date, location, victor and description of the battle. After students  found information on their battle, they were then assigned to create a QR code and print it out. Students then posted their QR code around the school and then scanned onto other people's code to find out their battle. Students were to take notes on the battles that they scanned onto to answer the essential question. Later the teacher assigned to answer these questions on a website called padlet:Who was the ultimate "victor" in each of the theaters. Was the ultimate victor winning all along? What are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battle?

Created with Padlet

This is the pad let that the class created to understand why the Confederate won in the East and why the Union won in the West and Naval.

Based on the information that was collected in class,  the ultimate victor in the Eastern theater was the confederacy. One of the reasons why the Confederacy was the general winner was because the south was already accustomed to the area. The East was densely populated so they were able to easily attack the Union. Since the North invaded the Southern territory, the South fought defensive battles. For example, the union was the victor in the Battle of Bull Run. The large simultaneous mass assaults in the war crushed the union which caused them to retreat. Another example of a confederate victory was the Battle of Chancellorsville. The confederates ambushed the Union troops in a defensive position, the attack was overwhelming, the Union troops railed and counter attacked.

On the other hand, the Union was the ultimate victor in the West and Naval theater. South had a poor navy while the Union had an advance navy. Union also controlled most of the ports already because of their anaconda plan which was a previous strategic plan of attack. the Union won the Battle of Baton Rouge because they came under protection of their gunboats. Also, the Arkansas ship’s engine broke which made it impossible for the Confederate to battle. The union ultimately won in the West because they were superior to the confederacy. they were also well prepared and had more supplies. The battle of Fort Henry was a successful win because the Union outnumbered the confederacy. They also won the  Battle of Shiloh because the confederate army had less than 30,000 men so the Union easily outnumbered them with more than 40,000 soldiers.

The elephant in the room

The class started a new lesson called elephant in the room. The essential question was, "How we know the debate over slavery was the "elephant in the room" for American politics in the early 19th century?" To help answer this questions, students were assinged to create a timeline and as the class  proceeded into the lesson , we would add the event to the timeline. 

Slavery was major issue in the early 19th century. Most people, especially Americain politics, never brought it up and that's why it was called "the elephant in the room." They knew slavery was an issue and it needed to be fix but no one cared to fix it.

 One event that occurred was the Missouri compromise. The Compromise made it so that there was 11 slave states and 11 free states. This made it so some were in favor of the North and some in favor of the South so that it did not anger the balance of free verses slave states. If it was thrown off balance, the free states no longer had equal number of votes from the senate. Since California became a free state, Anti-slaves were happy with the compromise. 

Another event was the Kansas Nebraska Act. It made it so that Chicago would be the center of the Northern transcontinental railroad, making it an advance economy.  It allowed southerners to move into land that was previously anti-slavery, so slaves  had the opportunity to move into the Western territories.  This Missouri compromise was violated because it gave pro slavery an opportunity to spread slavery which maked it harder to abolish slavery. 

The Kansas Nebraska Act then leaded to an event called Bleeding Kansas. Since the Nebraska act violated the Missouri Compromise, the residents  had to decide on whether the areas became free state or slave states. Pro slavery and free state settlers tried to influence their decision by coming to Kansas. Violence then erupted which led the name. One of the most known violent outrages of this act was  the pottawatome massacre which was when John brown and his men mustered five salve owners in front of thier families. Another was when a proslavery mob burnt down several buildings in a abolitionist town in Lawrence Kansas. This made Topeka and antislavery Capitol and Lecompton a proslavery capitol. 

This event angered Charles Sumner especially because he was antislavery. He delivered a fiery speech called,  The crime against Kansas. It  proved that the controversy of slavery can cause even the most civilized men to resort to violence, included direct remarks towards Butler. His speech led to the The Caning of Charles Sumner in 1856. Butler's nephew, Preston Brooks, was angry that Sumner  offended his uncle in the speech. He  ran up to Sumner in the senate chamber and beat him with his cane. People supported Brooks and even sent him canes in the mail. There was never a solution to solve the big issue of slavery .That was why they called it the elephant in the room because it was there, people just never took the time to deal with it.

What do they do with the slaves?

The essential question for this lesson was "How were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions over slavery?"  To help answer this question the class watched a crash course video which provided basic and background information on the election of 1860. The teacher then assigned students to take notes on the pictures that were provided on the Civilwarinart website. The images on the website help students better comprehend why the election of 1860 started.

 Students were then to look for three additional pictures that helped sum up the result of the election of 1860. Next,  Students  turned thier notes into a storyboard by using educreations or storyboard. Creating the storyboard helped students understand how the slaves were impacted by the election. In addition, it helped us comprehend the process of how Abraham Lincoln was elected although he was not slavery advocate.

My partner and I created our video using educreations and below is the link to our video.

Election of 1860

Stats and Strats

The class started a new lesson called Stats and Strategies. To help the class better comprehend this lesson,, the teacher assigned each individual to read documents about the North and South and collect information.  Once  information on Statistics and strategies that Union and Confederate did, students were assigned to then create an infographic based on the statistics  (visual chart or diagram that helps represent information). The information collected also answered the essential question,“How did the differences between the North and South affect each region's strategy and success in the Civil War?” 

North VS South...who had ADVANTAGES? | Create infographics

Creating the infographics helped students better understand the situations faced by the Union and Confederacy at the start of the war. I chose information about the population, slave population, business, and strategies and tactics to win the war. The North had a higher population than the Confederacy which made it more of an advantage because they were able to leave some people behind to work on farms and in factories.  Also, the slave population was higher in the South which led to a higher production of cotton and made it able for the South to keep their economy stable.  The North had a higher percentage in everything else in business because of the number of factories and the high population.  In addition, the Union had better strategies than the Confederate states. The information listed above helped me better understand the advantages that Union and Confederate states and the tactics they use to fight the war.

Sourcing:

Document  B

Slavery-the numbers

American: pathways to the present. Chapter 11 section 1. Prentice Hall. PearsonsuccessNet.