Slavery Still to This Day



Slavery is a big issue in the world still to this day. There is still forced labor happening all around us and that is a problem. Slavery has been abolished since the 19^th century in the US too. It may not be in the same form as back then, but it still exists in a modern way.

http://redthreadmovement.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/chalk-it-up/

Some of the countries where it is happening are North Korea, China, India, Russia, and Iran. All of these countries depend on forced labor for their economy. Some forms of slavery are child slavery, forced labor, trafficking, and bonded labor.

Child slavery happens often through violence, abuse, threats, prostitution and pornography. Many of the child domestic workers work for long hours in hazardous and abusive environments. This often is for little or no pay.

http://forcechange.com/58557/abolish-child-slavery-in-india/

Forced labor happens when people are forced against their will or threatened to do work. Forced labor affects millions of people worldwide. Some forms are agriculture and fishing, domestic work, construction, manufacturing, prostitution, and market trading.

 http://raimd.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/harvest-season-means-forced-labor-for-uzbek-children/

Trafficking happens when transporting people away from the communities in which they live and forcing them to work against their will using violence, deception or coercion. Some examples are domestic work, agricultural work, catering or packing and processing.

http://internationalpoliticalforum.com/human-trafficking-im-not-liam-neeson-what-can-i-do/

Bonded labor is a form of debt slavery that is created when an individual begins to work for another person who holds a debt from that worker. They work long hours laboring in quarries, brick kilns, agriculture and as domestics. They are tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay and usually the debts are passed through generations.

http://thehiddentranscript.com/2012/12/13/issue-3-nunez/

In history class, we’ve been learning about the Enlightenment period. This period is where reason, logic, individual freedom, and human rights became key for everything. Thomas Jefferson was one of the important Enlightenment thinkers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state

He thought that every man is created equal. Slavery was also around at this time in the US. Jefferson still had his own slaves even though he believed that individual freedom and rights should be provided for everyone. People of this time believed that this time period should improve the society and humans. Some people still had to live as slaves though, just like modern day.

Sources: http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/what_is_modern_slavery.aspx
http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/child_labour.aspx
http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/forced_labour.aspx
http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/trafficking.aspx
http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/bonded_labour.aspx

Same Actions Different Century

While reading a CNN article I stumbled upon an article that wondered me. Currently there is a war going on. It doesn’t involve America, but were still involved. There is currently Russian troops invading Ukraine. This a is a sick attempt of what we have seen so much in history, invading a country to gain more land. After only 3 weeks after hosting the Olympics, a time of peace and love of sports, Vladimir Putin sent 30,000 troops to the Ukraine border. During this years class in history, we have noticed many different countries try to do this. One that I most remember is the Spanish Armada. The Spanish Armada is similar to the attacks by Vladmir Putin. I read about the Spanish Armada in our textbook and the website shown below.The BBC link I took notes on was very helpful. It clearly showed the events that occured. What is the Spanish Armada? The Spanish Armada was an attack of England by boat. Spain, led by King Philip who was catholic, wanted to attack and gain control of England, who at the time was protestant. The current leader of England, Queen Elizabeth would not allow her country to be took from her. Not only was it a war over religion, Elizabeth’s sister, Mary, said if she were to come to throne, Philip were to come to power. Elizabeth had her beheaded. This was years before the armada, but you could say it gave Philip a grudge. So Spain got there ships ready, and they set sail for England with 130 ships. When they arrived in England, English ships chased them up the channel. The English sent burning ships at the Armada, and caused them to sail away. The Spanish soldiers were left in the Netherlands! After this, they tried sailing back to Spain by going north of Scotland. They encountered bad weather and some ships crashed. Only half of the armada returned to Spain. Many people said that it was weather that caused them to win, not the superiority of the English. Vladimir Putin was very much like King Philip of Spain. Both don’t like whats going on in another country, religiously. Will this be the last war based on religion? Of course not, because there will always be more than one way to live, and some people try to change your views and how you live your life. The English and Ukraines are similar too. Both are living perfectly happy, and want to be undisturbed. Sadly, in todays case, more lives will be affected. We study history so we don’t repeat the past. In today’s world, we shouldn’t have wars over race, religion, or skin color. In our case, the Spanish armada and Vladimir Putin both tried to get others to change religion. If it weren’t for people like Barack Obama and queen Elizabeth, who try to stop these attacks, earth would be a more war-struck world. Both leaders had different religions and both were in different centuries.

citation: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Tall_ship_Christian_Radich_under_sail.jpg bibliography: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/adams_armada_01.shtml

While the news is starting to fade the Arab Spring shows striking similarities to the Renaissance. One crowning achievement of the Renaissance was the questioning of authority. People began questioning what they were told to believe, what they were suppose to do, and what they were suppose to be. Individuality was valued and every person was told that they had the ability to find their own purpose. Leadership became true leadership and not total domination of the people. Borders between classes shrank and it shaped the world into what it is today.

Now let's backtrack to the Pre-Renaissance era. During this time kings, queens, and the Roman Catholic Church was everything in the eyes of the people. They were born to work until death. While those in higher classes lived wonderful lives the majority suffered. Now look at a country like Egypt where the Arab Spring took place. The former president Hosni Mubarak lived in a mansion with all the luxuries you could think of. His people had a life that was full of many more trials and tribulations. Blackouts constantly wiped out hospitals and cities causing major problems and even deaths. Crime had been rising steadily especially among poorer areas with no end in sight. People starved to death or died to preventable disease. There was suffering everywhere but leadership was focused on itself.

Once the Renaissance started everything changed. People saw each other as individuals with talent and skill, not simply members of a class. Leaders were followed if they did their job well and those who did not were replaced. The people knew that they had power and used it to increase the wonder of life for everybody. Life became a thing of merriment and joy. In Egypt the people have finally spoken. They decided that they deserve fair treatment and more rights being individuals not defined by their social standing. The future of these nations remains unclear but we can only hope that this time will be looked back on as fondly as the Renaissance.

Article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16212447

Image One:
http://images.alarabiya.net/3a/a7/640x392_71276_238810.jpg

Image Two:
http://larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/renaissance-the-school-of-athens-classic-art-paitings-raphael-painter-rafael-philosophers-hd-wallpapers.jpg

Image Three:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01973/arab-spring_1973498c.jpg

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Why did it take so long for people to realize slavery/racism are wrong?

I recently read a story called To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  The book is about Harper Lee's childhood.   Many of the aspects in To Kill A Mockingbird match up with what her life was like growing up.  It was published in 1960.  The story takes place in the 1930's, right after the Great Depression ended.  The main character is Scout Finch.  The story follows her through her childhood with her older brother Jem and their neighbor Dill.  They live in a small town in Alabama called Maycomb(made-up town).  Many of the events that occurred in this book got me thinking about history class and what we were currently learning about in the Enlightenment unit

To Kill A Mockingbird is certainly an effective source.  It is a very popular story worldwide and it even won awards including the Pulitzer Prize and an Oscar.  The events that happened in it are true, and connect to what we are learning about in class.  Harper Lee wrote a very great book and it is definitely an eligible source to use for connections.

In history class, we have been learning about the Enlightenment.  It was a time period where new ideas developed and everything was supposedly improving.  However, as things might seem all happy and great...they weren't.  Indentured slaves were rebelling against their masters and this caused a huge problem.  Who was supposed to do all the hard work for people?  This is when slavery became a law.  Anyone who wasn't catholic that came to America could become enslaved.  Crazy right?

  White people started thinking differently.  Anyone who wasn't white was different or inferior.  Colored people were the most common victims of slavery.  People just saw them as animals and took control of them because the law allowed them to.  Racism also started developing.  People assigned meaning to how they looked.  If you were white you were pure and normal but if you were black, you were looked down upon and people would enslave you.  

How does this all connect with To Kill A Mockingbird?  When I was reading about Tom Robinson's trial, I was really disturbed.  Before he even stepped into the court room for the trial, he was guilty.  Tom Robinson was guilty because he was black.  The majority of people in the court room hated him because of his skin color without even knowing him.  He was a good man who worked hard for his family and helped everyone.  This was all taken from him because a white girl accused him of raping her.  There was no evidence and the trials of Mayella and her father were absurd. They were obviously lying because they kept changing their stories.  But none of that mattered because Mayella was white and Tom was black.  

Racism is shown in this story through the case of Tom Robinson.  If racism developed in the 1600's/1700's then why is it taking so long for people to realize it's wrong?  To Kill A Mockingbird was in the 1930's so that means people were still racist then.  In fact, today there are still racist people in the world.  It is taking too long for racism to end.  There is also still slavery in the world which is ridiculous because there are laws against it.  Overall, To Kill A Mockingbird connects with what we learned about in history because the enlightenment includes slavery laws and racism which are a big part of Tom Robinson's trial.

Sources:

"To Kill A Mockingbird."  1960.  Harper Lee.

"To Kill A Mockingbird cover."  Photograph.  Chamberfour.com  http://chamberfour.com/   

Everyone loves chocolate!

Everyone loves Chocolate!


Over 3 million tons of cocoa beans are consumed around the world annually. So, where did this craze for chocolate start? There is evidence that the cocoa bean was in use as early as 1500bc.
When Hernando Cortez arrived at the Aztec capital he witnessed the use of the cocoa bean as a drink for the royal court of Montezuma. Aztecs added bee honey as a sweetener and vanilla as a flavoring. The Spanish explores wrote about there experience with chocolate while in Tenochitlan. One recorded, "These seeds, which they call cacao, are ground and made into powder and put into certain vessels that have a spout. Then they add water and stir it with a spoon, and after it is well mixed they pour it back and forth from one vessel to another until it is foamy. The foam is gathered and put in a cup, and when they are ready to drink the beverage they beat it with some small spoons made if gold. To drink it one must open the mouth wide, for since it has a froth it is necessary to make room for it to dissolve and go in gradually. This drink is the most wholesome and substantial of any food or beverage in the world, because whoever drinks a cup of this can go through the day without taking anything else even if he is on a journey, and it is better in warm weather than in cold, since it is a cold drink."

                                           

The word of this new treat quickly traveled over to Spain, where they adjusted the chocolate recipe to better suit there taste buds. Spaniards added sugar from the Caribbean to add extra sweetness. The recipe of chocolate had been changed many times until they hit perfection. Chocolate began being manufactured at around 1850 and soon became a slight addiction for people across the world. Cocoa Beans was first brought to the Americas on the fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus but it wasn't until later that he experienced chocolate. A ship arrived in 1641 Saint Augustine Florida with the first shipment to the North American colonies of chocolate. Then at around 1737 chocolate advertisements arrived in News Papers which increased the demand for chocolate in the colonies. During the same time, Massachusetts developed a machine that would produce the 100lbs of chocolate every 6hrs. Drinking chocolate was believed to have many benefits and there for was supplied to troops during the French Indian war.  


                                        


In later developments chocolate changed from a drink to a confection. it wasn't until the 19th century that advertisements appeared for eating sold chocolate. By the 1920s solid chocolate was had extreme popularity across the world. The first milk chocolate bar was developed Daniel Peter in Switzerland 1876. The popularity of milk chocolate began in the 1930s and remains today. As modern Chocolate consumers we understand the benefits of eating dark chocolate and the enjoyment of eating a milk chocolate bar. Chocolate has come a long way, from a drink for the royal court of Montezuma to the theme for a amusement  park and the worlds favorite treat.


                            



onthecocoatrail.com

wikipedia.com

Slavery and Racism; Are All Men are Created Equal?

Recently in class we have been discussing African Americans and race in the American Colonies. We learned the irony within Thomas Jefferson writing both the Declaration of Independence and his Notes on Virginia. In his notes, Jefferson states his belief that whites and blacks could not live together in a free society. Also as we learned in class, he speculates that Africans might be mentally and physically inferior to Europeans.

Thomas Jefferson’s hypocrisy immediately reminded me of several instances in the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which I just finished reading yesterday. As most of you know, the book is based upon racism and prejudice in the town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930’s. The connection between history and english class right now is crazy, in the same day I talked about the irony in To Kill a Mockingbird and the irony between Thomas Jefferson’s two statements.

Racism is a recurring theme in  To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is defending an innocent black man in a case accusing the man of rape. In the 1600’s black men were slaves so how could these two situations be compared? Well, my connection is not just the fact that race depended on how you were treated during both of these eras. Mrs Merriweather is a typical Maycomb citizen. She holds a meeting with some other women to discuss her intentions to “save” the Mrunas, an African Tribe living in poverty. The women seem increasingly interested in this topic, but here’s the irony, none of them care about the racism going on around them in Maycomb. Mrs Merriweather and her friends are completely hypocritical, because as they talk about their empathy towards the African tribe, they are supporting the persecution of an obviously innocent black man in their own town.

While talking with classmates I still cannot fathom how Thomas Jefferson wrote both “All men are created equal” and “Africans might be mentally and physically inferior to Europeans.” Not only do Jefferson’s statements strike me as hypocritical, but also the fact that he owned a slave. There are many more examples of hypocrisy in To Kill a Mockingbird, just as I bet there were many more people including Jefferson, who supported the Declaration of Independence but also owned slaves.

Thomas Jefferson . 2013. Photograph. bio.true storyWeb. 28 Mar 2014. <http://www.biography.com/people/thomas-jefferson-9353715>.

Tipton, Carrie Allen. Not OUr Kind of Folks. 2013. Photograph. Deep South MagazineWeb. 28 Mar 2014. <http://deepsouthmag.com/2013/04/not-our-kind-of-folks-southern-soundscapes-in-to-kill-a-mockingbird/>

Racism is Everywhere

Racism can be found almost anywhere these days, whether it is in the streets, on the court, on the T.V or on the Internet. Recently, in Michigan there was a division one regional high school basketball game played between Howell High School and Grand Blanc high school.


I was truly disturbed after reading the tweets that the students from Howell posted on Twitter. The fact that these kids would put these racist remarks on the Internet where anyone can see them is just mind-boggling.


Howell is a town whose population is made up of mostly Caucasian individuals, and Grand Blanc is comprised of primarily African American people. Howell defeated Grand Blanc in the game 54-49. After the game several students of Howell High School took to twitter where they made several racist tweets that talked about the Ku Klux Klan and Adolf Hitler.  The Internet is a beautiful tool but it can be easily misused. These students have misused this resource of Twitter in a terrible, and extremely racist way.

This article about these racist remarks relates directly to the topic of race, which we have recently learned about in class. Race is an idea that was generated by humans themselves a long, long time ago. Race can be defined as how people assign meaning to others physical characteristics. Sadly racism has been alive in the United States of America for a long time.


The idea of racism dates back to when race based slavery first started in the U.S.  Race based slavery is when people are enslaved primarily because they are different from the bulk of the population. In the U.S it was the white people who were enslaving Africans. At one point in the 1600s there were as many as 187,600 slaves in Virginia. These slaves were treated horribly just because of how they looked. Today racism has changed. There are no longer slave owners that own hundreds of slaves. However racism is still relevant today. Racist remarks are made frequently and are often extremely harsh.  These remarks can lead to suicide and many other acts of violence.


It really is crazy to think that this racist world we live in today could have been prevented if people judged people not by the color of their skin, but by their core values. Maybe if there were more Samuel Sewalls back in the 1600s then maybe there wouldn’t be racism today. He believed that everyone deserves liberty and equal rights.

I bet most of you out there reading this hear a racist remark everyday. Racism affects everyone in the world everywhere around the world.

source :http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/students-reprimanded-racist-twitter-posts-22956048

Pictography : Sam Sewall. Painting. John Smibet.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Sewall

Interhall Basketball. Photo.https://hallsf.imperial.ac.uk/wilson/interhall-basketball/

America's First Spy Ring- the True Culper-It

Spies have always been a popular fictional topic, from James Bond to Tom Clancy’s novels to even Austin Powers, but spies may hold an even bigger place in real history. Recently the cable network who brought to life such popular shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Walking Dead, AMC, has announced that in April, it will air a new period drama that takes place in the American Revolution (and the Enlightenment, a topic that we recently began discussing in history class) called TURN. TURN is the story of the first ever spy ring in colonial America- the Culper Spy Ring.

A poster for AMC’s TURN.

The Culper Spy Ring is a very real, very important organization formed in 1778, with the task to retrieve information from the British Army and return it to American leaders. They were inspired heavily by the ideals of the Enlightenment- political freedom, individual rights, equality- which also fueled the American Revolution. This group accomplished many achievements which now lie sadly overlooked in the history books, things that, had they not have occurred, might have changed America, and the course of history, forever. The information collected and passed on by the ring from 1778 to war’s end in 1783 concerned key British troop movements, fortifications and plans in New York and the surrounding region. The Culper Spy Ring is most famous, however, for uncovering plans for a surprise attack on the newly-arrived French Army (who, due to the logical thoughts and thinkers of the Enlightenment, would soon be experiencing a revolution of their own) by the British. This surprise attack which was narrowly avoided could have led to the Franco-American alliance being shattered and the war being set back several stages. Culper also discovered information on the correspondence between the colonial traitor Benedict Arnold and British Major John André, the latter of whom, as a result of the ring’s investigation, was caught and hanged by the Colonials for being a spy.

The symbol of the Culper Spy Ring.

The Culper Spy Ring was, and, as a result, TURN is, carried by the individuals who made up the group. The group was formed by American Captain Benjamin Tallmadge, who served under George Washington, but although Tallmadge is the hero in the history books, TURN follows more closely the story of the real-life dirty-work-man of the Culper Spy Ring- Abraham Woodhull. Woodhull is the man credited with doing most of the actual spying in the Culper Ring, as well as being the one to give the group a name- he wrote many of his letters as Samuel Culper, Senior. Abraham Woodhull ran the ring’s day-to-day operations in Long Island, although he personally made many trips to New York to gather information. He was assisted by he and Benjamin Tallmadge’s other two close childhood friends- Caleb Brewster and Anna Strong. Brewster was the courageous and strong one of the group, who was given the task of carrying messages to and fro, often in the heat of battle. Brewster was the only one of the Culper Spy Ring, however, who was eventually identified as a spy, although not captured. Anna Strong was the informant of the group who was most famously known for hanging her laundry out near the sea in certain patterns for the Colonial Army to read as they passed. Culper also gained another member later in their career, Robert Townsend (who, as of this moment, is not featured in TURN), who was given a very similar job to Abraham Woodhull, although Townsend was so secretive in his actions that he requested to other members of the ring that no one know his name, not their families or even George Washington himself.

The only surviving picture of Robert Townsend.

                AMC has produced some extremely good drama TV shows in the past, with the incredibly famous Breaking Bad, which won 94 awards total, and was nominated for 240 in its five short seasons. TURN will likely be very good as well, with what appears to be a fully-drawn out (and, of course, historically accurate) cast of characters. My only hope is that AMC manages to capture the ideals of the Enlightenment that so drove these Revolutionary leaders to do the things they did, for the glory of liberty, justice, and individuality.

Pictography:

“Forgotten History: the Culper Spy Ring”. HubPages. http://kmcmichael.hubpages.com/hub/Forgotten-History-The-Culpert-Spy-Ring

 “Robert Townsend”. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Townsend_(spy)

“TURN”. AMC official website. http://www.amctv.com/

The Internet isn't Something We Should Take for Granted

Imagine that tomorrow the internet is going to be shut off. This change will be permanent, for the foreseeable future at least. But don't worry the government will put up a new internet, well at least that's what they'll call it. All this internet will be is government propaganda and chat sites, which will be easily monitored by the government. All together there will be around 100 websites that the government will let you see. That as you may of already figured out means, no more Twitter, no more Facebook, no more Wikipedia, basically every website you have known and loved will be gone. If this world seems like a place you would want to go, then I'm here to tell you there is a place just like this in the world. Just buy your plane ticket to South Korea and somehow manage to smuggle yourself across the boarder and just like that your in North Korea, the world's internet black hole.

In North Korea censorship is everywhere. Only the highest ranking of government officials, mathematicians, scientists and people directly related to Kim Jong-Un, North Korea's dictator, are allowed to view the real internet. Anyone else is out of luck. They can't watch the world news, they can't surf the internet, they can't even own a cell phone other than the government approved ones. If you are caught with a cellphone that is not North Korean, the consequences would be major, to say the least. This includes getting thrown into one of their concentration camps or getting executed.  Just for having a cell phone.

North Korea's Red Star Computers

In North Korea there is only one "Internet Café" and it is located in the nation's capital, Pyongyang. There the computers runs on an operating system known as Red Star, North Korea's own custom operating system. If someone was to read through one of the government's propaganda sites they would notice that every time the name Kim Jong-Un shows up it seems to pop out at them. This is because every time his name or any other of his relative's names are mentioned they are put in a larger font just to make people notice that name better out of all of the words surrounding it. To remind them to remember who has the power in that country.

North Korea's Leader Kim Jong-Un

Through all of this censorship there is a small, yet feint glimmer of hope of people rebelling against the censorship. Some people are getting information from another country, their neighbors, South Korea. South Korean people are sending balloons that have flash drives in them across the boarder to people in North Korea so that they can have some uncensored information. These flash drives have information such as Korean T.V. shows and some Korean versions of Wikipedia. Although this is highly illegal these people still do it to get this pure information that they wouldn't be able to get any other way.

This subject relates to our History class very well, especially to the John Peter Zenger case. Zenger was the first person to be accused of seditious libel and be tried Not Guilty. Seditious libel was when someone published content about the government that "stirred people". This crime has to do with censorship of the truth and not going against the leaders of the government. This is just what North Korea is doing now. They censor information from people so they don't think it's better else where and so that they don't rebel. Although the punishment for going against the government in North Korea can lead to a worse fate then just losing your printing company. For those of us that have read Plato's Allegory of the Den in English class this relates to this subject as well, with the prisoners of the cave being starved for truth and given false ideas, just like the people of North Korea who are given false knowledge and told that this is the truth.

This article of censorship and the "internet" was very interesting and showed me how important something as simple to us as the internet is. We just take it for granted every day we use it as if it's nothing special when in other places there is no internet and in the case of North Korea it's loaded with government propaganda and false information. We should be grateful for how easily we can get true information and how much of this information is available at every place we go. Hopefully someday North Korea can escape from the darkness of it's censorship, but for now there is only hope and sometimes even a little bit of triumph.


Citation:
Lee. Dave. North Korea: On the net in the world's most secretive nation. BBC News. BBC. Accessed 3/26/14. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20445632

Pictography

Red Star Computer. Picture. BBC. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20445632

Kim Jong-Un. Picture. NPR.com. http://www.npr.org/2011/12/22/144111961/north-koreas-heir-apparent-has-his-work-cut-out-for-him

Experimenting With the British Colonies

*Warning this blog might contain spoilers for those who haven't read the Divergent series*

I watched Divergent a couple days back and the movie was so amazing I just had to reread Veronica Roth's trilogy. As I was reading the last installment of the series, Allegiant, I realized that there was a pretty obvious connection to my history class.

The majority of the series takes place in Chicago with the population of the city divided into five factions: Amity, the peaceful, Abnegation, the selfless, Candor, the honest, Dauntless, the brave, and Erudite, the intelligent; those who don't belong in any of the factions are grouped into the factionless and those who belong to more than one faction are called divergent. People who have divergence is a danger to the society due to the fact that they have the power to overthrow the government. In the second book, Insurgent, this problem does take place, and the main characters Tris Prior and Tobias Eaton try to bring peace amongst the broken factions.
In Allegiant, a group of people from Chicago, including Tris and Tobias, head outside the borders of the city to find a solution to bring their city together. There they find out that their city is just one of the many social experiments meant to correct genetic damage caused by other government experiments (which were meant to get rid of the unwanted characteristics like cowardice, violence, dishonesty, selfishness, and low intelligence).

The plot of the last book reminded me of the relationship between England and the American colonies. If you actually think about it the colonies were almost like an experiment that England performed to see how they would profit from the colonies in fields like trade. Once the first colony, Jamestown, ended up being successful, England started sending more charters to start new colonies. This situation is similar to the one in Allegiant with the different "city experiments" as the colonies. It's interesting to see how science fiction has a connection to American history.



Picture Citations:

"Allegiant Book Cover" Digital Image. divergentfans.com. http://www.divergentfans.com/thestory
"Divergent Film Poster" Digital Image. en.wikipedia.org. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_%28film%29
"The Charter" Digital Image. kelmscottbookshop.com. http://www.kelmscottbookshop.com/pictures/10473.jpg
 

Oliver Cromwell and the Copithornes

It is truly fascinating to me that one can go their whole life without ever discovering any of the major details of their past. I find it intriguing that even after living most of your life that you still may not know everything about yourself and your family history.  Up until last year, I knew nothing about my ancestry, nor did I care to be quite honest; but then my sister did her genealogy project. My sister was assigned a project for her 11^th grade honors history class. This project was to research your family history as far back as possible, and she ended up finding some fascinating information that perfectly coincides with what we have been learning in honors history 9.

            Recently we learned about the English Civil War; which occurred in August of 1642 and lasted about 7 years. The war was caused by King Charles I’s negligence towards including Parliament in any political decisions. There were two sides; The Roundheads, who supported Parliament, and The Cavaliers, who supported King Charles. The leader of the Roundheads was a Puritan man by the name of Oliver Cromwell. When the war was over, the Roundheads were the victors. King Charles I was put on trial and found guilty and sentenced to death. On January 30^th, 1649, King Charles I was executed.

            After Charles’s execution, England was to be ruled by Parliament, but in 1653 Cromwell was named Lord Protector of England. Under his rule, England became a military dictatorship. So long story short, Oliver Cromwell ended up dying of natural causes and was buried in Westminster Abbey. However, 3 years after his death, Cromwell’s body was dug up from his resting place and beheaded. His severed head was put on display for all of England to see.

Photo of Oliver Cromwell

            So while my sister was researching my mother’s side of the family, we discovered we have a connection to the horrible beheading of Oliver Cromwell. My mother’s father’s family, The Copithorne’s, are originally from England. After much research, it was discovered that a Copithorne was believed to be the soldier in charge of Oliver Cromwell’s beheading.

            It’s truly fascinating to me that I probably would have gone my whole life without knowing that my great great great great (etc. etc.) grandfather was responsible for such a famous historical event! Of course it not a very pleasant event or one to be proud of, but it’s certainly an interesting one. It’s apart of English history and will be taught for many years so to have that personal connection to it is really cool to me.

Picture courtesy of:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/oliver-cromwell-15991658-62668

The Idea of Race

The idea that black people are lesser began in a period we are learning about in history class right now. But in a different class, this idea is a main theme in the book we are reading. This book is To Kill a Mockingbird. The book takes place in the south during the great depression. In the book, it is clear that in this time period, many people were terrible towards the black community and they took advantage of it. This is all because the people back in colonial times enslaved the Africans they brought over to help them run their farms.

Our country has come a very long way since the slave trade and other very racist acts. Americans now can be very racist now towards people living in the middle east because of what a very small group of them did. America now has a black president, which is a huge milestone considering his ancestors may have been enslaved by some of ours. But racism is still a thing in the America we know today.

The slave trade was big down in the Caribbean during the 1700's. Many people around that area had plantations and needed a lot of help to work them. The population in Jamaica and many other places that thrived with slaves are mostly ancestors of slaves. I took a cruise to Nassau in 2009 and I noticed a large population of these people were black. Its not until this year that I realized why. The evidence of slavery is still around us today, and the people in the Bahamas and Jamaica are living evidence.



Another way slavery is still evident to the US today is many prejudice people who commit hate crimes and set stereotypes. A recent crime that is believed to be a hate crime was George Zimmerman shooting the black teen Treyvon Martin. Zimmerman was found not guilty and many people were very angry at this whole trial.


Another famous case was Rodney King vs the L.A.P.D. King attempted to drive away from a police officer who was trying to pull him over for speeding. He was stopped and tasered multiple times, then he was beaten on senselessly by the policeman's club until he was unconscious and they continued to beat on him. Although the incident was caught on camera, the policeman were found not guilty. This went on to cause the LA riots which killed 50 people and left 4,000 injured. Over a million dollars in property damage was done, all because of a few mens prejudice.





The idea of race is still very evident today in crimes, population of certain area, and racial stereotypes. Many people can still be very racist today although nothing will compare to when the Colonies shipped over people and put then to hard labor all because of the idea of race.

Slave Life: What Different Areas and Situations to Try to Avoid

The historical article “Living Conditions” by Nicholas Boston from pbs.org on Slavery in the Making of America, talks about how the living conditions of a slave were determined by their location, and by the financial status and management style of their owners.

We have very recently been learning in history class about how during the early 18^th century, at the time of the Great Awakening, there was a rapid growth of race-based slavery because indentured servants started to fight back against the people they were working for. We have been learning that indentured servants were people who came over to the colonies to work in return for money, land, and guns to start a new life in the colonies. However, they often never got these things. People didn’t know what to do with all these freed indentured servants who were done their work, and eventually the servants started to fight back because they were angry.

However, we have also learned that they thought that race-based slavery would be the perfect solution to this problem. They were a permanent labor force that could be racially set apart. This means that they didn’t have to worry about paying the slaves because they were already considered inferior because of their race, and they could use that against them. So, thousands of African-American slaves were sent over to the colonies, and this article talks about how the conditions that the slaves had to live in varied.

One of the major variations in living conditions was that slaves in urban areas were treated much better than slaves in rural areas. Frederick Douglass, who was a survivor of this slavery, wrote, “A city slave is almost a freeman, compared with a slave on the plantation. He is much better fed and clothed, and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the slave on the plantation." This doesn’t mean that slave owners were nice to their slaves in urban areas, in fact they were usually cruel, but not as horrific as in rural areas. Scholars say that one reason for this might have been that since the slave owners were so much closer to each other in urban areas, it might have caused them not to be so inhumane to these other individuals.

These slaves usually did comparably less strenuous physical labor such as working in shipyards or brickyards, or they worked as apprentices in businesses such as tailoring, butchery, or masonry. There were some slaves that did have to perform harsh labor like construction projects, and their living conditions deteriorated. But for the most part, urban slaves were given an attic or back room of their slave owner’s house to sleep in, or they were given a separate building. They were also given moderate clothing.

Shipyard

However, in rural areas, the vast majority of slaves were forced to work the fields on their owner’s plantations. Farms usually had 20-30 slaves on it. Weekly food rations were small, and the slaves often didn’t have enough food. The food was also not nutritious, and often made the slaves sick. Clothing was only given out once a year, and they often weren’t sufficient enough for keeping warm in the winter season. They were usually given small, simple cabins outside the owner’s house to live in, and when they misbehaved, they were harshly beaten.

Scars from severe whipping on a slave's back

 

Slaves on a plantation

Another important aspect of a slave’s living conditions was a slave’s relationships with other slaves and with their owners. House slaves, for example, would usually make good relationships with their owners, and this could be helpful to them because in return they were often treated better and given better living conditions. But the slaves also needed to have good relationships with their fellow slaves because sometimes one slave could be helpful to the group of slaves because they could serve as a gossip about the master’s plans. However, this could also go the other way, and they had to be careful because sometimes certain slaves would help their masters by giving information to the master about the slaves’ secret plans.

I found this article very interesting because of how it related to the unit we are working on right now about the Great Awakening. It helped me to better understand how horrible people were to slaves, and how innocent they were. This also helps me to realize how helpless the slaves were because the slave laws that were are learning about allowed for this cruel behavior. There were many aspects that contributed to the conditions that the slaves had to endure, but the conditions were always bad; it was only a matter of how bad. Slavery was unjust and unfair, and it is hard to imagine that even in a country where people said “all men are created equal”, slavery could have been so prominent and not be questioned.

Bibliography and Pictography:

 

 

“Living Conditions.” Nicholas Boston. PBS.org -Slavery in the Making of America.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/living/history.html

 

 

You Can Make a Difference

In history class we were learning about people who stood up against slavery. Phillis Wheatley was one of the first people who had the courage to do this. I read an article online called "Phillis Wheatley: A Biography" which talks about the hardships she went through to become who she was.

 

She was kidnapped and brought to America to work as a slave. She was eight at the time. Not only was she lucky enough to survive the horrible slave ship, but she was lucky enough to be placed in the hands of a nice slave owner.

An example of a slave ship.

 

 

John Wheatley bought her to be a slave for his wife. Phillis stayed at the side of John’s wife Susanna all the time. Susanna soon noticed how intelligent she was, so she decided to teach her how to read and write. By the time Phillis was eight she was very interested in poetry, and published her first poem. Her first poem was On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin.

 

 

Phillis continued to grow interested in poetry. By the time she was twelve she had a published poetry book. It was called Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. When she published her work people could no longer ignore her or her work. Phillis became the first African-American poet, and the third American female poet.

 

 

After her book was published she traveled to London to promote her poetry. While she was gone both Susanna and John died. This devastated Phillis, but she never stopped writing poetry.

 

 

All of her poetry was about how awful and cruel slavery was. This shows you the courage that she must of had. She was an African- American slave who wrote about what she believed in. People began to agree with her. She changed many people’s view of slavery because she was a slave herself. Although she was never treated like a slave, she knew what it felt like to be owned. That feeling cannot feel good for anyone. She made people see that African-Americans are real people too.

 

This relates directly back to our history 9 class because we spent time in class on racial based slavery, and the people who stood up against it. Phillis was one of these courageous people.

Biography:
"Phillis Wheatley." 2014. The Biography Channel website. Mar 26 2014, 03:44 http://www.biography.com/people/phillis-wheatley-9528784.

"Phillis Wheatley." 12-18-2013. The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. Mar. 26 2014, 4:07. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/641615/Phillis-Wheatley
 
Pictography:
"Slave ship". Sketch. Hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu. http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/SlaveTrade/collection/large/Sulivan3.JPG


"Phillis Wheatley". Sketch. www.parlemagazine.com.
http://www.parlemagazine.com/images/stories/phillis%20wheatley.jpg

"Poems on Various Subjects". Picture. historyofmassachusetts.org   http://historyofmassachusetts.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Phillis-Wheatley-as-illustrated-by-Scipio-Moorhead-in-the-Frontispiece-to-her-book-Poems-on-Various-Subjects-circa-1773.jpg