Easier Said than Done

Abraham Lincoln is often lauded as the president who freed the slaves, but just how much impact did his Emancipation Proclamation have?  As it turns out, not much.  Lincoln's initial goal was not emancipation, but the preservation of the Union - and freeing the slaves was a strategic means to that end.  It was an action forced by slave riots that reminded the country that the American Civil War began as a conflict over slavery, not secession.

So, if it wasn't Honest Abe, who did give freedom to the slaves?  It was actually primarily the slaves themselves.  They rioted, revolted against their owners, and basically did their best to remind the Union that the South had seceded because of contentions over slavery.  After the Emancipation Proclamation, southern slaves were far from free - the proclamation only served to anger Confederates.  Because all of the law enforcement in the south was fighting for slavery and the South now considered itself separate, none of the slaves were actually freed by Lincoln's declaration.

Lincoln claimed to have a personal belief that all men should be free, but was originally apathetic about freeing the slaves.  His purpose was to keep the Union together, saying, 'If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.'  Throughout the course of the war, however, his mind began to change and he became more passionate about emancipation.  He was reminded of the slaves' plight by riots and stories of escapees.  In the end, the Emancipation Proclamation didn't do much practically - but the gesture was nice.

Sources
http://www.edline.net/files/_DMF17_/2238431140fb386a3745a49013852ec4/Freedom_from_Above_or_Below_Documents.pdf
http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/film/episode3.html#
http://www.edline.net/files/_DMF2g_/25617cd6768f5fcd3745a49013852ec4/Docs_XY_Above__Below.pdf
http://www.edline.net/files/_DMF3y_/abfc09536fdb31443745a49013852ec4/Freedom_to_the_Slaves.jpg

A Different Kind of Theatre

We've been learning about the individual battles of the American Civil War lately, and we created a scavenger hunt in class to learn more about each battle.  Each person was assigned a battle and had to research it and create a Google Doc about the battle.  We made QR codes for the documents and hung them up on the walls all over the school with directions to get to the next station, and ran around the school finding each QR code and taking notes on the battles of the Civil War.  We then used Padlet to collaborate on answers to the essential questions.

Ultimately, the Union was victorious in each of the three theatres of war (East, West, and Naval), though their victory in the western theatre was less complete than in the eastern and naval theatres.  The north had an established navy before the war, which automatically gave them the upper hand on the naval front. At the battles of Forts Henry and Donelson, the Union used their superior navy to their advantage.  In the western theatre, in battles such as Vicksburg and Shiloh, the Union used their larger population and factories to their advantage.  The North's economy was based on factory work instead of agriculture, so people flocked to Northern cities to work in the factories.  This gave the Union more soldiers and more necessary supplies such as clothing and weapons.  Many military academies were located in the South, however, and this allowed the Confederacy to win some battles in the western theatre.  In battles such as those of Bull Run, Antietam, and Gettysburg, the North dominated the eastern theatre as well.  Their victory in this theatre was again caused by their larger, more well-supplied armies.

Most of the victories of the north were the result of bigger armies, greater resources, and often better strategising.  In the beginning of the war, the north had a greater population than the south and an economy based on manufacture. This allowed the north to have more men available to fight and places to make the supplies they needed.  They also had more railroads, allowing troops and supplies to move faster.  All of these things enabled the union to successfully lay siege to many confederate cities and to cut off southern supply routes.

A Nation Drawn and Quartered

In class, we explored the results of the election of 1860 and how they were representative of the nation's divisions over slavery.  In our exploration, we looked at events and some art from the Civil War era that showed the division of the Union.  We made a video explaining the context of the paintings and how they showed the separation.



Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roNmeOOJCDY
 http://www.civilwarinart.org/exhibits/show/causes/introduction/the-election-of-1860-and-seces
Image citations in video

Civil War Stats and Strategies Infographic

To make my infographic of the different situations faced by the North and South at the beginning of the American Civil War, I took the most significant statistics and the essentials of each region's war strategies to show the different ways in which each group fought the war. This helped me to understand how the North and South's different economies and strategies either helped them or hurt them. The South's economy was mainly reliant on cotton and agriculture, and if they couldn't trade with outside countries, they wouldn't be able to pay for resources because they had few factories to make goods themselves. The North, however, had many factories and cities and a denser population, allowing for manufacturing of goods and many soldiers.

And of Course, I Have to Mention the Elephant in the Room

Recently, we've been studying the politics of the early nineteenth century, particularly those which revolved around slavery, which was pretty much the biggest focus of politics at the time.  New states were being admitted into the Union, and there was much negotiation around how to keep the balance between slave states and free states, none of which succeeded at keeping the peace for long.  We looked at the Dred Scott Decision, the Compromise of 1850, Bleeding Kansas, and other events to see some of the events which showed that slavery was at the forefront of the national conscience in the early 1800s.  We made a timeline of these events:

In the early 1800s, the country was focussed on keeping the peace between slave holders and abolitionists.  In the Compromise of 1850, the territory recently acquired from Mexico was divided and several new laws were put in place to appease both groups.  The slave trade was abolished in the capital, which was a win for abolitionists, but the Fugitive Slave Act, while meant to pacify Southerners who would have been angry that the compromise upset the balance of slave and free states, became extremely controversial.  The Kansas-Nebraska Act left the territories of Kansas and Nebraska open for voters to decide whether or not to legalise slavery when applying for statehood.  This caused the event known as Bleeding Kansas.  There were several battles in the territory of Kansas over slavery.  In the Dred Scott Decision, a freed slave named Dred Scott sued his former master, 'And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is of opinion, that.... Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in its courts.'  This also caused great controversy.  Many of the biggest events of the early eighteenth century revolved around slavery.


Sources:
http://www.edline.net/files/_BYIYQ_/a95c65dcd7b8c02c3745a49013852ec4/Elephant_in_the_Room_Lesson.pdf
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933t.html

Advancement?

By the early nineteenth century, Eli Whitney had invented the cotton gin, though he probably had no idea of the impact his invention would have upon the future of the United States.  His goal was to make the growing of cotton more profitable, and he succeeded – the cotton gin transformed cotton from a small crop to by far the most important crop in the South.  With the increased production of cotton came an increased demand for labour, and southern plantation owners turned to slavery.  Before the invention of the cotton gin, ideas from the French revolution of equality and liberty had spread to the US.  Many slaveholders released their slaves, and there was talk of emancipation.  However, needing more workers to produce more cotton after the invention of the cotton gin, plantation owners bought more slaves to satisfy the demand.  The price of slaves skyrocketed along with the population of slaves in the United States.  By 1860, the price of a field hand had tripled from $500 to $1500.  By then, cotton had taken over the economy of the south.  They were exporting so much product and making so much money – over half of the nation’s exportation profit – that the government didn’t dare upset the system.  They needed the money from the cotton, and all of the farms that grew cotton relied on slave labour.  Click here to see how slavery grew with the production of cotton.

When a system of slavery is based on race, human dignity is pretty much nullified.  People who are slaves often feel stripped of their dignity when they are forcibly taken from their homes and made to work without pay.  Slaveholders and traffickers certainly treat slaves as though they have no dignity, as though they are less than human.  When a system of slavery is based on race, the people who perpetuate the system tend to look down on anyone of that race.  Even after slavery was abolished in the United States, white people still tended to view black people as inferior, especially in the south.  In my opinion, people who own and traffick slaves don't have much in the way of human dignity because they are willing to strip others of their dignity and treat people like they're less than human. 

A system of slavery such as this ignores the basic fact that we are all human.  We all have the same emotions, thoughts, we all crave love and freedom and happiness.  Any system of slavery ignores the fact that people don't enjoy having their dignity taken from them or other people claiming that they own them.  You can't truly own another human being.  That's what makes slavery so horribly wrong in the first place - people are not possessions.

Sources:

http://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/US/US18-03.html

http://www.edline.net/files/_AeGg2_/1d5157b4b5d488223745a49013852ec4/Slavery_in_The_Founders_Constitution.pdf

http://www.edline.net/files/_AeGiT_/4eed1cce371caa3c3745a49013852ec4/Unit_4_Activity_4_Cotton_Gin_Reading.pdf

Cook Your Own Dinner

In the nineteenth century, a movement was begun at the Seneca Falls Convention: that for women's rights.  Women were not allowed to vote, and were essentially slaves once married, all of their property becoming their husband's. The fact that women's role was to cook and clean and raise children, not to work or speak publicly or vote was quite ingrained into most people's minds.  Responses to the Seneca Falls convention were mixed.  Some condemned the idea of women's reform, citing reasons from the Bible why they didn't think women should be given rights.  Some even went as far as to openly ridicule the reformers and their ideas.  Some people, however, agreed that it is ridiculous that half of the human population should be oppressed in this manner and spoke out in support of the reform movement.  In a rather sarcastic article in the National Reformer, an anti-reform piece published in the Mechanic's Advocate was ridiculed, and the author asked:

'We would ask but for one valid reason why woman should be deprived of her equal rights as an intelligent being.  We have never seen one reason attempted.  Even the editor of the Advocate attempts none.  He says: 'Now it requires no argument to prove that this is all wrong.'  This is disposing of the matter very easily.  No argument can be given, and therefore he says none is required.'

Another article published in the Oneida Whig claims:

'This bolt is the most shocking and unnatural incident ever recorded in the history of womanity.  If our ladies will insist on voting and legislating, where, gentlemen, will be our dinners and our elbows?  Where our domestic firesides and the holes in our stockings?'

For all their claims of superiority, men sure were incompetent.

Despite the best efforts of reformers in the 1800s, men and women are still treated very differently today.  Men are expected to go to work, grill, and watch football, while women are (still) expected to cook and clean and raise the children and go out shopping with their friends.  Plenty of men are very sexist.  Some guys make comments about women belonging in the kitchen and then complain about being single (one wonders why they are).  There still aren't any women in very high governmental positions in the US.  My chemistry teacher is a doctor - and almost everyone who doesn't know her and sees her title assumes she's male.  Even when women perform the same jobs as men, they are often treated worse and paid less though their work is equal to or even better than their male counterparts'.  Unfortunately, sexism is very much a part of today's society, and in many more ways than I have listed here.  Maybe we need another reform movement.