Crater Lake Presentation

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19n4j7HLBnjinv5O4EQ3Au2xZqLeDQyfeNp4NJly7rdk/edit?usp=sharing

San Jose State students accused of tormenting black roommate are charged with hate crimes

I just wanted to share this article that I found based on San Jose State.  There was a student that was been tormented by his three white roommates.  This is taken from the San Jose Mercury News: "white roommates nicknamed him "Three-fifths," referring to the way the government once counted blacks as just a fraction of a person. When he protested, they dubbed him "Fraction."

Its unfortunate to see that what happened in the 1960s is still happening today. 



http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_24566367/san-jose-state-students-charged-gate-crime

Chinese Political Students: Opinion on America

This an interview was conducted to Beijing students.  In there interview they describe that America values Democracy.  Democracy may not suit China because if it did then they would apply it.  Their opinion on America is that our government thinks that they need to save people from communism.  Democracy may be an absolute value in the U.S but it might not be in other countries.  They see that China will be striding ahead, they see capacity not power.  They stated something that really caught my attention, "Chinese see themselves with unemployment and inflation" when other people see them with opportunities.  This is true for America as well, Americans see America it their perspective because they actually live in America.  This reminds me of a saying that is commonly said "Put yourself in their shoes." We won't truly understand the reason why people live in the places they choose to live unless we see it in their perspective.

The AIDS epidemic and Outbursts of Violence

In this chapter the epidemic rage continues on.  By 200 U.S deaths from the disease surpassed 458,000.  Medications were developed to treat HIV, an infection that often precedes AIDS.  The musical that we still know today called Rent explored the human and cultural impact of AIDS.  AIDS continues to be a problem today but people are more aware about the problem.  There are also more controceptives in which people can take.  Unfortunately we still haven't been able to find a cure but we have been able to control it and prevent it.  It was also a time where violence broke out.  The overall rates fell nearly 20 percents between 1992 and 2000.  Gun deaths exceeded twenty-eight thousand in 2000.  This section of the chapter also brought up the Columbine shooting, where twelve students and a teacher were shot by  two students that went there and afterwards the students committed suicide.

Gay Liberation

Gay liberation emerged to the public in 1969.  There was a raid by New York City police and the homosexual patrons of the Stonewall Inn unexpectedly fought back.  This triggered a surge of ”gay pride” and created widespread of activism.  Gay Liberation movement rose and declared “We are going to be who we are.”  By 1973 eight hundred openly gay groups campaigned for equal rights, for incorporating lesbianism into the women’s movement and for removing the stigma of immorality and depravity attached to being gay.  Today people are openly gay but they still face discrimination by many people and they continue to fight for equal rights.  We have made progress throughout the years, now gay can get legally married in some states.  The fight continues for them.

Wendy Kopp interview on Education Inequality

Education inequality is an issue still today and even though there has been some changes made we still need to more active in the cause.  Wendy Kopp is the CEO and the founder of Teach For America.  Teach For America is a growing movement of leaders who work to ensure that kids growing up in poverty get an excellent education.  In this interview Wendy Kopp speaks about how there needs to be changes made in the education system.  She states that we need to be activists towards education equality.  She references the movie “Stand and Deliver” a movie that was based on Jamie Escalante helps students in an East Los Angeles high school pass the calculus advance placement test.  She said that this movie not only focused on the issue that exist but that it also focused on Jamie Escalante and his motivation to make a difference.  It was brought to the publics attention that we need to be more involved in making a difference.

http://youtu.be/eUqDMfghrX0

The Story of Kathryn Fentress

I chose the following story that I’m about to tell because in many cases we’ve heard of how the African Americans felt like but I wanted to see a different perspective from a white woman.  In this case this white woman isn’t like any of the other whites during this time.  She supported and helped African Americans be able to fight for equality.  Her story is in some ways similar and different from what the African Americans stories are but none the less her actions made a difference and it contribute to some part in me choosing this story.

“I live in Ormond Beach, but I write from the county jail in St. Augustine. I write to you, my community, because I learned that you have been informed of my presence here and I wish to discuss it with you. Twenty years ago this week my father was killed in action on an island in the Pacific, fighting for the freedom of his family, his country, his world. Twenty years ago, on the same day he died, I was born, and it is fitting that I am now fighting for the same thing.

The army I have joined is a non-violent one born out of suffering and love and concerned not only with the welfare of America’s Negro citizens but with the spiritual well being of our whole country. I marched quietly with more than 400 others through the streets of St. Augustine and looked into eyes of hatred. I felt sick to my stomach when some behind me were attacked and all we knew was the sound of screaming, bricks being thrown, and barking dogs.
I hurt for those that suffered then, I hurt because there is only one of me from my community; I hurt for my state that tries in vain to cling to the immoral traditions of the past; I hurt for my country that has failed to live up to the principles on which it was founded. I hurt for all humanity that has not yet learned how to live in a spirit of love and brotherhood. That is why I am here: I hurt.”

Kathryn Fentress was 17 years old when she was sent to a Conference on Human Relations by her Congressional Church in Daytona Beach, Florida.  She was a white young woman born and brought up in the South between her junior and senior years of high school.  She was an honor student and was planning on going to college.  At the conference she met a group of young people that was led by John Lewis of Georgia.  He was organizing a number of students to do some picketing there in Nashville, protesting against the segregation laws and for the civil rights of all Americans.

Kathryn finished her senior year and began her studies at Duke University.  In the summer of 1963 when visiting some friends, they all decided to join in at a sit-in at Woolworth’s Dime store.  Some black kids went to in to sit at the counter and request service.  Some black and white marched in front of the store with protest signs.  She later joined a bus of students that was going to Washington D.C to take part in the march on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. would give his “I Have A Dream” speech.

She worked with Dr. Martin Luther king in all the marches and nonviolence movements he had.  She was moved and inspired by him.  Kathryn faced people’s hatred wherever they went.  She was arrested in many occasions but that didn’t stop her.  A policeman couldn’t understand what she was doing with the black people and when he was informed that she went to Duke University he couldn’t believe it.  He made it clear that someone like her couldn’t be possibly going to Duke because only smart people went there.

Kathryn’s active involvement in the civil rights movement in St. Augustine ended after the summer of 1964.  She returned to Duke University and got her degree in psychology eventually earning her doctorate in psychology.  Kathryn says that “I basically went underground politically, letting my political activism be expressed through my work, as a psychologist.  I try to empower my clients to challenge their programs, their belief systems, helping them to be more compassionate and empathetic.”  She says that she still believes as she did at 17 that she needs to stand up and participate in these humanitarian causes.

Ch 28 blog

After many years of fighting, African Americans continue to fight for the right to be equal.  Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister whose leadership galvanized the modern, grass-roots civil rights movement in the 1960s.  He launched nonviolent marches, sit-ins and prayings in Birmingham, Alabama.  Birmingham was the most segregated big city in America.   On June 11 president Kennedy went on television to define civil rights as “ a moral issue” and to assert that “race has no place in American life or law.”  Kennedy proposed a bill that would outlaw segregation in public facilities and authorize the federal government to withhold funds from programs that discriminated.  Martin Luther King Jr led a march to Washington in 1963 where he gave his famous speech “I Have A Dream.”  He had turned a political rally into a historic event.  This movement just aggravated the white people’s anger even more and some lives of African Americans were lost. 

Kennedy’s assassination broke the hearts of many Americans.  Lyndon Johnson took the role as president and created the Civil Rights Act.   The most significant civil-rights law in the U.S history banned racial discrimination and segregation in public accommodations.  It outlawed bias in federally funded programs, granted the federal government new powers to fight school segregation, and created the Equal Employment Opportunity to enforce a ban on job discrimination on the basis of race religion, national origin, or gender.  One thing that the Civil Rights of 1964 did not address was the right to vote.  In 1965 the president signed the Voting Rights Act that allowed the federal government to protect the rights of blacks to vote; transformed southern politics. Black power rose in 1966 which expressed eagerness of militant activists for militant self-defense and rapid social change.  Malcolm X was a radical leader that proclaimed Black Power and challenged the nonviolent wing of the movement. As a result many African Americans were able to gain education and professions but others were still stuck in poverty.

Life in the 1950s

During suburban America, Americans purchased 58 million new cars during the 1950s.  Manufacturers persuaded people to trade in by offering flashier models.  Federal spending on highways skyrocketed from $79 million in 1946 to 2.6 billion in 1960.  California’s population increased between 1945 and 1964.  Los Angeles had the highest ownership of private homes and cars of any city.  Americans in the 1950s tended to marry young and have babies quickly.  The number of births peaked at 123 in 1957 when an American baby was born every seven-seconds.  Baby Boom was an enormous population spurt from 1946 to 1964, and this once again reinforced the idea that the women’s place was at home.  Marriage and parenthood was glorified by the popular culture throughout the 1950s.  Americans spent more time and money on entertainment and television became the dominant medium as it changed the political life.

Ch 24: Crash and Depression

Black Friday and the onset of the great depression led people to loose all they had.  In 1925 the market value was 27 billion and by October 1929 the market value had raised to 87 billion causing stockbrokers to lend buyers up to 75% of a stocks cost.  Lending institutions would lend out money freely.  This all went down hill on October 24, 1929 also known as “Black Friday.” Prices fell and some stocks found no buyers, the economy went into depression.  Structural weakness in the American economy made the 1920s prosperity unstable.  
Key industries such as railroads, steel, textiles, and mining lagged technologically in the 1930s and weren’t able to attract the investment needed to stimulate recovery.  All analysis linked the U.S depression to a global economic crisis.By 1933 nearly more than fifty-five hundred banks had closed and unemployment stood at 25 percent and those who still had jobs faced cuts in their pay and hours.  President Hoover urged business leaders to maintain wages and employment.  Unemployment was a local issue and therefore Hoover advised city and state officials to create public-works projects.  in 1931 he was able to persuade the nations largest banks to create a private lending agency to help smaller banks make business loans. 
The public turned against Hoover and the crisis got worse.  Hoover called for a tax increase which angered the Americans even more.  In January Hoover recommended that Congress set up a new agency called the Reconstruction Finance Corporation(RFC).  The RFC was establish to make loans to banks and other lending institutions.  Hoovers unpopularity deepened, some people were living in boxes and packing crates only keeping them warm with newspapers also known as “Hoover blankets. ”  The suicide rate increased and violence threatened to erupt in some cities when landlords evicted families unable to pay their rent.

In the election of 1932 Americans refused to have Hoover as president any longer.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt gain presidency and the democrats had the congress and white house now.  Roosevelt showed confidence and the people were captured by that.

Women in the New Economic Era

The assembly line and mass production created the consumer economy with the automobile.  In the 1920s most women were working outside of home, but males dominated in the work field.  Most men worked in auto plants and other assembly-line factories.  Women face wage discrimination, men were getting paid more than men.  By the 1930s 2 million women were working in corporate offices as secretaries,typists, or filing clerks.  About fifty-thousand women received college degrees. Women would entered traditional “women’s professions” such as: nursing, librarianship, and school teaching.  Medical school limited the number of women physicians between 1910-1930.  Women were seen as consumers.  Glamorous women smiled behind the steering wheel, swooned over new appliances and smoked cigarettes in romantic settings.

Ch 21 Racism and Progressivism

Progressivism rose in a time where racism was at its highest in America.  In 1900 more than two-thirds of the nations 10 million blacks lived in the South as sharecroppers and tenant farmers.  Black men in the cities took jobs in factories, mines, docks, and railroads or became carpenters or bricklayers.  Most women went into jobs that were such as: domestic servants, seamstresses and laundry or tobacco workers.”Jim Crow” laws segregated streetcars, schools,parks,and even cemeteries.  Many southern cities imposed residential segregation by law until the Supreme Court restricted measures in 1917.  Segregation was enforced by violence, white rioters in Atlanta in 1906 murdered twenty-five blacks and burned many blacks homes.  African Americans had to depend on one another for child care and The urban black community included black-owned insurance companies and banks, and a small elite of entrepreneurs, teachers, and ministers.  President Woodrow Wilson racism was out of control, he allowed racial segregation in all levels of the government.

Quotes responses

“[W]hether he be artist or craftsman, engaged in management, industry or agriculture, everyone who works is a creator. Bent over a material that resists his efforts, a man by his work gives his imprint to it, acquiring, as he does so, perseverance, skill, and a spirit of invention. Further, when work is done in common, when hope, hardship, ambition, and joy are shared, it brings together and firmly unites the wills, minds, and hearts of men; in its accomplishment, men find themselves to be brothers.

   “28. Work of course can have contrary effects, for it promises money, pleasure, and power, invites some to selfishness, others to revolt; it also develops professional awareness, sense of duty and charity to one’s neighbor. When it is more scientific and better organized, there is a risk of its dehumanizing those who perform it, by making them its servants, for work is human only if it remains intelligent and free.” (PP 26-7, p.246).

This quote caught my attention because I agree with this quote.  As a society everyone contributes to help one another but of course we don’t choose to help one another for free.  Money revolves around everyone and with out it we wouldn’t have majority of the things we have today.  Money defines a person social class and the more money a person has the more power they hold.  Money and power brings out the ugliness of a person.  People tend to loose sight of right from wrong and the lower class starts becoming submissive to the higher class.  

“A workman’s wages should be sufficient to enable him to support himself, his wife and his children.” (CA 8, p. 445 ).

Unfortunately today a person gets paid by the level of education the person has.  School has become an important thing in today’s society.  Its hard to support a family with minimum wage, its the reason many of our parents today encourage us and motivate us to attend college.  A workman’s wage should be sufficient to enable him to support himself and his family but sadly in today’s society it doesn’t. 

“God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding or favoring anyone. This is the foundation of the universal destination of the earth’s goods.” (CA 31, p. 462 ).

God did create the human race without excluding anyone but humans exclude one another.  Humans tend to treat one another the way they want to.  God didn’t make anyone perfect and therefore we have faults.  Unfortunately not everyone thinks the same, God might have given us the world but many people feel like they deserve all of it. 

CH 18 Organizing Workers

Starting the eighteen century and on workers had organized trade unions to fight for wage reductions and provide benefits for their members in times of illness or accidents.  In 1866 Philadelphia labor leader William H. Sylvis called a convention in Baltimore to form a new organization.  The new organization was called National Labor Union.  They endorsed an eight hour day movement.  The eight hours was based on work, sleep and personal affairs.   The NLU supported the case of working women and urged black workers to organize as well but in racially separate unions.  In 1869 the Knight of Labor was an organization that took up where the NLU left off.  The Knight Labor demanded equal wages for woman and and to end child labor.  In 1886 more than seven hundred thousand workers were organized in nearly six thousand locals.  A more tightly focused union movement prospered by concentrating on wage issues under the American Federation of Labor who was led by Samuel Gompers.

Spanish Speaking American in the Southwest

The Treaty that ended the Mexican War in 1848 surrendered to the United States an immense territory, that in some parts became Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico.  Mexican controlled much of the Southwest.  They built churches, and they traded with the Indians.  The U.S failed to keep their pledge in protecting the liberty and property of Mexicans that remained in American soil instead they took control and forced much of the Spanish-speaking populations off the land.  

Texas cotton planters confiscated Mexican lands and began a racist campaign that labeled Mexicans non white.  A cycle of flood ruined many of the large southern California ranches owned by the californios.  Many them retreated into segregated urban neighborhoods called barrios.  In many western states, Mexicans, Native Americans, and Chinese experienced similar patterns of racial discrimination, manipulation, and exclusion.  White state legislators passed laws that made ownership of property difficult for non-Anglos.  Non-Anglos were tagged as shiftless and irresponsible since they did majority of the labor.

Spanish speaking Americans to Anglo society initially unfolded more smoothly in Arizona and New Mexico.  Examples of successful cooperation between Hispanic and White Americans helped moderate American settlers antagonistic attitudes.  Problems still continued in Arizona and New Mexico over property.  In the 1880s Mexican-American ranchers organized themselves into a self-protection vigilante group called Las Gorras Blancas (The White Caps).  The White Caps protested the enclosure of gazing lands.  Violence and discrimination against Spanish speaking citizens of the southwest began in the 1890s.  Whites would label the Mexican-Americans as violent and lazy.  The Spanish speaking citizens struggle for fair treatment and respect continued in the twentieth century. 

Ch 14, 15, 16

In Chapter 14 one of the sections that interested me the most was the Dred Scott Case.  This case was one of the Supreme Courts most controversial cases.  Dred Scott was a slaved man whose owner had taken him from the slave state of Missouri into Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory where slavery was prohibited. During the 1830s Dred Scott sued for his freedom on the fact that he was in a slave free territory.  The Court was faced with two dilemmas which was whether Dred Scott was a free man or not? And whether he had the right to sue in the federal court? Under the Missouri Compromise Dred Scott would technically be free but the Judicial decision was that it would not apply to him.

During wartime since most the men in the household left to war, they would have to tightened slave patrol and spread scare stories among the slaves.  Some slaves were still faithful to their owners but those who were given the chance to flee to Union lines usually did.  No slave uprising rose and the Confederate war continued to use slave labor. Thousands of slaves worked in war plants, toiled as teamsters and cooks in army camps, and served a nurses in field hospitals. With the lack of men in the household the slaves held no respect towards the women in the house.  They wouldn’t do their work or they would do it inefficiently some even destroyed property. 

In 1869 Jay Cooke took over a new transcontinental line in the Northern Pacific.  In 1873 the construction costs outran bond sales, and Cooke neglected his responsibilities and his bank shut down.  Firms collapsed as did the stock market and the Panic of 1873 led the nation into a five year depression.In two years eighteen thousand businesses went bankrupt and 3 million people were unemployed by 1878.  Then there was a rise of the Greenback party which were advocates who favored continued issuance of greenbacks and the free coinage of sliver, it was basically “easy money”.

Irish immigration and Manifest Destiny

 The Chapter starts of by stating that Between1815 and the mid 1820’s most Irish immigrants were Protestants.  In the mid 1820’s the Irish became more Catholic and more poorer.  Then there was a dramatic change between 1845 and the early 1850’s  because of “The Great Famine.”  The Great Famine was a time were a disease was caused by the potatoes they grew and it killed a million people.  Those who survived escaped and about 1.8 million Irish emigrated to the United States in the decade after 1845.  The newest Irish immigrants started from the bottom, they worked in dug streets, canals, and railroads. The woman worked as maids and textile workers.  Poverty was caused woman to start working at early ages.  The Irish who secured skilled or semiskilled jobs clashed with native-born white workers.

The section that I found most interesting later on in the chapter was the section of Manifest Destiny.As quoted from the book "The railroad and the telegraph, they said, had annihilated the problem of distance and made expansion safe." Reading this section reminded me of this painting that my teacher in middle school showed us that represented Manifest Destiny. This movement became the slogan of expansionists.  I uploaded the photo that I was talking about earlier and I think its a great representation of what we've read so far.  This picture depicts the people moving westward and the telegraph is being build along the way as we learned in chapter 11. This painting has so much symbolism within it that I think its interesting enough for me to share with all of you.

Chapter 11: Technology, Culture and Everyday Life

During 1840 and 1860 many Americans believed that technology was a God’s chosen instrument of progress.  Ralph Emerson, and influential spokesperson, thought the contrary.  Emerson believed that,“Machinery is dangerous. The weaver becomes the web, the machinist the machine.” Emerson thought that technology would eventually control us instead of us controlling the machine.  There were many technological improvements such as the steam engine, the cotton gin, the sewing machine and the telegraph.  John Deere was the inventor of the steel plow and Cyrus McCormick the inventor of the mechanical reaper. Sophisticated machines increased the production level.  The first transcontinental line was completed in 1860, telegraph companies and strung lines had stunning speed.  Technology didn’t just improve life but it lowered prices as well.

Technology transformed the lives of ordinary Americans.  Technology made it possible for middle class to enjoy luxuries formerly reserved for the rich, but it did widened the division between the middle class and the poor.  This was also a time where epidemic diseases struct society.  Physicians were seen negatively by the people because they weren’t able to explain what was occurring.  The public image of surgeons was improved by the discovery of anesthesia.    The relieve of pain during childbirth and menstruation was cured with the water cure.  There was also a popular phenomenon during the time called Phrenology which was the belief that one can read a person’s character by examining bumps on the skull.

Along with new technology there was also new entertainment for Americans.  The penny press was developed by James Gordon Bennett and it was cheap newspapers.  Theater was a huge way of entertainment.  The presence of prostitutes in the audience was only one of many factors that made theaters have a bad reputation.  The audience enjoyed not having to behave and being able to throw garbage to the characters or acting they didn’t like.  There were also forms of entertainment that reinforced negative stereotypes of African Americans such as the Black minstrel shows.  

There was a new philosophical movement which was romanticism.  Romantics emphasized emotion and inner feelings being able to focus on the individual and his or her unique response to nature and emotion.  Ralph Emerson emerged as the most influential spokesperson for those who sought a national literature and art.  Emerson contended the ideas of God and freedom were innate, not the result of reason.  Emerson’s influence attracted others such as Henry David Thoreau.  Thoreau was both a thinker and a doer. He wrote Civil Disobedience during his experience in jail because he didn’t want to pay poll taxes that would support the Mexican War.  Like Emerson, Thoreau was a transcendentalist as well.  During a retreat he took, Thoreau learned that anyone could satisfy his material wants with only a few week’s work each year of preserve the remainder of his time for examining life’s purpose.  Thoreau stated that the problems with American’s was that they turn themselves into “mere machines” to acquire pointless wealth.

Literature was on its rise as well.  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville and Edgar Allan Poe wrote fiction that paid little attention to Emerson’s call for literature treating the everyday experience of ordinary Americans.  Their works preoccupied with analysis of moral dilemmas and psychological states fulfilled Tocqueville’s prediction that writers in democratic nations, while rejecting traditional sources of fiction would explore the abstract and universal questions of human nature.  There was the Hudson River school where landscape painting took place that emphasized greatness and emotion.  The 1840s through the 1860s was a time of great improvement and new ideas on the rise.

Moving on West

After the War of 1812 majority of Americans went west dreaming of a better life than what they had in the East.  Many factors played a role in leading the people with the dream.  The growing power of federal government, the removal of Indians from the path of white settlements and a boom in the in the prices of agricultural commodities embraced their dream even more.  As they moved towards the West, the migrants brought values and customs peculiar to the regions they had left behind, therefore the West formed a character of its own.  Under the Articles of Confederation several states had given up the lands to the national government.  The government of course didn't help the Indians, and the outcome of the War of 1812 affected the Native Americans.  The British wanted the Indians to live in the Old Northwest, but they eventually got over it and they let the Americans take care of it.  The Expansion brought many problems for the Native Americans.  The tribes in the Southeast and the Old Northwest  were told to move.  This was a time known as the "Trail of Tears" which was the death of one-third or more of the Cherokee tribe upon their removal to the west.  Agricultural boomed when the farmers were able to ship wheat and corn downriver to New Orleans.  Eli Whitney's cotton gin also provided momentum to the Old Southwest.  It combined with rich western lands to create a huge increase in cotton production.

War of 1812

The War of 1812 consisted of many wars that occurred during that were unsuccessful attacked on Canada.  After many fails in 1813 they attempted to take control of Lake Erie because it was being controlled by the British and the Americans wanted to retake Detroit.  Napoleon’s abdication caused many problems as well.  The British took offensive to his abdication, and they burned down the presidential mansion and other public buildings in the capital.  In 1814 the treaty of Ghent was signed on Christmas Eve and it ended the war of 1812 and restores status quo. The Hartford Convention was meant to proposed a series of constitutional amendments to abolish the three-fifths clause and other matter that would change the way the government. 

CH 7

In Chapter 7 Alexander Hamilton proposed that the federal  government make permanent national and state debt from the revolutionary period.  Hamilton's program sparked the Whiskey Rebellion.  The Whiskey Rebellion was a tax protest by western farmers that gave Washington and Hamilton the opportunity to assert the power of national government. The law also stipulated that trials for evading the teax would be conducted in federal courts.  The Whiskey Rebellion was a milestone in determining the limits of public opposition to federal policies.

U.S Constitution

The reading in Enduring Vision has come to the point where the colonies are establishing their independence from Britain with the Declaration of Independence. This important document was created for the a certain reason and that was to be no longer in the control of Britain and  be able to form their own government. They made this specific when they stated the following in the Declaration of Independence “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.” They made sure that they stated why they no longer wanted to be in the control of Britain.  They were able to get 56 signatures on this petition and send it to King George III. After they gained their Independence from Britain the colonies had to establish a government of their own and that was the start of the U.S Constitution. The U.S Constitution is still a very important document that we use and has created the country in which we live in today.

Changes emerging

Changes were emerging causing a revolution.  Americans fought for equality and justice, yet it was a contradiction when it came to African Americans.  Slavery was still around but some blacks were free.  Free black couldn’t vote, they lived under curfews and lacked equal justice which was given to even the poorest white criminal.  The antislavery movement was started with the Declaration of Independence.  Slavery wasn’t ended completely by the revolution but it did spark a movement in which it could be extinguish.

"Do to others what you would like them to do to you"

“When I was teaching children I began every day writing this on the blackboard: "Do to others what you would like them to do to you", telling them how much better the world would be if everybody lived by this rule.” 

― Common, Common Sense

Growing up we all heard this common quote.  Thomas Paine had a good point in saying that if we could all live by that rule then the world would be a much better place.  I think that the world would be a better place if we could follow it.  If we could all stop thinking about ourselves and instead think about others for once then maybe we wouldn’t have the problems we have today.  The truth is that even though if everyone would say that they would live by this rule it would be impossible.  As human beings we have so many faults, we have different perspectives of things. We weren’t born to be perfect but we can try to do our best. 

Ch 5: Struggle Towards Independence

The Stamp Act caused the colonist to believe that they had to confront parliamentary.  The Stamp Act revenue measure provoked an open opposition by colonists.  This law forced Americans to purchase and use specially marked or stamped paper. The tea act was another movement that caused quite an argument.  The tea act was attempt to bail out the East India Company between Britain and colonists.  It alarmed the Americans because the revenues raised,therefore committees tried to resist the importation of tea by preventing the landing of East India Company cargoes. The colonist faced some trouble times with their government. The colonist were angered at Britain and Britain was angered at its colonists.  Britain was at a standpoint where they were ready to end any insubordination but of course this lead to more disputes and eventually led to the creation of the Declaration of Independence.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 starts off talking about England's attempt to expand overseas trade.  Britain attempted to tighten the control over the colonies, also known as the Dominion of New England.  Slavery became more important economically and socially.  The middle passage brought most Africans from the west coast.  They had to endure filth and brutality, some died of disease. Slaves usually worked for a longer portion of their lives than the whites. Slave children would start working part time from the age of  7 and they would start working full time and early as the age of 11. Slavery became to be a common thing in the New Colonies.

Ch 3

The chapter starts off with talking about the production boom of tobacco.  Colonies on the Chesapeake bay were the first to prosper due to the production of tobacco.  The prices of tobacco raised but it was still profitable as long as it was grown on fertile soil. Although in 1660 Chesapeake tobacco prices plunged causing a depression.  The depression affected many servants, they came hoping for a better life but instead they found disappointment in Chesapeake.  The production of tobacco brought wealth and poverty to the colonies in Chesapeake.

Ch 2: "European Culture and Society"

While reading "The Rise of the Atlantic World" I found the European Culture and Society to be the most interesting to me.  I believe that a major part of it was that I took a European history class in high school and the fact that I've visited a few places in Europe.  I think that the Renaissance was the most interesting era because it led to many prosperous changes.  Scholars rose within many subject such as philosophy and science.  It was an era where Europe was showing their beauty in art and paying close attention to nature and perspective.  European society changed as a whole during this rebirth era.  England's reformation brought the rise of Puritanism and Queen Elizabeth I, where she stayed in the throne by allying herself with the Puritans.  The monarchy struggled with religions upheavals, there was a population boom, and the market economy created new opportunities.  The Renaissance era overall led to many positive and negative changes.

Ch 1

Before reading chapter 1 I thought that it would be similar to things that I read in high school or things that we had been taught in school.  The reading didn't even come close to what I thought it would be.  It was nice to learn new things such as the Bering land bridge that linked Northeast Asia and far Northwest North America during late Ice age. Knowing that their were different types of Indians during different eras such as the Paleo-Indians and Archaic peoples was something new I learned.  It was interesting to read about how they began domesticating wild animals such as sheep,goats, and cattle as early as 8000 but the Americans lacked large animals suitable for domestication they actually found llamas, turkeys and guinea pigs and dogs only suitable for taming.  I found this interesting because they attempted to tame other animals and we've learned from them which animals we can have as pets and which ones we can't.  They hoped that by being able to tame animals they would be able to use them as transportation but they soon found that they would have to rely primarily on human power for carrying goods and dragging loads.  Indian societies had their own political standpoint in how their society would govern.  They demanded cooperation and order from their members.  According to the text  reciprocity dominated political and social relationships among individuals and between leaders and their followers. After reading the text I thought about the stereotypes that people have about Native Americans and how we thought of them to be ignorant, it goes to show that its only a stereotype because after reading the text, that is not proven to be true. 

Yay I'm done :)