Slavery in the North Revisited

Slavery is a part of American history that many people today wish had never been used as a tool to help America develop during its infancy as an independent nation. It was a condition which allowed many people in america and america itself to prosper, but at the cost of millions of African men, woman and childrens freedom. They were driven from their homes, shipped to america in horrible conditions and forced to work back breaking labor and obey their masters lest they wish to meet the tip of the whip, or worse, the rope of the gallows. Many people in America, and the world even, believe that during the 19th century, when slavery was at its peak in america, that the southern states in America were more harsh and treated slaves less likely people and more like property. They believe that the northern states, however, had more tolerance for slaves and treated them more like fellow humans. This can easily be perceived due to the fact that the civil war, which pitted the northern union states against the southern confederate states, seemed to be centralized around freeing the slaves and that the northern states freed their slaves before the southern states did. It may be true that more northern US states freed their slaves before the southern states, it does not automatically mean that the northern states treated slaves any better than how they were treated in the southern half of the US. Whites in both halves of the US wanted the blacks in the US to continue to believe that they were completely inferior to any and all whites in the US. Charles Mackay, an English writer who had visited America during this time of turmoil, had this to say about what he witnessed during his travels."This is the prevalent feeling, if not the language of the free north...'We shall not make the black man a slave; we shall not buy him or sell him; but we shall not associate with him'...'We are of another race, and he is inferior. Let him know his place - and keep it.'" This quote exemplifies that whites tolerated free slaves to a point, basically until they started to think they deserved anything that whites themselves were privileged to.

Northern Am
ericans during that time period have also been stated as being against slavery on an economic standpoint, as well as a moral one. This is also a misconception as all of America thought slavery was declining and was not needed at the beginning of the 18th century. Then the cotton boom happened. Eli Whitney was an american inventor who was living in Massachusetts during the beginning of the 18th century and had created very useful inventions during his previous years, most notably his use of interchangeable parts in modern weaponry of the time. His invention of the cotton gin helped to explode the cotton market and made slaves extremely desirable to work plantations in the south. This also translated into a large growth of slavery in the north as workers were needed to process the cotton into textiles and cloth. The picture above is taken from Harpers weekly, a magazine written in 1869 and depicted events of about 70 previous. The cotton boom also allowed the slave trade to boom in the sense that more slaves were being brought into the US and so more ports were needed to help handle and transport these slaves. Many of these ports were run in the northern US and ran far past the point when slavery became illegal in the northern US. One such family that ran these ports was the Dewolf family who lived and operated out of Connecticut and were in the slave trading business for three generations. Even though they traded when slavery was illegal, the government turned a blind eye due to the sheer amount of money and power the family possessed thanks to the slave trade.  These examples easily depict that slaves were in no way treated better in the north than they were treated in the south. Slaves were treated as subhumans by almost all whites during this time and no one part of the nation should be credited with treating them better than the other parts of this nation.

19th Century Social Reform Post

The Recorder, Women's Rights, Recorder, August 3, 1848, accessed December 20, 2013, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr040.html.

Although the exact author of the comment is unknown, the article appears to be written from the point of the newspaper as a whole. They appear to believe that the womens movement of the time was "excessively silly", indirectly stating that they do not treat the document written by women to aid in the womens revolution, as a real document by placing such words as declaration in quotations. This implies they do not treat the document as a real declaration, rather as a silly waste of time done by people of lesser stature than themselves. The author also, however, devotes the rest of the article to including the whole of the document in question for the readers to decide whether or not they agree with the points brought up in it or not. This is very important as the argument over whether women should be allowed more rights has reached a very important point in history, and allowing the readers of the newspaper be informed on the subject is important so they are able to make their own decision. There are some limits to this document because it only provides one group of peoples opinions and does not allow the opposing group to give their own reaction to the document. 

Andrew Jackson Cartoon

picture link s picture cannot be displayed in blogger:http://www.pbs.org/kcet/andrewjackson/features/galleries/cartoons/gallery.html?id=portraits&KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true
choose picture #008

The relations between the Americans and the Indians were quite unstable starting all the way back when the Europeans first settled in America. The two groups had major land disputes starting when the settlers tried to expand their land further west into territory the Indians believed belonged to them. This tentative relation continued until Andrew Jackson became president. Jackson thought it to be beneficial to both parties if he were to relocate the Indians to specifically labeled reservations and giving the land they used to own to the American people to help their expansion. Many Indians resented this idea and refused to go along with Jackson's plan, so Jackson decided to forcefully evict the Indians from their homes and march them to their new land. This march became known as the trail of tears and killed thousands of Indians during its existence. The cartoon above can be viewed as satirical because it portrays Jackson as the father of the Indians, which he obviously wasn't because he didn't care for them at all. Due to these events, Jackson should not be considered the peoples president if he forcibly relocates his own people without their consent.

19th Century American Democracy Assignment

America has been labelled a democracy ever since it gained its independence from England. However, early America and it population were not very democratic at all. A democracy can be defined as a government that is ruled by the people, where the majority are able to decide what are the right and wrong courses of action for their country. In America, the citizens demonstrated this power by voting for which person would represent their interests in the government. The only problem being that, at the time, the way these people were elected were not exactly democratic. For one thing, not every member of the population was allowed to vote for their representatives. In the early 19th century, a voter must be a white man who also must own a minimum amount of land to be allowed to vote. This rules out women, the poor and other races entirely from voting. This would completely rule out America from being a democratic system of government. However, as the century wore on conditions began to change and many of the voting restrictions were lifted. The tax that kept the poor from voting was either lifted or lowered and more and more states allowed the people to vote for who they wanted to rule over them. Also, all men were soon allowed to vote regardless of their income thanks to the Dorr wars which led to states adopting new laws on who was allowed to vote. However, women were still not allowed to vote which makes it hard for this period of America to be called a democracy. From these points historians are able to draw a conclusion that America at the beginning of the 19th century was certainly not a democracy, but as the century wore on, more and more democratic laws and regulations were passed so as to create a system of government fairly close to a democracy.

picture link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_election_campaigns_in_the_19th_century

Romanticism Assignment

Romanticism was one of the more important movements of the 19th century. Romanticism can be defined as a movement that effected art, literature and music as a response to the enlightenment ideals that were imposed at the time. In the piece above, Culmins Ghost appears to his mother, there are many different examples of how romanticism influenced art of this time. First, The grotesque looks on both the dogs and the woman's face convey both a feeling of horror and emotion. Also The importance of the individual is crucial to this piece as the artist wants the viewers eyes to be directed to the lone woman in the picture as she is the only living being shown. Finally, the piece itself is irrational in nature because of the fact that ghosts defy the laws of reality and are seen as something fake. These traits all tie in together to create a typical romantic piece of art and the themes that re generally displayed in such pieces.

Revolts of 1830 and 1848 Assignment

Many historians have stated that the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were failures, and to an extent, they are right. Most of the revolutions of the time had mixed results, which meant that some of the goals the revolutionaries laid out were met, but others were left unfulfilled or were denied completely. This can be shown in the French revolution of 1830 in which the liberal and radical citizens of France were unhappy with the current monarch, Charles the tenth. The difference being that the liberals wanted to just implement a constitutional monarchy in place of the current system of monarchy, whilst the radicals wanted to completely get rid of the monarchy all together. This culminated in an outcome that could be interpreted as either a success or failure because the liberals gained the constitutional monarchy they desired, but the radicals failed to oust the monarchy all together. There were also some revolutions that were perceived as successes at first, but the conditions that the revolutionaries fought for were revoked soon after gaining them. An example of a revolution that had an outcome similar to this was the polish revolution of 1830. This revolution was headed by a group of nationalist poles who wanted Poland to become independent from Russia, who currently controlled Poland. They also wanted to implement a resounding nationalist ideal throughout the nation. Although the polish were able to gain independence from Russia for a short time, Russia was able to regain control of the country shortly after Independence was gained, re implementing the same laws that the polish wanted to escape. This outcome is most likely why the revolution was branded a failure, although success was achieved for a short time. Finally, there were some revolutions that were legitimate failures because none of the goals that the revolutionaries set were ever met. An example that meets these conditions would be the Decembrist revolt of 1825. This revolution was poorly timed and poorly executed, lead by a small group of liberal military officers who wanted to unseat the current tsar and demand a constitution. The revolution was ended as abruptly as it began, with the revolutionaries being ripped to shreds by canon fire. Conditions for the citizens also grew worse after the revolution, which much harsher punishments being handed down to anyone who opposed the tsar. This was the true definition of a complete failure. Although few revolutions of the time actually completely achieved their goals, they should not be branded as complete failures because many of the revolutions were able to bring about change in the governments they rebelled against.

picture link: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255/

decembrist revolt video link: http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/decembrist-revolt-of-1825/13391064/?s=qz3Oh7&ref=app

Monroe Doctrine Assignment

The United States of America, lead by the capable president James Monroe, was able to outlast the demands of one of the most dominant forces mankind had seen, the quintuple or "Holy" alliance. The quintuple alliance was made up of European countries that had all attended the congress of Vienna and discussed and implemented new laws and changes throughout Europe. The five countries that made up the alliance was Great Britain, Russia, France, Spain and Austria, the host country. The leaders who attended these meetings and represented their countries were all resoundingly conservative and their ideals showed in every decision they made. Monroe was able to guide the US through times of unease as the great European Juggernaut loomed over them, making demands of the nation. Some major demands that were made by the holy alliance were that Russia be allowed to settle along the wast coast of the US and allowing Spain to march into Latin America and reclaim its colonies that had just gained their independence from Spain. "  Our policy, in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as the legitimate government for us;..." This quote states how the US would handle the quintuple alliance as a whole, to treat it with respect and to stay out of its internal affairs. However, the US would not tolerate the infringement of the alliance into either their territory nor the Latin American colonies territory.


The picture above illustrates how Monroe cared what his congress would think of his decisions. The US congress in general agreed with Monroe's ideals, such as protecting the Latin American Countries and their western land claim. They also wished the US could have held a more powerful alliance with GB when they offered to ally with the US against the Holy alliance  The Latin American colonists would have felt relatively the same about Monroe's decisions, especially with his decision to protect the Latin American countries. The Russians, however, would not be as pleased with the US's decisions to not let them settle on the west coast of the US, nor the fact that the US was protecting the Latin American colonies. The only thing the Russians would have been somewhat pleased with would have been the fact that the US refused to create a strong alliance with Great Britain.