Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans

In class the other day, we learned about the Buffalo soldiers in the American Civil War, and we created the following question about it to answer.  "Were federal policies towards Native Americans and buffalo soldiers intentionally discriminatory or well-intentioned?"  To answer this, we found multiple different examples that clearly add up to a discriminatory outcome.  Federal policies being discriminatory towards these minority groups had a hard hitting effect on the culture and way of life for the Native Americans.  As Americans took up westward expansion, they gave the tribes three choices; they could join American society and conform to it, they could be put on a small designated piece of land to live, or they could choose to fight back, which often resulted in their demise through the American's total war.  If Americans and their policies for dealing with Natives were aimed to help the Natives, they wouldn't have gone and slaughtered men women and children.  Native Americans often tried to negotiate with the U.S. Government to try to get an extension for their removal, but were ultimately turned down and forced off.  Another reason that federal policies were there to discriminate against people is because `many deals and agreements between the Natives and the Americans were broken, and while they were promised things such as some of their land to stay on it was often times only less than 10% of what it was before.  Though the Buffalo soldiers were given many more rights since they gained their freedom, they were still given lower jobs in the military compared to whites, and were forced to do the work that people normally didn't want to do such as telegraphing, mapping, and exterminating Natives.  All in all, federal policies employed by the government ended up discriminating both the Native Americans and the Buffalo Soldiers and created further tension between America and its cultural diversities.  

Buffalo Soldiers of the 25th Infantry Regiment, 1890

Rockefeller and Carnegie Post

In History class this week, we learned about two well known monopolistic leaders named Rockefeller and Carnegie who helped to shape the way that workers were treated.  The essential question we were told to answer was,"How did the actions of monopolistic leaders such as Rockefeller and Carnegie effect the common worker?"  The answer to this question can be found in events such as the Homestead Strike, as well as the actions and results of Rockefeller and Carnegie.

John D. Rockefeller was an entrepreneur who owned one of the largest oil companies called Standard Oil, and he helped to revolutionize the way workers were treated as his company employed thousands of people due to its sheer size.  Rockefeller and created jobs through his business, and this provided people with work, benefitting many. However, overtime Rockefeller developed his business into a monopoly, meaning that he was one of the largest or only businesses in that industry.  This gave him the power to treat his employees worse and worse, though he did give back to the community through philanthropy, which is the giving away of millions of dollars for the advancement of education, medicine, and the sciences in general. Rockefeller founded the General Education Board through this phlanthropy, and he did good for the people because he believed that God gave him the power to make money, so he wanted to use it for the good of others.

Andrew Carnegie, though also a philanthropist, ran into more complications between him and his workers. carnegie used strike breakers against his workers during a notorious strike known as the Homestead strike. Homestead was a steel mill built by Carnegie in 1881, and it was an industrial superpower in the steel industry, but workers of Carnegie went on strike. Carnegie used strike breakers to stop the strike and get the mills up and running again, breaking a promise he made with the workers. Carnegie also had plans to destroy the workers union within his business, and a partner of his used pinkertons to stop the strike, which were basically members of a private military. Carnegie believed that giving back to the community was important, so he gave money to schools, particularly black schools. Both John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie helped to bring about a new age of industry, and with this revolution came unionization and rights for workers, along with better school systems for the general public.

Civil War Battle Scavenger Hunt

The next unit we learned about in the Civil War were the major battles that shaped the future of the war. The essential question from class was, "Who were the ultimate victor In each of the following theaters; East, West, and Naval?" In order to learn about each of these battles, each person from class learned about one battle on their own and created a google doc that gave a summary of the battle which included information such as the theater, the victor, and why the victor won, as well as a hint to where the next QR code could be found. Then each person created a QR code that linked classmates to their Google doc so classmates could get to it. To start off the scavenger hunt,we put up these QR codes around the school, and then everyone went looking for them

The second essential question  from class was,"Who was the ultimate victor" and, "Who won each of the theaters? The first theater we are going to look over is the Naval theater. The Union dominated the Confederacy in the Naval theater, and the reason for this was because the Union had a much larger navy than the Confederacy, and they were able to produce more ships as they had more ports and factories than the Confederacy. The Union forces that had about 16,000 men, while the Confederacy had about 3,000 men, and this huge difference in power caused the Union to dominate in the Naval theater.  In the Eastern theaters, the Confederacy was primarily dominant because they were able to constantly ambush the Union and, a majority of the time, had them outnumbered. An example of this Confederate domination in the Eastern theater was at the second battle of Bull Run when the Confederacy only lost about 8,350 while the Union lost about 13,830 troops;a significant difference. The last theater we learned about was the Western theater, which was owned dominated by the Union because they always outnumbered the Confederates. An example of this Western domination by the Union is in the battle of Vicksburg and the Chattanooga Campaign. Some commonalities I noticed that decided the victor was that the victor usually had a much larger fighting force and had less casualties, and that when the tides were even, the victor had a strategy or advantage to be used against the other.  Overall, the Union was primarily dominant in the Civil War, as they were victorious in 2 out of 3 theaters

Freedom from Above or Below?

The essential questions we were told to answer were "Who 'gave' freedom to enslaved Americans? Did freedom come from above or below? To what extent were Abraham Lincoln's actions influenced by the actions of enslaved Americans?" We saw an image that represented Freedom from above called "Freedom of the Slaves". After this, we looked at some documents and analyzed them to find out what the goal for the war really was. Lastly, we watched a video and answer two questions from the video. The questions were, "How did fugitive slaves influence the government’s and Lincoln’s actions on slavery?"and, "What did Lincoln claim that he did not do more for abolition at this point in the war?"  To answer these questions, we needed to find out what the terms "Freedom from above" and "Freedom from below" actually meant, and what the differences were in them. Freedom from above occurs when people with more power and influence than the slaves help the enslaved people gain their freedom. Freedom from below is when the slaves themselves work together to make a difference on their enslavement without the help of government officials or people with influence. When it comes to Abraham Lincoln's place in the freedom of slaves, he certainly had an effect, but was it big enough to be considered freedom from above? During the Emancipation Proclamation he stated that all men are created equal in the following quote. "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." The idea of Freedom from below was a large part of what the Civil war all about, and both document X and document Y are examples of it. Document X was a letter from General Burnside to the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton which said, "They seemed to be wild with excitement and delight— they are now a source of very great anxiety to us; the city is being overrun with fugitives from surrounding towns and plantations— Two have reported themselves who have been in the swamps for five years." This quote accurately shows freedom from below because the slaves were making themselves be heard by purposely making a nuisance of themselves to the Union army.  Slaves from the plantation of Confederate President Jefferson Davis arrive at Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi from 1863. This image is powerful because it shows slaves taking action and trying to make a difference by working as a unit. In my opinion there was more freedom from above because it was more common but I do think that Lincolns decisions were influenced by the actions of the enslaved people. The following is an image of slaves trying to take action and make themselves known to others, which is powerful because it is one of the first times in America that slaves have made a difference in the lives of white men.

1860 Election

In the next unit on the Civil War, we learned about the election of 1860, and were told to answer the question of,"How were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions over slavery?"  In class, we watched a crash course video on it, and learned that people had many different viewpoints on it.  Abraham Lincoln was a republican who was opposed to slavery, and felt that it should be contained and kept within control.  Stephen A. Douglass was a Northern democrat who believed that the expansion of slavery be decided by popular soverignity.  John Bell, a Constitutional Unionist, wasnted to preserve the Constitution, including slavery.  John C. Breckenridge was a southern democrat who said that all slaves were inferior to whites and that slavery should not be limited anywhere in the U.S. Breckenridge was expected to win the Southern states because slavery was the most popular in the South, and Lincoln was expected to win the North because they were already against slavery, but Lincoln ended up winning the election of 1860. We then analyzed five photographs and used educreations to create a video explaining the election of 1860.

Link to Video Here!

Battles Scavenger Hunt

Who was the ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war: East, West, Naval?
What are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles? 

In order to learn who was prominent in specific regions of the U.S. During the civil war, we took a look at specific battles that occurred in the eastern region, western region, and in naval battles through a scavenger hunt around the school.  We had to create a google doc. on one of these battles, and write about it, but I wasn't here for this part so I only experienced looking for the QR codes that people posted that have the link to their battle.  Each person in the class has to find the persons number ahead of them and tell them where they were going to hide their QR code, and they wrote it down in their google doc.  After learning about these battles, we were told to answer the essential question of "Who was the ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war:East West, Naval?" And our class created a Padlet (see below)  that had each of our discoveries and interpretations for each theaters dominator.

Created with Padlet

To answer the question on who the dominators were for each theater,  the Union primarily dominated he Western and Naval battles, while the Confederates won a majority of the battles in the east up until the end of the war.  Examples of the Union being victorious in the west were the battles of  Shiloh and Fort Donelson, and naval battles include the battle of Baton Rouge and Vicksburg.  The confederacy won battles in the East such as the battles of Fredericksburg and Bull Run.  Some commonalities that I saw when looking at the results of the battles were things like one side being armed significantly more than the other side, and also the winning side commonly trapped the losers in a situation where they could not escape and were pinned down unable to do anything.  Most of the victories also resulted in surrenders as well, which proves that the battles were completely one-sided fights, and the losers were unprepared.  Also, the attackers one almost every time in these battles, which shows that most of the defenders were unprepared and unready for the attacks.  

Infographic Post

Advantages and Strategies That the North Had That Lead to Their Victory in the Civil | Create infographics

Infographic Original Link