Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans

This lesson, we have continued creating questions about the material which will appear on our final.  Like the last lesson, we are learning about events after the Civil War, but now we are focusing on Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans.  My class analyzed documents and watched educational videos which underlined the important aspects of this time period.  (Link to videos) Just like last week, we formed an essential question based on our research.  the question we had to answer is: During westward expansion, did the impact of federal policy towards Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans match the intent?

This is a picture of a native american tribe from 1872.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/25/article-2149899-134A66FD000005DC-372_964x668.jpg

 I think that the intent of the U.S. Government with Buffalo Soldier and Native Americans did match their federal policies that they passed during this time period. For a while the Native Americans had both been mistreated by the U.S. Government, and they had been forced onto increasingly smaller pieces of land as the Americans moved westward. When the Dawes Act was passed, many Native tribes decided they couldn't handle the federal policies any more and fought back. The intent of the Dawes Act was to "provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations, and to extend the protection of the laws of the United States and the Territories over the Indians." This means that the Natives had to follow American culture and had to live amongst them.  This policy was not accepted by many of the Native tribes, and several battles resulted.  The Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 was a fight between the Sioux and the U.S. Army, and many Nez Percé died in the Long March of the Nez Percé.  The Revolts ended with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, in which 150 Sioux were killed.  The intent of the U.S. Government was to get more land, and the federal policies they passed in order to achieve this hurt may Native Americans' lives.

This is an image of buffalo soldiers from after the Civil War.
http://www.trbimg.com/img-51c0b493/turbine/la-yosemite-buffalo-soldiers-slated-for-nation-001/600/600x453

As with the Native Americans, the Buffalo Soldiers were affected by the U.S. government's laws, but in a different way.  Buffalo soldiers are African American soldiers who were in the Union army during the Civil War, and were put into the U.S. army afterwards.  Although they should have been treated with the same respect as the white soldiers, they weren't.  Their job, after the Native Americans were forced off reservations, was to map new land and repaired forts.  They had different jobs than the U.S. army, who were less affected by the Dawes Act and other acts involving the Natives.  The U.S. government intended to get more land with the release of their federal policies after the Civil War, and got what they wanted.  However, they also ruined the lives of Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans by forcing them to do tasks they wouldn't normally have chosen to do.

Quote from the Dawes Act: http://www.edline.net/files/_FFJNJ_/43d7d72dda670f923745a49013852ec4/Excerpts_from_Dawes_Act.pdf

Carnegie and Rockefeller

John D Rockefeller
http://www.empireonline.com/images/uploaded/John-D_-Rockefeller.jpg

As this was one of the final units of the school year, my history class learned the material differently than usual.  Instead of having the lesson taught to us, we used the notes and sources my history teacher put on our Edline page to create our own essential question for the lesson and answer it ourselves.  We spent two days learning about industrialists Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller by watching informative videos, analyzing sources, and sharing information with everyone through a google document.  Next, we formed the question, "Were the captains of industry a positive or negative impact on the public?"  After constructing the essential question, my class began to create 40 questions about Carnegie and Rockefeller, which will eventually be questions on our final exam in two weeks.  Eventually, we will create similar questions for our other lessons within the next couple of weeks, which will also be on our final.  From my in-class research, I believe that Carnegie and Rockefeller, who were important captains of industry, both had mainly positive impacts on the public.

This image represents Rockefeller's hold on the oil industry.
http://www.edline.net/files/_EfHIe_/ce3d2a1e75332f203745a49013852ec4/Doug_Ernst-Inquiry_Lesson-Robber_or_Captain.pdf

John D. Rockefeller was considered one of the most important business men in history, and he had a mostly positive impact on the public.  Early in his career, he decided that he wanted to be on of the richest men in the world, and this eventually became true.  Before he had worldwide fame though, he grew up with his father, who owned a farm.  He went to Cleveland High School, and he listened to his father, who wanted him to start a business career instead of attending college.  Rockefeller originally gained the money needed to become a business mogul by supporting the Union army during the Civil War.  He started his business career by working in the American Petroleum Industry. In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, and with this company the public started to believe that he was an "underhand businessman." He created a monopoly on natural fossil fuels in the United States, and bought many oil companies with his own.  However, he had a bad public reputation, which was mainly attributed to the thought that his actions were driven by greed, and the fact that he bought some companies unfairly. The image above depicts an octopus with its tentacles around different buildings, which represents how Rockefeller's oil company had control of all the other oil companies.  He did give over 50 million dollars of his money to education and charity groups, which proves that Rockefeller was not greedy, and his business skills show that he was a great model. Rockefeller may not have been the best person, but he was a great captain of industry, so his impact on society was mostly positive.

Andrew Carnegie
http://greatimmigrants.carnegie.org/images/1835_ac.jpg

Andrew Carnegie, another important captain of industry, had a better reputation than Rockefeller, and he also had a positive impact on the public.  Carnegie, an immigrant from Ireland, worked as a bobbin boy in a textile mill and was fairly poor before he worked his way up to the top of society.  His first work as a businessman, after working for Eastern Telegraph Lines, was with the steel industry.  The methods of his steel manufacturing business were derived from Great Britain's, whose methods he had previously studied.  He invested most of his money into the steel industry, and started work with Bessemer, who taught him a cheaper way to make steel.  This meant that his company was able to produce a higher quality steel at a lower price than his competitors.  He is well-known for expanding his steel company during financially depressing times while other businesses were downsizing, and became the second richest man in the world in 1900.  However, Carnegie's plan to destroy the Iron and Steelmakers Union was revealed in a strike; the United States became angry with him and his company.  He sold his company to J. P. Morgan in 1901, and gave much of his money to education, like Rockefeller did.  Carnegie was, generally, more popular amongst the public than Rockefeller, but his success career in industry gave him a positive impact on America.  Both Carnegie and Rockefeller, successful captains of industry, had a mostly positive impact on the public.  

Where Did Civil War Freedom Come From?

My history group and I made this poster during class.  It shows which documents we studied contain freedom from above and which have freedom from below.

In our most recent history lesson, we studied whether freedom during the civil war came from above or below, or rather, whether slave freedom was brought upon by the white citizens or the slaves.  To understand, we looked at several documents written during the civil war in which freedom was granted to the people.  By reading the sources, it was obvious whether freedom came from above or below. In class, we created posters (above) where we categorized the documents and decided whether they came from above or below. Freedom came from above more often in some cases, while in others, freedom came from below as the slaves started to take action to achieve what they wanted.

Engraving, “Slaves from the plantation of Confederate President
Jefferson Davis arrive at Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi,” 1863

The first document was an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln's reply to a letter by Horace Greeley.  It was written in 1862, and Lincoln was not yet focused on freeing slaves.  He was most concerned about saving the Union, and didn't care what he would have to do to achieve this. Although this is freedom from above, Lincoln was not completely set on freeing the slaves. In the second document, an excerpt from The Emancipation Proclamation, issued in January 1863, Lincoln was just focused on suppressing the rebellion, and to do so he freed slaves from border states. The slaves from southern states were not freed, but he changed this as the war progressed. In the Gettysburg address in November 1863, he said that his goal had always been to free all the slaves, although he had never admitted it.  He said that war was God's way of punishing them for having slavery for so long.  The first line of this speech illustrates that he wanted all men to be equal: "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."Each of these examples illustrate freedom from above because Abraham Lincoln and the government were taking actions to free the slaves, and the slaves did nothing to help themselves to freedom.

Freedom from below came at different points in the war. In a letter from Union General Ambrose E Burnside to Secretary of War Edwin M Stanton in March 1863, Burnside reported that fugitive slaves were taking over the southern city he was near and that he didn't know what to do. He asked Stanton to help him with this situation because slaves had never done much before to gain freedom. This is one of the first cases freedom came from below because the slaves were taking actions to try and achieve freedom. Another instance where freedom came from below is shown in the picture on the right. In this picture, there are slaves and white men, one of which is Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The slaves are trying to gain freedom, making this an instance of freedom from below. There are fewer instances of freedom from below because often slaves needed the government to give them freedom; they couldn't do it all by themselves.

My opinion on whether freedom came from above or below is that freedom came mostly from above. I believe that the slaves, although they did do it in some cases, couldn't achieve freedom all alone. They mostly needed government officials to pass laws that made them free or took steps to achieve this. Although freedom was more effective when it came from above during the Civil War, in modern day times, both freedom from above and freedom below have been effective. A good example where freedom came from above and below over time is same-sex marriage. A constitutional right that granted this was passed in 2013, so the government had a part this freedom, but citizens had rebelled for over 50 years to help them pass it. Freedoms of all sorts are still being granted today, and these, like the examples from the Civil War, came from both above and below.

Quote is from: http://www.edline.net/files/_DMF17_/780ff3a0307aa82d3745a49013852ec4/Freedom_from_Above_or_Below_Documents.pdf

In School Scavenger Hunt

While learning about the battles of the Civil War in history class, we went on a scavenger hunt around the school to find notes on each battle.  There were many steps to create and carry out the scavenger hunt.  First, each person was assigned a battle to research. We found basic information on the battle, like its location and victor, and then we organized this information into a google doc.  After linking the google doc to a QR code, we printed out the code and hung it somewhere in the school.  We then collaborated with the battles that came before and after ours and wrote the location of the next battle in the google doc so that our classmates could find each battle in the correct order and location.  Then, we started the scavenger hunt.  We started at our battle and copied the notes from the QR code document, and then followed the directions to the next battle.  After we finished, we used the information we took down to create a Padlet (below), and to answer the essential questions.

Created with Padlet

The first essential question asked who the ultimate victor was in each of the theaters of war.  Using the information from each battle that was recorded during the scavenger hunt, we were able to determine that the Union dominated in the Western and Naval Theaters throughout the war, and in the Eastern Theater later in the war.  However, the Confederacy dominated in the Eastern Theater early on in the war.  The Union won the most battles in the Western and Naval Theaters, like the Battle of East Baton Rouge Parish and the Battle of Gettysburg, because they had more ships and supplies, which they used to help bring down the Confederacy.  The Confederacy won most of the battles at the beginning of the war in the Eastern Theater, like the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861, because there was a lack of leadership and control in the Union, but later on, as control in the Union improved they began to win these battles as well.  The Union was the ultimate victor overall, and they eventually won the war.

This image shows the Battle of Shiloh, which was located in the Western Theater.  The Union was the victor for this battle.
http://www.history.army.mil/news/2013/130401a_shiloh.html

The second question asked what the commonalities were between the results of the battles.  The reasons for the results of each battle were all fairly similar.  In the battles where the Union was the victor, such as the Battle of Shiloh, the Battle of Fort Henry, and the Siege of Vicksburg, the Confederacy ran out supplies, was outnumbered, or just wasn't prepared enough.  The Union won most of the total battles, but the Confederacy did win some in the Eastern Theater.  This is because the Union was slow in positioning their troops, like in the First Battle of Bull Run, and because they had lack of leadership early in the War.  However, as their leadership improved, they went on to win almost every battle later on in the war.  There were commonalities between most battles, and the results and victors of them were consistent in the Western and Naval Theaters throughout the entire war.  This scavenger hunt my history class completed in school worked well with this lesson in particular because there were many different battles to find and research. This lesson was educational but it was also a fun, creative way to learn about the Battles of the Civil War.

Election of 1860- An Election Based on Slavery

This past unit in history, we have continued studying the events leading up to the Civil War and how they related to slavery, and learned how the election of 1860 was affected by these events.  Each of the representatives running for president had a different opinion on slavery.  As the democratic party couldn't decide on only one nominee, they chose three different people, each of whom ran against each other and the one republican member.  Lincoln, Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell were all very different, but Abraham Lincoln won the election with around 40% of the total votes.  To figure out why the election results were representative of the deep divisions over slavery, I made a video on Educreations, which explains the events leading up to the Civil War and how they affected these results.  The votes of the election varied because there were more candidates than usual, and there were more candidates because the political parties couldn't decide on one person to represent them.  People in the United States had varying views on slavery during this time period, and after the election, the Civil War began because so much tension had arisen between the states during the election.

Citations for all images and sources:

Strategies in the Civil War

Strategies of the north and south in the civil war | Create infographics

The northern and southern states had incredibly different strategies during the Civil War, which affected the final outcome of the war.  In order to explore the different techniques used by the north and south, my history class looked at documents and statistics of certain aspects of the war.  Then, we used these statistics and the information we had learned to create an infographic.  I used a program called Infogram, an application that lets you make different kinds charts from statistics you have found, and that also lets you type around the charts to explain them.  While creating my infogram, I had to explain the strategies of the north and south, and how these affected them in the war.  The statistics I chose show why the north was more successful, and the differences in the ways of life of the northern and southern states.  I learned that the north won the war because it had better strategies, and had more people and resources.  The north had a much larger population than the south did, which made for bigger armies.  Also, they had more resources, such as corn and manufactured goods to feed and supply their armies.  Transportation was very important because it could be used to transport troops faster, and the north had 71% of the country's railroads.  The north had a lot going for them, except of the fact that the south had a better trained army because it housed most of America's military colleges. Making this infographic helped me learn that although the south was more motivated than the north, they lost the war because the north was better off from the start, and they had more helpful strategies.

The "Elephant in the Room"

An "elephant in the room" is a big issue that everyone knows about, but no one wants to talk about or address it in any way.  During the 19th century, and especially during the 1850s, slavery was a major "elephant in the room."  The government of the United States knew that slavery was a problem, but no one seemed to want to fix it.  However, as 1860 grew nearer, no one could seem to avoid talking about slavery any more, there were many outbreaks between the northern and southern states regarding it.  Recently in history class, we have studied these events leading up to the Civil War, and why slavery is now considered the "elephant in the room" during the 1850s.  As we learned about each event, we used it to create a timeline on an app by describing it and adding a picture and date.  My timeline of these events is pictured below, and it shows each event, along with the descriptions of each.  

These two images show a timeline of the events leading up to the Civil War.
I created this during class on the app "Timeline."

Some of the events leading to the Civil War were the Compromise of 1850, the Gadsden Purchase, the Caning of Charles Sumner, and the Dred Scott Decision.  The Compromise of 1850 consisted of 5 parts.  The goal of this compromise was to to even out the number of slave and free states so that there would be no arguing between the north and the south.  The new territories of Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah were organized without mention of slavery, while  California was made a red state.  Texas was made a slave state, and was given 10 million dollars to help pay off its debt to Mexico.  Slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia, although slavery was still permitted, and the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, which stated that all citizens must help recover fugitive slaves, and that the fugitives were denied the right to a jury trial.  Despite these many measures that were taken to prevent arguments between the slave and free states, peace did not last very long.  Another important event, the Gadsden Purchase (1853), helped pro-slavery supporters.  In this purchase, the U.S. government bought a small strip of land in southwestern United States for $10 million.  Soon after, they turned this land into a transcontinental railroad, which was used by the southern states to transport their slaves and goods out west.  The southern states hoped that by settling first in the unorganized territory created by the Compromise of 1850, these states would turn into slave states.  

http://www.edline.net/files/_BYIYQ_/0c8709831428126f3745a49013852ec4/Elephant_in_the_Room_Lesson.pdf

Later on in the 1850s, the Caning of Charles Sumner and the Dred Scott Decision occurred.  In 1856, Senator Charles Sumner, a powerful anti-slavery voice, gave a speech, which criticized the south for forcing slavery on Kansas territory.  During the speech, titled "The Crime Against Kansas," Preston Brooks approached Sumner and beat him with his cane, inflicting permanent injuries.  This incident proves that slavery caused the most civilized men to resort to violence.  The Dred Scott Decision of 1857 was a court case in which an enslaved man living in Missouri filed suit against his owner.  This man, Dred Scott claimed that him and his wife were free because they had once lived with their owner in states where slavery was illegal.  Unfortunatley, the jury ruled against the Scotts, claiming that "As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that charcter, his staus, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois...."  The result of this case was not fair, and led to more tension between the north and the south.  Slavery was the "elephant in the room" in the 1850s because it was a major problem that was not being addressed, even as these horrible, violent events were taking place before citizens' eyes.

http://www.edline.net/files/_BYIYQ_/0c8709831428126f3745a49013852ec4/Elephant_in_the_Room_Lesson.pdf

Source of quotation:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933t.html