Progress in Pre-Civil War America (Module 7)

I believe "progress" can be defined as simply "moving forward". "Progress" is change from the status quo. It is a positive change, one in which evolution and growth has occurred.

Progress was gained in some areas of American life during the time period of before the Civil War; however, I believe progress was significantly compromised in the abolitionist movement. Workers did not gain any major, national victories in the early to mid-1800s; however, they did begin to organize and advocate for better working conditions, hours, and pay, gaining success on the local level. Efforts to increase the opportunity to public education in the United States were particularly successful. In 1827, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate compulsory education for children, supported by taxes (1, 375). In the North and West, it was now common for European American children between the ages of five and nineteen to attend school (1, 375). The temperance movement was also successful in their attempts to decrease alcohol consumption within the country, decreasing the amount consumed per person by half within forty years (1, 377). Efforts were begun to help prostitutes by organizing charity and work for them and in New York, antiprostitution groups were successful in lobbying the state legislature for criminal penalties against male clients, and not just the prostitutes themselves (1, 377). Dorothea Dix was especially crucial in the movement to reform inhumane treatment of insane people, successfully lobbying Massachusetts for a state asylum with her descriptions of the infamous conditions mental patients faced (1, 377). Traveling throughout the country for more than twenty years, advocating in favor of humane treatment for the mentally insane, her impact was felt. By 1860, twenty-eight states had state supported institutions for the mentally insane (1, 377). There were also movements to reform prisons, and provide "orphanages, homes of refuge, and hospitals", especially in growing and industrializing cities (1, 377). In 1848, almost 300 women and men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York (1, 358) to hold the "first women's rights convention in American history" (1, 384). There they approved most of the measures making up the Declaration of Sentiments, "a petition for women's rights modeled on the Declaration of Independence", including calling for legal rights, the right to own property, the right to custody of their children in cases of divorce, the right to higher education, and of the right to fully participate in religious activities (1, 358). Following the convention in 1848, women gathered every year to hold women's rights conventions and to work for equality between the sexes (1, 384). Before the Civil War, incremental progress was gained in favor of granting women equal rights; however, the greatest progress would come after the conflict. However,-- the largest reform movement-- the abolitionist movement fighting for the emancipation of African American slaves consisted largely of compromises enacted by the Congress to placate growing Northern objections to slavery and increasing Southern defenses of their slave society. The Civil War would ultimately decide the success of the abolitionist movement with the emancipation of the slaves.

Though progress did occur in the United States from the time of colonial America in the 17th century to pre-Civil War era America in the mid-19th century, true progress would not come in the country until the various movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Even though some significant progress was made in various reform movements of the time, the movements demanding rights for women, African Americans, and children had yet to win any real victories. How can you consider a country "progressed" in any way if it views women, children, and enslaved African Americans to be the property of other people, mostly European American men? and free African Americans and women have no civil rights to speak of?

Work Cited:

(1) Faragher, John Mack, et al. Out of Many. 5th ed. Vol. I. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. 2 Vols.

Immigrants to America: The Irish (Module 6)

The significantly impactful market revolution of the late 18th to early 19th centuries had not greater impact than that of on America's urban centers (1, 360). This was where the greatest number of immigrants coming to seek a better life in the increasingly dynamic American economy would settle (1, 360). The Irish were one of these such groups of people.

During the mid-19th century, the Irish were one of the two largest immigrant groups to settle in the United States (1, 360). Emigration of Irish to the United States "dated from colonial times", but the Potato Famine of 1845-1849 would have the infamous fortune of being responsible for bringing the largest number of Irish to America the country had ever seen (1, 360). Under the greatly despised colonial rule of the British, the Irish were forced onto "small plots of farmland" on which they were forced to grow grain for their British landlords and then plant potatoes for sustenance (1, 360). In 1845, Ireland's vital potato crop "turned black with blight" (1, 360). The government of Great Britain could not assuage the massive food shortage in Ireland, and thus, the Irish were forced to choose between leaving their homeland or staying and starving to death (1, 360). 1.5 million Irish chose to immigrate, most to the United States, and 1 million Irish eventually died during the Potato Famine (1, 360). The emigrating "Famine Irish" arrived in America's east coast sea ports of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore "starving, diseased, and destitute" (1. 360).

"The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things"

The "starving, diseased, and destitute" Irish were the United States "first large refugee group" (1, 360). These newcomers to America stood out especially for their "non-English" Irish dialect, their extreme poverty, their Catholic religion (1, 360), their "pastimes (drinking and fighting, their critics said), their "national(ism) and anti-British" attitudes (1, 361). The above cartoon by Thomas Nast illustrates some of the stereotypical and racist views commonly held in regard to the Irish and Irish-Americans: that of perpetual intoxication, having a short temper, and being animals. Their lack of funds available to leave the large eastern cities for the interior of the country, forced them to "crowd together in miserable housing, (and be) desperate for work at any wages" (1, 360-361). Cheap Irish workers were "essential to the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825" and replaced more expensive native workers at the Lowell Mills in Massachusetts (1, 360). However, the close bond the Irish shared as being from the same country, their similar experiences in America, and the nature of cities, also allowed them to create their own ethnic enclave, their own "Little Ireland" (1, 361). In Boston and New York, where they primarily settled, the Irish worked to "raise...money to erect Catholic churches with Irish priests...(and) established parochial schools with Irish nuns" to educate their children (1, 363). In order to help each other in the new country, they "formed mutual aid societies based on kinship or town of origin in Ireland...(and) religious and social clubs, lodges, and brotherhoods with their female auxiliaries" (1, 363). They also sought to better there new community by participating in "fire and militia companies as well" (1, 363).

Common Anti-Irish Sign

These networks and organizations often served the Irish as valuable havens of support and community from the cruel prejudice of American society. Within a short period of time of arriving in the United States, it was clear that the Irish were not welcome. After experiencing a sudden burst in immigration of Irish into "smaller (compared to New York City) and homogeneous" Boston during the period of the Potato Famine, the Puritan and intellectual city viewed the new Catholic and illiterate immigrants with disdain (1, 361). Throughout the city signs in front of businesses and houses looking for help declared "No Irish Need Apply" (1, 361). Irish were also denied white privilege, and thus, often caricatured "as monkeys, similar to the way cartoonists portrayed African Americans" (1, 364). However, Irish responded to the racism they experienced by merely maintaining their "whiteness" (1, 364) and in turn participating in blackface minstrel shows that stereotyped African Americans (1, 364-365).

Though the Irish first faced the hardships of poverty and discrimination, Irish Americans today have largely overcome them and assimilated into the mainstream culture while still maintaining a strong sense of identity. And speaking as an Irish American, they would also do well to support new immigrants to the United States, remembering the difficult and sometimes hostile experiences their ancestors faced.

Work Cited:

(1) Faragher, John Mack, et al. Out of Many. 5th ed. Vol. I. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. 2 Vols.

Image Cited:

Nast, Thomas. "The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things". Anti-Irish Racism. Wikipedia. 20 July 2007
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/66/TheUsualIrishWayofDoingThings.jpg>.

"Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply". Help Wanted- No Irish Need Apply. Celtic Dragon Pub Company. 20 July 2007 <http://www.celticdragonpubco.com/shop/nina2cd.jpg>.

Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears (Module 5)

Photograph of Trail of Tears Removal

On October 1, 1838, the first group of Cherokee Native Americans set out on their forced removal route from Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama to Oklahoma in what came to be known as the "Trail of Tears" (3, 109), ending nearly ten years of attempts by European Americans to finally drive the native population completely off their lands.

From the period of the Jefferson administration in the early 1800s, the official position of the United States government was to call for the assimilation of Native Americans into the mainstream European American culture of the country (1, 313). The tribes who sought to adopt to the customs of the wider European American culture were allowed to remain on their lands and those who didn't were to resettle in lands west of the Mississippi River (1, 313). Of the "Five Civilized Tribes"-- the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles-- that remained in the southern lands east of the Mississippi River, the Cherokees assimilated into the broader culture the most (1, 313). They became "farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, owners of property", including more than a thousand slaves (3, 104). Their chief, Sequoyah, developed a written form of the Cherokee language (3, 104). The Cherokee learned English from Christian missionaries (1, 313). They also "welcomed...Christianity" from the missionaries (3, 104). In February 1828, they began publishing a newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, in English and Cherokee (3, 104). They formalized their government, known as the Legislative Council (3, 104). The Cherokee became the model Native American tribe resembling the European American view of "civilization" (3, 104).

President Andrew Jackson

Despite the fact that the Cherokees had successfully adapted their culture and customs to those of the mainstream American culture, and thus kept their side of the agreement with the federal government to assimilate in exchange for remaining on their lands, the demand placed on the state and federal governments for Native American lands from European Americans was too great. In the 1820s, the state legislatures of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi "voted to invalidate federal treaties granting special self-governing status to Indian lands" (1, 314). The actions of the states constituted a challenge to federal authority; however, they had the support of President Andrew Jackson in this disagreement between the states and the federal government (1, 314). In his 1829 message to Congress, President Jackson stated: "I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama that their attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the Executive of the United States, and advised them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi or submit to the laws of those States" (3, 104). With the President's support, the Congress passed the Indian Removal Act the following year (1, 314). In Section II of the Act, it states that the President is allowed to "exchange" land in Oklahoma "...for the whole or any part or portion of the territory claimed and occupied by such tribe or nation, within the bounds of any or more of the states or territories, where the land claimed and occupied by the Indians, is owned by the United States are bound to the state within which it lies to extinguish the Indian claim thereto" (2). Thus, null and voiding the legal rights of Native Americans to their land and of treaties signed between the tribes and the U.S. government. In Section III, the Native American tribes are granted permanent rights to their new land in Oklahoma, provided they didn't "become extinct" (2). Like the treaties that were broken by the Indian Removal Act, this legal promise would be broken in time as well. In Section V, the President is granted authority to appropriate funds to aid native tribes in their relocation (2).

In attempt to underscore the demand for Native American tribes to leave, President Jackson sent "federal officials to negotiate removal treaties with the southern tribes" (1, 314). Most tribes signed treaties; however, the Cherokees fought their removal by using what was on their side-- the law (1, 314). The Cherokee won two cases, Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia (1831) and Worcester vs. Georgia (1832), presented before the Supreme Court (1, 314). Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Cherokees were a "domestic dependent nation", and thus "could not be forced by the state of Georgia to give up its land against its will" (1, 314). At the same time that the Supreme Court was ruling in the favor of the Cherokees, the laws of Georgia allowed for the confiscation of Cherokee land, the abolishment of their government, the prohibition of meetings, the imprisonment of Cherokees advocating staying, the prohibition of Cherokees testifying against European Americans, the prohibition of Cherokees digging for gold on their land, and the suppression of their newspaper (3, 105 + 109). Even though the Cherokees had won their cases before the Supreme Court, the disenfranchisement that had occurred previously under state law would remain, largely due to President Jackson's dismissal of the rulings and his desire to see all Native American tribes removed to west of the Mississippi River (1, 314).

In 1834, after years of languishing in legal limbo, seven hundred Cherokees decided to relocate west (3, 109). Eighty-one people died en route to Oklahoma, most as a result of measles and cholera, and half of those that arrived at the new land died within the year from cholera (3, 109). Restless from the time it was taking for Native Americans to leave their land, European Americans sought to finalize the relocation enacted by the Indian Removal Act by stepping up their attacks on the Cherokee (3, 109).

In 1838, President Martin Van Buren would preside over the finalization of the removal of the Cherokee Native Americans from the lands of Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama (3, 109). He ordered Major General Winfield Scott into Cherokee territory and authorized him to use "whatever military force (that) was required to move the Cherokees west" (3, 109). Under Maj. Gen. Scott's command, five regiments of regulars and four thousand militia and volunteers" rounded up the remaining seventeen thousand Cherokees and placed them in stockades (3, 109). The above photograph taken during the removal, shows Cherokee waiting to leave for Oklahoma. On October 1, 1838, the Cherokee began their hellish journey to Oklahoma-- their "Trail of Tears"-- in which four thousand of their people would eventually die "of sickness, of drought, of the heat, (and) of exposure" (3, 109-110).

Above is a dramatic reenactment of the events I have detailed that led up to
and the "Trail of Tears".

Work Cited:
(1) Faragher, John Mack, et al. Out of Many. 5th ed. Vol. I. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. 2 Vols.

(2) "Indian Removal Act". A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875. The Library of Congress. 14 July 2007 <http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=004/llsl004.db&
recNum=458>.

(3) Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. Vol. I. New York: The New Press, 2003. 2 Vols.

Image Cited:

"Photograph of Trail of Tears Removal". Image Table. Cherokees in Macon County History and Folklore. 14 July 2007 <http://aam.wcu.edu/cohort2/duncan/Picture%20of%20Trail%20of%20Tears%20
removal.jpg>.

"President Andrew Jackson". Presidents of the United States. The White House. 14 July 2007 <http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/images/aj7.gif>.

Video Cited:

Rich-Heape Films, Inc. "Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy Native American Indian". YouTube. 14 July 2007 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np-TYoZE5NM>.

America the Republic (Module 4)

First Page of the U.S. Constitution

As Howard Zinn notes in A People's History of the United States, the government established by the United States Constitution was republican and conservative in nature (2, 73). It was to have some features of a pure democracy, but the major features of the government were to be those of a representational democracy. The rule of law was to reign supreme, rather than the will of the (majority of) the people.

The government developed by the U.S. Constitution was not only fundamentally not a pure democracy in its ideal of the rule of law, rather than the rule of the people; but, also in its blatant disavowal of the rights of "women, Indians, and slaves" (2, 73). Today, the fact that not all of the people within the United States were to have a say in their government automatically precludes the America of 1787 from even being considered any form of democracy. Instead the United States of 1787 was a representational democracy that primarily represented the interests of the minority-- free, white, property owning men-- who were eligible to vote.

Of the three branches of government-- executive, legislative, judiciary-- established by the Constitution, only the House of Representatives was to be decided by popular election (2, 73). In regards to the election of senators, Article I, Section III, of the Constitution, states "the Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the Legislature thereof..." (1). And in the case of the election of the President of the United States, Article II, Section I, states "each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors...(and) the Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for Two Persons (for President of the United States)..." (1). As Article II, Section II, states "the President...shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint...Judges of the supreme Court" (1). Even in the case of deciding the election of representatives to the House, qualifications for voting "were set by the state legislatures (which required property holding for voting in almost every state), and excluded women, Indians, and slaves" (2, 73).

Work Cited:

(1) "Constitution of the United States". The National Archives Experience. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. 8 July 2007 <http://archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution
_transcript.html>.

(2) Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. Vol. I. New York: The New Press, 2003. 2 Vols.

Image Cited:

"Constitution of the United States". The National Archives Experience. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. 8 July 2007 <http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/images/constitution
_thumb_295_dark_gray_bg.jpg>.

South Carolina Slave Code (Module 3)

In 1712, the South Carolina General Assembly, led by Lord Craven, passed a series of laws governing slaves, including "negroes, mulatoes, mestizoes, or Indians", and black slaves in particular (1). The "South Carolina Slave Code" sought to formally enact whites' racist views of non-whites as inferior, to state who exactly was considered to be a slave, and to declare exactly what those slaves were permitted to do under the law.

In the introduction of the "South Carolina Slave Code", the reasoning given by the South Carolina General Assembly to justify the enactment of laws governing slaves' lives exemplifies the racist thinking of whites at the time and the interwoven history of that racism with the economic history of the United States. It is stated that in order for South Carolina's "plantations and estates" to "be well and sufficiently managed and into use", the "labor and service of negroes and other slaves" is needed (1). And because the nature of "negroes and other slaves" is deemed to be a "barbarous, wild, (and) savage nature", "it is absolutely necessary, that constitutions, laws and orders, should...be made and enacted, for the good regulating and ordering of them..." (1). Thus, because of the vitality of slavery to the success of then colonial South Carolina's economy and the believed to be inferior, "uncivilized" nature of the non-white slaves, the following laws were passed in order to regulate and maintain the stability of the slave labor force.

The first law declares who is to be considered a slave; including: "all negroes, mulatoes, mestizoes or Indians, which at any time heretofore have been sold, or now are held or taken to be, or hereafter shall be bought and sold for slaves, are hereby declared slaves; and they, and their children, are hereby made and declared slaves..." (1). This declaration of slavery inherited from birth was unique to Western society, differing from the African tradition of non-inherited slavery.

The second and third laws sought to severely limit the already little freedom granted to slaves by denying them leave from the plantation "on Sundays, holidays, or any other time" and if they did leave the plantation "without a ticket, or leave in writing, from his master or mistress, or .... some white person in the company of such slave, to give an account of his business" they were to be whipped (1). Thus, any slave off the grounds of the plantation was to be automatically considered a fugitive. Slaves were also granted little personal privacy, in that, the slave quarters were to be searched every fourteen days for "fugitive and runaway slaves, guns, swords, clubs, and any other mischievous weapons..." (1). The later items possibly being used to rebel in some way.

The fifth and sixth laws sought to minimize the possibility of an armed insurrection. "No negro or slave" was allowed to carry a gun or firearm outside the grounds of the plantation without the accompaniment of the master, or some other white person (1). And the master of the plantation was to keep his guns and firearms in the most private room of the house (1), in order to lessen the possibility of a slave gaining access to the guns and using them against the master and his family.

Work Cited:

(1) Cooper, Thomas and David J. McCord, eds. "South Carolina Slave Code." Statutes at Large of South Carolina: Vol. VII, pp. 352-356. Columbia: A.S. Johnston, 1836-1841. 10 vols. 2 July 2007. <http://webct.dvc.edu/SCRIPT/HIST120_5562_SU07/scripts/serve_home>.