Primary sources are vital to history, without them we would have no basis of what to learn. Primary sources can be anything from records kept by official scribes, to journals, to retellings by eye witnesses. Even though we have these primary sources, we cannot really understand we are being told unless someone breaks it down, whether someone else interprets it, or we examine it ourselves. In American history there were a few that I found to be interesting, and insightful.
One primary source is an old Indian story. It explains why animals do not cooperate with humans and why plants can be used for healing. It begins by stating that animals once spoke to humans, and continues to tell why they stopped. It said that the humans began killing too
…show more content…
It gives instructions on how much work each slave will do, and even gives meaning less things to keep them occupied so they will not rise up for a rebellion. They would stay busy all year, planting and harvesting crops like corn, potatoes, rice, beans, peas and cabbage. When they were not working in the fields they would do things like housework. They were also required to work on road, but they had to have some white man guarding them with guns. They were also to be allowed to plant food for themselves, but only one day a week. If they behaved they might also be allowed to sell some of the crops they get for themselves.
This shows many things about slavery. One thing that I find interesting is that they did not even seem to hide that they knew that the Africans hated slavery. One of the biggest points of this was to tell different ways to keep slaves busy. None of us want to be held in captivity, we feel the need to be free. The fact that the slave owners recognized this means, at some level, they knew that the people of African lineage were humans, even if they did not want to accept
…show more content…
I think the only way to truly understand people’s motives is to examine their words, with the understanding of what was going on around them. The Indians believed that nature was made of spirits. They felt like the reason that animals did not manifest this to them was because their ancestors had betrayed the animals. Columbus was a man of his time, and I feel that we are too negative about what he did and thought because we compare it to our society. I think that slave holders on some level knew that treating other humans like property was wrong, but like Columbus, they had been taught that it was normal, so most did not question
...eriences. I was able to learn in depth, about the extensive and agonizing journey immigrants experienced to arrive to America by reading from the primary sources which gave me a better understanding of their situations. For example, I learned that if a husband or wife died half way sea, the other person is held responsible for paying for the dead (Hollitz, 45). The pictures and maps also enhanced the way information can be interpreted through primary sources. The paintings of Puritan children clearly demonstrate their feelings and attitude. I was able to see through their uncomfortable position, life style, and virtue by observing their posture, facial expression, and the way they dress. The primary source documents turned out to be very useful in many ways that assisted me to come up with a better understanding in details with chapter 2-4 in Give Me Liberty.
When it comes to learning about events and people in history, nothing beats a primary source. There is information directly from the event and there are no worries about incorrect data because the author was there to witness said event. But the main problem with primary sources is the fact that it only covers part of the story. So if a book is written about, say, the concentration camps of World War II, then all that it would be about would be that persons view of the camps, not what was happening during the actually war. This is where secondary sources come in. Secondary sources are written by authors who were not involved in the event, but rather did research on said event and wrote a novel covering what they believe to be all important aspects. Secondary sources are helpful when wanting to know more than just one aspect of an event, for example, you can know what was happening with the ally powers and axis powers, rather than just one or the other. Despite not being involved in the events, secondary sources still tend to contain bias. This essay will cover the bias of the novel Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream, by Edward Humes and how this either helped to prove or disprove his thesis.
The killings made by the slaves are saddening, too. Mutilating the whites and leaving their bodies lying is inhumane. It is such a shocking story. This book was meant to teach the reader on the inhumanity of slavery. It also gives us the image of what happened during the past years when slavery was practised.
For more than two hundred years, a certain group of people lived in misery; conditions so inhumane that the only simile that can compare to such, would be the image of a caged animal dying to live, yet whose live is perished by the awful chains that dragged him back into a dark world of torture and misfortune. Yes, I am referring to African Americans, whose beautiful heritage, one which is full of cultural beauty and extraordinary people, was stained by the privilege given to white men at one point in the history of the United States. Though slavery has been “abolished” for quite some years; or perhaps it is the ideal driven to us by our modern society and the lines that make up our constitution, there is a new kind of slavery. One which in
Looking at The Book of Negroes, these individuals did not have the right to speak out or act upon slavery and the slave trade. “To gaze into another person’s face is to do two things: to recognize their humanity, and to assert your own. As I began my long march from home, I discovered that there were people in the world who didn’t know me didn’t love me, and didn’t care whether I lived or died” (pg 29).
In his autobiography “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass”, Frederick Douglass shares his transformation from slave to freedman. The purpose of the work, as with many slave narratives, was “to enlighten white readers about both the realities of slavery as an institution” (Andrews). Throughout his journey, Douglass attempts to accomplish this through the description of daily conditions and horrifying experiences he faced while enslaved. He proves that through the institution of slavery, African-Americans were kept ignorant and forced into a subhuman existence while still longing to be treated fairly. White slave owners, as a result of slavery’s authoritarian manner, became animalistic tyrants.
In 1492, an event took place that would change forever the way the world is viewed, and the way people viewed themselves. When Columbus set foot on that Caribbean island on an August morning over five hundred years ago, he set in motion one of the greatest migrations the world has ever seen. Two separate and distinct worlds met that day, even though both had populated their separate continents. One world, the old world, was made up of Europeans looking for fame and fortune, not necessarily for new and uncharted lands. Divine supports this idea by stating, “They (explorers) came not as colonists but as fortune hunters seeking instant wealth, preferably gold, and they were not squeamish about the means they used to obtain it” (Divine, p.9). The other world, the new world, was made up of “Indians”, or the people native to this newly found hemisphere. They had their own cultures, and treated the newcomers like Gods, not knowing who or what they were. In document two of Gorn, Columbus supports this by saying, “ …and others in loud voices called to all the men and women: Come see the men who cane from the heavens” (Gorn, p.9). The opportunistic and power hungry old worlders took quick advantage of this, eventually either subjugating or outright slaughtering these unsuspecting natives. In document two, Bartlolme de Las Casas states, “And they (Spaniards) committed other acts of force and violence and oppression which made the Indians realize that these men had not come from Heaven” (Gorn, p.13). Why did these adventurers choose to take advantage of the natives they encountered, rather than try to peacefully coincide and cooperate with them? I will try to answer this troubling question while chronicling the documents of Columb...
After reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, it is clear to see the true horrors behind the entirety of slavery. It is one thing to learn about it from a textbook or to sit through a lecture, but it is a completely different experience to get an account of how grossly inhumane, frightening, and appalling slavery really was from someone who experienced the terrors first-hand. Reading this narrative provided extremely descriptive details of how slaves truly were treated. Douglass recounted the time where he had often:
During this investigation I utilized various forms of primary and secondary sources, all with distinct opinions, allowing for me to arrive at an objective conclusion. As a historian, one must evaluate both sides of an argument before deriving a conclusion. I used primary sources such as cartoons created during the Gilded Age, capturing the spirit at the time. Similarly, I examined the actual federal act of the Sherman Antitrust Act to view congress ruling regarding monopolies. I also utilized secondary sources that were written decades afterwards, enabling for the authors to reflect back on the series of events that unfolded after the creation of the cartoons during the time of the Gilded Age.
Slaves were treated as property. Owners had the right to do whatever they wanted to them. They were property, not people. Owners would have the white farm hands stand in the fields and make sure the slaves were working as fast and hard as they could. If they weren’t working as hard as they could and a white farmhand saw it. The slaves would be beaten, and sometimes in severe cases killed.
Douglass's narrative is, on one surface, intended to show the barbarity and injustice of slavery. However, the underlying argument is that freedom is not simply attained through a physical escape from forced labor, but through a mental liberation from the attitude created by Southern slavery. The slaves of the South were psychologically oppressed by the slaveholders' disrespect for a slave’s family and for their education, as well as by the slaves' acceptance of their own subordination. Additionally, the slaveholders were trapped by a mentality that allowed them to justify behavior towards human beings that would normally not be acceptable. In this manner, both slaveholder and slave are corrupted by slavery.
Frederick Douglass’ landmark narrative describes the dehumanization of African-American slaves, while simultaneously humanizing them through his moving prose. Douglass shows the dehumanization of slaves through depictions of violence, deindividuation, and the broken justice system. However, Douglass’ pursuit of an education, moving rhetoric, and critique of his own masters demonstrates to the reader that African-Americans are just as intelligent as white people, thus proving their humanity.
Eyewitness To History is a great example of a well-organized and comprehensive historical reference website. With information categorized not only by time periods, but also relating accounts and events, Eyewitness makes it easy to learn about events from a broadened perspective as well as enabling convenient access to where the provided information came from. The resources for each article, video, sound clip, account, photograph, referential artwork, and images of old letters are effectively referenced and catalogued to link together for a simple and comprehensive learning experience. Eyewitness To History provides expansive user-friendly options for utilizing the website for both school-related and leisure studies.
... means to pacify the colonists to get them to see that they did not need to keep recruiting blacks in Africa. Additionally, the pamphlet addresses that if the inhumane treatment of the slaves were to persist then the slaves would grow tired and push them towards an insurrection. A prospect that came true when in 1791 there was a slave revolt in St. Domingue.
THis was dehumanizing because they had no contact with the outside world and had no way to express their feelings. THis is shown in the slave interview when he is talking about how his slaves tried to take every opportunity to educate themselves though it was illegal. Mr. fields wants to take advantage of every opportunity he has because he would be able to use it to his advantage. They were constantly being told what the slave owners wanted them to think. This was dehumanizing because the owner was treating them like a bunch of robots. In the beginning of slave sale they were not able to learn completely what they were going through at first because they couldn’t read any of the signs. But when the people started yelling that’s when they understood what was happening. This shows that they are now not are of any possible threats without inferring because they can’t see the world around them. Slave owners did this to make sure that the slaves don’t spread any news about how there is a north where people are free.