Above the Law; Below Legitimacy

During the 2nd of our 3 week creation of the questions for our Honors History class final exam, we created 40 more questions for the topic of Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans.  To start the week, we watched the ABC-Clio videos and took notes on a Google Doc shared by the entire class.  The class took notes on key people, important events, key terms, and main ideas just like last week. 

Buffalo soldiers were Union African Americans who were part of the nation's army.  Native Americans are considered to be the first groups of people that were living in the Great Plains and more of Western America.  They lived in peace because there were no enemies living out in Western America of course before Westward Expansion occurred.  They were very dependent on Buffalo for their resources.  They would use the meat for food, the skin for clothing, and the bones for hunting weapons and other tools.  There were vast ceremonies and other rituals.  Being a kid as a Native American seems to be more fun than being a kid today; at least when you look at the first time.  Children would get to spend time playing games and doing certain activities also being taken by their fathers learning how to hunt.  Women would often make the clothing and it was also more common that women would find the herbs and plants for medicines though the plants were somewhat useful, there was never an actual cure to an illness.  For a boy, becoming a man was probably the most exciting time of his life as he would complete a puberty ceremony into adulthood. 

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was a law that said Indian tribes in the South had to leave where they were and move west of the Mississippi River or they will live under the laws of white Americans which really means they could be treated poorly, beaten, raped, and go into slavery when it was still legal just about 25 years prior to the Civil War.  However, Andrew Jackson was a pro-slavery guy and certainly wouldn't make a law to protect the Indians that stayed if they decided to.  The reason for this expansion; just so Jackson and the "real Americans" in which he called about 100,000 more could have more land to settle with.  While many of the Indian tribes did move westward just out of either fear or not wanting violence, they were reluctant to do so because the territory where Jackson was making them move to which he did say if they did so without conflict they would be able to live in peace, the land was unknown, and there were fewer natural resources that they could use.  Then in the 1840's, there was the great gold rush that brought more and more whites westward.  This resulted in whites settling on the new Indian territory, you know the territory that Jackson promised there would be no problems had they moved there peacefully.  From the 60's to the 90's, American Indian wars occurred in the great plains as Gold was discovered in the Dakotas.  Immigrants were abusing the Sioux tribe until they decided that they had enough and fought back.  Congress in the 1860's created the 6 regiments making Buffalo Soldiers.  They fought against the Indians for years until 1876 when the government ordered all Indians to return to their reservations though many took a long time to reach the plains and others were ignored leading to more confrontation amongst natives and whites. 

We looked at other documents.  One document called A century of dishonor discusses the Indians' experiences throughout all of the expansion.  One quote says "These Indians found themselves surrounded by gold seeking settlers from the East."  At this point, whites were already settled in the new areas for Indians and conflict was already arising.  It was too late for the government to do anything that would have a huge affect on the problems.  And the only thing that they would consider doing is making the Indians move again most likely because of a circumstantial change in this case, the gold that was being found all over the western part of the country.  The Indians followed the order of Jackson by moving westward and by doing that, it was agreed that they would live in peace.  Yet, when gold suddenly rises out of the ground, the rules change because it's a new circumstance and the government sees an opportunity to make money and are completely oblivious to the law they had created on Indian Removal.  The fact the word Removal is linked to the word Indian and is a law gives off the feeling that the main purpose of the law is to slowly and gradually diminish total Indian population making it look like it is only pushing them out west.  There was also the General Allotment Act which tried to get Indians to embrace American culture so maybe this is a sign that some policies didn't bring the worst if followed or not.  In 1890, at Pine Ridge, over 150 Sioux Indians were killed in a massacre between American Indian ghost dancers and the U.S. army and Buffalo Soldiers.  While the policies may have led to some good things, I personally believe that some policies like Jackson's had long lasting affects that would destroy the native in the long run and may have been discriminatory towards them while others did not have discrimination put within them yet the enforcement of the policies led to it anyways.       

Industrial Experts

This week in our Honors History class, we began preparing for the final exam.  For our midterm back in January, we were given two hours to write two essays.  We were given time to prepare the notes two weeks prior to midterm week.  However in May, we finished a five page research paper and our teacher didn't want us to have to do what we did for midterms.  Instead, we will have an actual exam.  But, from last week until Finals, we will be studying new lessons and creating notes and questions to be put on the final.  For each lesson, the class divided amongst our groups has to create 40 questions each week.  This week's lesson was called Carnegie and Rockefeller.  To begin the unit, the class made a Google Doc accessed by everyone in the class, and the groups were assigned certain categories.  We got the notes from watching a series of video clips on ABC-CLIO.  The categories were main ideas, key people, important events, and essential terms.   After taking the notes, the class had to come up with an essential question for the lesson, which was 'How did the actions of monopolistic leaders such as Carnegie and Rockefeller affect the common American workers?'

John D. Rockefeller was born in 1839.  He was a part of the creation of the petroleum industry.  He was a strong supporter of the Union army in the Civil War.  Also, he donated nearly $500 million dollars to advancements of education and medicine.  He became a business powerhouse by 1870.  He then founded the Standard Oil company which became a monopolistic corporation in oil production.  He continued to find ways to make more money and put other oil producers out of business clinching a nationwide monopoly.  As he proceeded to do this, the public started to think that he was making all of this money and trying to be the only producer just for his own good.  People also believed that he was trying to be a business icon with the motive of not doing good for the public, just for himself and trying to end his competition.  In an interview with William Hoster, he says "I believe the gift of god is the power to make money."  He also said "I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money."  This statement shows a rich non charismatic man who just wants power but while he made this much, yes he put towards himself but also to charities as he did prior to 1870s.  He also did provide jobs to the millions of Americans while at the same time putting so many others out of work.  But donating 500 million to charity is a huge contribution.  I believe he did help American workers because while he may have made other companies lose jobs, he certainly did provide much more. 

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish rich man in the United States.  He began his life in poverty and as he got older into adulthood, he became more powerful as he controlled the U.S. steel industry.  He had a huge role in the telegraph as he wad the first man to be able to operate messages by differentiating wire transmission sounds.  He now could read messages via sound.  He became an operator of the country's telegraph lines and then eventually becoming the superintendent of the military telegraph lines.  He was a coordinator of rail transportation for the Union in the Civil War.  Once he got into the Steel Industry in the 1870s, he gained popularity amongst workers and people because there was a huge need for steel.  It boosted during the war and he became one of the leaders in production in the United States.  He provided millions of jobs as his corporation became more powerful.  This also took other jobs away but there were other popular steel companies in the U.S. that weren't selling prior to Carnegie's existence in the industry.  However, once his company boosted, so did theirs but they still were not as popular as him though very high up on the ladder.  Carnegie was a huge creator of jobs for the American workers.  He was also fair to the workers in terms of conditions and working hours.  He was a much more decent man than Carnegie was in terms of fairness to the workers.  Carnegie provided stable paying and well conditioned but very physical jobs for American workers and he had a positive impact on the commoners of the nation.