lefrancois – American History to 1877

May 5, 2014

Rethinking Racial History

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Of all the things I have learned in this class, I think the most valuable for me was how to rethink the racial History of the United States. In the general narrative of America’s history many interesting stories were marginalized as well as the people who lived those stories. The two periods that especially intrigue me are the period before slavery was normalized and the very beginning of post-slavery america. These interest me the most because there were stories of black Americans that I had not previously been aware of.

In the time before slavery was radicalized and normalized, there were actually a fare amount of freed people in the United States. They lived lives that surprised me greatly. I remember reading taylor and learning about the free black Americans who lived in the north east. Some of them were well off, and some of them had slaves. These two things were very important for me in terms of deconstructing the racial history that I have been taught. The fact that there were African Americans who had enough agency to accrue wealth for themselves before slavery really gained its footing speaks volumes. In addition, the fact that these African Americans themselves own slaves further problematizes the dominant narrative of american history in which only whites owned slaves. Furthermore, it raises interesting questions as to what type of rationale black slave owners had for owning slaves themselves. These things served me well in that they allowed be to develop an extremely nuanced view of History that I think help to sharpen my critical analysis abilities overall.

April 30, 2014

What if?

In his post max talked about the extreme racism that was displayed in the mockumentary, The Confederate States of America. Many of our classmates also expressed feelings of shock in response to the extreme advertisements for items like an electronic device to help people find their runaway slaves exist.

While it is EXTREMELY important not to demonize the south, and southerners when assessing history, as i watched the film, i began to ask my self what if? In looking at the film, the viewer is bombarded with extreme examples of racism that seem out of this world. But as Max also noted, it is not as if racism does not exist today. Just because it may not be as blatant as an eBay for buying slaves, does not mean it isn’t there. this is a point I would like to strongly make in order to emphasize the necessity of not demonizing the South, and not over glorifying the north. But again, my mind wanders to the question what if?

If the confederacy had won, is this really what the Confederate States of America would look like? practicality says no. but that is a practicality based on assumptions that come from the America we live in today. For example, even though there is covert racism today, I think most people I know would be extremely uncomfortable if they heard a white person earnestly and hatefully call a black person a nigger to their face. But in the world where the confederacy won, would this be an anomaly?

Which leads to another question, would slavery still exist? And if not, what would America look like? As we said in class, slavery may very well have been facing its end anyway. The system was growing economically efficient. But, as we know, just because the institution has ending, does not mean its effects do as well. Because of the way in which slavery ended, we as a country were set on a certain path in terms of race. I think racism would exist either way, but I honestly think the quality of life (and i mean quality based on a criteria of dignity) would have been worse for African Americans in the US had the Confederacy won. Change, as history shows us, would have come. At some point or another rights would have been won. But how long would it have been. Surely not in the 1950s…

April 28, 2014

Not so Civil War

As Emily noted in her post, The Civil war is one that everyone knows about, but not in detail. One of the things that might get overlooked about the civil war is how deadly it was on the whole. As we learned in class, many northern people died, and in the south 1/3rd of all the men were killed in war time. If the alarming numbers of the Civil War do not impact us, the qualitative side of things surely should. Davis talks about how much hate there was on both sides of the war–to the point of inhuman acts. For example he notes that there were some, “Confederate women who wore the teeth of dead Yankee soldiers.” These were the kinds of things that were going on on both sides.

What was more intriguing, though, was Davis’ illumination of how the people who lived during the war thought about it at the time. One aspect of the War that seemed both interesting, and a little bit confusing, to me was the religiousness that people assigned to it. Davids talks about the writings of a girl named Josephine Shaw Lowell, who looked at the war as a means of showing Americans that ‘riches, luxury and comfort are not the great end of life’. From this reasoning Josephine, and others looked at the war as a ‘direct work of God’. People, including Abe Lincoln himself, Believed that this War, despite how terrible it was, was serving as a part of the Christian God’s plan. There are to ways to look at this. One is that there were people taking a positive away from such a negative and devastating experience. The other is that religion at the time had such a stronghold on peoples lives, that even a war (something that is violent and therefore fundamentally violates the religious doctrine of the day) that was not based in religion, can be ascribed these religious tones and assignments. In this light, people on either side of the war can believe that their cause is “God’s cause”. These are both fascinating, and frightening realizations.

April 23, 2014

We Know that Already, Don’t We

In his post on ask a slave, Willie mentioned how many Americans today live under a veil of ignorance that blurs the facts of history. This is something that everyone is guilty of. In his post Willie talked about current day America’s ignorance of certain aspects of slavery. In this post, I want to explore the ignorance that surrounds immigrants in United States History. Many descendants of immigrants today would be considered white. Today, I would say that a person of Irish lineage is a white american, and thereby would benefit from what we today call white privilage. While this claim is general, it is something that I have perceived to be true. This view disregards the fact that there was a point in America’s history Irish people were othered as well. This is something that Barrett and Roediger touch upon in their essay, “Inbetween Peoples: Race, Nationality and the ‘New Immigrant’ Working Class”. Barrett and Roediger note that even between generations, there was a distinct change in how the rest of white america and the immigrants themselves viewed their status in society based on race. They note, in reference to the first generation immigrants, that “Most did not arrive with Conventional United States attitudes regarding ‘racial’ difference, let alone its significance and implications in the context of industrial America.” But as with many other new groups introduced to the “American” culture, including Native Americans, and African Americans, there was an attempt to racialize them. This is where Barrett and Roediger’s theory of inbetweeness is important. They assert that there was actually no definitive way to categorize immigrants when it came to race, this led to an intensely complex racial identity among immigrants themselves and it complicated the history of thier racialization. They were absolutely othered by already “americans” but at the same time came to hold a position in society different than that of slaves (which was different than that of Native peoples). This is the kind of thinking that is not applied when we as Americans think of our History–but it is a mode of thinking that is so necessary to understand where we have been as a country and why we are where we are today in terms of race relations.

February 19, 2014

Gordon Wood and the American Revolution

I found Gordon Wood’s piece on the revolution to be refreshing. He spoke about the base issue of the war (patriot dissent of the British social system) in an effective manner. Wood’s tied in the everyday relations between Patriots and Courtiers by illustrating the dynamics of their interpersonal relationships. The soon-to-be Americans had developed a sense that rank was to be earned in the New World. Woods himself makes a reference to a Thomas Paine quote that captures this sentiment quite well. The saying goes, “virtue is not hereditary.” Clearly, this was opposite to the British social structure in which people gained their status and title form their parents.

A specific example would be of a fairly well off farmer who, through hard work, attained his wealth, yet was still subject to the rule of the political structure ran by men who inherited their titles. It is easy in this scenario to see Wood’s theory at work on a very personal level. This farmer would despise that fact that despite being a self made man, he would still have to adhere to a social and political system that, in the years leading up to that war, were not in his best interest. The loyalist aristocracy in the colonies was a tangible variable, being a group of people, that represented a violation to the values that Patriots had begun to develop. In this way, I think that Wood’s not only puts forward a great argument, but also makes it easier to understand.

In addition to this, he took time to address the obvious confusions that would arise. Specifically, he noted that the very values Americans used as reason for separation from Britain would conflict with the fact that slavery still existed after the revolutionary war. This is an issue that Wood’s did not delve into, as his piece was on the revolutionary war. But is important nonetheless and comes up in our other texts. As Ness noted in her blog post, it is a large part of Davis’s argument in his book Inhumane Bondage, and essential to understanding the progression of events between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War

February 17, 2014

Native American Agency among Feuding Colonies

As Kurt noted in his post, one central theme in Taylor’s 18th chapter was the roles that different groups played in the 7 years war. Specifically, I was interested in the complex relations that Native Americans had with the french and British during conflict. These interactions illustrated an aspect of Indian agency that I previously was ignorant of. It is important to acknowledge the role that colonies played in the elimination of Native civilizations. But a historical view in which Natives are seen exclusively as victims of settlement ignores the complexity of their intentions and motives.

Taylor illuminates this complexity through his analysis of Indian-European interactions in which the Indians play a larger and more independent role than may be expected. for example, he notes how pivotal the Six Nation Iroquois were during the 7 years war because of their location in between warring colonies. Each side needed native american assistance in their endeavors to beat the other. On page 424 Taylor makes a great point by saying, “Indians dominated the forest passages between the rival empires. They could obstruct the advance of their colonial enemy and terrify and destroy outlying settlements.” In this way, we see a relationship in which Europeans were actually partly dependent on Native Americans. This works toward dispelling the notion that Native Americans were purely victims.

In addition, we see the inner workings of how both Natives and Europeans choose to behave towards one another. Taylor illustrates the power dynamics of these relations. Regardless of what they really thought of the Indians, the French were more hospitable towards them because they knew they needed their help against the increase in English power. The British were the opposite–they were aware that they were in a position of power, so they showed less hospitality towards their Native allies.

February 12, 2014

It’s a Little More Complicated Than That…

Nuance is always key. In understanding how any system works, one needs to understand the little ins and outs of it that make it the way it is. In class the other day, we touched on the topic of the development of a racialized slavery. In our discussion as a class, we were very careful to include as many factors as we could in our analysis of how race relations in the colonies evolved. This approach is one that Taylor employs in his re-writing of history, and is one I believe is critical to an accurate understanding of history.

In chapter 15, Taylor is very deliberate in his nuanced delivery of how religion developed in The New World. On page 339 he denounces the dominant narrative, which he believes, “…grossly simplifies the diverse religious motive for emigration.” We have heard the story, so plainly told, that dissenters of the Church of England fled religious persecution. This narrative leaves us to assume that all those who left England for religious reasons were under one religious denomination. This could not be further from the truth, According to Taylor, there were multiple denominations, including the Anglicans, Quakers, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, and German Reformed. Even more important to understand was the competition between these groups. Each group wanted their belief to be the dominant one. This lead to a climate, as Taylor notes, that was not as religiously tolerant as we assume when we think of the New World, especially in New England.

Taylor’s narrative also shows an extremely important discrepancy in the two schools of thought that influenced the above mentioned groups. He pays special attention to the rift between those who were rationalists, and those who took the evangelical route. This is especially important because it holds implications outside of religion. Taylor asserts, “By emphasizing the overwhelming…power of God acting directly and indiscriminately upon souls, radical evangelicals weakened the social conventions of their hierarchical society.” Undoubtedly, religion affected other parts of colonial society, such as economics, and class structure. So if we do not understand the nuances of religion in the colonies, we cannot even get to the point where we realize that different denominations affect social structure in unique ways.