POSTS – Page 16 – Atlantic History

The Man, the Myth, the Legend: Alex Hamilton

October 30, 2016December 16, 2020Dr. Shrout

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So, I feel I need to begin this post by stating my disdain for musicals. Song and dance, in my opinion, are horrible mediums through which to convey a story. That being said, I must admit, “Hamilton’s America” is an entertaining way to portray the amazing exploits of one of the leading founders of this great nation. I found it to be much more historically accurate than I originally thought it would be. Seeing the amount of time spent on research and development and the passion for the actual history made me realize the creator not only wanted to entertain, he wanted to teach and tell the story in a manner that might reach those who wouldn’t ordinarily care about Alexander Hamilton or his accomplishments. I believe he exceeded his own expectations. Bravo Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bravo sir!

Alexander Hamilton is the epitome of what it means to be an American. As Victoriya alluded to in her post, Hamilton was the embodiment of the American dream. His immigrant status and humble upbringing forced him to work hard for everything he had. His hard work obviously paid off as he played an integral role in the creation of our strong nationalized government and central banking system, both of which make America what it is today. The musical does a great job highlighting the intense debates had over the construction of the nation; an intensity sometimes lost in the written word. It also helps Americans understand the passion behind the ideals. Hamilton did not accomplish all that he did solely out of self interest, he actually believed in the meaning behind what he was preaching, actions severely lacking in Washington as of late.

Digital History Site Analysis: Ottawa’s Eyewitness

October 29, 2016December 16, 2020Dr. Shrout

Ottawa’s Eyewitness is a digital history site that focuses of the landscape artwork of Thomas Burrowes. Between the years of 1826 and 1846, Burrowes was as a civil employee working on Rideau Canal project. The canal project linked the city Ottawa, located on the Ottawa River on the border of Ontario and Quebec to the city of Kingston which is located on the coast of Lake Ontario. During the years as a civil employee, Burrowes created beautiful watercolor paintings of various locations in Ottawa along the canal route. These watercolors show how Ottawa looked in the mid-1800s. With Ontario Ministry of Government Services. “Eyewitness: Thomas Burrowes on the Rideau Canal” website as a source, Ottawa’s Eyewitness places Burrowes’ landscapes in the locations where he would have viewed the canal.

Interacting: This digital history site has some basic interactive features. You are able to zoom in and out on the map of Ottawa. Since each watercolor is a different location and numbered, you can click one painting or cycle through them and you are sent to the location with the corresponding number on the map. Also when you can click the number on the map the corresponding image will appear. That is the extent of its interactive capabilities.

Clear Narrative: The narrative is lacking. For each of the paintings we get description of what we are seeing if we were looking at the same image in the mid-1800s. There is no explanation or clue why Burrowes created the paintings. What we know about Burrowes is he served as a tradesman in the British military in Canada after the War of 1812. After being discharged, Burrowes served as Clerk of the Works for the Rideau Canal until his retirement in 1846. Since he was a civil employee, he was probably commissioned by the magistrate to create these works of art but that is only speculation.

Good user design: Ottawa’s Eyewitness has a very good user interface design. While in class today, I was able to bring up this site on my mobile device. Usually sites get a little buggy if you try to bring them up on another device than a desktop or laptop computer. While on the site, I was able to take advantage of all the interactive features.

Accessibility: As I said before in the last statement, I was able to bring the site up on my phone. Also there are no dead links in this site and also it is very quick and does not lag.

One thing I like about the site: The one thing I like about the Ottawa’s Eyewitness digital history site is the map layout. Since Burrowes made his watercolor landscapes in different parts of Ottawa, it is interesting to know where he visited or setup to paint. This site also implies his point of view at the time when he created his art.

One thing I would like to change: There are a few things I would change about Ottawa’s Eyewitness, but the one glaring issue is the lack of historical content. When I first visited the site, I was wondering who Thomas Burrowes was, why did he do these paintings, and what is so special about the Rideau Canal project. The site makes no effort to answer these questions. I would add more historical information about the Rideau Canal project and what was it built for. Also I would add a little history about the man Thomas Burrowes.

Ottawa’s Eyewitness is a pretty good site if you want to learn something interesting about Ottawa Ontario. As a digital history site, I find it very lacking in content, interactivity, and especially history. With that said, the site does have its merits as a starter site. I think Ottawa’s Eyewitness gives someone, who has no idea how to proceed with their digital history project, good ideas on where to start.

Sources for Final Project

October 29, 2016December 16, 2020Dr. Shrout

Books
1. Peter C Mancall, James Hart Merrel. “American Encounters: Natives and Newcomers from European contact to Indian Removal, 1500-1850.” New York: Routledge, 2000.
2. Martin Ballard. “White Men’s God: The Extraordinary Story of Missionaries in Africa”. Oxford, England’ Westport, Conn.: Greenwood World Pub., 2008.

Other Sources
3.Travis Glasson. “Missionaries, Slavery, and Race: The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in the Eighteenth-century British Atlantic World.” ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. 2005.
4. rewe, Ryan. 2009. Building a Visible Church: The Mexican Mission Enterprise in the Early Spanish Atlantic, 1521–1600.
5.Utz, Axel. 2011. Cultural Exchange, Imperialist Violence, and Pious Missions: Local Perspectives from Tanjavur and Lenape Country, 1720–1760.

Hamilton’s America

October 28, 2016December 16, 2020Dr. Shrout

The documentary “Hamilton’s America” follows Lin-Manuel Miranda through his journey of creating a Broadway musical. This documentary was incredibly interesting and impressive to me. I feel like I have been living under a rock for not hearing about this musical until now! I feel like I have learned more about the life of Hamilton in an hour and twenty minutes than I have cumulatively in all of my history classes. Lin-Manuel is an incredibly song writer, every verse in his many songs has a profound amount of meaning. When he decided to write the story of Hamilton he did extensive research. The historical accuracy of the Broadway show is what has caused it to be such a great hit.

The fact that Hamilton lost his parents at a young age and was surrounded in poverty shows that coming to America really could allow a person to leave everything behind to begin a new life. America was see as the land of opportunity and that is exactly what it was for Hamilton. In Matt Everett’s post about Jamestown he states, “Jamestown was the first successful English settlement and model for future colonization.” In this way, Alexander Hamilton and other self-made men in the early Americans knew it was possible to be successful without being born into wealth. It was possible to start from the ground up and still become a successful and wealthy person.

I really enjoyed this documentary for the purpose of this class. It is a nice break from the reading, but it also offered a different learning approach, one that was a little more entertaining. I feel that people are more likely to retain information when it is presented in a way that is interesting and visually appealing. One of the boys who was interviewing the cast of Hamilton said that he was never good at memorizing history, but when it came to watching the show, he learned more than he ever did in his history classes. I completely agree with him that the method in which the show presents itself makes learning much easier that does coming from a textbook.

From Sea to Shining Sea Review

October 27, 2016December 16, 2020Dr. Shrout

1. What did I like? I like the set up/concept. The way the page is designed allows for the reader to see the map of the area relevant to the section they are reading at the time. This is better than reading a section, then going to the map section to find the area the author was talking about.
2. What don’t I like? I don’t like the fact that we have to rely on the website for the information. I had issues loading the page in class and at home. It had a negative impact on my connection with the material. I ended up stopping after 4 slides because I couldn’t get it to load further.
3. What would I like to learn? The basics of web presentations. I would like to learn how to create a slideshow that blended the textual evidence with the pictures and maps I want to share with my paper. I am fairly inexperienced with web design so even the basics like this will feel like a whole new experience.

Atlantic Cities: Spanish and Yoruba developments

October 26, 2016December 16, 2020Dr. Shrout

Within Jane E. Megan’s “Potosi: A Motor of Global Change,” one of Spain’s wealthiest and diverse cities takes center stage. I found it revealing that the importance over the resource of silver would transition from the Aymara kingdoms to the Inca empire to Spanish colonial rule. Potosi would hold significance as one of Spain’s prosperous cities in the Americas giving the European nation a rich silver mine to exploit. What’s interesting is that other European powers and even parts of Asia would take note of the city of Potosi and its rich silver resource. From 1600s to 1700s, the population within Potosi was an estimated 160,000, with a mixture of native Andeans, non-Spanish Europeans, and women all seeking to gain in the wealth of the city through trade. Potosi would become a diversified city within the Spanish colonial system. However, even with the city’s famous wealth and modernization, Megan notes the equally infamous treatment of the indigenous population which would take place within the city. Spaniards utilized Iberian laws of property to justify forced native labor through mining for silver in order to gain tribute for the crown. Exploitation associated with the “mitia,” or the forced labor draft, was common place for natives in the city. Even English colonial onlookers viewed the city as a hell on earth for indigenous people.

It is eye opening then to discuss the similarities and differences between the Yoruba cities in Africa and the Spanish city of Potosi. In Ademide Adelusi Adelayi’s, “Yoruba City Planning,” the author discusses the Yoruba’s ability to create social and political infrastructures that resemble urban cities. But in comparison to the Spanish’s efforts in the Americas, there has been significantly little research and evidence gathered for the complex nature of Yoruba oral and built traditions which helped develop in-depth city planning. The Yoruba’s tendency to settle in large densely populated areas and then build upon a society from within can be considered indigenous urbanism within Africa. Yoruba cities were permanent regions fortified with settlements and a divided interior. My fellow classmate, Alec Correa, puts its best, “Yoruba’s ability to adapt and expand its cities through the use of rulers and structured societies is a major reason the city flourished.” Even in the present, Yoruba cities such as Lagos are estimated at being one of the fastest growing cities in the world with the metropolitan Largos set to reach 20 million residents by 2025. In the case of present day Potosi, which never regained the dynamism of its first century of existence, it holds an estimated 150,000 residents and is experiencing a significant slow down in migration. Similar to the concepts brought up in Micheal A. Gomez Exchanging Our Country’s Marks and chapter eight of the Atlantic World, native cultures and traditions had a tendency to adapt and further develop within the colonial world. Even as European trade and culture dominated the Americas and parts of Africa, indigenous cultures proved to be long lasting surviving even to the present day.

What is an Atlantic City?

October 26, 2016December 16, 2020Dr. Shrout

The theme for our class this time is “What is an Atlantic City?” Before I started reading the two articles, my idea of an Atlantic city was one of the cities or towns that had direct access with the Atlantic Ocean. Simple eh. When I started reading Potosi from Places of Encounter: Time, Place, and Connectivity in World History, I thought that the Peruvian city of Potosi was no Atlantic city. From some of the research and class work, I recognized Potosi more as an Pacific city than an Atlantic city. Author Jane Mangan states that silver that was mined out of the Potosi mountain would either travel up to and across the Panama isthmus to be delivered to Spain or up to Acapulco on its way to the Philippine Islands (Mangan 3). What she seems to miss is that a lions share of silver would head to China since they were basing their economy on Spanish silver. But as soon as word got out that Potosi mountain was delivering a fortune in silver to the Spanish, European powers were trying to claim their own little piece of Spain’s wealth. My colleague Matt Everett states that the Potosi mountain in European eyes achieved “mythological status.” I agree with his assessment because both Portugal and England were looking for the next great and vast deposit of precious metals (i.e. the city of El Dorado) (Mangan 10).

Some scholars would suggest that Potosi is an Atlantic city because of the influx of European people into the city and surrounding area trying to seek their fortunes (Mangan 10). While this maybe true, I think the increase of the Atlantic Slave Trade and the founding of Buenos Aires clearly connected Potosi with the Atlantic economy and world. Before Buenos Aires, slave trading in the Viceroyalty of Peru was a protracted process that was inefficient and expensive. With the founding Buenos Aires 1580, Atlantic Slave Trade established a drop off point and direct line to Potosi. Since we are talking about Atlantic cities, Ademide Adelusi Adeluyi and Liora Bigon in their article City Planning: Yoruba City Planning, states that cities were oval shaped and built themselves around a royal palace, religious centers or a market place (Adeluyi and Bigon 1316). I agree with my colleague Allison Roberts that the Yoruba had shared language, origins, and beliefs, but their historians would disregard the city-states because they were thought of as not urban as Western cities.

The one thing that links Potosi and Yoruba together is the women’s role in the economy of both cities. In Potosi, women were the makers of chicha, which is a fermented drink made from ground corn flour. Chicha was a used for ritualistic purposes but with the advent of the growing economy in Potosi, chicha become more of an commodity to be sold (Mangan 6) . In Yoruba, the markets functioned as gender spaces where the women controlled most of the facets of the economy (Adeluyi and Bigon 1318).

Women’s role in the Economy

October 26, 2016December 16, 2020Dr. Shrout

adapting-to-the-economy

Gutierrez, Christian

Dr. Shrout

Hist-410

25th of October, 2016

Adapting to the Economy

Mangan reading focuses primary on the silver mines of the Bolivian town Potosi during Spanish rule spanning from 16th century up to the 18th century. The article chooses to bring attention to the abundance of silver mined, trade in the global economy, and the cruelty of Spanish rule. However, for the sake of this blog post I will be focusing on a smaller exert of the reading, which is the adaptability of Native Americans in trade. While many still hold on to the concept that Native Americans were blatantly ignorant when it came to trading with Europeans the article highlights the ingenuity of Native American women during the late 16th century. Drawing upon the previous reading, the consumption of commodities had risen from the “discovery” of the Americas, the demand for natural resources such as coca leaves grew exponentially. As the population of Potosi grew so would the demand for Coca leaves, seeing room for potential profits Native American women would harvest the leaves then travel down from the highland valleys of the Andes down to the city of Potosi. There they would trade the prized leaves for silver ore or coins, making a living for themselves.

Doctor Ademide Adelusi-Adeluy and Doctor Liora Bigon article Yorba City Planning goes into depth about western African cities during the late 17th century, stating how strategically planned African cities were. Attempting eliminating the ideology that African tribes were merely nomadic savages, but a group of organized tribes that utilized both military and economic alliances to construct well planned cities holding a centered nucleus (the chieftain’s home) as well as walls separating them from outside forces. However, what I drew upon the reading was one little line, “women controlled many aspects of the economy” (McIntosh, 2009). Yet again we see indigenous women controlling the economy which coincides with Alec’s post on the Gomez reading that women held strong roles in the community.

All in all in both readings we see Native Americans thriving in the new economic system, displaying both the theme of Native American economies as well as indigenous women holding large roles in society. Our history (the one taught in schools) don’t really credit women with being large parts in society till the 20th century and kinda makes one wonder how empowered women would be if we changed the history taught in our public schools to one where women hold a larger role in past societies .

Atlantic Cities: Yoruba and Potosi

October 26, 2016December 16, 2020Dr. Shrout

Continuing on where the other articles left off, Mangan writes about Potosi, a town that was radically transformed by the ever changing Atlantic trade. Potosi quickly became an urban center based around the nearby silver mines (Mangan 4). Not only was the actual town of Potosi affected by the newfound trade with Europeans, but its inhabitants were. Indigenous individuals were often forced to work in order to further European interests (Mangan 5). Similar to the authors of The Atlantic World, Mangan points out that nearly every aspect of life was affected, down to the food that was consumed by the indigenous people (Mangan 7).

While there are many similarities between Potosi and the Yoruba towns, the authors of Yoruba City Planning point out that their creation was much different. Unlike Potosi, the Yoruba towns were not created specifically by the Europeans, and were present long before European contact (Yoruba City Planning 1314). In fact, Yoruba cities confused Europeans, as they had a complex history and cultural that Europeans were not used to seeing (Yoruba City Planning 1316). Yoruba towns also mark a departure from the literature that has been discussed so far, as the towns were not based around any one thing, such as the trade or silver mines of Potosi. The authors of Yoruba City Planning make the argument that African cities were complex and developed long before European contact.

As my colleague Tram Hua pointed out, Yoruba cities were similar to Potosi due to the multiculturalism that they both had. Even the origins of Yoruba, which were Islamic, show a multiculturalism that is often ignored in discussing Africa (Yoruba City Planning 1316). Yoruba towns also relied on outside influences from nearby towns and settlements, which is also similar to Potosi. Also as my colleague pointed out, both cities are not often discussed because they are non-Western. As previously mentioned, Europeans of the time were confused by Yoruba, as they had no hand in its creation yet it subverted stereotypes.

Atlantic cities

October 26, 2016December 16, 2020Dr. Shrout

Both articles discuss the formation of the Atlantic cities namely the Potosi and Yoruba cities.

Located in high in the Andean altiplano, Potosi was a ghost town that nobody know about. That was it, until silvers were discovered in 1545. Magan argues, “To study Potosi in the early-modern era is to encounter the forces of colonialism and early globalization (2).” The silver rush quickly transformed isolated Potosi into an urban center. Population rise as tens of thousands of people rushed into the city in hope for little profit. Slaves and Indigenous laborers were used. Silver linked Potosi to global trade. Potosi silver circulated in trade markets all over the world from Americas to Africa and to European and Asian countries.

In City Planning, the authors noted that Western scholars tend to focus more on western cities and regard Yoruba cities as “semi-urban” (Adelusi-Adeluyi 1316). Yet this so called semi- urban held such advance sociopolitical organization, military alliances, and monopolization of ritual activity and commerce (Adelusi-Adeluyi 1314). Some of the most important Yoruba cities roots in the 19th century wars and emerged from the efforts of refugee populations. It was these new immigrants, and the descendent of ex-slaves brought in new skills that added to the richness of Yoruba culture, for example, the unique Yoruba architecture (Adelusi-Adeluyi 1319).

Yoruba cities are very much similar to like the Potosi. Both have such rich history of heterogeneous cultures. They are interesting cities and important case study to examine the history of the Atlantic world. Yet, like my classmate, Allison Roberts discusses in her post, these cities are often disregarded by scholars because they were not big western cities.