Author: suzanna.melendez

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Suzanna Melendez

November 11, 2016

4-6 Primary Sources

 

Fraser, Simon, and W. Kaye Lamb. 1960. Letters and Journals, 1806-1808. Toronto: Macmillian Co. of Canada.

• Emphasized in his biography, explorer Simon Fraser is one of the most neglected explorers in Canada. While Lewis and Clark explored the Louisiana Territory in 1805-6, Simon crossed the Rocky Mountains and built trading posts. During my research, I want to focus on his journey because Frenchmen that utilized his trading posts were Frenchmen married to native women.

MacDonald, Lois Halliday, Francis Eratinger, and Edward Ermatinger. 1980. Fur Trade Letters of Francis Ermatinger; Written to his brother Edward During his Service with the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1818-1853. Glendale, Calif.: A. H. Clark Co.

• The framework of the scholarship highlights the North Americans fur trade and mountain men. It is important to point out that majority of native women married to French men participated in the fur trade. The scholar utilized letters, post journals, fur trade accounts, and official government documents. My intention is not only to focus on the social history of interracial marriages between native women and French men, but also research the political and economic factors.

Morton, Desmond, and Reginald Herbert Roy. 1972. Telegrams of the North-West Campaign, 1885. Toronto: Champlain Society.

• A critical re-examination of European official interactions between the native populations in North America. The vividly details the violent confrontations between two different societies. He utilized diaries, letters telegrams and other government documents. It will be interesting to research the native women’s position, especially, during these violent altercations.

Petitot, Emile Fortune Stanislas Joseph, John S Moir, Paul Laverdure, Jacqueline Moir 2005. Travels Around Great Slave and Great Lakes, 1862-1882. Toronto: Champlain Society.

• Although the story is set in Canada, the primary sources in the book provided by four Frenchmen explorers are critical to my historiography. Letters, diary entries, essays, artifacts, and a compile of dictionaries and grammar of native languages emphasize their presence not just in America but also in Canada. As I organize my essay, I will try and find connections related with native women despite the difference in location.

 

 

 

 

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Suzanna Melendez
11/8/2016
Blog #6

Scott Zesch’s The Chinatown War: Chinese Los Angeles and the Massacre of 1871 delivers a riveting and well researched moment in American history that is often overlooked. During the 1870s a small-scale turf war began between three Chinese gangs in a small Los Angeles neighborhood. To settle the dispute, a group of Angelenos lynched a group of eighteen Chinese men. Scott Zesch’s research on the Massacre of 1871 offers a compelling account of one of California’s earliest hate crimes. As a historian, his research process was extremely difficult and challenging. During the 1850s and 1880s, the Chinese communities left behind very few written documents. Throughout the book, there are examples of Chinese men writing letters to friends and family back in China. Unfortunately, due to the lack of Chinese sources, Zesch relied heavily on American journalists and Los Angeles County court records. Therefore, as a scholar he emphasized on the historical and political context of the early-Chinese communities in California.

The framework of the book is chronologically organized and provides a thorough background of Los Angeles. In addition, Zesch provided in depth details about the Chinese intention to sail to the U.S., eventually, settling in San Francisco and Los Angeles. As a scholar, he did an exceptional job detailing their traditional roots of family and culture. “Unlike those immigrants from Europe who pulled up stakes and essentially cut their ties with their pasts, the first Chinese who came to America remained closely connected with their kin back home.”(8) Family and culture were important values emphasized in Zesch’s scholarship. In relation to Zesch’s research, Ari Kelman’s A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over Memory of San Creek focused on the Natives attempt to preserve their history and traditional values. aly692 wrote that “They are trying to provide agency to their ancestors and heritage in order to make sure all narratives are being displayed for the Sand Creek Massacre … not the ones the Federal government wants us to hear regarding the ill treatment of Natives.” During the Gold Rush an influx of immigrants traveled to California to earn enough money for their families back in China. Despite the prejudices against the Chinese “new buildings were constantly under construction, and manual laborers were in demand. A local newspaper broadly welcomed immigrants in 1869, proclaiming: Let them come and settle with us; there is room for them and more.” (11) In a paradox, by 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by the U.S Congress and therefore, prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers.

Overall, it was astonishing to read about the hurdles and violence inflicted against the Chinese. As a migrant community, they strived to build businesses and permanently settle in America. Although the author provided a detailed historical background of the Chinese in California, only one chapter is dedicated to the lynching. In spite of the lack of resources, one critique that I would give Zesch is that he could have explored the lynchings more in detail. Moreover, the topic of gender was what intrigued me the most in the book. My classmate sbremer highlighted some interesting points about gender. “For the Chinese women in the sex trade in Los Angeles at this time, I think the argument that they are given no voice or agency a compelling one. There are only a few instances where Chinese women are given a voice and a surprising degree of agency.” Despite the violence and bloodshed inflicted on the Chinese population, Zecsch did a phenomenal job researching a little-known event that would forever stain our history.

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Suzanna Melendez

11/1/2016

Blog Post #5

 

In Gregory P. Downs and Kate Masur riveting collection of essays The World the Civil War Made sheds light to the profound changes the Civil War caused in the East and throughout the Southwest. The impressive cast of scholars wrote on a variety of themes which ranged from race, economics, politics, and religion. Even though the aftermath of the Civil War has been largely written about, Downs and Masur have asked questions and incorporated new innovative methodologies. Although their volume highlights how the field has matured, older works such as    Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution cannot be overlooked. On the contrary, “… historians of the postwar United States almost inevitably draw from Foner’s scholarship, particularly on his ambitious vision of the transformation of Republican ideology and his wide-ranging insights about African American politics.” (6) Ultimately, the existing interpretations about the Civil War have been expanded past the comfortable boundaries of a North-South conflict.

As scholars, they organized the book in a unique manner. “Rather than presuming that Reconstruction is the best framework for understanding the postwar period-and thus envisioning a Reconstruction of the West or the Plains or the world-in this volume we ask whether thinking across regions might in fact might help us understand not just the regions themselves but the entire nation and its place in nineteenth century history.” (2-3) Therefore, the context of the book was not chronologically frame worked. On the contrary, instead of telling new stories, their goal was to frame new questions and modes of analysis. More recent work such as Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of Economic Development have adopted this similar methodology. On their blog post, 20perez16  said “the book as a whole included discussions on the main U.S. regions as well as the international scene.” Historians have brilliantly reimagined the geographic, cultural, political, and ideological landscapes of a world impacted by slavery, war and racism. In both manuscripts the readers are able to see the United States’ dynamic impact upon the world.

In order to write an in-depth analysis of the long-term implications of the Civil War, Downs and Masur abandon the term “reconstruction.” They did a remarkable job explaining that “reconstruction” historically limits the social, political, and legal change to the postbellum South. On the other hand, social changes impacted women, African Americans and Native Americans. In Laura F. Edwards essay Reconstruction and the History of Governance illustrates how grassroots freedom on a local level impacted and shaped the rights claims and legal protections of African Americans. In addition, it was intriguing to read sbremer’s blog post that highlighted that “the government was still in the transitioning phase, and still learning from its experience of tearing itself asunder.” Furthermore, as Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War the nation was still mourning the deaths of thousands of Americans. In order to rebuild the nation, Faust argued that families had to mourn the deaths of their loved ones. In conclusion, the Civil War not only nearly divided the United States but the aftermath had a nationwide effect.

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 Suzanna Melendez

10/28/16

Polished Paragraph

 

Prior to the 1970s, American women’s history tended to be neglected furthermore, scholarship focusing on native women was non-existent. Not until the 1980s, did scholars begin to focus on interracial marriages. Throughout my paper, I will focus on French men and Native American women. The reader will differentiate my historiography from other works because my research will mainly focus on Native womens’ experiences and intentions to marry outside their own race. In addition, I will also include a variety of sources focusing on marriages between Indian women and Spanish men in Mexico. It is important to take into consideration the lack of primary sources. During the nineteenth century, majority of women were illiterate and did not record their history. As a result, I had to read around my topic and look at other kinds of interracial marriages in order to put together a robust historiography.

The historical synthesis and methods utilized by scholars are government documents, travel journals, historic maps, and manuscripts. While majority of my sources addressed topics such as gender, economics, politics, and geography the issue of race appeared in every text. In Barbara Fields essay Ideology and Race in American History she addressed how historians have approached race and racism. One of her questions is how the concept of race came to be deeply embedded into our society? The concept of race is a complicated subject matter because an individual’s physical traits did not discourage interracial marriages. In Susan Sleeper- Smith Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes highlights the high number of mixed-blood kinships which unified Indian women and French men. Women not only worked as brokers between two different societies but they helped connect the Great Lakes which expanded the transatlantic economy. By reading Sleeper’s narrative I identified that Indian women’s actions mainly impacted their husband’s interests. Further research by Sylvia Van Kirk in Many Tender Ties: Women in the Fur-trade Society, 1670-1870 tried to identify how native women benefited from an interracial marriage. She provided in depth details about family life among the Native Americans. During the early 18^th century, marriages between French men and Native women were encouraged. But there are debates among scholars as to the date and reason interracial marriages were disapproved by French aristocrats. By the 19^th century, physical traits began to be emphasized opposing differences between and discouraging French-Indian relationships. Therefore, are there other components that attributed toward the disproval of mix raced relationships? Although French men wanted political and economic alliances these correspondences began to represent a form of dishonor. Guillaume Aubert’s article The Blood of France: Race and Purity in the French Atlantic World highlights the criticism of interracial relationships. Despite economic and political gains, the social construct a racial hierarchy interfered. Overall, can an emphasis on race reveal an accurate account of native women’s experience in an interracial marriage and the lives of their multiracial children?

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Suzanna Melendez

Blog #4

10/17/2016

 

           This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War is a powerful academic scholarship which focuses on nineteenth century American’s attitude toward death, grief and mourning. Drew Gilpin Faust examines and provides readers with extraordinary statistics that prove that the Civil War was as one of the bloodiest wars in American history. The theoretical framework of the book not only provides a voice for the thousands of men who perished during the war, but Faust skillfully incorporated mothers, wives, and sisters personal experiences on how they mourned their loved ones death.

Faust thesis suggested that the high number of casualties incorporated with a violent death transformed Americans understanding of death. As dshanebeck emphasized in his blog entry for Pasley, Robertson, and Waldstreichers’ Beyond the Founders “…editors of this massive collection of essays attempted to weave an argument that expounds the ideas of American political history beyond that of powerful white men who shaped the early institutions of American political structures and theory.” As a result, Faust’s study highlights the bloodshed and sacrifices Americans endured in order to preserve those political ideologies. This bottom-up history highlights the deaths of union and confederate soldiers. Her work suggested that family members wanted to mourn the corpse of a soldier. On the contrary, Americans faced the physical dilemma of rotting corpses on the battlefield and pieces of bodies as a result of explosive weaponry of the industrial era. The Civil War changed the circumstances of a soldier’s death and proper Christian burial. America in the nineteenth century was a nation of strict religious beliefs and assumed that a person’s death was a certain indication about one’s afterlife. In order to be eternally saved “… family members needed to witness a death in order to assess the state of the dying person’s soul, for these critical last moments of life would epitomize his or hers spiritual condition.” (10). Faust did a remarkable job of explaining the importance of the “good death,” and its dramatic change during the Civil War. The four year war transformed America’s Christians notions of the proper way to die. A dying man was no longer surrounded by his family who they hoped to reunite in heaven. On the battlefield, majority of men died alone, anonymous, and without comfort, their families unaware of their fate.

Faust does an exceptional job describing a families’ effort to recover a body from the battle field. The family fallen soldiers went to the battle field to recover the bodies and escorted them home. On the contrary, “in northern cities entrepreneurs also established themselves as agents who would seek missing soldiers for a fee.” (117) If there was no physical body or letters to inform a comrade’s whereabouts, spiritualism was a means to communicate with the spirits of the dead. Toward the end of her book, Faust highlights the importance of fashion during the stage of mourning in both the North and South. Different colored garnets displayed a stage of mourning, while showing respect to a loved one’s memory. Economics and a woman’s location also played an important role in the way they mourned. Women in the South endured shortages of clothing and money compared to women in the North. Mourning was not a private matter but was displayed in the fashion worn by women.

The Civil War nearly divided the United States, but its aftermath traumatized every citizen. Women along with men mourned the sheer numbers of deaths during the conflict. Faust’s accounts claim that in order to rebuild and move forward as a nation, Americans had to grieve the deaths of their fathers, uncles, brothers, sons and friends. Over several decades, mourning developed into different traditions and rituals, which helped family members cope with the death of a loved one. One suggestion given to Faust would be to include African Americans in her scholarship. Thousands of black soldiers joined the war effort and died in combat. It would be interesting to see how African American families mourned the death of their fathers, sons, or relatives.

 

 

 

 

 

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Suzanna Melendez

10/16/2016

Annotated Bibliography

1995. Negotiators of Change: Historical Perspective of Native American Women. New York: Routledge. (Book)

* Negotiators of Change is a collection of essays that incorporates ten tribal groups including the   Cherokee, Iroquois and Navajo. In addition, this scholarship includes well less known tribes such as the Yakima, Ute, and Pima-Maricopa. This book will be a unique source because it argues that Native American women lost their power as European colonization expanded. Lastly, the social construction of women’s roles transforms motherhood and gender ideologies within the context.

1999. “Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History.” New York: New York University Press. (Book)

* The book Sex, Love, Race will provide me with a historical foundation about interracial marriages and multiracial children. The collection of essays are from younger and well-known scholars. These researchers seek to probe why and how the specter of sex and race crossed the boundaries and felt threatening towards Americans. The essays centered on Indians, Europeans and Africans to twentieth-century social scientists’ fascination with multiracial relationships. Other themes such regions, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations are incorporated in the essays. Overall, there is an overlap between racial, ethnic, and sexual identities in America.

Aubert, Guillaume. 2004. “The Blood of France: Race and Purity of Blood in the French Atlantic World.” The William and Mary Quarterly Third Series 61.3: 439-78. (Article)

*By the end of the 18^th century, French aristocrats began to disapprove of French-Indian and French-African relationships. These correspondences represented a form of dishonor which threatened the pure blood of the French noble colonial population. Furthermore, the article goes into details about political and economic alliances between Frenchmen and Native tribes.

Barbara Fields. 1990. “Ideology and Race in American History,” in Region, Race, and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward. Ed. Morgan J. Koussar and James McPherson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982, 143-177); “Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America,” New Left Review 181. 95-118. (Essay)

* In Barbara Fields’ essay “Ideology and Race in American History” she pinpoints how historians have approached race and racism. This work analyzes how race is not a physical trait but a social construct opposing differences. It is important to include this in my historiography because French-Indian relationships were acceptable during the 1600s. Throughout the essay, Fields highlighted the example of race not developing when Europeans first encountered Africa. It was over time, that questions were raised about the morality of Africans being sold as chattel during the industrial Revolution.  In conclusion, I want to include Fields ideology about how race was socially constructed differently across space and time.

Barr, Juliana. 2007. Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Boarderlands. Chapel Hill: Published in association with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University, by the University of North Carolina Press. (Book)

* Compared to Negotiators of Change, Julian Barr’s Peace came in the Form of a Woman writes about how Indians were in a position of power whole Europeans were forced to accommodate. Between the years of 1690s and 1780s, Indian tribes such as the Caddos, Apaches, Payayas, Karankawas, Wichitas, and Comanches formed relationships with Spaniards in Texas. In my paper, I want to include Barr’s argument about Indians retaining control over their territories while controlling the Spaniards. Instead of focusing on race, Barr focuses on settlement and intermarriage, mission life, warfare, diplomacy, and captivity.

Devens, Carol. 1992. “Countering Colonization: Native American Women and Great Lakes Missions, 1630-1990.” Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. (Book)

* Carol Devens’ well documented Countering Colonization provides a revisionary history of Native American women. There is an emphasis in the book that Indian women were vital to their communities and shaped the encounter between Native American and white civilians. The book will provide my paper with a perspective of Indian women preserving their culture. Therefore, Devens acknowledge these women as historical significant actors. Although women’s voices have been silent their actions have been preserved in missionary letters and reports. While some Indian men accepted religious teachings, many women felt that their lives and beliefs were threatened. Overall, the book highlights the gender conflicts in Native American communities.

Marshall, C. E. 1939. “The Birth of the Mestizo in New Spain,” in The Hispanic American Historical Review (Duke University Press); Vol. 19, No.2, 161-184. (Article)

* The Birth of the Mestizo in New Spain details the origins of the interracial marriages between Indians and Spaniards. This article will be useful because in my historiography, I will include the interracial marriages between Spaniards and Indian women. The Spanish empire was unique because it was inhabited by race of many colors. Overall, the three centuries of Spanish rule had a population of over three million mix blood individuals as an outcome of mixed racial marriages.

Nash, Gary B. 1995. “The Hidden History of Mestizo America.” The Journal of American History 82 (3): 941-964. (Article)

* Gary Nash’s article The Hidden History of Mestizo America centers on the history of interracial marriage in the United States. One example provided by Nash was the marriage between John Role and Pocahontas who was the daughter of King Powhatan. The themes of mixed-race identity, progeny classifications, and prohibitions of  racial intermarriage are addressed in the article.

Sleeper-Smith, Susan. 2001. Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. (Book)

* The book is centered in the region of the Great Lakes during the lucrative fur trade throughout the colonial period. I will be able to draw from the cultural as well as economic exchange between native and European peoples. This is an important and well-researched study because it focuses on Indian women who married French men. These is an overlooked topic which mainly focuses on the men’s perspective. But in Sleeper’s book the role played by Indian women were highlighted especially, since the mixed-blood kinship unified Indian and French societies. More importantly, Indian women served as brokers between the two worlds. Indian women and French men who married helped connect the Great Lakes which expanded the transatlantic economy.

Van Kirk, Sylvia. 1983. “Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-trade Society, 1670-1870.” Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. (Book)

* This book is going to be a useful resource because it emphasizes the sexual encounters between Indian women and the fur traders of the North West and Hudson’s Bay Companies. Van Kirk’s work illuminates the Indian-white marriages which resulted in warm and enduring family unions. This is a profound book because the interracial marriages were profoundly altered when white Euro-women were sent in the 1820s and 1830s.

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Suzanna Melendez

Blog Post #3

10/3/16

In Samuel Truett’s Fugitive Landscapes: The Forgotten History of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands it explores the indigenous, economic, labor, and corporate history throughout the southwest. Truett skillfully utilized the methodological approach of boarderland studies between the United States and Mexico in the 19^th century. Some of the sources utilized in his narrative were government documents, corporate annual reports, manuscripts, dissertations and theses. As a historian, Truett offered a unique perspective about Mexico’s far northern frontier colliding with the U.S Western frontier. He argued that the U.S. and Mexico’s history collides and intermingles with one another which is a topic in history overlooked by scholars. Furthermore, he argued that Americans and Mexicans joined forces to promote modern economic development in order to transform the U.S.-Mexican borderlands. By investigating the forgotten history of the U.S.-Mexico boarderlands, Truett seeks to utilize history to reconnect both nations past.

Truett and Pekka Hamalainen Comache Empire have provided me with a new perspective about the frontier. dshanebeck wrote in his blog that “Truett’s central argument is that the borderlands are not divided as neatly and cleanly as modern Americans or historians would like. Often, historians want a clean story that changes as people shift and identities solidify.” I would agree with dshanebeck’s analysis because the concept of a frontier has transformed in modern historical scholarship. Previous historians such as Fredrick Jackson Turner provided a binary line between civilization and savagery. On the contrary, Hamalaine argues that “… historians have reenvisioned the frontier as a socially charged space where Indians and invaders completed for resources and the land but also shared skills, foods, fashions, customs, languages and beliefs.” (Hamalainen 7) Aside from Truett highlighting economic interests from corporations and entrepreneurs, the text also explores how ordinary natives resisted these powerful and influential empires. Prior to reading Fugitive Landscapes, I knew very little about the U.S. and Mexico during the 1800s. Not only does his book provide a historical context for the reader but it also incorporates women and people of various ethnic backgrounds.

One of the most interesting concepts of Truett’s book is the transformation of American identity. By the “…early twentieth century, Arizonans viewed their neighbors to the south as siblings in an interlocking family history of sorts, a history that began with shared struggles on the wild frontier and pointed toward a shared modern future.” (6) But by the 1910s as higbeejonathan pointed out in his blog the Mexican Revolution articulated differences between Anglos and natives. One of the most interesting facts in the book is the author’s emphasis in transnational histories. “Historians of Native America, Africa America, and Asian American have likewise integrated the borderlands into their own histories of race, ethnicity, and postcolonialism.” (7) In addition, scholars have incorporated technology and environmental history into their work. These lenses are a significant part of his scholarship because it addresses social and economic changes in the southwest. Overall, scholars have started to focus more on transnational narratives because it provides new lessons to Americans and Mexicans about the border-crossing age.

In conclusion, Truett’s book is an important part of Mexican-American history. Whereas many historians focus on the conflicts between Mexicans and Americans, Truett provided readers with new insights about the boarderland between America and Mexico. The framework of the book incorporates both an elite and lower class perspective. Although there were efforts to control the transnational space by people in position of power their efforts were in vain. Lastly, as a scholar he really emphasized why his boarderland history research is important. Today as a society we focus too much on the differences between both nations. But in reality we share a common background. A forgotten history centered on dreams and perseverance to survive in the Southwest.

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In my paper “An unlikely tie: Rethinking Indian women’s contributions in an interracial marriage in the Western Great Lakes”, my particular research interest wants to focus on Indian women and the role they played when they married French traders. I want to analyze how scholars have interpreted marriages between Frenchmen and Native American women. Throughout my paper I specifically want to pin point how historians have portrayed Indian women in their research. My historiography will particularly be centered during the lucrative fur trade during the early nineteenth century in the Great Lakes region. Majority of the scholarship will focus on why Frenchmen married Indian women. In addition there will be an emphasis about the two different ethnic groups creating political, social, and economic alliances. In order for the Frenchmen to build strong alliances with native tribes they had to become a part of the Native American’s family. Thus interracial marriages to Indian women were important and common. French men wanted to improve their status in the fur trade and gain access to the Native American’s hunting and trapping groups.

              By focusing on interracial marriages between French men and Native American women I seek to answer the following questions. How have scholars interpreted Indian women since the 1980s? Do certain scholars focus more on women’s gender roles or political and economic contributions to their communities? Has religion been a center focus on majority of the texts or is it a new lens that historians are focusing on? Have narratives centered Native American women as key players who constructed elaborate mixed-blood kinship networks that paralleled those of native society? Lastly, I want to address the author’s methodological approach towards their texts. Do scholars utilize the methodological approach of separate or conjoined spheres? Separate spheres is an ideology that defines and separates women and men.  Furthermore, the topic is written about men and women separately to focus on them as solely agents. On the contrary, conjoined spheres are about how men and women interacted and cohabited with each other in a social context.

The overall objective of my paper is to focus on Native American women and their role in expanding the transatlantic economy while securing the survival of their own native culture. I will try and accumulate a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Some of the sources I plan to explore are manuscripts, original documents from treaties, photographs, travel journals, historic maps, and any books dating from the earliest contact with European setters. Eventually, these sources will highlight how Indian women created a middle ground while being associated between two disparate cultures.

 

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Suzanna Melendez

2^nd Blog Post

9/27/16

David Sim’s in depth narrative The United States in the World: A Union Forever: The Irish Question and U.S. Foreign Relations in the Victorian Age offered a new perspective of Irish-American involvement in Ireland’s nationalist movement. His scholarship not only addressed the Irish’s yearn for independence but also the relationship between both counties. “Though we have a number of exceptional studies of Irish America, we have few that seriously historicize Irish nationalism and its complex connections with the American Union over the long nineteenth century.”(3) The framework of his book brilliantly incorporated a transnational methodology which emphasized on diplomatic history. As a historian, Sim concluded that politicians’ utilized the Irish question to push America’s diplomatic and political agenda. By investigating U.S. foreign relations with Ireland Sim highlighted one of many Anglo-American tensions throughout the world.

Sim and Elija Gould’s book Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire have provided me with two new perspectives about the America’s global position during the early nineteenth century. Previous early colonial history courses highlighted America’s transatlantic relations with other nations. One key component not mentioned in those classes was the U.S.’s efforts to be recognized as an independent and reliable country. The idea of national recognition by world powers was not only emphasized in Sim’s text but also in Gould’s political narrative. Mark_t_garcia wrote in his blog that Gould argued “in order for both to gain the respect of their sovereignty they used the treaties and alliances to obtain it.” Aside from the U.S trying gain global notoriety, I also learned about Irish-American relations. Prior to reading Sim’s book I knew little to nothing about Irish history let alone U.S. foreign relations with Ireland. Not only was his narrative easy to understand with some exceptions concerning political figures and key events, but the accumulation of academic sources was very impressive. Some of the documents cited were newspapers, manuscripts, official government documents, letters, etc.

From the perspective of U.S. diplomacy, the new republic did not want a conflict with Great Britain. Sim wrote that “historians are increasingly attentive to the continued deep cultural, material and political entanglement of the United States with British imperialism after 1783 and to the impact that this had on the new nation’s foreign policy.” (5) But by the mid-1840s it was evident that a great famine had swept throughout Ireland killing millions of people. One of the most interesting facts in the book was that the Irish famine sparked philanthropic activity throughout the U.S. public. “Throughout the Union, citizens formed relief committees to collect and forward money, food, and clothes to Ireland. Whigs in particular were active in promoting Irish charity as a means of improving Anglo-American relations.” (39-40) Compared to U.S. citizens who felt compelled to act in a philanthropic manner, politicians tried to enforce America as a nation of reliance both politically and economically.

In conclusion, Sim’s book provides readers with knowledge about Irish American history. Whereas many historians have overlooked the U.S. foreign relation with the Irish and their contribution to Anglo-American diplomacy, Sim’s book provided readers with a detailed political context that intertwined both countries. Ireland’s nationalistic efforts to gain independence relied heavily on the growing power of the American republic. The framework of the book was a bottom up approach while the context specifically focused on elite statesmen and the political intensions between both nations. Although the structure could have been organized vice versa. Furthermore, it could have focused a bit more on the social aspect of the Irish immigrants who migrated to America. In reality, they were the majority affected by the new policies implemented to ease the famine abroad and liberate them from Britain.

 

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Suzanna Melendez

1^st Blog Post

9/20/2016

 

Stephanie M. H. Camp’s recent slave narrative Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women & Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South is centered on female resistance to bondage in the antebellum South. Camp argues that compared to male slave resistance, women faced greater obstacles in their quest to be free. Many different studies of slavery have deepened our understanding of bondmen/women’s experiences and resistance. In spite of our knowledge, the lack of sources is a major hurdle that presents difficulties to scholars researching bondwomen. As a feminist historian, Camp said “Through spare, documentation come to us consistently from both the upper and lower South in slaveholders’ diaries, journals, and correspondence; in state legislative records; in nineteenth- century autobiographies by ex-slaves; and in twentieth century interviews of the formerly enslaved.” (8) Investigating everyday forms of resistance changed the scholarship of gender history. Despite bondwomen being physically bounded to the slavery regime, it did not demolish their aspiration to be free.

Although the title of the book is Closer to Freedom the facts state bondwomen were far from free. Women were confined to their master’s plantation “the boundaries of power created by fences consolidated white patriarchal authority over both large plantations and self-working yeoman households….” (5) In addition, Camp goes into great detail talking about passes and tickets which restricted slave movement. Ironically, the piece of paper which allowed male slaves to leave their place of work was practically out of reach for bondwomen. Further details suggested that “a final factor preventing women from running away in the same numbers as men was their lack of knowledge of geography beyond the plantation.” (38) Even though women were unfamiliar with their surroundings that did not prevent them from running away. But most of the women who ran away turned themselves in after a few weeks. Harsh weather elements, lack of food, and clothing prompted runaways to return to their slave holders. “Colonial and antebellum slaveholders believed that strict control of the black body, in particular its movement in space and time, was key to the enslavement of black people.” (67) The idea of geography was not only an important element in Camp’s book but also in Pekka Hämäläinen’s The Comanche Empire. Robert Huitrado pin pointed in his blog post that the indigenous empire displayed no clear-cut borders. While France, Spain, Mexico and Euro-America were busy settling borders the Comanche’s utilized their knowledge of the land, violence, and soft power to build an empire centered on economic and political power. Therefore, geography not kept certain people in containment but it also equipped those in a position of power.

Other elements which contributed to freedom being figuratively was the type of violence inflicted onto bondwomen’s bodies if they resisted their everyday duties or ran away. “When women broke the rules and moved out of bounds, they risked and received punishments that were more than physically painful and heartbreaking; some were sexually degrading.”(33) Camp does discuss some bondwomen’s resistance to the slave system in the South. The strongest evidence that she included in her narrative were the parties and women’s expressing their personalities in their style. In some instances women prepared their dresses for the nights festivities and drank alcohol with the men. Attending the parties put many women in danger especially, since they did not have a pass. Some diary entries which recorded punishments detailed that “… women were slightly more consistently punished- by flogging, shackles, ball and chain, or jailed-than men.” (57) Limitations at the time might have prevented bondwomen from being physically liberated but it did not stop them from expressing themselves or attending social gatherings.

Overall, Camp’s narrative was very well written and provides the reader with new insights of black women’s constant struggles of bondage in the South. The text highlighted the contrast between bondsmen/women’s experiences. Despite their gender, bondwomen endured exhausting physical labor, excruciating physical violence, and sexual assault. Although the book does provide some examples of women’s resistance in the plantation south, they did not physically resist every day. Mentally, bondwomen yearned for freedom but they did not run away or fight back every day. The idea of being hunted down by dogs or getting whipped until their back bled discouraged many runaways. Instead they rebelled through music, clothing and ultimately, built alliances within the Union Army in order to be free.