The Men Who won the West?

This week during history class, we learned about how the United States came to conquer the American midwest. After the Reconstruction fiasco, the United States decided that the South wasn't worth the hassle, so they set their sights on the unconquered lands of the great plains of the Midwest. The United states then sent thousands of troops, the Buffalo soldiers,  into the midwest in attempt to claim the land as its own. The only problem with the United States plan was there already were people living on the lands, the Native Americans. The Natives didn't exactly agree with the American's plans to force them off their lands, and this created much conflict in between the Natives and the Buffalo soldiers. For this lesson we again made our own essential question. Our class decided on, ""During Westward Expansion, did the impact of federal policy towards Native Americans and Buffalo Soldiers match the intent?"

During the mid-1800th century, the mid west was inhabited by numerous Native American tribes, including major tribes such as the Lakotas, the Nakota, and the Dakota, the Sioux, the Cheyenne, and many other

Sme Sioux men posing for a p

tribes. Many of these Native tribes followed many annual rituals such as Puberty celebrations, sun dances, Vision quests and many other types rituals. Most of these tribes heavily relied on buffalo as their main source of food, and clothes. Unfortunately, many of these tribes get displaced and destroyed after the American immigration into the West.

A Company of Buffalo Soldiers

The "Buffalo soldier" as often a nickname for the soldiers that were sent into the midwest in attempt to instill order into the lands. The Buffalo soldiers earned their nickname because the Natives thought that they had the spirit of the buffalo within them as they often fought tenaciously much like a herd of buffalo. The majority of the ranks of the Buffalo soldiers were African American soldiers that fought in the Civil war, and decided to join the army as a full time job. These Soldiers were often sent into frontier towns to build the infrastructure, often by building forts, telegraph lines, and railroads.

During the American immigration into the midwest, many conflicts arose between the Natives and the American settlers, mainly due the America's mistreatment of the Native culture. Initially the relationship between the American settlers and the Native had been relatively peaceful. This all change after the discovery of gold in California. This discovery of gold sparked America's interest and many Americans started to move through the Native's reservations in attempt to claim a share of the Californian gold. These immigrants from the U.S. sometimes forcefully moved Natives off their lands. When the Natives retaliated Dawes Act, with at first promised the equal sharing of land in between the settlers and the Natives. Unfortunately the Act ended op giving 90% of the land to the white settlers.
against this forceful relocation, many of the white settlers called for protection by the government, starting the conflict between the Natives and the American settlers. The Natives at first won decisive battles with the American Armies, unfortunately after the American defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, the American public's interest with the west increased, and many more American troops were deployed in the the midwest. This "war" eventually lead the American Congress into passing the

During America's expansion into the west, the Natives who once controlled the plains of the west, were forced from their homes and onto reservations which had little to no resources on them. At first the American policies seemed to want to give the Natives equal terms in land. Unfortunately after the series of wars fought between the Native tribes and the Buffalo soldiers, many the treaties that the Americans signed with the natives benefitted the white settlers the most instead of the tribes who signed them. The impact of federal policy on both Natives and Buffalo Soldiers did not match the intent of these policies, as they caused chaos among the Native tribes. 
   

America's Big Break

This week, during history, we learned about the era of economic growth after the Civil War fiasco. During this era, sometimes referred as the "Age of Industry", many individual business men saw to the creation of huge companies and monopolies on common everyday items. These men were often referred as "Captains of industries" by the public. Two of the most notable "Captains of industry" were Andrew Carnegie, a scottish immigrant who eventually gained a monopoly on American steel production, and  John Rockefeller, a business mogul who monopolized all the oil trade in North America. Due to their unprincipled tactics, such as slaughtering competition and bribing congressmen, to gain wealth, many people perceived the Captains of Industry as thieves, and often called the Captains of industry names like "Robber Barons". However, these men still tried to show their support to the public by graciously donating to schools, colleges, and any other organization that tried to do good for society. This week our essential question was a little different than usual, instead of having a fixed essential question like usual, we instead created our own essential question. the essential question we created was: Did the captains of industry create a positive or negative impact on the public? To try to answer this question we looked at the two of the most prominent Captains, John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.

John Rockefeller was born in 1839. At first John grew up form a relatively poor home in Richford, New York, but once the Civil War started, Rockefeller took advantage of the situation, by supporting the union, and supplying the Union army with supplies. After the war, Rockefeller created a oil company, Standard Oil, which soon controlled a monopoly on oil in the Americas due to Rockefeller's shrewd business skills. Any oil company that tried to compete with Rockefeller was put out of business immediately. The other hand, Rockefeller also had a kind heart in regards to beneficiary charities; he donated millions of dollars from his personal fortunes in to developing fields for medicine, technological improvements, education and most fields of science.

Andrew Carnegie was started of as a poor immigrant worker from Dunfermline, Scotland. He immigrated to the U.S. and started off as a lowly telegraph work. Within a couple of decades, Carnegie would have one of the most profitable companies in the U.S and a huge monopoly on steel products. With his leadership, U.S metal productions surpassed the all of the in Europe. Carnegie donated millions of his fortunes to promoteHomestead strike.

Forces putting down the Homestead strike

education, art, technology and  public knowledge. Though Carnegie had the best of intentions for the public, his reputation is darkened by his infamous part in the disbanding of the

Though both Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller are often unjustly labeled as villains who steal money from the masses, in my opinion they had a good effect on the population. The captains of industry created the  idea that anyone from any type of background, could become million or billionaires. Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller are both help create the idea that if anyone worked hard enough they could achieve unimaginable wealth.

    

From Above or Below?

"Freedom to the Slaves"
Image depicting a former slave showing his gratitude
to Lincoln

This week in our class, we discussed about the what events that lead up to the Union's eventual decision to abolish slavery in the South. For this lesson, the essential question was; Who gave freedom to enslaved Americans? Did freedom come from above or below? To what extent did Abraham Lincoln's actions
influenced by the enslaved Americans? In the case for our lesson, freedom from above was defined as freedom was granted to the slaves by the high ranking officials, whom had not experience slavery themselves. Freedom from below was defined as freedom was granted to the slaves by themselves, or former slaves.

To start this lesson off we first looked at and analyzed this portrait, depicting Abraham Lincoln almost being worshiped by a former slave for "granting" him freedom. After discussing whether the painting was accurate or not, we were then separated into small groups to examine some primary and secondary sources to support the claim of whether freedom came from above or below. Our sources were a handful of documents written by Lincoln regarding the issue of slavery, and a painting and first person account of Jefferson Davis' former slaves leaving his plantation.

Our lovely graph depicting where we thought the documents were
placed in the freedom from above or below arguement

I thought that the majority of the motivation that brought abolition, was from above rather than below. Most of the documents that were given point to the direction that the government was trying to bring abolition to the slaves of the South. Document X and Y only show that there were a couple of instances where the former slaves tried to make the issue of slavery visible to the Union.

Sherman's Saunter Through Georgia

My slide to my battle: Battle #20 Sherman's Georgia campaign

This week in our History class, we learned about the individual battles that were fought over the civil war. To help us learn about each of the battles, we created a scavenger hunt for each of the battles. For this lesson our essential question was: Who was the ultimate victor in each the theaters of war: East West, and Naval, and what are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles? For this scavenger hunt, all the students were each given a battle. We were then instructed to create a short slide on the battle. The things that we included in the slides were the theater, who won, and the reasons why. The battle I was given was Sherman's Georgia campaigns. create a Qr Code for the slide, and were to print out the Qr code. We then posted these QR-code papers around the school and created a loose scavenger hunt out of it. After we finished the scavenger hunt, we created a padlet outlining all the outcomes of the battles. The padlet shows that overall the Union won the majorities of the battles that occurred during the civil war.
For the slides, we were required to

The Pad let for our class on the Civil War

Most of the theaters were inevitable wins for the Union, the western theater was dominated by the Union because of the Union's more developed supply lines, and the naval theater was Union dominated because of the near non-existence of a confederate navy. The only theater the Union didn't dominate in was the Eastern theater, but that was mostly due to the fact that the Eastern confederate generals were better that the Union's eastern leadership.  The only reason that the Civil war had the outcome that it did was because of the Union capture of the Mississippi, splicing the Confederacy in half, and the

The Feather That Broke the Camels Back

This week in our class, we learned about the election of 1860, which the last event that caused several states to secede, and really start the civil war. The essential question for this lesson was, "How were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions over slavery?" As we learned in previous lessons the Civil war did occur in just one specific event; instead the issue over slavery was spread over multiple incidents that occurred over the span of decades. This all lead up to the election of 1860, which was the event that broke the camels back, causing the succession seven  out of the eleven of the future Confederacy. For this lesson, we were split up into small groups of up to three students max. We then had to create a educreation video depicting a picture of one of the major events that lead up to the election of 1860 i.e. the Civil war. For our pictures, five out of the eight were already given to us. The remaining 3 pictures had to be found manually.





Picture sources

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860

http://www.thenew93q.com/photo/ap/top-news/important-events-american-history/pts32/

http://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-state-capitol-online-tour-tragic-prelude/16595

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1532b.html

http://www.civilwarinart.org/exhibits/show/causes/introduction/the-election-of-1860-and-seces

The Delay of the Inevitable

Recently, our class has been learning about the statistics and strategies of both the north(Union) and the south(Confederacy) utilized during the civil war. for this lesson, the essential question was, "How did the differences between the North and South affect each region's strategy and success in the Civil War?". For this lesson we were to make a infographic using the information obtained throughout various websites.

For the to create the infographics, we were to use either Canva, Infogram, or Piktochart. Before I started to even work on the infographic, I first tried all of the apps out. Right away , I ruled out using canvas, because I didn't understand how to change the infographic into a more suitable orientation. Piktochart was a nice website, but I felt that Infogram was a little more aesthetically pleasing.

Most of the information I chose were related to how each side used very different tactics during the war. Almost all of the information that was presented shows that the North were more prepared to go to war than the South. The defeat of the confederacy was inevitable due to the North's superiority in money, men, food and transportation. The southern advantage of leadership only served as a delay to the Northern victory.

| Create infographics

Elephant in Congress

Recently, our class has been discussing the events that ended up starting the Civil War. We learned about 8 distinct events that all contributed the the start of the Civil War. The events that favored the Abolitionist side were placed above the graph. The events that favored the pro-slavery side were placed below the graph. The events that benefited or handicapped either side were placed in between the graph. For this lesson,, the essential question was, " How we know the debate over slavery was the "elephant in the room" for the American politics in the early 18th century?"

The first event that we examined, was the Compromise of 1850. This compromise consisted of 5 parts. 3 out of the 5 parts were beneficial to pro-slavery advocates, and the other 2 benefited the abolitionist movement. The next event was the Kansas-Nebraska act, which benefited both the pro-slavery movement and the Abolitionist movement. With this act, the Abolitionist would gain a railroad system in to the west, but in turn the act would essentially make the missouri compromise useless.

All of the events in chronological order. Top=Northern Benefits. Buttom=Southern Benefits

Descriptions of each event

With this act, it leads to the next event, Bloody Kansas. Blood Kansas was the rush, from both Abolitionist and pro-slavery advocates, to settle the Kansas territory. This event ended in a draw, because neither gained any ground with on Kansa's pro/anti slave standing in congress. The last two major important events were the Dred Scott decision. The Dred Scott was a slave who was an enslaved man in the United States who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom and that of his wife and their two daughters in 1857. The Dred Scott decision further intensified the slave issue, by making Abolitionist paranoid that the Government was controlled by a sinister "slave power".

This lesson showed that eventually, politicians will go to extremes to avoid talking about "The elephant in the room". Throughout every single one of the significant events mentioned, niether side of the governments actually addressed the issue, they just bickered and side tracked into a more complicated (kinda like the congress today). It's always easier to deal with the elephant first.