Slavery Entrenched in America

The essential three questions from class were, How did slavery become economically entrenched in American society in 19th century? How did a system of slavery based race affect human dignity? and  What human characteristics does such a system tend to ignore? To answer these question we read multiple articles and sources on each topic and answered each question.


First, How did slavery become economically entrenched in American society by the early 19th century. During the early 19th century cotton was not very significant because the south only produced 1.5 million pounds. In 1790 the slave population of the United States was about 690,000 and was only in the areas of Chesapeake and Carolina areas. Demand  of cotton grew and so did the number of slaves. If you look ahead to the year 1830 the amount of slaves in the United States was approximately over 2 million and the United was also producing about 331 million pounds of cotton, More than double the amount of cotton the produced 10 years. By around the early 19th century the South was producing an amazing 2.21 billion pounds of cotton annually and the amount of slaves were around 4 million. It seems that the amount of slaves seems to relate to the amount of cotton being produced, the cotton was constantly increasing as well as the amount of slaves. At this point the American economy was built on slavery and could not run without it.


Second, How does a system of slavery based on race affect human dignity? To learn about this in class we read about multiple people including Frederick Douglas who gave speech the day after 4th of July calling the United States hypocrites for celebrating freedom and liberty for all when the blacks of the United States were all enslaved. Another person we read about was George Fitzhugh, he believed that slaves were in a "better position"than non slaves. Fitzhugh believed they were in a better position because they didn't have to worry about food, clothing or water because they were all provided. I think this system tends to ignore the rights of slaves and also their intelligence, Most Americans thought the blacks were inferior and less intelligent than themselves so they should be slaves. We watched a movie in class about a enslaved prince who nobody was believed was a Prince until he was much older. After they realized that they have enslaved a Prince they let him go home. He movie just proves the point that some Americans thought that all blacks were inferior to them even though that was false. All of these resources that we used just showed that blacks were not treated the way they were supposed to be, like everyone else. 

Links: http://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/US/US18-02.html 
http://princeamongslaves.org/module/comparing.html 

Women's Reform

The essential question from class was, how did mid ­19th century American society react to women's demands for equality? Does 21st century society still react  differently to men and women? To learn about this topic more in class we read numerous newspapers to see what their reactions were to the meting that women had in Seneca falls about women;s rights.

There were numerous reactions to the newspapers we read in class. Some people thought that the women's rights movement would just go away if we ignored it. In the National Reformer, it was stated, "The absurd argument will soon be obsolete". Many people did not agree with what the women were saying so they wrote about how women's rights were not important. Others saw it as a serious problem that needed to be fixed. Most women wanted equal rights so they believed that this convention was the first step to having equal rights.

I think in the 21st century, men and women think  of themselves as equal, but some people still believe that men are superior than women or women are superior than men. I think that all people should be treated equally. We have come a long way but there is always room for improvement.

Link to the newspapers: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr040.html