Week #5 Reading Respons- Slave Revolution in the Caribbean 1789-1804

I'm going to comment on all the little readings together since they are all in the same book and share a lot of themes. I'm just going to shoot down thoughts as soon as I think of them.

So I thought a lot of the passages that we read were really interesting. I really liked the action from some of the readings. The one where it was about the start of the rebellion probably had the most action in all of them. Its pretty cool that this is the only slave rebellion in the history of the world to really work. The slaves rebelled and ended up with their own country, but I thought the Europeans where pretty much asking for it with all the slaves they put on the island. There was something like a 10 to 1 ratio of slaves to Europeans. Its kind of weird to think that the Europeans made a situation where they put themselves into the minority. And this is probably where a lot of racism started. There is probably always going to be some sort of racism by a group of people where one race largely outnumbers another one. And it was interesting to see the men preferred being with black women instead of white European women. Britain actually imported more women from Europe in the hopes that this trend would quickly end. But to think there was no a lot of prejudice on generation, and then two generations later there is a lot is kind of hard to think about. That seems like very little time for such a change in the culture. You could also see the racism in the reading about the start of the rebellion. The author obvious was white because he made the black slaves sound like savages and evil for wanting to rebel. I mean come on, they just wanted to be free and saw that this was the only way. It seemed like the black slaves were getting treated worse religous  and worse through the generations. And maybe this is why they started performing crazy ceremonies where they drink blood, but that source can not be 100% accurate. I also found it interesting with how much power the women had at the time. It seemed like most the women were free, and there children were also free. Thats a lot of power and it seems like at this time in history women were not given a lot of respect that are are given today. I also really liked the letters of Thomas Jefferson, its almost like he knew something bad was going to happen with slavery later in the history of out country. And its also interesting to see the amount of interest the U.S. had in they slave revolt. They probably payed close attention to make sure nothing like that would happen in the U.S. But slavery would still remain a huge issue as we al know. 

Final Project

Would like to do final project on either America, South Africa, or really anything.

Week #4 Reading Responses

Intro Words of Batswana is introducing a collection of writings that have a great importance of Africans, but of little or no importance to Europeans. Its a pretty good idea since it must have felt like the Europeans were really taking over in South Africa to the native Africans. I thought it was interesting how a London missionary society was editing the newspaper, I would have thought that native Africans in South Africa would edit a newspaper about issues that are important to people in South Africa. It seems like Christianity is really having an impact on the natives in South Africa and it seems like many of the writers were part of the London missionary society. Also pretty interesting how they translated the letters into English.

In Kgabo Tebele Motswasele Letter, the author was addressing the problem of everyone speaking a different language. There must have been a lot of different languages spoken and it must have been really hard to get languages translated, even writings. The author acknowledges that this is going to be a tough task for everyone to learn a new language, but it is important and will be worth it if people work at it. Also in this letter you can again see the impacts Christianity has had, the author quotes a Proverb.

Letter from March 1890 discussed some interesting Christian issues, that are even still argued today. One was talking about how children of believers should only marry children of believers. They want to make sure they religion will stay in the family. Another letter is arguing that the adults should be trying to spread Christianity more often, especially to the children. Ther also argues how children should be wearing certain clothes. I thought it was cool how the new Christians are already discussing important issues.

Bogadi are a series of letters writing about a concept known as brides-wealth. Apparently when newlyweds were married, they received money. And this became pretty controversial with the introduction of Christianity in the culture. There are a lot of different viewpoints in these series of letters and its cool to see all the different viewpoints and what the Africans thought about this. Some saw it very bad and even evil, others said people weren't married until they recieved it, and some people also thought there was no problem with it. I personally don't really see a problem with it.

Lastly, Pass Laws was about the passes that were introduced to the natives of South Africa when the British began to colonize South Africa. It seemed like these passes were used for keeping track of the workers and used when the natives wanted to travel. And the natives found out about these passes by being punished. The natives probably hated this, especially in their own land. It doesn't sound like this was the right way to treat the natives. It just seems like this is another way of slavery, without the slavery. And the punishments seemed pretty harsh.

Week #3 Reading Response- A Commonwealth of Thieves

"A Commonwealth of Thieves: the Improbable Birth of Australia" by Thomas Michael Keneally attempts to tell the story of how Britain started colonizing Australia and creating its own penal colonies. Now the most interesting part of this process was the people that were used to colonize these colonies. Britain sent the criminals from their country to settle in these colonies. This caused a lot of debate because people were worried that all these new colonies would end up in chaos because all the residents would be criminals. But it sounds like Britain really was running out of room for all its people, I can't even imagine how many people were crowded into the city. 

Honestly, its not a bad idea by Britain, its probably the best way to go out and claim new land. This is probably the beginning of the British empire right here. I mean the British government probably gained a lot by doing sending out these criminals. It was probably really cheap to send out criminals, it would make more room for the rest of the people in Britain, and they get to claim new lands by sending out these people. The criminals probably did not appreciate this, but I found it funny how some non-criminals begged to go on the trip because there life was pretty bad already. But I still find it weird that they were willing to start new colonies with common criminals. I guess the criminals weren't all that bad though, because people were getting arrested and sent off to these colonies just for stealing, and they had to steal or else they would die. Seems a little harsh for those type of people. 

I definitely thought Arthur Phillip was a pretty cool character (though I am not sure if he is real or not). The book said he was like a secret agent before he became a captain of the ship and in the Navy. I thought that was pretty amazing and it also seemed like he knew what he was doing. The only thing I didn't like was the really harsh punishments that were given out to the people in colonizing in Australia. There was this one punishment where the people were given like 150 lashes and then they had to have a huge piece of iron attached to them for like a whole yeah. I just think that is torture, I mean they out the iron on so you wouldn't try to escape from the colony. Where are they going to go? They are in uncharted Australia, I doubt they would want to escape and try to live on their own. 

And i just thought it was funny how Sydney was discovered (but again, I'm not sure if this part is true or not). You look at these amazing pictures of Sydney today with the amazing buildings and the really cool port. And it seems like you would think wow, whoever built and settled here must have been amazing artists and architects. But then apparently it all started with a bunch of criminals from England. Sydney is definitely one of the coolest cities in the world, and it just seems really funny that is was discovered by a bunch of common criminals and people from the British navy who thought it looked like a good place to dock the boats.

Week #2 Reading Responses

"Captives and Cousins" was pretty difficult to read, but I think I understood most of it. I guess it was about how some men went around performing a dance, and it sounds like a very interesting dance. And then it sounded really weird how they dragged a little girl around with them, but I guess that is the culture. I don't know, this just seems like a very strange ritual/dance. I also find it interesting how know one really knows where this came from and there is no exact origin of where it started. It seems pretty important because there is a lot of honor involved, and that seems pretty important to these people. It also seems like the women are not treated with a lot of respect and don't really participate in the ritual, but the sword battles seemed pretty cool.

I thought "Letter to Charles V" was an interesting read. I guess its an account of what Cortes sees when he is exploring the new world and you can definitely tell he is probably exaggerating a little bit from what we know today. He talks about how there is so much hunting to be done and how there are as many riches as Solomon had in his temple, which is not true. It also seems like he spends a lot of time talking about how bad the native people are with all their sacrificing and cutting out the hearts of their own people while they were still alive, but the Aztecs write how they just sacrificed their enemies. Cortes really stresses how they need to force Christianity on them and I'm not sure if this account can be trusted because it seems like Cortes was just trying to get permission to attack the natives.

The next reading was a poem titled "The Fall of Tenochtitlan" and it seemed like there was a very sad and depressing tone. The author seemed to be writing this with absolutely no hope, but the Spanish were so much more powerful and there was probably little the people could do. I still think its amazing how the Spanish were able to conquer an empire in a matter of a few days, I mean the Aztecs weren't stupid or anything. The Aztecs weren't even doing anything bad to harm the Spanish, but the Spanish just had to attack. And the poem ends with how the Spanish are going to end up slaves, which is probably even worse than dying for them. And the poem says that the Aztec people would look up to their king, but the king wasn't able to do anything. It seems like the Aztecs are upset with how they can't fight back.

The last reading was from the "Codex Mendoza," and this was just a history of Mexico, but in paintings. It was interesting to see the social rankings and political system of the people and I also thought it was cool to see the duties of the priests and the rankings of the warriors. The shape of the land drawing were also pretty interesting, they weren't made with the topography in mind, but the important political, social, and economical events. I guess Philip II had the right idea when he wanted to better understand the culture. And the regular maps where also drawn very well and had a lot of detail.

Week #1 Reading Responses

The video talked about a concept that I did not really know or have heard about much, orientalism. It focused on the views of a man that had been studying the concept for a while, Professor Edward Said. From the video, I was able to figure out that orientalism is knowing what a certain person or population is based on the color of their skin and where they live. Its an interesting concept and it probably needs to be taught more, I mean had never heard of it. It's probably pretty controversial though because it seems to be similar to racism in some way. I definitely agree there is some sort of orientalism in our culture today, but I'm not sure to what extant. I mean, who doesn't look at someone with brown skin and think, that person must be from the middle east and takes part in middle east culture. Its definitely present, but I'm not sure if it is a good or bad concept to have in our society.

The poem that was assigned for reading was called "The White's Man Burden" and it took a surprising view. Now I can't really tell if this poem is trying to be sarcastic or not, I would have liked for someone to read it to me. It was written after the Spanish-America War, so I figured it was referring to what the white man was doing during that time. It talks about how the white man has caught people, tried to gain profit, and mark roads with the dead and living. I also figured this poem takes place in the new world. If its not sarcastic, then I would say this is a pretty harsh poem about all the bad things the white man has done in its history. Its not something I like to be reminded of. If its sarcastic, I would say this poem is saying how stupid the white man has been in conquering the new world, and how could have done things different to avoid all the violence.

The last reading was "Discourse of Colonialism" and it was a pretty intriguing to see what the author had to say. The author really seemed to focus on how people are so easily able to avoid a lot of the bad things that are going on in the world. And the author says Europe was built on these principles. It is a good idea for civilizations to come in contact with each other, but not in a violent way. The author also refers to Hitler and Nazism a lot here and said that people were saying it would just pass with time. Well it didn't pass and the Nazi's were still doing very bad things to people just because of the color of their skin, and people would just shut their eyes. People finally stepped in when it Hitler's plan was hurting them as well. The author also says Hitler was a humiliation for the white man, which I have to agree with. The author also said that colonization has destroyed some great civilizations because of what the white man wanted. This is a pretty harsh reading, but I have to say that I agree with what the author is saying here. The white man has made some horrible mistakes.