Yesterday, November 7th, we took notes on slavery before the Civil War and on defending slavery. Eli Whitney's cotton gin made slavery more useful in the South and boosted cotton production. Even small farms could afford slaves to use the gin and produce cotton products. The two types of slavery were gang labor (all slaves doing the same task at the same pace with very few breaks) and task labor (specific jobs, such as carpentry and working at the docks, sometimes lent to other slaveholders, and the slaves were allowed to work for themselves if part of their wages went to the slave owner). I completely disagree with the "Mud sill" theory by James Henry Hammond for defending slavery. He claimed that there had to be an inferior race to do the hard jobs, otherwise there could be no progress. He also claimed that they were doing the slaves a favor; and that the north had "slaves" that were much worse off (the manual laborers and lower class).
Today, November 8th, we took notes on the Underground Railroad and how slaves escaped. The Underground Railroad was a secret network of white abolitionists and escaped slaves that helped more slaves escape. It went from the south to Canada. Harriet Tubman was one of the most important and famous conductors, leading over 300 slaves to freedom in 19 trips. Most of the slave songs and stories were codes to find the path to freedom, especially "Follow the Drinking Gourd". We read ten different textbook definitions of the Underground Railroad, and found that they didn't all match up.
Daily Words (Month Commitment):
Quid: n. A piece of something that is chewed, but not swallowed.
Hustings: n. The political campaign, or any place where campaign speeches are made
Vecoce: adj. Played at a fast tempo, or simply fast
No comments:
Post a Comment