Revolution and the New Republic, 1775-1820

Summary:

The American Revolution slowly faded into American history during the postbellum of the French and Indian War. Coming out of the war victorious, the British government suffered a large amount of debt. To pay of this large debt, the British government unfairly levied taxes from the colonies. The colonies were infuriated by this act of taxation without representation. Many gathered together to show resentment to the British government such as displayed by the Sons of Liberty through the Boston Tea Party. Initially, America did not welcome the idea of going to war with Britain but saw it as a duty in order to preserve Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. To avoid war, the First Continental Congress sent King George the Olive Branch Petition asking for changes within the government. The king refused. Congress authorized war and declared independence. An army was raised. In the first few years of the war, Americans suffered great losses. It was not until the battle of Saratoga that the Americans inspired the French into joining their cause. With the British total surrender at Yorktown, America had succeeded in preserving liberty. The Treaty of Paris signed in 1783… two years the British surrender at Yorktown, officially ended the war. Following the war, the initial government, based on the Articles of Confederation, was week. It was both authoritatively week as well as financially week. After much conflict, a political party known as the Federalist proposed the idea of a government being more centralized and running under the Constitution. Washington became the first president of the United States. At the end of his final term, he advised that America stay out of European conflicts. Although following presidents tried their best, conflict was inevitable. America soon entered into another war with England in 1812 known as the War of 1812. The new country came out victorious yet again and finally declared to Europe its ferocity and absolute independence. Following the war, industrialization took place across the nation and ports started to see more imports of immigrants to support this industrialization.

Reflection:

My knowledge of this era in United States History has tremendously increased from what it formal standards set durring 8th grade United States History. Personally I have enjoyed learning about our nations initial starts. America initially just wanted liberty and respect from the British government. Unfortunatly peaceful resolves never happened and the British neglected to see to the wants of the colonies. It makes perfect sense that when a body is neglected it is the duty of the people to put of such a government in order to survive. Following the war, the American government was not the best of governments. It failed financially to support it’s own people. Honestly, if you want to declare independence but can not prove you are independent, then why declare it in the first place. Fortunatly the Federalist came along and proposed a new centralized and more financially stablized government. Because of this proposed idea, America has been somewhat succecful as a government for the past 240 years. After Washingtons presidency, he instructed not to be entangled with European affairs. Conflict was inevitable due to all the trade that was going around. Though war came upon us again, we again crawled out victorious due to the British’s conflict back in Europe.

DBQ experience:

Personally, I think the my DBQ experience in APUSH is more enjoyable and relaxed. This is probably due to the experience that I have gained from AP World. In writting my APUSH DBQ , I find it easier to write and analyze the events in American history than it was to write and analyze centuries of diffrences in AP World. In grading my DBQ, I have seen progress from my writting last year. I have gone from data dumping to actually analyzing what is happening durring this time period. Truthfully i regard reading Collegeboard released DBQ as one of the most dreadful experiences in APUSH so far, but I still guess its helpfull despite all the terrible writing displayed.

Preparing for the Decade Exam:

In preparation for my Decade Exam, this weekend I am planning to review the social, economic and political experiences America has gone through in certain time periods. I plan to outline or at least bullet point the main subjects of each as well as connecting it with terms we have learned. On top of that, a little of pre-writting would not hurt.

9/6

Prior to reading chapter 1, I have learned from AP World History that Native Americans initially arrived in the Americas by crossing the Berring Straight. The first people to cross the Berring Straight were known as the Clovis people. What I learned in chapter 1 was pretty much the details of Indian society. In addition to learning about the Native Americans, I also learned that the Europeans were sent into the Renaissance period due to the rediscovery of certain knowledges and trade. What was the most interesting to me was learning about Africa and its empires. I wasn’t really able to grasp the African knowledge last year. I guess it’s because the book dumbed it down to a page. Todays fishbowl was pretty intense in my group. Nathan, Alyssa, and I were tackling the questions intensely. We were disproving each others arguments and at times bolstering them. I really love fishbowl. In todays fishbowl, I was able to realize there was more to the answers for the questions than I had on paper, such as question 4 of chapter 1, Nathan gave the point that the Americas and Africa had a naturistic type of religion. Durring the fishbowl i was able to pull from my Ap World History knowledge to hold up my arguments. I guess I like fishbowl personally because in a sense it was like the revitalization of the passionate feelings towards a subject I had in debate class. Not to condescend on anyone, but the other fishbowl group did not tackle their topic as well as my group, if I could say so myself. I just felt that Abi was doing most of the work which was really good because he still introduced points that I did not realize when reading the book. Overall I think I’m starting to really like APUSH. Chapter 1 was a really good introduction and it showed me how all continents are responsible for actions involving the New World in one way or another.

Different Perspective….

Last night i finished reading A People’s History of the United States. In some places it was a pretty easy read. The challenging chapter was pretty much only Chapter 4. What boggled my mind was trying to understand whether it was pre or during Revolutionary times.

I honestly enjoyed reading this book. I loved how the author wrote from more of the oppressed people’s point of view rather than just staying a third person observing the situations. At time I felt the emotions that many of the people experienced such as anger and hurt. Compared to previous knowledge of history and what we have learned in school, the information I extracted from reading from this historian was awesome. I didnt realize how much our elementary history books were hiding from us. I started to feel that Christopher Columbus was more antagonistic and sinister than a heroic figure in the exploration of the world. There is not much to question in Zinn’s writing. Zinn states that his goal was not to obscure or briefly mention the tragics of history, but to talk about it in detail because he thought it was important. I believe Zinn’s thesis to be the following: “My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been, The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners. ”

He says that history is just like any story. Their is always a conflict. He says that his goal was not to present history as it honestly was, nothing sugarcoated.

Race affects a person’s judgment and viewpoint on history. For example, African American would be more passionate about the history of slaves than than I personally would be. His culture and heritage is rooted within these brutally treated slaves, where as my culture never experienced slavery from a white man. Social class would also be of significance, for example some one at the bottom of the social class in present time would more likely side with the poor in the revolutionary period where as some one of the upper class in modern society might not really care to take sides at all. They might admit that the rich in the past were unfairly powerful, but they would never understand the grievances of the poor because they never experienced poverty. Zinn states this issue very well in the book such as what says in the following:

-“My point is not to grieve for the victims and denounce the executioners. Those tears, that anger, cast into the past, deplete our moral energy for the present. And the lines are not always clear. In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run (and so far, human history has consisted only of short runs), the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims. ”

He in particular is not taking the side of any man when he presents history but rather what history honestly was. Nothing obscured of mentioned with brevity.

Flynn states that Zinn’s writing is like that of Marxist Propoganda. I do feel that sometimes Zinn was being a little to biased towards a subject but he still presented the evidence honestly. He showed the true sides of different people. I would rather have Zinn as a history teacher because he presents both sides of a case. I would rather have a teacher who is slightly biased in a perspective but presents both sides of the case.

New Year, Fresh Start

I just finished looking over the course outline for AP United States History. I really like the way they structured what we are going to learn. I didn’t really like the way AP World was structured. In a way, World seemed a little to broadly structured where as this one had a little more detail about what we are going to learn. The DBQ seemed the same as world so that should be fine but the FRQ seems more challenging. Yes, they may have given us two options but i liked the way World gave us options better. The multiple choice seemed way better. It was a little more fact based instead of comparing things and looking at pictures as a whole. I guess World had us critically think but sometimes it had us thinking of whether what we were thinking of the topic was right or not. Well, I’m looking forward to a new year. Starting fresh with a clean slate. Keep me in prayer.

-Ethan Do

3/31

1. Who is most influential in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa?
a) Kenyata
b) Nelson Mendela
c) Ghandi
d) Sidartha Guatama

2. T/F European Community helped establish the Euro as currency in all of Europe.

3. All of the following are related to Detente except…..
a) Reduced tension between United States and USSR in a nuclear arms race
b) Encouraged the expansion in the realm of science
c) Deteriorated as US relations with China improved
d) Containment of Communism

3/8

The previous chapters were about periods after World War 1. Chapter 36 was about how things started to change. One of the most important things that happened was the change in the worlds economy. People were in debt after the war and started to borrow even more money to pay off those debts, and things just went in circles until everyone realized no one was getting paid and they were back to were they started. New ideas started to form such as ideas for art. This was when people like Picaso started to become famous. Instead of now trying to compete with photography in trying to create reality on a canvas there goal was to paint what they saw as reality. Science and psychology also had a transition to another way of thinking thanks to people like Freud and Einstien. It was during this period where Nazism, Fascism, and Stalins communism started to develop and gain more support After the war, many nations started to yearn for there own liberty and became more on fire for nationalism. Ghandi led peaceful rebellions against the British to help India to achieve it’s self determination. In China, two competing parties tried to bring China back to reunification. Those two parties were that of Maoism and Guomindang. Ultimately Maoism took over China after many years of struggle against defeat against the Guomindang party which move to Taiwan. The Great War was not only hosted in Europe and Asia but also in Africa. Because Africa was imperialists by Europe, Europe not only extracted natural resources from this continent but also human labour and recruited blacks for the war either fighting for Central Powers or not. Soon after they all wanted to group together based on language and religion and cultural practices where as overs wanted to reset there borders. Latin America after the war started to interact more with the US after The Great War with trade. It was during this period in which America had many dealings and interactions with the Panama Canal. With the great depression Roosevelt started to think and contemplate on whether this “Good Neighbor” policy was actually helping or not.

2/22

The previous two chapters were pretty much a cause and effect of each other. European imperialism grew strong in the 1800s. Europe’s main place for domination was in Africa. Every country scrambled and rushed to colonize in Africa to extract its resources for personal use. Things got so out of hand the Europeans had to set up the Berlin Conference to set up ground rules for colonizing in Africa. What was interesting was that no representative from Africa was present. Throughout this new imperialistic period, Europeans tried to justify their actions with the idea of “civilizing” the Africans or helping them advance. Besides colonizing and imperializing in Africa, Europe also took control of countries in Asia. England took over the majority of India which caused many rebellions and up risings such as the Sepoy Mutiny. They also colonized along the coast of China. The Opium War was the result of Chinese lack of collaboration with the English. France mainly colonized in south east Asia.

Imperialism was one of the factors the led to the growth of the Great War, aka World War I. The Great War was also a result of intense nationalism, self- determination, alliances, but what lit the fuse was the assassination of an Austrian heir to the throne. The majority of the war was a stalemate. The war enabled women to be heard in society due to the fact that they had to the men’s place in the arena of work while they were off at war. The War also caused economic damages. Everything was invested into the war. Even every bit of food. Women and children had to fast on certain days so that the men would have enough to eat. At the end of the war the Treaty of Versailles tried to mend all the terrible out comes of war by having Germany pay for all the war debts. Behind the curtains of The Great War, Russia had its own internal conflict with its proletariat and the government. Russia had to pull out of the war which caused it to lose a vast amount of land just to focus on itself. Lenin and the Bolsheviks led a revolt to start a new form of government that was theoretically the best government possible, Communism. This revolt was known as the Russian Revolution. Even today, Lenin is still remembered as a great leader of Russia for leading it out of a “terrible” time. Lenin coming to power was not a coincident but a work of the Germans.

2/7/11

I know this is late for a blog but my internet crashed last night and i could do nothing. Following a period of revolution all around the world, there were social and economical reforms that took place. These reforms were all grouped together and was what we call the Industrial Revolution. There were new ideas such as the use of coal as a source of fuel instead of lumbar due to the dwindling amount. Labor saving technology was a big innovation during this period. It enabled workers to produce more of there product in a short period of time. Britain led the industrial revolution but then the United States, Russia and Japan came in to the big picture.

During about the same time period, the Americas were starting to take its shape. The United States started to expand with the idea of Manifest Destiny. It was very big and important for the Americans although it was also devastating for the Indians as they were forcefully removed from there land. The Latin Americas were weak after there independence. They were never self governing and now that they were new and on there own there governments were weak and had no experience. This was the very reasons dictators came in and was the cause of much strife. It was mostly exemplified in Mexico with all the conflict it went through…. Sorry i have to go to school now, can i finish up my last part later though? The next chapter was about how all the societies in the east started having conflict within its borders. There military was week and the people were unsatisfied with how the government ran. There were many reforms to try to fix the country and please the people. In some cases rebellion happened instead of reform such as the Boxer Rebellion and the Taiping Rebellion. Yeah i need to go to school now. Can I finish up later?

12/5

The past two weeks have been completely about the High Middle Ages, well excluding the fact that we were talking about Mesoamerica. The High Middle Ages, I suppose was a time period in which Europe started to turn itself into the “mosaic” that we are familiar with today. Society built on where it left off during the Middle Ages. The Holy Roman Empire was rather unsuccessful in bringing unity unto the whole continent. According to 18th century French writer, his perspective of the empire was that it was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” It was not holy because rulers did not have honest observance of the Christian fait but put on a mere show to fall into favor of the Papacy. It was not Roman because the Roman Empire collapsed centuries prior to this time period. It was not very synonymous to an empire becuase of the political disorganization that was present. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an empire is defined as “a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority.” The Holy Roman Empire failed as an empire becuase it did not rule over a vast expanse of land.  It did not bring unity under one soverign authority. The pope and the crowned emperor were constantly in conflict over who vested with power. Certain times the emperor lost the conflict and was excomunicated. Interaction between Christians and Muslims were intense during this time period. Christians were known to have launched 5 major crusades.  The purpose was to ground Roman Catholic Christianity across eastern Europe.

Europeans were experiencing economic prosperity. Sites of urbanization was relevant and there was much specialization in labor, especially textile production; this was mostly due to agricultural advancements. People ventured far off for trade. Many went as far as China such as the account of Marco Polo.

Education in Europe at this time became important. Diffrent intelectuals from all arround came to teach at universities and monistary schools. Europe realized a need for academics. Medicine, law and theology were the main focuses for eduction.

Europe after a few centuries saw that it was behind in the game “Life” and started to incorporate all the benefits that other civilizations have had.

During this time, they seem to be the most advanced region on earth, well it’s most logical that they are. They pretty much took up all ideas from other regions of the world and turned it to benefit them. They even incorporated the Muslim JIHAD!! But they named their jihad “crusade”. Haha , well its only a comparison. Jihad was actually successful in an expansion of an empire where as the crusade all worked under the papacy to fight a common enemy and to establish a faith in Eastern Europe.

11/21

For the past two weeks in AP World, we have talked about India, Christianity in Western Europe,  Nomads, and Africa.

India and Africa were not the best parts of the past two weeks for me and Western Europe was alright. Im getting tired of learning about the old stuff.

In India, things were almost the same as usual. The whole civilization was in disunity. North having the most conflict and the South being a little more peaceful. Mahmud Ghazni  an Islamic Turk from Afghanistan swept into northern India and united it by using the sultanates to overrule the land. He was not strong enough to go south. The south received the most benefits economically due to trade. Traders usually avoided trade with the north due to northern India’s constant fighting. There was a lost of interest in Buddhism in India. Shrines and temples were destroyed when the Muslims came in but Hinduism still stayed strong. Much of south-east asia became Islamic but mostly Hindu. Many countries looked past the influence and still kept old ways.

Western Europe was in pieces after the fall of the roman empire. The dominating race were the Germans which were not united but were divided into different tribes. The Franks were most influential in mainland Europe. Clovis brought religious attention to the Franks when he converted to Roman Catholicism. Charlemagne united most of western Europe during his rule but all was in vain once his son Louis the Pious inherited the throne. He was a terrible controller. Soon Louis’s son divided the empire into pieces. Western Europe suffered many invasions by the Vikings. Their boats were able to navigate up and down rivers quietly and stealthily. They were known for disrupting agriculture. Western Europe and Byzantium fell into conflict once the Pope crowned Charlemagne as emperor. After the division of the Frankish empire, societies took place in manors. They were run by nobility who had people under them who ruled and so on. Monasticism became influential during this time period because of St. Benedict.

Mongolians and Turks were a roaming people but they were rather strong. They were able to conquer any people who got in their way. Mongolians had the largest empire. Their military was very strong due to their horses and versatile bows nad arrows. The greatest of the khans were Chinggis Khan. He united all of the Mongol tribes. Mongolians held mostly to their shaman beliefs but were also Islamic. They didn’t look down on the other religious beliefs but allowed them to live on.

Africa was the confusing of all the chapters. They did not have a large central government but had kinship and chiefdoms. The kingdom of Axum was a Christian Kingdom of Africa. The Africans were mostly either Christians or Islamic. I believe that they were Christians because of the Eunuch that Philip in the Bible converted. I believe this man went out and furthered Gods word and salvation to his race.