Ch. 12: An Age of Reform

1.)  Explore why Americans had an impulse to improve American society in the first half of the nineteenth century.

One of the era’s numerous efforts to improve American society was abolitionism. Abolitionism is a favoring to abolish a practice or institution. Womans’ Rights were also becoming a problem so women protested for their rights. There was a lot of antislavery gatherings against slavery. All of these organizations criss-crossed the Atlantic to promote their cause. “Reform was an international crusade.”

2.) Explain the significance of the abolitionist movement to the idea of American freedom.

The abolitionist movement was the movement to abolish slavery. American freedom was, obviously, the freedom of Americans. These two are significant because if they were to abolish slavery then that would mean that there is really American freedom. Before,  Americans would celebrate the freedom of Americans but the slaves had nothing to celebrate. They were still held back from their freedom, so that made Americans hypocrites.

3.) Analyze the pros and cons of the colonization movement and why many blacks were opposed to it.

The pros for the colonization movement was that the white people weren’t going to see the black people anymore, in which some were very hostile towards them. The colonization movement was for the safety of the both races. Another pro is that slavery was going to end already. A con is that African-Americans were seen as a danger to society. They were never going to be able to be equal to the white people. Another con is that “colonization rested on the premise that America is fundamentally a white society. The blacks were opposed to it because they wanted to be noticed as Americans and they wanted their American rights.

4.) Why was this a period of institution building?

This was a period of institution building because America was in the process of getting their mess in order.  The Americans were trying to get the abolitionist movement in which they tried (and succeeded) to get rid of slavery.They were trying to settle out the colonization movement in which they were trying to get rid of the African-Americans by sending them back to their home country. They were also trying to settle the women’s rights’ movement. So the Americans had a lot on their hands on building their country to a stable and powerful nation.

5.) How did the abolitionist movement and the women’s movement influence each other?

These two events both influenced each other because the abolitionist movement was dealing on giving the slaves their release from slavery, in other words, their freedom. Since the African-Americans were going to get their rights then the women felt like they should be able to do the same, which is also known as the womans rights movement.

Chapter 11 The Peculiar Institution

Explain how important slavery was to the national economy and the emergence of the United States as a great power?

Slavery was important to the national economy because slaves worked in cotton plantations, which cotton had replaced sugar as the world’s major crop produced by slave labor. Since cotton was sold world wide, the slaves were a necessity and they needed more slaves to make more cotton. If there was more cotton to be sold, then the nations economy will prosper and that will make the United States into a great powerful country.

Describe slave culture, explaining the similarities and differences among various regions.

The slaves culture originated, obviously, from African culture. It was shown in their music, dance, religious worship, and their remedies to diseases. The slaves in the United States had a culture binded by two others, the African traditions and their American values and experiences. In the Caribbean and Brazil, most slave cultures were just African traditions, since the slave trade continued in the nineteenth century.

Why did many white southerners support slavery even when they did not actually own any slaves?

The white southerners that did not own any slaves supported slavery because they believed that their economic and personal freedom rested on slavery.

What meanings of freedom were most important to the slaves?

At the time, most blacks were freed already. The most important things were the little things. Free blacks just wanted the same rights as a fellow white man. Blacks had few economic opportunities and they weren’t allowed to vote. They were prohibited from owning dogs, firearms, and/or liquor. Blacks had a lot of restrictions.

What forms of slave resistance were practiced in the American South?

One form of resistance was individual forms of rebellion. That was the most common form of rebellion and it was just sabotaging their masters’ things like the rails, tools, fences, boats, etc., and even thefts of food. Another form of slave resistance was rebelling in a physical way. A group of slaves eventually took over a ship that was transporting them to be sold and they eventually gained their freedom after taking over “The Amistad”.  Another uprising was Nat Turner’s Rebellion in which over 80 slaves killed 60 white people in a form of slavery resistance.