Martina+Curcio

== =Name:Adrienne Isabella Black= My name is Adrienne Isabella Black. I am a northern woman living in Boston, Massetchustes during May of 1862. My husband, Joseph, fights in the Civil War, and left me to fight in July of 1861. I worry so much about him, but I worry just as much about the slaves. They deserve to be given their freedom. No human deserves, nor do they want to be oppressed so horridly. My husband worked in a factory that manafactured tools of war, and to support myself during his absense, I have taken it upon myself to take up his job to earn money. It gets hard, but I love it. Its challenging but it's different, and I want to keep the job when he returns.



=A page from the journal of a northern woman.= = =

Entry Number 1:
I remember a while ago, I heard from a family friend of the revolt of Nat Turner, which took place in Hampton, Virginia the night of August 20, 1831. Though it seems much more like a barbaric killing spree. The paper told of him being a preacher, who saw prophetic visions from God. He claimed that God wanted him to set his people free by killing the whites. He killed his master first, and was grouped with a few other slaves. As it went on, around 50 or 60 slaves joined the revolt. They killed their masters and even 55 innocent men, women, and children. They found him after being in hiding for 6 weeks. They caught him, and once they did that, they sentenced him to death on November 5th of 1831, but they killed him by skinning and hanging him on November 11, 1831 It seems to me that, if you were a man of God, especially a preacher, that you wouldn't ever expect to commit a sin, that you would try to find a more peaceful solution to the problem than just killing. However, this case really interested me, so I decided to read up on him. Apparently, he was born on October 2nd, 1800, and was a very intellegent child. Around the age of three or four, he told his peers of an event taking place before he was born, and it was confirmed to be correct. He had a unique sense of perception. Its a shame he commited such a terrible crime, if he has remained innocent, he would lived a long, sucessful life, and became somebody, a really good man. Instead, he went down the wrong road, and ended his own life.



Entry Number 2:
There's a man named John C, Calhoun, he's dead now, but I remember back in the day, that I would hear of his beliefs, things that he said, and be out raged. The man thought of slavery as "a positive good"! I couldn't believe that anybody would call slavery positive, let alone good! The only positive thing about it is the money these rich plantation owners make off these poor slaves. They never see a single cent, and they get such harsh treatment for any little mistake they make! This man, John C. Calhoun, was a very powerful man in the political scene, so I guess not many people argued with him. He was given the nickname, "the Cast-Iron man" because of his determination that was used to defend the causes he believed in. Though I will admit that he is a very smart man, he doesn't have very much compassion. He spent most of his life in the senate, and he went to Yale in 1802, graduating in 1804. He excelled in school. After graduating from Yale, he went to Charleston, and began studying law, then returned to stuy at Litchfield in Conneticut. In 1808 he was elected to the bar. He served as vice president for John Quincey Adams, and Andrew Jackson. He served as a senator, a US represenative, a secretary or war, the secretary of state, and Vice president, twice. He was the first person to be elected vice president twice, and the first to be born as a US citizen. He was elected to the house of represenitives in 1811. He was raised as a Calvinist, and had a firm work ethic, and held a resistiance to the simple pleasures, such as dancing and other social activities. He held a bleak view of human nature. He didn't seem much of a social person. He ended up marrying his cousin, Floride Calhoun, and they had 9 kids together. His beloved daughter, Anna Maria, inherited his plantation after his death in March 31,1850, and her husband, Thomas Clemson donated it to the state after the family's death, to become Clemson University. I guess the man was a good worker, but it just seems he was a bit bleak and unemotional. He just didn't seem to have much compassion for others. However, if not for him, there would be no Clemson University, which is a TERRIBLE thing!





Entry Number 3:
I was shocked when the results from the presidential election came in a few months ago! Abraham Lincoln won! I was so excited about it, because he will do great things for our country. Maybe, at long last, our country will be rid of slavery. I remember when he was elected on November 6th, 1860, but it took me a few days to find out about it. As far as I know, he is the first republican to be our president, so I am extremly curious to see how that works out. People say that him being elected is what caused the civil war, but I don't believe that. He never said "Okay, we are going into war now that I am the president," in fact, the war is more the south's fault for always wanting to contradict the north. They should just see things our way and we could all just get along and be a united country again. But some people think that he's just an old country farmer that got lucky. Anyone who saw him would know for certain that he has earned the right to be our president. He may have come from the backwoods, but there is a strong difference from him and the average farm hand. In fact, he is a well respected lawyer that came from Illinois. He got his real fame when he campained for the senate against Stephen A. Douglas a few years back in 1858. Since the democratic party couldn't really get their act together in time for the election, what with the south disagreeing with the democratic represenative given for their election, Lincoln was a shoo-in to win. His vice president was Hannibal Hamlin who I heard came from Maine. I heard also that he just barely won with just over a third electoral votes, but when it came to electoral votes, he came out with the most of them all. Since the south is so into slavery, naturally, none of them supported Lincoln, only the free states voted for him. Then, after his election, one of the states, South Carolina, who thinks its all big and bad, decides, "Hey, since things didn't go OUR way, lets just seccede from this country. After all, we are so resistant to change, even though during the Revolution, we were ALL about changing things!" Honestly, the country needs to start sticking together before it starts falling apart.

1. How does one's understanding of slavery affect his understanding of the people and events of the 1850s and 1860s?
One needs to know both of the sides on the slavery issue, to have a real understanding of the events that became real because of it. For example, its good to know the positive results of slavery, but there are negatives to it too, and these need to be understood to understand the events and why they happened. It you don't know the conditions of life as a slave, you wouldn't be able to understand the reasoning behind slave revolts, and you wouldn't be able to understand the consequences that followed, and how they restricted the lives of both the slave, and the whites.

2. Why would slavery ever be condoned in the United States?
Personally, I don't understand why slavery would be condoned in the United States. The national anthem claims that we are living in the land of the free, and the home of the brave, but this can't possibly be true when this same land puts people to work and treats them unfairly, resulting in endless pain, suffering, misery, seperation from loved ones, and even death. The masters of these slaves try to justify what they are doing by quoting the line in the bible, "Obey thy Master" but what this line really means is that these people are to obey God, to serve him. To treat a person as a subordinate that must be obeyed or else, would be like putting yourself in the place of God, which is a sin. In fact, it is just an outright oxymoron. If the people who left Britian to go to the colonies to escape the opression there are beating and putting people whose only difference from you is a skin color in a place they don't want to be, then it's just a little hypocritical, isn't it?

3. Was the Civil War the only means to end slavery in the United States?
The Civil War, at the time, may have seemed to be the only way to end slavery in the United States, but there's always a better way than fighting a bloody battle. The ways slavery could have been abolished non-violently just weren't thought of at the time. After all, the Civil Rights Movement was solved through non-violent methods. Protests and simple resistance against the slave owners was difficult, because when the slaves tried, they were just beaten and or killed. Nobody seemed to agree with abolitionists in the south. But with time, the issue of slavery would be resolved in a much less violent form.

4. What are some of the long-term effects of slavery that are linked to the people and events of the past?
Some long term effects of slavery that are linked to the past include heritage. Slaves taught us how to cultivate rice, and their spirituals are still sung in churches today.Their methods of cooking are very popular with people of all cultures, especially in the south. However, once slavery was abolished, there was some tension between races, that led to segregation. This issue was solved in the 21st century through the Civil Rights movement, and these days there is a strong feeling of equality between us.