06/25 blog

After reading through these chapters I came across the section about the Haitian Revolution.  I wanted to start my blog discussing that section.  I did not realize that so many other counties were affected by slavery, honestly I only though it was the US because I have only learned about the slavery in the United States. I recently watched the movie Django and the movie is about slaves and one in particularly who becomes a bounty hunter.  The movie is actually pretty awesome and when I read the chapter I thought about the movie.  So the Haitians had the single most greatest and successful slave revolution in history.  That is some empowering information to know what slaves went through and the history they have, it is amazing to know that they did this.  To me I draw the comparison of a lion in a circus, the more the lion tamer or trainer pushes the animal the more the animal gets upset.  Well keep poking at a lion and I bet that lion is going to eat you.  The Haitian Revolution was great for slaves; it gave them a sense of pride.  It inspired other slaves to rebel and gave a “boost to the dawning abolitionist movement.”(Strayer, 510) I could imagine how good slaves felt when they heard of this happening and how afraid the slave owners became.  I am sure that with the news passing security became tight and slave owners drew worse.  Either way that is a big thumb up for slaves.

I feel most of us come from the middle class, working hard to get by and trying to stay unified as a family.  Back in the day in the 18^th century to the early 19^th century women from a middle class family were cast as homemakers, wives and mothers.  They created an emotional haven for their men and a refuge from a heartless and cutthroat capitalist world. (Strayer, 536) Women were also said to be the “moral center,” basically women were in charge of the house while the men worked and provided.  I believe it is important for a family to have this type of dynamic.  I grew up with mom taking care of us and dad was working all the time.  As we got older those things changed, but the concept remained and our family dynamic was great.  The poem “The Princess” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson was quite interesting and I don’t necessarily agree with all of it.  These days’ roles have changed and this way of thinking is different.

fur

Fur huh? Who knew? Well it actually makes a lot of sense.  Fur served as many things but more importantly fur served as a form of trade.  Fur was actually a very important and highly demanded thing.  People needed fur for warmth and used as status.  Fur came from a number of different animals such as beavers, rabbits, sable, marten and deer.  As the weather became colder the demand went up.  As the ice age began fur was at an all time high in value.  The more fur that was used meant that the resources were lowering.  Some animals were nearly hunted to extinction because of it.  The bad conditions pushed the price of fur up, but for France the price quadrupled.  That actually served as strong economic incentive for Europeans to use up the wealth of fur and continue to get more of it from North America.

It was said that only a few Europeans actually trapped and hunted.  They waited for the Indians to bring the furs and skins to the settlements.  Later they set up trading posts that allowed for easier trade.  Europeans paid for furs with goods like guns, metal tools, rum and blankets.  It’s kind of sad but the Europeans used the Indians as a cheap labor force and were able to exploit them.

Many of the items the Europeans sold to the native Indians were of high value to the Indians, the chiefs used them as a status symbol and were able to form trades amongst themselves.  They built relationships with the Europeans that kept them from being enslaved and exterminated.  They used what they had, but although they had gifts and things of value disease still wiped them out.

week 5

Islam in America is not a bad thing, but it scares a lot of people.  Most Americans associate Islamic faith with that of terrorists.  Malcolm X converted to Islam and went from militant black separatism to realizing that race is a barrier that can be broken through the context of Islam.  Well that thought really makes me wonder how a religion that is supposed to be good has such bad people believing in it.  The Islamic religion brought the Afro-Eurasians world into a worldview.  The faith of Islam had spread to the United States where some 1,200 mosques were created and an estimated 8 million Muslims were living. “The broad reach of Islam generated many of the great cultural encounters of this age of accelerating connections, as the civilization challenged and provoked Christendom, penetrated and was transformed by African cultures, and also took root in India, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.  The spread of Islam continued in the modern era so that by the beginning of the twenty-first century, perhaps 1.2 billion people, or 22 percent of the world’s population, identified as Muslims.” (Strayer, 302) slaves and prisoners of war were amongst the people who converted.  People who converted were able to avoid the jizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims. Conversion was not an automatic or simple process.  Vigorous resistance delayed the conversions for centuries among the people of North Africa.  In Persia between 750 and 900 about 80 percent of the population had made the transition to a Muslim religion, while still keeping their own ancient language.

Interesting to find out that Arab and Berber forces conquered Spain in the early 8^th century during the first wave of Islamic expansion. Muslim Spain in several centuries following the conquest has been portrayed as a vibrant civilization characterized by harmony and tolerance between Muslim rulers and its Christian and Jewish subjects.  Very interesting and I guess nice to know that at the time it was nice to live.

The civilizations of Mesoamerica to me are the coolest.  Half of my family was from Mexico and reading about Teotihuacan and the Mayan was cool especially to see how far their influence spread.  My family is from the northern part of Mexico so the regions were not exactly the same, but none the less.  I once met a lady who is a professor at Stanford University who deals with ancestral lineage.  She would study the people from indigenous places from Mexico to South America and see how pure to their region they were.  She studied the DNA and could trace back many generations.  I know there are some who are pure Mayan or Aztec and my biggest question is, how can they be pure? There has to be some kind of cutoff where the lineage stopped.  When spain conquered Mexico the language changed to spanish and people were mixed blooded.  She was able to figure out how and whom were pure.  The Maya has to be the most studied civilizations in the classical era because they were so intelligent and they built such awesome structures.  Tourist still flock to see the ruins, to see where they had all those sacrifices and the pyramids.  They were able to use mathematics to plot the cycles of planets and predict eclipses of the sun and the moon.  They made calendars and were able to calculate the length of the solar year.  Could the Roman Empire do that?  I bet Socrates may have been able to come up with something like that.  Mesoamerica Civs were pioneers and much like the others who came before them were able to flourish off the land and construct new ways to live.  Every civilization used slaves and had to conquer, if they hadn't then we would not be reading about them.  The Maya's influence spread throughout Mexico and inspired other civilizations, to see people still celebrate and remember them now is truly a testament to their great civilizations.