Difference between revisions of "HIST 131--Week 13 Questions/Comments"

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(Granville Blanks, letter to the Editor, 1852)
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I understand that Blanks wanted a separate country for "his people".  It would make sense, as most slaves were very willing to be free.  However, they want to be able to provide for themselves, as well.  To take them to a whole new country, such as Liberia, they would have difficulty adjusting.  Yet Blanks feels the only way that his people will be happy is if they had their own place to live.  Most of the slaves in America at that time period were American-born.  They also know how to work the land and how to (albeit meagerly) provide for themselves and their families although still in bondage.  Why would they want to move to a different country, all the way across the ocean?  How could they afford to move over there?  Also lacking in his argument is people saying they want to move to Liberia.  He notes what poor conditions they live in and how they would like them to improve, yet none of them really say that they would like to move to a different country. - Alex Zelin
 
I understand that Blanks wanted a separate country for "his people".  It would make sense, as most slaves were very willing to be free.  However, they want to be able to provide for themselves, as well.  To take them to a whole new country, such as Liberia, they would have difficulty adjusting.  Yet Blanks feels the only way that his people will be happy is if they had their own place to live.  Most of the slaves in America at that time period were American-born.  They also know how to work the land and how to (albeit meagerly) provide for themselves and their families although still in bondage.  Why would they want to move to a different country, all the way across the ocean?  How could they afford to move over there?  Also lacking in his argument is people saying they want to move to Liberia.  He notes what poor conditions they live in and how they would like them to improve, yet none of them really say that they would like to move to a different country. - Alex Zelin
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I noticed while reading Granville Blanks' arguments for moving to Liberia, the differences between him and other African-Americans of his time. He says that his people should move to a new country to get away from the hostilities they face in America, whereas some like Frederick Douglass who were born and lived as slaves for so long want to stay. It's interesting the differences between the two men, Blanks was born free and wants to leave the white people, while Douglass went through the horrors of slavery and wants to stay in America and work to help others. Im surprised Blanks didn't feel that taking his fellow people and moving to another country would inevitably be worse for his people. Not only do they not know anything about this place he wants to go to, but all they are doing is pretty much saying to the whites that even THEY believe they are an inferior race and should just leave. This seems to be everything that men like Frederick Douglass are fighting against.  - Jessie Bright
  
 
== John Brown at Pottawatomie and Harpers Ferry ==
 
== John Brown at Pottawatomie and Harpers Ferry ==

Revision as of 18:04, 17 April 2008