EXPLOITATION BEFORE

1865B Y : E D E N U R B I N A , J A K E M I L L E R , J U S T I C E W A L L A C E &

T A N Z I L B A W A N I

E N G L 1 3 0 2

S P R I N G 2 0 1 5

THEME: EXPLOITATION

TOPICS:

•Native Americans

• Colonists

• Salem Witch Trials

• Slavery

NATIVE AMERICANS

BY: E D E N U R B I N A

CLAIM

Native Americans' treatment by colonists and early Americans was cruel and unjust.

TRICKED/MASSACRED• Mystic Massacre (May 26, 1637)

- Over 500 Pequot Indian lives were lost

• Gnadenhutten Massacre (March 8,1782)

- Approximately 96 Lenape Christian Indians killed

• Sand Creek Massacre (1864)

- Leaving more than 400 Cheyenne Indians dead.

"You had pregnant women whose bodies were being cut open, and the fetuses being taken from them. Private body parts of men and women were cut from them, and used as saddle horns and hat bands put on public display in Denver City -- in such a way that you would begin to ask, 'Who is savage, in this case?' It certainly was not the Cheyenne." - Henrietta Mann

FORCED TO GIVE UP LAND AND RELOCATE • Indian Removal Act (1830)

• Removal of the “Five Civilized Tribes” (1830-1838)

• California Gold Rush (1838)

Trail of Tears -4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands. 

FORCED TO ASSIMILATE • Forbidden traditional practices

• Children were forced to boarding schools

• Children were forced to go to church and speak ONLY English

OBJECTIONS/REBUTTAL • Fear

• Manifest Destiny

• Indian Removal Act = Indians benefit

“I have no motive, my friends, to deceive you. I am sincerely desirous to promote your welfare. Listen to me, therefore, while I tell you that you cannot remain where you now are. Circumstances that cannot be controlled, and which are beyond the reach of human laws, render it impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You have but one remedy within your reach. And that is, to remove to the West and join your countrymen, who are already established there. And the sooner you do this, the sooner you will commence your career of improvement and prosperity. . . .” –Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson, “To the Cherokee Tribe of Indians East of the Mississippi” [circular], March 16, 1835 (Gilder Lehrman Collection)

CONCLUSIONNative Americans' treatment

by colonists and early Americans were cruel and

unjustToday

- discrimination- suicide rates 3 times the average on reservations- 1 in 4 Native Americans live in poverty 

COLONISTSBY: J A K E M I L L E R

CLAIM

My claim is that colonists were one of the groups of people that were heavily exploited  

TAXATION

The first evidence of the exploitation of the colonists was through taxation

•Molasses act of 1733•charged 6 pence per gallon of molasses that is about $5 per gallon in taxes•reduced to 3 pence then later 1 pence in 1766•collected £30,000 a year on average from 1765-1774•That is about £7,500,000 today

REASON #2

• Colonies produced raw materials and had to buy the goods back

• This was just another way to get money out of the colonists

• First they had to pay taxes on exports after that they had to pay for the manufactured goods once they were sent back  

INDENTURED SERVANTS 

• 2/3rds of white immigrants were indentured servants all the way to the revolution  

• most came over because they were tricked into it by the recruiters  

• there were some who were kidnapped and sold into indentured servitude

• most never saw freedom because they were worked too hard or their contract kept getting bought out before it expired and then it started over

OBJECTIONS/REBUTTAL

Back then it was normal to be taxed without representation at least for British commoners so they didn’t understand why

Americans were all upset

If you were too dumb to realize that indentured servitude was a trick then you deserved it

CONCLUSION

In conclusion people of the 1700’s had a rough life some rougher than others and most people were

exploited to enhance the social status or wealth of a few

SALEM WITCH TRIALSBY: J U S T I C E WA L L A C E

EXPLOITATION

The Salem witch trials were the product of jealousy, revenge, and superstition combined with mass hysteria and religious

intolerance that resulted in a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial

Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, most of them women.

CLAIM

My claim is that the exploitation of the women involved was wrong and unnecessary.

 

REVENGE IN THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT HYSTERIA

When hysteria mixed with family rivalries born were the infamous witch trials 1692-93. More than 200 people were unjustly accused of practicing witchcraft. When the colonial

government finally acknowledged the trials were a mistake, it was too late for the twenty unfairly executed victims.

REASON #1Most accusers were jealous of or sought revenge in accusing

innocent neighbors they envied.John Proctor

After inheriting a substantial fortune from his father,  Proctor went on to become a successful farmer, entrepreneur, and tavern keeper.  Unfortunately for him, he made the mistake of criticizing the young girls who were accusing witches, saying that if they were to be believed, “we should all be devils and witches quickly,” and recommended that they be whipped or even hung for their lies. After being falsely accused by their servant Mary Warren, Proctor and his wife were arrested in 1692. The sheriff went to their house and seized their goods and provisions, and sold off his cattle, leaving the Proctors’ children without a means of support. Proctor was convicted and executed in August 1692. His wife was spared because she was pregnant.

John and Elizabeth Proctor (The Crucible,1996)

REASON #2• Superstition/ Religious Intolerance in Salem, effects of a puritan society.

• Church was the cornerstone of 17th century life in New England. Most people in Massachusetts were Puritans (colonists who had left England seeking religious tolerance. But the strict Puritan code was far from tolerant. It was against the law not to attend church, where men and women sat on opposite sides through long services. The Puritan lifestyle was rigid. Puritans also believed the Devil was as real as God. Everyone was faced with the struggle between the powers of good and evil, but Satan would select the weakest individuals, women, children, the insane to carry out his work. Those who followed Satan were considered witches. Witchcraft was one of the greatest crimes a person could commit, punishable by death. In keeping with the Puritan code of conformity, the first women to be accused of witchcraft in Salem were seen as different and as social outcasts. Tituba, a slave, Sarah Good, a homeless beggar, and Sarah Osborne, a sickly old woman who married her servant.

• Fear of magic and witchcraft was common in New England, as it had been in Europe for centuries.

REASON #3Mass hysteria

Group behavior and paranoia were gigantic causes to the hysteria that took place. It seems crazy but when you think about it , it makes perfect sense that

al these things- that didn’t make any sense- took place during the trials. Everyone wants a reason or an explanation for why bad things and unfortunes

happen. Since Puritans were expected to live by a rigid moral code, they believed that all sins from sleeping in church to stealing food should be punished. They also believed God would punish sinful behavior. When a

neighbor would suffer misfortune, such as a sick child or a failed crop no one would help because they felt it was Go’s will and that the person was being

punished. Thus children dying, crops failing etc was blamed on God punishing that person for worshipping the devil, allowing the accuser enough u evidence

to accuse.

OBJECTIONS/REBUTTALRye gone bad?• Salem, like many other communities in the past and present, harvested rye as part of their

grain crops, and it was a staple in their diet. But it turns out that rye grass is susceptible to a particular fungus called Claviceps purpurea which infects the edible portions of the plant. During the ergotstage of this fungus' development, a cocktail of interesting alkaloids are present which will cause problems with circulation and neurotransmission when ingested by humans. A woman named Linnda Caporael was the first to suggest that Ergot of Rye may have contributed to the madness in the Salem trials.

• Ergot poisoning, or ergotism, can cause a distressing array of side effects. The initial symptoms are usually gastrointestinal in nature, including nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. Shortly thereafter the sufferer may experience a gamut of symptoms caused by ergot's influence on the central nervous system. These usually start with relatively benign sensations such as headaches, "pins and needles," and burning/itching sensations on the skin; but the the experience can escalate into spasms, convulsions, unconsciousness, hallucinations, and psychosis. In severe cases, the body tissues experience physical side effects such as loss of peripheral sensation, swelling, blisters, dry gangrene, and sometimes death.”

(http://www.damninteresting.com/bad-rye-and-the-salem-witches/)

So, maybe there really one or two real witches? Or maybe bad rye caused psychosis to take over this particular puritan community ? Hardly important , at the end of it all twenty out of one hundred accused were unjustly executed.

CONCLUSION The residents of Salem Village usually accused their neighbors of

witch craft because it was very common to have a history of conflict or tension with your neighbor at the time. The accusers usually came from a family of good reputation, while the accused were usually people who were already looked down upon. Nowadays, most neighbors are friendly with one another and may refer to each other as friends. However, during the Salem witch hunt, not only did neighbors commonly have tensions, but they accused each other of witchcraft which lead to the torture and sometimes even death of their neighbor. This is a great reminder of how family feuds along with politics and religion can yield cataclysmic consequences.

SLAVERY BY: TA N Z I L B AWA N I

CLAIM

I firmly believe slavery was an immoral practice because it dehumanized the African American population, it formed an

American foundation off of blood money, and it was solely for the benefit of the white men.

REASON #1Slavery was very brutal and crucial to all the slaves and was a means of dehumanization

• They were treated unfairly and were separated from their families or loved ones.

• They weren’t given any rights or sayings in any actions whether they were personal or political. They were basically just a piece of property a slave master owned.

• A slave named Sarah Ashley, 93, was born in Mississippi.

“I used to have to pick cotton and sometimes I pick 300 pound and tote it a mile to the cotton house. Some pick 300 to 800 pound cotton and have to tote the bag the whole mile to the gin. If they didn’t do they work they get whip till they have blister on them. Then if they didn’t do it, the man on a horse goes gown the rows and whip with a paddle make with holes in it and bust the blisters. I never get whip, because I always get my 300 pound. Us have to go early to do that, when the horn goes early, before daylight. Us have to take the victuals in the bucket to the field.”

REASON #2

America was founded on blood money

• “In the pre-Civil War United States, a stronger case can be made that slavery played a critical role in economic development. One crop, slave-grown cotton provided over half of all U.S. export earnings.

• In addition, precisely because the South specialized in cotton production, the North developed a variety of businesses that provided services for the slave South, including textile factories, a meat processing industry, insurance companies, shippers, and cotton brokers” (Was slavery the engine of American economic growth?).

• By 1840, the South grew 60 percent of the world's cotton and provided some 70 percent of the cotton consumed by the British textile industry. Thus slavery paid for a substantial share of the capital, iron, and manufactured good that laid the basis for American economic growth.

REASON #3

Slavery is a self-benefit to the whites

• Free labor

• They gained so much economically and politically from them.

• Slave owners became rich and powerful

• Whites could exercise power over other people and from that exercise they obtained a nice self-esteem and some economic gain.

OBJECTIONS/REBUTTAL • Often, proponents of slavery will assert that slaves were beaten as a forms of

punishment thus the abuse didn’t dehumanize slaves since they deserved to be “punished.” But the fact of the matter is that the loss of integrity occurred not in the abuse itself, but rather the nature of the abuse.

• Slavery is scriptural. The Bible justifies slavery, so that must mean we aren’t being immoral. If we call our actions immoral, we call Jesus’ actions immoral.

• The whites didn’t relish in the presence of unique benefits. Sure, there was econ growth, but that growth also helped black men in America too. The growth wasn’t for whites, it was for American

CONCLUSION

• slaves were treated horribly

• America is founded upon blood money

• slavery is a self benefit to the whites