Blog 12 - Amazing Grace

The main reason I feel that it is so hard to stop the international trade of slaves is simple; the reason is money. The English empire became powerful because of the Slave trade. The logic is fairly simple; slaves work on crop plantations, then plantations grow crops, crops sell for money and are traded for other crops, which then supply the English empire and earn it capital. Another reason that I can think of that was an obstacle to William Wilberforce was that many of the noblemen that were in the House of Congress had at least some money in the slave trade. Because of this William Wilberforce has such a hard time trying to convince the House of Commons to ban slavery. The English empire rose to prominence after they found a cash crop in the Americas. This cash crop was tobacco and was discovered by John Rolfe in Virginia. After Bacon’s rebellion indentured servants went into decline and the need for slaves increased. These events made the English think that slavery was the cheapest and most effective way to gain capital. I think the English believed in the phrase if it isn’t broken don’t fix it. Production wise slavery worked for the English, it made them lots of money, however, ethically slavery is horribly wrong. This year I have taken a personal finance class, in this class one of the points that was stressed was that money brings the worse out of anyone and everyone. I believe that this happened to the English. The English were only thinking economically and let money control them. They didn’t really think of slaves as people. I do not know if this was because of propaganda or because people just didn’t ever think beyond economics. At the time this movie is set in which I believe the movie said it was about 1782, the English empire held a lot of territory. Even though the English empire had lost the colonies in America they still had a great amount of land. European countries held the Caribbean and other places. These islands had slaves and plantations. They grew sugar cane and many other cash crops that made the English a great deal of money. The only thing they need for the plantations are more slaves. Because of this the international slave trade thrived. When the English can get the Africans to turn on themselves and fight each other it is easy to get slaves. England and the other European countries had England set up perfectly for them. They can get as many slaves as they want for cheap. The English and the Europeans had Africa in the perfect situation for them and because of this international slave trade thrived and there was no real end in sight until the abolition movement started and eventually they got followers. My second point of why it took so long to change the international slave trade was because many of the politicians had money in the salve trade. This point is mainly based off of this movie, but it makes a great deal of sense to me. I thought about this point logically and I mirrored the situation to America. Many of the politicians in the South had plantations. This was why America had as many problems as it did getting rid of slavery in the United States. In England I imagine it is mainly the same. Even though there were definitely less plantations in England then in America, their was still merchants and slave traders in England. Merchants relied on the plantations to make money and sense slaves worked on the plantations it is simple logic why they wouldn’t want to get rid of international slave trade. Economically it makes sense, but like I have mentioned earlier ethically it is not. This is one thing I can’t understand is how most of the English did not think about the issue of slavery ethically. The beginning of the movie stated that there were few abolitionists at this time, and historically there weren’t that many abolitionists till later. So eventually the ethical part of it caught on but it wasn’t for a while. Because the majority people did not think of the issue slavery ethically, of course they couldn’t stop international slave trade. In conclusion, the international trade thrived in this environment. The abolitionists had to work extremely hard to change the reasoning of the English majority. The abolitionist movement had to soften the hearts of the English people to start getting an antislavery fervor in England. I feel that the international slave trade would have probably gone on forever if it wasn’t for the abolitionists and I am glad that the abolitionist eventually won the battle over slavery. I am glad that there is slavery in America, however, as one of our TA’s reminded us with the picture from New York, slavery is still going on and we need to work hard to stop it.

Blog 12 - Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Lincoln’s second inaugural address was probably one of the only readings I was excited about reading. I have of course read and heard this address before, however, I have not read or heard the second inaugural address for a long time. Because of this I was happy to refresh my mind on this very important speech. When I read this speech I realized how religious this speech is. I really have never thought of Abraham Lincoln as a religious president, but after reading the speech and going to the lecture I have learned that he was very religious. One of the most interesting things that Dr. H told us was that Abraham Lincoln owned a Book of Mormon. Dr. H said that they don’t know how much of it he actually read, but they know that he owned one. This was very interesting to me, mainly because the Mormons were not very liked at this time period for being polygamists. One of my favorite parts of the speech was how Abraham Lincoln unified the north and the south when he talked about the Bible. He states, “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God.” This statement in the text really stood out to me. Mainly because it is very true, the North and the South are both reading the same text they are just interpreting it differently. This is not uncommon. In class Dr. H told us that there are over 1,500 denominations of Christian religions. From this I believe that most people interpret the Bible (and most religious books) differently. It is not clearly defined so because of this I am not surprised that there are so many Christian denominations. Another interesting thing that we talked about in the lecture was the length of the inaugural address. From the inaugural addresses that I have read from the past and the ones I have heard in my lifetime, I do think that Lincoln’s inaugural address was rather short. However, I think that it is to the point and is more effective due to the fact that it is not too over winded. It doesn’t have words just for length; it is just to the point. Definitely my favorite part was that Abraham Lincoln wrote the speech himself. In today’s world all political leaders have speechwriters and do not really write anything themselves. This speech is fantastic and I think that it definitely had to be influenced at least a little bit by God. This speech is considered to be one of the best speeches of all time and the fact that Abraham Lincoln wrote it himself and did not make that many changes to the draft shows that he was inspired and that he truly was trying to bring the United States back together. I stand by the people that believe this is one of the best inaugural addresses of all time.

Blog 11 - The Second Great Awakening and Joseph Smith and the 1st vision

The Second Great Awakening a lecture was quite intriguing. The lecture did really make me think about Joseph Smith and his first vision. I found the most interesting part was when we talked about Joseph Smiths family and what religious denominations they all belonged too. As I recall, Joseph Smiths mother was Presbyterian, his father was a Universalist, and Joseph himself was leaning Methodist. I personally believe that if it wasn’t for all of the sermons and religion in the public sphere that Joseph Smith would have never prayed in the sacred grove and thus would have never had the first vision. I also believe that all of this religion in the public sphere helped spread the words of Joseph Smith. The other thing that I find so amazing is that Mormonism attracted so many members. During the Second Great Awakening there were many new religions getting spread around all over America especially in the burned over district. The burned over district is part of New York where there were lots of the Second Great Awakening was occurring. Joseph Smith jr. and his family lived in the burned over district and took part in many of the sermons that were part of the Second Great Awakening. One thing that I wonder about was how the crowd reactions were during the Mormon sermons. During usual sermons the crowds would do many different reactions. They would fall down, roll on the ground, bark, and dance. However, many historians believe that many of these reactions are exaggerated. These historians believe that for the most part people just fell down and shouting. In class we didn’t really learn about any of the reactions to the Mormon sermons and sense as far as my knowledge goes I think that Mormonism was towards the end of the Second Great Awakening that it wasn’t too extreme. However, I really don’t know and am not sure if anyone knows. With all of these crazy religious happenings in New York I am glad that so many people listened to the words of Joseph Smith and converted to Mormonism. I am also very glad that my ancestors listened to the words of Joseph Smith and other Mormon leaders and converted to Mormonism so that I could eventually hear the words of the Mormon religion.