REVOLUTIONARIES WAR There were African American troops that marched with George Washington. In 1815 they served under Andrew Jackson in New Orleans against the British. CIVIL WAR It was not until the Civil War that there was a large number of African Americans in the military.…
“Three days after my little sister Lettie…died, we stopped for a few hours, and my sister Olivia was born… After a great hardship…we finally made our way through…to Oregon… We had been eight months on the road instead of five…”(Document E). The journey to the West was a long and dangerous—many people (especially the old and weak) died on their way. Nevertheless, these people who wanted to move west did not expected such a journey ahead of them, and it was their lack of preparedness that defeated them.…
The Donner Party a story about eager emigrants traveling to a destination where they can start a new life, but with territory still unexplored they faced tragedy and death. Ethan Rarick the author of Desperate Passage, displayed the factual events from the journey of the Donner party, but also mentions his own scenarios where the Donner Party went wrong. The book captivated the inner circle of the Donner party with their best moments and their worst moments. A destination to California for a new life, led to friendships and cannibalism, but this journey portrayed the hardships each person had to make and scarifies they needed to survive. Desperate Passage could have been avoided, but the shortcut they took changed every individual who followed…
E pluribus unum—out of many, one. This is the motto of the United States of America, a nation that prides itself with democratic characteristics such as individual rights, community through patriotism, freedom, and equality for all. However, these concepts are just ideals as individualism and community contradict each other as well as freedom and equality, and historically America has had difficulty balancing these ideals. One of Walt Whitman poems preaches the possibility that these concepts can work together. “Song of Myself” is Whitman’s paean to his ideal of American democracy, an idea which balances, or attempts to balance, freedom with equality, individualism with community, a relentlessly inclusive, or as Whitman puts it, “absorptive”…
Think of the unity of effect like a cowboy riding a bull. The longer the cowboy stays on the bull, the more the audience feels the rush, the adrenaline. When every aspect of your writing is focused on a consistent point, a piece of emotion hits the readers. In order to achieve the unity of effect, one might begin to evoke beauty in all living and natural elements and add a touch of emotion, thus determining a desired unity of effect. Edgar Allan Poe uses a variety of literary devices and other styles of romantic writing in order to create the one emotional effect, the one goal and the one specific tone in his poems and short stories.…
The Legacy of Manifest Destiny In the age of reform, America became engulfed in the spirit of Manifest destiny. Manifest Destiny was the belief that the people of the United States were destined with the mission of expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It was a common believe that America was chosen by God as a superior nation to expand “from sea to shining sea.” A journalist for the United States Magazine and Democratic Review, John L. O'Sullivan, wrote about the movement in 1839.…
What is Manifest Destiny? Most people never even heard of it to tell you the truth. Manifest Destiny was a movement during the 1800's when people from the East of America would move to the West. You probably heard of the Gold Rush or the Louisiana Purchase. They were all part of Manifest Destiny.…
We all know America as a ‘land of opportunities’. In Walt Whitman’s America, we see a positive view that focuses on equality and freedom thus, represents America as a happy and peaceful place. And in McKay’s America he shows a negative view thus, we see the hate, anger, and discrimination. Both poets present their perspectives of America, but they are very different. By exploring the lives and works of both Walt Whitman and Claude McKay, we understand how America, the same country, can be a country to one where only love, law, and freedom prevails and to another it is full of hate and racism.…
When people thought of striking gold and beginning a new future, many could not help but wonder what could go wrong. They figured that if they could become rich and powerful, nothing that bad could happen. So, in the mid-1800s, people began to immigrate to California with that idea; most had no clue what they had gotten themselves into. The massive immigration began in January of 1848 when James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill in the Sacramento Valley of California. Both he and John Sutter intended to keep the discovery a secret, but they could not control the spread of news.…
Facing the continuing decline of their population Native Americans called upon neighboring missionaries to aid them. This turning away from traditions was an added challenge to medicine men and traditional culture. Native Americans understood that European medicine came with the expectation of an earnest study of Christianity. Missionaries initially welcomed the desperate natives who were willing to study whichever religion in exchange for medical aid. In Oregon, the Whitman massacre is one example of the failure of European medicine and the desperate response of the Cayuses.…
The purpose of this investigation is to understand the question: What were the determining factors in making the Oregon Trail a success or a failure? The focus of the paper is the 1840s, a period during the expansion of the US. The journey of several pioneers and the events that impacted them will be analyzed and categorized into the determining factors. Francis Parkman’s The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life originated as a book and was published in 1849 with the purpose of examining the life of Native Americans in the west and the Oregon Trail. The book contained descriptions of pioneers, native american people, wildlife and landscapes during his travels that originated in Independence, Missouri and ended in Fort…
Americans also had to be careful with crossing rivers. During the late fall and winter, the temperatures of the water could cause a person to get sick, let alone die from the lack of medical care. Americans also had to be careful crossing rivers for their wagons and animals were so heavy. They had to be careful not to let animals drown. According to Shannon, more than half of the pioneers, along with their cattle drowned in 1844 when trying to cross the Columbia Gorge.…
Many poets are very different and some are revolutionary. Almost all poets before Whitman wrote with a pattern in their poetry, but Whitman changed that and became the father of free verse poetry. In Dickinson 's poetry it reflects her loneliness in her life and most of the people in her poetry are in a state of want. These poets are very different and have really changed the direction of poetry over time. Whitman and Dickinson poems are similar yet very different at the same time.…
It starts out in a conversation with a child asking what grass is. The line of answer is "the beautiful uncut hair of graves" (Whitman 2747). When we die, we are buried in the ground. We are returned, in a sense, from whence we came. God did form Adam, the first man, from the earth.…
During the Poem “Song of Myself” Walt Whitman examines the complex idea of belonging in society by using sly commentary and symbols alike, while writing with a seemingly egotistical style. This piece was one of the twelve poems from the original collection of “Leaves of Grass” published in 1855, which was shortly before the Civil War started. This was a time of despair for Whitman because he was living in a fractured union. During this piece Whitman used many evocative situations to capture the readers imagination. The piece was written with mid-level diction, yet each line is crammed with significant detail.…