Economic Growth and Slavery

This article discusses what was more important to the colonists:  economic self-interest to keep slavery or moral convictions to abolish slavery?
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/con_economic.cfm

This goes back to our discussion in class on Friday -- that slavery was an easy solution to keeping the economy of colonial America growing.  Americans realized that if they did not have economic growth, the country would fall.  So when slavery started, they made the decision to take economic self-interest over the moral convictions of slavery.  However, once slavery became a big issue and people came to their senses... I believe slavery was abolished due to the morals of the American people (or some of them at least).

The Paradox of Slavery and Freedom

Towards the end of Morgan's "Slavery and Freedom" article, the author writes:
"Thus began the American paradox of slavery and freedom, intertwined and interdependent, the rights of Englishmen supported on the wrongs of Africans.  The American Revolution only made the contradictions more glaring, as the slaveholding colonists proclaimed to a candid world the rights not simply of Englishmen but of all men.  To explain the origin of the contradictions, if the explanation I have suggested is valid, does not eliminate them or make them less ugly.  But it may enable us to understand a little better the strength of the ties that bound freedom to slavery, even in so noble a mind as Jefferson's.  And it may perhaps make us wonder about the ties that bind more devious tyrannies to our own freedoms and give us still today our own American paradox."
     The way the author ends this -- that we still have an American paradox today really highlighted for me the fact that without a government, this paradox probably would not exist.  Furthermore, the only reason that we still have liberty is that the government is strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and the people are strong enough and well informed enough to maintain control over themselves even without the government.  It is sometime said that opposites attract -- that one thing cannot exist without the other.  When applying this to America,  freedom cannot exist without slavery.  If we had not have had slavery as a part of our history we would not have learned its impact on our culture.  We would not appreciate the freedom we have now as much as we do.  The freedom that Americans get to take part in now would not have happened without wars and protests for freedom.  On the other hand, each American is a slave in his or her own way....we obey the government for the most part...we are governed under these laws that make us "slaves" to our government.  But this is a paradox because we also gain freedom from our government.  Without our leaders and soldiers to protect us, our freedom would be lost.  So Morgan  is right -- part of being an American is living with paradoxes -- and one of these paradoxes is between freedom and slavery, all the way from our history until present day today.

The Root of the Importance of Houses in America

"The house owes its importance to its association with the family.  All the indigenous and immigrant cultures who have lived in what is now the United States have identified the family as the core institution of their societies, although they have defined it in very different ways.  However they are defined, families are complex institutions.  Shared values bind them, but internal divisions distinguish their members as individuals and according to their assigned roles, as spouses, parents, children, servants.  Equally important, families have histories - gene pools, genealogies, family stories and traditions: they are constellations of memories that surface in surprising ways from one generation to the next."
-- From Upton's "An American Icon"
           It is obvious that houses are important to Americans.  Without them, American ways of living would be quite different, especially the communal sense of families.  A house is one of the first things a new couple buys, and then it turns into the house where they raise their family.  The topic of family is very prominent in American history also.  Before there was all this technology, one's family members were sometimes the only people that one would be able to talk to.  I believe that a house is a dense fact that can describe a family.  No single house has the same stuff in it as another.   Family stories and traditions are kept within a house; the architecture and the furnishing help tell this story.  Houses are a place to keep memories safe in; memories of family and of American history.

Does Place Matter?

    Even though we have been studying how landscape and architecture impacts us, the reading for Monday made me think of the unimportance of landscape and architecture.   Throughout my college search, I was told many times that it is not a matter of where you go, it is a matter of what you do with the education that you receive. David Orr's article, "Architecture and Education" says, "First, it tells its users that locality, knowing where you are, is unimportant. To be sure, this is not said in so many words anywhere in this or any other building. Rather, it is said tacitly throughout the entire structure."   If knowing where you are is unimportant, then what is important?  The education you get both by your professors and by the people who surround you is important.  It is what people do with these aspects and how far they go with them that makes the real impact.  I think that knowing who you are and where you want to go with your life is much more important than knowing where you are (locality).  

Jefferson and Architecture

      Through reading Barnet's article, I got the impression that buildings should be analyzed according to their function/utility, structure, and beauty/design.  However, after reading the article about Thomas Jefferson's profession as an architect, I realize there is another way to read into the complexity of buildings.
     "As one of the pivotal idealists of the Revolution and as one of the creative figures in the formation of the new republic, Jefferson spoke for an aspiring America.  His architecture, therefore, takes on its full meaning only when viewed as both instrument and symbol of his social and political purpose. Jefferson became the first American leader to think in terms of cultural as well as political independence and to him this independence could nowhere be better expressed than in architecture.  He was the first American architect consciously to reject the English tradition and to seek instead an architecture appropriate to the new nation."  -- From William Pierson's "American Neoclassicism, The Idealistic Phase"
     Jefferson adds another way to analyze buildings:  What does the building say about the culture?  Personally I had never thought about the architecture in colonial America as a way to declare independence from Britain, but after reading I understand that this is the case.  Architecture was used as another means to culturally separate the states from Britain, and this helped highlight that Americans were different from their mother country not only politically, but also culturally and socially.

The Declaration

Takaki shares two different opinions of the Declaration of Independence in his book A Different Mirror.  He writes,
"Beyond their shared labor experiences and dreams, the diverse American people discovered a tie that binds - the Declaration of Independence, with equality as a principle for everyone, regardless of race or religion.  Moreover, they were prepared to fight and even die for this 'self-evident truth' in two of the nation's most horrendous conflicts - the Civil War and World War II" (Takaki 14-15).
This quote highlights the spirit of the American people - the want to be free and to take initiative for protecting that freedom.  It also points out how the Declaration united the colonists, which was perfect timing for the revolution.  The Declaration provided a means to unite the people of America together for fighting for their freedom in the revolution.

"In many schools, however, students were learning about freedom and equality as they recited the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence. 'Here the children learned about democracy or at least the theory of it,' said a University of Hawaii student.  They were taught that honest labor, fair play, and industriousness were virtues" (Takaki 250).
The last part of the quote underlines what America was founded upon: "honest labor, fair play, and industriousness were virtues."   It is these virtues which helped America succeed as an independent nation.  Without honest labor, the colonists could not have started businesses that supported the families in the colonies.  Without fair play, the colonists could not have trusted each other, which would then cause the colonists not to be united together for the revolution.  Finally, without industriousness, America could not have happened, because it is the industries that were started in the colonies that helped America be independent from Britain.  The goods that were made in America made it so that the citizens would not have to be dependent on Britain for the importation of goods.  These values were critical in the starting point for America as an independent nation.

In the article "The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence", the author writes, 

"Labeling the Americans "one people" and the British "another" was also laden with implication and performed several important strategic functions within the Declaration. First, because two alien peoples cannot be made one, it reinforced the notion that breaking the "political bands" with England was a necessary step in the course of human events. America and England were already separated by the more basic fact that they had become two different peoples. The gulf between them was much more than political; it was intellectual, social, moral, cultural and, according to the principles of nature, could no more be repaired, as Thomas Paine said, than one could "restore to us the time that is past" or "give to prostitution its former innocence." To try to perpetuate a purely political connection would be "forced and unnatural," "repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things" (Stephen E. Lucas).

This passage points out the significance of the Declaration of Independence highlighting the fact that the Americans are one people.  This constitutes that the American people are not connected to England, and that if the Americans were to revolt, the war would not be a civil war if the two people were separate to begin with.  The passage also highlights how living in America transformed the colonists into having not only political views different from the Englanders, but also social, moral, cultural, etc. views that were different.  Living in America taught the colonists to become very independent and to view moral and social issues on a whole new level that was different than the views of the people in Britain.  

The Pursuit of Happiness

 In the readings for today, both Cullen and Davidson & Lytle explore the pursuit of happiness and what it means to the American people.

           In Cullen's The American Dream, the author writes, "The meaning of liberty, by contrast, sometimes seems all too clear: a celebration of the right to buy - if you've got the cash or credit.  And the pursuit of happiness - is it simply the acquisition of creature comforts?" (39).
Cullen asks his readers that is it really just getting the things that one wants that makes them happy? Can it really be that simple?  I think the truth is that these "creature comforts" are actually really hard to get - that the pursuit of happiness is hard unless people actually try, unless people actually have a vision that they set out to fulfill.  I think that the reason the "American Dream" seems so unattainable to so many people is that they do not know how to be happy, and that alone is the root of the problem itself.

           In The Art of Historical Detection, by Davidson & Lytle, the authors write,
"Francis Hutcheson had suggested that a person's actions be judged by how much happiness they brought to other people.  'Virtue,' he argued, 'is in a compound ratio of the quantity of good and number of enjoyers...that action is best which accomplishes the greatest happiness for the greatest number.'
...According to Enlightenment science, then pleasure was a quality embedded in human nature itself, the pursuit of which governed a person's actions as surely as the laws of gravity governed walking.  Further, since happiness could be quantified, a government's actions could be weighed in the balance scales to discover whether they measurably impeded a citizen's right to pursue happiness as he saw fit.  When rightly apprehended, the science of government, like the science of agriculture or celestial mechanics, would take its place in the advancing progress of humankind" (14).
The authors suggest that the government's actions should reflect the wishes of the people so as to have the most citizens happy as possible.  However, this is difficult when citizens have so many different opinions, because this means that someone will always be unhappy.  Different citizens have different wants of actions to take to pursue happiness as they see fit.  This is hard because at some point, the government has to draw a line, i.e. robbery, murder, rape...even though some individuals believe that these types of things would make them happy.  In all, the government's actions should be for bettering and further progressing the happiness of the American citizens.

American Cities and the Revolution

       In Benjamin Carp's article "Rebels Rising" he provides his readers with a good summary of the importance of cities in colonial America.  He writes,

"From the eastern side of the Atlantic, the cities may have seemed insignificant, but in America the cities had a disproportionately large influence on the surrounding countryside.  War, economic shifts, new legislation, and news from around the globe flowed into the urban seaports before they reached upriver to rural places.  As a result, American cities became the first places to feel the effects of imperial policies. As another historian of hate the colonial cities argued half a century ago, these five cities played a crucial "preparatory" role in the coming of the Revolution as population centers where leaders, crowds, and events conjoined. These cities were often the generators of revolutionary thought and action - they nurtured the Enlightenment in the New World, they helped unleash the dynamic forces of republicanism, they developed a burgeoning sense of American nationality, and they succeeded in spreading their views to the rural hinterlands.  Later historians added the idea that the cities also sparked internal upheaval, including religious revivals, economic disorder, and class conflict.  Whether we argue that the American Revolution was radical in its overthrow of British government or radical in its inflammation of internal struggle, the American cities were undeniably important as sites of radical change" (9).

     Americans recognized the need for cities early on. They were a way to keep the people contained, safe, and civilized.  These cities also provided more benefits thought - the cultivated the ideas of the revolution and provided places for rebellions and meetings to take place.  I think that part of the idea of an "American" is that Americans know how to take initiative for themselves and act upon what they want to.  This is obvious in these cities -- they knew that they could use these cities to develop the ideas of the rebellion and they could use the cities as a sort of "home base" for all the action.  The big cities also helped Americans develop a sense of place.  Since they were not their own country, they identified themselves by which city they lived in.  These cities allowed them to have pride of their American homeland and encouraged them to be involved in the revolution.

Women and the Revolution

In Woody Holton's article "Unruly Americans in the Revolution, the author talks and about the feminist perspective of the revolution and the benefits to the women of that time.  He writes,

 "The best-known item on the banned list was tea, a beverage much more popular among women than men. Male Patriots understood that the boycotts could not succeed without the help of their mothers, daughters, and wives, and the result was an unprecedented and highly successful effort to involve women in politics, initiated as much by the women themselves as by men.
The most valuable product that the colonists normally imported from the mother country was cloth, and when the Patriots extended their boycott to textiles, they created another opportunity for American women. It was up to them to spin the thread (and in some cases weave the yarn) that would replace the fabric once imported from Britain.
Historians of the American Revolution have never been able to reach an agreement about what it did for—or to—free women. Most recently, womens’ historians have argued that free women did benefit—at least temporarily. They had been politicized during the 1760s and 70s, as their domestic activities took on political meaning in the boycotts. Moreover, when men left home to become soldiers and statesmen, women took over their farms and businesses. As they mastered activities such as hiring farm workers and selling crops, their self confidence grew.. More than one wife who corresponded with her absent husband went from describing the family farm as “yours” early in the war to declaring it “ours” (and in some case “mine”) several years later. 
Free women benefited in another way as well. Americans feared that their new form of republican government would fail unless ordinary men practiced political virtue—a willingness to sacrifice for their country. After the revolution, reformers turned to women to instill this patriotism in their sons and daughters. Mothering thus became a “civic” act and Republican Motherhood a new ideology for women. With it came a realization that women could not properly instruct their children in virtue if they themselves did not receive a proper education in such fields as political theory, philosophy and history. “If we mean to have Heroes, Statesmen and Philosophers,” Abigail Adams told her husband in August 1776, “we should have learned women.”"


Women gained recognition as having a civil duty in their home therefore they felt more like their home was truly theirs.  They were to cut down on the amount of tea they drank, spin thread, taking over farms and businesses when men went off to fight, and raising their children to be proud to sacrifice for their country.  This allowed the realization that women needed to be more educated if they were to have such a large role in the domestic life.  These aspects opened up many opportunities to women that might not have happened had the revolution not taken place. 

Importance of Tea

      Towards the end of Macfarlane's article "From Empire of Tea" the author gives a good summary of the impact of tea on the world:
"Tea transformed Britain as it had done China and Japan. 'In no instance has a greater revolution taken place in the habits of a people than that which tea has effected within the last hundred years among the English,' wrote John Davis, the historian of China, in the middle of the nineteenth century. Alongside that transformation there emerged the most powerful capitalist and imperial nation in world history.  The anthropologist Sidney Mints described how the 'first sweetened cup of hot tea to be drunk by an English worker was a significant historical event, because it prefigured the transformation of an entire society, a total remaking of its economic and social basis.' Tea changed everything" (96-97).

     Tea began to show one's wealth and began to be another defining feature of an upperclass European.  Tea changed the day to day patterns of a European.  The fact that the tea came from China added the international trading factor.  China, who had never had a hugh role in the trading industry, now became a very big deal to Europeans especially.  Had the tea epidemic not happened, European history and culture would be completely different and therefore Europeans would not have affected America in the same way.
As the author said, "Tea changed everything."

Tea Party Thoughts

This article from the New York Times that was printed yesterday can maybe help for brainstorming ideas for friday:

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/105829608.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

The part that strikes me as the most ridiculous is this:

"A $500 reward in Minnesota

In Minnesota, organizers from the Tea Party and related groups announced this week that they were offering a $500 reward for anyone who turned in someone who was successfully prosecuted for voter fraud. The group -- the Minnesota Majority and North Star Tea Party Patriot -- has launched a $50,000 radio and billboard campaign and is organizing volunteer "surveillance squads" to photograph and videotape what it suspects are irregularities, and in some cases to follow buses that take voters to the polls."

Why people need to challenge voter registration and suspect people who probably aren't guilty does not make sense to me.  It is surprising that the police authority are letting this happen -- a reward for a "criminal" when they have no real authority over public crime.  

Franklin's Autobiography

        It is notable that in his autobiography, Franklin spends most of the book talking about politics and other topics that pertain to society -- topics that are not intimately personal.  Except for one small, short paragraph that does not go into detail and is never brought up again.  Franklin writes,
"In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation.  This i mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen" (Franklin 79).
Perhaps Franklin does not spend much time on this because of his hurt from the incident, or perhaps it just does not affect him that much anymore because he has moved on with his life.

        On a different note, Franklin's Autobiography as a whole really stands out as an example of the idealism of that time period.  Men were trying to become "perfect" -- make inventions, become politically famous, become strongly intellectual.  Franklin let's his audience know that he is proud of the work he accomplished throughout his life.  His text is an example of a man who achieved the "American Dream" -- a goal of many Americans in both the past and present.

Rationalization, Values, and Pride

In reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, these three quotes really stood out to me:
"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has in mind to do" (Franklin 27).
    Part of the idea of "American freedom" is that people can do anything they want (within the law) and even if it is unreasonable to some people, they can rationalize it as much as they want to make it seem reasonable.  This has allowed a lot of inventions and discoveries to be made -- people made fun of the Wilbur brothers for trying to fly -- they said it would be impossible.  Yet they kept on trying and here we are today with airplanes (an idea that started with the Wilbur brothers).  America gives citizens the opportunity to rationalize any idea or action into one that makes sense or is useful.

"I grew convinc'd that truth, sincerity, and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life;...but I entertain'd an opinion that, though certain actions might not be bad because they were forbidden by it, or good because it commanded them, yet probably those actions might be forbidden because they were bad for us, or commanded because they were beneficial to us, in their own natures, all the circumstances of things considered" (Franklin 43-44).
    This pertains to the American democracy--things that are forbidden to us are our laws. Things that are beneficial to us, such as voting and working for pay, are allowed to us.  Some people may think that it is wrong to limit everyone by having laws.  I think Franklin's words "...truth, sincerity, and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance..." really hold true to how our society needs to be run.  If our government can stick to the three values of truth, sincerity, and integrity, our nation can keep developing into a better one.

"In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.  Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility" (Franklin 72).
     Part of the American Dream is working hard and wanting to prove oneself to others.  People want to prove that they are worth your time and money.  Once one attains this the they are entitled to pride.  Pride is what our country runs on -- pride of being American, the pride of big business owners for being successful, etc.  Pride is also what helps keep the competitive market flowing -- if businesses did not care about being the best and having that pride, there would be no competitive market.  But they do care, so we have this system of perfect competition and monopolistic competition that works to the advantages of our businesses.

Interpretations of the American Dream

In Cullen's The American Dream, he writes,
        "And like other American Dreams, the power of this one lay in a sense of collective ownership: anyone can get ahead.  An assertion of universal enfranchisement is routinely reaffirmed by this dream's boosters (the obsessive quality of their reaffirmations never quite leading them to raise troubling questions about the ongoing need for regular reassurance).  Occasionally it has been roundly condemned as an opiate of the people, usually by critics of American society who are dismissed as disgruntled, foreign, or both.  Only rarely have the contours of this dream been seriously explored and tested in a sympathetic, but probing, way.  But that could not happen until those contours had clearly emerged.  It took a couple hundred years for the realities of American life to shape the Dream of Upward Mobility" (Cullen 60).
           "Anyone can get ahead." That is what the job market and basically all of America is founded upon.  People try to get ahead of others by any means possible.  What I interpret to be the basic idea of Cullen's writings of the American Dream is that America gives people the possibility to get ahead -- the possibility to succeed and make a life for oneself if they so choose to.  People who achieve this dream feel as though they are on top of the world -- to me, the American Dream is equivalent to the Pursuit of Happiness, and if someone fulfills their pursuit of happiness, they have fulfilled their American Dream.

Functionality vs. Monetary Value

As I looked around my room to take an inventory of all the stuff, I realized that a typical college kid's everyday stuff is evaluated on function.  Food, clothes, books...the necessities of a college student.  In contrast, everyday stuff of the Colonial English people in America was evaluated for monetary value.  In her article, "Everyday American", Sarah Green writes,

           "When a person died in the 18th century, it was necessary for the government to figure out what they owned so that the items could be passed on to the appropriate heirs and all the people who were owed money, the creditors.

This was a society that was run on credit—bookkeeping credit and debts. So it was very likely at any given time that any one person had loaned money or goods to someone and was owed money or goods. The creditors would have to be paid off, and only then could the heirs receive what was owed to them.

The county court would appoint some officials who would go to the person’s home and make a list of what was in each room and assign a valuation to it and submit it to the court.

I think there was a lot of subjectivity because you were judging the condition of things, the quality of goods. You were judging their market value."

          The differences in needs and in cultures allows for this difference in "everyday stuff".  When we finish college, we're not going to be so focused on how much our stuff is worth, as we are going to be focused on how much our stuff helped us to attain the degree and the education that we did.  In colonial America, those citizens would be focused on how much money one would be able to get for a certain possession, and what they could buy with that money.  This is a large contrast that made me think about why I have what I have in my room -- I decided that it was mostly function based.

What Did Pocahontas Have to Regret?

In Carl Sandburg's poem, "Cool Tombs", he compares Pocahontas' life to those of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant.  He writes, 


     "When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs he forgot

…the copperheads and the assassin . . . in the dust, in the… cool tombs.

And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street,… cash and collateral turned ashes . . . in the dust, in the… cool tombs.

Pocahontas’ body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in… November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she… remember? . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs?"

 I see this as Sandburg talking about what regrets and worries that Lincoln and Grant had when they died, and how they got to leave these things behind.  The issue with Pocahontas though, is that we do not know what she worried about, or what she regretted from her life when she died.   The part "...did she wonder? does she remember?"  makes the reader wonder what Pocahontas regretted in her life.  Did she want to go back to life as a Native American once she was settled in the European way of life?  Is that really what she wanted?  I think that this is a big mystery that many people seem to overlook when they think of Pocahontas. Since she gave no real written account of her life, historians and other people are not able to figure out if Pocahontas was happy.  We do not know what she regretted in her life, if anything. 

Pocahontas and Her Role Transferred to America Today

This piece of art relates back to what I talked about in my last blog.

http://moodle.stolaf.edu/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=149928

     Most of the art that we are looking at for Wednesday portrays Pocahontas as either a welcoming, open person, or a person who is a bridge to the gap between Indians and the Europeans.   Pocahontas was a bridge between the gap of these two different cultures because she was willing to belong to both groups of people.  She stands as a symbol of peace and as a peacemaker between two different cultures who did not always agree on certain issues.
    This relates strongly to what it means to be American and living in America.  Citizens are constantly finding reasons why they do or do not like a culture that is different from our own.  With all the immigrants coming into America, it brings about a lot of controversy about whether or not we should let this happen.  When it comes down to it though,  Americans want peace, and so we are able to force ourselves to be peacemakers with those who are different from us.  We accept people and befriend people who are from different cultures, we become a bridge between the gap of one culture to another.  This is very similar to Pocahontas's role in the the early colonization years.  She was a symbol of a "truce" between two very different groups of people, and that is exactly what we as Americans are working on in our foreign affairs - to become the peacemaker between two very different groups of individuals.  It is part of the American Dream to give everyone a chance to succeed. And by bridging this gap of different cultures, we start to make that happen.

Viewing Pocahontas

In John Smith's 1616 Letter to Queen Anne of Great Britain he wrote,
     "Jamestown with her wild train she as freely frequented, as her fathers habitation; and during the time of two or three years, she next under God, was still the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine and utter confusion; which if in those times, had once been dissolved, Virginia might have lain as it was at our first arrival to this day."
     This image of Pocahontas is how I think many people view her.  She was a helper of the colonizers, and she protected them from not being successful in their endeavors.  We do not know much about her because she never wrote anything as a record.  People view her as a symbol of peace between Indians and the European colonizers.  We do not know much more about her than that.  When John Smith writes, "...was still the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine, and utter confusion," readers can understand that Pocahontas was more than an Indian Princess.  She was a force of help for the colonizers during their hardships and she is a symbol of peace.

Savage vs. Civil

        In John Smith's writings from 1612, he wrote to the colonizers,
 "Your first conflict is from your savage enemies the natives of the country who as you know are neither strong nor many; their strongest forces are sleights and treachery, more to be warily prevented than much to be feared" (John Smith).
        I find that many of these readings are hypocritical over who the "savages" are and who the "civilized people" are.  The Europeans viewed the Native Americans as savages, when really they were the civilized people of America.  I think that who ever is in a place first are the ones who are civilized -- in this case it is the Native Americans.   Yet the Europeans viewed them as savages, when it was the Europeans who were really the savages, since they were the foreigners to the country.
         This translates to the world today, however it is no longer hypocritical.  Americans think of themselves as a civilized people.  The savages who come to our country are terrorists, or even more simply immigrants whom we do not know, who do not understand how to live in America as it is today.  This leads back to how our surroundings shape us.  These new "savages" who are immigrants are going to be savages for awhile, but eventually they will become American because they will have been surrounded by the American landscape.  It is the American landscape that helps define Americans into the civilized people we like to think of ourselves to be.

Indians and Liberty

   This quote is an exerpt from Deloria's "Playing Indian":

   "...Locating native people at the very heart of American ambivalence. Whereas Euro-Americans had imprisoned themselves in the logical mind and the social order, Indians represented instinct and freedom.  They spoke for the "spirit of the continent" (6).

    Americans often think that the colonizers brought freedom to America, when really it was already here.  The Indians had participated in the freedom that nature offers to us and their living was centered around freedom.  Their living spaces had no boundaries and they were able to be free from the rule of other tribes or a dictator.  When the colonizers arrived in America they took this freedom away from the Indians.  They in turn gave themselves "freedom" after awhile, but if someone takes away someone else's freedom it is always going to come back to get them sometime.  Part of the American Dream is to be free and to be able to develop one's own instinct and freedom however one likes.  These values are rooted in the Native American culture of our country. 

Man and Nature Are Not Separate

In the article, "Learning From Pueblos," by Anella, the author writes,

"Man's perception of his relationship to nature is the central issue of our time.  We live in an age obsessed by its own inventiveness.  The dilemma of such an obsession derives from the predicament such invention creates...we lose our faith in our inventiveness. We are forced to question the conceptual premise that leads to such destructive creation.  It would be useless to try to ignore the dilemma posed by the modern world by retreating into simpler, agrarian existences.  But we can learn to revere again the basic premise that sustains the Pueblo farmer: that man is a part of nature, not separate from it.  We can learn again to build with the land and not merely on it.  What makes the architecture of the Pueblos "a true, indigenous, American architecture whose beginnings predate imported European concepts" so important is that it bridges the abyss that separates the two realities of human history: the one we used to organize perceptually and the one we now understand conceptually" (44).

While this article is primarily on architecture, I am going to focus more on man and nature.  So much of our culture today is focused on "being green" and "doing what's good for the earth".  What I think that some of us forget though, is that if we do good things for the earth, we are doing good things for ourselves (in the long run).  We do not connect that nature and humans are not separate.  This is our planet, after all.  The time is now to protect our earth, protect ourselves, and protect the generations to come.  Man is not separate from nature or more superior than nature.  Man is part of nature - what happens to nature (either good or bad) will always affect us in some way.  America has always been proud of its nature, and nature has always been a part of history.  So much of our history stems from lands and landscape.  Man and nature are not separate, in fact they are quite the opposite -- they are "one" and always have been, it's just a matter of people recognizing this fact. 

Are Humans Domesticated by Nature?

     In Swentzell's article, "Conflicting Landscape Values: The Santa Clara Pueblo and Day School,"  the author writes,
     "Pueblo people believe that the primary and most important relationship for humans is with the land, the natural environment, and the cosmos, which in the pueblo world are synonymous.  Humans exist within the cosmos and are an integral part of the functioning of the earth community.
       The mystical nature of the land, the earth, is recognized and honored. Direct contact and interaction with the land, the natural environment, is sought.  In the pueblo, there are no manipulated outdoor areas that serve to distinguish humans from nature. There are no outdoor areas that attest to human control over nature, no areas where nature is domesticated" (56).
     The word "domesticated" is usually connected to a type of animal.  But in this situation the author is talking about how nature domesticated.  We are not able to control it. Humans would like to think that we have control over just about everything.  When it comes to nature, we are completely humbled.  I think this is one of the reasons the "New  World" and America seemed so scary or overwhelming to the first Americans.  Europe was domesticated. The people had gotten used to the weather, they knew what to expect of the nature.  America was and is different.  We have so many different climates that we can never know what nature will do.  I think that part of why nature is so important to the American people is that it is something we can connect with.  It is a higher "power" but it domesticates us and can even make us feel at home.  Nature (in a way) domesticates us.  It teaches us how to live and behave in the nature settings we have around us.

Landscape of the American People

     In Lane's article, "Landscapes of the Sacred," he quoted Ortega y Gasset on the first page.  Gasset says,
             "Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are."
     This quote is a sort of "hidden" definition of the American people.  Our land defines us. The space in which we live continues to shape us throughout our entire life. If someone asks from where I am, and I say Minnesota, to them I am Minnesotan, but more importantly I am American. Americans celebrate the 4th of July, we are proud of our ownership of land, and we are proud that blood has been shed for us to keep our land.  It is easy to take all of these American traditions of loving our land into account but only "go through the motions." However, if one stops and thinks about it, Americans value land very highly, and it is more than a monetary value.  Americans value land as a symbol of hope too.  In Lane's article, he also quotes Wallace Stegner, who says,
          "We...need that wild country...even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can  
             be...a part of the geography of hope."
    In early centuries, the open land of America was a symbol of hope, a symbol of a new and better life for the pioneers.  Now that our country is developed, the open land is still a symbol of hope, but a hope for something else.  Our open land has been preserved in National Forests and State Parks.  There is a reason people value this land, but I think if you asked everyone, you would get different responses as to why this open space means so much.  To me the open land is a symbol of freedom - the wildlife is free, and the tourists are free to explore.  There is so much undeveloped territory that so many people value highly because of the history of American land.  The American people value landscape around them, and they are landscaped by the territory around them.  It is in our history to love our land and value it as a symbol of hope and pride of ownership.

Relandscaping

In Gregory Conniff's article, "Landscape Is a Point of View,"  he writes,
   Landscape is one source of our humanness. Despite television, culture still has its deepest roots in geography; place is still a shaper of the soul...Landscape is about something outside of us without which we would be lost in space...Recognizing this mystery makes me feel less easily at home in familiar surroundings, but the new light breaking through from another's viewpoint gives me both the comfort of not being alone and an odd delight in wondering how I got to wherever I am.  For some of us, the big question is, "Why are we here?" I have never gotten past thinking about what "here" is.
    What sticks out to me in this selection is "place is still a shaper of the soul".  Is place really what shapes us? Do we become different people after living in St. Olaf grounds for 4 years?  On the other hand, is a place shaped by our soul? Do we bring something different and change the landscape of the place in which we live?  I believe that both sides of this argument are right.  From living on this campus, we will become different people, we will learn the terrain and it will shape our actions and motives.  But, we will also change the place in which we inhabit. There is a reason they did not just let anyone into this college. The admissions people care about the "landscape" of St. Olaf.  New landscapes force us to not be at "home", so we have to "relandscape"our new surroundings in order to make it home again.

Anne Hutchinson

           In the article "Anne Hutchinson and the Mortalist Heresy" by J.F. Maclear, the author talks about how the Puritan's doubt of immorality sprouted ideas across the whole country, and maybe even the entire world.  The author writes,  

         "Skepticism about the soul's immortality spread in various quarters in seventeenth-century England; one of these quarters was Puritan heterodoxy where, freed from all effective control by war and revolution, an advanced literal, rational, or mystical exegesis brought into question traditional meanings attached to death, resurrection, and the Last Things. Partly on this basis, argument has been seriously advanced that Puritan radicalism may have provided "one of the stimuli that went into the making of the Enlightenment."

         I find this interesting, but also probably true because up to this point the U.S. had been a predominantly Christian country, and therefore people were stuck in the concrete ideas that had always been.  But when individuals started to break apart from this social "norm" and create their own new ideas, it caused others to do the same.  So when Maclear claims that the "Puritan radicalism may have provided "one of the stimuli that went into the making of the Enlightenment," I would be persuaded to believe him.  Because without certain individuals starting to make  a stand and introduce new ideas, the Enlightenment might not have happened. Anne Hutchinson and those who rebelled against the Puritan normalcy with her helped cause new ideas to come into play in America. 

Through reading the articles and poems about the Pilgrims and Puritans, I am reminded of the difference in the way our country is run now compared to how it was run when it was first becoming established.  In the early 1600s, every move that those who were in charge of the country made were based on pleasing God or for the glory of God, etc.  For example, the "Mayflower Compact" reads,

"In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November [New Style, November 21], in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620."

   In my Spanish class, we have been discussing the fact that to others, America can seem like a "Christian Nation."  For outsiders and for people who do not know much about our country, it is easy to assume we are unified country under one religion. This is obviously not true.  But I think that the reason that this assumption comes from our history is because we were established by those who believed in God, and so much of our history comes from them.  Also, there is no place in our constitution that says that mentions God or any such religious factor.  I think it is interesting that because of the religion of those who founded our country, many outsiders believe that Christianity is the official religion of our country. 

The American Race

             In Takaki's A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, the author spends a lot of time comparing the different races, and how the people of the United States are only here because they were once people of a different country.  Takaki writes,
            "Together, 'We the' diverse 'people of the United States' transformed America into a mighty economy and an amazingly unique society of varied races, ethnicities, and religions. In the process, we transformed ourselves into Americans. Together, we composed "e pluribus unim" - a reality discerned by Herman Melville over one hundred years ago. Our country was settled by "the people of all nations,' he wrote. 'All nations  may claim her for their own. You can not spill a drop of American blood, without spilling the blood of the whole world.' Americans are 'not a narrow tribe.'
          This strikes me as a powerful quote because so much of today's world is focused on discriminating different races, when people do not realize that we as a nation are an "American" race. The idea of just grouping everyone together into one, single race called the American race seems impossible for some.  We all live in the same country, we are all "citizens" of America in one way or another. On the other hand, we are all different.  We all came from ancestors who were from different countries and continents.  If an American dies, it is not only the American part of him but also the part of his ancestors that tie him to a different county.  We are all tied together in one way or another whether we like it or not.  Why distinguish people from which culture or country they came from? Is there a need to distinguish between Asians, Africans, Norwegians, etc, if we are all American's anyway? If we are really "Together, We the diverse people of the United States", why can we not just be the American Race and stop discriminating based on the origin of our family?

How Our Country Can Define Us

       In "Learning to Love America" by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, the narrator talks a lot about how she defines herself.   She became defined as a person because of her country and her choice to live and stay in America.  Geok-Lin Lim writes,
"Because to have a son is to have a country
because my son will bury me here
because countries are in our blood and we bleed them

because it is late and too late to change my mind
because it is time."
     I think it is interesting how the narrator makes the distinction that because we live in a certain place then that certain place it what defines us. No matter what we do, it is what we take pride in and we will sacrifice some part of us in some way or another and "bleed" our country. It sounds like the narrator is making a sacrifice: she is choosing to stay in America so she can give her son a good life in America.  This raises the question of what would we as students sacrifice ourselves for? Or more importantly, what would we give our life to and what is worth "bleeding" for? What do we want to define us?

Are All Freedoms Equal?

               In the "Positive and Negative Liberty" article, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the writer makes a point about whether or not all freedoms are "created equal."  The author says,
               "Should all options (of freedom) count for the same in terms of degrees of freedom, or should                         they be weighted according to their importance in terms of other values? And how are we to compare the unfreedom created by the physical impossibility of an action with, say, the unfreedom created by the difficulty of costliness or punishability of an action? It is only by comparing these different kinds of actions and constraints that we shall be in a position to compare individuals' overall degrees of freedom."
              I find this interesting because if the government took this into account, there would always be people who disagree. Everyone has different values and holds different freedoms in a higher value.  But should certain freedoms be held as more important than others?  Or could we just not make a distinction between the types of freedom and hold each freedom as equally important as other freedoms? I think it is important to make this distinction, especially between positive and negative liberty, because it allows us as U.S. citizens to have an opinion and take advantage of and participate in the democratic government by voting for what we believe in.

Political Engagement

A quote that stood out to me from Terry Tempest Williams' "Engagement" essay was about how she believes that some people view political engagement in a wrong way.  She writes, "We have mistaken political engagement with a political machinery we all understand to be corrupt."  This really reminded me that although there is a lot of corruption in politics, that does not mean that each participant will be a part of that corruption.  Americans are given the freedom of speech and the freedom to stand up for what they believe to be good for the country.  I think some people are to afraid to get involved or at least be updated and aware of what is going on in the political world today, because it can seem corrupt.  Politics can seem scary and daunting at times.
Overall, I think that Terry Tempest Williams' is speaking to all individuals in an attempt to get people to participate in the democracy and realize what citizens can accomplish if they join together.  I find this interesting because it seems as though in today's world, people tend to either go all the way and speak up about what they believe in, or they just sit quiet and let others take care of "what is good for humanity." By encouraging all people to take advantage of the democratic government we have here in the United States, I think that the author hopes to prompt individuals who are not involved to become leaders and to care about political issues that interest them.