Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans

This past week in class we learned about the Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans. Some activities we did in class was we read documents and watched ABC Clio videos. These resources helped us to come up with the essential questions for the lesson, which is, Did the government have good intentions when enacting policies for westward expansion? In what ways did these policies impact the Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans? This question is asking if the government enforce the policies with the hope of benefiting anyone other than themselves or did they want to harm the people or was it an accident. 

Buffalo Soldiers were a group of black soldiers. Native Americans are the original habitants of America. The Buffalo Soldiers were provided with all their supplies from the government, seems like a good thing right? Well it wasn't because the government provided them with the old sick and beat up horses, ratty used uniforms, and also their military training and shelter. I believe that the government knew what they were doing could potentially backfire and not have a good outcome of the Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans. By providing them with the defective supplies is setting them up for failure. This negativity effected the Buffalo Soldiers and Natives. They had more restrictions that held them back from doing what they wanted and they were being discriminated against. The rules also provoked fights between the natives and soldiers. this is another reason why is was a negative effect. 

The government tried to make it look like they cared by providing them with supplies and such but in all honesty they knew what they were doing the second they started giving them reject horses and tattered uniforms. The policies were the icing on top pf an already crumbling cake. that was the last straw. 

Captain Or Robber?

This week in class we got the topic of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. We watched a series of videos with many topics concerning Carnegie and Rockefeller. The class split up into four groups and each group focused on one category while watching the videos. The four categories were: Main Ideas, Key People, Important Events, and Essential Terms. My group was assigned Main Ideas. We took notes on what we felt was the most important topics covered in the videos. Then the class was split up into two groups. Half of the class read a biography on John D. Rockefeller and the other half read a biography on Andrew Carnegie. After we all watched the videos and read over our notes and the biography each of the four groups came up with what they thought would be the essential question for this activity. The winning essential question was "Should Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller be classified as Robber Barons or Captains of Industry?"

I believe that Carnegie is a captain of industry and Rockefeller is a robber baron. I think this because robber barons were people who bribed government officials, hired personal army's, treated workers poorly, destroyed rival business and were seen as corrupt, cruel, and unsportsmanlike. Rockefeller fits this description perfectly. Rockefeller offered to buy out his rival companies oil company railroads, drilling, sales personnel, and oil refineries. This shows that Rockefeller is a robber baron because he is deliberately trying to take his rival companies out of competition. A captain of industry is defined as "a business leader whose means of amassing a personal fortune contributes positively to the country in some way." I think that Carnegie is a captain of industry because he believed in rewarding workers by recognizing their talent/hard work and promoting them in the ranks of management. A robber baron wouldn't treat workers as well. Also Carnegie spent excess amounts of money on public needs, and education. He donated millions of dollars to advanced education. Carnegie does his in an effort to help his country like a good captain of industry would.