Chapter 6

Chapter 6 was a very informative chapter for me because I never knew about the Articles of Confederation and what it meant.  It was good for me to learn how a government is created, from the very early stages because it takes a lot of time and energy to try to make as many people happy as possible. I also didn’t know what the original 13 colonies were, but now I understand what it means.

I was sad to hear that the Revolution neither ended slavery nor brought equality to free blacks. I know more and more people were opposing slavery so I assumed that at least one of those would have happened as a result. I was reading about Phillis Wheatley and her poems. I think she made a very good connection between the freedoms that White Americans wanted and the liberty of slaves.

I was reading about the Native Americans and I didn’t like how in the chapter, they said, “Thus, Native Americans did not hold stubbornly to traditional ways, but they did insist on retaining control of their communities and ways of life. “ (pg.133) When they say stubborn, that is more of an opinion. Why would someone want to leave their traditional ways if that’s what they’ve been doing for a very long time? The author makes it seem like it was bad for them to want to hold on to their traditions and their people.

I also think that because of slavery, African Americans were not able to learn some of the things that White Americans did because they weren’t given the opportunity. This is quite unfortunate because I know that multi racial groups today, are the ones that are most affected in the educational system. I was wondering if there is a correlation between this and any other discrimination that people may have faced in the past, not just during the Revolution.