Child Labor in India

      India has one of the largest child labor problems in the world with 1 in every 11 children in India working. An unbelievable 62.8% of that population is made up of 15-17-year-old's doing hazardous work. The percent of working children operating in hazardous situations 20.7% while the percent of adults working in hazardous situations is 25%.

      India's government did reform one of it's child labor laws allowing children under 14 to work in "family businesses" and the "entertainment industry".

Wordpress - Child Labor Today

The Nation - India’s New Child Labor Loophole

Live Mint - 10 Alarming Statistics on Child Labour in India

History in Film

Cover of Northup's Book

Watching a movie in class can do more than fill time or be entertaining. If the right movie is selected, it can be very educational when analyzed in class. Two such movies with high educational value are Glory and 12 Years a Slave. The film Glory, as we learned in class, was created using letters from Colonel Shaw to his family while he was away at war. The film 12 Years a Slave was also created with a great primary source: the book written by Solomon Northup about his experience.

Cover of Glory

In the film Glory, you see Colonel Shaw's struggle to gain the trust of the all-black platoon he has come to lead. At the start of the movie, he is doubtful of his ability to gain their trust. The viewer sees that there is still tension between the black and white soldiers. One turning point in the film is right after the South announces that they will kill any black prisoners of war or and white soldiers working with them. Colonel Shaw is worried that the soldiers will take the opportunity they have been offered and leave the platoon, but they don’t. After this point, you begin to see the trust and respect forming between Colonel Shaw and his soldiers. From watching this film, you develop an understanding of the still-present tension between the black and white soldiers, despite the fact that they are fighting for the abolition of slavery. 

Pre-Battle Scene from Glory

Patsey, Epps, and Solomon (left to right)

In 12 Years a Slave, you not only get to see the events that took place in Northup’s life, but you also get a glimpse of several cultural “norms” surrounding slavery and how slaves were treated. One such norm was the treatment of slaves who were “favored” by the master of the plantation. Once Solomon arrives on the Epps’ farm, he befriends a slave girl called Patsey. Patsey is Mr. Epps’s favorite slave, and in turn receives harsh treatment from the jealous Mrs. Epps. In the pre-Civil War era, it was often true that female slaves were used as sex slaves for the master of the plantation, and if they refused they faced the consequence of severe beatings and other physical punishments.

Mrs. Epps scratching Patsey

The mistress of the house frequently became jealous of the “favored” slave and lashed out at her physically and/or mentally. This was possible because one of the main responsibilities of the mistress of the farm was caring for the needs of the slaves. If they were jealous of a particular slave they could make her miserable by denying her food or soap or even physically abusing her. This can be noticed in 12 Years a Slave between Mrs. Epps and Patsey. Mrs. Epps is cruel to the slave girl on several occasions: she threw a bottle at her head, scratched her head, and even denied her food at one point. In one of the more serious cases, she even pushes her husband to severely whip Patsey. This gives the viewer an idea of the kind of relationships there were between mistress, master, and favored slave.

Watching a film in class can be educational if the right movie is picked. In history class, we were able to get two very different perspectives from the pre-Civil War era. By watching these films, we did not just learn about the facts and events that took place, we also got to glimpse into the cultural norms of those living before and during the Civil War. 
Sources:

Slate - “How Accurate was 12 Years a Slave?”
I used this to find out what events in the 12 Years a Slave film were taken from the book and
which happenings were made up or added.

Bowdoin College - Master-Slave Relations
This gave me more detailed information on the relationships between the master of the
plantation and female slaves.

PBS - Letters to R.C. Ballard Regarding Slave Woman Abuse
These primary sources helped strengthen the argument about the abuse of female slaves.

SFGate - Her tale was brutal, sexual. No one believed a slave woman could be so

literate. But now Harriet Jacobs has reclaimed her name.
The story of this female slave was an example of the abuse of female slaves.

History News Network - The Frightening Parallels between 19th Century American

Slavery and 21st Century Sex Trafficking
This source gave information on the business of "renting" female slaves.

Wordpress: Women of the Old South - Scarlett Lashes Out: Violent Plantation

Mistresses
This blog gave general information on the topic of plantation mistresses and their roles on the
plantation.

Richmond University - The Varying Roles of Plantation Mistresses in the Antebellum South
I used this source to get a more detailed idea about plantation mistresses and why they might lash out
at slaves.

Armstrong University - Paternalism and the Southern Hierarchy: How Slavery Defined Antebellum
Southern Women
This source informed me of other reasons for plantation mistresses being violent towards their slaves.

Inquiries Journal - Sexual Relations Between Elite White Women and Enslaved Men in the Antebellum
South: A Socio-Historical Analysis
This article gave me information on the behavior of plantation mistresses other than being violent to
slaves.

Web Archaeology - Levi Jordan Plantation: Sallie McNeill’s Diary
This diary of a plantation girl was a great primary source for getting inside the head of a plantation
mistress and seeing how she feels towards her slaves.

History vs. Hollywood - 12 Years A Slave
This site confirmed that the events involving Patsey and Mrs. Epps were true.

Reflection on Paraphrase Practice

In history class, we learned different methods of paraphrasing and quoting others. I discovered that instead of paraphrasing, I tend to write something different than the original source and only slightly touch on the original subject. This means that I need to focus on really understanding what idea the original source is exploring and write the idea in a way that is easier to understand.

I also discovered several ways to quote a source. I learned that I don't always have to write out the entire quotation. Rather, I can use an ellipses to skip the unneeded information in the original quote, use brackets to further explain something vague within a quote, or even break up the quote into different pieces and incorporate the fragments into my own idea.


This is what I learned today:
- Only use a direct quote when it adds power and style to my writing.
- Always make it clear, from context, that I understand the full meaning of the quote.
- Whether I quote or paraphrase, I must always be transparent about the source and how I'm using it.
- If I use another author's exact words or phrases, to any extent, I have to use quotation marks and       give credit.
- If I use another author's presentation of facts or idea, but put their ideas in my own words, (paraphrase) I better have a good reason for doing so, and I MUST give credit.
- Hyperlinking is so easy, there is no excuse for not being transparent about my sources.

I understand the above statements. I only need to work on reading the quote or idea to a deeper extent and focus on staying with the original idea or supporting the quotation I have used.

Practicing Incorporating a Quotation

Movie Review of Glory

The movie Glory is often shown in high school history classes. Unlike most other historical movies, this movie goes slightly farther. The review of Glory on Reel View says, "the filmmakers weave an impressively large historical tapestry without ever losing sight of the characters that make up the individual threads." In the film, unlike some other historical movies, several different perspectives are examined. The watcher sees the war from the perspective of a person of power, but also from the perspectives of several of the black soldiers. The film also goes farther than most others by using actual primary sources in order to write the script and some scenes in the movie. 

Paraphrase Practice

Reel Views:

"Obviously, the issue of racial inequality is at the film's forefront. The Massachusetts 54th began a long and proud tradition in the United States army of black units acquitting themselves admirably on the battlefield, despite rarely being given their due by their fellow white soldiers. What began with the 54th regiment continued throughout the Civil War and through two world wars. The greatest achievement of the 54th was to prove to the army that black soldiers could be relied upon to fight with the same tenacity and patriotism as white soldiers."

My paraphrase:

One of the main themes in Glory is racial inequality. The film shows the experience of the first in a long series of all-black units used in the United States army. In the film, the African-American soldiers are ridiculed by not only white soldiers, but each other as well, and are not given credit for their work for the army, much like the all-black units after them. Even so, they are desperate to fight in a real battle, and when they finally do they fight reliably and give their lives just as their white counterparts did.

How Could Slavery Happen?

      Today, if you were to ask someone about slavery, the response would almost always be negative. Something like, "I don't understand how people could do that," or, "It was so wrong of people to do that to another person." But what we don't realize is that the reason that slavery was allowed to happen is because there are several psychological components that play a part in that kind of situation. In history class this week, we read about two well-known studies on the psychology of people that can help us better understand why this happened. We also connected the growth of production of cloth to the worsening of slavery. 

       The experiment that is of more help when learning about slavery is Stanford Prison Experiment. This experiment was conducted to see just how far a person with total power would go. In the experiment, a group of students was randomly divided into "prisoners" and "prison guards". They were placed in a makeshift prison and told to act as if this were a real situation. At first, none of the students really took it seriously, but after a very short period of time, the "guards" began to get violent. Once the violence began taking place, things only went down hill. The "guards" became overly violent and some of the "prisoners" became so mentally unstable that they had to be removed from the experiment and reminded that it wasn't real. The experiment had to be ended early, because things became too serious. 

      What this experiment shows us is that when a person has total power over something/someone - such as a slave owner would have over his slaves - they usually become violent. The "guards" in the experiment knew that the "prisoners" were people going in, but obviously lost sight of that fact over the course of the experiment. Slaves weren't even seen as people to begin with, so it is easy to see how someone could be okay with treating someone they way slave owners treated slaves. 

       

      When the cotton economy started growing, slavery only got worse. When the inventions such as the cotton jenny, spinning wheel, et cetera came about, it sped up the cleaning, spinning, and weaving of cotton. This meant that cotton needed to be picked faster, and because there was no "magic invention" to pick cotton faster - or incentive to make one - the only solution to the problem was to make the "hands" (as slaves were called) pick faster. New inventions were created to brutally punish slaves and make them work faster, and new people were hired to use those new tools. The slave owners did not have a problem with it, because 1) they didn't see the slaves as people, 2) they were not the ones who had to punish the "hands", and 3) if they were getting more cotton in order to pay their bills or make money, who really cares how it's done?