Friday, September 2, 2016

This week, we focused on providing substantial evidence, surrounded by the topics of historical biases and the cotton industry. We learned to look for sources such as journal entries or letters, which can give an insight that has not been tampered with time or assumptions. These primary sources showed many things such as slave labor and cotton production per day, as well as writing or drawings regarding working conditions, actual slave trade, personal reflections about slave work ethic and more. I had a fair amount of existing knowledge that we have all learned throughout lower school and middle school about conditions of slaves, and a little about the cotton industry as well, but it all came from a textbook. However through other primary or substantial resources, I was able to learn a lot about the cotton jenny, and other mechanical methods of cotton production. The cotton jenny used 8 spindles or more simultaneously instead of 1 which for obvious reasons increased production rates. But through class discussions I learned the impacts of the cotton jenny. Following this same pattern, I learned facts about slave trade and labor, and through discussions I would learn the reasoning. For example, a major thing that stuck out to me was why a record of pickings would be kept. If an owner kept a journal, he could monitor which slaves picking rates are dropping, this way he can punish them. Likewise, if the rates are high and he is in need of money, he can trade the slave with the record of his good work. Without information from primary sources, the discussions that we would have had could result in being biased by previous knowledge. People who might have a grudge against a certain historical event or group of people, might embellish the facts and make it a story with details that draw a negative light towards that group of people, or make a certain event seem more horrific or greater then it truly was. 

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