Biographical Essay: The Old Wire Road

In “Fashioning Moccasins: Detroit, the Manufacturing Frontier, and the Empire if Consumption, 1701-1835” by Catherine Cangany; the author offers an interesting outlook on the transformation of North America’s Frontier. Cangany argues that through observing the small frontier town of Detroit you can see the western frontier’s change through the study of moccasins. Her argument is persuasive because she chronologically structures her article, effectively shows Detroit’s transformation and gives a variety of examples allowing the reader to see the influence of moccasins. Catherine Cangany’s article is well-structured helping the reader follow her research. The beginning of her article consists of a summary of what she will expand upon allowing

Benjamin heard that a group of slaves planned to escape. Joshua, Ruth and Caleb planned to travel the Underground Railroad that night. Benjamin wanted to go. He needed to know what time they would be leaving and where. Joshua said “just listen for the song over yonder Benjamin.”

Barre Toelken: The Moccasin Telegraph and Other Improbabilities a Personal Essay Page 51 I found it interesting the different folklore that surrounded the Navajo people involving the moccasin telegraph. It would be hard idea for outsiders to rationalize how these people just have these premonitions that things are going to happen or that they need to go somewhere.

After the Natchez killed off De Soto’s men in the 1640’s they had an encounter with the Natchez and smoked a peace pipe. That had lasted for a few days. The soldiers wrote down their experience with the Natchez Indians, describing it as they stayed three days and each day was interesting. They each found how unique the Natchez were in the areas that they learned about them.

The Behind the Veil project primary focused on recording and preserving the memory of African American life during the period of legal segregation in the south. The Behind the Veil Oral History Project by Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies is the largest collection of oral history of the Jim Crow Era. From 1993 to 1995 researchers organized more than one thousand aged black southerners’ oral history interviews on their memories of the era of legal segregation. The accounts of the 1,260 interviews in this selection express the authentic personalities and moving personal stories that give the experience of the book a genuine feel of the South during the late-19th to mid-20th

What would it mean to shed light on a part of history that remains largely invisible because it was conducted in secret and under cover of night? This was the challenge faced by Colson Whitehead, for example, in his award-winning novel, “The Underground Railroad.” A clandestine and loosely organized network of activists, safe houses and secret routes, the actual Underground Railroad shepherded as many as 100,000 slaves to freedom in the six decades before the Civil War. Its route would eventually traverse free states from Maine to Iowa, extending as far north as Canada.

It wasn’t long until Jefferson County entered into the teen years and World War I. While war injects much sadness and grief, it also brings new inventions, which produce progress for the future, and at the close of the war in 1918, Jefferson County was rolling along with the horseless carriage-the automobile. The county roads of mud and deep ruts, which served well the iron wagon wheel, failed to impress our new generation of automotive

Numerous authors and historians have found inspiration and fascination in the myths, realities, and legacies of the American frontier. Bruce Catton, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War historian, wrote a memoir of his youth in a small town in western Michigan created by religious idealists in the late 1800s. Waiting for the Morning Train is a nostalgic and lyrical depiction of an earlier time period, as well as a reflection on the personal and social changes that Catton experienced growing up around the turn of the twentieth century. In this paper, I will focus on one of Catton's primary themes, the impact of the lumber business on the environment and the economy of Michigan. I'll look at how Catton watched his state's shift from wilderness

A historical myth, as described in class, is the story, that creates a narrative to make a group identity or to mark a geographic location. With this definition in mind, it is easy to place the region of Appalachia in a category as one with multiple historical myths surrounding its politics, technology, economic systems, population, and much more. After learning some of the rich history of the region, it is apparent some of the myths have failed to capture how the region and its complex history and has changed over time. One of the five most recognized myths, which fails to capture the complexity of Appalachian history as discussed in class is “Appalachia is all white and the whitest place in the Unites States.” This myth has failed to capture

In 1838, the Cherokees were forced to give up their lands and to migrate to present-day Oklahoma, due to the signing of The Treaty of New Echota. The Cherokees were deported from their homes, betrayed by the government whom they treated with respect, separated them from their land that they nurtured; the Cherokee struggled to understand how to make a new life. The Indian Removal led to thousands of Cherokees to die due to starvation, diseases, and exhaustion during their march known as The Trail of Tears. This paper will discuss the effects it had on the Cherokees and what has happened during the trail.

Harsh treatment on individuals that do not have the right to their freedom is far from happiness. The fact that anyone believes that slaves were happy in any shape or form is sad to hear. A lot of people would disagree with the teacher that said slaves were happy to be treated as so. The slaves were punished and handled like wild animals when they should have been given the same right as white individuals. Many songs were sung amongst the Africans in code, therefore, their owners would not know of their plans to escape.

The Underground Railroad. A metaphor as it was, it was neither a railroad nor was it even underground. In the time where slavery became a divided issue with the status of legality in various parts of the country, the underground railroad found its beginnings through collective organized efforts from abolitionists and allies alike to help enslaved African americans to escape to territories and states where they could be free from slavery. It was a loosely-developed system that also included series of routes led by “conductors” such as Harriet Tubman, for escaping slaves, or “passengers”.

If you were a slave during the mid-19th century, your only chance of freedom would be the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad “was a hidden network of people and places established to help runaway slaves escape safely to the North and Canada. Free blacks—assisted by sympathetic white Northerners and operating largely in disguise and at night—provided directions, food, and shelter for those seeking freedom”(Underground Railroad). About 100,000 slaves escaped captivity through the system during the 1800s. The slaves used whatever they could to travel, “by foot, in small boats, by covered wagon, and even in boxes shipped by rail or sea”(Underground Railroad).

Before the 1800s, there were two early roads, Forbes and Wilderness Road. In 1811, the National Road known as Cumberland Road was built to reach Western settlements, because they needed a road to ship farm products that connect East and West. The National Road passed thousand of wagons and coaches. John F. Stover states in American Railroads, “The rich agricultural production of the country, the small but expanding factories of eastern cities, and the largely untapped natural resources of the nation-all of these called for improvements in transport. ”(Stover1)

In the 1600’s part of the tribe had split off from the Hidatsa and began their move, and later on in history they were known as the Crow. (2) The Crow Indian Reservation is in southeastern Montana. Crow Indians are a tribe of the northern Great Plains of the United States. The name Crow comes from the translation of the tribe’s name itself, Apsáalooke, which means children of the long-beaked bird or bird people.