Modern Day Slavery in India

Modern day Slavery is a huge problem in India.  Nearly 16 million people are enslaved in India today.  This is roughly the same as the population of Chile.  In 2014-2015 three thousand people were freed from slavery.  It was shocking to me that with the 1600 groups working against slavery they were only able to free 3000 people.  There are many ways to become enslaved, but one that is more abundant in India than anywhere else is becoming enslaved from debt accumulated by paying for a wedding.  An Indian wedding is a huge ceremony that can last for days.  It is common for families to borrow money from very corrupt lenders.  Once they can not pay the debt back the entire family becomes enslaved and it is very hard to escape.  There are now weddings organized by previous victims of slavery where a bunch of couple get married at once.  One wedding had over one thousand people attend and five couples got married costing each family only around fifteen dollars.  One Indian police officer claims that when she tries to contact the human trafficking department she is transferred to a department dealing with traffic problems.

Sources
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071016/asp/opinion/story_8436850.asp

http://www.freetheslaves.net/where-we-work/india/

Learning History Through Film

                Watching movies is a great way to learn about history.  Two movies that prove this point are Glory and 12 Years a Slave.  12 years a slave is great for learning about slavery because it was based on a freed slave, Solomon Northup’s narrative.  This primary source provided great insight in to what it was like to be a slave.  Film director Steve McQueen claims that he based the movie on Solomon’s narrative only, and an editor of the book, Henry Louis Gates, was also involved in the making of the film.  With this closing the gap between book and film the only thing left to prove is that Solomon Northup’s narrative was a true story.  This can be proved by federal documents, the 1840 federal census has on record that Solomon was a free man living in New York.  Next a slave manifest, a document that proves slaves are domestic, from the Brig Orleans shows that Solomon was sold into slavery.  Finally the federal census from 1850 has on record Edwinn Epps and all of his slaves, one of which matches the description of Solomon.  Solomon’s story was also proved to be true by historians Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon. This story ended up making an interesting film despite its lack of elaboration.  McQueen was able to do this by choosing a slave narrative that is easier to relate to for audiences.  The American Historical Association explains that it is easier for an audience to relate to a free man being captured and his need to escape, rather than someone who was born in to slavery and wanted to escape.  Some very important aspects of slavery were include in the movie.  For example it demonstrated the complex social system of the South when the poor white man that worked with the slaves was disrespected by Solomon.  This shows how poor white people, even though they were paid, would do the same work as the slaves and were ashamed of it.  The man planned on killing Solomon after their fight because he felt that it was his place to prove to the slaves that they were not on the same status as him.  A movie was an effective way to teach the social relationships between people.  The movie also captured th relationship between slave owner’s wives and female slaves.  Mrs. Epps resented Patsey because of her relationship with Mr. Epps even though Patsey hated the relationship as much as Mrs. Epps did.  A real life example of this is Harriet Jacobs Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl has a passage that talks about how slave owners would bribe the slaves with gifts in order to get what they wanted, but if this did not wok they would be beaten and starved.  The movie had a scene where Solomon was able to go play his instrument for people and ear a little money, this shows how slaves were able to negotiate with their masters to earn a little money.  The film also showed the slaves learning the bible and singing gospel music, which according to Eugene D Genovese’s book Roll Jordan Roll was an important part of the slaves lives.   Glory also used a primary source(General Shaw’s Letters) to help write the film and demonstrated  many important historical truths, such as portraying some soldiers as run away slaves.  One soldier named Sergeant William H Carney was an escaped slave and he was the first African American to receive the medal of honor.  The film also addressed how black soldiers were treated differently from white soldiers.  When Sergeant Carney received his medal of honor it was not presented to him in a ceremony, instead it was just mailed to his house.  The main challenge faced by film makers is how to tell an entire story in a two hour film.  This was coped with by both directors very well because they did not leave out key aspects of history.  12 Years a Slave left out some tragedies that happened to Solomon in order to not lose the audiences focus due to it being too graphic, but every tragedy
included was recorded in Solomon’s narrative.  Overall both of these films were historically accurate and displayed the information in a way that is easy to understand.

                                           

            Work Cited

Huffington post
Proved Accuracy of 12 years a slave and provided thoughts from the director

History.com
Provided information on the accuracy of Glory and information on the attack on Fort Wagner

National Archives
Provided historical documents that proved Solomon Northup's story was true

National humanities center
Provided information about the life of a slave from The incident in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

CW memory-glory
Provided information about the historical accuracy of Glory

American Historical Association
Provided information on the historical accuracy of 12 years a lave and also had information about the importance of religion in the life of a Slave

New York Times

Provided Information on how the director of 12 years a slave made the movie and discussed its historical accuracy

Images

Attack on Fort Wagner

Union Soldiers

     

Solomon singing gospel music

Solomon at Auction

Solomon eating before he was kidnapped

Reflection on Paraphrase practice

Today I learned how to paraphrase a source and successfully incorporate a quote.  Before this class I did not know the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing.  Paraphrasing is a much more effective way to prove a point because it is more specific and includes more detail than a summary.  I also learned how to add information to a quote to further explain it and how to trim the quote so tat it only includes the information I need.

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 he quote.
• Whether I quote or paraphase, I must always I mus always be transparent about the source and how I'm using it.
• If I use another authors exact words in any way I must use quotation marks and give credit, If I use another authors presentation of facts or ideas, but put their ideas in my own words, I better have a good reason for doing so and give credit.
• Hyperlinkng is so easy there is no excuse for not being transparent about my sources.

I understand these statements.

Practicing, Incorporating a Quote

"The decision to end the movie with the failed assault at Wagner solidifies this progressive theme, which links the men to one another ."

Glory was a very powerful movie because it did a very good job of developing all the characters.  Once the audience felt like they really liked the characters they all heroically die attacking Fort Wagner, but this helped the movie make a key point.  As one film critic said,  "The decision to end the movie with the failed assault at Wagner . . . links the men to one another."  The theme adressed in this quote was the unity of the people in America.  The black soldiers and white officer were finally united in death, while fighting to unite the states. 

Paraphrase pratice

CW memory article


" As for problems, well, they abound throughout the movie such as the profile of the regiment, which is presented primarily as a unit of fugitive slaves. Most of the men were free blacks from Massachusetts. Other problems include the time frame for the raising and training of the regiment which began in 1863 rather than 1862 as well as the failure to acknowledge Shaw’s marriage at any point in the movie."

My paraphrase
The movie was not very historically accurate.  The 54 regiment was mostly made up of free black men from Massachusetts, and the movie portrayed them as runaway slaves.  The movie also did not mention that Shaw was married.  Also the 54 regiment was trained in 1863 but the movie started in 182.  These are just some examples of what was wrong with the movie.

This week in class I learned a lot about slavery.  I learned that slaves were forced to pick cotton much faster once the other parts of cotton processing became mechanized.  I had never thought about how the ability to spin cotton faster created a need to weave cotton faster which created a need to clean cotton faster which created another need to pick the cotton faster.  Machines were invented to speed up all of these processes except the picking because it was already being done basically for free.  This meant instead of inventing a machine to pick the cotton slaves were just forced to work faster.  Slave productivity was increased through very harsh methods of enforcement.  People across America eventually found out about the level of brutality used on the slaves and this created a movement to end slavery, eventually contributing to the start of the Civil War.
                                                                                                                               Wyatt