Humanities Homework Help. CCSF Paying Reparations to The Descendants of American Slaves History Ques
- Pick one of the three paper topics below
- Read or listen to the assigned chapters, articles, podcasts, and/or webpages
- Then write a 3-4 page (double-spaced) response answering the prompt question for your chosen topic. The prompt questions are located above, under each paper topic.
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- Dakota Indian War
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Option 1—The Dakota Indian Uprising of 1862 in Minnesota during the Civil War, and broader ideas of how we remember and teach history.
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Read this excerpt about the uprising from “Farewell My Nation:” American Indians and the United States in the Nineteenth Century
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Then listen to this podcast by This American Life about current local memory about the war. The program is about 1 hour long.
- You can listen online (listen to all 3 parts) or download this audio file of the program
- (Transcript of the podcast (Links to an external site.))
- Optional: Explore the website, The U.S. Dakota War of 1862 (Links to an external site.), created by the Minnesota Historical Society
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Write a 3-4 page (double spaced) paper
responding to the following prompts, with specific, detailed references
to the podcast (i.e., your paper must demonstrate that you completed
the reading and podcast, and thought critically about them):-
How does the Dakota Uprising fit into
our broader discussions of Indian-European/American relations since the
beginning of the semester? Hint: Think about early European-Indian relations, Pontiac’s Rebellion, U.S. Indian relations, Indian Removal in the 1830s, etc. - What caused the Dakota War? Think beyond the triggering events to the longer-term causes of the conflict.
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How were the Dakota treated by the U.S.
Army in comparison to the Confederate states, who rose up against the
U.S. at the same time? After the Civil War, President Johnson offered a
general pardon to nearly all Confederate soldiers. Only a handful for
high-ranking officers were tried for war crimes and only 2 were
executed. So almost all of the Confederate soldiers who took up arms
against the U.S. in the war were pardoned for their actions. Why the
difference in treatment between the Confederate and Santee Sioux
soldiers? What do these similarities and differences tell us about
Indian-American relations? -
How is the Dakota War remembered and
taught today? What does that tell us about the connection of history and
memory, particularly related to Indian-American relations - —————————————————
- Soldiers Views On Slavery
- Option 2—Union and Confederate soldiers’ views, personally, on what they were fighting for in the Civil War, and particularly their views on slavery.
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Thanks to the emphasis on literacy in
the Early Republic era, more than 80% of Confederate soldiers and 90% of
Union soldiers could read and write (which was very high for any army
in the world at the time). Soldiers on both sides of the war wrote
frequent letters home, which left us with a fantastic source of
first-hand knowledge about the conditions soldiers faced in the war and
what they felt they were fighting for. Historian James McPherson spent
years looking through Civil War soldiers’ letters to give us a sense of
what the war was like for the men who fought it. In chapter 3 of his
book, which you will read, he looked specifically at Confederate and
U.S. soldier’s views on slavery, and the role it played in motivating
their participation.
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How does the Dakota Uprising fit into
- Read Chapter 3 in James McPherson’s What They Fought For.
Write a 3-4 page (double spaced) paper responding
to the following prompts, with specific, detailed references to the
chapter (i.e., your paper must demonstrate that you completed the
assigned chapter, and thought critically about it): -
Read this excerpt about the uprising from “Farewell My Nation:” American Indians and the United States in the Nineteenth Century
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What role did the issue of slavery play
in how Confederate soldiers (both slaveowners AND non-slaveowners)
viewed the Civil War and their understanding of what they were fighting
for? - What were Union soldiers’ views on slavery?
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How did soldiers on each side explain
their views? What words did they use to explain their views, and what
did they mean with those words? -
McPherson argues that many Union soldiers’
views on slavery changed throughout the Civil War. What do the letters
written by Union soldiers during the war tell us about when, how and why their views changed? -
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- Congressional Debate On Reparations
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Option 3—The current Congressional debate on the issue of reparations for slavery and racial discrimination, and the role of history in informing present-day discussions.
- In April 2021, the House of
Representatives began hearing testimony in support and opposition to
H.R. 40, a bill that called for the creation of a commission to study
and develop reparation Proposals for African-Americans. According to the
bill (first introduced in 1989), introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
(D-Texas), “the commission shall examine slavery and discrimination in
the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and
recommend appropriate remedies. Among other requirements, the commission
shall identify (1) the role of federal and state governments in
supporting the institution of slavery, (2) forms of discrimination in
the public and private sectors against freed slaves and their
descendants, and (3) lingering negative effects of slavery on living
African-Americans and society.” The bill has sparked debate, not for the
first time in U.S. history, over the issue of reparations to
African-Americans for slavery and discrimination over the past 400 years
of U.S. history. In this project option, you have the chance to weigh
in on this historically-relevant current debate.
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Read the following articles related to the debate over whether the U.S. should pay reparations to the families of former slaves:
- “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (or read the article as a pdf without the videos or interactive maps, or listen to an audio version of his article (Links to an external site.))
- “My Testimony on Reparations” by Coleman Hughes (or read the article as a pd, or listen to a podcast of his views on reparations)
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“I Didn’t Earn Slavery Reparations, and I Don’t Want Them” by Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) (or read the article as a pddownload
) -
In March 2021, Evanston, Illinois voted to provide the first ever
reparations to African-American residents, which is likely to generate
much more discussion at local and state levels across the U.S. This
article “Evanston, Ill., leads the country with first reparations program for Black residents (Links to an external site.),” discusses the program, and some very insightful arguments for and against Evanston’s program. (or read the article as a pdf -
After decades, the House
Judiciary Committee approved the bill to be considered by the House of
Representatives in April 2021. This is the short news article about the
challenges the bill will face in the House and Senate: “House Panel Votes to Advance Bill on Slavery Reparations - Gallup Poll: “As Redress for Slavery, Americans Oppose Cash Reparations” (or read the article as a pdf
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Optional Resources:
- “America Has Tried Reparations Before. Here Is How It Went“or read the article as a pdf
- Ta-Nehisi Coates Revisits the Case for Reparations (published early 2020, or read the article as a pdf
- Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Testimony before Congress on Reparations(in June 2019)
- “Living with the Past,” a podcast on reparations (from The Foreign Desk)
- “The Case for Reparations Is Nothing New”
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Bios and testimony from all witnesses who testified in favor and opposition of H.R. 40 (including
Senator Cory Booker, actor Danny Glover, former NFL player Burgess
Owens, an economist, a documentary maker, an Episcopalian bishop, and a
law professor in June 2019) -
Feel free to do your own further
research on this topic by looking up additional news articles or books.
But do be sure to vet any source you use for accuracy! And your response
MUST address the required articles listed above—you can include your
own articles in your response as a supplement to, not a replacement for, the assigned articles.
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Write a 3-4 page (double spaced) paper responding
to the following prompts, with specific, detailed references to the
articles (i.e., your paper must demonstrate that you completed the
required articles, and thought critically about them):- What are the main arguments in favor of paying reparations to the descendants of American slaves?
- What are the main arguments against paying reparations?
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What are the main historical issues at
stake on both sides? What historical evidence do the authors cite to
support their arguments? -
How does the reparations debate connect
to the history we’ve talked about in this class? How does the history
of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction that we discussed this
semester inform (or get ignored by) this debate? -
At the end of your paper, in a sentence or two, discuss your own thoughts
on the reparations debate. (But keep in mind this isn’t just an opinion
piece. The main goal in your paper is to show you can connect the
arguments made on both side of the debate with the historical trends we
discussed this semester).
- In April 2021, the House of
