Phillis Wheatley

i feel her work shows the intellegent that Africans would have if the whites allowed them to become educated and ended slavery. she has great penmenship, and expresses her opinions openly. one poem i found interesting what To the university of Cambridge in New England. She is telling the audience how to live life. Most people become shocked at this because she was a black women; however, her higher status and christian faith allowed to to state her feelings openly. She starts off by talking in a physical sense and then leads to the spiritual. Like stated in class, Wheatley knows how to appeal to her audience and make them accept her. there were many critics i bet at the time of her writing just because she was a black women. they didnt feel she should be able to write and publish her works. I think her writing gives the white people of the time knowledge of how educated people of a difference race could become if given the chance.

Columbus

Columbus takes great interest into the living styles and location of native settlements when coming to America. i find it extremely intersting that he writes in detail days, senery, people, and traditions. one example is when they first came across the natives, they thought the white men were from heaven. they beg the white men to land on their shore because they feel blessed just by seeing them for they see them as Gods spoken people. thinking about it now, what would i have thought if coming across something so completely different then anything i have ever seen. The natives didnt know what a ship was, why they wore the clothes they did, or even their language. Columbus takes notice to this a discusses how valued the white people felt just being around the natives. However, Columbus ended leaving some of his men there when he returned to England but when he returns they are al dead. that speaks volumes about the two races living together. they over look the incident and move onto the native land and over power them. other things Columbus took notice too was the people. he states how in one tribe the married women where cotton shirts, while the others dont. Also, there are no more then fifteen houses in one area, which explains their seludedness from other tribes about them. The writings of Columbus are extremely informational about the new land he comes acrross. he clearly was well educated which allows him to make such a clear image.

Crevecoeur

Crevecoeur had many segments in his writings but one that struck me as most interesting was, A Singular Punishment. When he discusses the encounter with the African who was hanging in a tree, it brought out the most emotion for me compared to the other parts in his writings. How difficult would it have been to live in a society where people took it in their own hands to punish one another. Im not saying that the man shouldnt have killed his owner, but i bet that he didnt have a trial or case. While thinking about the story i thought to myself, if i lived in that time period and came accross the same man, what would i have done? It is true that our beliefs are completely different then back when slavery existed, but how would have incident have affected me. It just seemed like such a cruel way for another person to have to die, with the birds eating away at him.
i also feel the sotry tells about the government. the white man oviously felt that he didnt have the right or authority to truly help the African. While the scene startled him at first, he was calm and rash about it, then went into town and discussed it with his friends. Who does that, but thats all he really could do. If he would have helped and saved that mans life then the governemt would have come after him and the African and punished them both to death. To me, it feels as if a extremely controlled society where the citizens have little or no say in their own actions.

Henry timberlake

this man went over to america and stayed with the Cherokee Indians for some time. his whole experience amazed me because of how advanced this culture was. many other Native Americans were thought of as naive but the Cherokee's had agriculture and homes. They even established their own form of government for their people. when the white settlers came over they created a trade guideline for the the whites. an example would be that so many grains from their garden is worth an axe.
however, timberlakes opinion of his experience surprises me. he clearly believed in manifest destiny, and that the Europeans were the supreme people on Earth. He was very smug the entire time and even stated that he felt the Cherokee will become great learners. he wanted to convert them into Christians and in his mind, modernize their way of living.
I ended up discussing this article for the topic of my paper, and i believe his opinions clearly speak for Europeans at that time, that these men thought white surpremacy was a way of life and it was their duty to expand it.

Witch Craft Trials

after reading the work by cotton Mathers it was quite interesting to see a ministers view about the witch craft trials. he truly believed that the devil was present upon the earth with the intension of tryin to destroy man kind. he also saw it as a test by God to human beings. he says that it is up to the individual to fight him off. the devil can make himself known but the individual is that one who needs to resist the evil.
i found it interesting also the symptoms of the afflicted. some of them included bite marks, bruises, scratches, and even teats. Most of the people the witch craft trials centered around are women. it appears to me that is was a mob mentally. all the of women would go against one women and no matter what they did everyone was like..Thats because she is a witch. the whole incident sounds reduclous now. it reminds me of highschool and when people in a certain group dont like an outsider so they all gang up on the person. not only that but all the people exussed were young women and even children. there was one case when they said a five year old was a witch because a girl found scratches on her and said it was the child. to me, the child is only five years old. she probably had a tantrum and they are saying he is possessed by the devil.
over all the cases and therology of the witch craft trials have been extremely interesting and mind bogling. These people truly believed that people were witches. in their religion and with the limited knowledge at the time the only explaination was spiritual.

Comparing the narratives

in all of the narratives religion gets brought up. It becomes clear that during their life time faith played an important part. For Edwards his life waws nothing but religion, the reader doesnt get a good sense of what his life was like outside of religion. Here he clearly implies that life is all about religion and nothing else. He wants to show how religion plays the ultimate factor in ones life, and being close to Dod in is opinion is the only way to get to Heaven. Ashbridge is different to Edwards because while she believes in God, her narratives tells us about other aspects of her life. It shows the hard times she faced and the seperation between her and her family. the first part of her life wasnt as religious as the latter. Even so, i get a better image about her life and its events and not just her thoughts. At some times she even heres voices in her head and she thinks it is God talking to her. This isnt the first time that we have read about people hearing voices in their heads. I get the image like Wieland, Ashbridge could possibly be menally disturbed. I feel she wrote her narrative to express why she went through all the trials and tribulations she did and the importance Quakerism played in her life. Her narrative is extremely pro Quakerism. For equiano, he has a difficult childood, with the fact that he was taken from his home and brought across the ocean to work for whiteslae owners (if that really happened to him). His narratives tells me what a strong individual he was to stick through the kdnapping, the ship ride, and even being raded numerous times.He tells in his narratives about the horrible condictions on the ship for example, and how people couldnt even breathe. these images were put in his narratives so people would now the horrible conditions that occured and hopefully stop them in the future. he wanted to stop the slave trade by righting his narrative. Franklin discusses the success he has in his life and also the hard times he has to go though to get to his success. While i feel he is extremely arrogant in his writtings, it is clear that people looked up to him and thought he was a intellegent man. His writings were supposed to impower people to become successful just like he has done. People started to believe if they followed his examples then they would be successful too. I also feel his writting was for his fame. He was a smart man. He wanted people to praise him and he also wanted money. i think this biography was a good way for him to have both.

Virtuous

Franklin was a Presbyterian. it states in the second part of his biography that he even used to help out a minister. it didnt last long because he found the priest uniteresting or bland. after that he decided he wanted to reach moral perfection by going through one virtue and week and then moving down through the list. i find it interesting that he didnt master humility. i feel that speaks volumes about his personality. Throughout the entire biography, i felt Franklin thought himself superior to the people around him. That personality trait doesnt mesh well with religion because people are supposed to be humble. Also, it is interesting that although Franklin is a presbyterian, he doesnt believe in all of the teachings of the church. He does think there is one God, but he never discusses or brings about the idea of God guiding him in his journey through life. That imagewas presented in many of the other readings done in class. Some of those included Jonathon Edwards and Elizabeth Ashbridge; both people that lived during Franklin's life.