Buffalo Soldiers

Read this web page and answer the following questions.

1.  How many troops were sent to Cuba?  How many were "Buffalo Soldiers" or African American soldiers?
2.  Why did some African Americans openly questioned AAs fighting for the U.S.?
3.  Read the quotes for and quotes against African Americans fighting for the U.S.  Choose one of each (for and against) and tell me what their arguments were in your own words.
4.  What was the stereotype that white soldiers and officers had of the Buffalo Soldiers that was why they were used as nurses during yellow fever outbreaks?
5.  Find 3 examples of Buffalo Soldiers getting praise for their actions in Cuba.
6.  What did Teddy Roosevelt say about African American soldiers? (one good, one bad)
7.  What did African Americans hope would happen after showing their patriotism and valor for their country?

Buffalo Soldiers

Read this web page and answer the following questions.

1.  How many troops were sent to Cuba?  How many were "Buffalo Soldiers" or African American soldiers?
2.  Why did some African Americans openly questioned AAs fighting for the U.S.?
3.  Read the quotes for and quotes against African Americans fighting for the U.S.  Choose one of each (for and against) and tell me what their arguments were in your own words.
4.  What was the stereotype that white soldiers and officers had of the Buffalo Soldiers that was why they were used as nurses during yellow fever outbreaks?
5.  Find 3 examples of Buffalo Soldiers getting praise for their actions in Cuba.
6.  What did Teddy Roosevelt say about African American soldiers? (one good, one bad)
7.  What did African Americans hope would happen after showing their patriotism and valor for their country?

Annexing Hawaii

E-mail me your answers.
Hawaii was not always an American place.  It was a flourishing monarchy until American business and Imperialism got their hands on it.  Read the following web page and answer these questions

1.  What was the first "foothold" in Hawaii?
2.  What was the cause for the Hawaiian depression?
3.  What was the American solution?
4.  Who was the queen? (can abbreviate using the first 4 letters)
5.  What happened in January of 1893?
6.  Did President Cleveland agree with those actions?  What did he try to do?
7.  After the Spanish American War broke out, why was Hawaii so important?

Imperialism

Go to the Encyclopedia of Britannica by clicking on the link (<---).  When you get there answer the following questions in an e-mail and send them to me.  Do not copy and paste answers or ideas.  That defeats the purpose of reading and learning.  Even though the definition for #1 is pretty exact, please type it out to help you remember it rather than copy and pasting.  E-mail me your answers.

1.  What is the definition of Imperialism?
2.  What countries or societies have been Imperialistic during the Ancient times and what lands did they claim?
3.  What countries or societies have been Imperialistic during the modern era (3 parts) and what areas/countries were they Imperialistic (if the article doesn't say, don't worry about it but make sure it isn't there before you dismiss it).
4.  What are the 4 arguments for Imperialism found in the last 4 paragraphs?  I would like just the main thought from the paragraph not the whole specific explanation.

Plessy V. Ferguson

Read Plessy v. Ferguson and answer the following questions.

1.  Where did this case start?
2.  What was the issue?
3.  Who was involved?
4.  What was the fraction of African American was Plessy?
5.  Do you think that is ridiculous?
6.  What was the court's decision (short summary)?
7.  This case sets up the "______________ but ___________" doctrine that would be later overturned by Brown v Board of Education about 60 years later...

Please e-mail me your answers. (10 points)

Tenements

This is a first hand account of what living conditions were like for Americans living in cities at the turn of the century.  Read the following passage and answer the questions.

Where are the journalist and the police officer?
What things do they describe about the places they visit? (smells, sights, sounds, people). DESCRIBE SEVERAL...
What does the police officer say about the locals not wanting to be arrested?
What do you notice about Jimmy's living arrangement?  (how many people, where does he sleep, etc.)
 Where did the guy lose his arm? What does he get in return for losing it?

About three months ago one of the most wretched rookeries in the city was cleared out and cleansed by order of the Board of Health. This was known as "Sweeney's," and stood in Gotham Court. The immediate cause of its overhauling was the discovery of its actual condition made by Detective Finn and Mr. Edward Crapsey of the New York Times, during a visit to it. Mr. Crapsey gives the following interesting account of his visit:

"As we stopped in Cherry street at the entrance to Gotham Court, and Detective Finn dug a tunnel of light with his bullseye lantern into the foulness and blackness of that smirch on civilization, a score or more of boys who had been congregated at the edge of the court suddenly plunged back into the obscurity, and we heard the splash of their feet in the foul collections of the pavements. "'This bullseye is an old acquaintance here,' said the detective, 'and as its coming most always means "somebody wanted," you see how they hide. Though why they should object to go to jail is more than I know; I'd rather stay in the worst dungeon in town than here. Come this way and I'll show you why.'
"Carefully keeping in the little track of light cut into the darkness by the lantern, I followed the speaker, who turned into the first door on the right, and I found myself in an entry about four feet by six, with steep, rough, rickety stairs leading upward in the foreground, and their counterparts at the rear giving access to as successful a manufactory of disease and death as any city on earth can show. Coming to the first of these stairs, I was peremptorily halted by the foul stenches rising from below; but Finn, who had reached the bottom, threw back the relentless light upon the descending way and urged me on. Every step oozed with moisture and was covered sole deep with unmentionable filth; but I ventured on, and reaching my conductor, stood in a vault some twelve feet wide and two hundred long, which extended under the whole of West Gotham Court. The walls of rough stone dripped with slimy exudations, while the pavements yielded to the slightest pressure of the feet a suffocating odor compounded of bilge-water and sulphuretted hydrogen. Upon one side of this elongated cave of horrors were ranged a hundred closets, every one of which reeked with this filth, mixed with that slimy moisture which was everywhere as a proof that the waters of the neighboring East River penetrated, and lingered here to foul instead of purify.
"'What do you think of this?' said Finn, throwing the light of his lantern hither and thither so that every horror might be dragged from the darkness that all seemed to covet. 'All the thousands living in the barracks must come here, and just think of all the young ones above that never did any harm having to take in this stuff;' and the detective struck out spitefully at the noxious air. As he did so, the gurgling of water at the Cherry street end of the vault caught his ear, and penetrating thither, he peered curiously about.
"'I say, Tom,' he called back to his companion, who had remained with me in the darkness, 'here's a big break in the Croton main.' But a moment later, in an affrighted voice: 'No, it ain't. Its the sewer! I never knew of this opening into it before. Paugh! how it smells. That's nothing up where you are. I'll bet on the undertaker having more jobs in the house than ever.'
"By this time I began to feel sick and faint in that tainted air, and would have rushed up the stairs if I could have seen them. But Finn was exploring that sewer horror with his lantern. As I came down I had seen a pool of stagnant, green-coated water somewhere near the foot of the stairs, and, being afraid to stir in the thick darkness, was forced to call my guide, and, frankly state the urgent necessity for an immediate return above. The matter-of-fact policeman came up, and cast the liberating light upon the stairs, but rebuked me as I eagerly took in the comparatively purer atmosphere from above. 'You can't stand it five minutes; how do you suppose they do, year in and year out?' 'Even they don't stand it many years, I should think,' was my involuntary reply.
"As we stepped out into the court again, the glare of the bullseye dragged a strange face out of the darkness. It was that of a youth of eighteen or twenty years, ruddy, puffed, with the corners of the mouth grotesquely twisted. The detective greeted the person owning this face with the fervor of old acquaintanceship: 'Eh, Buster! What's up?' 'Hello, Jimmy Finn! What yez doin' here?' 'Never mind, Buster. What's up?' 'Why, Jimmy, didn't yez know I lodges here now?' 'No, I didn't. Where? Who with?' 'Beyant, wid the Pensioner.' 'Go on. Show me where you lodge.' 'Sure, Jimmy, it isn't me as would lie to yez.'
"But I had expressed a desire to penetrate into some of these kennels for crushed humanity; and Finn, with the happy acumen of his tribe, seizing the first plausible pretext, was relentless, and insisted on doubting the word of the Buster. That unfortunate with the puffy face, who seemed to know his man too well to protract resistance, puffed ahead of us up the black, oozy court, with myriads of windows made ghastly by the pale flicker of kerosene lamps in tiers above us, until he came to the last door but one upon the left side of the court, over which the letter S was sprawled upon the coping stone. The bullseye had been darkened, and when the Buster plunged through the doorway he was lost to sight in the impenetrable darkness beyond. We heard him though, stumbling against stairs that creaked dismally, and the slide being drawn back, the friendly light made clear the way for him and us. There was an entry precisely like the one we had entered before, with a flight of narrow, almost perpendicular stairs, with so sharp a twist in them that we could see only half up. The banisters in sight had precisely three uprights, and looked as if the whole thing would crumble at a touch; while the stairs were so smooth and thin with the treading of innumerable feet that they almost refused a foothold. Following the Buster, who grappled with the steep and dangerous ascent with the daring born of habit, I somehow got up stairs, wondering how any one ever got down in the dark without breaking his neck. Thinking it possible there might be a light sometimes to guide the pauper hosts from their hazardous heights to the stability of the street, I inquired as to the fact, only to meet the contempt of the Buster for the gross ignorance that could dictate such a question. 'A light for the stairs! Who'd give it? Sweeney? Not much! Or the tenants? Skasely! Them's too poor!' While he muttered, the Buster had pawed his way up stairs with surprising agility, until he reached a door on the third landing. Turning triumphantly to the detective, he announced: 'Here's where I lodges, Jimmy! You knows I wouldn't lie to yez.'
"'We'll see whether you would or no,' said Finn, tapping on the door. Being told to come in, he opened it; and on this trivial but dexterous pretext we invaded the sanctity of a home.
"No tale is so good as one plainly told, and I tell precisely what I saw. This home was composed, in the parlance of the place, of a 'room and bedroom.' The room was about twelve feet square, and eight feet from floor to ceiling. It had two windows opening upon the court, and a large fireplace filled with a cooking stove. In the way of additional furniture, it had a common deal table, three broken wooden chairs, a few dishes and cooking utensils, and two 'shakedowns,' as the piles of straw stuffed into bed-ticks are called; but it had nothing whatever beyond these articles. There was not even the remnant of a bedstead; not a cheap print, so common in the hovels of the poor, to relieve the blankness of the rough, whitewashed walls. The bedroom, which was little more than half the size of the other, was that outrage of capital upon poverty known as a 'dark room,' by which is meant that it had no window opening to the outer air; and this closet had no furniture whatever except two 'shakedowns.'
"In the contracted space of these two rooms, and supplied with these scanty appliances for comfort, nine human beings were stowed. First there was the 'Pensioner,' a man of about thirty-five years, next his wife, then their three children, a woman lodger with two children, and the 'Buster,' the latter paying fifteen cents per night for his shelter; but I did not learn the amount paid by the woman for the accommodation of herself and children. The Buster, having been indignant at my inquiry as to the light upon the stairs, was now made merry by Finn supposing he had a regular bed and bedstead for the money. 'Indade, he has not, but a "shakedown" like the rest of us,' said the woman; but the Buster rebuked this assumption of an impossible prosperity by promptly exclaiming, 'Whist! ye knows I stretch on the boords without any shakedown whatsumdever.'
"Finn was of opinion the bed was hard but healthy, and fixing his eyes on the Buster's flabby face thought it possible he had any desirable number of 'square meals' per day; but that individual limited his acquirements in that way for the day then closed to four. Finn then touching on the number of drinks, the Buster, being driven into conjecture and a corner by the problem, was thrust out of the foreground of our investigations.
"By various wily tricks of his trade, Detective Finn managed to get a deal of information out of the Pensioner without seeming to be either inquisitive or intrusive, or even without rubbing the coat of his poverty the wrong way. From this source I learned that five dollars per month was paid as rent for these two third-floor rooms, and that everybody concerned deemed them dirt cheap at the price. Light was obtained from kerosene lamps at the expense of the tenant, and water had to be carried from the court below, while all refuse matter not emptied into the court itself, had to be taken to the foul vaults beneath it. The rooms, having all these drawbacks, and being destitute of the commonest appliances for comfort or decency, did not appear to be in the highest degree eligible; yet the Pensioner considered himself fortunate in having secured them. His experience in living must have been very doleful, for he declared that he had seen worse places. In itself, and so far as the landlord was concerned, I doubted him; but I had myself seen fouler places than these two rooms, which had been made so by the tenants. All that cleanliness could do to make the kennel of the Pensioner habitable had been done, and I looked with more respect upon the uncouth woman who had scoured the rough floor white, than I ever had upon a gaudily attired dame sweeping Broadway with her silken trail. The thrift that had so little for its nourishment had not been expended wholly upon the floor, for I noticed that the two children asleep on the shakedown were clean, while the little fellow four years of age, who was apparently prepared for bed as he was entirely naked, but sat as yet upon one of the three chairs, had no speck of dirt upon his fair white skin. A painter should have seen him as he gazed wonderingly upon us, and my respect deepened for the woman who could, spite the hard lines of her rugged life, bring forth and preserve so much of childish symmetry and beauty.
"Having absorbed these general facts, I turned to the master of this household. He was a man of small stature but rugged frame, and his left shirt sleeve dangled empty at his side. That adroit Finn, noticing my inquiring look, blurted out: 'That arm went in a street accident, I suppose?'
"'No, sir; it wint at the battle of Spottsylvania.'
"Here was a hero! The narrow limits of his humble home expanded to embrace the brown and kneaded Virginian glades as I saw them just seven years ago, pictured with the lurid pageantry of that stubborn fight when Sedgwick fell. This man, crammed with his family into twelve feet square at the top of Sweeney's Shambles, was once part of that glorious scene. In answer to my test questions he said he belonged to the Thirty-ninth New York, which was attached to the Second Corps, and that he received a pension of $15 per month from the grateful country he had served as payment in full for an arm. It was enough to keep body and soul together, and he could not complain. Nor could I; but I could and did signify to my guide by a nod that I had seen and heard enough, and we went down again into the slimy, reeking court."