Essays on Fugitive

Slavery has widely been held as the primary reason for secession in the South. However, according to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2011 found that most Americans were divided on the matter. 48% of the Americans interviewed were of the opinion that “states’ rights” was the leading cause, 38% held slavery was the primary reason while the remainder was either not sure or thought both were contributory factors (Pierce par. 2). From the poll we can infer that secession was as a result of numerous factors. This inference is supported by the Declarations of Causes, ...

In its support of the slavery system, the government of the United States utilized the law. In other words, the federal government either passed legislations to thwart any threats made against the institution of slavery or persecuted individuals for failing to adhere to the same. A perfect illustration of the given claims revolves around the actions of political leaders and the States’ harsh responses to calls for liberation during the Antebellum Era. In Howard Zinn’s words, the government allowed whites to use “the laws, courts, [and] armed forces” to restrict persons of African descent to the lowest class ...

Factors that led to the writing of the United States Constitution and the ideas behind the design

The needs to establish a national government and guard the fundamental rights of citizens are the factors that led to the writing of the constitution. Previously, the United States governing document was the Articles of Confederation that made the national government weak since states operated like independent countries (Archives). With the new constitutions, therefore, plans were in place to make the federal government stronger by having three branches including the executive, legislative and the judicial (Archives). Also, the design of the three branches was that no single branch would have much power since there were systems of checks and ...

The Civil War which lasted from 1861-1865 was caused by a number of factors. Most of the reasons for the Civil War were economic, political and social. The economic reasons for the Civil War were as follows. The economic disparities between the North and the South. The South had a plantation system that consisted of growing numerous crash crops including tobacco, indigo and cotton which were extremely profitable and depended on slave labor. The North’s economy was more industrialized which meant that it depended more on people working together rather than a class system. An economic-political reason for ...

. The early history of the United States from the founding of the Republic after the Constitutional Convention to the Civil War was greatly influenced by the changing face of the so-called party system. The main points which all of the parties in the different eras of Early American history before the Civil War concentrated primarily on what the role and size of the federal government should be and how it should work to deal with the major issues of the day. One of the most significant issues surrounding the early federal government related to its place and stance as ...

Anderson, J. “Letter from a Freedman to his Old Master,” New York Daily Tribune, 22 August 1865, p. 7. After the Civil War, numerous former slave owners tried to contact their slaves and convince them to return and work on the plantation as tenant farmers. In 1865, Jourdan Anderson received such invitation and decided to write a letter back to his former master where he explains the terms on which the ex-slave would return. At that time, Jourdan was residing in Ohio, working on a decent job, free and quite independent. Anderson writes a remarkable and brilliant letter, which ...

What is the Fourth of July to slaves?

Introduction “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” is a famous speech given by an African American slave fugitive at the time by the name Frederick Douglas, which was delivered on the Fifth of July, the day after the day of independence, in 1852. The speech highlighted the plight of the African Americans who were discriminated by the white population. The speech describes the Fourth of July as a paradox since the independence given to the African Americans was paradoxical. To the African American, the fourth of July was a day when the White continued to enjoy ...

Casablanca: Plot

Directed by Curtiz Michael, Casablanca is an American film of 1942 that features romance and drama. It is a production of the Warner Brothers who base it on Burnett Murray and unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's of Alison Joan. The setting of Casablanca took place during the Second World War, which underlies the plot of the film. It focuses on an expatriate of the United States who has to sacrifice his relationship with a lady he loves for helping her husband – a leader of the Czech Resistance - escape from Casablanca. Getting out this Vichy-controlled town would help ...

Fugitive Slave Act was a couple of federal legislations that allowed for the incarceration and return of runaway fugitives within the territory of the US. Initially, the Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Act in 1793 that empowered the local governments to capture and return the slaves who have escaped from their owners and impose penalties to people who aided the escape of the slaves. The extensive resistance to the 1973 legislation later spurred the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.The new law further complicated issues by imposing harsher punishments for the people who were interfering with the ...

Post U.S. – Mexican War through 1870’s

When the US – Mexican War (1846 – 1848) was over, the territory of the USA increased for almost 30%, as a part of the Mexican territory became the US land. The territory of the USA expended, but some critical issues raised; they were connected with the governing of the new territories and, basically, the questions about slavery. The main concern was between the North and the South. “The Northern Whigs and Abolitionists feared the attempts to plant cotton in the new territory. Slaveholders feared that the slavery would be banned and they would ...

Slavery was firmly established in US at the verge of 18th century. Series of penal codes and statutes were enacted to regulate the activity. The Louisiana Purchase sparked political and geographical concerns of occupation from anti- and pro- slavery states. The Congress in 1820 wanted to split the newly attained territories into slave states as well as free states. An agreement known as the Missouri Compromise in the same year was signed between these two states to regulate the slavery in the western territories. This followed prohibition of slavery in the northern states bordering Arkansas but with an exemption ...

Annotated Bibliography: African American History

Mayer, R. (2000). "Africa As an Alien Future": The Middle Passage, Afrofuturism, and Postcolonial Waterworlds. Amerikastudien / American Studies, 45(4), 555-566. Palmer, C. A. (1995). From Africa to the Americas: Ethnicity in the Early Black Communities of the Americas. Journal of World History, 6(2), 223-236. According to Ruth Mayer’s Africa as an Alien Future (2000), there remains a connection between the African Diaspora community and the motherland. In the author’s words, African culture remains evident even in contemporary works such as “literature, installation art, [and] pop music” in which the passages between Africa and ...

Stop-and-Frisk policy is not an effective model of urban policing especially the way it is being implemented in New York City. Reports show that only 6% of those frisked lead to an arrest and 1.2% turn up a weapon. The effectiveness of the policy in identifying criminal elements is questionable given that most of the people stopped to be frisked are innocent citizens. The video on NYPD's Stop-and-Frisk clearly shows that this strategy is nothing more than racial profiling based on an unproven premise that most victims of crime report that their attackers were men of color (NYPD's Stop-and-Frisk: ...

Tokubei and Ohatsu’s story is inspirational in its portrayal of the extent lovers will go to for the accomplishment of their love. However, although inspirational in nature, their actions and motivations are illogical if viewed in a sense of self-preservation. One of the bigger themes, honesty, is expressed in the story through both characters. This honesty, although oftentimes a good virtue, has become their undoing. Love preceded reason in their motivation, leading to them having thought of no other options for salvation aside from death. Tokubei, had to face the choice of loving and marrying a woman of ...

Introduction

The real name of Harriet Tubman at birth was Araminta Ross. She was one of the eleven children of Benjamin and Harriet. She was “hired out” as a nurse of a small child by one of the masters. She used to stay awake throughout the night to ensure that the small baby did not cry and wake the mother. When Ross fell asleep, the master would whip her. The brutal suffering she went through since young made her determined to gain freedom. She is remembered as one of the conductors who freed many slaves through the "Underground Railroad." In ...

According to EPA (2016), environmental management involves the development of systems aimed at reducing environmental impacts of various activities. In the Brundtland commission report (WCED), sustainable development has been described as development aimed at meeting the current needs of the present generation. However, as the current generation focuses on meeting their own needs, their activities should not compromise the capability of future generations to also meet their own needs. Available evidence suggests that the future generation would have challenges meeting their own needs if the current generation fails to adopt sustainable practices. The sustainable development incorporates the triple line: ...

Steven Spielberg’s seminal 1977 science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind charts the effect of a mysterious and traumatic alien abduction on average American man Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) on both his psyche and his relationship with his family. In Jodi Dean’s essay “Fugitive Alien Truth,” the UFO abductee phenomenon is examined through a sociological and political lens, illuminating many social aspects of the cultural phenomenon of the abductee that are present in Close Encounters. As Roy’s sense of self and identity begins to shift gradually away from his family, and he struggles to ...