Thomas Jefferson and George Fitzhugh

I personally think as we keep going with our discussions, they will become very intense. By the time Friday came, it almost felt like we were in a debate. Not really with our selves but against the writer of the piece we read. Even though many of us don’t agree with him, George Fitzhugh was a very intelligent man who unlike Thomas Jefferson, backed up his opinions with strong and confident information.

We started out in the beginning of the week talking about Thomas Jefferson. He was a president of the United States, writer of the Declaration of Independence as well a man who we believe had Asperger's syndrome. Through his writings we concluded the Thomas Jefferson was one who contradicted him self. He said he didn’t approve of slavery and yet he owned slaves. Personally I think becomes has Asperger’s that even though he doesn’t believe in slavery, he doesn’t know how to control his actions and go against society.

George Fitzhugh definitely is a man who did not go against what he said. He fully believed in slavery. The interesting thing though was that he didn’t believe blacks were the only ones who should be slaves. He believed that if the blacks weren’t around in the south, that the whites should do it. He was proud southern man who believed that they were the best. He explained how slavery was apart of every rich cultures history. For example he talked about slaves in Greece as well as in the Roman Empire. We concluded in discussion though that maybe they weren’t slaves as we think of today. The most interesting thing to me was that he said that the Pope was a radical reformer. But I guess to his society that anyone saying that slaves shouldn’t be allowed is an outsider and can be considered a reformer.

John Smith

John Smith was the first person in America to have a whole myth about him. Whether it’s completely accurate or not his name is very famous to people of all ages. Kids know about him through Disney’s movie, Pocahontas. That is where most of us now know his name.

In one of his stories, he is trying to convince Englishmen to move to America. According to John Smith it is “mans duty to god” to own land, earn money and have a farm. I thought it was very interesting how he put things, almost like he was preaching to uneducated. He used similes to try and convince English to come over. For example, the fish was used to show that any one can earn money, and that England its self does not have any natural resources.

Later on, Smith explains that the natives are savages and need to be “saved.” One thing that was said in class that I thought was very interested was that John Smith is kind of like President Bush. Taking over land and putting it to use in its own way.

Like most storybooks and text books, much of the stories are one sided. It would be interesting to hear the story from the native Americans point of view.

First Day

First day of class and already there was a pretty intense discussion. The topic of southern stereotypes is definitely a way to get a group of people to talk. Although there are very different view points everyone does agree that the people down south are completely different then those of us up here. Some common stereotypes that we discussed were that the southerners are dumb and very slow. Other students stated how they thought of certain states when they thought of the south. Some states included: Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, as well as many others. Other Stereotypes dealt with how blacks treat whites as well as other blacks. Southern blacks treat northern blacks with no respect according to what was said in class last week.