Essay On The Antebellum Era

Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana: the great smallpox epidemic of 1775-82, (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001). Pages, ix, 384, index, bibliography. Review by Samantha Pilcher. Elizabeth A. Fenn is the author of Pox Americana.

With them came smallpox, measles, chicken pox, influenza, and many other diseases. “Before the arrival of Columbus, Native American disease wasn’t dominant in the land. Due to the lack of exposure of disease in their younger years, Native Americans were vulnerable to the European diseases that would come with the Columbian Exchange. The diseases would soon destroy many societies of the ancient Aztec, Maya, and Inca. Through many estimates it is foreseen that alien diseases caused over 50% deaths of the Native American population.

During the early 1800’s, President Thomas Jefferson effectively doubled the size of the United States under the Louisiana Purchase. This set the way for Westward expansion, alongside an increase in industrialism and overall economic growth. In fact, many citizens were able to thrive and make a better living in the agricultural business than anywhere else. All seemed to be going well in this new and ever expanding country, except for one underlying issue; slavery. Many African Americans were treated as the lowest of the classes, even indistinguishable from livestock.

Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. The foundation of America is freedom. Freedom from Britain. However, the freedom is limited to white males who own property. When colonists started to immigrate to America, they wanted to escape from under the rule of Britain.

There were many major movements and goals of the antebellum reform. Before the Civil War, almost 100 reform communities were instituted. Some were democratic, others were ruled over by an interesting leader. Most of them were motivated by religion, but some had desires to reverse social and economic changes. Almost all of these communities wanted to have a cooperative society, to revive social harmony in an individualistic society and to close the growing space between the rich and the poor.

Reformation is an essential part of American history. It is the abiltiy to change ineffective or outdated structures of society. Reform movements during the Antebellum Movement,and the Civil Rights Movement are examples of reactions to injustices. Social Conservatives that are complacent attempt resist these changes. Reform movements have led to the Government to have more active role in society.

During that time, measles were spread by explorer-to-native contact, animals, and filthy living conditions. Like today, there was no cure. Much of the Native American population drastically decreased amid the Age of Exploration. Based on the presented evidence, it can be concluded that measles were the most significant element of the Columbian

The European conquerors had built up an immunity to certain diseases that were common in Europe. Some of the diseases that decimated the Indian population included the following: smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus, and the bubonic plague. Centuries of living near livestock had basically inoculated the European settlers against these diseases. However the Indians were not used to such diseases, resulting in a dramatic decline in the Native American population. According to Diamond, smallpox was a major role in the domination of the Americas by the Europeans.

Smallpox | PBS 2005) This is not to say that before the Europeans went to the new worlds that the native people were surviving for years with no diseases in their system. This is, in fact, untrue, there were diseases present before the Europeans appearance, however due to the fact that

The diseases brought by the Europeans included smallpox, tuberculosis, influenza, measles, whooping cough and the common cold. The consequences of these diseases for the recipients were deadly and life threatening, especially since a common cold was extremely difficult for these people to overcome. A year after the First Fleet arrived, in 1789, a smallpox outbreak killed numbers of the Indigenous people that lived in the area that we know today as Sydney. (Carter, 2005.) The disease spread to surrounding communities and the number of victims increased rapidly.

Almost every single person from the New World, whether a slave or not, was seriously impacted by the spread of diseases. Furthermore,

The medical world has changed rapidly over the past few decades. We have solutions to diseases that weren’t even diagnosable before. Although we have tried our best to destroy illness, some diseases have been around since the beginning of time and are incurable. An example of this type of disease is Malaria. We’ve seen symptoms of malaria since The Ancient Egyptian ( around 1500 bc ) and The Ancient Greek times (around 413 B.C ).

Primary Source Analysis- During the time of reconstruction, which was after the civil war, the government passed the 13, 14, and 15th amendment to give African Americas freedom and rights. The 15th amendment gave the former African American slaves the right to vote. Between 1890 and 1906, the "new" south wanted to eliminate this right for the African Americans. Any African American who fought for their rights would be faced with violence known as lynching, murdering of three or more people.

Have you ever wondered how life was for the slaves in the South? Slaves in the South suffered through many consequences. For example, they suffered through many whippings with cow skin if they didn't obey their master, they also got separated from their family mostly the fathers, so, they can be sold to a very mean slave owner. Even if they were living a miserable life on the farms, they had their own culture and they managed to even get married in the farmland or where they worked. Not only did the slaves live on the farm.

The primary source I chose for my analysis is “A Most Terrible Plague: Giovanni Boccaccio”. This document focuses on the account of how individuals acted when a plague broke out and hundreds of people were dying every day. This source is written by Giovanni Boccaccio as it is a story told by him and friends as they passed the time. Boccaccio discusses how “the plague had broken out some years before in the Levant, and after passing from place to place, and making incredible havoc along the way, had now reached the west.” Readers of this source can assume there wasn’t much cures and medicinal technology weren’t used much during this time as even their physicians stayed away from the sick because once they got close they would also get sick.