Amistad Research Paper

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1948 would have lasting negative effects on Mexican Americans. The Treaty was signed after America had won the Mexican American war. America gained possession of the southwest states that had been part of Mexico for the price of around eighteen million dollars. In Article IX of the Treaty, it states that the Mexicans "shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without restriction"(Vargas 139). And as Rachel Rivera points out Article VII promised the Mexicans the right to keep their land which previously belonged to Mexico. However, the Treaty would not grant the

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in 1848, officially ended the war between Mexico and the United States. Even though it happened over 168 years ago, its legacy persists, because the treaty redefined the border and the border region. Under the terms of the treaty, Mexicans who suddenly found themselves living in the United States choose either Mexican citizenship, in which case they would have to relocate south of the new border, or to stay where they were and become citizens of the United States. About 80 percent—a total of seventy-five thousand Mexican people—remained in the United States (Passel, 2011). Since then, continuing economic and political difficulties in Mexico, combined with economic opportunities in the United States, have encouraged the flow of migration from Mexico to the United States in large numbers. Today, Mexican Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States and the estimated Mexican American population in 2000 was 20.6 million people, the largest Mexican population outside of Mexico (Center for Immigration Studies, 2010). Most Mexican Americans entered the United States legally and have become full U.S. citizens, however, the number of illegal immigrants arriving from Mexico has been an alarming and concerning issue in the United States and especially the state of Arizona. Arizona is in a unique geopolitical location in the United States because it shares a 370-mile border with Mexico. Much of the border is open and

Olaudah Equiano, Boyrereau Brinch, and Ayuba Suleiman all have similarities and differences from the way they were all captured and their experiences in Atlantic Slave Trade. They were all captured in West Africa during the 1700's. Equiano was captured at eleven with his sister, whereas Brinch was sixteen and Suleiman was in his late twenties. Equiano was captured in Nigeria, Brinch was captured in Mali, and Suleiman was captured Senegal. Nevertheless, they were captured in different way. Equiano and his sister were captured when their parents were not home working in the fields to labor. Brinch was swimming with friends and Suleiman was on a mission for his father to “sell two Negroes and to buy Paper, and some other Necessaries. Suleiman

Some Africans did not go without putting up a fight. For instance, Captain Tomba led many villagers “in burning huts and killing neighbors who cooperated with slave traders” (14). He was later captured and sent to the slave ship where he would be sold in the New World. The slaves also resisted by refusing to eat. Most of them decided they would rather have death than to live the lifestyle on the slave ships. The captains punished those who refused to eat by giving them lashes to the bare skin until they decided to eat. Olaudah Equiano could be considered one of the more fortunate Africans involved in the slave trade. Rediker uses Equiano to show how Africans were kidnapped and brought to the slave ship. Equiano was home alone with his sister when he was snatched by a neighboring enemy tribe. Tribes were kidnapping each other to sell to the slave traders for goods and even weapons. Equiano was separated from his sister and sold off to merchants before actually boarding the slave ship. He mentioned several times how he would rather die than be on the slave ship. He noticed right away that “the slave ship was equipped with nettings to prevent precisely such desperate rebellion” (109). Equiano went to the Americas and was left alone when none of the merchants purchased him. He was sold to a captain and boarded his ship back to England. On this slave ship, he was treated much better. He got to stay on the deck and eat better food than he had

In 1854, Scott v. Sanford took place. Scott, a slave to the Emerson family, traveled to Minnesota with John Emerson. While there, his owner died and the court declared him free. However, at the Circuit of Appeals, it was ruled Scott was still property of the Emersons'. This decision stood, which declared that slaves are property. This was one infuriating cause of the Civil War.

For 63 days, the Amistad had been drifting toward the American shoreline. As conditions deteriorated aboard the vessel, it's inhabitants at the time, Africans, sick and dying, were in need of food and water. Desperate,

13. They believed slaves were necessary and important and felt it was necessary to pass laws to control their freedom. John Brown attacked an army post in Harper's Ferry, Virginia (VA). His trial divided the north and south. He was captured, convicted and hung.

This topic includes the election of President Abraham Lincoln in 1861, slavery, Louisiana Purchase , the Dred Scott decision, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The United States decided to buy hundreds of thousands of miles of land west of the Mississippi River for 15 million dollars. This act was known as the Louisiana Purchase. The Dred Scott Decision was made when the Supreme Court declared African Americans are not American citizens. The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed Kansas and Nebraska the right to decide if the state was anti-slavery or not.

Slavery was always a controversial issue in America. Many people saw slavery as an essential part of life in every aspect, while others saw it as immoral and an injustice to humanity. In the 1840s when Manifest Destiny started to thrive, things began to heat up. New territories meant a possibility for a new slave or free state in America. Because the new territories were allowed the right of popular sovereignty to determine whether they would have slaves or not, abolitionists and non-abolitionists were at a constant battle to gain a new state.

As the early nineteenth century unfolded hostility to slavery surfaced on the national scene. The United States began to split because of views of the people became concreate causing the bitter disputes between the North and South to be more drastic due to economic issues of slavery and morals. The Constitution contributed in the separation that was occurring. For example the Compromise of 1850, was drafted by Henry Clay in an attempt to gloss over the confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the territory with slavery. Another example of a Supreme Court decision that is known as the Dred Scott Decision of 1857 declared that African Americans had no rights of citizenship hence slaves who escaped to free states were not free but still the property of their owners and would need to be returned. The decision of the United States to determine that once a person was a slave they could never become a citizen. This case instilled fear to anti-slavery groups that slavery would spread and it infuriated anti-slavery leaders causing the new Republican Party.

Cinqué, a peasant farmer and young husband and father in West Africa, was kidnapped by African slave-hunters and taken to the slave fortress of Lomboko, an illegal facility in the British Protectorate of Sierra Leone. There, he and hundreds of other captured Africans were loaded onto transatlantic slave-ship (Tecora). Cinqué tells of the various horrors of the Middle Passage, including frequent rape, horrific torture, and random executions carried out by the crew, including the deaths of fifty people deliberately drowned in order to save food. Upon their arrival in Cuba, Cinqué was sold at a slave market and purchased, along with many other Tecora survivors, by the owners of La Amistad. Once aboard La Amistad, Cinqué was able to free himself of his shackles, and began the slaves' rebellion for freedom.

The U.S.-Mexican War was a violent and shattering event for Mexican citizens that lasted from 1846-1848 in what is now the state of Texas. It drastically altered the course of Mexican and American history for years to come. It occurred because of the unsettled disputes about the borders of newly annexed Texas. Once the debilitating battle ended, the United States emerged a world power having acquired more than 500,000 square miles of valuable territory. There are many potentially feasible explanations on the cause of the war; including, fault laying with American slaveholders for conquest of Mexico, the war as an American plot and responsibility lying with President Polk of the United States. However, this paper focuses on the three

One hundred years ago, in 1898, the United States was fighting the Spanish-American War. The victory over Spain made the United States a colonial power. The Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, as well as the formerly independent nation of Hawaii, became American possessions.

The border between the United States of America and Mexico always had been always a theme for a lot of discussions. And, in the book “Sunshine/Noir II” Juanita Lopez and Michael Cheno described, through texts, their point of view about the topic. Both authors represent that the control of the border has become way more restrict and militarized. In that sense, Michael Wickert presents his idea in a poem form, text named “The border Is a Fight”, that describes the dramas of a Mexican family that has to cross the border every day in a hope to get a better future. Whereas, Juanita Lopez demonstrates it through an essay that uses personal narratives of the author’s relatives to illustrate her point of view. Therefore, the both authors exploit their point of views using different text forms, and figurative images, like metaphors and personification, for delivering their ideas in the way they do.

Long time ago a ship called Amistad, brought slaves all the way from Cuba to the United States of America on the date of 1839. The ship called Amistad transported African slaves who had been sold as slaves in Cuba. In Cuba there was like a huge concentration camp which had many slaves which were carried on