Blog 3: Colonies

              If I were to have lived in any of the early American colonies, I would have wanted to live in the New England colony and more specifically, the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  In this colony, the immigrants had the ability to govern themselves instead of being directly ruled by a European country.  The residents of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were some of the most determined people in the New World.  They set off to set up a city that everyone would look toward.  Aside from their great ambitions, these colonists did not run into much Native Americans due to an epidemic that killed most of them in the area a decade before they arrived.  This meant no trade with them of course, but it also meant no war, which most interactions with natives usually ended up being.

               Unlike many of the other early colonies, the Massachusetts Bay Colony consisted of immigrants that possessed skills such as farmers and carpenters, and not just a majority of wealthy people who needed slaves or servants to work for them.  Another distinguishing thing about them is that they were made up of mainly families.  Unlike the other colonies that were often single men that came to the new world to find work.  This would allow the colony to grow and flourish without the “importation” of single women.

               The colony had some drawbacks though.  The Massachusetts Bay Colony did not escape the deadly ailments that plagued all the colonies which killed many people.  Another drawback in my opinion is that the Massachusetts Bay Colony did partake, like many other colonies, in trying to convert Native Americans to Christianity/European lifestyles by removing them from their local communities.

Blog 2: The Mexica (Aztecs)

My people call ourselves Mexica, but the Europeans people call us Aztecs.  We live in Central American, known now as Mexico, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.  Our people are known for their military strength, which allowed us to conquer all the tribes in what now is our enormous territory.  We believe in the god Huitzilopochtli, who is the god of war.  We believe that we had to sacrifice human flesh the Huitzilopochtli to keep the Sun from going out.  We often use captives from military conquests to be used as our sacrifices.   

Our society is broken into two social classes, the nobility and the commoners.  The nobility makes up only ten percent of our people.  Most of our wealth goes to the nobility.  This wealth comes mainly from tribute which we force conquered tribes to pay.  This tribute is in the form of goods such as food, gold, and even the humans themselves.    Over time we have acquired enough wealth to build great cities and to fill our storehouses with large amounts of treasures. 

Our main source of food, other than tribute goods is through the farming of our own maize, squash, and beans.  As our population has grown we used irrigation and converted mountainsides and swamps into usable farmland to sustain the population.   Our women use cotton to produce textiles such as clothing.  We also create pottery for cooking and religious affairs.  We use obsidian to create razor sharp tools and weapons that propel our society forward.  We have large marketplaces where we use cotton textiles and cocoa as currency for purchases, but like money. 

Our society lies in a brittle balance between us and our conquered territories.  We haveto make sure we keep control over them or else they could ally with other and revolt.  (The Spanish allies with the conquered tribe's peoples to take over the Mexica). 

Web Source:  

http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/1-CompleteSet/Smith-AztecCulture-WWW.pdf

Blog 1: Why History is Studied

Gilderhus gives many reasons why people study history; the following are a few of those reasons.  People can use historical events to help them explain their take on a situation to other people more clearly than if they had to make up a scenario.  An outcome to the situation then can be seen from history as well.  The second reason follows on the last.  Studying history can help prevent similar bad events from happening again, such as the 9/11 terrorist attack, which can be greatly prevented from happening again through security increases.  A third reason some people study history is for the sheer fun of learning about the past.  They can read about history kind of like they would a book and picture what it was like during those times.

I think that I probably use history to explain things I am trying to get across (although I cannot give an exact example).  It could be as simple as comparing a ship that sank the same way the Titanic did.  Instantly the person you are talking to knows that the ship probably hit an iceberg which damaged its hull and then sank.  The first thing I may remember about learning history is that I was taught that learning about history helps us from making the same mistakes again, which I still think is a very important aspect of learning about our history.  As for learning about history for the entertainment value of it, I am not that person.  One of my friend’s family is like this though.  If I have any general history questions I always go to them because they often spend time learning about history for fun.