1

HISTORY 102ESSAYS ON HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS

You will be required to submit three (3) four to five page typewritten essays (double-spaced) during the semester, based on your reading and interpretation of historic primary and secondary source documents.

The first involves the analysis of a primary source document, using the textbook and class lectures as aids in understanding the context and purpose of the document, as well as its major points.

The second involves comparing and contrasting primary source documents and placing them within an historical context, using both the textbook and class lectures to support your work.

The third requires you to support a thesis based on relevant primary and secondary source documents, including the textbook and class lectures.

You may also consult other sources beside the textbook and class lectures if you feel it necessary. If you do, please be sure and cite them in the body of your essay.

Your essays should be written clearly and concisely, and developed logically.

Assistance with the mechanics of writing your essay may be found on a drop-in basis at the Writing Center (Humanities 122). Bring this handout to the Writing Center and your work in progress.

ESSAY # 1 ANALYSIS OF AN HISTORICAL DOCUMENT

DENNIS KEARNEY “OUR MISERY AND DESPAIR” 1878

Dennis Kearney was an Irish immigrant who came to California in 1868. He became active in the labor movement in 1877 and served as Secretary and, later, President of the Workingmen’s Association in San Francisco. He worked for the success of the political party formed by its members and began and ended every speech by saying “The Chinese Must Go.” In 1878 he exhorted working people with an address entitled “Our Misery and Despair.”

***********************************************************************

Read and analyze Dennis Kearney's 1878 exhortation "Our Misery and Despair." Consider the following questions as you do so:

* Who is Kearney referring to when he speaks of those who used the "flag of slavery" against workers?

* Who does he believe is currently exploiting white workers and how are they using the Chinese in this effort?

* What does he believe the enemies of workers have done to the nation and to California in particular?

* What political action does he advocate for workers?

* What are the characteristics and behavior of the Chinese that make them a threat to white workers?

* What is happening to whites, according to Kearney, as a result of Chinese competition?

* Does Kearney spell out what should be done to the Chinese who are already living in California?

* What is the real goal, according to Kearney, of those who oppress the workers? What would they ultimately like to do to them?

In reading the text and discussions in lecture, consider the following:

When and why did Chinese immigrants come to California? What kind of work had they been doingwhich was no longer available to them in 1878?How were the Chinese supporting themselves? What events had taken place from 1873 to 1878, which had a major negative impact on white workers and on their efforts to form effective labor unions that could obtain better working conditions and salaries?

______

Our moneyed men have ruled us for the past thirty years. Under the flag of the slaveholder they hoped to destroy our liberty. Failing in that, they have rallied under the banner of the millionaire, the banker and the land monopolist, the railroad king and the false politician, to effect their purpose.

We have permitted them to become immensely rich against all sound republican policy, and they have turned upon us to sting us to death. They have seized upon the government by bribery and corruption. They have made speculation and public robbery a science. They have loaded the nation, the state, the county, and the city with debt. They have stolen the public lands. They have grasped all to themselves, and by their unprincipled greed brought a crisis of unparalleled distress on forty millions of people, who have natural resources to feed, clothe and shelter the whole human race.

Such misgovernment, such mismanagement, may challenge the whole world for intense stupidity, and would put to shame the darkest tyranny of the barbarous past.

We, here in California, feel it as well as you. We feel that the day and hour has come for the Workingmen of America to depose capital and put Labor in the Presidential chair, in the Senate and Congress, in the State House, and on the Judicial Bench. We are with you in this work. Workingmen must form a party of their own, take charge of the government, dispose gilded fraud, and put honest toil in power.

In our golden state all these evils have been intensified. Land monopoly has seized upon all the best soil in this fair land. A few men own from ten thousand to two hundred thousand acres each. The poor Laborer can find no resting place, save on the barren mountain, or in the trackless desert. Money monopoly has reached its grandest proportions. Here, in San Francisco, the palace of the millionaire looms up above the hovel of the starving poor with as wide a contrast as anywhere on earth.

To add to our misery and despair, a bloated aristocracy has sent to China—the greatest and oldest despotism in the world—for a cheap working slave. It rakes the slums of Asia to find the meanest slave on earth—the Chinese coolie—and imports him here to meet the free American in the Labor market, and still further widen the breach between the rich and the poor, still further to degrade white Labor.

These cheap slaves fill every place. Their dress is scant and cheap. Their food is rice from China. They hedge twenty in a room, ten by ten. They are whipped curs, abject in docility, mean, contemptible and obedient in all things. They have no wives, children or dependents.

They are imported by companies, controlled as serfs, worked like slaves, and at last go back to China with all their earnings. They are in every place, they seem to have no sex. Boys work, girls work; it is all alike to them.

The father of a family is met by them at every turn. Would he get work for himself? Ah! A stout Chinaman does it cheaper. Will he get a place for his oldest boy? He can not. His girl? Why, the Chinaman is in her place too! Every door is closed. He can only go to crime or suicide, his wife and daughter to prostitution, and his boys to hoodlumism and the penitentiary.

Do not believe those who call us savages, rioters, incendiaries, and outlaws. We seek our ends calmly, rationally, at the ballot box. So far good order has marked all our proceedings. But, we know how false, how inhuman, our adversaries are. We know that if gold, if fraud, if force can defeat us, they will all be used. And we have resolved that they shall not defeat us. We shall arm. We shall meet fraud and falsehood with defiance, and force with force, if need be.

We are men, and propose to live like men in this free land, without the contamination of slave labor, or die like men, if need be, in asserting the rights of our race, our country, and our families.

California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so. May we not rely upon your sympathy and assistance?

With great respect for the Workingman’s Party of California.

Dennis Kearney, President

H.L Knight, Secretary

ESSAY #2 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST

The 1960’s and 1970’s was a period of great unrest in the United States, with minority and oppressed groups of all kinds asserting themselves and demanding their civil and human rights. The largest group pressing for change was the African-American and the period saw milestone legislation passed in the area of civil rights.

However, many African-Americans felt that civil rights legislation did not adequately address the problems of black people. One such group was the Black Panthers.

At the same time, many other groups were inspired by the civil rights movement and began to organize and assert their own demands. Most notable were women, homosexuals, American Indians, and Chicanos,each of whom spelled out why they felt oppressed andoutlined their demands for change:

Below you will find documents from each of the above-mentioned groups. Read them and then compare and contrast anytwoof these groups.

  • What are the complaints of each group and are they similar or different?
  • What are the major demands of each and are they the same in some instances but different in others?
  • How do the groups plan to go about having their demands met and are they similar or different?
  • Do the groups see a need to work with other groups to obtain their goals and, if, so with which groups?
  • Indicatewhether you think the condition of the groups you choose to write about has improved over the last fifty years and, if so, how.

BLACK POWER MOVEMENT

The Black Panther Party was established in Oakland, California in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, in response to police violence against black people and the deplorable unemployment, poverty, and substandard housing conditions of the inner city. Departing from the integrationist, non-violent approach of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Panthers espoused what became labeled a demand for “Black Power.”

PLATFORM AND PROGRAM OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY, 1966

WHAT WE WANT WHAT WE BELIEVE

WE WANT freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community. WE BELIEVE that black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.

WE WANT full employment for our people. WE BELIEVE that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the white American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.

WE WANT an end to the robbery by the CAPITALIST of our Black Community. WE BELIEVE that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.

WE WANT decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings. WE BELIEVE that if the white landlords will not give decent housing to our black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.

WE WANT education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society. WE BELIEVE in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.

WE WANT all black men to be exempt from military service. WE BELIEVE that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.

WE WANT an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black people. WE BELIEVE we can end police brutality in our black community by organizing black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all black people should arm themselves for self- defense.

WE WANT freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails. WE BELIEVE that all black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.

WE WANT land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.

WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

WE HOLD these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

************************************************************************

WOMENS’ RIGHTS MOVEMENT

The National Organization for Women was established in 1966 in Washington, D.C. and continues to be a national organization. The organization was established as a result of the failure of the federal government to adequately enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 dealing with sex discrimination in employment. Betty Friedan, who had written The Feminine Mystique in 1963—describing the frustration of women who were trapped in prescribed roles and unable to attain self-actualization and fulfillment-- and Pauli Murray, the first African-American female Episcopalian minister, co-wrote the organization’s Statement of Purpose. This document called for women to enjoy the full equality of opportunity and free choice as men.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE OF THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN, 1966

We, men and women who hereby constitute ourselves as the National Organization for Women, believe that the time has come for a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the world-wide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our national borders.

The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.

We believe the time has come to move beyond the abstract argument, discussion and symposia over the status and special nature of women which has raged in America in recent years; the time has come to confront, with concrete action, the conditions that now prevent women from enjoying the equality of opportunity and freedom of choice which is their right, as individual Americans, and as human beings.