Jackson: For the People?

In this lesson, we learned about Andrew Jackson and his policies regarding banks, Native Americans, and government officials. The essential question was: Is Andrew Jackson's long-standing reputation as "the people's president" deserved? Why or why not? To answer this, first we watched a Ted Ed video and a Crash Course video on Andrew Jackson. Then, we got into six groups of four and were assigned either the bank war, the spoils system, or the Indian Removal Act to make a presentation on in order to answer the essential question.

Jackson put the spoils system into place when he was in office. This replaced government officials with those who were loyal to Jackson. This often resulted in incompetence and inability in the workers. Jackson also used the military to collect taxes. The spoils system backfired on him when, even after being warned of his criminal record, he gave Samuel Swartwout a job. Swartwout then stole almost two million dollars from the government. Jackson also put the Indian Removal Act into place. This moved five tribes from their territories to the West along the infamous Trail of Tears. Jackson claimed he was moving the Indians because they die around white men; however, he ultimately satisfied the needs of white men for territory. Last but not least, Jackson fought with the Second National Bank. It was controlled by the rich, and he believed that they were taking advantage of the poor/lower classes. His main goal was to prevent the average American from being exploited. He thought that new and growing corporations would destroy small businesses. Therefore, he vetoed the bill that would extend the bank's charter. Doing this put Jackson at risk for losing his reelection, but he did it anyways because it was what he believed in. He ended up being reelected. However, after Jackson's presidency ended, the Panic of 1837 occurred because of his bank policies. You can look at our presentation on Jackson and the bank war down below.

As we can see, Andrew Jackson really had the right intentions when it came to his presidency. For the most part, he tried to protect the "average American" (meaning white men). However, his plans were poorly executed. Andrew Jackson was a "people's president" in the sense that he wanted and attempted to look out for the average American. However, he was not a people's president in the way he performed his duties. 

Latin American Revolutions

The essential question for this lesson was: Why is it essential to acknowledge human value regardless of race? How are the events in the Latin American Revolutions evidence of this social imperative? This is an important question to ask ourselves because when human value is not acknowledged, revolts and the destruction of nations can occur. We see this proven by the Latin American Revolutions. To learn about the cause and effects of the revolutions in Latin America, each group received a revolution to read about (Mexico, Gran Columbia, and Brazil) and make a timeline for and then shared with those in other groups.
This is the timeline we made for the Mexican Revolution. It explains how Napoleon's occupation of Spain led to Spanish American revolts and how, eventually, Mexico became a republic. Along the way, you see Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's impact and the treaties signed before the republic was put into place.

We made groups of 2 people from each revolution and presented our timelines to the other group members. Then, as a class, we discussed commonalities and differences between the revolutions. We noticed that all three revolutions were successful and took place in the early 1800s. However, we also noticed that the Brazilian Revolution was significantly less violent than the other two and that Gran Columbia ended up splitting into several independent countries.

Though many people preach racial equality, a lot of times there is still judgment regarding race. It never really ended. Just this past week, the very controversial Ferguson case was in the news. It's important to consider the issue of race because riots can still occur and lives can be lost.