Sean Walker

November 29^th, 2016

Dr. Tracey Penny Light

HIST 1120

Reading Log #10

What is History, And How Do We do It

History is complicated, no doubt about that. It always was and always will be. There are many different things that make history complicated, from having to verify sources and the endless search for just the right document to making sure all your work is properly cited, but history isn’t just the endless hours of research. History is also the wonder that you can discover hidden in the annals of some forgotten clerks forgotten journal, or the amazement of the ingenuity of the indigenous people that had been lost to us for generations and would continue to be lost for generations more, if it wasn’t for historians of all types, pulling all the long days and even longer nights. We would have no stories to tell, no lessons to give, no respect for our ancestors. So when you look at a history textbook, be grateful that there are historians who go through the trouble of compiling all of the necessary topic information into one place.

How do we do history? that is a tough question because I don’t think there is one right way “to do history”. In fact I believe that there are a great many ways one can “do History”, sll it comes down to is what type of work you want to do and how much of that work you are willing to put in. for work at a archeological dig sit you would obviously have to be willing to be out in the field for extended periods of time, this in of it’s self is an ambitious ask, as in the field you cant expect to have easy access to things like running water, electricity, or even indoor plumbing.

Or if field work isn’t really your style you could try being a teacher or professor of history in a school. Of course that also comes with its own level of hard work required, you may end up staying up for long periods of time either grading papers or making presentations or writing out lesson plans. No matter which way you go in being a historian you will have to work hard for it, there is no such thing as an easy way to successes.

Sean Walker

November 15^th, 2016

Dr. Tracey Penny Light

HIST 1120

Reading log #9

Morgan’s “‘In search of the phantom misnamed honour'” and Bown’s, “Pistols at Six O’clock”

Duelling, the practice of meeting another at an arranged meeting to settle personal disputes (often to regain one’s honor) through a fight following a list of set procedures, most often with lethal weapons, such as swords or pistols. Duelling fell out of popularity as a way to settle disputes before the dawn of the twentieth century, mainly because society was changing, duels were fought between two men of Gentlemanly status, as the number of men who were considered Gentlemen fell so did the number of duels. But why what were the causes of duels. Challenges could be declared for a great many things, some examples include insulting one’s wife, insulting one’s honor, or even for applying for one’s job. We have many sources to show that duels happened for these reasons, many of them primary sources and many of them secondary sources. One of the secondary sources is an article written for The Beaver, a Canadian history magazine, it is called “Pistols at six O’ clock” and it was written by Stephen Bown. “Pistols at six O’ clock” tells us of the unfortunate series of events that lead to the duel between John Wilson and Robert Lyon, ultimately leading to the death of Robert Lyon. I do not wish to tell the whole story so I shall try to summarize for you, John Wilson was a student-at-law in the town of Perth, Upper Canada in 1833, and he was quite enamoured with a primary School Teachers assistant, and gentlewoman by the name of Elizabeth Hughes, but felt that she wouldn’t reciprocate his feelings because of his low birth status. He had heard from another law student, Robert Lyon, that Elizabeth had been having liaisons and flirtatious meetings with a man by the name of Henry Lelievre. Lamenting on his predicament he wrote a letter to another student-at-law and friend Gideon Ackland about his troubles, Gideon shared the letter with Johns patron, who told Elizabeth’s family, thus tarnishing her reputation. When confronted Lyon said he only said things in jest, and caught in in the middle of a scandal as a gossip Lyon was very angry, mainly at John. Lyon Knocked John to the street and John, sensitive about his low birth challenged Lyon to a duel. John ended up winning, getting arrested for murder, getting acquitted, and living a long and successful life. What this [1]document does is show us what can cause a duel, while also showing us some interesting social issues of the time, such as the Class Gap, what was considered improper conduct for a Gentlewoman and public reaction to things like scandal and deaths by duel.

[1] Bibliography

Bown, Stephen R. “Pistols at Six O’clock.” Beaver 79, no. 4 (August 1999): 22. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 15, 2016).

 

Sean Walker

November 8^th, 2016

Dr. Tracey Penny Light

HIST 1120

Reading Log #8

Greer, “From Folklore to Revolution”

Depending on who you are, you may see the practice of the Charivari as a harmless piece of folklore tradition that is important to local history and the well being of a community, or you may see it as a barbaric practice that is harmful to its victims and a detriment to society, but no matter who you are it is hard to deny that there is a connection between the tradition of Charivari and the forcing of commissions from Canadian- British loyalist’s by patriots.

The first piece of evidence that you will have to see is accounts from an Englishman who is observing a Charivari and a victim of patriot mobs. The first account will be from an Englishman who is observing the event in question take place “The young men assemble at some friend’s house, and disguise themselves… having provided a coffin and large paper lanthorns, in the evening they sally out… They proceed to the dwelling of the new married couple, performing discordantly on drums, fifes, horns, and tin pots”[1]. Now we look at the second account, this one from a lieutenant in the militia, by the name of Dudley Summers. Now he says that a group of gentlemen came to his house one afternoon and “demanded my commission”[2], the good lieutenant did not give up his commission but that only caused the gentlemen to return that night and in his own words “they began yelling in the most frightful manner. And threw stones at my house and broke the greatest part of my windows.”[3]. Now they may seem different and they are in some ways there are a lot of similarities such as the yelling and insults, they would also continue to return until Dudley fell to their demands much like the people who are part of a Charivari would return until they let them into their home.

There is a lot of speculation in this essay, and while it is speculation backed up with firsthand accounts, it is still speculation. So I encourage you to go to the article and read for yourself and come to your own conclusions

[1] Bibliography

Greer, Allan. “From Folklore to Revolution: Charivaris and the Lower Canadian Rebellion of 1837.” Social History, 1990., 25, JSTOR Journals, EBSCOhost (accessed November 8, 2016). Pg.26

 

[2] Pg.37

[3] Pg.37

Bibliography

Greer, Allan. “From Folklore to Revolution: Charivaris and the Lower Canadian Rebellion of 1837.” Social History, 1990., 25, JSTOR Journals, EBSCOhost (accessed November 8, 2016).

 

Sean Walker

October 18^th, 2016

Dr. Tracey Penny Light

HIST 1120

Reading Log #6

Cooper’s Acts of Resistance

There was a great divide between the people of Upper Canada on the issue of slavery, many thought that it should be abolished and all of the slaves emancipated, while many others thought that the slaves were in their rightful place, that they were nothing more than cattle, things to be bought, sold, or traded at the leisure of their masters. Now in this day and age we know that the act of enslaving somebody against their will and for your own personal gain is an abhorrent practice, but that does not mean that looking at slavery in Canada and America and how it helped to shape the future is not important to history, in fact it would be ignorant to think so.

What about it is so important to look at, why is it so important to look at. Well it is important to observe and guess because if we do not do that then there is a chance that we will fall to the same vices that they did. We might be able to find new evidence that shows the way to as of yet undiscovered heroes of the underground railroad and maybe even the American Revolution. We may find documents or objects that point to the involvement of an Indigenous Band that we previously thought stayed well away from the bustling of the white cities.

We will probably never know the full details of the slave trade of Canada, but that is why there are historians, the people who dedicate their lives in the pursuit of knowledge of the past and make it their solemn duty to bring that knowledge forth and educate the masses on the wonders and mistakes of the past, so that the wonders be ever growing and the mistakes never repeating.

 

Bibliography

Cooper, Afua. “ACTS OF RESISTANCE: BLACK MEN ND WOMEN ENGAGE SLAVERY IN UPPER CANADA, 1793-1803.” Ontario History 99, no. 1 (Spring2007 2007): 5. Supplemental Index, EBSCOhost (accessed October 18, 2016).

 

Sean Walker

October 18^th, 2016

Dr. Tracey Penny Light

HIST 1120

Reading Log #6

Cooper’s Acts of Resistance

There was a great divide between the people of Upper Canada on the issue of slavery, many thought that it should be abolished and all of the slaves emancipated, while many others thought that the slaves were in their rightful place, that they were nothing more than cattle, things to be bought, sold, or traded at the leisure of their masters. Now in this day and age we know that the act of enslaving somebody against their will and for your own personal gain is an abhorrent practice, but that does not mean that looking at slavery in Canada and America and how it helped to shape the future is not important to history, in fact it would be ignorant to think so.

What about it is so important to look at, why is it so important to look at. Well it is important to observe and guess because if we do not do that then there is a chance that we will fall to the same vices that they did. We might be able to find new evidence that shows the way to as of yet undiscovered heroes of the underground railroad and maybe even the American Revolution. We may find documents or objects that point to the involvement of an Indigenous Band that we previously thought stayed well away from the bustling of the white cities.

We will probably never know the full details of the slave trade of Canada, but that is why there are historians, the people who dedicate their lives in the pursuit of knowledge of the past and make it their solemn duty to bring that knowledge forth and educate the masses on the wonders and mistakes of the past, so that the wonders be ever growing and the mistakes never repeating.

 

Bibliography

Cooper, Afua. “ACTS OF RESISTANCE: BLACK MEN ND WOMEN ENGAGE SLAVERY IN UPPER CANADA, 1793-1803.” Ontario History 99, no. 1 (Spring2007 2007): 5. Supplemental Index, EBSCOhost (accessed October 18, 2016).

 

Sean Walker

October 11^th, 2016

Dr. Tracey Pennylight

HIST 1120

Reading Log #5

Acadians and Their Story

The Acadians have a really quite interesting history and story to tell us, and all it takes is a couple of google searches to find the right stuff. The Acadians were a people who were descended from the French but through generations of Acadians being born in New France started to develop their own culture and their own cultural identity that was separate from the French.

It was when Samuel De Champlain moved to Port Royal (now Annapolis Royal) in 1605, that really got the ball rolling for the development of the Acadian Cultural Identity. It is because of Champlain moving to Port Royal that caused a lot of what would become Acadian families to move to the countryside surrounding Port Royal, in just a few years Port Royal would become a major Acadian town. By the 1630’s The Acadians were already starting to develop a cultural identity centered around farming, hunting, and fishing. One of the main tenants of Acadian society is that they wanted to stay neutral in any wars between the French an the British, even though the Acadian lands changed ownership between the French and the British quite often.

When the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713 and the Spanish war of succession ended, all of Acadians on Nova Scotia were made into British citizens, while the Acadians who resided on Le royal (Cape Breton) and Le Saint Jean (Prince Edward Island) remained French. Although the Acadians were now separated by new national boundaries, that did not have as much impact on how they should think about their now “foreign” Countrymen.

While the Acadians have a long and often tragic history, their descendants, whether those descendants be the Cajuns of Louisiana or the various small Acadian settlements still present on present day Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, keep the traditions and the cultural values of their Ancestors thriving to this day

Bibliography

CBC. (2016, january 16). The Acadians. Retrieved from The Acadians: http://www.cbc.ca/acadian/index.html

 

 

Sean Walker

October 3^rd, 2016

Dr. Tracey Pennyligt

HIST 1120

Reading log #4

Noel’s “‘Nagging Wife’ Revisited” and Leduc’s “A Fille du Roi’s Passage”

Woman’s role in the world as been developing and changing for a very long time, since the advent of civilization. It is just recently that women’s rights have had such a resurgence, this meaning that there was a great change in how the modern woman expects to live, compared to how the women of 100 or 200 years ago expected to live. The two articles that were just presented to the class do a rather good job at showing us ho the women of those era’s lived, worked and what they were expected to do with their lives.

In The Nagging Wife, Noel adequately shows us that that what we think of when we imagine a 17^th or 18^th century women aren’t exactly right. We might think of the 17^th century noble’s wife who gave the husband children and that was it, or we might think of the late 19^th century industrial revolution peasant women working in a factory for 15 hours out of the day. While both of those examples probably did exist at some point, it wasn’t always like that and it wasn’t like that every where. For a long time, it wasn’t all that strange to see women in the fields harvesting, or in the barn milking the cows. Swedish traveler Peter Kalm put it excellently when he said “I confess I rubbed my eyes several times to make them clear, because I could not believe I saw aright, when I first came here . . . and saw the farmers’ houses full of young women, while the men, on the contrary, went out both morning and evening to where the cattle were, milk-pail in hand, sat down to milk. . .. In short, when one enters a house and has seen the women cooking, washing floors, plates and dishes, darning a stocking or sewing a chemise, he has, in fact, seen all their economy. . .. Nearly all the evening occupations which our women in Sweden perform are neglected by them” Kalm said this on a trip to England. On the other hand, during his first trip to Canada he remarked that the role that women played in providing for their family were much the same as preindustrial Sweden, were the wife has no less role than the husband in caring for the family or the fields.

The examples shown in the two texts show that what we thought of the role of women in history was not exactly right, while right in many places, they were wrong in many others.

Bibliography

Noel, Jan. “‘Nagging Wife’ Revisited: Women and the Fur Trade in New France.” French Colonial History, 2006., 45, JSTOR Journals, EBSCOhost (accessed October 4, 2016).

Leduc, Adrienne. “A Fille du Roi’s Passage.” Beaver 81, no. 1 (February 2001): 20. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed October 4, 2016).