Who is Abdul Rahman

Who is Abdul Rahman? 

Blood of a Prince, Life of a Slave

Taken

Abdul Rahman was a prince in Africa when one day on his way home from a battle he was captured by a rival tribe. They brought him and some of his men to the coast and sold him to slave traders in exchange for guns, gunpowder, tobacco and rum. He was taken across the Atlantic in the cargo hold of a slave ship then sold to a man named Thomas Foster for a few hundred pesos.

The Return

After a year on Thomas Fosters farm he escaped and was on the run for weeks. Eventually he came to grips with the fact that he had no food, no shelter and no place to run. He was also a religious man and believed that god had a plan for him. So after a few weeks on the run he returned willingly to the Foster farm. Normally slaves were forced to return to their owners and would be severely punished upon arrival for fleeing but because Abdul Rahman returned willingly Thomas Foster decided not to punish him.

Bittersweet Victory

When Abdul Rahman was old Thomas Foster finally decided that he would free Rahman, mainly because he was too old to do any real plantation work, on the condition that he return to Africa so he may not enjoy the freedoms the United States had to offer. Unfortunately this meant that he would have to leave his family. He eventually raised enough money to free his wife. They would spend the next few years campaigning to free their children.

Return Home

After months of campaigning they had to abandon the idea of liberating their kids so they decided to return home to Africa. He took a passenger ship with a comfortable cabin back to Africa but they only take him as far as Liberia. He stayed in Liberia for a few months then fell ill and died. He never made it all the way home.

Bibliography: Prince Among Slaves. Dr. Bill Duke & Andrea Kalin. PBS. 2008

Image URL: http://webfuuta.net/pas/alfa_abdul_rahman.jpg

With the improvement of the steam engine the length of transit between London and other major British cities decreased substantially. In most cases the trips were 1/4 of the original time, like the trip from Birmingham to London, if not less, like the trip from York to London. Other factors were also involved with the trips decreasing like the ability to lay down track in harder places that is why the trip from Manchester and York to London when originally the trip to York was longer. 

Communism Vs. Capitalism

In class we did a lesson where we were given Hershey Kisses to "spend" (by playing rock paper scissors). This lesson was pretty fun because we got to compete to move up in the class room hierarchy. The frustration came when we modeled capitalism. It was frustrating because some people got to start out with lots of Kisses and others did get many at all.

Marx wanted to give the people equal opportunity to have money so that no one had to be starving. He believed that if given the chance the people would share and help each other. Smith believed that if the government left the economy alone it would fluctuate and then balance out into a stable state.

Communism is the best theory on paper because it keeps people from starving and lowers poverty rates. Neither is a good solution though because they both have major inconveniences. Communism is good in theory but when it has been used in the past it has always ended in tyranny and dictatorship. The invisible hand is good in concept but without some government aid the economy takes a long time to level out. A better solution is capitalism with government aid because then the people have control over economic growth and development but the power ever shifts to far to one side.

Child Labor Seminar Reflection

In today's class we had a socratic seminar about the issue of child labor across the world. We discussed specific topics such as "Would you buy things made with child labor?" And "How much should children play a role in making decisions about whether or not they should work".

During the seminar I mentioned how I had always assumed that child labor had made a much larger decline than it really had. Also I brought up how I found it surprising that Africa had the largest rate of child labor, I imagined that China would have been the largest offender given the fact that pretty much anything mass produced that you buy in America has the a little label on it that says MADE IN CHINA. I also mentioned that realistically I would buy something made with child labor because there is no label on it that says "Warning the shirt was made with child labor" but if it came down to is it right to buy something made through the abuse and pain of children then I would not.

Anthony suggested that if they made a law that required companies that make things using child labor to put a label on their product that says "Made on the backs of children" people might be more weary of what they buy. In addition someone gave a suggestion that if America outlawed the use of child labor children it would at least improve things in the U.S. and maybe set an example for other countries.

During the seminar we did a good job of making suggestions on what could be done to stop child labor. We also did a good job keeping the conversation going, there were always answers to the questions and always more answers. I think that in the future we could reference the text more, we did reference it during our recent seminar but not as often as we should have. In the future it would be better if we had more time, we had good dialogue but a lot of things didn't get covered because we ran out of time.