Quite the adjustment from Colorado to Virginia! Your comments echo many of those made by the group. We, perhaps, didn’t let slave owners of the hook quite as much. Especially as slavery became more established in the 1800s and more people throughout the US began calling for the abolition of the institution.

It’s interesting that several founding fathers (Jefferson, Washington) wrote that slavery is wrong but just couldn’t bring themselves to give it up.

As one participant suggested, Jefferson liked his French wine too much!

Perhaps we focus too much on slavery and not enough on the “institution” of racism. Let’s not worry, as you suggest, so much on whether or not someone owned slaves but whether or not they are racist.

Interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing.

glennw

With that, I don’t think you can judge slave owners as good or bad just because they owned slaves. Again, being that it was legal and condoned (not always a normal combination) I think you have to look at the actions of the slave owner (and other people) at the time. Some slave owners treated their slaves very well, some didn’t. Some people who didn’t own slaves were still racist. Whose better: the kind slave owner or the racist, poor farmer?

As for Jefferson, Washington, and other founding fathers that owned slaves, I don’t think you can judge their slave holding against them. These were great Americans who benefiting the nation as a whole. I think it’s important to realize that people who had an overall benefit to our nation are considered great despite issues like slavery and other personal failings. As for a more modern example, should we negate Martin Luther King’s role in our history b/c of affairs? Absolutely not.

Thanks for the heads-up on ToonDo! Looks useful. I wll pass it on.

Love your site btw! Fun!

glennw

I really like kids creating their own tours in GE! This is one the powerful pieces of the tool.

How do your kids use it? Do you have examples to share?

(like your site! Already checking out TimeToast)

glennw

Sorry for losing (for a bit) your longer post! My spam filter stuck your first post in the bad box for some reason.

Thanks for your thoughts! It’s a question I often asked my students and while historians are much more concerned about finding the “answer,” for my kids is was a great way to hook them into a great discussion.

We also talked about the political aspect quite a bit yesterday and I agree with you - socially maybe not a big change at the time but politically a huge change that allowed the social changes to occur over time.

Thanks again for posting twice!

glennw

1) Since it changed from diplomacy to war over a 10 year period, where only war resulted in the desired economic and political change the Colonists wanted,
2) it was the first successful attempt to become free as a colony (thus, maybe comparing it to France and Russia since those could be considered Civil Wars since the colonial factor isn’t involved
3) The French and Russian Revolutions could also be seen as socialist revolutions where as ours is a democratic revolution (I borrowed that idea)
4) Ours was the first to stress the idea of individual liberty, freedoms, and limited government, surely these ideas are not only revolutionary ideas, but also ideas that spawned other revolutionary movements
5) While it’s true that the upper class led the revolution and stayed there afterward, wasn’t it the US that adopted egalitarianism and “the common man?”
6) I think it’s tough to redefine the term b/c at the time it occurred, it was revolutionary and changed the entire world, leading to anti-Colonialism everywhere. Sure, once other nations follow suit, adding to and morphing the idea of revolution, it’s easy to use new definitions to redefine things. However, at the time, everyone would have agreed, even women and slaves, that this was revolutionary. Thus, the title still fits. However, I think it’s valuable to ask because it allows us to look at the other great, “revolutionary” aspect of the US, which is the fact that this nation seeks change and handles change much better than most other nations. It may not come as fast as those seeking change want, but it almost always happens.

These ideas were mostly found at http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/revolution/revoxx.htm, which gives pros and cons to the question, where the pro-revolution side is assumed.