History - Semester Essay

Dakota Bush

History Speech

Evolution

“Ah, so this is the class of the ever-so ferocious Mrs. Lawson,” Dakota thought to himself as he stumbled into the unfamiliar classroom. “Here I am to begin my great journey on the conquest of knowledge through the examination of history over the United States, and may it hopefully be a fascinating and joyous adventure.”

After his first history class had come to an end, Dakota understood the difficulties that this class would bring him to encounter. The first issue was the rule of “no talking,” which he had discovered while in his first few history classes. In these classes was one of his friends by the name of John. Initially, Dakota would sit by John in every history class and continue speaking to him throughout the class, despite many warnings to stop the repeated dialogue. Should these conversations between them not cease, the chattering students would be separated and assigned seats. Of course, just little over a week into the school year, this warning had finally come true, as the two students were promptly moved. However, through this isolation (more specifically being the corner of the room for which he was assigned to be seated), Dakota had reached a state of tranquility, as he discovered a foresight towards historical education while also proving to show a development within class involvement.

The first topic that was studied in class was based around the Reconstruction Era, following the Civil War. This period after the Civil War was focused on attempting to reunite the nation and its people, while it was also revolving around the controversial subject of slavery. However, this topic came and went quite hastily as, seeing as it was only the beginning of the year, Dakota had typically been “zoned-out,” per se.

The following topic was that of the West and the Native Americans. This topic Dakota had perceived as the most compelling, as it was one for which, upon further inspection, revealed many concealed facts about the United States, and ones that point to the nation that is regarded as the “land of opportunity” (being the most advanced and diverse nation), as none other than a civilization born from the genocide of one race and upon the shackles of another. It was only after he chose and researched the assigned topic for his project (with that topic being the Concentration Policy), that Dakota saw the true and dark nature of humans through their wretched campaign for land. Through his research, he was quite disgusted to find out that up to 100 million Native Americans had been killed in North America since the arrival of Europeans, whether it was from disease that was carried over to the America’s, or from the pure decimation and near annihilation of their race by the hands of our “founding fathers.” However, despite all of this bloodshed brought by the founding Europeans, none of this had been mentioned in the history textbook for which Dakota was reading. As for Dakota’s opinion, the reason for this was that America needed to be portrayed as a near-perfect society, instead of one that committed the largest holocaust throughout history.

His research about the Native American Genocide revealed to Dakota as something that would surely be remembered for many years, and something for which he could easily discuss again in the late future. Having such a strong opinion on the matter, he doubted the thought that it would be simply forgotten and erased from his mind, as not only was this topic discussed when the idea of our “founding fathers” had been brought to people’s attention (as people would differ opinions on early Europeans being the founding fathers, or the Native Americans which had been there for many centuries preceding their arrival), but every year, the problem has been reminded to a multitude of Americans by the celebration of Columbus Day, an event that is based upon the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival to the “New World” (as he named it) and how to many Americans, it proves to be a day of remembrance of our founding fathers and how we began as a nation, while to others, it depicts how, in reality, we walked into someone else’s home and called it our own.

The topic that was studied after this was the focus of industrialization of the American nation, leading into the next chapter that explained more specifically the assimilation of the foreign individuals which led the industrial system. Through this topic, Dakota had found it to be quite remarkable to learn about the persistence of female individuals throughout their crusade for equal rights and opportunities, socially and economically. He never fully understood the extent that they had went through to fulfill their promise at attaining a more equalized pay for all women across the nation. Through these several campaigns towards an equal society and a more modernized nation (even though a seemingly endless process), one word may fit: Evolution. Through many failures and successes (specifically during the time period of 1865-1920), it is evolution that strives for the betterment of people as an entire entity, creating the American nation. Through the attempts at abolishing child labor, or the battles towards a better pay for workers, or even the dispute over equality between genders and races, whether they fail or succeed, for better or for worse, they progress the nation through learning from their mistakes, thus creating a failsafe against that same mistake and a better knowledge of overcoming similar adversity and hardship in the future, all in an effort to lead the nation through the process of evolution.