Blog #2

To be honest, chapter 4 was a bit difficult for me to get through, although chapter 5 was alright. There was so much information on every single page that I turned to. What was surprising to me, however, was the diversity of cultures that developed in America. Everyone wanted to be a part of America and several groups of people migrated, some benefitting from new gains more than others. It was clever of the author to break down the chapters into smaller sections, with each being dedicated to a particular ethnicity. But overall, I found myself having to reread a few sections multiple times in order to differentiate one ethnic group from another.

            The piece of information on who were the people who founded the first successful European colony in America was new to me. I have always thought of Jamestown as the first settlement. It was definitely  eye-opening info to read that the Spanish explorers were actually the first Europeans that navigated across the United States. I’m not sure if I have been taught this before or it might’ve somehow slipped my mind.

            Something else that surprised me was reading the paragraph that claimed Benjamin Franklin to be racist. He was one of “Pennsylvania’s non-German majority” (Daniels, 109). Apparently, one of the reasons for his dislike of the Germans was because they had upset him by supporting his enemies in several elections. It’s hard to believe that such a memorable figure in history was associated with racism! All his ambitious works and brilliant inventions were all spoken of in elementary and middle school, yet the negative side of this man was rarely unveiled. It just makes me realize that humans are humans after all, and that written history can sometimes be quite biased.