1.
Claverack, New York
–
Claverack is a town in Columbia County, New York, United States. The population was 6,021 at the 2010 census, the town name is a corruption for the Dutch word for Clover Fields or Clover Reach. In 1705, the first discovery of a mastodon tooth occurred here, the town is centrally located in Columbia County, east of the city of Hudson. Claverack was originally approximately 60,000 acres in area and was known as the Lower Manor of Rensselaer, the town was formed in 1778 from the older District of Claverack. In 1782, the town lost some of its land to the new town of Hillsdale, the town was reduced again in 1785 to form the city of Hudson. In 1779 Washington Seminary was founded in the town by the local Dutch Reformed pastor, prominent former students at the school include U. S. President Martin Van Buren. In the nineteenth century the school was renamed Claverack College, the many 18th century homes in the area include the 1786 William Henry Ludlow House. Daniela Bertol, Italian-born architect, designer and artist Aaron Burr, mihail Chemiakin, a Russian artist Elizabeth Mumbet Freeman was born here. Ismail Merchant and James Ivory owned property in Claverack and were supportive of local interests. Margaret Sanger attended the former Claverack College for two years, john J. Tallmadge was born here. Martin Van Buren was admitted to the bar here, the first known mastodon tooth found in the new world was discovered here in 1705. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 48.0 square miles, of which 47.6 square miles is land and 0.39 square miles. Claverack Creek enters the town at the hamlet of Mellenville and runs southwest before turning north, taghkanic Creek is a major tributary from the south and forms the western boundary of the town before entering Claverack Creek. The Taconic State Parkway passes north-south through the side of the town. As of the census of 2000, there were 6,401 people,2,485 households, the population density was 134.3 people per square mile. There were 2,839 housing units at a density of 59.6 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 93. 95% White,3. 31% African American,0. 20% Native American,0. 36% Asian,0. 06% Pacific Islander,0. 78% from other races, and 1. 33% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2. 47% of the population,26. 4% of all households were made up of individuals and 13. 3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older
2.
Province of New York
–
The majority of this land was soon reassigned by the Crown, leaving territory that included the valleys of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, and Vermont. The territory of western New York was Iroquois land, also disputed between the English colonies and New France, and that of Vermont was disputed with the Province of New Hampshire, the province resulted from the Dutch Republic surrender of Provincie Nieuw-Nederland to the Kingdom of England in 1664. Immediately after, the province was renamed for James, Duke of York, the colony was one of the Middle Colonies, and ruled at first directly from England. British claims on any part of New York ended with the Treaty of Paris of 1783, after the American Revolution, the former colony became the State of New York. This British crown colony was established upon the former Dutch colony of New Netherland, with its core being York Shire, in what today is typically known as Downstate New York. The Province of New York was divided into counties on November 1,1683, by New York Governor Thomas Dongan, Albany County. Also claimed the area, later disputed, that is now Vermont, in addition, as there was no fixed western border to the colony, Albany County technically extended to the Pacific Ocean. Most of this land, which was Indian land for most of the history, has now been ceded to other states. Cornwall County, that part of Maine between the Kennebec River and the St. Croix River from the Atlantic Ocean to the St. Lawrence River, ceded to the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1692. Dukes County, the Elizabeth Islands, Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket Island east of Long Island, Dutchess County, now Dutchess and Putnam counties. Kings County, the current Kings County, Brooklyn, New York County, the current New York County, Manhattan. Orange County, now Orange and Rockland counties, Queens County, now Queens and Nassau counties. Richmond County, the current Richmond County, Staten Island, Suffolk County, the current Suffolk County. Ulster County, now Ulster and Sullivan counties and part of what is now Delaware, Westchester County, now Bronx and Westchester counties. On March 24,1772, Tryon County was formed out of Albany County and it was renamed Montgomery County in 1784, with a later division to Herkimer County around Little Falls. Charlotte County was formed out of Albany County and it was renamed Washington County in 1784. In 1617 officials of the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland created a settlement at present-day Albany, New Amsterdam surrendered to Colonel Richard Nicholls on August 27,1664, he renamed it New York. On September 24 Sir George Carteret accepted the capitulation of the garrison at Fort Orange, the capture was confirmed by the Treaty of Breda in July 1667
3.
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
–
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area, the population was 1,947 at the 2010 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridge is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge was first settled by English missionaries in 1734, who established it as a mission for the Mahican Indian tribe known as the Stockbridge Indians. The township was set aside for the tribe by English colonists as a reward for their assistance against the French in the French, the Reverend John Sergeant from Newark, New Jersey, was their missionary. Sergeant was succeeded in this post by Jonathan Edwards, a notable Christian theologian associated with the First Great Awakening, First chartered as Indian Town in 1737, the village was officially incorporated on June 22,1739, as Stockbridge. The English colonists named it after Stockbridge in Hampshire, England, although the Massachusetts General Court had assured the Stockbridge Indians that their land would never be sold, the agreement was rescinded. Despite the aid by the tribe during the Revolutionary War, the state forced their relocation to the west, first to New York State, the village was taken over by British-American settlers. With the arrival of the railroad in 1850, Stockbridge developed as a resort for the wealthy of Boston. Many large houses, called Berkshire Cottages, were built in the area before World War I, one estate on the Lenox border, Tanglewood, was adapted for use as the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since 1853, Stockbridge has benefited from the presence of the Laurel Hill Association, the Stockbridge Bowl Association maintains and preserves the natural beauty of Stockbridge Bowl and the surrounding Bullard Woods. Stockbridge was the home of Elizabeth Freeman, a freed slave, the former slave engaged the attorney Theodore Sedgwick to file a freedom suit on her behalf, based on the statements in the new state constitution in 1780. In the case with a slave named Brom, the county court ruled that they were free under the constitution. Their case served as precedent to a case before the State Supreme Court. Freeman transferred as a woman to work in the household of Sedgwick. Also working in the household was Agrippa Hull, a black veteran of the war. Freeman was buried in the Sedgwick family plot at the Stockbridge Cemetery, catharine Maria Sedgwick, a daughter of Theodore and his wife, became a renowned 19th-century literary figure. She was born in Stockbridge in 1789 and she is the author of six novels, including her most famous, Hope Leslie. Pagenstecher later went on to found numerous pulp and paper mills throughout the Northeast and Canada, the town has a tradition as an art colony
4.
Massachusetts
–
It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state is named for the Massachusett tribe, which inhabited the area. The capital of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England is Boston, over 80% of Massachusetts population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history, academia, and industry. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution, during the 20th century, Massachusetts economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance. Plymouth was the site of the first colony in New England, founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, in 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of Americas most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, in 1786, Shays Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, in the late 18th century, Boston became known as the Cradle of Liberty for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution. The entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, in the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams, both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world. Massachusetts public school students place among the top nations in the world in academic performance, the official name of the state is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While this designation is part of the official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has the position and powers within the United States as other states. Massachusetts was originally inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mahican, and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, and tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed approximately 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans, the first English settlers in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, arrived via the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620, and developed friendly relations with the native Wampanoag people. This was the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, the event known as the First Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World which lasted for three days
5.
African Americans
–
African Americans are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. The term may also be used to only those individuals who are descended from enslaved Africans. As a compound adjective the term is usually hyphenated as African-American, Black and African Americans constitute the third largest racial and ethnic group in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved peoples within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of 73. 2–80. 9% West African, 18–24% European, according to US Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not self-identify as African American. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identify instead with their own respective ethnicities, immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American and South American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term. After the founding of the United States, black people continued to be enslaved, believed to be inferior to white people, they were treated as second-class citizens. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U. S. citizenship to whites only, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States. The first African slaves arrived via Santo Domingo to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony, the ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic, the settlers and the slaves who had not escaped returned to Haiti, whence they had come. The first recorded Africans in British North America were 20 and odd negroes who came to Jamestown, as English settlers died from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. Typically, young men or women would sign a contract of indenture in exchange for transportation to the New World, the landowner received 50 acres of land from the state for each servant purchased from a ships captain. An indentured servant would work for years without wages. The status of indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland was similar to slavery, servants could be bought, sold, or leased and they could be physically beaten for disobedience or running away. Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom and they raised families, married other Africans and sometimes intermarried with Native Americans or English settlers. By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards and purchased indentured servants of their own. In 1640, the Virginia General Court recorded the earliest documentation of slavery when they sentenced John Punch. One of Dutch African arrivals, Anthony Johnson, would own one of the first black slaves, John Casor
6.
Freedom suit
–
The right to petition for freedom descended from English common law and allowed people to challenge their enslavement or indenture. Petitioners challenged slavery both directly and indirectly, even if slaveholders generally viewed such petitions as a means to uphold rather than undermine slavery and these codes also enabled enslaved persons to sue for freedom based on wrongful enslavement. While some cases were tried during the period, the majority of petitions for freedom were heard during the antebellum period in the border or the Southern United States. After the American Revolution, most northern states abolished slavery and were considered free, the United States Congress prohibited slavery in some newly established territories, and some new states were admitted to the union as free states. The rise in travel and migration of masters with slaves between free and slave states resulted in conditions that gave rise to slaves suing for freedom. Many free states had residency limits for masters who brought slaves into their territory, after that time, some slaves sued for wrongful enslavement after being held in a free state. Other grounds for suit were that the person was freeborn and illegally held in slavery, the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, first incorporated into English colonial slavery law by a 1662 statute in Virginia, established that childrens status was that of the mother. It was adopted into law by other English colonies, and the states of the United States. In Saint Louis, Missouri records of nearly 300 petition cases have found that were filed between 1807 and 1860, and in Washington, D. C. nearly 500 petition cases were filed in the same period. A large portion of cases, as much as one-third, either never went to trial or were settled out of court. In the early nineteenth century in St. Louis and in Washington, in Missouri, the courts assigned an attorney to the petitioner if it accepted a freedom suit for hearing, some of the top attorneys in St. Louis defended slaves. After the 1830s, the number of petition cases gradually declined, but from 1800 to 1830, most of the bar in these cities tried a petition case. Before the end of the century, some southern states began to make petitioning for freedom more difficult. Maryland, for example, in 1796 required that county courts serve as the court of jurisdiction, rather than the General Court of the Western Shore. The county courts clearly would be favorable to the interests. The legislature also banned those with antislavery sympathies from serving on juries in freedom suits, Virginia passed a similar law on jury composition in 1798. But, for a few decades, courts in slave states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, until the late 1850s, they ruled that slaves who had been held in free states maintained their freedom even if brought back into slave states. Until the Civil War brought an end to slavery, thousands of freedom suits were tried in courts across the country
7.
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
–
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although it was composed of four associate justices and one chief justice. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court traces its history back to the court of the British Province of Massachusetts Bay. Under the terms of charter, Governor Sir William Phips established the Superior Court of Judicature as the provinces local court of last resort. When the Massachusetts State Constitution was established in 1780, legislative and judicial records show that the high court. The SJC sits at the John Adams Courthouse, One Pemberton Square, Boston, Massachusetts 02108, which houses the Massachusetts Appeals Court. The proper legal citation for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is Mass, rex v. Preston – Captain Thomas Preston, the Officer of the Day during the Boston Massacre, was acquitted when the jury was unable to determine whether he had ordered the troops to fire. The defense counsel in the case was an attorney named John Adams. – Six soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre were found not guilty, Commonwealth v. Nathaniel Jennison – The Court declared slavery unconstitutional in the state of Massachusetts by allowing slaves to sue their masters for freedom. With this case, he fulfilled his promise, slavery in Massachusetts was denied legal standing. This legalized the existence of non-socialist or non-violent trade organizations, though trade unions would continue to be harassed legally through anti-trust suits, goodridge v. Department of Public Health – The Court ruled 4-3 that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated the Massachusetts Constitution. The decision was stayed for 180 days to allow the time to amend the law to comply with the decision. In December 2003, the state Senate asked the SJC whether civil unions would comply with their ruling, the SJC replied that civil unions were insufficient, and civil marriage was required. The legislature made no action, and the stay expired on May 17,2004. The state began issuing licenses to same-sex couples the same day. This decision was one of the first in the world to find that same-sex couples have a right to marry, the Court consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts with the consent of the Governors Council. The Justices hold office until the retirement age of seventy. The currently serving justices are, William Cushing, Horace Gray, several further attempts to legislate the courts existence were vetoed, and it was not until 1699 that the provincial assembly enacted laws creating courts that satisfied the Privy Council
8.
Massachusetts State Constitution
–
As a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1779, John Adams was the documents principal author. Voters approved the document on June 15,1780 and it became effective on October 25,1780, and remains the oldest functioning written constitution in continuous effect in the world. It was also the first constitution anywhere to be created by a called for that purpose rather than by a legislative body. Only the Constitution of San Marino has sections still in force that are older, the Massachusetts Constitution was written last of the original states first constitutions. Rather than taking the form of a list of provisions, it was organized into a structure of chapters, sections and it served as a model for the Constitution of the United States of America, drafted seven years later, which used a similar structure. It also influenced later revisions of other state constitutions. The Massachusetts Constitution has four parts, a preamble, a declaration of rights, a description of the framework of government and it has been amended 120 times, most recently in 2000. In the spring of 1775, Adams took the position that each state should call a convention to write a constitution. He told the Continental Congress that, We must realize the theories of the Wisest Writers and invite the People and that this could be done only by conventions of representatives chosen by the People. The legislative body of Massachusetts, known as the Massachusetts General Court, instead drafted its own version of a constitution and submitted it to the voters and that version did not provide for the separation of powers, nor did it include a statement of individual rights. The constitutional convention met in Cambridge in September 1779, the convention sat from September 1 to October 30,1779. Its 312 members chose a committee of thirty members to prepare a new constitution and declaration of rights and that committee asked Adams to draft a declaration of rights. It appointed a subcommittee of James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, and John Adams to draft the constitution and he later wrote that he constituted a sub-sub committee of one. An article on religion was referred to members of the clergy, Adams advocated for an end to that establishment when revisions to the constitution were considered in 1820 and his views were adopted in 1832. Adamss draft declaration of rights read in part, All men are equally free. Before being adopted by the convention it was revised to read, All men are born free. At the insistence of Adams, the document referred to the state as a commonwealth, male voters 21 years or older ratified the constitution and declaration of rights that the convention on June 15,1780, and it became effective on October 25,1780. The preamble of the constitution bears some resemblance to the United States Constitutions in a few phrases near the end and it reads, Part the First, A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts consists of thirty articles
9.
Quock Walker
–
The case is credited with helping abolish slavery in Massachusetts, although the 1780 constitution was never amended to explicitly prohibit the practice. Massachusetts was the first state of the union to effectively and fully abolish slavery, by the 1790 federal census, no slaves were recorded in the state. Quock Walker was born in Massachusetts in 1753 to slaves Mingo and Dinah and he is believed to have been named Kwaku in Akan, for boy born on Wednesday, a traditional day-naming practice among the Akan people. The following year, the family was bought by James Caldwell. Quock was promised his freedom at the age of 25 by Caldwell, Caldwell died when Quock was ten, but his widow renewed the promise, agreeing to give him his freedom at the age of 21. The widowed Mrs. Caldwell married Nathaniel Jennison in 1763 and died about 1772, when the time came for Walkers promised manumission, Jennison refused to let him go. In 1781, Walker, then aged 28, ran away and he went to work at a nearby farm belonging to Seth and John Caldwell, brothers of his former master. Jennison retrieved him and beat him severely as punishment, soon after, Walker sued Jennison for battery, and Jennison sued the Caldwells for enticing Walker away from him. By the mid-18th century, enslavement of Africans had become common practice in Massachusetts, a 1754 census listed nearly 4500 slaves in the colony. Abolitionist sentiment had been growing, especially as the underpinnings of independence. While Massachusetts had derived wealth from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, its merchant and her case was cited in the state court in Quock Walker, below. There were three related to these events, two civil and one criminal. These took place during the American Revolutionary War, when language about the equality of people was in the air, the civil cases were, Jennison v. Caldwell, apparently heard and decided first, and Quock Walker v. Jennison. Both cases were heard by the Worcester County Court of Common Pleas on June 12,1781, in the first case, Jennison argued that Caldwell had enticed away his employee Walker. The court found in his favor and awarded him 25 pounds, the Walker case was opened by the plaintiffs attorney considering the question of whether a previous master’s promise to free Walker gave him a right to freedom after that master had died. Walkers lawyers argued that the concept of slavery was contrary to the Bible, the jury voted that Walker was a free man under the constitution and awarded him 50 pounds in damages. The Caldwells won the appeal, a jury concurred that Walker was a free man. In September 1781, a case was filed by the Attorney General against Jennison, Commonwealth v. Jennison, for criminal assault
10.
Sheffield, Massachusetts
–
Sheffield is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area, the population was 3,257 at the 2010 census. Sheffield is home to Berkshire School, a preparatory school. The former resort town includes the village of Ashley Falls, and is bordered by other towns and villages, such as Egremont. The land was purchased on April 25,1724, from Chief Konkapot and 20 other Stockbridge Mahican Indians and its price was 460 pounds,3 barrels of cider and 30 quarts of rum. The lower township of Housatonic was first settled by Matthew Noble of Westfield, but New York claimed west of the Housatonic River under the Westenhook Patent, dated July 11,1705, and insisted that Massachusetts cease encroachment. Indeed, one settler was arrested and incarcerated at Albany as a trespasser on Westenhook land. Nevertheless, Sheffield, Massachusetts, was incorporated on June 22,1733. Its north parish was set off and incorporated as Great Barrington in 1761, located on the fertile floodplain of the Housatonic River valley, the principal industry was agriculture. Sheffield was also the site of the bloodiest battle on February 27,1787, during Shays Rebellion. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 48.6 square miles, of which 47.5 square miles is land and 1.1 square miles. Sheffield is located along the border of the county and state, north of Litchfield County. Sheffield is 27 miles south of Pittsfield,47 miles west of Springfield, the extreme southern portion of Sheffield is just under 100 miles away from the northern edge of Central Park, New York City, given only that the shortest available travel distance route is taken. To the northeast, the peak of East Mountain lies just over the Great Barrington border, several hills also dot the area south of this, along the New Marlborough town line. To the west, Mount Everett, part of the Taconic Range, peaks in the town of Mount Washington, part of the Mount Everett State Reservation and Mount Washington State Forest also crosses into town. Between Mount Everett and East Mountain, the Appalachian Trail crosses through the third of town. Sheffield lies along U. S. Route 7, which divides the town roughly in half, Massachusetts Route 41 also ends at the towns southern border, heading from Egremont along the western part of town to the state border, where it becomes Connecticut Route 41. The nearest interstate, Interstate 90 lies to the north, with the nearest entrance being in Lee,18 miles north-northeast of town, the town also lies along the Housatonic Railroad line, which extends autumn service between New York and Great Barrington along a line of the MTA
11.
American Revolutionary War
–
From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
12.
Catharine Sedgwick
–
Catharine Maria Sedgwick, was an American novelist of what is sometimes referred to as domestic fiction. Catharine Maria Sedgwick was born December 28,1789 in Stockbridge and her mother was Pamela Dwight of the New England Dwight family, daughter of General Joseph Dwight and granddaughter of Ephraim Williams, founder of Williams College. Her father was Theodore Sedgwick, a lawyer and successful politician. He was later elected Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, as a child, Sedgwick was cared for by Elizabeth Freeman, a former slave whose freedom Theodore Sedgwick helped gain by arguing her case in county court in 1781. After winning her freedom Freeman declined her previous owners job offer, as a young woman, Sedgwick attended a finishing school in Boston to complete her education. One of her schoolmates, Susan Anne Ridley Sedgwick, would become her sister-in-law, Sedgwick was engaged at one point to Harmanus Bleecker, a friend of her father and law partner of her brother Theodore. They did not marry, and Sedgwick turned down several marriage proposals, instead choosing to remain single. As a young woman, Sedgwick took charge of a school in Lenox and she converted from Calvinism to Unitarianism, which led her to write a pamphlet denouncing religious intolerance. This further inspired her to write her first novel, A New-England Tale, with her work much in demand, from the 1820s to the 1850s, Sedgwick made a good living writing short stories for a variety of periodicals. She died in 1867, and by the end of the 19th century, there was a rise of male critics who deprecated womens writing as they worked to create an American literature. Interest in Sedgwicks works and an appreciation of her contribution to American literature has been stimulated by the late 20th centurys feminist movement. Beginning in the 1960s, feminist scholars began to re-evaluate womens contributions to literature and other arts, edgar Allan Poe described Sedgwick in his The Literati of New York City. She is about the height, perhaps a little below it. Her forehead is a fine one nose of a slightly Roman curve, eyes dark and piercing, mouth well-formed. The portrait in Grahams Magazine is by no means a likeness, Sedgwick is buried in the family plot in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her family arranged to have Freeman buried in their plot as well. Sedgwick became one of the most notable female novelists of her time and she wrote work in American settings, and combined patriotism with protests against historic Puritan oppressiveness. Her topics contributed to the creation of a literature, enhanced by her detailed descriptions of nature
13.
Colonel John Ashley House
–
The Colonel John Ashley House is a historic house museum at 117 Cooper Hill Road in Sheffield, Massachusetts. Built in 1735 by a prominent local leader, it is one of the oldest houses in southern Berkshire County, the museum is owned and operated by The Trustees of Reservations, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Ashley House stands in a area of central southern Sheffield. The property is adjacent to Bartholomews Cobble, a nature preserve owned by The Trustees of Reservations. The house is a 2-1/2 story wood structure, with a side-gable roof. A 2-1/2 story cross-gabled ell extends to the rear, also with a chimney, the exterior is finished in wooden clapboards. The main facade is five bays wide, with a central doorway surround. Pilasters rise to an entablature capped by a broken pediment. The house is typical of early 18th century rural American architecture, with furnishings and items dating from the 18th and it is open for tours on weekends from Memorial Day through Columbus Day. The house was built in 1735 by John Ashley, who moved to the area from Westfield, the house timbers were sawn using the first sawmill known to have been built in Berkshire County. Ashley was a citizen of the area, heading the local militia during the French. In 1773 the Sheffield Declaration, a petition against British tyranny, by the American Revolutionary War, Ashley was too old to participate militarily, but he was instrumental in developing the iron industry in nearby Salisbury, Connecticut for the war effort. National Register of Historic Places listings in Berkshire County, Massachusetts
14.
Sheffield Declaration
–
The meeting took place in the Colonel John Ashley House, a registered National Historic Landmark in Ashley Falls, a neighborhood of Sheffield, Massachusetts. Massachusetts Towns Reply to the Boston Committee of Correspondence,1773, the William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol.25, No. Revolutionary politics in Massachusetts, the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the towns, 1772–1774
15.
United States Declaration of Independence
–
Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America. John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was passed on July 2 with no opposing vote cast, a committee of five had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when Congress voted on independence. The term Declaration of Independence is not used in the document itself, John Adams persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which Congress would edit to produce the final version. The next day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, but Independence Day is actually celebrated on July 4, the date that the Declaration of Independence was approved. After ratifying the text on July 4, Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several forms and it was initially published as the printed Dunlap broadside that was widely distributed and read to the public. The source copy used for printing has been lost. Jeffersons original draft, complete with changes made by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, the best known version of the Declaration, a signed copy that is popularly regarded as the official document, is displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D. C. This engrossed copy was ordered by Congress on July 19, the sources and interpretation of the Declaration have been the subject of much scholarly inquiry. Having served its purpose in announcing independence, references to the text of the Declaration were few in the following years. Abraham Lincoln made it the centerpiece of his rhetoric, and his policies and this has been called one of the best-known sentences in the English language, containing the most potent and consequential words in American history. The passage came to represent a standard to which the United States should strive. Believe me, dear Sir, there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose, and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America. By the time that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, relations had been deteriorating between the colonies and the mother country since 1763. Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase revenue from the colonies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765, Parliament believed that these acts were a legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs to keep them in the British Empire. Many colonists, however, had developed a different conception of the empire, the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, and colonists argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them. This tax dispute was part of a divergence between British and American interpretations of the British Constitution and the extent of Parliaments authority in the colonies. In the colonies, however, the idea had developed that the British Constitution recognized certain fundamental rights that no government could violate, after the Townshend Acts, some essayists even began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all
16.
Theodore Sedgwick
–
He served as the fourth Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He was appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1802, born in West Hartford, Connecticut, Sedgwick was the son of Benjaman Sedgwick. His paternal immigrant ancestor Major General Robert Sedgwick arrived in 1636 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Sedgwick attended Yale College, where he studied theology and law. He did not graduate, but went on to law under the attorney Mark Hopkins of Great Barrington Sedgwick was admitted to the bar in 1766 and commenced practice in Great Barrington. During the American Revolutionary War, he served in the Continental Army as a major, and took part in the expedition to Canada and the Battle of White Plains in 1776. As a relatively young lawyer, Sedgwick and Tapping Reeve pleaded the case of Brom and Bett vs. Ashley, Bett was a black slave who had fled from her master, Colonel John Ashley of Sheffield, Massachusetts, because of cruel treatment by his wife. Brom joined her in suing for freedom from the Ashleys, the attorneys challenged their enslavement under the new state constitution of 1780, which held that all men are born free and equal. The jury agreed and ruled that Bett and Brom were free, the decision was upheld on appeal by the state Supreme Court. Bett marked her freedom by taking the name of Elizabeth Freeman, and she chose to work for wages at the Sedgwick household and she worked there for much of the rest of her life, buying a separate house for her and her daughter after the Sedgwick children were grown. After Freemans death, the Sedgwicks buried her at Stockbridge Cemetery in the Sedgwick Pie, the family marked Freemans grave with an inscribed monument, and it is beside that of their fourth child, writer Catharine Maria. A Federalist, Sedgwick began his career in 1780 as a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was elected as representative to the house, and then as state senator. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts. In 1789 Sedgwick was elected as Representative to Congress from Massachusetts first congressional district and that year he was elected to the United States Senate, and served until 1799. In 1799 he was re-elected as a Representative, this time from the fourth district, in 1802, Sedgwick was appointed a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. He held this position until his death, around 1767, Sedgwick married Elizabeth Eliza Mason, the daughter of a deacon from Franklin, Connecticut. In 1771, Sedgwick contracted smallpox which he passed on to his wife who was pregnant with the couples first child. She died of the disease on April 12,1771 while eight months pregnant, Sedgwick married a second time on April 17,1774 to Pamela Dwight of the New England Dwight family
17.
Abolitionism in the United States
–
Abolitionism in the United States was the movement before and during the American Civil War to end slavery in the United States. In the Americas and western Europe, abolitionism was a movement to end the Atlantic slave trade, in the 17th century, English Quakers and Evangelicals condemned slavery as un-Christian. At that time, most slaves were Africans, but thousands of Native Americans were also enslaved, in the 18th century, as many as six million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, at least a third of them on British ships to North America. Abolition was part of the message of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s in the Thirteen Colonies, in the same period, rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized slavery for violating human rights. A member of the British Parliament, James Edward Oglethorpe, was among the first to articulate the Enlightenment case against slavery, founder of the Province of Georgia, Oglethorpe banned slavery on humanistic grounds. He argued against it in Parliament and eventually encouraged his friends Granville Sharp, soon after his death in 1785, Sharp and More joined with William Wilberforce and others in forming the Clapham Sect. Although anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, colonies and emerging nations, notably in the southern United States, continued to use and uphold traditions of slavery. Massachusetts ratified a constitution that declared all men equal, freedom suits challenging slavery based on this principle brought an end to slavery in the state, in other states, such as Virginia, similar declarations of rights were interpreted by the courts as not applicable to Africans. During the ensuing decades, the abolitionist movement grew in Northern states, britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807 and abolished slavery in the British Empire in 1833. The United States criminalized the international trade in 1808 and made slavery unconstitutional in 1865 as a result of the American Civil War. Historian James M. McPherson defines an abolitionist as one who before the Civil War had agitated for the immediate, unconditional and total abolition of slavery in the United States. He does not include antislavery activists such as Abraham Lincoln, U. S. President during the Civil War, or the Republican Party, the first Americans who made a public protest against slavery were the Mennonites of Germantown, Pennsylvania. Soon after, in April 1688, Quakers in the town wrote a two-page condemnation of the practice and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church. The Quaker establishment never took action, the Quaker Quarterly Meeting of Chester, Pennsylvania, made its first protest in 1711. Within a few decades the entire slave trade was under attack, being opposed by leaders as William Burling, Benjamin Lay, Ralph Sandiford, William Southby. Slavery was banned in the Province of Georgia soon after its founding in 1733, the colonys founder, James Edward Oglethorpe, fended off repeated attempts by South Carolina merchants and land speculators to introduce slavery to the colony. In 1739, he wrote to the Georgia Trustees urging them to hold firm, If we allow slaves we act against the principles by which we associated together. Whereas, now we should occasion the misery of thousands in Africa, by setting men upon using arts to buy, the struggle between Georgia and South Carolina led to the first debates in Parliament over the issue of slavery, occurring between 1740 and 1742
18.
Tapping Reeve
–
Tapping Reeve was an American lawyer and law educator. In 1784, he opened the Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, Tapping Reeve was born in Brookhaven, New York, on Long Island, to Reverend Abner Reeve and Deborah Topping Reeve. He graduated from the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, while earning his Masters there, he also served as a headmaster of the grammar school associated with the college in nearby Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was hired to tutor the orphaned children of the Rev. Aaron Burr, Sr. the former President of the college. Tapping Reeve taught young Aaron Burr and his sister Sally Burr for several years, in 1771, Reeve moved to Hartford, Connecticut where he studied law with Judge Jesse Root. Reeve built a home on South Street across the street from Connecticut Governor Oliver Wolcott, in 1774, Aaron Burr, who had been studying the ministry under Reverend Joseph Bellamy of Bethlehem, Connecticut, moved to Litchfield to study law under Reeve. Burrs stay in town was brief and he left only a year later to join the Continental Army on the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. Reeve, while a fervent supporter of the cause, did not enter active service early in the Revolutionary War. His wifes poor health kept him at home, however, in December 1776, the Connecticut Assembly called upon him to travel the state to drum up volunteers for the Continental Army. He then accepted a commission as an officer and accompanied his recruits as far as New York City before returning to his ailing wife. In 1781, Reeve worked with Theodore Sedgwick to represent Elizabeth Freeman, Reeve and Sedgwick successfully secured her freedom on constitutional grounds. This case, set a precedent that led to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, throughout the early years of his legal practice, Reeve continued to take students. Initially, Reeve continued the clerking or apprenticeship system of having the men work for him while they studied his law books. He would also present talks on the principles of law. Lectures covered all areas of practice, noting developments in the new nations adaptation of British Common Law. Students took rough notes during the lectures, copying them carefully after checking citations, many students had their notes carefully bound into leather volumes, which became important reference works for them in their future practice. In 1798, Reeve became a Judge of Connecticuts Superior Court and he then hired James Gould, a former student, to assist in running the school. Reeve served for 16 years on the supreme court and in 1814 was named Chief Justice
19.
Litchfield Law School
–
The Litchfield Law School of Litchfield, Connecticut, was the first proprietary law school founded in the United States of America. Reeve, who became the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. Some of the schools most notable students include Burr and John C, the law school, including Reeves house, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965 as the Tapping Reeve House and Law School. The Society also operates the Litchfield History Museum, Tapping Reeve, the founder of the Litchfield Law School, was born in 1744, son of the Rev. Abner Reeve, a Presbyterian minister who had graduated from Yale in 1731, and his wife Deborah. Tapping Reeve attended the College of New Jersey, later Princeton and he remained in Elizabethtown to teach at a grammar school associated with the college. Reeve then tutored at Princeton and was hired to teach the orphaned children of the Rev. Aaron Burr, Sr. the former President of the college. Tapping Reeve taught young Aaron Burr and his sister Sally for several years, by 1771 Reeve had moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he studied law with Judge Jesse Root, passing the bar there in 1772. Reeve moved to Litchfield the same year and established a practice and he built a home on South Street and established a legal practice. In 1774 his brother-in-law, Aaron Burr, left his studies with the Reverend Joseph Bellamy. Burr left a year later to join the Continental Army on the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, in the early years Reeve continued the clerking or apprenticeship system of having the young men work for him while they studied his law books. He also presented talks on the principles of law, in 1784, as the number of young men in his office increased following the close of the Revolution, Reeve built a small building next to his house where he gave his lectures. He based them upon Blackstone’s Commentaries, which he refined into a 14-month-long course of study, the curriculum covered all areas of legal practice, noting developing changes in the new nation’s adaptation of British Common Law. Students took rough notes during the lectures, copying them carefully after checking citations, many students had their notes carefully bound into leather volumes, which became important reference works for them in their future practice. Reeve was the proprietor of the school until 1798, when he was elected to the Connecticut State Supreme Court. At that point, he hired James Gould, a former student, Gould built his own small lecture room next to his home on North Street and men attended lectures there as well as at Reeve’s. Both men lectured to the students until Reeve’s retirement in 1820, the Litchfield Law School was the second formal school of law in the United States offering a vocational curriculum for future attorneys. The College of William & Mary in Virginia started the first law school in the United States, Legal study began at William & Mary in January 1780, with about 40 students. These students studied the law and the Virginia Constitution
20.
Litchfield, Connecticut
–
Litchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,466 at the 2010 census, the boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are located within the town. There are also three unincorporated villages, East Litchfield, Milton, and Northfield, located southwest of Torrington, Litchfield also includes part of Bantam Lake. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 56.8 square miles. Litchfield is about 95 mi from Central Park in New York, about 50 mi from the Hudson River valley, and about 40 mi from the nearest sea coast, on Long Island Sound. Bantam East Litchfield Litchfield Milton Northfield As of the census of 2000, there were 8,316 people,3,310 households, the population density was 148.4 people per square mile. There were 3,629 housing units at a density of 64.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 96. 99% White,0. 75% Black or African American,0. 23% Native American,0. 47% Asian,0. 01% Pacific Islander,0. 46% from other races, and 1. 09% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1. 56% of the population,26. 5% of all households were made up of individuals and 13. 2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the family size was 2.98. In the town, the population was out with 25. 2% under the age of 18,3. 6% from 18 to 24,25. 6% from 25 to 44,28. 6% from 45 to 64. The median age was 43 years, for every 100 females there were 92.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.3 males, the median income for a household in the town was $58,418, and the median income for a family was $70,594. Males had an income of $50,284 versus $31,787 for females. The per capita income for the town was $30,096, about 2. 8% of families and 4. 0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2. 6% of those under age 18 and 5. 2% of those age 65 or over. Route 202 is the main east-west road connecting Bantam and Litchfield center to the city of Torrington, Route 63 runs north-south through the town center. The Route 8 expressway runs along the line with Harwinton. It can be accessed from the center via Route 118
21.
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
–
Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area, the population was 7,104 at the 2010 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, Great Barrington includes the villages of Van Deusenville and it is the birthplace of W. E. B. In 2012, Smithsonian magazine ranked Great Barrington #1 in its list of The 20 Best Small Towns in America, Great Barrington today is a vibrant small town acting as the hub for South County. The town and its surroundings support a population as well as second homes. Great Barrington is home to over 70 restaurants catering to a wide spectrum, the recently renovated Mahaiwe Theater has become a center for year-round music and cultural events. The Mahican Indians called the area Mahaiwe, meaning the place downstream and it lay on the New England Path, which connected Fort Orange near Albany, New York, with Springfield and Massachusetts Bay. The Konkapot River in southwestern Massachusetts is named after him, the village was first settled by colonists in 1726 and from 1742–1761 was the north parish of Sheffield. In 1761, it was incorporated as Great Barrington, named after the village of Great Barrington in Gloucestershire. In the summer of 1774,1,500 men shut down the Berkshire County Court in response to British oppression, in the winter of 1776, Henry Knox passed through Great Barrington while transporting the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to the Siege of Boston. Due to his time in the area, he established an agricultural interest in the area of Great Barrington. With the arrival of the railroad in the late 19th century, Great Barrington developed as a Gilded Age resort community for those seeking relief from the heat, wealthy families built grand homes called Berkshire Cottages here, as others would in Lenox and Stockbridge. Leavitt was instrumental in the development of the local Housatonic Railroad, later estates included Searles Castle, commissioned in 1888 by the widow of Mark Hopkins together with her second husband, Edward Francis Searles, and Brookside, built for William Hall Walker. In 1895, Colonel William L. Brown, part owner of the New York Daily News, presented Great Barrington with a statue of a newsboy, Great Barrington is the birthplace of W. E. B. Du Bois, an African-American academic and civil rights activist, most known for being one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. Du Bois was born on February 23,1868, at a house replaced by where present-day Route 23 would run. As a child, Du Bois attended the Congregational Church, many of these church members donated the funds needed for Du Bois to attend college. Du Bois lived in the town until he was seventeen, Du Bois Boyhood Homesite has interpretive trails and a walking tour
22.
All men are created equal
–
The quotation All men are created equal has been called an immortal declaration, and perhaps single phrase of the American Revolutionary period with the greatest continuing importance. Thomas Jefferson first used the phrase in the U. S, Declaration of Independence, which he penned in 1776 during the beginning of the American Revolution. It was thereafter quoted and incorporated into speeches by an array of substantial figures in American political and social life in the United States. The final form of the phrase was stylized by Benjamin Franklin, kennedy in A Nation of Immigrants. In 1776 the Second Continental Congress asked Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Robert Livingston and this Committee of Five voted to have Thomas Jefferson write the document. After Jefferson finished he gave the document to Franklin to proof, Franklin suggested minor changes, and one of them stands out far more than the others. Jefferson had written, We hold these truths to be sacred, Franklin changed it to, We hold these truths to be self-evident. They cannot deprive or divest their posterity, namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, masons draft was accepted by a small committee and then rejected by the Virginia Convention. Thomas Jefferson, a competent Virginia lawyer, saw this as a problem in legal writing, the Massachusetts Constitution, chiefly authored by John Adams in 1780, contains in its Declaration of Rights the wording, Article I. The plaintiffs in the cases of Brom and Bett v. John Ashley, the latter case resulted in a sweeping declaration. That the institution of slavery was incompatible with the principles of liberty, the phrase has since been considered a hallmark statement in democratic constitutions and similar human rights instruments, many of which have adopted the phrase or variants thereof. The contradiction between the claim that all men are created equal and the existence of American slavery attracted comment when the Declaration of Independence was first published. Before final approval, Congress, having made a few alterations to some of the wording, also deleted nearly a fourth of the draft, including a passage critical of the slave trade. At that time members of Congress, including Jefferson, owned slaves. The Vietnamese proclamation of independence, written in 1945, uses the phrase all men are created equal, Declaration of Independence in it as well. The Rhodesian declaration of independence, ratified in November 1965, is based on the American one, however, it omits the phrase all men are created equal, along with the consent of the governed. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, article 1, Men are born and remain free, social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good. Is-ought problem John Ball, When Adam delved and Eve span, second-class citizen Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 1, All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
23.
Sedgwick Pie
–
The Sedgwick Pie is a cemetery plot in the United States. It is the burial plot of the Sedgwick family in Stockbridge Cemetery, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. This contrasts with the orientation of the graves in the cemetery, which face east, toward the rising sun, Jerusalem. It has been said that this arrangement of the sees to it that on Judgment Day. The Pie has become something of an attraction for those interested in unusual cemetery plots, grave tours, and the like. The book is a discussion of the life and career of Edie Sedgwick who, although a member of the family, is not buried there and her epitaph reads Edith Sedgwick Post – Wife Of Michael Brett Post 1943–1971. Her mother Alice was buried next to her in 1988, eric Goldscheider, Stockbridge Stoutly Savors Being Small, The Boston Globe, November 6,2005. John Sedgwick, In My Blood, Six Generations of Madness, jean Stein and George Plimpton, Edie, An American Biography. Linda Wertheimer, The Sedgwicks, A History of Madness, Weekend Edition Saturday, Sedgwick Pie burial listing at sedgwick. org
24.
W. E. B. Du Bois
–
William Edward Burghardt W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909, Du Bois rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation and he referred to this group as the Talented Tenth and believed that African Americans needed the chances for advanced education to develop its leadership. Racism was the target of Du Boiss polemics, and he strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws. His cause included people of color everywhere, particularly Africans and Asians in colonies and he was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for independence of African colonies from European powers. Du Bois made several trips to Europe, Africa and Asia, after World War I, he surveyed the experiences of American black soldiers in France and documented widespread bigotry in the United States military. Du Bois was a prolific author and he wrote one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology, and he published three autobiographies, each of which contains insightful essays on sociology, politics and history. In his role as editor of the NAACPs journal The Crisis, Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism, and he was generally sympathetic to socialist causes throughout his life. He was an ardent peace activist and advocated nuclear disarmament, the United States Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which Du Bois had campaigned his entire life, was enacted a year after his death. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23,1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to Alfred, Mary Silvina Burghardts family was part of the very small free black population of Great Barrington and had long owned land in the state. She was descended from Dutch, African and English ancestors, William Du Boiss maternal great-great-grandfather was Tom Burghardt, a slave, who was held by the Dutch colonist Conraed Burghardt. Tom briefly served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and his son Jack Burghardt was the father of Othello Burghardt, who was the father of Mary Silvina Burghardt. William Du Boiss paternal great-grandfather was James Du Bois of Poughkeepsie, New York, One of James mixed-race sons was Alexander. He traveled and worked in Haiti, where he fathered a son, Alfred, Alexander returned to Connecticut, leaving Alfred in Haiti with his mother. Sometime before 1860, Alfred Du Bois emigrated to the United States and he married Mary Silvina Burghardt on February 5,1867, in Housatonic. Alfred left Mary in 1870, two years after their son William was born, Mary Burghardt Du Bois moved with her son back to her parents house in Great Barrington until he was five. She worked to support her family, until she suffered a stroke in the early 1880s, Great Barrington had a majority European American community, who treated Du Bois generally well
25.
Liberty's Kids
–
Since September 16,2006, the series aired on CBSs new block called KOL Secret Slumber Party on CBS, then it was aired on KEWLopolis, which taking September 12,2009. In 2008, it ran on The History Channel, the series aired on the Cookie Jar Toons block on This TV and on CBSs Cookie Jar TV block from 2009 to 2013. The series was based on an idea by Kevin ODonnell and developed for television by Kevin ODonnell, Robby London, Mike Maliani and it received two Daytime Emmy nominations, in 2003 and 2004, both for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program. Its purpose is to teach its audience about the origins of the United States of America, like the CBS cartoon mini-series This Is America, Charlie Brown years before, Libertys Kids tells of young people in dramas surrounding the major events in the Revolutionary War days. The shows run a half-hour, including commercials, on the PBS broadcast, these are replaced by segments that include The Liberty News Network, Mystery Guest, Now and Then, and Continental Cartoons. Libertys Kids features Benjamin Franklin and four associates of his in their experiences during the American Revolution. Although the series spans 16 years from the Boston Tea Party in 1773 to the ratification of the U. S, constitution in 1789, none of the main characters appear to age, except for Dr. Franklin. Her mother, Lady Phillips, remains in England and is a friend to Dr. Franklin. Sarah believes firmly in the power of words and equal rights for all, at the start of the series, she is a firm loyalist, which sparks many arguments between her and James. Later in the series, Sarah has a change of heart and realizes how much she has come to understand the people of the colonies and ends up supporting the Revolution. Some men know the way to her heart - good manners, throughout the series, Sarah and James grow closer. At the end of the series, her mother, Lady Phillips, joins Sarah and her father in the United States, James Hiller A young boy orphaned in childhood because of a lightning storm that burned his childhood home down with his parents inside. At age fourteen, James greatly admires Benjamin Franklin, whose invention of the lightning rod saved many from the same tragedy, jealous, street-smart and impulsive, James pursues the revolution from a slightly one-sided perspective - something that prompts Sarah to counter his views. An apprentice in Franklins Print Shop, James believes firmly in the American cause, in the process, he also faces the less positive aspects of the political conflict that eventually forces his patriotic fervor into a new maturity. He highly values his friends, Sarah and Henri and he can be a little protective of Sarah while he attempts to keep Henri out of trouble, acting somewhat like an older brother figure to Henri. He is very laid back and is reminded of his bad etiquette and poor table manners by Sarah. At the end of the series, James intends to start his own newspaper, the ships captain exploited Henri afterwards because he had to pay off his familys debt to the captain. James and Moses smuggled Henri off the ship and the boy found a home in Benjamin Franklins workshop, while he speaks French fluently, Dr. Franklin has insisted that Henri learn to speak, read, and write in both English and French
26.
Yolanda King
–
Yolanda Denise King was an American activist and first-born child of civil rights leaders Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King. She was known also for her artistic and entertainment endeavors and public speaking and her childhood experience was greatly influenced by her fathers highly public and influential activism. When her father was assassinated April 4,1968, King, then twelve years of age, was noted for her composure during the highly public funeral. She joined her mother and siblings in marches, and she was lauded by such noted figures as Bill Cosby and Harry Belafonte, in her teenage years, she became an effective leader of her class in high school and was given attention by the magazines Jet and Ebony. Her teenage years were filled with more tragedies, specifically that of her uncle Alfred Daniel Williams King, while in high school, she gained lifelong friends. It was the first and only institution where King was not harassed or mistreated because of who her father was, however, she was still misjudged and mistrusted, based on perceptions founded solely upon her relationship with her father. Despite this, King managed to keep up her grades and was involved in high school politics. King aroused controversy in high school for her role in a play and she was credited with having her fathers sense of humor. In the 1990s, she supported a retrial of James Earl Ray and that decade saw Kings acting career take off as she appeared in ten separate projects, including Ghosts of Mississippi, Our Friend, Martin and Selma, Lord, Selma. By the time she was an adult, she had grown to become a supporter for gay rights. She was involved in a feud that pitted her and her brother Dexter against their brother Martin Luther King III and sister Bernice King for the sale of the King Center in Atlanta. King served as a spokesperson for her mother during the illness that would lead to her death. King outlived her mother by only 16 months, succumbing to complications related to a heart condition on May 15,2007. Born in Montgomery, Alabama to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, even in her infancy, Yolanda was faced with the threats her father was given when they extended to his family. In 1956, a number of white supremacists bombed the King household there, Yolanda and her mother were not harmed. She and her mother, at the time of the detonation, were in the rear section of their home. Despite this, the front porch was damaged and glass broke in the home and she kept her father busy when walking on their homes floors. While her mother liked her name, her father had reservations about naming her Yolanda due to the possibility the name would be mispronounced, during the course of her lifetime, Kings name was mispronounced to the point where it bothered her
27.
Elizabeth Key Grinstead
–
Elizabeth Key Grinstead was one of the first women of African ancestry in the North American colonies to sue for her freedom from slavery and win. Elizabeth Key won her freedom and that of her infant son John Grinstead on July 21,1656 in the colony of Virginia and she sued based on the fact that her father was an Englishman and that she was a baptized Christian. Based on these two factors, her English attorney and common-law husband William Grinstead argued successfully that she should be freed, the lawsuit in 1655 was one of the earliest freedom suits by a person of African ancestry in the English colonies. This was the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, also called partus, the legislation hardened the boundaries of slavery by ensuring that all children of women slaves, regardless of paternity, would be kept as slaves for labor unless explicitly freed. Elizabeth Key or Kaye was born in 1630 in Warwick County and her father was Thomas Key, a white Englishman and planter, a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, who represented pre-Revolutionary Warwick County. His white wife lived across the James River in Isle of Wight County, in a civic case at Blunt Point court about 1636, Thomas Key was charged with fathering the bastard mixed-race child Elizabeth, which he at first denied. Complaints about illegitimate children were brought to court in order to force fathers to support them and he first blamed an unidentified Turk but the Court relied on witnesses who testified to his paternity. Key took responsibility for Elizabeth, arranging for her baptism in the established Church of England, sometime before his death in 1636, Key put the six-year-old Elizabeth Key in the custody of Humphrey Higginson by a nine-year indenture. At that time, Elizabeth Key would be free, during this period in early Virginia, both African and English servants were likely to be indentured for a period of years, usually to pay off passage to the Americas. The colony required illegitimate children to be indentured for a period of apprenticeship until they came of age and it was common for indentured servants to earn their freedom. Working-class people of different origins lived, worked, ate, and played together as equals, Key intended Higginson to act as Elizabeths guardian, but the latter did not keep to his commitment to take the young girl with him if he returned to England. Instead, he transferred her indenture to a Col. John Mottram, about 1640, Mottram took Elizabeth at age 10 as a servant with him to the undeveloped county. There is little record of Keys next 15 years, about 1650 Mottram paid for passage for a group of 20 young Englishmen, white indentured servants, to Coan Hall, his plantation in Northumberland County. To encourage development at the time, the Crown awarded Virginia colonists headrights of 50 acres of land for each person they transported to the colony, each indentured person would serve for six years to pay for the passage from England. Among the group was 16-year-old William Grinstead, a young lawyer, although Grinsteads parents are not known, he may have learned law as the younger son of an attorney. Under English common law of primogeniture, only the eldest son could inherit the fathers real property, recognizing Grinsteads value, Mottram used the young man for representation in legal matters for Coan Hall. During this period, Grinstead and Elizabeth Key began a relationship and had a son together and they were prohibited from marrying while Grinstead was serving his indenture. After Mottram died in 1655, the overseers of his estate classified Elizabeth Key and her infant son, John, with William Grinstead acting as her attorney, she sued the estate over her status, claiming she was a free woman, an indentured servant with a freeborn son
28.
Sojourner Truth
–
Sojourner Truth was an African-American abolitionist and womens rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, after going to court to recover her son, in 1828 she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man. She gave herself the name Sojourner Truth in 1843 after she became convinced that God had called her to leave the city and her best-known speech was delivered extemporaneously, in 1851, at the Ohio Womens Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech became known during the Civil War by the title Aint I a Woman. A variation of the original speech re-written by someone using a stereotypical Southern dialect, whereas Sojourner Truth was from New York. During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit troops for the Union Army, after the war. In 2014, Truth was included in Smithsonian magazines list of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time, Truth was one of the ten or twelve children born to James and Elizabeth Baumfree. Charles Hardenbergh inherited his fathers estate and continued to enslave people as a part of that estates property, when Charles Hardenbergh died in 1806, nine-year-old Truth, was sold at an auction with a flock of sheep for $100 to John Neely, near Kingston, New York. Until that time, Truth spoke only Dutch and she later described Neely as cruel and harsh, relating how he beat her daily and once even with a bundle of rods. Neely sold her in 1808, for $105, to Martinus Schryver of Port Ewen, a tavern keeper, Schryver sold her in 1810 to John Dumont of West Park, New York. Around 1815, Truth met and fell in love with a slave named Robert from a neighboring farm, roberts owner forbade their relationship, he did not want the people he enslaved to have children with people he was not enslaving, because he would not own the children. One day Robert sneaked over to see Truth, when Catton and his son found him, they savagely beat Robert until Dumont finally intervened, and Truth never saw Robert again. He later died some years later, perhaps as a result of the injuries, Truth eventually married an older slave named Thomas. She bore five children, James, her firstborn, who died in childhood, Diana, fathered by either Robert or John Dumont, and Peter, Elizabeth, and Sophia, all born after she and Thomas united. The state of New York began, in 1799, to legislate the abolition of slavery, Dumont had promised to grant Truth her freedom a year before the state emancipation, if she would do well and be faithful. However, he changed his mind, claiming an injury had made her less productive. She was infuriated but continued working, spinning 100 pounds of wool, late in 1826, Truth escaped to freedom with her infant daughter, Sophia. She had to leave her children behind because they were not legally freed in the emancipation order until they had served as bound servants into their twenties
29.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
30.
JSTOR
–
JSTOR is a digital library founded in 1995. Originally containing digitized back issues of journals, it now also includes books and primary sources. It provides full-text searches of almost 2,000 journals, more than 8,000 institutions in more than 160 countries have access to JSTOR, most access is by subscription, but some older public domain content is freely available to anyone. William G. Bowen, president of Princeton University from 1972 to 1988, JSTOR originally was conceived as a solution to one of the problems faced by libraries, especially research and university libraries, due to the increasing number of academic journals in existence. Most libraries found it prohibitively expensive in terms of cost and space to maintain a collection of journals. By digitizing many journal titles, JSTOR allowed libraries to outsource the storage of journals with the confidence that they would remain available long-term, online access and full-text search ability improved access dramatically. Bowen initially considered using CD-ROMs for distribution, JSTOR was initiated in 1995 at seven different library sites, and originally encompassed ten economics and history journals. JSTOR access improved based on feedback from its sites. Special software was put in place to make pictures and graphs clear, with the success of this limited project, Bowen and Kevin Guthrie, then-president of JSTOR, wanted to expand the number of participating journals. They met with representatives of the Royal Society of London and an agreement was made to digitize the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society dating from its beginning in 1665, the work of adding these volumes to JSTOR was completed by December 2000. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded JSTOR initially, until January 2009 JSTOR operated as an independent, self-sustaining nonprofit organization with offices in New York City and in Ann Arbor, Michigan. JSTOR content is provided by more than 900 publishers, the database contains more than 1,900 journal titles, in more than 50 disciplines. Each object is identified by an integer value, starting at 1. In addition to the site, the JSTOR labs group operates an open service that allows access to the contents of the archives for the purposes of corpus analysis at its Data for Research service. This site offers a facility with graphical indication of the article coverage. Users may create focused sets of articles and then request a dataset containing word and n-gram frequencies and they are notified when the dataset is ready and may download it in either XML or CSV formats. The service does not offer full-text, although academics may request that from JSTOR, JSTOR Plant Science is available in addition to the main site. The materials on JSTOR Plant Science are contributed through the Global Plants Initiative and are only to JSTOR
31.
Virtual International Authority File
–
The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
