Journal for Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca

Gregory Alcala
English 48A / Lankford
December 3rd, 2009
Journal for Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca

Quote:
“I can say for myself that I undertook the march aboard, on royal authorization, with a firm trust that my service would be evident and distinguished as my ancestors‘….” Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, from the Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza e Vaca
Summary:
In the very opening to his history of his voyage to America he is already reminding the reader of is family lineage. As if that would make him so right for the job, that he was bred for the job of exploring the unknown lands. I think it’s funny that it’s on royal authorization that he was sent into the darkness of the untamed wildness of the Americas with the trust he had of himself because of what his ancestors had done. I am probably using a reader’s response with this quote. I personally think family lineage is not important when looking at a single person’s achievements. The idea of someone being from a long line famous people and that means the child will grow up with the skills that will come forth at once at birth seems like such an ancient way of thinking. It would make sense in Cabeza de Vaca’s time since a people lineage set up the rest of their natural life, but in today’s world it has been thrown out.

Quote:
“Cabeza de Vaca was the first European to describe America from Florida thru Arizona. His 1542 works are the oldest history we [the state of Florida] have. He set the stage for the Conquest of Native America.” Spanish Trails in North America (http://www.floridahistory.com/cabeza.html)
Summary:
The journey that de Vaca made through America is seen, by some, as the first for it’s time. This quote was taken from an historical website so their lens for seeing the man is a rosy one. A lens that I have avoided this whole quarter. However, I think it’s funny when I read the harsh truth behind these historical icons who are exalted with people all the bad points in their life have been left out. Only the good remains because of recent history or because we are too lazy to read a little deeper in the past.

Overall Summary:
Like everyone that was seen as a hero in some point in time, there is both good and bad. Sometimes the bad outweigh the good deeds but only the good remain in the history books. Sometimes it’s to make people have a hero they can look up too. My memory is foggy when I’m thinking back to what I was taught about de Vaca in grade school. I do remember my parents telling me how he was Spanish and how he was the first man to cut a path through America. Yet when looking at the time line of people walking around in America, rarely does anyone give the Indians/Native America credit, like the villages they make covering America before it was America counted.

Journal for Columbus

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Columbus

Quote:
“And since there was neither towns nor villages on the seashore, but only small hamlets, with the people of which I could not have speech because they all fled immediately.” Christopher Columbus, from Letter to Luis de Santangel regarding the First Voyage
Summary:
Columbus was righting to his supporter, Luis de Santangel, so he would have to write about the good. Columbus was shockingly honest about the lack of ‘great towns and cities’ on the new islands. Columbus also re named these chain of islands even though the native people had a name for their homeland. Seems like an pushy thing to do, thinking that the new name will stick. It does not shock me that the native people would run from Columbus. I have read in history texts that show the good and the bad that Columbus did oppress the native Americas so I am sure he did the same to these native people. How could he expect anything less from them? Columbus does not seem to really take in the fact that he has missed his target the Asian continent. He did discover land and when reading this I could hear a bragging tone in his voice. The only other options were returning to Spain without finding anything but sea water or dying at sea. So finding land, be it any land mass was a win.

Quote:
“Even those who loved him[Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place.” -Consuelo Varela
Summary: Columbus does have this shining reputation in some people eye’s that have not taken the time to read more into his history. Yet, when the truth of Columbus’s treatment of the Indians had come into the light, even his fans had to admit to the horrible acts that Columbus had done. I have read how Columbus would cut off Indians’ noses, a non lethal form of punishment to instill fear in the population.

Overall Summary:
I have heard the good part of Columbus’s story when in grade school. How he discovered the new world by mistake but it was a far better discovery then a new route to Asia. However, now I am hearing the crushing tales to his reputation. I did not want to use the classic image of Columbus. The one that was first on Google image search. It seems to be part of that false history told to me in elementary school. Yet I did want to pick something from the past, the image I decided to use was a imagined version of Columbus asking the King and Queen of Spain for money for his voyage. I wish I could have found something a little more mocking of the man and his deeds. It seems that his transgressions are only mentions in high school and college classes. And too many people want to not work on his holiday.

Journal for Bradford

Gregory Alcala
November 24th 2009
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Bradford
Quote:
“What could now sustain them but the spirit of God and His Grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: ‘Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness, and He heard their voice, and looked on their adversity” -William Bradford, Chapter IX. Of Their Voyage, and How They Passed the Sea; And Their Safe Arrival at Cape Cod
Summary:
This first chapter of the reading seemed to be more factual then his personal views of the world. This quote shows his belief in God’s will and how it affected everything in the world. Bradford gives credit to God that they landed in the New World safely. I wanted to see, well, more likely expected to see God appear in Bradford’s writing. However, Bradford didn’t seem to need to write about God as often as I wanted to see.

Quote:
"Bradford writes most of his history out of his nostalgia, long after the decline of Pilgrim fervor and commitment had become apparent. Both the early annals which express his confidence in the Pilgrim mission and the later annals, some of which reveal his dismay and disappointment, were written at about the same time.” -Walter P. Wenska, Bradford’s Two Histories: Pattern and Paradigm in ‘Of Plymouth Plantation
Summary:
Bradford’s writing shows emotion but nothing like Bradtsreet. Bradford, being governor, left out emotion in his early retelling of the voyage to the New World and then speaks more about God’s Will. It was the will of God that everything happened, according to Bradford. Wenska points out the time of Bradford’s writing being around the same time, I can only guess that Bradford was trying to appeal to different audiences with his cheer and commitment to the Pilgrim’s cause and the opposite view of noticing the flaws.

Overall Summary:
I could not seem the anger in Bradstreet’s writing about the ‘failure’ in the Pilgrim’s mission to the New World. Maybe it cause he was a man, I didn’t see a choice of words that made his emotions spring off the paper. How could he as a figure of power in the community write about his emotions on the lack of success of their mission. The further I travel back and read the writings of people that lived so long ago. I really have a hard time understanding their fight for life. Craving a township out of the woods. Even though Loewen says that if it wasn’t for the Native Americans that the Pilgrim’s fight would have been only harder. It would have been difficult for Bradford to imagine what the future would truly be like. His writing were more of a slice of time of life in the America before it was America.

Journal for Bradstreet

Gregory Alcala
November 19th 2009
English 1B - Lankford
Journal for Bradstreet

Quote:
“Farewell, my pelf, farewell my store/The world no longer let me love,/My hope and treasure lies above(lines 52,53,54)” -Anne Bradstreet, Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10t 1666
Summary:
Bradstreet is using poetry to describe her sense of great lose from the consuming flames. How all is lost and only the memories lying in ashes is left for her to lament over. In her final goodbye she says that her true treasures lie above. That the worldly goods she had on earth couldn’t be compared to the treasures in heaven. Part of the grieving stage even when losing a entire house in a fire is trying to come to conclusion with God. She was cemented in her faith and the saving grace of God. That she didn’t have to fear because the reward of being in heaven would quickly and easily replace anything earthly item she had with her on earth.

Quote:
“One must remember that she was a Puritan, although she often doubted, questioning the power of the male hierarchy, even questioning God (or the harsh Puritan concept of a judgmental God).” -Anne Woodlief, Anne Bradstreet, A Biography (http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/bradbio.htm)
Summary:
Anne Bradstreet got a higher then normal education for her time because her father wanted the best for her. I think it’s because of this higher then usual education, this building of her critical analyst, that she was able to question more about life and religion then her female peers. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan, however she does not seem like one in her writing.

Overall Summary:
Overall, it seems that Anne Bradstreet would not have been remember by historians and scholars if her works had not been re introduced to the public. Even though she was a Puritan she would not seem like one because of her questioning the forms of religion and the male dominated society. I blame Hollywood for being the history teacher for the general public. The image of Demi Moore playing Hester Prynne for the Hollywood feature film comes to easily to the mind’s eye. Anne Bradstreet isn’t close to that image of the Puritan that was created by someone that never was a Puritan and then put into that meat grinder of modernization. I had to forget what I thought I knew and force myself to not see Bradstreet as Demi Moore walking around with that scarlet letter on the front of her dress.

Journal for Edwards

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Edwards

Quote:
“Under all the cultivations of heaven, they brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit.” -Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards
Summary:
This quote was very early in his writing but I truly think I know what heart string Edwards is trying to pluck. The bible speaks so much about farming and fruit. The fruit of someone’s spoils and the forbidden fruit of knowledge. The labor of farming so backbreaking labor up until very recent times. So when the fruit was ready for harvest and it’s was bitter and poisonous it was wasted time, money and effort. That God was punishing you by spoiling your crops. People had to grow their own food back in Edwards time. Edwards would reminding people of the power of God. I even think of Cain, the farmer, who was punished by God and could not yield any more crops from the earth. Cain feared that if anyone met him and found out that he could not farm that he would be killed. In the footnote, it says that Edwards was referring to the fruit as from Sodom and Gomorrah.

Quote:
“When you read "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," you see quickly that Edwards was not falling into this kind of language by accident. He was laboring as a pastor to communicate a reality that he saw in Scripture and that he believed was infinitely important to his people.” -The Pastor as Theologian, John Piper (http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Biographies/1458_The_Pastor_as_Theologian/)
Summary:
Edwards wanted to reach the wider audience with his writings. He didn’t want to limit his speak to just his church. The image that is seen of Edwards today to people who only got the quick glimpse of his history might see a dark and gloomy man. Something that might turn many people away from trying to see deeper into his history to get a better understanding of the man. To read is message and understand why he wanted to share it with the world.

Overall Summary:
Jonathan Edwards really did seem like a dark individual that I couldn’t really understand quite so easier. He lived in a very different time them I do. Plus I don’t see myself as a religious person, but I still am able to get the message. I think Edwards way trying to get a deeper understanding for the religion. Edward was a man of knowledge and took his academic mind into religion.

*the syllabus had incorrect page numbers that did not match the author listed so I hope that Jonathan Edwards is the correct author for this week

Journal for Jefferson

Gregory Alcala
November 11th 2009
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Jefferson

Quote:
“…deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of the government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.” -The Autobiography, Thomas Jefferson
Summary:
I think it’s kind of funny that the founding fathers wrote about empowering the people. Which makes sense seeing how they felt so under the noose of Britain. I don’t really want to compare the America today with the America that Jefferson was fighting to free. Too many people compare to present with the past and I feel it traps or spoils the past. Like looking at a Norman Rockwell poster and thinking the past was pure and without any problems. Thomas Jefferson had a great idea of the form of government, and like most things it works perfectly on paper. Jefferson did want the government to completely have power over it’s people. He probably thought that government would become a absolute monarchy.

Quote:
“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” -John F. Kennedy
Summary:
JFK did give many great speeches while he was president, and this single quote about Jefferson does speak volumes about him. However, it’s painting a picture of Jefferson that really only shows half the man. Jefferson wrote against slavery but owned slaves himself. So if judged by today’s morals he would be seen as a racist. However, the morals of America today could not have been placed on the people from the past. It was a different America, and a very new one during Jefferson’s time. For history to remember only the good about one of the founding father’s is so common. History is written by the winners and we idolize the people that won the freedom from Britain and signed the documents that gave this country it’s foundation.

Overall Summary:
Thomas Jefferson was a great man, but I doubt he was the perfect human that many Americans would remember from high school history class. I don’t think Norton did a good effort job to show me the entire man but the introduction was not very long. Jefferson wrote about slavery that “we have the wolf by the ears; we can neither hold him, or let him go.” He did not seem to think that African Americans were equal to whites. But that was not mentioned in the Norton Anthology. I don’t want just the squeaky clean polished version of history of one of the founding fathers of America. He was also a great writer and man of knowledge. So I feel this push to learn more about him, which I got a small dose of his life from his wiki page(which I know is about worth a grain of salt).

Journal for Wheatley

Gregory Alcala
English 48A
Lankford
Journal for Wheatley

Quote:
"Twas not long since I left my native shore/The lands of errors, and Egyptian gloom." -Phillis Wheatley, To the University of Cambridge, in New England
Summary:
I wonder if those words really came from her. I doesn't sound like she misses her native country. Calling it the land of errors because it is considered behind by the Western world and according to the Norton Anthology her homeland was not close to Egypt. However, I can see if she was given a full Christian upbringing since childhood. She wrote and published her writings before other great African America writers and before the woman's or African American movements. She had to of known her main audience would have been whites with a very slim few of African who were in the same fortune as her to learn to read. People read the bible so much back then, the only real link to Africa to the bible was Egyptian lands. The gloom of Egypt was the curses brought down by God. One of them being the curse of darkness. Wheatley was brought to America when she was still a child, but I still think of other African America writers and wonder if any of them would have linked the curses from God to their native homeland.

Quote:
"Come, dear Phillis, be advisíd, To drink Samaria's flood/There nothing is that shall suffice, But Christ's redeeming blood" -Jupiter Hammon, An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley
Summary:
Hammon, also a African American poet, is writing about Wheatley in what looks like a positive light. To drink from a flood in Samaria, a region in Africa, might been the rich waters that helped the crops same as the other flooding river, the Nile. When Hammon says to drink Christ’s redeeming blood, I do think he talking of the holy communion. The drinking of the flood waters is nothing when compared to the Christian act of taking holy communion. Hammon thought of Wheatley as his muse, which is poetic within itself because she was able to do so much for herself by writing and while still in a male dominated society. Wheatley would only made it easier for a man to follow in her literary footsteps.

Overall Summary:
Wheatley break many different walls down. She was the first African American woman to publish a book that was financed by a group or women. Wheatley also was the first African American woman to made her living from her writing. Plus she did this before the either the women or African American movements really were in discussion for America. I had not heard of Wheatley before this and I wish I had because she accomplished so many firsts during her time. Not even white women were getting an education, however she was learning to read and write English and learning to read Latin. Wheatley was able to do so much within her lifetime, yet I have only heard of her in my college education. While googling her name, Google suggests what I might be looking for. Phillis Wheatley was the first recommendation and Phyllis Diller was the second. It looks like Wheatley is more searched for.