Elaine > Recent Status Updates

The original Trading Places.

It very simply lays out the history & continuance of slavery. It lays out the global abolition of slavery and how slow the US was at letting it go. It fails to mention, up to this point anyway, how hard John Quincy Adams pushed abolition during but mostly after his presidency. After his time in office, he was elected into the house if representatives where he submitted, almost daily, petitions against the practice.

I am loving this little book. It's contemporary information about the first English settlers is very well researched and documented. However, when writing about the early immigrants she tend to use Pilgrims and Puritans interchangeably. They are two very separate groups. Puritans migrated here to practice their very restrictive, intolerant perception of religion. Pilgrims were usually well off aristocrats.

Chapter 2 was about marriage customs. Such as the wife getting married in her smock or entirely nude. This would make all prior debts null and void. One instance was a marriage on the gallows of a woman in her smock and man condemned to hanging. This nullified his sentence and he was freed. There are so many other unexpected customs. A very fun chapter.

I started this book expecting it to be a subjective, overly romaticized version of this topic.
So far, I am happy to be wrong. The depiction of the puritan colonists is accurate as to historical references. As it moves on, I hope it will continue this way.

Sadly, this man was never discussed in history classes. It is a fascinating history of his involvement, and impact on the government if the US. My take is this: he was very educated (both from schooling abroad, and independant research), calm and unflappable, he had a natural ability to read situations and people, his orations were lengthy but no doubt impressive, he was a valuable advisor to many in government.