World History Final Portfolio 2014

Belief systems should not influence basic human rights. In world history this year I learned that people care more about what they believe in or want more than they care about others lives. In the past they killed others for land and the ones they didn't kill they enslaved for free labor. They will hire workers and make them work for long ours for only a few cents a day. They will make children travel miles on foot to go work at a factory.

One example of this is when we did the Cortes Trial. We were trying to find out who was the most guilty for the slaughter of the Aztecs. It was between The King, Cortes, The Aztecs, Cortes's men, or the System of Empire. There were many charges against them all and here are a few. The King: He sent Cortes to Mexico to colonize it. Cortes: He was the commander of the troops that killed the Aztecs. The Aztecs: They allowed Cortes in their City and did nothing about his conquest. Cortes's Men: They were the ones who carried out the orders from Cortes. The System of Empire: This caused the King to send Cortes because the system requires people to have money to survive. Click here for other charges.

Another example would be when we did the Sweatshop Trial. This trial was about who is to blame for businesses having sweatshops in other countries. This is because many people work in sweatshops for long hours minimal pay to produce many things. These things are then shipped to other countries to be sold at high prices to people so that these businesses can make a lot of money. Also the factories that the people work at are falling apart and the owners aren't even trying to repair them or even care about the workers. The accused are The System of Profit, U.S. Consumers, Poor Country Workers, Poor Country Ruling Elite, and Multinational Corporations.

Also we went over colonization of different countries and did a project on it. During the Unit we read a book called Things Fall Apart. It was about a tribe in Nigeria that lived by their gods. Then the people came and started to spread their religion and as time passed more and more of the people converted to it. For the project we had to show artifacts from colonialism and explain how they were involved. It also had to be like an actual exhibit so there was something that happened when they walked in and left. 

Later on we did a Journal by comparing two maps and saying what we noticed. The two maps were of Africa in different time periods. One was from 1876 where the majority of Africa was still indigenous. Then there is the one from 1914 where the countries are colonized and trying to gain independence.