Capter 17

           Chapter 17 was interesting in that Strsyer nicely described in detail all three revolutions-French, Haitian, and Spanish- and clearly spoke about the difference in each revolution. As I learned something new from each one, what caught my attention was the Haitian revolution as I had no knowledge of Haiti before reading this chapter. I wasn’t aware that during this time, slaves outnumbered white landowners by 460,000 and that Haiti had more than 8,000 plantations! What surprised me the most was that Strayer points out that, “In the only completely successful slave revolt in world history, “the lowest order of the society—slaves—became equal, free, and independent citizens” (Pg. 509). Surprised because growing up, I had only learned about the great struggle African American slaves endured in the United States to become free and equal, but had no idea that in Haiti slaves had overcome and accomplished such an amazing thing as freedom. However, Strayer does make it a point to say that although Haiti won freedom, this event caused and spread slavery in other places such as Cuba due to low production of sugar from Haiti and into the United States. So, although Haiti began to taste freedom again, in other places the battle continued for slaves to survive and win freedom.

            Another part of Chapter 17 that caught my attention was that of the feminist movement. I had earned about the feminist movement in other history classes, but it was nice to be reminded about the struggles women have gone through in order for women to have the rights we have today. Although we have many rights, I still believe that we, as women, deserve more than what we get. Yes, we have rights like voting, working, etc. but we still continue to lack behind the men. Women are now more in the workforce then men and we still get paid less than men and still recently, government and other States are fighting for women not to get abortions or to use contraceptives. The feminist movement began in the late 1900’s fighting for the right to vote, reproductive rights, equal pay, maternity leave, etc. and we are now in the 21^st century and still dealing with some of these issues. If we haven’t completely won women’s rights by now, when will we? Lastly, it was nice to learn towards the end of the chapter that Brazil had established an overly feminist newspaper in 1852 and that Mexico had established an independent school for girls in 1869. Again,  I had only learned about the feminist movement in terms of what happened in the United States but wasn’t aware of the attempts of similar movement around the world.