Manna

B ghoelle Boyd

Biography


 * Birth date: May 4, 1844
 * Full Name: Maria Isabella Boyd
 * Birth Place: Martinsburg, VA (now West Virginia)
 * Education: Mount Washington Female College of Baltimore, age 12-16
 * Nickname: "Cleopatra of Secession"
 * Likes: Reading Mystery and Romance Novels
 * Dislikes: The Union army, insubordination, pointless bickering
 * Political Views: Southern Democrat
 * Husband: Col. Swainton Hammond
 * Religious Views: Episcopal

About me:
====I come from a typical southern family. My father owns a grocery store and my mother was a head debutant and house wife. She cared for all her children deeply. I, myself was also a debutant. My dad joined the Virginia Calvary and left me to live with my sister Mary Jane, mother, grandmother, and younger brother. When I fled prosecution in the U.S i arrived in England. There I wrote my memoir and fulfilled my true passion, acting.====

Status Updates

 ** 1859: ** Oregon is finally enter the Union. But what does that mean? It means more fighting over free and slave states. The North and South keep bickering. I’ve heard rumors of some of the southern states seceding. With all this arguing it wouldn’t be a surprise it they did....


 * 1860: **** Change abroad? Abraham Lincoln was elected in to Office. I wonder what he and his administration have to offer this country. The voice of the south is growing stronger by the hour. Words turn into action. After Lincoln expressed his desire to not outlaw slavery, but stop its further expansion, people began talking more about succeeding. The power in the government that we in the South hold is being threatened. **


 * 1860: **** I knew it. Today on December 20, 1860 South Carolina seceded from the Federal Union. This is only the beginning. **


 * 1861: ** Confederate forces attack Fort Sumter in South Carolina . The fort still belonged to the Federal Union. This initiated war. War was declared. We were at war with ourselves.
 * 1861: **** Today Union soldiers broke into my home with the hopes of raising the U.S flag over the roof. In the process one of them pushed my mother. At that moment, anger flushed my face. I grabbed a pistol and shot that single soldier. After that they had to watch me, but little did they know that I would be listening to their every word. ** Me, I stand strong behind my family on the Confederate side. I see a long victory ahead.


 * 1862: ** The Seven Days Battle took place not too long ago. In a way I feel that I am making some kind of change in the out come of this war. I was a nurse to the soldiers in need in the field and off. The sight of all those men injured and dying made me sick. I wonder if what I’m doing is really worth it.


 * 1863: ** Today the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. What made Lincold think that he has the power to fee slaves that are no longer part of his country? He is no our president, Jefferson Davis is. Lincoln has over stepped his power limits.


 * 1863: **** The First Conscription Act was passed on both sides. Basically it forces men to be called to action. Some of the men paid people to take their places in war. If this is supposed to be a war of the people, and the people being called to war to fight aren’t fighting, then is this really a war OF the people? **
 * 1865: ** Robert E. Lee surrendered. We are defeated. The Confederate States of America lasted only about four years. Personally I think we could have fought longer. This was a disappointment.
 * 1865: **** Partially I think he deserved it, but then again no one really deserves to die. President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. **

Note 1:
Slavery has been one of he greatest invention of mankind It offers us free and sometimes cheap labor that helps our economy prosper. Without slavery these United States of America would have her. Slavery helped build this country. Personally my family only had a few slaves. Mary and her husband, then their three kids lived with us. They helped around the house and did the miscellaneous tasks Daddy required. I can say that I did not have the same slave experience as most whites in the south. But I did experience it. The rich white folks own massive plantations, with hundreds of slaves. These slaves could be seen working the fields a mile away. They looked like little bobbing black dots. They worked the fields to produce crops like cotton, tobacco, and indigo. These crops were sold throughout the Atlantic. Daddy told me that in other countries they paid good money for our crops. He said when we are growing, and people are buying, we get richer. Daddy meant not just us as a family, but us as a country. One day I got the gumption to ask Daddy what would happen if the black people had never came. He told me this, “If there were no black people, after we won the Revolutionary War, we wouldn’t have lasted ten years. For a country to stand on its own it has to have three things. It has to have people, a good government that is supported by the people, and a strong economy. Slaves and slaveholders are the people who make the goods. More people buy the goods. Then the government helps sell and collect the money made. This is how things are and have been for a mighty long time. We stick to what we know. In America, slavery is what we know.” His words made so much sense to me. I feel sorry for the slaves. When I see them in chains, being sold, or being whipped. I try not to put myself in their boots, but it happens anyway. There isn’t really much I can do. It’s just our way of life. You get used to it.

Note 2:
We came across the Atlantic to escape the pressures and tensions that we lived under in Great Britain and Europe. We left to escape. Our escape was pointless. That of what we wished to leave behind has followed us. We came to be free and now we are pressured more than ever. Why did we just not stay where we were? For years now tensions have been arising between the colonies and Britain. Taxes. Taxes are issued upon us just as the sun rises every morning. The Stamp Act and Tea Act are just two examples. “No taxation without representation”( Reverend Jonathan Mayhew), is a phase that is frankly said and explains one of the main issues between Britain and the colonies. In British parliament the colonies had no say in what was inflicted upon them. The Revolutionary war was fought to relieve this country of its controlling ties to Great Britain. It was fought to establish freedom. The war was fought to show that The United States of America had say in what happens to itself.

Note 3:
We hear of slave rebellions all the time. Slaves runaway, they ban together and try to overthrow the plantation owner. Most of the rebellions aren’t as bad as they could be. They are unusually put down with in a few hours by the overseer. I haven really heard of any big rebellions recently, but I have heard of them in the past. One of the worst rebellions I ever heard about was Nat Turner’s Rebellion. This slave, Nat Turner and her friends, killed about sixty people in their attempt to make a statement. Virginia executed fifty-six slaves accused of being part of the rebellion. In all the confusion, innocent enslaved people were punished. At least 100 blacks, and possibly up to 200, were killed by militias and mobs. Across the south laws were passed denying slaves of their civil rights.

Slaves rebel to make their voices heard. They feel that they have no voice at all. In rebellions, slaves show that they can ban together and become one.
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Picture Citations: 1. www.old-picture.com/.../ Belle-Boyd-001.jpg 2. ://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/img/display_media.php?mets_filename=evm00000756mets.xml&resolution=lowres 3. http://civilwar.olemarius.net/images/picks/Battle%20of%20Bull%20Run--July%2021st%201861-500.jpg 4. http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/img/display_media.php?mets_filename=evm00000755mets.xml&resolution=lowres 5. http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Dublin/AbbeyTheatreDublinOld.jpg 6. http://re3036.k12.sd.us/Event/davispeople.jpg 7. http://acamp.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/abe_lincoln.jpg 8. http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Confederate_Generals/General_Stonewall_Jackson.jpg 9. http://www.old-picture.com/civil-war/pictures/Slave-Family.jpg 10. http://www.masonicsourcebook.com/civil_war_soldiers-union_confederate.GIF