I found this song a few months ago when spending some time on YouTube.
The song, US History, by Flipsyde is a representation of the history of the United States as seen through the eyes of a personified America.
After discovering this song, I decided to check out a few more songs by Flipsyde. What I found was inspiring. Their songs are inspirational, educational, relevant and all send a positive message.
For teachers looking to use this song in class, I do recommend it, but be aware of the language. You might want to run this by the powers that be, or just be sure that your class is mature enough to except the song for what you're using it for... a history lesson.
I apologize in advance if the language offends anyone. It is for educational purposes.
It's got references to the mistreatment of Native Americans, The Revolution, The Civil War and slavery, imperialism, Teddy Roosevelt, The World Wars, including Pearl Harbor and the Atom bomb, Vietnam, the Cold War, Korean War, War in Iraq, etc... etc...
It really is impressive when you look at it from the standpoint of simplifying complex ideas and relationships in US History. If I were teaching US History right now... I'd use it.
Watch the video... then listen to the song again and read the lyrics. And tell me what you think...
US History - by Flipsyde
Hustlin's in my blood my father's name is Britain
His history consisted of robbery killin' and pimpin
Filthy rich and the biggest killer that you ever seen
Once I'm older I'm takin' over I'ma be king
I was locked up in jail when he got the new land
Opened his cells I guess that's how the story began
First mission was to clear it out and claim it as mine
Indigenous people were peaceful it took no time
Great grandmother Africa was blind and disabled
Sons was traitors we played divide and conquer invaded
Sold her children into slavery and profited quick
Started makin' side deals and that's how I got rich
Daddy Britain found out and tried to put me in check
He don't understand I'm a man and I deserve some respect
Tried to bring it to me but I play for keeps and I won
Still my daddy but you ain't the only man with a gun
More money More problems little brother is wild
They call 'em The South he's country with a big ass mouth
Tried to show 'em new business but he don't wanna change
I love 'em but I knew eventually I'd blow out his brains
I'm America!
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless
Me and my daddy still cool and my uncles is with us
France Russia and Italy and we all killas
But it's this nigga named Germany that's out of control
Rollin with Japan and Turkey and them niggas is bold
Started fuckin' with my uncles and we all went to war
Uncle France damn near died at the tip of his sword
When the smoke cleared we won let 'em retreat
Shoulda' killed 'em cause they knew they had us close to defeat
Kicked it off again 20 years later it was on
This time my uncle Italy traded and he was gone
I was neutral when Japan hit me guess that he knew
I aint gone' let my family fight without me jumpin' in too
Woulda' lost if I didn't hit Germany's weapon supply
Kamikaze Japanese was always ready to die
Dropped atomic bomb let them niggas know that it's real
Speak soft with a big stick do what I say or be killed
I'm America!
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless
I'm racin' with my uncle Russia we the ones with the guns
He supported the North so I rolled with South Vietnam
Thought it would be easy but almost 60 thousand died
They was harder than Korea so we ran for our lives
It's a family called the Middle East and they got bread
Sellin' oil they don't cut me in then off with their head
I got a nephew named Israel that's right in the middle
Pay his allowance as long as he can dance to my fiddle
I had a partna' named Iraq gave 'em weapons and money
Nigga started getting' power and he start actin' funny
Saudi Arabia's cool gotta son Bin Laden
I was trainin' his soldiers to go against the Russians and stop 'em
Then he tried to say I need to take my soldiers and cut
Gave 'em the finger that's when he flipped and blew my shit up
I took it to 'em, and then I took it back to Iraq
and if you ain't my blood brother you gonna be flat on yo' back
The sons of Africa just invented this shit called rap
Tellin' my secrets that's why I'm puttin' their heads on flat
Built an empire quick and it might not last
But I bet I go down in history as the one that smashed
I'm America!
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless
Hustlin's in my blood my father's name is Britain
Hustlin's in my blood my father's name is Britain
The red the white the red the white the blue
The red the white the red the white the blue
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Yes, you read that correctly. Nightcrawlers. Worms. Big brown, squishy worms. The ones that come out in the rain and at night when it's cooler. So what do worms have to do with American history? Continue reading, and you'll see the connection.
To the layman, John Rolfe is a nobody. To those that paid attention in history class they may know him as the man that married Pocohontas. History buffs know him as the man that saved Jamestown, with the sale of tobacco. Still some think he may be responsible for a permanent change in the American landscape. A change which stretches much further than the salty marshes of Jamestown.
Rolfe was a businessman who undercut Spanish imports by growing tobacco in Jamestown. Rolfe had brought a special strain of tobacco seed with him to the new colony. This particular strain was being grown in Trinidad and Venezuela. Rolfe brought the seeds despite the penalty of death to anyone selling these seeds to a non-Spaniard.
John Rolfe, like many other Englishmen of the time, was a smoked tobacco. Smoking tobacco was a fad brought to Europe by the Spanish, after there conquest of the Caribbean. Coincidentally the Indians in Virginia also smoked tobacco, but it was a different species which didn't agree with the European pallate. According to colonists it was poor and weak. Rolfe's tobacco on the other hand was "pleasant, sweet and strong." By 1620, ten years after settlement, Jamestown exported 50,000 pounds of Rolfe's special strain, and nearly six times that ten years later.
Because of the popularity of Rolfe's tobacco the tight waters of the Chesapeake were often crowded with empty ships ready to be loaded with the sweet stuff. To balance the weight of the ships, sailors dumped out the ballast, which was filled with mostly stones and soil. Historians believe this dirt almost certainly contained earthworms.
And little by little these earthworms would change the landscape of America. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the forests of New England and the upper Midwest had no earthworms. At least not since the last Ice Age. Without earthworms, the northern trees and shrubs would lose their leaves, which would lie on the ground and decompose their way back into the soil feeding the trees from which they dropped. The presence of worms, turns these leaf-floored forests into a more open and dry landscape losing much of their future growth. In other words, the seedlings have no protection and nowhere to root, eliminating any chance for a dense forrest. Instead an open landscape of very mature trees exists.
It is not proven that Rolfe brought the worms, but it is known that the northern forests were worm free until the arrival of the Europeans. Earthworms don't move that fast and pretty much die where they were born, so the migration of the worms from coastal Virginia to the far reaches of the United States surely takes some time to see the real effects. Perhaps another 400 years.
Thanks to Charles C. Mann and his article 'America, Found & Lost' which appeared in the May 2007 National Geographic for the information.
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On June 25, 1876, George Armstrong Custer and some 265 men under his command died in the Battle of Little Big Horn, often referred to as Custer's Last Stand.
We've all heard of Little Big Horn and Custer's Last Stand...but can we remember the story?
In 1874 Gold Was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Naturally, many white farmers fled their homes into the Black Hills territory, which had been ceded to the Sioux Indian in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. This treaty was a result of an odd congressional committee who set out to make peace with the natives of the western lands.
The Indian Peace Commission was established to end the wars and skirmishes and prevent future Indian conflicts. The United States government set out to establish a series of Indian treaties that would force the Indians to give up their lands and move further west onto reservations. One of the defining moments of Manifest Destiny... makes you proud to be an American, huh?
The Treaty clearly described that these lands belonged to the Sioux tribe. But, in the winter of 1875 the U.S. ordered the Sioux to return to their reservation. Communication was not a strong point of the primitive Sioux, so there were many Indians who did not get the message who were considered "hostile". So the U.S. Army prepared for battle to force the Sioux back to the reservation.
Custer headed a division charged with locating and routing tribes organized for resistance under Chief Sitting Bull. Custer's original plan was to team with General Alfred H. Terry and entrap the Lakota Sioux and the Cheyenne tribe at the
mouth of the Little Big Horn and force them back to their reservations.
However, Custer found Sitting Bull encamped on the Little Big Horn River in Montana. Against orders, Custer waged an immediate attack. Bad idea. In less than an hour, the five companies under Custer's immediate command were slaughtered. For several days the few U.S. soldiers who remained continued to fight for their lives in hopes that relief would come. Smooth move by Custer. Disobeying orders and making an executive decision really worked out for him here.
When reinforcements came, on June 27, the Indians retreated. General Terry, arrived at Little Big Horn to find the bodies of nearly one third of Custer's 7th Cavalry, including Custer and his brother.
This, however was a short lived victory for the Native Americans. The Battle of Little Big Horn alerted the public to the savagery of Native Americans and federal troops were ordered to the Black Hills area to show the Sioux and the Cheyenne what manifest destiny was really about.
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On February 21, 1828, the first issue of the Cherokee Phoenix was printed, both in English and in the newly invented Cherokee alphabet.
This is especially newsworthy today based on the fact that NPR reported that a federal court hearing has Native Americans arguing against the descendants of African slaves once kept by Cherokee tribal members. The Cherokee Nation has moved to expel the people known as Cherokee Freedmen.
The Freedmen argue that a 140-year-old treaty protects their citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. Which puts the tribal member in a tight spot trying to argue against a long standing treaty.
The Cherokee was always one of the largest and wealthiest of all native american tribes. Many were landowners and owned up to 100 african slaves. It was these slaves who were granted citizenship when there names were included on a federal government list of all Cherokee citizen's called the "Dawes Roll".
The ancestors of these slaves are now arguing that they should be included in the Cherokee nation and are only being excluded because of the color of their skin.
The Cherokee argue that "It's an Indian thing, we do not want non-Indians in the tribe, our Indian blood is what binds us together".
It was after fighting for the losing side in the Civil War that the Cherokees decided to grant their newly freed slaves citizenship in the tribe. The Cherokee Freedmen believe that they helped sustain Cherokee life as much as an 'original' tribe member and deserve to be part of the Cherokee Nation.
I guess the courts will have to decide.
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