A Teacher's Guide to The Struggle against Slavery: A History in Documents (Pages from History)

A Teacher’s Guide to The Struggle Against Slavery: A History in Documents

David Waldstreicher

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

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A Teachers Guide to The Struggle Against Slavery-. A History in Documents by David Waldstreicher Guide prepared by Diane N. Palmer INTRODUCTION One of the failures of the American democratic system was its tolerance of slavery and the horrific treatment of slaves. The Constitution was founded on the belief that "all men are created equal",- however, the United States in the twenty-first century is still striving to make this ideal a universal reality. For more than 200 years African Americans were held in bondage and treated as property. Even those who won freedom did not receive equal treatment either by custom or by law. Faced with the injustices of slavery and racial discrimination, slaves, free African Americans, and a few whites struggled to end this institution and guarantee all men and women equal respect, opportunity, and treatment under the law. In The Struggle Against Slavery, a collection of written and visual documents, David Waldstreicher presents a chronicle of the struggle from the seventeenth century through the Civil War. He presents evidence of the struggle from both African-American and white perspectives, a strategy that alerts the student to the importance of point of view when working with primary sources. The volume also includes a picture essay showing how visual images of slaves and, in particular, their clothing shaped popular perceptions of both slaves and free African Americans.

SAMPLE LESSONS LESSON 1. INTERPRETING DOCUMENTS A single document can give a researcher or student a picture of social situations. However, by interpreting several similar documents from a particular time period, a researcher can form a more accurate picture and make generalizations about a historical situation. 1. Divide the class into small groups. Have each group read one of the three laws or the advertisement on pp. 20-26. Each group should use the following reading guide questions: • Who wrote the document? • What is the purpose of the document? • What are the main points in the document? • What do you think happened to cause the document to be written? • What evidence supports your interpretation? 2. After each small group presents its findings to the whole class, have students form generalizations about early slavery resistance and the reactions of whites to resistance. 3. Students should defend their generalizations, in writing or orally. They should be judged on the rationality of their arguments and their use of the documents to support their case.

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LESSON 2. USING A VARIETY OF PRIMARY SOURCES To form an accurate interpretation of historical events, it is important to use a variety of documents. Literature, including poetry, is often an excellent source for learning popular views held at a particular moment in history. Photographs and drawings also provide powerful evidence of historical events. All of these genres are used in this book to develop one of its important themes: the lack of equal treatment of blacks.

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what he wrote. The object of this lesson is to re-examine the assumption to determine if it is valid. • Ask students, either in small groups or with a partner, to read the sources cited below and discuss their findings. Each student can then write an essay examining the contradictions between what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence and what he stated at other times.

1. Read the two poems by Phyllis Wheatley on pp. 38—40. Identify lines from the poems that support her belief in equality.

Selections: Equality Disputed, pp. 54-60:, the selection from "Notes on the State of Virginia" by Jefferson, the letter from Benjamin Banneker, and the sidebar of Jefferson's response to Banneker's letter.

2. With a partner, analyze the images that appear in the picture essay on pp. 97-105. In the analysis of each visual image, consider the following:

Use the following questions/guidelines to analyze the documents:

• Who created the image?

• What is the purpose of the document?

• Is it a positive or negative image?

• List several points that support the purpose.

• What was the purpose of the drawing or photograph?

• Identify points in the document that support or refute the original hypothesis.

• How might the pictures be used to support the belief that free people, no matter what color, could be considered equals?

• What is your position regarding the beliefs of Jefferson?

How do the selections below deal with this theme?

LESSON 3. USING PRIMARY SOURCES TO REFUTE OR VERIFY HYPOTHESES Historians often try to investigate whether or not an interpretation of an event or the words of an observer are really true. The purpose of their investigation is to confirm a hypothesis or to see if there might be another valid interpretation of the event or an author's words. • In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights"—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are familiar lines, and most people assume that Jefferson believed

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• What statements in the selections support your position? Use your findings to establish and support a hypothesis regarding the possible contradiction between Jefferson's beliefs and his words in the Declaration of Independence.

LESSON 4. IDENTIFYING PERSPECTIVE Historical investigation often involves dealing with conflicting sources. Any event or issue may be reported from several different perspectives, depending on the background of the observer and the purpose of the observation. To reconcile the conflicts and come to reasonable conclusions about historical events, students must be able to recognize perspective.

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Have students choose two of the selections listed bel ow and answer the questions that follow. Based on the information, students should then predict how African Americans would be treated after the Civil War. Selections: Letter of John Copeland, pp. 148-49; Emancipation Proclamation, pp. 156-57; Charlotte Forten's journal entry, pp. 158-59; and Report of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, pp. 159-60. Questions for Identifying Perspective • Who created the source? • What do you know about this person?. • What is the purpose of the source?. • What do you learn about the event or issue from this source?

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Selections: Illustration from the Anti-Slavery Almanac, p. 74; New York State Constitution, pp. 82-84; speech of either Peter Osborne, pp. 84-86, or Frederick Douglass, pp. 86-89; account of Elizabeth Jennings, pp. 89-91,- excerpt from Martin Robison Delany's book, pp. 93-95; illustration, p. 123; and excerpt from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by herself, pp. 128-33. 1. After reading and studying the documents, students should work with a partner or in a small group to discuss the sources. 2. Each student should form a thesis statement responding to the statement. 3. The student should prepare an outline supporting his/her thesis, including the following: • Two or three main ideas that prove the thesis

• Is the tone positive or negative?

• Reference to which documents support the thesis. Student should use all, or all but one, of the documents.

• What is, or might be, the impact of this source—then, and now?

• Explanation of how the evidence supports the thesis

Based on your study, how do you think African Americans will be treated after the Civil War? What is the basis for your judgment?

4. Using the outline, each student then writes an essay. The outline will help students write a bettercrafted essay.

• What is missing?

LESSON 5. DOCUMENT-BASED QUESTION (DBQ) A document-based question enables students to analyze and interpret sources, and form conclusions about an event or issue using multiple primary sources in different formats (narrative, essay, visual, statistical, oral). Using the selections listed below, students will write a three- to four-page essay responding to the following statement: Free blacks in the North were treated as badly as slaves in the South.

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SELECTED RESOURCES Printed Sources Bedini, Silvio. The Life of Benjamin Banneker. Rancho Cordova, Calif.: Landmark, 1984. Christian, Charles M. Black Saga: The African American Experience. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Douglass, Frederick. My Bondage and My Freedom. Reprint, New York: Dover, 1969). Foner, Philip S. Black Rediscovery Series. New York: Dover, 1969. Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. OAH Magazine of History. Vol. 17, no. 3 (April 2003).The focus of this issue is colonial slavery. Ripley, Peter C., ed. Witness for Freedom-. African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. Available in numerous editions.

Websites The best site is Library of Congress American Memory at http://memory.loc.gov. Useful searches include: • Daniel A.P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907,• Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938,• Slavery and the Law- Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860; and • Slavery to Freedom. www.progress.org/banneker/bb.html and http^/princeton. edu/~mcbrown/display/banneker.htm are two sites dedicated to Benjamin Banneker. http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/bailey/wheatley.htm is a good site for further research on Phyllis Wheatley.

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