Prepared by INTRODUCTIONThis unit is designed to acquaint you with some of the important events, people and legislation surrounding the life and times of a former slave named Frederick Douglass. For the purposes of this assignment, you may be asked to assume the role of a slave, plantation mistress, free black person, abolitionist, etc. Please feel free to use your imagination in this capacity, but always provide documentation (footnotes and bibliography) for all subject content. If, for example, you are asked to describe the life of a former slave, you must accurately depict his/her life based upon written sources. As part of this assignment, you will complete the following: 1. Look up information in the library on your topic. 2. Complete a written assignment as designated by your assignment. Remember, this writing may take the form of a letter, videotaped interview, narrative, report or even a whispered conversation. It must be footnoted and include a bibliography.
SYLLABUS12/4 Mon. Introduction to the unit. Research reserve materials in the library. Hand in authors and titles of two books or two electronic sources that you intend to use to complete your written assignment. 12/5 Tue. Continue research in the library. Hand in an outline of your assignment to Mrs. Dubois by the end of the period. 12/6 Wed. Continue research in the library. 12/7 Thr. Complete research in the library and classroom. 12/8 Fri. Complete research. Prepare for presentations. Mon-Wed. Give oral classroom presentations.
RESEARCH HINTS
QUESTIONS1.) You are a young, eager teacher who has just arrived from the North to teach in one of the new free schools opened to black and white students after the Civil War. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments have been ratified recently. You want strongly to make your students aware of the importance of the amendments and the long road of struggle that led to their inclusion in the U.S. Constitution. Select 12 important events in African-American history between 1815 and 1870 that climaxed in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and make a time line. In your timeline you will tell why each event is significant to the blacks' struggle for freedom and equal rights.
Sources: Timelines of African-American History, pp. 49-96; The Timetables of African-American History, pp. 78-160; The Black People of America, 63-163; Reconstruction, Jackdaw Kit A6, Exhibit 8, 10 and Broadside 1; Landmark Documents in American History. Internet Sites: "History of American Abolition" "Timeline of African-American History"
2.) You are Frederick Douglass. You have granted a reporter an interview about the major milestones in your life after the publication of your first autobiography. Although you are not particularly enamored of new technology, you have agreed to a "no restrictions" clause concerning the interview format. The interview will be published in a magazine. Be sure to include the following information: 1. publication and editorship of the NorthStar, 2.break with William Lloyd Garrison, 3. involvement with the Underground Railroad. 4. support of troops during the Civil War 5. political positions that Douglass held (President of the Reconstruction-era Freedman’s Savings Bank, Marshal of the District of Columbia, Consul-General to the Republic of Haiti, charge d’affaires for Santo Domingo, and 6. the reaction to his second marriage.
Source: Slaveand Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass pp. 42,44-46,48,58-59,68,80-81,125-126,128,133-134,159-167,Frederick Douglass and the Fight for Freedom pp. 26+,and Frederick Douglassfor the Great Family of Man, pp. 107-130, 193-196.
3.) You are a medical historian trying to document whether slave owners received better medical treatment than did their slaves for an article to be published in The New England Journal of Medicine. To write the article, you must research the diseases that afflicted people of this period. Did each group use the same medicines or herbs as treatments for these diseases? Did slaves see physicians as regularly as slave owners? What was the average life span of a slave versus that of a free black person? Were the diseases "dysaethesia aethiopica" and "drapetomania" special diseases confined only to slaves? Remember: Consider childbirth a disease since so many women became seriously ill or died from it.
Sources: Eyewitness: The Negro in American History p. 100 for the definition of the two listed diseases; American Negro SlaveryA Documentary History, p. 164 (Contains record of physician visits to slaves); Time on the Cross: The Economies of American NegroSlavery, pp. 117-126; Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl p. 275 (swelling remedy); Roll, Jordan, Roll pp. 62, 224-228, 459-6, 507-508, 542, 603-604, 692-693; American Slavery 1619-1877. pp. 8,21, 23, 38, 72, 113-155, 105, 146-147 and Life in Black and White pp. 101-105, 192-193.
4.) Your name is Henry Clay. You are the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1819. You are charged with resolving the issue of whether slavery should be permitted in the land acquired by the Louisiana Purchase. With the help of other legislators, you have fashioned a document called "The Missouri Compromise." Using maps of the states and new territories in 1820, statistics on the number of slaves in the new state of Missouri and arguments that acknowledge slave holders' and abolitionists' positions, persuade your fellow Congressmen, in an oral argument, to pass this legislation.
Sources: Famous Five, pp. 32-41,H istorical Atlas of the United States p. 117; Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History Vol. 4 p. 1829+; The Awakening of American Nationalism, pp. 97-140; Freedom Now: The Story of the Abolitionists, pp. 13-16; The Other South, pp. 18-19; Life in Black and White, p. 115; Time on the Cross, p. 25 (Contains U.S. Imports page of Slaves per Decade)and American Slavery 1619-1877, pp. 239-245 (Contains statistical tables). Internet Site: " Missouri Compromise"
5.) The year is 1890 and you are surrounded by your grandchildren at a family reunion in the Chesapeake Bay area. The children beg you for stories about your former life as a slave on a nearby plantation. They are especially interested in how slaves got married. Did they ever divorce? Were there funerals held when slaves died? How did they raise their own children when they were working all of the time? How did they teach their children to behave towards their owners and other white people?
You may tell your story in a series of vignettes and/or some personal narrative form. It may be interspersed with songs, poetry, laments, etc. It may reflect anger, sorrow, fear, hope or whatever emotions you infer from your research. Sources: Roll, Jordan, Roll pp. 32, 194-202, 463-82, 508-519, 566-84; Time on the Cross, pp. 126-144; American Negro Slavery, pp. 175-177; Life in Black and White pp. 226-257; The Slave Community, pp. 77-103; funerals - 35-40; The Peculiar Institution, pp.162-170, 342, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, pp.37-40, 146-147. Internet Site: "Slave Narratives" Then scroll down to "Go Home to My Lord and Be Free," "Like a Motherless Child," "Nobody Knows De Trouble I See," and "Oppressed So Hard They Could Not Stand"
Question for a student with an interest in drama working with video. 6.) Although the slave trade was abolished in 1808, slavery flourished right up until the end of the Civil War in 1865. During these years, individuals and groups of people sought to abolish it. You have been assigned to produce a script for the History Channel on Northern and Southern abolitionists from 1811-1836. The History Channel has given you carte blanche with your approach. The HC does require, however, that you include information on the following people, their beliefs about Black people, the roles they played in the Abolitionist Movement, their publications (if any) and their proposed solutions:(1)William Lloyd Garrison, (2) Arthur and Lewis Tappan, (3) Sara and Angelina Grimke, (4) David Walker, (5) Richard Allen and (6) Sojourner Truth. **Pre-selected video clips from series “Africans in America,” shown on PBS, are available to use in your iMovie digital video.
Sources: Black Abolitionists, 3-89 + the index; The Crusade Against Slavery 28-47 + index; Narrative of Sojourner Truth, Introduction, 86-87, index; Freedom Now! 17-54; Let My People Go (Contains Walker and Garrison information 43 + and index.) Internet Sites: "African-American Mosaic: Abolition" "African-American Mosaic: Conflict of Abolition & Slavery" "African-American Mosaic: Influence of Prominent Abolitionists"
7.) You are a free black who has been smuggled into a plantation's slave quarters to talk to a group of slaves who wish to become free. They want to know what their options are. Here are just some of the questions that they will probably ask you. Should they run away, try to buy their freedom or ask their master for manumission? Will their job on the plantation or relationship to the slave-owner affect their master's decision to free them? Where might they go if they become free? Can they be kidnapped and resold into slavery? Once free, may they travel freely about the country? Is it true that slaves live longer than free persons? Sources: Slaves Without Masters 135-181; Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, Vol. 2 1059-1062; Free Men All 33-93; Slave and Citizen, 96-97; From Slavery to Freedom, 213-238; Roll, Jordan, Roll 398-413 plus other pages and American Slavery 1619-1877 80-85, 165-166, 177-179, 181-185+. Internet Site: "Slave Narratives" Then scroll down to "Follow the Drinkin' Gourd"
8.) Your name is Linda Brent A.K.A. Harriett A. Jacobs. You have been invited by a group of antislavery activists to describe your personal experience with the Underground Railroad. Several members of the audience are newcomers. They have some very basic questions about the Underground Railroad. Your plan is to provide some background information about the Underground Railroad before you relate your own story. Here are some questions you intend to answer. Where did the name, terminology and the original location of the Underground Railroad come from? How are people disguised for travel on the railroad? What are the most common modes of travel? Who are the conductors? Are they all white people? What are Vigilance Committees? When do slaves tend to travel on the Underground Railroad? How did Frederick Douglass play a role in the Underground Railroad? Be sure to relate your own story of escape.
Sources: The Underground Railroad, 45, 60-62, 68-69+, 120. Let My People Go, 178-220; Eyewitness: The Negro in American History, 166-168, 179-180 + the index; The Autobiography of John P. Parker, Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground Railroad, Chapter 7; Smithsonian article October 1996; Black Abolitionists 143-167; Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History Vol. 5 2699-2700. Internet Sites: "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" "History & Geography of the Underground Railroad”
9.) Despite being members of the upper class, plantation mistresses enjoyed few freedoms and choices and were expected to shoulder many responsibilities.
Imagine you are the mistress of a large, well-to-do plantation. Your daughter has recently married the son of another wealthy plantation owner. Write a series of letters to your favorite cousin in Baltimore describing your life and your daughter's. Listed below are some points you should be sure to include:
Sources: Life in Black and White, 69-83. Plantation Mistress, use index. Internet Site: "American Memory Project: Search Engine" Then type in "Emma Falconer”
10.) Thanks to several oral tradition projects in the early 1900's, we are lucky to have access to many slave narratives. Read some of these first-hand accounts. Then imagine yourself as a historian presenting several different stories about what your childhood was like, and write your own slave narrative about your early years (Do not use dialect.) For each of your stories, be sure to include information about the following:
Sources: Before Freedom, When I Just Can Remember, 93-95, 57-58, 47, 77, 111. The Slave Community, 94-103. Life in Black and White, 112-113, 187-188, 221-225, 248-252. Remembering Slavery tapes. Internet Site: "Slave Narratives" Then scroll down to "Like a Motherless Child"
Please note that a little more research will be necessary to complete this question. 11.) Many historians believe the first shot of the Civil War was fired during John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry in 1859, rather than at Fort Sumter in 1861 (the usual date given for the start of the Civil War). Depending on one's point of view, John Brown and his followers were either lawless murderers or religious men of conscience determined to save their country by ending the evil of slavery in America.
Describe the events and results of the raid on Harper’s Ferry, but include a first-hand account from a local Virginian with a Southern perspective or an abolitionist point of view from a Massachusetts activist. The local Virginian or Massachusetts abolitionists should defend and explain their positions. Note: the very best source for this question is the Internet site below. Sources: Black Abolitionists, 235-245. Man on Fire, 278-320. To Purge This Land With Blood, 290-336. Life and times of Frederick Douglass, p. 292 + Internet Site: "John Brown Site from the Valley of the Shadow" Then scroll to eyewitness accounts by White and Boteler
12.) Frederick Douglass served as an advisor to President Abraham Lincoln. Initially he took issue with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Please answer the following questions about Douglass’ relationship with President Lincoln:
Source: Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, pp. 351-372; Slave and Citizen, The Life of Frederick Douglass (SU001244), pp. 74-86, 89-92, 99-100, 101; Frederick Douglass In His Own Words (SL013430), pp. 131-132, 163-166.
13.) Frederick Douglass spent a good deal of time preparing to escape from slavery. He taught himself how to read, learned a trade, and saved every penny so that he could survive as a free man until he obtained employment. In his first narrative he does not tell the reader how he actually escaped because he was protecting those who aided him. In his second book, From Bondage to Freedom, he provides the complete details. Tell you classmates how Mr. Douglass did the following: prepared for his eventual freedom, planned his escape (including the failed attempt), changed his name, and reached a place of safety. Be sure to explain the reasons for some of his actions that may seem confusing to your classmates.
Source: Slave and Citizen The Life of Frederick Douglass, pp. 4-20, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, pp.187-201, Frederick Douglass for the Great Family of Man, pp. 57-70, 71-78.
Please note that a little more research will be necessary to complete this question. 14.) You are a young lady from Boston and the year is 1853. While traveling to Alexandria to visit your Virginia cousins, you are shocked deeply when you pass the brick building of Price, Birch, & Co., Dealers in Slaves, and when later you see the slaves toiling in the tobacco fields of your relatives' farm. You express your dismay that such a cruel system could exist in the United States of America. Upon your return to Boston, you research slavery in your local Athenaeum, a membership library, with the intention of writing an article about slavery to be published in the abolitionist newspaper The North Star. In your article include the beginnings of slavery in North America, explain the meanings of the terms "Middle Passage" and "Triangle Trade," how the slaves were sold when they arrived and how the trade continued in the United States even though the law prohibited the importation of Africans after 1808.
Sources: The Black People of America, pp. 35-82; People in Bondage, pp. 35-105; Middle Passage, book of paintings by Tom Feeling; The Slave Trade and Its Abolition, Jackdaw Kit A30, Broadside 1; Historical Atlas of the United States, pp. 40-41, 50-51; Time on the Cross, pp. 13-58; The Birth of Black America, pp. 87-107; Live in Black and White, pp. 166-205. Internet Sites:
"Buying and Selling of Human Beings”
15.) Although the United States signed the international agreement that banned the international buying and selling of slaves in 1808, the slave trade continued unabated in the United States, especially in the states of the South. You are a French businessman, Henri Leconte, who is working on the Cotton Exchange in New Orleans during the 1840's. While traveling, throughout the South, by boat, train, and horseback, you write a journal and send back observations on slavery and slave markets to your family in Bordeaux, France. Write either a travel journal or a long letter to your family, in which you indicate the main cities that had major slave auctions, how the sales were advertised and conducted, the most common reasons slaves were sold, and whether slaves were sold individually or in groups, the regions that produced the most slaves for sale and what parts of the country needed slaves and for what kind of work. Tell how the slaves were procured for the sales and how they were moved to the new areas where they would work.
Sources: The Birth of Black American, pp. 99-103; Slavery in the United States, Jackdaw Kit A30, Broadside 2 (Picture of Price, Birch & Co. in Alexandria); American Slavery, 1619-1877, pp. 93-111; Life in Black and White, pp. 177-183; Before Freedom, pp. 1-85 passim.; The Black People of America, pp. 64-73; Puttin' On Ole Massa, " Twelve Years a Slave," pp. 228-409 (Description of slave pens); The Peculiar Institution, pp. 237-278. Internet Sites: "Buying and Selling of Human Beings”
16.) You are a fourteen-year-old African-American slave girl living with your parents and four brothers in a slave cabin on a Southern plantation. Your father is a forty-five-year-old wheelwright, and your mother is a laundress while you and your teenage brothers, sixteen and eighteen, are field hands. Your little brothers are five and seven. In addition to the food distributed to your family every week by the owner, your family is allocated a garden plot to plant. Describe your house, its construction and furnishings, the clothes your family wears and how you get them, and the typical foods you eat and how you prepare them. Plan a menu featuring your favorite foods.
Sources: Time on the Cross, pp. 109-116, 127; Life in Black and White, pp. 171, 186-189, plates [3], [11], and [16] for pictures of cabins; The Slave Community, "Plantation Realities." pp. 154-193; The American Slave, "The Black Family under Slavery," pp. 77-94; Before Freedom, pp. 1-85 passim.; From Sundown to Sunup, (American Slave, Vol.1), pp. 68-77; Roll, Jordan, Roll, pp. 550-594; American Slavery, pp. 173-178. Internet Sites: "Mrs. Lulu Bowers II: Social Customs" Then type in "Bowers" as your keyword
Note: This is a question for two students 17.) Write and deliver to your classmates a dialogue between a slave who is a parlor maid working in a plantation owner's house and a slave who works in the fields on a plantation that grows tobacco, corn, and raises some cattle. In the dialogue the two girls compare their working situations: when their day begins and ends, the kind of tasks they are assigned, what happens if their owners are displeased, the differences in their food, clothes and housing. Each of you should express the disadvantages of your job and why you think the other has an easier life. Do not use dialect.
Sources: Life in Black and White, pp. 186-205; Roll , Jordan , Roll, pp. 327-365; From Sundown to Sunup, (The American Slave, Vol. 1), pp. 53-93; Time on the Cross, pp. 109-157. Internet Sites: "Slave Narratives" Then scroll to "We Raise de Wheat...""Mrs. Lulu Bowers II: Social Customs" Then type in "Bowers" as your keyword.
18.) You are a militant black man who bought your freedom with the money you saved from shoeing horses and making wrought-iron gates for the wealthy planters of Louisiana. Because you cannot bear any longer the tyranny of white owners over your enslaved brothers and sisters, you decide to organize a revolt of as many men as you can recruit. After murdering their white owners and burning their houses, you will flee deep into the bayous to found a maroon settlement.You know about the unsuccessful slave revolts of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, and you do not want to repeat the mistakes that led to their undoing. Write a speech you will give to your fellow and trusted conspirators, telling them about Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey and how your revolt will succeed. Explain what a maroon settlement is in your speech.
Sources: Nat Turner: Slave Revolt Leader; Denmark Vesey: Slave Revolt Leader; Breaking the Chains, pp. 111-124; Black Protest, pp. 35-59; Slave Community, pp. 119-131; From Sundown to Sunup (American Slave, Vol.1), pp. 112-113; The American Negro Slave, pp. 224-243; The Struggle for Freedom, pp. 75-100; Nat Turner's Slave Revolt, 1831, Jackdaw Kit A1; The Black People of America, p.79-80; Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, s.v. "Denmark Vesey Conspiracy" and Nat Turner's Rebellion;" Encyclopedia of Black America, pp. 766, 821. Internet Sites: "History of American Abolition" "Slave Narratives" then scroll to "Nat Turner"
Please note that a little more research will be necessary to complete this question. 19.) Narratives by fugitive slaves before the Civil War and by former slaves in the post bellum era comprise one of the most extensive and influential traditions in African-American literature and culture. You are a professor at Princeton University who has been invited to give a lecture on the “Influence of the Slave Narrative on American Literature” at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Your audience consists of people who have paid to hear you, but are not very knowledgeable about the subject. You must make it interesting.
Begin by reading “North American Slave Narratives” (http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/intro.html Define the elements that constitute a slave narrative. Read the plots and analyses of three of them from the list below and point out their references to the slave narrative. In your own words, what do you think the legacy of the slave narrative is in American literature?
Source: Masterpieces of African American Literature (look up by book title), The Slave Narrative: Its Place in American History (973.04 Sta (STAU), Black Writers (look up writer by last name in alphabetical order), The Oxford Companion to African AmericanLiterature, pp. 667-670 also pages under author’s last name or title of a work.)
20.) When Frederick Douglass was just 12 years old, he discovered a book entitled The Columbian Orator that he claimed changed his life. Within it there was a play with a dialogue between a slave and his master. Describe this dialogue. How did this dialogue change Frederick Douglass’ life?
Source: The Columbian Orator, Frederick Douglass for the GreatFamily of Man, pp.39-42; Frederick Douglass In His Own Words, p. 5; Frederick Douglass and the Fight for Freedom, pp. 14-15, 19, 35, 45.
Please note that this question will require a little more research. It is also a question for a student with an interest in music. 21.) In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass comments on the powerful songs the slaves created. Some of the religious songs, called spirituals, have survived and offer insight into life under slavery. When were spirituals sung? How were they performed? How did they preserve African culture? How did spirituals highlight elements in the Christian religion that the slave could identify with? What kinds of messages did spirituals communicate? Examine the lyrics of three of the following songs: “Wade in the Water,” “Steal Away,” “The Gospel Train (Get on Board),” “Go Down Moses(Let My People Go)” and “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” Analyze them for meaning, using what you have learned. Play clips of the spirituals and deliver your analysis to the class. Source: All Night, All Day p. 32. Black Music in America p.6-9. Climbing Jacobs Ladder. Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History Volume 2 pp. 995-996, 1005. Volume 5 p. 2453, 2551-2553. I’m Going to Sing p. 5-6,47. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave p. 36-38. Slave Religion. Slave Spirituals and the Jubilee Singers.
BIBLIOGRAPHYREFERENCE TITLES 911.73 H673 Historical Atlas of the United States BIOGRAPHY TITLES B B813a Man on Fire NON-FICTION TITLES 299.6 Rab Slave Religion JACKDAW KITS 301.44 H662 Slavery in the United States FICTION NCS Authors' Jumping the Broom F W948 Updated 10/2006
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