Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer:
Paper Instructions:
A portion of this course asks you to write a paper that gives a small taste of what historians actually do. The field of history is not solely about memorizing names and dates, rather it is an ongoing conversation. It is a dynamic field in which you can be an active participant. The major components of the field of history focus on constructing an argument, researching supporting evidence, and presenting that evidence in a concise manner. An historian will make an argument about a topic and support her/his argument utilizing primary source or secondary source documents (i.e. evidence). You will be required to write a 4-5-page (1200-1500 words) paper on an individual slave’s experience. This assignment will expose you to several aspects in the discipline of history such as primary sources, citations, etc . . .
The Paper must be submitted using the link on MyCourses. An extension will not be given except for the most extreme circumstance, and must be arranged well in advance of the due date with your instructor’s permission. This means that the due date is firm for the entire class; late submissions will result in an automatic zero.
The institution of African American slavery defined early American history, and the ramifications of the institution permeate in many ways into modern discourse. Understanding the life of a slave, from the perspective of a slave, is an extremely valuable exercise for better understanding the institution. Every element of the slave’s life was owned and controlled by the slave owner. Historian Walter Johnson argued that the American institution of slavery was built “out of sun, water, and soil; animal energy, human labor, and mother wit; grain, flesh, and cotton; pain, hunger and fatigue; blood, milk, semen, and shit.” In order for you to better understand the life of a slave, you are required to write a 4-5-page (1200-1500 words) narrative paper utilizing the North American Slave Narratives database: http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/texts.html. The North American Slave Narratives database is produced by the University of North Carolina, and it is a collection of African American slave narratives from individuals who lived in the 18th and 19th century. You should find an individual’s story that interests you, and develop a paper about their experience. You should be able to construct a biography answering questions about the individual. Why and how did they write the narrative? Where did they grow up? What was their occupation? What was their educational background, if any? How did they write about their experience as a slave? How did they portray their owners? Furthermore, you should grapple with some larger issues in the field of history, such as the reliability of the sources, who wrote the narrative, is their any type of bias present in the narrative, can the source be trusted, etc.? You do not need to engage with each one of these questions, but I expect you to fully analyze the life of the individual you chose and to situate their story into the larger lessons of the course. This paper should reflect your understanding and knowledge of this topic from the course thus far, and you should be able to speak about specific historic instances that support the narrative you chose.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/texts.html. (database that needs to be used)
https://pdf4school.com/checkout/order-confirmation (book)