United States history
Evaluate historical writing (historiography) about slavery over time, and answer this Prompt: To what extent did historical writing about slavery change over time?

In order to answer this question, you will need to compare and contrast how the institution of slavery as depicted in various textbooks from 1900 to 2015. There are 6 samples below.

Complete the following:

1. Use your HAPPY charts to evaluate the following for each source:

· The historical situation, context, time period

· Audience

· Point-of-View

· Purpose

· How is the source of limited use(s)/how is the source of particular significance/value.

2. Once you have analyzed all sources review your charts and Interpret and assess:

Did ideas about the institution of slavery change over time? To a great extent? Somewhat? Not at all? What may account for the change/lack of change?

Source #1

Hazen’s Elementary History of the United States: A Story and a Lesson, published in 1903, included very little about 1619 and the role slavery played in the formation of the United States

Source #2

“[enslaved people] were allowed all the freedom they seemed to want, and were given the privilege of visiting other plantations when they chose to do so. All that was required of them was to be in place when work time came. At the holiday season they were almost as free as their masters.”

“most people in North Carolina were really opposed to slavery and were in favor of a gradual emancipation. Slavery was already in existence, however, through no fault of theirs. They had the slaves and had to manage as best they could the problem of what to do with them.”

Source: A Child’s History of North Carolina , circa 1916

Source #3

“Virginia: History, Government, Geography” a seventh grade textbook, used in Virginia from 1957-70. Some schools still had not replaced these textbooks by the 1980s

“A strong tie existed between slave and master because each was dependent on the other. …The slave system demanded that the master care for the slave in childhood, in sickness, and in old age. This regard that master and slaves had for each other made plantation life happy and prosperous.”

Source #4

“He enjoyed long holidays, especially at Christmas. He did not work as hard as the average free laborer, since he did not have to worry about losing his job. In fact, the slave enjoyed what we might call collective social security. Generally speaking, his food was plentiful, his clothing adequate, his cabin warm, his health protected, his leisure carefree. He did not have to worry about hard times, unemployment, or old age.”

Virginia State textbook, for High School Juniors and Seniors, used from the late 1950s to early 1970s. Some schools still had not replaced these textbooks by the 1980s

Source: A Review of Slave Life in Fourteen United States History Textbooks
Dan B. Fleming

The Journal of Negro Education

Vol. 56, No. 4 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 550-556 (7 pages)

Source #5

“But the “peculiar institution,” as Southerners came to call it, like all human institutions should not be oversimplified. While there were cruel masters who maimed or even killed their slaves (although killing and maiming were against the law in every state), there were also kind and generous owners. The institution was as complex as the people involved. Though most slaves were whipped at some point in their lives, a few never felt the lash. Nor did all slaves work in the fields. Some were house servants or skilled artisans. Many may not have even been terribly unhappy with their lot, for they knew no other.”

Prentice Hall Classics: A History of the United States, 2008 a Revisionist History Textbook

Source: For 10 years, students in Texas have used a textbook that says not all slaves were unhappy

Source #6

“This page in a McGraw-Hill Education geography textbook was used in Texas and published in 2015 that referred to Africans brought to American plantations as ‘workers’ rather than slaves. In a section of the book describing America as a nation of immigrants and called ‘Patterns of Immigration’, the text with a map of the United States reads: ‘The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.’

The authors, on the page next to the map, wrote of ‘an influx of English and other European peoples, many of whom came as indentured servants to work for little or no pay,’ but made no mention of how Africans came to the country.”

Source: Texas Mother Teaches Textbook Company a Lesson on Accuracy (Published 2015)