Three
secondary sources (the kind written by historians in the modern world) and two
primary sources (eyewitness accounts from the past) will make up the source
portion of the paper. Papers
should be 4-5 pages long, double-spaced, with citations. Questions to answer:
·
What did freedom mean to ex-slaves and other
Americans after the Civil War? How did
they define the word? How did they use
it in their writings?
·
What aspect of freedom did ex-slaves consider
most important? Did they talk about
freedom of movement, freedom of opportunity, the freedom to control their own
daily activities?
·
What did ex-slaves (and other Americans) see as
the most important limitations of the freedom obtained by ex-slaves after the
Civil War? In other words, what was
missing? What more could they do to
expand and ensure their newly found freedoms?
What could others do?
·
To whom were ex-slaves speaking in the wake of
the Civil War? When you look at the
sources, who are they talking to? Were
these conversations among ex-slaves, or were they crafted for an “outside”
audience? What might this tell us about
the source material?
·
What is the tone of the sources? Are the relieved at the end of slavery? Do they seem hopeful about the future? Or are they nervous and worried in tone? Think about how these documents speak to us
in addition to what they literally say.
·
Think about the origin of the sources you are
working with, because (of course!) different people had different
experiences. Where an ex-slave lived and
worked mattered, as both slavery and emancipation worked differently depending
on where it happened. Another thing to
consider was the type of work they did—an ex-slave with some skilled work
experience (like a blacksmith) might have a different understanding of the
situation than a slave who worked in the fields, right? Was this person old or young? A man or a woman? Always be thinking about who the person was
and what that might tell you about how they interpreted and explained the
events.
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secondary sources (the kind written by historians in the modern world) and appeared first on Skilled Papers.
