Transcript WHAT ARE PRIMARY SOURCES?

WHAT ARE PRIMARY SOURCES?
Diaries, journals, speeches, interviews, letters, memos, manuscripts and other papers in
which individuals describe events in which they were participants or observers.
Memoirs and autobiographies. These may be less reliable than diaries or letters since they are usually
written long after events occurred and may be distorted by bias, dimming memory or the revised
perspective that may come with hindsight. On the other hand, they are sometimes the only source for
certain information.
Records of or information collected by government agencies. Many kinds of records (births,
deaths, marriages; permits and licences issued; census data; etc.) document conditions in the society.
Records of organizations. The minutes, reports, correspondence, etc. of an organization or agency
serve as an ongoing record of the activity and thinking of that organization or agency.
Published materials (books, magazine and journal articles, newspaper articles) written at the time
about a particular event. While these are sometimes accounts by participants, in most cases they are
written by journalists or other observers. The important thing is to distinguish between material written at
the time of an event as a kind of report, and material written much later, as historical analysis.
Photographs, audio recordings and moving pictures or video recordings, documenting what
happened.
Materials that document the attitudes and popular thought of a historical time period. If you
are attempting to find evidence documenting the mentality or psychology of a time, or of a group
(evidence of a world view, a set of attitudes, or the popular understanding of an event or condition), the
most obvious source is public opinion polls taken at the time. Since these are generally very limited in
availability and in what they reveal, however, it is also possible to make use of ideas and images conveyed
in the mass media, and even in literature, film, popular fiction, textbooks, etc. Again, the point is to
use these sources, written or produced at the time, as evidence of how people were thinking.
Research data such as anthropological field notes, the results of scientific experiments, and other
scholarly activity of the time.
Artifacts of all kinds: physical objects, buildings, furniture, tools, appliances and household items,
clothing, toys.
Wolf by the Ears: The
Reconstruction of Race in
Antebellum America
"We have the wolf by the
ears; and we can neither
hold him, nor safely let him
go. Justice is in one scale,
and self-preservation in the
other."
A House Divided
Against itself . . .
The Evolution of Two
Americas
The Hardening of
Slavery, 1791-1861
The Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act
Dred Scott
Justice Roger Taney
The words "people of the United States" and
"citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the
same thing. They both describe the political
body who ... form the sovereignty, and who hold
the power and conduct the Government through
their representatives.... The question before us
is, whether the class of persons described in the
plea in abatement [people of African ancestry]
compose a portion of this people, and are
constituent members of this sovereignty? We
think they are not, and that they are not
included, and were not intended to be included,
under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and
can therefore claim none of the rights and
privileges which that instrument provides for and
secures to citizens of the United States. On the
contrary, they were at that time considered as a
subordinate and inferior class of beings, who
had been subjugated by the dominant race, and,
whether emancipated or not, yet remained
subject to their authority, and had no rights or
privileges but such as those who held the power
and the Government might choose to grant
them.
Harriet
Tubman
Underground railroad conductor
Narcoleptic
Union Spy
Feminist after the war.
She pointed a gun at the head of
one of her “passengers” who
threatened to go back to the
plantation and said “you can go
with us to freedom or you can die.”
d
Controlling slaves by law
Free Negroes Lose their Guarantee of Freedom
The Underground Railway
After the compromise of 1850 stated Northern officials “must”
return runaway slaves, the railroad was extended to Canada.
Ingenious Slave “mails” himself to Massachusetts, shocking
postal workers when they open the crate!
Slave Market, 1852
Richmond Slave Pen, 1860
Sale Receipt, 36 Year-Old Male
Resistance and Abolitionism
Nat Turner’s
Rebellion, 1831
Nat Turner Laying Out His Plan
Nearly 60 whites, men. Women
and Children are killed. Turner is
hung in Virginia.
Over 200 slaves are killed by
vigilantes in the following weeks
Nat Turner’s
“Hanging Tree”
The Capture of Nat Turner
The Abolitionists:
All on Fire, William Lloyd Garrison
Abolitionist Tracts
Exposing Slavery
“There is no Negro problem. The problem
is whether the American people have
loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism
enough, to live up to their own
constitution...”
Black Abolitionists
Frederick Douglass
Charles Lennox Henry Highland Garnett
James Forten
African American
Abolitionists
Robert Purvis
Samuel Cornish
William Sill
In 1834 the Philadelphia A.S. [Anti-Slavery] Society was formed, and,
being actively associated in the efforts for the slaves' redemption, I
have travelled thousands of miles in this country, holding meetings in
some of the slave states, have been in the midst of mobs and
violence, and have shared abundantly in the odium attached to the
name of an uncompromising *modern* abolitionist, as well as
partaken richly of the sweet return of peace attendant on those who
would 'undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free, and
break every yoke.'
In 1840, a World's Anti-slavery Convention was called in London.
Women from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were delegates to
that convention. I was one of the number; but, on our arrival in
England, our credentials were not accepted because we were
women. We were, however, treated with great courtesy and attention,
as strangers, and as women, were admitted to chosen seats as
spectators and listeners, while our right of membership was denied-we were voted out.
Lucretia Mott
Abolitionism and
Feminism
This brought the Woman question more into view, and an increase of
interest in the subject has been the result. In this work, too, I have
engaged heart and hand, as my labors, travels, and public
discourses evince. The misrepresentation, ridicule, and abuse
heaped upon this, as well as other reforms, do not, in the least, deter
me from my duty. To those, whose name is cast out as evil for the
truth's sake, it is a small thing to be judged of man's judgement.
This imperfect sketch may give some idea of the mode of life of one
who has found it 'good to be always zealously affected in a good
thing.'
Bleeding Kansas, 1857
John Brown: Violent Problem
Violent Solution
Abraham Lincoln,
1861-1865
Ft. Sumter, April 1861
By Sword, Blood and
Fire
Cleansing 253 Years of
the Sins of a Nation
The Civil War and
Emancipation
African Americans in
the Union Army
Teamsters
Servants (pouring whiskey)
Abraham Lincoln:
Emancipator or
Opportunistic
Politician?
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in
it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and
here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do
not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable [sic] in it an impatient and dictatorial
tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the
national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be
those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not
agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time
destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union,
and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I
would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by
freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored
race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not
believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing
hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall
try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall
appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of
my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.
. . . by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order
and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated
States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and
that the Executive Government of the United States, including the
military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the
freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain
from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend
to them that, in all case when allowed, they labor faithfully for
reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable
condition will be received into the armed service of the United States
to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man
vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely
believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon
military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and
the gracious favor of Almighty God.
A. Lincoln, September 22, 1862
"I was impressed with his entire freedom from popular prejudice
against the colored race. He was the first great man that I talked
with in the United States freely, who in no single instance reminded
me of the difference between himself and myself."
"Measuring by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was
bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical and
determined."
Frederick Douglass
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1864
• In this national crisis, it is not argument that we want, but that rare
courage which dares commit itself to a principle....
• We cannot but remember that there have been days in American
history, when, if the Free States had done their duty, Slavery had
been blocked by an immovable barrier, and our recent calamities
forever precluded. The Free States yielded, and every compromise
was surrender, and invited new demands. Here again is a new
occasion which Heaven offers to sense and virtue. It looks as if we
held the fate of the fairest possession of mankind in our hands, to be
saved by our firmness or to be lost by hesitation....
• Emancipation is the demand of civilization. That is a principle;
everything else is an intrigue.
Voting with their feet: slaves fleeing into union lines
When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation it did not free ALL slaves,
only those in a handful of border states. Slaves in the Deep South did not wait for Lincoln
to expand the order, they deserted their plantations by the thousand to flee behind Union
lines which comprised sort of a rolling wave South as the Union closed in on final victory.
They voted for freedom with their feet!
“Contrabands”
Oddly enough, fleeing
slaves were labeled
contrabands when they
reached freedom: literally,
confiscated property!
Apparently, the Union
Army had no sense of
irony!
Glory: The 54th Massachusetts
You can watch Glory for an extra credit movie and I recommend it, but I also recommend
you not watch it as a unambiguously true story. The battle scenes are fairly accurate, but
Denzel Washington’s character never existed. That unit did not allow escaped slaves into
it’s ranks. That would come later in other units, but not in the 54th, Those were all free
African Americans who gave the full measure of their giving and fought and died so others
could be free. You can’t and shouldn’t diminish that, but don’t mythologize history and
thus obscure the price so many escaped slaves paid when they were finally allowed into
the military, nor the fact that it would take nearly another 100 years before blacks were
allowed to hold the rank of officers after World War II. Not until the Vietnam war were
African American officers allowed to command White troops!
Who would be free themselves must strike
the blow; better even to die free than to live
slaves.
Frederick Douglass
Counting the Cost: 600,000 Dead; over
38,000 Black Soldiers - More than 10% of
all Union Soldiers Killed
Thomas Nast:
In an Unusually
Beneficent Moment