Honors 218X
Fighting Slavery
Fall 2014
Class Meetings:
Office Hours:
TLF 2103 MW 2pm-3.15pm
Mondays 9.30-11.30am, KEY 2136
Prof. Richard Bell
elms.umd.edu
rjbell@umd.edu
Course Description:
How do you slay a many-headed monster? How do you defeat an economic system deaf to
the cries of conscience and morality? How do you destroy an entrenched special interest
that profits from treating people like property?
For three centuries men and women committed to resisting the spread of slavery in British
North America and the newly United States grappled with these questions, searching for
ways to save themselves and their fellows from the deracinating consequences of
commodification.
This course offers students a rare chance to step into their shoes. As you examine the
different tools and tactics, means and methods that Americans have used to escape slavery
or try to exterminate it, students will confront a sequence of interpretive, analytical and
quantitative assignments conceived around the grand problems that animated all those
who fought to end slavery: Should slavery be fought with violence? How do you generate
moral outrage? How do you convert moral outrage into political action? Whose
responsibility is it to act?
This course introduces students to a large and often unfamiliar cast of characters. It offers
students the chance to rethink the commonly-held view that the scratch of Lincoln’s pen on
the Emancipation Proclamation was the signal event in this nation’s struggle with slavery.
On the contrary, the course offers a dramatic conceptual alternative to this triumphal view
of presidential courage, an alternative that places the acts of black field-workers and
fugitives, of preachers and vigilantes, of white soldiers and activists alongside the familiar
figure of our sixteenth president. One of the goals of this course is to remind students that
the rapacious diversity of slavery in America between 1619 and 1865 has been matched
only by the unceasing variety of attempts to overthrow it.
Expectations & Grading:
Each student is expected to attend and participate fully in all class meetings. Three writing
assignments accompany a final exam. The grading breakdown is as follows:
Class Participation
Assignment #1
Assignment #2
30%
10%
15%
Assignment #3
Final Exam
20%
25%
Important Class Policies:
* Late papers must be supported by medical documentation or will face stringent penalties
* No outside research beyond that described in assignment or exam instructions is
expected or permitted
* For every medically necessary absence from discussion, a reasonable effort should be
made to notify Prof. Bell in advance of the class. If a student is absent more than once,
Prof. Bell will require documentation signed by a health care professional. The
university’s policies on medical and other absences can be found at:
http://www.umd.edu/catalog/index.cfm/show/content.section/c/27/ss/1584/s/1540
Grading Scale:
A
AB+
100-94
<94-90
<90-87
B
BC+
<87-84
<84-80
<80-77
C
CD+
<77-74
<74-70
<70-67
D
DF
<67-64
<64-61
Below 61
Required Readings:
All readings assigned for our discussions are published in the source pack (available for
purchase from Prof. Bell). All readings are primary sources, a circumstance that allows
students to encounter many of our subjects in their own words, and with as few
intermediaries as possible.
Format of Class Meetings:
An introductory class meeting sets out the big questions posed by this course: Why is
chattel bondage so difficult to destroy? What does it mean to fight slavery? How do we
measure effective opposition?
It is followed by a sequence of twenty-eight class meetings that are broadly chronological,
beginning at the dawn of European overseas expansion in the late Fifteenth Century and
ending with Reconstruction. The course divides this long durée into five generational
periods using categories popularized by Prof. Ira Berlin in Generations of Captivity (2003).
The meeting schedule for each generational period includes one class meeting devoted to
understanding why slavery continues to spread, thus providing a useful counterpoint to the
species of opposition examined in the other class meetings in that cluster.
A concluding class meeting asks students to consider connections between the story of
American opposition to race slavery and the ongoing struggle to eradicate sex slavery and
debt bondage in the 21st century.
Reading & Meeting Schedule:
I. Introduction
Wed 3 Sept: Fighting Slavery
1. “THE ABOLITIONISTS,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 9, 1874
II. The Charter Generations (1492-1699)
Mon 8 Sept: Why Slavery Spreads: Origins of Slavery in the British Empire
1. “The Second Voyage of John Hawkins, 1564-1565” in Elizabeth Donnan, ed.,
Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America (1930), I: 47-57
2. “Guzman De Silva to Philip II” (7 letters) in Documents Illustrative, I: 57-66
3. “Charter of the Royal African Company” in Documents Illustrative, I: 177-192
4. Charles Davenant, Reflections upon the Constitution and Management of the Trade to
Africa… (1709), 36-41
Wed 10 Sept: Opposing the Slave Trade in Africa
1. “The Third Voyage of John Hawkins, 1567-1568” in Documents Illustrative, I: 66-69
2. “John Barbot’s Description of Guinea” in Documents Illustrative, I: 282-285, 288-290,
292-301
3. “Voyage of the Hannibal, 1693-1694” in Documents Illustrative, I: 392-410
4. Venture Smith, Narrative of the Life of Venture, a Native of Africa (1798), iii-13
Mon 15 Sept: Saltwater Slaves
1. “Voyage of John Atkins to Guinea, 1721” in Documents Illustrative, II: 264-266
2. “William Snelgrave, an English Trader, Describes the Business of Slave Trading and
Two Slave Mutinies, 1734,” in Thomas C. Holt and Elsa Barkley Brown, eds., Major
Problems in African-American History (1999), I: 44-49
3. “New-York, August 6,” Boston Post-Boy, 13 August 1750
4. “Newport, May 21,” Pennsylvania Gazette, 31 May 1764
5. Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings (1995), 55-61
6. James Field Stanfield, “Letter VII” in Observations on a Guinea Voyage, in a Series of
Letters… By a late mariner in the African Slave Trade, (1788), 30-34
7. Eric Robert Taylor, If We Must Die: Shipboard Insurrections in the Era of the Atlantic
Slave Trade (2006), 179-213
Wed 17 Sept: Anthony Johnson
1. Documents 2-5 in Major Problems in African-American History I: 85-91
2. Slave Acts of 1662, 1667, 1668 and 1669 in William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes
at Large, being a collection of all the Laws of Virginia (1823), II: 170, 260, 266
3. 1705 Slave Act in Statutes at Large, III: 447-462
Mon 22 Sept: Quakers and Puritans
1. Appendices in Katherine Gerbner, “’We Are Against the Traffik of Men-Body’: The
Germantown Quaker Protest of 1688 and the Origins of American Abolitionism,”
Pennsylvania History 74:2 (2007), 168-170
2. Sidney Kaplan, ed, The Selling of Joseph (1969), 7-17
3. John Saffin, “A Brief and Candid Answer…” in George H. Moore, ed., Notes on the
History of Slavery in Massachusetts (1969), 251-256
4. ‘An Exhortation and Caution to Friends concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes’
(1693) in J. William Frost, ed., The Keithian Controversy in Early Pennsylvania
(1979), 213-218
III. The Plantation Generations (1700-1775)
Wed 24 Sep: Why Slavery Spreads: Thomas Thistlewood and the Plantation Revolution
1. “A Jamaica Act ‘For the Better Ordering of Slaves,’ 1684” in Paul G.E. Clemens, ed.,
The Colonial Era: A Documentary Reader (2008), 67-68
2. “A Virginia Planter Instructs his Plantation Manager about Enslaved Workers,
1743/4 and 1754,” Colonial Era, 139-141
3. “Scenes from the Life of a Great Tobacco Planter in Eighteenth-Century Virginia,”
Colonial Era, 170-175
Sat 27 Sept: Assignment #1 due via elms by midnight
Mon 29 Sept: Phibbah Thistlewood
1. Documents 2-4 in Mary Beth Norton and Ruth M. Alexander, eds., Major Problems in
American Women’s History, 4th ed. (2007), 82-88
2. “Testimony of Phillis” in Sharon Block, Ruth M. Alexander and Mary Beth Norton,
eds. Major Problems in American Women’s History, 5th ed. (2014), 86
3. “Appendix B: James Callender’s Reports” in Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, eds.,
Sally Hemings & Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture (1999), 259261
Wed 1 Oct:
Revolts
Guest Presentation by Prof. Jason Sharples (Catholic University)
1. “New York Governor Robert Hunter to the Lords of Trade, June 23, 1712,” in E.B.
Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York
Vol. 5 (1855), 341-342
2. “Spanish Designs and Slave Resistance,” “Account of the Negroe Insurrection in
South Carolina,” “Rewarding Indians, Catching Rebels” and “Act of Better Ordering
Slaves” in Mark M. Smith, Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a Southern Slave
Revolt (2005), 3-6, 13-15, 18, 20-27
3. Tackey’s Revolt Dynamic Map: http://revolt.axismaps.com/map/
Mon 6 Oct: Maroons
1. Documents 1.1-1.4 in Timothy James Lockley, ed., Maroon Communities in South
Carolina (2009), 8-12
2. Documents 2.4-2.9 in Maroon Communities, 21-33
Wed 8 Oct: The Hermit, The Missionary, The Schoolteacher
1. Phillips P. Moulton, ed., The Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman (1971), 58-69
IV. The Revolutionary Generations (1776-1807)
Mon 13 Oct: Declaring Independence
1. “Lord Dunmore ‘Frees’ the Slaves” in Alden T. Vaughan, ed., Chronicles of the
American Revolution (1965), 194-199
2. Petition of Jacob Francis in John C. Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered:
Eyewitnesses Accounts of the War for Independence (1980), 390-9
3. Petition of Jehu Grant in Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered, 26-8
4. “A Black Loyalist’s Escape” in Wayne Franklin, ed., American Voices, American Lives:
A Documentary Reader (1997), 279-287
5. Graham Russell Hodges, ed., The Black Loyalist Directory: African Americans in Exile
after the Revolution (1996), 193-223
Tue 14 Oct:
Film Screening and Discussion: Belle (2014)
Wed 15 Oct: Claiming Legal Freedom
1. “Belinda’s Petition, 1783” in Roy E. Finkenbine, “Belinda’s Petition: Reparations for
Slavery in Revolutionary Massachusetts,” William and Mary Quarterly, 64:1 (2007),
supplement
2. “A Letter on Slavery, or Perpetual Servitude,” Pennsylvania Journal, 21 February,
1781
3. “An Act to Authorize the Manumission of Slaves (1782),” Statutes at Large, XI: 39-40
4. “Saul, a Slave Revolutionary Veteran, Petitions for Freedom, 1792,” in Major
Problems in African-American History I: 163
5. William Cushing’s Legal Notes about the Quock Walker case (1793):
http://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=630&mode=dual&img_ste
p=1#page1
6. Elizabeth Freeman’s Last Will & Testament, October 8, 1829 (1829)
Mon 20 Oct: Why Slavery Spreads: Two Charles Pinckneys
1. Fredrika Teute Schmidt and Barbara Ripel Wilhelm, "Early Proslavery Petitions in
Virginia," William and Mary Quarterly, 30:1 (1973), 133-146
2. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787, repr. 1989), 89-94, 137-155,
168-169
Wed 22 Oct: Black Jacobins
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Sat 25 Oct:
Assignment #2 due via elms by midnight
Mon 27 Oct: Black Founders
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
V. The Migration Generations (1808-1849)
Wed 29 Oct: Why Slavery Spreads: The Second Middle Passage
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Thu 30 Oct:
Film Screening and Discussion: Twelve Years a Slave (2013)
Mon 3 Nov:
Colonization
Guest Presentation by Prof. Christopher Bonner (University of Maryland)
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Wed 5 Nov: Walker, Turner and Black Immediatism
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Mon 10 Nov: Garrison, Child and the Silent Army
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
VI. The Freedom Generations (1850-1865)
Wed 12 Nov: Why Slavery Spreads: Roger Taney and Slave Law
Guest Presentation by Prof. Michael Ross (University of Maryland)
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Mon 17 Nov: Frederick Douglass and Militant Abolitionism
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Wed 19 Nov: Two Harriets
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Sat 22 Nov:
Assignment #3 due via elms by midnight
Mon 24 Nov: John Brown’s Bodies
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Wed 26 Nov: NO CLASS-Thanksgiving!
Mon 1 Dec:
Fighting Slavery in the Civil War
Guest Presentation by Prof. Leslie Rowland (University of Maryland)
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Tue 2 Dec:
Film Screening and Discussion: Lincoln (2012)
Wed 3 Dec: Martin Delany and Civil War Soldiering
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Thu 4 Dec:
Film Screening and Discussion: Glory (1989)
VII. The Next Generations (1877 to the Present)
Mon 8 Dec: Fighting Slavery After Emancipation
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Wed 10 Dec: Fighting Slavery Now
1. Check elms.umd.edu after October 1 for updates
Wed 10 Dec: Film Screening and Discussion: I Am A Slave (2010)
Thu 18 Dec: Final Exam due via elms by 3.30pm
University Policies:
Students with disabilities or religious obligations should contact me at the beginning of the
semester to discuss any accommodation for this course.
If you are experiencing difficulties in keeping up with the academic demands of this course,
contact the Learning Assistance Service, 2202 Shoemaker Building, 301-314-7693. Their
educational counselors can help with time management, reading, math learning skills, notetaking and exam preparation skills. All their services are free to UMD students.
The University has approved a Code of Academic Integrity which prohibits students from
cheating on exams, plagiarizing papers, submitting the same paper for credit in two courses
without authorization, buying papers, facilitating academic dishonesty, submitting
fraudulent documents, and forging signatures. Plagiarism policy: all quotations taken from
other authors, including from the internet, must be indicated by quotation marks and
referenced. Paraphrasing must be referenced as well. Allegations of academic dishonesty
will be reported directly to the Student Honor Council: http://www.shc.umd.edu .
This syllabus may be subject to change.