Reading handwritten documents is a skill that many students struggle with when first working with archival sources. Depending on when and where students attended elementary school, they may or may not know how to write and read cursive, and the inconsistencies of spelling and punctuation… Read More »Appendix E: Reading Nineteenth Century Handwriting
Have students review Foreman’s essay in class and have them write down what they think the key take-away of the piece is. Class Discussion: preserve people’s dignity and agency? Introducing concept of specialized language in the slave trade: Introduce terminology used by slave traders to… Read More »Appendix D: Lesson Plan for Language about Slavery
Discussion Guide for Berry and Foster’s articles from JCWE Discussion Guide for Berry, Price per Pound of their Flesh
Ball, Erica. To Live an Antislavery Life: Personal Politics and the Antebellum Black Middle Class. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012. Bell, Richard. “Counterfeit Kin: Kidnappers of Color, the Reverse Underground Railroad, and the Origins of Practical Abolition.” Journal of the Early Republic 38, no.… Read More »Appendix B: Bibliography
Coney and Daniel were two young men born in Princess Anne County, Virginia in the 1810s. They were born enslaved on the farm of Henry Cornick, a wealthy Virginia planter who owned a large estate in the Kempsville area of Princess Anne County (now Virginia… Read More »Coney and Daniel
In 1830, Jack, a 26 year old carpenter, boarded a ship bound for New Orleans. Jack was enslaved and had been sold by John Walker of Norfolk, Virginia to slave trader Paul Pascal. In Norfolk, Jack was one of two enslaved people Walker owned. Walker… Read More »Jack, a carpenter
Jenny, an eleven year old girl was purchased in Norfolk, Virginia by slave trader James Barnes Diggs and transported to New Orleans, Louisiana on the Brig Ajax, captained by Robert H. Banks of Norfolk, Virginia. The ship arrived in New Orleans on March 24, 1829.… Read More »Jenny, an 11 year old girl
On March 7, 1838, an enslaved young woman named Sarah was sold at auction for $400. Sarah had been owned by Dr. Augustus Davezac, son of the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and a well off physician who lived in New Orleans. The Davezac family… Read More »Sarah, an enslaved woman