Assignment about African diaspora/slave trade. Here’s the professor’s instructions. I personally organized readings under grouped prompts that I suggest you look at for each. Answer one prompt and make sure to listen to teachers instructions!:
For this essay you may analyze materials and topics we have discussed in class. You should integrate a primary source in some way in your analysis (e.g., Equiano’s narrative, Donnan’s Documents, the slave codes/laws, etc.). You may use excerpts from primary sources that are quoted in secondary sources (e.g., in the work of Michael Gomez, Jennifer Morgan, Stephanie Smallwood, Julius Scott, etc.). For this essay you do not need to research and incorporate any additional sources outside of the required materials for the course. (I will attach these readings you will use for each possible prompt.)
As mentioned in the syllabus, consider using these essays as a tool for exploring your own questions and interpretations that have emerged as a result of the readings and class discussions. Avoid describing or summarizing events. My assessment of your essays will be based on your critical presentation of a topic/issue/question, as well as your integration of your analysis of assigned materials.
Here are a few prompts/suggestions to consider (Pick one prompt):
–Identify and examine 2-3 different ways/processes in which Africans demonstrated what Michael Gomez refers to as “ethnogenesis” during the Middle Passage or in the Americas.
–Present and analyze 2-3 different acts/processes of resistance of African captives during the transatlantic slave trade.
–Drawing on the work of Stephanie Smallwood and Jennifer Morgan, discuss how and why 2-3 specific conditions on board slave ships reinforced racialist conceptions about African captives.
* Stephanie E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), Introduction, Chapter 1—The Gold Coast and the Atlantic Market in People, Chapter 2—Turning African Captives into Atlantic Commodities, and Chapter 3—The Political Economy of the Slave Ship, Chapter 4—The Anomalous Intimacies of the Slave Cargo, and Chapter 5—The Living Dead Aboard the Slave Ship at Sea.
* Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, ed., W. Sollors (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2000, c1789).
FOR THIS CLASS SESSION READ ONLY, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Introduction and Chapters 1-2. (AVAILABLE ONLINE)
* Selections from Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, 4 volumes (Washington, D. C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1930-1935).
(AVAILABLE ON CANVAS WEBSITE)
Patrick Manning, The African Diaspora: A History Through Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), Chapter 3—Survival, 1600-1800, 92-155. (E-BOOK)
* Joseph E. Inikori, “Slaves or Serfs? A Comparative Study of Slavery and Serfdom in Europe and Africa,” in Isidore Okpewho, Carole Boyce Davies, and Ali A. Mazrui, eds., The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 49-75.
(RECOMMENDED—AVAILABLE ON CANVAS WEBSITE)
* Tamara J. Walker, “’They Proved to Be Very Good Sailors’: Slavery and Freedom in the South Sea,” The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History 78, no. 3 (July 2021): 439- 465. (RECOMMENDED—AVAILABLE ON CANVAS WEBSITE)
* Michael A. Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), Chapter 7—Talking Half African: Middle Passage, Seasoning, and Language.”
(RECOMMENDED)
–Critically present 2-3 ways colonial slave laws attempted to curtail the rights of people of African descent or eliminate acts of slave resistance.
* Jennifer L. Morgan, “‘Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder’: Male Travelers, Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology, 1500-1770,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 54, No. 1. (Jan., 1997), pp. 167-192.
(AVAILABLE ON CANVAS WEBSITE)
* Stephanie E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), Introduction, Chapter 1—The Gold Coast and the Atlantic Market in People, Chapter 2—Turning African Captives into Atlantic Commodities, and Chapter 3—The Political Economy of the Slave Ship, Chapter 4—The
Anomalous Intimacies of the Slave Cargo, and Chapter 5—The Living Dead Aboard the Slave Ship at Sea.
* Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, ed., W. Sollors (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2000, c1789). FOR THIS CLASS SESSION READ ONLY, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Introduction and Chapters 1-2. (AVAILABLE ONLINE)
–Examine 2-3 examples of interlocking racialized and gendered dimensions of the conditions of the transatlantic slave trade or the tenets of slavery.
* Jennifer L. Morgan, “‘Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder’: Male Travelers, Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology, 1500-1770,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 54, No. 1. (Jan., 1997), pp. 167-192.
(AVAILABLE ON CANVAS WEBSITE)
* Jennifer L. Morgan, Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021), Introduction, Chapter 1—Producing Numbers: Reckoning with the Sex Ratio in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1500-1700, Chapter 5—“The Division of the Captives”: Commerce and Kinship in the English Americas, Chapter 6—“Treacherous Rogues”: Locating Women in Resistance and Revolt and Conclusion: Madness. (AVAILABLE ON CANVAS WEBSITE)
And, here are a few remarks on questions often asked about essays in general . . .
Is this an opinion paper?
This is neither an “opinion” paper nor a journal entry. You should have a specific thesis statement/central argument. You should convey your interpretations—your analysis—of a particular issue/topic (based on your engagement with specific arguments in the primary and secondary sources). Especially with these shorter essays, students often try to integrate as many secondary or additional sources as possible. Try to avoid doing this. Focus instead on YOUR interpretations/analysis of the materials.
Do I need to have a thesis statement?
The answer is always YES to this question. Remember, a thesis statement is not the general topic of your paper, a litany of facts, or personal attitudes. Instead, your thesis statement should demonstrate a particular argument/interpretation based on your critical examination of the evidence/material (in this case the primary and secondary sources in the assigned readings).
Parenthetical citations/footnotes and bibliography?
You should include citations for ALL quotations (even as quoted selections will be from your assigned readings). It is fine to use parenthetical citations for the essays for this class. It is good practice to include footnotes, even though parenthetical citations may seem easier to use. Utilizing footnotes also has an added bonus; unlike parentheticals, you can expand upon a point in a footnote (without detracting from the main narrative of your essay or specific arguments/points within the essay itself). And, yes, include a bibliography so that your essay is complete.
What style/format for citations?
Historians tend to use the Chicago Style. For more on this particular style, see the Chicago Style Citation Quick Guide (Links to an external site.). You can use another style (MLA, APA, etc.). Just be consistent (so use the same style throughout your essay).
(5-7 pgs)