instruction:
Secondary Sources: There will be ten (10) Secondary Sources that students will read over the class. Each Secondary Source will require the student to read a short article and answer the questions on the last page. There will not be a length requirement for answers. Just answer the questions completely. The goal is to have the students engage with historians on various topics and develop a more in-depth understanding of historical narratives. Think of it this way; Textbooks are the scenery, the Primary and Secondary Sources are the characters in the story – make sense? Each set of questions will be worth 20 points – 10 sets of questions = 200 points.
Make sure you are checking your Originality Report for each assignment. This report tells me if there is a concern with parts of your submission related to other students. In other words, you do not want to have a high percentage because it will look like you plagiarized someone else’s work. If you are going to work together on these assignments, make sure that your submission is your voice. This ain’t Math class, so do not copy someone else’s work!
1 Were you surprised to learn that “six out of every seven persons who crossed the Atlantic to take up life in the New World in the 300 years before the American Revolution were African slaves”? What impact did this forced migration have on the cultures of transplanted Europeans and Africans? Describe the culture of “pre-contact” Africa and compare it to Europe.
2 What impact did the discovery of the New World have on the African slave trade? What were the difficulties associated with a labor force that consisted of Indians or white indentured servants? Why would Nash state that “more than anything else it was sugar that transformed the African slave trade”?
3 Imagine that you are an African en route to the New World. Describe the physical and psychological trauma you face as an unwilling victim of the slave trade. What was the middle passage? What was the fate of those slaves who attempted to rebel against their captors?
4 How did English colonists become familiar with the African slave trade? What factors motivated them to transform their agricultural labor force from indentured servants to slaves?
5 Why was a slave-based economy less appealing to the English settlements to the north? What made New Yo rk an exception to that general pattern? 6 What was “one of the great paradoxes in American history”? Why does Nash believe that slavery and racial prejudice influenced each other? What implications does his conclusion have for twenty-first-century America?
