SLAVERY ESSAY GUIDELINES:

FORMAT: 3 PAGES, DOUBLE-SPACED, TYPED

ESSAY DUE DATE: TUESDAY, 3/6/12

ESSAY DUE TO TURNITIN BY TUESDAY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT.

Go to turnitin.com.

Remember, the best way to be certain that your essay is ready to be turned in as a final draft is to bring me a rough draft in the days before the final draft is due so that we can revise it together. I CAN ONLY REVISE ONE DRAFT WITH YOU, SO REVISE AND EDIT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE BEFORE BRINGING ME A ROUGH DRAFT.

Remember, your own original analysis of whichever question you choose is crucial. If you are thinking of this history paper as a description of a book or two, think again! Simple description is pointless; make an argument! Again, these issues will be discussed further on the blog and in class.

In a well argued and thoroughly revised essay, answer one of the following questions:

1. Considering Celia, A Slave, and at least two of the Slave Narratives from the American Memory Project what role did violence play in maintaining order on the plantation?
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html

2. Compare and contrast Sally Hemmings and Celia.

3. What was the meaning of music on in the antebellum slave community?
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/time/time_slavery.htm
http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/plantation_life.htm

4. If you have read The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, this one may be for you: Compare and contrast Celia’s attack of Robert Newsom and Frederick Douglass’ fight with the overseer Covey.

5. What was more important in maintaining the discipline of the plantation, physical or psychological control?

6. What was the significance of gender on the slave plantation?

“Gender becomes a way of denoting 'cultural constructions'—the entirely social creation of ideas about appropriate roles for women and men.”  Joan Scott