Final Picture!

Our Class was awesome!

Study Group

Use this space to organize a study group for the test/essay/presentation. You should get to know your classmates!

Slave Prices & Slave Trade Narratives

Slave Prices
David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis and David Richardson, `Slave Prices, the African Slave Trade and Productivity in the Caribbean, Economic History Review 58 (2005)


Slave Prices SC
Peter C. Mancall, Joshua L. Rosenbloom and Thomas Weiss, “Slave Prices and the South Carolina Economy, 1722-1809,” Journal of Economic History, 61 (2001)

On Reserve:

Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by himself. History of Mary Prince, a West Indian slave, related by herself / edited with an introduction by Moira Ferguson ; with a preface by Ziggi Alexander. Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua : his passage from slavery to freedom in Africa and America / edited by Robin Law and Paul E. Lovejoy. Africa remembered; narratives by West Africans from the era of the slave trade, edited by Philip D. Curtin. With introductions and annotation by Philip D. Curtin [and others]

FINAL ESSAY PROMPT

History 2501

ESSAY 2- The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

1st Draft Due- Peer Review, Friday, April 29th

Final Due Date- MAY 6, 8 am

In an 8-10 page essay, you will engage with, and/or challenge, an existing interpretation of the economic, political, or moral issues that have surrounded the history of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. 

By examining the historical arguments that are presented in both Robert O. Collins Problems in Precolonial Africa and the David Northrup's Atlantic Slave Trade collection your argument should engage with differing ideas about the rise and fall of the Atlantic Slave Trade and how this mode of production affected both African and European peoples socially, culturally and economically (you do not necessarily need to include all three).  

You should analyze how your argument relates to an existing thread of scholarship and use no less than four sources, including at least ONE primary source, as well as the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade Database as your evidence. Please provide foot notes as well as a bibliography. 

All essays must be turned in on 8 ½ x 11” paper and use 12 point font. All titles need to be centered. All drafts must be double-spaced and have 1” margins. Pages should be numbered and stapled together. First/second drafts and AST 1 must be included and may contain corrections and comments in pencil or ink, but final drafts should be as free from error as possible.  Any papers that do not conform to these standards will not be accepted.

Questions

Do you need me to respond to a very specific question you have? Explain to me in a few words your question and I will try and get you an answer in a timely fashion. Good luck!

Wednesday, April 13/15th- What are you doing?

We should be focusing on this two page assignment as a proposal of sorts. Follow this guideline for your papers. From this investigation and short description of your project, you can make an outline for your larger paper.  Use this space to let me know how you are going to address the issues below. You just need to tell me in a sentence or two.  I will respond when I can. Use both today and Friday to come up with something good. Cheers!

Assignment #1: Proposal- use this as the model for your 500 word analysis of the AST data


I have noticed that you guys are attempting to move into good theoretical territory. This is a good way to structure your paper:

1. Figure out what argument you like from the specific historian you are focusing on. Then parse down their argument to one paragraph.

2. You are now engaging with their theoretical model, or methodology. This means that you are going to try to use their model to prove or disprove your own argument, based on very specific data from your AST project. Write a paragraph on what you are going to do and how.

3. Now is the time to provide an analysis. This is the point where you have left their argument and the way they constructed their theoretical model and now you are on your own. You have made your own argument, you are using your own evidence, and you are developing your own analysis. This is the bulk of your essay.

4. Conclude, but don't act like you have figured out some gospel truth. Make room for further analysis, or future research, stuff like that., so that you can use it as the base for your larger paper

Monday, April 11th- What are you doing?

Please let me know what you have been doing for your AST project.

What are you doing?

Please post a few lines about what arguments from the readings you are engaging with and the information that you are attempting to uncover from the Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Use this space to draft out your ideas.  Here is the url for the books that I have on reserve at the library. http://tinyurl.com/hbxe4rk

I will offer you some feedback as well as three points on your last test grade if you have your post up before 10 pm Thursday night.

Atlantic Slave Trade Assignment

History 2501

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Project 

Assignment #1 Due: Friday, April 8

Assignment #2 Due: Friday, May 6

Overview

In this two-part project,   The first assignment will be an elementary exploration of voyages.  The second assignment will require you to present your findings to the class.  

Assignment #1- April 8

1. Identify ONE of the historical arguments from the weekly readings that you thought was particularly strong or weak.

 2. Explore the search tools in the Voyages database - like the flag, place of embarkation and/or debarkation, sex ratios, and other variables - to pin-point specific evidence that will either bolster or undermine the argument you picked, or create your own argument based on the readings and the sources.

Write a 500 word analysis AND bring a hard copy with you to Friday discussion

Assignment #2 May 6

Based on  your essay, prepare a five-minute  presentation that highlights the argument you are engaging with, identifies exactly where you found your evidence, and visually explains how you came to your conclusions.  You can use images, maps, Art, music, or digital media to help you set the stage. This is your project, so you can do what you want; however, you need to have specific information either written or displayed that represents your scholarly interpretation of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.  Please include a bibliography with all of the sources that you have used at the end of the presentation.  

Grade Breakdown = 20%

2% - Assignment #1

5%- Strength of evidence through effective use of the database

5%- Engagement with and understanding of the existing historical arguments

5% - Creativity of Presentation

3% - Presentation (Note: If you go over 5 minutes, I will ask you to stop and lower your grade by 1 point, so you need to practice prior to class!)

Women and Slavery (183-212)

Hello All:  Please read pgs 183-212 in Collins for this week. You will read the rest next week.

1- Explain the different demographic arguments that are being presented by Thornton, Meillassoux, and Kline. Is there one that you agree with more than the others? Why?

2- According to Thornton, what does polygyny have to do with population growth? What historian is he arguing with and do you think he has enough evidence to support his hypothesis? How does he come up with his sources?

3- According to Meillassoux, what does fertility have to do with price of enslaved women? From what sources is he able to make his analysis?

4- According to Kline, what is the difference between the 'household mode of production' and the 'slave mode of production'? How do these modes of production affect the costs of enslaved workers? What sources does he use to make his claims?

5- Do enslaved people have any rights, and if so, what are they?

Memory and Luba Art

1. What is the main argument of this article and what sources do they utilize to support their points?

2. How is memory defined and then used as a methodological device? Does the concept of "Uchronia" fit into this model? Why or why not?

3. How did the term "empire" become associated with the Luba Kingdom and why is it problematic for the authors? Is there another term that might be more indicative for the role the Luba?

4. What is a lukasa, how does it work, and do you think that there is a text/object relationship in them? A(hint: you will need to look at the pictures and read the captions.)

5. Is there evident to support the concept of the  Lieux de memorie  as valid way to describe how the Luba understand their histories? How does the body fit into the concept of place and memory?

ROUGH DRAFT

For Peer Review on Friday, you must bring at least a 5 page draft of your paper to class. This is just a draft and does not need to be perfect, but it must be clean enough for your reviewer to read and comment on. The better your draft is, the more feedback  you can get. 10 points will be taken off of your final draft if you fail to come to class or participate in the peer review.

For your footnotes, use this link to clarify:

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

My Paper, to be used as a reference only (the margins are off, but you should have 1in on all sides) :

During the colonial era, enslaved Africans and their British captors transformed old-world marketing

 practices into a system of local commerce that was unique to the American   South. Both European 

and African women were expected to participate in small-scale food trade in order to maintain 

their households, and the sight of women selling homegrown vegetables, cooked foods, and 

other perishables throughout the Atlantic World was common.  Prior to industrialization, 

British women were responsible for the buying and selling of the majority of food in the

 urban and rural areas of England but they rarely engaged in the importing and exporting 

of sugar, tobacco, or cotton.[1]  In large West African cities like Eko, Ouidah, and Kano 

women also controlled vending in the local markets but unlike England, elite African 

women also dealt with large-scale trade in commodities like slaves, cloth, and salt.  

In the American South, social mores kept the unmarried sisters and widows of slave-owning 

men in a type of urban purdah and they rarely engaged in market activities, but their 

relationships with certain enslaved domestics allowed both groups of women to profit 

off of the gendered nature of the urban food trade. African and African American 

women utilized their strangely privileged positions in the market place to reinforce a 

type of internal economy and to create a version of southern commerce that reflected 

African customs.

        Like both their enslaved and free West African counterparts, bondwomen in the Low

       Country established economic relationships between themselves and their mistresses, but  

        also among groups of people on multiple plantations.  The task system encouraged

enslaved laborers to grow corn, yams, and gourds in addition to keeping hogs, 

chickens, and cows.  A property map of the plantation locations on a modern map 

creates visual depiction of the movements of enslaved people from rural areas to the 

Charleston marketplace. The WPA map identifies “negro grounds” where certain plantation 

owners, like the Maybank, Phillips, and Manigault families, allowed their enslaved workers 

to maintain independent fields for the cultivation of their own crops. Gabriel Manigault’s 

trusted laborer Cudjo travelled up to 24 miles on Sundays, an accustomed free day, to sell 

surplus produce in urban marketplaces.[2] Enslaved men were frequently seen by 

foreign travelers moving throughout the lowcountry with permission from their masters 

to sell surplus food crops in local marketplaces. These men were provided with the 

opportunity to move about the countryside unmolested and were the people who linked the 

plantation to the urban market. 

Borrowing from West African traditions, female vendors would meet these suppliers 

along specific routes in or around urban centers and purchase surplus goods. Bondwomen

used this strategy to control the rates of particular items, like corn or yams, and influenced

 their prices.  In 1772, a concerned citizen wrote to the South Carolina Gazette describing this 

practice, noting that “I have seen the country negroes take great pains, after having been first 

spoke to by those women to reserve whatever they chose to sell to them only, either by 

keeping the particular article in their canows, or by sending them away and pretending they

 were not for sale.”[3] Market women were so adept at these transactions the citizen 

proclaimed that “the wenches so briskly hustle them about from one to another that in 

two minutes they could no longer be traced.”[4] Trade networks allowed bonded laborers 

and market women to profit without having to include the dominant class in any monetary 

transactions. Through these processes, urban women and rural plantation workers organized

 a distinctive informal economy in southern slave society.

---

[1] E.P. Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” Past and Present, 50 (1971); 

Alice Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century, (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Howe, 1920).

[2] Philip Morgan, “Work and Culture: The Task System and the World of Lowcountry Blacks, 1700 to 1880,” 

The William and Mary Quarterly 39, no. 4 (1982): 565; Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 1-7, 535-540; Douglas R. Egerton, 

“Markets Without a Market Revolution: Southern Planters and Capitalism,” Journal of the Early Republic 24 (2004): 212.

[3] South Carolina Gazette, September 24, 1772.

[4] South Carolina Gazette, September 24, 1772.

Muslim Africa

1. What factors does Mervyn Hiskett attribute to the rapid rise of Shehu  Usman dan Fodio?

2. Would M.G. Smith agree with Hiskett's analysis? Why or why not?

3. Describe three theories M.O. Junaid outlined in his essay. Which one do you find the most convincing and why?

4. Explain some of the theoretical framework (methodologies) Peter Waterman outlines. What conclusions does he draw?

5. In what ways did the Qu'ran dictate how women should be treated in Islamic society? Did social interactions actually align with what was written in the Qu'ran? Provide examples for your analysis.

6. Who was Nana Asma'u and why is she important to our understanding of Muslims in Africa? How did the scholarly community find out about her?

7. Were economics an important element in the life Nana Asma'u? Why or why not?

Bantu and Yoruba Religions

1. What argument is Jacbo K. Olupona making about the History of Yoruba Religious Tradition? What methodologies and/or scholars does he utilize to make this analysis? Which one did you find the most interesting?

2. Provide a timeline for how Europeans came to understand the Yoruba religion. How did the indigenous groups respond? Do they agree with each other?

3. Detail a few of the Yoruba deities and/or religious ceremonies. Describe their significance.

4. Were you surprised to learn that the Brer Rabbit stories, written in Georgia in the late 19th century, are actually African folktales? Pick one of the short stories and explain why you like it.

5. What were the purpose of these tales in Africa and do you think that their meanings changed when they came to America? Why or why not?

6. How did environments affect the development of these two African religions? Can you find any evidence from the reading that would support this type of  analysis?

Essay 1 Prompt

 History 2501

ESSAY 1- Religion in Africa

1^st Draft Due- Peer Review, March 4

Final Due Date – March 14 at 10:10 am

 In a 7 page essay, describe how Yoruba, Bantu, Christian, and/or  Islamic religions influenced African development.  You should briefly discuss how the faiths emerged and then analyze how these beliefs helped to shape African culture by paying special attention to the environments, dates, and spread of each religion.  Organize your essay thematically and/or chronologically.  You can focus independently on topics like politics, economics, environment and gender, or combine them together.  You must use at least one reading from each week of section II Religions in Africa.

All essays must be turned in on 8 ½ x 11” paper and use 12 point font. All titles need to be centered. All drafts must be double-spaced and have 1” margins. Pages should be numbered and stapled together. First/second drafts must be included and may contain corrections and comments in pencil or ink, but final drafts should be as free from error as possible.  Any papers that do not conform to these standards will not be accepted.

The Donatist Martyr Stories

1. In what ways have historians begun to reexamine the traditional story of Donatist sect? What types of evidence do they utilize in order to provide a more complex understanding of the Church conflict in North Africa?

2.  Detail the divisions between the two Christian sects. Where does the "State" fit into this dispute?

3. Explain the three issues that we must recognize in order to understand the proper context of the Martyr stories.  Why these issues important for both historic peoples and modern day scholars?

4. How and for what were Cyprian, Felix, Maxima, Donatilla, and Secunda  punished? Did these scenes of torture help or hurt the Donatist sect?

5. Does Gender fit into these new interpretations of the Donatist movement? Provide examples from the stories to support your points.

Egypt and Africa

1. Describe the Hamitic Hypothesis, the evidence Sanders' utilizes to make her argument, and detail why is it important to our understanding of African history.

2. What is  Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop's argument in regard to Egypt and what evidence does he provide for his conclusions?

3. How and by whom is Dr. Diop's thesis challenged?  Do you agree with this analysis? Why or not?

Gender and Prehistory

Invisible Gender:

1. What do you think Susan Kent would say about Lovejoy's thesis on bipedalism and monogamy?

2. Explain how Kent utilizes the archaeological record to gather ethnographic data.

3. How does Kent argue against Wilmsen and Denbrow? In what ways does she use space to help her make her arguments?

4. Describe some differences in the archaeological record between Stone Age and Iron Age sites.

5.  What are Kent's main conclusions?

East African Pastoralists:

1. What does Diane Gifford-Gonzalez find especially challenging when studying the ethnographic record of East African Pastorialists?

2.  Describe where Gifford-Gonzalez finds exceptions to androcentrism. Whose work is she supporting?

3. How does Gifford-Gonzalez utilize ceramics to help her argument?

4.What are Gifford-Gonzalez's two concluding observations about East African archaeology?

Early Human Evolution

1. According to the authors, why is understanding the climate of East Africa essential?

2. What is the pulsed climate variability hypothesis and what evidence do these scholars provide to support this theory? 

3. Are there limits to the scientists' knowledge about human evolution? Provide a few examples. 

4. There has been much debate about the chronology of the Ain Hanech Formation in North Africa. What methods do these scholars use to come to their conclusions and whose work are they supporting with this evidence? 

5.What is the "Green Sahara" and what are the problems with this hypothesis? What do these scholars present as an alternative hypothesis?