Review this before you start the exam: https://missioncollege.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Embed.aspx?id=15a30eda-348a-4c77-974e-b15201331762
For this exam, there are SEVEN historical documents you will need to use, analyze, and explain in answering the following question in an essay format:
- Essay prompt: Discuss, define, and explain the rise of white supremacy in the South and how it shaped the founding and expansion of America and its impact on Black Americans
Here are the SEVEN documents you will need to use in your essay — minus 25 points for every document you do not use correctly:
Document #1: Note on Virginia by Thomas Jefferson (1788)
… I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history then, one who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them? This unfortunate difference of color, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Many of their advocates, while they wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve its dignity and beauty. Some of these, embarrassed by the question `What further is to be done with them?’ Join themselves in opposition with those who are actuated by sordid avarice only. Among the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.
Document #2: “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” — W.E.B. Dubois (1935)
Document #3: Cornerstone of the Confederacy by Vice President Alexander Stephens (1861)
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics.”
Document #4: https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/the-cotton-revolution/solomon-northrup-describes-a-slave-market-1841/
Document #6: Virginia’s An Act Concerning Slaves (1705)
if any slave resist his master, or owner, or other person, by his or her order, correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction, it shall not be accounted felony; but the master, owner, and every such other person so giving correction, shall be free and acquit of all punishment and accusation for the same, as if such incident had never happened: And also, if any negro, mulatto, or Indian, bond or free, shall at any time, lift his or her hand, in opposition against any christian, not being negro, mulatto, or Indian, he or she so offending shall, for every such offence, proved by the oath of the party, receive on his or her bare back, thirty lashes, well laid on; cognizable by a justice of the peace for that county wherein such offence shall be committed.
Document #7: Slavery as a Positive Good by Vice President and Senator John C. Calhoun (1837)
We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions. To maintain the existing relations between the two races, inhabiting that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of both. It cannot be subverted without drenching the country in blood, and extirpating one or the other of the races. Be it good or bad, [slavery] has grown up with our society and institutions, and is so interwoven with them that to destroy it would be to destroy us as a people. But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil:–far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually….
…I might well challenge a comparison between them and the more direct, simple, and patriarchal mode by which the labor of the African race is, among us, commanded by the European. I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe–look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse.
Please limit yourself to using only class lectures, chapter readings, and historical analyses as source of knowledge:
Be sure to review and use content from week 7 – 11 class lectures, textbook chapter readings, and historical analysis 6-8 to prepare for this exam. This is not a research project, so you do not need to use any other content which I have not assigned for this course. Using other online sources that I have not assigned is strictly prohibited in this class.
Relevant chapter readings:
- Chapter 3: Creating New Social Orders, Colonial Societies, 1500-170
- Chapter 4: Rule Britannia! The English Empire, 1660–1763
- Chapter 6.4 – Identity during the American Revolution – Slavery section
- Chapter 7.2 – How much Revolutionary Change? – Slavery section
- Chapter 12 – Cotton is King: Antebellum South, 1800 – 1860
- Chapter 13 – Antebellum Idealism and Reform for Impulses
- Chapter 14- Troubled Times
- Chapter 16: Reconstruction
Before you submit:
- Make sure your essay is appropriately organized (introduction, body paragraphs with main ideas, supporting evidence, and conclusion paragraphs. Do not turn in an itemized list of document summaries in numerical order. Doing so will result in your submission not accepted.
- Make sure you used all of the assigned documents and provide the historical context necessary to demonstrate an understanding of the history behind each document. For every document not used, there will be a 25 deduction.
- Make sure your essay is at least 1000 words. Anything less will not be accepted
- Make sure to proofread your work before you submit. Give your submission to another person without telling them what the question is asking, and see if they can figure out the question based on what you wrote.
All chapters needed for this essay are in this link, click table of contents and you will see the chapters:
https://openstax.org/details/books/us-history