Topic One: Slavery, Society, and Economy
Diane Mutti Burke, On Slavery’s Border: Missouri’s Small Slaveholding Households, 1815-1865 (Athens:
University of Georgia Press), 2010. ISBN-10: 0820336831; ISBN-13: 978-0820336831.
https://csum-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/g8i9a9/01CALS_ALMA51439182680002901
In addition to e-book link above, we have copies of Burke’s book in the library on reserve.
“Of Servants and Slaves in Virginia” (Reader Unit Two)
Peter H. Wood, “Slavery and Arts in South Carolina” (Reader Unit Two)
David Walker, “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World” (Reader Unit Four)
Using Burke’s book and the assigned sources, explain what slavery meant for whites and how it
affected their social and economic goals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Explore
how enslaved people and free blacks shaped their own socioeconomic circumstances in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In what ways did black Americans hold power to share
these relationships and interactions?
Make sure your paper includes a thesis that clearly addresses black and white responses to
slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth century and how this dynamic of power shaped slavery
and race in America. Make sure your evidence draws clearly from the book and assigned
sources.
Historians approach any topic first and foremost through primary source evidence. For our
purposes, your evidence will come from secondary source history books and our reader,
so you will cite those materials only.
MLA Citation: For this paper I will accept MLA Style in-text citation. This means when you cite a
source you will insert a parenthetical reference at the end of the sentence in which you use
ideas or a direct quote. You must cite the books and reader documents every time you use a
direct quote or summarized information from the source. Because you are not allowed
outside sources, no Works Cited page is needed—but proper in-text citation is required.