History 261 Section 2B: Documents on Slavery and Emancipation

 

The second discussion assignment for Week 2 illustrates the agenda of the "new social history"--the methods that came under fire during the National History Standards controversy--through primary documents compiled by the Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland. This database draws on the National Archives of the United States, especially the voices of slaves and former slaves [freedmen] contained in the records of the Union military and the Freedmen's Bureau.

 

Among other goals, the scholars who launched the Freedmen and Southern Society Project were attempting to intervene in the contemporary political debates surrounding three contested questions of historical interpretation:

 

**Why did Americans fight the Civil War—what was the war fundamentally about?

 

**What role did the abolition of slavery play in the fighting of the Civil War, compared to the goal of national reunification? How did this dynamic evolve over time in the purpose of the war?

 

**What role did black slaves and freedmen play in their own emancipation saga, along with other actors such as President Lincoln and the U.S. Congress and the Union military? Did everyone involved mean the same thing when they talked about "free labor"? How should historians sort out questions of cause and effect in the coming of emancipation, and how should we interpret the nature of the freedom that resulted?

 

1. Start by reviewing this Chronology of Emancipation during the Civil War, including reading the key documents contained in the links.

 

2. Then read through the introductory material and the sample documents found at the following links, looking for common themes, historical interpretations, and primary source evidence about the deeper meanings of the Civil War. Also be prepared to discuss these documents in the light of the National History Standards debate about traditional top-down political history versus social history from below, about how to teach and learn about freedom and democracy and equality in the American past.

 

**The Destruction of Slavery, 1862-64 (5 documents)

 

**Free Labor: Upper South, 1863-64 (2 documents)

 

**Free Labor: Lower South, 1863-65 (5 documents)

 

**Black Military Experience, 1863-65 (7 documents)

 

**Families and Freedom, 1862-65 (7 documents)

 

3. Also peruse the documents from one of the following states in this separate Howard University database of Freedmen's Bureau files, mainly from the Reconstruction years of 1866-69. You do not need to read them all; just get a general sense of the material. Focus especially on the "murders and outrages" section of the state you choose:

 

**Freedmen's Bureau Files from Georgia

 

**Freedmen's Bureau Files from Louisiana

 

**Freedmen's Bureau Files from South Carolina

 

**Freedmen's Bureau Files from Tennessee

 

**Freedmen's Bureau Files from Texas

 

**Freedmen's Bureau Files from Virginia

 

4. Finally, read these two Reconstruction-era documents:

 

**Frederick Douglas, "Reconstruction" (1866)

 

**Frederick Douglass, "An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage" (1867)