American History I (11)

Slavery is a multi-dimensional and multi-faceted problem in American history. By the same token, the pre-Civil War South developed and ultimately based its society on the institution of slavery. You are to pick any aspect of slavery and/or the pre-Civil War South and write about it. For example, you can write about how historians have presented different interpretations of the “character of slavery.” This is in the textbook on page 306. You might want to consider how the South (white Southerners) saw themselves as cavaliers or you might want to consider the economics of slavery or the impact of slavery on slaves themselves. As always, we meet all sorts of people in this chapter. For example, we meet James B.D. DeBow, George Fitzhugh, Elizabeth Keckley, Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner. We meet slave owners and white non-slave owners and we meet low income whites. Pick any one person or topic from the chapter and Unit lecture and write a comment about that topic.