Course: History 7881: African-American Historiography: The 19th
Century
Professor: Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood
Office: 121 Mitchell Hall, Phone: 678-3869, asmallwd@memphis.edu
Course Description:
This course is designed to introduce some of the most recent as well as standard
scholarship in the field of African-American history for the period from slavery
to 1865. The format of the course will be discussion of assigned core readings
supported by written reports. Each student is to read the core reading and
supplementary reading each week. Requirements of the course include 2 oral
reports on core readings with outlines turned in to instructor (25%), typed book
reviews (25%), class participation (20%), and a bibliographical essay examining
the scholarship on one of the relevant historical topics covered in this class
(30%). Core readings and some supplementary readings should be available for
purchase at the campus bookstore or found in the library. The bibliographic
essay will be due on December 2.
Grading
The grading scale basically follows the departmental standards for graduate
students, with a focus upon those getting or considering getting their
doctorate:
A: Outstanding, excellent work: approaches the quality and demonstrates the
potential for professional quality work.
A-: Very good work. High quality performance, but falls short of excellence.
B+: Good Work. Solid effort shows potential for higher achievement.
B: Needs improvement: Reflects serious effort, but raises doubts about the
potential for achieving professional quality, so students should consult with
professors about how to improve their work, especially if they are in the Ph.D.
program or would like to be.
B-: Marginal. A few positive qualities, but plagued by serious problems that
must be immediately addressed.
C+ and below: unacceptable.
I will not write grades on every review, but I will provide feedback and we will
have individual discussions throughout the semester about your progress and
performance. Grades are based upon the quality of your written work and your
participation in class discussions.
Writing Assignments
Weekly Reviews
You will write professional-quality reviews of the books. Reviews should answer
the same three questions that we will address in class discussions. The reviews
should not have a title page; only the bibliographic information should appear
at the top of the page. Reviews of a single book should be 500-600 words.
Reviews of two books should be 800-1000 words. The reviews are always due the
week after we have discussed the book. I have provided a list of guidelines
below, paraphrased from Richard Marius, A Short Guide to Writing About History
that are helpful for producing quality reviews:
1. Always give the author’s purpose in writing the book. This idea is often best
addressed in the preface or introduction, which you should always read
super-extra-carefully.
2. Summarize the author’s evidence. Look through the notes section.
3. Focus on the book, not its author. Avoid such clichés as deeming the author
“well-qualified.”
4. The review should not entirely focus on style issues. Avoid prolonged
comments on the style of the book. However, one can note whether a book is
well-written or incoherent, and one can even quote a sentence to illustrate an
author’s style.
5. Show, don’t tell. Avoid such generalizations as, “The book is very
interesting,” or “The book is very boring.” A good review will illustrate your
opinions without using such banalities.
6. Be courteous. Passionate attacks reflect poorly upon the reviewer.
Professional scholarship demands a level of detachment and comportment.
7. Quote judiciously. The author’s prose may spice up your review, and it may
deliver an idea more sharply than you can through paraphrasing. But it is your
job to analyze the book, and you shirk that duty if you include too many long
quotations.
8. Do not feel compelled to say negative things about the book. One should note
important inaccuracies, disagreements over interpretations, problems with the
evidence, major stylistic issues, and so on. But avoid petty complaints about an
insignificant detail or an isolated typographical error.
9. Accept the book on its own terms. You may wish that the author wrote a
different book, but you must review whether the author has succeeded in
accomplishing his or her goal.
10. Place the book in historical context. How does this book contribute to our
understanding of African American history?
Once during the semester, you will be asked to distribute copies of your review
to the class, and you will read it out loud, so that the class can revisit the
themes you highlight and assess your review. For examples of professional
reviews, consult any major journal such as Journal of American History. Remember
that one can competently review a book based upon a careful reading, a
familiarity with the historical and historiographical issues, and a cogent
presentation of ideas.
Final Paper
Also, at the end of the semester, you will be expected to write a thematic
bibliographic essay (15-20 pages) on a particular theme covered by the core and
supplemental readings on the weekly schedule. Along with the readings listed
each student should conduct an OCLC search for all Books, articles, Theses,
Dissertations, and primary materials related to their chosen topic, This
bibliographic essay should have a unifying argument expressed through a thesis
statement.
Week 1 Introduction
Core Readings:
Arwin D. Smallwood, The Atlas of African American History
John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom
Week 2 Africa and its Peoples
Core Reading:
George P. Murdock, Africa: Its Peoples and Their Culture
History
Supplementary:
Joseph E. Harris, Africans and Their History
Roland A. Oliver, The Dawn of African History 2nd ed.
Week 3 The African Slave Trades to Europe, Asia, and the MiddleEast
Core Reading:
Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental,
Oriental and African Slave Trades
Supplementary:
Fred Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests
Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe
Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An
Historical Enquiry
Vincent Bakpetu Thompson, The Making of the African Diaspora
in the Americas, 1441- 1900 African Slavery in the Americas
Week 4 African Slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas
Core Reading:
Herbert S. Klein, African Slavery in Latin America and the
Caribbean
Supplementary:
Robert B. Toplin, Slavery and Race Relations in Latin
America
Peter M. Voelz, Slave and Soldier: The Military Impact of
Blacks in the Colonial Americas
Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838
Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution:
Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World
Darlene Clark Hine and David Barry Gaspar, eds., More Than
Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas
Gary Y. Okihiro, ed., In Resistance: Studies in African,
Caribbean and Afro-American History
Richard Price, Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in
the Americas
Week 5 The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Core Reading:
Joseph E. Inkori and Stanley L. Engerman, The Atlantic
Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies, and Peoples in Africa, the
Americas, and Europe
Supplementary:
Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade; A Census
Philip D. Curtin, The Tropical Atlantic in the Age of the
Slave Trade
Daniel Mannix, Black Cargos: A History of the Atlantic Slave
Trade, 1518-1865
Robin Law, The Slave Coast of West Africa, 1550-1750: The
Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society
Week 6 Red, Black, and White and the Native American Slave Trade
Core Readings:
Arwin D. Smallwood, “A History of Native American and
African Relations From 1502 to 1900,“ Negro History Bulletin (April-Sept. 1999)
William S. Willis, “Divide and Rule: Red White and Black in
the Southeast,” Journal of Negro History 48 (July 1963)
Sanford Winston, “Indian Slavery in the North Carolina
Region,” Journal of Negro History 19 (October 1934)
Jerome S. Handler, “The Amerindian Slave Population of
Barbados” in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries,” Caribbean Studies
8 (1969)
Kenneth W. Porter, “Relations between Negroes and Indians
within the Present Limits of the United States,” Journal of Negro History 17
(July 1932)
Kathryn E. Holland Braund, “The Creek Indians, Blacks and
Slavery,” The Journal of Southern History 57 (November 1991)
James W. Covington, “Some Observations Concerning the
Florida-Carolina Indian Slave Trade,” Florida Anthropologist 20 (1967)
Supplementary:
Kim Dramer, Native Americans and Black Americans
Laurence Foster, Negro-Indian Relationships in the Southeast
Jack D. Forbes, Black Africans and Native Americans: Color,
Race and Caste in the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples
Jack D. Forbes, Africans and Native Americans: The Language
of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples
Week 7 Colonial Slavery
Core Readings:
Allan Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of
Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800
Alan Watson, Slave Law in the Americas
Supplementary:
Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter
Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713
Mechal Sobel, The World They Made Together: Black and White
Values in Eighteenth Century Virginia
David W. Cohen and Jack P. Greene, eds., Neither Slave nor
Free; The Freedman of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World
Clifford Lindsey Alderman, Rum, Slaves and Molasses: The
Story of New England’sTriangular Trade
John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community
Week 8 Colonial Resistance to Slavery
Core Reading:
Marion G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865)
Supplementary:
David W. Cohen and Jack P. Greene, eds., Neither Slave nor
Free; The Freedman of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World
Charles L. Blockson, The Underground Railroad
Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts, 6th ed.
Mary S. Locke, Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction
of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808)
Week 9 Free Blacks Slaves and the American Revolution
Core Reading:
Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution,
3rd ed,
Supplementary:
Wilson, Ellen Gibson, The Loyal Blacks
James Walker W. S. G., The Black Loyalist: The Search for a
Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870.
Ira Berlin, and Ronald Hoffman, eds. Slavery and Freedom in
the Age of the American Revolution.
Week 10 The “Peculiar Institution” and the “Cotton Kingdom”
Core Readings:
Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in
the Ante-Bellum South
William E. Dodd, The Cotton Kingdom” A Chronicle of the Old
South
Supplementary:
Julie P. Baker, Black Slavery Among the American Indians
Loren Schweninger, Black Property Owners in the South,
1790-1915
John Hebron Moore, The Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom in the
Old Southwest: Mississippi, 1770-1860
Harold D. Woodman, King Cotton and His Retainers: Financing
and Marketing the Cotton Crop of the South, 1800-1925
Phillip S. Foner, History of Black Americans from the
Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom to the Eve of the Compromise of 1850
Week 11 Slavery and the rise of Sectionalism
Core Reading:
Don E. Fehrenbacher, Slave Holding Republic
Supplementary:
Don E. Fehrenbacher, Slavery, Law and Politics: The Dred
Scott Case in Historical Perspective
Frederic Bancroft, Slave Trading in the Old South
Week 12 Fugitive Slaves, Revolts, and the Anti-slavery Movement,
Core Reading:
Louis Filler, Crusade against Slavery, 1830-1860.
Supplementary:
Tom W. Shick, Behold the Promised Land: A History of
Afro-American Settler Society in Nineteenth-Century Liberia
P.J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement,
1816-1865
John Lofton, Denmark Vesey’s Revolt: The Slave Plot That Lit
a Fuse to Fort Sumter
Robert S. Starobin, ed., Denmark Vesey: The Slave Conspiracy
of 1822
Herbert Aptheker, Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion
Kenneth S. Greenberg, ed., The Confessions of Nat Turner and
Related Documents
Henry Irving Tragle, The Southampton Slave Revolt of 1831: A
Compilation of Source Material, Including the Full Text of The Confessions of
Nat Turner
Rosalie Schwartz, Across the Rio to Freedom: U.S. Negroes in
Mexico
Benjamin Quarles, Allies for Freedom: Blacks and John Brown
Jeffrey S. Rossbach, Ambivalent Conspirators: John Brown, The
Secret Six, and a Theory of Slave Violence
Week 13 Slaves, Free Blacks and The Civil War
Core Readings:
Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Civil War
Supplementary:
William E. Dodd, The Cotton Kingdom” A Chronicle of the
Old
Benjamin Quarles, Lincoln and the Negro
Louis S. Gerteis, From Contraband to Freedman: Federal Policy
Toward Southern Blacks, 1861-1865
Ervin L. Jordan, Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil
War Virginia
Robert F. Durden, The Gray and the Black: The Confederate
Debate on Emancipation
John Hope Franklin, The Emancipation Proclamation
Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., Black Southerners in Gray: Essays on
Afro-Americans in Confederate Armies
Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy and Leslie Rowland, eds., The
Black Military Experience
Week 14 Reconstruction
Core Reading:
Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished
Revolution
Supplementary:
Thomas C. Holt, Black Over White
Barbara Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground
Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long
W.E.B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction
Peter Kolchin, First Freedom
Week 15
Bibliographic Essay Due