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APUSH | Wiley | DBQ Exemplar 1Name:On the national exam, you will write one Document-Based Question (DBQ) in 60 minutes; your essay will contribute to 25% of your overall score. Over the next few weeks we’ll look at several DBQ exemplars to gain a better understanding of how to plan and write a strong APUSH DBQ. The first DBQ we’ll look at deals with a topic most of you are familiar with: slavery in colonial British North America. The documents and essay hone in on the society’s gradual dependence on slavery, subsequent codification of slavery into colonial law, and how slave societies formed amidst the horror and degradation of human bondage. The content within this DBQ will span Periods 1-3. Instructions: Take out your Survival Guide and read the instructions/tips and scoring guide for DBQs on pages 15-18. This is important for all students to do—even those that took AP Euro last year—because APUSH DBQs are not identical to the Euro format.Actively read the background information and prompt below for this sample DBQ. Then mark up each source, according to DBQ guidelines on page 15 of your Survival Guide. There should be lots of annotating around documents as you address each of the tips/questions on page 15 for document analysis.Actively read the exemplar (pages 6-7) in its entirety. Then complete the analysis sheet (page 8) with your partner. Background & Historiography: Stanley M. Elkins, a famous historian who wrote Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (1959), argued that the harsh conditions of American slavery stripped slaves of their native African identities, prevented them from having strong social and family relationships, and reduced them to dependent child-like laborers who were emasculated and unable to think for themselves. However, recent historical scholarship has reexamined the lives of those born into slavery and has begun to focus on their religious, social, cultural and intellectual identities. Many historians now conclude that individuals born into slavery had the power to shape their own world and were not merely objects of oppression. Historians are now analyzing slavery with a more broadened perspective, looking at not just slave treatment, but the creation of slave societies as well. Yet, in doing so, some critics believe that society may lose sight of how oppressive and degrading American slavery really was.Prompt: To what extent was slavery in the “New World” dehumanizing? [Note: Dehumanization = to deprive of human qualities.]Source 123196551016000Background information:Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was the son of a slave woman and an unknown white man. Douglass was exposed to the degradations of slavery, witnessing firsthand brutal whippings and spending much time cold and hungry. Eventually Douglass fled his captors in Maryland, settling down in Massachusetts to focus on abolition. He joined various religious and political organizations, became a lecturer of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Decades later he conferred with Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and recruited northern blacks for the Union Army. After the war he fought for the rights of women and African Americans alike.Source 2Background information on Josiah Henson: Josiah Henson (1789-1883) was born into slavery in Maryland. After escaping bondage with his wife and children, Henson learned to read and write in freedom. Years later, his autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, was published (1849). Source 3Source: PBS (Public Broadcasting Service, funded by U.S. government) Image, “Triangular” Trade :Source 4Source: Eighteenth-century painting (estimated 1785-1795), from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Art Museum (VA) “The Old Plantation”Artist: John Rose, South Carolina plantation ownerBackground information on “The Old Plantation”Arguably the best known visual depiction of African American life during the 18th century, this watercolor depicts what appear to be plantation slaves dancing and playing musical instruments. The artist did not name the painting, but former owners gave it the arbitrary title “The Old Plantation” by which it is now commonly known. The central male figure holds a long staff or walking cane. The two women in the center are dancing with what appear to be scarves or bandanas, but in fact may be African musical instruments -- gourd rattles enclosed in a net into which hard objects such as shells or bones have been woven. On the right a man plays a 4-stringed banjo; another uses sticks or bones to play a small drum, possibly an inverted earthen ware vessel or a gourd/calabash. The two structures in the foreground suggest the scene represents a dance in the slave quarter. Although there has been a great deal of speculation as to what the dance scene is supposed to represent, nothing can be said about it with certainty or what was in the artist’s mind when he painted it, including any sexual references. It is likely that the scene represents a composite view of activities, behaviors, and objects the artist had observed from time to time. Source 5John Woolman, Quaker, in Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes (1754)Suppose that our ancestors and we had been exposed to constant servitude in the more servile and inferior employments of life; that we had been destitute of the help of reading and good company; that amongst ourselves we had had few wise and pious instructors; that the religious amongst our superiors seldom took notice of us; that while others in ease had plentifully heaped up the fruit of our labour, we had received barely enough to relieve nature, and being wholly at the command of others had generally been treated as a contemptible, ignorant part of mankind. Should we, in that case, be less abject that they are now?Quaker community at Germantown, Pennsylvania (c. 1750)What thing on the world can be done worse towards us, then if men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to strange countries, separating husbands from their wives and children. Being now this is not done at that manner, we will be done at, therefore we contradict and are against this traffic of men’s bodies.Background information on Quakers and slavery:The Quakers were among the most prominent slave traders during the early days of the country; paradoxically, they were also among the first denominations to protest slavery. It is in Quaker records that we have some of the earliest manifestations of anti-slavery sentiment, dating from the 1600s. After the 1750s, Quakers actively engaged in attempting to sway public opinion in Britain and America against the slave trade and slavery in general. At the same time, Quakers became actively involved in the economic, educational and political well-being of the formerly enslaved.Source 6Virginia slave laws:1627: Christian baptism may not alter conditions of servitude.1669: The death of a slave during punishment shall not be accounted felony.1691: Interracial sexual conduct shall be prohibited.Source 7Alexander Falconbridge, a British surgeon on several slave ships, provides a description of the Middle Passage in The African Slave Trade (1788)The hardships and inconveniences suffered by the Negroes during the passage are scarcely to be enumerated or conceived. It frequently terminates in death, especially among the women. But the exclusion of the fresh air is among the most intolerable. During the voyages I made, I was frequently witness to the fatal effects of this exclusion of fresh air. I will give one instance, as it serves to convey some idea, though a very faint one, of their terrible sufferings. Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the port-holes to be shut and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among the Negroes ensued. While they were in this situation, I frequently went down among them till at length their room became so extremely hot as to be only bearable for a very short time. But the excessive heat was not the only thing that rendered their situation intolerable. The deck, that is the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house. It is not in the power of the human imagination to picture a situation more dreadful or disgusting. Numbers of the slaves having fainted, they were carried upon deck where several of them died and the rest with great difficulty were restored. It had nearly proved fatal to me also[;]...it was only with assistance I could get back on deck. The consequence was that I soon after fell sick of the same disorder from which I did not recover for several months.Source 8Videos: The Middle Passage | Racial Slavery DefinedSource: PBS (Public Broadcasting Service, funded by U.S. government) The Middle PassageRacial Slavery DefinedSlavery in British North America DBQ ExemplarUnfortunately, slavery is an ancient institution that has been an accepted aspect of human history from the very beginning of organized societies. The land that would become the United States was no exception. The first African slaves arrived in the Virginia colony in the early seventeenth century. From that point forward, slavery evolved from an ancient institution that could victimize any ethnicity, religion, or race, to one that was defined solely by the color of one’s skin. Africans, most from West Africa, were sold by slave traders and shipped to the American colonies. Because of their differing backgrounds, slaves spoke countless languages, worshipped varying gods, and practiced unique cultures. After their arrival in the colonies, they were forced to labor as farm hands and suffered through brutal work days and harsh treatment from their owners. Though the dehumanizing and brutal aspects of slavery are well documented, a formerly neglected topic in the slavery historiography is the new African American culture that was created by those that were oppressed. The enslavement of Africans inadvertently built a new identity and community for slaves, despite their different heritages and tribal backgrounds. With that being said, the cultural resurgence does little to compensate for the brutality and intentional dehumanization unleashed on Africans brought to America against their will. The use of slavery helped to revolutionize the trade systems and economic growth in the American colonies at the expense of the humanity of millions of African people. The trade and transport of slaves to North American was one leg of a “triangular trade system” in the 1700s that connected the economies of the Americas, Europe, and Africa, as depicted by a PBS visual representation (Source 3). Sugar, tobacco, and rice were shipped to England from the American colonies and the sugar colonies of South and Central America. In one step of the journey, the English merchants brought furs and guns to Africa in exchange for slaves, who travelled to the New World through the “Middle Passage.” Humans were trafficked like a sack of rice; a commodity equivalent to the goods they were exchanged for (Source 3). As the PBS video, “The Middle Passage” explains, slavers packed slaves into cramped ships and set off on a journey across the Atlantic that could take anywhere from 60 days in the most favorable conditions, to six months (Source 8). The slaves were kept underneath the deck of the ship where they were chained down, often with no room to sit up; not surprisingly, suicide was chosen when possible (Source 8). Rebellion was difficult, though not impossible, as the crew often made sure to isolate their captives from those who spoke their same language (Source 8). In this way, slaves travelled a long journey, cramped, diseased, and unable to communicate with one another. In his reports on the brutal Middle Passage, surgeon Alexander Falconbridge documented just how revolting the conditions of the slave ships truly were. “…[T]he floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which has proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house” (Source 7). In his reports, Falconbridge likely aimed to document the appalling conditions because the majority of colonists were unaware of the realities of the Middle Passage, since they were more interested in profit than morality. His account is of particular importance since it comes from a white, European point of view. For what reason would he exaggerate or fabricate his story? This mistreatment did not end when slaves arrived in the colonies. Those that were fortunate enough to survive the journey across the Atlantic were then auctioned off like livestock in the Americas, often separated from their tribesmen. Work on the farms and plantations meant hours of toil in conjunction with harsh punishments for even minor infractions, which helped to instill fear into slaves. Josiah Henson, himself a slave, saw firsthand how the harsh punishments of the slave owners impacted slaves physically and mentally. After describing the public punishment of his father, 50 lashes among other barbaric cruelties, Henson wrote how his father was forever changed by the experience: “But from this hour he came utterly . . . sullen, morose, and dogged” (Source 2). Henson’s abuser was, naturally, immune from any punishment for his behavior. In Virginia, as of 1669, colonial law went so far as to dictate that owners could not be charged for the death of a slave if they died during punishment (Source 6). Punishments were torturous and merciless but in many cases slave owners were careful not to kill their slaves; they were valuable property and many slave owners could not afford to replace them (slavery, though horrible, was not genocidal). Other Virginia slave laws from the era help to trace the evolution of African American oppression. Such laws affected almost every aspect of slave life, including education, religion and marriage. These laws were passed to stiffen the racial hierarchy and trap slaves in perpetual slavery. But not all white men would have agreed with Virginia’s laws. Some Quakers, for example, spoke out against the institution of slavery (Source 5). In Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, some pious Quakers expressed their opposition to slavery and hoped to persuade others, perhaps even some of their Quaker brothers who owned slaves, to see the immorality of the institution (Source 5). Although slavery was extremely degrading and dehumanizing in many ways, the abducted African peoples managed to create a new, African American society with marriage, music, and language. Though most slaves brought to America had differing religions, traditions, and languages, they miraculously built a unified culture, weaving together individual aspects of hundreds of tribes. Some African American slave communities even decided to fight back. Small acts of disobedience were a part of their daily life; slaves would work slowly, refuse to have children, or otherwise push the limits of their masters’ tolerance. Organized rebellions took place with varying amounts of success. Other slave communities communicated their emotion through song. Frederick Douglass, a former slave himself, recounted passing by slaves at work and hearing their singing to propel them through a day of hard labor: “…revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness” (Source 1). Slaves kept much of their native music as well as their ethnic hairstyles, architecture, and motifs, all in an effort to preserve their humanity, integrity, and sense of community. Yet these cultural elements were only permitted if slaves adapted to their new lives, accepted their “inferiority,” and respectfully obeyed their owner. Assuming those conditions were met, historical evidence indicates that slaves were free to marry other slaves. In a painting by slave-owner John Rose where African Americans make music, dance, and rejoice, perhaps a marriage is being depicted (Source 4). The image highlights the slaves’ joy as they make the best of their situation, however, Rose’s purpose may have been to glorify the institution of slavery and cast slave masters as benevolent, thereby limiting the value of his historical contribution. As a group of Quakers in Germantown said in the 1750s, nothing worse than slavery can be done to any human (Source 5). And yet, the dehumanization of slaves was an integral part of colonial North America. Economically, it allowed for highly prosperous trade and manufacture; legally, it established that Africans were subservient to the Europeans; and socially, it held back black societies from bettering themselves through traditional mechanisms like education. Sadly, Africans were not the first to experience this horror in North America. Native Americans had experienced slave-like conditions at the hands of the Spanish encomenderos beginning in the sixteenth century. Like Africans, the native peoples of America were often separated from kin, made to do forced labor, and convert to Catholicism in New Spain. In the face of this oppression, Native Americans found ways to adapt (religious syncretism, for example), resist (the Pueblo Revolt), and keep their humanity despite their dwindling numbers, as African Americans did in British-controlled America, defying dehumanization by keeping their humanity and forming a counterculture of sorts based on heritage and community. But no amount of perseverance can right the fact that slavery was an abomination that has no place in a country with basic morals. In the end, the human condition can be seen on both sides of the spectrum: the bigotry needed to enforce such evils and the power to endure and overcome the same evil. Exemplar Analysis right2582700Contextualization: The author builds context for the essay in the introduction. Briefly indicate what historical context is used to set the stage for this essay. Thesis: Indicate where the thesis is. Does it 1) present a defensible argument, 2) account for historical complexity, and 3) address the prompt fully? What do you like about the thesis, or, what about the thesis could be improved? Body paragraphs: What is the common thread that binds each body paragraph together? Body Paragraph 1Body Paragraph 2Body Paragraph 3Are the sources used fluidly and in such a way that advances the thesis or a relevant argument? Discuss with partner.One of the APUSH DBQ requirements is that students must analyze one of the following (point of view, purpose, intended audience, or historical context) for at least four (this was just changed to three at the end of last school year) of the sources cited. Indicate which skill the author exhibits for each of the sources in the chart. Look on page 15 of your Survival Guide for help.Source 1Source 4Source 5Source 7In the conclusion, the author extends the argument by explaining the connection between the argument and a development in a different historical period, situation, era or geographical area. Briefly indicate what connection(s) was/were made. Writing style and mechanics: Is the writing clear and understandable? Well organized? Is paragraphing logical? Do paragraphs flow nicely? Are first/second person, absolutes, and contractions avoided? Discuss with partner.Turn to pages 17-18 in your Survival Guide and indicate what score you think this essay would earn: _____________ ................
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