Media: [photo] James Hopkinson’s Plantation, Group going to field. 1862-3
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- Navigate this page:
- THE LESSON Introduction
- Guiding Questions: How did emancipation come to the American South What combination of factors enabled enslaved men and women to become free Learning Objectives
- Preparation Instructions
- Lesson Activities
- Extending the Lesson
| Visualizing Emancipation
RESOURCES Activity Worksheets: Activity #1 Media: [photo] James Hopkinson’s Plantation, Group going to field. 1862-3. Henry P. Moore http://memory.loc.gov/ndlpcoop/nhnycw/aa/aa02/aa02038v.jpg THE BASICS Grade Level: 9-12 Time Required: 2-3 class periods Subject Areas: History and Social Studies > Themes > Civil Rights History and Social Studies > People > African American History and Social Studies > U.S. > Civil War and Reconstruction Skills: Critical analysis Critical thinking Discussion Evaluating arguments Gathering, classifying and interpreting written, oral, and visual information Geographic literacy Historical analysis Interpretation Making inferences and drawing conclusions Online research Representing ideas and information orally, graphically, and in writing Using primary sources THE LESSON Introduction: “…are, and henceforth shall be free” Slavery in the United States South began to crumble as soon as the Civil War began but lasted in many places until after the war ended. In May 1861, before the first major battle, enslaved men rowed across the James River to the U.S. controlled Fort Monroe. These men and many others who entered lines after them were called “contraband of war” and were protected from their former masters’ claims of ownership. For these men, freedom began with their own incentive, was made possible by their proximity to U.S. soldiers, and was confirmed through policies set by military authorities, Congress, and the president. Without any of these factors these men would not have escaped slavery when they did. The end of slavery in the U.S. Civil War came not simply through presidential or legislative decree but through the actions of enslaved people and soldiers in the field as well. These interactions and policies developed unevenly over time and space. By examining the maps in Visualizing Emancipation and the primary sources found there, students will uncover the factors that enabled men and women to escape slavery and the geographic patterns that marked emancipation. Guiding Questions: How did emancipation come to the American South? What combination of factors enabled enslaved men and women to become free? Learning Objectives: After completing this unit, students will be able to:
Background: The end of slavery did not come about in an instant, with the Emancipation Proclamation. It began before shooting started and ended long after the last Confederate armies surrendered. It followed, in W.E.B. DuBois' words, as a "dark human cloud" at the rear of the Union's swift-marching columns. It could be found in the escape of fugitives, in Union and Confederate armies' conscription of enslaved men to work on fortifications, and in escaped slaves' offers to guide U.S. troops through southern wilds. Opportunities for freedom could at times seem randomly distributed, as men and women participated in mass exodus on some plantations while others nearby were left enslaved. Yet emancipation proceeded in patterns, not as a chaotic, secular rapture, in which men and women became free without discernible sequence, rationale, or order. Enslaved people, legislators, and armies, in fits and starts, imprinted the end of slavery on the American South. The legal extension of freedom proceeded in an orderly, if uneven, manner: those enslaved by Confederates and used against the U.S. army were given legal recourse in the First and Second Confiscation Acts. Slavery was abolished in the territories and in Washington, DC before the war’s second summer, setting the stage for more complete rollbacks of slaveholders’ rights under the Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery finally failed only with adoption of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, in December 1865. The wartime erosion of legal slavery was far different from the escape of slaves. Enslaved men and women during this period were more likely to find freedom in some places than others. Freedom and Union arms pushed into the Confederacy by water and rail. Enslaved men and women living along the Atlantic seaboard-the coast and Sea Islands of South Carolina, within a day's walk of the North Carolina coast, and along Virginia's Chesapeake Bay-had the greatest and earliest opportunities to find freedom. Enslaved men and women living along the South's major rivers had a greater chance, too, especially those on the plantations of the Mississippi delta, along the Tennessee River in northern Alabama, and along the waterways of Virginia Tidewater. This lesson allows students to explore the relationship between the legal end of slavery and the activities of slaves, citizens, and soldiers during the Civil War. It encourages them to see diversity in the experience of enslaved people living in different places in the South, to make sense of the complicated end of slavery. Preparation Instructions:
Lesson Activities: Activity 1: Responses to the Emancipation Proclamation: January 1863. It is sometimes said that the Emancipation Proclamation did little immediately to free any slaves. After all, the Proclamation purposefully excluded places already under Union control from its provisions, only freeing them in places the Union army did not already occupy. Yet the Proclamation made an immediate difference in the actions of enslaved men and women, Union troops, and Confederates. What actually happened in the South in the month after the Proclamation went into effect? Use “Visualizing Emancipation,” http://dsl.richmond.edu/emancipation to find out.
Activity 2: Local emancipation. African Americans were able to become free in some places quite early in the war, in other places only until after the war was over. Why was this the case? And how different were black people’s experiences in different places?
Extending the Lesson:
Directory: emancipation emancipation -> Emancipation Timeline: 1772-1888 emancipation -> Abraham Lincoln on Slavery & Emancipation: Principles and Policies Lincoln’s First Public Statement on Slavery, March 3, 1837 emancipation -> Ousd 8th Grade U. S. History Writing Assessment- spring, 2012 Introduction On this assessment you will be asked to write a response to the following historical question emancipation -> Emancipation proclamation emancipation -> Black Soldiers in the Civil War emancipation -> Read the following paragraphs about the events that led up to, and the effects of the Emancipation Proclamation and fill out the cause and effect chart emancipation -> Read the following paragraphs about the events that led up to, and the effects of the Emancipation Proclamation and fill out the cause and effect chart emancipation -> Affidavit of clarification of citizenship for security clearance emancipation -> The Emancipation Edict of 1861 The condition of the Russian peasant Download 17.75 Kb. Share with your friends:
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