Paper Assignment - Development of the United States to 1877

A 3-5 page paper is due Thursday, July 1^st. (A late paper will be marked down one letter grade; a paper that comes in after July 6^th will receive an F (still better than a zero)). The 1741 slave revolt occurred in a northern, colonial city; the 1857 murder of Duncan Skinner occurred in the rural South (Mississippi). In both, the stories we have about them tell us as much as about white perceptions and fears of blacks as they do about the lives of blacks. Your paper should compare and contrast the two "events," paying attention to what they tell us about, whites, blacks, and the relationship between the two groups in each setting. Make sure to use both the historians' commentary and the evidence (the document text in 1741 and Chapter 2, "The Evidence," in Death of an Overseer). Your paper should argue a specific point about the comparison - something you learn from the similarities or differences between the cases, and should reach and defend a conclusion about what happened in both cases. Proofread carefully (that means more than a spell check); try to finish the paper two days before it is due, set it aside, read it through, edit it, and then turn it in. You will be graded on full use of each source, the quality of the argument, organization and writing. If you quote, it is enough to include a parathetical in your own text of the following form: (1741, p. 27) or (Death, p. 27).