Social Science Docket A Joint Publication of the New York and New Jersey State Councils for the Social Studies Table of Contents Volume 1 Number 2 Summer-Fall, 2001 Special Theme Issue: Slavery in the Northern States Editorial and Classroom Activity: Teaching About Slavery in the Americas by Alan Singer ...................... 2 Teachers Respond to Teaching About Slavery in the Americas ................................................................. 11 Teaching About Slavery: A Pedagogical Paradox by John J. McNamara ................................................. 15 Slavery and the Northern States: Complicity and Resistance by Alan Singer ............................................. 16 The Freedom Quest in New York State, from the report of The N.Y.S. Freedom Trail Commission .......... 19 Abolitionists Among New York’s Founding Fathers by Kevin Brady ......................................................... 23 Classroom Activity: New Yorkers Who Battled Against Slavery .................................................................. 24 The History of Slavery in New Jersey by Giles Wright, New Jersey Historical Commission ........................ 26 Fighting For Freedom by Nancy Shakir .................................................................................................. 27 John Woolman: New Jersey’s Eighteenth Century Quaker Abolitionist by Charles Howlett ....................... 30 Underground Railroad Sites in New Jersey and New York by Laura Peterson and Jennifer Pesato ............ 31 The Underground Railroad and Abolitionism in Central New York by Judith Wellman ............................ 33 Classroom Activity: Runaway Slave Advertisements from around the Region .......................................... 34 Classroom Activity: Documenting Complicity with Slavery ...................................................................... 36 Classroom Activity: Debating Resistance to Slavery .................................................................................. 42 Elementary-level Activities: History-Mystery and Designing a Monument by Andrea Libresco .................. 47 Slave Narratives: African American Lives in Early New Jersey ................................................................. 51 Slave Narratives: African American Lives in Early New York .................................................................... 56 A Science Teacher Looks at Social Studies: What is Race? by S. Maxwell Hines ....................................... 64 Slavery on the World Wide Web by Robin Edwards, Vonda-Kay Campbell and Charles Cronin ................... 65 Viewing History? Film and Historical Memory by Cynthia Vitiere ............................................................ 67 Slavery and Reconstruction in Literature for Middle and High School Students by Sally Smith ................ 69 Teaching Young Children About Slavery by Judith Y. Singer .................................................................... 71 Book Reviews: Freedom Crossing and Where I’m Bound ........................................................................ 73 Collaboration between Teachers and School Media Specialists by Holly Willett .................................... 75 Introducing the Authors .......................................................................................................................... 75 _____________________________________________________________________________________ Social Science Docket 1 Summer-Fall 2001 Inside Back Cover - NJCSS Annual Conference Information, Call for Contributions and Staff Special Theme Issue: Slavery and the Northern States The New York State Education Department is preparing Human Rights curricula to promote the study of the enslavement of African peoples in the Americas, Nazi efforts to exterminate European Jewry during World War II, and the Great Irish Famine. This special section of Social Science Docket on Slavery and the Northern States includes an examination of the role of New York and New Jersey in opposition to and complicity with slavery. A special section on the European Holocaust including articles, documents and lesson ideas is scheduled for the Summer-Fall 2002 issue. Human Rights issues in the 21st century will be the focus of a special section in the Winter-Spring 2003 issue. For information about submitting articles and lesson ideas for these special sections, contact Alan Singer at [email protected]. The deadline for submitting articles for the Winter-Spring 2002 issue is October 15, 2001. The deadline for submitting articles for the Summer-Fall 2002 issue is March 1, 2002. We encourage early submissions. Editorial: Teaching About Slavery in the Americas by Alan Singer, editor, Social Science Docket Our goal is to have every issue of Social Science Docket include an essay on a key social studies concept or controversy to stimulate responses from readers and debate in the New Jersey and New York Councils for the Social Studies. Because the special section in this issue of Social Science Docket focuses on “Slavery in the Northern States,” this essay discusses problems related to teaching about slavery. Prior to publication, the essay was circulated among social studies teachers at local meetings and via e-mail. Teachers were asked to respond to the essay, discuss how they address slavery in their own classrooms, and whether they believe teachers should adapt their approach to teaching about slavery based on the race and ethnicity of students in their classes and their own ethnic identities. Selected responses are included at the end of the article. N.C.S.S. Thematic Strands: Time, Continuity, and Change. Production, Distribution, and Consumption. Power, Authority, and Governance. In order to achieve New York and New Jersey social studies curriculum standards students will: • analyze the development of American culture, explain how ideas, values, beliefs and traditions have changed over time and how they unite all Americans • compare and contrast the experiences of different ethnic, national and religious groups, including Native American Indians, in the United States, explaining their contributions to American society and culture • research and analyze the major themes and developments in local, state and United States history • prepare essays and oral reports about the important social, political, economic, scientific, technological and cultural developments, issues and events from local, state and United States history • understand the interrelationships between world events and developments in the state and the United States • analyze historical narratives about key events in local, state and United States history to identify the facts and evaluate the authors’ perspectives • consider different historians’ analyses of the same event or development in the United States history to understand how different viewpoints and/or frames of reference influence historical interpretations In October, 1994, in an effort to fulfill its brutal yet important part of black American history” responsibilities as a major public historical resource (The New York Times, 1994a; 1994b). and provide a more accurate portrait of the American According to park spokesperson Christy Coleman, past, Colonial Williamsburg conducted a “mock” slave who directed the project and participated in the auction. It was intended “to educate visitors about a reenactment as a pregnant slave sold to pay her “master’s” debts, “this is a very, very sensitive and _____________________________________________________________________________________ Social Science Docket 2 Summer-Fall 2001 emotional issue. But it is also very real history.” Ms. slavery was one of the most difficult topics to address Coleman felt that “only by open display and discussion as students and I were all uncomfortable. Over the could people understand the degradation and years, a number of African American students raised humiliation that blacks felt as chattel” (1994a). that they resent continually learning about slavery and Critics, mobilized by the Virginia chapters of the how their people were oppressed. These challenges National Association for the Advancement of Colored forced me to reconsider how I felt as a teenager People and the Southern Christian Leadership learning about the history of my own people, especially Conference, protested that the auction trivialized the devastation that I felt because Eastern European slavery by depicting scenes “too painful to revive in Jews, including my relatives, had died in the gas any form” (1994a).” A small group of demonstrators chambers of Nazi Germany. Knowledge of oppression stood witness at the reenactment. Later, one of the did not satisfy me then. I felt humiliated and I wanted demonstrators, who initially charged Colonial to scream out, “Why didn’t we fight back?” What Williamsburg with turning Black history into a finally helped me come to terms with the Holocaust “sideshow,” changed his mind. He explained that as a was reading about Jewish resistance in Leon Uris’ result of witnessing the “mock” auction, he felt “(p)ain (1961) book about the Warsaw Ghetto and the creation had a face. Indignity had a body. Suffering had tears” and defense of the State of Israel. I realize that the key (1994b). for my coming to terms with the 20th century history I believe the controversy surrounding the “mock” of Jews was recognition of human resistance. auction at Colonial Williamsburg is a reflection of a In response to my students and the connections larger