SUBJECTS — U.S./1812 – 1865; 1865 – 1913; and African-Americans & the Civil Rights Movement; Literature/U.S. (Narrative Writing);
SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING — Human Rights; Courage;
MORAL-ETHICAL EMPHASIS — Respect; Fairness.
AGE; 10+; MPAA Rating — Not rated;
Documentary; 2003; 75 minutes; Color.
Give your students new perspectives on race relations, on the history of the American Revolution, and on the contribution of the Founding Fathers to the cause of representative democracy. Check out TWM’s Guide:
One of the Best! This movie is on TWM’s short list of the best movies to supplement classes in United States History, High School Level.
In this film actors give dramatic readings of the recollections of former slaves who were interviewed by the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s. A narrator links the episodes with basic information about slavery in the Southern United States.
Selected Awards: 2004 Black Reel Awards: Television: Best Original Program; 2003 Emmy Awards Nominations: Outstanding Non-Fiction Special (Traditional); Outstanding Directing for Non-Fiction Programming; Outstanding Sound Editing for Non-Fiction Programming (Single or Multi-Camera); Outstanding Writing for Non-Fiction Programming; 2004 Image Awards Nominations: Outstanding TV News, Talk or Information (Series or Special).
Featured Actors: Whoopi Goldberg, narrator. Readers: Angela Bassett, Michael Boatman, Roscoe Lee Browne, Don Cheadle, Sandra Daley, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Robert Guillaume, Jasmine Guy, Samuel L. Jackson, CCH Pounder, LaTanya Richardson, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Roger Guenveur Smith, Courtney B. Vance, Vanessa Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Alfre Woodard
Director: Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon
“Unchained Memories” provides information about slavery and first-hand accounts of the lives of slaves in the American South. The film is also an excellent way to introduce the genre of the personal narrative. The movie works very well with TeachWithMovies.org lesson plan, Teaching Students to Write a Narrative.
MINIMAL. Some of the more heartrending episodes may be disturbing to sensitive students. However, students should know about human degradation and misery caused by slavery.
Watch the movie with your child. Note how far we have come in 160 years. If he or she is interested, print the student handout, Slavery: A World-Wide View, Then and Now and read it together. If your child is still interested, review some of the Discussion Questions.
African American literature in the U.S. begins with slave narratives, autobiographical accounts of former slaves. Written slave narratives have had a profound effect on society, building pressure for an end to slavery and increasing respect for black men and women. Harriet Beecher Stowe took many of the incidents detailed in Uncle Tom’s Cabin from slave narratives. Ms. Stowe’s book, published in 1852, was an important factor in turning public sentiment in the North against slavery.
Several slave narratives have been bestselling books for their time. The first slave narrative bestseller, entitled The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; or, Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (1789), was written by a former English slave. Mr. Equiano’s book set the standard for slave narratives for more than 50 years. (Click here for an excerpt describing domestic slavery in Africa during the 18th century.) Another was Solomon Northrups Twelve Years a Slave published in 1853. In 2013 Northrup’s book was made into an Oscar Winning Movie.
There were approximately 65 slave narratives published in England and the U.S. from 1740 to 1865. In 1845 The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself was published. Mr. Douglass created the lasting ideal of the African American committed to intellectual as well as physical freedom. His book is considered the epitome of the slave narrative. (Click here for a short excerpt detailing Mr. Douglass’ decision to learn to read at whatever cost.) Abraham Lincoln’s acquaintance with Douglass was an important factor in Lincoln’s increasing respect for black Americans. Harriet Jacobs gave an unforgettable account of the life of a female slave in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). (More on this narrative is set out below.)
Approximately fifty slave narratives were published from the end of the Civil War to the 1920s. Most of the post-war narratives focus on how the former slaves adapted to life in post-slavery society and how they prospered. Many were stories of spiritual growth written by ministers. Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery (1901) described African American progress and interracial cooperation after the end of slavery. (TWM recommends chapters I – VI, which describe Mr. Washington’s life as a boy.) Two slave narratives were published for the first time in 2007 under the title A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom. One of these narratives came to light when the woman to whom it had been entrusted saw “Unchained Memories” on television. She took the narrative out of the back of her closet and called the local historical society.
Slaves in the Southern United States were born into a world in which they were devalued as human beings. In slave narratives, former slaves stood up for themselves, showing the world that they were literate, thinking, feeling people whose stories were worth telling. The act of writing and publishing a slave narrative was a self-affirming experience for the author. Reading a slave narrative was self-affirming and liberating for black people. In addition, for whites and blacks who had not experienced slavery, reading a slave narrative opened a window into the effects of slavery and what was necessary to overcome those effects. The slave narrative is truly a literature of liberation.
The influence of the slave narrative can still be seen in modern works of autobiography and fiction. These include Richard Wright’s Black Boy (1945) and The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), important autobiographies of black Americans. Novels written by both blacks and whites are indebted to the slave narrative. These include, The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) by William Styron, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971) by Ernest J. Gaines (see Learning Guide to the film version), and Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison.
Claiming that slave narratives were unreliable and biased, historians initially refused to use them as sources of information about slavery. The historians noted that slave narratives were often created in cooperation with white abolitionist editors who wanted to use the narratives to further their cause. On a few occasions, when the former slaves were illiterate, abolitionists wrote the narratives based on the former slaves’ dictation. (It turns out that the abolitionists, recognizing that exaggerated accounts would hurt their movement, were careful to make sure that facts were accurately stated in the narratives they edited.) Moreover, slave narratives challenged the myth, prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that Southern plantations were benevolent institutions which helped civilize barbaric Africans. This view held that plantations were places where the races cooperated according to their innate abilities and that slaves lived contented lives. With the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, this view changed and historians started to take slave narratives seriously.
During the Great Depression, the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) was created to give jobs to writers and researchers. By 1936, 70 years had passed since slavery had been outlawed by the 13th Amendment. Former slaves were nearing the end of their lives and, unless recorded, their memories would have been lost. To preserve memories of life in slavery, the FWP began a major effort to gather oral histories from former slaves. Some 2,500 people were interviewed. Their testimony eventually filled 40 volumes. These interviews recorded the experiences of a much larger cross-section of slave society than had been described in published slave narratives.
The sources for this section are: “slavery.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 30 Dec. 2007 ; The Slave Narratives: A Genre and a Source by David W. Blight published by History Now; a lecture by Mr. Blight about his book A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee broadcast on Book TV in February, 2008; and Slave Narratives: Black Autobiography in Nineteenth-Century America by Robert A. Gibson, published by the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute.
The lives of slaves in the Southern states varied considerably. The primary factor in a slave’s quality of life was the temperament of the slave owner. A brutal and avaricious owner made life miserable, whereas a gentle owner could ameliorate some of the harsh realities of bondage.
Class was the second most important factor in the life of a slave. The lowest class, and by far the most numerous, were the field hands. Conditions for these people were usually characterized by constant backbreaking labor and miserable living conditions. A middle niche was formed by a small number of skilled workers: threshers, millers, carpenters, and other artisans. These slaves received better treatment because they made themselves especially valuable to the owners. At the top were the house slaves: servants, butlers, maids, and cooks. These slaves provided personal services to their masters and lived in intimate daily contact with whites. Class status was very important to the slaves themselves; for a house servant to be demoted to a field hand was a catastrophe.
A third factor in determining the quality of life for slaves was where they lived. Slaves on large plantations (50 or more slaves), about 25% of the total, were often treated differently than slaves who worked the fields on small farms, side by side with their masters. Generally, slaves on small farms were treated better than slaves on large plantations, but this depended on the attitude of the slave owner. Slaves who lived in small towns, where everyone knew each other, were often treated better than slaves who lived in the anonymity of the large cities or the isolation of the country. In small towns there were social checks on what the slave owners could do to their slaves.
Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself illustrates the interplay of these factors and reveals a view of the antebellum South unknown to most. There are three ways to present this powerful story to students. First, TWM has prepared a six-page handout intended to capture the imagination of students and interest them in reading Ms. Jacobs’ narrative. This document alone will convey many of the lessons contained in Ms. Jacobs’ narrative. TWM has also prepared an Abridged Version of Ms. Jacobs’ narrative, which cuts the original text by about 2/3rds. Better yet, students can read the entire book.
This film and a selection from the readings listed in the Bridges to Reading section will introduce students to the slave narrative, an important genre in American literature. The movie is also an excellent platform for assignments and activities that fulfill skills-based curriculum requirements. (See Assignments, Projects, and Activities and Teaching Students to Write a Narrative.) In addition, “Unchained Memories” provides cross-curriculum content for American history classes.
Before showing the movie, describe the slave narrative genre and its importance in American literature. (See the Helpful Background Section below.)
This film brings to life the experience of being a slave in the Antebellum South. The student handout, Slavery: A World-Wide View, Then and Now, places American slavery into a global and historical context. TWM has created a Homework Assignment to confirm students’ understanding of the facts in the handout.
The film’s narration provides many important facts about slavery in the U.S. Tell students to listen carefully to what is said in the movie and to take notes, especially of information supplied by the narration. Then engage the class in a discussion based on the questions set out below or have students undertake appropriate Assignments, Projects, and Activities. Afterward, teachers can give students the Comprehension Test on Slavery in the Southern United States, which is based on the facts presented in the film. A brief lecture describing the importance of the slave narrative in the development of American literature (see Helpful Background section below) will provide cross-curriculum content with American Literature classes.
The purpose of this assignment is to highlight important points in the student handout Slavery: A World-Wide View, Then and Now by requiring students to paraphrase the information in the handout. The questions reach only Bloom’s Taxonomy levels for “Knowledge” and “Comprehension”. They reach Level One in Art Costa’s three levels of intellectual functioning.
Before distributing this homework, tell students that the assignment is open book and that in framing their responses, they should refer to the handout. However, students should answer in their own words and not simply quote the book. Make sure the class understands the definition of irony or modify Question #8.
1. Two reservoirs of slavery have been identified and one other probable reservoir has been discussed by historians. Describe the geographic location of these pools of people, the periods of time during which they existed, and the types of people who were enslaved.
Suggested Response:
The oldest identified slave reservoir consisted of the Slavs of Eastern Europe and Iranians in the provinces of Persia close to Europe. From antiquity to the 19th century, slavers would raid these populations and carry off captives. The black people of sub-Saharan Africa constituted another slave reservoir which provided slaves for the Middle East and later for the Americas. This slave reservoir lasted from the beginning of the Christian Era to the mid-20th century. A third possible population reservoir for slavers consisted of the peoples of Europe (Germanic tribes, Celtic tribes and others) who lived north of the Roman Empire. These people were victims of repeated raids by the Vikings until the early 11th century.
2. What is the origin of the word “slave”?
Suggested Response:
It comes from the word “Slav” and originated in Moorish Spain in the Middle Ages because, for centuries, so many of their slaves had been of Slavic origin. From there the word spread to Europe.
3. Which of the ancient civilizations that have formed the basis for modern Western culture practiced slavery at one time or another? Name at least two.
Suggested Response:
Virtually all civilizations which were precursors for modern Western civilization practiced slavery. Examples include: Greece, Rome, Israel, and Babylon. But most cultures throughout the world have practiced slavery.
4. How extensive was slavery in Africa before the Europeans started the Transatlantic slave trade? Who were the slavers and who were the enslaved?
Suggested Response:
Slavery was practiced virtually everywhere in Africa. The enslaved were black Africans and the masters were black Africans. Arab slave traders also carried blacks out of Africa to slavery in the Middle East and other locations.
5. What is “pawnship” and in what geographic area is it practiced?
Suggested Response:
Pawnship is the bondage of girls to work off a debt that one family owes to another. It is practiced in Africa.
6. What is “compensation marriage” and on which continent is it practiced?
Suggested Response:
Compensation marriage forces girls into arranged marriages as compensation for a murder perpetrated by a member of her family, to offset debts, or to settle other inter-clan or family disputes. Compensation marriage is prevalent in Northwest Pakistan, Afghanistan, and parts of the Middle East.
7. The local African slave trade in the 18th and early 19th centuries was complementary to the Transatlantic slave trade in one respect. Describe this.
Suggested Response:
African slave owners favored women and children. Women and children were less likely to escape and the women could produce children for the slave owner. Adult male captives were more troublesome and dangerous. In the local African slave trade, males were often killed upon capture. The Transatlantic slave trade gave slavers a market for their excess male captives.
8. The handout lists five ironic situations in the history of slavery. (In history, an ironic situation is one in which the facts are opposite from, or at least very different from, what we expect.) Briefly describe the ironic fact referred to in the handout that has to do with the creation of the United States and one other ironic fact shown by the history of slavery. For each situation, explain why it is ironic.
Suggested Response:
The five ironic facts described in the handout and the reasons they are ironic are:
(1) The Transatlantic slave trade saved the lives of some male African captives. Local African slavery favored women and children, with male captives usually being killed. The Transatlantic slave trade gave slavers a market for their male slaves thereby saving the lives of many men who otherwise would have been killed. It is unexpected and ironic that the Transatlantic slave trade, which resulted in bondage and death for millions, actually saved some lives.
(2) The “One-Drop” Rule. Although prejudiced whites considered themselves genetically superior to blacks, they believed that one drop of black blood in a person’s ancestors made the person black. One would have thought that the “superior” “white” genes would be stronger than the “inferior” “black” genes. However, ironically, the “one-drop” rule contradicts this.
(3) Colonialism led to freedom for some colonized people. Colonialism is an oppressive system which resulted in the subjugation of millions for the benefit of the colonizers. However, in the 19th century, outright slavery was banned by most colonial powers. Being free, even under a repressive colonial regime, was better for slaves than being held in bondage. The irony is that colonialism, usually thought of as oppressive, actually resulted in freedom for slaves.
(4) In 1776 an important reason among Southern patriots to support the American Revolution was to preserve slavery. An important factor in motivating many Southern colonists to join the American Revolution was their belief that England would eventually abolish slavery in the colonies. One of the major compromises of 1776, which permitted the colonists to band together to rebel against the British Empire, was the agreement by the Northern colonists to allow slavery to continue in the South. This bargain was later enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, which protected slavery. It was only in 1865, after the bloodiest war in U.S. history, that slavery was abolished in the United States. The unexpected result, the irony, is that the U.S., in many other ways a beacon of freedom for billions of people throughout the world, was built on a compromise that included allowing men, women and children to be enslaved for life.
(5) Liberia, a country established as a place to send liberated American slaves was one of the last countries in the world to outlaw slavery. You would expect that Liberia would be one of the first countries to liberate its slaves. In fact, ironically, it was one of the last.
9. What is the range of estimates about how many slaves exist in the modern world?
Suggested Response:
12 to 27 million.
10. Why are arranged marriages considered by many to be a form of slavery for women?
Suggested Response:
Women don’t get to choose their husbands and are required to submit sexually, bear children, and perform domestic work.
11. Name four forms of modern-day slavery other than compensation marriage and arranged marriage.
Suggested Response:
The forms of modern slavery include: illegal bonded labor, debt slavery, child labor, child prostitution, child pornography, use of children in armed conflicts, and the forced donation of organs of the body.
12. What is human trafficking?
Suggested Response:
Taking people from one country to another for the purpose of having them work in slave-like conditions.
13. How many people did the U.S. State Department estimate were the victims of human trafficking in 2007?
Suggested Response:
800,000.
14. Describe some of the work that people trafficked into the United States perform.
Suggested Response:
Examples are: making garments in sweatshops, prostitution, domestic servitude, and construction.
15. Identify three trends which foster slave labor in the modern world.
Suggested Response:
1) increased population, primarily in the developing world; 2) rapid social and economic change that has caused many people to move to cities and their outskirts, where people have no “safety net” and no job security; and 3) government corruption which allows slavery to go unpunished, even though it is illegal everywhere.
The purpose of this test it to assess student understanding and recall of important points about slavery in the Southern United States. The questions reach only Bloom’s Taxonomy levels for “Knowledge” and “Comprehension”. They reach Level One in Art Costa’s format for framing questions.
This comprehension test is based on the facts described in the film. Before showing the movie, tell students to listen carefully to what is said in the film and to take notes of important facts, especially information supplied by the film’s narrator.
1. There were 31,441,000 people in the U.S. at the time of the Civil War. Approximately how many were slaves? What was the percentage of Americans who were slaves?
Suggested Response:
About 4,000,000 or about 13% of the total U.S. population was enslaved.
2. Name three of the four major cash crops grown on plantations in the American South before the Civil War.
Suggested Response:
The four were: cotton, tobacco, sugar, and rice.
3. Why weren’t slaves usually permitted to learn how to read?
Suggested Response:
Slaves were not permitted to learn to read because whites feared that literate slaves would become dissatisfied with their lot in life, would think that they were as good as the whites, and that they would therefore be more likely to revolt or run away. [If students have read the short excerpt from Mr. Douglass’ narrative detailing his decision to learn to read at whatever cost, add the following as part of this question: “Was this fear realistic?”. The obvious answer, based on Mr. Douglass’ narrative, was that the whites’ fear was justified.]
4. List two potential consequences if a slave was found with a book.
Suggested Response:
Any type of punishment was possible. Being whipped or sold to a different owner away from family and friends are two punishments that were mentioned in the slave narratives.
5. There were three classes of slaves that are mentioned in the movie. What were they?
Suggested Response:
The classes of slaves were: (1) highest: house servants; butlers, maids and cooks; (2) middle: skilled artisans, including blacksmiths, milliners, and carpenters; and (3) lowest: common field hands.
6. What percent of slaves lived on plantations with 50 slaves or more?
Suggested Response:
25% of slaves lived on large plantations.
7. What was the effect of the fact that white men required slave women to submit to their sexual advances?
Suggested Response:
Like all sexual assaults, it was an extreme violation and humiliation of the victim. Sexual abuse of female slaves by white men also humiliated the husbands, fathers, brothers, and other male relatives of the female slaves because there was nothing the men could do to stop it. Sexual abuse of female slaves by owners and overseers also undermined the slave family. White exploitation of female slaves was an expression of the absolute power of the white man over slaves, no matter what their sex.
8. What does it mean to checker a person?
Suggested Response:
Checkering a person is to lash the person first one way and then the other so that there is a checkered pattern left on the skin.
9. Salt and pepper had a special use on slave plantations that had nothing to do with food. What was it?
Suggested Response:
Slave owners or overseers would rub salt and pepper into a slave’s wounds from whippings to make the wounds more painful.
10. What was the importance of funerals to the slaves?
Suggested Response:
Funerals reinforced the slaves’ sense of community and kept alive their African past.
11. In one of the narratives, a former slave describes how the slaves on her plantation were fed. What did she say?
Suggested Response:
They were fed in troughs like pigs and cattle. (This was Octavia George, Episode # 26.)
12. Why did some slave owners encourage their slaves to convert to Christianity?
Suggested Response:
They thought it would make them more docile. White preachers told slaves that it was God’s will that they were slaves and that if they submitted in this life, they would get their reward in heaven.
13. Some masters didn’t want their slaves to have their own religious meetings. One narrative talks about a signal among the slaves that a secret church meeting would be held that night. What was it?
Suggested Response:
The slaves would sing a song that included the words, “Steal away to Jesus.”
14. What was a “paddyroller”?
Suggested Response:
A white man who patrolled the roads looking for runaway slaves or slaves without passes.
15. What percentage of slave families were separated as a result of family members being sold?
Suggested Response:
About 33% of slave families were separated by the sale of one member or another.
16. What percentage of slave children were sold away from their families or had their families sold away from them?
Suggested Response:
Approximately 20% of slave children were separated from their families by the sale of one or the other.
17. Name two of the punishments for trying to run away mentioned in the movie.
Suggested Response:
The punishments for slaves who tried to run away but were caught included: execution, mutilation, whipping, and being sold.
18. What organization collected slave narratives during the Great Depression?
Suggested Response:
The Federal Writers’ Project began collecting slave narratives during the Great Depression.
19. How many days a week did slaves have to work on the usual plantation?
Suggested Response:
Slaves usually had to work six days a week. On some plantations, they had to work seven days a week.
20. What did slaves customarily steal and why?
Suggested Response:
They often stole food because the slave owners often didn’t feed them enough.
1. Why was writing a slave narrative a self-affirming act by the author?
Suggested Response:
Slaves in the Southern United States were born into a world in which they were devalued as human beings. In slave narratives, former slaves stood up for themselves, showing the world that they were literate, thinking, feeling human beings whose stories were worth telling.
2. In the U.S. in the first half of the 19th century, slave narratives provided different benefits to white society in the free states than to black society (slave and free). What were those social benefits?
Suggested Response:
For whites, reading a slave narrative provided a clear picture of what life was like for the slaves and of the brutalizing effects of slavery on every aspect of Southern society, white and black. It also personalized the suffering of the author and made white readers empathize with a black person and his or her struggles. Finally, it made white readers understand that black people could acquire education and learn to write very well. Reading a slave narrative showed that black people had thoughts, fears, and hopes just like other men and women. For blacks, reading a slave narrative was a self-affirming and liberating experience.
3. How did the genre of the slave narrative change after Emancipation?
Suggested Response:
Most of the post-civil war narratives focused on how the former slaves adapted to life in post-slavery society and how the former slaves prospered. Many were stories of spiritual growth written by ministers.
4. Many incidents in a book that had a profound influence on Northern perceptions of slavery were taken from slave narratives. What was the book and who was it’s author?
Suggested Response:
The book was Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the author was Harriet Beecher Stowe.
5. Until the 1950s, what was the attitude of most historians about the usefulness of slave narratives as a source of historical information?
Suggested Response:
Claiming that slave narratives were unreliable and biased, historians initially refused to use them as sources of information about slavery. The historians noted that slave narratives were often created in cooperation with white abolitionist editors who wanted to use the narratives to further their cause. On a few occasions, when the former slaves were illiterate, abolitionists wrote the narratives based on the former slaves’ dictation. Moreover, slave narratives challenged the myth, prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that Southern plantations were benevolent institutions which helped civilize barbaric Africans. This view held that plantations were places where the races cooperated according to their innate abilities and that slaves lived contented lives.
6. What event changed historian’s attitude toward the usefulness of slave narratives?
Suggested Response:
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
7. What was the Federal Writer’s Project?
Suggested Response:
During the Great Depression, the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) was created to give jobs to writers and researchers.
8. Why did the Federal Writer’s Project start to interview slaves in 1936?
Suggested Response:
Seventy years had passed since slavery had been outlawed by the 13th Amendment. Former slaves were nearing the end of their lives and, unless recorded, their memories would have been lost. In that year, the FWP began a major effort to gather oral histories from former slaves.
1. In a republic, the majority, acting through its elected representatives, make the laws and decide what the government will do. There are, however, certain areas in which the rights of the individual are so important that the majority is not permitted to make laws that restrict those rights. Thus, in the United States, certain provisions of the Constitution, especially the first ten Amendments, set out areas in which the majority cannot act. For example, the majority cannot make laws abridging freedom of speech or setting up a state religion. The government cannot take away the property of an individual or punish an individual without due process of law. The majority cannot permit unreasonable searches and seizures, etc.
In the United States, the decision to go to war is a decision made by the President and Congress, i.e., the majority acting through their elected representatives. In every war that the U.S. has entered, there have been some Americans who disagreed with the decision to go to war. However, in wars such as the Civil War, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, individuals who disagreed with the decision to go to war were drafted into the military and served their country. The majority had made its decision and as members of society, those who disagreed with that decision had the obligation to cooperate. If they refused, they would go to jail. In each of these wars some men who refused to serve were imprisoned. Many of these men were people of exceptional moral strength who did not hide or run away and who accepted their imprisonment as the price of their convictions. (Opponents of wars who did serve in the military could write to their Congressman or vote or campaign against the decision to go to war, and while the war was going on they could do the same in support of a decision to stop the war. Conscientious objectors drafted into the military could serve in non-combatant roles.)
Before the Civil War, some slaves escaped to the North and lived out their lives in freedom. Whites were divided about this. Those who abhorred slavery helped the runaways find a new life and tried to protect them from their former masters. However, other whites were interested in collecting rewards for the return of slaves offered by Southern slave owners.
In the Compromise of 1850, Congress revised the Fugitive Slave Law, giving slave owners the right to hunt down runaway slaves in any state. The courts and the police were required to assist them. Officials would receive a reward if they returned a fugitive slave to his owner. If they failed to return the slave they would be fined. Private citizens were also required to assist in the recapture of runaways and if they did not, could be fined, sentenced to jail, and required to pay restitution to the slave owner. In this way, the majority had stated through the Fugitive Slave Law, that stolen or missing property had to be returned.
Many in the free states hated the Fugitive Slave Law and refused to comply with it. However, there were instances in which people felt that their social contract obliged them to obey the law, and as much as they disliked doing it, they returned fugitive slaves to their Southern owners. Below is a poster put up by abolitionists in Boston a center of abolitionist sentiment, after the passage of the new law.
1. What you would do in the following hypothetical situation?
It is the early 1850s and you live in a village in New England making a living by fixing equipment in a local textile factory. Your employer’s business takes cotton grown on slave plantations and makes it into cloth. Slavery is not legal in your state, however, the Fugitive Slave provides that any citizen, North or South, must notify the authorities if they see someone they think may be a fugitive slave. The authorities will put the person in jail until his or her master can send someone to take possession and return him to the South. While people who refuse to obey the Fugitive Slave Law can be fined or required to pay restitution to the slave owner, that seldom happens.
One night, a runaway slave comes to your door asking for directions to Canada. He is a strong young man, a prime field hand. He tells you that his master has a small farm and has no other slaves. For the time this slave was with his master, he was well treated. The master has a large family to support and had just purchased the slave for $500. (Assume that $500 in those days was worth about $50,000 in today’s money.) It is clear that without this slave the master will not be able to bring in the next crop and will suffer extreme financial hardship, in addition to losing the $500 that he had paid for the slave.
Should you turn the slave in or should you hide him and help him get to Canada?
Suggested Response:
[What follows are some of the basic arguments that should be covered in any discussion of this question.]
Arguments for Turning the Slave into the Authorities:
(1) According to the U.S. Constitution, as it existed in 1850, slaves were property. This meant that a run away slave was the equivalent of stolen property. In 1776, the Founding Fathers had forged a compromise to convince the Southern colonies to take the risky step of joining the Revolution. The Southern states foresaw that the British would soon outlaw slavery. They wanted to keep their slaves and so they offered to join the American Revolution on the condition that the Southern colonies would be allowed to maintain their “peculiar institution”. This bargain is clearly implied by the Constitution and was sealed by the lives and blood of thousands of Southern patriots who fought for independence. If the citizens in the Northern states didn’t return fugitive slaves, they would be dishonoring this bargain.
(2) The Fugitive Slave Law was passed by a majority in Congress and signed by the President. Under the social contract between citizens and society, each member of society is bound to live by its laws. If a citizen doesn’t like a law, the citizen should become politically active and work to change it. But until the change occurs, the majority of people in society, as represented by their elected officials, have the right to decide what to do with fugitive slaves.
(3) It will be an extreme financial hardship on this slave’s master and his family if the slave is not returned.
(4) Since you earn a living from the economic system in which cotton is grown in the South and made into cloth in Northern mills, you indirectly benefit from slavery. If slavery ended tomorrow, your job might be in jeopardy. It’s not only a question of whether you can judge the slave owner when you also profit from a system that is based on slavery. It’s a matter of your own job, your self-interest, that the Fugitive Slave Law be enforced and slavery preserved in the South. Does your own self-interest apply to this situation?
(5) As the Southerners never tired of pointing out, slavery is a time-honored custom that is sanctioned by the Bible. For example, the ancient Israelites had slaves. One of the biblical laws in ancient Israel was that slaves were to be freed every seven years.
Arguments for Helping the Slave to Escape to Canada:
(1) People aren’t property and slavery is a great crime, whether sanctioned by the U.S. Constitution or not. Anyone who participates in slavery, directly or indirectly, does something wrong. The Fugitive Slave Law is immoral because it requires that people be sent to bondage. The bargain struck between the Southern colonies and the Northern colonies to tolerate slavery was immoral and there is no obligation to obey an immoral law.
(2) You could not bear to turn this slave over to his master for a life of slavery and the punishment he would receive for running away.
2. One of the arguments used by Southerners to defend slavery was based on the unfairness of depriving them of their slaves and their property. They contended that the Southern colonies had joined the American Revolution on the explicit promise that they would be permitted to retain slavery. The slave owners pointed to several provisions of the Constitution that implicitly permit slavery. Their grandfathers and great-grandfathers had fought in the Revolutionary War, and some had died, based on this bargain. The Southerners also pointed to the fact that they had hundreds of millions of dollars invested in slaves. In addition, the defenders of slavery pointed to the fact that the North made money on the textile industry which was almost exclusively based on cotton and the slave labor needed to grow it. Evaluate these arguments.
Suggested Response:
The South’s fairness arguments had some validity. However, granting rights to people always involve some element of taking rights away from others. For example, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure protects all of us against governmental intrusion into our privacy. However, it means that some criminals will go unpunished and that some victims will have to live with the fact that a person who robbed them or killed a relative will not be punished. This isn’t fair to the victim, but our society has decided that, overall, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. In the case of slavery, the violation of the rights of the slaves was so terrible that most people today would agree that even though there was some unfairness to the Southern slave owners, it was right to free the slaves.
3. The cost to the federal government of the Civil War, together with pensions and care for wounded soldiers, is estimated to have been well over $9.5 billion. (See Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War, edited by Patricia L. Faust.) The South paid additional billions for the war effort and suffered billions of dollars in damage to property. This is well over the value of the 4,000,000 slaves at market prices. More importantly, approximately 600,000 soldiers on both sides died of their wounds or of illness in camp. More than this number were injured. Of course, these losses were not anticipated before the war. However, if you were in Congress in the 1850s, would you have supported a plan to require the slave owners to free their slaves and to pay them for the value of those slaves?
Suggested Response:
There is a lot to commend this idea. It would have avoided all of the expense, injury, and loss of life associated with the Civil War. Moreover, this solution would have, to a great extent, honored the bargain between the Southern colonies and the Northern colonies to preserve slavery in the South. Remember that this bargain was consecrated with the blood of men and women from the South who died in the American Revolution. The argument against this proposal is that you would have been enriching criminal slaveholders, paying someone for having enslaved another. However, that is what was happening in the economic system in place before the Civil War. Slave owners, Northern Industrialists and, to an extent, Northern mill workers, profited from the cotton clothing industry.
4. One of the actresses was distressed that former slave Sarah Ashley (Episode #15) was proud that she always made her quota when she was picking cotton. Should a slave be proud that she was good at her job and did it well?
Suggested Response:
There is no one correct answer to this question. It will basically depend on the outlook of the person answering. One opinion is that the actress was wrong and goes like this. One of the most pernicious aspects of slavery was that it denigrated the value of work. Slaves had little incentive to work well or hard since the fruit of their labor would be taken by the master. Since work was performed by slaves, the whites came to believe that work was beneath them. For this slave, her ability to do the work gave her a sense of self-respect. The other opinion is that any cooperation with an evil institution is evil and all slaves should have taken pride in doing as little as possible.
5. Which of these three narrators do you most admire? Pick one and describe your reasons.
Suggested Response:
There is no one correct response. Our special admiration goes out to: (1) Cato Carter (Episode #46) because of his refusal to hurt another person even if it meant that he had to put his own life in danger; (2) Arnold Gragston (Episode #38) who, at great risk, rowed slaves across the Ohio river to freedom; and (3) Fannie Berry (Episode #13) who was able to fight off the advances of white men.
Discussion Questions Here.
See Social Studies Discussion Questions above.
1. Which of the former slaves exhibited the most courage in the events described in the narratives read in this film?
Suggested Response:
There is no one correct response. Our special admiration goes out to: (1) Cato Carter (Episode #46) who risked his life in running away rather than killing another person; (2) Arnold Gragston (Episode #38) who, at great risk, rowed slaves across the Ohio river to freedom; and (3) Fannie Berry (Episode #13) who stood up to sexual the advances of white men.
Discussion Questions Relating to Ethical Issues will facilitate the use of this film to teach ethical principles and critical viewing. Additional questions are set out below.
(Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule; Be tolerant of differences; Use good manners, not bad language; Be considerate of the feelings of others; Don’t threaten, hit or hurt anyone; Deal peacefully with anger, insults, and disagreements)
1. How does the Pillar of Respect apply to slavery?
Suggested Response:
Slavery, in that it exploits others and denies them their rights, is the essence of disrespect.
(Play by the rules; Take turns and share; Be open-minded; listen to others; Don’t take advantage of others; Don’t blame others carelessly)
2. See Social Studies Discussion question #2. What does this tell us about fairness?
Suggested Response:
Sometimes, ethical principles conflict and what is right is not entirely fair. There are limits to fairness and to all ethical principles when they conflict with other ethical principles. See Making Effective and Principled Decisions.
1. Assignments, Projects, and Activities Suitable for Any Film.
2. Write a Personal Narrative: Have students write a narrative of an important incident in their own lives. Guarantee them anonymity if they want it so that they can write frankly.
3. A Creative Project Using a Slave Narrative: Have students read a slave narrative (they are available on the Internet) and then use the narrative in some creative effort. The narrative can be one of the narratives in the film or the students can select another narrative. Students can also base their project on a slave narrative that has appeared in print. For examples see Helpful Background section and Bridges to Reading. If this assignment will be based on narratives from the movie, hand out the List of Episodes before students see the movie and tell them that immediately after the film they will be asked to select an episode from those which are followed by an asterisk. The creative projects can be: a poem based on an incident in the former slave’s narrative; a letter from the former slave to his or her owner or to the class; a letter from the student to the former slave; a drawing, a short film, a piece of instrumental music, or a song. As an alternative, the class can be divided into groups of three or four students and each group can choose or be given one of the projects described above. Be sure to tell the students how long and involved each project should be and the rubric which will be used to grade the project. Most of the narratives can be found at the Library of Congress web page, Born In Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 – 1938.
4. Interview a Former Slave: Students can pick a former slave for whom there is a narrative (either from the movie or from some other source), compose questions and write proposed answers based on the narrative. Students can be paired, with both contributing to the script and then one student acts as the questioner and the other as the former slave. These skits can be performed in front of the class.
5. Research Project and Essay: Have students research and write an essay on one of the following topics: (1) a history of slavery in one of the countries in which their ancestors lived before immigrating to the U.S.; (2) the extent of slavery today in any country they select; (3) the experiences of any of their ancestors who may have been enslaved (this works well for black children and Jewish children); or (4) the difference between a serf and a chattel slave. [Note for teachers. A good essay on the last topic will touch upon most of the following issues: serfs were usually bound to the land (the most significant exception was the Russian serf between about 1700 and 1861), whereas the slave was bound to the owner; i.e., the serf had to live where the owner told him to and could be hired out by the owner. A slave could also be sold by the owner at any time. The serf usually owned the means of production (livestock, farming tools) except for the land, whereas the slave owned nothing, not even the clothing that he or she wore. The serf’s right to marry away from the lord’s estate often was restricted, but the master’s interference in the serf’s reproductive and family life was ordinarily much less than was the case for the slave. Serfs could be called upon by the state to pay taxes, to perform free labour on roads, and to serve in the army, but slaves usually were exempt from all of those obligations unless they were owned by the state or the ruler and that was their job. Adapted from “slavery.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 30 Dec. 2007]
The purpose of this assignment is to highlight important points in the student handout Slavery: A World-Wide View, Then and Now by requiring students to paraphrase the information in the handout. The questions reach only Bloom’s Taxonomy levels for “Knowledge” and “Comprehension”. They reach Level One in Art Costa’s three levels of intellectual functioning.
Before distributing this homework, tell students that the assignment is open book and that in framing their responses, they should refer to the handout. However, students should answer in their own words and not simply quote the book. Make sure the class understands the definition of irony or modify Question #8.
1. Two reservoirs of slavery have been identified and one other probable reservoir has been discussed by historians. Describe the geographic location of these pools of people, the periods of time during which they existed, and the types of people who were enslaved.
Suggested Response:
The oldest identified slave reservoir consisted of the Slavs of Eastern Europe and Iranians in the provinces of Persia close to Europe. From antiquity to the 19th century, slavers would raid these populations and carry off captives. The black people of sub-Saharan Africa constituted another slave reservoir which provided slaves for the Middle East and later for the Americas. This slave reservoir lasted from the beginning of the Christian Era to the mid-20th century. A third possible population reservoir for slavers consisted of the peoples of Europe (Germanic tribes, Celtic tribes and others) who lived north of the Roman Empire. These people were victims of repeated raids by the Vikings until the early 11th century.
2. What is the origin of the word “slave”?
Suggested Response:
It comes from the word “Slav” and originated in Moorish Spain in the Middle Ages because, for centuries, so many of their slaves had been of Slavic origin. From there the word spread to Europe.
3. Which of the ancient civilizations that have formed the basis for modern Western culture practiced slavery at one time or another? Name at least two.
Suggested Response:
Virtually all civilizations which were precursors for modern Western civilization practiced slavery. Examples include: Greece, Rome, Israel, and Babylon. But most cultures throughout the world have practiced slavery.
4. How extensive was slavery in Africa before the Europeans started the Transatlantic slave trade? Who were the slavers and who were the enslaved?
Suggested Response:
Slavery was practiced virtually everywhere in Africa. The enslaved were black Africans and the masters were black Africans. Arab slave traders also carried blacks out of Africa to slavery in the Middle East and other locations.
5. What is “pawnship” and in what geographic area is it practiced?
Suggested Response:
Pawnship is the bondage of girls to work off a debt that one family owes to another. It is practiced in Africa.
6. What is “compensation marriage” and on which continent is it practiced?
Suggested Response:
Compensation marriage forces girls into arranged marriages as compensation for a murder perpetrated by a member of her family, to offset debts, or to settle other inter-clan or family disputes. Compensation marriage is prevalent in Northwest Pakistan, Afghanistan, and parts of the Middle East.
7. The local African slave trade in the 18th and early 19th centuries was complementary to the Transatlantic slave trade in one respect. Describe this.
Suggested Response:
African slave owners favored women and children. Women and children were less likely to escape and the women could produce children for the slave owner. Adult male captives were more troublesome and dangerous. In the local African slave trade, males were often killed upon capture. The Transatlantic slave trade gave slavers a market for their excess male captives.
8. The handout lists five ironic situations in the history of slavery. (In history, an ironic situation is one in which the facts are opposite from, or at least very different from, what we expect.) Briefly describe the ironic fact referred to in the handout that has to do with the creation of the United States and one other ironic fact shown by the history of slavery. For each situation, explain why it is ironic.
Suggested Response:
The five ironic facts described in the handout and the reasons they are ironic are:
(1) The Transatlantic slave trade saved the lives of some male African captives. Local African slavery favored women and children, with male captives usually being killed. The Transatlantic slave trade gave slavers a market for their male slaves thereby saving the lives of many men who otherwise would have been killed. It is unexpected and ironic that the Transatlantic slave trade, which resulted in bondage and death for millions, actually saved some lives.
(2) The “One-Drop” Rule. Although prejudiced whites considered themselves genetically superior to blacks, they believed that one drop of black blood in a person’s ancestors made the person black. One would have thought that the “superior” “white” genes would be stronger than the “inferior” “black” genes. However, ironically, the “one-drop” rule contradicts this.
(3) Colonialism led to freedom for some colonized people. Colonialism is an oppressive system which resulted in the subjugation of millions for the benefit of the colonizers. However, in the 19th century, outright slavery was banned by most colonial powers. Being free, even under a repressive colonial regime, was better for slaves than being held in bondage. The irony is that colonialism, usually thought of as oppressive, actually resulted in freedom for slaves.
(4) In 1776 an important reason among Southern patriots to support the American Revolution was to preserve slavery. An important factor in motivating many Southern colonists to join the American Revolution was their belief that England would eventually abolish slavery in the colonies. One of the major compromises of 1776, which permitted the colonists to band together to rebel against the British Empire, was the agreement by the Northern colonists to allow slavery to continue in the South. This bargain was later enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, which protected slavery. It was only in 1865, after the bloodiest war in U.S. history, that slavery was abolished in the United States. The unexpected result, the irony, is that the U.S., in many other ways a beacon of freedom for billions of people throughout the world, was built on a compromise that included allowing men, women and children to be enslaved for life.
(5) Liberia, a country established as a place to send liberated American slaves was one of the last countries in the world to outlaw slavery. You would expect that Liberia would be one of the first countries to liberate its slaves. In fact, ironically, it was one of the last.
9. What is the range of estimates about how many slaves exist in the modern world?
Suggested Response:
12 to 27 million.
10. Why are arranged marriages considered by many to be a form of slavery for women?
Suggested Response:
Women don’t get to choose their husbands and are required to submit sexually, bear children, and perform domestic work.
11. Name four forms of modern-day slavery other than compensation marriage and arranged marriage.
Suggested Response:
The forms of modern slavery include: illegal bonded labor, debt slavery, child labor, child prostitution, child pornography, use of children in armed conflicts, and the forced donation of organs of the body.
12. What is human trafficking?
Suggested Response:
Taking people from one country to another for the purpose of having them work in slave-like conditions.
13. How many people did the U.S. State Department estimate were the victims of human trafficking in 2007?
Suggested Response:
800,000.
14. Describe some of the work that people trafficked into the United States perform.
Suggested Response:
Examples are: making garments in sweatshops, prostitution, domestic servitude, and construction.
15. Identify three trends which foster slave labor in the modern world.
Suggested Response:
1) increased population, primarily in the developing world; 2) rapid social and economic change that has caused many people to move to cities and their outskirts, where people have no “safety net” and no job security; and 3) government corruption which allows slavery to go unpunished, even though it is illegal everywhere.
The purpose of this test it to assess student understanding and recall of important points about slavery in the Southern United States. The questions reach only Bloom’s Taxonomy levels for “Knowledge” and “Comprehension”. They reach Level One in Art Costa’s format for framing questions.
This comprehension test is based on the facts described in the film. Before showing the movie, tell students to listen carefully to what is said in the film and to take notes of important facts, especially information supplied by the film’s narrator.
1. There were 31,441,000 people in the U.S. at the time of the Civil War. Approximately how many were slaves? What was the percentage of Americans who were slaves?
Suggested Response:
About 4,000,000 or about 13% of the total U.S. population was enslaved.
2. Name three of the four major cash crops grown on plantations in the American South before the Civil War.
Suggested Response:
The four were: cotton, tobacco, sugar, and rice.
3. Why weren’t slaves usually permitted to learn how to read?
Suggested Response:
Slaves were not permitted to learn to read because whites feared that literate slaves would become dissatisfied with their lot in life, would think that they were as good as the whites, and that they would therefore be more likely to revolt or run away. [If students have read the short excerpt from Mr. Douglass’ narrative detailing his decision to learn to read at whatever cost, add the following as part of this question: “Was this fear realistic?”. The obvious answer, based on Mr. Douglass’ narrative, was that the whites’ fear was justified.]
4. List two potential consequences if a slave was found with a book.
Suggested Response:
Any type of punishment was possible. Being whipped or sold to a different owner away from family and friends are two punishments that were mentioned in the slave narratives.
5. There were three classes of slaves that are mentioned in the movie. What were they?
Suggested Response:
The classes of slaves were: (1) highest: house servants; butlers, maids and cooks; (2) middle: skilled artisans, including blacksmiths, milliners, and carpenters; and (3) lowest: common field hands.
6. What percent of slaves lived on plantations with 50 slaves or more?
Suggested Response:
25% of slaves lived on large plantations.
7. What was the effect of the fact that white men required slave women to submit to their sexual advances?
Suggested Response:
Like all sexual assaults, it was an extreme violation and humiliation of the victim. Sexual abuse of female slaves by white men also humiliated the husbands, fathers, brothers, and other male relatives of the female slaves because there was nothing the men could do to stop it. Sexual abuse of female slaves by owners and overseers also undermined the slave family. White exploitation of female slaves was an expression of the absolute power of the white man over slaves, no matter what their sex.
8. What does it mean to checker a person?
Suggested Response:
Checkering a person is to lash the person first one way and then the other so that there is a checkered pattern left on the skin.
9. Salt and pepper had a special use on slave plantations that had nothing to do with food. What was it?
Suggested Response:
Slave owners or overseers would rub salt and pepper into a slave’s wounds from whippings to make the wounds more painful.
10. What was the importance of funerals to the slaves?
Suggested Response:
Funerals reinforced the slaves’ sense of community and kept alive their African past.
11. In one of the narratives, a former slave describes how the slaves on her plantation were fed. What did she say?
Suggested Response:
They were fed in troughs like pigs and cattle. (This was Octavia George, Episode # 26.)
12. Why did some slave owners encourage their slaves to convert to Christianity?
Suggested Response:
They thought it would make them more docile. White preachers told slaves that it was God’s will that they were slaves and that if they submitted in this life, they would get their reward in heaven.
13. Some masters didn’t want their slaves to have their own religious meetings. One narrative talks about a signal among the slaves that a secret church meeting would be held that night. What was it?
Suggested Response:
The slaves would sing a song that included the words, “Steal away to Jesus.”
14. What was a “paddyroller”?
Suggested Response:
A white man who patrolled the roads looking for runaway slaves or slaves without passes.
15. What percentage of slave families were separated as a result of family members being sold?
Suggested Response:
About 33% of slave families were separated by the sale of one member or another.
16. What percentage of slave children were sold away from their families or had their families sold away from them?
Suggested Response:
Approximately 20% of slave children were separated from their families by the sale of one or the other.
17. Name two of the punishments for trying to run away mentioned in the movie.
Suggested Response:
The punishments for slaves who tried to run away but were caught included: execution, mutilation, whipping, and being sold.
18. What organization collected slave narratives during the Great Depression?
Suggested Response:
The Federal Writers’ Project began collecting slave narratives during the Great Depression.
19. How many days a week did slaves have to work on the usual plantation?
Suggested Response:
Slaves usually had to work six days a week. On some plantations, they had to work seven days a week.
20. What did slaves customarily steal and why?
Suggested Response:
They often stole food because the slave owners often didn’t feed them enough.
Any of the slave narratives mentioned in this Learning Guide are good reading experiences. If students are going to read less than a full-length narrative, TWM suggests the following excerpts:
In addition to websites which may be linked in the Guide, the following resources were consulted in the preparation of this Learning Guide:
Benefits of the Movie
Possible Problems
Parenting Points
Selected Awards & Cast
Helpful Background
Using the Movie in the Classroom
Discussion Questions
Teaching Students to Write a Narrative
Social-Emotional Learning
Moral-Ethical Emphasis
Assignments and Projects
Bridges to Reading
Links to the Internet
Bibliography
“I say that the best way to address this issue is to address it forthrightly, and straightforwardly, and embrace the complicated history and the complicated presence of America. On the one hand, that’s right, slavery, and segregation, and racism, and white supremacy is deeply entrenched in America. At the same time, there has been a tremendous alternative tradition, a tradition against slavery, a tradition against segregation, a tradition against racism.
I mean, after all in the past 25 years, the United States of America has seen an African-American presence. As we speak, there is an African-American vice president. As we speak, there’s an African- American who is in charge of the Department of Defense. So we have a complicated situation. And I think the best way of addressing our race question is to just be straightforward, and be clear, and embrace the tensions, the contradictions, the complexities of race in American life. I think we need actually a new vocabulary.
So many of the terms we use, we use these terms over and over, starting with racism, structural racism, critical race theory. These words actually have been weaponized. They are vehicles for propaganda. I think we would be better off if we were more concrete, we talked about real problems, and we actually used a language that got us away from these overused terms that actually don’t mean that much. From Fahreed Zakaria, Global Public Square, CNN, December 26, 2021
Give your students new perspectives on race relations, on the history of the American Revolution, and on the contribution of the Founding Fathers to the cause of representative democracy. Check out TWM’s Guide: TWO CONTRASTING TRADITIONS RELATING TO RACISM IN AMERICA and a Tragic Irony of the American Revolution: the Sacrifice of Freedom for the African-American Slaves on the Altar of Representative Democracy.
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