Author: Alekz Wray

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Black and “Wanted”: Enslaved Black Runaways

Henry Brown's Box

Mini-Lesson Created by: Alekzandr Wray

Target Students: 10th Grade

SHEG Skills: Close Reading, Sourcing, Contextualizing

Learning Topic: Runaway Slaves

Essential Question: What were the narratives being told about/by enslaved runaways during the 1850s?

Description: Students will discuss three documents which illustrate the perspectives of historic stakeholders in the issue of enslaved runaways. The first document, an excerpt from Frederick Douglass’ “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”, recounts his experience at the slave breakers’, Mr. Covey, property. The second document is about Drapetomania, a mental illness attributed to enslaved runaways by Samuel A. Cartwright. Finally, the third document is a reward poster published in Washington, D.C. by a local enslaver. Each document plays off of each other to paint different perspectives on the issue. Students will be asked to work in partners or in small groups to discuss scaffolding questions after each segment to further understanding.

 

Frederick Douglass

 

Part I: Frederick Douglass & Mr. Covey

Students work in pairs to read the article, discuss it, respond to the prompts and take notes on their conversation.

Fredrick Douglass recalls being sent to Mr. Covey, a slave breaker (1833, Maryland)

“Master Thomas at length said he would stand it no longer. I had lived with him nine months, during which time he had given me a number of severe whippings, all to no good purpose. He resolved to put me out, as he said, to be broken; and, for this purpose, he let me for one year to a man named Edward Covey. Mr. Covey was a poor man, a farm-renter. He rented the place upon which he lived, as also the hands with which he tilled it. Mr. Covey had acquired a very high reputation for breaking young slaves, and this reputation was of immense value to him. It enabled him to get his farm tilled, with much less expense to himself than he could have had it done without such a reputation. Some slaveholders thought it not much loss to allow Mr. Covey to have their slaves one year, for the sake of the training to which they were subjected, without any other compensation. …

If at any one time of my life more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked in all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night. The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights too long for him. I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there, but a few months of this discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!”

Scaffolding Questions: 

  1. Who was Frederick Douglass and from what perspective was he writing?
  2. What was Douglass’ experience like with the slave breaker?
  3. Who do you think was Douglass’ intended audience when reflecting on his experience?
  4. Why did experiences like Douglass’ lead many slaves to runaway? Why did they cause many to stay?
  5. What parts of the passage stand out the most to you and why?
  6. How does the concept of “breaking” a slave land for you? What do you think that means?
  7. Can we trust him as a source for how slavery was? Why?

Samuel CartwrightPart II: Drapetomania & Samuel A. Cartwright

Students will each have a copy of Cartwright’s description of Drapetomania and will work in a group to discuss the article, while a scribe takes notes, and review the scaffolding questions.

Scaffolding Questions:

  1. Who was the author of the article, what did he do and what role did he serve?
  2. What was he writing about? What was his perspective? Who was his audience? What/who could he have been influenced by?
  3. Where in the United States was this article written and when?
  4. Why was “science” used to connect enslaved runaways to a mental “malady”? What purpose did it serve?
  5. What two types of treatment by enslavers did Cartwright claim were the chief primary causes of drapetomania?
  6. Is Cartwright a reliable source to consider when discussing enslaved runaways?

$100 Reward PosterPart III: $100 Reward, “… so that I get her again.”

Again, students will work in a small group to analyze the document, start a conversation using the scaffolding questions, and take notes to turn in.

  1. Who wrote this poster?
  2. Who are the beneficiaries of this poster? Who loses?
  3. What is the article’s purpose?
  4. Where and when was it written?
  5. How much is $100 in 1858 worth in today’s money?
  6. What gave enslavers the right to offer rewards for the capture/return of a human being?
  7. Why were posters like this common during this era?
  8. Does this poster give a reliable description of Sophia? Why? If not, what are the costs of its unreliability?
  9. What were some of the impacts of posters like this?
  10. Have you seen posters like this today? If so, where and who/what was the poster about?

 

Reflection: I believe what I put together is more of a series of mini-lessons that all connect rather than one mini-lesson that stands by itself: I’d likely have to dedicate a few class periods to teach this activity in order to do it justice. In the future, I’ll likely add an additional section to the presentation that covers the abolitionist viewpoint on the issue and then ask students questions that delve into corroboration territory; doing so would allow students the opportunity to tie each of the different sources together in order to create a larger view of the issue.

An aspect of the mini-lessons that I appreciate is that, at each step of the process, students are allowed to utilize community to further their own understanding and because each group will have a scribe to take notes on their conversation, the teacher can gain some really revealing information into her/his students’ thought process when they’re not being hovered over. That information can help determine where the large group conversation should lead and could be useful in deciding what future activities, if any, need to be planned for this topic.

Sources:

Henry Brown’s Box

$100 Reward Poster

Frederick Douglass’ Photo

Drapetomania

Samuel A Cartwright

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845).

Reprinted in Eyewitness to America, David Colbert (Pantheon Books,  NY) 1997  p 143-146

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Power of Vision… Beyond 20/20

Teacher and girl modeling clay

“In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.” – Dalai Lama

We start each of our 25 minute workshops with a quote that relates to the topic of the week and, for my first life/success skills workshop, we’re focusing on vision. However, before I delve into the nuts and bolts with what I plan on doing with my young folk, let me paint a picture for you: about the program I’m a part of; the school I’m placed in; a brief snap shot of the youth I’m working with; and the structure of the workshops I’m responsible for facilitating.

I’m in a brand new program started this year at the University of Portland called the Open School MAT Residency Program. It is a two year program that is seeking to change the way teachers/educators are trained to operate within schools by partnering students with the Open School, a private alternative school in East Portland, to get grounded in their program model (Academics + Equity + Advocacy = Success) while simultaneously going through UP’s Equity Certificate program. The first year of the program I am working closely with the Open School to focus in on my ability to serve as a youth advocate and will transition into full time student teaching during the second year of the residency.

The Open School is unlike any school I’ve ever been a part of. The staff is highly dedicated, persistent, committed, passionate and are continuously positioning themselves as learners to motivate themselves to always improve and I’m definitely inspired being in their presence. The Open spends a great amount of energy building a culture of success within a population of young people that have often been told that they’ll be anything BUT successful. It’s a tough battle, one that takes a lot of heart and consistency and I’m excited to be here doing this work because it is urgent.

The youth we serve are mostly students of color, low-income students and students who have been identified as being at-risk of dropping out of high school. We recruit these students into our private alternative school when kids are transitioning from 6th-7th grade; connect them with an advocate who works with a group of 10-15 youth and their parents; and begin the initial work of meeting each student where they’re at to ensure they’re able to achieve success within our community.

Within the school, my role this year is to primarily get some training and experience around their advocacy model (e.g. learning how restorative justice looks within a school; practicing the ability to empower students with choice, etc.) and additionally I am responsible for, as I mentioned, twice weekly 25 minute skills based workshops. Below is an overview of my plan.

 

Content: We will go over the concept of vision and how we can use a vision for ourselves and our future as a tool to help us shape our goals and inform the decisions we make in the now: like a sculptor who envisions her piece before she takes off her first piece of marble; or an athlete who envisions themselves holding the trophy that is the pinnacle of their sport.

Process: Students will have a brief discussion on a quote by the Dalai Lama to begin the workshop (see quote above for reference); students will then participate in an experiential activity to witness for themselves the power of vision (see end of blog for instructions); next, students will converse with partners to talk about what they experienced during the activity and what they think that means about vision; finally, students will be given time to listen to some soft music while crafting a vision for themselves.

Product: Students will produce dialogue on what they think vision could mean and their experiences of vision in addition to vision “leaves” they will be creating at the end of the workshop that represent the visions they have for themselves that will be added to a vision tree. Choice is extremely important in the creation of the leaves because youth have the power to decide what shape their vision can take, so long as it can be easily understood by others. That means students can write a sentence on their leaf, draw a picture, write a poem, create a bullet point list, or any other unique manifestation of this activity so long as it is easily comprehended by those who will see it.

Evaluation: The quality of conversation and student engagement is one way the activity will be evaluated and the leaves each students produce can be evaluated to ensure they participated.

There you have my plan for my 25 minute workshop (which is WAY too short to do this conversation justice honestly) AND I am going to make it work. Check out the step by step instructions for the experiential activity below. Thanks for reading!

Vision Exercise:

  1. Instruct each student to find some personal space around the room standing up. They should be able to easily move their arms around without touching anyone or anything.
  2. Inform students that we are going to conduct an experiment to determine how far each individual can turn themselves around without moving their feet.
  3. Have students firmly plant their feet approximately shoulder width apart. Next, have them point their arm and index finger straight out, directly in front of them. Then have each student turn their arm/finger as far around as possible (if they’re pointing with their right finger, they should be moving their arm to the right).
  4. Tell each student to identify a visual marker to remember where their finger has landed when they feel like they’ve gone as far as they possibly can.
  5. Have students recenter themselves while still standing in their spot. Have the room get quiet, and instruct students to close their eyes. With their eyes closed, ask each student to envision the spot in the room where their finger landed and then encourage them to envision themselves going BEYOND where they landed the first time. Whether it’s a few inches or a foot doesn’t matter, just go BEYOND where they stopped originally and pick a new spot to aim for.
  6. Once each student appears ready, have them stretch as far as they can again and see how many people go further this time! In my past experiences facilitating this activity, easily 95% of participants go beyond their original end point with the help of a vision and the other 5% at least get back to where they originally landed.
  7. Ask some questions about what students noticed, what do they think helped them go further, could this be applied to other areas of their life, etc.
  8. Enjoy 🙂

Image Credit:
Title: Teacher and girl modeling clay
Contributor Names: Fenn, Albert, photographer
Created / Published1942 July.
Library of Congress: LC-USW3- 005976-E [P&P]